Pieces of the Past (Witness Security Book 1)

Pieces of the Past

Witness Security, Book One

by

Jamie Hill

ISBN:  978-1-77145-206-9

P
ublished by:

Books We Love Limited

(Electronic Book Publishers)

Chestermere, Alberta, Canada

http://bookswelove.net

Copyright 201
4 by Jamie Hill

Cover Art Copyright 201
4 by Michelle Lee

All rights reserved.  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored into a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Dedication

To Roxanne
N., Jude P., and Kay Z., for helping me to tell a better story. I appreciate you all very much!

Witness Security – The Series

Pieces of the Past – Book One

The past is closing in on Christine Scott. Uprooted from her pleasant life in Chicago, she and her two children are thrust into the Witness Security Program when the mistakes of her husband catch up with him. He lands in prison, while she and the kids are transplanted to a quiet Kansas town. Christine does her best to keep life normal for her active ten-year-old son and persistently moody seventeen-year old daughter. But when they start receiving gifts from an anonymous sender, reminders of their old life, it becomes obvious that someone has found them.

Doug Jackson's been in service with the US Marshal’s office for fifteen years. He hasn’t lost a witness yet, and doesn’t intend to start with Christine or her family.  If he can get them to cooperate, his job might be easier. Unfortunately, no one seems concerned about making Doug's life easy. Not the man in the white sedan who eludes him, nor the pretty Christine, thoughts of whom he can't seem to shake. Their lives depend on Doug keeping his head in the game, and he's determined to do just that.

Prologue

Life
is hard, then you die
. He’d read that on a T-shirt once. It seemed like a fitting expression.
Maybe I should get me one of those shirts
. Then at least people would know what to expect when they saw him coming.
If
they saw him coming.

He
chuckled and adjusted the air vent on the left side of the car’s dashboard so it aimed directly at his face. He’d started to sweat profusely, and wanted to nip it in the bud. He used a wadded-up fast food napkin to pat down his balding head.

The neighborhood seemed quieter than usual.
From what he could tell, the oppressive heat had sent children in search of pools and adults inside, seeking relief. Even through his closed car windows, he heard the drone of air conditioning units as he drove slowly down the street.

He stopped a half a block away and studied the yellow house
, its sidewalk framed by a red brick planter full of petunias. No bicycle in the driveway, no loose basketball lying at the base of the hoop, which sat atop a pole next to the house. For a moment, he wondered if the family was away.
They can’t be. I saw those things here yesterday.

When the front door opened and the woman came out, he breathed a sigh of relief.
I’m paranoid
. Not uncommon for someone in his line of work. He adjusted the right vent so the cold air blew in his face, too.

The woman glanced in each direction before she inserted
a letter into the shiny black mailbox and raised the small red flag on the side. She gazed toward his car and seemed to stare right at him.

He crouched down low
in his seat.
She can’t see me from there.
A new bead of sweat formed on his temple, and trailed down his face.
I hope
.

Without missing a step, the woman walked back into her house and closed the front door.

He swabbed his forehead, straightened his shoulders and settled back against the rented sedan’s leather seat.
The coast is clear.
A bit too close for comfort, but no harm done. Plus, he got a good look at her, so there was no doubt he was at the right place.

He lifted
several photos, and sheets of information accompanying them, from the passenger seat. Thumbing through the pages, he paused when he reached the picture of the woman and examined her closer. Straight dark hair framed her face, falling past her shoulders.
Young.
She looked much less than her purported thirty-five years.
She’s a pretty dame
. Clear brown eyes and a happy, innocent smile.

Bet she
’s not so happy anymore.
Reality had a way of taking that from people.
I should know.

He flicked the photo back and forth against the steering wheel. If the woman
was
somehow happy again, after everything she’d been through, he’d be amazed. And sorry that someone was intent on blowing it. But that’s the way the cookie crumbled.

This is no big deal. J
ust another job
. He tossed the photo back into the passenger seat and stared at the house once more.
Same game, different players.
There had to be different players, if he did his job right.
If I ever mess up, I’ll be the one lying on the slab.
He hadn’t screwed up yet, and wasn’t too concerned about it. He was very good at what he did.

He yawned
, fiddled with the vents again, and settled back into his seat.

Chapter One

Topeka, Kansas

Christine
Scott
closed the front door and locked it out of habit. Their first August in Kansas was hotter than blazes outside. She didn’t expect either of her kids would be going out. Ethan was in the family room playing a video game. Peyton was in her room, where she spent most of her time.

Christine
sighed. It had been a frozen day last January when she and the kids moved to the quiet city of Topeka. The state capital was large for Kansas but nothing like Chicago, where she and both children had been born and raised. The move had been quite a jolt, on top of changing identities and literally, their lives. The marshals in the Witness Security Program had encouraged them to keep their same first names and initials, hence the Stewart family became Scott. Seventeen-year-old Peyton, furious about the relocation, the divorce, everything, had taken it hard.

