by Jenna Night
HIDING THE WITNESS
Caught accidentally eavesdropping on plans for a major cargo theft, Lily Doyle’s chased by men who want her dead. And she narrowly escapes when Deputy Sheriff Nate Bedford—her former high school classmate—comes to her rescue. The criminals won’t stop until they finish their mission, though, so going into hiding with the handsome lawman is her only shot at survival. With a troubled past hanging over his head, Nate has something to prove—to himself and the community. And saving Lily’s life could be a step in the right direction. But with a deadly crime ring aiming to silence her for good, will hiding Lily at his friend’s secluded ranch be enough to keep them away?
“Where were you hit?”
Nate quickly unbuckled his seat belt and moved toward her.
Her face was drained of color, her dark brown eyes looking bigger than usual.
When she didn’t answer, he started checking her for injuries, carefully brushing aside the bits of safety glass from her side window.
“I’m not hit,” she finally said, her voice oddly calm. She had to be in shock. He glanced at the windshield and saw a hole surrounded by a spiderweb of cracks where the bullet had passed through.
Ambush was Nate’s first thought. But from where? He twisted in the seat to look in every direction around them, but he couldn’t see anybody. “I’m going to unfasten your seat belt.”
“Okay.” Her voice sounded robotic. He didn’t blame her for being scared. He was scared, too. Maybe they were surrounded. Maybe somebody was getting ready to close in on them.
He unbuckled her seat belt and gently tugged down on her arm. “Slide to the floorboard and tuck down as low as you can. Stay out of sight.”
Jenna Night comes from a family of Southern-born natural storytellers. Her parents were avid readers and the house was always filled with books. No wonder she grew up wanting to tell her own stories. She’s lived on both coasts, but currently resides in the Inland Northwest, where she’s astonished by the occasional glimpse of a moose, a herd of elk or a soaring eagle.
Books by Jenna Night
Love Inspired Suspense
Last Stand Ranch
High Desert Hideaway
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HIGH DESERT HIDEAWAY
Jenna Night
Behold, I will do a new thing! Now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
—Isaiah 43:19
My mom, Esther. My sister, Bonnie. My brother, Roy. My kitty, Miss Loretta. I look forward to seeing you all again. Until then, I’ll enjoy the good memories.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my editor, Elizabeth Mazer, and my agent, Sarah E. Younger, for your generous help and support.
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
EPILOGUE
DEAR READER
EXCERPT FROM DEADLY MEMORIES BY MARY ALFORD
ONE
The cold steel tip of a gun barrel bit into the side of Lily Doyle’s neck just below her right ear. The man holding the gun angled it slightly upward, so a single round would have maximum effect.
At least if the worst happened, it would be quick.
Please, Lord, Lily prayed, but she was unable to think of any further words after that. Her knees shook and her breaths came in short, shallow gasps.
“Relax!” the gunman yelled and Lily jumped.
A truck rumbled by on the highway outside the Starlight Mart. “Everybody, just relax!” the gunman yelled again. He’d pulled his dusty gray trucker’s hat down low and flipped up the collar of his jean jacket to try and hide his face. Lily didn’t know his name, but she did know he’d taken over the convenience store because he wanted to capture her.
The gunman’s accomplice, wearing sunglasses and a rust-colored hoodie drawn tight around his face, grabbed an energy drink from a display case. He flung it at the security camera near the cash register where Lily was being held, breaking the camera and sending purplish fizz splattering in every direction. Two wide-eyed store clerks, both looking as if they were barely out of their teens, stood behind the front counter, not far from Lily. They had their hands held up. Hoodie grabbed a second energy drink, threw it and knocked out the camera by the front door.
One of the shoppers screamed.
“Everybody stay where you are,” the gunman hollered. “Don’t move an inch. Don’t touch your phones. Don’t try to act smart or you’ll find your head exploding like one of them drink cans.”
Lily heard a whimpering sound. It came from the trio of high school kids over by the soda cooler.
This wasn’t a robbery. Well, not primarily a robbery. Lily had no idea what these two creeps were capable of, but she did know it was her fault the people in this store were in danger. She’d overheard part of a conversation at her new job that she clearly wasn’t meant to hear. And the two strangers she’d accidentally heard talking had seen her and come after her.
Now she had to do something. Nobody’s going to ride in on a white horse and save the day, Tiger Lily. She’d heard her mother say it a thousand times. It had always been true before. It was true now.
Fear squeezed her rib cage, making it hard to breathe. She took the deepest breath she could, forcing her attention away from the crawling sensation of a bead of sweat rolling down the side of her face. She needed to look around. Figure out her options. There must be something she could do.
Directly in front of her, a scaled-down baker’s rack displayed factory-made muffins, cupcakes and single-serving fruit pies. Through the thick white wires, she could see a wide-eyed woman with her arms wrapped around a boy and girl, maybe five and eight years old, clutching them close to her body.
