Unforgettable

by Cassie Miles

  “They’re going too fast,” Caitlyn said. “If they meet anybody on this narrow road, they’re going to scare the hell out of them.”

  “Or force them off the road,” he said. “And the people they want to meet are us.”

  “How did they find us?”

  “By now the sheriff has probably figured out how we escaped from the ranch. They’ll know we took Woodley’s four-wheeler. Aerial surveillance will be looking for a two-seat ATV ridden by people in bright blue helmets.”

  “But how does Rojas know?”

  “Patterson.” The marshal would have told his lies about how Jack attacked them and shot them. Patterson would still be in the law enforcement loop. “He’s feeding information to Rojas.”

  Any doubt Jack might have had about who was in the SUV vanished when the car came roaring back down the road in the opposite direction. Rojas was searching for them, pinpointing their position. And he wasn’t known for leaving survivors.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Jack knew he’d been in similar situations when he was on the run. Memories flashed: hiding in a dry ravine waiting for the sun to set, being chased across a rooftop in San Diego, jumping from an overpass onto a ledge.

  In each memory he was alone. The only life he’d risked was his own. He refused to put Caitlyn in danger.

  “We can’t outrun them in the four-wheeler,” he said.

  “Do we keep going on foot?”

  “Not safe. They’ll be armed with sniper rifles. As soon as they spot us, we’re dead.”

  She took out her cell phone. “We need reinforcements. I’m calling the colonel at the Academy.”

  “What are you going to tell him?”

  “The truth,” she said. “I’m in danger, and I need his help.”

  It couldn’t hurt to have backup on the way, but Jack needed to do something now. He had to level the playing field. That meant disabling the SUV. Shooting the tires with a handgun was nearly impossible, even for him. But he had to try.

  As they watched from their hiding place, the SUV drove past again, moving more slowly this time. At the wide end of the road where he’d pulled off, they turned and went back up the hill and disappeared behind a curve.

  “I want you to stay hidden,” he said. “If anything happens to me, run.”

  “Forget it. I’m not leaving you.”

  He gazed into her clear blue eyes. She’d come a long way from being the woman who froze in terror, but she didn’t have his experience or skill. “They’re not after you. Rojas wants me dead so I can’t testify against his brother.”

  “But we’re a team.” Her chin jutted stubbornly. “There’s got to be something I can do to help.”

  “Survive,” he said. “That’s what I ask of you, Caitlyn. I need for you to get through this in one piece.”

  “Without you?”

  There were worse things than death.

  “I lost my wife,” he said. “If anything happened to you, I might as well hang it up. I couldn’t live with the pain, can’t bear to lose another woman I love.”

  CAITLYN HEARD THE WORDS, but it took a moment for them to sink in. He loved her.

  She’d been telling herself that she was with him because he was a good story, but she’d violated the cardinal rule of journalism by getting involved with her subject. Involved? Wasn’t that a mild way of describing their mind-blowing sex last night? She gave up the pretense. When it came to Jack, she wasn’t objective.

  “I love you, too.”

  His sexy grin mesmerized her. “This is going to work out, babe. You stay hidden. Stay safe.”

  He turned away from her and grabbed his helmet. In a crouch, he dodged through the trees and rocks.

  She still held her cell phone, but she couldn’t make the call until she knew what Jack was doing. Being careful to stay where she couldn’t be seen from the road, she moved to a position beside a tall boulder. Peering through the trunks of trees, she caught a glimpse of his khaki jacket before he ducked behind a shrub at the edge of the cliff where the road made a sharp, hairpin curve.

  She saw the SUV coming down the hill toward him.

  Many of the people she’d interviewed over the years had told her that the moments before a disaster were so intense that everything happened in slow motion. She’d never experienced that sensation until now. The SUV with dark-tinted windows seemed to be creeping forward an inch at a time.

