by Joyce Lamb
A beat later, as though it took a few seconds for his warning to reach her brain, she loosened her grip.
Baldwin heaved in a raspy breath.
Sam kept her hand at his throat, her other hand braced on the arm of his chair. “Tell me where he is or I’ll crush your trachea. You’ll be breathing through a tube for the rest of your miserable life.”
Jesus. Mac’s head spun a little at the threat. If he’d been at the other end of it, he would have pissed himself. And this was a woman he’d earlier thought had to have the most adorable smile on the planet.
“My brother is dead,” Baldwin rasped. “You killed him.”
Sam backed off so fast that she stumbled into Mac. He caught her with his hands at her waist and steadied her. She shoved him away, though not violently, and pushed by him.
Mac started to follow her but turned instead at the sudden ruckus behind him.
Baldwin was charging after Sam, and Mac blocked him like a defensive linebacker. “Oh no, you don’t.”
As Mac shuffled the older man back to his chair, Baldwin started screaming after Sam’s retreating back. “You killed him, you fucking bitch! You killed my brother!”
Mac wrestled him down and practically had to sit on him to get him to stay. When the old man’s energy finally ran out, he sagged against the cushions, tears streaming down his face. “That bitch and her boss cost me everything.”
When Mac was reasonably sure the man was done fighting, he straightened up. “Did she set up the Ponzi scheme that ruined your friends and family?”
“It was because of her I did it. She and that bastard Flinn Ford didn’t give me a choice. And then, they betrayed me.”
Mac didn’t know what to say to that. And he was more worried about what Sam was doing outside. What if she took off without him? But, no, he had the keys to the Camry. Still, he decided that what happened to her was more of a concern to him than this broken con artist of a politician.
“Have a nice day, asshole,” Mac said, and left.
Mac found Sam sitting on the top step of Baldwin’s porch, arms wrapped tightly around her middle, her stare vacant. The sight made his heart jump with dread.
He trailed a light hand over her shoulder. “Ready to go?”
She rose without answering, and they walked together to the car and got in.
He said nothing as he started the car and backed out of the driveway. He could tell from her utter stillness that she wasn’t ready to share what she’d seen in Baldwin’s head when she’d touched him. Or what Baldwin had been screaming about. You killed him, you fucking bitch! You killed my brother!
The silence took them to Highway 17. Mac estimated they could be in Lake Avalon sometime the next day, depending on stop-and-go traffic and the winding, indirect back roads with varying speed limits. Taking the interstates would have been so much faster, but he didn’t dare. Too many police, and who knew how deep Ford’s connections went.
“His brother was a serial rapist, the one I told you about from my flashback.”
The dead quality to her voice startled him. Not that he could do anything about it. Except listen. “You saw that when you touched him?”
“When I met his brother Jake at a fund-raiser, I . . . mined his memories to get information Flinn Ford could use against Arthur to blackmail him.”
“Blackmail him for what?”
“Money. Some kind of research. I targeted Arthur, too. Sorted through his memories to find out if he knew about his brother’s vice. He did.” She pressed the tips of her fingers to the center of her forehead. “God.”
“Head hurting again?” Wasn’t it obvious? Jesus, he felt inadequate.
She nodded without looking at him or letting up with the pressure of her fingers. “I can’t imagine how I did this all the time as part of my job without wanting to blow my own head off.”
“Maybe you took something for the pain.”
She didn’t respond, just sat with her eyes closed and head down, barely breathing.
“Did you find out from Baldwin what kind of research Ford was doing?” Mac asked. Maybe distracting her would help. Or maybe it would make the pain worse. Damn it, he hated not knowing what to do for her.
“I don’t think Baldwin knew. He set up the pyramid scheme to keep money flowing to Flinn. In return, Flinn kept his secret that Baldwin knew about his brother’s crimes but hid that from law enforcement while he was governor. When the pyramid scheme collapsed and the spotlight landed on the Baldwins, rumors began to fly that Arthur knew what Jake had done. Flinn didn’t do anything to try to shield Arthur. He let him go down in flames. In fact, Arthur suspects that Flinn’s the one who tipped off the press to his knowledge of Jake’s crimes.”
“Jesus,” Mac said. Tangled webs indeed.
“Arthur thought I came today to finish him off because the flow of funds had stopped.”
“But according to the news reports, the scam collapsed months ago.”
“He was scared. Logic doesn’t play a part when you’re that scared.”
“Well, he knows now that you weren’t sent to kill him.”
She was silent for a long moment, and Mac kept quiet, figuring she’d keep talking if she felt like it.
“He said I killed his brother. It didn’t occur to me that killing people is part of my job for N3.”
Mac looked back at the road and thanked God she had to be touching him to know that he was remembering when she’d shot down the two goons with guns. Self-defense all the way, but still, he feared she might have more deaths to feel guilty about.
“To be fair,” he said, “Jake Baldwin was a serial rapist. He deserved whatever he got.”
She shifted her head as though something had occurred to her, or the headache had increased exponentially.
“What?” Mac prodded. “Is the pain getting worse?”
