by Julie Miller
A voice inside her said he was still alive somewhere, struggling against captors or injury to find his way home. The men Jonathan Ramsey had served with continued to pursue any leads on his whereabouts. She'd traced him through military channels. Foreign embassies. Police. Private investigators.
But in five years, she'd found nothing. Nothing but heartache and loneliness and a dying faith that he would one day return to her.
Emma glanced beneath the frame of the neighboring car and her van before stepping between the vehicles. She fought off a feeling of guilt. Somehow, that Gallagher man had diverted her attention long enough for her to lose track of Kerry. He was lanky and lean. So intense, so unpredictable. With those incredible eyes. Behind his glasses, Mr. Gallagher's eyes reminded her of rough-cut emeralds—deep green, without a tinge of blue or gray.
She'd been wary of him. Yet he'd helped Kerry, and for that she was grateful. But she couldn't shake the way his eyes had stared at her. Hungry. Pleading. He'd made a silent request of her, but she hadn't understood the question. Maybe they had met before. But she'd have remembered a man like him—so polished beneath his coarse veneer, with fluid strength and precise movements. He was coiled, cautious.
She had barely unlocked the van door when it was yanked from her fingers. "Get in!"
A leather-gloved hand pushed her inside. "Move over."
Emma obeyed the breathy commands. Shock clouded her ability to think clearly, but she reacted on instinct. She jumped to the other side of the vehicle, and her fingers worked like a broken toy, struggling to open the passenger door handle.
"Don't."
The man's fingers clamped on to her elbow and twisted it behind her back. He leaned over her, pinning her with his heavier weight. Flight would not be possible. Out of breath, the man's heavy panting fogged up the windows, leaving Emma to wonder if anyone could see her plight. She schooled her panic.
"Who are you?" Her own breath caught on a strangled whisper. "What do you want?"
"My name doesn't matter." She craned her neck to study his face. She saw sweat beading on his forehead, despite the chill of the day, and his wild gaze darted from the back of the van to the windshield, looking for something neither of them could see. She flinched when his gaze landed on her.
"I didn't intend to hurt your girl."
"You took her?" Fury swelled in her, overriding her fear. Emma jerked against his grip, but the movement only angered him.
"You listen to me!" He yanked her arm in its socket, forcing her down onto her knees in the space between the two front seats. Emma yelped at the pain shooting through her shoulder, but chose not to struggle. She gritted her teeth and listened to his coldblooded offer.
"I have a computer disk with proof your husband is still alive. For two hundred fifty thousand bucks I'll deliver it to you."
"My God. You were going to give that message to my daughter?"
She didn't know whether to scream or cry. To deliberately involve Kerry in this cruel scheme as bait or incentive to ensure her cooperation sickened her. But Jonathan? Could this bastard really know something about her husband? The possibility beckoned her. But her husband would never want her to be a part of something like this. He'd made a career risking his life to save the world from conscienceless predators like this lowlife.
"Where is he?" She heard herself ask the question, five years of grief and despair overwhelming the morals of a lifetime.
His hot breath lapped against her ear as he bent closer. "For another fifty, I'll tell you. Deal?" The driver-side door wrenched open.
"Having car trouble, Mrs. Ramsey?"
The deadly quiet voice startled her assailant. His grip slackened, and a blast of cold air swept over her Pulling her arm down and cradling it against her stomach, she could turn just enough to see a steel handgun pointed right at the man's temple.
She looked beyond his dazed expression to see the predatory gleam stamped on the taut features of Drew Gallagher's angry face. "Hands up, Begosian."
The eyes of her assailant dulled as he slowly turned and placed both hands on the steering wheel. With his gun still resting against her attacker's scalp, Gallagher spoke. "Let me help you out."
Drew dragged the man from her van, and Emma scrambled to her feet and climbed out after them. He hauled the man by the lapels of his brown tweed coat into the open parking lot and shoved him onto his knees upon the asphalt.
