by Alice Sharpe
“Do you want to stay with her? I’m fine going on alone.”
“There are so many reasons I don’t want to stay here I couldn’t even begin to list them,” Paige said. “She won’t listen to me no matter what I say or where I am when I say it.”
“Do you want me to get the boxes in the empty room? I assume they’re yours.”
“That would be great. They’re just personal papers. We can stick them in the trunk. For some reason I didn’t want to leave them at Brian’s place. Now I’m glad I didn’t.”
John fetched the two boxes. As he reentered the living area, Katy came through the front door with a tall, young guy sporting what appeared to be a salon tan. Muscles bulged in his arms, and his thighs strained against the denim of his jeans. He looked strong enough to bend iron bars with his bare hands.
He produced a shy smile when he saw Paige. “Hey, sorry about the wedding and everything.”
Paige nodded. “Thanks, Matt.”
“He wasn’t good enough for you anyway,” Matt said.
She laughed.
“You should have dated me.”
“Back off, Romeo. It looks like Paige found herself a cowboy,” Katy said with another look at John. “There’s a cold beer in the fridge, just like I promised. Bring one for me, too.”
“I’m in training. I told you I can’t drink beer. You got any of that bottled water with electrolytes and minerals?”
“Maybe. I’ll take the beer.”
Matt stopped in front of John and extended a hand. John juggled the boxes and returned the gesture, glad the guy didn’t feel the need to prove anything by crushing any bones.
“Katy says I’m supposed to keep the hairy guy from coming back in here, right?”
“That’s the idea.”
Matt’s muscles rippled as he pressed his hands together. “Let him try.”
“Don’t underestimate him,” John said. He lowered his voice and added, “If you can talk Katy into leaving, do it, okay?”
“Sure. Later.”
Paige gave Katy a goodbye hug. “You need to call the cops and report a man calling himself Anatola Korenev was at your apartment. They need to know. Please be careful. Lock the door.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“And you’re going to call some guys from work?”
“Yeah. I’ll use Matt’s cell. You be careful,” Katy added, but she said it with a wink and John got the impression Katy was a lot more concerned about Paige being with him than she was the threat of Anatola Korenev. But for the life of him, he could not see how they could prepare her any more than they had already.
He deposited the boxes in Paige’s trunk as she got behind the wheel, steeling himself for the next stage of the journey and what they might find out about him.
“She’s not usually quite that oblivious to everything,” Paige said as he sat in the passenger seat.
“She’s got nerves of steel,” he agreed. “Not many women her age would stick around after finding out she’d entertained a killer a few hours before.”
“She’s a lot like my mother. She can get a…little self-involved.”
Like the way she hadn’t even noticed how injured Paige was until John pointed it out to her? He kept his mouth shut.
“Anyway,” she continued as she pulled away from the curb. “I guess Korenev heard that radio report and figured out where I lived. Sounds like he put on a disguise.”
“What’s to stop him from also connecting you to Brian Witherspoon? The report said you were married to him. I think you’d better call Brian and make sure he’s okay.”
She pulled the car over to the side of the road and took her cell phone from her pocket. Then she stared at it. “I know how his brain works,” she said at last. “He’ll think I’m trying to find out if he’s still with Jasmine.”
“Really?”
“Super ego when it comes to me.”
“Do you want me to make the call?”
“He’ll still know it’s from my phone.”
“Maybe you could leave a message.”
“He showers with his cell phone,” she said. “He’ll answer.”
“Let me call. I’ll tell him something that lets you off the hook, don’t worry.”
She punched in a number then handed John the phone. “You’re on.”
He listened for a minute, then clicked it off.
“Hey,” Paige protested. “You said you’d leave a message. Now he’ll see I called.”
“I couldn’t think of anything.”
“Drat!”
“You’re still hung up on this joker, aren’t you?”
“No!”
“Yes, you are. Man, I read you all wrong. Never mind. You said he always answers his phone, but this time he didn’t. Maybe he’s asleep or something, but you can’t forget what Anatola Korenev did to the Pollocks and to you. Drive faster.”
She picked up her speed and within ten minutes, they were pulling into a complex of new-looking condos. She parked in front of one that sported a blue convertible in the driveway. At least there were no police cars hanging around. John took a deeper breath. Maybe he’d panicked over nothing.
“You can stay here if you want,” he told Paige. “I’ll knock on his door, pretend to be an aluminum-siding salesman and just make sure he’s in one piece.”
“I’m acting like a giant chicken. Let’s just get this over with.” And with that she opened her door and marched up the path to the front door.
He had to admire her pluck.
* * *
HOW MANY HUNDREDS OF TIMES had Paige knocked on Brian’s front door? But this was the first time she’d done it while trying not to throw up.
He didn’t answer.
And finally, it sunk into her brain that his car was in the driveway and maybe John was right and Brian was in trouble.
“I’m breaking down the door,” John said after several tense seconds of waiting.
“Don’t,” she said, fishing her car keys out of her pocket. She turned to find he once again held the revolver. “I still have his key,” she explained.
