Memories Of You

by Bobbie Cole

  She stood, reaching for her shoulder bag. “I’ll go home and see if they left a note. That doesn’t make sense, though. Sam always answers his phone.” Unless something has happened to him.

  Fear shot through Charlie, electrifying her with terror. She tried calming herself. The Houston metropolis was a large area in which to get lost, but Sam was a creature of habit. There were only a small number of places where she figured he’d have gone.

  “One other thing,” Bemo said, halting her before she left. “Stone’s in Washington, about to board a plane back to Houston, and he can’t reach that other guy I met with him. Run-something.”

  “Runnels?”

  “Yeah. You’d think with all of their fancy surveillance equipment and protocol that they could keep in touch with one another better. Anyway, if Runnels is there, tell him Stone says to stay put, whatever that means. Stone wants Runnels in the local branch office when he gets back, in other words.”

  “That was quick,” Seth marveled when he heard the knock at the door. Sam hadn’t been gone but ten minutes. There must be a convenience store or gas station close by.

  As he reached for the doorknob he remembered what Sam had said about checking the Judas hole, but he knew it had to be Charlie’s father. Who else would it be? Charlie had a key.

  A split second later he wished like hell he’d done the smart thing. The door flung open, bumping him hard and destroying his equilibrium, and two men he didn’t recognize were on him in a flash, beating him about the face and hitting him on the head, then whirling him around, forcing him to the ground.

  Scattered memories collided with current actions, and Seth’s mind raced to connect the dots to form a picture. Speech—shoes—hands—clothes. His head throbbed where he’d been hit, but he steeled himself to focus. They spoke Spanish. One wore ratty dark blue sneakers, and Seth was certain that was the man who’d punched him in the face and then whacked him on the head. Seth couldn’t see his hands, but he was pretty sure he’d just been assaulted with the butt of a gun.

  The other wore brown leather slip-ons. The man with brown shoes had a gold band encircling the forefinger of his left hand and a larger ring with a garnet on his ring finger—Seth didn’t get a good look at his right hand.

  Sneaker man wore jeans. Brown-and-gold man wore polyester pants. Both reeked of alcohol and cigarettes, and the one who reminded Seth of an eighties Las Vegas lounge singer needed a breath mint. Baaad.

  Since they didn’t speak to one another, only cursed at him in Spanish as they hoisted him to his feet and bound his hands in front of him, Seth was pretty sure that whatever they had planned for him had been well-orchestrated, that this wasn’t some random mugging or robbery. And he’d bet every penny Aldridge had spent on his mansion that the guard who had been posted in the hall was dead.

  Sadly, when the two men escorted him out of the apartment and toward the stairs, he saw that he was right. A quick glance at the guard’s crumpled figure told Seth the guy had been shot multiple times, most likely with the gun that had been used to beat Seth.

  Seth stole a glance at the denim-clad man and saw the silencer on the barrel of the nine millimeter.

  The one thing that gave him hope was that Sam was nowhere in sight, so maybe he hadn’t gotten caught in the crossfire.

  “Oh, no!” Charlie drew her gun as she saw the man lying face down mere yards from her apartment door. She immediately radioed for backup. She could see from her position that her door was open, and fear gripped her heart. She knew she should wait, but every cell in her body screamed to know what lay beyond that open door. Would she find her dad or Seth…or both of them…in a pool of blood?

  “Dad!” she called. “Seth!”

  The elderly woman in the apartment next to hers cracked open her door, and Charlie yelled at her to get back inside. Another nearby neighbor did the same thing, most likely out of curiosity as to why anyone would be bellowing, and Charlie advised him likewise to remain where he was.

  Daddy, where are you? Her training to wait for backup warred with her natural instincts to protect those she loved. Seth, please, please be all right.

  Tears of frustration stung her eyes, and she wiped them away angrily. She knew better than to get emotional—her life depended upon her ability to remain calm and in control.

  Her cell phone rang, and she nearly cried with relief when the display showed one word—Sam.

  “Dad! Where are you?”

  Silence at the other end of the phone. Charlie’s resolve not to panic collapsed. Why didn’t he answer?

