Circumstantial Memories

by Carol Ericson

  A muscle twitched in his jaw. “That’s not how it happened and you know it. Someone took her.”

  Julia cried out as the blunt truth slammed against her chest. Ryder gripped her hands.

  “I’m sorry. It’s my fault.” His shoulders slumped as he dropped his gaze to the ground.

  She’d never seen Ryder defeated and it made her mad as hell. She needed him now like she never had before. She squeezed his hands. “Stop. It’s not your fault. As a parent, you can’t be with your child twenty-four hours a day. You can’t cave in to a child’s every whim. If we’re playing the blame game here, then most of it’s right on my shoulders. I attracted this stalker somehow. I let him into our lives.”

  Ryder straightened his shoulders and gave her a little shake. “Let’s put the blame where it belongs—on this maniac who’s been terrorizing you and has now snatched Shelby. And let’s deal with him.”

  “How? We don’t know where he is. We don’t even know who he is. It could be Charlie. It could be one of those nut jobs who came out of the woodwork when my story broke. It could be a stranger. How are we going to find him and deal with him?”

  “He’ll find you, Julia. We both know what he wants and it’s not Shelby. She’s just a means to an end, just like Brody, just like Zack, just like Rosie.”

  “He wants me.”

  A chill zinged up her spine and she hunched her shoulders. Ryder pulled her into his arms, which represented her only safe harbor these days. He weaved his fingers through her hair, pulling her head back to look into her face.

  “We’ll get her back and then I’ll keep both of you safe forever…or die trying.”

  By the set of his jaw and the fire in his eyes, Julia knew he meant every word. “How do you think he’ll contact me?”

  “How has he always contacted you?”

  “My house.”

  RYDER LET the search and rescue team carry on, but he knew they wouldn’t find Shelby at the bottom of a ravine. He drove Julia to her house with the excuse to the others that he and Julia had a few places to search.

  When they swung through her front gate, disappointment stabbed his gut when he saw the empty porch. He figured the man who kidnapped Shelby might have left Julia another message on her porch.

  “Nothing’s here.” Julia stumbled on the first step and Ryder grabbed her around the waist. Then she pulled her shoulders back and planted her feet on the ground. “Should we leave and give him another chance or do you think he expects an ambush now?”

  He admired her courage in the face of this crippling blow. After that first moment of anguish, she’d been handling Shelby’s abduction better than he’d been coping.

  “Maybe we should ambush him.”

  “No! He still has Shelby.”

  Julia’s cell phone rang and as she reached for it, Ryder gripped her arm and said, “Don’t tell the Sheriff’s Department anything yet. We don’t want to spook the guy by having the police trampling along the trails looking for him.”

  Before she answered the phone, she glanced at the incoming number. Gasping, she held the phone out for him to see.

  The display read, Zack.

  Ryder hissed, “It’s him. He still has Zack’s cell phone.”

  “Hello?” Julia covered her mouth, her eyes wide above her hand. “Yes. Yes. I won’t.” She paused. “Don’t hurt her.”

  She snapped the phone shut and hugged herself. That was his job. He wrapped his arms around her stiff body. “What did he say? Was it Charlie?”

  “I—I don’t think so. His voice was low, almost a whisper. I didn’t recognize it, but then I don’t think he wanted me to.”

  “Is Shelby okay?” He held his breath. If anything happened to his daughter, he’d rip this guy apart with his bare hands.

  “She sounds fine. I heard her in the background.”

  “What does he want you to do?”

  “He wants me to meet him at The Twirling Ballerinas.” A tremble rolled through her frame. “Alone.”

  “Like hell.”

  “Once he has me, he’ll send Shelby back.”

  “Police?”

  “No. He said he knows what the San Juan County Sheriff’s Department is doing at all times. If he suspects any police involvement he’ll…” She buried her face in his chest.

  “Did he mention me?”

  Pulling away from him, she tilted her head, the setting sun catching a single tear sparkling on her dark lashes. “No. Isn’t that odd? Whether or not it’s Charlie, he must know about your involvement. He slashed your tires.”

  “When are you supposed to meet him?”

