“What time did Sloane call the guy?” Mason asked, his mouth dry.
“It was around eleven o’clock.”
“And you guys were listening in on the conversation, right? What did they talk about?”
“She said she remembered him, that her memory was coming back in bits and pieces, like you mentioned, and that they used to travel together. I guess she wanted to find out if he knew why she was up in Monroe.”
“And?” It was Mason’s turn to prompt.
“And he said he hadn’t worked with Sakkas for the past year and didn’t have any clue as to why she was here in Monroe. But he did know that she was still here. After that, the call disconnected.”
“And you didn’t find any of that strange?”
“If you had been listening in, would you?”
He had to admit, probably not. It would have seemed like a perhaps awkward conversation between two people who were once friends, but nothing more. Sloane was obviously reaching out, trying to bolster a memory. How was it that she could remember phone numbers, such as that belonging to this David guy, but not why she was in Monroe, what she was doing in that auto shop, or why she had ended up recording a murder?
Jesus Christ.
“Mason?”
“What?” he snapped. He bit his lip, thinking. What could he do? Where would he go to look for her? He had no idea what she was thinking. Other memories she might have recalled since the last time he had left her at the safe house. Memories that she hadn’t told him about? “Damn it, Sloane,” he muttered.
“We’ll call you as soon as we find out anything.” A pause. “There is a chance, and I think you know it, that she simply just walked away. She got her memory back or maybe even if she didn’t. You said so yourself—she felt like she was stuck in limbo, unable to move forward. Maybe she just figured she needed to take that first step. Alone.”
A surge of fear and frustration rose within him. Images of what could happen flashed through his mind, along with a sensation of the world spinning out of control. Sloane was gone. Again. Mason clenched his jaw and then heaved a heavy sigh. While he didn’t want to admit it, the detective could be right. Sloane didn’t owe him any explanations. He wasn’t her keeper. He wasn’t her boyfriend or her fiancé. He was a one-night stand, at least to this point. So what if they’d had a relationship in the past. It was a long time ago. With her memory loss, he was a stranger to her . . . or may as well be.
He had no idea what was going on in her mind. She hadn’t told him about David, if she’d remembered that before they’d last seen each other. What else hadn’t she told him? He couldn’t compare the Sloane today with the Sloane of ten years ago. My God, they had been kids back then. College students. She was a grown woman now. God only knew what she had been doing in the past ten years, or even if she . . . it was pointless. Trying to figure it all out. The only person who knew what compelled her to leave was Sloane herself. Did he even have a right to be angry about it? No. It wasn’t anger that he felt at the moment. It was gut-churning fear.
What if . . . what if she was involved in that man’s murder? What if that video she had taken on her phone was proof to be delivered to someone else? What if she had—no, he couldn’t think that way. He couldn’t picture the Sloane Maxwell he knew as being that kind of a person today. Yes, people changed. But so completely? No, he couldn’t believe it.
So maybe the detective was right. Maybe Sloane had simply decided to walk away. Again. Without an explanation. Did he have any right to stop her? To pursue her?
“Mason? I’ll call you as soon as I find out anything more.”
The detective disconnected the call. Once again Mason swore. Like hell they would. He needed to be there. He glanced down at his watch. His shift didn’t end for another four hours. Maybe the chief would understand. And if he didn’t? To hell with it. He needed to find Sloane. He couldn’t let her disappear from his life again. Not like this. But first he needed to find her and find out whether she’d left of her own free will or if something had gone horribly wrong—and if somehow her old boss was involved. Someone had tried to kill her twice. She shouldn’t be trusting anyone. Even him. And yet she had slipped away from the two undercover officers watching her apartment. Why would she do that?
Why?
22
Sloane
Sloane tried to hide her fear, biting her lip to stop it trembling. She contracted inwardly, her knees pressed tightly together, her arms tucked against her sides, fingers interlocked so tightly they turned white, shoulders hunched as if doing so would make her smaller, less of a target.
