Protecting His Witness

by Marie Ferrarella

  When he got off duty, she would be about four hundred miles away. She hadn't decided what direction yet.

  Crossing back to the bedroom, Kasey had just opened the closet and taken out her suitcase when an uneasiness overtook her. She wasn't alone. Someone else was in the house.

  She didn't know how she knew, but she did.

  Kasey came to the only conclusion she could. "Zack?" she called out. "Is that you? Did you leave something behind?" Walking out of her bedroom, she came out into the living room.

  And saw the man standing there.

  It wasn't Zack.

  * * *

  Chapter 14

  « ^ »

  As her breath backed up in her throat, Kasey was instantly propelled back two whole years. Back to when she and Jim had turned the corner on that dark street, hurrying to the car they'd left parked several blocks from the theater.

  They were just in time to see a tall, silver-haired, distinguished-looking man in the distance fire two shots point-blank into the man standing before him. The shooter had used a silencer, but the shots weren't silent enough. His face frozen in surprise, the victim sank to his knees even as his life swiftly ebbed away from him.

  Stunned, Jim had shouted an indignant, "Hey!" toward the killer before she could silence him. Terrified, she'd grabbed Jim's arm and started running toward his car, dragging him with her.

  They managed to reach it and get in before the silver-haired man—Carmine Pasquale, they'd later learned—hurried toward them. Jim was gunning the engine and peeling out of the lot before Pasquale could catch up. But not before the man had left a bullet in the rear windshield, narrowly missing the back of Jim's head. It had taken everything she had not to scream.

  Six months later, Jim was dead, not by Pasquale's hand but certainly by his order. People on his payroll were everywhere. Thanks to him, she'd learned to trust no one.

  And now Carmine Pasquale, dressed in a dark gray suit and striking blue shirt, was standing in her living room. She had no doubt the gun in his hand cost more than she paid for rent in the last six months. Rumor had it he believed in quality all the way.

  Pasquale was smiling, but his eyes were flat. Seeing them had her blood all but freezing in her veins. He looked very pleased with himself. She didn't have long to wonder why.

  "I knew you weren't dead. Something in my gut said you were a fighter. That you were still out there somewhere, alive. And I was right." His eyes swept over her. She could almost feel them as he took appraisal. "You really are a smart little girl, aren't you? I almost hate what I'm going to have to do. But some things are inevitable."

  Kasey could feel her adrenaline accelerating. Her eyes swept around the room, desperately searching for something she could use as a weapon.

  Something. Anything.

  "How did you find me?" Her throat felt so dry, she almost croaked out the question. Her voice broke in the middle.

  The mirthless smile widened. His eyes seemed colder, if that was possible. "Nothing's too difficult if you have enough money. I had someone keeping tabs on your grandmother—"

  Kasey stopped being afraid. Anger reddened her cheeks as his words penetrated. "My grandmother? If you laid a hand on her—"

  His laugh infuriated her. "You'd what?" he taunted. "Scratch my eyes out? Honey, in case you haven't noticed, I'm the one with the gun, not you. You are in no position to threaten me."

  And then Pasquale shrugged, as if giving in to some internal debate as to whether or not to put her mind at ease. He decided to be kind. There was nothing to lose by the gesture and he liked to think of himself as magnanimous. Besides, she wasn't going to be alive much longer. He could afford this.

  "And for the record, nothing's happened to your grandmother. At least," he amended whimsically, "nothing I've personally had a hand in."

  Kasey went very still. She wasn't even aware of breathing. Just what was he implying? "What do you mean by that? What's wrong with my grandmother?"

  "Her kidneys are on the way out," he informed her, using the same tone he might have employed to tell her that the newspaper was late. "She's on a transplant list. Right now, she's still at the hospital." The smile on Pasquale's lips turned malicious. "Didn't your boyfriend tell you?"

  A strange buzzing echoed in her ears. This was becoming more and more surreal. What did Zack have to do with her grandmother?

  "Tell me what?"

