The Switch

by Sandra Brown

  Couldn't fly himself because of an inner ear problem, but he worked on the bomber jets they tested out there in the desert. His job required him to be away for long stretches of time. Classified stuff. Top secret. At least that's the excuse he gave for being unreachable more of the time than not.

  "One night when he happened to be home I heard my mother crying. She accused him of having a girlfriend. Whether he did or didn't at that point, I don't know, but they never slept in the same room after that, so I guess he probably did.

  "The marriage went from bad to worse. Probably to salve his own conscience, he started making sly comments about my eyes. You might have noticed that his are brown. How could two brown-eyed parents have a blue-eyed kid, especially with all that Indian blood?

  "Those veiled accusations of adultery, which were totally unfounded, devastated my mother. Completely demoralized her, as I'm sure they were designed to. Anyway, they divorced. When his stint was up, he returned to Texas where he'd grown up. He came back to New Mexico to see me when he could.

  "But by the time I reached adolescence, his visits had become noticeably infrequent. He was trying to get that private charter business off the ground—literally—and said it was hard for him to get away, even for a few days. Of course, he always found time to go to Las Vegas.

  "During one summer vacation my mother suggested that I go to Dallas and spend a couple of weeks with him. She probably had to twist his arm, but he issued an invitation, and I went.

  “By then, he'd had a succession of girlfriends, but the current one lived in. Naturally I harbored the dream of all children from broken homes. I was waiting on a miracle that would get my parents back together. I resented the hell out of Betsy, or Becky, or Betty, whatever her name was.

  "In her defense, I behaved like a brat. I was thirteen or so. Very full of myself. Surly. Sarcastic. One afternoon she got pissed because I had put my feet up on the coffee table after she'd repeatedly asked me not to. When Pax came in, she ranted and raved about it. She said, 'Sure his mother's an Indian, but for god's sake couldn't she have taught him some manners?'

  "I went ape shit and started yelling at her, 'You shut up!' I looked to Pax for support. 'Tell her. Tell her to shut up about my mother.' And he just shrugged and said, 'Well, Chris, she is an Indian.'

  "And I realized then that he no longer paraded me around to his friends. He didn't show me off anymore like he had all those years ago at the air show. I was a star athlete at my school, on the honor roll, student council, a Boy Scout, but there wasn't a single picture of me in his house. It was as though he wanted no tangible reminders that my mother and I existed.

  "So I told them to fuck themselves, packed my belongings, and left that night. I spent hours in the downtown bus terminal before I could get on one going west. For seven hundred miles I vowed to deny him just as he had denied me. I even had my name legally changed to my mother's maiden name. I wanted nothing to do with him. Still don't. If I hadn't been desperate tonight, I would never have gone to him asking for a favor."

  Melina had listened quietly, offering no comments or lame platitudes, which he would have deplored. He looked over at her to gauge her reaction to the story. All the while he'd been talking, she hadn't moved, not a muscle. Now she took an uneven breath, let it go, swallowed.

  "That's the last time you saw him?" she asked softly. "That day you left his house?"

  He nodded. "He tried to call me several times after that, but I refused to talk to him. He sent Christmas gifts for a couple of years, then gave up when I sent them back unopened. I received a hundred-dollar bill when I graduated from high school, which I kept because I needed the money for college. But from that day to this, we've had no personal contact."

  "Your mother never remarried?"

  He laughed shortly. "She died loving him. Can you believe that? And I suspect that she sneaked news about me to him until the day she died."

  "He recognized you instantly."

  "He's got a TV."

  "He's followed your career."

  "I guess."

  "I know."

  He looked at her sharply.

  "There was a newspaper clipping about your last mission right there on his desk," she told him in a quiet voice. "I thought it was awfully sweet that a former buddy was so proud of his now-famous friend that he had cut an article out of the newspaper. I didn't comment on it because I didn't want to embarrass him. Of course the keepsake makes more sense now, knowing that Pax is your father."

