Silent Memories

by Pat White

  “And get information from me.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Why you?” she said. “Why don’t you take me in and be done with it?”

  “I don’t know who to trust. My gut tells me Zinkerman or Hatch bought an agent on the inside. I can’t ignore the possibility.”

  And I can’t ignore you, Annie thought.

  But she wanted to. She wished she could look at the broad-shouldered man without tasting him on her lips, without feeling the rock-solid muscle of his chest warm her fingertips.

  Bare skin. Hot. Soft. His.

  She rolled down her window. The early-evening wind slapped her cheeks, a slapping she deserved right now.

  Sean said he didn’t know who to trust. Well, that made two of them. One thing was certain—she couldn’t trust her body, not when it cried out in need whenever he came within four feet of her.

  Think about something else. Find a way out. You’re a smart girl.

  If she were so smart, why had she fallen for Sean?

  Deep down, she knew she’d been in love with him. Knew he’d cast a spell on her that even the most brilliant scientist couldn’t create an antidote for. He had some kind of emotional control over her, and it was time she snapped the connection. She’d never find Mom and recreate her life if her heart was held captive by this manipulative man. He expected her to share her flashes of memory, but he never shared anything about himself. It was as if he didn’t really exist, as if he were a robot programmed to do his job.

  She resented the fact that his job included keeping her under his sexual power. It had to be sexual. It wasn’t as if she genuinely cared for such a controlling man.

  A controlling man. A flash of memory tickled her thoughts, then popped into a million pieces.

  “You okay?”

  “Fine.” She’d do anything for her freedom. But where would she go? She’d hoped to find information about her mother in the medical files. Instead, she found herself shackled to a man who continued to use her.

  An hour later, he pulled onto the side of the road. “We’re here. You called this your enchanted forest.”

  “Enchanted,” she said.

  He got out of the car. She couldn’t take her eyes off the trees—tall, full, swaying with life. Her door opened and Sean extended his hand. She couldn’t bring herself to touch him.

  “Thanks, I can manage.” She swung her legs out, her feet hitting the gravel with a crunch.

  He pulled his hand away and shoved it into his jeans pocket as if it had been sliced with a knife. No, no compassion today, Annie thought. She had to think about herself and finding her freedom.

  “We came here before?” she said.

  “On the way home from the carnival at the shore. You were fascinated by the fall colors. You made me stop. You got out of the car and took off.”

  She approached a sign that indicated the beginning of a trail.

  “Did we do a lot of things together?” She started up the path.

  “I was your bodyguard. I was with you all the time.” He walked within arm’s reach, kicking at the leaves that littered the path.

  “All the time?” She turned and quirked a brow.

  “Most of the time. When you weren’t sleeping.”

  “What else did we do?” she asked, tentatively strolling into the forest.

  “Whatever you wanted. I took you to the library a lot. That place drove me nuts,” he muttered.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Too quiet.”

  “It’s quiet out here.”

  “Not the same kind of quiet. Out here, you know you’re alone except for nature.”

  “Nature and an FBI agent,” she shot back.

  “Don’t think of me as an agent. Think of me as…” he hesitated, then glanced at her, his eyes a warm shade of green. “As a friend, I guess.”

  “Not my husband?”

  He cleared his throat and walked a few steps ahead of her. “Stay behind me. You can never be too careful.”

  “Of what?”

  “Animals. We don’t want to spook them. That’s why the rangers don’t like people walking off trail.”

  “Don’t tell me you were a park ranger in your previous career?”

  “A ranger told us about spooking the animals when he kicked us out the last time we were here.”

  “Why? Did we scare Smokey?”

  “Something like that.”

  He picked up his pace and she wondered what, exactly, had got them kicked out of a public park.

  “You feel anything?” he asked from a good five feet away.

  “Besides hungry?” She put her hand to her stomach. The doughnuts at breakfast didn’t go a long way.

  “You have a one-track mind.”

  “I can’t help it. I think better on a full stomach.”

  He stopped dead in his tracks and stared her down.

  “What?” she said.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  She paused at a seasoned oak and noticed a heart carved into the bark. “Look.” She ran her fingers over the artistic expression.

  He took a few steps toward her, his body mere inches away. “Lovers,” he said, his breath tickling her ear.

  Splaying her palm against the tree, she closed her eyes and inhaled the strong scent of pine. Lovers. Carving their initials into a tree to proclaim their love. Would she ever feel that way about a man?

  An image popped into her head: the smell of wet earth, the feel of hard muscle pressed against her. Soft kisses and long strokes of her hair. She took a deep breath and let the memory penetrate her thoughts. Flesh pressing against flesh, molding, joining. She had loved once. Loved with her body.

  “Annie?”

  She turned and leaned back against the tree for support, her legs weak, her pulse racing.

  “It was you, wasn’t it? Here in the forest?” She searched his green eyes.

  Hands on his hips, he glanced down at his boots.

  “You made love to me,” she said.

  He didn’t answer.

