Star Witness Read online

  Mackenzie moved around him to step closer to Eric. “I can help.” They both turned to her. “Look, I’m not going to sit around waiting for Carosa to find us again when we could be doing something. I’m not going anywhere and I don’t want him hurting anyone else.”

  Aaron sighed. So much for giving up. He kept his eyes on his brother. “We can help you find out who you work with that has a connection to the Carosa cartel. No offense, but you look as if you could use a few extra pairs of hands, and we don’t have anything more pressing going on right now.”

  “The guy’s name is Schweitzer.” Eric started to shake his head. “But I—”

  “Have a team ready to help you?” Aaron studied his brother. “Have a clue who is doing this and a plan to catch them in the act? Have a way to get irrefutable evidence so you can close the file on this quickly and cleanly?” He waited a beat and saw the defeat in his brother’s eyes. “Didn’t think so.”

  “Good.” Mackenzie squeezed his hand. “Let’s make a plan.”

  Aaron glanced at the woman beside him. Every moment he spent with Mackenzie peeled back another layer of who she was. She might be scared, but she was also dedicated, hardworking, compassionate, wise and unabashedly tenacious.

  He needed to keep this about business, take care of things and move on. Between work and his family, Aaron didn’t have any room for someone who would sneak into his heart and take up residence before he even realized she was there.

  Back when he was dating, it was usually casual, friendly and light enough he could walk away at the end of the evening having had a good time. He’d had no intention of getting involved any deeper, though occasionally it happened naturally.

  Mackenzie wasn’t like any woman he’d ever spent time with before, which was exactly why he couldn’t let her in. Aaron had seen what Sarah’s injury did to Eric, what their dad’s incarceration had done to his mom. There was no way he was going there. Not when his own mistakes had cost his team so much. His first shot at being team leader, and he was left with an injury while his teammate was forced to retire.

  Aaron put his hand on the side of Eric’s neck. “Go home and get some sleep. In the morning go to work and do your job. Get us what you can, and I’ll take care of this. You have my word I won’t let anything happen to Mackenzie.”

  Because if a good woman was killed, then Aaron would have to right the wrong—a wrong the justice system should have taken care of long before now. And Aaron didn’t know if he could take another black mark on his life.

  The sound of automatic gunfire rang out across the park. Aaron grabbed Mackenzie with one hand and Eric with the other and hit the sidewalk.

  He would really like to know how these guys kept finding them.

  * * *

  “What do we do?”

  Mackenzie glanced around from her prone position on the sidewalk. Gravel dug into her hip, but she didn’t dare move. The gunfire had stopped. What were they waiting for? Did they really want to take her alive and undamaged like Aaron had said? It seemed more as if they were toying with her so she would freak out. But why would they need her to be unhinged, unless that was part of Carosa’s twisted revenge plan?

  Nothing about this made any sense.

  Eric whipped out his gun. “Mackenzie, get to my car.”

  Aaron’s face was tight, his lips pressed into a thin line. In the yellow light of the streetlamp there was something dark in his eyes. “Both of you, start crawling.” He had a gun out, too, and his voice didn’t invite any discussion.

  Eric’s lips thinned. “You go with Mackenzie. I’ll take care of the mercenaries.”

  “No, you go with Mackenzie.” Aaron’s face invited no argument. “Since I’m the one they’re trying to kill, I’m the one who gets to be the diversion.”

  When Aaron reached the car, he leaned over and spoke to Eric. “On my word, you’re going to cover me.”

  By the look of it, Eric didn’t like that idea. “You need to get in the car, too. Get Mackenzie to safety.”

  “Now. Rendezvous on the north side, but only if it’s clear.”

  Eric fired his gun in rapid succession into the trees. Mackenzie covered her ears. Aaron rushed away and she ducked. Faster gunshots spurted back at them. Eric ducked down also, and shots pinged off the car. “If the mercenaries don’t kill him, I will!”

  Aaron disappeared behind a bush on the far side of the park, away from the gunfire. That was something, at least. Was it a diversion? She prayed it would work, even if Eric wasn’t happy Aaron had made the decision. Minutes later there was a group of gunshots, and then silence.

  Mackenzie stuck her elbows out and kept her body to the ground as she moved, like one of those military movies where they crawled through the mud. The asphalt was hot from the day’s sun and Eric grunted beside her.

  “Shouldn’t we call for help?”

  “We have to get you to safety first, or we’ll be dead before the cops could get here.”

  She kept moving until she reached the car door, lifted up a fraction and reached for the handle.

  “No. Not yet.”

  She turned to Eric and whispered, “I thought we were going to get out of here.”

  “We are. But let’s give Aaron enough time to draw their attention away.”

  He watched for a moment. Waited.

  “Okay, in the car.” Eric opened the door and she crawled across the seat.

  “What’s happening? Is Aaron dead?”

  “No. He’s keeping them busy so we can escape. Now get down in the foot well and stay down.”

  Mackenzie’s breath came in snatches. “How do you know he isn’t dead?”

  “Because those shots we heard were his.”

  “What now? Are we supposed to pick him up or something?”