To the right, midway down the length of cooler doors that covered one wall, stood the trio of teenagers. Slack-jawed and wearing stunned expressions, each one loosely held a neon-colored sports drink as if they’d forgotten they had anything in their hands.
“What are you looking at?” the gunman shouted at Lily as he pulled his arm tighter across the front of her shoulders, forcing her body closer to his. He jammed the tip of his gun harder into her neck, forcing her head to tilt to the side. “You get any smart ideas, you force me to shoot anybody, and their blood will be on your hands.” His lips were close to her ear and his hot, damp breath clung sickeningly to the surface of her skin.
Lily’s racing heart pounded even harder. The interior of the store started to spin a little and she was afraid she might faint. Oh, dear Lord. Help!
She looked through the tall glass windows to the gas pumps outside. Beyond the pumps, a black ribbon of highway wound past the small old store. On the other side of the road, northern Arizona high desert stretched toward jagged mountains. The Starlight Mart sat at a crossroads nearly twenty miles from the nearest town.
A semi rumbled by
on the highway but there was no other traffic behind it.
“We’re just gonna get everybody together nice and cozy and locked up in some office or storeroom, and then we’ll be on our way,” the gunman’s accomplice called out.
Lily’s thoughts turned to news stories of people found murdered in the back rooms of businesses that had been robbed. A chill passed through her body, raising goose bumps on the surface of her skin.
The accomplice pulled a gun out of his hoodie pocket and aimed it at the teenagers, motioning for them to move toward the front of the store. One of the kids tripped over her own feet and fell to her knees, hard. The accomplice laughed.
Lily glanced out the windows again. Her car was pulled up to the front door at a crazy angle, the driver’s door still hanging open.
Hoping someone would pull into the parking lot and end this nightmare wasn’t much of a plan, but fear and disbelief made it hard to think of anything better.
Lily’s entire universe had been upended in less than an hour.
Thirty minutes ago she’d been at work and everything was perfectly normal. Then, twenty-five minutes ago she’d stumbled across a conversation she wasn’t meant to hear. Working a little later than usual at her new job as a part-time clerical assistant, she’d walked through an empty office that was adjoined to the break room. Nearly everyone else had already gone home and the building was quiet. She’d heard indistinct voices, but hadn’t thought much about it. Then, she was able to make out snippets of conversation and her mind had begun to understand a strange collection of words. Cops. Cargo. Lay low for a while. Ditch the guns.
Scared, she’d tried to backtrack through the office, away from the break room and the voices. But she’d bumped into a squeaky rolling office chair, and a man she’d never seen before had yanked open a door and spotted her. He’d demanded to know what she’d heard.
He’d shoved aside the door and started toward her, cursing while trying to grab her. Startled and scared, she’d run from him. Her phone and purse were still at her desk, but her keys were in her pocket. Afraid there would be no one in the office to help her, she’d raced to her car.
Outside she’d looked around frantically for help as she ran, but she was on her own. She’d flung herself into her car, locked the doors and fired up the engine. Without looking back she’d sped out of the parking lot and shot down the short private road leading to the highway, anxious to get to her home in Copper Mesa.
Shaking and numb with fear, she’d barely caught her breath when she realized her car’s low-fuel light was blinking. She’d never make it to Copper Mesa. It was too far. She’d have to head in the opposite direction, toward the crossroads, and hope she had enough fuel to make it to the gas station there.
A couple of minutes later she was pulling off the highway at the Starlight Mart, throwing gravel in a rooster tail behind her. She skidded to a stop right at the front door, jumped out of the car and ran inside, yelling at the startled clerks to call for help. They’d stared at her like her hair was on fire.
She’d forced herself to calm down a little, lower the volume of her voice and try to sound reasonable. But then she’d heard the door behind her being shoved open and the sound of quick footsteps. She’d turned just as the man she’d seen in the office grabbed her hair and yanked her head back. That’s when he’d shoved the gun into her neck.
Her brain knew it had only been a few minutes, but it felt as if that gun had been digging into her skin for hours.
Lily looked again at the people in the store, her gaze settling on the woman with the young children. Their lives were in danger as long as Lily was here.
“I’ll go with you,” Lily said to the gunman, her voice a shaky whisper. “No trouble.” When they got outside, she could break away and run to the highway. Someone driving by might see her and stop. That might be enough to make the gunman and Hoodie let her go while they tried to get away.
The front door of the store opened.
A man walked in. A big guy with shaggy dark blond hair sporting a few sun-bleached streaks. Scruffy beard. Heavy boots. Worn jeans with torn knees, a red T-shirt and a beat-up black leather jacket. He looked like a biker. He wore mirrored sunglasses even though it was now dark outside. He probably wanted to hide his eyes because he was drunk. Or high. After a slight pause, he headed straight for the coolers, toward the section in the back where they kept the soda and beer.