“You—”
“Shut up,” Sakkas snapped. “You’ve ruined everything. Everything!” His gaze darted toward her as he quickly changed lanes and then turned right.
What had she ruined? They were zipping down the street. Maybe she could open the door, roll out of the car. Sloane glanced down at the door side panel. Nothing. A quick glance at the console between the seats. Her heart pounding with fear and her thoughts more than confused, she couldn’t tell which switch on the console unlocked the doors or rolled the windows down. They traveled a block and then another, and looking ahead down the road, she saw the on-ramp to the freeway. No, no, no! If they got onto the freeway, there was no way she’d be able to jump out of the car. She had no idea what where he planned to take her, or why. She risked a glance in his direction, his profile triggering a memory.
“Why—”
“I told you to shut up!” Sakkas snapped, spittle shooting from his mouth.
Her pulse was pounding and her ears buzzing. She felt lightheaded.
Don’t faint!
Sloane forced herself to swallow, to take a deep breath, and exhale slowly. She had to keep her wits about her. She mentally kicked herself for leaving the safety of the apartment, for thinking that she could just go sit in the park and while away the morning, ignoring the potential danger. “How did you—.” She clamped her mouth shut as Sakkas sent a fierce glare her way.
His fingers tightly gripped the steering wheel, white not with fear, but with anger. A vein in his forehead pulsed with heightened emotion. She glanced downward and saw the butt of the revolver nestled between his legs, near his crotch. He could have his hand wrapped around the handle of that gun in a matter of seconds, aim it at her, and pull the trigger. Sloane tried not to think about what would happen then, but she couldn’t stop her morbid imagination—the back of her head exploding in a shower of blood, bone, and brain matter that would stick to the passenger-side window. Her head slumping forward. Sagging against the door, or maybe to the side where she would end up leaning against him, eyes wide and staring at him in dead, silent accusation. Unfortunately, that might be the only way anyone driving past would notice that there was something wrong, that she had been kidnapped. That her old boss was planning . . . planning what?
Sakkas accelerated and took the on-ramp, cutting off another car turning onto the ramp. Tires squealed, and the sound of a horn honking echoed behind them. In seconds, downtown Monroe swept past. Then came a residential area spanning both sides of the highway, this too gradually decreasing until the only thing she could see were the occasional farm gates and croplands. After what seemed like forever but could only have been maybe ten to twelve miles, Sakkas abruptly took the next off-ramp. Sloane looked at him sharply, confused. Where were they going? Back to Monroe? A roundabout way back to Charleston, to that pawn shop? Or had he changed his mind? Decided that he didn’t want to risk someone seeing her in his car?
“Aren’t we going—”
He quickly glanced in the rearview mirror and sent another glare her way. God, when was she going to learn to keep her mouth shut? Next time she spoke, Sakkas might get sick of glaring and pick up his gun instead.
About three hundred yards past the off-ramp, the Mercedes approached a turnout surrounded by trees. A picnic bench on one side, a dark green Porta Potty at the other. Sakkas decelerated, stepping on the brake so hard the back end of the car sw
erved in the loose dirt. Sloane reached one hand for the car door handle and placed the other on the dashboard to brace herself. The car stopped so suddenly that a cloud of dirt rose behind them and slowly filtered over the hood. He slammed the car into park. With one hand on the steering wheel, the other grasping the back of the seat cushion behind her head, he leaned toward her, his face red with rage. Lips pulled back over his teeth, his grimace threatening, he spoke slowly and distinctly.
“I told you I didn’t want to hear a word.” He reached for the gun between his legs and pointed the barrel at her face.
Sloane stared down the silver-plated barrel of the snub-nosed revolver. She held her breath, not daring to move even a fraction of an inch. She wanted to scream, to cry, anything to rid herself of the adrenaline surge racing through her, triggering her instinctual desire to flee. She swallowed, hard, almost choking from the dryness in her throat. The fingers of her right hand still tightly clutched the car-door handle, the other still braced on the dash.
