Relentless (6 page)

He roused, chilled, when a glint of dawn peeked off to the east.

Julie made groggy noises from the backseat, and Grant carefully scooped her up into his arms, struggling under the weight on his bad leg. Her pocketbook still drooped over one shoulder. He glanced around frantically and spotted a park bench at the edge of the lake.

Even at daybreak he was unsurprised to find a small handful of runners already there, circling the water. Fitness always came first in L.A.

Grant placed Julie gently upon the bench, just as her eyes began to flutter open. He sat opposite her and steadied her, holding her upright.

She looks so tired . . .

Her eyes focused at last, and she screamed.

‘‘Listen to me, Julie—’’ he started, letting go of her.

‘‘Who are you! What—’’

‘‘Julie, listen! You
know
me! You know who I am!’’

She was in danger of hyperventilating, but she said nothing, both terror-filled eyes trained on him, taking in his bloodstained, battered appearance. ‘‘I—I do?’’

Grant was breathing rapidly, too, his thoughts coming faster than his tongue could handle. ‘‘I wish I could do this differently,’’ he spoke hurriedly. ‘‘But we don’t have time. We won’t be safe here for long.’’

Still she looked at him. He forced himself to breathe more slowly as he gazed into her eyes—those eyes he knew so well, so deep, the skin around them creased by long years of tears and laughter. What a life she’d led . . .

He was suddenly overcome with emotion, sitting next to her for the first time in years. And she looked at him with such intense fear.

He took one last, slow, unsteady breath.

‘‘Julie, I’m Collin. I’m
your brother
.’’

She stood up from the bench, and began backing away from him. Anguish filled her eyes.

She started to say something, but nothing came out. Instead, she just shook her head, unblinking.

Grant stood. ‘‘It’s the truth. I know you don’t recognize me—
I
don’t even recognize me—but I
am
the man you knew as Collin Boyd.’’

‘‘I’m calling the police right now,’’ she said. She pulled a tiny phone out of her pocketbook. She started to dial and turned and walked away from him.

Grant stood and swallowed. If he couldn’t convince her now, then they had no chance. There was no time for this. Konrad would be coming. What could he say that she would believe? One obvious thing came to mind, but he’d been avoiding that conversation for twenty-some years . . .

She was still moving away, nearing the shoreline.

There was no choice.

‘‘The day you left the orphanage,’’ he called out, ‘‘was the worst day of my life.’’

Grant had never spoken aloud these thoughts that had tumbled through his mind so many times. The gravity of the moment struck him just then, and his words came out slowly.

Julie stopped walking. Her fingers paused over the phone, but she didn’t face him.

‘‘You held me
so
tight before they took you,’’ he gasped, his throat full. ‘‘I was
terrified
when you let go. I tried not to show it. For you. I didn’t want to make it worse.’’ A tear built up in one eye, and then tumbled down his face. ‘‘I knew you felt bad. Maybe worse than I did. But I was
petrified
, Julie.’’

She stared off into the increasingly bright sky, blinking back tears of her own.

‘‘I never knew Mom. I barely remember Dad. You were the only family I had left.’’

‘‘This is cruel,’’ she said, shaking her head, still not looking at him.

‘‘You’re lying, you
heard
this—!’’

‘‘You
begged
your new parents,’’ he went on, barely able to choke back his own tears now. ‘‘—
pleaded
with them to take me—adopt me, too. But they live in Seattle and they could only take one of us.’’

She spun around, tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘‘I don’t believe you,’’ she shouted. ‘‘Collin lives in Glendale; he’s probably there right now. You
can’t
be him!’’

His gaze fell, too pained to meet her eyes. ‘‘The next time I saw you, four months had passed.
Four months
, Julie. You said you’d tried to visit sooner, that you asked them about it every day.’’ The tears were falling freely now. ‘‘But by then it was too late. You
forgot
about me.’’

‘‘That’s not true! I could
never
—!’’

He sniffled and continued, ‘‘I know . . . now. I know. But I was lost without you.’’ His breaths came in heaves, and he finally raised his eyes again. ‘‘When you left at the end of that first visit—you whispered into my ear. Do you remember what you said?’’

She watched him warily, hopefully.

‘‘You told me that when we dream, we go to a special place where anything is possible. You said we would make this our—’’

‘‘Our safe house,’’ Julie whispered, finishing for him.

‘‘Where we could meet and play together every single night,’’ Grant concluded. ‘‘I went there every night in my sleep, or tried to . . . But even there you never came.’’