  She looked at the display again—the phone was dead. Almost as quickly as it had died, the phone sprang to life with another call from Sam.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I hit the wrong button and cut us off.”

  Charlie sobbed with relief. “You’re alive.”

  “Where are you, Charlene?” His voice was grave.

  “I’m at the apartment.”

  “They killed that guard, didn’t they?” Sam asked.

  “How do you know? Daddy, where the hell are you? Where’s Seth?”

  Charlie heard the sirens as her backup arrived. “Dad, hang on. Is Seth inside?”

  “No, baby. They took him. I got here in time to see two men walking him out to their car.”

  “What?” Charlie felt like she was operating an old PBX phone station, using both hands, arms, everything but her feet, to direct her fellow officers and manage the call with her father. She stopped talking to Sam long enough to explain what she knew of the situation to the cop running point.

  As the others crept toward her apartment, Charlie hung back to finish the call. “Say that again? What men?”

  Sam told her the make, model, even the tag number of the vehicle the three men with Seth had.

  Three men? Seth didn’t stand a chance.

  “Charlene, he was alive when they stuffed him into that car, and I haven’t heard any gunshots, but you need to call your partner in case I lose them.”

  Charlie felt a mixture of hope and despair. So Seth and the three men were in a moving vehicle, not at their destination, and Sam was behind them.

  “So where the hell have you been?” she asked.

  “Buying a new charger for my cell phone.” Sam sounded perturbed. “I know, I know. If I’d just gone back earlier, he might still be there.”

  Charlie thought a moment. “Or you’d both have been captured.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Seth ticked off details, hoping his faulty memory would recall them all, but what he noticed most about his predicament was that, as when he was with Charlie, his body remembered things his mind didn’t. His first inclination was for fight then flight, but something told him to remain calm. If they were going to kill him, they’d have done it already. No, they were taking him to meet someone…his former employer, the man responsible for Martin’s and Lawson’s deaths.

  He was stuffed into the backseat between the two men who had abducted him, his face pushed between his knees. They told him to remain quiet, and he did just the opposite. As soon as the driver gunned the engine, Seth reared his head and gouged both men in the ribs at the same time. Not my fault you tied my hands in front of me.

  With his fists, he slammed each man in the face, first one—then the other, busting their noses. Then he leaned to the side, grasping Mr. Denim’s gun hand and aiming it at Mr. Las Vegas before Vegas could fire off a round. With Vegas pulling a bead on him and Denim’s fingers reflexively struggling to get off a shot of his own, the outcome was inevitable.

  Denim shot Vegas, with Seth aiming the gun. One man down, two to go.

  Seth quickly grabbed the gun when Vegas dropped it then shoved his body against the fallen man to be able to detect if the creep was still alive. Then Seth leveled the downed man’s gun on the driver, and soon he, the driver and Denim were in a triangular stand-off, with Denim shakily holding a gun on Seth and Seth holding one on their driver.

  “Shoot me, and we all die,�
�� Seth warned Denim.

  “How about I just shoot you anyway, you crazy bastard?” Denim spurted blood as he spoke.

  “Doesn’t matter to me,” Seth told him, “because you’ll kill me anyway. I might as well take you two down with me.”

  The driver pitched forward as if grabbing something from underneath the seat, and Seth quickly shot through the car’s seat cushion, causing the driver to scream in pain, swerve and clutch his butt.

  “You want some of this?” Seth asked Denim as the startled man continued shaking, aiming and yelling.

  Denim screamed obscenities and told their driver to keep driving.

  “Doesn’t matter to me,” Seth repeated. All the while his eyes darted from Denim’s eyes to his trigger finger, watching for the first flinch and preparing to kill. Whatever type of man he’d been before, he knew in that instant that he was trained to survive and that he detested killing anyone, so he prayed Denim would be smart. If it got bloody, then so be it, but Seth wasn’t letting them kidnap him because he knew as sure as he was staring at them that they had every intention of killing him if there was anything left after Rogers got through with him.

  “What’s your name?” Seth asked the man in the backseat with him. “I can’t go on thinking of you as the guy with bad taste in clothing.”

