The Witness

by Nichole Severn

  “This is the man you trusted with your body after what I did to it? You know he doesn’t care about you. You know you were just another witness he’d never see again once the case was closed. Who’s to say how many others there have been?” Jeff smoothed a section of her soaked hair back behind her shoulder with his free hand, and a sudden burst of bile collected in her throat. “You were always special to me. The letters I carved into your chest are physical proof. You always will be mine.”

  His. Her fingers tingled with the same sensation as they had when she’d picked up her camera.

  No matter how many times you’ve claimed me as your own personal hero, you’ve never needed me to protect you. You’re your own hero. Finn’s words wound through her, past the fear, past the uncertainty and straight into that spot she’d felt like a piece of her had been missing. He’d been right. As much as it hurt to think she’d never be anything more than the witness he’d been assigned to protect when this was finished, Finn had been right. Every time she’d been attacked—by Jeff, by Miles Darien, by the loss of her identity when she hadn’t been able to go near her camera—she’d survived. She’d gotten back on her feet and faced off with the next setback, the next threat. She’d been her own damn hero. “I used to believe I was just another one of your victims, Jeff, but I know better now. I was never yours. I was never the Carver’s or Miles’s. I let what you did to me affect my confidence, who I was, but you were never able to claim me. I’m a survivor, and that is something you can never take from me.”

  Camille shot her elbow into her attacker’s midsection as hard as she could. The knife slipped from her throat, and she spun, shoving him back with everything she had. His growl vibrated through her as the knife came down. She braced for the pain, hands shooting out in front of her to protect her face.

  “No!” A hard push at the middle of her back sent her forward as two gunshots exploded from behind.

  She landed on all fours on top of a row of smooth rocks leading out to sea. Pain pierced through the numbness already penetrating from her soaked clothing in her shoulder. Twisting her head back toward where she’d been mere seconds ago, she saw Jeff standing there. Absolutely still.

  The rising roar of the ocean was the only warning she had before water gushed around her ankles, then rose up her calves and above her waist. She was out of time. They all were. Camille reached out to him at the same time Finn reached for her, but her fingers slipped, and suddenly he was gone beneath the surface of the wave. “Finn!”

  The Carver lowered his chin to his chest, watched the darkening stains of red seep toward his waist as the water climbed his tall frame. The gunshots. He turned to face her, enough for her to realize he wasn’t going to leave this cave alive after all. Just as Finn had warned. “You’ll always be...mine.”

  The ocean dragged her under.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The current thrust him upward. Sharp pain exploded at the back of his head as the water shot him straight into the ceiling of the cave. Pressure built in his ears as seawater twisted him around until he wasn’t sure which way was up. He frantically tried to grab on to something—anything—to get some kind of bearing, but there was only a black ocean of nothingness. Salt stung the wound at the back of his skull and soaked the bandage of the stab wound in his side. The pain said he was still alive, but he couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see a damn thing in front of him.

  Camille. Where was Camille?

  He kicked and thrashed as bubbles tickled across his skin and through his clothing. She had to be here. He couldn’t have lost her just as they’d been freed from the Carver’s manipulative game.

  This wasn’t a killer holding a knife to her throat. This wasn’t his own fear of opening himself up to love another person holding him back. This was out of his control, and it took everything inside him not to give in to the panic of losing her after what they’d been through the past several days.

  His chest compressed, his lungs spasming for oxygen. He had to keep calm. The harder he fought against the wave, the faster he’d burn through his oxygen. Jeff Burnes had brought Camille here knowing that if he’d been successful in killing her, her body would’ve been swept out to sea. Maybe never to be seen again. But Finn wasn’t going to let that happen. Not now. Not ever. He hadn’t put two bullets in the bastard to let the Carver take her from him now.

  Muted sunlight pierced through the water to his right, and his body jerked in the same direction. The water was receding. The current took the last ounces of his will for control out of the equation and pulled him toward the mouth of the cave. Jagged walls cut into the exposed skin of his arms as he ripped past, but just as he tried to clutch onto one piece in particular, a wall of red hair skimmed across his face.

  Camille.

  He shot out his hand, grabbing onto whatever he could reach and wrapped his forearm around her middle. Her fingers sank into the backs of his shoulders as they rocked and turned in the shallowing water until sunlight penetrated through the thick darkness. He encircled her in his arms, holding on to her as another wave slammed down on top of them. The force knocked them far beneath the ocean surface as churning waters blanketed them in a wall of white.

  Then there was calm.

  For the briefest of moments, the waters settled enough for him to get his bearings, kick off from the bottom and shoot them upward. They broke through the surface, both gasping for air and clinging to one another. The swells wouldn’t let up, but Finn could still see the shoreline. They hadn’t been spit out too far into the vast engulfing ocean. Forty, maybe fifty feet at most. Dizziness threatened to take control as his body battled to catch up with the shot of oxygen and pressure release. Intertwining his hand into hers, he kicked toward the shore. Vehicles dove down from the parking lot and streaked across the sand toward them, sirens and lights pulsing through the blanketing night. The Carver was dead. The investigation would be closed, and Camille was free of the threat that’d chased her for a year, but Finn wasn’t ready to let her walk away. Not by a long shot. “We can make it. Just a little farther.”

