Nobody's Hero

by Liz Lee

She closed her eyes and fought the fear that threatened to swallow her, to block everything. Her heart hammered in her chest, her pulse sounded in her ears, cold enveloped her body, and she fought the darkness that suddenly seemed to crowd her mind.

  She’d been here before. Dark, alone, afraid. And not from a nightmare.

  The thought exploded across her mind and she opened her eyes, searching for Riley, for his presence. That’s all she needed. But it wasn’t. His presence couldn’t make the girl on the computer screen come back to life.

  “It’s true, Riley. The note on my birth certificate is true. I don’t know how or why or when. But it’s true. It has to be.”

  He waited for her to go on, as if she had more answers than that one single statement. She bit her lip and closed her eyes again, this time holding his hand as she tried to remember anything from her past.

  Nothing came. Only darkness that never ended. Cold that never warmed.

  She opened her eyes and shook her head. “I didn’t know. I thought they were nightmares. But my dad knew. He took me for ice cream. He made the nightmares go away, Riley. We’ve got to reach my dad.”

  Chapter Five

  Riley watched the realizations crash into Callah one after another and wished he could stop them. She didn’t need these kinds of truths.

  When she grabbed onto his hand, he wanted to tell her to open her eyes. But he didn’t. Because somewhere in the recesses of her mind were the answers that just might save her life. When she finally said her father knew the truth, he knew what he needed to do.

  “Okay. You said no one’s answering his phone. Is that usual?”

  She shook her head. “No. But anything’s possible. I’ll call again. Leave a message. He’ll call back. I know he hasn’t done anything wrong. He didn’t send that man after me. I know it.”

  Riley wasn’t so sure. Right now they had to operate on the everyone is evil wavelength. Granted, Callah’s family had protected her for years. Her father probably had no idea that all hell had broken loose. Still, he’d kept a dangerous truth from her. That didn’t classify him as a hero in his book.

  But he wasn’t going to send her down that road right now. “I’m sure you’re right. We’ll get my brother to find him, and he’ll make sure your father knows what’s going on.”

  As if he’d connected with his brother on some psychic level, his cell phone rang. The ring tone set to Pink Panther let him know Rand was on the line. Finally.

  Riley hit talk and explained everything he knew so far.

  When the conversation ended, he looked at Callah and wished he could pretend the phone hadn’t rung at all. “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Of course I’m not going to like it, Riley. I’m in some crazy X-Files alternative reality. What did he say?”

  “He looked up your name just to be on the safe side. Usually that wouldn’t be a problem. But with you, everything’s a problem. He doesn’t know what’s going on, but you’ve been flagged. And he can’t get answers. He’s giving it a couple hours. If he still doesn’t hear anything he’s catching a flight here.”

  “My name’s been flagged?”

  Riley shrugged. He didn’t know what it meant any more than she did. But he knew Rand was worried. And if Rand was worried, this was all worse than he’d even imagined. A girl with Callah’s name was dead. Others were scattered across the states and Europe. Did it have anything to do with the dog walker and the envelope? He didn’t know. But he wasn’t taking chances. The guns in the safe in the bedroom closet were coming out along with the ammunition.

  He might be a reporter and she might be the ex-wife of a dead Hollywood has-been, but if the bad guys came knocking they weren’t going down without a fight.

  A couple of hours. She could wait a couple of hours.

  Callah watched Riley prop a rifle against the door then disappear back into the bedroom. When he returned, he handed her a small handgun and dropped a box of bullets on the cabinet next to his computer. They rattled, and she jumped.

  “You know how to use this?”

  The small gun was light, cold. She nodded. “My father,” She stopped, swallowed down the lump in her throat that threatened to break her voice, said the words again. “My father taught me. I thought it was our bonding time. My Mom teased him about turning me into a master marksman. We’d go to the range, and while we were gone she’d make homemade cookies. Tollhouse. Every time. I thought….”

