Eyewitness (Thriller/Legal Thriller - #5 The Witness Series) (The Witness Series #5) (2 page)

It was Hannah who woke with a start. It was Hannah who was terrified by the darkness, the howling wind, the driving rain, and the racket made by a man pounding on the door as if he would break it down. It was Hannah who tumbled out of bed and ran for Josie, staying low in the shadows for fear that whoever was outside might see her through the bare picture window.

Hannah called out as she ran, but her shriek was braided into the sizzle of lightning and then flattened by a clap of thunder so loud it rattled the house. She threw herself into the hall. On all fours, she crawled forward, clutched the doorjamb, pulled herself into the bedroom, and felt her way in the dark until she touched Josie.

Once. . .

Twice.. . .

Five. . .

“Josie! Josie!”

Hannah kept her voice low. If she raised it she would get more than Josie’s attention; she might get the attention of the man outside.

“What? Hannah. . .Don’t. . .”

Ten. . .

Twelve. . .

Josie swiped at the girl’s hand, annoyed in her half sleep. That changed when the wind blew one of the patio chairs into the side of the house. Josie clutched the girl’s hand, rolled over, and put the other one on Hannah’s shoulder.

“Sorry. Sorry. It’s okay. Go back - ”

“Josie, no. Get up. Someone’s out there.”

Hannah pulled hard. Clutch and pull and tap and shake and whisper. Hannah would have crawled in bed with Josie had she not sat up, reached over, and hit the light on the travel clock she preferred to the effervescent glow of a digital. Midnight. No one in their right mind would be out at a time like this, on a night like this. Josie released Hannah’s hand and ran one of her own through her short hair.

“Hannah, you were dreaming,” Josie mumbled.

Just then the small house shuddered, reverberating as it put its architectural shoulder into the huge wind that angled the drive of the rain. Beneath that, rolling in and out was something else that finally made Josie tense. Hannah pitched forward at the same time, throwing her arm over Josie’s legs as her head snapped left. She looked toward the hall. Her hair flew over her face when she whipped back to look at Josie again. Her bright green eyes were splintered with fear; Josie’s dark blue ones were flat with caution.

Josie put her hand on Hannah’s shoulder and moved her away. She kicked off the covers and swung her long legs over the side of the bed as Hannah fell back onto her heels. Josie put her finger to her lips and nodded. She heard it now: the hammering and the unintelligible screams. Josie snatched up her cell and handed it to Hannah.

“Three minutes, then call 911.”

Hannah nodded, her head bobbing with the time of her internal metronome. Josie pulled on the sweat pants she always kept at the end of the bed. She went for the drawer where she kept her father’s gun, thought twice, and left the weapon where it was. This was no night for criminals. Even if it were, they wouldn’t announce themselves.

Josie started for the living room just as lightning scratched out a pattern in the sky and sent shards of light slicing through the window and across the hardwood of the floors. The tumble of thunder was predictable. Josie cringed as she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Hannah had followed her into the hall. Josie put her hand out and pushed hard at the air.

Enough. Stop.

Hannah fell back. Another lightning flash lit up her beautiful flawed body: the tattoos on the girl’s shoulder, the scar running up her thigh where Fritz Rayburn had dripped hot wax on her just for the fun of it, the mottled skin on her hand where she had been burned trying to save her paintings. Coupled with the fear on her face, Hannah looked as if some cosmic artist had outlined her into the canvas of Josie’s house. The man pummeled harder. Josie turned toward the sound just as his words were scooped up and tossed away before they could be understood. Behind Josie, Hannah moved. This time Josie commanded:

“Stay there, damn it!”

Instead, Hannah darted into the living room, defiant, unwilling to leave Josie alone if there were any possibility of danger. She would take Josie’s back the way she had in the mountains, the way she always would. But Josie had no patience for good intentions. She twirled, put her hands on the girl’s shoulder, and pushed her away.

“Hannah, I’m not kidding,” she growled.

