True Shot (20 page)

Face—and the rest of her—heating all over again, she headed for the bathroom. She’d get cleaned up and ready to go before waking him. Hopefully by then, he wouldn’t be quite so . . . aroused. She hated the thought of having to wake him up in that state. The last thing she wanted to do was embarrass him.

In the bathroom, her brain firmly in the moment, she confronted her reflection with a wince. Pale. Dark circles. Unruly dark hair. She needed a shower, but the bandages covering opposing sides of her shoulder made the idea a no-go. Mac had changed them, and checked her healing wounds, before they’d gone to bed, but that’s about all they’d had energy for.

Using her good hand, she awkwardly washed her hair in the sink and wrapped a towel around her head. Already, she felt better.

In front of the mirror, she angled her body to try to get a look at the third bandage that rode the valley between her shoulder blades. Mac had told her that’s where the transponder had resided. When he’d dug it out of her flesh, it had triggered a chemical reaction of some kind that had wiped out her memories. The idea of a drug that powerful floored her as surely as the fact that she had a psychic ability.

She was about to get dressed when she remembered the moment in her flashback when Flinn Ford had inspected “the patch.” She turned again and studied her right flank, the area where Flinn had focused his attention.

Right there, high on her hip, was a square inch of thin fabric the same tone and texture as her skin. If she hadn’t known to look, she wouldn’t have noticed. While she’d complained of itching in her flashback, that wasn’t the case now.

It took her several minutes with the edge of her fingernail to pry up an edge. Then she ripped it off, fast like a Band-Aid, and flinched at the resulting sting.

Scrutiny of the scrap of fabric told her nothing. It had no logo, no words of any kind. Looked as innocuous as a piece of tape. Yet she knew from her flashback—and Flinn’s attention to it—that it was far from innocuous.

A knock on the door startled her.

“Sam? You okay?”

“Be out in a minute,” she called, unable to prevent a small smile at Mac’s hovering ways. He made her feel so protected.

She was also relieved that now she didn’t have to worry about waking him up while his body did an inspiring imitation of a tent pole.

 

“Are you absolutely sure about this?”

Sam glanced over at him in the driver’s seat. “Yes.”

Mac sensed she’d managed to sound more confident than she felt. He couldn’t blame her. He was nervous as hell, and it wasn’t his past they were going to confront. Assuming the former governor of South Carolina could answer her questions and didn’t meet them in the driveway with a shotgun. And that thought
didn’t
come from any bigoted feelings toward Southerners. Mac just feared that a guy like Arthur Baldwin, the kind of man who had screwed over dozens of friends and family members for money then let his own kids take the fall . . . well, that sounded like a nasty, dangerous guy to him.

He cruised to a stop at a traffic light on the way to Kiawah Island. The morning sun glinted off the bumper of the antique car in front of them, and the scents of saltwater and ocean air wafted in through the open windows. While the temperature wasn’t particularly high—around fifty so far this morning—it wasn’t the cold and damp of fall, as it had been in northern Virginia.

Mac took a moment to think about how different things would be now if he had escaped somewhere other than the Shenandoahs. He’d probably be bored off his ass by now and fighting the urge to head home. Instead, he’d awakened this morning dreaming about Sam and . . . well, painfully aroused. Heat crept up his neck, and he kept his eyes straight ahead, hoping like hell that Sam didn’t choose this moment to look over at him again.

Thank God she had already been out of bed and in the bathroom. He only prayed he hadn’t sprouted wood while spooning her. What if that’s why she’d gotten out of bed to begin with? How embarrassing would that be?

Then again, he was a
guy
. And he’d been holding a very warm, very pliant female in his arms, a female he seemed to find ever more appealing the more time they spent together. A female who kept soldiering on no matter how many times the universe smacked her flat.

“It’s green.”

Her voice snapped him out of his thoughts, and he gassed it a bit too vehemently. “Any of this terrain look familiar?” he asked.

“It looks like . . . Florida.”