  "Don't get misty, Melina. It was only a newspaper clipping." "Hmm, maybe. But the way he talked about your piloting skills..."

  Her pause was calculated. She was using it to bait him. Even recognizing that, he couldn't resist turning toward her and silently urging her to go on.

  "He assured me that I'd be safe flying with you because you're an excellent pilot. The best instincts he's ever seen." "He's never seen me fly."

  "Not that you know about."

  "Well, it doesn't matter because—" He broke off suddenly and, leaning forward, peered hard through the windshield.

  "What?" Melina asked anxiously. "What do you see?"

  He thought it through for a moment, then muttered, "Son of a bitch."

  "Chief, what?"

  "I just figured out how they're tracking us."

  CHAPTER 31

  Our two bogus FBI agents?" Melina asked.

  "Yeah. Remember how I said I got the feeling we were never alone? Well, we haven't been. They've been tracking us the twenty-first century way. Look up there. Ten o'clock. See it?"

  Almost immediately she spotted the bright, moving object. "It's a satellite."

  "Exactly. A transceiver sends out data that can be continually tracked by—"

  "A satellite. You can know where you are at any given time. It's called PGA, something like that?"

  He smiled. "GPS. Global positioning satellite."

  "Police forces use them. I've seen stories. But now they've gone mainstream. Gillian wanted one. Another realtor in her office used one all the time to locate addresses."

  "Well, these guys have their own application," he muttered. "If they planted a transceiver on you, they can locate you anywhere in the world."

  "Aren't the transceivers bulky things strapped to an ankle or wrist?"

  "The technology has advanced beyond that. They're much smaller."

  "Chief, I would have known if someone had planted something on me."

  "Hennings?"

  She thought over the possibility, then shook her head. "No. The only time he touched me, other than to hold my hand or to pat my shoulder in consolation, was last night when he gave me a neck rub."

  "He gave you a neck rub?"

  "Before you came crashing in. That's another story," she said, absently, gnawing her lower lip as she concentrated. "He couldn't have put it in my clothing. All I had on was a robe. Besides, I left the house without anything this morning. You know that." Suddenly her hand flew to her throat. "The pendant."

  He'd never seen her without the piece of jewelry. She'd been wearing it the morning they met in Lawson's office. "Hennings gave you that?"

  "The night before the murder, thinking I was Gillian. We covered this with Lawson at the crime scene, but you weren't there. It was a gift to commemorate the insemination. Jem insisted that I keep it."

  "Hennings was Gillian's ... What term did he use? Monitor?"

  "Spy is more like it," she said scornfully. Reaching behind tier neck, she hurriedly unclasped the slender gold chain and studied the ruby heart.

  "Does it open?" he asked.

  "No. There's no back on it. If there were, light couldn't shine through the stones."

  "I don't know anything about gems."

  She studied the fretwork mounting that held the stones in place, then sighed with disappointment. "Nothing."

  "Damn." He was stumped. The necklace had seemed a likely culprit. "Check your handbag."

  "Jem would have had access to it numerou
s times."

  She dumped the entire contents into her lap and began sifting through it. There was a wallet containing credit cards, a few coins, and the currency she'd gotten from the ATM that morning. She checked each compartment, running her finger around the lining.

  "Nothing. And anyway, I could have changed handbags. Not a good hiding place if constant vigilance was his goal."

  "What do you keep with you at all times? Something you would carry in any handbag."

  "My cell phone."

  "Just to be safe, we'll pitch it. What else?"

  Her miniature address book had no pockets or anyplace else in which to hide something. All that was inside her eyeglasses case was a pair of sunglasses. She even checked the hinges that connected the stems to the frames. "Jem was sneaky, but he was no James Bond."

  Chief remained stubborn. "It's there."

  She held out a sterling silver pillbox that had belonged to her mother. "I'm never without it. But it's solid, no lining, and all it's got in it is two aspirin tablets." She shook them out to prove her point.

  "Crush them." She did, and by doing so wasted two perfectly good analgesics. "How about the compact?" he asked.