Julie’s phone fell to the ground.

Crying openly, a hand over her mouth, she walked back to him, staring into his eyes. She stood only inches from him, watching him. Wanting to believe, but dazed and confused. At last her expression softened. ‘‘
You
were always there in
my
dreams,’’ she said softly.

They both took choked breaths and then embraced hard, rocking back and forth, holding tight, as morning glowed gold and green all about them.

They never wanted to let go.

‘‘So what do we do about all this?’’ Julie asked. After he didn’t say anything, she prodded. ‘‘Collin?’’

They were back in the Jeep, and downtown L.A., unusually glossy and clear, beckoned them from dead ahead.

‘‘Grant.’’

‘‘What?’’ she asked, distractedly.

‘‘I’m still your brother, but I . . . I’m not Collin anymore. There’s too much . . . I can’t . . .’’ His voice, his entire manner had changed. He was focused and severe, but frustrated and tired, struggling for words. ‘‘My name is Grant.’’

‘‘All right, whatever.’’

Over the last hour at the park, Grant had filled her in on everything that had happened during the last twenty-four hours. All it had done was open a door to questions he couldn’t answer.

Creeping ahead in the morning traffic, Julie finally asked the big question. ‘‘How can this be possible?’’

‘‘Wish I knew.’’

‘‘So whoever is after me . . . you think it’s the same guy that tried to kill you?’’ Julie asked.

‘‘Hope so.’’

‘‘That’s an odd thing to hope for.’’

He massaged his forehead. ‘‘It would mean I only have one enemy to worry about. On the other hand, maybe there are dozens of people out there hunting me down. I’m willing to bet that what they’re after is
this
.’’ He held up the ring. ‘‘Or maybe Konrad is just trying to drive me insane. And maybe it’s working.’’

She took a deep breath and shook her head. None of this made sense to her. How could it? None of it made sense to
him
.

‘‘This guy . . . he’s never going to give up, is he?’’ she asked, fearful.

‘‘He’ll just keep coming, no matter what we do.’’

‘‘He won’t give up.’’

‘‘Then . . . what do we do?’’

‘‘We have to force his hand.’’

‘‘And just exactly how do we do that?’’

‘‘We go where he’ll expect me to go next,’’ he said. ‘‘And we
finish
this.’’

She looked at him, alarmed. He saw her shiver, slightly. ‘‘Are you
sure
you’re my brother? You don’t talk like him. Or
think
like him.’’

‘‘We can’t go back to the police,’’ Grant explained as if it were obvious. ‘‘You’re obviously not safe there, and they’d never believe my story. They think I kidnapped you.’’

‘‘Which, technically, you did,’’ she agreed.

‘‘Look, I don’t know
how
I’m suddenly able to strategize and make with the big plans, but I need you to trust me. Konrad has the advantage. He can pick us off from anywhere if we slow down long enough to give him the chance. So our only option is to engineer a situation where
we
have the advantage.’’

She studied him, nonplussed. ‘‘You’re going to draw him out into the open by being
bait
yourself.’’ It wasn’t a question; it was disapproval.

‘‘It’ll be all right,’’ said Grant, a deadly glint in his eye. ‘‘I’ll take care of you. I promise.’’

‘‘It’s not me I’m worried about. And I’m not talking about what this Konrad person is capable of, either. You said
you
nearly killed
him
yesterday afternoon.’’

Grant made no response.

Julie proceeded with caution. ‘‘I know you’ve had . . . episodes . . . in the past, but you were doing better, weren’t you?’’

‘‘I was,’’ he said, exasperated. ‘‘It was just . . . it felt
natural
. I reacted without thinking. I just knew how to stop him. I knew exactly where and how to hit him to knock him unconscious. I don’t know how . . . I just knew.’’

‘‘And aside from this instinct stuff, you’ve had an hour of sleep in what, thirty-six hours now?’’

‘‘What do you want me to
say
!’’ shouted Grant. ‘‘Am I tired? Yes! Am I on edge?
Yes!
Am I a danger to myself? Maybe. To others? Probably! But this guy’s not going to stop to let me get some shut-eye, so unless you have a better idea . . .’’

She looked away, out her side window. They inched forward in silence for a few minutes. The morning had already gotten hot and without the Jeep’s top, the sun beat down. Grant soon felt badly about his outburst, but anger and frustration were the only sources of energy he had left. He’d apologize later. For now . . .

