Читать книгу Dangerous Memories - Barbara Colley - Страница 10

As Leah’s scream echoed in the house, Hunter grabbed the agent around the neck in a chokehold and latched on to the gun.

Across the room, the dark-haired agent came charging back into the room just as his partner elbowed Hunter in the gut. Hunter grunted from the blow but held on to the gun and tightened his grip around the other man’s neck.

Before the dark-haired agent got halfway across the room, quick as lightning, Hunter twisted the gun, pried it loose from the agent’s hand and rammed it against the man’s temple.

Hunter’s captive stiffened then went still, and the dark-haired agent skidded to a halt. Using his captive as a shield, Hunter forced him into the parlor.

“Easy now,” Hunter told the dark-haired agent, his voice deceptively soft but edged with steel. “Just take it easy and no one will get hurt. Put your gun down and kick it over here. And no funny business.”

Leah’s heart pounded. Would the agent give up his gun?

“We’re not here to hurt you,” the agent told Hunter. Then he knelt down and placed the gun on the floor. “We’re here to protect you.” He straightened, then kicked the gun toward Hunter.

The sound of metal skidding against wood grated loudly in Leah’s ears as the gun slid across the floor then stopped just to the right of Hunter’s feet. Using the heel of his foot, Hunter kicked the gun back behind him into the hallway.

All Leah could do was stand frozen and watch. Was Hunter running a bluff on the agents or had he lied to her about being a cop, about being unable to fire a weapon? Surely if he was a cop the FBI would know about his medical leave and the reasons behind it. But then, maybe they didn’t. Maybe such things came under patient-doctor confidentiality. After all, the agent did give up his weapon.

“Down on your knees,” Hunter ordered. “Hands behind your head.” When the dark-haired agent dropped to his knees and raised his hands, Hunter loosened his hold on the captive agent and shoved him in the direction of the one on his knees. “You, too,” he snarled. “Down. Hands behind your head.”

The agent stumbled but caught himself, and with a backward glare at Hunter, he joined his partner on the floor.

The minute the agent was down, Hunter yelled, “Answers! I want some damn answers. And I want them now! You! Martin!” He waved the gun at the dark-haired man. “Start talking.”

“Easy does it, Hunter,” the agent said. “Like I said, we’re not here to hurt you. We’re only here to take you into protective custody. All I can tell you is that you’re a material witness to a murder committed in Orlando.”

“Yeah, right!” Hunter snarled. “And I’ve got some ocean-front property in Arizona for sale.”

“It’s true,” the sandy-haired agent told him.

“Well, the joke’s on you,” Hunter sneered. “The only thing I remember about Orlando is being held prisoner in that damn hospital. I didn’t even know my own name until this morning. Seems I have this little problem called amnesia.”

“We know that,” the dark-haired agent said evenly. “It’s because of the amnesia that we can’t tell you anything else. You have to remember it on your own, without any prompting or help or else your testimony won’t hold water.”

Breathing hard, Hunter glared first at one man and then the other. Though he didn’t trust either agent as far as he could throw them, their body language told him they were telling the truth.

Body language? Now, where in the hell had that come from? More memory returning or instincts and training? Cop instincts and training? Leah had said he was a cop. No time to think about it now.

“Okay,” Hunter drawled. His steely gaze slid to the sandy-haired agent, then back to the dark-haired agent. “Just for argument’s sake, say I believe you. What then?”

“For your own protection, we’ve been instructed to take you and your wife into custody and take you both to a safe house.”

His wife? Hunter felt as if he’d just been sucker punched. His eyes cut to Leah. You’re safe here… You can trust me. As her words swirled in his head, a cold feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. She’d lied. And if she’d lied about something like that, what else had she lied about? Was she the reason the feds had showed up? Had she called them after all?

Leah felt her insides shrivel. Hunter’s expression was tight with strain and anger as he glared at her, but the stony look of betrayal in his eyes cut her to the quick. “Hunter,” she entreated. “Please, let me explain.”

Icy contempt blazed in his eyes, but before she could utter another word, he shifted his gaze back to the agents. “Then what?” Hunter demanded, glaring at the men.

Leah swallowed against the ache in her throat. She should have trusted him.

“We’ll keep you in the safe house until a transfer back to Orlando can be arranged,” Lance Martin answered. “There’s a doctor in Orlando that we think can use hypnosis to break through your amnesia without compromising your testimony.”

Safe house? Raw rage boiled up within Leah, rage with herself for not trusting Hunter, but mostly rage against the police and the two agents, the very people who were supposed to uphold the law and protect the innocent.

