Accidental Witness
Autor:in
Julie Anne Lindsey
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Chapter One
Jen Jordan adjusted her six-month-old son, D.J., in the baby sling across her chest, as she moved through the Crestwood Kentucky Community Center. Her days as a swim coach had transitioned to evenings as a swim instructor when Dylan Jr. was born, but she didn’t miss the coaching, not when she had a perfect cherub-faced little swimmer of her own to care for. She and D.J. had just wrapped another eight-week set of Water Babies lessons, a small mommy-and-me-style class designed to help parents and their up-to-two-years-old children relax and bond. And Jen was ready to celebrate.
Her phone exploded with the pops and dings of waiting messages, texts and notifications as she exited the old stone building, populating with news of everything she’d missed while in the pool and locker room.
She dialed her roommate, Madison, on her way through the lobby. Madison hadn’t answered Jen’s calls before class, but their shared location-tracking app had suggested she was at the park, a place she often went to think. She supposed Madison had gotten lost in a good book, or an enthralling run, but the sun was setting now, and Madison should be home. With a little luck, she hadn’t already eaten, because Jen planned to treat tonight.
“What should we get for dinner?” she asked D.J. as she waited for the call to connect.
D.J. cooed and blew spit bubbles, clearly happy with whatever the adults decided. He’d be as thrilled with tonight’s bottle as every one before it. His chubby arms and dimpled fists pumped cheerfully as she tousled his curly brown hair.
Her call to Madison went to voice mail.
Maybe she was in the shower.
Jen unlocked her car and strapped her son safely into his rear-facing car seat, enjoying the warm summer breeze across her cheek and in her still-damp hair. “If Auntie Maddie doesn’t answer soon, Mommy’s choosing pad Thai,” she told him, then dropped a flurry of kisses over his cheeks, nose and forehead until he laughed.
She slipped into the driver’s seat and locked the doors, then checked her phone once more. She and Madison had downloaded a tracking app for friends months ago, when Jen was still pregnant and constantly feared something might happen to her or her baby. She’d worried daily that some bizarre, unforeseen tragedy would strike while she was out somewhere alone. The app had made her feel as if, whatever happened, Madison could find her. The heightened paranoia was, no doubt, a side effect of losing her fiancé, Dylan, and Madison’s husband, Bob, only months prior. The men had been victims of a roadside bomb shortly after leaving their military base in Afghanistan. Both soldiers had been due home, permanently, this summer. If things had gone differently, Jen and Dylan would’ve been planning their wedding right now, and Madison would be celebrating her fifth anniversary with Bob. But life had a way of turning everything upside down. Dylan Jr. was proof of that. She hadn’t even realized she was pregnant until after the funeral. So she’d spent most of her unexpected pregnancy afraid of when the next tragedy would strike, and certain she couldn’t withstand another loss.
Thankfully, Madison had been a good sport about the app, and they’d used it frequently for fun things, like impromptu outings, meals and meetups.
Jen frowned at the phone, then stared through her windshield at the twilight settling over the town. According to the app, Madison was still at the park, but why? Madison was the first person to lecture Jen about the dangers of being out alone after dark, even knowing Jen could take care of herself. She was right, of course, because basic self-defense had its limits. Especially if an attacker was armed, or erratic, and thanks to a new street drug in the community, crime was on the rise.
If Madison was ten years younger, and not grieving the loss of her husband, Jen might’ve suspected she’d met someone and didn’t want to say goodbye. But that wasn’t the case, and when Jen returned her gaze to her phone, the little avatar representing Madison disappeared.
She tapped the screen, then closed and reopened the app, but nothing changed. Either Madison had uninstalled the app, or her phone was powered off. Neither seemed reasonable. Though it was possible, Jen supposed, that her friend’s phone battery had died.
An odd bolt of intuition and fear stilled her breaths and limbs, then her heart began to race. She dialed Madison again, set the phone in her car’s cup holder, then shifted into Drive. The park wasn’t far from the community center. She could be there in ten minutes or less, if traffic cooperated.
