Читать книгу Expert Witness - Rachel Dylan - Страница 12
ОглавлениеSydney looked directly at Max. It was time to talk about something she really didn’t want to discuss. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you this earlier, but it didn’t really occur to me. I was so focused on Kevin and the trial.” That wasn’t the only reason. She was afraid and ashamed to talk about it. But now she saw she had no choice.
She was about to share a big part of herself with this man. Would he understand? Could she trust him with her painful past?
“What is it?” Max asked.
“It’s a long story, but I need to explain it all for it to make sense.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Still she hesitated. “It’s not something I normally talk about with anyone, but I feel like you need to know.”
“Take your time.”
She sat down in one of the hotel chairs, and he took a seat next to her. Hoping she had the strength to reveal her darkest secret to a man she barely knew, she began her story. “I started self-defense training five years ago.”
“What happened to make you start?”
She paused and took a deep breath before she answered. “I was dating this guy. Things were going well. But then he began to question my work and become very controlling. He put me down and called what I did a hobby that shouldn’t interfere with what he expected me to do for him around his apartment. Then when I’d get home late from work, he’d become irate.”
He crossed his arms and leaned back. “And that led to worse things happening, right?”
She nodded, fighting off the emotion that came flooding back over her. “One night he’d gone out with his friends. He’d had a few drinks, and when I questioned him about whether he should’ve driven home he got really angry. I knew he had a temper, but this was the first time I was actually afraid of him.”
“I’m worried about what you’re going to say next.”
“It’s exactly what you would expect. He got violent. I had absolutely no way of defending myself.” She let out a shaky breath. “But he apologized and I gave him another chance. I chalked it up to a one-time thing.”
“And it wasn’t,” he said softly.
“Definitely not. I lived in fear for months. Some days were fine and perfectly normal. But there were times that were just like the first. Except that each incident got progressively worse. He was verbally and physically abusive.” She fought to keep her composure as tears stung her eyes.
He patted her hand. “It’s okay, Sydney. Take your time.”
“What really changed things for me was not just that he was so awful to me. I thought I could handle that. Really I did. But it all came crashing down on me when he hurt my cat.”
“What?”
“I had adopted a stray cat. The cutest little black furry cat you’d ever seen. I named him Bach because I love classical music. He knew how much Bach meant to me. And one day he kicked him so hard, I knew he had to have injured him, and then he put Bach outside the apartment. I literally searched all night until I found him. I was able to get him into a special animal rescue that I worked with. They gave him medical care and thankfully he recovered. But I was devastated that he’d hurt such an innocent animal. That one act of violence against the cat I loved so much was actually what it took to convince me to leave. It was one thing for me to take his abuse, but when he hurt Bach, I knew I’d never be the same.”
“What did you do?”
“I got out. Right after I took Bach to the rescue, I ran away the first chance I got. I didn’t have anywhere to go, so I ended up driving to a town in the North Georgia mountains. I found a church, and they were able to help me start a new life.”
He looked over at her. “Sydney, I don’t even know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything.” She took a moment to steady herself. “That’s when I found faith. I also decided that I would never be a victim again. I started with basic self-defense courses, but that wasn’t enough. I saved up my money and got one-on-one training from a former marine who owned a gym. I also started working out to gain more strength. It was one of the best investments I ever made. I stayed in that town for about a year. I volunteered at the animal shelter because I missed Bach so much. But I still couldn’t adopt another cat at that point. I had to focus on myself and getting stronger. Make a safe place for myself before becoming responsible for another.”
“That makes sense to me.”
“I’ve never let another man into my life after that.” And she never would again. She’d made that promise to herself after she got away from the monster. Loneliness was a much better alternative.
Max reached out and gently touched her arm. “You can’t let one awful man ruin the rest of your life.”
“As you can imagine, the stress of this situation has brought back a lot of those memories, so you have to forgive me if I...can’t deal.”
