Page 107 of Jessica, Not Her Real Name
As the phone rang, adrenaline burned through his veins like an electric current. This call would either cost Kylie her life. Or cost him everything in his.
Maybe both.
When Sharrow had picked up, he’d introduced himself, polite but brusque, one marshal to another. It had been six in the morning, and she’d sounded a little dazed, although she’d quickly composed herself when she’d heard who he was. He’d made something of a name for himself in the Southeast after a couple of high-profile arrests that had made the national news. It wasn’t a reputation he’d had any desire or cause to lean upon. Until now.
He’d gone straight to the point: “We’ve developed some information that concerns one of your witnesses.”
There’d been a pause on the other end, and Ryan had sensed Sharrow sitting up a little straighter.
“We raided aLa Mano Negracompound in Collierville yesterday morning and found a laptop that contained some disturbing contents. Not least of which were recent surveillance stills of a woman. When the FBI guy ran facial rec, it turned her up as one of yours. Witness number 11672.”
The lie had rolled off his tongue with surprising ease. But that hadn’t meant she’d bought it. The long pause that had followed felt like the longest in Ryan’s life.
Finally, Sharrow had responded. “Shit.”
Okay, so she was buying it. So far. “The footage was of her at what looked at her house,” he said. “It was time-stamped two days ago.”
An exhalation, and then Sharrow’s voice had come out in a wince. “Shit.”
“Yeah,” he’d lied. “Someone’s found her, somehow.”
There’d been another long pause. “But how?” she’d said, eventually. “It’s impossible. You know the precautions?—”
“What I know,” he’d interrupted, “is that we gotta get her the hell outta there. Right now.”
The use ofwehad been deliberate. It made them sound like they were in this together, that they had each other’s backs. That they were a team. He knew it had worked because he could hear the relief in the woman’s voice. “Yeah. Right. Of course.”
So far, so good. He’d swallowed some of his own relief. “Where are you?”
“In Denver. At my parent’s house. I’m on maternity leave.”
He’d closed his eyes and pressed his palm against his forehead. Finally, something had gone his way. “And where’s the witness?”
Another long pause. Ryan hadn’t even dared to breathe. If Sharrow told him this piece of information that she meant she was all in. It meant she’d bought his entire story. It meant that soon this whole mess would be over.
“Southwest Florida,” she’d said.
If Ryan hadn’t already been sitting, he would have had to find a chair to keep from buckling from relief. But he’d managed to keep his tone cool and collected. “Well, that means I’m a hell of a lot closer to her than you are.”
He’d paused before making his request. It was a request that went against every oath of service and integrity and justice he’d taken when he became a marshal. It was wrong, and he knew the consequences of it would haunt him for the rest of his life.
But it was the only way to save Kylie’s life.
In the end, he’d just blurted it out, knowing there was no way around it. “But I’m gonna need you to send me all her details.”
During the long pause that had followed his question, Ryan had bitten down on his tongue so hard he’d thought he might bite through.
“All her details?”
“Everything you got on her. I can get to her place and get her into protective custody right away. But I gotta know where I’m going and who I’m dealing with here.”
She said nothing for a long moment and Ryan had gripped the phone, thinking that for sure that the jig was up. Then she’d said, a little breathlessly, “Okay. I’ll send you her file.”
He’d heard the anxiety in her voice and realized what had been motivating her long pauses. Fear. She’d been terrified of being the first U.S. marshal to wind up with a dead witness on her hands. The one-hundred-per-cent survival rate of WITSEC participants had been bandied about so often it had become folkloric. It had entered popular culture, had captured the public’s imagination. And it was the feather in the cap of the USMS. Unlike every other law enforcement agency in this country, U.S. marshals got to hold their heads up high and say,we don’t screw things up. We don’t get people killed under our watch.
Ever.
And it was probably the only reason anyone agreed to join the damn program in the first place.
