Hidden Witness

by Beverly Long

  Then the room went dark again.

  “Raney?” he said.

  She didn’t answer. He took a step toward the bed. “Honey, it’s okay. Just a little Missouri storm.”

  Still no answer. He got close enough that he could touch her. For a minute, he thought the damn bed was shaking. Then realized it was her.

  He forgot all about keeping his distance. He sat on the bed, gently disengaged the lamp from her fingers, set it back on the nightstand and pulled her into his arms. She was all bare arms and legs, and when he tucked her head into his chest, he caught a whiff of mint from her toothpaste. “There, there,” he said. “Nothing to be afraid of.” He wrapped both arms around her and gently rocked her.

  After a long minute, her shaking subsided. But he didn’t let go. Her skin was so soft. She smelled so good.

  He moved one hand up to the nape of her neck and ran his fingers through the soft, sexy hair. He heard her breath catch.

  Would she tell him to stop?

  Not yet, he willed. He needed to hold her.

  “What happened?” he whispered.

  “I heard something and then I thought I saw something in the corner and I freaked out.”

  He strained his eyes toward the dark corner. He needed another bolt of lightning. “I don’t see...”

  “I think it was the curtain. The wind was whipping it around. I...should not have screamed. It reminded me of...before.”

  “Before what?”

  She didn’t answer for a long minute. He heard the rumble of thunder and waited for the lightning. At the exact moment it struck, she lifted her head and looked him in the eye. Her eyes were bright, shiny with unshed tears. He gathered her closer as the darkness settled around them again. The wind was really howling now.

  “Shortly after Harry Malone abducted me, he left me in this small room. There was no bed, just an old two-drawer metal filing cabinet that was completely empty. I slept on the floor. It was a beat-up old wooden floor. Worse than the floors in this house,” she added.

  He steeled himself. She was trying to lighten the mood but he had a feeling that whatever was coming, it was going to be hard to hear. Another rubble of thunder shook the house and Raney jerked. He gathered her just a little closer.

  “It started to storm while he was gone. It was a horrific storm and the entire time, I kept praying that the wind would blow hard enough that the apartment or the house, whatever I was in, would come apart. And then someone would know I was there. Someone would see me.”

  “What happened?”

  “He came back. Just as the storm seemed to hit its peak. I can still see him flinging open the door so hard that it hit the wall. He was drenched. Tonight I heard something hit the house and then I saw the movement and for a minute, I was back there.”

  He wanted to kill Harry Malone. “What happened when he came back?”

  She sighed. “He was angry about something. I’m not sure what. All I know is that he punched and kicked me, adding to the assortment of bruises, bumps and cracked ribs that I already had.”

  Unconsciously, he stroked her ribs through her thin shirt. The idea of a man taking his foot and kicking her made him realize that killing Harry Malone would be too nice. He was going to break every one of his ribs first. Maybe his legs, too.

  “I’m sorry,” he said simply.

  “He never...you know.”

  “I read the report,” he said, which was why he knew it was a damn miracle that this was the first flashback that he’d witnessed. She hadn’t been raped but she’d been brutalized, kicked like a rabid dog.

  “Really,” she said, as if she were trying to reassure him, “I was one of the lucky ones. I got away. Those other poor women didn’t.”

  “But you’re making sure he pays for his sins. You’re getting vindication for each of them.”

  “You know he took my picture?”

  “I did know that,” he said, keeping his tone neutral.

  “The first time he did that, I didn’t know what to think. He’d tossed me into this barren room and was acting like I’d come for a photo shoot. ‘Stand up. Sit down. Put your arms above your head.’ It was bizarre. He must have taken eight, maybe ten different shots. And with no explanation, he left. It was crazy, just crazy.”

  The storm was hitting its peak in intensity. Lightning cracked, briefly brightening the room. “Rain is really coming down hard now,” he said, wanting to give her a chance to change the subject.

  She didn’t take the bait. “The next time he came back, he showed me pictures of the other women. I still didn’t get it at first. Because the women looked okay. Scared, sure. But not hurt. In a crazy way, I was hopeful that maybe I wasn’t all alone. That maybe the other women were down the hall. But he kept making me look at more pictures on his camera. And the women started looking worse. Bruised. Dirty. So tired. I started to get it. And then I saw the pictures where they were dead.” Her voice had cracked at the end.

  “All part of his psychological torture,” he said.

  “Yeah. He wanted me to know what my fate was going to be. It was so horrible to know that these women had been alive and then killed, and to know that the same thing was going to happen to me.”

  “He was pretty sure of himself,” Chase said. The son of a bitch had underestimated Raney. He’d only shown her the pictures because he was so confident that she’d never get away.

  “He told me that he was a storyteller. That the women in the pictures were characters in his story and that he liked me so much that he wanted me to have my own story. It became very clear that he got off on showing me what had happened to the others.”

  He could hear the anguish in her voice. He bent his head, brushed a kiss across her shoulder. “It’s over, Raney.”

  She sucked in a deep breath. “All I knew is that if I didn’t find a way to get away from him, it wouldn’t be long before another victim was looking at pictures of me.”

