Protected Witness

Ten years after I walked away from James, I became the target of a rainslicked serial killer. As the lead detective on the case, he saved my life, but afterward, he treated me with the cold, sterile professionalism of a stranger.

Until I ran into him in my apartment building's elevator. He smirked, utterly convinced I had stalked him there. "Jennifer, you don't have to do this," he said, his voice dripping with smug satisfaction. "Following me all the way here?

If you wanted to explain yourself, just say it." The elevator chimed, stopping at the twelfth floor. I stared at him, completely speechless, before calmly stepping out.

I pointed to the door right behind me. "I'm home, Lieutenant." … The rain started in the evening. It began as a soft, rhythmic patter against the bookstore’s glass windows, slowly swelling into a heavy, continuous wall of white noise.

It was the perfect backdrop, letting me lose myself completely in the pages of a psychological thriller. A sudden flash of lightning shattered my focus. I blinked, pulling myself back to reality, only to realize how late it had gotten.

As I packed up to close the shop, I glanced at the wall clock. It was 10:42 PM. The torrential downpour had cleared the streets, leaving the asphalt dark and empty. My apartment wasn't far.

Opening my umbrella, I stepped into the chill of the damp night air. Suddenly, my phone buzzed in my pocket, the vibration making me jump. It was a local news alert.

A serial killer targeting lone women had struck again, and the active search area was right here in Southside, my neighborhood. A cold shiver snaked down my spine. I instinctively quickened my pace.

Of course, that was when I heard it, the heavy, wet thud of boots splashing in the puddles behind me. Peeking past the edge of my umbrella, I stole a glance over my shoulder.

I barely had time to register a dark silhouette before a heavy arm swung upward. "Ah!" A blinding pain exploded at the back of my skull. My vision swam, and the world began to tilt.

As the darkness rushed in to swallow me, I caught a fleeting glimpse of a tall, familiar figure sprinting toward me through the rain. Was I hallucinating? The sharp, medicinal sting of disinfectant was the first thing that hit my senses.

My eyelids felt like they were weighted with lead. I struggled to focus on the man sitting in the chair beside my hospital bed. He wore a crisp police uniform, his broad shoulders slumped with exhaustion.

He sat with his elbows resting on his knees, eyes closed, his brow furrowed in a deep, tight frown. My head throbbed with a dull, rhythmic ache. Everything in the room seemed to have a hazy, glowing edge.

I rubbed my eyes, squinting to make out his features. He was alert. The slightest rustle of my sheets was enough to make his eyes snap open. "You're awake," he said. As he sat up, the fluorescent lights caught his face.

The sharp lines of his jaw, the familiar depth of his voice, it all came rushing back. I couldn't believe it. "James?" "Yeah." He stood up, turning to call the doctor. James and I had been high school sweethearts.

We shared a desk, shared our secrets, and fell in love with the easy intensity of youth. We had promised each other we would go to the same university.

If it hadn't been for the car crash right before graduation, we probably would have been married by now. The doctor walked in behind him, conducting a brief, routine check. "Nothing to worry about. Just a mild concussion.

Get some rest, and you can be discharged tomorrow morning." "Thank you, Doctor," James said, politely escorting him to the door. "What time is it?" I asked, my voice sounding thin and raspy. "Twelvethirty." He walked back to the bedside but didn't sit down.

He stood there, tall and imposing, looking down at me. "So, what were you doing out so late?" He gestured to the gold lieutenant's insignia on his shoulders, making sure I saw it. "Is it that hard to figure out? I'm the lead detective on this case.

In the last seven days, two young women have been targeted in that exact block. Both on rainy nights. Both about fivefootfive, just like you." He delivered the facts with a flat, clinical detachment, but the reality of it made my stomach drop.

The danger had been right on my heels. "Did you... did you catch him?" My voice trembled. "We were patrolling nearby when we heard the struggle.

I ran to get to you, and he used the distraction to slip away." His tone remained utterly level, devoid of any warmth. "But at least you're alive." "I'm sorry..." "Jennifer," he interrupted, using my full name.

I looked up, meeting his dark, intense gaze. He was broader now than he had been ten years ago, his handsome face weathered by time and the harsh realities of his job, giving him a rugged, mature edge.

But his eyes were exactly the same. "What exactly are you apologizing for?" He paused, his voice dropping a fraction colder. The question hung in the air, wrapping around my throat.