"Face down," he ordered, following the man down to frisk him for weapons and handcuff him. Then, with his knee squared in the middle of the guy's back, Drew pulled a cell phone from his jacket and punched in a number.
Emma huddled inside her coat, chilled by the cool efficiency of Drew Gallagher's actions as much as by the damp January wind. The shiver drew his attention, and he finally looked at her. His strange eyes narrowed. "You hurt?"
"Nothing serious." She dropped her gaze to the dirty slush that stained the hem of her coat where she'd been forced to kneel on the floor of the van. Had she been rescued a moment too soon? Was the chance to find Jonathan about to be bundled off to the police station?
"I thought you weren't a cop."
"I'm not." His short answer surprised her. "I'm doing a favor for the D.A.'s office."
Before she could redirect her question, his party answered and he stepped away to conduct his phone conversation in hushed, efficient tones. Emma plunged her hands into her pockets and shifted her curiosity to the man lying handcuffed on the pavement. She had to raise her voice to be heard over his cursing and muttering about his rights.
"Do you really know my husband?" she asked.
"I'm not saying nothing now! You're screwed. He's screwed. Hell, I'm—" He spat the words at her, and in an instant she found Drew Gallagher's strong back positioned between them, protecting her from her assailant's spew of foul language. She could see neither Drew's face nor the man's, but suddenly the man fell silent.
"Anything else you want to say?" challenged Drew. His lanky height topped Emma's by only a few inches, yet an indefinable energy radiated from his broad shoulders, making him seem bigger and brawnier. He shielded her, made her feel feminine. He made her feel safe.
"What's this guy's interest in your family?" asked Drew, taking her elbow and guiding her several feet away, but not so far that he couldn't keep watch over the man in handcuffs.
Her personal life was none of his business, but unnerved by the unexpected warmth that radiated from deep inside her at the protective gesture, Emma answered. "He says he has a computer disk that can help me locate my husband."
"Your husband? How long has he been missing? Have you reported it to the police?" He slipped his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket.
"He's been gone five years." Her tone silenced a chain of professional questions he no doubt wanted to ask. The same questions she'd answered more times than she could count. "And there's nothing the police can do to help me."
"Five years?" He said the words and an odd transformation took place. The intensity in his catlike eyes wavered, and suddenly Drew Gallagher was miles away from her.
Realizing the hopelessness of her situation, she tried to draw him back, to show him the validity of her concern. "How can I know if he's telling the truth? If he has that disk hidden somewhere, I may never get a chance to see it."
Suddenly back, he drilled her with a look that made her feel silly. "That's Stan Begosian. He's wanted in an investigation for creating and distributing child pornography. You want me to release him before the cops get here so he can give you a disk he may or may not have? For all we know, it's a scam. That disk—if it does exist—might contain nothing more than pictures of children he's taken. It could have been a picture of your little girl."
"That's enough."
"I'm not trying to be cruel, but whatever he claims…don't believe it."
Emma bristled at his easy dismissal of her last shred of hope. "He knows who I am. That has to mean something."
"It means he's a conniving lo
wlife." Drew splayed his fingers across his hips and stepped closer. "Look, the cops will search his place. Ask them to look for the disk."
Emma tipped her chin to look him in the eye. "Apparently your goal is simply to get your man, regardless of the cost his actions or yours have on anyone else."
He pressed his mouth into a grim, flat line. Emma clenched her toes inside her pumps to keep from backing away from the disquieting intensity of his eyes. "I rescued your daughter today from that creep. I just saved your butt. And now I'm the bad guy?"
Two black-and-white units pulled up, giving Emma an opportunity to sneak a breath she wasn't aware she'd been holding. With their hands on their holstered guns, the officers hurried out and surrounded Begosian. Drew turned to acknowledge them, then raked his fingers through his hair, shaking loose his mane of wheat-gold waves. His shoulders rose and fell in a deep breath before he turned back to her.
"This has been more fun than I can stand, but we have to stop meeting like this."
