Star Witness - By Mallory Kane Page 0,3

it back on the table. She felt much safer with her granddad’s things so close. Now she could relax. As soon as she double-checked all the locks. After a quick round through the house, she headed back to the kitchen.

Her hands had stopped shaking while she concentrated on cleaning and checking the SIG, but as she picked up the corkscrew to open the Chardonnay, they started quivering again. It took a couple of tries to remove the cork, but finally, she was able to pour the chilled Chardonnay with only a little clanking of glass against glass.

Holding the glass high, she said, “To you, Granddad. The bastards who killed you will rot in prison if I have anything to say about it.” She took a long swallow and shuddered.

Grabbing the bottle, Dani walked to her bedroom, kicked off her high heels and frowned at the long scrape that marred the red leather of the right shoe. “Great,” she sighed, and flopped onto the bed.

Outside, she heard a faraway rumbling of thunder. She shivered. She didn’t like storms. They scared her. Her dad had died in a tornado when she was only seven. Until that awful night last year when her granddad was murdered, storms had been the only thing that scared her.

That night, she’d learned that home did not always represent safety, that faceless monsters could murder a man without conscience and that as strong and capable as she’d always thought she was, she’d been helpless to save her granddad. But at least Ernest Yeoman, the man who she was convinced was behind her granddad’s murder, would soon be brought to trial.

According to Harte Delancey, the prosecutor who’d been assigned to her case, the D.A. was practically salivating at the chance to get his hands on the suspected drug smuggler. Yeoman had long been suspected of using his import business to smuggle contraband and drugs into the country through the Port of New Orleans. He was also rumored to have friends in the legislature. Some rumors had even suggested that Freeman Canto was one of those friends.

Dani felt the determination that had sustained her since the night her grandfather had died rise inside her, pushing away the fear. She was not going to let Yeoman or anyone else frighten her away, no matter how serious the threats. Nobody would smear her granddad’s name if she had anything to say about it.

She held her glass up in a salute. “I’m fighting for you, Granddad,” she whispered, her throat tightening. Just as she brought the glass to her lips, something made her stop dead still.

What had she heard? Footsteps maybe, in front of the house? Or had the rain that had been threatening all day finally gotten here? Holding her breath, she listened. There it was again. That was not rain. It was footsteps.

She didn’t move a muscle. The rhythm and the muffled crunch ruled out the raccoons that toppled her garbage can at least once a week. Raccoons didn’t make that much noise. This varmint was human. Her pulse skittered as the footsteps crunched on the gravel driveway.

It could be one of the police officers or the crime scene unit, taking more pictures before the rain got too bad. But that was doubtful. Detective Mahoney would have called her, knowing how shaken she was.

Whoever was out there wasn’t sneaking, but he wasn’t tromping either. She listened as he rounded the house and came up onto the back stoop.

Dani tensed, but to her surprise, everything went quiet. She set her wineglass down and prepared to get up, angry at herself for her apprehension. She was not going to let Ernest Yeoman make her feel unsafe inside her own home.

Finally, a staccato rapping echoed through the house. Although she half expected the knock, she still jumped. She slipped off the bed and tiptoed down the hall to the front foyer. She worried her lip between her front teeth as she eased the gun out of her purse. Drawing courage from the heft of the weapon in her hand, she stepped into the kitchen, gun at the ready.

The silhouette of a man was outlined on the window shade of the back door. The dark figure’s shape didn’t look ominous, but it didn’t have the reassuring outline of a police officer’s uniform and hat either. Nor was he wearing the cap and jacket of a crime scene tech.

She eased closer until she was about ten feet from the door. Raising the gun, she thumbed off