  As she watched, Jack rose from his hiding place. On the edge of the cliff, he stood straight and tall. A gust of wind blew his jacket open. She thought she could see his jaw clench as he raised his gun and sighted down the barrel.

  The windows on the SUV descended. A man leaned from the passenger seat. Rojas himself? He had a gun.

  A scream crawled up the back of her throat, and she pressed her hands over her mouth to keep from making a noise. Oh, God. Jack, what are you doing?

  The SUV lurched forward, coming at Jack.

  The driver would be forced to turn. If he tried to hit Jack, the car would fly over the edge of the cliff.

  She heard two gunshots.

  The windshield cracked, but the car kept coming.

  The front grille was only a few feet away from Jack. He fired again and again with both hands bracing his gun.

  He dived out of the way as the big vehicle swerved into a turn. It was sideways on the corner of the road when the front tire slipped over the loose gravel on the shoulder. Off balance, the car flipped onto its side as it plummeted over the edge.

  “Jack.” She screamed his name. “Jack, are you all right?”

  She couldn’t see him.

  CLINGING TO THE TRUNK of a scraggly little pine to keep from sliding down the steep incline, Jack ducked his head to avoid the flying shards of rock. A few feet from him, the SUV crashed down the cliff on its side. The drop was close to vertical for about sixty feet. Then the vehicle smashed into an outcropping of rock. Forward momentum flipped the SUV onto the roof, and it slid. The terrain leveled out, but the SUV kept going until it plowed into two tall pine trees.

  The upper branches of the trees trembled. Dirt churned in the air. In the aftermath, there was silence, swirling dust and the stink of gasoline.

  With his Beretta in his hand, Jack climbed down the craggy rocks toward the SUV that had come to rest upside down.

  Nothing moved. The roof was caved in but not flattened. Rojas could have survived. Even if he was injured, he’d shoot to kill.

  Keeping his distance, Jack watched and waited.

  “Jack!”

  Looking up, he saw Caitlyn standing at the top of the cliff. She looked like an angel—a very worried angel.

  Waving, he called to her. “I’m all right. Stay where you are.”

  But she was already climbing over the ledge.

  An arm thrust through the open passenger window of the SUV. Rojas clawed his way forward until he was halfway out. One side of his face was raw and bloody. His right arm twisted at an unnatural angle. “Help me.”

  “Throw out your guns,” Jack said.

  “Get me out of here. Before the damn car explodes.”

  “Where’s your driver?”

  “Dead. His neck broke. Dead.” Rojas dragged himself forward an inch at a time. His hips were through the window. “I know it’s you. Nick Racine. You son of a bitch.”

  Jack approached, keeping his Beretta aimed at Rojas, not taking any chances. A wounded man could be dangerous; he had nothing to lose.

  Rojas hauled himself free of the car. His left leg, like his arm, was in bad shape. Breathing hard, he rolled onto his back. His face screwed into a knot, fighting the pain.

  As far as Jack could tell, he was unarmed.

  Caitlyn was all the way down the hill. Not taking his eyes off his enemy, Jack said to her, “Don’t come any closer.”

  “Ambulance,” Rojas said. “Get me an ambulance.”

  “I have my phone,” she said.

  “Make the 911 call.” Jack stood over the injure
d man. “Make one false move, and I’ll shoot.”

  Rojas glared up with pure hatred in his dark eyes. Deep abrasions had shredded the right side of his face. “You wanted to ruin my family. You and the other damned feds.”

  What other feds? “Who?”

  “DEA.”

  That was the answer that had eluded him. Three little letters: DEA. In his mind he saw his badge and his official identification papers. He was a DEA agent, an officer of the law. Huge chunks of memory fell into place.

  “Bastard.” Rojas turned his head and spat. “You sent my brother to jail. You tried to destroy me.”

  “That’s what happens when you’re running a drug cartel. You get caught.”

  With his good hand, Rojas reached into his jacket pocket.

  Jack tensed, ready to shoot.

  Rojas withdrew a fist. He held his arm toward Jack and opened his hand. “I still win.”

