Undercover Memories Page 4

  John fired off a couple of shots at the tires, but he was too late. It was too far away.

  Swearing, he raced back into the house.

  * * *

  “DRIVE FAST,” KORENEV demanded. With his good hand, he held the knife tip against Paige’s throat.

  “I said fast,” Korenev repeated, and leaning toward her, stomped his boot on top of her right foot, depressing the accelerator even farther, ignoring her cries of pain as he crushed her toes. Shoved against the driver’s door, she could barely breathe and the trees flying by her window made her head spin.

  As they came to a crossroad, he grabbed the wheel with his bloody hand, swinging it hard to the right. The car turned widely, hitting a ditch but bouncing back onto the pavement, careening across both lanes as Korenev fought to regain control. Paige held her breath as the smell of his fresh blood combined with terror made her stomach heave.

  With the crazy turn, they’d left the main highway that would have taken them out of the mountains. If John was following, he would undoubtedly continue on straight.

  If John was following.

  What had Korenev meant when he claimed he’d butchered the Pollocks to make it appear the work of a madman, a man like John? Was John a cold-blooded killer?

  As if it mattered right now? If she had to choose her poison, John or this guy, bring on John. Please…

  Korenev was breathing kind of shallow. He’d lost a lot of blood. She had to keep focused. If the man blacked out, it would be up to her to get the car stopped without crashing it.

  Think, think, think. You still have your purse. What’s in it that you can use? Why didn’t you buy a spray can of pepper spray when you had the chance? Or a little gun?

  With a sinking heart, the only object she was sure she carried besides a wallet were her car keys.

  It became obvious that Korenev had no intention of giving in to pain or injury when he finally took some of his weight off her foot. His big hand still clamped the steering wheel over hers.

  They were approaching a wide spot in the road. On one side was a closed-up gas station and on the other a small square building, a tavern called Gil’s Place.

  Korenev turned the car into a parking area beside the tavern that appeared to be carved out of the surrounding dense forest. There was a sprinkling of other vehicles, but not many; after all, it was not yet noon. He made straight for the back of the lot, easing up on the pedal and searching for something.

  When he seemed to find what he wanted, he finally shifted his bulk back into his own seat and took his hand off the wheel, his foot off of hers. The relief lasted about one second.

  “Drive in forest over there,” he said, gesturing with the knife. “Hurry.”

  He’d chosen an area where the underbrush wasn’t as heavy. There was the suggestion of a track, perhaps a leftover from a logging road years before.

  She hesitated. Who knew what horror he had in mind for her, and surely the middle of the lot was a better place to face her fate than the deep cover of the trees?

  The knife tip grazed her skin. “Do it,” he said.

  She drove into the forest, following his directions, tears stinging her eyes because she was so scared and because she couldn’t find even the smallest sliver of hope.

  Stop it, she admonished herself. There’s always hope.

  “That’s far enough,” he said. As the car had more or less burrowed as deep into the forest as possible without the aid of a bulldozer, she eased off the gas and turned off the car.

  “Give me your purse,” he said.

  She took it from around her body and handed it to him. Her hands were surprisingly steady.

  “Open it.”

  She unzipped the bag and he peeked inside. “Put it on dashboard,” he directed, apparently satisfied she wasn’t carrying a weapon around in her bag.

  Again she did as he said.

  Staring right into her eyes, knife held firmly in his bloody maimed hand, Korenev unbuckled his belt and started tugging it through the belt loops.

  Surely he wasn’t thinking rape!

  But what about the way he’d staged the Pollocks’ murders? Bile rose up her throat. Who knew what this man would do? The door on her side was wedged against a tree or she would have taken her chances. As it was, she was trapped.

  He pulled the belt loose and quickly tugged the free end back through the buckle, then slipped it over Paige’s head, sliding it down until it circled her neck. The buckle bit against her flesh, yanked on her hair. In essence, he’d created a collar for her and he controlled the “leash.”

