Undercover Memories Page 5

  “Let me ask you a question,” John said. “Have either of you seen a large man in a gold car with a young blonde woman? Would have been in the last couple of hours, probably less—”

  He shut up as he registered their blank expressions. Identical shakes of their heads followed, and John knew he was wasting time.

  “Damn thief,” the older guy said. Looking at his friend, he added, “Now how are we going to get home?”

  “Come on, George, it’ll be A-OK, hunky-dory. What we need is a little drink. Come on.”

  The two men swung their arms around each other and tottered off.

  John’s mind raced as he stared at their retreating forms. There was another possibility: What if Korenev had stolen the truck? It would be a perfect cover. Who would suspect a murderer to be driving a wreck like that, and the vehicle itself would be a piece of cake to hot-wire. It wouldn’t be fitted with alarms, either....

  If that’s what had happened, where was the Pollocks’ vehicle? It wasn’t in the lot, that was for sure.

  And where was Paige? Would Anatola Korenev really stick her in an old truck with him?

  He yelled across the lot. “Hey, was there a camper or a shell on the back of your truck?”

  The older man paused and turned. He appeared to be thinking.

  “Hell, no,” the younger one said, tugging on the older one’s arm. They resumed their unsteady advance on the tavern.

  Time was ticking away and John didn’t know what to do except keep driving, hoping that Korenev had taken the truck and it had fallen apart close by.

  He got back in Paige’s car and started circling the tavern to exit. That’s when he saw a few broken branches on the trees at the back of the lot. Was that a road beneath them?

  No. He accelerated again, but at the last minute, he looked back over his shoulder and slowed the car. The cracks in the branches looked starkly white against the dark wood. New cracks.

  He slammed on the brakes and tore open his door. Running into the trees, he followed what appeared to be a trail of mangled undergrowth and rutted wet dirt until he caught a glimpse of gold paint: the tail end of the Pollocks’ car.

  His heart banged against his ribs as he fought his way through the brushwood until he could peer inside.

  Paige’s purse and wallet lay on the floor. Bending and twisting, he retrieved them, stuffed them in his pocket and tried to figure out what it meant.

  Had she been forced into an old black truck at knifepoint and driven away? Or had she been murdered, her body tossed aside within these woods?

  He shuddered at the daunting scope of searching a whole forest. It was time to call in the cops. What happened to him didn’t matter—he’d thought he could handle this alone, but it was obvious now he couldn’t. He ran back out of the forest and approached Paige’s car. When he paused to open the door, he heard a noise above the sound of his own ragged breathing.

  He turned around so quickly he stumbled back against the fender. Holding his breath and straining to hear, he waited—there it was again, a thumping sound. But where was it coming from?

  The sound stopped and for a minute or so, he thought he was going crazy, that he was making things up, that maybe bashing his head on the rocks the day before had unhinged him—

  No, there it was again, coming from back near the trees to the left. He began walking that direction, pausing to listen once or twice.

  There were two or three older cars back there that looked as though they hadn’t moved in a while. As he approached, he noticed pieces of red plastic on the ground beneath a hole where the right taillight had been on an old red sedan. As John watched, something appeared in the opening and then fell, stopping short—

  It took him a dumbfounded second to finally realize he was staring at a gold-and-silver pendant hanging from a slender chain. An owl. Paige’s owl in all its unsettling glory.

  He ran the last few steps and pounded on the trunk. “Paige?” The owl necklace fell to the ground as though dropped in startled clumsiness. “Paige, hold on, I’ll get you out of there.”

  He heard the reassuring sound of a muffled voice.

  He moved around to the driver’s door but it was locked. Through the window, he could see the passenger door was open a bit, and he hurried around the car. Careful to avoid the broken window glass, he easily found the opener in the cleaned-out glove box and pushed it.

  As he lifted the truck lid, his brain registered a slew of details. Paige lay all scrunched up with her back to the rear of the car, a leather strap around her neck. Her hands were taped together, as were her ankles. It appeared she’d managed to wield a tire iron and had used it to bang out the taillight, working with her back to the job. He had no idea how she managed to manipulate the necklace from around her neck let alone dangle it through the opening.

  He lifted her out of the trunk. Her eyes were wide, her gaze darting all around as though searching for a sign of Korenev. At first she couldn’t stand without John’s help. He lifted what he now saw was a man’s leather belt from over her head and tossed it back in the trunk, flinching at the angry red burn that encircled her throat. Apologizing ahead of time, he peeled the tape away from her mouth, and she cried out as it lifted from her lips.

  He pulled her against him. “Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”

  “No. Not really,” she mumbled.

  “Where is he?”

  She looked over his shoulder, then met his gaze. “I don’t know. I felt his weight shift as he got out of the car. I kept waiting…waiting for him to come back, you know. There was a sound by the trunk as though he paused, but then voices across the lot and retreating footsteps. Someone must have spooked him. I heard an engine start nearby. That’s when I started bashing out the taillight. I didn’t know if you would come—”

  “Of course I came. I’m sorry it took so long.”

