Nobody's Hero (6 page)

She couldn’t let him go on. She just couldn’t. It was too embarrassing.
 
“I know I’m a story, Riley. I know that’s why you called me. I know that’s why you showed up at my house. I get it. We don’t have to be friends.”

He nodded once. Twice. The little muscle on the side of his jaw ticked under his unshaven chin. For a second she wondered what it would feel like to touch that scratchy skin, but she forced the image out of her mind.

Just when she thought he was done, he leaned forward again and looked into her eyes. Her breath caught in her throat and she couldn’t look away. She didn’t even try.

“No, Callah. I mean, yeah, you’re a story. And, yeah, that’s the reason I called you originally. But that’s not the reason I showed up at your house. When I saw those pictures and that note and realized there was a chance you might be in real danger, I couldn’t let it go. I had to make sure you were okay.”

Oh. For a minute, she’d thought…no. She’d misunderstood the look in his eyes again.
 

He took a deep breath, and she tried to make him see it was fine. She understood. She was a responsibility. Not a friend. And certainly nothing more. And she didn’t want that anyway.

But she couldn’t say all that. So she settled for, “Well then, thank you.” What else could she say? She wasn’t going to get all mushy on him. He’d totally freak out, and then where would they be? God only knew what he’d do if she showed real emotion.

Shoot, her entire life was one big lie anyway. Who needed reality?

He nodded, smiled slightly, and she thought it was over. That they could go back to normal. To worrying about who was after her. Who the dog walker might be. Why he wanted her.

But Riley wasn’t done. ”I’m not a good person, Callah. I was honest about who I am. And even though I was being a total ass, I was honest a few minutes ago too. When I look at you, I wonder if your lips are still as soft as I remember. When you stand there looking all prim and proper, hands on your hips, I want to get close, run my hands over you and pull you close enough to let you feel just what you do to me.
 

“And damn lady, when you talk about chocolate, I want to buy a chocolate factory and tempt you with it every chance I get. So I’m not real sure your friends idea is going to work.” He stopped, sat back, shrugged and smiled that sexy smile that drove her crazy. “But, I’m willing to try.”

Oh my God. She was going to melt. Right there on the spot. Call her a puddle and get it over with.

And she thought he was afraid of emotion. Here he’d gone and been honest again. Just what she thought she wanted. Lord save her from honest men.

When she could finally pull her chin off the floor, she gulped and met his eyes. His jaw was dark, his smile real and, oh my, the man had eyes to die for. Who was she kidding? If this was his brand of honesty, she definitely wanted more.

Riley watched the color blossom on Callah’s cheeks as he spoke. Watched as she put his words in a category she was ready to deal with and then looked up at him with that good girl smile back in place.

“Well good then. I’m glad we’ve got that settled.”

He didn’t know what she thought they had settled, but if it made her feel better to think they’d worked something out, that was fine with him.

He stood and walked over to the window that looked out on the lake. Boats of all shapes and sizes bobbed out on the choppy water and he wondered which one was looking for them. Because by now at least one was. Of that he was sure. He let the curtain fall back into place and turned to face her.

“My brother was out. No telling when he’ll get back to us. If I haven’t heard from him in the next couple hours, I’ll call again.”

She nodded and rubbed her hands over her arms. He’d turned on the air as soon as they walked in, but it hadn’t cooled the summer-heated room, so he knew she wasn’t cold.

Probably shocked.

He tossed her a blanket then turned away before he touched her, because God knew the last thing either of them needed right now was to throw that into the mix. “I’m going to plug in the laptop, research a little. You want to help?”

She blinked as if trying to figure out what they were going to research and he thought about teasing her again just to get her back with him.

“Do I really look prim and proper?”

This lady could really miss a point. He couldn’t stop his laugh. “Honey, you look prim and proper and naughty as hell all at the same time. We can sit around talking about how bad I want you or we can get busy trying to figure out who the hell’s after you. I figure we better do the latter first. We’ll have plenty of time to talk about me wanting you.”

That seemed to do it for her.
 

The smile on her face made him feel like Superman. Her ex had really done a number on her. He’d have to be careful or
she’d
do a number on him.
 

She followed him to the kitchen and waited while he plugged his broadband card into the laptop and logged on to the Internet. A few clicks later and he had every bit of information he needed on her.

“Holy crap, Callah. Do you fill in all your personal info every time you get online? I think I’ve got everything here but your social. And I bet I could get that easily enough.”
 

Callah looked over his shoulder and tried not to freak out. Okay. So he’d been online all of five minutes and had her address, phone number, three e-mail accounts and several links to stories about her. He was an investigative reporter. He did this kind of thing all the time.

“I just fill in the information they ask for.”

He shook his head and Googled her name. The first ten entries were articles on the plane crash and the news that it might not have been an accident.

One was about her escape to Burkette.
 

A few were about someone else with the same name. Nothing earth-shattering there. At least that’s what she was thinking until she watched him page through the rest of the results, writing each of the names and locations on his notebook. Seventeen different Callah Crenshaws. All of them her age. Most of them living in towns she’d lived in before. One in London, another in Paris, another in Rome. Strange. She’d never met another Callah, certainly never a Callah Crenshaw. She started to say that, but then, at the bottom of the third page of results, she saw the word.

Obituary.
 

Riley clicked on the link, and she read the headline about the girl who shared her name.
Local girl dies in hit and run accident
. The story was six years old. No photo.

It was a coincidence. It had to be. Right?

