“This apartment may not be what it seems,” she suggested. “Some agents keep a separate residence that they list on public documents to protect the privacy of their families. You could be married. We just don’t know where Anne Michelle lives.”
He surveyed the contents of the closet scattered across the floor. “Seems like too many clothes here for a second residence.”
He was right, but she couldn’t allow herself to accept that he wasn’t married. That belief stirred up too many dangerous emotions, and she needed a clear mind, unencumbered by sentiment. “If your wedding was recent, you may not have moved all your clothes out yet.”
His expression turned thoughtful. “If you’re right, the location of that other residence may be what our intruder was after, thinking that’s where I’m hiding.”
“There’s one way to find out. Let’s see if we can locate an address book. You search here. I’ll check the first floor.” She hastened downstairs to escape those familiar navy blue sheets and the unsettling memories they generated.
The sooner she found evidence of who pursued them, the sooner she could escape the exquisite torture of Stephen’s presence. Being with him the past few days had brought back with startling clarity how much she’d missed him, how much she had longed to share his daughter with him.
And how hard she’d tried to convince herself he’d been only a good friend.
She knelt beside a jumble of papers on the living room rug and began sorting. No point now in admitting how much she loved him. As soon as his memories returned, he’d go back to Anne Michelle.
Ignoring the jealousy raging within her, Rachel pawed through piles of bill receipts, appliance warranties and old programs from Atlanta Braves games, but she could find no trace of an address book. Not even a Christmas card list.
She flipped through books as she replaced them on their shelves, including a complete collection of the novels of Scott Turow and John Grisham, and John Douglas’s Mindhunter, relating his experiences as an FBI profiler, but she discovered nothing to indicate anything significant about Stephen’s life in Atlanta.
And no hint of who might be after them.
She had practically given up when she spotted a tiny corner of paper visible beneath the edge of the upholstered sofa skirt. Retrieving it, she found Anne Michelle Logan’s name etched in burgundy ink on a pale pink business card with the logo and downtown Atlanta address of Creative Marketing, where Stephen’s fiancée was an account executive.
Rachel started to call to Stephen, still upstairs, then changed her mind. Showing his face in Atlanta was too dangerous, even in disguise, but Rachel wasn’t known in the city. She could easily visit Anne Michelle’s office and find out whether the woman had been to work the past few days. If she could track Anne Michelle, Rachel might be able to discover who was stalking her and Stephen.
A shudder racked her. If Rachel could find Anne Michelle, so could the man who had shot Stephen. She wondered if Anne Michelle was still alive.
“Any luck, Doc?” Stephen called from the bottom of the stairs.
She shook her head and hid Anne Michelle’s card in her palm. “I didn’t find anything useful. And if the intruders found anything, like an address book, they took it with them. What about you?”
“Upstairs is clean,” he flashed a familiar grin that made her heart ache, “in a manner of speaking.”
“So we’ve hit another dead end.”
“Not exactly. I have an idea.”
Stephen’s ideas were legendary. Her skill was analyzing and interpreting hard evidence, but Stephen’s speciality was ferreting out information, often in ways no one else would have thought of.
“I’m listening,” she said.
“We check into a downtown hotel—”
“You’re not serious? What if somebody recognizes you?”
“I checked the Yellow Pages upstairs. There’s a privately owned hotel on Peachtree Street a few blocks from downtown. The Sidney Lanier. Their ad touts ‘privacy, peacefulness and discretion.’”
“Okay, for the sake of discussion, we check into the Lanier. Then what?”
“I request two weeks’ back issues of the Atlanta Constitution,” he said.
“You think our spider-tattoo hate group might have had some recent press?”
“The newspapers are as good a place to start as any.”
The corner of the business card cut into her hand, reminding Rachel that Anne Michelle’s office was on Peachtree Street. If they stayed at the Lanier, while Stephen studied back issues of the papers, Rachel could do some snooping on her own.