  "That he's been to see your grandmother. He even took a picture of you to show her. To ask her about you. He's a lot more clever than he looks," Pasquale added, shaking his head as if the fact surprised him. "Delia told him you were dead. Sounded very convincing, too. But she's as sharp a cookie as you are. If I were a betting man," his mouth twisted in amused irony inasmuch as, under an alias, he owed the controlling portion of several casinos and was known to frequent the gaming tables on occasion, "I'd say she knows that you're alive." He laughed dryly at his own oversight. "I think maybe we should have asked your grandmother a few questions eighteen months ago, right after the fire."

  None of this made any sense to her. Why did this man know so much about Zack? She refused to believe that he was on Pasquale's payroll. There had to be some other kind of an explanation for his knowing all this, other than having gotten it directly from Zack. There just had to be.

  "How would you know what my grandmother told him?" she demanded angrily.

  The answer was so simple, it tickled Pasquale. It was always the simple things that everyone tended to overlook. For a moment he thought of not telling her, of letting her go to her grave, wondering. But he wasn't the kind of man who did things without taking credit for them.

  "Let's just say I have some really nice sound equipment in your grandmother's hospital room. And there's this cute little nurse who has a weakness for pretty things that her salary just won't cover. Most people are very easy." Pasquale looked at her pointedly, losing some of the humor from his voice. "You should have been easy. You should have let me buy you off, Doc. Then you could have just gone on with your life."

  She didn't believe him for a moment. "Then I would have already been dead," she contradicted.

  He laughed again. "Like I said, sharp. You're right. But I wouldn't have been so inconvenienced." He took a step toward her, his gun raised. "Get on your knees, Doctor. If you don't fight this, I promise it won't hurt."

  She had no idea where her courage was coming from. Maybe it had something to do with the baby she was carrying, the one who wouldn't get a chance to draw a breath if she died here tonight.

  No, she wasn't about to make this easy for Pasquale. She wanted to live.

  She raised her chin. "And if I don't choose to go gently into that good night?" Kasey asked defiantly.

  He nodded his head. "Poetry. I like that. I like a well-rounded woman." Again, his eyes swept over her, as if seeing her for the first time. There was a note of regret in his voice as he said, "Too bad you and I couldn't have met under better circumstances. As to your question, if you don't do as I say, then you'll find out just how much pain the human body can endure before finally expiring." He cocked the trigger, pointing the weapon at her. "Now, what'll it be, Doc?"

  Exhaling a long, shaky breath, Kasey began to lower herself to the floor. But instead of going down, at the last moment, she threw herself forward and grabbed at his knees, tackling him and bringing him down. The gun went off, emitting a little "ping" as a bullet went into the ceiling.

  Pasquale shouted a curse as he went down, hard. He narrowly avoided splitting his head open on the edge of the coffee table.

  Kasey made a dash for the door, but he grabbed her ankle and pulled her down. Crashing into a stack of books she'd brought home from the shop, she screamed, then grabbed the books and started throwing them as hard as she could at his head. One caught him just over his eye. He let her go and she scrambled away, losing a shoe.

  Screaming an obscenity at her, Pasquale managed to get to his feet and lunge forward. This time, he grabbed a fistful of
her hair and lost no time in yanking her down.

  Reaching up, flailing, Kasey made contact with his face. The second she did, she raked her nails over it, then quickly stuck a thumb into his eye. Gasping in pain, he released her hair.

  Kasey gulped in air as she made a dash toward the kitchen. She needed a weapon, something to make them equal. She frantically remembered the gun she'd hidden in the largest canister. She had to reach it.

  The second she crossed the threshold, she heard two distinctly different shots behind her. Kasey stiffened, waiting for the impact. Waiting to feel the disabling heat of pain spreading over her. Waiting for the blood to appear on some part of her body.

  But there was nothing.

  Was she in shock? Had that anesthetized the pain? Or was she already dead and this was just a scene being played out on some higher plane as she made the transition from earth to another life?

