Читать книгу Hidden Twin - Jodie Bailey - Страница 14

The deputy standing at the front of the car disconnected his call and shoved his phone into a holster on his belt. He seemed to listen to something in his earpiece, then walked over to stand on the other side of the car, watching the entrance to the parking lot.

Amy didn’t have to ask about Deputy Marshal Edgecombe’s condition. The silent conversation between the two men confirmed her suspicions.

Shutting her eyes against the pressure of tears, Amy did her best to swallow the pain in her throat. Deputy Elijah Edgecombe had been her main point of contact since she’d been relocated to Georgia over three years ago. He’d been the one to deliver news, both good and bad, to answer her questions, to check on her in those dark moments when she was certain she’d never be safe again. He was a good man, although she had no idea what his life outside of their occasional interactions looked like. It was certain someone out there would grieve the loss of a son or a husband or a brother.

If only her phone hadn’t been on vibrate. If only she’d answered the first—

“Amy.” Deputy Maldonado’s hand on her shoulder tightened. “You’re okay. We’re going to get you out of here.”

The other marshal spoke. “Two local detectives are pulling in to secure the scene. Deputy Kline is on his way with a team. Two local officers will escort our suspect out. I’m to follow you. We have to get moving though, before we draw a crowd.”

Amy opened her eyes, the full implications of his words bringing the truth back like a slap to her face. Her identity had been compromised. She turned to Deputy Maldonado, who pulled his hand from her shoulder and stood. “I can’t go home, can I?”

He glanced at the other deputy, then back to Amy before holding out his hand to her. His brown eyes were sad, either because of Deputy Edgecombe or because of her situation. “I’m sorry.”

The adrenaline that had been keeping Amy upright ebbed and left her entire body aching. Coupled with the weight of what was about to happen, she wasn’t sure she could move. She lifted her hand and placed it in Deputy Maldonado’s. He helped her out of the car, his support the only thing keeping her on her feet. When the other deputy handed him a bulletproof vest, she let Deputy Maldonado help her into it, the entire scene playing out from a distance.

She grabbed her bag. The other deputy rounded the car and held his hand out over the top of the door. “I’m going to need your bag along with your cell phone.”

Amy opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. She’d done this before and had awakened too many times to count in a cold sweat from nightmares that this moment had come again.

Well, this was no bad dream. This was her reality...again. Surrender everything she owned, leave her entire life behind, become someone completely different.

Silently, she passed the bag to the deputy, then drew her cell phone from her pocket and handed it over as well. All she had left of Amy Naylor—and of the real Amy Brady—were the wedding ring she wore around her neck and the antique watch on her wrist. The ring was the only thing she had left of her deceased husband and the watch was the only memento of the friendship that had landed her in this mess in the first place. If her other watch hadn’t died two days ago and she hadn’t replaced it with this one, she’d have likely been forced to leave it behind.

Amy let Deputy Maldonado lead her to his car. He opened the door and ushered her in, shutting it behind her before he turned to have a quick conversation with the other deputy, the one who was holding what was left of her life in his hands.

With a cold fury, she despised the nameless deputy and she didn’t even know him. He represented the horror she was facing. He’d taken the last of her identity away from her. Everything she was, everything that identified her hung casually from his fingertips in her gray messenger bag. The favorite pen she wished would never run dry. The keychain from a hiking trip along the southernmost part of the Appalachian Trail. Her phone with pictures of her few Georgia friends.

Her friends, who would never know what had happened to her. Her students, who would only know that Ms. Naylor never showed up for class. The entire life she’d built here was firmly erased by the taking of her messenger bag.

The bag with a photo slipped inside a torn lining, the photo she wasn’t supposed to have in the first place.

“Wait!”

Deputy Maldonado had pulled the door open but stopped before he slid in. “What?”

Amy reached across the seat and grabbed his hand, gripping tight, desperate for him to understand that she needed this one forbidden thing or she might lose her real self forever. “In the top pocket of my backpack, the lining is cut. There’s a picture...”

His expression tightened, the no already forming on his lips. She shouldn’t have mementos like that, pieces of her old life that someone could find and use against her. But she couldn’t let this one go. It was all she had left. “Please.”

He eyed her for a long moment before he shoved away from the car and walked over to the other deputy. There was a brief conversation before Sam dug through the messenger bag then returned, passing the picture to her as he shut the door and started the car. “I can’t promise they’ll let you keep it.”

“Thank you for trying.” She stared down at the photo in her hand. Two women and one man, smiling and happy, in better days when they didn’t know that the next two years would rip them entirely apart.