Her heart thumped in a funny rhythm at the veiled disdain in his voice. Maybe she hadn't properly thanked him. But, savior or not, he'd cost her a lead in finding Jonathan.
More than that, she couldn't be around a man whose simple eye contact made her pulse pound in her veins. The instantaneous awareness felt too much like betraying her husband.
"No, Mr. Gallagher. We have to stop meeting, period."
Chapter Two
Drew inhaled deeply, the sharp winter air freezing the salty taste of sweat at the corner of his mouth. He raised his shoulders, pushing his right palm slowly forward. Then, stepping out, he thrust his left hand in the same precise, controlled manner.
Sleep had eluded him yet again. Or rather, the nightmares had failed to elude him.
His spare loft-style condo, in a reclaimed building near downtown Kansas City, suited his early morning kata. A second-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, he routinely worked through the inexplicable images that haunted his sleep by performing the ritual exercise of form known as kata.
Even in winter, he stripped to the waist, opened the windows, and exorcised his demons through the meditative routine. Turn. Kick. Punch. Breathe.
The stifling air of the jungle sucked the breath from his lungs. And still he ran.
Drew lunged to the side, stretching his arms like graceful wings. He narrowed his eyes, pushing the scene from his mind with the same controlled force.
The stamp of booted feet hounded his steps. Palm fronds with stalks as thick as his forearms snapped into place behind him. While he chased his quarry, he, too, was being pursued. He was both men.
He cocked his elbow and jabbed in slow motion. He kicked to the side and focused on his peaceful center.
"Stand fast or I'll shoot!"
"No, you won't. You'll never take me alive." The grenade pin sailed into the endless gulf of jungle foliage. "We’ll both die."
The nightmare never varied. The one memory branded into his subconscious mocked him with his inability to understand it. He was at once both killer and victim.
Awake, Drew forced the hellish images back into the abyss of his past. The low temperature in the loft chilled his skin. He breathed deeply through his nose and released it slowly through his mouth, creating a cloud of frosty air.
Nearing the end of his kata, he concentrated on the controlled perfection of his movements.
Listen.
He ignored the command just as he ignored the other meaningless images in his mind.
"May I help you?"
Drew stumbled, his form slipping for an instant. The ever-present chaos of his jumbled memories had never included a woman's voice. Not that voice. Not her voice.
Yet it was there, clear as the brisk winter air surrounding him.
"Sir, may I help you?"
Drew stopped in mid stride, cursed himself, then quickly apologized. He bowed to the sunrise, toward the honor of his sensei. He grabbed a towel and wiped his face, then tossed it around his shoulders to absorb the dampness there. His morning routine hadn't erased the odd snippets of dreams from his mind. He couldn't tell if he was insane or clairvoyant. Were the disturbing images from his past or future?
Funny how amnesia could make a man question everything—even his gifts. He either had one hell of a memory trying to break through, or one hell of a psychic ability that he had forgotten.
The irony of his situation failed to make him laugh.
He crossed to the kitchen and poured himself a mug of hot coffee. He spread strawberry jam on wheat toast and sat down to read the next chapter in his dog-eared copy of the Andrew Gallagher detective novel he'd picked up at a flea market. The series of cheap pulp fiction books provided easy reads. His lone bookshelf overflowed with the paperbacks he'd collected, not because they had any antique value, but because they reminded him of where he'd come from and who he had chosen to be.
He'd spent a lot of months healing in a Central American hospital. He knew that. Books printed in English had been hard to come by, but a sympathetic nurse had brought him some novels from her brother who'd gone to school in the States. With nothing in his head to miss or look forward to, he'd filled the time reading every last Gallagher novel. The cagey fictional detective used too much hardware to solve his cases for Drew's taste, but he always landed more on the side of good than evil by the story's end. With no other inspiration to guide him, Drew had adopted the hero's name and profession, and dedicated his life to solving the biggest mystery of all.
Himself.
"Sir, may I help you?"
