Lisa Phillips - Witness In Hiding

Zoe rapped her knuckles on the Formica. “Lookin’ for Moose.”

The counter woman didn’t look up from her magazine.

Zoe pushed aside the depressing thoughts of what her life had become. She couldn’t even think about Tyler, or she’d start blubbering because she hadn’t seen her son in a week—the longest they’d ever been apart. Right now, Tyler was safe with her sister, which meant it wasn’t time for crying; it was time for action. The kind that would make the two of them free of danger for the rest of their lives.

Hence, Moose. And the duffel bag of thirty thousand dollars of borrowed money she was going to have to figure out how to pay back.

Freedom wasn’t cheap.

The purple-haired woman pointed one white-tipped finger to the interior door. “Moose is back there.”

“Thanks.” Zoe straightened her shoulders and headed for the back door. Politeness wasn’t something the people in this world she’d fallen into understood, but it was ingrained in her. At the last second before she pushed the handle down, another ingrained part of her—some latent warning instinct—flared to life. Danger. She glanced back at the front door of the Laundromat just as he walked through.

Gun raised, pointed at her.

No life in his eyes.

No emotion in the flat line of his lips.

The woman folding clothes dropped her basket and ran behind him out the door. The gunman made no move to stop her.

Ice-cold terror froze every part of her. It wasn’t Zoe’s life that flashed before her eyes—it was Tyler’s. Memories raced through her mind of those long-gone happy days. Before Nathan decided he liked his girlfriend better than his wife and moved to New England.

The life Tyler once had was gone now, but he still had her. She wouldn’t let him become an orphan today. Her son was everything to her, and there was nothing she wouldn’t do to keep him safe. There was no room in her life for anything else—or anyone else. Just her son, who needed his mom alive. It was Zoe’s job to make their lives safe.

“Nice try.” The gunman smirked.

Zoe couldn’t move. All she could do was stare into his evil eyes and wait for death while her mind screamed at her to run. While images of death played across her mind. A woman, lying on the ground. The man stood over her. Her killer.

Now he’d sent this guy to silence her, so she could never tell anyone what she’d seen.

The man twisted, aimed his gun past Zoe. He pulled the trigger over and over again. The woman behind Zoe screamed and hit the floor.

“No loose ends.” His voice was as devoid of emotion as his eyes.

Zoe backed up and felt for the door handle. If she didn’t try to run he would certainly kill her. She should have bought that gun when she’d had the chance, but she didn’t know how to use one. Now she would die because she hadn’t been brave enough to overcome a simple fear of the unknown. Dead both because of what she didn’t know—how to use a gun—and because of what she did. But Zoe couldn’t think about what she’d witnessed. She only wanted to forget it. She never would. Not for the rest of her life.

Her slick fingers slipped off the door handle, but it opened anyway. Zoe didn’t know whether to rush through, or just duck.

Moose brushed past her, shotgun in his hands.

Zoe dived out of the way, behind the counter, issuing a quiet apology when she landed on the counter lady’s leg. The ball cap flew off Zoe’s head, releasing her spray of red curls. The woman was wide-eyed, a red stain on her shoulder.

“What is going—” Moose’s roared words cut off. Bang. Bang.

Zoe scrambled across the floor. The shotgun went off, then the gunman’s weapon—shot after shot. She covered her ears. There was nowhere to go. She was pinned behind the counter with no way out, and that man was coming for her.

Defenseless and innocent. Why did she have to die like a criminal? It was proof God’s love for her, His grace, had been withdrawn. For whatever reason, He wasn’t on her side anymore. His love and support had been rich during those years with Nathan and Tyler. They’d been together as a family and her life had been good. Now, nothing. God’s place in her heart was empty—He’d abandoned her.

Otherwise she wouldn’t be about to die on the dirty linoleum floor of a Laundromat.

* * *

Secret Service agent Jude Brauer had gone on alert the moment the first shot rang out. He tossed his notebook back on the driver’s seat and slammed the car door, palming his weapon instead. Question time would have to come later. There wasn’t even time to wait for police backup. He’d seen people inside and heard the gun battle. Jude couldn’t let an innocent person die. Seconds counted for everything in situations like this.

The windows of the Laundromat were glass, the lights on inside. His view was crystal clear between the red letters of the store name.

One assailant, center of the room.

A man down, discarded shotgun on the floor. Jude was pretty sure that was Moose, the man he’d been coming to meet. Moose was dead, which meant Jude would never get answers from him now.

The gunman advanced. The second of two women had dived behind the counter. Jude couldn’t let anyone else die.

Gun drawn, Jude pushed the front door open with his foot. “Secret Service, put your hands up!”

The guy spun, already firing, not even bothering to aim—but two shots later the clip in his gun emptied. Jude wasn’t hit.

Thank You, God.

He put two rounds from his Sig Sauer in the man’s chest. He hated to use lethal force, but there was no telling if this man had additional weapons or ammunition. The threat had to be taken out before anyone else was hurt.

The gunman’s body jerked as the shots impacted, but he didn’t go down. He actually grinned. “Won’t work, pig.” He said it like he thought he was invincible. High on something? His eyes were glassy, and that bravado had to come from somewhere. It was more than the protective vest he might have under his jacket.

As he stepped closer, Jude wondered if this had to do with his case or something else entirely. The task force he was part of was investigating a local pharmaceutical company with ties to foreign money. Moose might be the key to the whole thing, but it was only a hunch Jude had. He hadn’t brought anyone else in case it turned out to be nothing. Now Moose was dead.

The gunman ran to the interior door, where he glanced once behind the counter and said, “See you soon, Zoe.”

Then he raced through to whatever back rooms were beyond it.

Jude sprinted after him. He did the same glance maneuver the gunman had and saw a beautiful redhead on the floor, her wide green eyes looking up at him. Jude ordered, “Stay here,” to her and the purple-haired woman she lay there with. A woman who’d been shot. “And call an ambulance.”

He didn’t wait for her to nod; he just ran after the man into a fluorescent-lit hall with bland white walls. Two rooms. The gunman ignored both and hit the exit bar on the door at the end of the hall before he raced out into the night.

The guy had to have been wearing a vest to absorb those shots. Jude wasn’t wearing his, not on what should’ve been a routine interview. He had to be careful. This guy wasn’t afraid to kill.

And then there was the woman. Zoe, he’d called her. Who was she, and why did the gunman know her? The man had threatened her, and yet he’d let her live while he killed the man Jude had been there to see.

Had he shot Moose because of the shotgun, or because Moose knew too much? Maybe there was another reason entirely.

Jude reached the exit door, stood where there was cover and looked out before he moved to pursue the man. It wouldn’t do him any good to rush out and have the gunman attack him because he hadn’t been cautious. But the man wasn’t waiting.