The Witness (11 page)

“You’re a very solid man,” Elizabeth began. “Physically attractive. You’re kind and have a broad worldview, varied interests. And the fact that you’re in a position of authority, carry a weapon, can be attractive to a woman on a visceral level.”

His eyes laughed at her over his coffee. “You’re like nobody else, Liz.”

“I wish I were.”

“Don’t. You’re a stand-up girl, scary smart, brave, compassionate—and you have varied interests as well. I can’t keep up with the variety. Science, law enforcement, health and nutrition, music, books, now cooking. Who knows what’s next?”

“Will you teach me to handle a gun?”

He lowered his coffee. “Where did that come from?”

“It could be one of my varied interests.”

“Liz.”

“I’m having nightmares.”

“Oh, honey.” He laid a hand over hers. “Talk to me.”

“I dream about that night. I know it’s a normal reaction, an expected one.”

“That doesn’t make it easier.”

“It doesn’t.” She stared down at the cookbook, wondered if her world would ever be as simple as ingredients and measurements again.

“And I dream about going in, to do the lineup. Only he sees me, Korotkii. I know he sees me, because he smiles. And he reaches behind his back, like he did that night. And everything slows down when he takes out the gun. Nobody reacts. He shoots me through the glass.”

“He didn’t see you, Liz.”

“I know. That’s rational and logical. But this is about fear and emotion—subconscious fears and emotions. I try not to dwell on it, try to keep busy and occupied.”

“Why don’t I contact your mother?”

“Why?”

The genuine puzzlement had him biting back an oath. “You know we
have a psychologist available for you. You said you didn’t want to talk to one before, but—”

“I still don’t. What’s the point? I understand what’s happening, and why. I know it’s a process my mind has to go through. But he kills me, you see. Either at the house because in the dreams he finds me, or at the lineup because he sees right through the glass. I’m afraid he’ll find me, he’ll see me, he’ll kill me. And I feel helpless. I have no power, no weapon. I can’t defend myself. I want to be able to defend myself. I don’t want to be helpless.”

“And you think learning to shoot will help you feel more in control, less vulnerable?”

“I think it’s one answer.”

“Then I’ll teach you.” He took out his weapon, pulled out the magazine, and set it aside. “This is a Glock 19. It’s standard-issue. It holds fifteen rounds in this magazine.”

Elizabeth took it when he offered. “It’s polymer. I looked it up.”

“Of course you did.”

“It’s not as heavy as I thought it would be. But it’s not loaded, so that accounts for some of the weight.”

“We’ll keep it unloaded for now. Let’s talk about safety.”

She looked up, into his eyes. “All right.”

After some basics, he had her stand, showed her how to sight, how to grip. And Terry walked in.

“Jesus Christ, John.”

“It’s not loaded,” Elizabeth said quickly.

“I repeat, Jesus Christ.”

“Give us a minute, Liz.”

“Oh. All right.” More reluctant than she’d imagined, she gave the gun back to John. “I’ll be in my room.”

“What the hell are you thinking?” Terry demanded the minute Elizabeth left the room.

“She wants to learn how to handle a gun.”

“Well, I want George Clooney naked in my bed, but I haven’t attempted kidnapping. Yet.”

“She’s having nightmares, Terry.”

“Crap.” Terry wrenched open the refrigerator, got out a Coke. “I’m sorry, John, this all seriously sucks for that kid. But letting her handle your service weapon isn’t an answer.”

“She thinks it is. She doesn’t want to feel defenseless. Who can blame her? We can tell her all day long she’s safe, we’ll protect her, but she’s still powerless. It’s not just about what we tell her, but what she feels.”

“I know that, John, I know. I understand she’s scared, and she’s got to be bored out of her mind. We can’t change that, not really.”

“Her life’s never going to be the same, Terry, and we can’t forget that, either. We can’t forget she’s not just the witness, she’s a teenage girl. If learning proper gun safety and operation helps her, then I’m going to see she gets taught. Because the least she deserves is a decent night’s sleep.”

“Crap,” Terry repeated. “Okay, I get it. I do. But …”

“But?”

“I’m thinking.”

“Good, keep doing that. I’m going to try out the line that worked on you on the boss. I want to get clearance to take her into the range.”