This time the call went directly to voice mail. As it would if the phone’s battery was dead. She blew out a long breath and tried to loosen her grip on the wheel, but it was too late. The possibility Madison was in danger, no matter how unlikely, was more than Jen could stand. She’d relax when she knew her friend was safe, and not a moment sooner.
She raced across town at five miles above the posted speed limit, careful to avoid lanes with turning cars and slow drivers. She redialed Madison at every red light and stop sign along the way. Each with the same result. Voice mail.
Wherever Madison was, if her phone was dead, she still hadn’t plugged it in.
Jen hit the turn signal and piloted her little sedan through the park’s entrance only eight minutes after leaving work. The lot was empty, the lawns, playgrounds and ball fields devoid of people. Her nerves were strung impossibly tight. She’d told herself not to panic, that the emotions she felt were a result of residual grief and trauma, nothing more. But instinct clawed at her.
No, she told herself. She and Madison didn’t live in a war zone. There weren’t any roadside bombs or looming enemies. There were museums and parks. Libraries and restaurants. Recent drug-related incidents aside, Crestwood was a great place to live.
She lowered the volume on the radio as she drove through the small rectangular parking area, thankful Madison’s car wasn’t abandoned in one of the spaces. Another tally in her mental column of reasons not to suspect she’d been abducted.
Unless Madison had walked or jogged to the park. If so, it wouldn’t have been the first time, even this week.
Jen powered her window down and scanned the silent area, unwilling to park or get out at night with D.J. When no one came into view, she drove on, navigating the long narrow access road to an old carousel where Madison liked to sit and read.
Her senses stayed on high alert as gravel crunched, impossibly loud, beneath her tires. The sliver of cloud-covered moon in a bruised indigo sky did nothing to help her search.
The carousel creaked and rattled with a heavy gust of July wind when she drew near. The attraction was historic and normally busy until ten o’clock on summer weekends, but a stalled restoration project had put an end to that for now. And at the moment, the usually whimsical ride, with its bridled horses and mirrored accents, seemed more like something from a nightmare than a fairy tale. Even the park itself seemed to have taken on a sinister vibe. Funny how something so beautiful by day could seem so entirely foreboding at nightfall.
Jen nudged the gas pedal and concentrated on projecting her voice, without alarming anyone who might be nearby. “Madison?”
The world was eerily silent, filled with the reaching limbs and creeping shadows of ancient leafy trees. An erratic security light flickered and buzzed overhead, raising the fine hairs on the back of her neck and arms to attention. The shape of a dark sedan was barely visible beyond the light, obscured so effectively by shadow she wasn’t completely sure what she saw. Who would park back here at this hour and why? Teens making out? Something stolen and abandoned? She swallowed hard and hoped the reason wasn’t anything more heinous.
“Madison?” she tried again, feeling the sudden lightning bolt of certainty that something was truly wrong. She strained her eyes against the suffocating night, willing her friend to appear, then dialed her number once more before finally turning the car around. The call, again, went to voice mail.
She idled another moment, accessing the texts and messages she’d missed while in the community center’s cement dungeon of a pool and locker room. She’d thought to do so earlier, before Madison’s avatar had disappeared and redirected her thoughts. No voice mails. A ton of spam emails. And a single missed text.
Madison: Don’t go home. Wait for my call.
The text had been sent nearly two hours ago.
The sharp crack of breaking twigs pulled her attention to the space beyond the carousel, where a figure had stepped into view. For one brief moment, she imagined it was Madison, and in the next she understood it was not. A large dark silhouette moved in her direction, too broad and tall to be her friend.
The long determined strides of the stranger made it clear he was coming for Jen, not simply headed her way. And as he passed beneath the flickering security light, his balaclava became perfectly visible. As did his gun.
She jerked the shifter into Reverse and pressed the gas pedal with purpose, putting space between her car, her baby and the figure.
Her heart cried out for Madison’s safety, knowing this couldn’t be a coincidence. The app had said Madison was here, and now she was gone, a masked gunman in her place.
He stilled in the flickering light as she piloted her little car away.
