Shielding His Christmas Witness

“Try to get some rest, okay?”

“Sure.” Easier said than done with the way her ankle throbbed.

“I’ll be in the connecting room right next door.” He rose to his feet, then hesitated, staring at the motel phone that sat on the bedside table beside her.

Her stomach clenched. Was it possible that he still didn’t trust her? She half expected him to disconnect the phone from the wall, but then he walked past the device toward the connecting door between their rooms. “I’m going to leave this open an inch or so. Just give a yell if you need anything.”

She nodded. “Good night.”

“Good night.” Marc disappeared into his own room, leaving her to stare helplessly at the four walls surrounding her. She fought the urge to call him back.

Maybe she trusted him to keep her and her baby safe, but she couldn’t afford to allow herself to depend on anyone but herself.

Hadn’t Vince already taught her not to trust her instincts? Bad enough that she’d been foolish enough to fall for his act.

Tears pricked at her eyelids, evidence of hormones running amuck.

Five days. She needed to remain strong for the next five days. Once the trial was over, things would get back to normal.

Whatever her new normal might be.

* * *

Doing his best to keep quiet so he wouldn’t disturb Kari, Marc pulled his laptop computer out of its carrying case and set it on the small table. His witness deserved her rest, especially considering the condition of her ankle.

He wished there was more he could do for her, but it was better for him to focus on the case.

He’d gone through the bank-robbery case file more than once, but didn’t remember seeing anything about a former boyfriend named Vince Ackerman. Even if Detective Barclay had cleared the guy, shouldn’t she have at least mentioned Vince in the report?

Marc also needed to try to figure out who could have possibly leaked the location of the safe house. He doubted Kari had done anything on purpose, but he couldn’t ignore the tiny voice in his head telling him she might have let something slip by accident.

Maybe at the drugstore? When buying her prenatal vitamins? Or had she been followed?

He could almost hear his sister Madison’s voice in his head, admonishing him for being so cynical. And maybe he was. Not just because of his line of work, but learning the truth about Jessica and then losing the witness in his last case. A case that was eerily similar to this one. A young man from last year, who’d also witnessed a bank robbery.

Only Joey Simmons had been shot and killed on the way to the courthouse the morning of the trial, rather than a week before. They’d eventually proven that the man their star witness had been about to testify against had hired the gunman to kill Simmons. To this day, Marc felt guilty about that. As if he should have known or done something to avoid the outcome.

Was it any wonder he didn’t trust anyone?

His sister, Maddy, was a prosecuting attorney in the DA’s office, working hard to bring perpetrators to justice. She met all sorts of low-life criminals, yet still managed to maintain a positive outlook on life.

How she managed that feat was beyond his comprehension.

He booted up the computer, then drummed his fingers on the table as he waited for the operating system to kick in. As soon as the wallpaper image bloomed on his screen, he opened a browser and began a background search on Vince Ackerman.

He found several, but none in the right age range. Or what he thought was the correct age range. Somehow he couldn’t picture Kari with a guy fifteen years her senior.

Although what did he really know about her? Other than the basics?

Kari Ann Danville was twenty-six years old, grew up in Oakdale, Wisconsin, a suburb just outside Milwaukee. She’d been working at the Oakdale National Bank for the past four years, since graduating from college with an associate’s degree in graphic arts.

Graphic arts and banking didn’t necessarily go hand in hand, but he’d also found a freelance graphic-arts website hosted by KariAnn’s Designs. Maybe she was using the regular paychecks from her day job at the bank while she worked on getting her design business off the ground.

He wondered what she’d do once the baby was born. Not that Kari’s life or career prospects were any of his business. He couldn’t afford to let the aching loneliness in her eyes get to him.

Which brought him back to the baby’s father, Vince Ackerman. He scowled at the federal database he was logged in to. There were a few possibilities, but all of them were located on the other side of the country.

He sat back with a sigh. He should have asked for the guy’s age, and his last known address, but couldn’t bring himself to go next door to wake her up.

Marc scrubbed his hands over his face, knowing he should follow her lead and get some sleep, too. But he needed to figure out his next steps, not least of which involved contacting his boss.

The dead cop and empty safe house would raise an alarm when the relief officer arrived on the scene, in roughly—he glanced at his watch—two-and-a-half hours. His boss, Special Agent in Charge Evan White, would demand answers.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have any.

Since he’d ditched his phone, he had to use the motel phone. He reluctantly lifted the handset of the motel phone and dialed the main office number. No one would answer, but he could use a passcode to access Evan’s mailbox.

“This is Callahan reporting in,” he said into the voice mail. “I have our witness in custody, but the safe house was breached and the officer watching over her is dead, the result of a gunshot wound inflicted at close range. I don’t have my phone... I’ll let you know as soon as I secure a replacement.”

He disconnected from the call, relieved to postpone the inevitable confrontation with his boss.

They were safely isolated here for the moment, but they couldn’t just hang out here until the trial. He needed help from someone he could trust.

His family.

As the oldest, he didn’t like turning to his siblings for help. His brother Miles was the next in line, and also happened to be a detective with the Milwaukee Police Department. There were six Callahans total, and thanks to his parents’ crazy sense of humor all their names started with the letter M.

Marcus, Miles, Mitch, Michael, Matthew and Madison. Matt and Maddy were twins, Matt the elder by three minutes. Maddy hated being the baby of the family, constantly lamenting the fact that she had five older brothers. His father had been thrilled to finally have a daughter, and while they were always protective of their baby sister, they’d all also spoiled Maddy a little too much.

He swallowed the painful lump in his throat when he thought about their father. Max Callahan had been a cop, and the acting chief of police, before he was killed six months ago, in the line of duty.

His mother, Maggie, and their grandmother, Nan, still lived in the house where they grew up. Sunday church service followed by brunch was a steadfast Callahan tradition.

Max Callahan had instilled a strong sense of duty and commitment to serving their community in all of his children. And the Callahan legacy lived on, as they’d followed in his footsteps in one form or another, well, except for Michael, who worked as a private investigator. Their father hadn’t been thrilled with Mike’s choice and had constantly badgered him to go back to the police academy.

It still burned Marc to know their father’s case remained unsolved. Especially since his father was murdered by a sniper during an investigation into a police shooting of an unarmed teenager. It wasn’t normal for the chief of police to go to crime scenes, but his dad had wanted to make a statement that they were taking these types of incidents seriously.

Only to be shot and killed for his efforts.

Marc had recently begun his own personal investigation into his father’s death, hating the thought that the person responsible might get away with the crime. But it was as if the shooter had vanished into thin air, without leaving so much as a shell casing behind as a clue to his, or her, identity.

Marc must be more tired than he thought, to allow his thoughts to be sucked back into the past.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t allow his father’s death to become a distraction.

Not when faced with an immediate threat to his witness.

He picked up the motel phone again and punched in his brother’s number. Several rings went by before Miles answered in a raspy voice.