Page 24 of Shadowed Witness

A bit of biscuit lodged in her throat. She quickly grabbed her teacup and gulped the hot liquid. It burned all the way down, but it took the food with it. Holding a napkin over her mouth, she coughed to confirm everything was clear.

Fear flickered through her. Difficulty swallowing could be another symptom ... but everyone got choked occasionally. And the biscuit had been dry. Surely that’s all it was. She shoved the fear aside but still took extra care as she slowly finished eating.

Next up: dessert for tonight. She took stock of her energy levels. A little better since she’d eaten and gotten a bit of caffeine in her system, but she still felt off. Better go with something simple. Shedid a quick online search and found a recipe that looked promising. She’d give it a try.

Before long, she had two pies in the oven. Timer set, she forced herself to load and start the dishwasher before heading to her spare-bedroom-turned-office with her refilled teacup. A few large or hand-wash-only dishes remained in the sink, but the monster was noticeably shrunken.

Now she would focus on edits for a bit. She hadn’t missed any major deadlines yet, but she’d been edging awfully close on several projects. She couldn’t afford to let her photography business tank. Not now when she desperately needed both the income and the flexibility it provided—not to mention the means to pay her health insurance premiums. Up the road, she might not have a choice, but she’d keep going as long as she could.

She tapped the mouse to wake her computer. She groaned. Update in progress. Just what she needed. It was nearing sixty percent, so maybe it wouldn’t take much longer.

As she waited, she sipped her tea. The malty notes of the high-quality Assam soothed both her throat and her nerves. She let her gaze drift over the desktop. She’d managed to keep this workspace relatively uncluttered, but she desperately needed to dust. One more thing to add to the list. She probably had time to at least get the worst of it, but that would require the energy to get up and get a dusting cloth.

Instead, she grabbed her phone. Scrolling social media wasn’t productive, but it didn’t demand anything of her either. As she thumbed down her feed, a local alert caught her eye.Missing Teen.

She caught her breath. She recognized the boy in the photo. Dion Walker. Quickly, she tapped the link and pulled up the short article. No details other than his description and that he hadn’t been seen since he left school Thursday afternoon.

Jesus, please protect him. You know where he is. Keep him safe until he’s found.

She sent a quick text to her small group. Couldn’t have toomany people praying. She pulled up a new tab and did a search for his name. No other articles or updates appeared, but she set herself a reminder to follow up and pray. Even if there weren’t updates, it would help keep his situation from getting lost in her brain fog.

The computer screen in front of her went dark, then lit as the updates finally finished. Reluctantly, she set her phone and teacup aside. She had to get these edits started.

Password in. Program open. She was ready to go. Except she hadn’t brought her camera case. Having the photos to upload would help.

She retrieved her camera case and returned to her seat. She removed her camera, then the memory card from it. Photos popped up immediately when she inserted the card, but they weren’t from Jayden Alexander’s senior session. These were the nature photographs she’d taken afterward. That’s right—she’d swapped the cards before heading for the trail.

She dug in her camera bag but only found more new cards. What had she done with Jayden’s? A hint of panic niggled at her brain. She forced herself to think through her actions from that day. She’d removed the card, placed it in the protective case the new one had come in, then ... her purse! She’d slipped it into her purse.

Pushing past the lightheadedness that hit when she stood, she circled back to the living room and grabbed her purse. After a moment of fruitless digging, she dumped the contents onto an end table. She grabbed at her lip balm and a couple of coins as they rolled toward the edge. Two coins escaped her. They bounced loudly on the floor and skidded away to who knew where.

She scanned the odds and ends—and the few random leaves—that had been in her purse. No memory card. It had to be here somewhere. She shook her purse over the mess. Nothing but dust joined the pile on the table. Quickly, she began replacing items one by one. When all that remained were the leaves anda few gum wrappers, she stared at the nearly empty table, panic growing. She couldn’t lose those photos.

Think, Allye!Maybe her purse had fallen over in the car?

She started toward the door, but the kitchen timer started beeping.The pies.Had to get them first. She rushed back to the kitchen and grabbed a pair of oven mitts. She checked the desserts and removed them from the oven.

Once they were safely cooling, she headed for her car. Twenty minutes later, she leaned her head against the seat back and tried not to cry. The memory card was nowhere to be found.

She knew it had been in her purse. She remembered the snap of the plastic case and the sensation of dropping it inside. So where had it gone?

All at once, it hit her. Her purse had dumped while she was hiding beside Spicebush Trail. She’d been in a hurry to grab everything and get out of there. She could easily have missed the memory card, especially if it had slid under a bush. Thank God it hadn’t rained since then. Hopefully, the flimsy case was enough to protect it from any dew.

But her stomach clenched at the thought of returning to the trail. She couldn’t go alone. That much was sure. She checked the time on her phone. Almost three. She didn’t have time to go now anyway. While she hated to leave it there any longer than necessary, she’d wait until after dinner. Perhaps Bryce would go with her. She’d have to think of a reason to ask him that wouldn’t require her to reveal everything that had been going on, but surely she could come up with something.

12

Eric bent over his deskin the nearly deserted station. He’d been up most of the night, looking everywhere he could think of for Dion and rechecking some of the likelier places. After a few hours of sleep, he’d run by the teen’s house again on his way to the Sunday morning early service. Still no sign of him. Then after church, he’d grabbed a fast-food sandwich and come back here to make sure his reports were in order and try to noodle through the mess of cases he had. But like it had all day yesterday, his mind kept bouncing between the missing teen and a certain redhead, no matter how hard he tried to focus.

He hadn’t missed Allye Jessup’s unceremonious entrance after retrieving her glasses Friday night. She had always been a little ... well,klutzywas what some of the other guys had called her back in high school, but he’d never liked that term. Her propensity to graze corners and accidentally knock things off her desk was actually kind of cute, though he never would have admitted such a thing back then. She was Bryce’s little sister after all. And with the three-year age gap between her and Eric, she’d been too young for him to consider dating. Even if they had been closer in age, she’d always been way out of his league—smart, witty, popular, and from a good family.

But she and her family had always been kind to him. Even when many of the “good kids” were told to avoid him becauseof his background, as if he’d had a choice about his parents and what they did. A burning started in his gut, as it usually did when he thought of them.

He forced his thoughts back to the present. Replayed Allye’s return to the living room and nearly falling into a chair. Looking for all the world like her grip on the porch furniture was the only thing keeping her from toppling over during her conversation with him and Moore. The defeat in her posture each time he’d been unable to find anything to corroborate her story. But more than that, her normal enthusiasm for life and people was lacking. Something was going on with her. Perhaps the same something causing all these incidents?

Despite the lack of evidence, he’d been inclined to believe her accounts until Friday night. But as much as he wanted to deny she could be losing it, this latest story couldn’t be anything but that—a story. None of it made sense. Yes, an attacker tracking down the victim that got away was, unfortunately, all too possible. But the rest of it was bizarre.

In a sense, he was relieved it couldn’t be true. Because what could have and likely would have happened if that kind of man had actually broken into her home while she was there alone and helpless ... He tried to shut down that line of thought. Between what he’d been exposed to as a kid and what he’d seen as a cop, he wasn’t shocked by much. Disturbed and angered, yes, but those emotions were easily funneled into determination to bring justice to the victims.

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