“Yes, I understand completely. What you’re probably experiencing is a form of post-traumatic stress that has been aggravated. I’m so sorry you’re having to go through this, Sydney. If there was anything I could do to make it go away, believe me, I would.”
She leaned forward and looked him in the eyes. “I don’t want you to think I can’t handle myself. Because I can.”
“You’ve already more than proven that to me.”
“Thanks, but unfortunately that’s not even the real reason I’m telling you this painful story.”
His eyes narrowed. “What else is there?”
“My ex.” She took a breath, steadied herself. “He had close friends in the East River gang, and after I left I think he got more involved with them. Last I heard he was doing time, but I haven’t kept close tabs on him. I just want to make sure that I never see him again.”
“What’s his name?”
“Rick Ward.” She hated even speaking those words.
“I’ll need to run a check on him ASAP. Maybe he saw you in all of the local trial publicity,” Max said quietly. “Do you think he is actually a member of the gang?”
“I don’t know for sure, but’s it’s definitely possible. He didn’t tell me everything. He was pretty secretive about what he was doing and about his friends. I overheard a conversation one day when a friend of his came to the apartment. They were in the living room watching TV while I was making dinner in the kitchen. They were talking about some other members of East River. At the time I knew it was bad news, but I didn’t understand it was actually a violent gang. Although it makes sense now, because it wasn’t long after he started hanging around with those friends that he got so violent.”
“You did the right thing by telling me all of this, Sydney. But we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves. Let me do some digging and find out if he’s still in prison, and whether the FBI has any current intel on his connections to the East River gang.”
She swiped at a tear that threatened to fall. She never talked about this to anyone—except to God in her prayers. The only reason she had opened up to this man was because he’d proven that he was willing to put his life on the line for hers. And he deserved to know all of the facts even if it made her uncomfortable to relive the past.
“He’d have to be a big enough player in the gang for East River to take action on his behalf,” Max explained. “We can’t discount that as a possibility. But either way, East River is involved in the attacks against you. That much I’m sure of.”
“I agree, and I felt like I had to say something.”
“I’m glad you told me.” He knelt down beside her. “You’re looking a little pale. Why don’t you rest for a few minutes? Then we’ll go and get something to eat. Meanwhile, I’ll make the phone call to get the ball rolling on the FBI’s end.”
* * *
Max sat across from Sydney in a large booth at the Pikeville Diner, located right next to the inn. It killed Max to see Sydney look so worried. But with each passing minute she impressed him more. Her story of abuse broke his heart, but he had a tremendous amount of respect for her. Max thought men who abused women were the lowest of the low. He wondered how a woman like Sydney could’ve even met a man like Ward. But it wasn’t his business to pry into those types of facts. He had all the relevant information he needed to work his case.
He knew it had taken a lot of courage for her to speak up. Ever since he’d seen her wrestle the gun from the guy at the car, he’d had a feeling that something had caused her to get that self-defense training, but he’d had no idea that it had been something so bad.
What made matters worse was that if the threat to Sydney was purely from her ex-boyfriend, and if there was no connection to Kevin Diaz, then he was worried they might pull the marshals off her. That was one reason he was pushing the Diaz angle. He refused to leave her alone in harm’s way. His fallback position with Elena was going to be that regardless of the exact connection, she was a current target because of her testimony. If more than one person had a beef with her, then so be it. In his mind, all roads led back to East River. It was the common thread.
And now he was going to have to break some additional bad news to Sydney. She deserved to know the truth. “I got word back from the FBI.”
“And?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Rick Ward was released early from prison for good behavior last month.”
Fear flicked through her dark eyes. Then she looked down and back up at him. “It could still be a coincidence.”
“Or he could be working on behalf of East River. He gets revenge against you, and it solves the problem of your damaging testimony against Kevin Diaz.”
“Assuming he kills me.”
“I’m not going to let that happen.”
She pushed her plate away, leaving a half-eaten burger.