I couldn't find the words, and the silence stretched between us like an ocean. A flicker of disappointment crossed his features. "Never mind. Don't worry about it. Saving you was just me doing my job." I knew I should say something.

I knew exactly what he wanted to hear, but there were too many ghosts, too many unspoken misunderstandings piled between us. Seeing me remain silent, he picked up his jacket from the chair. "Since you don't have anything to say, I'll head out.

I've got an officer stationed outside your door. Get some rest." "James." He reached the doorway, and the name slipped past my lips before I could stop it.

He paused, looking back at me over his shoulder. "Thank you for tonight." He let out a short, humorless laugh. "Just 'thank you'?"

2 By the next morning, my vitals had stabilized, and the doctor cleared the police to take my official statement. The door pushed open, and James walked in, followed by a younger officer.

James had dark circles bruising the skin under his eyes, and a rough shadow of stubble dusted his jaw. "Miss Jennifer, Lieutenant James gave us the overview, but we need you to walk us through the timeline of last night in your own words," the young officer said, his tone gentle and encouraging.

I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat as I tried to piece the memories together. "I was locking up the bookstore. I stepped outside at exactly 10:42 PM.

The rain was coming down hard." "Did you notice anything unusual when you first started walking?" "No, not at first. I turned the corner onto the main street, walked maybe one or two hundred yards, and then I heard footsteps behind me.

I went to look back, and that's when I saw him, a man in a black raincoat with the hood pulled low." A wave of cold dread washed over me as the memory replayed. My voice faltered.

The young officer pressed gently. "Did you notice any physical characteristics? Height? Build?" "He was a bit taller than me, maybe fivefootnine. Very thin.

I couldn't see his face," I said, straining to remember any detail that might help. "Wait, his left hand. He had a large, textured scar on his wrist, running up his forearm.

It looked like an old, severe burn." James, who had been listening silently, stopped scribbling in his notepad.

The look on his face, the intense, hyperfocused scowl, was identical to the way he used to look in high school when he was trying to crack a difficult math problem.

For a split second, the man in front of me overlapped perfectly with the boy from my past, and a sharp ache bloomed in my chest. "The scar," James said, his voice husky from a night of no sleep. "Can you be more specific about the size and shape?" "It was on the outside of his left forearm, right near the wrist.

It was jagged, irregular, about the size of a palm." James nodded, his pen scratching against the paper. "Understood. This suspect is highly likely to target you again, so you need to be extremely careful.

You're our primary lead and our main concern, so we will be keeping a very close eye on you." He paused, reaching into his tactical vest to pull out his personal phone.

He unlocked it and held it out to me in one smooth, practiced motion. "Put your number in. Call me immediately if you see anything off.

And try not to go out alone unless it's absolutely necessary." I quickly tapped my digits into the screen. "My social media is linked to that number too..." The words slipped out before my brain could stop them.

James looked up, a faint glint of surprise softening his eyes. I quickly lowered my head, my cheeks burning. A thick, awkward silence settled over the room.

The young officer suddenly cleared his throat, looking between us with a knowing grin before backing out of the room. James’s thumb swiped across his screen a few times.

A second later, my own phone buzzed on the bedside table with a new friend request. The doctor walked in, breaking the tension. "Miss Jennifer, your discharge papers are signed.

Just make sure to get plenty of rest, avoid any strenuous activity, and follow up if you feel dizzy." "Thank you, Doctor." I gathered my things, ready to leave. "I'll drive you," James said, his eyes fixed on the rain sliding down the window pane. "Excuse me?" He turned around, his expression flat. "Do you see anyone else in this room?" "There's no need to trouble yourself, Lieutenant," I said quickly, trying to reestablish the boundary between us. "I can just call a cab.

It's a short ride." After the cold way he had spoken to me the night before, I didn't think I had the stomach to sit in a cramped car alone with him.

His jaw tightened, as if he wanted to argue, but he ultimately just pressed his lips into a thin line and opened the door for me. "Officer Cole, escort Miss Jennifer downstairs and make sure she gets into a cab safely."

3 The taxi pulled up to the curb outside my apartment complex. The air outside smelled of wet earth and fresh rain. I took a deep breath, trying to steady my nerves as I walked toward my building.

I scanned my key fob at the entrance, hurried through the lobby, and headed toward the elevators. One of the cabs was sitting open on the ground floor, the doors just starting to slide shut.

I jogged forward to catch it, but before I could reach out, a large, calloused hand slipped between the sliding metal doors, forcing them back open. My eyes met James's. For a second, we both just stood there, frozen in mutual shock.