  She stopped and bit her lip at all the lies. Her stomach churned.

  “It’s going to be okay, Callah.”

  She laughed and shook her head, a tear escaped down her cheek as she closed her eyes, remembered the peace she’d always found in the memories of gunpowder, her father’s smile and her mother’s open arms.

  “We lived in Philadelphia, Riley. That girl’s death is no coincidence. It can’t be.” The words she wanted to say bottled up in her throat, burning as she thought them. Oh my God, what did my parents do? What were they involved in? Who am I?

  He touched her shoulder, and she backed away. She didn’t want his comfort. His pity. Swallowing away the unspoken questions, she opened the box of bullets. Loaded the gun’s clip then tested its weight, its balance. Just like the one she’d learned on.

  “It’s perfect.”

  Dammit.

  Riley watched Callah coldly test the gun, smile, then pronounce it perfect. Not even trying to wipe away those tears running down her face.

  “Callah.” He stepped toward her again, but she shook her head.

  “Don’t.”

  Her voice broke and he decided he’d ask forgiveness later. Ignoring her command he took the gun away from her, set it on the counter and pulled her close. Because no way could he let her stand there crying.

  “I’m sorry, Callah.” He spoke the words into her daisy-scented hair.

  She didn’t pull away, just stood there rigid against him, letting him hold her. “Me too, Riley. I’m sorry you got dragged into this whole mess.”

  For a moment he met her eyes, thought about kissing her the way she seemed to want to be kissed. But if he did, if he gave in and touched her lips with his, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop. They had too much to do, too much to figure out for that kind of break. Later, maybe. But not now.

  Calling himself a colossal fool, he stepped away from her, watched her wipe the tears away with an angry swipe. “Don’t be sorry for that, Callah. I don’t know why someone sent me to you, but I’m going to find out.”

  She smiled, but the warmth was gone. “We’re going to find out. I want answers. And you’re the perfect person to help me find them.”

  Callah picked up the folder, emptied the contents onto the table and forced herself to look at them. She ran her hand over the aged photo and tried to make sense of it all. Her birth certificate looked authentic enough, but her father certainly had connections. He could have faked it. But why?

  She flipped the paper over, read the message again. Secrets can be deadly. That certainly made the dog walker and the photos ominous. But why come after her now? She closed her eyes and tried to remember, but nothing stood out. Nothing more than normal childhood nightmares.

  Why? Where did nightmares end and memories start? She couldn’t remember.

  God, this was driving her crazy.

  She sat on the barstool, searching her mind for a memory. Just one. Riley watched her like she might break any second, and she wanted to laugh. Surely he realized by now she wasn’t going to lose it. Her father had raised her better than that.

  Her father. How could he have lied to her?

  “Did your brother say he’d be able to reach my dad?”

  Riley looked concerned as he nodded. “Yeah. It might take a while, but he’ll find him.”

  She nodded. Tried to grasp this new reality. The truth that her parents had kept secrets that could destroy her and now Riley.

  “My earliest memory isn’t all that strange.” She wished she could find that sense of
safety she remembered so well. “It was Sunday night. After church. I fell asleep in the backseat, but when the car stopped I woke up. I didn’t want to be awake, so I pretended to still be asleep. My dad knew, but he didn’t care. He picked me up and carried me inside and tucked me in and called me his angel. He always smelled like Old Spice and liquid starch. The pink kind my mom sprayed on his uniforms when she ironed.”

  Her voice broke on the word angel but she held out her hand when Riley moved toward her. “Don’t. I mean it Riley. Don’t.” She couldn’t handle his gentle touch. Not now.

  This time he stayed where he was and let her finish talking. Funny how badly she needed to say the words. Once she started she couldn’t stop them. As if somewhere in them she’d find the truth. The secret. The answer.

