The Deputy's Witness

“Almost a year ago to the day, three armed suspects used a storm as a cover to try to rob a bank a few miles from here,” he started. “There were nine hostages, including bank employees and a security guard who was shot when they entered. A woman inside was able to get a call out to us, but when we arrived the suspects opened fire. In total, three people were killed, including one of the gunmen.”

Caleb could tell by the way the sheriff’s expression turned to pain that the other two deaths had hurt. In a small town like Carpenter, he’d probably known the victims personally. Something Caleb was in no way used to. When he was a cop in Portland, he’d dealt with mostly strangers. Their indiscretions hadn’t affected him outside of his having to deal with them as his job.

The sheriff seemed to collect himself. He pointed to the newspaper again.

“The trial takes place next week and it’s going to draw a lot of attention,” he continued. “I’m adding you as backup, along with the current court deputy, Stanley King.”

“Wait, so I’m not even lead court deputy?” Caleb had to interject. It was bad enough he’d lost his reputation and his position in Portland. Never mind he had to be transferred to keep from being completely jobless. But now he was expected to go to the bottom of the totem pole to not even being on the totem pole?

Sheriff Reed didn’t bat an eyelid.

“I’ll be out of town during the beginning of the trial, as well as Chief Deputy Simmons and lead detective Matt Walker, or else I would be over there too. But as it stands, I’m looking to you,” Reed said. “This may not be your dream job, but it’s what you have and you can either complain about it or impress me. After what happened in Portland, any good marks on your résumé will help.”

Caleb wanted to argue but knew he couldn’t.

The sheriff seemed to realize he’d made a good point. He grinned. “And, hey, look on the bright side. Air-conditioning!”

* * *

ALYSSA WAS ANGRY. She was nervous too, but mostly angry.

Standing outside the county courthouse, she was dressed in her best and ready to finally testify against what locals had dubbed the “Storm Chasers.”

After the gunfire died down a year ago, she’d thought the terror was over. She’d focused on moving past that day and trying for a happier existence because of it. But then the nightmares had started. In them she’d seen the dark eyes of Dupree Slater, the taller gunman, hungry for violence, peering down at her. No regard for life. Especially not hers. Thinking of him and his only living partner left, Anna Kim, she still felt a flood of fear beating against her mental dam of calm. That dam didn’t always hold, despite the fact that both Dupree and Anna had been in custody for a year, but today she needed it to keep its place.

She shook her head, trying to physically get rid of the way Dupree’s dark eyes seemed to try to eat her whole.

But then, just as quickly, thinking of him led to the image of his partner, a man named Kevin Bates, lying dead on the floor a few feet from her. Farther away one of the bank tellers, Larissa Colt, and a local patron, Carl Redford, lying in their own pools of blood. Gunned down before the deputies could save them. They’d all been so afraid. The fear lingered to this day.

And just like that, Alyssa’s familiar fear was replaced with anger.

Alyssa hadn’t known Larissa well and she hadn’t met Carl officially, but she knew that they had been good people. Their deaths had been senseless and cruel. Both had rocked the community.

Alyssa took a deep breath and righted the purse on her shoulder. She was here for them, for herself and for Carpenter as a whole. Justice needed to be had. And it was now or never.

She walked through the double doors into the courthouse, knowing she was early but ready to get it over with. Her mind was tearing through a hundred different thoughts, trying to find a happy one to stave off her growing anxiety. So much so that she lost focus on what was right in front of her.

“Hey,” a man said. The voice was deep and even and snapped her out of her own thoughts. She turned her attention to a man standing next to the set of metal detectors that visitors had to pass through to get into the courtroom. Alyssa did a double take.

His Riker County Sheriff’s Department uniform and the belt lined with cuffs and a holster for his service weapon gave him away as a courtroom deputy. However, his job designation wasn’t what made her mentally hiccup.

The first word that clawed itself out of her mind was hot. It was such a quick, unexpected thought that heat began to crawl up her neck.

With a tan complexion that reminded her of caramel, green eyes rimmed with gold, golden hair that looked ripe for twisting with her finger and a jaw that had been chiseled straight from a statue, the deputy wasn’t what she’d expected to see in the courthouse. Or in Carpenter. Let alone addressing her directly.

