by Michele Hauf
“Please, call me Jason. And I’ll stick with Yvette, since I agree that would be wisest. For now.”
“I’m good with that.”
“And, uh...with the snow blowing like a banshee, I think I’m stuck here for a while, so I hope you don’t mind me getting comfy. And asking you the hard questions.”
Amelie nodded. “Snowed in with...” She thought, a sexy cop, but said “...the local law enforcement. I’m feeling very safe, indeed. As for the hard questions?”
Time to come clean. With hope, she’d gain an ally and not be put on his suspects list.
After a sip to fortify her courage, she started, “Like I said, I’m a data technician. For Interpol. I sit in an office and type reports and do field research. Of course, my field is bits and bytes. It’s something I excelled at in college but had set aside for the excitement and adventure of being a field operative. Until that position no longer fit me. Anyway, I was learning to program and hack all sorts of electronic and digital devices from a distance.”
“You a code breaker?”
“Not as accomplished at that skill as I’d like. But with more training, it could happen.”
And was that what she wanted to happen? Her pros and cons list was weighted to one side. And no matter how many ways she found to list “using my intellect” and “keeping up with technology” as pros, the heaviest side remained the cons.
Jason cast her a quirk of brow and a gaze that said she wasn’t going to get away with any lies. “And does what’s up have to do with something related to an Interpol case? You said something about having information but not knowing what that was.”
“Exactly. But I don’t know if it’s an active investigation. Is it covert? Need to know? What’s going on in my absence? I haven’t been informed beyond ‘keep your head down and we’ll call you.’ I thought the document I viewed was random business details. It looked like an invoice. My boss didn’t clarify anything about it.”
“So less than twelve hours after you brought it to his attention, he asked you to assume a new identity, leave the country and...you just did?”
“I trust him.”
“Why is that?”
Amelie narrowed her gaze on the man. Was he intimating something deeper existed between her and Jacques? There wasn’t anything between them. Not that she hadn’t had the occasional fantasy. The man wasn’t married, but she knew he had a model girlfriend who liked to be treated as if a queen.
“Jacques Patron had been on the same training team as my father decades ago. My dad always had good things to say about Jacques. That he was kind and had the other guy’s back. I’ve known Director Patron over the years, but only from answering phone calls to my parents, and once I met him at a holiday party. After my hire at Interpol, I immediately trusted him, simply knowing how much my father trusted him.
“Jacques was the one I went to when I realized I couldn’t cut it in the field. He didn’t judge. Instead, he helped to reassign me. And when he learned about my memory, he started using me for special assignments.”
“Such as?”
“I can’t tell you about them.”
“Right. Need to know and all that secure state secrets stuff.”
“Exactly. But I can explain how my brain works. My current position sees me sitting before the computer, sometimes mindlessly typing in lists or code, or whatever comes across my desk. I don’t process it in the moment, but trust me, it all gets retained here.” She tapped her skull. “My ability sounds weird to others, but I’ve known nothing else since childhood.”
“Like a kid who has colorblindness?” Jason asked. “He never knows he sees the world differently until someone points it out to him?”
“Exactly. I retain it all. And yet, not all. It’s termed eidetic memory, or photographic memory. The eidetic term refers more to recalling memories like a photograph, and the photographic memory is more related to lists, text and detailed information. What is weird is that sometimes I’ll get to the grocery store and realize I’ve forgotten what I’d gone there for. I don’t remember short lists, appointments or even conversations. It’s only long lists and random coded data that seem to lodge in my brain. Book text, as well. But if I could ever remember what day my yoga class was scheduled, my instructor would stop giving me the side eye when I wander in on the wrong day.”
Jason smirked. “Yoga and covert operations. You’re a very interesting woman.”
She’d take the compliment, but only because she needed it right now. Anything to make her feel safe and accepted by the one man who could very well make her life miserable. Because if he wanted to, he could turn the tables and investigate her, insist she tell him the things she didn’t dare reveal. Or force her.
Jason took another sip of the hot chocolate, then asked, “You’ve been in Minnesota how long?”
“Two weeks.”
“Witness protection?”
“We call it going dark.”
“So still working for Interpol, but for all intents you’re on an extended vacation.”
“Exactly. Let me explain from the beginning. I originally trained as a field operative.”
“A spy.” He hung his head, and his grimace was obvious.
“Yes, you can call me a spy.” Because she did like the term. Something strangely romantic about it. “Former spy, that is. My parents both worked for their respective governments. My father was Interpol and my mother, well...”
Telling him that sad tale wouldn’t be easy, and it wasn’t necessary to this case. If she were to keep the tears to a minimum, all information about her mother had to stay in the past. Where it belonged.
“The desire to serve my country is in my blood,” Amelie continued. “And I’ve told you about Jacques Patron, and how I grew up trusting him. But after a few months of fieldwork, it grew apparent to me that I would never be able to take another person’s life if it became necessary. I couldn’t do what I’d been trained to do. Sure, I can use martial arts to defend myself and fend off an attacker. Though I was a bit rusty yesterday. Anyway, I can track and follow, surveil, assess a dangerous situation, but...” Amelie bowed her head and exhaled. “I couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger at a moment when it was necessary to stop a suspect. I choked. Aiming at a human body is a lot different than shooting at targets and ballistic dummies.”
