Undercover Babies Read online

  Mac didn’t care who shot or knifed whom, as long as Grace wasn’t the victim. But where had she gone? Dodging between cars, he finally caught sight of her. She’d collapsed onto the pavement in a whorl of coppery silk. She lay on her back, face upward, still and silent.

  Without stopping to think, he ran to her side and crouched over her to protect her. “Grace,” he whispered, searching in the miserable light for a sign of injury, blood, a bullet hole. “Grace,” he repeated.

  Her eyelids fluttered open and his heart constricted. “Daniel?”

  The unexpected name jarred him, but he kept his voice even. “Lie still,” he said as he patted her torso with his free hand, pushing the plastic leis aside, expecting to find a sticky gunshot wound between her breasts, a knife wound across her throat. He could still hear running footsteps and the occasional thump of a silenced gun. He needed to get Grace on her feet and out of danger—

  “I’m okay,” she said, eyes searching Mac’s face. He helped her sit. “That man shoved me down. I hit my…”

  Her voice trailed off as her eyes grew huge. She was looking at someone or something behind Mac. He felt a shudder run down his spine. He’d allowed himself to concentrate on Grace to the exclusion of guarding his back.

  Someone was standing there. He couldn’t see who, but he could feel a weapon trained between his shoulder blades and he could see the alarm grow in Grace’s eyes.

  Raising his .38, he turned quickly.

  And there stood Elvis, arm extended, fringe dangling from his sleeve, gun in hand.

  Without uttering a single word, the Elvis impersonator lowered his gun and turned abruptly, taking off at a dead run back toward the building.

  Mac turned to Grace. Nothing made any sense but his instincts said to get her out of that parking lot before the abductor or Elvis decided to come back and tie up loose ends.

  Grace read his mind, scrambling to her feet, awkward in the swirl of shimmering fabric that wrapped around her legs. One heel had broken sometime during the fracas. He took her arm and together they made their way back into the shadows, skirting the building, Grace limping, Mac listening for any sound that heralded a new attack.

  “We’re getting out of here,” Mac said through clenched teeth.

  “What about our things?” Grace gasped as he all but dragged her across the landscaped berms.

  “We’re not going back for anything,” he said. The parking garage was deserted. Grace’s undamaged shoe made a horrible racket and without his asking her to, she paused long enough to pull off both shoes and carried them clutched against her chest as they continued on to the car. They reclaimed the Coopers’ sedan, hunkering down in the seats for a moment, waiting. When all remained quiet and still, Mac started the engine.

  He was torn with indecision. He had no way of knowing if Elvis had wounded or killed Grace’s abductor. He wanted to leave. Now. But their prints were all over the room upstairs. He knew that to the police, disappearing guests plus a shooting victim in the parking lot would equal murder suspects. Yet how did they casually saunter back through the inn to their room? And once there, how could they possibly clean it so thoroughly that a fingerprint wouldn’t show up under investigation? And what about the registration card on file down at the desk? His prints would be all over it.

  And if the abductor had gotten away? Would he now be lurking outside their room, waiting for them to return?

  The dangers of lingering seemed more immediate than the benefits of trying to tie up loose ends that most likely could never be completely tied up anyway.

  He realized later that it never crossed his mind to call the cops.

  Grace was shaking hard. Her teeth clattered. Her knees trembled.

  How could they be certain the kidnapping was related to Grace’s situation? Maybe the kidnapper was a serial rapist who picked up hapless women in bars.

  Maybe his choice of Grace was simply a coincidence.

  Sure. Like Michael Wardman’s, aka Jake’s, murder. Just a coincidence.

  As he drove away from the motel, a couple of thoughts topped all the others: Who in the hell was the vigilante Elvis impersonator and what did he have to do with Grace?

  And who was Daniel?

  FROM THE CORNER of his eye, Mac saw Grace hesitantly touch her neck as she sat there with closed eyes. He switched on the heater.

  “Grace,” he said softly.

  Her hands fluttered to her lap as she turned to look at him. The sparkling pinpoints he’d noticed earlier on her earlobes caught the dashboard lights and shimmered right along with the whites of her eyes. He made himself look back at the road as he said, “Are you okay?”

  She murmured, “Yes.” He had the feeling she was afraid to try a sentence, afraid that a scream would escape instead of words. Trying to keep her centered, he said, “It’s okay now. There’s no one following us. It’s okay.”

  She nodded as he dredged up a phony smile. The truth was that he longed to slam on the brakes and hold her, not only for her sake but for his own, to reassure himself that she was okay because he’d almost lost her tonight. He’d come so close that the taste of it still lingered in his mouth, like gunpowder hanging in the air. She could have been knifed or thrown into that car. Once the shooting started, she could have been hit by a flying bullet.

  He’d almost failed her. His feelings for her had almost cost her her life.

  Who the hell was Daniel?

  It was the first time she’d uttered any name and he knew they had to talk about it. Could it be she’d recognized her abductor, that he was Daniel?

  She finally whispered, “I’m okay.”

  “You’ve had a rough night,” he said.

  “So have you,” she mumbled.

  “It’s not the same.”

