Being Nobody (The Witness Series #1)

  Being Nobody

  By H. D’Agostino

  Being Nobody

  H. D’Agostino

  Copyright © November 2014 by Heather D’Agostino

  All Rights Reserved. This book may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. All characters and storylines are the property of the author and your support and respect is appreciated. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  The following story contains mature themes, profanity, and sexual situations. It is intended for adult readers.

  Cover design by Kari March at K23Designs

  Photography: Kelsey Keeton of K Keeton Designs

  Model: Cameo Hopper

  Editing by Rebecca Cartee @ Editing by Rebecca

  ISBN: 978-0-9907704-1-1

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Other Works by H. D’Agostino

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Imagine living a life where you constantly pretended to be someone else…living a life that wasn’t your own. Could you do it? Could you keep yourself hidden from the rest of the world? Could you constantly learn to blend in to your surroundings? To never shine? To be on high alert, always wondering if each could be your last? Could you learn to survive, and not trust? What if that trust had been broken when you were just a child? Do you think you could bounce back from it? Embrace it? Ignore it?

  My name is Mallory James; at least today it is. I’ve been Mallory for the last three months, but I don’t know if I’ll be her tomorrow. My name changes like the weather. I never know when I go to bed at night who I’ll be the next morning. I’ve learned over the years to expect it, but that doesn’t mean that I have to like it.

  It all started when I was seven. My dad, a normal everyday kinda guy, witnessed a horrific crime. He was shopping at our local grocery store when three masked men came in and robbed the place. During the robbery, one of the men happened to remove his mask. I think he knew he wasn’t planning to leave witnesses. He opened fire on the small group of customers in the store, killing each and every one with the exception of my dad. My father had happened to duck behind a cooler in the back, and the metal from it protected him.

  When police arrived on the scene and found my father, they immediately placed him into protective custody. One of the masked men, the one who had exposed his face, had been caught a few blocks away and had been identified as part of a crime ring that had been alluding authorities for years. My father, a humble teacher, was now a witness that could help bring this group to its knees.

  When he rushed through the door of our small apartment that night, my mother and I didn’t know what to think. Marshals, along with the local police, guarded our door, and lined the street with dark vans. My dad instructed us to each pack a bag. We were leaving, and we weren’t coming back.

  I wasn’t sure at the time if I should be angry or scared. I’d never seen my dad like this. He seemed so calm on the outside, but now as an adult, I know he feared for our lives. After packing a small suitcase, my mom and I were rushed out to one of the vans and taken to a hotel. My father joined us later that night, and my life as I had known it changed forever.

  “Samantha,” my dad sat down on the bed opposite me and placed his hands on my knees. I had been swinging them nervously as I glanced around at my surroundings. The guard in the hall had a gun, and so did the one on the balcony. They’d searched our room before we were allowed in, and now I was wondering what kinda trouble we were actually in.

  “Daddy?” I looked up at him and blinked a few times. I could feel the tears gathering in the corners of my eyes, and didn’t want to let them fall. “Did we do something wrong?”

  “No baby,” he sighed as he squeezed his eyes shut. “We’re going away for a while.”

  “Why?” My lip trembled as I watched the man who’d been my hero for so long crumble before me.

  “Something bad happened today, and we have to go away so we can be safe.” He glanced over at where my mother was pacing by one of the windows. “It’s so we can be safe,” he murmured in her direction. “We’ll come back…I promise,” he squeezed my knee before pushing himself to his feet. “I promise…”

  “What about my family, our friends, Sam’s school?” My mother crossed her arms over her chest. “What are we going to tell people?”

  “Nothing, Georgia, we’re going to tell them nothing,” my dad looked from me to my mom. “We can’t…”

  “Wait! We can’t tell Grandma?” I began to panic and rushed over to where my mother was.

  “No, sweetheart. We can’t tell anyone that we’re leaving. It’s to keep them safe. There are bad people out there, and they might hurt them to try to find us. We have to hide,” my dad squatted down in front of me and gripped my shoulders. “We get new names and everything,” he offered a pained smile as I let his words begin to sink in.

  “New names? But I like Samantha, I don’t want a new name,” I scowled at him.

  “You can be Samantha again someday, just not right now. Right now, we’re all going to be someone else.”

  “Someone else…” I sighed as I thought back to that night. I had decided at the time that it wasn’t so bad changing my name. I could be whomever I wanted, but now, looking back…all I want is to be Samantha again.

  After we’d spent the night in the hotel, the marshals moved us. We were driven to the airport the next morning and put on a plane. I checked in as Meredith Moore with my parents David and Sarah. We’d been given IDs that morning, and my dad quizzed me the entire ride on what my name was. He called out to me using both my new name and my old one. He wanted me to practice answering to Meredith and to ignore Samantha. It was hard, at first, but the more we practiced, the better I got.

