by D. L. Wood
UNINTENDED WITNESS
A Novel
BOOK TWO OF THE UNINTENDED SERIES
D.L. Wood
UNINTENDED WITNESS
Book Two of the Unintended Series
Copyright ©2018 by D.L. Wood
Unintended Witness is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or publisher.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-7238-4904-6
Published by Silverglass Press
First Edition
D.L. Wood
dlwoodonline.com
Huntsville, Alabama
Dedicated to the one who saved me.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
These books would not happen without the enthusiastic help of my editorial readers: Barbara and Shaw Gookin, Kimberly Pugh, Judy Wallis, Laura Stratton, Sarah Nuss, Alesia Smith, and Jan McClelland.
Thank you to my mom and dad, Lynn and Bob Plummer, for fact-checking local matters for me and for your advice on the legal aspects of the book. I have been out of the practice of law far too long to be accurate on my own.
Thank you to Chris Olson for his advice about the recording studio.
Thank you to my editor, Chelsea Hahn, for being so excellent and for seeing what no else sees.
Many, many thanks to my friend, Luana Ehrlich, author of the Titus Ray Thrillers, who has been so kind to hold my hand and guide me through this journey of being an author.
And finally, thank you to my husband, Ron, for always being so supportive of me in this writing endeavor and everything else.
ONE
When all else fails, use a bomb, he thought, as thumb and forefinger twisted white and red wires together and pressed them into the small package before him. A slight autumn wind chilled the beads of sweat not caught by the black toboggan pulled low on his forehead. Being seen was a definite worry. As dark as it was at eleven o’clock at night, the nearby lights of Main Street offered just enough illumination to make movement on the construction site detectable if someone happened to look at the right moment, especially with him exposed on the skeletally-framed third story. He was moving as fast as he could, but time was quickly running out and it was making him nervous. He had allotted fifteen minutes for setting the device. Twenty had passed already. Not to mention the five minutes that he already wasted waiting out an unexpected patrol car that had swung by the Starbucks across the street for a quick pick-me-up.
A steady drizzle fell as he continued working, ignoring the ticking clock in his head. Finally, after just a few more adjustments, he made one last twist and it was done. Three strips of silver duct tape secured the device low behind some temporary wooden scaffolding where it wouldn’t be seen. Until tomorrow night, when everyone would see it.
Everyone.
TWO
The weak, late afternoon October light filtered through the windows of Chloe McConnaughey’s white Honda Civic as it crested another green hill in the heart of the Tennessee Valley. Her heart beat faster with every passing mile as the moment she had been waiting twenty-five years for drew steadily closer.
She was eight years old the last time she saw him. Exactly eight, actually, as it had been her birthday and she was falling asleep with dreams of the day’s birthday cake and presents and, unbelievably, a pony ride. It had been the best birthday she and her twin brother, Tate, had ever had. The last good one they would ever have.
He had snuck out in the darkness, sometime after kissing them goodnight and weepily declaring how much he loved them both. She remembered the stout smell of Woodford Reserve that had punctuated his words. At the time, she chalked up his tears to what their mother had called “overindulgence.” She had hugged him, kissed his cheek, and rolled over, snuggling the new stuffed unicorn he had bought her as she drifted into la-la land. The delusion hadn’t lasted long.
The next morning she padded into the kitchen looking for pancakes, but instead found a whimpering, gin-soaked mother, clutching the remnants of a scrawled letter explaining how her father had run off with a lady that worked in the copy room of his law office. And that was the end. The end of birthdays and of pony rides. The end of pancakes. And eventually, the end of their mother. Tate, too, as it turned out. Though that would take much longer and be infinitely more painful.
Another white fence scrolled by as she rolled closer to Franklin, Tennessee, the quaint town just south of Nashville where her father, Reese McConnaughey, now lived. The unreality of this, of her going to meet him, pummeled her again, and not for the first time, she considered turning the car around. No, she thought. You’ve decided. Be decided.
As if on cue, a ringing sounded through the car speakers. Grinning at the caller identification, Chloe pressed a button on her steering wheel.
“Hey you,” she said, the weight in her chest lightening.
“Hey beautiful,” Jack Bartholomew replied, and she immediately pictured him, mobile phone to his ear, his smile drawn up towards spirited green eyes and a bone structure that reminded her of the guy that played Captain America in the Marvel movies. “You there yet?”
“Nearly.” Her eyes flicked to the navigation screen. “Just a mile and a half till I get to his neighborhood.”
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“About how you’d expect. Nervous. Apprehensive—”
“Excited?”
She hesitated. “Truthfully? I don’t know.”
“I’m proud of you.”
“Don’t be. I haven’t done anything yet. I might take his head off once I get there,” she groaned.
“You’ll do the right thing.”
“So how’s the shoot?”
