The Marshal's Witness

She stumbled, gasping for air.

Someone shouted, but the words were snatched away by the wind. Jessica whirled toward the sound. Ryan Jackson stood in the open courthouse doorway. He dropped his briefcase and sprinted toward her, his arms and legs pumping like an Olympic runner. He might have shouted her name, but she wasn’t sure.

William cursed and grabbed her shoulders. Another shout, a metallic click, an explosion of light and sound. A wall of searing heat slammed into Jessica. She tumbled through the air, her screams mingling with the screams of others as the concrete rushed up to meet her. A sickening thud, burning, tearing agony, then…nothing.

Chapter Two

Smooth, soft sheets surrounded Jessica. But the fluffy pillow beneath her head did nothing to relieve the searing, throbbing pain that shot through her body. She tried to open her eyes, but her lids were too heavy, the pain too intense. The smell of antiseptic wafted through the air. A high-pitched beep sounded from far away.

Pain jackknifed through her head. She cried out, squeezing her eyes against the harsh light filtering through her lids. She tried to raise her hands to block out the light, but someone grabbed her arms, forcing them down.

“Let me go,” she cried, but her dry throat made coherent speech impossible. The words sounded garbled even to her own ears.

“Hold her still before she hurts herself,” a man’s exasperated voice ordered.

“I’m trying, Doctor,” said another male voice, inches from her face. “She’s stronger than she looks.”

“She’s in pain.” A woman’s voice. “Can I give her the morphine now?”

Morphine? Jessica relaxed slightly against the hands holding her. Yes, morphine. Please. Everything hurt, especially her head.

“Not yet. I’m trying to wake her up, not put her back under.”

Back under?

“Ms. Adams, I’m Dr. Brooks. You’ve been in an accident. Can you open your eyes?”

An accident? She gasped and cried out when the hands holding her down pressed on the upper part of her left arm.

“Be careful, David. You’re pressing on her stitches.” Dr. Brooks. The man who wouldn’t give her morphine.

A stab of hot, sharp pain shot through the left side of Jessica’s face. She moaned and tried to pull away from the rough, calloused hands holding her so tightly.

“Give her some morphine.” The doctor, sounding impatient. “One-third the usual dose, just enough to calm her down.”

“It’s okay,” a feminine voice whispered to Jessica. Soothing, gentle hands brushed against her. A low beep sounded. Moments later the pain dulled to a bearable ache and the urge to sleep flooded her veins. She fought its tempting pull and opened her eyes, blinking against the bright fluorescent lights.

A young man in lime-green scrubs was leaning over her bed, his hands clamping her wrists down.

“Release her, David,” the voice she recognized as Dr. Brooks ordered.

The man in green let go of her arms and she pulled them against her chest. She turned her head on the pillow to put a face to the voice she’d heard. An unsmiling man stood on her right side. Instead of the white smock she’d expected, he wore an immaculate dark blue suit, his short, blond hair lightly curling around his face.

“Miss Adams, do you know where you are?” he asked.

She looked at the bed’s metal railing, the IV pump, the stethoscope draped around the doctor’s collar. “Hos…hospital,” she rasped.

“That’s right. Cohen Children’s Medical Center.”

Children’s? That didn’t make sense. Wait…wasn’t that in Long Island? She was in Louisiana, wasn’t she? She tried to speak again but her throat was too dry, too tight.

The doctor motioned to the older woman standing beside him, dressed in a Daisy Duck smock. “Get her some ice chips.”

The woman left the room. The man in green adjusted the IV drip. When the woman returned, she held a yellow paper cup to Jessica’s lips.

“Let these melt in your mouth, sweetie. I bet your throat’s as dry as dust about now.”

Jessica gratefully accepted the cool ice chips, instantly liking the short, rotund woman whose voice she recognized as the lady who’d wanted to give her morphine.

When her throat lost some of its dry, scratchy feel, she offered the nurse a weak smile. “Thank you.”

The nurse patted her hand and motioned to the man the doctor had called David. They both left the room.

The doctor flashed a light in her eyes and listened to her heart. “Do you remember the explosion?”

Explosion? Oh, no. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut as horrific images assaulted her. The boom she’d thought was thunder, so loud her eardrums ached. The blast of heat. Burning, tearing pain as something ripped into her flesh. A sickening crack. A moment of intense agony when something hit her head with the force of a battering ram.

She gasped and opened her eyes. “I remember.”

“Excellent.” He didn’t seem to notice her distress. “The headache you’re experiencing is from a cracked skull. That was your most serious injury, but you’ve got enough stitches in you to sew a patchwork quilt. Minor burns, scrapes. You had a collapsed lung when you were taken to the ER. Your face—”

She tried to focus on his words, but in her mind’s eye she saw Ryan Jackson back at the courthouse, running toward her, shouting her name. Why? What had he seen?

“—multiple contusions,” the doctor continued. “I’ve kept you heavily sedated to control the swelling in your brain, but you’re past the danger point now. I expect you’ll make a complete recovery.”

She twisted her fingers in the sheets, noticing for the first time that they were pink, covered with cartoon fairies and flowers. The walls were painted in soothing pastels. “Where am I?”

He sighed impatiently. “Cohen Children’s Medical Center,” he repeated, “in Long Island. Apparently some very bad people are after you. Your bodyguard transferred you here once you were stable. He seems to think that no one will look for you in a place like this.”

“Long Island? Bodyguard?”

The doctor looked past her toward the other side of the room. “You have five minutes.” With his crisp order lingering in the air, he strode out the doorway.

Bewildered by the doctor’s abrupt departure, Jessica turned her head and met the icy stare of Marshal Ryan Jackson, sitting in a chair across the room.

Something about that look filled her with dread.

She recoiled against the sheets before she could stop herself. The mocking look on his face told her he’d noticed her reaction.

“You’re as pleased to see me as I am to see you.” His harsh voice raked across her nerve endings, making her head pound harder. He slowly unfolded his long, muscular body from the chair and crossed the short space to stand by her bed.

She could feel the heat from him, smell the light, clean scent of his soap. In another lifetime he would have been appealing. But her attraction to him was eclipsed by the anger rolling off him in waves.

She fought the urge to squirm farther away and concentrated on asking what she desperately needed to know. “What happened? The other marshals, how badly were they hurt?”

His lips flattened. “All dead. The only reason you’re alive is because you didn’t get into that van, and because Marshal Gavin shielded you with his body.”

She covered her mouth, swallowing hard against the bile rising in her throat. She’d spent nearly every waking minute with those marshals for twelve months. She knew what foods they liked, what shows they watched, what made them laugh or curse.