Читать книгу Agent to the Rescue - Lisa Childs, Lisa Childs, Livia Reasoner - Страница 10

Chapter Five

He watched her from the doorway. She was awake now. But she didn’t see him. Instead, she was staring down at her hand, studying the diamond on it. Either she was admiring the big square stone or she was trying to remember where the hell it had come from.

Her memory was really gone. He had spoken with the doctors, too, and had confirmed everything that Blaine Campbell had told him yesterday. Now if only Dalton could confirm what Jared Bell had told him.

If she really had been abducted by the Bride Butcher serial killer, then Dalton should turn the case over to the profiler. Jared Bell knew the case best.

But Jared Bell hadn’t caught the killer when he’d had the chance before. And he had made no promises that he would catch him now.

Dalton was the one who had made her the promises. Dalton and probably whoever had put that ring on her finger. She had been wearing a bridal gown. Was she married? Or was she only engaged? Who was the man in her life and why hadn’t he filed a missing persons report for her?

Dalton had checked, but he had found no report for anyone matching her description. Midtwenties, five foot seven or eight inches tall, red haired, breathtakingly beautiful...

If he was the man who had put the ring on her finger, he wouldn’t have just reported her missing; he would have been out looking for her—desperate to find her.

But maybe the man who had put the ring on her finger had also put her in the trunk. Dalton had a name now—for the owner of the vehicle. He also had an address. But to follow up the lead, he would have to leave her to someone else’s protection.

Blaine’s? Or Agent Bell’s? Or Trooper Littlefield’s? The guy hadn’t left his keys in his patrol car; he hadn’t done anything wrong. He deserved a chance to prove himself, but not at any risk to her...

“Do you have bad news for me?” she asked. “Is that why you’re reluctant to come into my room?”

A grin tugged at his lips. The woman kept surprising him—with her strength and with her intuitiveness. He hadn’t thought she’d even noticed him watching her. However, she apparently didn’t miss much. But her memories.

He stepped inside the hospital room and walked closer to her bed. She was sitting up, and thanks to the IV in her arm, she had more color. She looked healthier. Stronger...

“I have no news for you,” he said.

She sighed. “Well, that is bad, then.”

“How about you?” he asked. “Any memories?”

Had staring at that diamond brought anything rushing back to her? Any feeling of love for whoever had given her the engagement ring?

She shook her head and then flinched at the motion.

Concern gripped him. “Still in pain?”

“Not so much thanks to the painkillers they’ve been giving me,” she said. “It’s just a dull ache now unless I make any sharp movements.”

“You are tough,” he mused.

The doctor had said that someone had given her quite a blow—probably with a pipe or a golf club. It had lacerated her skin and fractured her skull. But the fracture had probably actually saved her life since it had relieved the pressure and released the blood of what could have been a dangerous subdural hematoma. That was why there had been so much blood. But transfusions had replaced what she’d lost. According to the doctor, she was doing extremely well.

“I am tough,” she said. “So you can tell me about this no news. What do you mean?”

Hopefully, she was tough enough to deal with the facts, because he wasn’t going to keep anything from her. There was already too much that she didn’t know—that she couldn’t remember.

So he replied, “Nobody has filed a missing persons report for anyone matching your description.”

She flinched again, but she hadn’t even moved her head. This pain was emotional. “So no one is missing me.”

“I doubt that’s the case,” he said—because he would have missed her, had he not known where she was, and he barely knew her. “I’m sure there’s another explanation.”

“Like what?” she challenged him.

And because he believed she was strong, he told her the truth. “Your groom could have been the one who put you in the trunk of that car.”

“You think I’m married?” she asked as she glanced down at that ring again.

“I don’t know.” But part of him hoped she wasn’t—the part that had his heart racing over how beautiful she was. Her red hair was so vibrant and her silvery-gray eyes so sharp with intelligence and strength.

“Because this looks like just a solitaire engagement ring,” she said. “There’s no wedding band soldered to it. So I don’t think I’m married.”

“She’s right,” a female voice agreed.

Even if Dalton hadn’t recognized the voice, he wouldn’t have been too worried about someone slipping past Security and getting to her room. He had a guard stationed near the elevators, so no one would get onto the floor without getting checked out.

The only one who was in danger from this woman was him—for disrupting her wedding the day before. He braced himself, for her understandable and justified anger, before turning toward the doorway.

Their arms wound around each other, the bride stood next to her groom. But unlike Dalton, they had changed out of their wedding clothes. Claire wore a bright blue sundress, while Ash wore jeans and a T-shirt. Of course, more than a day had passed since the ceremony.

Dalton really needed to return the damn tuxedo. And shower...

“Aren’t you two supposed to be on your honeymoon?” he asked. He hoped he hadn’t disrupted that, too.

