Star Witness - By Mallory Kane Page 0,60
sneakers.
She glanced at the clock over the door for what had to be the two hundredth time. It had been over an hour since anyone had even peeked in to see if the room was free. Had they forgotten about her?
She picked up the foam cup that held what might have passed for coffee two hours ago, but was now sludge. One whiff and she set it down and pushed it as far away as she could.
At that instant the doorknob turned. It was Lucas. He had her purse in tow. “I gotta say this is the biggest purse I’ve ever seen.”
“Thank God you’re here,” Dani said. “I can go now, right? I need to see Harte. How is he?”
“He’ll be fine,” Lucas said. “I’ve got an officer waiting to drive you to a hotel.”
“You mean to my house.”
“No,” he said evenly. “I mean to the hotel. You’re still under an order of protection until the trial is over, and it’s been delayed.”
“Delayed?” She wanted to cry. She was exhausted and filthy and sleepy and hungry. The pallid vending-machine ham sandwich and watery soda she’d had who knew how many hours ago were long gone.
Lucas nodded. “The D.A. is assigning another prosecutor to handle the trial, and he or she will need time to get up to speed.”
“Why another prosecutor? You told me Harte was going to be fine.” She grabbed Lucas’s arm. “Please. Is he okay?”
Lucas narrowed his eyes. “He is going to be fine. They’re giving him blood. As soon as they can, they’ll get him into surgery. Apparently, the bullet hit the top of his left lung.”
“Oh no,” she said. That was why he’d sounded wheezy, why he’d struggled so much to take a breath. “But they can get it out. Just go in and—” she put her thumb and forefinger together “—pluck it out. Right?”
Lucas looked somber. “They think so. It’s pretty close to his heart.”
“Close to—?” Her pulse pounded in her throat. “Have you seen him? Talked to him?”
“They’ve got him sedated. They don’t want that bullet to move.”
“Oh,” she moaned, sinking into a chair. She pressed her palm against her chest. Her heart felt as though it was going to burst wide open, it was hurting that much. “I didn’t know how bad he was hurt.”
“Hey,” Lucas said, rubbing his forehead. “The doctors know what they’re doing.”
His tone didn’t match his reassuring words. She looked up at him. He looked exhausted. His hair was furrowed and sticking up as if he’d run his fingers through it multiple times. He had a smudge of dirt on his cheek and a scrape on the knuckles of his left hand. But what frightened Dani was the look on his face. His brow was furrowed and his mouth was grim.
“You’re worried,” she said.
He met her gaze. His mouth curved upward slightly, in a duplicate of Harte’s crooked smile. The sight of it made her heart ache.
“I am,” he said, “but Harte is tough and stubborn. A little thing like a bullet won’t stop him. It wouldn’t dare.”
Dani smiled back at him, even though her eyes were burning. “You’re right about that. He is pretty stubborn,” she said.
“He comes by that naturally.”
She studied him for a brief moment. “You and he don’t look much alike. I mean obviously you do, but—”
“That’s because he took after the French side of the family, and I got the Irish genes.” As he spoke, he opened the interrogation room door for her, then closed it behind them. A young uniformed officer was waiting outside the room.
“Dani Canto, this is Officer Roebuck. He’ll take you to the hotel.”
The officer nodded. She acknowledged him with a brief nod of her head. “Officer, will you be my day-shift babysitter?”
“No,” Lucas said. “You won’t have a guard during the day. Just at night.”
“So I’m in less danger than I was?” Dani shook her head. “How exactly does that work?”
“The men who chased you are in custody, for one thing.”
Dani pushed her tangled hair back from her face. “Good,” she said tiredly. “So, Officer Roebuck, shall we go?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Roebuck said. “The car’s out front.” He stood back to let her precede him.
Dani turned back to Lucas. “Can we swing by the hospital to see Harte?”
Lucas shook his head.
“Lucas—Detective, I need to see him.” She bit her lip, doing her best to look him in the eye, to appear strong and capable, not small and scared that she might never see Harte again.
“I told you, he’s sedated. They’re