“Excuse me?” she said lamely, hoping he hadn’t somehow heard her thoughts.

In turn the deputy didn’t seem to be distracted by her looks, to her slight disappointment, but was motioning to her purse with no real enthusiasm. She looked down at it, confused, until he explained.

“I need to look inside it before you can go into the courtroom.”

The heat crawling up her neck made its way into her cheeks. She was half-certain she could boil water if you put a pot of it against her skin. It had been a long time since she’d blushed with such intensity, as if she were some schoolgirl.

“Oh yeah, sorry about that.” She handed him the purse, fumbling a little in the middle, and watched as he opened and inspected the inside of it.

Alyssa averted her eyes to the doors a few feet from her. The deputy might have been unexpectedly attractive, but one look at those doors and that novelty was being replaced with nerves again.

“Are there a lot of people in there yet?” she asked the lone deputy.

He looked up from her purse, seemingly okay with it, and passed it back to her. He nodded. “More than I thought would show up this early. But I think a lot of them just came for the show.”

There was distaste in his words and she agreed with it. Small towns equaled big reactions to anomalous events. Good, bad or otherwise. Plus, somehow the robbery felt intimate to her. An experience no one understood unless it had happened to them. She could understand the loved ones of those who had been inside the bank, but for the people who showed up for the basic need for gossip, she held no love.

Alyssa took her purse back and inhaled a big breath. She started to walk forward but found her feet hesitating.

“Dupree Slater isn’t in there yet, right?” she asked just to make sure. The deputy’s golden brows drew in together. “He was one of the gunmen.”

The man who survived, she wanted to add.

“No. He won’t be escorted in until the beginning of the trial.”

Alyssa exhaled. At least she had a few more minutes to collect herself before she saw her own personal nightmare in person again.

“Are you a family or friend of his?” the deputy asked. “Of Slater’s?”

Alyssa felt her face draw in, eyes narrowing into angry slits, before the heat of anger began to burn beneath her breast. Without giving her mind permission, she thought again of what had happened in the bank. Like a movie scene left on repeat. The spot on her back began to burn in unison with fresh anger, as if it had been lit on fire and she was forced to bear the flames.

No, she didn’t want to be associated with Dupree Slater ever. Not as his friend. Not as his family. And most certainly not as his victim. That thought alone put a little more bite into her response than she’d meant.

“I am not a part of his family and certainly not his friend,” she almost hissed. “I’m here to testify against him.”

She didn’t wait for the deputy to respond. In fact, she didn’t even look for his reaction. Instead she pitched her head up high and marched into the courtroom. Ready to get the Storm Chasers and the damage they’d done out of her life. She wanted to move on and leave that nightmare behind.

No.

She needed to.

Chapter Three

Caleb was perplexed. Not a word he often thought about but one that fit the bill as he watched the courtroom doors shut behind the woman. He’d been at the courthouse since it opened, and she had been, by far, the most interesting part of his Monday. And he doubted she even meant to be interesting.

The analytical side of his brain, the skills in reading body language and social interactions that he liked to think he’d honed through his career, had locked on to her expression, trying to read her. To figure her out.

She had run a gauntlet of emotions across her face in the span of less than a minute. Fear, concern, anger, defiance and something he hadn’t been able to pin down. A mystery element that snagged his attention. Then, as quickly as she’d shown up, she was gone. In her wake a taste of vulnerability that had intrigued him even more.

Who was she?

And why did he want to know?

“Was that Alyssa?”

Caleb spun around. He was surprised to see an older man dressed in a suit standing so close. Caleb hadn’t heard him walk up. Leave it to a beautiful woman to break his focus so quickly. Though, if he was being honest, that hadn’t happened in a long time.

It was Caleb’s turn to say “Excuse me?”

The man pointed to the doors. “The woman you were just talking to, was it Alyssa Garner?”

“I didn’t catch a name,” Caleb admitted.

“Oh, I thought you two knew each other. I saw you talking when I walked in.”

Caleb wondered why the man cared but still explained. “I asked if she was a family or friend of Slater’s, one of the gunmen from the robbery.”

