With the Material Witness in the Safehouse

by Carla Cassidy

  “Sam Lanier!” she cried in a strong voice that was at odds with her petite stature. She rushed toward the table with purposeful strides, and as she got closer her dark eyes filled with tears.

  “Mabel, what’s wrong?” Sam rose, his sun-browned face looking worried.

  “I’ll tell you what’s wrong. I cooked up that nice piece of fish you dropped off to me the other night and I fed it to my Jimmy. Now he’s in the clinic bad sick and they’re saying it might be the fish.” A sob tore from her throat as she jabbed a finger in Sam’s chest. “You give me bad fish to feed my husband? How could you do such a thing?”

  There wasn’t a sound in the diner. The other patrons had stopped eating when she’d first called Sam’s name, and the silence was palpable.

  “The doctor said he could die, Sam. What have you done? What have you done?” she said as tears once again streaked down her face.

  The waitress hurried over and placed her arm around the sobbing woman’s shoulder. “Come on, Mabel, let’s go in the back and talk.”

  As the waitress led the distraught woman from the room, Sam sank back into his chair, looking shell-shocked. “She and her husband are my neighbors. We’ve been good friends for years.” He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a wad of money. He pulled off several bills and threw them on the table, then stood. “I’ve got to get over to the clinic and see Jimmy.”

  As he hurried out of the diner, Captain Claybourne curled his meaty hands around his coffee mug. “Bad times ahead,” he muttered more to himself than to Britta or Ryan. “I feel it in my bones—there’s bad times ahead.”

  As if to punctuate his sentence an explosive rumble of thunder clapped overhead.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Moments later Ryan and Britta left the diner. Although the sky lit up with lightning and thunder crashed, not a drop of rain fell from the sky. The wind blew like a banshee, shrieking around buildings like something from another world.

  “We’d better just head back to the cottage,” Ryan said, half yelling to be heard.

  Britta nodded her agreement, the storm filling her with a terrible feeling of portent. Like a malevolent whisper in her ear, like an icy finger pressed at the base of her spine, an inexplicable terror gripped her as they ran beneath the ever-darkening skies.

  They reached home just as the rain began to fall, pelting the windows like tiny bullets. Britta stood at the window and stared out, trying to still the horrible presentiment that held her in its clutches.

  It had to be the storm, she told herself, or maybe it was the talk of a mysterious fever sweeping through the town. Or perhaps it had been the ominous words of Captain Claybourne. But no matter what the reason, she couldn’t shake the overwhelming feeling of doom. She was afraid and she wasn’t sure why.

  She turned from the window to see Ryan seated on the sofa, looking irritated and as on edge as she felt. “I finally realize what you meant when you said this town is sick,” she said as she sank into the chair opposite the sofa. “I feel it now.” She wrapped her arms around herself, chilled to the bone. “It was in the air in the diner—a thick, almost palpable tension.”

  “I’ve felt it since I stood up on that bluff at the wedding and watched Camille Wells go over the edge,” he replied.

  “Do you think the fish is what’s making people sick?”

  “Who knows? It’s possible it’s just a virus of some kind making the rounds.” He got up as if too restless to sit and began to pace the length of the small room. “I know it sounds crazy, but I feel as if my guts are twisted inside out, like something is about to explode.”

  “Something did explode,” she replied. “That poor woman. I guess it was easier to blame Sam’s fish than face the possibility that the doctor doesn’t know what’s going on with her husband. But I know what you’re talking about. I feel a pressure inside me.” She sighed and touched her tender neck, fighting another deep chill as she thought of Michael Kelly’s hands around her neck. “Maybe it’s just because I’m not used to somebody sneaking into my bedroom and trying to strangle me.”

  Ryan smiled tightly. “At least we don’t have to worry about him anymore.”

  She watched him, and the heartache she’d been fighting since they’d had their talk that morning began to press against her chest. Maybe her bad feeling had nothing to do with anything other than the fact that she knew eventually she’d have to tell Ryan goodbye…again.

  To her surprise, tears stung her eyes. She tried to blink them away, but they refused to be controlled. As they oozed down her cheeks she realized they were the result of the combination of both fear and pain. The inexplicable fear she couldn’t place, but the pain in her heart sat directly at Ryan’s feet.

  “I’m going to the bedroom,” she managed to say as she stumbled to her feet. “I’m…I’m not feeling very well.”

  She ran for the bedroom door and closed it behind her, then threw herself across the bed as her tears came faster. Suddenly she was crying for everything that had happened over the past almost eight months of her life.

  She’d had to give up her dream job and the apartment that she had lovingly furnished piece by piece. The entire first twenty-five years of her life all had to be forgotten, packed away and transformed because she’d been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

  And if that wasn’t enough, after all that had been taken from her, she’d fallen in love with a man who was unable to love her back in the way she wanted. He’d left her and she’d wound up here, in this village damned by a curse and having to lose the man who held her heart all over again.

  She knew life wasn’t fair. She’d learned that fact when her parents, good and loving people, had been taken from her far too early. Yes, she knew life wasn’t fair, but she seemed to be taking more than her fair share of hard knocks lately.