She used it on the door and opened it slowly, half afraid she would find Brian and his ex in the middle of an orgy on the living-room rug and half afraid she’d find—
“Oh, no,” she cried and raced into the apartment, only vaguely aware that John followed close behind.
Brian was on the floor, hands bound behind his back, mouth taped closed, wearing nothing but pajama bottoms. His face bore the same cuts and bruises all of Anatola Korenev’s victims eventually sported, and there was a gash across his chest caked with dried blood.
At the sound of their approach, his eyes crept open, his eyelashes fluttered as though he’d been unconscious. His expression went from bewildered to afraid to relieved as he appeared to recognize Paige’s face.
She knelt on the floor and took familiar gray duct tape off his mouth while John, setting the handgun on the rug, unwound it from his wrists.
“Paige,” Brian mumbled as soon as he could and with his newly freed hands, grabbed her around the waist. He buried his head against her breasts. “Oh my God, Paige. I am so relieved to see you.” He pulled her head down and kissed her. “Darling, you will not believe what happened.”
A tidal wave of giddiness washed through Paige as the word darling echoed through her body. He kissed her again and held her tight. He was hers, she was his, nothing else mattered. She pushed him gently away to search his face, looking for confirmation of this miracle.
She found a black-and-blue knot on his forehead.
“Jasmine,” he said, suddenly twisting to look up the stairs. He struggled to get to his feet, and John and Paige each took an arm to help.
“Where is she?” Paige asked. The tidal wave receded as quickly as it had arrived. Too many strong emotions coming too close together left her weak at the knees.
“Upstairs. Oh my God, I sent him up there.”
“Sent who?” John asked as though
he couldn’t guess.
“That man—”
“I’ll go check on her,” John said, snatching up his gun. He was halfway up the stairs before Brian could protest.
Paige touched Brian’s cheek. “Tell me what happened.”
His forehead scrunched up as he concentrated. “I heard a noise. Like breaking glass. I came down here to see what was going on. A huge man with a giant beard and thick brows had shattered a glass panel in the French doors and let himself in. He had a knife. He demanded to know where my wife was. He told me she had a new lover, that she was cheating on me. I said, ‘No, she doesn’t, she’s upstairs.’
“That’s all I got out. He punched me unconscious. When I came to, he was standing there with my gun. He must have taken it out of the drawer, you know, where I always keep it. He mumbled something about that being the wrong wife, he wanted the one named Paige. I told him where you lived. I just wanted him out of here. I thought I could call you and warn you—I was desperate to check on Jasmine. But he came at me and I fell trying to get away. Must have hit my head on the coffee table, because the next thing I knew you were here and I was gagged.”
“Call an ambulance,” John shouted from the head of the stairs. “She’s alive.”
“I’ve got to go to her,” Brian said.
“Go on, I’ll make the call,” Paige said. As he climbed the stairs, she dialed 911 on his phone and gave them his address.
For a second she just stood there staring at the empty stairs, dreading what she would find when she joined the men. And then it dawned on her that she and John needed to get out of here right away before emergency crews and police showed up. Katy and Brian would both tell about Anatola Korenev, and Brian would mention John—there was no way in the world she could ask him not to.
Things were about to get a heck of a lot more complicated. And if John stood a chance of defending himself properly, he needed facts about his own involvement or complicity.
She called John’s name from the foot of the stairs. He responded immediately, leaning over the railing to look down at her.
“Can Brian take care of Jasmine alone until the ambulance gets here?”
“Yes. Korenev beat her up some but he didn’t go after her with the knife. Why?”
“I think we should leave.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the bedroom, then passed a hand over his eyes that said as eloquently as words how disturbed he was that so many lives had been impacted by whatever situation he was in the middle of. “Are you sure?” he said. “It’s beginning to feel like running away.”
“I’m positive. There isn’t much time. Hurry up.”
He joined her downstairs. They left the front door open to facilitate the ambulance crew, then with Paige behind the wheel, exited the pricey housing area by a back road. They both turned in their seats as the sound of an ambulance siren coming from the opposite direction accompanied their departure.
Not long after that, they hit the interstate. Next stop: Lone Tree.
Chapter Eight
“What did Anatola Korenev do to Jasmine?” Paige asked.
John hadn’t taken his eyes off the road since they took off. He wasn’t sure what he feared most—the police or running into Korenev.
At the sound of Paige’s voice he glanced over at her. Her jaw was set, her arms stiff as she held the wheel, mentally preparing herself for the gory details that would hit all too close to home. “About the same as he did to you and Brian. Maybe a little more blood. She said Anatola mumbled, ‘You aren’t the right one, you’re not Paige,’ when he sliced at her.” He didn’t add that Jasmine had look bewildered when she added, “Since when would I want to be Paige?”
“At least she could talk,” Paige said.
“She chatted up a storm when Brian arrived. I think she was more excited than terrified. Go figure.”