She said the words out loud at the same time Riley picked up his cell and hit redial. His expletive slammed through the room as he clipped the phone shut, but she didn’t look at him. She couldn’t take her eyes from the pages of information on the computer screen.
 

“Listen Callah. I don’t know what’s going on, but we have to believe it has something to do with you. With the letter. With the man at your door. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Oh my God. Callah fought the urge to scream at Riley, to tell him she wasn’t an idiot. This wasn’t about Charlie’s B-list movies. This wasn’t about the plane crash. It was about the envelope under Riley’s hand. It was about the birth certificate, the pictures. It was about her.

And who she wasn’t.

No more games. No more pretending.

She closed her eyes and fought the fear that threatened to swallow her, to block everything. Her heart hammered in her chest, her pulse sounded in her ears, cold enveloped her body, and she fought the darkness that suddenly seemed to crowd her mind.

She’d been here before. Dark, alone, afraid. And
not
from a nightmare.

The thought exploded across her mind and she opened her eyes, searching for Riley, for his presence. That’s all she needed. But it wasn’t. His presence couldn’t make the girl on the computer screen come back to life.

“It’s true, Riley. The note on my birth certificate is true. I don’t know how or why or when. But it’s true. It has to be.”

He waited for her to go on, as if she had more answers than that one single statement. She bit her lip and closed her eyes again, this time holding his hand as she tried to remember anything from her past.

Nothing came. Only darkness that never ended. Cold that never warmed.

She opened her eyes and shook her head. “I didn’t know. I thought they were nightmares. But my dad knew. He took me for ice cream. He made the nightmares go away, Riley. We’ve got to reach my dad.”

Chapter Five

Riley watched the realizations crash into Callah one after another and wished he could stop them. She didn’t need these kinds of truths.

When she grabbed onto his hand, he wanted to tell her to open her eyes. But he didn’t. Because somewhere in the recesses of her mind were the answers that just might save her life. When she finally said her father knew the truth, he knew what he needed to do.

“Okay. You said no one’s answering his phone. Is that usual?”

She shook her head. “No. But anything’s possible. I’ll call again. Leave a message. He’ll call back. I know he hasn’t done anything wrong. He didn’t send that man after me. I know it.”

Riley wasn’t so sure. Right now they had to operate on the everyone is evil wavelength. Granted, Callah’s family had protected her for years. Her father probably had no idea that all hell had broken loose. Still, he’d kept a dangerous truth from her. That didn’t classify him as a hero in his book.

But he wasn’t going to send her down that road right now. “I’m sure you’re right. We’ll get my brother to find him, and he’ll make sure your father knows what’s going on.”

As if he’d connected with his brother on some psychic level, his cell phone rang. The ring tone set to
Pink Panther
let him know Rand was on the line. Finally.

Riley hit talk and explained everything he knew so far.

When the conversation ended, he looked at Callah and wished he could pretend the phone hadn’t rung at all. “You’re not going to like it.”

“Of course I’m not going to like it, Riley. I’m in some crazy
X-Files
alternative reality. What did he say?”

“He looked up your name just to be on the safe side. Usually that wouldn’t be a problem. But with you, everything’s a problem. He doesn’t know what’s going on, but you’ve been flagged. And he can’t get answers. He’s giving it a couple hours. If he still doesn’t hear anything he’s catching a flight here.”

“My name’s been flagged?”

Riley shrugged. He didn’t know what it meant any more than she did. But he knew Rand was worried. And if Rand was worried, this was all worse than he’d even imagined. A girl with Callah’s name was dead. Others were scattered across the states and Europe. Did it have anything to do with the dog walker and the envelope? He didn’t know. But he wasn’t taking chances. The guns in the safe in the bedroom closet were coming out along with the ammunition.

He might be a reporter and she might be the ex-wife of a dead Hollywood has-been, but if the bad guys came knocking they weren’t going down without a fight.

A couple of hours. She could wait a couple of hours.

Callah watched Riley prop a rifle against the door then disappear back into the bedroom. When he returned, he handed her a small handgun and dropped a box of bullets on the cabinet next to his computer. They rattled, and she jumped.

“You know how to use this?”

The small gun was light, cold. She nodded. “My father,” She stopped, swallowed down the lump in her throat that threatened to break her voice, said the words again. “My father taught me. I thought it was our bonding time. My Mom teased him about turning me into a master marksman. We’d go to the range, and while we were gone she’d make homemade cookies. Tollhouse. Every time. I thought….”

She stopped and bit her lip at all the lies. Her stomach churned.

“It’s going to be okay, Callah.”

She laughed and shook her head, a tear escaped down her cheek as she closed her eyes, remembered the peace she’d always found in the memories of gunpowder, her father’s smile and her mother’s open arms.

“We lived in Philadelphia, Riley. That girl’s death is no coincidence. It can’t be.” The words she wanted to say bottled up in her throat, burning as she thought them.
Oh my God, what did my parents do? What were they involved in? Who am I?

He touched her shoulder, and she backed away. She didn’t want his comfort. His pity. Swallowing away the unspoken questions, she opened the box of bullets. Loaded the gun’s clip then tested its weight, its balance. Just like the one she’d learned on.
 

“It’s perfect.”

Dammit.

Riley watched Callah coldly test the gun, smile, then pronounce it perfect. Not even trying to wipe away those tears running down her face.

“Callah.” He stepped toward her again, but she shook her head.

“Don’t.”

Her voice broke and he decided he’d ask forgiveness later. Ignoring her command he took the gun away from her, set it on the counter and pulled her close. Because no way could he let her stand there crying.