‘‘Will you kill him?’’ Julie spoke up in a small voice.

‘‘What?’’

She wouldn’t look at him; still she stared out her window, squinting into the brightness, though he thought he saw a tear falling down her cheek in her reflection. ‘‘Will you kill him?’’ she repeated. ‘‘Can you really do that?’’

He didn’t answer.

7

Grant insisted they wait until nightfall before making another move. They hid the Jeep and spent the day taking cover in tiny Mestizo restaurants, dark bars, and even a library. Anything to stay out of sight. When night fell, they returned to the Jeep and headed to their destination, pulling up to an old brick apartment building in Glendale, where Grant—
Collin
—had lived for the last seven years. It looked exactly as it always had, though it seemed a little smaller to him now.

Grant stared straight ahead at the apartment, unmoving. The sun was a distant memory now, not to be seen again for hours, and the darkness outside echoed the fear creeping in around them.

‘‘Scared?’’ Julie prompted.

He nodded, fatigue and anxiety contorting his eyes.

‘‘Me too,’’ Julie admitted. She placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

‘‘I, uh, . . . I need to know something,’’ he delicately announced.

‘‘Okay,’’ she replied tentatively.

‘‘Did you ever blame me for what happened to Mom?’’

Julie shifted in her seat. ‘‘How can you even
ask
that? Of course not!’’

A pause. ‘‘Then why didn’t you ever talk about her? To this day, I hardly know anything about Mom at all.’’

Julie looked away, paused. ‘‘I guess it was too hard.’’

‘‘And Dad?’’

She was silent.

‘‘Did he blame me?’’

‘‘
Never
,’’ she answered, without hesitation.

The car became as still as the sleepy neighborhood outside. The question had eaten away at Grant in his waking hours for years. All alone in his most vulnerable moments, he would allow himself to think about it for brief snippets of time, before throwing the usual walls back up in front of his emotions.

Sometimes he even cried.

‘‘Thanks,’’ he replied weakly.

‘‘Dad once told me,’’ Julie said suddenly, thoughtfully, ‘‘that you were going to be . . .
different
. He said he thought you might grow up and do
important
things, things different from what most people do.’’

Grant was taken aback. ‘‘Why would he say that?’’

She thought for a moment, straining her memory. ‘‘I forget why, but he had your mental acuity tested—this was only a few months before he died.’’ Her voice sounded far away, as she thought. ‘‘I remember him saying that your test results were ‘off the charts.’ ’’

‘‘You’re kidding. But I was only three.’’

‘‘I know,’’ she affirmed.

His mind raced. ‘‘Thanks for telling me. I had no idea.’’ He took a deep, shuddering breath and blew it out.

‘‘You can do this, Coll—um, Grant.
Whoever
you are, I know you better than anyone and you’re stronger than you think you are.’’

‘‘Sure,’’ he said, despondent.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw her digging through her purse. She produced a tiny pocket knife attached to a keychain. Before Grant could stop her, she folded out the knife and cut a slash across her wrist.

‘‘Julie!’’ he cried, grabbing her by the arm.

She used her free arm to take a similar swipe at his wrist. It was then he noticed that the cuts were too shallow to sever a vein; the ‘‘knife’’ was little more than a fingernail clipper attachment. The gashes produced just a tiny inkling of blood, surrounded by angry-looking pink swaths of skin, on both of their wrists.

He watched as she pressed her open wound against his. ‘‘There, now we’ve made a pact.’’

‘‘Are you crazy?’’

‘‘Whatever,’’ Julie replied, undeterred. ‘‘It’s a pact made in blood, so you can’t break it. I’m going to hold you to it.’’

Grant studied her. ‘‘And exactly what are we . . . pact-ing?’’

‘‘Never surrender to anger or despair, no matter what. Never give up; never give in.’’

Grant wanted to laugh at how absurd all of this was, but Julie wouldn’t let go. ‘‘
Promise
me,’’ she said.

‘‘Fine, okay,’’ he said. ‘‘I promise.’’

At Grant’s instructions, Julie was to park the Jeep three blocks down the street, turn off the engine, and wait for him there.

He took a deep breath and limped toward the building’s front door. He no longer had the keys to his home, of course—like everything else, that other man, the new ‘‘Collin,’’ now had them. So he veered to his left, around the side of the building, and looked in his ground-floor apartment window. One glance inside the darkened space told him that his double wasn’t home.