Cold Case Witness

She opened the door again, this time squaring her shoulders and ignoring any odd sounds she heard. She walked across the parking lot to the building, pulling the key out of her pocket as she did so. They’d handed it to her just before she’d left that afternoon. It fit right into the door and she unlocked it, walked inside.

Locked the door tight behind her.

She exhaled deeply, shut her eyes and whispered a prayer of thanks that she’d made it this far. Gemma wasn’t sure how God felt about her lately, with her losing her job, not attending church and all of that, but a prayer now and then couldn’t hurt in her present situation.

Gemma clicked the light on, flooding the room with a warm glow that made her relax even more. The hard part was over. She’d made the walk from the car to here without incident—surely if someone had been waiting for her, they’d have attacked. She was unharmed, so it was likely she was in the clear. At least for now.

The office smelled musty, like a mix of pine straw, cardboard and something damp. It smelled perfectly like the history of the South. A small smile crossed her face. Working here wouldn’t be so bad, especially if the committee members left her alone during the day and she got to immerse herself in other people’s stories, learning about the past and doing something for the town without interacting with anyone else. It could turn out to be something she enjoyed, especially if it meant as much to Claire and her parents as she was hoping it would. More than anything, she wanted them to be proud of her.

“Okay, where to start first?” She said the words aloud to herself as she walked to the first filing cabinet she saw, deciding to start there, hoping that hearing her own voice would somehow make her feel less alone. At least when she was working here during the day she wouldn’t be by herself. She’d be able to see the construction crew through the window. And even more interesting, Matt O’Dell would be here every day. Just as close physically as he’d been when they’d had almost all of their classes together their senior year of high school, and just as far away in every other way as he always had been.

If things were different between them, maybe she would have called him tonight. She trusted him more than she did any other officer at the TPPD. He hadn’t been one of those who’d questioned her memories, who’d shrugged off her worries. After doing some research, she knew now that eyewitness testimony wasn’t the ultimate form of evidence. If physical evidence contradicted it, it won every time. It was factual, unbiased. So part of the story she’d remembered had been ignored because nothing else had seemed to support it.

But tonight, she knew if she looked out the window toward the construction site, she’d see the crime scene tape from the scene they’d discovered earlier.

There seemed to be support for her memories now.

Gemma shuddered. It was time to delve into these files, the history of the town, and see if there was anything that could help her.

She searched through the green hanging folders, through weathered newspaper clippings and typewriter printed notes, for hours. She couldn’t find anything that remotely tied to the case she’d been involved in.

Sighing, hating that she had to admit failure, she closed the file drawer and stood up, heading for the door. She slid her phone out of her pocket and glanced at it. Almost eleven—even later than she’d thought. Gemma stifled a yawn as she twisted the lock on the door to unlock it. The adrenaline and fear she’d felt when she’d first arrived had long since dissipated. Gemma reached to turn the door handle to open it.

It twisted. But the door didn’t move.

Gemma frowned. She’d locked it when she’d come in. So turning it that way should have unlocked it...right?

She twisted the lock the other way. Tried the knob again.

Nothing.

Chills moved across her body. Sinister laugher came from the other side of the door. Deep. Soulless. Gleeful.

Gemma swallowed hard against the pounding of her heart, which was pounding on the side of her throat, making it hard to breathe.

Relax. She had to relax. She took a deep breath, looked around the room. There had to be somewhere she could—

The lights went out.

Gemma dropped to the floor, crawled behind one of the desks almost without thinking. Survival instincts seemed to have taken over and all she knew was that someone was after her, very likely wanted her dead, and she was trapped in here. But she needed to keep it together, to stay calm and think.

Maybe someone only wanted to intimidate her.

The laughter came again, seeming to be the very sound of evil personified.

And then Gemma started to feel a touch of a headache, which spread quickly into an all-over ache, as if she’d come down with the flu in a matter of seconds. Was it fear messing with her? Or maybe the missing criminal had finally found a way to eliminate his last witness. A gas leak that could fill up the room with carbon monoxide would be an easy way to kill her and make it look accidental.