  “Britta?” Ryan knocked softly on the door. “Are you all right?”

  “No,” she cried, the word catching with a new sob. “Go away.”

  Of course, because he was the most perverse man on the face of the earth, he did no such thing. Instead he opened the door and came into the bedroom.

  “Why are you crying?”

  “Because I feel like it,” she replied with a touch of aggravation. She certainly wasn’t going to tell him she was crying over him. She was only willing to give up so much of her pride.

  At that moment thunder rattled the windows and she had a flash of someplace strange, someplace that had the faint smell of gas and oil and seashell necklaces hanging from hooks. Night and then day, a weight around her ankle.

  She shot up from the bed and gasped as she felt the evil surrounding her. There must have been something on her face, for Ryan was instantly by her side as she began to shake uncontrollably.

  “Britta, what is it?” He sat on the edge of the bed and placed his hands on her shoulders.

  “Necklaces hanging on hooks, seashell necklaces, some of them completed and some of them still needing to be strung. I saw them in my mind and I smelled oil and fish and I’m so scared.” She frowned and tried to cling to the vision. “There’s something around my ankle and I can’t move. Footfalls coming. There’s something evil out there and I think it wants me.”

  She shivered against him and he pulled her into his arms. “Do you remember anything else?” he asked as his hand stroked down her trembling back.

  She shook her head against his chest. “No, just that.” She squeezed her eyes tightly closed, as if to will away any more of the terrifying images. “I’m afraid, Ryan. I’ve never been as afraid as I am at this moment. I don’t know whether it’s the storm or what Captain Claybourne said or the snippet of memory I just got, but I’m terrified.” She began to sob in earnest.

  “Britta, honey, don’t cry.” He pulled her into his arms and she wanted to stay there forever. She was safe here, in the shelter of his strong embrace. “Baby, you know I can’t stand it when you cry.”

  She raised her head and looked at him and saw what
shone from his eyes. Love. It was there in the green depths, raw and naked for her to see.

  “You love me. I know you do. Ryan, don’t let me go again,” she cried. “Can’t you see that we belong together?” She clung to him as he tried to back away from her. Pride be damned. She had to give it one last shot. She knew that time was running out. She felt it in her heart, the ticking of the clock that would take him away from her forever.

  “It doesn’t matter how we feel about each other, Britta. We’re like oil and water together.”

  “We aren’t,” she protested, and looked at him in frustration. “Sometimes I feel as if you intentionally pick fights with me, and now you’re using that as a weapon against me. I’m not your mother,” she said. “And you aren’t your father. Their mistakes won’t be ours. Don’t you see that?”

  He managed to extricate himself and he stood. “I’m not willing to take that chance,” he said, his voice deep and low with emotion.

  “We talked about building a family, about having children together. You said you wanted that. We both wanted that.”

  “It was a fantasy,” he retorted. “It was just a stupid fantasy we made up for a little while. I don’t believe in curses, Britta. And I don’t believe in fantasies. I’m just not willing to change my life by inviting anyone in.”

  “Then you’re a coward,” she said angrily. She got up from the bed to face him. “You’re allowing the misery of your past to dictate your future. Your parents screwed up your childhood and now you’re letting them screw up the rest of your life. You were foolish enough to walk away from our love once before. Please, don’t be a fool again.”

  For a moment she thought he would yield. There was such a deep yearning in his eyes she thought finally he would grab hold of her and the love they had between them, but he straightened his shoulders and backed toward the bedroom door.

  “Last night I talked to my supervisor and we both agreed it would be best if I am pulled off this case. Sometime in the next forty-eight hours a new agent will be arriving to take my place.” His voice was harsh, then softened. “It’s for the best, Britta. It’s for the best for both of us.”

  “Don’t tell me what’s best for me,” she said with a touch of bitterness. “You’d take a bullet for me, but you won’t take a chance on my love. Just get out,” she said wearily, and was grateful that he did what she asked. He left the room and shut down her heart as he closed the door behind him.

  SHE REMAINED in the bedroom for most of the day, and Ryan found himself sitting on the sofa as rain continued to bombard the windows and her words played and replayed in his mind.

  As a frightened child he’d made the vow never to marry, and in all his years as an adult, nobody he’d met had been able to change his mind.

  Britta had been the only woman in his life who had made him wonder what it would be like to share a life with her, to share a future. He’d never been as happy as he’d been during the months he’d shared with her, but he believed in his heart that it had been nothing more than a fantasy spun by time and place.

  He didn’t know how to be a husband. He sure as hell didn’t know what it took to have a good marriage. She’d been right about one thing. He had consciously picked fights with her, pushed all her hot buttons to keep her at a distance. Unfortunately, it hadn’t worked.

  She was also right about something else—he was a coward. He’d rather lose her now than invest months…even years and then have her leave him. It was easier for him to break her heart now than to risk his own being broken later.

  It was just after five o’clock when the rain stopped and the sun began to peek around the last of the dark clouds. Hunger drove him into the kitchen and he was seated at the table and eating a sandwich when Britta came out of her room, obviously driven by hunger, too.