  She pushed herself away. Her eyes were moist. “I’ve never been so scared in my life.”

  He swallowed a boulder as his gaze took in the split skin over her cheekbone and the chalky white of her complexion. She looked away from him—what was she thinking? She’d heard Korenev’s accusations. She must be wondering if he was as ruthless as Korenev.

  “Could you get this tape off of me?” she asked.

  “Of course.” He freed her hands and then knelt before her to unwind the silver adhesive from her legs. It seemed to take forever.

  “What do we do now?” she asked as she rubbed her hands together as if trying to reestablish circulation. Staring at the ground, she added, “Do you see my necklace? I dropped it.”

  “It’s right here,” he said, and gestured at the glittering gold that had fallen through the mushy snow and lay now among a dozen jagged pieces of red plastic.

  He bent to pick it up for her and paused.

  Although the pendant’s topaz eyes were no bigger than decorative pinheads, they still managed to drill right inside his head. For a microsecond, his skin seemed on fire, and then it was over. He wiped a thin layer of perspiration off his forehead. He was crazy. There was no other explanation.

  Without saying a word, she picked up the owl and chain, examined it for a second and dropped it into her pocket where it disappeared from sight.

  He took a deep breath.

  “I had to break it to get it off my neck,” she murmured, and once again he looked at the burn on her lovely throat. He’d thought it came from Korenev’s bondage methods, but now he saw the abrasion was too narrow for the belt to have caused it. It was yanking on the chain that had burned her skin. It was the owl…

  “You have a black eye,” he said, gently touching her left cheek and willing himself to stop being such an unmitigated sissy.

  “We match. We can tell people we’ve been in a car accident.”

  He stared into her troubled gray eyes and felt himself drifting toward her. He gave a mental shake of his head and murmured something about getting out of the lot before someone noticed them.

  She
looked over his shoulder, then back with a startled expression on her face. “You mean someone like that?”

  He turned to see what she meant. A police car rolled slowly down the street.

  “Hurry,” she said as she grabbed his lapels and pulled him toward her. “Kiss me.”

  He did not need any more invitation than that, and immediately took her up on her suggestion. Her lips were cool and fresh and yet warm, too, and so soft.

  It was a brief kiss and he knew its purpose was to dissuade a cop from investigating them closer, but it was also the most wonderful thing that had happened to him in twenty-four hours. It connected him with another person in a way that fused the crevices of his soul, like pouring warm water on a block of ice.

  It was over in a few short seconds, and he stared down at her as she checked out the street behind him. Her profile was beautiful, her lashes long and luxuriant.

  “They’re gone,” she said. “We should leave before they come back.”

  “Or Korenev does,” he added. As he led her to her car, he told her about the roadblock. “You leave me here and drive out the main way. You’ll run into the police in about ten miles and then you’ll be safe.”

  “What about you?”

  He shook his head. The truth: he was loath to see her go. It felt wonderful to have her beside him again, to not be alone. He didn’t want to lose her in the worst way possible.

  But he couldn’t stand the thought she might run into Korenev again because of him.

  “John? You can’t get out of here on foot. We’ll stick together for now, okay?”

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  “I don’t want to be by myself,” she said, and now for the first time, her voice trembled. “Don’t make me drive off alone, please. If you want me to go to the cops, then come with me.”

  “I can’t. I have to find out who and what I am.”

  “I know you do. So, get in the car. I’ll drive to make it all legal, although my wallet is back in the Pollocks’ car.” She hugged herself as she added, “I really don’t want to go back into that forest.”

  “You don’t have to,” he said and pulled her things from his pocket. She took them gratefully. Fingering the blue leather wallet with the strangest expression on her face, she looked up at him. “You said that for better or worse, we were in this together. Did you mean it?”

  “Absolutely. But—”

  “Then let’s get out of here.”

  Chapter Six

  Paige clutched the steering wheel with sweaty, shaky hands. Some sort of delayed reaction had begun to erupt inside her. It was all she could do not to turn around and go find the cop whom she’d been so cavalier about only minutes before.

  She sneaked a glance at John, who was tinkering with the GPS that came with the car. She’d used it only once and that was to find her way to the mountains a few days earlier. Then she’d been alone and heartbroken but by comparison with how she now felt, her former condition seemed downright lighthearted.

  She glanced at John again. “Can you make sense of that thing?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Don’t ask me how. It looks like there’s a subsidiary road a few miles south of here that goes east through the mountains. It’s roundabout. In fact, it will make a four- or five-hour trip into one three times as long, but should work.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “It’s probably unpaved, you know. It could be hard on your car.”

  “That can’t be helped. It’s our only alternative.”

  There she went again. Of course it wasn’t her only alternative. She could take John up on his offer. She could drive off by herself and find a whole bevy of policemen. She chose to be in this vehicle with John Cinca, sharing this danger, and the reason for that completely baffled her.

  Unless— Was this some kind of irrational in-your-face payback to Brian because he’d humiliated her? He’d thought he’d ruined her life. He’d begged her forgiveness even as his gaze kept straying to his ex, Jasmine.