Not the kind of person Lily had had in mind when she’d hoped someone would show up. She turned her head slightly to watch him.
“Don’t even think about saying or doing anything.” The gunman slid his pistol down so it was hidden, but now it was pointed at the base of Lily’s spine. “Make a move and you’ll never walk again.”
Lily swallowed thickly.
His accomplice moved closer to the teenagers and lowered his gun out of sight.
The biker reached the coolers and peered through the glass as if he was trying to decide what he wanted to buy.
Hurry up! Lily thought. Get something and get out of here! He would obviously be more trouble than help. His sudden appearance had ramped up the tension in the store tenfold. The gunman was now holding Lily’s arm in a death grip, his fingers digging deeply into her flesh. His breathing was speeding up, as if he might be getting ready to make a move. The store clerks were getting fidgety, and Lily was worried they might try to do something that would get them killed.
Biker man finally opened a cooler door and grabbed a six-pack of cola-filled cans. Heading toward the cash register, he strode up the aisle toward the man in the hoodie and the group of teenagers. He was tall and broad-shouldered and the cluster of teens moved out of his way.
As he walked past the man in the hoodie, he swung the six-pack and clocked him in the side of the head. In a flash of movement he grabbed the gun from Hoodie’s hand just before Hoodie tumbled into a candy rack and knocked it over. Chocolate bars, mints and packs of gum skittered across the floor as the biker reached beneath his jacket. He pulled out his own pistol and pointed it at the gunman who held Lily. “Drop your weapon!”
The gunman loosened his hold on Lily as he raised his gun to fire at the biker.
It was the chance Lily had been hoping for. She jabbed her right elbow straight back, connecting with the gunman’s ribs. At the same time she raised her left foot and stomped on his instep. Any second she expected to feel the gun blast into the base of her spine or the back of her head, but the gunman shoved her aside as he fired at the biker.
Two cooler doors exploded and glass fell like jagged rain.
The biker disappeared.
* * *
Deputy Nate Bedford crouched on the floor behind an ice-cream cooler. He peered around the edge of the coffin-shaped container and through some wire display racking, watching the gunman at the counter and the woman he’d held by the arm. The man’s unnaturally tight hold on the woman had been the first thing that had caught Nate’s attention when he’d walked into the store. Then he’d noticed the odd way everyone was standing still. And the uneasy quiet.
The car parked at the front of the store with the driver’s side door hanging open had hinted something might be wrong, too. Or the driver could just be incredibly impatient. Nate had seen it all.
The reflection in the cooler doors as he’d searched for his favorite cola had given him a quick sense of who was where in the store. Who looked terrified, and who looked dangerous and ready to snap. By the time he’d found the drinks he wanted, it was clear he’d have to do something.
Nate was on his way home after spending three months working undercover assisting the Phoenix police department’s narcotics unit. The deep undercover assignment had sharpened his observational skills and fine-tuned his ability to read any environment, though the peculiar situation in the Starlight Mart would have been obvious to anybody who was paying attenti
on to their surroundings.
He was exhausted after surviving three months of restless, uneasy sleep every night and his nerves were stretched to their limit thanks to the constant threat of drug-cartel-related violence. He had stopped at the Starlight Mart to pick up a soda to help keep him awake until he got to the Blue Spruce Ranch.
Well, he was awake now.
From his hiding place on the floor, Nate watched the gunman at the counter scanning the store, searching for him. There were large round mirrors in the corners of the ceiling to help detect shoplifters, and reflective glass and steel surfaces everywhere. The gunman was bound to see him any second. Nate shifted his weight and got ready to sprint. Then he heard something. He turned in the direction of the sound.
The teenagers had hit the deck when the gunman started shooting. Now they were getting to their feet. Where did they think they were going?
Nate glanced back toward the front of the store. The woman who was apparently being held hostage by the gunman was also starting to move. Freed from his grasp and shoved to the ground, she’d gotten to her hands and knees and was now crawling toward the front door. Not a good idea. Not yet. The guy in the hoodie Nate had whacked still lay on the floor, moaning. The gunman was obviously spooked and itching to shoot again. Nate had experience with edgy, violent people. This was a textbook definition of an explosive situation.
The woman was still crawling. Her dark hair was tied back, but a few strands had worked loose and fallen around her face. She wore black-framed glasses and looked smart, like a librarian. She looked familiar, too, but Nate couldn’t place her. It could be his mind playing tricks on him. Undercover work always left him edgy and suspicious. It took a little time to transition back into his normal self. Staying up at the Blue Spruce Ranch for a few days would help with that. It always did.
The woman was gutsy, Nate had to give her that. Maybe too gutsy. Any second now she would get too far. The gunman would be afraid she’d escape. He’d panic and shoot her. Nate had to do something to draw the gunman’s fire away from her.