It was like something was in the water in Carpenter, Alabama. As soon as the name left Caleb’s mouth, the man’s expression darkened. Unlike the woman, the man stayed on that emotion. If his skin had been lighter, Caleb would bet it would have been red from it. That was what rage did. Turned you raw. Caleb knew what that looked like—felt like too—and the man was suddenly waist-deep in it.

“You know, she had the same reaction,” Caleb had to point out. Again the cop side of his brain was piqued. He wished he’d done more research into the robbery other than reading the newspaper article the sheriff had given him. Then again, it wasn’t a necessity for him to research a case he wasn’t a part of. Especially since he’d get a recap from the future proceedings.

“You’ll find no love for that man in this town. Not after what they did. Not after what he did.” The man touched a spot on his chest. “You know, his partner, Anna Kim, shot me, and I still hate Dupree more.”

Caleb couldn’t stop his eyebrow from rising.

“You must be new to town,” the man guessed.

Caleb nodded and was given the man’s hand in return.

“I’m Robbie,” he said. “I was the security guard. A good lot of luck that did anybody. Less than a few seconds after they came in, I was down for the count. After I was shot they let me just lie there in my own blood, ignoring me as if I was some character in a video game or whatnot. They didn’t care if I lived or died. And I would’ve died had Alyssa there not been as crafty as she was.” He pointed at the courtroom doors.

“Crafty?”

“She hid her cell phone until one of the tellers could call 911 and then distracted the gunman on watch by coming to my aid.”

Robbie put his hand on his chest again and pushed.

“She kept me from bleeding out and got a front row view when the shooting started. She watched that...that man kill two people—two good people—in cold blood.”

“The paper said they died in the cross fire,” Caleb remembered.

Robbie looked disgusted.

“I don’t believe that for a second,” he said. “Dupree Slater is an evil sumbitch. Pure and simple. He wanted to kill us all and probably regrets he couldn’t get the job done.”

Caleb didn’t know what to say. In his career he’d seen what he thought of as pure evil. Slater, although Caleb knew he was in no way a good man, didn’t seem to fit his definition of it. He’d just been a man who’d robbed a bank and gotten in a shoot-out with the cops. He’d been a piss-poor shot and people had died because of it. If anything, his female partner had seemed like the worst of the two. It was common knowledge that the first thing she’d done was shoot the security guard in the chest, which apparently was the man standing in front of Caleb.

Maybe Robbie sensed Caleb’s thoughts.

“Not convinced he’s evil? You want to know something that they didn’t put in the paper? Something that was kept out to try to protect her privacy?” Robbie lowered his voice. A group of people could be seen milling outside the front glass double doors. The residents of Carpenter were downright punctual. Robbie waited until Caleb turned his gaze back to him. When he spoke, there was no denying his anger again. His rage. “When the shooting started, Alyssa Garner threw herself over me—someone who could have been dead any moment—to protect me. She could have run and tried to hide like the others, but no, she covered me up like she was indebted to me. Like I was a good friend or even family. And by some miracle she wasn’t hit in the process. But you want to know what happened after they surrendered?”

Caleb might not have known the woman named Alyssa past a minute ago, but he knew he wasn’t going to like the answer already.

Robbie nearly bit the words out. “Before anyone could stop him, Dupree Slater walked over to us and shot Alyssa right in the back.” He let that sink in. “Now, you tell me. What kind of man does that? What kind of man shoots an unarmed young woman who was just trying to save an old man like me in the back?”

“Not a good one,” Caleb answered. He was surprised at the anger growing in him. It wasn’t a good feeling. Not after what had happened back in Portland. He tried to distance himself from it, but then he pictured the woman who had stood before him only a few minutes beforehand.

Her light auburn hair had been pulled back, showing blue eyes, bright and clear and nice. They’d sized him up and then left him alone, traveling back to see what must have been the memory of Dupree Slater killing people before he’d tried to kill her too. He hadn’t been able to see if her smile lit up the rest of her expression. Dupree had stripped her of it simply by her recalling a memory.