“Rub a lamp while you’re at it. That may help.”

John just smiled and, taking out his phone, walked into the next room.

Terry huffed out a breath. After a moment’s consideration, she got out a second Coke, then walked upstairs to Elizabeth’s bedroom. She knocked.

“Come in.”

“Playing with guns always makes me thirsty.” Terry walked over to the bed where Elizabeth sat, handed her the Coke.

“I hope you’re not angry with John. It was my fault.”

“I’m not mad.” Terry sat beside her. “It caught me off guard, that’s
all. John told me you’re having nightmares. You’re scared. I can tell you not to be, but the truth is, in your place I’d be scared, too.”

“I couldn’t do anything. In the nightmares, I can’t do anything, either, so he kills me, too. I want to learn how to take care of myself. You won’t always be there. You and John or Bill and Lynda. Or whoever they send. One day, you won’t be there, and I have to know I can take care of myself. My mother won’t go.”

“You don’t know—”

“I do know.” She said it calmly, without emotion, surprised she felt calm and emotionless. “When it comes time for you to relocate me, give me a new identity, she won’t go with me. Her life’s here, her career. I’ll be seventeen soon. I can file for emancipation if I need to. I would get it. When I turn eighteen, I’ll have some money from my trust fund. And more when I’m twenty-one. I can study, and I can work. I can cook a little now. But I can’t defend myself if something happens.”

“You’re smart enough to have done some research on the program. We haven’t lost a witness who’s followed our security guidelines.”

“I’ve followed someone else’s guidelines my entire life, so I’m used to that.”

“Oh, Liz. Hell.”

“That was passive-aggressive,” Elizabeth said with a sigh. “I’m sorry. But the point is, they’ll never stop looking for me. They believe in revenge and restitution. I know you’ll do everything you can to keep them from finding me, but I need to know, if the worst happened, if they did find me, I could fight back.”

“There are more ways to fight back than with a gun.”

“And yet you carry one.”

“Two.” Terry tapped her ankle. “Approved backup weapon. If you want to learn how to shoot, John’s your man. But there are more ways. I could teach you some self-defense. Hand to hand.”

Intrigued, Elizabeth sat back. “Actual fighting?”

“I was thinking more defensive moves, but, yeah, fighting back.”

“I’d like to learn. I’m a good student.”

“We’ll see about that.”

John came to the open door. “Five a.m. Be ready. We’ve got permission to use the range.”

“Thank you. So much.”

“Terry?”

“Five. In the morning. Hell. I’m in.”

T
HREE TIMES A WEEK
before the sun rose, John took her to the basement range. She grew accustomed to the feel of the gun in her hands, the shape, the weight, the recoil. He taught her to aim for body mass, to group her shots, to reload.

When she learned the trial had been delayed, she vented her frustration on the range.

On alternate days, Terry instructed her in self-defense. She learned how to use her opponent’s weight and balance to her advantage, how to break a hold, how to punch from the shoulder.

The nightmares still came, but not every night. And sometimes, in them, she won.

As the first month passed, her old life seemed less hers. She lived in the spare, two-story house with the high security fence, and slept each night with federal marshals on guard.

Lynda lent Elizabeth romance novels, mysteries, horror fiction out of her own collection. While summer burned through to August, Lynda cut Elizabeth’s hair again—with considerable more skill—and showed her how to retouch the roots. On long, quiet evenings, Bill taught her to play poker.

And the time dragged like eternity.

“I’d like to have some money,” she told John.

“You need a loan, kid?”

“No, but thank you. I’d like my own money. I have a savings account, and I want to withdraw some.”

“Taking you to the bank would involve unnecessary risk. If you need something, we’ll get it for you.”

“My mother could withdraw it. It’s like the gun. It’s for security.” She’d thought it through. She had time to think everything through. “When I finally testify, and I’m relocated, I think it’ll happen quickly. I’d like to have money—my own money—when it happens. I want to know I can buy what I need and not feel obligated to ask.”

“How much did you have in mind?”

“Five thousand.”

“That’s a lot of money, Liz.”

“Not really. I’m going to need a new computer, and other supplies. I want to think about tomorrow instead of today. Today just keeps being today.”