Jordan Burke, the
US Marshal assigned to their case, did everything she could to make things easier. Christine liked the woman, even though a part of her was envious of the dark-haired beauty with her long, thick black hair and a figure people couldn’t help notice. She could tell Peyton was enthralled with Jordan, partly because of the woman’s looks, but also because the marshal treated Peyton like an adult. That scored major points. Christine watched them interact, saw her daughter was starting to idolize their protector, but didn’t really mind. Jordan was gorgeous and just plain nice. She understood that the kids weren’t thrilled by uprooting their lives and relocating from Illinois to Kansas.

Christine
hadn’t been thrilled either, but she was an adult and could see the big picture more clearly. Her accountant husband of eighteen years had lied to her and put their family in jeopardy. He’d thought the cash he received laundering money for the Russo crime family would make up for the hardships they’d had to endure. He’d been wrong on so many levels.

No amount of cash could ever make up for the death threats
Christine and the kids had received. They’d had no choice but to enter the protection program. Neither child seemed to believe it when she explained she was divorcing Daddy and they were entering the Witsec program. After they moved, they’d never see Daddy or Grandma and Grandpa again. Ten-year-old Ethan was devastated. Peyton had chosen anger, and remained angry for a very long time. Christine wasn’t sure the girl was over it yet.

The phone rang, startling her out of her thoughts. She grabbed
her cell and recognized the number as one of Ethan’s classmate’s. “Hello?”

“
Hi, Christine, this is Donna Ulinky. How are you today?”

She pictured the pretty, auburn-haired woman, with the freckle-faced red-headed son.
Unlucky son
. Roger had broken his arm in the early weeks of baseball season and had spent the whole summer in a plaster cast. “Hi Donna. Fine, thanks. How’s Roger? Did he get his cast off?”

“
This morning. He’s so excited to finally be able to swim. He’d like to take some friends to the pool this afternoon. Is Ethan free? We could swing by and pick him up, and drop him off in a couple hours.”

“
I don’t know.” Christine glanced toward the family room nervously. She usually preferred to take him places herself. “Maybe we could meet you there.”

“
Nonsense. If he wants to go, we’ll pick him up. There’s no reason you should have to deal with the heat.”

Christine
gripped the phone until her fingertips turned white. “I, uh—”

“
Both my husband and I will be there. I promise you, we’ll keep an eye on the boys.”

She hated being thought of as an overprotective mother. She
’d always prided herself on being cool and laid back. Another facet of her life her husband had stripped away and she had no choice but to live with it. She had a real reason to be protective of her children, but the people in their new lives could never know about it. “I’ll see if Ethan wants to go. Hang on, okay?”

Christine
muffled the phone as she stood in the doorway of the family room. “Honey, Roger Ulinky got his cast off today. His parents are taking him swimming. Would you like to go?”

Her son
’s bright brown eyes sparkled. “Really? Sure!” He proceeded to punch some buttons on the controller in his hand to close out the game.

Christine
inhaled and lifted the phone. “Donna, Ethan would love to go. What time will you pick him up?”

“
Fifteen minutes?”

“
Fine. Thanks for including him.”

“
You bet. See you!” Donna ended the call.

Christine punched her cell off and set it down.

Ethan had turned off the video game and was headed up the stairs.

“
Remember to grab a towel.” She went down a short hall and entered the kitchen for the bottle of sunscreen she remembered seeing on the counter.

When he reappeared, she helped him apply the thick white goo to his back and face while he did the parts he could reach. Christine blended the lotion on his cheeks and held his face in her hands for a moment.
“Have fun, but be careful.”

Ethan rolled his eyes, obviously used to her cautioning words.
“I will, Mom.” An ornery grin spread across his face. “Take a chill pill.”

She squinted her eyes at him.
More like your daddy every day.
Larry used to tell her that on a regular basis. Ethan remembered, and liked to say it. They weren’t supposed to speak of Larry outright, but the boy learned early on that repeating pet phrases of the man got his point across. He may have been told to forget his father, but he never would.

“
Chill pill, my left leg.”
A stupid expression, but it’s what I always said to Larry.
It was the response Ethan expected. She tousled his sandy blond hair and smiled.

Their fifteen-second banter spoke volumes abou
t what Christine wanted to say.
Be careful. Notice your surroundings. If you see anyone unusual remember his or her description. Come straight home and tell me about it.
And most importantly,
I love you.

Jordan
had discouraged the warnings, of course, but that didn’t keep Christine from thinking them every time she left her son. He seemed to understand, and allowed her to coddle him a bit. He’d matured a lot in the past year. He’d been forced to.

A car pulled into the driveway and honked.

Ethan slipped into his flip-flops and grabbed the five dollar bill she offered. “Love you, Mom.” He skipped down the hall and was out the door in a flash.

S
he barely had time to reply, “Love you too.” Christine followed him to the door and saw him hop in the back seat of the Ulinky’s green minivan before it took off.

She
closed the door and leaned against it, forcing her breathing to slow to a normal rate. It was going to be a long two hours until he returned.

* * * *

Somewhere around five-thirty, Peyton padded downstairs and stood quietly in the entryway to the family room.

