Undercover Memories (6 page)

No, it wasn’t going to be that easy, because a couple of miles down the road, the snow had all but melted on the tarmac and by the time he came to a four-corner crossroad, it was impossible to tell which way Korenev and Paige had gone. There was nothing to indicate one road was better than another except a sign announcing the main highway up ahead. That sounded promising. He went straight.

Traffic picked up and he began to wonder how this situation would ever be resolved. It seemed there were dozens of gold or tan cars like the Pollocks’ on the road.

As he drove, he racked his brain for some memory of Korenev or the waterfall. The man had made some pretty nasty statements.... What was going on? Did he and Korenev know one another? Heaven forbid, were they partners? Oh, please, not that.

One thing was obvious—Korenev was unaware John had lost his memory. Maybe there would be a way to work that to his own advantage.

He’d just driven up a rise when the sight in the small valley below caused him to pull over to the side of the road. The police had set up a roadblock, and a growing line of cars waited to be cleared.

No way Korenev would chance that if he had any other option. No way John could chance it, either. He didn’t have a driver’s license, he looked as if he’d been attacked by a bear and he was driving a car registered to someone else.

He turned around and went back the way he’d come.

When he got to the four corners, he pulled over again and walked the intersection, crossing each street and bending to look closely at the ground, searching for some sign that they’d come this way. There were no buildings and no one around to point a finger and say, “They went that way.”

The only thing he saw out of place were parallel tracks two tires had made in the verge. It looked fresh to him. But this was the smallest and least-traveled-looking of the roads, and his instincts said to try the others first.

Thirty minutes later, after a dead end and a road that looped around to connect to the main highway, he set off down the smaller road. Had he ever had good instincts? Were they messed up now due to the fall and amnesia, or was he always a screwup?

It wasn’t long before he came across a closed-up gas station on one side of the road and a run-down-looking tavern on the other. There were two old guys in the parking lot and a few vehicles, but other than that it was dead.

There was something about the two old men, though, that set off a warning bell. The way they stood in the center of the lot was odd, for one thing, as were their confused expressions. He pulled into the lot and got out of the car, attempting to look respectable despite his shredded suit and the bruises and Band-Aids on his face.

He shouldn’t have worried. Both men reeked of booze and didn’t look as though they were up to making a single discerning observation.

“You seen it?” one of them asked him as he looked into John’s eyes. His were watery and vague. He was the taller of the two and reed thin. His face was covered with gray stubble. The other was shorter and younger by a decade, but both were easily drinking away pensions. They were dressed more or less alike in heavy jackets, jeans, boots and cowboy hats.

“Seen what?” John asked. He had the feeling he’d come in late to a show that was already in progress.

“My truck,” the tall one said, burying his hands in his pockets.

John stared at the old guy a second, trying to figure out if this was a joke. He finally repeated, “Your truck?”

The old man held out unsteady hands as though to demonstrate how big the truck was. “It’s black,” he muttered.

“Hell, it’s mostly rust,” the other guy sniggered.

The old man looked offended for a second, then emitted a loud guffaw. “Someone must of stole it,” he said.

“Who would steal that pile of—”

“Well, it’s not here, is it?” the thin one barked, kicking at the muddy parking lot and almost falling on his face. John caught his arm and steadied him.

The younger man studied the empty spot and shook his head. “It sure ain’t.”

John looked around the lot to see if they’d parked it somewhere else and forgotten about it—not that he would tell them. Neither was in any condition to drive. It turned out to be a moot point as there was no rusty black truck in sight.

“Let me ask you a question,” John said. “Have either of you seen a large man in a gold car with a young blonde woman? Would have been in the last couple of hours, probably less—”

He shut up as he registered their blank expressions. Identical shakes of their heads followed, and John knew he was wasting time.

“Damn thief,” the older guy said. Looking at his friend, he added, “Now how are we going to get home?”

“Come on, George, it’ll be A-OK, hunky-dory. What we need is a little drink. Come on.”

