Page 42 of Shadowed Witness

And then she’d promptly OD’d because the drugs were tainted—though he hadn’t realized that until Bernie told him a few days ago.

He hadn’t told Eric the whole story about finding his mom. Couldn’t share all those details. But they replayed in his mind now. He’d sneaked back in during the night to check on Lucky and try to recover some of his merchandise. At first, he thought his mom was just passed out on the couch, but when he couldn’t find Lucky, he’d tried to wake her up. She was cold and stiff. He’d forgotten about looking for any remaining drugs and just hightailed it out of the house. It took him the rest of the night to figure out what to do, but he’d finally gone back in and used her phone to call in the wellness check so they wouldn’t be able to trace it back to him.

He’d hung around to watch the cops arrive, keeping his distance to avoid being spotted. That had backfired. By the time he saw Lucky slipping out of the neighbor’s tree house and making a beeline for his bedroom window, it was too late to stop him without calling attention to himself.

He should have tried anyway. They might have been able to make a break for it before anyone realized there were kids in the household.

Now Lucky was in a foster home, Dion was on the run from one of the only decent adults he’d ever known, and he had to report to the big guy. Or at least, bigger than Marco had been. He wasn’t sure who the real big guy was, and he didn’t want to know. Safer for him and Lucky if he didn’t. But he was stuck in this thing, and now he was totally on his own. At least his mom had somehow kept the house while she was alive.

This wasn’t how things were supposed to happen.

How many of his so-called friends would have died if she hadn’t stolen his stash before he had the chance to off-load it? Would they have taken less than Mom and been okay? Or would he be responsible for multiple deaths?

The new package hidden in a wad of clothes at the bottomof his backpack made it feel like he was hauling a bowling ball around. If only he could just bury it out in the woods somewhere. But that wasn’t an option.

Maybe if he could make up what he’d lost—save enough—he could find Lucky and escape this town. Go somewhere Bernie wouldn’t think to look for them. He just couldn’t owe them anything when he disappeared. As long as they didn’t consider him a threat and he could figure out a way to leave payment without taking new inventory, maybe they wouldn’t bother seriously trying to find him. He and Lucky could be free. Go legit.

The improbability of being able to get that far ahead made his shoulders sag, but he shook off the fear of failure. He would do it. He had to. If not for himself, then for Lucky. His brother deserved better.

20

Allye awoke with a start,chased into consciousness by frightening images of her attacker squeezing the breath from her as green smoke billowed behind him.

But he wasn’t here. She was in her bed, blessedly alone.

And everything ached. Her head was the worst offender by far—until she stretched and triggered a charley horse in her left calf. She yelped and instinctively curled into a ball, massaging the area until it relaxed.

Well, she was fully awake now. And by the light streaming through her window, she guessed it was nearing noon. So much for an early start to her day.

Ignoring the temptation to give up and remain where she was, she slipped on her glasses, then sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Dizziness joined the pounding fury in her skull. She was so tired of this.

“Get used to it,” she muttered as she stumbled to the bathroom. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and for once was glad she lived alone. Talk about looking like death warmed over.

Desperate to dull the migraine, she retrieved her prescription and popped one of the pills, ignoring the instruction to take with food. She’d eat in a few minutes.

She pushed through the absolutely necessary parts of hermorning routine, minus the shower she probably needed after the hike yesterday. Despite the energy it took, having a clean face and brushed teeth did help her feel slightly human again.

That done, she moved to the kitchen. She wasn’t hungry, but she knew better than to let the meds wreak havoc in her stomach. And she really needed some caffeine. That was nonnegotiable.

By the time she settled in at her desk with the curtains drawn to shut out excess light, it was after one o’clock. She practically melted into the amply padded chair. She was already bushed, and the migraine meds had hardly made a dent in the pain. Staring at a screen would be torture. But she had to make headway on these projects. Wool Fest was a hard deadline. Technically, she had more wiggle room with Jayden’s photos, but the sooner she got them done, the sooner she would get paid. So there was that.

She swapped her everyday glasses for a pair with rose-tinted migraine lenses. Hopefully, they would provide enough protection to allow her to get some work done. She jiggled the mouse to wake the computer and braced herself. The brightness still made her wince.

This was a bad idea.

“But what else am I supposed to do?”

She didn’t bother answering herself. If she waited to work when she felt good, she might never get anything done. She’d push through as long as she could. Pay the price later if she must.

Praying it would work, she inserted the recovered memory card and waited for the computer to read it. As the photo previewer popped up, she released the breath she’d been holding. There they were. Uncorrupted. Perfect. Well, as perfect as raw photos could be.

Now for the fun part.

For the next hour or so, she lost herself in the world of photo editing. The distraction did as much as the meds and caffeine to bring the migraine to a manageable level—or at least a level she could pretend to ignore.

As she edged up the vignette effect on a shot of Jayden withthe lake in the background, the doorbell rang. Her hand jerked, sending the effect to max. Ugh. She quickly undid the action and pushed from her seat. Too fast. Dizzy. Ugh. Ugh.

The bell rang again.

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