Undercover Memories (7 page)

“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 guy 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.

“Is there anything up ahead?” John asked. “A town or something?”

She scanned the GPS screen. “It looks like there’s a place called Soda Valley about ten miles from here.”

“Hopefully it’s big enough to warrant plowing the road if it gets too snowy,” he said as the car seemed to sink to its bumper in a pothole. “Sorry.”

Paige tried to wedge herself into the seat to avoid the bouncing and jarring, but just as the adrenaline had left her body, the aches and pains caused by all the throwing, shoving and thumps she’d endured had arrived with a vengeance.

Her kingdom for an aspirin.

Even if she had one, there was no water with which to take it or with which to wash off some of the blood and grime. And suddenly she was hungry. It had been a long time since breakfast. A year, maybe. Perhaps two....

“I want to stop in Soda Valley,” she said. “I’m starving, aren’t you?”

“Now that you mention it,” he said.

* * *

S
ODA
V
ALLEY TURNED OUT
to be nestled in a small basin. The snow was deeper here but the roads had been plowed and sanded. John kept his concerns to himself, but he did comfort himself that Paige’s car had both all-wheel drive and chains in the trunk. He had a feeling they would need both before they cleared the mountains.

The town itself was larger than he’d expected but was still a one-street town about six blocks long. He kept his eyes peeled for an old black truck as he pulled into a gas station. Paige used her credit card, and once the tank was full they continued into the heart of the “city,” where John parked against the curb.

Turning to Paige, he asked if she could loan him some money.

“How much?”

“Ten or twenty bucks? I assume I can repay you eventually.”

She opened her wallet. “All I have is two fifties. You take one, I’ll take the other. I’m going to go find food and water and aspirin. What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to find something warmer and less conspicuous to wear.”

“Okay. Meet me back here in twenty minutes?”

“Deal. But Paige,” he added, catching her arm. “Keep your eyes open for you know who.”

She went off one direction and he took the other, doing his best to blend in, but the curious glances thrown his way suggested it was a lost cause. He felt as if he was wearing a sign that announced he was a wanted man.

At the end of the third block he found a thrift shop. There wasn’t a lot to choose from, but he quickly settled on cowboy boots that were just a little tight but still had most of their soles, a pair of faded, worn denim jeans, a blue flannel shirt and a vest to cover the gun and holster. The only coat he could find was heavy and woolly, but that was fine. It promised warmth and anonymity, and that’s what he was after. The real bargain came at the cash register, where he spied a battered knockoff Stetson. The minute he settled it on his head, he felt invisible.

The suit and ruined shoes got rolled into a ball. Detouring off the main street, he found a Dumpster and deposited his old clothes, stuffed inside the thrift-store bag, in among the rest of the refuse.

Paige was already back in the car when he got there, fiddling with her necklace. She’d managed to find somewhere to clean up and had apparently dug through her luggage for a high-collared sweater that covered her neck.

Even after the morning she’d endured, even though her cut cheek was edging toward a black eye, she looked so pretty he had to smile at her. His smile seemed to catch her off guard, and then she looked closer and he realized she hadn’t recognized him at first.

“Do I fit in better?” he asked.

“Definitely,” she said as she fastened the mended clasp around her neck and tucked the owl beneath her sweater.

They got back into the shelter of the car, and she extracted the biggest sandwich he’d ever seen from a white deli bag. At least he thought it was the biggest he’d seen. How did he know?

She cut the sandwich in half with a little plastic knife, and they sat in the car sharing it. By silent agreement they seemed to have split the chore of looking out for trouble, with Paige staring at the pedestrians on the sidewalk and John keeping an eye on the street.

At the top of the hour, Paige switched on the radio, and with the local news report all semblance of peace flew out the window.

“A retired couple was found murdered in their home late this morning,” a woman’s voice reported. “Authorities revealed an employee of Haskins Satellite came across the bodies of a man and woman at their Woodside Street home when he kept a prearranged appointment to install equipment. Police have not yet released the identity of the couple or the exact circumstances of the killings except to say robbery may have been the motive.

“There is speculation that the murders may be linked to yesterday’s ruthless attack of an unidentified man who is still in a coma. Wanted for questioning in that situation is Lone Tree bodyguard John Cinca, who remains at large. The public is encouraged to contact authorities if they have any information and to consider Cinca armed and dangerous.”

They had both stopped eating as they listened and now looked at each other. John tried to read Paige’s expression but he couldn’t. Once again, he was amazed she’d stuck with him this long. Why had she? What could be her motive?

Was it possible she was part of this? Was it possible he’d come to these mountains to meet her, that she was in cahoots with Anatola Korenev and that she was playing him?

He stared at the high collar of her sweater....

“John?”

Startled by her voice, he jerked, met her gaze and looked away.

“Please don’t worry about that report,” she said. “I know for sure you didn’t kill Jack and Carolyn, and I know for sure Anatola Korenev did. This will all work out, trust me.”

Trust her. That’s what it was all about, and if anyone in that car was walking the line of sanity when it came to extending trust, it wasn’t him—it was her.

He began stuffing leftovers into the bag. The small town of Soda Valley suddenly seemed full of prying eyes, the interior of the car far too intimate. Paige shook an aspirin into her hand and took a drink from a water bottle.

“I could use a couple of those, too,” he said and held out his hand.

* * *

T
HEY SOON CLIMBED OUT
of the meadow and wound around a tall hill, the snow on each side of the plowed road growing so deep in places it felt as though they were driving through a tunnel of ice.