by Spear, Terry
He sat next to Jenny. Dale and Samuel sat opposite them in the booth, the burgundy seats and dark wood reminding him of a Victorian era. Jenny pointed her finger at a steak on the menu. “I ate the rib eye, medium rare. And after the movie, we went to the ice cream place.”
The waitress took their orders, then soon served fresh loaf of breads and salads.
“What about the cottage?” Allan asked. “Do you remember why you stayed there?”
Everyone stopped eating, Dale and Samuel’s eyes averted while they listened to what Jenny had to say. Only Allan watched her for any sign of recognition.
She pulled off a piece of bread. “Don’t remember.”
Samuel speared another forkful of salad. Dale buttered another slice of bread. Allan sighed deeply. Patience. He had to remember patience.
After finishing their meals, taking in a show, and sharing ice cream sundaes, the party headed back to the cottage.
When they arrived there, Lantham, Beasley, and Crowlston sat at the dining table, eating a dinner of fish sticks, baked potatoes, and green beans.
“Hey, folks,” Lantham said, waving a fork in greeting.
“We’re about finished here.” Beasley lifted his clean plate from the table. “If you want to play a game of Monopoly or Scrabble or something.”
Dale pulled out the Monopoly game and set it on the table.
Allan turned to see if Jenny wanted to play the game or take another walk around the lake, this time with every intention of navigating the entire circumference of the body of water with her on a moonlit night. But her eyes had grown as big as silver dollars and her skin as white as her wedding dress. He grasped her hand. “Jenny, what’s wrong?”
Yet in his heart, he knew what was wrong. The memories of having been in the cabin had flooded back to her all at once, and whatever they were raised chill bumps on her arms as her hand grew clammy.
Chapter 17
Allan hurried Jenny over to the couch as her legs seemed to give out on her. Her stomach grew nauseous as her heart rate sped up. She was vaguely aware that the other agents encircled the couch, waiting, watching her, wondering what new memories she had to tell them.
Allan sat beside her, holding her hand and rubbing her back, trying to reassure her.
She took a deep breath and stared at the coffee table. How could she hide the fact she was a deep cover operative working for the same Agency as they were, only out on the limb without a safety line attached?
As planned, she was to have no contact with her supervisor for weeks. The Agency heads feared Thurman Wilson would discover she was an agent and terminate her. Wilson had been with the Agency, too, and anything he might have found in her house that was Agency-related would have easily clued him in. But like her, he’d been deep under cover…so Allan and his men would never have met him, or if they had, would never have realized he was one of them. And Randy Stevens? Apparently Thurman had known him, too, while he was with the Agency.
She was supposed to have found out who Thurman’s boss was. That was her mission. Who was he filtering the money to? Then the perfect solution had availed itself when her aunt died so all of a sudden. Jenny had become one of the richest agents with A.T.A. overnight. Using that money and the fact she was a redhead and around the age that he liked, she’d lured Thurman Wilson to see something in her more than just a quick love affair that he would terminate in time with killing precision.
How could she tell Allan, she wasn’t going to be sitting home sipping strawberry margaritas with Roxie, while he was away on a job? Rather she’d be on some other assignment, deep undercover, trying to catch the heads of terrorist cells herself?
“Jenny?” Allan coaxed, quietly.
Hell, Roxie was her partner. Poor thing. She must have been really concerned about Jenny’s welfare.
Allan’s hand caressed her back, warming her inside, chasing away the chill that passed over her heart. Would he understand that she was an agent like him? Or would he not want her any longer? Most of the agents she knew wanted sweet little homebodies and kids to come home to, not some highly trained special agent that went on missions, too.
She couldn’t consider the repercussions now. She had to focus on the mission and shove away the feelings that tormented her concerning Allan and their relationship.
Somehow, she had to get word to her boss she remembered who she was. And somehow, she had to get Wilson. He evidently still didn’t know that she was a deep cover agent, but he would kill her for having been intimate with her in the interim. He must be fuming mad to think she had married Allan, the only agent ever to get close enough to him to shoot him. Then the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae? She’d given the Agency her money for safekeeping.