  “That’s what he meant by rendezvous. But only if it doesn’t put us in more danger.”

  Eric started the engine, his body shifted low in the seat. Mackenzie curled up, her body cramped in the small space below the glove box. Aaron had put himself in harm’s way so they could escape? She focused on Eric’s face as he shot out of the parking lot.

  He scanned the area and the rearview mirror and finally said, “Okay, it’s clear. You can get up.”

  Mackenzie crawled onto the seat, feeling the grime of the day and everything that had happened.

  Eric motioned behind them. “Your go bag is on the backseat. I stopped by your house and grabbed it for you.”

  “Thank you.” Mackenzie pulled it forward and held it on her knees. She had clean clothes now. Was it selfish to want a shower, too?

  She looked around, watching for his return. Aaron was trained for battle, but maybe that didn’t work when it was a regular neighborhood.

  “Why did he do that?”

  Eric glanced at her. “Stay behind?”

  She nodded.

  “It’s what he does.”

  “As a soldier?” Her brain was spinning with all of it. She wanted to tell him to go back so she could find out if Aaron was okay. They were just going to leave him there?

  “Yeah, that, too. But since we were kids he was always that way.” Eric flipped on his turn signal and slowed for a stoplight. “Always getting into fights and claiming he slipped. One day he came home covered in mud with a black eye. I was sick with mono or something like that. He said I was faking it just so I could stay home and read comics, but I wasn’t. Our foster mom was good, you know? Way better than our real mom.”

  Mackenzie looked at him. “You were in foster care?”

  Eric nodded. “Dad was in jail for armed robbery back then. He’s out now, but neither of us are about to make the trip to California just to see him. Mom left us with the neighbor so she could go get high. Couple days later the neighbor called child protective service
s, and we were placed with Bill and Frankie.”

  “Wow.”

  “He’s always been the one who took care of...everything. I might have resented it for a while, but that was my issue. I couldn’t ask for a better brother than Aaron, even if he might take it too far sometimes. But I’m making peace with that.”

  Too far? Eric seemed to think Aaron had done something that he didn’t think was a good thing. Both of them seemed so cautious that instead of trusting themselves to others, they retreated to each other every time.

  Was it familial love that bound them together? Mackenzie had never known family to be that way. Her parents had walked away the day she joined WITSEC, too enamored with their high-society lifestyle to bother following their daughter into witness protection.

  It was a powerful love these two brothers had. Mackenzie could only hope that in her life she’d find someone who would love her that way.

  She glanced at Eric. “Thank you for sharing that with me.”

  Eric gave her a small smile. “There’s nothing Aaron wants more in the world than to protect the people he loves.”

  Mackenzie wanted to know what would happen if feelings were to develop between them. She’d like to think he could feel that way about her, but he held himself back so much she couldn’t be sure it was even possible. As soon as Carosa was stopped, Aaron would return to his job with the army and she would go back to her life. They would never see each other again.

  In the short time they had left, she wanted to press Aaron and make him open up to her. Not because she liked him, but because the world would be a poorer place if he never loved anyone but his family. Still, if she pushed too far he would likely retreat even further.

  Eric turned left and then left again. He stopped at a corner that looked like a different end of the park from where Mackenzie and Aaron had arrived. He tapped his foot, flipping his cell phone over and over in his hand. Then he froze. “There he is.”

  A figure stepped out of the trees, looked both ways and ran toward them. Aaron slid into the backseat just as two men in black fatigues ran out of the park, pointed their guns at the car and started shooting.

  Mackenzie screamed.

  Eric gunned the engine and they sped away.

  EIGHT

  Eric dropped them at a motel just before two o’clock in the morning. It was the kind of place where you paid in cash and no one asked for ID, but at least there was a connecting door between their two rooms that Aaron kept unlocked. As it was, Mackenzie spent most of the night staring at the ceiling. The minute she closed her eyes, she would descend into the world of memory. It happened over and over. Her body would relax enough that she dozed, and shortly after she would wake with a jerk, tangled in the sheets.

  She could still hear the gunshots from the park. They had reminded her of that night years ago and the horrible things she’d witnessed. For years after it happened, she had nightmares. The anniversary of that night was always the worst. She would wake up and have to run to the bathroom. Sweating on the floor beside the toilet got old really fast, but thankfully her night hadn’t been that bad.

  Still, she didn’t get any sleep, either.

  When sunrise hit the back of the curtains, she got up. Instead of her usual as-fast-as-possible shower, Mackenzie took her time and let the hot water wake her. Her go bag that Eric had brought to the park for her was packed with two spare changes of clothes, extra underwear and shoes. But it was nothing like her WITSEC persona would normally wear. When she opened it, she was filled with a sudden rush of nerves. What if she looked like an idiot?

  High fashion might not be her thing now, but it had been once. She couldn’t remember the last time she wore jeans with rhinestones—even fake ones. Would she look good, or like a country music wannabe? And who cared anyway, since the only person who was going to see her was Aaron?

  She dumped the contents on the bed in a spill of clothes. The jeans had come from a resale store and were prefaded, and the pink top was admittedly cute, but she hadn’t had anything that bright in her closet in years. It reminded her of Eva. Was she mad they’d missed dinner?