“If the gang figured out his connection to you, then they could exert pressure on him to go after you. Or vice versa. He uses East River resources to exact his revenge.”
“That’s true. I didn’t see the faces of the shooters at the courthouse. And we didn’t see anyone at the first safe house.”
“Can you give me his description?”
She gave a weak smile. “I can do better than that.” She pulled a small sketchpad out of her bag and went to work.
He watched as her pencil swept with ease over the paper creating a sketch within minutes. She was in her element, but he also wanted to use this as an opportunity to talk more about her work—and his concerns about it.
“This is his face,” she said as she turned the drawing toward Max. “He’s approximately six feet tall, two hundred pounds. Dark hair with light blue eyes. You can see his other features here. A strong jawline, dimple on the left cheek, a few freckles.”
He stared at the face. At first glance, the subject didn’t look like a violent man, but Max knew better than to make a judgment based on appearances. Sometimes the people you least suspected were the most violent.
He took a moment more to examine the drawing, but he couldn’t deny his inherent skepticism. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“How can you be so sure that this sketch is accurate? That any sketch you do is accurate?”
Her eyes widened. “Are you questioning my abilities as a sketch artist?”
He shook his head. “Not you specifically. It’s just that when I was a rookie in the FBI, I got burned badly by a sketch artist. Turns out we got the wrong guy. The guy who actually committed the crime was able to murder another innocent person. I lost many a night’s sleep over that.”
She leaned back from the table. “It’s an art not a science.”
“Exactly. So there’s bound to be human error.”
“But even from a scientific approach you wouldn’t throw out all drawings just because some are flawed. Remember, the sketch artist is only as good as the eyewitness account. And we all know the high rate of error in witness accounts.”
“But this sketch.” He pointed down to the paper. “This drawing is accurate because you’re drawing based on your personal knowledge of him over time. Not just a single account like a witness in a lawsuit for example.”
“Yes, that’s true. The error rate on a sketch like this is much lower given how well I knew this man—assuming the person drawing has the requisite artistic ability. You can’t really compare what I did just now to what would happen normally where I would meet with a witness and then draw based on their factual description.”
“That’s precisely my point though. I’m sorry if I offended you. It’s just something that was on my mind.”
“Don’t let one bad experience with a sketch artist impact your view of what I do. I take my work and its accuracy very seriously.”
He’d obviously hit a nerve. “Like I said, I wasn’t trying to question you specifically.”
She crossed her arms. “Regardless of what your intent was, you’re basically questioning my career. At a time when I’m a key witness in a high-profile case.”
She was right. He never should’ve opened his mouth. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking about that.”
“It’s like you’re trying to ice the kicker. Don’t forget I still have to testify.” She laughed even though he could tell that she wasn’t exactly filled with humor.
“Forget I even brought it up. Let’s talk about something else.” He knew he’d offended her and didn’t know if she was going to let it drop.
“How long are we staying in Pikeville?”
“We’ll have to play it by ear. I want to see what intel the FBI has on Ward.”
The petite waitress with bleached blond hair walked over and pulled their bill out of her notepad. Then she quirked a curious eyebrow. “You two here visiting the town?”
He jumped in, not wanting to put any extra pressure on an already stressed Sydney. “Just passing through for work.”
“Ah, well, I hope you enjoyed the food here.” She frowned when she saw Sydney’s half-eaten burger.
“It was delicious. Just a bit too much.” Sydney smiled at her.
The waitress nodded and walked away.
“Let’s get back to the hotel,” he said. “Try to get some rest. We’re going to need it.”
* * *
Sydney awoke with a start. Darkness surrounded her, and something flashed in her peripheral vision. Where was she? And what was that shuffling noise she heard? Then it came flooding back to her. She was in a hotel room in Pikeville. But she wasn’t alone.
Her eyes adjusted to the dark, and she saw a figure in her room. She opened her mouth with an instinctive urge to scream, but the intruder lunged on top of her, silencing her with his hand over her mouth.