“I swear, Sloane, if you say one more word before I’m ready to talk, I’m going to bash your teeth in. Do you understand that?”
His voice was deceptively calm now. Too calm. That was even scarier than his snarling and snapping. She offered the slightest of nods. He stared at her for several moments and then slowly placed the revolver, barrel side down between his legs again, and then shifted the car back into drive mode. After a quick glance through his side mirror, he pulled back onto the highway.
Stunned, feeling nauseous and dizzy with terror, Sloane stared at the road ahead. Strange, she was in a daze—shock, she supposed—but her senses heightened to an impressive degree. She saw the asphalt so clearly she could make out the shape of the pebbles composing it. The trees by the roadside, their leaves quivering, the bark rough and in varying shades of white, gray, and brown. The sky, incredibly blue. Under any other circumstances, an idyllic morning. A morning like any other.
Would this be her last morning? Would she live long enough to see afternoon? Her stomach roiled and she swallowed hard again, but didn’t move. She struggled to keep her harsh breathing under control so as not to further anger Sakkas. He’d shoot her this time. She knew it. She didn’t dare look at him. Funny, though—she didn’t recognize him. His face at least. The only thing that triggered any kind of memory was his voice. His accent. Still, her relationship with him, or why he was so angry with her, or even what he meant when he said she had ruined everything, remained a mystery. This was about as close to whatever the fuck was going on as she could get, and yet there’d been no great unraveling, no sudden burst of memories. Maybe they weren’t ever going to come back? That was something she was going to have to hide if she wanted to stay alive.
Sloane had so many questions but didn’t dare open her mouth again, at least not yet. Though her mind was spinning in a number of horrifying directions, she finally realized that the car was heading back in the direction they had come, toward Monroe. She frowned. Where was he taking her? And when they got there, what was he going to do to her?
They traveled on back roads, turning this way and that until she lost all sense of direction. He maintained the speed limit so as not to attract attention. She began to once again see the farms, then the neighborhoods, and then a sign.
Welcome to Monroe – The friendliest town in the South!
Established 1797
Population 13,000
He took the business road and soon they neared an industrial complex. Low-slung brick structures common to the area. Age undetermined. He pulled the black Mercedes up into a narrow alleyway between two buildings, so it couldn’t be seen from the street. The building on the right had windows boarded up with plywood. The edges of the windows looked black. Fire damage?
Her attention was pulled from the building on the right toward Sakkas as he parked the car and turned off the engine. He grasped the butt of the revolver and pointed it at her.
“I’m going to get out. I’m going to move around the front of the car and open your door. You will not move. If you do, I’ll shoot you.”
She said nothing. No need to even acknowledge that she had heard him. Why was he doing this to her? What was he . . . no, what were they involved in? She glanced down, and saw the large bandage still on her left forearm from the Jeep explosion. Mason! Sloane desperately wished she was wrapped in his arms, her cheek resting against his solid chest, listening to the murmur of his heartbeat beneath it. She wanted—
Her door opened. “Get out.”
The moment she stepped out of the car, Sakkas grabbed a handful of her shirt and pulled her along, making his way toward a heavy metal door in the side of the building. Single-story brick, like the one next door, with windows dirtied with years’ worth of dust, dirt, and heavy, thick, drooping spider webs. He pushed her up against the metal door and ordered her to remain still. Palms and cheek pressed flat against the metal, she obeyed. Keys jingled close to her ear and then he unlocked the door. Sakkas grabbed her injured forearm and jerked her back so forcefully Sloane felt the pain shoot through her elbow and shoulder. She bit back a cry.
She stumbled over her own feet as he yanked her toward him, opened the door, and then shoved her roughly inside the darkness. She stumbled and fell, biting back another cry of pain as momentum propelled her forward until she barely managed to stop her fall with her hands, just a second before her face made contact with the cement floor.