What on earth was he doing here? The doors closed, sealing us inside the small metal box. The faint, comforting scent of tobacco and clean spice radiated off him.

He was tall, his broad frame taking up a significant portion of the space as he stood just half a step behind me.

I kept my eyes down, quietly reaching out to press the button for the twelfth floor. "Jennifer," he started, his tone light and selfassured. "If you wanted to explain things, or if you just wanted to talk, we exchanged numbers. You could have called.

Or asked to grab a coffee." He paused, a smug little smile playing at the corner of his lips. "You didn't have to follow me all the way here. Seriously." I didn't say a word.

I just turned my head and stared at him with a look that I hoped conveyed my deep concern for his mental sanity. Ten years apart had apparently turned him into an incredibly delusional man.

James met my gaze, the smugness in his eyes giving way to a tiny, hopeful expectation. "Now that you've followed me to my building, what is it you want to say? Go ahead, I'm listening..." Ding. The elevator announced our arrival at the twelfth floor.

Without waiting for him to finish his sentence, I stepped briskly out of the elevator. I turned back to face him, pointing to the apartment door directly opposite the hallway. "Lieutenant James, this is my apartment.

I live here." The elevator doors began to slide shut. Through the narrowing gap, I saw him spin around, his back to me, suddenly incredibly busy. He yanked out his phone, rubbed his nose, and frantically started pressing buttons on the control panel.

It turns out, even tough detectives look incredibly stupid when they're dying of embarrassment. Back inside my apartment, I couldn't help but wonder. Did he live here too? I had been here for six months and had never run into him once.

But then again, given his erratic hours and demanding job, it made sense. My phone vibrated. A text from James. Which unit? I replied with a question mark. A long pause, then: Protocol.

We're setting up a perimeter around your residence and frequent locations. Since I live in the building, I'm taking this sector. Apt 1203. Thanks, Lieutenant. For the next two days, my life fell into a quiet, repetitive routine.

On the surface, everything seemed normal, but the unmarked car parked near my bookstore and the unfamiliar faces lingering in my building's courtyard were constant reminders that the threat was still out there.

Since adding James on social media, my phone would buzz like clockwork twice a day, once at 7:30 AM and again at 10:30 PM. Morning. Night. Never a second late. Never an extra punctuation mark.

It was clear he was just keeping tabs on his highpriority target, making sure I was still breathing. On the third day, the storm returned. What started as a light drizzle in the afternoon turned into a roaring deluge by nightfall.

Heavy sheets of rain whipped against my living room windows, the wind howling through the concrete corridors of the building. Anxiety settled deep in my chest.

I curled up in the corner of my sofa, trying to lose myself in a book to block out the storm. Suddenly, a sound cut through the noise. Knock. Knock, knock. It was soft, but in the quiet of my apartment, it sounded like a gunshot. Who could it be?

I had no family in this city, and my few friends never dropped by unannounced, especially not in a storm like this. My heart hammered against my ribs. I quietly picked up a heavy metal dumbbell from the floor and crept toward the door on tiptoe.

Knock, knock, knock... The sound came again, faster this time. Panic, cold and sharp, flooded my veins. The Southside Slayer. Rainy nights. Lone women. The words flashed in my mind like a neon sign.

I held my breath, leaning in to look through the peephole. But the hallway was pitch black. The motionactivated lights outside hadn't turned on. I couldn't see a thing. Had they left?

Or were they standing right out there, waiting for me to open the door? Cold sweat broke out across my forehead. I couldn't just stand here. I dialed James's number. It rang once.

Twice. "Jennifer?" James's voice came through, tense and alert, accompanied by the faint, muffled sound of rain in the background. "James..." My voice cracked, tears hot against my eyelids. "Someone is knocking on my door. I can't see who it is.

The hallway is completely dark." "Are you at home? Apt 1203?" "Yes." "Stay on the line. Lock the door, don't make a sound. I'm on my way." His words came in a rapidfire clip.

I retreated to the corner behind the sofa, clutching the phone to my ear as I heard him bark orders into his radio: "All units, we have an active suspect at Apt 1203! Perimeter team, seal the lobby immediately!

I'm moving in." Seconds stretched into agonizing eternities. Suddenly, heavy, hurried footsteps echoed in the hallway outside, rushing straight toward my door. Knock, knock, knock. The wood rattled against the frame.