  She opened it and squeezed the small round puff to see if anything solid had been sewn inside. "It's not in here unless something is stuck beneath the mirror."

  Chief gave her a meaningful look and, after a slight hesitation, she ground the mirror beneath her heel and shook the broken glass onto the floor of the plane. "You owe me a new compact."

  "It is refillable?"

  She pried out the pressed powder refill. "Nothing there, either."

  "Key chain?"

  "With my car, remember?"

  "Oh, right, right. Hairpin?"

  "Never use one."

  "Tampons?" "Lipsticks?"

  She had two with her. She rolled them out, but they were smooth and undisturbed. She checked the empty cap of each. "Nope."

  "Ballpoint pen?"

  "Never. I'm notorious for being without and having to borrow"

  He thought on it a moment longer, then said, "Besides the pillbox, is there anything in the handbag you can't part with?"

  "No. All my addresses and phone numbers can be replicated. I keep them on computer."

  "When we land—"

  "I'll toss everything, including my phone."

  He nodded. "Then if they can still track us, we'll know we're dealing with something bigger than the both of us." "Such as?"

  He relieved her wariness none by saying, "I hazard to guess."

  "Melina?"

  "Hmm?" There was pressure on her thigh, and it felt so good, so warm, she reached down to increase it.

  "We're almost there. Wake up."

  Reluctantly she opened her eyes. The pressure she'd felt was Chief's right hand. Hers was massaging the back of it. She quickly removed her hand so that he could remove his. She sat up straighter and blinked her eyes into focus.

  They'd landed somewhere in the Texas panhandle only long enough to refuel and use the rest room. The wind had been strong and frigid. Chief had insisted that she wear his leather jacket as they made their way across a desolate tarmac into a shed that wasn't nearly as upscale as Pax's hangar. They left her cell phone, her handbag, and all its contents in u wire trash bin.

  She remembered little after takeoff. Now, yawning behind her hand, she asked, "How long was I asleep?"

  "About an hour."

  She groaned. "I don't remember when I last had a full night's sleep."

  Not since the two Dallas policemen had wakened her with the news that her sister's body had been discovered. Her previous life, the one she'd been living prior to that morning a few days ago, had had very few bumps. There'd been some surprises, both happy and sad. But, basically, it had been well ordered. She had known more or less what to expect with each sunrise.

  Flying off to New Mexico in the middle of the night, in a two-passenger airplane that had recently needed overhauling, would have seemed crazy. But for all this craziness to make sense, she had only to remind herself of the reason behind it: Her twin had been murdered.

  Who had ordained that killing? Brother Gabriel? Was the so-called man of God behind the program, as Jem had alleged? Was it a network of genetic engineering? Were they using unsuspecting women as breeders, human incubators?

  It was too evil to contemplate, and yet nothing was really beyond imagination, was it? How many women and their babies had been sacrificed to this "program"? The Andersons' baby? Probably. Jem had said, "We'd like to use her again," referring to Candace Anderson.

  She shivered each time she thought of Jem smiling at her with chilling complacency and saying that the Program needed her now that Gillian wasn't available. With that statement, this quest for answers had gone beyond avenging her sister's murder. While that was still paramount, she was now also acting in self-defense.

  Bringing her out of her reverie, Chief said, "I'm running on very few Z's myself."

  "Not a very reassuring thing to tell your passenger when you're about to land an airplane."

  He grinned at her. "Piece of cake."

  "Want your jacket back?"

  "You keep it."

  She was glad she didn't have to give it up. She liked snuggling inside it, liked the feel of the glove-soft leather, liked the smell of him that it exuded.

  They'd gained an hour when they crossed into the mountain time zone, so it was still dark beyond the windows of the airplane. There were no lights below, no landmarks, no point of reference with which she could orient herself. "Chief, you said we were almost there. Where?"

  "Up ahead."

  "There's a town?"

  "A landing strip."

  "Like Pax's?"

  "Not as sophisticated as Pax's."

  That wasn't very reassuring, either. "Does somebody know we're coming?"