  The next moment, someone's arms closed in around her. There was a knife on the counter. She dove for it, but couldn't reach. The man behind her caught her wrist, trapping her.

  "It's okay, it's okay."

  She heard the deep male voice assuring her, but she couldn't recognize it. Couldn't absorb the words he was telling her, only the tone.

  "He can't hurt you anymore, Kasey."

  Zack!

  A sob tore from her throat as she turned around and found herself looking up into Zack's face. Behind him, Frank checked Pasquale's prone body over for any signs of life. Frank raised his head and moved it from side to side.

  "Someday, you're going to have to find the time to give me pointers and teach me how to shoot like that, big brother."

  Rising, Frank came over to join his older brother, but his attention was focused entirely on her. "Are you all right? Kasey?"

  She couldn't talk. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she finally nodded her head in response.

  Slanting a look toward the body on the floor, a pool of red swiftly widening around Pasquale's upper torso, she forced the words out of her mouth. Words she'd dreamed about saying.

  "Is he really dead?"

  Frank smiled and nodded. "He's really dead," he told her gently.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, struggling not to break down. Struggling not to cry. It was over. Finally over. She could have her life back. She could finally live again.

  She felt Zack continuing to hold her as she heard Frank call in the incident. In a matter of minutes she knew her house would be filled with police personnel and members of the crime investigation unit. She didn't know if she was going to be up to that.

  Right now, all she wanted was someplace to hide where she could come to grips with being on the brink of death, only to have, in the blink of an eye, everything handed back to her on a silver platter.

  Well, not everything, she amended ruefully. Jim was still gone, there was no changing that. But everything else could be back in her life. Her grandmother. Her career. She could walk out her door without scanning the area in fear. Could walk outside without fearing that she was being watched. Followed.

  Fresh tears gathered in her eyes.

  She turned them on Zack. She owed him everything. And then it suddenly occurred to her that he wasn't even supposed to be here. He'd told her he was on duty tonight.

  "What are you doing here?" she finally managed to ask him.

  Zack grinned, so thankful that he'd followed his initial instincts. He didn't even want to think about what might have happened to her if he hadn't.

  "You know, that's been a recurring question in our relationship. You keep asking me that. I've been watching your place ever since I found out who you were, and, more importantly, who was involved in this case." When he'd gone to Janelle with a request, she'd looked into the matter for him and said that the charges against Carmine Pasquale had been dropped since there were no witnesses against him anymore. That was when he knew Kasey's life was in jeopardy. The matter wouldn't change if she took off again. He was determined to keep her safe and in Aurora.

  "And when he wasn't around, I was." Frank winked at her and grinned. "Zack can be pretty persuasive when he wants to be."

  She looked from one man to the other. "But why? Did you know something, hear something?"

  "Just going along with a hunch," Zack confessed. "Mostly, though, I was afraid you were going to take off again." He curbed the desire to run his fingers along her face, to reassure himself that she was actually safe. "That you'd pull a disappearing act without telling me where you were going."

  "So you spied on me?"

  He couldn't tell by her tone if she was taking offense at that—he had two sisters, he knew women could take offense where none was intended—but all he could do was tell her the truth.

  "Guilty as charged."

  She released a shaky breath. She had a feeling there would be more where that came from until her insides finally stopped trembling. She offered a forgiving smile.

  "Well, since you saved my life, I guess I can't be angry with you over that."

  He moved to take her back into his arms. "Glad you see the big picture."

  Kasey stepped back, eluding his movement. "But I can be angry that you went to see my grandmother and didn't tell me about it."

  That caught him off guard. He glanced at Frank, who shook his head, denying any culpability for the leaked information.

  "How did you...?"

  Kasey pointed at the dead man. "He told me. He also said he had my grandmother's hospital room bugged and that he had some nurse on his payroll to keep tabs on my grandmother's visitors. I guess he expected me to show up." Kasey let out a shaky breath. "You should have told me, Zack. You should have told me you went to see her in the hospital."

