Lover, Stranger

by Amanda Stevens

  Before she could finish, a shadowed blackened the doorway to the front of the plane, and Grace looked up to find Dr. Hunter staring down at her. It was still so uncanny to see how much he looked like Ethan.

  Grace glanced at Ethan. His gaze was riveted to Dr. Hunter. She couldn’t imagine what this must be like for him. For the first time that night, she wondered what he’d looked like before the surgery.

  “You’re both awake, I see.” Dr. Hunter moved into the cargo area, and Dr. Salizar followed him. Salizar carried a gun in his hand, and another gun—Grace’s—was stuck in the front waistband of his khaki trousers.

  Hunter walked over to one of the crates, opened it, and extracted three parachutes. He handed one of the chutes to Salizar, then buckled himself into the other.

  “Go tell your amigo it’s time to set the automatic pilot,” he told Salizar. “I hope to God you’re right about him, Javier. I hope he can be trusted.”

  Salizar handed Hunter one of the guns. “Don’t worry. Julio vouched for him.”

  “That makes me feel so much better,” Hunter muttered.

  A fine dread slipped over Grace as she realized his intent He, Salizar, and the pilot would parachute from the plane, leaving Ethan and Grace tied up inside.

  She glanced at Ethan, but his gaze was still on Hunter. “Who am I?” he asked suddenly.

  Hunter arched a brow at Grace. “You didn’t tell him?”

  Grace felt Ethan’s gaze on her and she turned to him quickly. “He didn’t tell me who you are. I swear it.”

  Hunter laughed. “I didn’t give you a name, but I did give you a few details. But don’t worry,” he said to Ethan. “You two will have an hour, maybe two before the fuel runs out Or before you crash into a mountain.”

  Grace said almost desperately, “You’ll never get away with this. The FBI knows Ethan isn’t you. They have his fingerprints.”

  That stopped Hunter for a moment. He stood gazing down at Grace, a frown playing between his brows. “Well, that is unfortunate, but it can’t be helped. I guess instead of playing dead, I’ll just have to disappear somewhere and live out the rest of my life on my Swiss and Cayman Island bank accounts. Which is exactly what I intended to do anyway.”

  “But now you’ll be a hunted man,” Grace said. “You’re a murderer. The FBI will track you to the ends of the earth, not to mention Trevor Reardon.”

  A man came through the door behind Hunter. He wore a red baseball cap pulled down low over his features. In one hand, he carried a parachute; in the other, one of Salizar’s guns.

  Hunter said over his shoulder, “Where’s Javier?”

  “He’ll be along in a minute.” The man kept his head bowed, as if studying the parachute in his hand.

  “Is everything all set in the cockpit?” Hunter asked him.

  The man nodded, then walked over to the cargo door, threw back the catch, and slid the door open.

  A rush of wind streamed inside, the fury catching Grace off guard. For a moment, she was afraid the force might pull her through the opening. She worked even harder at the ropes around her wrist. When she glanced at Ethan, she could tell he was doing the same thing. His gaze on her seemed to say, “Hang in there. We’ll get out of this somehow.”

  Grace desperately wanted to believe him, but even if they got free of the ropes, Hunter, Salizar, and the pilot were all armed.

  Hunter finished buckling his parachute and turned back to Grace. “You can stop worrying about Reardon,” he shouted over the roar of wind through the opening. “His cleverness has been greatly overrated. I’ve managed to stay one step ahead of him so far, and where I’m going now, he’ll never find me.”

  “Is that so?” The man wearing the red cap looked up, and for a moment, Grace stared at him in puzzlement. Then, as if in slow motion, he lifted his hand and removed the cap from his head, revealing a receding hairline.

  Dr. Hunter swung around, reaching for his weapon. But Danny Medford had a gun leveled at Hunter’s chest, and Grace saw horror and recognition dawn on the doctor’s face.

  “Reardon!”

  It didn’t register with Grace what Medford’s sudden appearance meant at first, but then, as the realization hit her, she turned to stare at him, terror spiraling through.

