The Deputy's Witness

“Just do your job—protect the witness without falling for her.”

Former city cop Caleb Foster hopes playing by the rules will clear his record so he can get transferred far away from small-town Carpenter, Alabama. But one look into the terrified eyes of a beautiful witness and he’ll make it his mission to protect her, no matter what it takes…

Alyssa Garner thought testifying against a trio of lethal bank robbers would finally end her months-long nightmare. Now Caleb is the only person she can trust when she and other witnesses become targets. She can’t resist him—or the secrets he won’t reveal. But someone driven by obsession is ahead of their every move…and won’t stop till she’s the ultimate prize.

The Protectors of Riker County

“Alyssa, all you have to do is hold on to me and I’ll get us out of this.”

She shook her head. Her blue eyes didn’t drop their stare. It finally clicked in place for Caleb. He should have realized why she was so terrified.

An overwhelming wave of feeling surged through him. Without a second thought he angled her face up. Then he met her mouth with his own.

The kiss was meant to distract Alyssa from her fear, to give her something else to focus on. Caleb also hoped it reminded her that he was there, down in the trenches with her. That, no matter what, he’d get her to safety.

Yet all thoughts and intentions fell away as the warmth of Alyssa’s lips pressed against his. Those pink, pink lips aroused something almost primal in Caleb. He wanted it to last. He wanted her…

The Deputy’s Witness

Tyler Anne Snell

www.millsandboon.co.uk

TYLER ANNE SNELL genuinely loves all genres of the written word. However, she’s realized that she loves books filled with sexual tension and mysteries a little more than the rest. Her stories have a good dose of both. Tyler lives in Alabama with her same-named husband and their mini “lions.” When she isn’t reading or writing, she’s playing video games and working on her blog, Almost There. To follow her shenanigans, visit www.tylerannesnell.com.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

The rain slapped the windshield in such fierce bursts that Alyssa Garner almost decided not to go into the bank at all.

She moved her glasses up to the bridge of her nose and peered out the window, analyzing the few feet between her car door and the overhang of the Waller Street Credit Union’s awning. If she used the two-week-old Carpenter Times she’d thrown on the back seat floorboard as a makeshift umbrella, she might not get soaked to the bone.

Alyssa looked down at her outfit. She worked at Jeffries & Sons Remodeling, and apart from being the only employee who was not a Jeffries, she was the only one who ran the day-to-day operations pertaining to the physical office. That meant she was the first person anyone saw when they walked through the front door. Even though she wasn’t a Jeffries or a son, she played a big part in creating a first impression of the small business. Which meant she was currently wearing a finely pressed white blouse, a pencil skirt and black heels that boosted her height considerably. An outfit that didn’t match with the downpour outside.

She sucked on her bottom lip, considering the option of forgoing the bank run until the next day. But just as quickly as she had the thought, she sighed, defeated. While corporations and bigger businesses might be able to push off making weighty deposits by just one day, places like Jeffries couldn’t afford the delay. Alyssa took her cell phone out of her purse and slid it between the waist of her skirt and her stomach. Some women couldn’t go anywhere without their purses. Alyssa was that way about her phone. She blamed her sister, Gabby, for that. Whenever Alyssa pointed out that Gabby always had her phone, her little sister would snap back with a simple, yet effective stance.

“The one time you don’t have it is the one time you’ll need it the most.”

It was hard to argue with logic like that.

Alyssa adjusted the phone against her so it wasn’t noticeable, put the deposit bag beneath one arm and grabbed the newspaper. Thunder crashed loudly overhead, but Alyssa crossed the divide between her car and the bank’s front door without getting swept away in the storm.

However, her glasses fogged the moment the wet air pressed against her. She paused in front of the glass double door to take them off before walking inside. She hated waiting for them to defog, looking like some kind of klutz. She didn’t need help in that department when it came to her vision. Alyssa was one of those people who couldn’t survive without her glasses or contacts. That is, unless the world decided to orbit within an inch of her nose.

Further proving that point, no sooner had she walked into the lobby than she bumped shoulders with a man leaving.

“Sorry,” she said quickly. He was too far away without her glasses on to be able to make out his face. But the blur responded all the same.

“It’s okay,” he said, before moving to the doors.

Alyssa smiled in his general direction and continued on to the closest teller line. By the time she was called up to a woman she knew as Missy Grayson, her glasses were clear again and had been replaced atop her nose. Now it was time for business.

“Deposit for Jeffries?” Missy guessed, already pulling up the account on the computer. That was a perk of living in a small town. Routines were noticed and information became common knowledge. Everyone knew Alyssa made the deposits.