Her eyes narrowed and she glowered at Martin. She’d been lied to from the get-go, purposely deceived. She’d spent months in anguish, thinking that Hunter was dead and wondering how she was going to raise a child on her own. And while she’d been grieving, these people had kept Hunter locked away, had kept him a prisoner without telling him why. And now they expected to waltz right in and have her and Hunter go along with them like meek little lambs. Well, no more. Enough was enough.

Leah slammed her hand down on a nearby table. “Hey!” she shouted. All three men jerked their heads her way. “My turn to ask questions! Just who the hell do you people think you are, messing in other people’s lives? I’m not stepping foot out that door, not until I get some answers. And if you think otherwise, you’ve got another think coming.”

“Now, now, Mrs. Davis, just calm down,” Martin told her.

“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down,” she snapped at him. “And don’t you dare patronize me.” Leah knew she was losing control, but for once in her life, she didn’t care. “I want some answers,” she screamed at him. “And I want them now!”

“All in good time, ma’am,” he told her.

“All in good time?” she cried. “That’s all you’ve got to say? Well, we’ll just see about that!” Leah shifted her glare to Hunter. “Shoot him, Hunter. Just shoot the bastard.”

Though Hunter kept his eyes and the gun trained on the agents, his shoulders tensed and the look on his face bordered on desperation and confusion. It was only then that Leah realized what she had said. How desperate she sounded. She didn’t really want the man dead, she just wanted some answers.

Leah’s face burned with regret.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the baseball bat propped next to the door where she’d left it. Time for a different approach, she decided. Before anyone realized her intentions, she reached over, snatched the bat and jerked it up into a swinging position. Tightening her grip and careful to keep a safe distance, she edged closer to the agent called Martin.

“Back off, Leah,” Hunter demanded.

Leah ignored him, her eyes on Martin. “I said I want answers,” she stormed. “And one way or another, I intend to get them. Either you tell me what I want to know or I’m going to use this bat to hit a home run with your head.” To emphasize her point she squared off and raised the bat a notch higher. “First question,” she snapped. “Why was I told that Hunter was dead? Why not just take us both into protective custody to begin with?”

The agent hesitated only a moment. “It was for your own protection,” he told her. “And for Hunter’s,” he added. “In the beginning we didn’t know if Hunter would live or die, so it was decided that it would be safer all the way around if the perpetrators believed that Hunter had died in the accident. And to make it real, to make them believe that he was dead, you had to believe he was dead, too. If we had told you the truth and taken you into protective custody, they would have known that he was still alive.”

Leah’s anger died a slow death as logic took over. The agent’s answer made sense, and without realizing she’d done so, she eased her grip and lowered the bat.

The moment she lowered the bat, the agent nodded his approval, then turned his gaze to Hunter. “Be reasonable, Hunter. Don’t you see that by refusing protective custody, you’re putting your life as well as your wife’s in grave danger? All it would take would be for the wrong person to spot you—and it could happen. These people we’re talking about have connections everywhere.”

She had been told he was dead? Endless thoughts raced through Hunter’s head, but he kept seeing Leah, brandishing the bat and demanding answers. He could not even imagine how shocked she must have been when she found him on her porch. Though she certainly hadn’t shown it, until now. If she was so ready to defend him, her husband, why had she lied in the first place?

“You know I’m right,” Martin said, interrupting Hunter’s thoughts. “Think about it, man. We can protect you.”

Protect you…protect you…to serve and protect… The agent’s words echoed in Hunter’s head, and without warning, scenes flashed through his mind. With a heart-stopping jolt, he suddenly recognized the scenes for what they were—memories, unbidden memories of another time and another place.

Leah had told him the basics about the incident, and though it could be argued that he was simply being influenced by those words, Hunter knew deep in his gut that the flashes in his head were too detailed and graphic to be anything but real.

It had been New Year’s Eve. Even now he could feel the sting of the bitterly cold night. The 911 call had come from a hysterical child. Her mother’s ex-boyfriend was drunk, threatening to kill her and her mother. Hunter and his partner, Jack O’Brian, had been sent out to investigate the call.

Even before they reached the third floor of the apartment building, they heard the woman’s screams. Together, they kicked in the door. The man had the woman pinned against the wall near a door. From the look of her bloody face, he’d used the gun to beat the hell out of her. It all happened so fast that Hunter had reacted out of pure instinct. Hunter went in low and Jack entered high. Just as they cleared the door, the man, gun in hand, whirled to face them. The man fired and missed, then he dropped to the floor. But in that split second before he dropped and just as Hunter squeezed the trigger of his own gun, the door behind the man flew open. The little girl had died on impact.

Hunter’s insides shriveled as the memory faded. He’d taken an oath to protect the innocent and on that night he’d broken the oath and lost his soul in the process. Putting himself in danger was one thing, but he couldn’t risk another innocent. Not again. Leah had said he couldn’t fire a gun, and he was damn sure she was right, so there was no way he could protect her even if he wanted to.

