Page 122 of Secrets Beneath the Waves

“All right then.” Dante pulled the notepad closer as he reached for a pencil. “Now that we have established neither of us was lying to the other, let’s continue that trend, shall we?”

Jules narrowed her eyes. “Are you suggesting I would lie about what I saw?”

He scanned the few notes his colleague had made on the report after talking to her earlier. Hoover had noted that the witness did not seem to want to share many details about what she had seen. Not that unusual. Typically, it meant the person had temporarily blocked out what he or she had witnessed because it was so traumatic. Either that or they had something to hide. “I’m not saying you’ll lie, only that you don’t seem that eager to give us a lot of information.”

“I told the other officer everything I could.”

Dante rested his fingers on the report. “It says here that you witnessed a murder.”

She swallowed. “I did.”

He glanced at the paper. “At eight-forty-five last evening?”

“That sounds about right.”

“Weren’t we…”

“On a date then? Technically, yes. When you left to go to the men’s room, I stepped out into the alley running alongside the building to get some air. I planned to come back in and tell you I was leaving, except that, before I could, I heard a womanscream. I came out from behind a dumpster to see that man…” Her voice broke, and she pressed a fist to her mouth.

“Take your time. It’s okay.” Dante said the words by rote, the way he’d been taught and the way he’d said it to a hundred witnesses before. This situation was so unlike any he’d been in, though, that he could barely get them out, with shock and self-recrimination sending currents of white-hot pinpricks stinging across his flesh.

Jules hadn’t left without talking to him. While he was still in the pub, she’d been just outside the building, witnessing a man murdering a woman in cold blood. If he hadn’t been such a jerk to her, she wouldn’t have even been there. None of this would have happened.

At least, she wouldn’t have gotten dragged into what had happened. He felt sick. Even so, he had a job to do. Everything she had told him so far was already in the report, so he didn’t bother writing it down. Instead, he focused on mentally shaping his emotions into a ball with both hands, as though working with wet clay, setting the ball in a small box in his mind, and slamming the lid closed. “Tell me what you saw when you came around the dumpster.”

Jules lowered her fist to one knee. “He had her pinned against the wall and was choking her. She was struggling, but then she went limp. I made a noise, and he let her fall to the ground and turned around and started walking toward me.”

The hot pinpricks turned ice cold. The man had seen her? Jules could easily have been killed herself. “Did you run?”

“I couldn’t. I was in some kind of trance or something. He came toward me really slowly, and all I could do was stand there and watch. Then, when he was a few feet away, his phone went off, and that snapped me out of it. I was able to reach the door and get inside. I searched for you, but you were gone.”

Dante couldn’t touch that accusation, not tonight, or those emotions would explode out of the box fast. “Did you see his face?”

She hesitated. “I did.”

“Can you tell me what he looked like?” Other than a couple of scant details, the report ended here. Why was she refusing to describe the man? Was it too terrifying for her? The woman ran into fire for a living. Somehow, he doubted she’d been so traumatized by what she’d seen—as horrifying as it must have been—that she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, share the specifics.

When she didn’t answer, he lifted his head, the tip of the pencil pressed to the notepad. “Jules?”

A small shudder moved through her. “He was tall. Over six feet.”

“Okay.” Dante glanced at the report. Yep. Hoover had written that down. Also that the suspect was Caucasian, although Dante would still ask, see if the question triggered any other information that would give him enough to start the sketch. “Skin color?”

“White.”

“Hair?”

A helpless look crossed her face as she unclenched her fist and lifted her hand, palm up. “I don’t remember. I didn’t note that.”

Dante frowned. She didn’tnotethat? That was a strange way to put it. He set the pencil down. “All right, look. I know what you saw was a terrible shock, which can make it hard to remember the details. Can you do something for me?”

She wrapped her arms around her bent legs. “What?”

“Take three or four slow, deep breaths.”

Jules complied. When the tension in her body appeared to ease a little, Dante said, “That’s good. Now, I know this might be difficult, but I need you to close your eyes and imagine the scene.Take your time and let it slowly come into focus, and then simply tell me what you see.”

He started to reach for the pencil but stopped when she said, “I can’t.”