  “You’re—” She couldn’t even say his name. Before she could hardly catch her breath, he fired the gun, and a stunned look crossed over Dr. Hunter’s features. Then he slumped to the floor.

  Reardon bent down and with a knife, cut away the straps of Hunter’s parachute. Then he tossed the blade aside, and rolled the body out the open cargo door.

  Grace’s heart pounded inside her. She turned to stare at Ethan. She could tell from his expression he was as shocked as she was. And he was still working to free himself from his ropes.

  Reardon walked over to Grace and stood grinning down at her. For the first time, Grace saw behind his new face and the contacts he wore, to the evil that couldn’t be masked. “What’s the matter, Grace? Don’t you recognize me?”

  Fourteen years ago, he had been the handsomest man Grace had ever seen. Now his features were almost plain, his good looks sacrificed for his freedom.

  He knelt, caressing her face with the barrel of his gun—her gun, she recognized. Obviously, he’d killed Dr. Salizar and taken the gun from him.

  Reardon put his hand around Grace’s neck, and her skin crawled at his touch. Her stomach rolled sickeningly. When she would have jerked away, he said, “You’re so beautiful. Do you have any idea how special you are to me?”

  Grace felt the bile rising in her throat. On the other side of the plane, she could see Ethan openly struggling at his ropes. Reardon noticed him, too, and nodded in Ethan’s direction. “I see the clone wants to come to your rescue.”

  Ethan looked up, his gaze meeting Reardon’s. The look on Ethan’s face chilled Grace to the bone. He was a match for Reardon. She had no doubt of it.

  Reardon must have sensed it, too, for he stood abruptly and disappeared through the door to the front of the plane. When he came back moments later, he had Salizar’s chute. He tossed it out the door. Grace saw the wind whip it away in a blur.

  The only parachute left on board was Reardon’s. He came back to stand over Grace, and for a moment, she thought the end had come. He was going to finish her off.

  Bthan said, “You touch her, and I’ll kill you.”

  Reardon cocked his head, staring at Ethan. “Do you know who I am?”

  Ethan almost smiled. “Yes. And that’s going to make killing you all the more pleasurable.”

  A look that might have been admiration flashed in Reardon’s eyes. Or was it fear?

  Then he laughed, a sound that took Grace straight back to that night fourteen years ago. She closed her eyes as the horror swept over her.

  “I admire your nerve, my friend, but you are hardly in any position to make threats.” He turned to Grace. “And you. Imagine my surprise when I followed Hunter to the clinic that night and saw you there. After all these years, we finally meet again, Grace. I believe it’s destiny, don’t you?”

  When Grace didn’t answer, he said, “You’ve made everything very convenient for me. I can take care of you and Dr. Hunter in one fell swoop, and you—” He turned back to Ethan. “You’ve seen my new face, so I’m afraid it’s adiós for you as well. The only thing left for me to do,” he said, walking over to the open door and preparing to strap on his parachute, “is to look up my old friend, Myra.”

  Grace strained at her ropes. She couldn’t let Reardon get away. She couldn’t let him get to Myra. As she struggled furiously with the bindings, something caught her eye. A flash of metal. The knife Reardon had tossed aside.

  “Oh, and one last thing,” he said, turning back to Grace. “That last night you and I spent together. I called your father when you’d gone into the bathroom. You didn’t know that, did you? The last thing on his mind before he died was the knowledge that his precious daughter was with me. I wanted you to know
that before you die.”

  Fury swept over Grace in a blinding flash. She lunged at Reardon, but before she could reach him, before he even had time to sense her intention, Ethan was on him. Somehow he’d gotten loose from his ropes, and now the force of his attack almost sent both him and Reardon plunging out the open door. Reardon dropped the parachute, and Grace saw it slip over the side of the door.

  Both men fell to the floor of the plane, the gun in Reardon’s hand whipping upward before Ethan could grab his wrist. Then he slammed Reardon’s hand against the floor of the plane, and the gun went flying.

  The fight was ugly. The men were evenly matched, one as deadly and cold-blooded as the other.

  Grace scooted sideways, turning so she could get one hand around the knife. Twisting it awkwardly, she began to saw at the ropes around her wrist.