Paige didn’t respond and John tried not to conjecture a reason for her silence, but he’d seen her face when she got her first glimpse of her former fiancé. He’d also seen the way she’d drooped when Brian’s thoughts turned to Jasmine. John had known Paige only two days, but they’d been an intense two days. He knew her expressions.
“I’m not happy she was hurt,” Paige said. “I wouldn’t want you to think I was mean-hearted.”
John laughed softly. “The last thing I think you are is mean-hearted.” As he’d pressed a cloth on the worst of Jasmine’s wounds, he’d had no option but to look at her. She’d obviously been nude under the sheet, and it had been impossible not to notice her breakneck curves.
She’d even managed to flirt with John until Brian showed up. John imagined Jasmine was not an easy woman for other women to care about but one most men would make a deal with the devil to possess.
“Did Jasmine tell you that Anatola took Brian’s gun out of his bedside drawer?” Paige asked.
“Brian has a gun?”
“Brian had a gun. Now Anatola has a gun. And Brian and Katy and Jasmine will all be telling the police about this man. They’ll find his prints and match them with those in the Pollocks’ car. The truth will start to unwind.”
“I hope so,” John said. “I wouldn’t mind knowing the truth.”
She spared him a quick glance. As they approached Lone Tree, the traffic had picked up and now they were traveling over a graceful bridge toward the city itself. “So you haven’t remembered anything about your life?”
“Nothing.”
“It must be extremely disconcerting.”
“That’s an understatement.”
With one hand, she gestured at the stately buildings rising around them. “I don’t suppose anything here strikes you as familiar.”
John shook his head. “In a way it kind of does.”
“Really?”
“Don’t get too excited. It seems familiar the same way handling a gun and driving a car seem familiar. My place in this piece of the world isn’t clear at all, though. I don’t remember working here, I don’t remember friends or family, and worst of all, I don’t remember where I live....”
His voice trailed off when she hit her forehead with an open palm. “I’m an idiot,” she said under her breath. “I’ve just been too distracted to think clearly.”
She drove a little way farther before pulling to the curb in front of a motel. She switched off the engine and turned, searching the backseat for something.
“Why are you an idiot? Can I help you find something?”
“Where’s my laptop?” she insisted.
“Right there under that coat. I’ll get it for you.”
He retrieved the computer for her and waited while she opened the case, bringing it to life.
“Just as I hoped,” she said, typing quickly.
“What’s just as you hoped?”
“We’re picking up the motel’s internet connection. I’m going to look you up on Google.”
And as he watched, she did just that. The screen instantly filled with links to him and he looked away, not sure how to handle an onslaught of information that might reveal things about himself he didn’t want to share with her.
No way around it, though.
“Mostly updates on the police search and your supposed victims, although there’s mention here of another person being wanted for questioning. That’s probably me or Anatola Korenev. Anyway, here’s something about you personally. Want to know?”
“No,” he said.
“John?”
“Okay. Just leave out the bad stuff.”
“You’re divorced,” she informed him. “No children. Ex-police. John, you were a cop before you became a bodyguard. In fact, you were a hero. You pushed a congressman out of the way of an armed gunman last year. Hey, I remember reading about that. That was you?”
“You’re asking me?”
“Sorry.” She read for several seconds without speaking. John was beginning to get nervous when she said, “Well, anyway, you’re thirty-nine years old and adopted, but it says not much i
s known about your early life. You work in Lone Tree as a bodyguard and are currently missing. They quote a woman named Natalie Dexter, who’s identified as a friend of yours, as saying you left town three days ago on a job. And it gives your address.”
“We can punch it into the GPS,” John said.
She was typing again. “We don’t have to. I found it on here. Looks like we passed the area where you live about three miles ago. It’s on the other side of the bridge.” She folded the computer shut and handed it to John.
As she made a U-turn and headed back the other way, John thought back to what they’d passed before getting on the bridge. The area had looked industrial to him, not residential, with train tracks running alongside the river and big warehouses sharing space with fenced, paved lots.
“Ready to go home?” Paige chirped as they started back across the bridge.
He nodded, filled with dread. It wasn’t every day a man had to confront the unknown essence of his own life. He just hoped he hadn’t buried any skeletons in plain view....
* * *
PAIGE COULDN’T GET THE passage she’d read about John—and hadn’t related to him—out of her mind. As she drove the nearly vacant streets of what appeared to be the area of the city where shipping and receiving took place, she considered telling him the part she’d omitted.
But she couldn’t believe it. John guilty of accepting a drug bribe? Everything she knew about him went against such a thought, and she did her best to shove it out of her head.
It wouldn’t go far. She glanced at him now as he scanned the numbers on the buildings, not sure how he would take this kind of news about himself, because sooner or later she had to tell him. Keeping it to herself was the chicken’s way out, but it seemed cruel to ambush him with more vague questions about his character.
The truth was if she couldn’t reconcile this information with the man seated beside her, what was he supposed to make of it?
“How are we going to know Anatola Korenev isn’t at your place waiting for us?” she asked.
“We’re not. He could easily have been here by now.”
“Or he could be one step behind us. I still don’t understand why he went after me when he must have known how to get to you.”
