Page 1 of The Quiet Witness

Chapter 1

Evening Celebrations

Kate awoke in a daze. Her eyelids wouldn’t open, almost as if someone had gleefully glued them shut. She wouldn’t put it past her family. Bracing for the laughs, she lifted her head with a groan. Urghhh… What’s with this, pounding headache?

At last her eyes fluttered open. Red washed over her vision. She stiffened. Just the tablecloth, with its happy snowman figurines dancing across the fabric… Every year, the same sight.

…Did I… fall asleep… on the table?

The flaking, golden cutlery rattled as she braced herself on her elbows, digging into the hard wooden table. White hot agony shot through her abdomen, forcing her to double over.

She pushed herself up, each breath jagged, just as a chair clattered to the floor, scraping across the hauntingly silent room. Her hand flew to her face as she backed away from the table, nearly tripping over the chair behind her.

The Christmas tree’s colored lights flickered across her foster mother’s silhouette, whose head rested on the table as if swallowed up by a deep sleep.

Did… did some kind of gas escape and knock them all out?

To her right was Aunty Teresa, slumped over in her chair. This was nothing unusual, as she was never far from her favored tumbler of whiskey. The glass she’d been nursing all evening, as she hiccuped repeatedly between deep gulps, now lay abandoned, mere inches from the edge of the table.

Her sister, Ingrid, sat huddled against her new boyfriend, Nicolas, his calloused hand resting on her knee. Their faces were ashen, eyes closed as if in prayer. Bracing one hand below the other, Kate inched closer. Knees quaking, she put a finger to Nicolas’s throat. One second passed… two… three… She waited, heart racing in tune with her mind. Nothing pulsed beneath her trembling fingers…

…lifeless…

She still wanted to believe it was one of their harshest jokes yet. But the blood trickling down her foster father’s nose told the truth. This was real.

Her pulse roared in her ears…

…louder… louder… wait…

It wasn’t her racing heart. It came from above her.

Her head snapped up, eyes rewarded with a layer of dust falling from the ceiling. Coughing, she wiped it from her face to see the floorboards move… creak. Someone was in the house. Whoever had done this was now creeping closer to the stairs.

Kate spun around, almost too fast, as the world whirled around her.

Food? Something must have been in the food.

Her eyes flitted around as she pushed down the nausea, looking for a way out. For a split second, she thought about running to the phone to dial 911, but she’d have to cross the stairs, the visitor would be right on her heels. Hide? The intruder would know the table held an empty spot.

Worthless. All worthless. She let the all too familiar word fuel her anger as she firmly nodded her chin, turning to the cabinet she knew held her father’s favorite toy. Opening the drawer, Kate reached for the gleaming black handle, letting the coolness of the metal seep into her fingers.

Kate gripped the gun hard. Wishing her foster father had taken her to the shooting range and had taught her the ropes, as she had asked, nearly begged for, a million times. Maybe that had been his reason for refusing her.

Smart man… But damn it, maybe my hands wouldn’t be shaking like this now.

She closed the drawer, its ancient wooden handle complaining like a rusty joint.

You got this Kate. It’s nothing more than a risky option in a sea of piranhas. Each one can bite you in the ass… Wasn’t that life?

Her shoulders sagged at what came next, but it did not matter now. The killer was here, but so was she. And she would be the one making it out alive. She had to be.

Not far away, black gloves slid down the chipped railing. The stairs that had always groaned under her sister’s racing feet now made barely a sound as army boots stepped down, evading every creak with ease, almost as if it was… practiced. This wasn’t the first visit.

Kate peeked around the corner, heart in her throat as she watched the unfamiliar man’s gaze slide from the locked front door, to the phone still neatly on its hook, and finally to the deserted chair, not sparing even a glance for the five bodies spread out around the celebratory table, as if they weren’t even there.

A heavy sigh filled the room, sounding almost… bored.

As his head turned to her direction, her heart leapt like a horse trampling in place, wanting out. But the stranger glanced past her hiding place. The dozens of discarded papers and knick-knacks spread over the tiny cabinet shielded her searching eyes from view. Thank God for the mess.