“Yes, ma’am,” Alyssa chirped, trying to match Missy’s pep. “Then I think I’ll take lunch at home so I can grab a warm pair of clothes and the umbrella I didn’t think to take this morning.”

Missy’s face pinched.

“You know, I watched the news this morning and Carl didn’t say anything about a storm coming at us,” she said, nearing a full-out scolding for their local weatherman, despite the fact that he was not in the bank. “I told my husband he should even take the Jeep out with him to fish this morning. It has a soft top that’s been off on account of it being summer, so I know he had one heck of a time with that. I bet I’m not going to hear the end of that any time soon.”

“Hopefully he won’t be too grumpy about it,” Alyssa said. “When in doubt, blame the weatherman.”

“You bet I am!”

The two laughed and started in on the technical parts of making a deposit. Alyssa was already imagining running back to her car and pointing it toward home. She had some leftovers from her night out with her friend Natalie on Saturday and could warm those up while she changed clothes. Her umbrella, though... Where was it? In the garage? When was the last time she’d seen—

A scream shattered her thoughts. Alyssa whirled around and found the source coming from a woman perhaps a few years younger than her twenty-seven. Aside from the scream, she was obviously distressed. Her expression was one of pure terror. It simultaneously confused Alyssa and put her on edge. It wasn’t until the woman pointed toward the front doors that Alyssa understood.

And felt the same fear.

Two men and a woman, dripping wet, had come inside, the storm their backdrop. They wore matching gray jumpsuits, workmen’s boots and, with her stomach plummeting to the floor, Alyssa realized, ski masks. Only their narrowed eyes and lips could be seen. Their hands were gloved too. Which made the fact that they were holding guns even more menacing.

“Anyone move and we’ll start shooting,” yelled the bigger man. He stood taller than his partners and looked like he had muscles beneath his getup. He was quick to move his gun and point it at the woman who had screamed. “Keep yelling like that and you’ll be the first.”

The young woman had backed up to one of the two desks on either side of the large open room. Ted Danfield, a loan officer in his fifties, had been standing in front of his desk talking to an elderly man. Now he reached out and grabbed the young woman’s shoulders, pulling her the rest of the distance to his side. Her scream downgraded to a whimper.

“Don’t you even think about it!”

Alyssa’s attention moved to the female in the ski mask. She had stepped to the side and had her gun pointed at Robbie Rickman. Alyssa’s stomach fell even more. He was the bank’s lone security guard. Robbie had worked at the bank for years. Everyone who stepped through its front doors knew and loved him. He was kind, compassionate, and fiercely loved his wife of thirty years and three grown children.

So when the woman shot him, the ten or so patrons and employees of the bank collectively gasped. Alyssa went cold as Robbie dropped back on the floor. The gun he’d had in his hand hit the floor. Alyssa realized he’d been shot in the chest.

The woman quickly scooped up the gun and handed it back to the shorter of her partners. She kept her own gun held high. Her eyes skittered among them. Alyssa hoped the gunshot had been heard by the tenants next door, but as another loud crash of thunder sounded, preceded and followed by the hard rain, she doubted they knew the difference.

“Now that you know we’re serious,” said the bigger man, “let’s get this moving along.”

The two men shouted out orders left and right, swinging guns this way and that to help emphasize their urgency, while the woman stood silent, watching their every move. When they ordered everyone to the middle of the room, Alyssa had a hard time complying, thanks to fear that seemed to be trying to grow roots into the tile floor. But soon everyone except the other teller and the bank manager who had been taken to the back with the gunwoman were sitting in the middle of the room.

“Now,” the bigger man started, walking to an elderly man and taking off his ball cap. He flipped it upside down. “Everyone put your cell phones, wallets and jewelry in here! If you have a purse, throw it next to our friend here who got shot!”

He didn’t waste time letting that information set in. Moving quickly, the men and women of the bank put their phones, wallets and jewelry in the hat while others threw their purses near Robbie. When he got to Alyssa and shook the hat, she decided to do something risky.

She lied.

“I left everything in the car,” she explained, holding her hands out to show they were empty. “I didn’t want anything to get wet.”

The man was close enough to smell. His scent was a mixture of rain and smoke. But not from cigarettes. He smelled more like he’d been to a barbecue recently. Or standing too close to a fire pit. It was an odd thought that pushed its way into Alyssa’s head when she really should have focused on how his eyes narrowed even farther.

“Yeah, righ—”

“She just swallowed her ring!”

Alyssa and the gunman in front of her turned to look at the other gunman by the door. He was pointing to someone behind them both. Alyssa turned back around just in time to hear Missy cough.

“Did you really just swallow your ring?” the bigger gunman roared. He swung his gun over to point at her.