Caleb now felt like he needed to apologize to her, which was absurd. He hadn’t known her name or what had happened when he asked about the bank robber.

Robbie, seemingly coming down off his emotional high, let out a long exhale. It dragged his body down. His expression softened. He gave Caleb a tired smile.

“You seem like a man who’s dealt with bad before,” he said, reaching out to pat Caleb on the shoulder.

The contact surprised and unsettled him. Another sentiment he wasn’t used to from the general public in Portland.

“But know that just because we’re a small community, it doesn’t mean we’re all good here either. There’s bad everywhere. Even in a small place like Carpenter.” The man gave another weak smile and then was gone.

Caleb went back to his job. He decided it best to keep his mouth shut as he manned the detector. Instead he tried to catalog everyone who walked into the courtroom with a new perspective. Now he felt a small connection to a case he hadn’t even bothered to research. It was irrational to feel involved, or, as his sister would say, maybe it was compassion attaching his thoughts to the woman named Alyssa. He’d never met her before and doubted he’d have a chance to talk to her ever again, but still he felt anger for what had happened to her. That feeling made him question every person who filed into the courtroom and his or her part in the robbery.

So when a man dressed in a suit wearing a pair of horn-rimmed glasses walked toward him and stopped just shy of the metal detector, Caleb was already trying to figure him out.

How did he fit into that day?

Had he been one of the hostages?

Had he known someone on the inside?

Or was he just there to gawk?

“Has it started yet?” the man asked, motioning to the closed doors.

Caleb shook his head. “Not yet.”

The man started to turn away.

“You aren’t going in?” Caleb asked after him, surprised.

“No, I’m only here to wait for a friend,” he said. “I’ll do that outside.”

The man smiled, adjusted his glasses and was out the front doors in a flash.

Caleb would later pinpoint that smile as the moment he knew something bad was about to happen. But in the present he would try to pretend everything was all right, dismissing the feeling in lieu of doing his job correctly. He’d already almost lost his career because he’d let himself get carried away once. Plus, like he’d told Robbie, he was new in town. That man, and his out-of-place smile, could have been one of the nicest locals he’d ever meet. Who was he to judge? Especially after what he’d done?

So he’d let his mind swim back to dry land and stood diligently at his post. This was just another job he had to do—and do well—to get back to where he should be. Back in Portland, away from small towns and their problems. Away from everyone knowing your name. Away from the humidity, droves of mosquitoes and copious amounts of sweet tea. He didn’t have time for distractions. He needed to focus on the end goal.

But then no sooner had he gotten the thought than the fire alarms started going off.

* * *

THE JUDGE WASN’T even in the room before Alyssa and the rest of the courtroom were being ushered outside.

Just when I was getting up my nerve, she thought in the middle of the group. Together they all created a blob of people talking loudly to one another, to the point where even her thoughts became muddled. She tried to look for someone in charge to ask them if it was a false alarm or if the fire was real but couldn’t see anyone other than her courtroom companions. At least there was a smiling one among them, looking right at her.

Robbie picked his way through the crowd to stop in front of her.

“It’s always something, isn’t it?” he greeted, motioning back to the building. The sirens screeched something awful. While Alyssa had been itching to get everything done with, she was at least thankful to be out of that noise. The beginnings of a tension headache were starting to swarm in the back of her head.

She snorted.

“We spent a year waiting for this day,” she said. “What’s a few more minutes?”

“Your optimism is always refreshing,” he said, knowing full well she’d been sarcastic.

She smiled up at him.

In the last year, she’d grown close to Robbie and his wife, Eleanor. She’d made sure they both knew that they owed her nothing in trying to protect Robbie at the bank. Mostly because she hadn’t done a thing to actually protect him. With or without her body covering his, he’d still almost died. But then they’d point out that if she hadn’t been where she was, Dupree might not have shot her.

“Nowhere in that bank was safe as long as Dupree and Anna were inside,” she had often countered.

They would quiet then, remembering Larissa and Carl had been shot too. And nowhere near where Robbie and Alyssa had been.

Still, Alyssa and the Rickmans had grown close through more than any sense of warranted or unwarranted life debt. Which made her feel more comfortable being candid around either of them. She lowered her voice and admitted something she wouldn’t have said otherwise.

