Witness in the Dark (Love Under Fire #1)
Sidney Bristol
For Brenda, aunt-in-law, and beta reader extraordinaire. Thank you!
Chapter One
The phone in Samantha Hutchinson’s pocket vibrated with a text as she dropped off a pizza at one of her tables. It was nearly time for her break, and excitement flared at the idea of spending those ten minutes reading a text from her boyfriend Lance.
Lance was a software consultant, which meant he spent a lot of time on the road. In fact, Sam couldn’t even remember where he was this time. No doubt he’d told her, but the information was overshadowed by one fact. He wasn’t in Baileys Crossroads with her.
He had a tiny apartment in D.C., the same one he’d had when she’d met him their senior year at Georgetown University, but he spent little time there.
She wiped off an empty table and straightened the salt and pepper shakers. Even though this was a second job, she took it seriously. Truth be told, she kind of liked her job at Santiago’s Pizza better than her daytime job as a media sales coordinator. Unfortunately, she needed both jobs to make rent and pay the bills.
Giving her boss Anthony Santiago a nod, she pointed to the back door. He nodded back, and she hurried through the restaurant to step out into the cool October night. The alley was deserted. The perfect place to craft a sexy text.
A smile pulled at her lips when she saw the long text. But as she took her private spot in the alley between the building and the edge of the enclosure that held the dumpster, horror flowed over her as the actual words sank in.
I’m sorry to have to do this by text, but I know you’re working and I couldn’t wait another minute. I’ve met someone else. It doesn’t mean you’re not great. You are. But I want to be with her. I hope we can still be friends. Oh, and if you wouldn’t mind, can you drop my spare key off in the mailbox?
“Friends?” she whispered as she slid down the wall, the corner of the bricks snagging her sweatshirt.
It took a few minutes for the tears to come. But eventually they did. Six years wasn’t an eternity, but she’d really thought they might end up married someday.
Squaring her shoulders and wiping her eyes with her sleeve, she worked to pull herself together. A car was coming down the alley. And she had to go back to work.
But first, she needed to vent. Her thumbs flew across the screen with profanities and accusations as she texted him back. Her jaw ached from clenching it so hard. Before she hit send, her rant was interrupted by a woman’s scream.
Sam shifted around as the cry was abruptly cut off with a loud smack. Leaning back so she could see into the alley from behind the trash enclosure, she noticed a black car parked just beyond where she was crouched. At the front of the car, a woman was being pushed to the ground. She was bloody and barefoot, her black skirt ripped, and her crisp white shirt was splattered with blood. The woman whimpered and tried to get up, her blonde hair coming loose from its fashionable twist. A menacing man in a suit loomed over her.
Sam stood to go help. This wasn’t right. How many times had she intervened when one of her mother’s boyfriends got rough? She opened her mouth to yell when she heard two whizzing sounds. The woman’s body fell limp against the pavement.
Holy shit.
Instinct forced Sam back down behind the dumpster as the man put a gun—long and deadly—inside his coat and rushed to the driver’s door to get in.
It wasn’t until the car had squealed off down the alley that she truly realized what she’d seen. It was as if her brain were trying to protect her from the impossible. But it wasn’t working.
That poor woman had been shot.
Right in front of her.
Chapter Two
Sam muttered useless curses while her trembling fingers automatically dialed. Her whole body shook as she held the phone to her ear. At first, all she could hear was the rushing of blood as it pumped through her temples, but then she heard a woman’s voice.
“911. What’s your emergency?”
Sam gripped the phone harder, unable to speak. “Help,” she finally squeaked.
The operator asked other questions, but while Sam was able to form the answers in her mind, she couldn’t get them out in words. She had studied all forms of stress and trauma disorders while in college, but at the moment, she didn’t know how to make herself function.
She was frozen inside, unable to process what was happening. It seemed to take forever to form a thought, and even longer to react. She rose shakily on legs that didn’t feel up to the task of holding her up. The blood drained from her head at the abrupt motion, and sparkly shadows encroached on her vision. She put her hand out, gripping the cold brick to steady herself.
She looked back toward the body, but didn’t let herself actually see the poor woman lying there. Instead, she stumbled into the restaurant, still carrying the phone with the 911 operator prompting her for answers.
The smile fell off Anthony’s face as she hurried up to him, waving toward the alley. While she couldn’t form words, she tried her best to communicate the terror she was feeling.
Grabbing her phone, he ran out the door as he spoke to the operator. Sam followed and pointed toward the woman, and this time her gaze moved straight to the woman’s still body.
Sam saw her. Saw everything. The woman’s hair was blonde, about the same shade as her own, but discolored by the dark puddle surrounding her head.