  “One good tug and eyes pop,” he said in such a matter-of-fact way her blood turned to water.

  “Yes, okay.”

  “Who are you? How you know Cinca?”

  “I don’t. I’m just renting the cabin.”

  “Give me wallet. Hurry. I’m late.”

  Late for what? Murder, mayhem? She took out the blue wallet, a gift from Brian. She’d forgotten that until this moment.

  “Show me driver’s license.”

  She did. He studied it for a second. “Paige Graham,” he said. “So, you are nobody, huh? Tell the truth. How you know Cinca?”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to repeat that she didn’t know John, he’d just arrived much like Korenev himself, but then she thought better of it. If Korenev didn’t believe John would come after her, what use was she to Korenev?

  “We’re lovers,” she said.

  He raised his thick eyebrows and sneered. “Oh, come now. You expect I believe that?”

  “I don’t care what you believe. It’s a fact. John and I are lovers.”

  “There was no sign of you at his place in Lone Tree.”

  She shrugged. “We, um, conducted our affair at my place.”

  “Why?”

  “I was involved with someone else. So what?”

  He narrowed his eyes as he seemed to really look at her for the first time. There was speculation in his black eyes, and doubt.

  “Why else would he risk his life for me?” she added.

  “So he arrange to meet you here after…business?”

  This was thin ice, although the thought that John had had “business” with this man appalled her. Nevertheless, she’d started this, and she knew she had to keep it simple or get tripped up in her own lies. He obviously didn’t realize John didn’t remember anything past yesterday, and he just as clearly wasn’t a close friend. She nodded.

  He produced a leer that literally made her skin crawl. She’d heard the expression, of course, but this was the first time she’d experienced it, and it was creepy.

  He tossed her purse and wallet on the floor, then pulled up his trouser leg, revealing a holster into which he slid the knife. Paige took a shaky breath. He could still choke her, but at least it wasn’t likely he’d slit her throat.

  For now, anyway.

  He caught the handle on the passenger-side door and heaved his bulk against it, keeping the belt tight around Paige’s throat as he bullied the door open. The buckle pressed into her flesh. Somehow he managed to extricate himself from the car, tugging her along behind him, yanking on her arm when she didn’t move fast enough for him. Then he shoved her ahead of him until they cleared the car.

  “Walk fast. One word and you die,” he said.

  It was on the tip of her tongue to say, “Yeah, yeah, you said that already,” and then she wondered again if she’d lost her senses.

  As soon as they cleared the trees, she looked back, positive there would be an obvious path to the gold car, but it was as though the forest had closed in around the recent wound. She scanned the parking lot instead. Surely there would be someone around to witness this bizarre kidnapping, someone to either call for help or whip out a big old six-shooter.

  No one. Not a soul. Just a half dozen cars and a squat one-story building rising from the melting snow with no discernible windows. The faint melody of a country-western song was the only sound besides the crunching
of their feet on the quickly thawing ground.

  He paused long enough to take the knife out again and thrust it toward her to show he meant business. How crazy was this—that a man could march a woman through a parking lot in broad daylight with a belt around her neck and a knife at her back and no one saw it?

  Using the bulk of his body and the threat of the knifepoint, Korenev finally pushed Paige against the side of an old car parked deep in the shadows amid a couple of other clunkers. He reached around her and shattered the passenger window with his closed fist. “Open it,” he said.

  Avoiding the glass, she pulled up the lock and opened the door. The bench front seat was much torn and patched with duct tape, though here and there a spring managed to poke through. The steering wheel was wrapped in tape, as well, and the dashboard fairly gleamed silver with the stuff.

  “Empty it,” he ordered, using the knife to point to the glove box, which was missing its cover. Most of the contents had already spilled to the floor mat below. She pulled out a partial roll of the same tape that seemed to hold the interior of the car together and a few odds and ends, revealing at last a small yellow button.