  "I filed a flight plan. Somebody will be there to meet us. I was making arrangements over my cell phone while you were schmoozing Pax."

  "I wasn't ... You see that mountain, right?"

  "What mountain? Melina, I'm kidding," he said when she looked at him with bald terror. "I see the mountain. I know what I'm doing, okay?"

  "Of course you do. I'm sorry."

  Even so, when the small plane seemingly skimmed the crest of the mountaintop, she curbed the impulse to raise her Feet as though that would help the craft clear the summit. She exhaled with relief when they did. Then the plane banked sharply to the left. "Chief!"

  "It's a little too steep for a direct approach. I'm only circling down. Think of a hawk."

  She tried to picture a bird of prey gliding on currents of air, but all she could really think about was the rocky wall of the mountain face that appeared close enough to reach out and touch.

  "There are the lights," Chief remarked.

  Two rows of lights flashed on below to delineate a narrow runway. "Lights are good," she agreed.

  Calmly and competently, Chief executed two lazy spirals within the steep bowl formed by the mountains. Gradually he reduced their altitude so that by the time he went in on his final approach, the plane seemed to graze the tops of the sparse vegetation. The runway slid beneath them and seconds later he set the airplane down. It was the smoothest landing Melina had ever experienced in any aircraft of any size. "Good job," she said tightly.

  "Thanks."

  They taxied to the small hangar. He cut off the engine. The propeller wound down to a soft, rhythmic clap, then to silence. He looked across at her. In a hushed voice, he confessed, "I was showing off a little."

  "I realize that."

  "I wanted to impress you."

  "And you did."

  "Rest assured there was never any reason for you to be afraid."

  "I wasn't. Not really."

  "You're safe with me, Melina."

  She studied his face for a long moment, then whispered, "No, Chief. With you, I'm in danger."

  Her reply was interrupted by someone sharply rapping on t
he window. Neither had noticed that someone had stepped onto the wing in order to reach the door, which was on the passenger side. Caught off guard, she turned her head quickly, and it was all she could do not to recoil from the face peering in at her. It was illuminated by a flashlight, making it all the more frightening.

  Pockmarked skin was stretched tightly across a pair of cheekbones that looked sharp enough to chop wood. The eyes were mere slits, the mouth a narrow slash between two deep furrows extending downward from a beaked nose. The center part of the man's hair was half an inch wide. His gray braids extended almost to his waist.

  He looked past her to Chief. "Hart?"

  She followed the Indian's gaze, turning her head and looking at Chief herself. He must have read the incredulity in her expression, because he said, "Relax, Melina. He doesn't take scalps." Then he added grimly, "I'm fairly certain."

  But five minutes later, Chief was convinced that somewhere along the way wires had been crossed, that signals had been scrambled, or that the entity in charge of directing fate was having one hell of a good time at his expense. Never at any time during his three missions into space had he felt this surreal.

  Their escort was taciturn to the point of being mute. He never introduced himself. After verifying they were the couple he'd been sent to meet, he had grunted instructions for them to disembark. He had backed down the steps built into the wing of the craft, then ambled into the shed to turn off the runway lights. He hadn't assisted Melina as she climbed out, nor did he offer them the use of his flashlight. He was waiting behind the wheel of a pickup truck with the motor running by the time they reached it.

  The terrain was rugged, remote, and desolate. Wind whistled in through various cracks in the pickup, including the Bole in the floorboard, which Melina avoided falling through by keeping her legs far to one side, nearly overlapping his. She sat hunched down between him and their driver, shivering against the biting cold that his leather jacket was no defense against. The driver seemed to deliberately target every rut in the road. The truck jounced over stones, sending splinters of pain into Chief's spine. His jaw ached from keeping it tightly clenched against teeth jarring jolts.

  An attempt at conversation would have been futile and exhausting. They'd have had to shout to make themselves heard over the worrisome racket of the pickup's engine and the roaring of the wind that gusted through the cab. They rode in miserable silence.