Witness Protection

by Morgan, Paris

  “I don’t have anything against you or how you look. I’m sure there are a lot of other guys that would be thrilled with all the attention you’re willing to give them. I want someone that I have a connection with, and I don’t think it’s going to be with you. I’m sorry.”

  “Stephanie,” I touched her arm gently, “You’re nice, but you’ll have to find a different guy. I’m not trying to put you down, but I don’t think I’m what you’re looking for.”

  It was never easy to let some down or tell them they weren’t the right fit.

  Her fist hitting the side of my cheek was a complete surprise.

  “Maybe next time you’ll think before you a lead a girl on like that.” She turned to race back inside.

  I rubbed my cheek and shook my head. She just didn’t get it.

  Instead of going back over to where my friends were hanging out, I turned to the crowded bar grabbing an empty seat as one opened at the very end.

  It would be better to give Stephanie a chance to calm down before we had to be in the same social setting again.

  A laugh rang out and I turned to see the brunette listening to one of the old-timers tell her a story.

  She was asking questions and appeared to be paying attention instead of just trying to get tips from him.

  My curiosity piqued, I sat there wanting to know more about her. It might not be a completely horrible evening after all.

  I spent two hours watching her and sipping on a beer. From all appearances, she loved her job. There was some harmless flirting with the guys and gals around her, but she turned down any offers to dance from most of the patrons with a smile.

  It was impressive how she changed hats from being the bartender to waitress as she worked the room to keep everyone happy.

  Scanning the room as I watched the bartender, I met Stephanie’s gaze by accident. The sneer that crossed her face as she noticed where my gaze had been on the bartender was filled with anger.

  Realizing that now might be a good time to escape to the restroom, I motioned I’d be back and tipped my stool so no one would take my spot.

  There wasn’t a good reason to avoid my friends and Stephanie, it was just that I didn’t really want any drama.

  Nearing midnight when I returned after waiting as long as I could or rather hiding as long as I could, I came out to find the pool table empty and my friends are gone.

  “Did you want another beer?” Her voice at my elbow saved me from searching the room to find her.

  “Yeah, thanks.” I wasn’t sure how to get things going that wasn’t a complete come on.

  “What’s your name, ma’am?” As far as conversation starters went it wasn’t the worse that I’d ever come up with.

  “Allie.” She smiled, “Oh, the girl you were with earlier said to give you a message if you ever came out from hiding in the restroom.”

  “She hopes you find the right type of girl to take care of you. God knows it’s going to take a tough one to knock you off that horse you rode in on.” She delivered the message with a straight face.

  “Oh, God. I feel so bad.” I swiped a hand over my face in regret. “It’s not like we dated. She wanted to, but I couldn’t get her to understand that wasn’t what I wanted.”

  It was important to me that Allie didn’t think I was sleeping with one girl and then dumping her for the next one a kind of guy.

  “Hmm,” Allie mumbled non-committally as if it was the same old thing she’d heard before.

  “We had nothing in common, but for some reason, she thought we would be a good match. I’ve been trying to let her down gently for weeks and finally decided that it was time to honest even if that hurt her feelings. I was horrible, wasn’t I?”

  “Way to, Justin. Put another girl down so that this one won’t think you’re a jerk.” I wanted to slap myself for being so stupid.

  “Don’t feel too bad, she needs to take that stick out of her butt if she wants to catch a guy. It’s not like you can force someone to like you. It’s either there or it’s not.” She shrugged, “Here’s that beer. It’s on me this time.”

  Money in hand she rang it up and paid for it before moving onto another customer.

  I took the money I’d been about to pay with and slipped it into the tip jar. Not wanting to stare, I made conversation with those next to me for a while.

  The other girl came back by, “Last call, dude.”

  “Uh, thanks.” I glanced around trying to find Allie again and she noticed.

  “Allie isn’t really the type to pick up someone at the bar.” She placed the new glass in front of me. “Better luck next time, huh?”

  Starting to feel like a stalker, I quickly gulped down the beer and took off for one last pit stop.

  The parking lot was almost empty when I stepped outside and noticed that I was a little more intoxicated than I would have like to be driving home. I needed to find a way to sober up and the small food stand across the street seemed like the perfect idea.

  I was still eating while leaning against my truck when the bouncer, Stan walked Allie out to her car.

  He noticed me standing there and made his way over.

  “Look, dude, I get that you want to try for a date or something, but you need to go home. I’ll have to call the cops if you don’t head out.” His large frame blocked my view of Allie as he stood between me and her.

  “Sorry,” I crumpled up the burrito wrapper, “Got lost in thought. I’ll head home now. I didn’t mean any harm.”

  Both of us stopped in our tracks when a muffled cry reached our ears.

  Allie’s car swerved and then revved up before slamming into the dumpster at a good rate of speed.

  Stan screamed her name as he started to race toward her with me following close behind.

  The engine was smoking as we arrived only to be startled when a man jumped out of the back seat.

  He ran toward the street and a moment later a truck started with a roar.

  “I know the back seat was empty when I walked her over a minute ago. I checked.” Stan muttered as he pulled open her door.