She could see the hardness in Thurman’s blue contact-colored eyes just by closing her own. The idea that hateful man had touched her ever made her shudder. Yet she’d had to play her role well, with a fiend like him. Any wrong move would have ensured her death. Even so, she’d only allowed him to have sex with her twice. All she could think of was how he’d killed so many before her, after he’d had relations with them. Even now, she couldn’t believe how long she’d been able to put him off, sweetly, demurely, surely breaking the pattern he’d had with the women he usually picked up.
“Do you want to go for a walk?” Allan asked, breaking into her thoughts. “Or maybe we can talk in the bedroom.”
She assumed he was concerned she couldn’t divulge the hideousness of what had happened in the cottage with Roxie and she and the two male agents in front of all the men. She wanted to laugh, if the situation hadn’t been so serious.
In reality, only Roxie and she had enjoyed the solitude of the lakeside retreat, spent their days shopping, watching movies, boating, climbing the mountain, enjoying life to its fullest. There were no other agents at the cottage, only Roxie and her.
The Agency must have had the staff at Pilgrim Pines Resort make up an entry that said the ladies stayed there to keep Allan and his team from learning the truth. Yet her boss had to have sent her there to try to force her to remember her past, figuring it was safer than sending her back to Waco where Wilson would evidently have his henchman watching for her return.
Now what was she to do?
Somehow she had to sneak Allan’s phone away from him and call her boss. Garcia had to know at once that she was all right and ready to return to her assignment.
But for now, she had to placate Allan and his men. She couldn’t blow her cover and let them know who she was, unless her boss approved it.
She reached over and patted Allan’s thigh. “Let’s take a walk.”
“Are you sure you’re up to it, Jenny? You seem pretty shaky.”
“Yeah, I’ll be all right.” Especially after she put Wilson behind bars. She’d failed her mission. Discover who his boss was. Now all that was left was to take Wilson out of the picture, for good. No more of his siphoning money to the terrorist cause.
Allan helped her up from the couch. She couldn’t believe how wobbly she still felt. And she couldn’t get over the fact she was one of them. Now she knew why she’d killed the men. Two of Thurman’s henchmen had discovered her trying to contact her boss. That was the last time she’d made that mistake.
What had made the agents move into the Waco area?
A blunder no doubt. Probably someone had happened to recognize Thurman in Waco and messed up her undercover operation. On the other hand, they’d managed to rescue her before Wilson had forced her to marry him, then killed her. She’d put off the marriage long enough, she was certain.
Allan escorted her outside, his hand securely wrapped around her arm as if he worried she would collapse any moment. Lantham, Beasley, and Crowlston joined them on their stroll this time. Lantham led the pack a hundred yards ahead on the gravel road.
The sunlight hadn’t yet faded completely from the cloudless sky. Pine tree shadows filtered across the road as everyone’s shoes crunched on the rocky path. The fragr
ance of pine needles scented the air as a whisper of a breeze whooshed through the trees.
“What do you remember?” Allan asked.
“I beat Roxie at Monopoly. Three days in a row. She’s pretty good-natured though. She’s just not good at being a ruthless property owner like I am.”
He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “And the guys?”
“Don’t remember anything about them.” She had to lie, in part. She wasn’t about to make up fake agents to anger Allan further. But there was no way she could tell him she was an agent herself, and so was Roxie, for that matter. Or that they had every right to stay at the cabin like any of the other agents of A.T.A.
“Something upset you, Jenny. Something you remembered.”
There was something. The phone call between Thurman and someone in her house that one day. What had he said? She rubbed her temple. “It had to do with the phone call he had at my house. The one he had when I overheard him speaking.”
“When you thought he had a girlfriend behind your back?”