  “I could have gotten us both killed,” she added, her voice losing its quiver. “To listen to a lousy Elvis impersonator, for God’s sake. To drink a glass of wine. To be…normal…for a minute.”

  He reached across and flicked one of the ragged plastic leis still dangling around her neck. “Yeah, but look. You came away with nifty souvenirs. Grace, who is Daniel?”

  She repeated the name softly. “Daniel?”

  “That’s what you called me in the parking lot. When I leaned over you.”

  “When you leaned over me,” she repeated. She pressed fingertips against her temples and grimaced. “I remember. Daniel. Leaning over me.”

  “Was he the man who tried to kidnap you—”

  She shook her head violently. “No, no. Daniel. There was a needle.”

  He spared her another glance. “But, Grace. Who is Daniel?”

  “I remember a needle,” she said. “A man, leaning over me, sticking me with a needle.” She rubbed her temples again, looking at him with an agonized expression. “Hurting me,” she whispered.

  “But you can’t remember who Daniel is?”

  “My husband…?” she murmured with a question in her voice that faded away.

  Her husband! Her husband had shot her up with a needle? Her husband had scared her witless? Was she striving to stay true to a man who had all but sacrificed her for some unknown reason? To rescue a man who was the direct cause of her current situation?

  All along, he’d been darting glances between the road ahead, the rearview mirror and Grace. Now he saw a pair of headlights behind, coming on fast. He held his breath as the lights grew huge, flooding the Coopers’ car with light. At the moment it whizzed past. A low-slung convertible, top down, a woman behind the wheel. She disappeared up the road as quickly as she’d come from behind.

  Mac relaxed a little and turned back to Grace. “Are you okay?” He realized it was an absurd question and couldn’t imagine why he kept asking it.

  She didn’t bother to answer him, but her hand had once again strayed to touch her throat.

  In the ensuing silence, he tried to recall everything they’d left in the motel room. His cell phone was in his pocket and he carried his wallet and gu
n as well. He said, “Grace, what all did you leave behind? If we have to go back there, we’d better do it now before we’re any farther away.”

  “Clothes,” she said. The brisk way she said it announced that she was trying hard to think clearly. “The little purse your aunt gave me is in one of the shopping bags I abandoned in the cabaret,” she added, “but there’s nothing in it except money. I guess the bartender will take out enough to cover the bottle of wine I ordered, then store everything else.”

  “I guess,” Mac said. He thought of possible consequences. If Elvis had killed the kidnapper and then the kidnapper’s body was found in the parking lot, the cops would question everyone in that motel. Eventually, they’d find the bartender or the stout woman who had blocked Mac’s way. One of them would recall seeing Grace leave with the dead guy—his imposing size would identify him if nothing else did. One of them would recall Grace. They’d search the bags she’d left.

  He said, “What exactly did you have in those shopping bags?”

  “Um…clothes. That’s all. And the purse, like I told you.”

  “Any mention of my aunt in the purse? A card or a name tag maybe?”

  “No. Just cash and the card-key to our room. Your wife’s old clothes were in one bag and a few toiletry items were in another. And clothes, like I said, just panties and a pair of jeans. A sweatshirt. Socks.”

  Okay, they’d lift Grace’s prints from the shopping bags and match them to the room. They’d get a good physical description of her from the salesgirl or the barkeep. Ditto of him from the desk clerk and the boy who’d delivered room service.

  His prints would be a piece of cake to trace. Army records, police force. No problem. Grace would be more difficult. Unless she, too, had served in the service or held a government job or committed a felony, and how in the world did he know that she hadn’t done all three?

  He didn’t.

  Who was Elvis?

  Grace said, “Mac, I’ve been thinking. There was something familiar about that man. I think it was same guy I saw in the alley that first night. Before you found me.”

  Mac felt his heartbeat triple. “The tall man with the dark eyes. The man in the rain?”

  “When he stared down at me in the parking lot, I had a definite feeling of déjà vu.”

  “Déjà vu originating from the last few days, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  Had they just come face-to-face with Jake’s murderer and the answer to the puzzle of Grace’s identity?

  And was that answer now bleeding to death in a parking lot behind them?

  “When he told me to get in that car, I asked him if he knew me,” Grace added.

  “Good thinking. What did he say?”

  “He didn’t respond. Besides arguing with me about getting in his car, the only words he spoke were when he poked that awful knife in my side and warned that if I didn’t do as he told me, he’d kill you.”

  “He knew about me?” Mac said, thinking aloud.

  “Absolutely.”

  So much for the coincidence of the abduction.

  “Mac, who in the world was that Elvis? Why did he come to my rescue?”

  “We can’t know for sure that he actually came to your rescue,” Mac said.

  “He shot at the bad guy.”

  “Maybe what happened was between them and not because of you.”

  “He didn’t hurt us when he could have.”

  True. Mac said, “I have trouble pegging him as an aging superhero in an Elvis disguise.”

  She tried to laugh. She seemed to realize how strained it sounded and stopped.

  A new thought buzzed Mac’s brain. He hit the steering wheel and all but slammed on the brakes. “Grace, your underwear. Did you leave it in the bathroom? It’s the only clue we have—”

  “I’m wearing it,” she reassured him. “I washed it out and dried it with the blow-dryer. The material is so thin it dried in nothing flat.”