“That it is,” Jason agreed. “You didn’t think, during training, that your job might lead you to life-or-death situations?”
“Of course. But training and real-life experience are vastly different. It’s hard to explain. And I’d been surrounded by other recruits eager to prove themselves. I fell into the tough-girl mien. But that has never been me. Or at least, I thought it could be me. You know, grow up and take after your parents. Show them you’ve got the same grit in your blood.” She sighed heavily. “I learned differently.”
“You handled the attack from Smith like a pro. Make that Herve Charley.”
“That’s the perp’s real name? Where is he from? Did you get a rap sheet on him? Who is he?”
“I’m asking the questions here, remember? What I just told you is what I know so far. And you were telling me how a spy came to sit behind a desk typing in coded lists.”
“Sorry, it’s natural to want to know everything I can about the guy who tried to kill me.”
“I’ll grant you that. Go on.”
“Fine. After I realized I couldn’t pull the trigger, I went to Jacques Patron. They’d spent a lot of money training me. I was disappointed in myself. In an effort to maintain some dignity and save face, I blurted out that I had a photographic memory.”
“That didn’t come up in training?”
“It really is something innate to me. I don’t bring it up because...” She shrugged. “It’s my normal. And the skill may have helped with maps and topography and following long, detailed inst
ructions in training, but for the real world, action, think-on-your-feet stuff, it doesn’t make much of a difference. But Patron was intrigued at my, as he termed it, ‘superpower,’ so he put away the dismissal form and assigned me to the tech department. He tested me with a few assignments. I’d receive a classified document that I was to memorize and then later repeat when it was needed. I call it parlor tricks. But Patron was impressed.”
“Sounds a little underhanded to me, but go on.”
She’d never call it underhanded, but there had been times Amelie had wondered if Jacques was using her for reasons that no one else in Interpol was aware. Sort of his secret data weapon. And she’d not questioned him. In fact, it had made her feel more useful, like a part of the team again.
“One day an unconfirmed email arrived in my box. All incoming documents go through a secure server and are verified with a four-point internal security check. No one can hack into the system. And hacking out is even harder. I initially thought it was a regular invoice that got misdirected. I see them once in a while. Agent reports. Expense summaries. Purchase orders. I forward them to Accounts. It didn’t give me pause. Until I started reading the data. Dates, dollar amounts, locations. And that mysterious fourth column. I’d never gotten something like that delivered by email. I was going to transfer it to Accounts when I noticed the sender’s email was untraceable. That put up an alert. And...for some reason, I read it. Just sat there and read each line. It only took ten minutes.”
“You went against protocol?”
“Yes, and no. It hadn’t specifically been assigned to me, but Jacques was aware I retain all the information I see. Because it was an odd thing, I knew I had to tell him about it. I called him, and when I was going to transfer the email to him, it blew up.”
“Blew up?”
“It was on a timer. It had been set to destruct so many minutes after an open reference was received, and then it did the cyber version of self-destructing. The weird thing was, after I’d written out the list at his request, Jacques merely glanced at it and seemed to know what it was for. I mean, he didn’t state that specifically—it was a feeling I got at the time. He suggested I resume work, not worry about it. But he called me twenty minutes later and told me to go home for the day.”
“You didn’t think that was strange?”
“A little, but he didn’t sound upset. And, as I’ve said, I trust him. I knew whatever I had seen was out of the ordinary.”
“The guy must have known it was sensitive information.”
“He did, but he didn’t tell me what it was. He burned the list I’d written for him.”
“So he just burned it? Never to be seen again?”
“He knew that the information could be accessed anytime because it’s always in my head, no matter if I write it out or not.”
“You must have a crowd in your brain.”
She smiled. “I sometimes wonder about that, and then I realize the reason I can’t remember to pick up milk along with cereal at the grocery is because my brain is crammed with too much other stuff. Ninety percent of which means nothing to me.”
“You sure you don’t have some international secrets locked away up there?”
“Well.” Amelie set down the mug and tucked her palms between her legs. She faced Jason on the couch. “It is always a possibility.”
His lift of brow told her he was intrigued.
“That night,” she continued, “Jacques called me at home. It was after midnight. He’d booked a flight for me that left in two hours. He’d also given me a new passport and a new identity. He said the data I had in my head was so sensitive he feared for my safety and that I needed to go into hiding for a few weeks.”
Jason whistled. “You gotta love the international spy game. But you’ve been trained to bug out?”
“Of course. I had a bugout bag packed for such an occasion. It was scary, but at the same time, I’ve been trained to handle situations like that. I took a cab to the airport. Nine hours later I arrived in Minneapolis, then a car drove me four hours to...this strange land that reminds me half of the tundra and half of a bizarre movie I’ve seen where the bad guy gets stuffed in a wood chipper.”
