Page 4 of Shadowed Witness (The Secrets of Kincaid #2)

A couple of hours later, Eric logged the evidence he’d collected from Ashley Harrison’s house and headed for his desk. Tucked into a corner of the Kincaid police station, his “office” space was small, but it served its purpose, and he was grateful to have it.

Somehow, Kincaid had found room in its budget to open a detective position earlier this year, and he’d managed to secure it.

He’d needed the change after losing his mentor last fall.

Maybe being able to focus on investigations would allow him to do more good than he’d been able to as a patrol officer. Especially on the drug front.

So many lives were being ruined. So many lost. He couldn’t get Ashley Harrison’s face out of his head.

She’d been only a handful of years older than his twenty-nine, but she could have passed for fifty.

And now she’d never reach that milestone.

Drugs had cut her life short and left her boys without a mother.

He sank into his semi-comfortable chair and scrolled through his contacts until he found Dion’s info.

He had mentored Lucky’s brother before Dion dropped out of youth group.

They’d continued to text occasionally for about a year, but the teen had quit responding to his messages months ago.

He could have simply gotten a new number.

Maybe. But Eric suspected Dion’s current group of friends wasn’t the type to appreciate a cop’s company. Still, he needed to try.

He clicked on Dion’s number and lifted the phone to his ear. The call rang. And rang. Voice mail kicked in, but it was a generic recording. He left a message anyway, just in case. Once he ended the call, he dropped his head into his hands.

Eric had tried to locate him at school before heading to the station. Administration had informed him that Dion hadn’t shown up today. Where would he be? At a friend’s house?

The kid would have to return home at some point. But he’d be coming back to a missing mom and brother and a home recently processed as a crime scene. Eric would really like to intercept him before that point.

He scrubbed his forehead. Dion was only fourteen.

Dad hadn’t ever been in the picture as far as Eric knew, although Dion carried his last name—which was why Eric hadn’t connected him with Ashley until he’d seen Lucky.

Lucky’s father, on the other hand, was in prison, and Eric was pretty sure his parental rights had been terminated years ago. And now with their mom gone...

If those boys didn’t have family willing to take them in, there wasn’t much chance the system would keep them together—not with such an age range between them. And teen boys like Dion were hard to place with foster families.

Could Eric take them?

As quickly as the thought came, he rejected it. He would absolutely love to provide a home for those boys, but the practicalities of his situation were far from ideal.

Though he had the necessary certification to foster—he’d completed the state-required training before his promotion to detective—his schedule was far too sporadic now.

Perhaps he would have been able to make it work when he was on patrol, but his current position often ran him into overtime.

Even off duty, he was still usually on call.

There was no way he could be present enough to supply either the supervision or care the boys would need.

That was one of the few true downsides to his job. It wouldn’t be such a barrier if he were married—or even if he had a family member nearby willing to offer respite care when he was called in to work a case. But he didn’t have anyone.

He wanted so badly to be the home and security some kid needed—that these kids needed. But he had no clue how to make things work right now.

“Thornton, got something to run by you.” Officer Stephen Moore approached his desk.

Eric pushed his phone aside. “Shoot.”

“I got an odd call from Mayor Jennings at the beginning of my shift last night.” He paused, but when Eric didn’t respond, he continued. “He wanted to report a crime that he didn’t believe happened.”

Okay, that was odd. Eric leaned his chair back and crossed his arms.

“Allye Jessup told him she witnessed a beating.”

An image of the spunky redhead popped into his mind.

“Why didn’t she report it?”

“That’s the thing. The mayor said she had fallen down her studio steps, and he found her unconscious. He’s next to positive the beating never happened, but she was adamant that we check things out. He only convinced her to go home and rest by promising to call it in.”

Eric almost winced. He knew exactly where Allye’s studio was and how steep her stairs were. That had to have been a nasty fall. “She okay?”

“Far as I know.”

“You check out her story?”

Moore spread his hands dramatically. “Of course. But there was no evidence anything had gone on, and the gravel at the bottom of her stairs was disturbed like someone had fallen there.”

“Sounds like that’s what happened, then.”

“That was my conclusion.”

“But?”

Moore swiped the back of his hand across his forehead.

“She wants an update. She left a message with Darla a couple of hours ago, but I just had time to return her call. When I told her there wasn’t anything to update her on, she got upset.

She’s on the way here now, and I’m supposed to be off”—he glanced at his watch—“in five minutes. I pulled a double to cover Kevin, and I’m bushed.

I thought maybe since you two are friends. ..”

He sighed and waved Moore off. “Sure. Tell Darla to send her my way when she gets here.”

“Thanks.” The officer headed for the receptionist. “I owe you one.”

Eric let his chair snap forward. Dealing with an agitated Allye Jessup would be fun, to use the term loosely. When that woman got something in her head, she was all in. Better get started on his notes while he had the chance.

Notes. “Hey, Moore!”

The officer turned back toward him.

“Shoot me a copy of your report before you go.”

“Will do. Not much there, but I’ll send it.”

He nodded his thanks. Delusion or not, he preferred to be in the know before speaking to a potential witness.

As he reached for his laptop, his still-silent phone caught his eye. It had only been a few minutes since he’d left the voice mail, but he grabbed it anyway and tapped out a text.

Dion, I really need to talk to you. It’s important.

Message sent, he powered on his laptop and began entering his handwritten notes into the system, adding to them as necessary.

Taking his notes on a tablet or laptop in the first place would save time, but he’d found he processed better on paper, and sometimes things jumped out at him during the transcription process. It was worth the extra few minutes.

When Moore’s report came through, he paused to read it. Not much there, and like Moore had said, nothing but Allye’s word indicated that anything had actually happened.

Satisfied that he knew as much as he could, he returned to his own notes. Barely five minutes passed before the tap of fashion boots against tile announced Allye’s arrival. He saved his progress and navigated back to Moore’s email before rising to greet her.

“I hear you had a rough night.”

“No kidding.” Her voice was scratchy.

He pulled a chair from a nearby desk and offered it to her. “Officer Moore gave me a brief rundown of the situation. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

As Allye launched into her story, he grabbed a pen.

But instead of taking notes, he studied the woman in front of him.

Though naturally fair-skinned, Allye was more pale than usual, and she looked tired—no, weary.

But her pupils appeared normal, and her voice was steady as she related what she believed happened the night before.

Everything seemed to match the report. No inconsistencies.

“. . . but he chased me.”

Eric straightened. Neither Moore nor his notes had mentioned that part. He flipped to a blank page in his notebook. When she mentioned that she’d been choked, his pen stilled. He lifted his gaze to her neck, which was obscured by a bright, oversized scarf.

“Then I blacked out.” Her voice cracked. “When I woke up, I was at the foot of the steps to my studio. Mayor Jennings was there, and everyone else was gone.”

Eric clicked his pen as he digested the new information. Despite the mayor and Moore’s opinion that Allye had imagined everything, her account was concerning. And it made him mad that someone might have put his hands on her.

He looked again at her scarf. “Do you mind showing me your neck?”

She grimaced but unwound the material. Ugly bruising consistent with attempted strangulation had formed on her fair skin.

The angry knot in his gut grew. Regardless of whether there’d been another victim, something had happened to her last night.