  Her heart almost stopping, Grace saw Reardon roll toward the open doorway, pulling Ethan with him. With a vicious kick, Reardon sent Ethan half over the edge. Ethan clung to the metal frame around the opening, but the wind force almost ripped him away. Grace could see the strain on his face, the sheer force of his willpower as he began to pull himself inside.

  Reardon stood poised in the open doorway, clinging to an overhead support to brace himself against the rush of wind as he stared down at Ethan.

  Desperately, Grace hacked at the ropes around her wrist, felt the sting of pain as the blade found skin. Then she was free. In one fluid movement, she rolled on the floor and grabbed the gun just as Reardon lifted his foot to kick Ethan loose from the door.

  Grace screamed Reardon’s name over the rush of wind and when he turned to her, she saw his eyes widen in surprise at the gun in her hand. Without hesitation, Grace pulled the trigger. The force of the bullet, combined with the wind velocity, knocked Reardon from the plane. Grace heard him scream and saw the scarlet bloom on his chest before he disappeared into the darkness.

  In a flash, she was on her knees in front of the doorway. She grabbed Ethan’s arms and helped pull him inside. They lay panting on the floor of the plane for a long moment before Grace scrambled back to the opening, peering out into the darkness.

  “He’s dead, Grace. You got him,” Ethan said.

  Grace turned back, her gaze uncertain. “I hope you’re right. God, I hope you’re right.”

  They stared at each other, letting the adrenaline rush carry the emotions through their bloodstream. Then Grace said, “I don’t suppose you knew how to fly a plane before your amnesia?”

  Ethan’s gaze darkened for a moment, and then he said, almost grimly, “I think I might have.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  They were on the ground at an airfield just across the border from Brownsville, Texas. Grace was in the police magistrate’s office, talking with Myra on the telephone and filling her in on all the details.

  Myra listened, and then when Grace was finished, said, “After all these years, you finally got him. How does it feel?”

  Grace hadn’t had time to deal with her emotions. She supposed what she felt most strongly at that moment was uncertainty, about her future and about Ethan’s. She said almost urgently, “What’s happening on your end? Have you found out anything else about the fingerprints?”

  A long hesitation, then Myra said, “Turns out, the agency who flagged his prints is the DEA, Grace. Evidently they’ve been looking for him for a long time, and now they’re demanding that we turn him over to them.”

  Grace sucked in a long breath. “Are you sure? There could have been a mistake. A computer glitch.”

  “There’s no mistake. You’ve got to bring him in, Grace. You don’t have a choice.”

  ETHAN COULD TELL from the look on Grace’s face that the call hadn’t gone well. “You talked to your superior?”

  She nodded. She started to say something else, then turned to stare across the street at a seedy-looking bar that blasted tejano music.

  “Let’s take a walk,” she suggested. “It’s a little noisy around here.”

  They strolled along the cobblestone sidewalk until they reached the edge of town. The night seemed darker over the desert, with only a few stars and the moon to soften the gloom. In a few hours, it would be dawn, but right now, daylight still seemed a long way off.

  Without looking at her, Ethan said, “I’m going back to the jungle, Grace. Back to that clinic. I have to find out who I am. I have to know...what I’ve done.”

  “Ethan—”

  He took her arms, turning her to face him. He stared down into her eyes, feeling the connection with her as he had never felt it before. Maybe because he was about to sever it

  “That call you just made. What you found out wasn’t good, was it?”

  He saw the denial flicker over her features, then she closed her eyes briefly. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes, it does.” His grip tightened on her arms. “You’re a cop, Grace. An FBI agent sworn to uphold the law. How can you say who I am and what I’ve done doesn’t matter?”

  She gazed up at him. “Going back to the jungle may be the most dangerous place for you. If you come back with me—”

  “You’ll see that they go easy on me?” He shook his head. “I’m not above the law, Grace. If I’ve done something wrong, something...bad, then I’ll take my punishment for it. But not until I find out the truth for myself. Not until I know the whole story. Can you understand that?”

