Star Witness

by Lisa Phillips

  He got back in, gunned the engine and drove over the phone. Then he brought his foot up over the dash and kicked out the shattered front windshield.

  FIFTEEN

  Hours later Aaron drove down the highway with the wind blowing in his face. There had been a hole in the middle of the glass where the bullet had punched through the windshield.

  Mackenzie had crawled into the backseat to sleep. She hadn’t wanted him to drive alone, but the exhaustion on her face was clear. That was why he’d suggested she get some rest. There wasn’t much more of this she could take.

  The unsettled feeling in Aaron’s stomach dissipated as, for the first time in a long time, he prayed for Eric, and for Doug, who was by now gathering information to prove Eric’s innocence. Because he was innocent. Everything about Eric was innocent, it always had been.

  Aaron could admit—to himself, at least—that sometimes prayer was the only option to offer a shred of hope. And right now, that was all they had left. Hope. For the first time Aaron was willing to consider the possibility that his foster mom was right, that Doug and Eric were right. Maybe it was worth it to put his faith in God.

  Especially when he had nothing else left.

  The career Aaron had spent years building, brick by brick, had come crumbling down until he was left with nothing but failure. Since he’d signed up for the military just out of high school, he’d always known who he was and where he was headed. Now the road was shrouded in mist, and there was nothing to light the way.

  Just before five o’clock in the morning, the new phone he’d bought at a superstore buzzed. It had been a tough decision, but staying out of contact completely meant not knowing what was happening with Eric. Though having to get a car charger and a Bluetooth had cut into his cash reserves significantly. But he wasn’t going to stop driving, not even to take a call.

  He tapped the button on his Bluetooth. “Yeah.”

  “Where are you?” Doug’s voice was groggy.

  “On the highway.”

  “Are you going where I think you’re going?”

  There was a shuffle in the backseat. Mackenzie had awoken, even though he’d been talking quietly. “You know it’s the only place, the safest place to regroup.”

  “Did you figure out how they’ve been tracking you?”

  Aaron blew out a breath. “Yeah, after one of their snipers winged my temple.”

  “You okay?” Doug’s voice cleared of all trace of fatigue.

  “Doesn’t even need stitches.” Not that Aaron had checked—he just assumed by the fact that it’d finally stopped bleeding. At the last rest area he’d found a first-aid kit in the trunk and stuck on a bandage while Mackenzie slept.

  He told Doug about Schweitzer and Eva.

  Doug growled. “They found Schweitzer’s body. You’re saying Eva shot him?”

  He gripped the steering wheel with one hand and saw the turnoff for the access road. Slowing the car, Aaron removed his foot from the brake, flipped off the headlights and took the turn. To anyone following, their car would have simply disappeared.

  “Looked like some kind of tiff. They were clearly having an affair, but he did something to make her mad or else she was done using him.”

  “I’m going to grab Sabine from her hotel room and we’ll head to Schweitzer’s house now, and then the Marshals Service office. We’ll find out what’s going on. Hopefully there’s something there that will get Eric in the clear.” Doug paused a beat. “You guys stay safe, yeah?”

  “Got it.” Aaron tossed the Bluetooth in the cup holder, slowed to a crawl and flipped the headlights back on to light the way up the mountain to the cabin.

  “Is everything okay?” Mackenzie asked.

  He nodded. “Doug and Sabine are on the case.” And he hoped all that desperate prayer would help. They definitely needed it.

  “But no one is going to believe us that Eva killed Schweitzer. They think we broke the law, too, don’t they? That we’re in league with Eric, you kidnapped me and no doubt I probably did something illegal, too.”

  “We don’t need them to believe us, Mackenzie. The evidence will speak for itself. There were probably security cameras in the parking garage. And if Eva does manage to get away with it, then Doug and Sabine will find proof she’s involved with Carosa. There has to be something linking them more than Schweitzer, if his relationship with Eva is what made him betray the marshals. Maybe she works for Carosa or owes him money or something. Who knows until we find out for sure?”