  “Right now. I have to leave now.”

  “We have to leave now.” He had no intention of allowing Julia to walk into this alone and trade herself for Shelby. He planned to save his daughter, protect Julia and ground this SOB into the dirt.

  “How are you going to stay out of sight? If he knows what the Sheriff’s Department is doing, maybe he’s watching all of us.”

  “He probably has a police scanner.” He smoothed her hair back from her face. “And don’t forget, these trails and mountains served as my playground when I was growing up. Nobody knows them like the McClintocks.”

  “Charlie?”

  “Moved here as a teenager when his father died. He’s not a local.”

  Julia smoothed her palms across his chest, the anxious lines on her face retreating. “I trust you, Ryder.”

  He pressed his lips against her smooth cheek. She had a helluva lot more faith in him than he did in himself, but the full measure of her trust made him believe he could slay dragons for his family.

  TEN MINUTES LATER, Ryder clambered up the side of a cliff, taking the shortcut and a rough path one level above and parallel to The Twirling Ballerinas Trail. He’d traded his boots for a pair of running shoes he had stashed in his truck and crept silently along the pathway, tangled with underbrush and rock.

  He followed Julia, occasionally catching sight of her red sweatshirt in the gathering darkness on the trail below him. Once she reached the clearing with the three towering pinnacles of rock known as The Twirling Ballerinas, he crouched in a hollowed-out boulder, which gave him a clear view of the expanse of ground below.

  Julia stepped into the clearing, facing the fantastic rock formations, and cried out, “Hello? It’s Julia. I’m here. Where’s my daughter?”

  “Over here.” A man’s voice, deepened by the acoustics of the caves called back.

  Ryder’s gut clenched. The man was in the labyrinth of caves behind The Twirling Ballerinas. Had he been hiding out here all along? Ryder and his brothers knew this spot well, but not even they could always navigate their way through the twists and turns of the endless caverns.

  Julia glanced over her shoulder once before disappearing into the dark mouth of the cave entrance. Ryder scrambled from his hiding place and searched for the hole that would drop him into the center of the maze of caves below him.

  This guy couldn’t be a local if he didn’t know this other, secret entrance to the caves.

  Chewing his lower lip, he eyed the gap in the rocks that led to the caves. The last time he’d shimmied through that space, he’d been a skinny teenager on his way to warn Rafe that Rod planned to kick his behind for not rubbing down and grooming Rod’s horse after riding it.

  Sitting on the ground, Ryder poked his feet through the gap and then rolled onto his stomach to squeeze through, using his hands to propel him downward. He pulled his gun out of his waistband and clutched it in one hand and then sucked in his breath to push himself farther down. His legs dangled below him and the hole swallowed him up to his armpits.

  He was stuck, the rocks painfully gouging him under his arms. His scratched hands found leverage and he shoved against a ridge in the earth as he pumped his legs. With one final push, his shoulders popped through the opening as his face raked against the rock. A sharp edge of stone caught his hand, jarring the gun loose. Ryder made a last grab for his weapon befo
re losing it.

  Now he knew what a newborn felt coming through the birth canal.

  He hit the ground with a thud and leaned against the damp walls of the cave, inhaling the smell of dank earth as his heart slammed in his chest.

  He waited while his eyes adjusted to the gloom. He couldn’t exactly whip out a flashlight and a ledge of rock obscured the light from the hole above. His nostrils flared. He smelled spicy cologne and he knew Julia didn’t wear that fragrance.

  They must be close.

  With his hand trailing along the cave wall, Ryder hunched forward and moved toward a murmur of sound. Voices. He closed his eyes for a moment, dizzy from the relief.

  He brushed his fingers against three stalactites extending from the ceiling of the cave and knew exactly where he stood. A large clearing opened up just around the next bend. They’d called it Rafe’s Retreat because Rafe used to bring his girlfriends here to make out.

  Licking his lips, Ryder eased forward and crouched on the ground, wedging his body between two wet rocks to peer through a crack. Even if he’d still had his weapon, the opening was too small for the barrel of a gun and too small to see anything.

