Loe raamatut: «Witness In Hiding»

ONE

Zoe Marks was being followed. That tingle on the back of her neck was constant as she pulled her ball cap low and stepped inside the Laundromat. Had he found her? She’d been so careful, but maybe this was it...the day he finally caught up.

And killed her.

Downtown Salt Lake City was busy just after eleven at night, and she’d hoped to disappear in the crowds. Maybe it hadn’t worked.

Moose wasn’t behind the counter. The man had been recommended by a mutual contact, and he should be here. He’d said as much at their first meeting.

Moose had a craggy face, the nose that had earned him the moniker and a huge belly that hung over his belt buckle. He didn’t exactly blend in. If he was here she’d be able to spot him, but he wasn’t out behind the register tonight. Was he waiting in his office?

Zoe made her way down the center aisle, between rows of washers and dryers stacked on either side of the room. The long, low bench in the middle.

A young woman in the corner folded a pair of skinny jeans. Probably two sizes smaller than the ones Zoe wore. Her hair hung over most of her face, and she didn’t make eye contact. That was fine with Zoe. Behind the counter an older woman with purple hair sat reading a fashion magazine.

During the three weeks she’d been in hiding, Zoe had learned more than she wanted to about the criminal element. Top of the list was the fact that she had to talk the talk with these people. She couldn’t give away anything personal, or emotional. Least of all was the fact that Zoe Marks was an office assistant, a divorcée and the single mom of the most precocious seven-year-old boy in the world. No, she had to be one of them. An anonymous lady who wanted a way out of this life.

Zoe rapped her knuckles on the Formica. “Lookin’ for Moose.”

The counter woman didn’t look up from her magazine.

Zoe pushed aside the depressing thoughts of what her life had become. She couldn’t even think about Tyler, or she’d start blubbering because she hadn’t seen her son in a week—the longest they’d ever been apart. Right now, Tyler was safe with her sister, which meant it wasn’t time for crying; it was time for action. The kind that would make the two of them free of danger for the rest of their lives.

Hence, Moose. And the duffel bag of thirty thousand dollars of borrowed money she was going to have to figure out how to pay back.

Freedom wasn’t cheap.

The purple-haired woman pointed one white-tipped finger to the interior door. “Moose is back there.”

“Thanks.” Zoe straightened her shoulders and headed for the back door. Politeness wasn’t something the people in this world she’d fallen into understood, but it was ingrained in her. At the last second before she pushed the handle down, another ingrained part of her—some latent warning instinct—flared to life. Danger. She glanced back at the front door of the Laundromat just as he walked through.

Gun raised, pointed at her.

No life in his eyes.

No emotion in the flat line of his lips.

The woman folding clothes dropped her basket and ran behind him out the door. The gunman made no move to stop her.

Ice-cold terror froze every part of her. It wasn’t Zoe’s life that flashed before her eyes—it was Tyler’s. Memories raced through her mind of those long-gone happy days. Before Nathan decided he liked his girlfriend better than his wife and moved to New England.

The life Tyler once had was gone now, but he still had her. She wouldn’t let him become an orphan today. Her son was everything to her, and there was nothing she wouldn’t do to keep him safe. There was no room in her life for anything else—or anyone else. Just her son, who needed his mom alive. It was Zoe’s job to make their lives safe.

“Nice try.” The gunman smirked.

Zoe couldn’t move. All she could do was stare into his evil eyes and wait for death while her mind screamed at her to run. While images of death played across her mind. A woman, lying on the ground. The man stood over her. Her killer.

Now he’d sent this guy to silence her, so she could never tell anyone what she’d seen.

The man twisted, aimed his gun past Zoe. He pulled the trigger over and over again. The woman behind Zoe screamed and hit the floor.

“No loose ends.” His voice was as devoid of emotion as his eyes.

Zoe backed up and felt for the door handle. If she didn’t try to run he would certainly kill her. She should have bought that gun when she’d had the chance, but she didn’t know how to use one. Now she would die because she hadn’t been brave enough to overcome a simple fear of the unknown. Dead both because of what she didn’t know—how to use a gun—and because of what she did. But Zoe couldn’t think about what she’d witnessed. She only wanted to forget it. She never would. Not for the rest of her life.

Her slick fingers slipped off the door handle, but it opened anyway. Zoe didn’t know whether to rush through, or just duck.

Moose brushed past her, shotgun in his hands.

Zoe dived out of the way, behind the counter, issuing a quiet apology when she landed on the counter lady’s leg. The ball cap flew off Zoe’s head, releasing her spray of red curls. The woman was wide-eyed, a red stain on her shoulder.

“What is going—” Moose’s roared words cut off. Bang. Bang.

Zoe scrambled across the floor. The shotgun went off, then the gunman’s weapon—shot after shot. She covered her ears. There was nowhere to go. She was pinned behind the counter with no way out, and that man was coming for her.

Defenseless and innocent. Why did she have to die like a criminal? It was proof God’s love for her, His grace, had been withdrawn. For whatever reason, He wasn’t on her side anymore. His love and support had been rich during those years with Nathan and Tyler. They’d been together as a family and her life had been good. Now, nothing. God’s place in her heart was empty—He’d abandoned her.