Christine looked up from her book. For a moment, the sight of her daughter startled her. Tall and slender with long, straight brown hair, she looked much the same as Christine had in high school
. Looks like me now, except she has bangs and lacks my wrinkles.
“Hi,” she said simply.

“
Any idea what’s for dinner?”

“
Ethan wants to make homemade pizza. We need to wait for him to get home.”

Peyton removed
a vibrating cell phone from her jean shorts pocket and looked at the screen. “Where’d he go?” she said to her mother, still looking at the phone.

“
Swimming.”

The girl nodded and held up one finger, answering her phone.
“Hello? Yeah. Hi. Oh, um, I don’t know. Well, maybe. Hang on.” She held the phone to her stomach to cover the microphone. “It’s Ryan. He’s going to get pizza and take in a movie.”

Christine blinked innocently.
“So why is he calling you with his plans for the evening?”

“
Mom!” Peyton scowled in disbelief. “He’s asking me to go
with
him.”

Christine smiled.
“Oh, I see. Well, I suppose you can go.” She liked Ryan Armstrong okay. Peyton had been seeing him since the first week of school. He was a football player, which she feared was her daughter’s motivation for dating the boy. Peyton had been a cheerleader in Chicago, but much to her dismay, hadn’t made the squad in Topeka. Adjusting to life on the lower rung of the high school ladder hadn’t been easy. All of a sudden this year, with the new boyfriend came a new social status. Christine wasn’t sure she liked it, but she hadn’t put a stop to it yet. She was keeping an eye out, though. “He’ll need to come in so we can discuss the movie.”

Peyton
’s expression changed to one of horror.

Christine merely shook her head.
“That’s always been the rule, no exceptions.” That
had been
the rule when they lived in Chicago, and it was something Larry strictly enforced. Christine suddenly realized that Peyton hadn’t been to a movie all year. There’d been a few dates and lots of group activities, but a real ‘boy-girl’ movie, no. She smiled again. “I’ll be nice. I just want to make sure we’re all on the same page. No balconies, that kind of thing. That’s not so much to ask.”

“
Theaters don’t even have balconies anymore, Mom.” Peyton stared for another few moments before pulling the phone up to her ear. “Sure I can go. My mom wants you to come in for a minute of course, but she’ll be cool. Okay, great. I’ll be ready. See you.” She pushed a button and ended the call. Glancing up, she added, “He’s picking me up at six-thirty. There’s an eight o’clock show at the Varsity.”

Christine opened her mouth to ask about the movie, but Peyton cut her off, apparently sensing the question.

“It’s the new Spielberg flick. Rated PG-13.”

Nodding, Christine asked instead,
“So what are you going to wear?”

Another look of horror, before Peyton sprinted for the stairs.
“I have no idea!”

“
Want some help?” Christine called after her daughter, and heard the bedroom door slam in reply. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’. And I will be cool. No worries.” She smiled to herself and returned to her book until Ethan got home.

He appeared
wind-blown and slightly sun-bronzed despite the white goo she’d slathered on him. Bubbling over with excitement and enough enthusiasm for him and his sister both, he talked non-stop from the moment he walked in, pausing just long enough to change his clothes, then resumed his barrage as they built a do-it-yourself pizza on a store-bought crust.

“
Sounds like you had a great time.” She slid the pizza pan into the oven and set the timer for fifteen minutes.

“
I did. Roger’s mom said they might go again tomorrow. She’ll call you.”

“
You want to go again tomorrow?” She rubbed a hand through his hair. “It’s miserable outside.”

“
I know, but it’s not bad in the water. Roger hasn’t been able to swim all summer. We’ve got to go as much as we can before the pool closes.”

“
I suppose that’s true.” School had recently started and there were just a few weeks until Labor Day, when all the pools called it quits for the season. “Guess I’d better go hang up your suit and make sure it gets dry overnight.” She headed down the hall and glanced back at him. “Unless you hung it up, of course.”

He smiled sheepishly.

Christine chuckled and climbed the stairs. Peyton’s door was still closed. “Need any help?” she called over loud music, an artist she couldn’t begin to identify.

“
Nope,” came the reply.

“
No problem.” She slipped into her son’s room and picked the damp swimming suit off the floor. Reaching for the equally wet towel, Christine was surprised when a blue ball cap dropped out from under it. She picked it up, her heart thudding when she spotted the bright red “C” logo on the front. Glancing around the room, she saw all of Ethan’s blue Kansas City Royals memorabilia in place, including the cap with the white “KC” logo. The Royals were the nearest baseball team to their new home, but thanks to his father, Ethan had been a Chicago Cubs fan from birth. Much to her son’s dismay, all his Cubs gear had been left behind.

Christine
forced herself to remain calm. She hung the wet items in the bathroom before marching to the top of the stairs, hat in hand. That’s when she lost her composure. “Ethan Patrick Scott!” she bellowed. “Where did you get this?”

He appeared at the bottom of the stairs,
glancing up at her with confusion.