Guarding the Witness Read online

  Arianna stared for a few seconds then whirled about and raced for the storeroom to wake up Brody. There was a fire not far from the cabin to the south. Wasn’t that where Charlie’s house was?

  EIGHT

  The moment the door to the storeroom opened and light from the living room flooded inside, Brody bolted up in the cot. “Why are you waking me up? If it’s time for my shift, you should be asleep.” He swung his legs over the side.

  “There’s a fire to the south. I’m gonna wake up Charlie. It could be his place. Even if it isn’t, his house could be in danger.” Arianna swung around and hurried to the bedroom. She had to shake him awake.

  His eyes opened, and he frowned. “It’s time already?”

  “There’s a fire toward where you live. You need to check it out. Are there a lot of trees around your place?”

  “Yes. It’s mostly woods.” Charlie stuck his feet into his boots then scrambled to his feet and headed for the front door to the cabin. “Stay inside. I’m going to jog a ways and see what I can discover.”

  Brody stood by the window from which she’d seen the fire. “Be careful. Someone might have found out you’re helping us. How easy is it for someone to figure out about this place?”

  “It would take some work. I didn’t get to know Paul until after I retired. The same for Willow, Paul’s sister.” Charlie opened the door then paused. “If I can get to my house and it isn’t burning, I’ll bring back my computer. Forget sleep. I want to know who is behind this.”

  Brody shook his head. “I don’t know about staying.”

  “Let me see what’s going on before we decide.”

  Brody went back to the window to follow his friend’s progress across the yard in the dim light of dusk.

  Arianna took up guard at another window. “I agree with you. We need to leave. I discovered in my research on Rainwater that his men like using fire. It can cover up so much. I think some of Rainwater’s men are getting close.”

  “It doesn’t surprise me he has a few pyromaniacs on his payroll.”

  “He has a variety of different skilled murderers. I hope it wasn’t Charlie’s house.”

  Brody nodded his agreement. “I shouldn’t have brought him in on this.” A minute later Brody said, “He’s coming back and he doesn’t have his computer.”

  Arianna went into the bedroom. “I’m gathering our stuff. We need to get out of here.”

  “Agreed.” Brody opened the door before Charlie knocked. “Your place is burning?”

  “Yes, the fire department is there, but I didn’t let anyone know I was there. Two men stood out in the crowd gathering. They aren’t my neighbors. Also as I was leaving, I saw Ted pull up.”

  “That was fast, even if he heard it over the radio.” Brody strode to the fireplace and took the rifle down from over the mantel. “I’ll make sure I get this back to Paul. We need all the firepower we can get.”

  “We’ll go to Willow’s ranch. I’m leaving my Jeep and taking Paul’s old pickup truck. I think it’ll get us there. Paul’s been talking about selling it for scrap so there are no guarantees.”

  “It’ll be better than your car. If they know you’re helping me, then they’ll be looking for your Jeep.” Brody took the backpack from Arianna and slipped it over his shoulders.

  Charlie went into the kitchen and came back out with a set of keys and a revolver. “I’ll give this back to Paul, too. I feel naked without a weapon.”

  “I didn’t see a truck in the shed.” Arianna left the cabin sandwiched between Brody and Charlie.

  “It’s behind it, rusting in the elements. I think Paul would love to see it just rust to nothing.”

  When Arianna spotted the vehicle she could see that calling it a pickup was stretching it. “Will it work?”

  “Only one way to tell.” With a missing driver’s door, all Charlie had to do was hop up onto the seat, stick the key in the ignition and turn it.

  A cranking noise echoed through the stillness.

  Arianna scanned her surroundings, imagining the loud sound alerting all Rainwater’s men that they were escaping.

  Charlie tried again and the engine finally turned over. “Get in. The tires are almost bare, but hopefully they’ll last long enough to go ten miles to the ranch.”

  Brody and Arianna hurried around to the passenger side and actually had to open a door. But when she went to climb into the cab, she had to sit on the floor.

  Brody crowded in after her and shut the door. “Let’s go. It’s probably better we’re on the floor anyway.”

  “All I want is for this to get us to the ranch, then it can die.” Charlie pulled around the front of the shed and headed toward the road. “For this time of night, there’s more traffic than usual, but then a fire does attract spectators.”

  “So long as they keep their focus on the fire, we can slip away.” Arianna sat cross-legged facing Brody, whose back was to the dashboard, the lights on it minimal.

  In the shadows she could feel Brody’s gaze on her while hers fixed on him. She told herself it was because there was nowhere else to look, but that wasn’t it really. There was a connection between them she couldn’t deny. She needed to get through the next few days alive, testify and then leave Alaska. In her new life, she could put all of this, including Brody, behind her. She needed to quit thinking about what she wasn’t going to have. Any kind of relationship beyond this was impossible.

  When Charlie hit a rough patch in the road, she bounced up and forward—into Brody. He clasped her to steady her, but instead of pushing her back where she sat, he held her still for a few extra seconds, his face near hers, his breath washing over her cheek. She remembered their lives were only crossing for a short time and finally managed to pull away, planting herself as far from Brody as she could. Which wasn’t nearly far enough.

