Material Witness (21 page)

Quickly he pulled a knife in front of
her view, just inches from her nose. The gun pressed tighter against her skull,
reminding her that all it would take was the mere twitch of his finger to send
a bullet passing through her brain, ending everything.

“What do you…what do you want?” she
said, her voice shaky. She had no idea if this guy had already been in the
house when they got back from the store or if he’d been waiting in the woods
and saw her and Jake.

Jake
. Oh, God, had this monster already
killed him? She closed her eyes to the harsh image of the cold metal knife and
the deadly harm this intruder intended.

“Don’t worry your little head. I’m
just going to take a little piece of you to remember you by when you’re gone.
We’re going to take a nice picture of you and me. And then it’ll be all over.”

His voice didn’t hold hate or malice
or emotion of any kind. It was almost mechanical, as if this man had no feeling
or conscience about what he was about to do.

“You stay still and this won’t hurt a
bit.”

Her eyes flew open just as the knife
disappeared from view. Cassie lost all breath in her lungs as the knife grazed
the back of her head. She felt a small tug but no pain, and wondered if the
terror of what was happening had numbed her senses.

He dangled a long strand of her hair
in front of her.

“Hold this,” he demanded.

She stared at her hair as he shook it
in front of her. With trembling fingers, she gripped her hair. Seconds later he
placed his cell phone in front of them.

“Smile pretty for the camera.” He
pressed his face against hers as she held the strand of hair in front of them.

A sob bubbled up her throat as he
wrenched the strand of hair from her.

“Touch a hair on her head and I’ll
kill you.”

Relief and fear careened through
Cassie with the sound of Jake’s voice. His tone was lethal in a way she’d never
heard before. To hear that kind of deadly emotion in any other man’s voice
would have Cassie trembling. But to hear Jake’s voice at all filled her with
relief so strong her knees weakened and threatened not to hold her any longer.
Jake was alive. Thank you God, he hadn’t been killed. But the relief was
short-lived. Jake was unarmed.

“Too late.”

Abruptly, the stranger wrapped his
arm around Cassie’s neck with the hand holding the knife and swung her around.
Her head jerked back with the force of his blow. The gun discharged, the noise
of it like an explosion in her ear. A scream ripped through her. She hadn’t
seen Jake behind them and when the gunman finally turned her around, using her
body to shield himself, Jake was gone.

“Jake! Oh, God, no. You shot him!”
she screamed.

“Shut up, bitch!”

Fury erupted, violent and blinding,
from the depths of Cassie’s core. With her left hand, she gripped the gunman's
wrist like a vice, only marginally concerned with keeping the knife he held
from slicing her skin. Flattening her right hand, tight and strong, Cassie
delivered a quick thrust to his other hand, unleashing all her fury and sending
the 45 caliber, that had only moments ago been pressed against her temple,
flying out of the gunman’s hand.

One small victory had her taking a
quick breath, but the element of surprise was vital in survival and she knew
the shock she’d given her attacker would quickly fade.

“Let her go!”

Jake’s voice boomed and echoed
against the walls of the cabin. To her great relief, Jake now held the gun out
in front of him in both hands. An ax lay on the floor where he stood with his
legs spread slightly apart.

Her attacker pressed the knife snug
up against Cassie’s throat, the razor-sharp blade grazing her skin. Cassie
sucked in a breath to keep the knife from pressing against her any further. One
wrong move and the blade would go deep and cut her artery. She’d bleed to death
all over the floor before any help could come.

“Shooting me isn’t going to get you
what you want, Santos,” the man said. “Your bullet goes in me and the knife is
going to come back with me, taking this pretty little head off with it.”

Cassie heard the twisted smile in his
voice. She zeroed in on Jake’s face, his eyes focused on the man who seemed to
be taking pleasure in her murder. There was hate there, something she’d yet to
see in Jake. His square jaw was clenched tight, his body rigid but fully in
control.

“Who sent you?”

“Who said anyone did?”

“You have Warlords written all over
you,” Jake bit back. “Fagnelio must be desperate, to send a rank amateur.”

Jake’s eyes never wavered from his
target.

Those were clearly not words the man
holding her wanted to hear. “Shut the fuck up! You know nothing! You’re both
dead whether you kill me or not.”

His grip eased just a notch as his
anger rose. The knife wobbled against her neck.

Cassie couldn’t take it. Bloodshed
was going to happen one way or another. It was just a matter of whose blood
would be spilled. Too much was out of control.

“Don’t tell me you drove all the way
out here just for the clean air.” Jake took a microscopic step toward them.

Cassie balled her fists and
concentrated all her effort in keeping her right arm locked and rock solid. The
blade held against her skin only needed to move an inch or so away in order to
give her a window of opportunity.

“What do they make you for bringing
home the prize?” Jake taunted, motioning to the strand of hair the man was
still holding. “Their promises mean nothing. Fagnelio is in such deep shit he
doesn’t care who he’s taking down with him. You do the deed and then they’ll
just kill you. That’s how it works, you know. Did they tell you?”

The man’s agitation grew by leaps. He
took in a deep breath and his hand moved just enough for Cassie to slip her
left hand up and grab the wrist holding the knife. She held on for dear life. A
split second later, she rammed her right elbow square into the dirtbag’s
diaphragm, forcing him to hunch forward, throw his arms out, and loosen his
hold as he lost all his breath.

Something instinctive took over her
and had Cassie pivoting so she stood behind him. She delivered a punch to his
gonads from behind and wound the hand still gripping his through his legs,
making him hunch forward even more and teeter on his toes. One swift movement
and she rammed him head first into the woodstove, knocking him unconscious.

