The Lost Witness
For Deborah Conway Weber
Behind the darkness is another day.
Behind the day is more darkness
And another day . . .
—Johnny Cocteau, from the Blue Monday Sessions
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
1
She glanced at the screen on her iPhone and groaned. It was 10:17 p.m. Exactly three minutes and twenty-one seconds since
the last time she checked. Even worse, she had run out of people to call. No one was left on her speed-dial list.
She didn’t like waiting. And it was getting late, so late that it felt like the entire night was slipping through her fingers. A total bust while all her other friends were having fun.
She took in a deep breath and exhaled, watching the vapor fog the windshield. She shivered in the cold night air. It was mid-December in Los Angeles. Twelve days before Christmas. Last week it
actually snowed in Malibu. She had seen it on the news. Kids riding down the hills on pieces of ripped cardboard. Snowmen overlooking Santa Monica Bay. It seemed like the world was coming undone
and no one on TV was saying anything.
She shook it off, found the keys on the dash, and fired up the engine. Checking the heat vent, she adjusted the driver’s seat and tried to relax. After a while the fog began to clear from
the windshield and she could see the motel and restaurant just past the Dumpster on the other side of the parking lot.
She could see the girls dressed in their sheer tops walking in and out of the place, the men eyeing them openly and hungrily as if they were riding cardboard sleds and had become little boys
again. Faint bursts of laughter hidden in the wind began to push against the car. When she caught the scent of a wood fire, her eyes rose to the building’s roof. A neon rooster was mounted to
the chimney. Below the rooster another neon sign read COCK-A-DOODLE-DO, THE BEST CHICKEN PIECES IN L.A.!
She giggled, then caught herself. Two men were staring at her. They were leaning against the rail outside the restaurant, smoking cigarettes while they picked chicken out of their teeth. It
didn’t take much to guess that they were looking her way because this was the Cock-a-doodle-do, their stomachs were full, and now it was time for dessert. Even from a distance she could tell
who they were and what they were. She moved her head into the shadows and looked at their low-rent faces. The creases on their foreheads and the deep lines around their eyes. Their cheap clothing
from aisle seven at Wal-Mart.
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