  All Paige had wanted was to disappear off the face of the earth. No, that’s not true. She’d wanted Brian and Jasmine to disappear, too.

  So now she was risking life and limb for another good-looking guy with a hard-luck story. And this one could be a cold-blooded murderer like Anatola Korenev, because it was obvious the two men shared some kind of history.

  “You’ve gotten pretty quiet,” John said.

  “I was thinking.”

  “Dare I ask what about?”

  “You.”

  He grunted. “You’re wondering why you insisted on sticking with me.”

  “Sort of,” she said. “Nothing that has happened since we met has been rational.”

  He seemed to study the cuts on the insides of his hands as he thought. “Not on the surface,” he finally said, looking up at her. “But that’s probably because we don’t have the facts.”

  “If your memory would just come back—”

  “Oh, please,” he said, holding up a hand and cringing. “Be careful what you wish for. Hearing Anatola Korenev insinuate I’m a murderer worries the hell out of me.”

  “He was yanking your chain.”

  “I hope so.”

  “John? What are you going to do when you get off this mountain?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. The television people said I was a bodyguard from Lone Tree, right? So my plan is to go there and look myself up. See what I can find. But first I’m going to make sure you arrive home in one piece. I don’t know if Korenev can get out of these mountains without being caught, but there’s something about the man that screams determination. At least Korenev doesn’t know who you are.”

  “Yes, he does. He looked at my driver’s license.”

  “Great.” He shook his head. “Now he has your name and address.”

  She tried to hide the shiver that pricked her skin. “He doesn’t know where I live. He doesn’t even know the right town. The address on my driver’s license is three years old. I’ve moved twice since then. I live in Parker now, not Casper.”

  “That’s good news,” he said. He paused for a second before adding, “What exactly did Korenev say to you? Did he talk about me?”

  “Just in a roundabout way. He alluded to the fact you and he had business to conduct. And then he wanted to know how you and I knew each other. I said we really didn’t.”

  “Good.”

  “Well, then I got to thinking my chances at surviving might be improved if he thought I was important to you, so I told him we were lovers.”

  He cast her an incredulous expression. “And he bought that?”

  “I think so.”

  “That I fell down a waterfall and happened to meet my girlfriend in a cabin nearby?”

  “I can be a pretty convincing liar,” she said. “Anyway, he mentioned he was in a hurry a couple of times, so maybe he decided it didn’t really matter.”

  “Did he say why he was in a hurry?”

  “No. On the other hand, he’d just murdered two people and kidnapped another, so it makes sense he’d be antsy. Or how about this: maybe he knew you were up here to meet with someone, and he assumed it was me.”

  “Up here to meet someone,” he repeated. “If that’s true, who? No, don’t bother to say it. There is no answer.” He sighed. “Okay, I officially want my memory back. I’ll take whatever I have coming to me, but stumbling around in the dark sucks.”

  “Don’t pay me any attention,” Paige said, alarmed with how upset her suggestion had made him. “I’m just talking off the top of my head.”

  “But there’s something to be said for it. For one thing, Anatola Korenev said he walked down the mountain instead of tumbling down the waterfall like I apparently did. We know he didn’t have a car waiting at the bottom because he stole the Pollocks’. The news report mentioned two cars in the park where the man was beaten. One was registered to me. One was stolen and abandoned. And yet there had to be three of us up there at the same time. Me, the gu
y who got beat up and Anatola.”

  “What are you saying? That you went up there with one of them or the other?”

  “Or met them both there. It’s obvious the meeting didn’t have anything to do with camping.” He stared at his hands again and shook his head.

  What must it be like not to remember what had gone on inside your own brain just twenty-four hours before? Terrifying, especially when evidence suggested none of it was very nice. “In the end he left me in the trunk,” she said, “so I guess he had second thoughts about my story.”

  “I think it was more than that. The next easiest vehicle in that lot to hot-wire was the old truck with zilch places to hide you all taped up and gagged. How could he explain you if someone stopped him?”

  She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. For a second she was back in that trunk, in the dark and cold. She heard the grinding of an engine that wouldn’t start, then the bounce of the tired springs as Korenev got out of the car. And voices. Maybe he’d been ready to kill her before he left and paused because someone noticed him. All she knew was the relief she’d felt as his footsteps retreated.

  “You sure you don’t want me to drive?” John asked.

  She glanced at him and he pointed at the rearview mirror. Three cars trailed behind her.

  “It’s better if we don’t draw attention to ourselves,” he added softly.

  Paige pulled the car over. It was as though all the bones in her body had dissolved and left her limp and washed out to the point where even pushing down on the accelerator pedal was taxing. They changed places.

  “What road are we looking for?” she asked as they passed a cluster of houses.

  “Territorial 4001.”

  “The sign said it’s a mile up ahead.”

  Territorial 4001 started out good but turned bad fast, going from gravel to dirt to deeply rutted within a few miles. Worse, the elevation climbed and the snow on the ground grew more pronounced. They pushed on, though it was impossible not to wonder if it would get too deep before the end.