“No. I just . . . it’s a weird coincidence that I had that flashback about Jake while we were on our way to confront Arthur.”
“Maybe it’s not a coincidence. Maybe when you saw the picture of Arthur Baldwin on the news, it triggered something in your mind that led you to that particular flashback. Have you had others?”
“I remembered the day I left Lake Avalon. I was talking to Charlie while I packed.” She smiled slightly. “We talked about me going to culinary school.”
“Really? Interesting.” He imagined her chopping vegetables with a huge chef’s knife, all sweet and innocent, a cloud of flour dusting the tip of her nose. Then, just like that, she flicked the knife into the throat of a bad guy bearing down on her.
No way should that image have been any degree of hot, but damned if he didn’t have to shift in his seat to allow more room in his jeans.
He shoved the image from his head. “Did that flashback happen after I told you I’d talked to Charlie on the phone?”
“It was after . . .” She angled her head, trying to connect the dots, or perhaps hesitating to tell him that she’d already figured out the shape the dots formed.
“After what?”
“It was after you promised to be there for me while I slept.”
“Oh.” A rush of warmth swept up his neck as he remembered holding her and how right it had felt.
“After that, I dreamed of a similar promise I made to Charlie,” she said.
“Your subconscious knows Charlie’s important to you.”
“If she’s that important to me, then why haven’t I seen her or Alex in more than a decade?” She looked out the window as she spoke, but he didn’t have to see her face to know she was fighting tears. He could hear them in the thickening of her voice.
“I’m just taking a stab in the dark here,” he said. “I have no idea how the brain works. But doesn’t it make at least a little bit of sense that while you’re adrift without your memory, your mind would try to find something to anchor itself to?”
She gave that idea some thought. “I suppose that makes sense.”
“Wouldn’t that me
an, then, that your memory isn’t completely gone? It’s trying to come back.”
When she didn’t respond, he glanced over at her. She was staring straight ahead.
“That’s a good thing,” he said. “Right?”
No answer. Not even a blink.
“Sam? You do want your memory back, don’t you?”
“Depends on how many people I’ve killed.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Sam roused from a light sleep as the rhythm of the car’s movement changed. She opened her eyes to see that Mac was pulling into a gas station that looked so ramshackle and deserted she was surprised it was even open. The sign, faded from hours in the Southern sun and countless rain showers, identified the station simply as Eddy’s.
He shut off the car. “Need anything? Bathroom break? Snacks? Maybe some water?”
She squinted at the sagging roof and gray, weather-beaten wood that formed the sides of the shack. The parking lot itself was nothing but a layer of gravel. “I’m thinking the bathroom here might be condemned.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “You’re probably right, but we’re kind of desperate for gas. Maybe there’s a Stop N Rob up the road that has a decent bathroom.”
“Stop N Rob?”
He chuckled. “Newspaper-speak for those convenience stores that always get robbed late at night.”
“Ah.”
He got out of the car and, heeding the PAY BEFORE YOU PUMP sign taped to the fuel dispenser, strode into the shack. The hingeless door banged shut behind him.
Sam pushed open her door, stepping out into fresh air that carried just a hint of gasoline fumes, and stretched muscles that had gotten stiff from the hours in the passenger seat.
Cars whizzed by on the two-lane highway that stretched past the gas station, and a strong breeze swayed through the palm trees and pines that lined both sides of the road. Clouds promising a thunderstorm crowded the sky overhead.
Mac returned and started pumping gas while she pressed both hands to her lower back to stretch.
“Looks like rain,” he said as he perused the ominous clouds.
Sam almost smiled, struck by how normal everything seemed in that moment. A man and a woman on a road trip. No worries here.
A black Ford F-150 pickup turned into the station, crunching gravel beneath its tires. The passenger, sporting a military-short crew cut and eyes that looked too small for his massive bald head, checked her out as the truck rolled by. Tension didn’t tighten her already taut muscles until the driver leaned forward and stared past his friend at her. He had shaggy brown hair and an honest-to-God handlebar mustache.
Apprehension ran up her spine like red flags on a pole. She might have had no memory, but she knew trouble when she spotted it.
While the truck parked in a spot in front of the run-down building, Sam casually walked over to the driver’s side of the Camry, where Mac kept watch on the dollar total on the pump.
“Almost done?” she asked.
“Just about.”
“Might want to wrap it up.” She cut her eyes toward the men in the truck as both got out and slammed their doors, not appearing to be in any real hurry.
“What?” Mac mouthed.
She reached past him and put the hose back in its cradle then opened the back door of the car. “Get in.”
He stared at her. “For real?”
She nudged his shoulder, and he ducked into the backseat while she opened the driver’s door and slid behind the wheel. The keys weren’t in the ignition. Crap. “Keys?”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the two men striding toward them, their pace picking up. Crap. Crap.
The key ring appeared beside her head, and she snatched it from Mac’s fingers, grateful he hadn’t argued or asked questions. “Buckle up,” she ordered and started the car.
She saw the two men draw guns at the same moment that she shifted into drive and floored the accelerator, sending gravel flying. She swerved the car onto the highway, grateful that the coast was clear, and caught a glimpse in the rearview of the two guys clambering back into their truck.