  Tilting his head back, he gazed at the rocks leading up to the top of the cave. There was an overhang rimming the little room, and if he could make it up there, it would afford him a good view.

  Ryder climbed the rocks, his hands and feet slipping on the moss. He scrambled to the top, hauling himself over the last edge and lay panting for a few moments. The hum of voices below reminded him of the urgency of his mission.

  On his hands and knees, he crawled to the edge of the opening and hunched behind a rock, peering into the clearing.

  A kerosene lamp lit the little room, casting a circle of eerie, waxy light on the three frozen figures in its center. Shelby lay on a pallet by the wall and Julia was kneeling beside her. A man with his back to Ryder extended a gun in front of him, pointing it at Shelby.

  Heated blood fueled by rage pounded against Ryder’s ears. He wanted to take out the SOB here and now, and if it turned out to be Charlie, he’d crush him before turning him over to the Sheriff’s Department. Ryder cocked his head. Couldn’t be Charlie—too skinny.

  “Is she all right?” Julia ran her hand across Shelby’s brow.

  The man answered, “She was tired after that riding lesson and the hike up here. She fell asleep on her own.”

  The man’s voice chilled Ryder’s blood. It couldn’t be and yet there was something so familiar about his stance. Ryder lay flat on his stomach and shimmied to the opening.

  He held his breath as the man turned to the side, adjusting his sunglasses. When the man lowered his hand, the light fell across his face. Nausea twisted Ryder’s gut.

  Somehow he escaped.

  Somehow he was alive.

  And now Jeremy Scott had Ryder’s daughter at gunpoint.

  JULIA SMOOTHED Shelby’s curls from her pink cheek. When the stranger with the sunglasses emerged from the cave, her fear doubled and it had nothing to do with the gun he was brandishing. If he had been Charlie or someone she knew, she could reason with him. But she didn’t stand a chance with this stranger in sunglasses.

  She had faith in Ryder. She just hoped he could find that faith in himself.

  Curling her fingers around Shelby’s, she turned toward the stranger. “Why me? Did you read about me in the newspapers? Did you see me in Dr. Brody’s office?”

  The man smiled and if he weren’t pointing a gun at Shelby, she’d find the smile almost charming. He shook his head. “I thought you’d regained your memory with the help of the gallant Ryder.”

  Her breath quickened. Someone from her past. “I have for the most part, but there are still incidents, people, faces I can’t recall. Obviously yours is one of them…if you’re telling me the truth.”

  He clicked his tongue. “I’m hurt, but the fact that you don’t remember me worked in my favor that night I tried to get you to pull over.”

  “When the police told me Dr. Brody left the bar in Durango with a man in sunglasses, I made the connection. If I had pulled over that night…” She shivered and clutched Shelby’s hand.

  “All of those other tricks wouldn’t have been necessary.” He shrugged in a very French way. “But I enjoyed it. I like playing games.”

  “Killing people? You like killing people? You did kill Dr. Brody, Zack and Rosie Fletcher, didn’t you? And what about Charlie?”

  “Dr. Brody knew too much. And the fact that he wanted you made it easy to set him up and throw you off my trail. The idiot sheriff’s deputy discovered I was hiding out here, and Rosie found Brody’s card when she rifled my pockets after we slept together. Charlie?” He shrugged. “That moron may have discovered Rosie’s body. He used to follow her everywhere, but I have no idea where he is.”

  Julia swallowed hard. The man was ruthless. Would Ryder be able to find them in this maze of caves? She had to distract him somehow, get him to take the gun off Shelby to give Ryder a chance to come at him. She hoped Ryder wouldn’t come in with his gun blazing. The stranger just might get a shot off first.

  “Who are you? What do you want from me?”

  “I want you, Julia. You belong to me. I’ll take you away from here, and then we’ll call Ryder and tell him to pick up his brat.”

  She gasped. How did he know so much about them?

  The man laughed. “Of course, knowing Ryder, he’s probably already here somewhere, but if he tries something, his daughter dies.”

  “Y-you know Ryder, too?”

  “Of course I know him. I worked with him.”

  Julia drew her brows together. “At the agency? With Black Cobra?”