  Mac pressed down on the accelerator again.

  “I had fun picking out new clothes,” she said softly. Her voice sounded oddly petulant. “And makeup. Even a little jewelry.”

  “What did Elvis say to you?” he asked her. “Before you pushed him.”

  She was spinning the bracelet on her wrist. “Crazy stuff,” she mumbled.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean his words made no sense.”

  “Then why did you push him?”

  Glancing up, she said, “Because he tried to cop a feel.”

  “He what!”

  “He touched my breast. And it wasn’t an accident. He knew what he was doing. Up close he looked like a lecherous gnome in a black wig. He touched me. He said something I could barely understand so I pushed him away.”

  “Try to remember what he said.”

  “Something about B.O.”

  “As in body odor?”

  “I don’t think so. Something like, ‘B.O. says go home.’ What does that mean?”

  “I think it means Elvis knows who you are.”

  “Great.”

  She was quiet for a time before adding, “The kidnapper obviously knew who I was or how did he know to mention you by name? The nasty little Elvis impersonator seemed to feel I wouldn’t mind a friendly grope. What does that say about me, Mac? What does that say about the kind of woman I must be?” She tore at the bedraggled leis and dumped them at her feet. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” she announced.

  And with that, she turned as much of her back to him as possible before leaning her forehead against her window.

  Mac kept driving, too tired now to even be tired. His thoughts traveled in concentric circles, but he wondered if Grace was right.

  What kind of situation had she gotten herself involved in before she lost her memory? Would she ever be able to accept the woman she’d been once she started recalling what had happened to her?

  He had no idea how things like this worked. Did people undergo personality changes with amnesia? Did they stay the same only without their memory?

  He stole a glance at her. It was too dark to see much and her back was turned to him anyway.

  He checked out the rearview mirror, half expecting to see a whacked headlight lurking in the distance, but the road was all but empty. No one back there seemed to care about them one way or another.

  He tried to think of something he’d done right since leaving Billington and couldn’t come up with a thing.

  The memory of Grace’s lips flooded his mind. The feel of her skin…

  No. Especially not that…

  AS THE HOURS of the night passed in an endless progression of miles, Grace stared out the window, trying not to relive the moment she’d felt the cold touch of the steel blade against her throat. She hated knives. She hated the thought of their cruel steel slicing through her skin.

  She was tired of feeling like a victim. Tired of feeling as though she’d been run over by a truck. Her emotions were always getting the best of her. Fear and worry and anxiety and whatever it was she felt for Mac, all of them a tempestuous brew gurgling away in her gut, shooting occasional flares into her brain.

  Well, no more.

  It was time to use her head instead of her heart.

  And her head was finally beginning to work again. She could sense faint rumblings in the recesses of her mind. Shadows. Lurking figures. The feeling of anxiety that had plagued her from the beginning now gnawed at her like an angry rodent trying to eat its way out of a maze. The car didn’t move fast enough, and as she sat there in the dark, she imagined sprouting wings and taking flight.

  Once in a while, out of pure fatigue, her eyes drifted closed and she jerked them open with a start. Every time she relaxed, those fuzzy images in her mind kind of took over, like bullies on a playground, pushing other thoughts aside, looming like thugs. She couldn’t imagine what they would do to her if she allowed herself to fall asleep. She just wouldn’t. She didn’t want to find out.

  An
d she was constantly aware of Mac. How she longed to slide across the seat and snuggle down beside him. How she longed to feel his warm arm flop across her shoulders, to feel his hunger for her. He was real, the only real person in the world, more real than she was. She wanted him to want and need her, even though she knew such desires were selfish. So she kept to herself and tried to picture another man, a man who had once slipped a ring on her finger and vowed his love.

  But he was a phantom.

  A new memory surfaced with daybreak. “I remember the sun rising over the ocean,” she said, her forehead pressed against the cool glass of the window.

  It was the first time either of them had spoken in hours. Mac glanced at her before looking back at the road. “That means you remember watching the sun rise on the east coast,” he said. “Hopefully it means we’re going in the right direction.”

  “And I remember swimming in the ocean,” she added. “I like the ocean. I like the buoyancy when I float in salt water. I like the feel of the sand between my toes when I walk on a beach. I like the sun on my face.”

  It was the first time she could recall knowing things about herself, backed up with physical sensations she could recall and not just vague feelings. It made her feel wonderful and she hugged herself with the pure joy of it.

  “Have you remembered anything else about yourself while you’ve been sitting over there?” Mac asked. He was in the process of exiting the freeway and she glanced at their gas gauge. It was time for a fill-up.

  “No,” she admitted.

  He nodded once and then surprised her by pulling into a motel parking lot. This time, it was a small place next to the freeway with no underground parking, though Mac pulled into a slot at the back between two huge trucks. It seemed kind of out in the open to Grace, but she knew Mac well enough by this time to assume he had his reasons for the choice. Besides, what concerned her more than the safety of stopping was the prospect of hours spent cooped up in a tiny room. She didn’t want to go to sleep. She dreaded it.