“Who the hell is that?” Mac asked from the backseat.
“Hired guns.”
“How did they find us?”
“Don’t know. Hang on.”
She whipped the car into a hard right turn, sending them careening onto a side street that was more narrow than the highway and had no line down the middle. The black Ford followed on smoking tires.
“Get your head down,” Sam said.
“What about your head?” Mac shot back.
“Is your seat belt fastened?”
“Fuck.”
She raised her chin so she could watch him in the rearview as he fumbled to get the safety belt hooked while the car jumped and jittered over the uneven road. Every bump sent a pulse of pain through her healing shoulder, but she ignored the discomfort and focused on what she had to do.
“Hang on!”
She jammed on the brakes and jerked the steering wheel to the left, sending the car into a screeching one-eighty that ended with the Camry facing the direction they’d just traveled, heading straight into a game of chicken with the Ford.
The driver of the pickup stood on his brakes and turned, skidding to a stop lengthways across the street and creating a roadblock with the truck.
“Oh, shit,” Mac said.
“No problem,” Sam murmured, and shoved the gas pedal to the floor.
The front end of the Camry slammed into the left front tire of the truck, and an air bag exploded in her face.
Mac spat blood out of his mouth—he’d bitten his tongue—and raised his head to get his bearings. Air bags had deployed inside the Camry. One of the side-curtain air bags in the back had smacked him square in the left side of the head, sending a thick cloud of stinging gas and dust into the air.
The silence seemed deafening after the roar of the engine, screech of tires and crunch of metal. Nothing in the car moved, and his heart skipped several beats. He released his safety belt then scrambled forward to grab onto the back of the driver’s seat. “Sam? Sam!”
She shifted in the seat, shoving at the air bag that had blasted out of the steering wheel.
“You okay?” he asked.
She didn’t respond as she put the car in park, restarted it—Mac couldn’t believe it actually fired up—and shifted into reverse, her actions clumsy as the deployed air bag got in her way. She braced her right hand on the headrest of the passenger seat, her forehead creased in either concentration or pain, and floored the gas.
“You’re blocking my view,” she told him. Not a hint of anxiety in her tone.
He scooted across the seat to the other side, out of her line of sight, and watched the pissed-off guys as they tumbled out of their pickup and kicked at the front left tire that the impact had all but folded under the truck.
Meanwhile, Sam threw the Camry back into drive and gassed it onto the grassy shoulder and around the crippled Ford. Mac looked back to see the two men arguing with each other instead of grabbing their weapons and trying to shoot at the Camry. Hired guns, indeed. Thugs in Ford’s immediate chain of command wouldn’t have given up so easily.
At the main highway, Sam pulled into traffic as if the front end of the Toyota weren’t crunched.
“We need a new car,” she said casually, as if she’d said nothing more important than, “I could use a cigarette.”
Mac barked out a laugh. “Ya think?”
He wedged his way between the bucket seats to claim the passenger seat and looked around at the destruction inside the car. No glass had broken, but the air bags had made a huge mess. “Nice driving,” he said, rolling his left shoulder, already sore from where his body had jerked against the safety harness. “You learn that in spy school?”
“Apparently.”
“How’d they find us?”
“The car must be LoJacked.”
“Can’t be. It took them way too long to track us.”<
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After several miles of silence, Sam pulled into the parking lot of a shopping center and drove around to the back. A trailer sat at a loading dock, but there was no activity around it. She parked the Camry and shut it off. Without a moment of just sitting there to breathe, she got out and went to the trunk.
Mac followed, sparing a glance at the front, which was surprisingly intact, though noticeably crunched. “What’re you doing?” he asked as he joined Sam at the back.
“Trying to figure out how they tracked us.” She popped the trunk and checked out the contents: a navy blue gym bag, an ice scraper, a pair of black winter gloves and a small plastic bin with a lid that held maps and a first-aid kit.
“Nothing suspicious,” Mac said.
Sam reached for the gym bag, zipped it open and dumped it upside down. Out tumbled running shoes, a wrinkled T-shirt and shorts, socks, a hand towel and the smell of dried sweat.
“What are you looking for?”
She didn’t respond as she stalked to the passenger side of the Camry, opened the door and flicked open the glove box. Inside nestled more maps, a small flashlight, a couple of insurance cards, the vehicle’s registration and the car’s manual. She leaned across the seat and lifted the lid on the center console, groping inside with one hand, eyes narrowed with purpose.
Mac had to bite back annoyance at her lack of communication. “I could help you look if you’d tell me—”
Her expression changed to one of triumphant, and she withdrew her hand from the storage compartment.
Mac stared in disbelief at the silver Motorola cell phone resting in her palm. He reached for it. “Does it have GPS?”
“All cell phones have GPS. The important question is, is it on?”
He flipped it open, then winced as the display lit up in welcome. “Well, shit.”
“I lost them.”
Flinn got up and shut the door of his office. No one was within earshot, but he didn’t want to take any chances. “How could you lose them? I told you exactly where to find them.” Flinn had to fight to loosen his grip on his cell phone before he snapped it at the hinges.