“Great. I’d forgotten how much fun this is.” Years ago, Jack had leveraged his experience as a Navy SEAL and best-selling author of the true-life military thriller, Battlezone Zero, into occasional consulting work for Hollywood—work that often pulled him away from his not-so-star-studded day job as an English professor at Emory. This time he was scheduled to be in Los Angeles for the next three weeks on the set of a movie about a futuristic World War III. It sounded more glamorous than it was, or at least that’s what Jack kept telling her. Easy for him to say, she thought, as he continued, “Oh, and I met Jude Law today.”
“You need to shut up now.”
He laughed, and the warmth and wholeness of it enveloped her. It felt like home. “Thought you’d like that.”
“How’s the leg?”
She heard a discouraged intake of breath on his end. “A six,” he answered, “but there was a lot of walking today.” Nearly eight months ago he had taken a bullet in that leg while protecting her from killers hunting her because of events her brother, Tate, had set in motion. Jack still hadn’t completely recovered and by the end of most days he was limping. They had come up with a short code of one to ten to describe his pain level. Lately it had been hovering around four or five.
“Use the cane, Jack. That’s what it’s for.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s what
the doctors keep telling me. I’m fine. I’ll double up on the ibuprofen tonight.”
“Don’t overdo—”
“Not overdoing. Just doing.” It was his go-to comment when it came to his leg and a sure sign that he wanted to drop the topic.
“Okay,” Chloe replied, taking the cue just as the navigation system announced her turn was in another half mile. “I’m almost at the turn, Jack. I’m going to have to go. Can I call you after?”
“‘Course. You’d better. I love you.”
She grinned. “I love you, too. Bye.”
The second he hung up it was as if a little of the air had been sucked out of the car. They had only been apart two days, but she already missed him. It was strange for her to realize how attached she had become in such a relatively short time. He was her person. As someone who had grown up with trust issues, it was foreign to have anyone finally, and so completely, push past all her barriers. But then again, Jack wasn’t just anyone.
She had met him in February, only months before, while on a photojournalism assignment in the Caribbean. It was a chance meeting on a spectacular beach, although, truth be told, Jack later admitted their meeting was more orchestrated than he had initially let on. Less than twenty-four hours after that meeting, Tate’s people had come for her, murderously intent on recovering what Tate had stolen from them.
At that point, most reasonable people would have run away from her and never looked back. In general, people don’t stick around to help strangers once guns get waved around. But not Jack. He could have left. Should have. Instead he stuck by her, refusing to abandon her, even when she eventually accused him at gunpoint of being part of the conspiracy. She had been wrong, of course, something he still took great delight in teasing her about. A warm smile spread across her lips. He really did love to tease her.
All those months ago, though he barely knew her, Jack had exhibited more selfless and genuine concern for her than anyone in her family ever had. More than her self-consumed mother and her misguided brother. And definitely more than the absentee father she was about to see.
It was that loyalty that got Jack shot and nearly killed, and why they were in a Miami hospital room when her father had finally decided to reach out to her after a quarter-century of silence. Reports of Tate’s death and the unraveling of the money-laundering syndicate that was responsible for it had been plastered all over the news and her father had seen it. Learning of his son’s death had sent him into a panic, which only escalated when he couldn’t track Chloe down either. Desperate, he started bombarding every agency even remotely attached to the situation, until finally making headway with the U.S. Attorney’s office in Miami, which had connected him to Chloe.
When they handed her the phone, she hadn’t even been able to take his call. It was just too much on top of everything else. Instead she pushed her father to the back of her mind and focused on helping Jack. After a pretty pathetic bit of initial resistance from him, she brought Jack back to her place in Atlanta to help care for him while he recuperated. It had taken all of one week for them both to dismiss any thought of him ever returning home to New York. He gave NYU notice, snagged a teaching position at Emory and found an urban loft off of Peachtree Street just half a mile from Chloe’s rental house. He even found a best friend in Jonah, Chloe’s golden retriever who, before Jack, had never liked any man she had dated. Chloe had taken that as a very good sign.
The Civic hugged the next turn and was flooded by a piercing orange glare cast by the setting sun. Chloe brought her hand up as a shield, stealing a sideways glance at several dark horses in a distant grassy meadow, dramatically backlit by the glowing hues of the horizon. Wishing she had time to stop and capture the view in a few photographs, she pressed on, making a mental note to come back and try another day.
The truth was that, initially, Chloe had believed that maybe if she ignored her father, Reese might give up and just disappear again. After all, he had erased himself from her life once before. But, instead, the more she ignored him the more he texted and called. Finally, one day, she just caved.
Hardest phone call of my life, Chloe thought. Well, second hardest. Getting the news about Tate was the first.
But the phone conversations with Reese proved too emotionally trying, and she insisted on communication by text only. That had actually worked pretty well, keeping some semblance of a protective guard between them which made her feel safer. But even in the texts Reese persisted in asking about meeting in person, something Chloe just couldn’t bring herself to do.