Deputy Maldonado shifted the car into gear and rolled out. He cast a lingering glance in the rearview, likely at the car that held Deputy Edgecombe’s remains.

Amy wasn’t the only one who was losing today. With a crushing weight in her chest, the grief returned. Deputy Edgecombe’s family was about to get a devastating visit. A team of men had lost a colleague. There was a difference in losing a temporary life and losing a permanent one. “I’m sorry.”

Deputy Maldonado’s eyes shifted to her and he eased out of the parking lot. “For what?”

“About Edgecombe. He was a good man.”

“The best.” He massaged the steering wheel for a moment, then tipped his chin toward the photo in her hand. “What’s so important about that photo that you’re willing to risk your neck to keep it?”

Amy turned her eyes to the picture and scanned the faces forever frozen in time. “I can look in the mirror any day and see my twin sister’s face looking back at me, but this is the only actual picture I have of her. And it’s the only one I have left of my husband and me together.”

His head jerked back. “There’s no mention of a husband in your file.”

“Then you haven’t seen my whole file. We were married six years ago, shortly before he deployed to Afghanistan.” Amy stared into Noah’s laughing hazel eyes. Their entire relationship had been the very definition of a whirlwind. They’d met in January, married in April and he deployed in July. On the first chilly autumn day in September, an army chaplain flanked by two other soldiers knocked on her door. From the first time they laid eyes on each other until the day he died, less than ten months had passed. “He was killed in a firefight in the Arghandab Valley.”

“I know the place well.”

Amy started to ask how, but experience with the buttoned-down deputy marshal told her he’d only change the subject without answering. While she’d seen him and spoken to him many times, little had changed between them in the months since she’d first met him. Back then, he’d ridden the edge of frustration and anger for the two days it had taken for him and his team to be certain she hadn’t compromised her new identity. Deputy Edgecombe had been the one to fill her in on exactly what it was Deputy Maldonado and his people did. An elite recovery team within WITSEC, they were sent after missing or endangered high-value targets in the most desperate situations. She’d gone missing on her own the first time, prompting the deployment of his team. She’d deserved his irritation and annoyance then. This time... She gasped, guilt burning in her stomach. “Deputy, is all of this happening because of me? Because you had to hunt me down the last time?”

“Call me Sam. We’re about to spend a lot of time together, and it will make things easier.” Before she could ask what he meant, Sam shook his head. “None of this is your fault. Despite how foolish your actions were a few months ago, no one tracked you then. To be honest, we’re not certain what’s happening now or how you were found. Our cyber expert was trolling the dark web and found a hit out on you placed only a few hours ago.”

“A hit?” It wasn’t possible. This was the stuff of action movies and TV shows. How had she landed here? Three years ago, she’d been a normal person working for a living after the loss of her husband, whose insurance money had gone to his mother. She’d wrapped up her degree in sports medicine and was interviewing for full-time jobs in her field. While working on her college job as a personal trainer and part-time receptionist at a day spa, she’d discovered an ugly truth straight out of her worst nightmares.

Her boss, Grant Meyer, had been using New Horizons Day Spa’s multiple locations in Texas to traffic human beings. Worse, his partner was a man she’d trusted enough to introduce to her twin sister. Logan Cutter had manipulated Eve until she’d pulled away from everyone in her life, including Amy. When Amy had notified the authorities about the evidence she’d found at the day spa, she never dreamed her life would end up jumping the tracks so completely. She’d been forced to leave everything behind and to become an entirely new person. Certainly, she’d never imagined she’d be the target of real-life hit men, something she’d foolishly thought only happened in the movies.

“Why now?” It had been more than three years since she’d stepped into her life as Amy Naylor. Three years in which, while she never stopped looking over her shoulder, she’d at least grown slightly more comfortable in her skin teaching underclassmen biology at the community college. It was the closest she could come to using her real degree without giving away who she used to be.

“The prosecution is close to securing a trial date. It’s possible Grant Meyer was able to make contact with the outside and have you targeted. It seems unlikely, since his organization fell apart after he was jailed and agents rounded up most of his men. Still, if he has any sort of reach, he’ll use it to get to you. You’re the biggest thing the prosecution has against him. Even though he knows the evidence you turned over is enough to take him down without you ever taking the stand, revenge would be a pretty sweet dish to him. Our big concern is how he was able to tell others where to look for you. And why he’d put out a blanket call for a hit on the dark web where authorities could be tipped off, instead of having someone he trusted come after you. At this moment, none of it makes sense.”