  Another wave pushed them toward the beach until he felt his boots dragging in the soft sand. He hauled himself to his feet. Cold water and exhaustion tugged him back toward the vast expanse of blackness behind them, but he had to keep going. He had to make sure she was okay. They hit land. Hanging on to Camille at his side, he slid his hands over her arms in rapid lines to bring back some of the warmth to her skin as paramedics and his team converged on their position. He raised his voice over the crushing groan of the ocean at their backs. “Hang on, Red. We’re almost there.”

  Two paramedics raced to them, one at his side, one at Camille’s, and helped them from the last few inches of water. Tremors buried deep near his bones clenched his muscles so damn hard he could barely move.

  A series of coughs pierced through the constant spitting of rain a few feet behind him. Jonah Watson dragged himself onto shore. “A little help would’ve been nice.”

  Remington Barton and Dylan Cove arrived with Mylar emergency blankets and tried to help them up the sloping beach to the parking lot, but he couldn’t let go of his witness’s hand. Not yet. “You have every reason not to talk to me after what I did, Red, but I need you to know. I didn’t leave because you were pushing for a connection I didn’t want between us. I left because I wanted it as much as you did, maybe even more.”

  Her teeth chattered, lines of water coursing down her face.

  “You hurt me, Finn. More than Jeff Burnes or Miles Darien ever could.” She wrenched her hand from his, his teammates backing off to give her room. “I can heal from a stab wound or from the letters carved into my chest, but you... What you did was so much worse. I trusted you with my secrets. I gave you something I’ve never been able to share with anyone else when we made love. You made me feel like I was important to you then walked away as if I was nothing.”

  “I know,
and I’ll have to live with that mistake for the rest of my life,” he said. “The thought of someone ripping you away from me like they took my mom all those years ago... I was protecting myself, but when I realized you’d been taken, the thought of never knowing what this could be between us hurt far more than the past ever could. I love you, Red. You make me feel stronger when the whole world is collapsing around me and I don’t see a way out. You’re the reason I’m standing here at all after Miles Darien stabbed me, and I’ll do whatever it takes to prove to you that without you, I’m nothing but that scared ten-year-old kid who lost his mom to a fugitive that night.”

  The hard creases between her eyebrows softened. “I need someone who isn’t afraid to face the hard things with me, Finn. Someone who will be there when the nightmares come and is willing to try to understand what I’m going through. I need to know you’re not going to leave me to face what comes next alone.”

  “I’m yours, Red.” Water streaked into his eyes, but Finn didn’t dare blink for fear she’d disappear from right in front of him all over again. “As long as you’ll have me.”

  “You owe me chocolate.” The words barely made it past blue lips and chattering teeth, and he couldn’t help but laugh.

  “I’ll buy you as much chocolate as you want for the rest of your life.” Sand clung to his boots and jeans as he stepped into her and lowered his mouth to hers. An explosion of heat destroyed the hollowness he’d held on to all these years but couldn’t fight off the shivers quaking through them.

  “Deal. Now get me out of here before we can’t move.” They hit the asphalt parking lot as one, and hell, if he had anything to say about it, they’d leave as one, too.

  Two officers raced toward the beach with a stretcher between them, a long black bag draped over the top. The EMT next to Camille helped her step into the back of the ambulance. He didn’t know how the body hadn’t been washed out to sea, but Jeff Burnes was awaiting for someone to collect him from the sand. Finn could still feel the jolt of the gun in his hand when he’d pulled that trigger. He’d done what he’d had to in order to protect the person he cared about the most, and right then, he understood his mother had done the same all those years ago. Karen Reed hadn’t thought about what would happen if she’d put herself in front of that bullet, just as Finn hadn’t stopped to think about what would happen when he’d raised his weapon. He’d only followed his instincts. Followed his heart in order to protect what mattered to him the most. Camille.

  “Marshal Reed?” the EMT at his side asked.

  Finn leveraged his weight against the back of the ambulance and extended his arm out for the emergency tech to take his blood pressure.

  “Tell me it’s over.” Camille set her temple against his shoulder, looking out over the black expanse of ocean that’d nearly taken them both. The Mylar space blanket covering her from neck to toes reflected the last few rays of dying sunlight.

  “It’s over.” He swept her wet hair out of his beard and rested his chin on the crown of her head. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”

  “He hurt so many others, women who are still out there.” Her voice wavered, but whether it was from their dropping body temperatures or from processing everything that’d happened, he didn’t know. Either way, he’d be there to help her carry the burden. “He told me Jodie Adler and the others he’d enjoyed since coming to Oregon had suffered so much more than I did. Because I was the only one to escape, he couldn’t stop picturing my face when he killed them.” She shook her head. “None of their families are going to get the closure they need to move on. They’re still wondering what happened to their mother, their daughter or sister. They’ll never know the truth.”

  “The FBI will keep looking,” he said.

  “So will I.” She sniffled.

  “What do you mean?” Finn pulled back, the emergency blankets crinkling loud over the consistent crash of waves against the beach. The wind had died down some, but there was still a cold aftershock sitting in his bones.

