Material Witness

by L. A. Mondello

  MATERIAL WITNESS

  By L.A. Mondello

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  Published by: Lisa Mondello

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  Copyright © 2012 by Lisa Mondello

  License Notes

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people unless it is part of the lending program. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for lending through Amazon for Kindle, then you delete it from your device and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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  This book is dedicated with love to my dear friend Scott Ricciuti. Check out his latest CD, Like the Red Haunts the Wine, at http://www.ScottRicciuti.com

  Keep the music alive…

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  "Mondello's latest, a pulse-pounding, pitch-perfect addition to the romantic-suspense genre... Terrific escapist entertainment, as good as anything in Janet Evanovich's oeuvre." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  Material Witness, named one of Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2012!

  “Truly a joy to read.” - Susan Mobley

  Her Heart for the Asking - 4 STARS Romantic Times

  “The Marriage Contract is a very entertaining read.” - Sunnye Tiedemann

  The Marriage Contract – 4 STARS Romantic Times

  “Cradle of Secrets, a story shrouded in mystery, darkness and confusion, is quite difficult to resist…captivating, and often quite emotional.” – Robin Taylor

  Cradle of Secrets – 4 STARS Romantic Times

  “Lisa Mondello's Her Only Protector is an extremely stimulating romance and suspense story.” – Robin Taylor

  Her Only Protector – 4.5 STARS Romantic Times

  “Mondello's action-packed story has a nice developing romance.” – Susan Mobley

  Yuletide Protector – 4 STARS Romantic Times

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  Who does she trust when she’s living the real-life horror of one of her crime novels…

  Bestselling crime novelist Cassie Alvarez, aka Cassie Lang, has murder on her mind when she walks into Rory's Bar underdressed and undercover to research her latest crime novel. Researching the cool, blue-eyed and dashingly handsome man at the end of the bar stirs her senses more than she wants to admit. But is this man of leather armor all he appears to be?

  Playing White Knight to an innocent wasn't how Detective Jake Santos planned to spend his time undercover. But there’s no way "CJ" is what she claims to be, and that nagging tightness in Jake's chest tells him he'd better take her home to safety and leave it at that. Then the barroom explodes with gunfire, leaving a trail of dead that includes a notorious Providence crime boss and an undercover FBI agent. When Cassie’s name is leaked to the media as the only witness to the grisly murders, Cassie insists she only trusts Jake to protect her.

  The FBI wants their star witness happy and will do anything to make sure Cassie testifies. But it is clear to Jake that the shooter isn’t the only person who wants Cassie dead. Not knowing who to trust, he vows to protect Cassie at all cost despite the fact that guarding the beautiful novelist is a serious distraction.

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  Ebooks by Lisa Mondello

  Texas Hearts Series (Contemporary Western Romance)

  Her Heart for the Asking - book 1

  His Heart for the Trusting - book 2

  The More I See - book 3

  Gypsy Hearts - book 4

  Leaving Liberty – book 5 (To be released in 2013)

  Texas Hearts Box Set (Books 1-3)

  Fate with a Helping Hand Series (Contemporary Romance)

  All I Want for Christmas is You - book 1

  The Marriage Contract – book 2

  The Knight and Maggie’s Baby – book 3

  The Knight and the Cowgirl – book 4 (Soon to be released in 2013)

  Tempting Fate Box Set (books 1-3)

  Heroes of Providence Series (Romantic Suspense)

  Material Witness - book 1 (**Named one of Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2012)

  Safe Haven – book 2 (Soon to be released in 2013)

  Nothing But Trouble (Contemporary Western Romance)

  Unsuitably Perfect (Box Set – 3 books in 1)

  Love Me Some Cowboy (Box Set – 5 books in 1)

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dear Reader with chance to win a Free EReader

  Bonus Material

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  MATERIAL WITNESS

  By L.A. Mondello

  Chapter One

  She was going to kill Maureen. There was no doubt about it now.

  Cassie Alvarez yanked down the hem of her too-short red spandex mini-dress, trying to conceal what every man with a pulse at Rory's seemed to be ogling over. She was tired, cold and exposed, but it was no use. No matter how much she covered her bare flesh, she was all out there like the woman of the night she was pretending to be.

  Damn Maureen…and damn her for listening.

  It had taken Cassie all of ten seconds after seating herself at the bar to realize just how big a mistake she’d made in coming to a bar owned by one of Providence’s most notorious crime bosses. When you walk through fire, you get burned. With all the stares she’d gotten just walking across the floor, she felt like burnt toast.

  Definitely murder. It was her forte. The only question left was how? She’d plotted many murders in the past. She was good at it. And nothing was too harsh for what Maureen was putting her through tonight. The least Maureen could have done was come here with her since it was her idea.

  Maureen’s idea. But despite all the convincing, Cassie couldn’t figure out exactly why she’d actually agreed. Her editor had always been good at pulling her strings. And that nauseated Cassie even more than having her thighs stuck to the barstool.