Having no doubt that the barrel of the gun was pointed squarely at her back, Sloane slowly pushed herself back up onto her hands and knees, then rose, her legs wobbly from fear. Sakkas stepped briefly to the side and flipped a switch. They stood in a dimly lit hallway, a single bare bulb at the far end lighting the way. Two doors on the right, both shut. One on the left, about halfway down, and then one more door at the very end of the hallway just past the light bulb.
“Go.”
He nudged her with the gun barrel and she hesitantly stepped forward. Her knees must have been scraped in the fall and a thin trickle of blood dripped down one of her shins. The closer she got to the door at the end of the hallway, the more her heart pounded. Amazing, really. Just a few moments ago in the car, she thought she’d never be more scared than that. She’d been wrong.
This was worse. Much worse.
Sloane paused in front of the door as Sakkas placed the hand holding the gun on her shoulder, the tip of the gun barrel kissing the edge of her ear. He reached around her with the other, turned the doorknob, and pushed it open. Inside was a large storeroom, or least it used to be. Now it was filled with empty, dusty shelves. It was about the size of a two-car garage.
“Over there,” he ordered, gesturing toward the far wall, half of it covered with wooden shelving, the other half bare from ceiling to floor. He gave her a light shove.
Sloane stepped toward the wall, her shoulder blades pressed together, instinctively preparing herself for the impact of a bullet. This was it. She knew without a doubt that she was going to die. He couldn’t let her go, not after all this.
No escape. The only possibility was the door through which she had just entered. There was a small window high in the wall, no more than ten inches square, if that. Even if she had been able to squeeze through that hole, somehow, the outside of the window was covered with heavy metal mesh wire.
“Sit down, cross-legged on the floor. Cross your arms over your chest.”
She did as he instructed, staring up at them, willing her brain to remember him. In his early to mid-fifties, he had wide cheekbones and olive-toned skin. Heavy eyebrows over dark green eyes. A wide nose and thin lips. Large ears and a bit of a double chin. No recognition. He stood in the doorway, staring down at her.
“You’ve become a bit of a problem, you know that?”
She said nothing.
“You can’t imagine how surprised I was to hear that you’d been pulled out of that burning building. Never would’ve imagined that in a thousand years. And then your claims of amnesia? How utterly co
nvenient.”
“I didn’t remember—”
“Shut up!” The gun lifted again, the barrel aimed in her direction. She swallowed, taut with anxiety. His eyes were angry and wild, his grimace expressing dissatisfaction.
“You and your firefighter friend, playing detective, traveling down to Savannah, nosing around. What exactly were you trying to find out?” The gun barrel remained trained on her. “So you found out about the apartment there? And then, in spite of your claimed memory loss, you set the Feebs on me—”
“I didn’t—”
He pulled the trigger and fired. Sloane screamed and covered her face with her hands as the roar filled the room. A chunk of plaster exploded from the wall less than a foot away from her head. Bits of it stung her cheek. Her ears rang as he continued to scream at her.
“I told you not to open your damned mouth!” he shouted. “You’ve ruined everything. Everything!” He began to pace, two paces to the right, then to the left, glancing occasionally at her in between.
She desperately wanted to ask questions but didn’t dare. What had she done? Why did he want her dead?
“You’ve ruined my entire operation. Now I have to relocate, and it’s all your fault!”
Relocate? Operation? What the hell was he talking about? More importantly, what was he going to do to her? If he wanted to kill her, why didn’t he just get it over with? Why bring her here? A horrifying thought slipped into her mind. Was he going to shoot her and then set the building on fire like he had attempted to do at the auto shop?
Wait. Why had she thought that? She hadn’t recognized the man who had stabbed the other one in the video. She looked back up at Sakkas. They were the same build. The same height.
Oh, God.
23
Mason
Mason paced in front of Lieutenant Bascom’s desk. “Are you telling me that you have no idea where he took her?”
From the Ashes (Southern Heat Book 1) Page 15