  “Allie are you okay?” I questioned when she didn’t move.

  This wasn’t the way I wanted to get closer to her. She had to be all right.

  Chapter 11

  Allie

  Things hadn’t gone the way I’d planned for my evening at all. It was never fun when someone didn’t come in for work, but we had two not show up on a Friday night. Leaving me and Jessica to tend bar and waitress for the evening.

  We’d worked together for six months and had established a routine for closing up quickly even when we were completely exhausted.

  “I’ve got the trash if you can finish up the dishes?”

  “Sure, just finished restocking the beer.” She wiped a hand across her forehead to stop the sweat from running down her face.

  Emptying all the cans of trash and cleaning the bathrooms, I made it back to the front in time for us to split the tips from the evening.

  “We made out pretty good for a Friday night with only two of us.” I waved the cash in the air. “Here’s your half.”

  “If we had been any busier, we’d be dead by now. I hope they can get us some new help by next weekend. Tomorrow is going to be a killer.” She rinsed the last glass and placed it on the counter before she joined me.

  “Trevor called in Trudy and her daughter to help out next week or if we need them two until we have a few girls trained.”

  “Hey, girl don’t wait for me. I have to talk to the boss about that night I needed off next month since we’re so short-handed. I want to be sure it’s on the schedule.” She waved away my protests, “Shoo, I trust you so take your half and go home.”

  “Thanks, I’m exhausted.” I pocketed my portion and made my way over to the door where Stan was waiting to escort me out to my car. “See you tomorrow and we can do it all over again.”

  I had parked with the driver’s side door facing the bar. With Stan there, I c
rouched down and took a look under the car to make sure nothing suspicious was under it.

  Stan peeked into the back seat.

  “Looks all clear to me except for that guy hanging out by his car.” Stan motioned over to the very handsome guy that had been at the bar all evening. “I’ll get him to head on home.”

  “Thanks, Stan.” I tried to find Julie’s undercover car, but it was too dark to see where she’d parked. I never heard the back door open or see the figure climb into the back seat until it was too late.

  The car started and I was almost to the edge of the parking lot when two hands closed around my throat from behind and a cord was jerked into place pinning me to the headrest. All of my air was cut off and I struggled to think of what to do in a situation like this.

  “How are you supposed to hurt an attacker when they are behind you?”

  The normal self-defense moves flashed through my mind as my attacker pulled harder.

  “There’s only one way to stop this kind of attack and it was to catch my attacker off guard.” Starting to lose consciousness, I did the only thing I could think of and stepped on the gas aiming for the dumpster at the edge of the lot.

  Just as we were about to hit going over forty, I slammed on the brakes causing the attacker to loosen his grip.

  The impact from the dumpster sent waves of pain through my body, but I’d known it was coming whereas the person in the back hadn’t.

  Being thrown back with no airbag or seat belt, he was thrown against my seat with force. Groaning as he held onto his side, I could only watch as he opened the door and limped toward a truck parked on the side road.

  Not sure how badly hurt he was, I knew that he was going to have to seek medical attention.

  “Allie! Wake up!” Fingers snapped in front of my face as I tried to focus and open my eyes.

  “Where did the guy go?” I jerked up from the seat only to find myself in the arms of the guy from the bar. When I tried to look behind me, my neck hurt from moving too quickly.

  Stan’s voice was talking urgently to a 9-1-1 dispatcher telling them there’d been an accident.

  “Julie. Where’s Julie? He shouldn’t have been able to get past her.” Frantic, I took Justin’s offered hand and climbed out not caring that my body was protesting.

  Almost collapsing, Justin caught me and held me up.

  “Where was she parked?”

  “Over there.” I waved toward the lot with the food truck that was empty now except for two cars.

  He followed my wild motion and handed me over to Stan.

  “Stay here and I’ll go check on her.” He took off running and Stan tried to hold onto me while talking to the person on the phone.

  Catching my breath, I stood on shaky legs and started to move toward her car.

  Stan let out a curse and hung up as he followed me.

  Justin had gotten the door open and ripped his shirt off to put it against the wound in her side.

  “She’s alive, but her pulse is faint. I think she might have been here for a while.” He glanced back at us.

  “Do you think she’ll live?”

  “Not sure. It looks like she was stabbed. If they can stop the bleeding and there’s no internal damage, then it’s a strong possibility.”

  Sirens filled the air.

  I took in a ragged breath and held back tears of relief that help was on the way.

  Most of the town was asleep at this time of the morning so they arrived quickly and the EMTs moved Justin out of the way.

  Officers arrived on the scene as word spread that one of their own had been hurt.

  I hadn’t said much but stayed out of their way as they loaded Julie onto a stretcher and raced her into the ambulance.

  The police chief showed up as did the sheriff, both alerted to the fact that Julie was the one who had been stabbed.

  “Hey, there ma’am. Did you happen to see anything that might help us?” The chief himself was asking the questions.