  “He was the best dad. The best man. I used to wake up afraid. So afraid. And I’d cry and he’d hold me and tell me I was okay. That I was safe and he’d never let that change. And then he started taking me to Dairy Queen for a Dilly Bar and Dr Pepper to keep the nightmares away. It worked. God, Riley, how did I not know?”

  The pity was still there. She wanted it gone. She wanted the passion, the anger, the incredulity. Anything was better than pity.

  “You were a kid, Callah. Who knows how old? If that’s your first memory, you must’ve been what five, six?”

  He was trying to make this better and she wanted to laugh but she couldn’t because this was never going to get better. “Five, I think. I don’t know.” Another memory surfaced and then she did know.

  “Five for sure. Definitely. I started kindergarten the next week. I didn’t want to go.” Funny that she’d forgotten those tears until this moment. It didn’t matter. A lifetime had passed and somehow something had changed and suddenly she was in danger and it was her father’s fault.

  Riley’s computer beeped and she looked back at the obituary of the young woman who shared her name. Had she been killed because of her name? Because Callah’s parents had kept her identity a secret?

  Riley followed her eyes to the computer screen and logged off the Internet. As if a blank screen changed anything.

  Shaking her head, she stood and walked to the window. Outside hundreds of people played in the perfect summer day. Blue skies, soft wind, hot air all combined to draw them out. But someone was out there looking for her. Someone dangerous.

  “Your brother said a couple hours.”

  Riley followed her across the room. His hand touched her shoulder, and she thought about shrugging it away. She didn’t want his warmth. “He’ll help us get to the bottom of this.”

  This time she did laugh. The sound was ugly, harsh, foreign. Chocolate wasn’t going to fix this. Nothing was.

  “You asked if I knew how to use the gun. How good are you?”

  “I can hit a target.”

  His confidence made her smile. She hoped he was right, hoped they both could do at least that. “Good. Because if it’s going to take your brother a couple hours to get us help, we might have to do more than hit targets.”

  “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you, Callah,” Riley said. And God, she wanted to believe him. To trust him. To pretend they really stood a chance against whoever it was looking for them.

  Riley’s laugh made her jump. Nothing about this was funny. “What?”

  She frowned at him, but he just shook his head, refusing her censure. “It’s just watching you standing there all bad ass with that gun, I’m wondering why you didn’t shoot Charlie Benson.”

  Callah looked down at the gun and then back at him and tried to laughed too, but it ended up sounding more like a whimper. Because the comfort of this gun was just another piece of her built on lies.

  She swallowed the pain away. “I haven’t touched a gun in twelve years.” She’d been searching for herself in self-help books, deep breathing and meditation. Maybe this would work better.

  Whatever. At least the pity was gone from Riley’s eyes. She wasn’t sure the open desire was better, but it would do for now.

  “Twelve years is a long time.”

  Yeah. It was. They both knew it. And even though he was talking about them and the nights they’d spent in each other’s arms, she chose to answer about the weapon in her hand. “I can still shoot this gun.”

  Behind him the screen saver on his computer blocked her view of the dangerous truth. Someone wanted her dead. Someone might have killed already. She’d do whatever it took to keep them from succeeding again.

  Riley didn’t know if it was the danger or their past or her current despair, but he wanted Callah in a way he’d never wanted anyone or anything in his life. More than he wanted another drink, more than he’d wanted his father’s approval.

  She was a dangerous temptation, and he couldn’t stay away. Not anymore. Not when she looked so cold, so hard standing in the sunlight with that gun.

  Taking a step forward, he took the gun from her hand and laid it on the breakfast bar. She didn’t fight him, didn’t try to push him away when he pulled her into his arms again.

  “I always envied you.” His words were whispered, and he didn’t know why he had to share this now, but he did.

  “What?” She looked into his eyes, her brow furrowed.

  “You had the perfect family. That’s what I thought. I envied that.”

  She looked away. “It was all a lie.”

