Star Witness

by Lisa Phillips

  Something she didn’t have left.

  Not since she’d testified against the son of a drug lord in a trial that ended with him getting life without parole for double homicide and attempted murder. Then it had all ended four years later in a prison riot. She should have been free because Pedro Carosa was dead. Problem over, except it wasn’t. In the years since then, his older brother, Alonzo, apparently hadn’t given up the idea of revenge. It seemed he was just as committed as ever to making Mackenzie pay for tearing his family apart.

  And there was no way she was going to let anyone else get caught in her cross fire.

  The car engine revved, but she didn’t turn. It was happening all over again, and this time there was no Aaron to dive with her out of the line of fire.

  The vehicle slowed, but she wasn’t about to turn that way and allow whoever it was to get a look at her. Mackenzie sped up her pace, her eyes on the road ahead.

  How could she get out of here? A side street? Into a café and out the back entrance? Would a bus come along just in time? Maybe a cab.

  But what was the point? Carosa had found her.

  The vehicle’s brakes squealed as it stopped and the driver’s door slammed.

  She started running.

  SIX

  “Mackenzie.” He didn’t like the look on her face when she spun, eyes wide and stark with fear. “You’re exposed out here. We have to get somewhere safe.”

  Her spine straightened. “I told you, I can’t go with you.”

  “So you walk along the street out here, late at night, where anyone can pick you off and make you just another tragic statistic? The guy after you gets exactly what he wants, and your life is over. Great plan.”

  She flinched, and he knew he’d hit the mark he was aiming for. “If it sounds as if I’m trying to scare you, that’s because I am. We can’t give this guy the chance to succeed. You said yourself you want to be free of this.” He held out his hand to her. “I’m giving you a shot at living the rest of your life, Mackenzie. I know I’m practically a stranger to you, but you can trust me.”

  Someone brushed past them on the sidewalk, close enough to jostle her. “Can I? How do I know that?”

  Aaron studied her. Something didn’t jibe with what she said. She inferred it was an issue of trust, but he didn’t see fear in her eyes...he saw pain. What had happened to this woman that made her so hesitant to trust someone that she willfully put her own safety in jeopardy? She pushed him away in order to protect herself and wound up with the opposite outcome.

  He was going to be here for her, but he couldn’t let himself get close, even if she was an intriguing puzzle. Because he didn’t want to know what she would think when she learned the kind of man he really was. A crusader like her would never approve of a guy who didn’t measure up.

  Mackenzie lifted her chin. “He’ll kill you, too.”

  “You don’t know that anything is going to happen to me. You barely know me, which means you can’t judge what I’m capable of.”

  “I’ve seen you in action. But I’m not going to trust you, not yet. I don’t do blind faith in people.” She sighed, and a little of the fight in her deflated. “I’ll come with you, but my eyes are wide-open.”

  Aaron studied her. Brown eyes, dull and lonely. Pink lips that should be tipped up in a smile, not dampened with reality. “I can live with that.”

  Just as long as she didn’t see too much, because Aaron would come up short. That was what the women he’d tried to get close to always said. Since the last “it’s not you, it’s me” conversation, he’d given up. That was three years ago, not that he let the guys on the team know.

  Aaron held out his hand, and Mackenzie gave him the first true smile since he’d saved her life yesterday. Why did it feel like so much longer?

  He used his grip on her hand to steer her to the truck. It figured that doing Eric a favor meant he had to spend time with a woman who wasn’t content with what he was doing for her. No, she had to make it personal, too, and force him to convince her to trust him. She wanted to save him from the danger she posed. He shut the passenger door and rounded the front of the truck, shaking his head.

  The sound of engine revs cut through the general hum of traffic. Aaron looked back in time to see a now-familiar van cut across two lanes of traffic. It was closing in on them fast, ready to ram his truck.

  * * *

  A big engine roared behind them, and Mackenzie turned. It was the van the soldiers had been in. The headlights bore down on them like some macabre scene where a group of kids in a movie watched certain death head straight for them. So this is how it ends.

  Aaron shoved the key in the ignition. The engine turned over...and over, but didn’t catch. The van slammed into the back corner of the truck.

  “Go!” Aaron reached past her and flung the door open.

  The truck was slammed again until the tires bumped up onto the curb. Aaron shoved her out and followed her, crowding her onto the sidewalk and away from the truck. People screamed and fled in every direction in a haze of panic. Aaron’s hand closed around hers as they ran. It was warmer and bigger and imbued her with some of his strength so that she ran faster, harder.

  Mackenzie prayed they would be lost in the dispersing crowd. She was dragged along in his wake as he tugged her around the corner, down a back alley.

  When she couldn’t run anymore she yanked on his hand and bent over. She gasped and sucked in air while Aaron rubbed a firm hand up and down her back.

  “Breathe.”

  “I’m trying.” She straightened and took him in. Of course, he wasn’t even winded. That must be from his soldier training. “I think I need to work out more. I seriously thought I was in good shape, but apparently that DVD was lying.”

  He didn’t react. Didn’t even crack a smile.

