Page 2 of Safeguarding the Witness

“You still don’t believe me.”

“Why should I?”

“How’s this for proof?” When he smiled, he had dimples in both cheeks. His green eyes stood out against his tan. A faint scar bisected his left eyebrow. “Today, Mollie Harper, is your birthday. You’re turning twenty-six but look younger.”

She hadn’t forgotten, but she’d put the date out of her head. When she and her twin were kids, birthdays had been glorious. Their horoscope sign was Leo, and they fit the profile for a couple of tawny lion cubs. With Madison gone, Mollie never felt like celebrating. She glared at the stranger and pulled herself together. He was her best bet for getting to safety. “Do you have a car?”

“I parked two blocks away.”

“Why?”

“So I could check out your neighborhood without being noticed.”

She scoffed. “In that gray linen suit with the silk tie, you don’t exactly blend.”

“I spotted the guy in a parked car watching your house. Didn’t know he was armed until he started shooting.”

“What’s your name, Suit?”

“Spencer Cameron, but everybody calls me Spence. I’m a lawyer from Cloverdell, Oregon. My grandfather is Oliver.”

Mollie had never met Spence, but Oliver Cameron was a close family friend. Cloverdell was her hometown, a place she both loved and hated. Her great-aunt Irma Winchell still lived there. “Is that why you’re here? Something to do with my family?”

“It is,” he admitted. “Follow me.”

They eased around the corner of the laundromat and walked fast along busted sidewalks. She heard dogs barking, kids playing, music thumping. Nobody paid much attention to them.

Spence dodged into another alley and started sprinting again. She did the same. After another blast of gunfire behind them, he jumped a four-foot chain link fence into a backyard. He turned to give her a hand, but she didn’t need his help. Mollie dug her sneaker-clad toe into the fence and slung her leg over. They rushed toward the house and exited through the gate onto a broken-down driveway where three equally broken-down cars parked end to end.

On the street, she spotted a different armed man coming from the opposite direction of the shooter in the alley. She and Spence were trapped. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Calling for backup.” She had an emergency number for the US Marshals Service. They weren’t always speedy, but they actually did respond.

“Not yet,” he said.

Truth be told, she’d rather not summon the marshals. Calling in the cavalry would get her picked up and moved to a different city. She’d lose her autonomy and be forced to follow the rules for a protected witness. Their rules. Avoiding involvement from the marshals or the feds might be worth the risk. “What next, Spence?”

She silently watched as he approached a group of young men gathered on the porch steps of the house next door. A neighborhood gang. Four or five of them, jiggly and nervous. Obviously, they were reacting to the sound of gunfire. Equally obvious was their natural hostility to the man dressed in a suit and tie, though Spence had holstered his weapon. He opened his wallet. Mollie didn’t know what he said, but the gang pocketed his wad of cash and set out toward the armed man who wore baggy jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt. Both of his arms were covered in angry-looking tats. He carried a big, impressive, old-fashioned-looking revolver.

Calling out threats to the intruder, the gang approached him. Their behavior provided enough of a distraction for Spence to drag Mollie in a different direction. They ran up one street and down another until they reached his car and ducked inside. He pulled away from the curb, not driving fast enough to call attention to his sleek, clean, black SUV. Not a typical vehicle for the neighborhood unless you were a drug lord or a pimp.

Spence navigated through side streets until he reached Eighth Avenue heading east. At Colorado Boulevard, he turned right onto Sixth Avenue Parkway, where tall, leafy trees formed a canopy over the split road.

The air-conditioning kicked in, and she reveled in the cool caress that dried the sheen of perspiration on her body and left her feeling renewed. She asked, “Where are we going?”

“Centennial Airfield, south of town.”

“If you think I’m going to get on a plane with you, you’re sadly mistaken.”

He pulled onto a cross street by the wide center median, stopped the car and put it in Park.

Spence turned in his seat to face her. “I’m afraid I have bad news for you, Mollie.”

No stranger to tragedy, she braced herself. This bad news had to be about Dad. The people who wanted to kill him might have finally succeeded. “Tell me.”

“Your great-aunt Irma passed away.”