Otherwise she wouldn’t be about to die on the dirty linoleum floor of a Laundromat.

* * *

Secret Service agent Jude Brauer had gone on alert the moment the first shot rang out. He tossed his notebook back on the driver’s seat and slammed the car door, palming his weapon instead. Question time would have to come later. There wasn’t even time to wait for police backup. He’d seen people inside and heard the gun battle. Jude couldn’t let an innocent person die. Seconds counted for everything in situations like this.

The windows of the Laundromat were glass, the lights on inside. His view was crystal clear between the red letters of the store name.

One assailant, center of the room.

A man down, discarded shotgun on the floor. Jude was pretty sure that was Moose, the man he’d been coming to meet. Moose was dead, which meant Jude would never get answers from him now.

The gunman advanced. The second of two women had dived behind the counter. Jude couldn’t let anyone else die.

Gun drawn, Jude pushed the front door open with his foot. “Secret Service, put your hands up!”

The guy spun, already firing, not even bothering to aim—but two shots later the clip in his gun emptied. Jude wasn’t hit.

Thank You, God.

He put two rounds from his Sig Sauer in the man’s chest. He hated to use lethal force, but there was no telling if this man had additional weapons or ammunition. The threat had to be taken out before anyone else was hurt.

The gunman’s body jerked as the shots impacted, but he didn’t go down. He actually grinned. “Won’t work, pig.” He said it like he thought he was invincible. High on something? His eyes were glassy, and that bravado had to come from somewhere. It was more than the protective vest he might have under his jacket.

As he stepped closer, Jude wondered if this had to do with his case or something else entirely. The task force he was part of was investigating a local pharmaceutical company with ties to foreign money. Moose might be the key to the whole thing, but it was only a hunch Jude had. He hadn’t brought anyone else in case it turned out to be nothing. Now Moose was dead.

The gunman ran to the interior door, where he glanced once behind the counter and said, “See you soon, Zoe.”

Then he raced through to whatever back rooms were beyond it.

Jude sprinted after him. He did the same glance maneuver the gunman had and saw a beautiful redhead on the floor, her wide green eyes looking up at him. Jude ordered, “Stay here,” to her and the purple-haired woman she lay there with. A woman who’d been shot. “And call an ambulance.”

He didn’t wait for her to nod; he just ran after the man into a fluorescent-lit hall with bland white walls. Two rooms. The gunman ignored both and hit the exit bar on the door at the end of the hall before he raced out into the night.

The guy had to have been wearing a vest to absorb those shots. Jude wasn’t wearing his, not on what should’ve been a routine interview. He had to be careful. This guy wasn’t afraid to kill.

And then there was the woman. Zoe, he’d called her. Who was she, and why did the gunman know her? The man had threatened her, and yet he’d let her live while he killed the man Jude had been there to see.

Had he shot Moose because of the shotgun, or because Moose knew too much? Maybe there was another reason entirely.

Jude reached the exit door, stood where there was cover and looked out before he moved to pursue the man. It wouldn’t do him any good to rush out and have the gunman attack him because he hadn’t been cautious. But the man wasn’t waiting.

The peal of car tires screeched out the parking lot and the killer tore off at top speed in a silver, low-slung, rusty car. No plates. The undercarriage scraped the asphalt on the way out, and then the guy was gone.

Lost him.

Jude slammed the flat of his hand on the door frame. That man—whoever he was and whatever his motive might be—had just killed the best lead Jude had been able to find on his case.

He pulled out his phone and called 9-1-1 to report what had happened.

Jude’s job was mostly to identity theft investigations and illegal transactions. White-collar crimes involving money and state-of-the-art technology that cost this country millions each year. Jude would dig into the problem. He would solve the mystery of what was happening and who was involved.

In this particular case, the pharmaceutical company and a South American cartel were moving money back and forth. It hadn’t been easy to trace the international transactions. But when Jude had found the Laundromat listed on one, he’d jumped on the information. He didn’t have enough evidence to obtain a warrant yet, but that hadn’t stopped him from heading over to the Laundromat to see what Moose had to say.

Online banking was the new cash. Huge transfers could be divided up into hundreds of small transactions or transfers between online accounts. It was the job of the Secret Service to recognize evidence of possible money laundering. The question was, who had been sending the pharmaceutical company so much money, and why?

Now his only lead was a rusty car. He’d have to get a description of the vehicle and the gunman to the cops and pray for a result.

Jude trailed back through the hall to a now open door. The other was signed as a bathroom. Before he got there, he glanced around. Security cameras had been installed at the corner where the wall met the ceiling. Did they work? Maybe he could get an image of the killer and run it through the Secret Service database as well as the FBI’s system. They could get the man’s identity from that.

If he knew who the guy was, Jude would be one step closer to figuring out what had just happened. And whether it was tied to his case.

Jude looked in the office then and found the redhead at the desk, her back to him as she rifled through papers in a frantic search of Moose’s documents. Was she stealing from the man? A duffel lay on the floor beside her, bulky with something.