“You’re damn right I swallowed my ring,” she yelled back, fire in her eyes. “That ring was my mama’s and her mama’s before then. So unless you plan to wait it out, it’s staying with me.”

Alyssa felt a flash of pride for the woman—Southern ladies take their heirlooms seriously—however, it was short-lived. The gunman struck out with the butt of his gun and hit Missy across the head so fast that she didn’t even have time to yell. But Alyssa did.

She crawled over to the woman just as she fell back against the tile. Blood burst from her cheek.

“Did I say you could move?” the gunman yelled at Alyssa. She froze next to Missy, knees against the floor and hands in the air.

She didn’t respond to him. Nothing she said would have made the situation better when he was so obviously itching for some violence. Just like his woman partner. Robbie bleeding a few feet from them on the floor was a good indication of that.

“Get the rest of their stuff,” said his partner, a reminder that he’d forgotten his original task. The gunman sneered down at Alyssa, just long enough to have his dark eyes imprinted in her memory for the rest of her life—whether or not she wanted it—and moved on to the last two people in their group.

Alyssa dropped her hands and felt her adrenaline spike. Moving so her back was to the gunman near the door, she reached out and helped Missy sit up. The woman’s fire moments before had been doused. She was in pain. But she was going to have to forget that for a moment.

“Are you okay?” Alyssa whispered. With one hand she touched the open gash on her cheek and with the other she grabbed one of Missy’s hands. “It’ll be okay,” she said before Missy could answer her question. The woman looked confused as Alyssa pulled her hand to her lap. From anyone else’s point of view, Alyssa hoped it looked like she was just trying to console the woman.

When in reality she just wanted the woman to feel her cell phone, tucked out of sight in the raised waist of her skirt.

“Now, everyone keep their mouths shut! You make a move, you die,” yelled the taller gunman. He took the hat full of their goods and gave it to the other gunman. They whispered a moment before the bigger man went to the back.

The bank patrons and employees were alone with the man who, Alyssa guessed, was the most observant of the three. She wasn’t going to be able to use her phone while he was there. This realization inspired another risk on her part. One Alyssa hoped wouldn’t get her or anyone else killed.

Still holding Missy’s hand, she slipped her fingers into her skirt and pulled out her cell phone. Missy, bless her, didn’t flinch as Alyssa put the phone against her palm. When she felt the woman’s grip tighten around it, Alyssa put her hand back in Missy’s lap and patted it twice.

Then Alyssa turned, heartbeat hammering in her chest.

“Can I go over to him?” Alyssa asked, nodding over to Robbie. “Someone needs to put pressure on his wound to try to stop the bleeding.”

The man seemed, thankfully, less angry than his partners. Still, he was resistant. “I don’t think so. You stay right there.”

“But look at all that blood,” she tried again, her voice near breaking. “Please, all I’m going to do is put my hands on it. Nothing else. Please.”

The man cast a quick look at the group as a whole and then adjusted his gun’s aim to the young woman in front. She flinched back into Ted’s arms. The gunman looked at Alyssa.

“If you try anything, and I mean anything, I’ll shoot her in the face. Got it?”

Alyssa nodded, amending her idea that this man was any less violent than his friends. She got up slowly, giving Missy time to hide the cell phone, hopefully, and walked with her hands held high over to Robbie’s prone body.

She hadn’t been lying. There was a lot of blood. Since she had never been a part of the medical field in her life, she had no idea if putting pressure on a gunshot wound even worked. All she had to go by was TV shows and movies she’d seen. Still, she did as she said and dropped to the guard’s side. Alyssa put one hand and then the other on top of the wound and pressed down. Warm blood squeezed out between her fingers. Robbie was still breathing, although the breaths were shallow.

The sound of rain and thunder continued in chorus for several minutes. Alyssa kept her eyes off Missy, since the gunman seemed to be looking in her direction every few seconds, but she prayed the woman had made the call to the cops. After another few minutes, Alyssa came to the conclusion that she hadn’t.

But then Alyssa spied movement on the other side of the glass doors and several things happened all at once.

The gunman had started to turn toward the doors when she found herself speaking up again.

“He really needs a doctor soon,” she said, drawing his attention toward her.

He opened his mouth to talk just as his partners came back into the lobby.

“Cops,” the woman yelled.

The gunman at the door didn’t hesitate. He whirled around.

Then the gunfire and screaming started.

All Alyssa had time to do was throw herself over Robbie and hope she’d live long enough to tell her sister that, for once, she’d had her cell phone right when she needed it.

Chapter Two

Caleb Foster cursed something awful.

“How do you even function out here in this?”

Deputy Dante Mills let out a laugh.

“You get used to it,” he said. “Just one of those things.”