“Okay,” she said. “Anything you want to take with you from here?”
“Wearing my own clothes probably isn’t a good idea.” He rubbed the stubble on his cheek. “And I won’t be needing my shaving kit.”
She ran upstairs for her purse, shoved the business card into an inside pocket and joined Stephen downstairs.
Minutes later, they were headed for downtown Atlanta in the rented Blazer. Traffic on the interstate bypass was heavy, and Rachel stayed alert for signs directing her to downtown. Stephen kept his attention on the rearview mirrors.
“Anybody following us?” she asked.
“Besides several thousand commuters on their way home from work?” he asked with a wry grimace. “Hard to tell. There’s a dark blue sedan that looks familiar a few car lengths back, but in this jam, can’t tell whether it’s on our tail or just caught in traffic.”
Rachel took the exit for downtown, and the blue sedan followed. Along with a few hundred other vehicles. Ahead of them the Atlanta skyline with its impressive gold-domed capitol building stood silhouetted against the afternoon sun.
Soon they were traveling a one-way street between the city’s skyscrapers.
“Turn here,” Stephen directed.
Rachel maneuvered the turn onto Peachtree Street. “Is that sedan still behind us?”
Stephen craned his neck and observed over the rear seat. “Looks like it.”
“Coincidence?”
“I don’t believe in coincidence.” He faced the front and peered through the windshield. “There’s the entrance to the Sidney Lanier. Turn in that store lot across the street and park, and we’ll see what the blue car does.”
Rachel whipped into the parking lot opposite the hotel and pulled into an empty space.
The blue sedan shot straight past without slowing.
She shut off the engine, but made no move to get out of the car. She’d done surveillance too many times to be convinced by the car’s disappearance that it hadn’t been on their tail. If it was trailing them, the driver would circle the block, giving them time to go inside before he returned and parked where he could watch their car.
“How long should we wait?” she asked Stephen.
He unhooked his seat belt and settled back in his seat. “If they’re not back in thirty minutes, we’ll check into the hotel. If that car passes again, we’ll have to shake them and look for another place to stay.”
For almost forty-five minutes, they watched the street. When they caught no sign of the dark blue sedan again, they drove across to the hotel lot, retrieved their luggage from the back of the blazer and entered the hotel.
Neither of them had noticed a man in a brown leather jacket, hidden in a viburnum hedge half a block down the street, who observed them as intently as they surveyed the passing traffic.
When Rachel and Stephen entered the hotel with their luggage, he ground out the cigarette he’d been smoking and sprinted a half block to the dark blue sedan, parked out of sight of the hotel entrance.
“Did they check in?” the man behind the wheel asked the observer.
“Yeah, luggage and all.”
“Do we take ’em now?”
The man in the bomber jacket shook his head. “Not yet.”
“So what do we do?”
“We wait.”
Chapter Nine
Stephen surveyed the small but elegant
lobby. At the far end of the room an elderly couple sat before a crackling fire in wing chairs upholstered in needlepoint. Paintings of English landscapes and hunting scenes graced the muted walls, rich oriental rugs provided a splash of color on the gleaming hardwood floor, and arrangements of fall flowers had been placed on every surface. Polished brass, sparkling mullioned windows, and a pervasive hint of lemon oil testified to the hotel’s immaculate housekeeping.
“Nice,” Rachel murmured beside him.
“Do me a favor,” he said. “Wait here in the lobby a few minutes.”
Her deep green eyes widened in alarm. “What are you going to do?”
“Find us a room. It won’t take long.”
“You won’t leave the hotel?”
He shook his head.
“Okay.” Her expression still puzzled, she crossed the lobby, settled on a camelback sofa in front of a spacious bay window and picked up a copy of Southern Living from the coffee table.
Stephen approached the registration desk.
“May I help you, sir?” the young female clerk behind the desk asked in a quiet, cultured drawl.