Her breaths were coming fast now from her fear, and she tried to slow them down, desperate to slow her inhalation of carbon monoxide. Did it work that way? If she tried hard enough, could she keep herself awake?

A window. She just needed to find a window, crack it open and maybe get a few breaths of fresh air. Her head hurt and her eyes, though she couldn’t see in the dark, felt funny somehow.

Gemma pulled her phone out of her pocket, hesitated over the 9 that her fingers wanted to dial on gut instinct. Calling 9-1-1 would bring the Treasure Point police to her, but would they believe her this time anyway?

Matt O’Dell would believe her. She didn’t know why she thought so, but she did.

She had his number in her phone, from when he’d called looking for her earlier in the day and left her a message telling her he needed to ask her some questions about what she might have seen. She’d ignored him.

She hit the send button, tried to put into words what she wanted to say to him.

But she didn’t even get the chance to say “Help”—the only word she’d come up with so far. She’d only just dialed when her headache exploded.

And the black became blacker.

* * *

“Hello?”

Silence. Matt glanced down at his phone again, at the number he didn’t recognize, though it did look familiar. It had an Atlanta area code.

Wait. It was Gemma’s number. He’d called it earlier that day; that was why it looked familiar. “Hello?” he tried again, curious as to why she would be calling back at such a late hour.

No answer. He could hear background noise, although not enough to figure out where she was calling from or why. He’d expected getting hold of her would be challenging; was she really calling him back to talk about the case? Or could something be wrong?

He grabbed his keys, decided to try to find Gemma even though it was late. He’d head to her sister’s house, where he’d heard she was staying, but first he’d swing by the Hamilton Estate, in case Gemma was working late there and had gotten into some kind of trouble.

The more seconds passed the more anxious he got. It was late—surely she wasn’t calling to talk, especially since she wasn’t talking at all. It was possible she’d accidentally sat on her phone or something and hadn’t intended to call him at all, but she didn’t seem like the sort to be careless in that way. Something felt...off. And Matt didn’t know why she’d call him if she was in trouble, but that was what this felt like to him. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, pressed the gas pedal a little harder. Two miles had never taken so long to drive. Matt drummed his thumbs on the wheel as he drove. He turned into the driveway and his headlights caught...

Another car. Hadn’t he seen this one before?

Gemma’s.

Matt threw his patrol car into Park, opened the door and ran. He knew he was taking a chance of looking like an idiot if she was in there safe and sound and he was storming the place like this, but the lights were out. Why would her car be here if she didn’t have the lights on in the office, working or something? There were no good reasons that he could think of.

“Gemma?” He reached for the doorknob. Locked. He fumbled for his key ring, hands shaking. They’d given him an extra key when he’d been assigned this patrol, since the Treasure Point Historical Society wanted everything well guarded but also didn’t want the police to have to resort to damaging their building by breaking a door or a window. Matt knew because they’d told him so in a snooty way when they’d given him the key.

He shone his flashlight on the lock, shoved the key in, twisted.

He went light-headed almost instantly from the first whiff of propane. If Gemma was in here...

“Gemma!” He yelled it this time, no longer asking a question, but instead searching for her. Desperately. He reached for the light switch, but when he flipped it nothing happened. There went any hope this might have been an accident. Someone wanted her dead and Matt knew why.

You never could escape your past.

He searched for her, accidentally knocking into stacks of paper on the desk and hoping they weren’t anything too important. Not that any pile of paper could be more important than Gemma. A mental picture of her teased the edges of his mind, her dark eyes wide. Vulnerable even though she had always been one of the most independent people he’d ever met.

“Be okay, Gemma.” He dropped to his knees and felt around with his hands. The initial light-headedness he’d felt worsened. He stood, ran outside to breathe—through the door that he’d left propped open in the hopes of getting more oxygen into the room—and ran back in. “God, help.” He prayed as he ran. Where would he go if he were Gemma?

Under the desk. If she’d realized someone was after her, she’d be hiding, right?