  I kept the name Meredith for eight months. I had it when I started school, and made it all the way to Spring Break before we had to leave. Anger didn’t even come close to how I felt. I was the lead in the school play. I’d made friends. I liked where we lived, but when I stepped off the school bus that afternoon and saw the dark sedan, I knew something was about to happen.

  I pushed open our front door to find my mom sitting on the couch with her head in her hands. She glanced up at me, and I could tell she’d been crying. A lone suitcase sat by the door, and a man in a suit was coming down our stairs.

  We left California that day, and I’ve never been back since. I don’t know what happened to blow our cover, but when we stepped off the plane in Ohio the next day, I had a new name and a new school to go along with it.

  We didn’t stay in Ohio as long. Someone found out we were there, and we moved after only six weeks. Learning to live out of suitcase became normal, and not having friends or roots became normal, too. My name changed a total of sixteen times before I became Mallory. I’ve lived in twelve different states, and moved more that I can count.

  My dad
helped put away two of the three masked men from that fateful day, but one is still out there. Little do these men know that my dad can’t testify against them any longer. Why is this, you ask? Well, my dad died two years ago. He was coming home from work, and was complaining of chest pain. By the time we got him to the hospital, he was gone…heart attack. We’d spent all those years running from bullets and masked men, and a heart attack took him away. Mom thought that after that, we’d be free. We’d be able to go back. Be Georgia and Sam again, but no, we were still being hunted. We were still in danger, still needed to hide, still needed to be someone else…anyone else but the real us.

  At twenty-six, I had hoped that I’d be happy, have a career, a husband, or at least a boyfriend. But how is that ever going to happen if I can’t be honest? How will I ever have a career if I can’t stay somewhere long enough to finish school? How will I ever be happy, if I can’t be me? Being no one sucks…I should know; I’ve had my entire life to perfect it.

  Chapter 1

  For the past several years, I’ve been supporting myself by working in bars. It’s not the job I dreamed of growing up, but it pays the bills. There’s not much you can do without a college degree, and the fact that I don’t have one has limited the job pool. My mother has been able to live off my dad’s life insurance, but me…well, I’ve been taking whatever job I can find that offers quick cash. The only job I’ve ever refused was dancing. I worked at a small hole-in-the-wall dive several years ago, and the owner swore to me I could make a killing if I’d get up on the stage. I thanked him for the offer, but declined. I couldn’t see myself up there baring it all, but I can’t say that I haven’t thought about it since especially when my bank account was near zero.

  Now, my place of employment is a small pub right on the edge of the city. On the weekends we get the college crowd, and during the week the businessmen roll in. It’s not much, but, as a bartender, I make it work. Victoria, my boss, owns the place and is always willing to let me have extra shifts. Even though I’m a new hire in the scheme of things, I’m the best she’s got.

  “Morning Mal,” Tori breezed by and flipped her hand in the air at me as she made her way back to her office.

  “Morning,” I yawned as I glanced up from the clipboard I was currently holding. Doing inventory was not really my job, but I was good with numbers so Tori let me place the orders.

  “I’ll be out in a minute to check the sheets,” she shouted from the back of the bar.

  “Yep,” I called as ran my finger down the column on the spreadsheet to find my place. I’d stopped to look up, and now all the numbers were starting to blur together. Inventory was not fun, by any means, but the fact that Tori trusted me enough to do it made me feel important.

  “Sorry,” she muttered as she slid a Styrofoam cup across the bar. “Peace offering,” she shrugged. “I mean you are in here on a Saturday morning when I know you have to come back tonight.”

  “Thanks.” I lifted the cup to my lips and smirked at her as I sipped the hot liquid. I’d been picking up so many extra shifts at The Rusty Nail you’d think that I owned the place. After working the night before, and now adding on inventory, I was going to spend more time at work than sleeping this weekend.

  “You’re a lifesaver, Mal. I honestly don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t so good at this stuff. You ever thought about finishing school?” Tori pushed on my arm causing me to look up at her.

  “No,” I shook my head slowly as I turned my back to her and faced the shelves full of liquor bottles. Tori knew that I didn’t go to college, but she didn’t know why. She’d asked me about my family, and I made up a story about running away when I was a teen. She bought it, and that saved me from having to lie anymore. I hated lying to people, especially the people that I liked, and I liked her…I really did.

  Lying had become second nature for me. I mean…if you tell enough lies, you eventually start to believe them yourself. It makes them believable if you really believe in what you’re saying. My mother used to always cringe when she’d hear them tumble from my lips, but my father would beam. It was as if he was proud of the fact that I’d embraced our life so fully. I guess I had, too. I began living this way at such a young age that I really didn’t know any different.

  “You should go home and take a nap before the night shift,” Tori called from behind me causing me to jump. “You’re going to be no good to me if you’re daydreaming when this place starts hopping tonight.”

  “I’m fine,” I mumbled as I lifted a bottle of vodka and checked the levels. “I work better under pressure,” I smiled as I turned to face her. “Need anything else before I head back to the liquor room?”

