Melinda Lorenzo - Captivating Witness

“A loophole?” Harley repeated. “What does that mean?”

“It means that murderer isn’t rotting in prison the way he should be,” Rush all but growled.

Brayden lifted a hand. “A loophole means that his lawyers are smart, and they found a legal way for him to not go to jail. For this anyway.”

Anderson’s eyes whipped to Brayden’s face. “You think he’s committed more crimes?”

Brayden nodded. “Don’t you? Someone living a straight life doesn’t just set off a bomb in a police station.”

“So what do you want to do?” Rush asked.

“I want to catch him.”

“Ourselves?” Harley said. “By the time we’re old enough to try, we’ll be too old to even do anything about it.”

Brayden fought an urge to give his brother a solid kick in the butt. “We’ll be in our twenties, not dead.”

There was a weird silence then, the word dead hanging in the air. Because people did die young. Their fathers were proof of that. Anderson’s dad, who’d still been a junior in high school when Anderson was born, had been just twenty-nine.

Finally, Rush spoke up again. “What’s the plan, Bray?”

Brayden managed a smile. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the tidy stack of pamphlets. He handed one to his brother and to each of his friends.

Anderson was the first to look up. “You want us to become cops?”

Brayden nodded. “I want us to become cops. And I want us to track him down and catch him.”

The room went silent again, and he was sure he could feel what each one of them was thinking. Rush would be bucking against the idea of working within the system. Anderson would be digesting the idea slowly, weighing the pros and cons. Harley would be hating it, thinking it was too far-fetched and too far in the future and too unlikely to succeed.

But it was his brother who spoke up first. “I’m in.”

Brayden couldn’t mask his surprise. “You are?”

“Yeah. Dad would want this.”

“I’m in, too,” said Rush at the same moment that Anderson chimed in with “It’s a good idea.”

Relief swept through Brayden. “All right.”

A final silence descended on them, brief this time. Then they all started talking at once. And none of it had to do with the stress and fear and sadness of the last year. It was as though making a plan—even one that extended so far into the future that it seemed like a dream—released all the tension. And for a while, at least, they could go back to being teenage boys.

Chapter 1

Fifteen years later...

Reggie Frost pressed the wash button on the industrial-sized dish sanitizer, then looked up and sighed at the big old-fashioned clock on the wall at the Frost Family Diner. It wasn’t even eight at night yet, but she was already exhausted. And an hour behind schedule.

Two of the other servers had come down with the flu, so she’d pulled an open, then worked a crazy busy lunch rush, a sleepily slow dinner hour and was now doing a close, too. She was just thankful that Fridays were notoriously slow before the start of the summer tourist season. Any other day of the week, and she would’ve been stuck there for the late-night snack crowd, too. And a week or two from now, when Whispering Woods was overflowing with out-of-town guests, she would’ve been lucky to get off work before midnight.

Small things to be grateful for, Reggie acknowledged.

It helped, also, that tonight was the kickoff for the annual Garibaldi Gala.

Hosted by its namesake, the party started out with fireworks on the Friday before the so-called official opening of tourist season. Everyone who didn’t have somewhere else to be was on the other side of town, jostling for free cotton candy and the best view of the soon-to-start light show. But even before she got saddled with the never-ending shift, Reggie hadn’t been planning on attending the late-night festivities. She was working on a plan. One she hadn’t yet disclosed to anyone. One she wouldn’t disclose unless it worked out. And in order to make it happen, she needed Jesse Garibaldi’s attention. She had to make sure the man knew without a doubt that she was as committed to the community as he was. It was the main reason she’d signed on to help out at family-friendly fair the following morning.

And she wanted to be well rested enough that she could cheerfully paint two hundred sticky-with-cotton-candy faces, work the lunch rush—again—then attend the Saturday night dinner and dance. The last part was key. The party was an exclusive one. Accessible only to those who worked for or with Garibaldi. And the man of the house always attended in person. Her hope was to speak to him directly. To present her request and hope that he’d bite.

No point in passing up on free food and drinks, either.

She tapped an aching foot, waiting for the cycle to finish its run. With the exception of the last load of dishes and a final trash bag waiting its turn to be run to the bin outside, the diner was in shutdown mode. Everything was tidy, all the floors sparkling. Reggie was sure even her long-passed grandmother—who had opened the place back when the town was still a forestry one—would be pleased with the way it looked at the moment.

And, she thought, it’ll prove to Dad that I can do it on my own.

“That’ll teach him to call me a slacker,” she grumbled.

But it was an affectionate complaint. She’d left the tiny town twice. Once, in pursuit of an education in psychology. Another in pursuit of love. Neither had panned out, and her dad teased her all the time about giving up. But the truth was, the time she’d spent away from Whispering Woods had put her life in perspective. She really did prefer the tight-knit community to all else. She enjoyed being near her father. She even liked the idea of inheriting the management of the diner over the management of potential future clients. Besides which, Reggie was convinced that she could learn far more about the human psyche while waiting on tables than she could from a textbook.

Those things made her more than happy to set up a permanent life in the touristy town.

Dishes and all, she thought with a smile.

As if on cue, the sanitizer buzzed, and she quickly turned her attention to putting away its contents. Plates in their slots, mugs on their racks, cutlery in its case. In minutes, she had it sorted out. With another sigh—this one satisfied—Reggie grabbed the green bag from the ground and marched toward the rear door of the diner.

Five minutes, she said to herself. Then you’ll be on your way home. A half hour, and you’ll be in the bath. And tomorrow night, you’ll be sitting somewhere else, sipping champagne and eating canapés. And hopefully celebrating a victory.

But she no sooner had the door cracked open than one of her no-nonsense work shoes got caught in a groove in the cobblestone just outside, sending her flying. As she fell forward, one knee smacked the ground and the bag flew out of her grip. Reggie watched in disappointed frustration as the bottom split open and bits of leftover food and soggy napkins rolled out. All right beside the Dumpster that had been her destination in the first place.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she muttered.

She started to push herself up, then went still as the sound of feet thumping on concrete reached her ears. A heartbeat later, there was a wordless cry, then a thump as something—someone—hit the other side of the big bin. The whole thing rattled. Even the lid shook in protest.

Then a man’s voice—laced with obvious fear—carried through the alley.

“I swear,” he said. “I swear that I wasn’t planning to say anything.”

A second man replied immediately, his tone calm and controlled, but somehow full of derision, too. “The thing is, two minutes ago, you told me there was nothing to say. Now you’re telling me you won’t say anything. Which is it?”