  She looked as tired as he felt, drained from the emotional warfare that had gone on between them. She nodded to him as she padded across the floor to the refrigerator. He didn’t say anything to her, but rather waited for her to speak.

  She made herself a sandwich, grabbed a can of her diet drink and then joined him at the table. “It looks as if the storm is moving away,” she finally said, breaking the silence between them.

  The skies were clearing, but his heart remained dismal and gray. “Yeah, looks like it,” he agreed. It had always amazed him, her ability to let go of a fight after it happened. During the previous time they’d spent together, he’d learned that she was a woman who didn’t hold a grudge, that once the arguing was over and she was certain that he’d heard what she was saying, she was through.

  She took a bite of her sandwich and chewed and looked out the window where the sun slanted down at odd angles from the partly cloudy sky.

  “Do you know who they’re going to send here to protect me?” She finally looked at him and her gaze was neutral, not displaying any kind of emotion at all.

  “Sorry, I don’t.”

  “He probably won’t care about the missing four days of my life, will he?”

  Ryan frowned. “No,” he answered truthfully. “I think probably he’ll just begin the process to get you relocated, unless you want to stay here.”

  Once again she peered out the window and a slight tremor shook her body. “No, not here, that’s all I’ve decided for certain.”

  “Britta, earlier you said something about a place with the seashell necklaces hanging from hooks and the smell of oil. Have any other flashes of memory come back to you?” If there was one thing he’d like to do before he left here, it was to solve the mystery of those missing four days of her life.

  He didn’t feel right leaving that question unanswered and knew that her new handler would just want to get her settled in a new place as quickly as possible.

  In fact, Ryan had known that his supervisor had only been indulging him in allowing them to stay here in Raven’s Cliff for as long as they had. But Ryan didn’t like unsolved mysteries. Part of the reason he’d joined the FBI was because he liked solving puzzles.

  “No, nothing else,” she replied. She picked up a chip from her plate and munched it with a crunch. “But I haven’t been trying to think of it.”

  “Concentrate and tell me again what you remembered.”

  She frowned and her hand reached up to twirl her hair. “I saw shell necklaces like the one I was wearing when you found me. They were hanging on hooks.”

  “And where were the hooks?”

  “In the wall, a rough-hewn wooden wall.” She looked at him in surprise.

  “Keep focused.” He pushed the plate with the last of his sandwich aside. “Was the wall painted? Anything specific about the wall?”

  Her frown deepened and she shook her head, her finger twirling her hair faster. “No, it was just a wall.”

  “And what about the smells? Tell me again.”

  “Gasoline…oil…fish.” She dropped her hand from her hair and sighed in frustration. “That’s all. I can’t remember anything else.”

  He leaned back in his chair and worked it around in his mind. “Is it possible you were being held on a boat?”

  She tilted her head to one side, the warm sunshine drifting in the window and playing on her hair, the side of her lovely face. “I don’t know. I guess maybe it’s possible. But, I don’t remember any rocking motion or the sound of an engine, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a boat.” She dropped her hand from her hair. “There are still a lot of things I just don’t remember.”

  Ryan thought of all the fishermen he’d met over the past couple of weeks. Certainly they were a colorful bunch of men, but was it possible one of them was a weirdo who abducted women for some nefarious purpose? Or maybe she hadn’t been on a boat at all. For all he knew, the guilty man could be a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker.

  The fact that in her flash of memory she’d seen several necklaces worried him. Why have that many necklaces if you didn’t intend to put them around the neck of another unsuspecting victim?

  What in
the hell was going on in Raven’s Cliff? The mayor certainly seemed to have secrets, the fish were too big to believe and a mysterious illness was sweeping through town. A bride had been blown off a bluff, and an unknown assailant had abducted Britta for an equally unknown reason.

  “I’ve never been a big believer in curses before,” he said, “but I have a feeling if I stayed around here long enough, I’d believe.”

  “It’s like there’s a veil of something bad that covers the whole town,” she said thoughtfully. “Even when the sun does finally shine, it’s like it can’t quite penetrate the shadows.” She gave a small laugh. “I sound more than a little half-crazy.”

  “No, not at all,” he protested. He was just grateful she was talking to him, that at least for the moment there was no emotional baggage between them. “I know exactly what you’re saying.”

  “By nature I’m hot-blooded and rarely get cold, but from the moment I woke up in the clinic I’ve had a chill deep inside me that just won’t go away, and I don’t think it’s just a result of whatever happened to me while I was here. It’s something in the air.”

  “You won’t have to worry about it for too much longer,” he said. He’d decided he would encourage the new agent that arrived to get her out of here as soon as possible. She was more emotionally fragile than he’d ever seen her.

  “But what about the strange spells I get? Like walking into the ocean that day we went to find Ingram Jackson?”

  “I’m hoping that once we get you away from here, whatever it is will pass.” There was no question that the fugue states she fell into worried him, but there was nothing they could do except hope that time and distance would solve that issue.

  “Maybe I should definitely decide to relocate to a desert area where there’s no water for me to walk into,” she said.

  For the next few minutes they ate in silence. Although there was no overt tension between them, a sadness emanated from her and he knew that he was at least partially responsible for that sadness.