That’s what she thought when she had barely any memory of it. Probably she’d mixed it up with the memories of her ex-fiancé. But now she knew very well Wilson thought she’d been showering, and she’d taken the opportunity to see if he would call his boss. She’d hoped he would attempt to give his boss an update on his progress with marrying her and getting his greedy hands on the money.
“I think he was calling his boss, now that I think further on it. He called him…Blue.”
After that, she’d attempted to contact her boss, and that’s when Thurman’s men discovered her at a phone booth at a park. She’d killed them, just like she’d killed Randy Stevens, one bullet to the brain. She hadn’t any choice. Wilson would have killed her instantly, if he’d known she was an agent.
She’d removed their weapons, jewelry, anything that would ID them. Not to hide their identity, as she was sure the two men’s fingerprints would show they were on the FBI’s most wanted list. But instead, she had to make it appear to Wilson that the men had been robbed by common thieves, not killed by an A.T.A. agent.
Beasley begin to speak into a phone. “She believes Wilson’s boss was named Blue.” He paused while everyone else remained quiet, the only sound, the crickets singing noisily in the woods and the party’s shoes kicking stones or grinding leather soles against crushed gravel. “How much more does she remember? Well, she recalled having been in the cottage finally.” Again there was a stretch of silence. “No, she didn’t say anything about agents being in the house with them. She says she doesn’t remember.”
He stopped walking. “You want to talk to her?” His voice had elevated in disbelief.
Her heart thundered. Now what? Would her boss permit her to tell the agents what her job really was? With renewed hope, she wished it were so. Now that she knew the situation, she wanted everything clear between Allan and her.
“Yes, sir.” Beasley approached her and handed the phone to her.
She took the phone and lifted it to her ear, scarcely breathing. “Yes?” Her voice shook and so did her hand, to her annoyance. She was a deep cover agent, not some frail, wilting rose.
“Jenny, do you remember everything?” He sounded concerned, fatherly. He’d always been that way with her.
“Yes.”
“You remember who you are and what your mission was?”
“Yes.”
She was certain Garcia was rubbing his chin the way he did when he was mulling over a tough decision. “I don’t want the others to know.”
“But—”
“I know Allan. There’s no way he’ll want you to complete your assigned mission. He’ll get himself killed trying to protect you.”
She stared at the ground, not wanting to look at Allan who she knew was watching every move she made, or the other agents who also waited in breathless anticipation.
“Jenny, do you understand?”
She was torn between revealing the truth to her husband and keeping him in the dark to do her job. Now she understood how difficult it had been for Allan not to reveal the truth to her about his assignment to protect her. She reached her hand out to him and squeezed his hand firmly. She smiled slightly, but she couldn’t disguise the concern she was sure still shown in her eyes, or in the wrinkle of her forehead.
“Yes.”
“Tomorrow you’ll climb Mount Monadanock as planned. After that, you’ll return to the cottage. There’s been some activity in Pensacola, Florida that’s raised some eyebrows. A woman’s body washed up on the beach. The body bag she was enclosed in had ripped open, and the rocks we’re sure had kept her planted to the ocean floor, slipped out. In any event, it looks suspiciously like Wilson’s work.”
“Yes.”
“There’s also been some activity around your place. Someone’s watching your house to see if you return. We want you there, but we want to wait for the right moment.”
“But—”
“We’ll figure a way of getting Allan away from you. Don’t worry.”
But she did worry, and she didn’t want Garcia to take Allan away from her, ever. Would Allan ever forgive her for the job she had to do? Would he understand it was the job she signed up for, recruited fresh out of college? They’d wanted her to go into the Army first as part of her undercover training. But she’d only been in a year when her aunt had become sick with cancer. Jenny had gotten a hardship discharge to take care of her. Now it was all coming back to her.
She sighed deeply. “Yes.” Here she’d figured she could ply herself with strawberry margaritas, attempting to drown her concern over Allan’s tough missions when he was away.
“All right? You’ll thank me for this someday. Believe me.”