  “So you remember that. Ryder would’ve never told you about Black Cobra. He’s such a loyal spy. Not so loyal to his friends, though.” The man unbuttoned the cuff of his long-sleeve shirt with his teeth and pulled the sleeve up to his elbow. He thrust his arm in front of him. “Here’s the proof.”

  She pushed off the ground to get a better look at his forearm. He shifted forward so that the circle of light from the kerosene lamp illuminated his arm and the tattoo of the black snake.

  Clutching her stomach, Julia stumbled backward. “Jeremy!”

  ADRENALINE PUMPED through Ryder’s body. Julia knew now. She knew she faced her ex-husband and he was the enemy.

  She tilted her head up to gaze into Jeremy’s dark sunglasses. He shoved the glasses on top of his head, and she shrank back, pressing her hand over her mouth.

  Something close to pity stirred in Ryder’s gut. Jeremy’s face stretched tightly across his cheekbones, his eyes unnaturally wide and unblinking.

  “Not as handsome as I used to be, huh, Julia? But then I guess you don’t remember what I looked like anyway.”

  “You died in the bomb blast. I remember. I remember the house blowing up. I remember the flames.”

  “Yeah, that fire did a number to my face and my upper body, but I crawled away…no thanks to you. You sped off in that car I stole, taking all my money with you.”

  “How’d you find me? How long have you been watching me?”

  “I heard through my sources that Ryder was finally coming home on leave. I landed in Silverhill before he did and learned all about the mysterious woman with amnesia and a three-year-old daughter.” He waved the gun at Shelby’s sleeping form. “We can play catch-up later. We need to get going.”

  Ryder tensed his muscles. He’d have to drop on top of Jeremy before he could get a shot off…before he took Julia away. He drew his knees to his chest and then stopped when he heard Jeremy’s voice.

  “Wake up, kid.”

  Ryder bunched his hands into fists. He couldn’t attack Jeremy if he had Shelby in his arms.

  Pointing the gun at Shelby, Jeremy prodded her with his foot.

  “What are you doing?” Julia reached out toward Jeremy, grasping his arm.

  He shook her off. “She’s coming out with us. Do you think I’m going to walk o
ut of these caves into an ambush without my insurance? Ryder will never come at me as long as I have his daughter.”

  Ryder wiped a trickle of sweat from his brow. For once in his miserable life, Jeremy was right. Ryder couldn’t tackle him if he had Shelby at gunpoint.

  Tossing back her hair, Julia let out a throaty purr. “Let’s leave her for Ryder, Jeremy. I want to come with you. Why didn’t you just come forward when you found me?”

  Ryder’s heart pounded against his ribcage. Was Julia making her move? Could she see him up here?

  “Don’t play me, Julia. The last time we saw each other, I’d forced you to come to Arizona to save your boyfriend and discovered you were pregnant with his baby. It ended…badly.”

  “You never gave me a chance to explain. Finding you with that other woman in Paris devastated me, and Ryder took advantage of the situation. He told me you’d been with a lot of women. He persuaded me to leave you.” Her voice hitched in her throat. “I never wanted to leave you, Jeremy.”

  A muscle ticked in Ryder’s jaw. Damn that woman was a good actress…or at least she better be acting.

  Jeremy snorted. “So you slept with Ryder because you didn’t want to leave me?”

  “It was revenge sex.” She threw out her hands and Jeremy stepped back, away from Shelby. “I wanted to hurt you, to get back at you. But it was too late. You resigned from the agency and left Paris. When you called me about the computer disc, I jumped at the chance to see you again.”

  “And then left me to fry in a burning house.”

  “I was terrified. I thought you were dead and I thought whoever killed you would come after me.” She moved closer to Jeremy and ran her hand along his back. “C’mon, baby. You know me better than anyone. You know I never wanted kids. Now that Ryder’s back and he knows he’s Shelby’s father, he can take care of her. And I can take care of you.”

  Jeremy caught Julia’s hand and brought it to his lips. “I have to hand it to you. You’re good, but you’re going to take care of me whether you want to or not. Now wake her up, so we can get out of here.”