The more he talked, the more Amy tensed. Nothing he said made this better. Everything was only getting worse and the crushing weight of it threatened to suffocate her.

Sam glanced in her direction and seemed to notice his words were having the opposite effect of his intentions. “Amy, you’re safe with me. I promise. That’s why they sent me and why they put my team on the job. No one is going to hurt you as long as you’re doing as we—” He tipped his head away from her, to the left where his earpiece was. The lines around his mouth and above his eyes drew tighter and he gripped the steering wheel with both hands, gaze roaming from mirror to mirror.

Amy pressed deeper into the seat, panic threatening to overwhelm her. Whatever he was hearing, nothing good was going to come of it.

* * *

Sam eyed the rearview and immediately spotted the vehicle that had sparked Wainwright’s concern. The gray full-size pickup had slipped in behind them shortly after Sam merged onto the highway headed toward Atlanta and his team’s base of operations three hours and some change to the northwest. The truck hadn’t raised too much concern as it had stayed a few cars back and seemed to be running with the ever-increasing Friday afternoon traffic. He kept his voice low, knowing he couldn’t avoid Amy hearing him but hoping against hope she wouldn’t understand. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.” Wainwright’s voice was serious and certain.

Moments like this reinforced the reason Sam liked to travel in pairs and to have someone watching his back during witness transport. There was a reason he liked to have the younger deputy back him up on days like this. Wainwright was competent and quick, with a gift for seeing what Sam couldn’t because his focus had to be out the front windshield. “When you hit the highway, the pickup crossed two lanes of traffic and cut me off to stay with you. I don’t think he realizes I’m back here, so we have the advantage on him there, but he’s definitely latched on to you.”

Sam locked his back teeth and scanned the road signs ahead, looking for an exit that wouldn’t leave him stranded in the middle of nowhere. They were rapidly heading out of town and would soon be in a broad stretch of pecan groves and onion fields, leaving few places to pull off and hide. “Run the plates and get back to me. I’m going to pull off at the next exit. Sign says there’s a shopping mall there. I can make a broad circle in the lot and see if he sticks with me. If he does, there’s a better chance of losing him on a side street than there is on the highway.”

Beside him, Amy stiffened. Sam wished there was a way to have this conversation out of her earshot, a way to keep her ignorant to the danger, but until someone invented silent speech, that was impossible.

His earpiece hummed as Wainwright spoke. “He’ll figure you out the minute you leave the highway. It might make him desperate.”

“I know.” It was a chance Sam had to take. The guy might spook and back off if he thought he’d been tagged, but it might also make him desperate enough to risk an impulsive move. “Back off enough to keep him from being suspicious of you but stay close enough to keep an eye on him.”

“Got it.”

Sam checked his mirrors to make sure he was clear, then slipped from the left lane without signaling, abruptly crossing the right lane and taking the exit at the last second.

The truck followed.

“Someone’s behind us, aren’t they?” Amy had one hand on the grab handle above her head and the other holding tight to the seat beside her. She was even more ashen than she had been before. If Sam weren’t already familiar with Amy and her hard-set determination, he’d think she was about to pass out on him. It was a good thing he’d run up against her stubbornness before. She wasn’t one to knuckle under easily.

But she was also prone to panic attacks, and Sam couldn’t risk one now. From personal experience, he knew they could bring everything to a full stop.

He could skirt the truth to protect her, but in the months he’d known Amy, he’d learned she wasn’t one who would believe an easy story. Edgecombe had always spoken plainly to her when she demanded the truth, and Sam would do no differently. When he’d caught up to her in Virginia the first time he met her, she’d smoked him out immediately and demanded he give her the whole truth about her situation. He had. With both barrels. At the time, she’d deserved to hear how foolish she’d been to run off alone.

This time, the fault was not her own so she deserved none of his righteous anger.

But she still deserved the truth.

“It looks like we’ve picked up a tail, but Wainwright is behind him and our new friend doesn’t seem to know it. We’re fine. We’ll either slip him or we’ll call in local law enforcement to keep him busy and shake him off our scent. We’re fine.” Boy, that had better project more calm than he felt. Adrenaline zipped through his veins. The truth was, the situation could get a lot more complicated. With civilians around and with the driver of the truck being a complete unknown, there were a whole lot of what-ifs that could come to fruition in the next few minutes. More of those scenarios worked against them than for them.

Wainwright’s voice buzzed in his ear. “Just got word on the license plate and you really aren’t going to like it.”