“You’re coming with me,” the man said in a low, menacing voice. The only thing she knew for sure was that the attacker wasn’t her ex-boyfriend Rick. But that didn’t change her determination to fight him off. No way was she letting him take her out of that hotel room.
He was strong, but she was trained so something like this could never happen again. She refused to be a victim. She was a fighter. Saying a quick prayer for strength, she bit down on his hand as hard as she could.
The intruder yelped and when he loosened his grip she screamed to alert Max through the unlocked adjoining door. But she wasn’t going to wait for Max to come to her rescue. No, she reared back and connected hard with the attacker’s jaw with a right uppercut. He stumbled a bit, and she delivered a swift kick to his midsection, forcing him to double over from the impact.
“Sydney!” Max’s voice rang out in the darkness.
The intruder ran quickly toward her door, throwing it open and escaping into the night. Then Max came into her room. She could see in the shadows that his gun was drawn.
“He just ran out,” she said.
“Stay here.” He ran out the door, but she didn’t listen to him. She was right behind him.
“There.” She pointed toward the parking lot. The man, dressed all in black, was at the edge of the parking lot jumping into a dark colored sedan.
“I can’t go after him and leave you by yourself,” Max said. “We don’t know that he was alone.”
“No. You should go. You need to interrogate him.”
“It’s too risky. I’m sorry. My first priority is always going to be your personal protection. I can’t pursue him under the circumstances.”
She watched as her attacker disappeared from sight into the darkness.
“Are you all right?”
She shook out her right hand. “Yeah. My hand hurts a bit from punching him, but I’ll be fine.” She took in a breath of air, realizing that she was breathing hard. “But how did he find me? That’s the question we need to answer first.”
She walked back into her hotel room, and he was right behind her. She flipped on the light.
“I can tell you’re frustrated, and you have every right to be. You were just attacked in the middle of the night. And you’re right about how you were found. This location wasn’t even in the system. So an electronic system breach wouldn’t have provided this information.”
He paced back and forth. His dark hair was slightly disheveled from sleep. Then he turned back to face her with his eyes wide. “I need to look through your stuff. Your bag, your purse. Anything you’ve had on your person since yesterday.”
She got what he was saying. “You think someone put some type of tracking device in my stuff?”
He nodded. “It would make a lot of sense, and it would explain all of these breaches.”
“But that would also mean someone got close enough to me to put the device in my bag.”
“Let me see if I can find anything first.”
She handed him her shoulder bag that included her sketch pad. She also gave him her much smaller purse.
“That day at the courthouse. Did you have both of these on you?”
“Yes. My purse was actually in my shoulder bag. I take that bag pretty much everywhere I go, though.”
He started with her shoulder bag. It was full of junk. Pencils, pens, some makeup. He unceremoniously dumped out the contents on the hotel-room desk.
She watched as he ran his hands along the lining of her bag. Then he pulled something out.
“This—” he held up a small black chip that looked like a piece of plastic “—is a tracking device. Feels like they used a bit of an adhesive to stick it in the bottom of your bag. You wouldn’t notice it unless you were specifically looking for it.”
“Wow,” she said. “Someone had to have gotten a hold of my bag to get it in the bottom, though. That’s disturbing.”
“It’s actually much easier than you might think. All they had to do was get close enough to you to reach in your bag and quickly adhere the chip inside. More than likely they ran into you—acting like it was purely accidental. But it was all carefully orchestrated.”
“It sounds professional. Not just like some random thug could do it.”
He nodded. “And it has upper-level East River written all over it.” He took a step back. “You know Rick Ward. Do you think he has the ability to climb up the hierarchy of an organization like East River?”
She thought for a moment. “He’s definitely not the smartest man I’ve ever met, but he isn’t dumb. He knows how to get what he wants and can be very manipulative. He’s also persistent. He won’t stop until he has his way by whatever means necessary.”
He touched her shoulder. “I hate to do this, Sydney. I know it’s the middle of the night, but we need to get out of here.”