  What he was asking of her went against everything she stood for, everything she believed in. A wave of guilt rolled over Ethan for what he was about to do, but there was no other way.

  He took a step back from her, and he saw her bewilderment in the moonlight. Then her disbelief.

  He took another step away from her, backing into the desert as he leveled the gun on her.

  “It’s the only way, Grace. I can’t ask you to give up everything for me. I won’t. So don’t try to follow me.” It was more of a plea than a warning, but for one split second, he sensed her resistance.

  “This isn’t goodbye,” he promised.

  “Then why do I feel like it is?” she said, before turning and walking away.

  GRACE SAT IN the cubicle Myra had confiscated at the Houston office and tried to ignore the tension that fairly sizzled in the room. Two huge men wearing black suits and identical scowls stood on either side of Grace while Myra sat across a metal desk from her. When Grace had first entered the office, less than twenty-four hours after her flight back from the border, Myra had introduced the two men as her counterparts at the DEA. Which meant they had considerable clout.

  Myra folded her arms on the top of the desk and said, “Please tell Agents Mackelroy and Delaney what you told me, Grace.”

  Grace glanced up at first one man, and then the other. She shrugged. “He got away.”

  Mackelroy, the larger of the two men, came around to perch on the edge of Myra’s desk. “How?”

  “He pulled a gun on me.”

  She could see the disbelief in the man’s eyes before he flashed a glance at his partner. Mackelroy said, “Tell us exactly what happened.”

  Grace complied, leaving out only the part she deemed too personal for them to hear. Some of what had gone down between her and Ethan was none of their damned business.

  Mackelroy leaned toward Grace, his gaze intense. “Do you have any idea where he is now? It’s imperative that we find him.”

  Grace met his gaze. “Why do you want him so badly? Who is he?”

  The two men exchanged another glance. Then Mackelroy said almost urgently, “His name is Tony Stark. He’s one of our agents. For the last two years, he’s been under deep cover, infiltrating one of the drug cartels down in Mexico.”

  For a moment, Grace thought she hadn’t heard him correctly. She stared at him, stunned. Then she said slowly, “He’s a DEA agent?”

  Mackelroy nodded. “The last we heard, he’d been arrested by some local authorities who were working for a rival cartel. Somehow he managed to escape, and then he just dis
appeared. We assumed he was dead, but then his fingerprints turned up in the computer. The rest you know.”

  Grace felt as if she had just been sucker punched. She couldn’t breathe, much less talk.

  Myra said throatily, “Of course, we’d like to cooperate as much as we can, but Grace has told you everything. Stark is down in Mexico somewhere, wandering around without a memory. If he were one of my agents, I wouldn’t waste time in getting down there to find him.”

  BY THE END of the week, Grace was back home in Washington. She’d filed the last of her reports and attended one final debriefing before leaving the J. Edgar Hoover Building in a downpour.

  She stood at the window of her apartment, and stared out at the city. It was Friday, past eight o’clock, and the city was coming alive. The streets were still clogged with government workers and officials wending their way southward, to the suburbs in Maryland and Virginia. The ones who lived in the city were finding little pockets of shelter in the hundreds of bars and bistros scattered throughout Washington.

  The rain had stopped a little while ago, and a breeze drifted in from the Potomac River. The heat of the day gave way to a crisp coolness of evening, and the sky deepened to violet.

  Grace had never felt more at loose ends after wrapping up a case, because this had been no ordinary case. Trevor Reardon was dead, and for the first time in fourteen years, she felt the weight of her guilt begin to ease. She knew she could let go of the past now, say goodbye to a family she would never stop missing.

  But in some strange way, the emptiness inside her had deepened. The lonely years of her life stretched before her, and Grace suddenly realized how much she’d given up to her dedication. A home. A family. A man she could love.

  A future that made her want to get up in the mornings.

  Ethan had done this to her, Grace thought without bitterness. Ethan had made her realize what she was missing, what her sacrifices had cost her. He had reminded her that she had once been capable of love. Might still be.

  She closed her eyes briefly, resting her forehead against the cool glass. She wondered where he was now, if he was safe, if he had been found by the DEA and told who he was. What he was.