Her heart still hammering, Cassie
stepped back against the counter. It had all happened in seconds and now it was
over. Jake rushed to the man sprawled out on the floor, checking for more
weapons. He put a finger to his neck to check for a pulse.

With her hands covering her mouth,
she glanced down at the pine floor where the knife had dropped. Her eyes fixed
on the dark clump of hair. She’d seen him do it, watched him dangle it in front
of her face as he snapped his evidence picture. But what he’d done finally sank
in. It was her hair on the floor. Her body he’d touched. She shuddered with the
memory.

Her hand went to the back of her head
where she’d felt the tug earlier, searching for the spot where her hair had
been cut away. She found it and twirled at the ends of freshly cut pieces of
hair between her thumb and index finger.

Jake picked up the knife and the lock
of hair, staring at it for a moment before turning to her.

“There might be more like him out
there. We have to get out of here now.”

Cassie looked at the hair in Jake’s
hand.

“That’s mine,” she said quietly.

Jake looked at her with eyes that
mirrored the terror she felt inside. “I know.”

Minutes later Jake drove the Jeep up
a small rise in the road. Cassie didn’t know if the wheels had left the ground
or not, but she felt her body rise and then bounce down into the seat with the
force as if they’d gone airborne. Her neck stung, hot and biting, where the
knife had dug into her skin. Her body trembled violently as the magnitude of
what had just transpired fully hit her.

Cassie had almost been killed. For
the third time!

At the bar, Cassie had methodically
gone over details with Jake, taking comfort in knowing that although she’d been
at the wrong place at the wrong time, the violence she’d witnessed was not intended
for her personally. The safe house was another story. Someone intended for her
and Jake to die in that explosion, and it was by Jake’s quick action and the
grace of God that they’d made it out before the house disintegrated into a pile
of ash and fiery rubble.

Today it was so much worse. She’d
seen the burning death wish in the eyes of the man who wanted her dead.

“Jake, that wasn’t an FBI agent,”
Cassie finally said weakly. They hadn’t spoken for a few miles. Jake
concentrated on the road and Cassie had retreated inside herself to find some
of the peace she craved.

“I know.” Jake glanced quickly at her
before returning his eyes to the road. He turned the heat in the Jeep on full
blast.

He’d brought the lock of hair with
him, placing it out of view in the glove compartment. She didn’t know why. It
couldn’t be reattached. Any evidence of that altercation with that man was in
plain view on the cell phone he’d used to take her picture. But Jake had taken
the strand of hair anyway and hidden it out of her view. Cassie knew it was
there. She couldn’t ignore it.

She looked down at herself and
realized that in their haste she’d left that ridiculously big wool coat behind.
She hadn’t felt the cold when she climbed into the Jeep. She’d felt numb,
unable to feel anything at all. But now the shock of what had happened was all
too vivid.

Remembering the vileness of the man’s
eyes, she said, “He was little more than a boy, Jake.”

“Don’t kid yourself. He may have been
younger than you, but he’d have killed you and me without remorse. He nearly
succeeded.”

“But he didn’t.”

“No.”

“Was he dead? Did I…kill him?” Her
bottom lip wobbled uncontrollably and a sob bubbled up her throat.

“No,” Jake said tightly and Cassie
had the distinct feeling that Jake wished she had. He took his eyes off the
road and looked at her, hard and resolute. “No, Cassie. You didn’t kill him.
But you had every right to. If you hadn’t been able to get that gun out of his
hand, most likely we’d both be dead right now. You did what you had to do. He’ll
probably come to in a little while and have one hell of an egg on his head for
his efforts. I’d say he got off with more than he deserved.”

Tears streamed down her cheeks. “He
wasn’t an agent.”

“Angel sent him.” Jake’s expression
was grim as he glanced at the glove compartment. “That lock of hair was meant
as proof. The picture was proof, too.”

“Proof of what?”

“That he’d been successful at his
initiation. A lot of street gangs have their own signature. When a new recruit
kills, he brings back a piece of his victim as proof.”

“He could have cut a piece of hair
from anyone.”

“He could have, but if he presented
it as proof to his leaders and they found out the truth, he’d be killed, too.
To them it is honor, courage. It’s a good thing he took it one step further and
wanted a picture of you as his proof. He might have killed you before I found
you.”

“They have no respect for human life
at all,” she said quietly. “I can’t figure out how he knew we were at the
cabin.”

Jake glanced at her, his blue-eyed
gaze intense. “You have a face that is unforgettable, Cassie.”

Jake’s softly spoken words wrapped
around her, easing her burden and igniting something deeper.

It wasn’t just that she was
recognizable. Her face was very likely the first thing people had seen when they
read the newspaper during their morning coffee. She hadn’t been on the front
page of the newspaper yesterday. She’d checked the vending machine at the truck
stop when they’d stopped for breakfast. But that didn’t mean anything. 

She looked down at her trembling
hands and saw blood staining them. She snapped her head up in alarm.

Jake reached out and clasped the hand
closest to him. “You have blood on your shirt and on your neck. The knife most
likely cut the outer skin during the struggle.” He sighed heavily, dragged his
hand over his head. “It could have killed you. Do you feel it.”

Did she? Yes, her neck stung a
little. She was too afraid to touch it for fear of what she might find. “I
think it’s just a surface cut.”

“The blood is drying. It can’t be a
deep cut. But we’ll have to clean that up when we get settled somewhere. You’re
not going to pass out, are you?”

Cassie shook her head. “We can’t go
anywhere, Jake. They’ll find us. If they found me at Maureen’s cabin, of all
places, they’ll find me anywhere.”

He reached across the seat and
slipped his wide hand, warm and reassuring, over hers. She wanted the comfort,
but didn’t think there was a chance in hell she’d ever feel comfort again.