  “Are we almost there?” she asked Charlie, a frantic edge to her question.

  “A couple more miles. Sorry about the rough ride. The shock absorbers are one of many things not working on this pickup,” Charlie said.

  “We’ll survive,” Brody said as though talking through clenched teeth. He probably was—the bouncing couldn’t be doing his ankle any favors.

  When Arianna studied his outline in the darkened cab, the rigid lines of his body conveyed tension.

  Arianna held on to what she could when the truck went over another bumpy spot in the highway. Charlie made a sharp right turn onto a dirt road. Her grip strengthened around the bottom part of the driver’s seat.

  “I’m parking a ways from the house. No use for me to go nearer until closer to seven in the morning. When I leave with the trailer, I’ll return to pick you two up. I don’t want Willow to know anyone else is going with me. The less she’s involved the better for everyone.”

  Brody knelt, looking around as the pickup went off the road onto an even rougher path. “Does she have hired hands who would be out at this time at night?”

  “Two hands, but I doubt they’d be around. One is her uncle and the other a friend of her deceased husband. They help her out. This is an area she doesn’t use on the ranch. No cows or horses.”

  When Charlie stopped—or rather, when the truck spurted to a halt—Arianna opened the door, needing to get out, to breathe fresh air. Being confined so close to Brody, their legs touching, was not good for her concentration. She would check out the terrain since they would be here for six or seven hours.

  For a moment she relished the cool night air, a light breeze blowing with no hint of smoke in it. An owl hooted nearby as if sending up an alarm someone was intruding. Otherwise silence reigned—except for the footsteps coming toward her.

  She knew it was Brody before he stopped next to her and did his own reconnaissance of the woods cocooning them. “It’s your turn to get some sleep. The bed of t
he truck isn’t too bad. You can use the backpack as a pillow.”

  “What are you and Charlie gonna do?”

  “Take turns keeping watch. Don’t worry, we’ll try and get some sleep, too.”

  “Where?” She didn’t know if she could sleep if he lay down in the back of the pickup, too.

  Brody sweep his arm across his front. “The ground. I can sleep anywhere. Sometimes that’s part of the job.”

  “Sleep sounds wonderful. I’m not sure I can after fleeing Paul’s cabin. I should be used to not trusting anyone or anyplace, but I sure wanted to stay at his house for the night.”

  “Yeah, a comfortable bed is so much better than the ground or the back of a twenty-year-old pickup.” Brody slipped off the backpack. “Use this if you can.”

  Her hand grasped the same strap he did, glancing across his knuckles. The touch only reminded her of the growing physical attraction she had for him. “Let’s hope we can rest for the next six hours and not have to escape. I don’t know if that truck can go another foot.”

  Brody chuckled. “It did sound like it died for good. Let’s hope we don’t have to find out. Surely our transportation in the morning will be better.”

  * * *

  Sitting on an aluminum floor in a horse trailer was a step up from sitting on the floor in Paul’s pickup, but Arianna hated not being able to see outside without standing up.

  “The scenery is beautiful along this highway. You’ll get glimpses of it through the windows.” Brody took a place next to her at the front of the two-horse trailer. “It looks like we’ll have hours to kill.”

  “Please, not that word.” Arianna retied her hair into a ponytail, strands of it whipping about her in the cool breeze coming in from the partially open windows. “I’m glad we’ll have pretty good cell reception along most of the trip. I want to be forewarned if there’s a roadblock.”

  “The good thing about going this way instead of the Parks Highway is that there’s less traffic.”

  “Yeah, but longer timewise. At least this mode of transportation isn’t obvious.”

  “And there’s an area you can hide in the storage part for the tack.”

  Arianna peered up at a mare looking at her with her big brown eyes. “When I was a girl, I rode all the time. I wanted to raise horses. I wish I could have talked with Willow instead of having to sneak into the trailer.” Brody started to say something, but she held up her hand. “I know, the less people know what we are doing the better.”

  “Why did you like to ride horses?”

  “Are you kidding? Most little girls at some time in their lives think about having their own horse. At least my friends and I did. But mostly I did because my dad loved to ride and it was a way for me to connect with him. We used to ride when he was home several times a week until I left for college. Now it doesn’t make any difference.”

  “Was he gone a lot?”

  Thinking about her father and the angry words they’d exchanged over her leaving the army closed her throat. When Brody looked at her, waiting for an answer, she swallowed several times and said, “He was always gone on some kind of mission. He was up for general and didn’t get it the last time I saw him at Christmas. I’ve always wondered if what happened to me was the reason why. He certainly had done everything he could to get it.”

  “Have you talked with your dad about what happened? Explained your reasons?”

  “I tried when I first came home. He didn’t want to hear it.” The kindness in Brody’s eyes urged her to tell him everything. “What if I—died and my father and I never make things right? He would blame himself. Not right away but in the end.”

  “I can carry a message to him if you want.”