  Note to self: Learn to assert yourself with your editor even if she is your best friend.

  Cassie vowed to do just that right after she was finished wringing Maureen's bony little neck.

  Turning her attention to her diet soda, Cassie used her red-striped straw to play with the maraschino cherry that had sunk to the bottom of the glass. The bartender wiped the polished surface of the bar as he made his way closer to Cassie. She made eye contact with him when came close enough. With her hand still holding the sweating glass, he snatched her drink and dumped the contents into a bucket behind the counter.

  “Hey, I was still drinking that.”

  “You’ve been stirring it for an hour. It’s nothing but melted ice and you’re making a mess of my bar. Doesn’t look good. Here’s another one.”

  Before she could protest further, he had a clean glass full of ice under the soda fountain and was filling it.

  “Don’t worry. I don’t expect you to tip me twice.”

  While her mouth was still dropped open, he made his way down to the other end of the bar, wiping as he went. She'd give anything to be home right now wearing her favorite Boston Bruins tee-shirt and the Brown University sweat pants that, even though they’d seen better days, Cassie refused to give up. Instead of three-and-a-half-inch stilettos, her feet would be warm in her fuzzy slippers. Instead, she was stuck in a bar watching people who’d b
e the inspiration for her next crime novel.

  “Life mimicking art,” she mumbled. “How’s that for stupidity, Cass?”

  She blinked her sore eyes as the haze of the neon lights on the window assaulted them. The quickest way to get out of here was to take notes and get into the head of her character. How could she write about a woman who was so devastated by circumstance, who felt trapped in a life beyond her control, if she hadn’t lived it? She needed to step outside herself to break this block.

  The room was thinning out now, but there were still enough people to talk to. The couple in their fifties, arguing at a table, looked too self-absorbed to do her any good. The “suit” with the combed-over shiny head, sitting alone at a table by the bathroom, looked like he was about to fall asleep in his martini.

  Cassie snapped her glance away from him as he lifted his head in her direction. Better to leave this man with his troubles and not make them one of hers.

  The argument from the couple grew louder. Apparently they’d both had a little too much to drink and were loud enough for Cassie to hear every intimate detail. Someone was walking home tonight.

  And then there was the black-armored thug seated at the end of the bar, staring at her. Yeah she’d noticed. His interest in her was unmistakable. Their gazes locked for a lingering moment. The heat in his eyes was piercing.

  Cassie glanced down at her cleavage and to her bare legs. It couldn’t be the dress. There was nothing but a few scraps of fabric covering her.

  Slowly, she turned to look over her shoulder, just to see if she was wrong and he was actually looking at someone else. The table behind her was empty. When she turned back, it was as if he’d caught her in a radar lock.

  Terrific. “A little too eager beaver, but…” she muttered.

  The guy was hunched over with his long arms draped stiffly on top of the bar with his black leather jacket encasing him like body armor. His strong jaw had a don't-fuck-with-me tightness she was sure was bred of years of hanging out in a dive like this.

  Cassie wanted to feel bad for him. All of them really. What made a person come to a place like this thinking it could resolve their sorrows? She had to find out. Only then would she understand her character.

  As she always did with people she encountered, Cassie began to formulate a character sketch. She couldn't quite come up with one for this guy though. He was…

  Okay, so he was a good-looking thug. If she’d met him anywhere else she would have been…attracted to him. Her insides stirred violently, causing heat to rise from the pit of her stomach, up her chest and to her already warm cheeks, making them flame.

  It’s only research, for God’s sake! She was only pretending to be a hooker to research her next crime novel. It wasn’t like she was actually going to pick up the guy.

  She pulled her cell phone out of her purse and began texting.

  You’re a dead woman, Maureen. Remind me tomorrow how much I hate you for this. Cassie pressed the send button.

  A few seconds later, her phone vibrated. A quick look at the glowing screen and she saw Maureen’s name. Quit acting like a baby! You’re a grown woman. Shake your girls, ask some questions, and then get back to that computer! You’ll be writing in no time! M.

  “If I shake my girls, I’ll fall out of the damned dress,” Cassie said.

  The bartender must have caught her muttering because he was headed in her direction again. Before he could say anything, she said, “I’m all set.”

  With a heaving sigh, Cassie turned her attention back to Mr. Thug with the cool leather jacket and smoky blue eyes. Might as well go for broke. Stretching one of her long legs over the other, tugging at the hem of the obscenely short dress to keep it in place, she tossed him her most seductive smile. She’d talk to him for two minutes tops and then she’d be gone. If she failed, she'd have to give back her advance.

  Or come back here again.

  Maureen would definitely make her come back.

  Cassie shuddered at the thought. One evening out of her life in a bar with grease-lined walls and people was enough for any self-respecting woman. She was staying put until she gathered all the information she needed, and then she was hitting the pavement, back to her comfy but small apartment with locks and security in the nice section of the city.