  "I made a judgment call. You had too much to deal with. I didn't want you to be overwhelmed."

  She wanted to believe him. "So when were you going to tell me?"

  "Soon." And then, because she was looking at him, waiting for him to follow that up with something more concrete, he added, "Probably when I tried to stop you from skipping town."

  She didn't quite make the connection—other than the obvious one. "So you were planning on using that as a weapon?"

  If she thought to embarrass him, she failed. "I was going to use anything I could to keep you from disappearing, yes."

  "Why?" Why would he go out of his way like this? Why inconvenience himself as well as his brother? Yes, they'd slept together, but that wasn't enough to motivate a man to go out of his way like this.

  "If you don't mind my butting in," Frank interjected, his manner clearly saying that he assumed he was being given a pass, "I think that's kind of obvious, don't you?" His words were clearly directed at Kasey, rather than the brother he was ignoring. The brother he was currently annoying.

  "No," she replied.

  "Butt out, Frank," Zack ordered sharply.

  But it was too late for that. Frank continued as if Zack hadn't said anything.

  "Well, it's obvious to the rest of us. The man is in love with you. I've never known him to give up his vacation time to sit in a parked car, voluntarily doing surveillance. Zack hates surveillance work."

  "That's enough, Frank," Zack told him sharply.

  It was Kasey's turn to be stunned. "Is it true? What Frank is saying, is it true?"

  Zack shot Frank an annoyed look that told the younger man he'd deal with him later. "Well, I would have preferred that it had come out under more ideal circumstances, but—"

  "Is it true?" she asked him again, this time more forcefully.

  "Yes, it's true. I love you and I don't want to lose you." He looked over his shoulder at his brother, who was unabashedly watching and listening. "There, are you satisfied?"

  Frank grinned. "In case this little detail escaped you, big brother, I'm not the one who has to be satisfied." He nodded toward Kasey. Just then, he cocked his head, listening. The faint bleating of sirens sounded in the distance. "Ready or not, here come the boys in blue," Frank announced. And then he be
came the professional again. "You can tell them you'll give your statement tomorrow if this is too much for you."

  From the way he said it, Kasey gathered that he thought of her as fragile. Fragile wouldn't have seen her through her ordeal and fragile had no place in her life now.

  She shook her head. "No, I'd rather get this over with tonight," she told him. "I want this all behind me as soon as possible."

  "All?" Zack asked, wondering if she was about to sweep him out of her life after all.

  A smile curved the corners of her mouth as she inclined her head.

  "Most of it," she revised. "Most of it behind me." There was no way she was about to wish him out of her life—or do anything that would remove him, if she could help it.

  "Better." Because he knew he had a limited amount of time before they were overrun by the police Zack made her a quick promise. "And from now on, there'll be no more secrets from each other. I promise," he added solemnly just in case she thought he was referring to the secrets she'd kept from him.

  Guilt swept over her as Kasey thought of the life she was carrying. This was definitely not the most opportune moment to tell the man he was going to be a father, but then again, after he'd just said about no more secrets, she couldn't not tell him about this.

  And if she didn't say anything and he should find out on his own, then he might never trust her again.

  Opportune moment or not, he had to be told. She bit her lower lip. "Zack, I've got something to tell you."

  Zack couldn't exactly say why, but he really didn't like the sound of that.

  * * *

  Chapter 15

  « ^

  But before Zack had a chance to step to the side with Kasey, several uniformed policemen came into the house, their weapons raised and ready.

  "Easy, boys," Zack cautioned them in a low, soothing voice. He held up his badge, displaying it for all to see. "We're on the job. We're on the job," he repeated for good measure.

  Slowly, the tension in the air abated. The patrolmen lowered their guns and holstered them.

  The first one to enter, a redheaded six-foot-six rookie named Royce, looked as if he was about to ask Zack for instructions as to what he wanted done first when he stopped dead in his tracks. The rookie let out a long, low appreciative whistle. His eyes widened as he looked from the body on the floor to Zack. "Is that who I think it is?"