“I’m a little glad I get a break from seeing Dupree, though. Between the newspapers, the local news channels and the occasional nightmare, I’m tired of seeing him.”

Robbie nodded.

“Even Eleanor can’t stand to turn the TV on lately. But, like I tell her, this is our last hurdle and then we’re done,” he said. He reached over and patted her arm. “After this we can all move on and live happy, full lives with a completely rational fear of banks for the rest of those happy, full lives.”

Alyssa gave him a smile for his attempt at humor and hoped that was true. Closure for her would be when the Storm Chasers landed behind bars for life, never to hurt her or anyone else ever again.

“Can I have everyone’s attention?”

They turned to none other than Judge Anderson, the judge for this case. Her robes moved in the stiff breeze as she descended the entrance stairs and came to a stop in front of the crowd. Another courtroom deputy, an older man Alyssa recognized but couldn’t recall his name, stood at her side. Alyssa wondered where the other man was. The golden-haired deputy with the muscled body in no way hiding beneath his uniform.

A little bit of heat started to swirl behind her cheeks at the thought of that muscled body. Why she never met men like him during the everyday routines of her life, she’d never know.

“I wanted to personally tell you all that we’ll be taking a recess until this afternoon at one o’clock,” she said, her voice carrying clear across the distance. “I am sorry for the inconvenience.”

A series of groans erupted through the crowd, followed by the clash of everyone talking at once. Alyssa was one of them.

“Speaking of hurdles,” she deadpanned.

Robbie let out a hoot of laughter.

“Why don’t we turn that frown upside down and take my beautiful wife out for some coffee and cake?” he said with a pat on her back. “Because I know she probably needs some caffeine considering how late she’s running anyways. My treat. What do you say?”

Alyssa felt her lips upturn in a smile.

“You had me at coffee,” she said, nodding. “But isn’t it a little too early for cake?”

Robbie laughed again. “According to my wife, there’s never a wrong time for cake.”

Chapter Four

Caleb was pacing. An action he actively tried to avoid doing.

For one, people who paced were not in control of their current situation. Hence the nervous movement edged with anxiety and uncertainty. His career—and his personality if he was being frank—had made his desire to be in control, well, desirable. So he wasn’t a fan of walking back and forth trying to burn anxious energy. Second, pacing usually meant someone was waiting for something to happen, and patience was also not Caleb’s strongest suit.

Yet here he was, moving back and forth just inside the entrance of the courthouse on repeat. Burning a hole in the lobby’s faded carpet.

It had been three hours since the fire alarm went off. Since there was no fire in the building, or even smoke, Caleb had put his bet on the culprit being a punk kid or a disgruntled attendee. Someone who wanted to break up their day with a little excitement. That is, until he’d seen the alarm that had been pulled.

Smashed beyond recognition. Obliterated. It had been a miracle the sirens had managed to keep blaring after the alarm had been pulled and then destroyed. They’d had to wait for the fire department to shut it all down. One firefighter had whistled low at the broken shell of the alarm and asked what was the point of pulling it and breaking it.

Caleb hadn’t had an answer. He’d officially gone on alert, a feeling of foreboding lying heavy in the pit of his stomach. Hours later, that heaviness hadn’t gone away. Not when deputies had come over from the sheriff’s department next door. Not when they had gone through the entire building, room by room, looking for anything suspicious. And not when the security footage hadn’t been helpful, thanks to a gap in the recording, which was due to poor funding.

“It happens sometimes,” the other deputy had said with a shrug. “The courthouse isn’t the only place in town waiting on funding to come through to get a better system.”

“Sounds like an excuse,” Caleb said beneath his breath. The deputy hadn’t heard him, and he wanted to keep it that way.

Again, he didn’t know how Carpenter, or Riker County, truly worked. He didn’t know their struggles or their points of pride. Jumping to conclusions about a broken fire alarm at an underfunded courthouse wasn’t something he needed to do. He certainly didn’t need to overstep his job description by trying to investigate a situation that probably wasn’t anything more than someone caught in the heat of the moment and deciding to break something.