Hannah’s eyes narrowed, her nostrils flared, but she fell back a step to satisfy her guardian. In measured strides, Josie crossed the living room and took the two stairs that led to the entry. She threw the porch light switch. Nothing. Another stutter of lightning gave Josie time to see Max curled up on his blanket, asleep and oblivious. Age had its blessings.

Above her, the tarp covering the place where she was installing the skylight snapped and whipped.

Behind her, Hannah paced and touched.

In front of her the man at the door continued to pound, but now Josie was close enough to understand that she was hearing cries for help. She threw the deadbolt and flung the door open. A man tumbled into her house along with the slanting rain. He was soaked to the skin, terrified to the soul, and high as a kite.

“Billy, man. . .gotta come. . .” He blabbered. He sputtered. He spit. He dripped. “Billy needs you . . .bad.” He coughed. He snorted. He hacked. “At the pier. . .come. . .”

His eyes rolled, hooded, and then closed briefly. Struggling to his feet, he started to go inside but slipped on the wet floor. When he tried it again, Josie pushed him back.

“You can show me. Wait. Out there.” Josie gave him one final shove, slammed the door shut, and dashed past Hannah who was running toward her room at the front of the house.

In her bedroom, Josie pulled on her running shoes and snatched up a flashlight. She was headed out again just as Hannah flew out of her bedroom, barely dressed, and struggling into a slicker. Josie raised her voice even though she and Hannah were facing each other in the entry.

“Stay put. Call Archer.”

Josie elbowed past, but Hannah’s terror was transferred to her like pollen. She turned to see that this was about more than the weather or even the man outside.
Left alone. Abandoned. Someone else more important
. Hannah was right about two out of three. Tonight, whatever was happening to Billy was more important than Hannah’s fear of abandonment. Leaving her alone wasn’t something Josie wanted, it was something she had to do.

Grabbing Hannah’s shoulders, Josie peered through the dark at those green eyes and mink colored skin. She pushed back the mass of long, black, curling, kinking, luxurious hair. Josie let her hands slide down Hannah’s arms, bumping along the spider web of hair thin scars that crisscrossed her forearms, grasped her wrists, and held up her hands. She looked at the phone.

“Tell Archer to get to the pier. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Josie pulled Hannah close and kissed the top of her head before ripping the door open again. The wind and rain rushed in, but the man was gone, running off to find a warm dry place. It occurred to her that he might have been hallucinating, imagining something had happened to Billy Zuni. In the next second Josie shut the door behind her. If there was any chance Billy needed her she had to go.

Tall and fast, she raced under the flash bang of the lightning and the bass beat of thunder. She didn’t try to dodge the puddles because water was everywhere: pouring down on her head, stinging her face, weighing down her sweat pants, slogging in her running shoes. Her long t-shirt clung to her ripped body. She squinted against the rain, holding one hand to her brow to keep the water from her eyes. She steadied the broad beam of the huge flashlight in front of her on The Strand before veering off the pavement and onto the sand. Josie stumbled, tripped, and fell. The wet sand was like concrete and her knees jarred with the impact. She shouted out a curse though there was no one to hear. Then it didn’t matter that she was alone on the beach in one mother of a storm. The scream she let out cut through the sound and the fury. Her heart stopped. She froze for an instant, and then she scrambled to her feet.

Josie sidestepped parallel to the pounding surf, trying to hold the beam of light on a spot near the pier pilings. Frantically she wiped the rain away from her eyes hoping she was mistaken and that what she thought she was seeing was an illusion. It wasn’t. Under the yellow halo of light emanating from the massive fixtures on the pier Billy Zuni was caught in the raging, black ocean.

“Billy! Billy!”

Instinctively Josie went toward the water, unsure of what she was going to do once she got there. The waves were ugly. Riotous. Challenge them and they would swallow you up. If you were lucky, they might spit you out again. If you weren’t. . .

She didn’t want to think about that.

