DEFENGING THE EYEWITNESS Read Free

transfer.”
    Good for his cover, but he was quite sure all of that made his own team uncomfortable.
    Well, he hadn’t liked it, either, and frankly he never wanted to do it again. Job completed, time to move on. He just didn’t know where yet.
    He was still on payroll. They’d told him to take as much time as he needed. Even suggested a therapist, if he found the transition too difficult. He hadn’t been back long enough to know if it was going to be too difficult. The only thing he knew for sure was that he could no longer stand a necktie.
    He unpacked the few things he had brought with him and put them in the drawers of an empty dresser. He’d left behind the clothes in storage. The one suit he’d pulled out to wear to his debriefings had shown him that not only did he hate neckties now, but his body had changed. He was leaner now, his muscles in different places and shapes.
    So that left him with his undercover garb and little else. He supposed he needed to do some shopping. If he wanted, he could fit in here pretty quickly. That was his gift.
    And his curse.
    * * *
    Corey listened to the sounds of the stranger upstairs. He’d been gone a long time, but now he was back. Unpacking? She thought she heard the dresser move a bit. Then the unmistakable sounds of the shower upstairs.
    She was having a serious problem with herself. She had been close to rude with a stranger, in defiance of everything she believed to be right. Strangers were to be welcomed, and while keeping a reasonable distance at first was okay until you knew them, you shouldn’t be inhospitable. She’d come very close to that at the door, and now she was hiding in her bedroom as if her house had been invaded by some kind of freak.
    She couldn’t help her reactions to men. Eighteen years ago, one had killed her mother before her very eyes when she was seven and they were living in Denver. She knew she’d been there because of police reports. She even knew some of the awful details, again because of police reports. The man had never been caught. There’d never been a clue to his identity.
    So whoever he was, he probably still roamed the world somewhere, and her memory of the incident was a total blank. It was a mercy, she supposed, that she didn’t remember, and having been brought home to Conard County to live with her aunt and grandmother had given her stability and a loving home.
    But she was still uneasy with men. Especially men she didn’t know. That uneasiness had prevented her from going to college, except for some classes she had lately taken here, and prevented her from ever leaving this area. She knew almost everyone by sight, and she needed that.
    But still, the guy upstairs had done nothing wrong, and the more she thought about it, the more she believed that the last thing he needed was to be treated like a pariah. Simple kindness required better of her.
    It wasn’t as if she needed to spend much time with him. Just some courtesy and an occasional smile. If there was one thing life had taught her, everyone had their own problems, and his, well, his might even be a private hell.
    She noticed her knitting needles were clicking more rapidly than usual and that she’d stopped counting stitches at some point. Darn it, she was probably making a mess of this sweater. Sighing, she put the knitting on the bed and rose from her chair, wondering how she could handle this situation better. How she could make this man feel a little more welcome.
    He must feel like a fish totally out of water. She could barely remember that feeling, she’d been ensconced here so long. She had to remember the days when the police had taken her to a social worker and then to a foster family, where she had waited for her grandmother to come. Had to remember how strange living here had seemed, how far from home it had felt.
    A long time ago, but those feelings lived on. This man was no child, as she had been, but she had possibly found a point of connection with