Caleb, a man who’d spent the majority of his career—and life—in Portland, Oregon, might have been okay with the blanket heat that the small town of Carpenter, Alabama, was throwing at him, but its humidity was another problem altogether.

It was one thing to be stuck in the heat. It was another to feel like you were drowning in it.

“I don’t want to get used to this,” he said sourly. He didn’t care if Dante heard him. Ever since his transfer to the Riker County Sheriff’s Department had been approved one month ago, he hadn’t been making it a secret he was unhappy. Not that he’d had much of an alternative option, though. “I want some air that doesn’t make me feel like I’m swimming standing up.”

Dante chuckled. “You city boys sure do complain a lot.”

Caleb was about to ask what his partner’s definition of “city boy” was when they came to a stop in the parking lot. He decided he’d ask that question later. Right now he was concerned about why the sheriff had called him in minutes after their shift started. He might not have wanted the Alabama weather, but he did want his job.

The Riker County Sheriff’s Department stood between the local television station and the county courthouse, all three in the very heart of the town. With two stories and faded brick and concrete, the department faced one of Carpenter’s main streets and was subsequently always busy. This was a familiar sight for Caleb, and while he wouldn’t admit it to any of the other deputies, the busyness made him a little less homesick.

He followed Dante through the front doors and into the lobby. A pretty blonde dispatcher named Cassie, who was rumored to be as tough as nails when needed, was in the center of the room talking to another woman. Both had cups of coffee in their hands.

“Hey, guys,” she greeted, cheer clear in her tone. “Happy Monday!”

“There’s no such thing as happy Mondays, Cassie,” Dante pointed out, though he smiled as he made the little quip. It seemed the whole of the department functioned like that. One person saying something, only for another to add on something equally clever or nice. Most of the time it was inside jokes or references beyond Caleb’s knowledge. He tried not to let it bother him. He was the new guy, after all. Plus, once he was done with his time in Riker County, he’d go back home. So what if he wasn’t in sync with his colleagues now? He hoped it wouldn’t matter in a few months or, God forbid, a year.

“I’m going to go see the sheriff,” Caleb said, nodding to the two women. “I’ll catch you after.”

“Good luck,” Dante called after him.

Caleb hoped he didn’t need it.

He walked out of the lobby and down the hallway where the offices were located. The sheriff’s was smack in the middle, nameplate auspiciously brighter than the others. Caleb slowed, stilling himself. He knew he was more on the pricklier side of a good personality. Quiet too. So far he hadn’t met anyone in the department with the same disposition. Again, he didn’t mind if the rest of them didn’t like him. However, he did want the sheriff to find him at least agreeable. He tried on a smile that felt forced before knocking on the doorframe of the open door.

“Come in.”

The muscles in Caleb’s smile tightened as soon as he saw the man hunched over his desk.

Billy Reed by no means should have been an intimidating man. From first glance he was too tall, too lean, and had dark hair that was too long. Maybe that was just Caleb’s opinion bleeding through, though, considering he was the opposite of the sheriff.

At five-eleven, Caleb was a man who believed in the gym as much as he believed that anyone with a clipboard on the sidewalk ready to talk about political candidates or a chance to win a cruise was supposed to be ignored. With his solid shoulders, trim body and a hard jaw, the only thing that looked remotely playful about him—according to his sister—was his golden hair, cut close but still with enough curl to annoy him. He sported a goatee but had been playing with the idea of shaving it since he’d come to town, as it was just another thing that made him hot in an already hot-as-hell town. Luckily, he still looked his age of thirty without it. He knew the sheriff was on the young side too—especially for his position—but Caleb couldn’t read the man to guess an accurate age. Billy Reed was a mystery, while Caleb was the kind of man who looked like “what you see is what you get.”

It was apparent that everyone in the department not only respected the sheriff, but liked him. And just as quickly when the man gave an order, it didn’t matter if anyone was his friend or not. Everyone listened without skipping a beat.

So when he told Caleb to take a seat, Caleb took the seat without arguing.

“I’m going to cut right to the chase,” Reed started. He threaded his hands on top of the desk. “I’m pulling you off patrol and putting you at the courthouse.”

Caleb opened his mouth, ready to complain—respect and authority for the sheriff be damned—but Reed stopped him. He held his hand up for silence. “When Chief Thomas called me and asked if I had a spot for you, I was skeptical. But I’ve known Thomas a long time and he’s a good judge of character, so I looked past what happened and gave you a chance. But while you’ve done a good job so far, being new has its own set of demands.” He thrust his thumb over his shoulder to point back at the wall behind him. “That includes pulling courtroom deputy when I need you to.”

Again, before Caleb could protest, the sheriff handed him a newspaper. A picture of a storefront with caution tape across it took up a spot above the fold.