  In his bloody hand he held a delicate silver dream catcher, the mate of the one Jack had found at the safe house. That earring was as good as a confession. Rojas was responsible for Elena’s murder; he had hired the hit man.

  Jack stood and aimed his gun at the center of Rojas’s chest. If any man deserved killing, it was him. “Why?”

  “Her papa was my enemy.” His eyelids closed. “Didn’t know she was your woman. But I’m glad.”

  “Rot in hell.” He could have pulled the trigger, but it would be more painful for Rojas to survive. He took the earring from the unconscious man’s hand, turned his back and walked toward Caitlyn.

  She ran to him and threw herself into his arms. “Never do anything like that again. Never.”

  “I can’t make that promise.”

  She stepped back. Her eyes filled with questions, but she said, “We’d better hurry. I called for an ambulance. That means the police will be here any minute.”

  “We don’t have to run anymore. I remembered. Everything.” He took a breath, accepting his identity. “I’m a DEA agent. Most of my work is undercover. I was taught by Elena’s father, based in Arizona.”

  “DEA?” She cocked her head to one side. “You’re an undercover agent?”

  “That’s why I don’t have a presence on the internet. I have to keep my identity hidden. It’s also how I knew how to turn myself into Tony Perez.”

  “It’s also how you became Jack Dalton.”

  He didn’t want her to think that she was nothing more than another project. “I haven’t lied to you. Okay, I did at first when I claimed somebody else’s identity. But after that I’ve told you as much of the truth as I could remember.”

  “It fits,” she said. “When the marshals nearly found us in the cave, they said something about backup. Why didn’t you call the DEA for backup?”

  “If it hadn’t been for the amnesia, I could have contacted my superiors. We wouldn’t have gone through all this. Listen, Caitlyn, I’m sorry for scaring the hell out of you. Sorry I put you in danger. Sorry I dragged your friends into this mess. But there’s a silver lining.”

  She gazed past his shoulder to the wreckage of the SUV. “There is?”

  He took her hand. “I fell in love with you.”

  Her lips pinched together. “Is that Jack Dalton talking? Or Nick Racine?”

  “Does it matter? They’re all me.”

  Her eyes grew brighter. “Does this mean you won’t have to go into witness protection after you testify?”

  “If I remember correctly, the agreement I made with the federal prosecutors has me testifying in closed court as Tony Perez. After the trial, Tony disappears. And I go back to my life.”

  “We can be together?”

  “That’s right.” He caught hold of her hand and pulled her into an easy embrace. “We’re together. Until you get sick of me.”

  “Not going to happen.” She rested her head on his chest. “No way can I leave you before I have my Pulitzer-winning story written. It just keeps getting better and better. I start out with the story of a federal witness on the run, and then you turn out to be an undercover agent with amnesia.”

  His heart sank. This was going to be an obstacle. “You can’t write this story.”

  NO MATTER HOW MANY times he explained it to her, Caitlyn still didn’t understand. In the hangar of the small airport where they were waiting for the private jet that would take Jack to Chicago, she paced back and forth in front of him.

  “What if I don’t use your real name or any of your aliases?”

  “You’d still be in danger.” He shifted on the worn leather sofa that was pushed up against the metal wall of the hangar. “People who have a problem with me—cartels like Rojas—would know they could find me through you.”

  She flung herself onto the sofa beside him. Though she would have preferred having this conversation in private, he had two marshals and another DEA agent keeping an eye on him. They stood in a clump by the open door of the hangar. All of them wore sunglasses. All of them were armed.

  Her time with Jack was limited. The plane had already landed and was taxiing toward the hangar.

  “What happens,” she asked, “when we’re together and somebody wants to know what you do for a living?”

  “Tell them I’m a Sunday school teacher. Or an independently wealthy mogul.”

  “Even my friends?”

  “Especially your friends.”

  “I hate this.” Her life as a journalist was based on ferreting out the truth. How could she live a lie?

