Page 2 of Fatal Witness

Danielle waited as long as she could, but she had to go to the bathroom. Daddy would be mad if she wet her pants. Slowly, she eased the cabinet door open and crept down the hallway in her bare feet, not remembering when she lost her shoes. A noise in the kitchen drew her. Maybe it was Mama and Daddy ... Danielle eased down the hall, remembering not to step on the squeaky board at the door.

She rubbed her eyes, trying to make sense of what she saw. Across the room, her daddy lay on the floor beside her mama. A man knelt beside them. Danielle must have made a noise because he looked up, right at her.

She whirled around and raced down the hall to the cabinet and pulled the door shut. Danielle curled into a tight ball and closed her eyes. Seconds later footsteps pounded down the hallway past the cabinet.

“No, no, no!”

A crying voice awakened her, and she blinked open her eyes.Why was it so dark? She couldn’t seeanything. She stilled as footsteps hurried down the hallway.

“Danielle?” a voice called softly. “Where are you, honey?”

Her body started shaking, and tears ran down her face. Suddenly the door flew open, light flooding the little space she was in.

“Danielle?”

She blinked at the brightness and shrank back.

“It’s me, honey. Are you all right?”

She didn’t answer, instead staring at him as a horn sounded in the distance.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said and reached inside the cabinet.

She wanted to fight him, but her arms wouldn’t move.

He pulled her out and carried her through the front door to a four-door pickup parked in the driveway. Once he settled her in the backseat, he said, “It’s going to be all right. I’ll take care of you.”

She stared at him. “Who are you?”

2

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER

Dani Collins tilted her head as she tapped the Blackwing pencil against the sketch pad and studied the woman she’d just drawn. Something was off. But what?

Her Puli, Lizi, padded over and put her paw on Dani’s thigh. Absently, Dani set her pencil down and ran her fingers over the dog’s corded fur. “I know. I should be getting ready to leave instead of drawing people I don’t know.”

She glanced around the pottery-slash-artist studio where her portable wheel and supplies waited to be loaded in her RAV4 for the workshops at the University of Cincinnati. She’d been honored when they asked her to teach two classes—how to add sculpture techniques to wheel-thrown pieces on Thursday and brushwork decoration on Friday.

Dani was amazed at the success she’d enjoyed while combining her two loves. Her gaze shifted to a grouping of photos on the far wall. Four photos she’d taken of the nearby Badlands and Makoshika State Park. Her aunt had surprised her with the matted and framed prints last year.

But it was the photo in the center of the grouping her eye wasdrawn to—a dark green mountain range bathed in a smoky haze. It was like a green oasis in the middle of arid ground.

That photo had been a gift from her uncle when she moved into the studio ten years ago. When she’d asked where he got it and why he chose it, he’d shrugged. “I just liked it.”

So did Dani. It stirred something in her heart.Home.The word popped into her head. But why?

He never did tell her where he got it. As she stared at the mountain scene, a dreamlike memory surfaced. Riding on a man’s shoulders, a woman walking beside him, her laughter warming Dani. In her heart she knew the woman was her mom. The man had to be her dad, but before she could decide, the scene faded.

Had it actually happened? Or was it something she’d dreamed up to compensate for not remembering her parents? Dani didn’t have a clue, but for a few seconds, she’d felt carefree ... and happy.

She turned back to the sketch and stared at the drawing. A picture emerged in her memory, and she picked up her pencil again. A few strokes later, a braid curled over the woman’s shoulder.

“Yes.” That’s what had been missing. If her colored pencils were handy, she would fill in the braid with red and make the woman’s eyes blue. Dani didn’t know how she knew this, but she did, just like she knew how to draw the woman’s features.

She wished she knew more about the woman, but her memory was selective, as it had been with the half dozen other people she’d sketched in the past few months. People she didn’t recognize but whose images popped into her head and stayed until she sketched them. People she believed held the key to her past.

“Who are you?” she murmured. Could this possibly be the woman in her memory? Her mother? Dani didn’t think so. In her mind, her mother would be younger than this woman.

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