  “We should get moving.”

  Mackenzie looked up and down the alley. The Dumpster was overflowing, and the smell of old garbage filled her nose. She took the hand he held out and followed him to where the alley broke onto a busy street, bright with light from restaurants and neon signs.

  She sucked in breaths. “Don’t you want to know how they found us again so fast? Do you think they’re tracking us?”

  “I think I’m not going to stand around here and risk catching a disease from all this garbage while we wait for those mercenaries or your Colombian friend to find us.” Aaron let go of her hand to curl his arm around her shoulders in a protective gesture.

  “He was never my friend.”

  His eyes settled on her. “My mistake.”

  “Yeah, it is. I didn’t ask for this, okay?”

  “Wrong place at the wrong time?”

  She nodded, because that was essentially true. He watched for a moment at the mouth of the street before he stepped out in time to flag down a cab.

  That was it? He had nothing to say? If they’d known for sure Carosa was here, then she could have had a detail of marshals instead of being saddled with Mr. U.S. Army.

  Was it too much to ask for a simple conversation? They could get to know each other without her having to tell him everything about Carosa. Aaron had said he wanted to know what happened, but that was only so he could protect her as a favor to his brother. If he didn’t have such an obvious devotion to his sibling, Mackenzie would have wondered if he felt anything at all.

  Aaron pulled out his phone and hit a bunch of buttons.

  Forty-five minutes later, the cab exited the freeway into a residential neighborhood she wouldn’t have chosen to be in at this time of night, although to be fair it wasn’t much worse than her own street. Small houses. Cars parked on driveways and in the street, bland vehicles that didn’t cost much.

  Aaron spoke to the driver. “Right here’s fine.”

  They pulled up
at a playground covered with graffiti. One of the swings was broken off, leaving two chains dangling. Mackenzie climbed out while he paid the driver and stretched her arms up above her head, trying to relieve the cramp in her muscles. Her legs were shaky and her fingers wouldn’t stop trembling. Seriously, she needed a gym membership.

  “Jittery?”

  She looked over at Aaron.

  “It’s adrenaline. It’ll wear off, but you’ll be amped up for a while and then you’ll crash as though someone gave you a sleeping pill.”

  He said it as if that was normal life for him, an everyday occurrence. Had he been on the front lines? Was that how he got injured?

  “What is that you do for the army, exactly?” For all she knew, he could be a medic or a cook.

  Something flickered in his eyes. “Soldier.”

  “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to tell me?”

  “I’m not allowed to give out specifics, so yeah, that’s all I’m going to tell you.”

  Well, at least he wasn’t being curt because it was part of his personality, but that he was actually required to keep it confidential. It seemed as though there was a lot of that going around. They both had enough secrets to fill Madison Square Garden. Would she ever meet anyone who wasn’t a federal agent and be able to be completely open with them for a reason other than because it was required of her?

  Mackenzie paced a few steps away, trying to burn some nervous energy, and watched him out the corner of her eye. Did they teach that posture in basic training? His feet were hip-width apart, and his torso was completely still, as though he was waiting for something. The only way she could think to describe it was...ready.

  The jitters in her stomach eased. “What are we doing here?”

  Aaron folded his arms, the material of his jacket stretched tight. “Waiting for Eric.”

  “Why is your brother coming here?”

  “Because I texted him and asked him to.” He sniffed but didn’t move otherwise. “The sooner I have all the information about Carosa, the quicker we can get this resolved and I can be done with this vacation. No offense.”

  That wasn’t a problem for her, so long as she wasn’t the one who had to say it all out loud. She had no desire to relive any of it.

  “Why would I be offended? You just saved my life. Again. And you’ve agreed to protect me for the time being, right?” He didn’t argue. “I wouldn’t be standing here if it wasn’t for you.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “Uh, you’re welcome. I think.”

  “Doesn’t it bother you that you risk your life for your country and you can’t even tell anyone about it?”

  He shrugged. “Comes with the territory.”

  “I’m not trying to be mean, or make a judgment about the way you live your life or anything. I’m just trying to figure you out.”

  Maybe then she could settle herself, find peace with this life of going back and forth between the person she was and the better person she was trying to be. She felt more comfortable in her skin now, but was this truly who she was always supposed to have been?

  Aaron frowned. “What’s the point? It’s not as if we’re actually going to be friends.”

  Mackenzie turned away to hide the flinch. She held back the surge of emotion that felt a lot like right before you burst into tears. Her eyes were hot and her sinuses were about to burst. She might not be ready to trust him fully with her life, but did her concession mean nothing to him? Everything she had—her life, her future—was dependent on him.

  She glanced at him now. If she were to allow herself to daydream about what her life could have been, she imagined it might feature someone like him. Strong and courageous, but probably a bit nicer. She could admit that, if only to herself. He was movie-star handsome and probably way out of her league.

  If she wasn’t in hiding, she could have struck up a conversation that might lead to him asking her out to coffee or dinner and a movie. If she was free to live her life without watching over her shoulder all the time and not wanting to get close to anyone for fear they’d get sucked into this just like—

  Don’t think about that.

