Redemption (2 page)

As soon as the thought materialized, she wanted to laugh. Of course he wasn’t the father. He could barely stand to be in her presence, let alone touch her.

“Instead of thinking worst-case scenarios, maybe we should try to figure out your name.” He folded his hands across a flat abdomen covered in a well-lived-in and comfortable black and red plaid shirt. For the first time, she noticed scars running across the tops of his hands and distorting his fingers. When she lifted her gaze, it collided with his and for once, there was something there. A dare. He was daring her to say something.

“Ann,” he said into the silence.

“What?”

“Is your name Ann?”

She scrunched her brow. “No. That doesn’t seem right.”

“Ann-Marie. Annabelle. Abby, Alice, Alicia.”

“Are you going to go through the entire alphabet?”

“If we have to.”

She folded her arm on the cushion and winced when her stiff elbow protested.

“You’re hurting. What can you take? Ibuprofen?”

It was the first reference he’d made to her baby, and it would probably be the only one. It also reminded her that he’d undressed her. A reminder she didn’t need. A pregnant woman wasn’t the prettiest sight, but then what did she care what he thought of her body?

He pushed himself up from the chair and walked with a slight limp to the kitchen. Had he limped before? He opened and closed a cupboard door, ran water into a tumbler and shook out a few ibuprofen tablets. He limped back to her and placed the glass of water and medicine on the coffee table.

“Beth. Barbara. Billie.” He sat in his chair.

“No. None of those.”

“Cathy, Carrie, Caitlyn, Claire.”

She popped the tablets in her mouth and took a drink, considering each name before shaking her head. “This could take forever, you know. And we may never stumble on the right one.”

“I’m hoping one of them will trigger something.”

What if she had a strange name or an unusual name? They’d never discover it. Her hands began to shake and she replaced the glass, more afraid than… Well, she couldn’t be more afraid than she’d ever remembered, because she couldn’t remember. She wanted to cry but figured Callahan wouldn’t like tears.

She laid her head on the arm of the couch and curled her knees. She cupped one hand around her belly, finding comfort in the baby beneath. If she had nothing, she at least had her child. “I’m sorry.”

He continued to stare into the fire. He seemed to prefer to do that than look at her. “What for?”

“For intruding on your life. I’m sure you have better things to do than deal with me.”

A sardonic grin twisted his mouth into a grimace. “Nothing that can’t wait.”

Overly conscious of the woman sleeping on the couch, John quietly made his way into the kitchen. He’d tried ignoring her but that was like attempting to ignore an elephant standing in the middle of the room.

He pulled on his coat, hat and gloves and headed outside, hunching his shoulders against the stiff, frigid wind. Normally he kept a good stash of kindling on the back porch, but he hadn’t expected to need any this morning because he hadn’t expected to be here.

A large part of him cursed his dumb-luck fate as he trudged back to the house loaded with wood and tried to figure out what he was going to feed the woman. Food. Another thing he’d thought he wouldn’t need.

When he got inside, stomping snow off his boots and brushing it off his shoulders, she was standing there, wrapped in her blanket, his sweats swallowing her up, eyes big, face pale.

He felt a sudden surge of protectiveness that surprised him. The last person she needed protecting her was a washed-up waste of a man who couldn’t even control his own nightmares. “Not much to eat around here,” he said as he bent to unlace his boots. “Wasn’t expecting company.”

“That’s all right.”

He hung his coat on the peg beside the door and placed his boots on the mat below. He’d never been a good conversationalist, and since moving to the mountains he’d become even worse. He could handle people in his job, but the art of everyday chitchat escaped him.

“I remembered something,” she said.

“Yeah?” He paused in the act of pulling tea bags from the shelf and turned to look at her.

“There’s this voice. It keeps going through my head. I think I was supposed to find you.”

Rusty instincts kicked into gear as he placed the tea on the counter. “Why do you say that?”

“It keeps saying, ‘Go to Callahan’.”

Without realizing he’d moved, he was in front of her, crowding her, invading her personal space, his anger coming from nowhere and everywhere. “What sort of game are you playing, lady?”

What little color that had been in her cheeks drained. “I swear I’m telling the truth.”

“Who sent you?”

She shrank back. “I-I don’t know. I thought you might be able to tell me.”

“How the hell would I know?” Names of his enemies scrolled through his brain, but the list was long and extensive, covering hundreds of cities and dozens of countries. “When did you figure this out?”

She licked her lips, and he could tell by the way her gaze flicked away he wouldn’t like her answer. “From the start.”

He drew back, shocked at her deception. “You’ve known from the beginning someone sent you here, yet you can’t remember your own name?”

“No.” She shook her head. “No. It’s not like that. I really can’t remember my name.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m
not
lying.” She raised her chin. In a sign of strength, defiance or to mask the lies bubbling in her eyes?