He wondered whether she’d started to say “home,” in which case he would have agreed with her. This area of South Carolina and Lake Avalon had much in common. Both had squat, disorderly palm trees, towering palms and pines as well as meticulously maintained landscaping and the small signs popular in beach communities that had ordinances designed to keep the area looking tidy. Golf appeared to be just as big of a deal here, too, judging by the signs pointing the way to the Kiawah Island Golf Resort.

“Let’s find a diner that looks relatively busy,” Sam said.

“Good idea. I’m starved.” The bagel and coffee he’d scarfed at the hotel’s continental breakfast less than an hour ago had already worn off. And Sam had to be even hungrier, because she’d eaten only a few bites from a bowl of Cheerios. He really didn’t like how wan she looked, either.

“Not for food,” she said. “We need to talk to some locals to see if we can get some specifics about where Baldwin lives.”

“Oh.” Damn. He was so lusting for some down-home biscuits and gravy. “I already have his address.”

“You do? How?”

“Google.”

“You’re kidding. That easy?”

He shrugged it off, though the admiring gleam in her blue eyes pleased him. “I used the PC in the hotel’s business center while you were in the bathroom after breakfast.” He cast a searching glance at her, remembering how pale and shaky she’d looked when she’d joined him. “Were you sick again?”

She waved a dismissive hand. “It’s just stress.”

“Maybe we should stop at a diner anyway, or go through a drive-thru, so you can get something in your stomach.”

“It’s fine. I’m used to it.”

“It’s not healthy to be used to starving, Sam. We should at least try some oatmeal or something.”

“We?” Instead of looking annoyed, though, she smiled at him.

“What?” he asked, blushing at the erotic image that popped into his head. Sam, naked and under him, smiling up at him as he thrust slowly and relentlessly into her heat. Jesus, but she was sexy as hell when she smiled. And when had she started smiling at him anyway?

“You don’t have to take care of me,” she said.

“Really? Because you’ve been doing a lot of getting shot, zoning out and throwing up. And there’s the whole losing-your-memory thing.”

“I’m incredibly high-maintenance. How do you put up with me?”

He grinned, his heart doing a subtle flip when she flushed slightly just before looking away. Okay, this was weird. And promising. Highly promising. Which was silly, really. Straightlaced everyman Mac Hunter getting lucky with a gorgeous government spy? Please. Stuff like that happened only in movies.

“Oh, hey,” she said, sitting straighter in her seat and pointing at the golden arches sign of McDonald’s. “How about an Egg McMuffin with sausage?”

“Says the woman who wanted a salad last night.”

“Yeah, I know. But an Egg McMuffin sounds good. And hash browns.”

He steered into the parking lot. “So you remember Egg McMuffins,” he said lightly.

“I know what they are and how they taste. I don’t specifically remember the last time I had one, though. Isn’t that bizarre?”

“Since your memory loss was drug-induced, it probably has something to do with blocking certain . . . I don’t know what you’d call them—”

“Neural receptors.” She didn’t appear to have to think about it.

“Okay. That’s obviously familiar.”

She nodded as she pressed the tips of her fingers against her temples.

“Headache?”

“It just started pounding.”

“That seems to happen every time you try to tap into specific memories.”

“Like a deterrent? God.”

“Drive-thru or go inside?”

“Let’s do drive-thru so we don’t waste a bunch of time.”

“It’s like you’re reading my mind,” he said.

 

When the phone rang in the other room, Flinn slammed down his razor and went to answer it. He needed to hear something good, damn it, or he was going to go ballistic on the next person who irritated him. “Flinn Ford.”

“I’ve got good news, sir,” Natalie said. “I obtained the police report that the owner of the stolen Camry filed.”

“ And?”

“He reported that there’s a cell phone in the car, in the storage cubby between the front seats. It has GPS.”

“It’s on?”

“I already tried to get a lock on it and yes, it’s on.”

Flinn rubbed a hand over his still-damp jaw and began to pace, excited energy sparking along his nerve endings. “Tell me you know where they are.”