  Aaron might be a soldier, but the man she’d thought she was in love with—even if he’d never reciprocated—had been her head of security. And now he was dead.

  The man who occupied her thoughts now scanned the road that stretched up the street from where they stood. He ran a hand through his hair, rubbing his head as though he was just as jittery as she was but more familiar with the feeling and better able to dispel it through such a small gesture.

  It was a good thing her life wasn’t conducive to starting a relationship, because she’d have been hurt by his dismissal. Now she could concentrate on protecting her heart instead of trying to figure out if there was something behind his insistence on keeping her at arm’s length until the favor was done. That was fine. So long as she was alive at the end of this. Sure, it would hurt to watch him walk away, wondering what could have been.

  But at least she would be alive to feel it.

  SEVEN

  Headlights cut a wide arc through the darkness, and then a car pulled up beside them. Mackenzie’s breath caught in her throat. When the engine shut off and the driver climbed out, Aaron moved in front of her in a protective gesture. “Eric.”

  Mackenzie let go of the knot in her stomach and looked at her handler. Eric moved as if he was exhausted. A lot different than the last time she saw him. Was it really just that morning? Now his gray suit was rumpled and his hair looked a month past needing a cut.

  When he came within arm’s reach, Aaron grabbed Eric by his shirt collar and pulled him so there was an inch of space between their faces. “You seriously look awful.”

  Eric’s lips thinned. “It’s been a long day.” He gave Mackenzie a small smile. “Was it really just this morning that I was in your office?”

  Aaron released him. “I suppose you’re not going to tell me what this is, either?”

  Eric’s blue eyes were a match for Aaron’s, except there was something immensely sad there. Apparently satisfied with what he saw, he looked back at Aaron. “Did you get a look at the guys Carosa sent?”

  “Mercenaries, probably ex-military. Eight of them. They caught up to us twice.”

  Mackenzie froze again with the reality that she was being hunted. Even after seeing those guys surround the truck, she was blindsided enough to close her eyes in a futile effort to shut out what was happening. This was her life. Why did it sound so much worse when they said it out loud? The past played like a movie reel in her mind. The burn of pain that felt like ice and fire at the same time, knowing she’d been shot and watching Daniel take his last breath.

  * * *

  Mackenzie stiffened behind him, but he couldn’t do anything about it. Eric just stared, while Aaron finally understood why this meant so much to his brother. Why Mackenzie’s safety was so important to him, more than just any other witness he was assigned to protect. “Man, I’m so sorry. I’m really sorry, but this doesn’t have anything to do with Sarah, does it?”

  She shifted again, but Aaron kept still. Eric’s fiancée had been tragically injured a year ago, and was now paralyzed from the waist down. Ever since then, Eric seemed to not be able to let go of the need to see Sarah in every woman he met.

  Eric shook his head. “It’s not like that.”

  “So you’re going to put your job at risk and protect Mackenzie at all costs because you can’t let your fiancée go?”

  “You think I want to watch Carosa swagger around after exactly the same kind of person who hurt Sarah and killed her family? I won’t let anyone else become a victim of selfish people who think they’re above the law.” Eric’s eyes blazed. “I didn’t ask you to stay because I can’t get over what happened. I asked you to stay beca
use I have to focus on the hunt for the leak, and I don’t want to see another woman suffer the way Sarah has.”

  Eric’s fiancée hadn’t wanted anything to do with him after the accident. Eric had tried to get her to let him back into her life, but the pain was too great for both of them. In the end he’d had to accept the reality that Sarah wanted it to be over, and move on.

  “Um, sorry...but who is Sarah?” Mackenzie’s voice was small and more than a little concerned.

  Aaron found Mackenzie’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “Eric—”

  His brother pulled his gaze from Mackenzie back to Aaron. “Outside of you, I don’t know who I can trust.”

  Aaron gave his brother a short nod. Eric needed him, and Aaron wouldn’t let anything happen to his brother, his brother’s job or anyone else who was innocent and couldn’t defend themselves.

  He looked at Mackenzie. Her eyes were wide as she took it all in.

  “So what now?” Mackenzie asked.

  Eric squeezed his eyes shut. “Nothing’s changed. Aaron keeps you safe while I find the leak.”

  Aaron frowned. “Shouldn’t you be getting her a new identity and flying her somewhere undisclosed? That’s what you guys do, isn’t it?”

  “If Carosa discovered her location once already, there’s nothing to say he can’t do it again. And I have to let this internal investigation play out if we’re going to find the leak. That’s the most likely explanation for what’s happening. Regardless of what the police think, it’s more likely Carosa hired someone to slash your tires and shoot at you. The mercenaries were probably hired, too, to take you to him so he can get his revenge.”

  Mackenzie swallowed, her face pale with fear.

  Eric continued, “I will get to the bottom of this. It’s the only way to keep your identity safe...not to mention anyone else Carosa or the leak decides they want found. This could turn into a bidding war that puts everyone in witness protection in Phoenix in danger.”