“What are we going to do with the chip?”
“Leave it here in the hotel room. And then we’ll go. We finally have a bit of an advantage. We found the chip, and they don’t know that. They’ll assume we’re here overnight. When the chip doesn’t move in the morning, then they’ll know we were on to them. But that still gives us a few hours’ head start.”
“They could be watching us now.”
“Yes, that’s why I’ll also use evasive maneuvers to ensure that we’re not being followed. Gather your things and do what you need to do. I want to be on the road in fifteen minutes.”
As she prepared to leave, the different scenarios played out in her mind. She was being hunted, but by whom? A professional hit man paid off by a murderer? Or a man she’d thought she loved? She didn’t know if she could handle coming face to face with Rick Ward again. A chill shot through her just thinking about those blue eyes. Sweet one minute and menacing the next.
But there was no time for fear right now. They had to hit the road. Her life depended on it.
* * *
Max sat behind the wheel fully alert. Even running on only a few hours of sleep, he could feel that his adrenaline had kicked in and he was moving full steam ahead. Sydney must have felt the same way because every time he glanced over at her, she looked wide-awake with her eyes firmly glued to the dark road in front of them.
He couldn’t stop the strong need deep within him to protect this woman. But that was all it was. A desire to do his job to the best of his ability. His career was everything to him. At thirty-three he really was in no rush for a serious relationship. He even considered never getting married and having a family. His own family had given him plenty of reasons to roll solo. Yeah, to all the neighbors they may have looked like the perfect family, but his childhood had been far from perfect.
He hadn’t met another women quite like Sydney, though. But he had to be realistic. She was definitely not the one for him—assuming someone out there was for him. They were polar opposites on pretty much every issue. Her entire approach to life was guided by emotion and instinct, while his was based on science and logic. She’d even called him hostile to faith. That had seemed a bit much to him at the time, but maybe she was right. His parents hadn’t exactly acted as good role models on that front. He preferred to rely on himself and live in a world where he occupied his time with his career. He didn’t lack a sense of self-awareness—he knew he had erected walls to make sure he wouldn’t get hurt. But that was fine with him.
“Where are we going?” she asked, cutting into his thoughts.
“Elena said to just start driving northwest, but I don’t want to stop until we have more distance between us and Pikeville.”
“I’ve been keeping watch out the back,” she said, turning around again to peer out the rear window. “I don’t think we’ve been followed.”
“Me, neither.”
“Guess that’s one positive.”
“Hey now. Don’t sound so down. That was a big break for us to find that tracker.”
“I do thank God for that. But...”
“But what?”
“I really can’t describe to you how I feel about Rick.” She paused. “And the prospect of seeing him again.”
“I won’t let him hurt you. And hopefully he has nothing to do with this.”
“Maybe not. But I know he would come after me if he could. If he knew where I was, if he had the opportunity. Men like him don’t take it very well when a woman leaves them.”
“We’re going to make sure he doesn’t have that opportunity. You have to remember you’re not alone now.”
“I once was. And those were some dark days. Until I walked into that church and my life changed forever for the better. I know you don’t want to hear that, but my faith is all I have. It’s what has sustained me when I thought that I might not even want to live.”
His heart hurt hearing the emotion dripping from her words. He couldn’t help but be moved by what she said. To be moved by her. And to feel that there was a void in his own life from turning away from his faith.
“I don’t want your pity,” she said quietly.
“Sydney, the last thing in the world I feel for you is pity. You’ve shown what a strong person you are. You fought that guy off all by yourself. But beyond your physical abilities, you’re rock solid emotionally, too. Stronger than a lot of people I know. And a lot of federal agents I’ve worked with. You can hold your own.”
She didn’t respond but sat quietly, and he wanted her to believe him. Before he could press his point, his phone rang. He answered and put it on speaker.
“Hey, Max. It’s Elena.”
“You have something?” Max asked.
“Yes. I have news. Big news.”