  A lump the size of Alaska lodged in her throat. She couldn’t get a word out. All she could do was nod, tears shimmering in her eyes. She didn’t cry. What good would it do her to bemoan her predicament? It wouldn’t change anything. Trust the Lord. She needed to keep that in the foreground. But no matter what she told herself, a tear slipped down her face.

  He caressed his thumb across the top of her cheek. “Don’t think about it now. Let’s get through the trial. I’ll help you any way I can. It won’t be easy, but you’re tough or you wouldn’t do what you’ve been doing. You survived someone trying to frame you. You’ve protected many others who needed your services and you didn’t lose anyone.” His voice caught on the last part of that sentence.

  “Tell me what happened when you lost your witness.”

  “I was waiting at the courthouse, coordinating the security there when the car transporting the witness was ambushed. A marshal and the witness were killed and two marshals were wounded. It was a fast and brutal attack. Later we discovered the cell phone on the witness that led the assailants to his location.”

  She took his hand and held it. “I’m so sorry. At least I knew better than to bring along a cell phone.”

  “But not your gun or knife.”

  “That’s different, and I needed them so it was a good thing that I had them.”

  Brody’s eyes clouded. “Yeah, you did need them. You shouldn’t have.”

  “In a perfect world. This isn’t a perfect world.” She squeezed his hand gently. “And you remember that. You told the man what he had to do, and he didn’t follow directions. Remember, we can’t control everything. I’m really discovering that lately.”

  “Yes, but the consequences affected so many. The families of the marshal killed and the families of the criminal’s next victims. Without the witness’s testimony, he was acquitted and within a year killed two more. One was a mother with two young children. I’ll never forget seeing those kids at her funeral. They haunt my dreams.”

  “You didn’t kill their mother. You can’t think like that.” Hearing the anguish in his voice made her want to forget what was happening and just comfort him.

  “I have a hard time forgiving myself.”

  “And I have a hard time forgiving Dirk for what he did. What a pair we are. It’s not easy to move on with that kind of baggage.” She grasped his upper arm, trying to impart her support.

  “I try not to think about it. I guess seeing Carla again brought it all back.”

  “You need to deal with it, not avoid it. Was the guy convicted when he killed those two other people?”

  “Yes, I’m happy to say he’ll be in prison for the rest of his life, but—”

  She put her fingers over his mouth. “No buts. They aren’t allowed. These past two months have given me a lot of time to think about my past. I’ve let Dirk’s betrayal rule my life for the past four years. It possibly colored how I dealt with my dad’s disapproval. I got defensive. Now I can’t do anything about it. It was bad enough what Dirk did to me, but it’s worse that I’m still letting him affect me. When this is all over, I intend to put the man in the past where he belongs. If that means I forgive him, then I’ll find a way. I’ll have enough to deal with trying to piece together some kind of life.” Without anyone I know. I’ll be totally alone.

  “That part of being a U.S. marshal never appealed to me. My life may be a mess, but I can’t imagine giving up everything and starting new.”

  His words only confirmed what she’d thought, and that no matter how much she was starting to care about him it would go nowhere. Arianna pushed to her feet, holding on to the side to keep herself balanced while the trailer was speeding down the highway. Pretending an interest in the mare nearest her, she stroked the horse’s nose—anything to keep from looking at him. She was afraid she would start crying if she thought about how she was feeling and what her future would be.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. You don’t need to hear that now.”

  A band about her chest constricted her. She needed to say something to him, but she couldn’t. Why did she meet a man she wa
s attracted to when there was nothing that she could do about it? It wasn’t fair, but then having to go into the Witness Protection Program was unfair.

  Life isn’t always fair. Do the best you can with what you’re given.

  Her grandma’s advice slinked into her mind and began to ease some of the tightness in her chest. She inhaled a deep, soothing breath and said, “Yes, I do. You’re right.”

  “I—” The throwaway cell rang, and Brody answered it. “I think that’s a good idea. I’m starved.” When he hung up, he rose and came toward Arianna. “Charlie is pulling into a place he knows up the road to get something for us to eat. They have restrooms on the outside of the building, so he’ll park near them. That way we can sneak and use them without anyone spotting us.”

  “Good. I could use walking around a little. I was getting stiff sitting.” She’d started to feel confined, something she felt when she thought about her future. She still didn’t know what she was going to do.

  As the trailer slowed down and Charlie pulled off the highway, Arianna patted the mare’s neck, wishing she could get on her and ride away.

  The driver’s door slammed shut then Charlie slapped the side of the van. “We’re here, and it’s all clear. I’ll be inside getting us something to eat. When we leave, I’ll top off the tank. Don’t know when we can stop next.”

  Brody peered out at the gas station/convenience store. “Let’s go. I see another car pulling in for gas.”

  Exiting the side door of the trailer, she hurried toward the restroom. The length of the horse trailer and large pickup blocked her from anyone seeing her from the store or in front of it pumping gas. Brody was right behind her, moving quickly.

  A few minutes later as she washed her hands and wiped a wet towel over her face, the sound of a knock made her stiffen. She swung around, staring at the door. Under her light jacket she had her gun. Her pulse rate jumped as she put her hand on her Glock and moved forward. “It’s being used.”