The voice, along with smoky blue eyes, drifted into his thoughts and made it impossible to concentrate on the story he was reading. Instead of fighting the image, Drew gave up. If work was all he had, then he'd better get to it. He went to the table beside his bed, turned on the lamp, and picked up his notebook.
Thumbing through his daily notes, he found the address he had looked up yesterday. Emma Ramsey, Executive Director, LadyTech. Mrs. Pinstripe, with the brick-loaded purse, and legs that belonged on a Rockette, ran a corporation.
How the hell had she gotten into his head? She'd said that they'd never met. Was her appearance in his mind a real memory, or an image projected there by errant hormones?
No. Definitely real. She hadn't spoken those words to him at the museum. Yet he recognized them.
He remembered them.
Drew expelled his breath with a sigh, and felt the sting of the December air on his skin. He closed the windows, shed his sweats, and stepped into a hot shower. But the knowledge that he was on the edge of an important recollection lingered, chilling him.
Five years with nothing but a nightmare remaining from his former life. Until now. Until her.
Why?
He stuck his head under the full blast of the water and let the wet heat beat down on his scalp. Outside, the sun breaking the horizon teased him with the promise of hope for a new day. But until he pieced together the shattered remnants of his past, he had no hopes, no future. How many special sunrises had he forgotten? How many promises had he failed to keep?
Emma Ramsey seemed to be a key to unlocking at least one of those hidden answers. At least, his subconscious seemed to think so. But after her icy dismissal yesterday, he'd need some kind of bargaining chip to prompt her to talk.
The solution that came to him seemed too easy. Drew turned off the water, grinning. He ran his fingers through his hair, squeezing the excess water from the shoulder-length strands and wringing the lingering doubts from his mind.
With enough purpose to finally begin his day, he wrapped a towel around his waist and shaved with an electric razor. Maybe he'd done enough good deeds yesterday to make up for his one little misdeed.
Once he had dressed and donned his holster, he went to the coat rack and reached into the pocket of his padded leather jacket. He pulled out the three-and-one-half-inch computer disk that he'd palmed from Begosian in the parking lot yesterday.
At the time, he thought it might be eviden
ce for the D.A.'s case, and had planned to give it to the boys in blue. Then, he'd been tempted to hand it over to Mrs. Ramsey; she'd sounded so desperate for any clue about her husband. The possibility of any lead, no matter how unlikely, slipping through her fingers had made a chink in that ladylike armor of hers and revealed a soft, vulnerable woman.
An alien impulse to shield her from that kind of hurt had spurred Drew to protect her, to try to talk some sense into her. He'd wanted to hold her, tell her she didn't have to always be so strong. But then she'd regained that icy superiority and told him in no uncertain terms that she didn't appreciate his brand of help. He patted the disk and enjoyed the empty victory of denying her what she wanted.
The fictional Drew Gallagher wasn't above using a bit of blackmail to find the answers he wanted, and neither was he. He pocketed the disk and shrugged into his jacket.
He knew Emma Ramsey. From somewhere in a murky past he couldn't remember. Maybe, with this bit of leverage to persuade her, she could figure out where she'd asked him so politely for help. It couldn't hurt to try to break through that snobbish reserve of hers and force some cooperation from the woman.
For a man with nothing to lose, it couldn't hurt at all.
* * *
Emma inhaled for five steps, exhaled for five steps. Never once losing her rhythm, she power-walked the perimeter of the LadyTech warehouse. Arms pumping, she clutched a five-pound weight in each hand, squeezing out her frustration on the spongy foam-rubber handles.
Criminy! She should be concentrating on the disaster that had nearly taken Kerry from her forever. Or lining up the questions she wanted to ask Kerry's counselor about Faith, her daughter's imaginary friend who convinced her to take foolish chances. At the very least, she should be reviewing her encounter with the man who had said he could help her find Jonathan, and consulting LadyTech's legal staff to find out more about Stan Begosian and his background.