  She reached out with her forefinger, and guided his gaze to meet hers. The defiance in his eyes didn’t stop her.

  “You loved me,” she said.

  “I’m not capable of love.”

  “That’s not how I remember it.”

  “Come on. Let’s walk around. Maybe you’ll remember something else.”

  He took her wrist and gently tugged. She followed, still dazed by the intensity of the memory. Such beauty, such wonder. And she’d experienced it with Sean.

  “How about your guardian? Do you remember him?” he asked.

  “An older man? Gray hair?”

  “Yep.”

  “I can see his face, pale blue eyes and a long nose. He wears reading glasses sometimes, I think.”

  They walked deeper into the woods, twigs snapping beneath their feet. Other images floated to the surface: visiting Raymond’s mansion for the first time and feeling like she’d entered a palace. Raymond made her feel treasured for her brains, not ridiculed. He made her feel like a princess.

  Darkness fell as Sean headed for a fallen tree. He used it as a bench and sat down. She sat a safe distance away, the damp bark chilling her behind. She shivered.

  “Cold?” he asked.

  “A little.”

  “Maybe I’ve got something in the car.” He stood up.

  She grabbed his hand. “No. Stay.”

  Being left in the middle of a dark forest wasn’t her idea of fun.

  He sat down and placed his arm around her shoulder, pulling her close.

  “I shouldn’t be doing this,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want us to get confused this time.”

  “Was I confused last time?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Which part do you think I was confused about?”

  “Any part that involved me loving you.”

  “I’m that hard to love?”

  “It�
�s not—”

  “Don’t, I’m starting to get it now. Who would want a freak?” she studied the leaves at her feet.

  “You’re not a freak.”

  “Yeah, then why isn’t there one person in my life who loves me?”

  “That’s not true. You’ve got your mom.”

  “She has to love me. It comes with the mom contract. And I sense that love wasn’t one of my dad’s personal strengths. Then there’s you…”

  She studied the hard lines of his face, the twitch in his square jaw, as he tipped his head back and blinked at the stars.

  “But then you were never real.” She sighed. “Maybe losing my memory was the best thing that happened to me.”

  “Don’t say that.” He squeezed her shoulder. “You’ve got a talent for figuring things out that no one else can. It’s a gift. Don’t turn your back on it.”

  “And what’s your gift, Agent MacNeil?”

  “Catching bad guys.”

  “Come on, I’m serious.”

  “I don’t have any gifts. I’m an average guy.”

  “I doubt that. There’s got to be something that makes you different than all the other FBI agents.”

  “Not really.”

  “Hey, if I share, you share. What’s your great talent in this world?”

  He hesitated. “I guess that would have to be my gut instinct.”

  She must have looked at him as if he’d grown three heads.

  “You know,” he paused, “that feeling that something’s not right, or something’s about to happen.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “When I was a kid and Dad came home drunk, the hair bristled on the back of my neck, warning me. I hid in the attic above my closet. I didn’t care about spiders or nails or anything like that. I wasn’t going to get a whipping because he’d spent too much of our grocery money on cheap whiskey at McGreevey’s.”

  She didn’t know what to say. She wanted to hug him, but knew he’d reject the gesture.

  “The old man was good at a lot of things. Gambling his money away, beating his kids, reminding me over and over again how stupid I was.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  He glanced at her, as if forgetting he told the story out loud.

  “Don’t be. My instinct saved my ass a lot of times.”

  He got up and started walking. “Let’s go. I think we’ve both had enough.”

  She sensed his shame. But why? He hadn’t done anything wrong.

  Watching him amble up the path, she wondered how anyone could survive that kind of childhood. If there was one thing she knew in her heart, it was that her mom and sisters loved her. Sean didn’t think anyone loved him.

  “Hey, wait,” she said, catching up to him. “What about your mom?”

  “What about her?”

  “Didn’t she do anything? Call police?”

  “Forget it. I shouldn’t have told you. It serves no purpose.”

  “But—”

  “Please drop it.”

  He walked her to the passenger side of the car and reached for the door. She blocked him.

  “Stop,” she said, gripping his arm. What was the matter with her? This wasn’t the time to be compassionate about this man’s emotional scars. She had her own problems to think about.

  “Didn’t your mother protect you?” she said.

  “She didn’t care.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  He turned away as if her words physically pained him.

  “Sean, talk to me.” She touched his cheek.

  Recoiling, he grabbed her wrist to break the contact. “It doesn’t matter. Dad killed her.”

  Chapter Nine

  Sean hadn’t spoken those words since his mom had died seven years ago.

  Annie’s expression lanced his heart. There could never be anything between them now that she knew what he would become.

  “He killed her?” she said.

  “He claimed she fell down the basement stairs and broke her neck.”

  “Maybe she did.”

  “No. I know the truth. Here.” He placed a closed fist to his chest. “Now you know what I really am.”

  He reached around her and pulled open the door.

  “What does your father’s behavior have to do with you?” She searched his eyes. He focused on the car seat behind her.