  He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “There is a solution. You could have your story published under someone else’s name.”

  “Then who’s going to pick up my Pulitzer?”

  The main purpose of writing this story was to reestablish herself as an investigative reporter. If she gave the writing credit to someone else, she’d be back to zero. “I have a better idea. You could quit your job.”

  He shook his head. “I’m pretty good at what I do.”

  “So am I.”

  She’d never anticipated this kind of impasse. Before she got involved with Jack, her main project was fixing the roof on the barn. She’d been thinking about giving up her career. It was his belief in her that reminded her how much she loved being a journalist. She couldn’t turn her back on a story like this.

  The DEA agent approached them. “Time to go.”

  “Give me a minute,” Jack said.

  They both stood, and she looked up at him. “You know, I could just write the story, anyway.”

  “That’s your choice.”

  Her decision was clear. She could be with him and live a lie. Or she could write her story and say goodbye. “I want both.”

  He rested his hands on her shoulders and gave her a quick kiss. “I hope I’ll see you when the trial is over.”

  As she watched him walk away, her vision blurred with tears. Love wasn’t supposed to be this hard.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Nick Racine, aka Tony Perez, was under close protection for the two-week duration of the Rojas trial in Chicago. No phone calls. No emails. No meetings. If he’d insisted, he could have made some kind of arrangement to contact Caitlyn, but he wanted to give her space.

  He missed her. It wasn’t the same kind of devastating pain he’d felt after Elena’s murder. Caitlyn’s absence was a gnawing ache that grew sharper with every hour they were apart. There was so much he wanted to tell her, so many things he’d learned about himself.

  His childhood was something he never wanted to clearly remember. An alcoholic father. A mother who deserted him. And years in foster care. The only positive was that he’d learned how to fight at an early age.

  His financial situation didn’t elevate him to mogul status, but he was well-set. He didn’t own property, but he did have a numbered Swiss bank account in a different name.

  There were dozens of identities he’d used, but the only person he wanted to be was Jack Dalton, the man who was loved by Caitlyn Morris.

  At the Federal
Courthouse in Chicago, he waited in the hallway outside the courtroom where the trail had taken place. The jury had finished their deliberations.

  As a witness, he wasn’t allowed inside the room where he could see the look on Tom Rojas’s face, but he wanted to know the verdict as soon as it was announced. Gregorio Rojas hadn’t survived the car crash. If his brother was found guilty, the cartel was dead. Jack’s revenge was complete.

  Mentally, he corrected himself. Nick Racine had lived for revenge and allowed his grief to poison his life. As Jack, he had much more to live for. The future was within his grasp. He just had to make Caitlyn see things his way.

  He sensed her presence and turned his head. There she was, striding confidently down the hallway toward him. Her newly trimmed blond hair fell to her shoulders in a smooth curtain. The skirt on her white linen suit was short enough to be interesting. Her high heels were red.

  He stood to meet her, and when she stopped a few feet away from him, he was itching to yank her into his arms, to mess up her coiffed hair and kiss the lipstick off her mouth.

  With a grin, he said, “You clean up good.”

  “So do you.” She reached toward him and glided her fingers along the lapel of his jacket. “A designer suit.”

  “It turns out that I’ve got good taste.”

  “I knew that. After all, you like me.”

  Having her this close was driving him crazy. She was everything he wanted. “The way I feel about you goes a lot deeper than liking.”

  The door to the courtroom swung open. They were about to hear what the jury had decided. This was the moment Jack had been waiting for, the reason he’d taken the Tony Perez identity, the culmination of his revenge.

  A woman stepped into the hall. “He’s guilty.”

  Jack should have felt elation, but all he could do was stare into Caitlyn’s blue eyes and hope. “It’s over. I’m a free man.”

  She placed a newspaper in his hand. “The front-page article is about corruption in the U.S. Marshals Service. Patterson and Bryant don’t come off well.”