“Tell me about this voice. Man or woman?”

“Man.”

His eyes narrowed but she stared right back.

“Describe the voice.”

She bit her bottom lip. Her teeth nibbled. Her tongue snaked out to lick. “I can’t. It’s like a whisper through my mind.”

“Then how do you know it’s male?”

“I just do.”

“I swear to God, lady, if you’re lying to me, you’ll be sorry.” A trite, clichéd threat, but one he would very seriously follow through with.

“I’m not lying.”

He turned away, grabbed his coat and boots and stomped out onto the covered porch, slamming the door behind him. The driving wind almost bowled him over but he trudged through it, rounding the house and heading for her overturned car.

The implications of her appearance stunned him. For years he’d lived in relative solitude, having shed the physical bonds of his former life, but not the mental. Never the mental.

Go to Callahan
. Why would someone send her to him?

She watched as Callahan hunched his shoulders and struggled through the wind. The sideways-slanting snow nearly blew him over, but he pushed through it. Just as she suspected he did with everything that came his way.

When he turned the corner, she gave up her post. A quick search through several drawers produced a pen and paper. She sat at the table and for a long time contemplated her lack of history. She closed her eyes and pictured the blood in her dream and the same word reverberated through her.

Murderer.

Go to Callahan.

Murderer.

The back door flew open and Callahan stumbled through on a burst of cold air and small swirls of snow. He stomped his feet and unbuttoned his coat with red, scarred hands. Once again he went through the ritual of hanging his coat on the peg and placing his boots on the mat below. Snow began melting in his reddish hair.

He pulled up short when he saw her sitting at the table, as if he hadn’t expected her to still be there. His gaze cut to the pen and paper in front of her. “What are you doing?”

“I thought if I wrote down everything I knew, it might help me remember.”

“Did it?”

“No. But maybe you can help.”

“Me?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Sit and talk to me. Ask questions.”

He studied the chair for a moment before sliding into it.

Noting she was right-handed, she prepared to write. “You said I crashed my car. What kind of car is it?”

“Toyota. An older model.”

“What did you find when you searched it?”

“What makes you think I searched it?” His calm, shuttered gaze met hers.

“It’s what I would have done. Were there papers inside? Registration?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t you think that’s strange?”

“Very.”

She bit her lower lip and stared at the blank paper before writing
Toyota
, nothing inside
. When she looked up, something very close to humor glinted in his eyes. “What?”

“You always a take-charge kinda gal?”

“I don’t know. I guess so.”

He sobered and cleared his throat as if he didn’t quite know what to do with his humor. “You were wearing jeans, a heavy sweater and running shoes. No coat. No boots. No gloves. There was no ID on you or in the car. And don’t forget the thousand dollars.”

She scribbled furiously then sat back and threw down the pencil. “That tells us exactly nothing.”

“Right.”

Their gazes locked. She could have sworn she saw sympathy in his and for a tiny second she wanted lay her head on his strong shoulder, but she shook that impulse away before it could even take shape. “What’s going to happen to me?”

“I don’t know.”

In a way she liked his direct, abrupt manner. It kept her from falling apart. “What if I never find out who I am?” Her hand went to her belly. How could she care for her baby if she had no name and no way to get a job?

“Hey.” His voice centered her, eased the clawing fear. His expression had even softened, erasing the hard lines that had been etched around his mouth. “Surely you have relatives. Someone who’ll miss you. The phone line’s down, cellphone coverage is sporadic on the best of days, but let me try.”

The thought that maybe someone was out there looking for her made her feel better. “Who are you going to call?”

He hesitated and she half wondered if he’d call
America’s Most Wanted
.

“I know some people. They can tell me if there’s a BOLO out on you.”

“What’s a bolo?” It sounded deadly.

“Be on the lookout for.”

“You think I’m a criminal.”

“It’s used for missing persons as well as criminals.” He disappeared into the other room, returning with a slim cellphone and once again headed outside. She heard the merry chime of the phone as he turned it on, then the door shut behind him.

It didn’t escape her that he hadn’t exactly denied he thought she was a criminal.

Cellphone pressed to his ear, he stuck his finger in his other ear and tilted his head as he paced the small porch. His steps hitched as if his knee had buckled and he’d had to regain his balance. Then he was inside, shivering and shaking his head at the expectation that had to be on her face. Her heart plummeted. Foolish to think one phone call in the middle of a blizzard would solve all her problems.

He tinkered around the kitchen and came back to the table with a glass of orange juice for her, then sat back down. “Dawn, Delia, Desiree, Debbie.”

She shook her head.

“Ethel, Elaine, Ellen, Evelyn.”

“No.”

“Maryland.”

She glanced up at him. “What?”

“What about Maryland?” His laser blue eyes were intent.

“I’ve never heard of anyone named Maryland.”