  “That’s it,” he said, his satisfied breath hot against the back of her neck. “Push it.”

  A twanging sound announced the trunk had popped open. “My lucky day,” he added as he picked up the duct tape.

  With a sinking feeling for what was coming next, she thought of and discarded scenarios as fast as she could. Kicking him, clawing him, screaming at the top of her lungs, grabbing at his injured hand—

  But each idea came overlaid with the image of Jack Pollock’s brutal death, to say nothing of the knowledge that Korenev would happily use his muscles to either tighten the belt around her neck or plunge the knife into her chest.

  He ordered her to go around to the back of the car. “Tape you ankles,” he demanded.

  “But—”

  With a sudden yank of the belt, he leaned in close to her face. “Understand,” he said softly. “You are little value to me. I keep you alive just to use as bait to trap Cinca. Now tape ankles together on skin and do it tight or I will cut my losses—and your throat.”

  As he had Carolyn Pollock’s…

  Leaning over, she wound the tape around her legs. When she straightened up, he grabbed the tape from her hand and bit off a piece. As he pushed it toward her mouth, she turned her head. Closing his fist, he fought her resistance with a punch on the cheekbone that all but knocked her out. She sagged, but he caught her, and ripping off a new piece, slapped it over her mouth. “Be grateful I not cover your nose, too,” he growled as he bound her wrists in back of her, using just the one hand and yet working so fast and with such ease that it was as though he’d done it that way his whole life.

  The next thing she knew, he’d lifted her off her feet and dumped her into the trunk. She landed on something hard and cold, a rod or a pipe. The lid made a deafening sound as it slammed shut over her head.

  Lying alone in the cold, black enclosure, she waited for the car to start.

  A few minutes later, the engine made a few putting noises. He must have tried to hot-wire it. Bracing herself for the worst, Paige waited for whatever came next.

  Chapter Five

  John ran back into the kitchen, skidding when his foot landed on an apple. He kicked it out of the way and continued on into the living room, where momentum temporarily deserted him.

  Paige was gone, stolen away. The cabin was suddenly as empty as John’s head.

  Where were her car keys? He’d driven them back from the Pollocks’ house. He hit his own pockets a half dozen times, his thoughts all jumbled and confused. They’d come home from the Pollocks’ house desperate to get out of the mountains. He’d popped the trunk with the electronic button and then he’d—he’d handed the damn keys to Paige, that’s what he’d done, and she’d opened the cabin door. She must have the keys.

  Or they were in her coat or her purse.

  That purse had been strapped across her body. Her coat was in the bedroom....

  The weird thing on the floor he was staring at finally resolved itself into Anatola Korenev’s bloody, severed digit. John hurried back into the kitchen and found a plastic bag in a drawer. He picked up the finger with the bag and deposited it in the freezer, marking it with an ink pen: police evidence. Maybe someday the prints lifted from that finger would come in handy—who knew?

  He had to find those keys. The coat turned up nothing, and there just wasn’t anyplace else to look. Grabbing the jacket, he rushed out to the car and threw it in the backseat. She’d need it when he found her—if he found her.

  Then he started an outward search of the vehicle.

  As he investigated with his hands all the usual places to hide a key, he considered using the onboard satellite service he’d noticed mounted in the car during their drive to the Pollocks’ house. He was pretty sure if he pushed the right button, the company could start it remotely, but really, would they do that without a password or something? Highly improbable. More likely they’d notify the cops, and boy, he really did not want that.

  Did he have that right, though? Paige’s life was in danger because she’d been kind to him; he should call the cops and think about her safety and not his own. And yet in the back of his fuzzy brain he was certain that Paige’s best chance for survival was John himself. Korenev had gone to great ends to find him, and he must have taken Paige in the hope he could use her. As soon as he figured out he couldn’t, who knew what he’d do?