  Hopefully her friend wasn’t singlehandedly running the center. But who knew how she was doing? Mackenzie couldn’t even call and check. Maybe Chris—the teacher Mackenzie had covered for the first day Aaron was there—was still out with his sick son.

  Eva always commented on how she dressed. But Eva just didn’t get that, when she was younger, Mackenzie had dressed for the express purpose of drawing attention to herself. Her life now wasn’t just about staying below the radar, it was also about not being the person she used to be.

  She would probably never be able to tell Eva her story. In fact, something made Mackenzie think she might never see her friend again. Eric would set her up with a new identity in some half-empty state where she could live in the mountains in seclusion, hiding from Carosa for the rest of her life. Aaron was no doubt a skilled soldier, but would he be able to go up against a drug cartel?

  Mackenzie wanted to scream. Just walk outside, look up at the sky and shriek until she had no breath left. She would surely be alone and hiding for the rest of her life. But she would still do it, because it was the small bit of power she had left.

  She wanted to hold on to what she could control for a little bit longer—long enough to balance the scales.

  * * *

  When his friend’s sedan pulled up outside, Aaron stepped out of his motel room into the dry heat of eight o’clock in the morning. Hours had passed since they’d been shot at, but he could still hear it ringing in his ears. He needed reinforcements and was glad he’d been able to reach Sabine Laduca last night. His former team leader’s fiancée was a former CIA agent. If anyone could help, it was Sabine.

  Sabine’s smile was wide as she stepped out of the car, and if he’d been able to see her eyes behind the huge sunglasses she wore, there would probably be a gleam of mischief there.

  “You look a little rough this morning.”

  He snorted. “I’m thinking that’s an understatement.”

  “Bad night?”

  “You could call it that, yeah. I liked the automatic weapons especially.”

  Sabine pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head, her eyes wide. It hadn’t been that long since she’d been branded a rogue CIA agent and became the subject of a manhunt while she searched for her brother’s killer. Ben—Sabine’s brother and Aaron’s former teammate—had been killed in action, but it was a hit that was paid for. Ben had been murdered by Sabine’s mom.

  It had taken the whole team working, and especially Aaron’s former team leader, Doug, to get her out of that fix. But now her mom was dead, and Sabine had Doug’s ring on her finger.

  “Enough of that, though.” Aaron grinned. “Mademoiselle.”

  Sabine laughed and gave him a quick one-armed hug. “Yeah, yeah. Cut it out, I’m an engaged woman.”

  “Doesn’t make you any less beautiful.” Aaron said it without thinking, but it hit home. She looked happy. And the way she looked at Doug? Aaron’s former team leader was a fortunate guy. But Doug would say it was God’s blessing.

  As a kid, Aaron had gone to church. After all, it was part of the deal he’d struck with his foster parents. Still, he didn’t see how God had done anything much for him, let alone bless him. That was why he’d left faith behind when he went into the army. And he’d done fine without it, so why change things now, simply because his friend had some kind of revelation?

  Aaron motioned to the car. “What do you have for me?”

  “One staid, boring, completely unnoticeable car bought with cash. The plates are still registered to the dealership until we do the paperwork.”

  “Great, thanks.”

  Sabine’s gaze flicked to the motel room beside his. “So what’s she like, this Mackenzie Wi
nters?”

  Aaron narrowed his eyes. “What do you think you know?”

  “Nothing. I didn’t even do a full computer search or anything. You should be proud of me.”

  He wanted to roll his eyes, but let her have her moment. She could find out just about anything if she wanted to. Maybe not that Mackenzie was in WITSEC, but Sabine could likely make a good guess if she uncovered enough evidence that suggested Mackenzie’s identity had been constructed instead of lived. She had been trained by the CIA after all.

  Sabine smiled. “It’s a great thing she’s doing, with those kids at the center. Only...I’m just curious why she needs protecting? I can guess since you told me your brother, the U.S. Marshal is involved, but I wouldn’t want to assume.”

  “Good. Let’s keep it that way.” Of course she would figure it out. He should never have told her this had to do with Eric. “We’ll be fine, Sabine. I’ve got this covered.”

  “I know you do. It’s just...with Doug in Tampa talking to that guy about a job—” Aaron had talked to Doug before he left town about the interview. His former team leader was still looking for work that would suit him as well as the army had.

  “I’m kind of—” she came close and whispered, as if it was a secret “—bored.”

  “Wedding planning isn’t turning out to be as exciting as you thought?”

  Sabine laughed. “No, it’s not that at all. I mean, it’s going to be great getting married and then being married. But this seems interesting, too.” She waved her hand, encompassing him and the motel rooms. “It could be fun.”

  “Sure, running for your life when people are shooting at you is great fun.”

  Sabine rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to say it like that.”

  “And if I let you get shot at while Doug was out of town, what then?”

  She sighed. “Fine. I’ll go back to tulle and sequins and vol-au-vents.”

  A cab pulled up in the parking lot and Sabine held up one finger to the driver. “But if you need anything, and I mean anything, you give me a call, okay?”