  “Please.” He motioned toward the car. He couldn’t talk about it anymore, couldn’t think about it without his insides getting tied in knots.

  She got into the car and he shut the door, thanking God for the steel and glass that separated them, if only for a minute.

  He wanted this whole thing over. Wanted Annie safe and Raymond behind bars. He wanted his isolated and routine life back. Only in the future, he’d request assignments that didn’t involve getting close to anyone.

  “Yeah, right,” he muttered, walking around the car. Who was he kidding? The Bureau didn’t order him to make Annie fall in love with him. He’d made that decision all by himself.

  He slid behind the wheel and pulled away from the shoulder of the road, unable to look at her, afraid of what he’d see in her eyes. Fear? Disgust?

  Heading toward the rented cabin, he wondered how on earth she’d gotten that bit of information out of him. He hadn’t meant to tell her. No one knew his secret.

  Neither of them spoke for twenty minutes. What was she thinking? Did she remember things, but now was afraid to tell him?

  “I’d like you to take me in to your superiors.” The chill of her voice iced his heart.

  “Are you afraid of me?” He had to ask, even if he knew the answer would rip him apart.

  “No, not afraid, exactly.”

  He kept his eyes trained on the road, but felt the heat of her gaze burn his cheek.

  “I think it would be best for both of us,” she said.

  Of course it was. She’d be free of the cold-hearted agent who manipulated her feelings one way, then another.

  “If you take me in, maybe they’ll help me remember quicker. That’s the only way to end this.”

  He swallowed down a ball of pain rising in his chest. She wanted to end it. To cut him from her life.

  Of course she did. He was a monster.

  For years, he’d tried to deny the fact that he was a chip off the old block. But it all came crashing down in Chicago when, as a beat cop, he found himself on top of a gangbanger, smashing his face over and over again. The punk had threatened a little kid with a six-inch switchblade. Something snapped. It had taken three cops to pull him off the punk, and a good ten minutes before his heart had stopped racing and his vision had cleared.

  That’s when he knew he’d become like the old man. That’s when he vowed never to let anyone close enough to be burned by the evil pumping through his veins.

  A flash caught his eye in the rearview mirror. Blue and white lights.

  “Now what?” he muttered.

  She looked through the back window, placing her hand between them. So small, so fragile. He struggled not to reach out and touch it, absorb some of its goodness.

  “You weren’t speeding,” she said.

  He pulled over and waited, glancing in the rearview mirror. A light went on in the squad car.

  “What’s he doing?” she asked.

  “Checking the plate number.”

  A few minutes later, the cop approached Sean’s side of the car. He rolled down the window.

  “License and registration, please.” The cop looked barely twenty, with fair skin and light blue eyes. Just his luck to get pulled over by a rookie.

  He grabbed the registration from the glove box. “My license was stolen yesterday,” he said, not wanting to reveal his identity. “I’m trying to get back home with my wife, and I’ll get a new one.”

  “Did you report it?” The kid scrutinized the registration.

  “No, sir, I didn’t have time.”

  The cop nodded and walked back to his ca
r. Sean watched him call dispatch. The light in the patrol car went off. The hair bristled on the back of Sean’s neck.

  “Something’s wrong,” he said.

  Annie’s blue eyes widened. “Why do you say that?”

  “I know, that’s all.” He pulled a wad of fifties from the glove box, scribbled a name and number on the corner of one of the bills, and handed it to her. “It’s my buddy’s number at the Bureau.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m not sure yet. It’s up to him.” He glanced into the rearview mirror. “Here he comes. If I step out of the car, you get behind the wheel and take off.”

  “Sean, I—”

  “Don’t argue about this. You have to believe I know what I’m doing. Okay?” He stared hard into her eyes, wanting to take her in his arms and hold her against him. It was too late for that now.

  “What do I tell—”

  The cop tapped on her window and she jumped.

  “Go ahead, roll it down,” Sean said.

  She pressed the button and the glass squeaked against the rubber as it slid down. The cop shined a high-powered flashlight in her face.

  “Is there a problem, officer?” Sean leaned across her, shielding her body with his own.

  “Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to get out of the car,” the cop said.

  “Why?” Sean felt her tremble.

  “Sir, I need to talk to the lady.” The cop placed his hand to the club at his waist. “Please don’t make this difficult.”

  There was no way in hell Sean was going to let Annie get out of the car alone.

  The cop opened her door. Sean pulled her toward him and opened his own door. “Come on, sweetheart.”

  The endearment, meant to convince the cop of a close relationship with his “wife,” rolled off Sean’s tongue too easily.

  He pulled Annie out of the car to stand beside him. The cop paused in front of her. He was about Sean’s height but didn’t have a lot of meat on him.

  “Are you all right, ma’am?” the cop said. “You look nervous.”

  She hesitated and Sean held his breath. If she wanted away from him, this was her chance.

  “I’m fine.” She ran her delicate fingers through her auburn hair. “I was asleep when you pulled us over. I’m kind of out of it.”