Knowing it was going to be tricky to get past them, Josie danced back and forth on the shore, taking her eyes off Billy for seconds at a time, searching for an opening in the surf as the waves rose and fell in a furious trilogy.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Josie looked back toward the pier. She couldn’t see Billy.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

She looked again and saw him. A swell broadsided him, throwing him out of the water like a rag doll.

“Oh God!”

Kicking off her shoes, peeling off her sweat pants, Josie buried the butt of the flashlight at an angle in the sand. She gauged the swell of the next wave.

Bam.

And the one after that.

Bam.

And after that.

Bam. Bam.

Just when she thought it was futile, Josie saw an opening. Half naked, she ran into the water. A wave crashed into her shins, spume erupting into a cloud of stinging froth that covered her to her chest and knocked her off balance. Before she could right herself the water pulled her feet out from under her. Josie fell hard on her butt. Twisting and turning, she fought against the suction of the backwash, dug her heels into the sand bed, righted herself, and put her open-palmed hands out like paddles to cut the pull of the surf.

The next wave smashed into her belly like a brick, but she was still standing. Before she lost her nerve, knowing she had no choice, Josie leaned forward, arms outstretched, and started to push off. She would have to slice through the surf and get deep, and stay submerged long enough to let the second wave roll over her. Surface too soon and she would be washed back to shore; too late and she was as good as dead. Muscles tensing, Josie was already in her arch when a strong hand grabbed her arm.

“No. No. Don’t!”

Archer dragged her back to the shore, both of them buffeted by the waves, stumbling and clinging to one another just to stay ahead of the water.

“Billy’s out there! Look!”

Josie whipped her head between the man who had hold of her and the boy she could no longer see. Her protests were lost in the howl of a new wind. Archer wasted no time on words she would never hear. Instead, he dug his fingers into her arms, shook her, and turned her away from the ocean.

Help was not only coming, it had arrived. Josie fell against Archer and watched the rescue vehicle bump over the sand, its red, rotating light looking eerie in the blackness. The night guard braked and simultaneously threw open the door of the truck. He left the headlights trained on the water. In the beam, the guard ran straight for the ocean, playing out the rope attached to the neon-orange can slung across his shoulder. Tossing it into the sea, it went over the waves and pulled him with it.

Josie broke away from Archer. She pulled her arms into her body, raised her hands and cupped them over her brow to keep the rain out of her eyes. Archer picked up the flashlight and her sweat pants. The pants were ruined. He tossed them aside and watched with her as the lifeguard fought to reach the boy.

Billy seemed velcroed to the pilings by the force of the water only to be torn away moments later and tossed around by an ocean that had no regard for an oh-so-breakable body. Josie cut her eyes toward the last place she had seen the lifeguard. She caught sight of him just as he went under. A second later he popped back up again. The bright orange rescue can marked his pitiful progress. Josie sidestepped, hoping to get a better view. Archer’s free hand went around her shoulder to hold her steady and hold her back. She shook him off. She wouldn’t do anything stupid. Archer knew she wouldn’t. He was worried she would do something insane.

Suddenly the guard was thrown up high as he rode a gigantic swell. It was exactly that moment when fate intervened. A competing swell sent Billy within reach. Josie let out a yelp of relief only to swear when the man and the boy disappeared from view.

“Christ,” Archer bellowed.

He held the flashlight above his head, but when Josie dashed into the surf again Archer tossed it aside and went with her. The water swirled around their feet as they craned their necks to see through the nickelodeon frames of lightning.

“There! There!”

Josie threw out her arm, pointing with her whole hand. The boy was struggling. For a minute Josie thought he was fighting to get to the guard, then she realized Billy was fighting to get away from him. She screamed more at Billy than Archer.

“What are you doing?”

Billy and the guard went under. When they surfaced the boy had given up. It seemed an eternity until they were close enough for Josie and Archer to help, but the guard was finally there, dragging a battered and bruised Billy Zuni to the shore.