Then, after months of keeping Reese at bay, something inexplicably shifted, and meeting him became not just something Reese needed, but something she needed too. She wasn’t sure why. Jack said that, unless she faced him, she might always wonder. That something in her needed to confront him in order to truly heal. She didn’t know if that was true. Maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe she just needed to stand in front of him and ask whether the office copy lady had been worth it.
Whatever the reason, she didn’t feel she could put it off any longer. And so here she was, barreling towards Reese McConnaughey at fifty-five miles per hour with no real idea of what to expect once she got there.
Would she cry? Scream? Stare blankly into the eyes of the man who had discarded her to see if anything with a heart lived inside? Did he have illusions of heartfelt father-daughter bonding or did he just want to say sorry and feel better about himself?
So many things she did not have an answer for. But one thing she did know. She would tell him about Tate. About what Reese’s leaving had done to him. She owed her brother that.
“Prepare to turn in 200 feet,” the pseudo-human voice of her GPS instructed blandly, as she zipped under the last traffic signal before her turn.
Whatever happened, she was determined to make a good showing and not come apart. No matter what. Pushing down squiggly tendrils of fear, Chloe said a quick prayer and turned into her father’s neighborhood.
THREE
It wouldn’t be long now. The last of the construction crew had left for the day ten minutes earlier, locking the chain link fence that enclosed the site. The intentional choice of this vantage point made it possible to watch for any stragglers—anyone unexpectedly still on the property. Just to be sure they were all gone, he would wait another fifteen minutes before setting it off. It would be perfect. Enough foot and street traffic to make a scene. A definite statement.
He checked the time once more and the mental countdown began.
* * * * *
The neighborhood where her father lived was an eclectic mishmash of architectural styles. Many of the homes were older, often cottage designs from the 1920s and ‘30s that had retained their facades, whatever renovations may have occurred inside. A few looked like they had been built in recent decades, probably after the original homes had been torn down. And then there was her father’s street, Honeysuckle Court, consisting entirely of brand new construction. These were long, tall structures, occupying the better part of deep, narrow lots that extended down both sides of the dead-end road. These homes were bright and well landscaped with lush, still-green lawns, presumably benefitting from built-in sprinkler systems that had protected them from the months of dry Tennessee summer. An American flag extended from the porch post of more than one house, and yellow mums and lingering impatiens in reds, pinks, and purples welcomed her as she drove past.
At 209 Honeysuckle Court she slowed to a crawl, pulling to the curb in front of the two-story, red and white-peppered brick house with black shutters and an open porch. My father lives here, she thought, the notion still surreal. A faint numbness spread through her as she turned off the car and sat there for several minutes, taking it all in. His house boasted a splash of flowers like she had seen in the other beds on the street. Did he plant those? Or would he have a landscaper? A black Lexus sat in the driveway. So he clearly has money. Or at least likes the illusion of it. What would it have been like to grow up in a house like this i
nstead of the run-down fixer-upper he had left them in? Or the foster home apartment she and Tate had been sent to after that? She looked for other signs of personality, something to indicate what he might be like, but there was nothing unique, really. It looked like every other house on the block. Wonder what that says about him, she mused.
“All right, McConnaughey. This is stupid,” she told herself, and though she didn’t feel any stronger, she grabbed her purse and keys and stepped outside.
The fall air seemed fresh and full of possibilities after several long hours in the car, but as she marched up the short path to the richly stained front door, her legs felt wobbly. Whether from lack of use or anxiety, she didn’t know. She pressed the doorbell, which chimed pleasantly, clearly oblivious to the momentous nature of the meeting about to take place. Suddenly she wanted to run. Or stay and punch him. She could probably get one good punch in before he was ready for it. Would that make her feel better? Stop it, she told herself, feeling ridiculous. Stand here. Stand up. Do what you came to do. And let him, and all this baggage, go.
Several moments passed with no answer. She had texted him an hour ago to let him know she was close. He had texted back that he would be there. She rang the bell again. The three-tone chime echoed away, but still no one answered. He promised he would be here, she thought, a tiny banner of anger beginning to unfurl inside. But then, he had made lots of promises, hadn’t he? Lots of broken promises.
Heavy, thudding footsteps pounded towards the door from the other side. Her heart jumped as the door flew open.
“Sorry, sorry,” Reese McConnaughey sputtered, standing in the doorway, a bit out of breath. “I was upstairs. Didn’t hear the bell.” He was tall, though not as tall as Tate had been, with brown hair a bit darker than her loose, tawny curls, sprinkled with a significant amount of gray. His eyes were amber, exactly the same shade as hers. Exactly the same shade that Tate’s had been. He wasn’t overweight, but carried a bit of heft, like someone who had once worked out regularly, but now was a little fluffy in places. It was a stark contrast to her petite, five-foot-four frame. Catching himself, as if just realizing why he was at the door and who he was opening it for, everything about him seemed to soften.