  He put his hand under her chin and gently turned her face. If there had been light, he would have been able to look her in the eye. “But he underestimated you,” he said. “You were smarter and braver than he could have ever anticipated. You got away when he was absolutely confident that you couldn’t.”

  “Never underestimate the power of nail polish,” she said, her tone solemn.

  When he’d read the report, he’d been both fascinated and impressed. He wanted to hear her explanation but didn’t want her to have to relive it if it was painful. “You didn’t, that’s what is important.”

  “It was all I had. When Malone grabbed me as I was walking home from Next Steps, he took my purse and my cell phone. I never saw them again. But he didn’t think to check my pockets. And I had a bottle of topcoat. I’d polished my nails at home that morning but had been running late and decided I’d add the topcoat—that’s the final coat that makes the nails shiny—during my dinner break. I did that and dropped it in my skirt pocket.”

  “And you figured out how to use that as a weapon.”

  “Not at first. There was nothing in the room but that damn empty filing cabinet. I tried to pick it up, thinking maybe I could throw it at him, but there was no way. I stared at it for hours until I finally figured out that it was put together with bolts and screws. And I could use the washers, the flat metal part that secures the screw.”

  “But you didn’t have any tools.”

  “No. Not even a darn plastic knife. Malone wasn’t stupid. I had to use my fingers. At one point, I was totally freaked out because I sliced my finger up and it was bleeding and there was blood on the screws that I couldn’t get off. I was so afraid that he was somehow going to see that. And there was no way that I could get some of the screws loose to get to those particular washers. But I finally managed to get six. Then I used the topcoat to bind them together, so that they made a hard round stack. Each washer was thin and so six together didn’t make much but I thought it might be enough.”

  “For?” he asked.

 
“To mess up the lock. Before he came into the room, I could hear him walk down the squeaky hallway and then flip the bolt lock on the outside of the door. When he left, same routine in reverse. My plan was to stuff my contraption into the bolt-lock hole so that when he turned the lock to throw the cylinder, the cylinder would get jammed and the lock wouldn’t catch.”

  “Smart.”

  “I don’t know about that. But it was the only plan I had and time was running out. He would occasionally give me some water but no food. That’s what he used the filing cabinet for. He would set my water on it. Isn’t that crazy? He didn’t care about killing me but he didn’t want to set my water on the floor?”

  “The mind can be very twisted,” he said.

  “All I knew is that I was getting very weak, and based on the pictures that I’d seen of those other women, I thought my time was running out. My plan was full of holes. I needed to smear a fresh layer of topcoat on one end of my washers just at the right time so that when I inserted them into the hole, the polish would adhere to the back of the lock receptacle. Assuming I managed that, my washers needed to be thick enough to keep the door from locking. So many unknowns, not the least of which was that I needed to get near the door without him seeing me.”

  “But you knew you had to do it.”

  “Yes. And it helped that he was a man of patterns. I knew he would come in, set the water down on the filing cabinet and then start posing me for pictures. He always kept the door open when he was with me, which told me that there was no one else around. I’m sure he assumed that if I tried to escape that it would be relatively easy to overpower me. Anyway, he had a favorite pose. I would have to stand up, put both hands around my neck and tilt my head just so, to make it look as if I was strangling myself.”

  Malone was a sick bastard.

  “So I did it. Just like I had before. But then I pretended that I’d somehow choked myself. I started gagging and coughing and I was doing such a job of it, I actually thought I was going to throw up. I knew that Malone was a germ freak. At Next Steps, he would sanitize the workstation before he would use the computer or the telephone. He wouldn’t eat food that somebody had left in the break room because he hadn’t seen it get prepared. I was counting on the fact that it was going to gross him out and he’d move away. It did and he turned away. Long enough for me to shove the washers in the hole.”

  “What happened when he left?”

  “I was shaking so hard I could barely move. I heard him flip the lock like always. It didn’t catch. He opened the door, flipping the lock back and forth. The cylinder was working fine, of course. Then he looked into the hole. When you look into a dark hole, you can’t see anything. He poked his finger in and maybe felt something, maybe didn’t, but he just looked irritated, not suspicious of me. He closed the door. I heard his footsteps. I figured he was going in search of a flashlight or something. I didn’t wait around to find out. I got out of that room fast. Made it to the street. Didn’t know where I was but knew it was a poor urban area. It was nighttime. I just started running as fast as I could. I turned a corner and flagged down a car. I’m surprised they stopped because I was a mess. But they did. And the rest is history.”

  “Amazing,” Chase said.

  “He would have realized very quickly that I was gone. Maybe he tried to come after me and catch me. Maybe he simply decided to cut his losses and run. The police caught him in his car. They think that he was on the way to a small private airstrip. He has his own plane and perhaps was contemplating leaving the country. Of course, he denied everything. And he’d been smart. Besides kicking me, he’d never physically touched me. There was none of my DNA on him, just at the apartment.”

  But the jury would believe her. They would hear from her, from the old couple who picked her up on the road, from the detectives who had taken her original statement. They would hear from the forensics experts who could place her in that apartment because of the blood she’d left behind in the filing cabinet.

