Free Material Witness by Lisa Mondello, L. A. Mondello Page A

looking up.
    “What have you done to my witness!”
Charley charged. “I agreed to let Ms. Alvarez speak to the agents on this case
as a formality because I understand how difficult this must be for her. It's
also given me the opportunity to judge my witness from a distance and get a
little insight into her state of mind before she's transferred to the safe
house in Virginia. We don’t need any more publicity focused on our witness. The
press is already all over it. She needs to leave here quietly. The last thing I
need is for her to have a hissy fit because she wants you to babysit her.”
    Jake stood up. “The last thing I want
is to babysit anyone. I’m just as interested in finding Fagnelio and getting
him behind bars are you are.”
    “You can't very well do both, now can
you.” Charley sighed and crossed her arms across her chest. “I don't even want
to know how you did it, but somehow between last night and this morning you
managed to turn our star witness—our only witness—into a lovesick
admirer of yours.”
    Jake cursed low. “You've got it
wrong.”
    She laughed wryly and began pacing in
front of him. “I've got eyes, Santos.”
    “Cassie has a mind of her own.”
    “You mean to tell me you didn't have
anything to do with this little escapade?”
    “I don't work under the same
deceptive umbrella you've held up to move yourself ahead, Charley.”
    She stopped pacing and glared at him.
“You're never going to let that go, are you?”
    “Tyler has to live with it. Why not
you?”
    She pointed her finger towards the
closed door. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to gain the respect of every
agent out in that room? How long we've all been working on this case? I'm not
going to let you waltz in and—”
    “I've been working three months on
this,” he boomed over her.
    “I hate to interrupt,” Captain Russo
interjected, leaning back in his chair. “If we’re going to make sure that
everyone in the building can hear, why not just go up on the roof and have at
it. Otherwise, I suggest you keep it down.”
    They settled into a strained silence
before both Charley and Jake dropped into the chairs opposite Captain Russo’s
desk. After a few controlled breaths, Charley turned to Jake.
    “I've worked a long time to put that
incident behind me, Santos. Despite what you think, I never meant to hurt
either you or Tyler. A decision had to be made at the last minute and I made
it.”
    “And you hung us out to die in the
process.”
    “I was doing my job. So were you.”
     With that, Jake stood and planted
his fists deep in his pockets in an effort to control his fury. It amazed him
how after five years he still felt an overwhelming anger from her deception.
“You lied to Tyler just to get a damned promotion. You lied to us and it almost
killed Tyler. He was a good cop.”
    “I know that!”
    Charley closed her eyes and was quiet
for a moment. Jake didn't want to think what he'd seen in her eyes was sadness
and regret. He didn't want to think about Charley having feelings at all. All
he could think of was seeing his partner lying in a pool of blood and Jake not
being able to do a damn thing. Not being able to radio for help because he'd
been sprayed with bullets himself. He'd been lucky the Kevlar vest he'd been
wearing spared his flesh the bullets. But with two broken ribs and a punctured
lung he was unable to get enough breath to do anything to help his partner. If
it hadn't been for Kevin…
    “I know Ty was a good cop,” Charley
finally said, her voice low and thready. “I wish it hadn't been so, but Tyler
made his own decision to leave the force. Despite what you think, I had nothing
to do with that.”
    She cleared her throat and blinked
away the last trace of emotion he'd seen misting her eyes a few short moments
ago. The glacial stare she seemed to reserve just for him was back.
    “But we're not talking about the past
or Tyler Jacobsen here. I want to apprehend Angel Fagnelio and