  He grasped her chin with his thumb and finger, tilted her face up to his and tried to make her feel better. Even if everything he said now proved to be false, he wouldn’t regret it if his words helped sooth her now. “No, Callah. It wasn’t all lies. The relationship you had with your mother and father was very real. No matter what we discover, hold on to that.”

  She bit her lip, and he couldn’t stop himself from touching the soft skin with his thumb. She gasped and answering heat pulsed through his entire body.

  Leaning closer, he waited, he wasn’t sure for what. Her approval, her request, her capitulation.

  Whatever it was, he didn’t get the response he was looking for. She shook her head, said, “no,” then backed away before slamming her hands on the table and ripping the folder open once again.

  Not exactly what he’d planned. “Callah?” He started forward, but she held out her hand to stop him.

  “Why didn’t I see this before. I’m such an idiot.”

  Riley didn’t know what she was talking about, but he wasn’t going to stay away just because she held up her hand. Stepping forward he said her name again.

  She turned to face him, and this time she held up the photo of the dog walker. “I have seen him, Riley. He was in Hollywood. He knew Charlie.”

  Chapter Six

  How had she missed this before?

  “Are you sure?”

  Callah pressed her palm against her forehead and closed her eyes before answering. “Yes, yes, I’m sure. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize him right away.”

  Callah hated remembering the day. Hated reliving it. But it never left her mind. Thank God for that. What irony.

  “We were having a party. Charlie was schmoozing with these moneymen, looking for funding for his next project. His blockbuster.”

  As if Charlie’s movies were destined for anything other than late night cable. He’d invited her trainer to the party to help give her willpower to resist fattening foods. God, she hated him. Even though he was dead, she hated him.

  “Charlie wanted more champagne, so I went to make sure it was on its way. When I got back he was arguing with that man. He told me it was nothing. The next day, Charlie left me.”

  “Charlie was an idiot.”

  The compliment and her intense reaction to it surprised her. Why’d he have to be nice? Sarcastic Riley she could handle. Bossy Riley was no problem. Nice Riley was going to be trouble. “Yes, he was.”

  “So Charlie and this man fought. You got a name for our mystery man?”

  She shrugged, tried to remember. “Vince something. I think. I’m not even sure about
that. I just remember Charlie telling him to shut up. That it would all work out.”

  She stopped talking and shook her head. “Even dead Charlie’s screwing up my life. Maybe this whole mess is about Charlie and not about me at all.”

  Even as she said the words, she knew they didn’t add up. But God, she wanted them to. She slapped her hands against the breakfast bar. “This is all so stupid.”

  With the sun setting, more and more boaters were calling it a day. Riley didn’t like the looks of the ski boat so close to their shore. When it went on by he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

  Callah sat in the rocking chair trying hard not to focus on the computer or his cell phone. But he could see her practically willing his brother to call.

  “If you want to talk. See if you can remember more….”

  She let her head fall back, her eyes closed as she shook her head. “Now that the memories have started, they won’t stop. But there’s nothing before that Sunday night. And nothing more vivid than the fear of those nightmares and how wonderful ice cream tasted and how easily it chased that fear away.”

  Maybe he should let her sit there quietly remembering. But he didn’t think so. He flipped open his notebook and started a list. Sunday nights. Dairy Queen. Darkness. Fear. Five years old. Vince and Charlie.

  What did they have in common? The answers were there. Somewhere. “Go ahead and talk. Who knows what’s important?”

  She shook her head and met his eyes across the room. “No. There’s nothing important. We moved twice and then my dad got stationed in Burkette and that was it. My parents did everything in their power to make me believe I was special. You know the rest of the story. Everyone knows the rest of the story.

  She was right about that. Her parents had never hidden her. Her life was very much one of Burkette, Texas royalty. Cheerleader. Homecoming queen. Prom queen. And then off to Hollywood where she’d lived a life several dreamed of but sounded like holy hell to him.

  He spread the contents of the envelope out on the table in front of him and picked up one of the photos. “You said this man talked to Charlie the day before he left you.”