“Charleston, sir. It’s kind of odd, actually. They’re headed toward the coast. We assumed they were going to Lake Avalon, but—”

“Do you have men on them?”

“Not yet, sir. It would take several hours to get anyone to the area, so I wanted to check with you before—”

“I’ll take care of it.” He clicked off the call as he strode into his office. After waking his laptop out of sleep mode, he Googled “bail bonds” in Charleston, South Carolina. He visited a couple of Web sites until he landed on one for AAA Bail Bonds that displayed the photo of a huge, muscled man wearing a cheap suit and a friendly smile. The tagline read: “I Handle State and Federal Bonds. No Job Too Big or Too Small. MasterCard and Visa Accepted.”

Flinn dialed the number.

A young woman who sounded as if her world had ended that morning answered on the third ring. “Triple A Bail Bonds.”

“I want to hire a bounty hunter to track down a couple of fugitives.”

“Hold, please.”

Flinn waited, tapping his fingers on his desk.

“Lloyd Gould. How can I help you?”

“There are two fugitives in your area who are worth a large amount of cash if you retrieve them for me.”

“Do you have access to the Internet? You can fill out a form on our Web site and—”

“I’d like to avoid the formalities. How does ten thousand dollars sound?”

A pause, and then, “What’s the location of these two fugitives?”

 

Mac clutched the McMuffin in one hand while he steered with the other. Next to him, Sam tore into her breakfast as though she hadn’t had a decent meal in months.

“Mmm, this is so good,” she said.

“Guess you’re not feeling sick anymore.”

She stopped chewing and cocked her head as if to think about it. “Guess not.”

“Maybe you were sick because your stomach was empty.”

“Or maybe I’m—”

He glanced sideways at her, curious as to why she’d broken off so abruptly. She was looking straight through the windshield, her blank stare a sharp contrast to the amused tone of her voice just before she’d stopped talking.

“What?” he asked.

She didn’t react. Didn’t chew. Didn’t swallow. Didn’t blink.

“Sam?” She looked catatonic again. Damn! He hated this empathy shit.

Before he could begin the process of pulling the car over, she turned her head to blink at him. “I’m sorry, what?”

Relief let him breathe again. “Where did you go just now? Were you having one of those empathic moments?”

“No. I wasn’t even touching you.”

“I know, but you zoned out like you do when you . . . you know.”

“Oh. No. It was nothing. Just . . . thinking.”

“About what?”

She looked down at her half-eaten McMuffin as though considering wrapping up the rest and tossing it. The pink that had hued her cheeks while they chatted faded away, leaving her complexion pale again.

“Sam?” he prodded.

“I wasn’t thinking about anything.”

He knew a lie when he heard one. At least from her. But he also knew when to let it go. She didn’t want to share, and he wasn’t the kind of guy to try to force her to. As if he’d get anywhere if he did.

Silence filled the car as he drove and they finished their breakfast sandwiches. By the time they’d crumpled up their wrappers and stuffed them back into the bag, Mac was steering the Camry onto the street where former South Carolina governor Arthur Baldwin resided. Typical of island roads, gravel shoulders flanked the narrow street, the rough asphalt humming under the Toyota’s tires. Massive beach homes sat high above the ground on stilts on both sides of the road, towering above the luxury cars parked underneath. Most of the homes looked new, or at least sported a fresh coat of pastel paint in pink, blue or yellow.

“I think it’s at the end of the street,” Mac said.

As he parked at the end of the driveway, he took in the white-shuttered, blue gray beach house somewhat camouflaged by surrounding palm and magnolia trees. It wasn’t as big as its neighbors, meaning it didn’t look like something a millionaire would live in, but who knew what kind of extravagance resided inside?

Mac shut off the car and glanced at Sam. “Ready?”

She nodded but made no move to open her door.

“Sam?”

“Maybe it’s stupid, but I hope that whatever we learn in there doesn’t change . . .” She shook her head with a soft laugh.

“Change what?”

“Nothing. It’s foolish to think there’s anything even to change.”

“You mean, between us?” he asked, surprised. And hopeful.

“It’s been two days.”