  “Nah,” she shook her head. “Just drop that at my office when you’re finished,” she pointed to the clipboard in my hand before sliding off the stool she’d been sitting on. “I’ll be in my office. Come get me if you need anything. Lauren will be in at eleven for the lunch shift. If it’s not busy, you can take a break and let her handle the bar.”

  “Sounds good,” I waved as she disappeared into her office once again.

  ooooooooo

  By the time Lauren had shown up, the bar was completely dead. I’d had two customers, a young girl hoping to score a job, and a creepy guy that had sat at the end of the bar nursing his beer for an hour. I was just about to die of boredom when Lauren waltzed in. Her blonde hair was piled on top of her head, and her lips were coated in a bright pink lipstick. She was your typical Barbie, but she was sweet. Her outward appearance did nothing to convince you of her personality or her brains. Most people wrote her off as a ditz or shallow, but I knew differently. Lauren would stick up for her friends, and she’s one of the smartest people I know. She’s going to law school, and I can’t say that I haven’t picked her brain to search for answers to my situation. She doesn’t know the real reason; I can’t tell her that, but I have caught her staring at me. I think she suspects that I’ve had trouble in the past, but I’ll never let on that it’s still there. I would never put anyone I’m close to in danger. I’ve been warned before.

  I tried…back in high school. I met someone who I began to care about, but trouble found us and I had to leave him behind. It wasn’t fair, and even though I was only seventeen at the time, I knew that was the last time I was in love.

  “I’m not going!” I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at my father.

  “Yes, you are,” my dad sighed as he shoved a suitcase in my direction. “We can’t stay here any longer. It’s not safe,” he turned and began walking toward my bedroom door. “You’ve got thirty minutes until the car is going to be here. Pack what you can,” he gripped the door frame and let his head drop as his shoulders slumped. I stared at his back waiting for what was coming next. “I’m sorry, Sam. It’s not going to be forever…I promise.”

  Tears began to stream down my cheeks as he walked out of my room, leaving me to pack my things. I hated this part. I hated it more than anything on the earth, and the worst part was I’d finally met a boy. A boy I loved. A boy I thought I could finally tell the truth. One that would understand, but no…not this time…not ever.

  That was the last time I let myself feel anything for anyone. I can’t say that I haven’t dated, but the feelings weren’t real on my part. I never let them be. I didn’t want to get too attached, and I didn’t want the questions that would come along with having a relationship. It was too much, and as harsh as it sounds, meaningless sex was just easier. I’m not a tramp by any means, but I do enjoy a roll between the sheets every now and then, and I’ve never met a man that didn’t seem to enjoy himself as much as I did. I can’t tell you who I lost my virginity to, or who my first kiss was, or even the first time I said I love you. Those important milestones were tainted. The guys that received them have names, but they didn’t know Mallory and they sure as hell didn’t know Samantha. They knew whoever I was at the time, and I’ve been so many people that I don’t even know who that was.

  The
only person who ever came close was Devlin. Dev knew me as well as anyone, and he seemed to be able to see inside me. We were young, and I was foolish to think that we’d ever be more than a fling, but when we’d met I’d had hope that my life would settle down. I’d convinced myself that the police would catch the men who’d wrecked my life, and I’d be able to tell Dev who I was. We’d ride off in the sunset together. That fantasy was blown wide open that day all those years ago. When my dad had told me that it wouldn’t be forever, I knew it was a lie. I’d been living like this for so long that I knew once I climbed in that dark van parked in our driveway, I’d never see Dev again.

  “Hey,” Lauren bumped me in the side. “You ok?”

  “Yeah,” I blew out a breath as I glanced at the guy that was still sitting at the end of the bar. His dark hair hung over his eyes, and the way he kept looking up at me gave me the creeps. “I’m gonna take a break,” I muttered as I removed the towel that was tucked into the waistband of my jeans, and placed it on the shelf with the glasses. “You gonna be ok?”

  Lauren smirked as she rolled her eyes, “I think so. I mean, I know we’re busy,” she giggled “but I think I can handle myself.”

  “Not that it’ll happen, but if it picks up in the next half hour, text me, and I’ll come back out here,” I waved my phone as I stepped through the bar pass and made my way towards the kitchen. The door that led outside to our break area was back there, and I was dying to get some fresh air.

  “Will do,” she called after me.

  When I shoved open the heavy door and burst into the sunlight, it was a welcomed relief. I hadn’t been outside for more than a few minutes each day during daylight hours. Working nights at The Rusty Nail had me sleeping during the day. Most nights I didn’t leave work until three in the morning, by the time I fell asleep each day is was around five. I’d get up midafternoon and get to work right around sunset. On the rare days that I worked the lunch shift, I was at work the entire day. My mother was always begging me to spend time with her, but the constant state of alert only seemed to be curbed by exhaustion. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t tired, and being tired meant that I wasn’t thinking about having to relocate again. I liked Chicago, and I hoped I’d be here for a while.