  “Fuck you.” Denim swung the gun at Seth’s face.

  “I don’t think so.” Seth fired the gun directly into the man’s gun hand then swiftly banged him on the temple with the butt of the gun he’d confiscated from his other kidnapper.

  The car ground to a halt, and before the driver could reach for his door handle, Seth placed the gun in the back of his skull. “You’ve already got a constipation problem with bullets. Want to go for a headache as well?”

  The man sat stock-still. “No.” His voice quivered with pain and fear.

  “Press the release on the trunk, then hand me the keys,” Seth commanded, waiting while the driver did as told. “Now lie down across the front seat with your face pressed against the leather and your hands across the back of your head where I can see them.”

  Then Seth instructed Denim to get out and crawl into the trunk.

  “But I’m bleeding, man!” Denim wailed.

  “Guess you should have told me your name.” Seth heard a car door several feet away slam shut, and he hoped it was someone with a cell phone who could call the cops because he couldn’t afford to take his eyes off the two men he’d wounded.

  “Shut up, Geraldo.” The man with his face buried in the front seat complained. “At least you can sit.”

  “Geraldo, huh?” Seth pushed aside the first man he’d shot and unlatched the back door. He crawled out, gun still trained on Geraldo. “Nice and easy, Geraldo. At least with one hand you can fight those who want to make you their girlfriend in prison.”

  “Fuck that.” Geraldo stared cold black daggers at Seth. “I ain’t goin’ back there.”

  Seth lifted his eyes to see strong hands grasping Geraldo by the waist and hauling him out of the car backward.

  “Thank Christ!” Geraldo babbled. “This crazy mother—”

  Sam’s ironic laughter was like a symphony to Seth’s ears. “Oh, don’t you wish you had someone else coming to your rescue?” He boxed Geraldo’s ears and slammed his body against the car. “Spread ’em, and consider your rights having been read to you as if I was still on the force.”

  Seth met Sam’s gaze across the hood of the car, and Sam nodded.

  “Of course, my buddy over there,” Sam told Geraldo. “I believe he can still recite the words you love to hear.”

  Seth nodded and proceeded to deliver the Miranda to both Geraldo and his friend with the bullet in his butt. He’d no sooner finished than he heard the first plunk, then the next…and he saw Sam fall to the ground.

  When he whirled to see who had fired the shots, he stared in disbelief as Runnels held a gun in his face. The bastard shrugged without smiling. Then as Seth stared in horror, he watched as the Fed finished off the driver and Geraldo. Finally he spoke.

  “Sorry, Seth.”

  Charlie arrived at the location Sam had given her, and her blood froze.

  “Oh, no, Daddy! No!” She raced to where he lay and felt his pulse. It was thready, but it was there. She kissed his face, then ripped open his shirt, feeling the hard Kevlar beneath her fingers.

  As it dawned on her he’d worn his old vest, she was giddy with relief. “Oh, God, Sam. You kept not only your gun but your vest.”

  He stirred in her arms, swearing as he came around. “Oh, shit, that hurts.” He tried to sit up, struggling against the constraints of the vest, wincing.

  Charlie heard footsteps and turned to see Julio coming up behind her.

  “Hijo de puta!” Julio knelt beside Charlie and Sam. “I radioed for backup and an ambulance. Thank God he’s alive.”

  “Yeah, but that bastard took Seth,” Sam complained. “One of those guys I clobbered at your house, Charlene.”

  “What? Who?”

  “Think his name starts with an R.”

  Charlie stood and with Julio’s help got Sam to his feet. “What men? The Feds?”

  “Yeah, the tallest one with the buzz cut.”

  “Runnels?”

  “That’s the one. Big guy. I saw him coming up but never put two and two together until after it was too late.”

  She wanted to cry. The whole time she and Seth were with Runnels and Stone, one of them was feeding Rogers information.

  “What about his partner?” Julio asked. “If one’s dirty—maybe the other?”

  “One way to find out,” Charlie said. “Call Bemo and tell him what’s happened.”

  Julio did as she suggested while Charlie tended to her father. “What were you thinking?” She helped rid him of the bulletproof vest.