  Camille looked up at him with those brilliant aquamarine eyes. “I’ve spent the last year trying to recover a life I wasn’t sure I could ever get back. I tried to fall back in love with photography after the attack made it so I couldn’t pick up my camera, but knowing those victims are still out there, that their families are still looking for them... What if my passion for photography could be used for something more? Something that can help all of those families?”

  Understanding hit, and his hold on her slipped slightly. “You want to help the FBI recover the women Jeff Burnes killed but haven’t found.”

  “I didn’t see him for what he really was until it was too late, and I’ve held on to that guilt since the day I saw those photos on my camera.” She stared out over the beach as the Florence police and his team of marshals mapped out the crime scene. “This might be my only chance to make it up to them, Finn, to bring them the closure they deserve.”

  She set her hand over his heart and stepped into him, fitting perfectly against him as though she’d been made specially for him. Not just physically but filling the emotional hole he’d lived with since the night he’d taken a bullet all those years ago. “Jodie Adler and all the other women he targeted deserve justice. Their families deserve to know what happened to them. I know whatever this is between us is new, and I want more than anything to find out where it’s going. Because I can without a doubt tell you I’ve been in love with you since the moment you brought me back to life that night in my house, but I need to do this. For all of the Carver’s victims who haven’t been found. Whether it’s assisting the FBI with their investigation or doing this on my own, I know what I have to do, and I need your help to do it.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I know a former FBI bomb technician who can make it happen.” The muscles at one corner of his mouth tugged into a smile. Finn gripped her hips in his hands. “Also, I love you, too, if that wasn’t clear before, and I’m not going anywhere. No matter what happens next, you’ll always be more to me than my witness.”

  “You’ll always be my hero.” Her resulting smile lit up parts of him he hadn’t felt in a long time. The Mylar blanket slipped from around her shoulders as she pressed onto her tiptoes to level her mouth with his. “So how many more boxes of brownies do you think you have stashed at the safe house?”

  * * *

  “WE’VE GOT ANOTHER ONE!” one of the FBI’s forensic operations specialists called.

  Camille wasn’t sure of his name, just that he wasn’t the only one of the unit tasked with finding unknown victims of the Carver who’d uncovered another body today. The dunes along the Oregon coast stretched in every direction, surrounded her, intimidated her. But with her temporary consulting and crime scene photography position and the resources of the entire FBI behind the small task force she’d convinced the director to create, she’d already been able to lead investigators to, and photograph, three burial sites.

  Jeff Burnes had manipulated and perverted an FBI agent in Chicago to serve his jail time for him, using makeup and facial prosthetics to make the world believe the Carver had been captured. With the entire country buying into the lie that he’d been behind bars for the past year, the real killer had been more careful than ever to hide the victims of his obsession in order to keep up the charade as Dr. Henry Gruner. But he hadn’t been careful enough. Jeff Burnes had made a mistake. Two mistakes.

  He hadn’t counted on Camille surviving.

  And he hadn’t buried his treasure deep enough.

  Casting her hand over her eyes to block out the sun, she studied the endless expanse of dunes, now turned into a shallow graveyard. The agent in charge of the task force watched as the two forensics team members a few yards to her left, at the first recovery site, brushed sand from the woman’s face and neck. Another team had already cleared most of the sand from the second. Her boots sank a few inches below the surface of the sand as she closed in
on the third with her new camera in hand.

  After weeks of scouring missing persons reports from the area, interviewing family members and friends and visiting the homes of the women who’d been reported missing, Camille had created a working photo array of possible victim names and likenesses. Some even with photos that parents and siblings had offered to help with the search. Three bodies discovered in as many hours. Three lives ruined but never forgotten. Who knew how many more waited under a few feet of sand to be brought home? “Who do we have here?”

  The forensic specialist dug out around painted red toenails and light ankles. “Too soon to tell, but I’ll have her out in about thirty minutes for you to hopefully make a match.”

  “I’ll start at her feet.” Camille raised her camera and took the first photo of their newly recovered victim. She turned, nearly running straight into the wall of muscle who’d taken the assignment to follow her wherever this task force needed her.

  “Drink up, Red.” With that gut-wrenching smile in full force, Finn offered her a cold bottle of water from the collection in his arms, the condensation shocking the nerves in her heated palms. Oregon was headed into spring in the next few weeks, but the man had the ability to rocket her body temperature into dangerous territory with a single look in her direction. It’d been three weeks since he’d saved her life in that cave. Three weeks since he’d faced off with the nightmare that’d cast a shadow behind her for the past year, and during that time he’d supported her to find as many of the Carver’s victims as she could to a fault. “You’re looking a little flushed.”

  Without Finn and Deputy US Marshal Jonah Watson, she wouldn’t have been able to form this task force. Without him, she wouldn’t have found this new path to recover and document the victims the FBI and police couldn’t or give more detailed insights into the killer they’d been investigating. Without him, she’d still be that emotionally lonely woman he’d met the day she’d been transferred into his protection detail, the one full of fear and uncertainty and scared of the idea she’d never get back what she’d lost.