  She brushed back hair from her face. There was an endearing crease on her cheek from where her head had rested on her sweater. “So where are we?”

  Aaron steered around the switchbacks up the mountain. “It’s a hunting cabin the team uses. No one knows about it except us, and its ownership is buried so deep no one would ever be able to trace it back to us. It’s a little rough, but we’ll be safe here.”

  * * *

  After their slow ascent up the dirt track to the top of the mountain, Mackenzie followed Aaron into the rough cabin. Apparently their definitions were different, because she might have been a millionaire pop star in her former life, but she was in no way overreacting. This place wasn’t fit for a family of mice.

  She took a deep breath and swallowed what she was going to say. Aaron had chosen this place for them to be safe, and it wouldn’t help them if she put up a fuss now. Unless he’d lured her there to kill her, but she didn’t think that was likely. It did pay to be cautious, though.

  “Just needs a little sprucing up and it’ll be fine.”

  Mackenzie turned to him, able to feel the way her face had morphed to incredulity.

  Aaron burst out laughing. “Okay, so it’ll keep the wind and rain out. The rest we can fix with a wet rag and a broom.”

  “Right.” Mackenzie couldn’t help but smile at the mental image of Aaron wearing rubber gloves with a bandanna tied around his head.

  There was a table and four rickety chairs, an outdated kitchen with grime in the sink, but a stocked cupboard of cleaning supplies that looked as if they’d never been used. The bathroom walls were a weird shade of green, and the bedroom had two twin beds with bare mattresses.

  The back door led out to a clearing. Mackenzie watched the trees sway in the breeze, closed her eyes and breathed in fresh air, feeling it rush through the cabin from front to back to air out the structure.

  There was a rustling, and she opened her eyes. A deer stepped out of the trees and sniffed at the ground. Here in the middle of nowhere. What state were they in? Wherever it was, they were a world away from Carosa and the responsibilities she’d heaped on her own shoulders. That hardly seemed to matter now, here, where the world rustled instead of buzzing and shouting.

  A boot clicked on the wood of the deck. Mackenzie spun around and Aaron stilled, holding a man-size overcoat out in front of him. “Just me. I thought you might be cold.”

  Mackenzie let him wrap the massive coat around her shoulders. “Thank you.” She studied his face. “How’s your head?”

  Aaron shrugged.

  “Does anything bother you?”

  His lips twitched. “Like my brother being in federal custody while I can’t do a single thing about it, or like a Colombian drug lord on our tail every time we turn around?”

  “I can’t believe that reporter thinks Eric had anything to do with this.” She sighed. “It feels as though, if it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t have been targeted.”

  “This isn’t your fault, Mackenzie. Eric knows what he’s doing and he’s not alone.”

  He looked so dejected.

  “What happened on your mission?” Mackenzie gasped. She’d said it before the thought even registered.

  Why had she pushed him that way? Things were nice and now she’d ruined it. “I’m sorry. That
was uncalled for. You don’t have to tell me something so personal.”

  As much as she might want him to open up, it couldn’t be because she had pushed. It had to be because he wanted to share. She turned to go back inside, and he snagged her elbow.

  “Stay. Just for a minute.”

  Mackenzie nodded.

  Aaron looked out at the clearing. The deer had moved on, leaving only whispering branches and the chill of morning. “There’s a lot I can’t tell you because it’s classified. But it was a bad plan, drawn up by someone who didn’t seem to care either way that our lives and the lives of civilians who lived around the compound would be at risk. We were in the middle of a firefight, but taking the designated route out would have resulted in too many casualties. Civilians. I just couldn’t do it. So I ordered my team to hold tight. It was my decision. It took longer, but we got out. And the cost was still high.”

  Mackenzie stepped closer but didn’t dare touch him when his body was coiled this tight.