He cast a glance over his shoulder at Rachel, who raised her gaze from the magazine and flashed him a quizzical smile. Turning back to the clerk with what he hoped was an ingratiating smile, he leaned over the counter and whispered, “My wife is terrified of being caught in a hotel fire. Do you have a suite on the first floor?”
The clerk’s ready smile dissolved. “I’m sorry, sir, but only our restaurant, gift shop and conference rooms occupy the first floor.” Her expression brightened. “But I have a suite on the third floor that might suit your needs. Would you like to see it?”
“Please.”
She rang a silver bell, and at its discreet chime, an elderly black bellman appeared. She reached into a cubbyhole behind the desk and extracted a key. “Josiah, show this gentleman to Suite 345, and be sure to point out the fire escape.”
“This way, sir.”
Stephen followed the tall, rake-thin man to a bank of elevator doors. Before Josiah could push the up button, Stephen asked, “Mind if we use the stairs?”
“Whatever you say, sir.”
Josiah turned to the right and ambled down a wide corridor and Stephen followed, taking in every possible exit. They passed a glass-fronted restaurant and several shops before reaching the stairwell at the end of the hall. Josiah swung open the door, and Stephen climbed the stairs behind him to the third-floor landing.
In the hallway, subdued lighting from brass wall sconces illuminated the long expanse from one end of the building to the other. A red exit sign glowed over a stairwell at the far end.
“Are these stairwells the only exits?” Stephen asked. “My wife worries about fire.”
“Except for the elevators, yes, sir.” Josiah stopped midway down the hall and used the room key to open a door located directly across from the elevators. “And the fire escape from this suite.”
Stephen entered a room as tastefully decorated as the lobby. “Do all the rooms have fire escapes?”
“No, sir. The owner used to live here and had one installed when he had the balcony built.” Josiah opened a pair of French doors and stepped onto a miniature balcony with a sweeping view of downtown Atlanta.
Stephen joined him on the balcony. “Quite a view.”
“Yes, sir. And the fire escape leads down there.” Josiah pointed to a one-story building that jutted out beyond the footprint of the main hotel. “That wing there is the restaurant. A fire escape at the south end of that building leads to the ground.”
Stephen nodded. The suite was perfect with three avenues of escape, not counting the elevators. Satisfied, he returned to the lobby with Josiah via the elevator and motioned for Rachel to join him.
“The rooms are exactly what we need,” Stephen told the clerk as he signed the register and handed her a deposit from the cash Rachel had received for his check at a Flat Rock bank.
“We’re happy to have you as our guests.” The clerk swiveled the register toward her and glanced at Stephen’s signature, “Dr. Newman, Mrs. Newman, let me assure you that our hotel has a state-of-the-art sprinkler and fire alarm system.”
Rachel looked confused. “Thank you.”
The clerk handed Stephen the room key. “If there’s anything else you need—”
“As a matter of fact, there is,” Stephen said. “Is it possible to get two weeks’ back issues of the local paper?”
The clerk nodded. “I’m sure the concierge can accommodate you. Will tomorrow morning be soon enough?”
“Fine, thanks.” Stephen grabbed the suitcase with one hand and Rachel’s elbow with the other and steered her into the waiting elevator.
“Sprinkler system?” she asked with an amused look. “What was that all about?”
“I told the clerk you had a phobia of hotel fires.”
“I thought we’d agreed not to call attention to ourselves.”
“This was worth the risk. Not only do we have a room with a view, we have a balcony with a fire escape.”
“Good work, Chandler. Your memory may be gone, but otherwise your brain is firing on all cylinders.”
The bright approval shining in her face hit him like a sucker punch. When the elevator doors slid open, he wanted nothing more than to lift her in his arms, carry her across the threshold, and—
Damn.
His brain couldn’t be functioning all that well if he was allowing Rachel to distract him. Without his memory, he had to rely on his instincts, but how could he trust his sixth sense, when it was broadcasting patterns and undercurrents he didn’t understand?