  Lightning flashed and he hoped to see peace in her eyes. But he saw something else, something more.

  Heat. Want.

  “Chase,” she said, her voice a mere whisper. “Stay with me.”

  He knew all the reasons why it was a bad idea. But none of that mattered. What did was that Raney, sweet Raney with her soft skin and sexy hair, was in his arms.

  He leaned in, found her mouth and kissed her. Her mouth was warm and wet and when he settled in, it seemed as if he’d been waiting a lifetime for kisses like this.

  He framed her face, running the pads of his thumbs across her cheeks, her little ears, her long, pretty neck. The kisses were long and succulent and he felt as though he could jump tall buildings.

  The storm outside was moving away, leaving only the occasional quiet rumble of thunder in the distance. “Raney?” he whispered, giving her one last chance.

  In answer, she put his hand on her breast.

  He made love to her. And when she came apart in his arms, and he quickly followed her over the edge, he felt something shift in his soul, and knew that nothing would ever again be the same.

  * * *

  RANEY DOZED AND when she woke up, the room was dark and she was very warm. It dawned on her that Chase Hollister made one hell of a blanket.

  He was naked and wrapped around her.

  Delicious. The sex had been better than red-velvet cake with cream-cheese frosting. And that was saying something in her world. He’d been intensely focused on learning her body, understanding her needs, pleasuring her.

  That could easily go to a girl’s head.

  She stretched a leg and he pulled her in just a little tighter. “Doing okay?” he asked, his voice husky with sleep. “Does this hurt your ribs?”

  “No, it’s fine,” she said. “It doesn’t sound as if it’s raining anymore.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said.

  Would he roll over, roll away, now that she no longer needed his comfort? Sex with her husband had been like that. They’d do it and he’d no more than finish up before he’d flop on his back with his hands folded on his chest and be snoring in five minutes. Oblivious to her needs.

  She waited. Counted to one hundred. Did it twice more. “Chase?” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “I...I don’t want you to think that you have to keep holding me. I’m really okay.”

  He sighed. “So you’re chatty after sex?”

  Was she? “Uh...I don’t think so.”

  “Good. Talking takes energy and I’m trying to conserve mine.” He flexed his hips and she could feel him pressing into her. He appeared to be recovering just fine.

  “For?” she asked, letting blonde Raney have full reign.

  He neatly flipped her on her back. Still on his side, he bent his head to her breast and took a nipple into his mouth. Heat arced through her core and a soft moan escaped.

  He lifted his mouth, barely breaking contact. “For this.”

  Heat. Need. Blind want. It raced through her. She moved quickly, bringing a hand up, placing it flat on his chest, pushing hard. He went with it, falling onto his back.

  This man wasn’t oblivious. He was terribly sexy and wonderfully aroused. She straddled him. “I’m ready. But this time I get to drive.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The next time Raney woke up, the room was flooded with light. Natural light. It was morning. She wondered if the electricity had come back on. The cord of the lamp lay on the floor, disconnected from the outlet.

  Chase was still wrapped around her. His knees tucked behind her knees. His arm casually draped across her stomach. His chin resting on her head.

  Perfect.

  “Good morning,” he whispered.

  She wondered how long he’d been awake. She hoped she hadn’t snored. “Hi,” she said. “What time is it?”

  “I’d say about seven. Ready for coffee?”

  “Of course. 24/7.”

  He laughed. “My kind of girl.”

 
; Was she Chase Hollister’s girl? Lover, sure. But girl? That somehow seemed more intimate, more special. She didn’t have a great deal of experience with “the morning after.” She’d dated one man after her divorce and they’d slept together but never spent the night together. It had been at his apartment and she’d always gotten up and left.

  He moved, sitting up in bed. Blonde Raney shifted onto her back so that she could see him. He’d been pretty damn magnificent in the dark. And he was even more so in the light of day. He had his back to her. His sleek shoulders were broad and his back was all firm with muscle that narrowed down nicely to his waist.

  She raised up on an elbow, wanting to get a better look. He shifted suddenly, as if just realizing that he was naked. But before he could pull up the sheet, she saw his leg. Saw the fresh scar.

  “What happened?” she whispered.

  He put his hand over the injury. “Pretty ugly, I know.”

  “Tell me,” she said.

  “About six weeks ago, I took a bullet in the thigh. Got lucky in that it didn’t break a bone but I had a whole lot of muscle damage.”

  “Did you have surgery?”

  “Right away. I was bleeding badly.”

  “And you’ve been crawling up and down off the roof,” she said. And doing other gymnastics in bed, she silently added, feeling guilty.

  “It’s fine. The activity strengthens it.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” she asked.

  She was prepared for him to tell her that it wasn’t any of her business. Instead, he looked her in the eye and said, “I didn’t want you to be worried that I wasn’t a hundred percent capable.”

  If she had been, that misbelief would have been well and truly debunked at this point. “I think you’re one of the most capable people I know,” she said.

  “I don’t want things to be awkward between us,” he said, his voice giving no clue as to how he was feeling.

  Awkward as in he was concerned that she might not ever let him leave the bed again?

  Awkward as in she might be willing to pay for another night like the previous one?