Accidental Witness (Morelli Family 1)

I know that face.

Not well, but I’ve seen him around school before, heard the stories about his family.

He’s in my English class, and as he takes a step in my direction, I can’t wrap my head around what’s happening.

He hesitates, looking to the car, then back to the bushes where I’m sprawled. I scurry back, pushing to my feet and running like my life depends on it to my back door, nearly ripping it off the hinges and throwing myself inside. My chest heaves up and down rather violently as I slam the door shut, locking the doorknob and the dead bolt as well. I run to the front door, checking that both are locked—not that a few locks will do me any good if they storm my front door.

“Oh, God,” I whine lowly, slowly inching my way to the front door. I have to see if he went to the car. If he hasn’t, he’s outside my house somewhere.

I’ve never known dread until this moment.

The car is gone, and I see it—the tail lights, down the road.

He’s gone.

I consider my phone, outside in the bushes.

I think of the house next door, of the fire I just saw inside.

If I run back outside and grab it, I could call 911.

If I did, they would know I’d seen it first. They’d ask me questions, investigate what happened.

I would have to tell the police that Vincent Morelli, of the famously criminal Morelli family, had been inside that house when the fire started.

It feels like my heart beats inside my roiling gut as I make my decision and head back to my bedroom, as if I hadn’t seen a thing, and hope like hell someone else will call for help.

Chapter Two

My eyes burn and my stomach churns as I stand at my open locker, staring blankly at the books inside.

It’s been three days since I last ate or slept.

The fire happened on Friday. After an eternity cowering in my bedroom, I finally heard sirens.

By the time help arrived, rushing us out of our house as they worked to extinguish the flames, it was too late. The woman who lived next door—Crystal, her name was Crystal—and her boyfriend were both dead.

I shook violently as my seven-year-old brother clung to my legs, listening to my mother blathering about how it could have been us, how the fire could have spread, clutching my four-year-old sister close and placing terrified kisses on her mop of pale blond hair.

I wondered if they were still alive when Vince Morelli spotted me in the bushes.

I wondered if my phone was still in those bushes, incriminating me.

Incriminating him.

The queasiness I felt in that moment never left. In fact, it only got worse. After the workers had all left the scene and night had fallen, I ignored my terror and snuck outside, kneeling by the shrubs and searching for my cell phone.

I didn’t find it.

Which meant someone else had.

Every moment since, I’ve waited for the police or a Morelli goon to show up on our front porch.

It hasn’t left much time for sleeping. My nerves can’t handle food. My hands shake like a drug addict in withdrawal.

At this point, I’m a pale, exhausted, nervous wreck.

My stomach makes an angry noise and I close my eyes for a moment, wondering how I’m going to make it through the day. I grab the books I need for class, each heavier than the last, and push my locker door shut.

Behind the door, propped against the locker beside mine, stands Vince Morelli. I jump back, squeezing my books tightly as my heart drops out of my rib cage, my back slamming against the cool metal door behind me.

The girl shoots me a dirty look before ducking back inside her locker to retrieve her book, then slams it shut and pivots, heading off in the other direction and leaving me alone with Vince.

He isn’t moving, hasn’t spoken. He just stands there in his dark jeans with a rip in the left knee cap, the black T-shirt that hugs his biceps, displayed more prominently with his arms crossed. Like all Morelli men, he has luscious, pitch black hair and chiseled features with dark brown eyes that pull you in and threaten to drown you with their intensity.

I’m already drowning, panic clawing at my insides while I try to make my mouth work.

As if he has all the time in the world to wait, he merely watches me.

He must know I haven’t turned him in, right? If I told the police what I saw, they would have already called him in for questioning, at the very least.

“Tommy asked me out!”

I jerk back again, turning to face my best friend, Lena Korell, as she beams at me, leaning against the closed locker beside mine and rolling her eyes dreamily.

I turn back toward Vince, but he’s gone.