The idea that such a beautiful, obviously scared woman could be a criminal stopped his forward progress. Jude knew looks could be deceiving, but that wouldn’t change his job. His personal feelings, even a rush of protectiveness, didn’t matter when the law came into the equation. Justice showed no partiality toward people.

At least, it shouldn’t.

Jude waited at the door with his gun hand loose at his side. Whether or not she was a thief, something told him she wasn’t dangerous. So he simply watched her to see what she would do.

“No, no, no.” She shoved papers off the desk, picked up a manila envelope and looked inside. “Please be here.” She made a noise of frustration and threw it on the desk. “Please be here.” She renewed her search.

“Cops are on their way.”

The woman—Zoe, the man had called her—squealed and spun around. Wide eyes stared at him, so green they were like the forest after a spring rain. Really? Poetry? Jude pushed aside the errant thoughts and reminded himself she could well be a criminal. He said, “You might want to wrap up your thievery before they get here.”

“Thievery?”

Jude shrugged one shoulder. “First word that came to mind when I saw you rummaging through a man’s office.”

She lifted two pale palms, though one was red marked. She’d been hurt? That reminded him of the other woman. He needed this woman to accompany him so he could check on her. The last thing he needed was two people disappearing.

“As you can see,” she said, “I haven’t stolen anything.”

“Which begs the question, what are you looking for?”

* * *

Yes, it did seem to lead to that question. Too bad Zoe had no intention of telling this guy anything at all. She’d faced enough questions from the injured woman out front.

Before she shoved away Zoe’s attempt to help her. Like it was Zoe’s fault her shoulder was bleeding.

Cute though this guy was, with dark blond hair in need of a cut curling around his ears, she couldn’t trust him. Nice suit. But not too nice; it just fit him really well. She’d always disliked guys who tried too hard to look put-together, or who used styling product in their hair—which was basically the same thing. This guy was clean-cut, and he looked...low-key.

Zoe bit the inside of her cheek. “I should go.”

He didn’t move, even though she needed to get past him so she could leave this building of horrors empty-handed. Don’t think about that. But she had to. She needed the reminder of everything that could go wrong to push her to be smart and cautious, to do everything she had to in order to keep her family alive.

This should have been her last stop. Her ticket out for herself, her sister and her son. They would have been on their way. Free.

That was gone now. All she had was nothing but a bag full of cash and no hope.

Not to mention, the police would be here soon.

“How about you stay for a minute. Introduce yourself?” He didn’t voice it like a question, even though technically it was. “I’ll even start.” He touched his chest. “Jude Brauer, Secret Service.”

So that was what the badge on his belt signified. Zoe glanced at the wall like she could see outside and said, “Is the president in town?”

He winced. “I’m local, not on the president’s detail.”

“This is a nice chat and all, but I really should be going.” Where, she had no idea. But anywhere was fine when it would be away from a dead man, a woman who’d been shot and the end of all her options.

“And you’re Zoe.”

He wasn’t going to listen. He was trying to get her to open up when she had zero intention of doing so. Zoe moved then, and some distant, still hopeful part of her prayed he’d just step aside and let her pass. Like prayer would actually work for her now, when it hadn’t so far.

He held out a hand. While not actually touching her, it was still a gentleman’s attempt to get her to stay. The fact that he didn’t force her to stop resonated in that same distant, hopeful part of her from which she’d just prayed. Zoe didn’t let it penetrate. She couldn’t, or she’d stop and maybe entertain the idea that this guy might actually be able to help her.

Which he couldn’t. No one could.

She stepped past him, into the hallway. “Zoe.” His voice was almost kind. She’d been through something traumatic and he adjusted accordingly. His wife probably loved that gentle voice. Zoe chose to ignore it.

She didn’t go back to the front of the store. There was nothing but blood and death up there, and the woman who had been shot hadn’t wanted her help. Zoe had called for the ambulance, then realized she had to find the ID’s Moose had made for her before the cops came. Now she needed to get out of here before they asked too many questions. Before her name ended up on a police record, and her whereabouts were discovered. Anything that could lead to her would do exactly that—and the wrong people would find her.

Zoe moved to the exit door at the end of the hall. Jude Brauer had told her to stay put. Right. The last time she’d stayed it had ruined her life. Not again. No way.

“You can’t leave, Zoe. You just witnessed a crime. Wait for the cops so you can give your statement.”

“I didn’t see anything.” The words slipped from her mouth and she winced.

“You’re going to lie?”

No, she wasn’t going to lie. “I can’t talk to the cops.”

“That guy knew you, and yet he didn’t kill you.” Jude cocked his head to the side. “Was that because I was here?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“I’m guessing that you know a whole lot more than you want to admit to me right now.”

She didn’t say anything, because he was right. Sirens grew in volume. They were right outside. An ambulance. Cops. She couldn’t trust the cops. That had been made completely plain to her when she’d tried to report what she’d seen. No one had believed her, and then she and Tyler had been followed. They’d barely escaped.

Zoe had no intention of repeating that frightful afternoon.

Jude turned toward the sound. While his gaze was averted, Zoe slipped out the back door.

Still, part of her almost wanted to stay.

Almost.