“It’s frustrating, I know, having to wait.”

“They’ll delay as long as they can, hoping to find me. Or hoping I’ll lose courage. But they can’t delay forever. I have to think about the rest of my life. Wherever that is, whoever I’ll be. I want to go back to school. I have a college fund that would have to be transferred. But there are other expenses.”

“Let me see what I can do.”

She smiled. “I like when you say that. With my mother, it’s always yes or no. She rarely, if ever, says maybe, because maybe is indecisive. You say you’ll see what you can do, which isn’t maybe, isn’t indecisive. It means you’ll take some action. You’ll try. It’s much better than no, and almost as good as yes.”

“All that.” He hesitated a moment. “You never mention your father. I know he’s not in the picture, but under the circumstances—”

“I don’t know who he is. He was a donor.”

“A donor?”

“Yes. When my mother decided to have a child, to have that experience, she screened numerous donors, weighing their qualifications. Physical attributes, medical history, family history, intellect and so on. She selected the best candidate and arranged to be inseminated.”

She paused, looked down at her hands. “I know how it sounds.”

“Do you?” he murmured.

“I exceeded her expectations, intellectually. My health’s always been excellent. I’m physically strong and sound. But she wasn’t able to bond with me. That part of the process failed. She’s always provided me with the best care, nutrition, shelter, education possible. But she couldn’t love me.”

It made him sick in the gut, in the heart. “The lack’s in her.”

“Yes, it is. And knowing her part of the process failed makes it very difficult for her to feel or show any affection. I thought, for a long time, I was to blame. But I know that’s not true. I knew when she left me. She left me because she could, because I made a choice that allowed her to walk away. I could make her proud of me, proud of what she’d accomplished in me, but I could never make her love me.”

He couldn’t help himself. He drew her against him, stroked her hair until she let out a long breath, leaned on him. “You’ll be all right, Liz.”

“I want to be.”

He met Terry’s eyes over her head, saw the sheen of tears and pity in them. It was good she’d heard, John thought. Because the kid had two people who cared about her, and would do whatever it took to make sure she was all right.

S
ERGEI MET WITH HIS BROTHER
and nephew, as well as Ilya and one of his most trusted brigadiers. Children splashed in the pool under the watchful eyes of the women while others sat at long picnic tables already
spread with a bounty of food. Cold drinks nestled in wide, stainless-steel tubs of ice. On the lawn some of the older children played boccie or volleyball while their music banged out an incessant beat.

Little pleased Sergei more than a loud, crowded party with family and friends. He captained the enormous grill his oldest daughter and son-in-law had given him for his birthday, appreciating this American tradition. His gold Rolex and the crucifix hanging around his neck gleamed in the brutal summer sun, while over his cotton shirt and pants he wore a bright red bib apron that invited everyone to kiss the cook.

As the grill smoked, he turned fat burgers, all-meat franks and long skewers of vegetables brushed with his secret marinade.

“The mother goes to the hospital,” Sergei’s nephew Misha said. “She is there many hours every day, often through the night. She has dinner maybe once a week with the man she sleeps with. Four times each week, she goes to the fancy gym where she has a trainer. She goes to the beauty parlor for her hair, her fingernails. She lives her life like she has no daughter.”

Sergei merely nodded as he transferred the vegetables to a platter.

“I went through her house,” the brigadier told him. “I checked her phone. Calls to the hospital, to her boyfriend, to another doctor, to the salon for her hair. There are none to the police, to the marshals, to the FBI.”

“She must see the girl,” Mikhail insisted. He was more rounded than his brother, and his hair was going white in wide streaks. “She is the mother.” He looked over to the pool, where his own wife sat laughing with their daughter while their grandchildren played in the pool.

“I think they aren’t close.” Ilya sipped at his beer.

“A mother is a mother,” Mikhail insisted. “She would know where her daughter is.”

“We can take her,” Misha suggested. “On her way to the hospital. We can … persuade her to tell us where the girl is.”

“If the mother is a mother, she will not tell.” Sergei began arranging
burgers on another platter. “She will die before. If she is not such a mother, and my information is she is not, she may not know. We take her, they move the girl, add more guards. So, we watch the mother who is not such a mother.”