The two men swung their arms around each other and tottered off.

John’s mind raced as he stared at their retreating forms. There was another possibility: What if Korenev had stolen the truck? It would be a perfect cover. Who would suspect a murderer to be driving a wreck like that, and the vehicle itself would be a piece of cake to hot-wire. It wouldn’t be fitted with alarms, either....

If that’s what had happened, where was the Pollocks’ vehicle? It wasn’t in the lot, that was for sure.

And where was Paige? Would Anatola Korenev really stick her in an old truck with him?

He yelled across the lot. “Hey, was there a camper or a shell on the back of your truck?”

The older man paused and turned. He appeared to be thinking.

“Hell, no,” the younger one said, tugging on the older one’s arm. They resumed their unsteady advance on the tavern.

Time was ticking away and John didn’t know what to do except keep driving, hoping that Korenev had taken the truck and it had fallen apart close by.

He got back in Paige’s car and started circling the tavern to exit. That’s when he saw a few broken branches on the trees at the back of the lot. Was that a road beneath them?

No. He accelerated again, but at the last minute, he looked back over his shoulder and slowed the car. The cracks in the branches looked starkly white against the dark wood. New cracks.

He slammed on the brakes and tore open his door. Running into the trees, he followed what appeared to be a trail of mangled undergrowth and rutted wet dirt until he caught a glimpse of gold paint: the tail end of the Pollocks’ car.

His heart banged against his ribs as he fought his way through the brushwood until he could peer inside.

Paige’s purse and wallet lay on the floor. Bending and twisting, he retrieved them, stuffed them in his pocket and tried to figure out what it meant.

Had she been forced into an old black truck at knifepoint and driven away? Or had she been murdered, her body tossed aside within these woods?

He shuddered at the daunting scope of searching a whole forest. It was time to call in the cops. What happened to him didn’t matter—he’d thought he could handle this alone, but it was obvious now he couldn’t. He ran back out of the forest and approached Paige’s car. When he paused to open the door, he heard a noise above the sound of his own ragged breathing.

He turned around so quickly he stumbled back against the fender. Holding his breath and straining to hear, he waited—there it was again, a thumping sound. But where was it coming from?

The sound stopped and for a minute or so, he thought he was going crazy, that he was making things up, that maybe bashing his head on the rocks the day before had unhinged him—

No, there it was again, coming from back near the trees to the left. He began walking that direction, pausing to listen once or twice.

There were two or three older cars back there that looked as though they hadn’t moved in a while. As he approached, he noticed pieces of red plastic on the ground beneath a hole where the right taillight had been on an old red sedan. As John watched, something appeared in the opening and then fell, stopping short—

It took him a dumbfounded second to finally realize he was staring at a gold-and-silver pendant hanging from a slender chain. An owl. Paige’s owl in all its unsettling glory.

He ran the last few steps and pounded on the trunk. “Paige?” The owl necklace fell to the ground as though dropped in startled clumsiness. “Paige, hold on, I’ll get you out of there.”

He heard the reassuring sound of a muffled voice.

He moved around to the driver’s door but it was locked. Through the window, he could see the passenger door was open a bit, and he hurried around the car. Careful to avoid the broken window glass, he easily found the opener in the cleaned-out glove box and pushed it.

As he lifted the truck lid, his brain registered a slew of details. Paige lay all scrunched up with her back to the rear of the car, a leather strap around her neck. Her hands were taped together, as were her ankles. It appeared she’d managed to wield a tire iron and had used it to bang out the taillight, working with her back to the job. He had no idea how she managed to manipulate the necklace from around her neck let alone dangle it through the opening.

He lifted her out of the trunk. Her eyes were wide, her gaze darting all around as though searching for a sign of Korenev. At first she couldn’t stand without John’s help. He lifted what he now saw was a man’s leather belt from over her head and tossed it back in the trunk, flinching at the angry red burn that encircled her throat. Apologizing ahead of time, he peeled the tape away from her mouth, and she cried out as it lifted from her lips.