  Aaron’s eyes flickered and darkened. “At the end of the day, the results of the mission are on me. We did what we were sent in there to do, but one of my teammates was blinded in the fight.”

  He turned to her then. “I have to live with that. It will color my whole career, but I have to face what happened. I did what I thought was right, but then I always knew I wasn’t a hero.”

  * * *

  At the sound of a car, Aaron grabbed the loaded rifle he’d stashed on top of the bookcase and strode out the front door. He needed Mackenzie to realize he wasn’t the kind of guy a girl like her should fall for.

  Mackenzie probably wanted to run now that she knew the whole sordid tale of his failure. It was for the best, even if he did feel like mourning the loss of what might have been.

  He’d heard the sound of an engine approaching before he could finish his speech, and sure enough, a black-and-white car was parked out front. It had a light bar on top and the word sheriff emblazoned on the side. Aaron held the weapon loosely, angled to the ground so he could bring it up and be firing a round in seconds.

  He’d been expecting this visit, but a person could never be too careful.

  The tall, wiry man folded himself out of the vehicle. His lean body was exactly the same as it had been when he and Aaron had served together. Aaron’s old teammate walked over, his eyes narrowed. “Hey.”

  Aaron lifted his chin. “Slow morning?”

  The sheriff’s lips twitched. “You tripped the sensors when you went inside. I drove by, saw the tire tracks in the road and wanted to make sure it was you. Figured you’d come here, what with needing to hide that girl you abducted and all.” He lifted his chin. “So who is she?”

  Aaron didn’t answer. “The media didn’t figure it out yet?”

  The other man cracked a smile and shook his head. “You never did like sharing. Do I need my gun, too?”

  Aaron walked back to the cabin and set the rifle down so it leaned against the wall beside the door. “Mackenzie, you wanna come out here?”

  The door cracked an inch. Her eyes were wide and darted between him and the cop car. “Is it safe?”

  Aaron nodded. “There’s someone I want to introduce you to.” Plus it would clear up the idea the media had that he’d been mistreating her, since Aaron was the one with the head wound.

  She came out and stood behind him, so his body shielded her from the local lawman. The fact that she still had faith in him to protect her felt good. “Is he going to arrest us?”

  Aaron took her hand and pulled her to where the other man stood. “Mackenzie Winters, this is Sheriff Jackson Tate.”

  “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”

  She nodded. “Uh...you, too.”

  They shook hands, but Mackenzie hadn’t completely pushed off her nervousness. Aaron squeezed the hand he still held. “Jackson and I were on the same Delta Force team a few years back. We’re old army buddies.”

  “He’s not going to arrest us?”

  The sheriff laughed. “I was never here. Except to give Aaron this.” He strode back to the car and opened the passenger door to retrieve a taped brown box the size of a small TV.

  Aaron studied the address labels. “We get mail now?”

  “They sent it to me on the off chance you might stop by here during your, uh...convalescence.” Jackson smirked.

  “Mackenzie knows about that.” Aaron tucked the box under his arm.

  “Right. I was sorry to hear about Franklin.”

  “Not as sorry as I am.”

  SIXTEEN

  “Anyway, I might be able to help y’all. If you need it.” The sheriff glanced between them. “Keep an eye out. I can watch the cabin’s perimeter when I’m not working, that kind of thing.”

  It was too risky. “We’re good.”

  Mackenzie glanced at Aaron. “He’s offering to help. And we’ve sure needed it so far. You have a bullet wound, and Eric’s in jail. The sheriff is offering to help. I thought you guys worked in teams?”

  “This isn’t one of our missions, and Jackson has enough to worry about. If he gets tangled up in this it could mean he loses his job. It’s a gray area for him to even be here in the first place. If anyone found out he knew we were here and didn’t bring us in, he’d get in a whole heap of trouble.”