  “Um, I came out to get in my car and someone tried to choke me to death. I ran into the dumpster over there and the guy jumped out the back.” My hands rubbed at my throat at the memory. “This guy and Stan pulled me out and called 9-1-1. That’s when I remembered Julie and he ran over to see if she was okay.”

  “Let’s get another ambulance over here to take her to the hospital.” Chief Roberts ordered. “If we need anything else, we’ll follow up at the hospital.”

  Justin appeared right then with my backpack in hand.

  “Thank you, again,” I whispered. He might not be a knight in shining armor, but he was winning lots of points for trying.

  “No problem. I thought you might need it.” He tilted his head as the second ambulance arrived. “Do you want me to come to the hospital with you?”

  “Oh, uh. I’ll be fine. Just a few scratches. I’m more concerned with how Julie is doing.” I waved off his concern as I climbed in the back with the EMTs trying to poke and prod me all over.

  “Ma’am, we have to have you put on this brace until they can examine you. You might have harmed your neck or back and the endorphins aren’t letting you feel pain yet.” The EMT held up the brace insistently.

  “All right.” I gave in as they closed the doors and began to drive toward the hospital.

  It took over an hour for a doctor to see me after the x-rays and a CT for my head were done.

  They wanted to make sure they’d covered their butts and I couldn’t sue them if something else went wrong.

  “You’ll have some bruising for a few days and be a little sore. Thankfully, nothing is broken or fractured.”

  “Can I go home?” I wasn’t wanting to be by myself after this, but at the same time, a stay in the hospital wasn’t going to happen.

  “Uh, I don’t see why not. You didn’t have a concussion. There might be a scar where the rope or wire cut into your throat, but nothing was seriously damaged. We can keep you overnight if you’d like, but if you have someone to check on you then there’s no reason for you to stay.” He checked a chart and wrote a few extra things.

  “No, thanks. I’ve been around here more than I want to. Really.”

  “Okay, I’ll get a nurse to come in and give you a few things to help with the pain and discharge you.” He left without another word.

  When the nurse entered, I listened to all of her instructions. Nothing shocking or serious to be worried about.

  “Nurse,” I stood with a wince. “Can you give me an update on Julie? How is she doing?”

  “I’m not allowed to give out information of that nature since you aren’t family.” She lowered her voice, “Since she was here with you and Megan last week, I can say that she’s in surgery. They’re trying to repair any damage and are hopeful. You didn’t hear that from me though.”

  “Do you still have my information? I’d like to know if she makes it.”

  “They won’t allow that, but if you were to wait out in the family room. When the doctor updates the chief, you could happen to overhear what he says.” She gave me a wink. “Also, there’s a man out there in the waiting room for you. He’s hot so if you aren’t going to jump on that piece of eye candy just say the word.”

  “Haha, thanks for the heads up. I’ll have to see why he’s still hanging around.” I gingerly picked up my back and made my way down the hall toward the waiting room.

  Sure enough, he was standing right there against a wall with a clean t-shirt showing off all of his abs.

  “Do you like holding up the wall?”

  He straightened at my question.

  “It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.” He held out a hand. “Hi, I’m Justin.”

  “Hey, Justin. I’m Allie.” This time I took his hand. “Have you heard how Julie’s doing?”

  “They won’t tell me anything. I was hoping they’d tell you more about what was going on.” He motioned over to one of the few seats in the waiting room.

  “She’s still in surgery. They th
ink it might be a few more hours until she’s completely stable.” I took a seat because standing suddenly seemed like too much effort. “Thank you for taking care of her when I wasn’t able to.”

  He looked confused at my obvious attempt to let him off the hook.

  “Did I miss something? Are you and Julie together?”

  “Oh, no.” Surprised by his question, I wanted to explain. “We aren’t a couple. It’s been a stressful week and we’ve gotten to be good friends. I’m not sure about Julie, but I’m into men although I’m not really looking for a relationship right now. Too much going on in my life that makes it very complicated for me to be involved with someone right now.”

  He’d told me about letting that other woman down easy and I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea about the two of us. Not that there was an us. I just didn’t need anyone trying to rescue me.

  “Karma must have my number.” He let out a laugh. “Look your car isn’t going to be drivable anytime soon. Stan said he would have it towed to a friend’s garage and get with you on the details later.”

  I started to protest, but he cut me off.

  “Listen, I won’t ask you out on a date, but we could both use a hot meal after the night we’ve been through.” He held up his hands in a don’t shoot gesture. “No strings attached. I can give you a ride to get something to eat and then we can come back here to check in on Julie. What do you say?”

  “That the snack machines here suck and the granola bars have been here for quite a while. I’m in and starving.” I gave him a smile and headed for the door certain he would follow.

  “Well, all right then. My truck’s outside and knows the way to the nearest food source.”

  His truck was outside a fairly new Chevy that had been used as a work truck if the mud accumulated on the tires, was any indication. It was nice to see a guy with practical toys.

  He came around to open the door for me, but I just stood there looking up at the huge gap between the step and how high I was going to have to jump to get into his truck.

  “Thank you for being a gentleman, but how the hell do you get into this thing? Jump?”