He pulled her against him. “Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”

“No. Not really,” she mumbled.

“Where is he?”

She looked over his shoulder, then met his gaze. “I don’t know. I felt his weight shift as he got out of the car. I kept waiting…waiting for him to come back, you know. There was a sound by the trunk as though he paused, but then voices across the lot and retreating footsteps. Someone must have spooked him. I heard an engine start nearby. That’s when I started bashing out the taillight. I didn’t know if you would come—”

“Of course I came. I’m sorry it took so long.”

She pushed herself away. Her eyes were moist. “I’ve never been so scared in my life.”

He swallowed a boulder as his gaze took in the split skin over her cheekbone and the chalky white of her complexion. She looked away from him—what was she thinking? She’d heard Korenev’s accusations. She must be wondering if he was as ruthless as Korenev.

“Could you get this tape off of me?” she asked.

“Of course.” He freed her hands and then knelt before her to unwind the silver adhesive from her legs. It seemed to take forever.

“What do we do now?” she asked as she rubbed her hands together as if trying to reestablish circulation. Staring at the ground, she added, “Do you see my necklace? I dropped it.”

“It’s right here,” he said, and gestured at the glittering gold that had fallen through the mushy snow and lay now among a dozen jagged pieces of red plastic.

He bent to pick it up for her and paused.

Although the pendant’s topaz eyes were no bigger than decorative pinheads, they still managed to drill right inside his head. For a microsecond, his skin seemed on fire, and then it was over. He wiped a thin layer of perspiration off his forehead. He was crazy. There was no other explanation.

Without saying a word, she picked up the owl and chain, examined it for a second and dropped it into her pocket where it disappeared from sight.

He took a deep breath.

“I had to break it to get it off my neck,” she murmured, and once again he looked at the burn on her lovely throat. He’d thought it came from Korenev’s bondage methods, but now he saw the abrasion was too narrow for the belt to have caused it. It was yanking on the chain that had burned her skin.
It was the owl…

“You have a black eye,” he said, gently touching her left cheek and willing himself to stop being such an unmitigated sissy.

“We match. We can tell people we’ve been in a car accident.”

He stared into her troubled gray eyes and felt himself drifting toward her. He gave a mental shake of his head and murmured something about getting out of the lot before someone noticed them.

She looked over his shoulder, then back with a startled expression on her face. “You mean someone like that?”

He turned to see what she meant. A police car rolled slowly down the street.

“Hurry,” she said as she grabbed his lapels and pulled him toward her. “Kiss me.”

He did not need any more invitation than that, and immediately took her up on her suggestion. Her lips were cool and fresh and yet warm, too, and so soft.

It was a brief kiss and he knew its purpose was to dissuade a cop from investigating them closer, but it was also the most wonderful thing that had happened to him in twenty-four hours. It connected him with another person in a way that fused the crevices of his soul, like pouring warm water on a block of ice.

It was over in a few short seconds, and he stared down at her as she checked out the street behind him. Her profile was beautiful, her lashes long and luxuriant.

“They’re gone,” she said. “We should leave before they come back.”

“Or Korenev does,” he added. As he led her to her car, he told her about the roadblock. “You leave me here and drive out the main way. You’ll run into the police in about ten miles and then you’ll be safe.”

“What about you?”

He shook his head. The truth: he was loath to see her go. It felt wonderful to have her beside him again, to not be alone. He didn’t want to lose her in the worst way possible.

But he couldn’t stand the thought she might run into Korenev again because of him.

“John? You can’t get out of here on foot. We’ll stick together for now, okay?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“I don’t want to be by myself,” she said, and now for the first time, her voice trembled. “Don’t make me drive off alone, please. If you want me to go to the cops, then come with me.”

“I can’t. I have to find out who and what I am.”

“I know you do. So, get in the car. I’ll drive to make it all legal, although my wallet is back in the Pollocks’ car.” She hugged herself as she added, “I really don’t want to go back into that forest.”