Witness Chase (Nick Teffinger Thriller) Read Online Free Page B

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    THE COPS GOT OUT OF THE CAR. One went over to the group and one came over to her.
    “Good evening, ma’am,” he said. “Are you the one that called 911?” She thought, the one who called 911, not the one that . He was short, surprisingly short for a cop, maybe five-four, with a baby face. He couldn’t have been on the force for more than a few years.
    Even she could kick his ass if she had to.
    “Yes,” she said.
    He held a spiral notebook and opened it up. “I’d like to get a statement, if you don’t mind. Why don’t you come over to my car? I’ve got the heater on.”
    Sitting there in the front seat, by the shotgun, she told him what she saw. She was just starting to pull into the station to get some gas when she saw a man drag a woman’s limp body around the back of a van. He slid open the passenger-side door, threw her in and took off. It all happened in a matter of seconds.
    She called 911.
    “Describe this guy,” the cop said.
    “Well, I didn’t get a real good look,” she said, “because he was sort of hunched over, dragging her under the arms. He was Asian, that much I did see.”
    “Asian?”
    “Yes,” she said. “Whether he was Korean or Japanese or Chinese, that I can’t tell you. But something like that.”
    “You’re sure about that?”
    “Positive,” she said. “I mean, I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup, but I saw his general features pretty good.”
    “Was his face flat, or more rounded?”
    She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
    He nodded vaguely, and said, “So, this Asian guy, what are we talking about size-wise? Small, I assume.”
    She nodded.
    “Yes. I didn’t exactly run up to him with a tape measure . . .”
    He smiled as if picturing it.
    “. . . but he was definitely on the smaller side. He had baggy clothes, but they were hanging on him like he was skinny. And he didn’t appear to be overly strong. It looked like he was having a pretty hard time with the woman, especially when he tried to get her through the door.”
    “Okay.”
    “Black hair.”
    The cop grilled her for another five minutes, and then seemed ready to wrap up. “Oh, one more thing. You see those two ladies over there, talking to the other officer?”
    “Yes?”
    “Have you talked to either of them?”
    She shook her head.
    “No. I called 911 from my car and you guys showed up almost right away. That was pretty impressive, by the way. The other officer that came over to me, before he took off, told me to stay where I was, so I just stayed here.”
    He nodded.
    “Good.”
    “Why good?”
    “It just helps us when the witnesses haven’t talked with one another. We get the stories fresh without contamination. Do you know any of those other people, by the way?”
    She looked at them and then back.
    “No. I’ve never seen any of them before in my life.”
    “Okay. Wait here, if you would.”
    She watched him walk over to the group. He came back about five minutes later, opened the door and slid behind the wheel.
    “Cold out,” he said, holding his hands up to the vent.
    “Summer’s coming.”
    “Not fast enough. The wind is starting to kick up, too.” Michael had gotten away. That much was clear, otherwise he would have said something or she would have heard it over the radio.
    “The two women saw the same thing as you,” the cop volunteered. “The story is that there were three of them. They stopped for gas. Two of them went inside to pay. The other one, the one that got taken, stayed behind to clean the windshield. Her name is Alicia Elmblade. When they came out of the station an Asian guy was dragging her into a van. Weird.”
    “What about the guy from the station? Did he see anything?”
    “No. He had the Rockies game on.”
    She tried to look disappointed.
    “Too bad.”
    “Yeah, too bad. The other two women are D’endra Vaughn and Jeannie Dannenberg. The guy is Rick Marlow, Jr. It’s his dad’s place. You don’t know any of them, huh?”
    “No. I was