The man had a flare for the dramatic that could make him a little slow with information sometimes, but Sam took the good with the bad. “Probably not.”

“Truck is registered to a student at the community college. He was carjacked about the same time we pulled out of the parking lot and called it in. Guy hit him from behind, so he doesn’t have a description, but local LEOs are still talking to him. Kid’s fine but upset about his truck.”

So their original kidnapper had an accomplice. This operation was more coordinated than he’d suspected. Sam balled his fist and hit the side of the steering wheel.

Amy jumped but remained silent.

He’d have to be careful not to scare her any more than she probably already was, which meant he’d have to be careful what he said to Wainwright. Sam waited as cars turned left on the green light into the large shopping center parking lot. “We showed up at the right time to the college.”

“Looks like. When we descended en masse, he probably made the wise choice to keep himself hidden. Hayes is having our suspect from the college moved into interrogation now, trying to figure out who the partner is.”

In the rearview, the pickup followed Sam into the parking lot, while Wainwright got caught several cars behind him as the light cycled. Sam cruised up the broad center aisle with the pickup still two cars back. At a fork in the drive, Sam hooked a left away from the main lot into a deserted auxiliary lot closer to the road.

The pickup continued straight toward the mall.

Interesting. Far from bringing relief, the truck driver’s odd decision to break away amped Sam’s adrenaline. Their new friend knew something Sam and Wainwright didn’t. “He went his own way.”

“You’re thinking he’s either confident he won’t lose you and he’s trying to throw you off, or he’s got an accomplice who’s finally caught up and who’s got eyes on you so he’s free to move on.”

Sam slowed and eyed the cars on the other side of the parking lot. None seemed familiar. He took a second to glance at Amy, who was watching out the front window, her gaze fixed on nothing. She’d detached from the situation and seemed to be watching from a distance.

It might be for the best. According to her file and Edgecombe’s intel, she’d started having panic attacks when WITSEC faked her death in El Paso. It had been a concern the last time he’d had to pick her up. An attack at the wrong time could compromise everything. He knew all too well the coping mechanism she was using right now. Detach. Watch the world as though the whole thing was a movie. Don’t let emotions creep into the show.

Amy was doing all of that and more. Sam started to ask if she was okay, then thought better of it. The last thing he needed her to do was analyze her feelings before he could get her to a safe place to feel them.

“I’m in.” Wainwright’s voice cut through his thoughts. “I’m going to come around behind you and see if you’ve picked up a second tail, although there’s no one around you right now.”

“Keep an eye out for the first guy.” Sam didn’t like this. He swung back around toward the shopping mall’s entrance. If Wainwright didn’t pick up anything else, he was getting back on the highway double time and getting Amy as far from here as possible. Maybe, just maybe, their tail had figured out he was being followed and had abandoned pursuit.

At the end of an aisle close to the road, traffic was nonexistent and no cars obstructed his view. Sam stopped to check every direction and slipped through the cross aisle. Still no sign of the truck and no indication there was another car tailing him. “I’m heading back for the main road.”

“I’m going to drop in behind you and follow you out, but I’ve got a red coupe three aisles over from me trying to mix into the crowded part of the lot. He’s paralleling your moves.”

So there was another one and he was smart. He’d stayed close to the building where the parking lot was crowded, blending in with the rest of the cars. He glanced at the rearview and watched Wainwright’s car turn onto the row behind him and stop at the same intersection he’d just crossed. “Keep an eye on him. See if he follows.”

“Got it. No sign of the truck. I’m going to—” The screech of tires came from Sam’s earpiece and from across the parking lot at the same time. Metal crunched with a sickening finality.

Sam hit the brakes and turned to look over his shoulder as Amy screamed.

The pickup had appeared out of nowhere and broadsided Wainwright’s car, pushing him at full speed across the narrow intersection and into a light pole. The passenger side was smashed against the truck and the driver’s door curved around the pole.

“Wainwright!” Sam yelled for his partner.

Only silence answered.

Sam gunned the engine and spun the car to face the carnage as people raced toward the accident scene. Inside the pickup, the driver was slumped over the steering wheel. The airbag clearly hadn’t deployed.

His earpiece came to life. “I’m okay.” Wainwright was breathless but alive. “Get Amy out.”

Sam scanned the lot, searching for the red car. To his left, a blur of motion caught the low-hanging sun as the car hung a J-turn and aimed at them, roaring across the empty parking spaces, gaining speed and power.

This was a coordinated attack, and Sam was on his own.