  A minute later, while running his fingers up under the right rear wheel well, John felt the metallic hide-a-key box and damn near yelled with relief. He wasn’t sure how much of a head start they had; somehow he’d lost track of time again, but he drove as fast as he dared on the snowy road. With so little traffic, the tracks were easy to see, and he took a breath of relief. This would be easier than he’d thought it would be. All he had to do was follow the—

  No, it wasn’t going to be that easy, because a couple of miles down the road, the snow had all but melted on the tarmac and by the time he came to a four-corner crossroad, it was impossible to tell which way Korenev and Paige had gone. There was nothing to indicate one road was better than another except a sign announcing the main highway up ahead. That sounded promising. He went straight.

  Traffic picked up and he began to wonder how this situation would ever be resolved. It seemed there were dozens of gold or tan cars like the Pollocks’ on the road.

  As he drove, he racked his brain for some memory of Korenev or the waterfall. The man had made some pretty nasty statements.... What was going on? Did he and Korenev know one another? Heaven forbid, were they partners? Oh, please, not that.

  One thing was obvious—Korenev was unaware John had lost his memory. Maybe there would be a way to work that to his own advantage.

  He’d just driven up a rise when the sight in the small valley below caused him to pull over to the side of the road. The police had set up a roadblock, and a growing line of cars waited to be cleared.

  No way Korenev would chance that if he had any other option. No way John could chance it, either. He didn’t have a driver’s license, he looked as if he’d been attacked by a bear and he was driving a car registered to someone else.

  He turned around and went back the way he’d come.

  When he got to the four corners, he pulled over again and walked the intersection, crossing each street and bending to look closely at the ground, searching for some sign that they’d come this way. There were no buildings and no one around to point a finger and say, “They went that way.”

  The only thing he saw out of place were parallel tracks two tires had made in the verge. It looked fresh to him. But this was the smallest and least-traveled-looking of the roads, and his instincts said to try the others first.

  Thirty minutes later, after a dead end and a road that looped around to connect to the main highway, he set off down the smaller road. Had he ever had good ins
tincts? Were they messed up now due to the fall and amnesia, or was he always a screwup?

  It wasn’t long before he came across a closed-up gas station on one side of the road and a run-down-looking tavern on the other. There were two old guys in the parking lot and a few vehicles, but other than that it was dead.

  There was something about the two old men, though, that set off a warning bell. The way they stood in the center of the lot was odd, for one thing, as were their confused expressions. He pulled into the lot and got out of the car, attempting to look respectable despite his shredded suit and the bruises and Band-Aids on his face.

  He shouldn’t have worried. Both men reeked of booze and didn’t look as though they were up to making a single discerning observation.

  “You seen it?” one of them asked him as he looked into John’s eyes. His were watery and vague. He was the taller of the two and reed thin. His face was covered with gray stubble. The other was shorter and younger by a decade, but both were easily drinking away pensions. They were dressed more or less alike in heavy jackets, jeans, boots and cowboy hats.

  “Seen what?” John asked. He had the feeling he’d come in late to a show that was already in progress.

  “My truck,” the tall one said, burying his hands in his pockets.

  John stared at the old guy a second, trying to figure out if this was a joke. He finally repeated, “Your truck?”

  The old man held out unsteady hands as though to demonstrate how big the truck was. “It’s black,” he muttered.

  “Hell, it’s mostly rust,” the other guy sniggered.

  The old man looked offended for a second, then emitted a loud guffaw. “Someone must of stole it,” he said.

  “Who would steal that pile of—”

  “Well, it’s not here, is it?” the thin one barked, kicking at the muddy parking lot and almost falling on his face. John caught his arm and steadied him.

  The younger man studied the empty spot and shook his head. “It sure ain’t.”

  John looked around the lot to see if they’d parked it somewhere else and forgotten about it—not that he would tell them. Neither was in any condition to drive. It turned out to be a moot point as there was no rusty black truck in sight.