“Yeah, right.” She looked up to see Allan studying her. She hadn’t meant to say what she did to Garcia. But he’d been like a father figure to her for the last six years. She closed her eyes. Her parents had died when she was in kindergarten. Her aunt had raised her. She wasn’t at her parent’s home when her cousin, Roy, had attempted to rape her. She’d been at her aunt’s.
Roxie had fed her a lie, too, not to help her recall her memories, but to make sure it fit in with the story Allan and his men had been given. The only thing Roxie had done to help her with her memories was show her the photo of them in New Hampshire.
“Jenny?” Garcia said.
“Yes?”
“Treat Allan well. He’s one of the best agents I have.” The phone clicked dead in her ear.
“Bye.” She handed the phone to Beasley, then pulled Allan along behind her.
He caught up with her with a giant stride. “What did he say?”
“To be nice to you.”
“What else?”
“He wants us to enjoy mountain climbing tomorrow. He said something about my returning home sometime soon, he hoped.”
“Absolutely not.”
“After they catch Wilson. You know.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. She choked back the tears, fearing Allan wouldn’t want her if she continued to be an agent, due to the comments he’d made earlier about such a thing. She would do the job without Allan’s knowledge, but she didn’t have to like it.
***
Allan clenched his jaw. He’d had really bad vibes about this whole operation from the beginning. Did Garcia have some information that the case would be cracked soon? How could his boss tell Jenny she would be returned to her home like that?
What Allan suspected was that the boss wanted her to be the bait. That’s what soured his stomach. They couldn’t catch Wilson any other way and the boss had talked Jenny into going along with the deal. And she’d do it, too. Because she’d no doubt want to end the worry about him coming after her.
Wilson was too smart to walk into the trap. Garcia knew that. What in the hell did he have in mind?
Jenny and Allan continued to walk along the lake with their bodyguard escorts in silence. Jenny rubbed his hand that held hers, and he realized then he was squ
eezing hers with a death grip. He loosened his hold, took a deep breath, and kissed her hand. “The boss didn’t ask you to return home to be the bait for Wilson, did he?”
Her eyes widened, she turned away, then shook her head.
He couldn’t read her body language. Was it a yes? Or did she worry that Garcia had that in mind for her, but she hadn’t considered the possibility?
She shivered.
He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. “Are you cold, honey?” Or was she scared? He wanted to chase all the demons away, keep her safe from the harshness of the world.
She rubbed her arms. “Yes, it’s getting a bit nippy out. The air seems fresher when it’s colder than when it’s suffocating and hot like in Texas this time of night, mid to late summer.”
He nuzzled her neck with his cheek.
She chuckled. “We’ve got company,” she whispered.
“Yeah.” He glanced at the lighted face of his watch. “I’d say by the time we get back to the cottage, you could try out that sponge and body wash the clerk gave you.”
“Ah.” She snuggled against his chest, their pace nearly slowing to toddler steps as they cuddled on their moonlight stroll. “Because if the scent wasn’t agreeable, or the sponge didn’t do a good job, I should ask for a refund?”
He laughed, then kissed her nose. “Your nose is ice cold.”
“More of me than that is.”
“I’ll have to warm you up.”
She slipped her finger through his belt loop and tugged. “The shower’s not very big, but I was thinking if we shared it, maybe we’d stay warmer.”
“I’d say that was a good bet.”
She laughed. “I hope the others aren’t hearing this conversation,” she said under her breath.
“Don’t worry. If they haven’t, they’ll get a drift of it when they hear us in the shower.”
“You’re so bad.”
“You said you like me that way.”
“You bet.”
He had every intention of wheedling the information out of her concerning what the boss had said to her, later after they’d shared some quality time. The only other thing he’d caught that definitely had gotten a reaction was when her voice sounded irritated as she said “yeah right”. So what had Garcia said to force that kind of a response from her? Allan had expected her to roll her eyes at about the same time, but she seemed to be concentrating hard on the conversation. And Garcia was careful to only give her the opportunity to answer “yes” or “no” questions.