“I love that movie.” Jason cleared his throat. “Ahem. You said you’ve been here two weeks.”
Amelie sighed and nodded. “I’m waiting for the all’s clear from my boss.”
“The same boss who called me and...” He winced.
She had forgotten about that strange message he’d received. Ending with the sound of a gunshot? Was Jacques okay?
“It baffles me,” Jason said, “if a professional was sent after you, that he could make such a stupid mistake. To kill the wrong person?”
“He had to have asked her name.” Amelie worked it out. “Might have looked her up. Followed her.”
“But then he would have had her last name and should have known she wasn’t the right target. And she’s from a suburb north of Minneapolis. Was visiting friends here in town. Was in The Moose Saturday night, partying.”
“He tracked her from Minneapolis?”
“I don’t think so. I’m guessing he knew to look for his target in Frost Falls and, well—he found the wrong Yvette. That woman was in the right place at the wrong time.”
Amelie started to work it out. The only person who knew she’d been staying here as Yvette LaSalle was her boss, and now Jason. So if she had been targeted because of her assumed name...
“Is your boss the only one who knows you’re here?” he asked.
She met his pointed gaze with a gape. “But Jacques would never...” No, she trusted him. He’d given her a second chance when he didn’t have to. “On the other hand, someone purchased my plane ticket. Made arrangements for the car when I arrived here. Jacques can’t be the only one aware of my location, or that I’m hiding under an assumed name. And you know the spy trade. If someone wants to find another, they will.”
“True. But there’s something I’m missing. If you can help me to understand what it is you know that someone would kill for, that would help.”
“That’s the thing. The only way I can learn what I have in my head is to write it out. It’s how the memory process works. I can’t jump into the middle of a list of data. I need to write it from beginning to end.”
“You didn’t think to write it out when you got here?”
She shrugged. “I’ve been settling in, adjusting to this cold place, and what good would it have done? I’ve looked at it before. I didn’t know what it was then—why would I know now?”
“I’d like to take a look at it. I’ll keep the fire stoked if you will put your pen to paper. Are you willing to give it a go?”
She nodded.
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll check in with Marjorie. See if she’s gotten a trace on the call from your boss. I’m going to run out and park the snowmobile in your garage. With the way the wind is blowing, if I leave it out, the snow might drift over the top of it.”
“Thank you, Chief—er, Jason. I know this is the last thing you want to do on a stormy day.”
“Actually, this is what I most want to do. You’re in danger? I want to protect you. It’s my job. But also...” He winked. “I’d hate to see the prettiest woman in Frost Falls get harassed by a hired killer.”
“Harassed?” Amelie laughed at that, only because it was so assuredly not what had happened to her. The man had meant business. She was lucky to be alive.
“I know.” He stood. “But I’m trying to not be so direct.”
“Please. Be direct. I’m a big girl. I can handle the truth. You want to protect me from someone who has me on his hit list? I’m glad to have you here. I’ll even make you soup for supper.”
“My night gets better and better.”
“Don’t get too excited. It’s from a can. I just have to heat it up.”
&
nbsp; “If it’s hot, I get excited.” He winked and then got up to stoke the fire.
And Amelie felt that fire transfer to her chest, where her heartbeats fluttered. She’d opened herself to him, and he hadn’t accused her. She could trust him. And she could drop her brave front and allow a bit of the damsel to emerge. Because, truthfully, it was getting harder to keep up the courageous facade. She was being hunted by a killer.
But now her protector was close.
Chapter Twelve
Jason loved a good blizzard. Snow slashing at his cheeks, eyelids and nose. Veins chilled to the bone. Visibility reduced to zero. Good times. But only when he was out having some fun on the snowmobile. When it arrived while he was in the thick of a homicide investigation, he preferred calmer weather.
He secured his snowmobile in the garage out behind the cabin beside the older Arctic Cat model the owners provided for their guests. With a tug of his scarf to tighten it about his neck, he stepped outside. The wind nearly pushed him over. Or it might have been the ice patch in front of the garage door. Steadying himself, he leaped up two feet onto the snow berm that had formed behind the house. There was already a solid foot of powder on the ground, but the wind would lick it up in dunes that could get as high as his hip if the storm lasted through the night.
Boots crunching over the snow, he wandered around behind the log cabin. The snow glittered like diamonds. The smooth surface hadn’t had a chance to take on rabbit tracks. Those critters were too smart to be out on a night like this.
And with hope, so would a killer.
On the other hand, if someone did have it in mind to return and finish the botched hit job, Jason wanted it to happen when he was here. Yvette needed protection. And that was something he could do. Even as his better judgment warned him—another beautiful female spy in his life? The last one had changed his life forever, leaving him humiliated and scrambling to prove himself.
This new woman appealed to him both physically and by prodding his innate need to protect. But could he trust her? Her name wasn’t even Yvette. And did she know more than she was letting on? How could she not know what she had in her head? He wanted to trust her, but it was never that easy. She had been trained in evasive tactics. A man should never let down his guard.