  “I thought we’d have coffee, that I’d get him out of your apartment, get to know him.” Sam’s voice was gruff, and he moaned a couple of times as Charlie felt his ribcage. “Leave me alone—I’m fine, just sore.”

  “You need to get checked out.”

  “What I need is my gun and a helicopter so I can follow them. Don’t suppose you’d have one of those handy, would you?”

  Charlie started to respond but paused, thinking. She looked up at the street light and saw the camera attached. “No, but I have the next best thing.” She quickly dialed Bemo’s cell number. “Did Julio give you our location? How about pulling feed from the camera at this intersection and checking for a license plate and the direction that car went afterward?”

  Sam leaned against the abandoned vehicle when she was done. “How soon before we can leave this intersection?”

  Charlie looked around. “Maybe fifteen or twenty minutes? They’ll need to take your statement.”

  “You take it.”

  “Member of the family, Dad. Someone else needs to take both our statements.” She motioned for Julio to come back over.

  Sam rubbed his sore chest and stomach. “Damn, but that still hurts. Beats taking the bullet, though.”

  She guffawed, choking back a sob. “You’re like a cat in clover. You miss this.”

  “Like hell.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “Maybe just a bit. Don’t miss it enough to give up my retirement.”

  Charlie leaned against the car next to him. Professionalism warred with personal feelings of inadequacy in not knowing yet how to help Seth. “He’s screwed, isn’t he?”

  Her father sighed. “Depends upon whether or not he catches a break, a moment when nobody’s paying enough attention. He doesn’t seem like a talkative sort, not like your new partner, so I suspect he’ll have to rely on intuition instead of baffling them with bullshit.”

  She blinked back the tears. “No, he’s not much of a conversationalist, but he’s smart. He’ll figure out a way to outmaneuver them.”

  Charlie’s heart broke. She’d lost him once—she couldn’t conceive of losing him again, this time permanently.

  Her
life had been full before she’d met him, but it hadn’t been complete. She’d rediscovered a relationship with a father who’d been absent during most of her formative years. She’d come to peace with a mother who was a few sandwiches shy of a picnic. Her career was everything she could have hoped for…and more. Maybe she didn’t have the exceptional paychecks or exciting nightlife many of her friends did, but she’d been happy. The thought of a future without Seth, however, was unimaginably bleak, and the thought of not having him near, not being able to talk to him, to feel his touch…it was devastating.

  “I can’t lose him again, Dad. He has to stay alive until we can reach him.”

  Sam reached for her hand. “I hope he will, baby girl.”

  Seth knew better than to struggle against the odds he faced. Better to do as Runnels said and go along peacefully. He knew without a doubt, though, that Runnels would kill him in an instant and that his plans were to do just that anyway, once he and Rogers had whatever information they needed.

  He thought fast. The only thing keeping him alive was the fact that Runnels and Rogers had no idea just how much Seth had recalled after that meeting with Stone and Runnels or if Seth had divulged what he’d remembered to a third party. He had—Charlie. Charlie knew as much as he did, which meant that if he couldn’t escape and reach her before they did, she’d be dead.

  Seeing Sam get shot had been a nightmare. The only thing that puzzled Seth, in retrospect, was the stance Runnels had used—definitely not anything he’d learned at the academy, more like a street fighter who held the gun sideways like some big city thug gangsta wannabe.

  Seth’s initial reaction had been panic until he remembered what a bullet hitting bone or muscle sounded like, and what he’d heard was similar but not exact. The old man had evidently kept most of his gear when he retired. So most likely Sam was alive unless someone else had followed behind Runnels to complete the job.

  Doubtful. Runnels wasn’t the type who needed someone to clean up after him, and he wasn’t afraid of doing the dirty work himself, if the executions Seth had witnessed were indicative. Geraldo and his accomplices had been wounded and therefore a hindrance to Runnels, so they had to be silenced before anyone found them, and blood left a pretty well-telegraphed trail. No medical facility would have touched them without filing a report, and the men wouldn’t have survived long without attention. Seth felt guilty for having shot both of them, even though he hadn’t aimed to kill, merely to keep from being murdered.