He opened the door to the suite and followed Rachel inside. She disappeared into the adjoining bedroom and immediately reemerged, her face flaming.
“What’s going on?” she demanded.
“I’ve been wondering that myself.”
“Don’t tap-dance with me. There’s only one bed in there.”
He stepped to the bedroom doorway. A king-size bed with a quilted coverlet dominated one wall. Without warning, visions of Rachel, asleep in his arms, her blond hair spread across his bare chest, popped into his mind.
A fantasy?
The memory seemed too vivid, too real.
He turned back to Rachel, no longer the blonde of his dream but an auburn-haired spitfire who looked ready to chew nails. He’d never get the facts out of her if she didn’t calm down first.
“No problem,” he said. “I can sleep on one of the sofas in the sitting room.”
“Sorry,” she muttered, her anger changing quickly to embarrassment. “I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. Nerves, I guess.”
“It’s more than nerves.” He stepped close enough to place his hand beneath her chin and tilt her face until their gazes met. She tried to look away, but he held her fast. “You’re not being straight with me. I can feel it.”
She blinked rapidly, as if thinking quickly, shrugged off his hand and turned away. “You’re imagining things.”
“I thought so, too, at first. But the memory is too persistent. It has to be real.”
She grew very still, almost as if she’d stopped breathing, and continued to stare out the window at the Atlanta skyline, avoiding his eyes. When she spoke, her voice was soft and tentative. “What memory?”
“You. Me. Together.”
“Together?”
“Making love.”
“That’s...ridiculous.”
“Is it? Then why do I feel like that’s what I want more than anything else in the world this minute, to carry you into that bedroom and make love to you until we’re both too weak to move?”
“Don’t be silly.” Her words were breathless, tinged with desperation. “We’re like—”
“Brother and sister? I don’t think so.” In two quick strides, he reached her, twisted her toward him and wrapped his arms around her. He claimed her mouth with his, tasting her sweetness, and experienced the heady sensation of
coming home after a long absence.
She resisted his embrace only for an instant before yielding. Leaning against him, she stood on tiptoe to twine her fingers in his hair. He ran his hands from her shoulders to her waist, caressed her slender hips, then pushed aside her bulky sweater. When he touched the bare skin of her midriff, she gasped and jerked away.
“No,” she cried. “We can’t.”
He drew in a lungful of air to steady himself. He had loved this woman. He’d stake his life on it.
“Look me in the eye,” he said with a calm he didn’t feel. “Swear to me we’ve never been together, and I promise not to touch you again.”
She shook her head sadly. “It isn’t that simple.”
“The truth should be simple enough.”
“But it isn’t what it seems.”
“Try me.”
She took a deep breath and clasped her shaking hands in front of her. “We did make love, but only once. And that time was a mistake.”
“Kissing you just now didn’t feel like a mistake.”
“Hormones,” she said with a weak attempt at a smile. “You’re in love with Anne Michelle, remember?”
“Forget Anne Michelle.” The name had a familiar ring, but it evoked no emotion. “I’m talking about you and me. Tell me about the time we made love.”
“It was after your going-away party. We’d both had too much to drink or it would never have happened.”
He frowned. “That’s it? I made love to you one time, then moved away?”
Her face reddened with her discomfort. She obviously didn’t want to talk about their brief encounter. “I told you it was a mistake. Afterward we both knew it and decided to act as if it had never happened.”
“What I experienced a few minutes ago didn’t feel like a mistake. It felt right.”
“Our lovemaking then was a mistake—”
“Because of Jessica’s father?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered too quickly, “and it was a mistake just now because of Anne Michelle.”
“Then you felt it, too?”
“That our kissing was wrong?”
“No. That it was perfect.”
She raked her fingers through her hair in frustration. “How can you know it was perfect when you can’t remember Anne Michelle?”
Undercover Dad Page 12