  CJ Carmen, the main character in all her crime novels, would have the stomach to dance right up to any one of these thugs and demand the information she needed. Too bad Cassie didn't have CJ's gumption.

  That was the good thing about being a writer. No matter what problem she encountered in a book, she could keep working at it until she got it right. You couldn't do that in real life, and Cassie knew that painfully well. In real life, Cassie didn't have the grace and fluidity of CJ Carmen or the confidence with which she moved. She valued control in a world that was filled with so little of it.

  Cassie took a deep breath and gathered all the courage she could muster. She’d created CJ Carmen. She could create a little gumption, too. If she had to take notes from someone, Mr. Smokey Blue Eyes seemed the most harmless of the bunch.

  Which didn't say much for the clientele in Rory's.

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  He was a dead man. Jake Santos glanced at the clock over the line of liquor bottles neatly stored behind the bar and recalled the first rule of surviving undercover law enforcement. If your informant is five minutes late, you’ve waited four minutes too long. He’d been sitting there for fifteen minutes.

  Ty would be pissed.

  Jake couldn’t say he’d blame him either. His former partner had taken a bullet for following emotion instead of the rulebook. But Angel had been insistent. This case was so close to breaking wide open that another few minutes may be worth his time.

  Taking a long pull on his beer, he let his eyes crawl through the seedy bar. Scum bred scum, and Rory's was about as close to the bottom of the barrel as a person got. Most everything illegal that happened in Providence started with a handshake right here at one of these tables.

  Where the hell was Angel?

  He tossed a ten-dollar bill on the bar and waved to the bartender. As he turned to take one last look at the room, he saw her again. Yeah, he’d noticed the leggy brunette “lady” at the far end of the bar for the past fifteen minutes. It was kind of hard not to notice someone who looked as out of place here as his grandmother would.

  He dragged his gaze from her legs and let his attention drift upward toward her painted cheeks. Her dark eyes were the most prominent feature of her round face. Her eyes—from this distance they looked sable—were bright and wide, but not as if she was supporting a habit, like most other women who took to the streets. She appeared more curious than anything as her gaze swept the thinning room, almost as if she were taking mental notes.

  Jake cursed under his breath. He didn’t care how much paint she had on her face, he’d bet his next paycheck she wasn’t a hooker. The only thing they gave a damn about was getting money for their next fix. This one…she was looking for something and it wasn’t a john. She was tugging at her slinky red dress, trying to hide her God-given assets instead of advertising them like most other “ladies,” was another telltale sign she was way out of her comfort zone. No matter how much her high cheekbones were tinted with color to disguise her innocence, it was there just like a neon sign that screamed “hands off.”

  And her eyes were too curious. Curiosity like that was going to get her mugged, raped or dead before the night was over.

  Jake took another pull from the bottle, grimacing at the warm taste of its dregs. He placed the empty bottle in the perspiration ring it had left on the polished bar. He didn’t give a damn what this woman’s reason was for being here. Now that Angel was a no show, Jake was pissed. After weeks of gaining his trust, Jake was sure tonight he'd get a personal introduction to Ritchie Trumbella, bringing him closer to making a case against the local crime boss that would finally lead to an arrest.

  But Angel wasn’t here. There were only a few loca
ls drowning their sorrows at the bottom of a glass before staggering home. Well, them and the Painted Lady at the end of the bar who he knew was headed for trouble.

  Jake groaned inwardly. He'd been fooled before. It may have been a long time ago, but his memory was long. The way she was casing the place…

  Damn. He was a cop. A good one, too. And Jake knew that if he didn’t get this woman out of Rory’s fast, he’d end up reading her obit in the Providence Journal tomorrow morning.

  He motioned to the bartender when he appeared in front of him. Sliding off the barstool, Jake tossed a crisp twenty-dollar bill to the finely polished surface of the bar and tipped his empty beer bottle toward the woman in red.

  “Send another one down to the end, and get whatever she's having.”

  “Diet soda,” the bartender said, stretching his wiry gray eyebrows up in a salute. His chipmunk cheeks glowed a shade darker with amusement.

  “Diet…” Jesus. There had to be one hell of a story attached to this woman. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it.

  He pushed an errant wooden chair back into place against a table as he made his way toward the end of the bar. As he got closer, Jake noticed her eyes were impossibly dark, almost black in color. It was the kind of deep color that made a man fall into them in a drugged daze. Her mouth twitched slightly. His eyes fixed on the small beauty mark just to the side of her lips, and he wondered if she'd put it there as part of her disguise or if it was natural. He fought the sudden urge to brush his thumb along her cheek to answer his question.

  “Have another?” Jake said, sliding into the stool next to her just as the bartender served the drinks and dropped the change from his twenty on the bar. Leaving the money in place, he pushed the soda the bartender just served next to the woman's already nearly full glass.

  The delicate features of her face registered steep panic. If every other signal she’d given off hadn’t been enough, this one just clinched it. There was no way this woman was working.