“As in the state. Did you come from Maryland?”

She cast her mind about and a puzzle piece slid into place. “I’m not sure, but I think so.” She grinned. “How’d you know?”

“The tags on the car are from Maryland. When the phone starts working, I’ll have a deputy run them. We’ll see who they belong to.”

Her grin faltered, then died. “You don’t think they belong to me?”

“The car’s beat up, definitely seen better days. You were wearing expensive running shoes, designer jeans and sweater, and…” His voice trailed off and he looked away. Swallowed.

“And what?”

A red flush crept up his wind-chapped cheeks as he stared at a point above her shoulder. “Uh, your—” he swept a hand in her direction, “—underwear is not what you’d call cheap.”

She blinked. “Oh.” Her face heated and she looked down at the table. Then the full implication of it hit her and she buried her head in her hands. “Oh, God. You know what this means?”

“It could mean several things.”

She laughed and grabbed fistfuls of her hair, shaking her head. “No, it doesn’t. It means we know one more thing about me.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m a thief.”

“You could have borrowed the car. Or maybe you prefer to spend your money on clothes.”

“Maybe.” Had she murdered someone then stolen a car to get away?
Go to Callahan
. Who the hell sent her here?

***

The rest of the day passed slowly. Too slowly. Callahan had no television and the radio was nothing but static. She spent inordinate amounts of time at the window, staring at a world of white. Worst storm to come this way in thirty years, Callahan told her. It didn’t reassure her.

He threw a deck of worn cards on the seat cushion beside her and she played solitaire for a while, amazed at how many different versions she knew. How was it she could remember the rules to FreeCell but not her own name?

She ate not because she was hungry, but because her baby needed nourishment. At times she dozed but didn’t allow herself to fall asleep completely, fearful of the nightmares that awaited her on the other side.

Callahan built a fire, fetched more wood, even took another walk. It seemed the walls were closing in on him too.

Just when the sun began to dip toward the horizon, his cellphone chirped. The unnatural sound had them staring at each other.

“Callahan.” Even his answer was abrupt, just like the man. He listened for a few moments, walking around the room in an apparent attempt to get better reception. Cinnamon-colored eyebrows dipped low. A frown creased his face. Then his head shot up and he glared at her, his body going stiff.

“Right,” he said into the phone. “Yeah, you’re breaking up. I’ll call you when I can.” He flipped the phone closed and eyed her in a curious yet detached way. As if he were mentally pulling back from whatever he had learned.

“What?” she asked. “Tell me.”

“How do you know Suzanne Carmichael?”

His eyes pinned her to the couch, twin gems of sapphire ice. As if sensing the sudden increase in her heart rate, the baby moved, stretched, then settled down. “I don’t know a Suzanne Carmichael.”

“Liar.” He picked up his gun and her eyes went wide as he slid the top part back with a metallic sound.

“What are you doing?” For a moment, she pictured a bullet discharging from the barrel of the gun and ripping into her flesh. She shivered, trying to crawl farther into the corner of the couch. He stuffed the gun into his waistband. That was reassuring at least. He couldn’t kill her with the gun tucked away. “What happened? What did you find out about me? Did I kill someone?”

“I guess so, cupcake.” His tone was flippant, yet grim at the same time.

Her heart plummeted. She wasn’t a killer. She refused to believe she would take a life. Not unless she or her baby were in danger. “Tell me about the phone call. Who was it?”

“A good friend of mine. Luke Barone.” He paused as if to let that information sink in.

“And?”

“And, he called to inform me Suzanne Carmichael escaped from prison.”

“And that affects me how?”

He huffed out a breath that would have been a laugh if it had come from anyone else. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“I don’t
know
.”

“You don’t seem to know a whole hell of a lot.”

“It’s the truth.” How could she make him understand how frustrating, how disheartening it was not to know who you were? If there were people looking for you, missing you? If you were wanted by the police? She crawled up to her knees. “Please, I need your help. Something’s not right. You have to believe me. I wouldn’t kill anyone.” Desperation lent urgency to her words and tears thickened her voice but she refused to let them fall.

“I’m not buying it.”

“I don’t know how to convince you.”

His lips thinned into a narrow line while his jaw clenched. “Why don’t you give up the pretense, cupcake. Come clean and we’ll deal with it. Who are you? What’s your name? How do you know Suzanne Carmichael?”

He’d apparently set his mind to the fact she supposedly knew this Suzanne Carmichael and nothing would change it, so she tried a different approach. “How do
you
know Suzanne Carmichael?”

His shoulders stiffened and suddenly he stood before her, so tall she had to tilt her head back to get a good look. She wished she hadn’t when she glimpsed the raw fury, the tightly held restraint in the chiseled lines of his face. He leaned down until they were nose to nose. “That, cupcake, is none of your business.”