  The sheriff leaned forward. “For what it’s worth, he’s right. I knew he wouldn’t let me help, but that doesn’t mean I won’t have my eyes and ears open while you’re here, whether Aaron likes it or not.”

  “Jackson—” Aaron growled his friend’s name.

  But Jackson waved his hand. “Deal with it.”

  Aaron raised his eyebrows. The man was willing to risk his family? “How are the girls? How old is Lena now? Six? Seven?”

  “Six.”

  Aaron put his free hand in his pocket and rocked back on his heels. “And Ellie, how’s your wife these days?”

  Jackson practically pouted. “She’s pregnant.”

  “Congratulations, Jackson.”

  Point made.

  Jackson sighed. “Fine I won’t help. At all.”

  “It’s just not worth risking them.” The risk to himself wasn’t worth mentioning. But then he didn’t have a wife and a family.

  Jackson’s lips thinned. “Enjoy your package.”

  “Thank you. I will.” But his hands shook when he took it. He turned and strode inside.

  * * *

  Mackenzie glanced at the front door of the cabin, which, surprisingly, hadn’t fallen off its hinges with the force of Aaron’s mood. “Is he mad at you?”

  The sheriff’s face creased in a way that let her know he smiled often. “He doesn’t want me putting my family at risk. It’s okay, Mackenzie.”

  “I get the feeling he only cares about his brother, and maybe his friends. He and I hardly know each other.”

  “The Aaron Hanning I know never leaves anything unfinished. It’s a pain when you have to cut and run because that’s what you were ordered to do, or when the situation turns and everything goes sour. There are few things Aaron despises more than not meeting the expectations he set for himself.”

  Mackenzie blew out a breath. The more she got to know Aaron, the more the layers peeled back. She’d only scratched the surface. “Maybe we shouldn’t be talking about this. He might not want to share that stuff with me.”

  “One more thing and I’ll get out of your hair.”

  Mackenzie smiled. “What’s that?”

  He reached back and Mackenzie wondered for a minute if he was going to pull a gun on her. She must have reacted, because his eyes widened as he pulled out his business card. “Just in case.”

  She looked down at multiple phone numbers and an email address for Sheriff Jackson Tate. “Thank you.”

&nbs
p; “Call if you need anything.”

  Mackenzie watched him drive away and ached to leave this place, to go somewhere—anywhere—simply for the sake of being free of Carosa. But that wouldn’t work. He would hunt her until one of them was dead.

  It might be little more than a dream, to think about being a free woman one day. Every single time was a struggle, but the more she practiced, the easier it would be to keep giving control of her life to God. But the reality was, she also had to let go of the past.

  Until then, all she had was the dream of what could be. Even if she didn’t believe it would ever come true.

  * * *

  Aaron looked out the window as his friend drove away. Good. Jackson really needed to get back down the mountain to his family. The longer he spent with Aaron and Mackenzie, the bigger the risk that he would be caught in the cross fire. Aaron had no intention of giving bad news to Jackson’s wife and daughter. Not when it would be all his fault.

  He already had enough on his conscience.

  Aaron slumped onto the couch and ran a hand down his face just as the door shut.

  “Does it hurt?” Mackenzie settled beside him. She touched the bandage on his temple, and he gritted his teeth to keep from swatting her hand away. “It looks better. Not that that’s saying much.”

  The couch moved again, but he kept his eyes closed.

  “So how come Jackson knew about this place when you said no one would find us here? I thought this was some kind of secret hideout for your team. How can it be if the local sheriff knows about you?”

  “I told you, he was part of the team before.”

  “And he just decided to move here on a whim?”

  Aaron shrugged. “It helped to have someone to look out for the place, and his wife wanted to get out of the city. They were in Los Angeles, and she was worried about little Lena.”

  There was a minute of silence, so he turned. She wanted to ask him something, so he waited.

  “At least tell me what state we’re in. Utah? Nevada?”

  Aaron smiled. “It’s not as though I blindfolded you.”