Taking a deep breath and praying that he was doing the right thing, Hunter slowly lowered the gun, then he turned it butt forward and held it out to Lance Martin.

“You made the right decision,” the agent told him, scrambling to his feet as he reached for the weapon. He handed it to his partner. Addressing both Leah and Hunter, he said, “We don’t have much time. You’ve got about five minutes to pack.”

Ray Harris followed Leah and Hunter back to the bedroom while Lance Martin stayed in the living room to keep watch out front. Once in the bedroom, the agent positioned himself near the window that overlooked the backyard. Hunter was standing at the foot of the bed, and as Leah crammed underwear, a nightgown, T-shirts, a pair of loose-fitting jeans and a couple of pairs of knit pants into a backpack, she could feel Hunter watching her every move.

“I take it these belong to me and not some fictitious uncle.” Hunter plucked at the knit shirt he was wearing. “Are there more where this came from?”

Nodding, Leah reached down and took the cardboard box from the bottom of her closet. “Not many,” she said as she handed the box to Hunter. “You packed most of your stuff for the trip to Orlando. I just left it there.” Unable to maintain eye contact, Leah turned away, then began searching through the closet until she found the spare backpack she was looking for. She threw it to Hunter, and while she made a trip to the bathroom for toiletries, and to change into a better-fitting pair of jeans, he began stuffing the backpack with the clothes from the box.

“Time’s up,” Ray Harris announced when Leah returned. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

With Harris bringing up the rear, Leah and Hunter headed down the hall. When they entered the living room, Lance Martin glanced their way. “Ready?” he asked.

Leah shook her head. “What about my job? I can’t just disappear without telling them something.”

“You’ll have to call and say that you’re resigning.”

Leah glared at Martin. “I can’t just up and quit.”

“Yes, you can,” the agent told her. “And after this is all over, the hospital will be apprised of the circumstances. Now, are you ready?”

Leah shook her head. “I don’t care what you say, I’m not quitting my job. And one more thing—I’ve got to make sure my house is secure,” she insisted. “Make sure all the windows are locked, stop the delivery of the newspaper, have my mail stopped.”

Martin rolled his eyes, then, with a sigh, he said, “Ray and I will check the house now—and later, we’ll take care of the newspaper and your mail. You and Hunter wait there.” He motioned toward the hall where Hunter had jumped Ray Harris.

Within minutes, both agents returned. “All the windows are locked and the back door is secure,” Martin told her. With him in the lead and Harris bringing up the rear, they hustled Leah and Hunter to the car.

Harris drove and Martin rode shotgun. Leah sat as close to the door as she could while Hunter sprawled out behind Martin on the passenger side.

“So where is this so-called safe house?” Hunter asked once they were on their way, bumping along the narrow, uneven street that Leah lived on.

Martin shifted sideways in the seat. “It’s just outside the city, near Kenner,” he said over his shoulder.

“How long before we’re transferred to Orlando?”

“Probably a day or two at the most.”

Leah, still avoiding eye contact with Hunter for fear of seeing only condemnation, listened to his questions and the agent’s answers as they drove beneath the overhanging branches of the towering oaks that shaded the narrow street. As she gazed out the side window at the century-old homes they passed, her mind’s eye kept seeing the betrayal on Hunter’s face when he’d learned that she lied about their relationship.

She should have told him the truth. Shoulda, woulda, coulda, she thought with sarcasm. And hindsight was a wonderful thing.

Across from her, Hunter shifted in the seat. “Another question,” he said, directing his attention to Martin again and interrupting Leah’s self-flagellant thoughts. “How did you know where to find me?”

Leah tensed as her gaze flew from the window to the agent.

“We weren’t sure where to look at first,” the agent said. “The minute you disappeared from the hospital, we put a tap on your wife’s phone, and we also instructed the staff at the hospital to immediately report any inquiries made about you. Then, this morning, we hit pay dirt. Your wife’s phone call to the hospital was what tipped us off.”

“Her phone call?”

Hunter whipped his head around to glare at Leah. At the expression on his face, a cold knot formed in her stomach.

“And just what kind of phone call did she make?” Hunter retorted, sarcasm oozing with each word as his eyes burned a hole in her that went all the way to her soul.

Leah swallowed hard. Caught again. Yet another lie, another betrayal found out.

“She was trying to confirm that you had been a patient there,” Martin answered. “For all the good it did her,” he added. “But it was just the red flag we’d been waiting for. We were dispatched immediately to bring you in.”

“We’ve got trouble!” Harris interrupted in a tense, clipped voice. “We picked up a tail. The black SUV.”

When Martin shifted his gaze to the vehicle’s side-view mirror, Leah heard a pinging sound. The rear windshield splintered and Leah screamed.