Page 4 of Shadowed Witness

“You screamed pretty loud.” He met her eyes for a brief second before returning his attention to the road. “And that purse you’re carrying looks heavy. When you fell, it could have yanked against your neck.”

She glanced down. She normally carried the bag slung over one shoulder, but the mayor was right. It hung cross-body. She couldn’t remember doing that before leaving her studio. But with the brain fog she’d been fighting the last couple of months, that didn’t mean much. She sighed and lapsed into silence, this time for the rest of the short drive to her duplex.

When they arrived, the mayor insisted on guiding her to the door. She reluctantly agreed, but only because she felt so awful. She unlocked her duplex and allowed him to set her bags just inside.

“Are you feeling up to staying by yourself? I could call your mother for you.”

“No.” Allye forced her aching body straighter. “I’m fine—just sore. Please don’t tell my mom about tonight. I don’t want her to worry.”

The mayor frowned. “If your mom finds out you fell down the steps and I didn’t let her know—”

“She won’t.” Allye forced a grin. “I’m sure not going to tell her, and if we were the only ones there...”

His expression didn’t clear. “Okay.” He took her hand. “But only if you promise me you’ll go straight to bed and you’ll be careful on those steps from now on.”

“Deal.” She hadn’t fallen down the stairs, but she would continue to be careful when navigating them.

He patted her hand, then released it and headed for his car.

“And, Mayor Jennings?”

He turned back to her.

“Thank you.”

He flashed the smile that had earned him nine-tenths of the vote last election cycle. “I’m always here when you need me.”

Allye closed and locked her door, then limped to a nearby recliner. She hadn’t lied to him exactly. But between the soreness and a renewed weight of fatigue, she didn’t have it in her to make it to her bed tonight.

2

Another overdose.

The whole place reeked of cigarette smoke and weed, but neither of those had killed Ashley Harrison.

Detective Eric Thornton ignored the memories this scene called up. And the nausea. With gloved hands, he lifted a baggie from the home’s scarred kitchen table. Remnants of a powdered substance coated the corners. He placed it in an evidence bag. The lab would verify what they were looking at. Meth, likely laced with fentanyl, if his suspicions were correct.

There’d been way too much of the stuff floating around Kincaid lately, judging by the uptick in ODs over the last couple of weeks. The medical examiner was still waiting for toxicology results on several of the victims, but the few finalized reports he’d sent Eric’s way indicated fentanyl-laced methamphetamine was likely responsible for the deaths.

Where was it all coming from? Kincaid was a small town, a significant drive from any major cities or interstates. Weed was common enough—meth too, unfortunately. But fentanyl was relatively new to the area. And so much more dangerous.

Though it had been wreaking havoc on much of the country for years, Eric had held out hope that the synthetic opioid would skip over his hometown. So much for that.

He really should have known better. It had only been a matter of time until a greedy dealer succumbed to the lure of additional profit either through direct sales to willing customers or through cutting a more costly drug with the cheaper and more potent opioid—with or without the user’s knowledge. But the consequences of using a drug with unknown or unexpected potency were often deadly.

Paramedics had been able to revive the last victim, but Ashley Harrison hadn’t been so lucky. The thirty-four-year-old had been stone cold by the time someone claiming to be a concerned neighbor called in a wellness check.

He hated calls like this one. Too late to save the victim of an obvious overdose. Too little evidence to bring the dealers to justice—usually anyway. But he’d do his best.

Randi Owens, the patrol officer who’d found Ms. Harrison’s body, leaned in the front door. “Medical examiner will be here in fifteen.”

Good. The sooner the ME removed the body, the sooner Eric could finish evidence collection and get out of this place. Afterward, the family would have to be notified, if she had any.

Based on the contents of the small house, he’d guess she had a couple of kids, and he hurt for them. The neighbor who’d called in the well-check hadn’t mentioned them, but it was possible the deceased shared custody with a father who lived elsewhere. He hoped that was the case—that her kids hadn’t spent the night with their mom dead on the couch and just assumed she was passed out when they left to catch the school bus this morning. He couldn’t make the call on time of death, but his guess was that she’d been gone for more than a few hours.

Something in another room crashed. He and Randi exchanged looks. They’d searched the house already and found no one. He slipped his gun from its holster and jerked his head toward the hallway. She nodded, her weapon already in hand too.

Eric led the way down the short hallway, breathing silently through his mouth to avoid the stench emanating from the bathroom. He quickly cleared it and the first bedroom while Randi covered him. They moved to the second and smaller of the bedrooms. A wooden chair now lay toppled under an open window where rain was beginning to blow inside. Something or someone had knocked the chair over. Considering they’d seen no sign of a pet and the window had barely been open an inch when they checked this room earlier, he’d put his money on a someone.

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