“We’re on our way to the airport,” Ash assured him. From how tightly he held her, he looked as if he couldn’t wait to get his bride alone again. “But Claire wanted to stop by and check on you.”

“I’m fine,” he said.

She clicked her tongue against her teeth, admonishing his dismissiveness. “You were in an accident.”

“It was no accident.” The man driving the trooper’s vehicle had intended to run them off the road.

“That’s even worse,” she said.

“I’m fine,” he said again.

Color rushed to the blonde’s pale-skinned face. “Good. Now I feel a little less guilty for threatening your life when I realized you ditched our wedding to chase down a stolen car.”

He didn’t blame her for being angry with him and could just imagine the words she had probably silently mouthed about him. “I’m sorry, Claire.”

She pulled away from her husband, rushed forward and hugged Dalton. “I’m so glad that you did.” Then she turned toward the bed and smiled at the patient.

“I’m glad, too,” the red-haired woman said, “since he saved my life.”

“He does that,” Claire said. “Saving lives is kind of his thing.” She moved closer to the bed and extended her hand. “I’m Claire Stryker.”

Ash chuckled. “She keeps introducing herself to everyone—even her dad.”

The redhead took Claire’s hand in hers. “I wish I could tell you my name, but...”

“You really don’t remember anything?” Claire asked.

“No.”

“We will find out who you are.” Dalton reiterated the promise that, according to Jared Bell, he’d had no business making. “But in the meantime, we need to call you something.” Besides redhead...

“Special Agent Campbell suggested Jane Doe,” she reminded him. “I guess that is what unidentified females are called...” But she hadn’t liked it because Jane Doe usually referred to unidentified dead bodies.

But he’d thought she was dead when he had first opened that trunk. He resisted the urge to shudder at the thought of her being dead.

“We could call you Mercedes,” he suggested. He had hesitated to bring it up the day before, but it was better than Jane Doe.

“Mercedes?” she and Claire asked in unison.

“It’s the kind of car he found her in,” Ash explained. “Of course Reyes would go with the name of a car.”

He whistled in appreciation of the vintage Mercedes. “She was a beautiful car...” Before she’d been put in the ditch. And now he knew who owned her. The car. He hoped that there was no guy out there who thought he owned the woman. But she had been put in the trunk like so much baggage...

Claire’s blond brows drew together as she considered the choices. “Jane or Mercedes?”

The redhead shrugged as if she didn’t care what they called her. “It doesn’t matter.”

“We need to find out your real name,” Claire said.

“We will,” Dalton said, but he felt a frisson of unease over how easily he was tossing out these promises. He had never been that guy—like Blaine or Ash. He wasn’t the marine. He wasn’t the hero. He was just the guy who worked hard because his job was his life. It was all he had. It was all he wanted, though.

“I’m really good with computers,” Claire said, which was a gross understatement of her world-renowned hacking skills. “Maybe I could do some digging—”

“I already have a team on it,” Dalton said. “They’re using facial recognition to try to link her to online media pictures. It’s being handled, and you two have a plane to catch.”

“You sure you don’t want our help?” Ash asked. His offer sounded sincere, but Dalton wouldn’t blame him if it wasn’t.

Selfishly, he would love their help. Claire was a genius and Ash was a legendary agent and former marine. But there was no way that Dalton would mess up any more of the Strykers’ plans. They had been through hell to earn their much-deserved happiness.

“I doubt this has anything to do with terrorism or national security,” Dalton said—since that was Ash Stryker’s specialty with the Bureau.

“Then maybe Jared Bell is who you need,” Ash suggested.

The redhead shook her head again despite the fact that the motion had her wincing in pain. Then she turned toward Claire. “You agreed with me,” she said. “You agreed that I’m not married. So if I’m not a bride, I couldn’t be a victim of the Bride Butcher.”

She had heard them yesterday. He’d thought she was sleeping, but she had heard everything he and Blaine and Jared Bell had said in her room. Now he flinched—with regret. He didn’t want to keep anything from her, but there were some things she hadn’t had to hear...like anything about the sadistic serial killer.

If that was who had abducted her, it was probably better that she never remembered what had happened to her. She would never recover from the nightmare of confronting such a monster.

* * *

PANIC OVERWHELMED HER, stealing away her breath. But she was actually less afraid of having a serial killer after her than she was afraid of losing Agent Reyes. He couldn’t pass off her case to someone else.

“The victims of the Bride Butcher aren’t married yet,” Agent Stryker said. “He abducts the women at their last fitting for their wedding dress.”

She shook her head—not in denial of what he claimed but in denial that she could have been at a fitting for a wedding dress. “No...”

“Do you remember something?” Claire Stryker asked. “Something that makes you think you’re not really engaged?”

“I can’t remember anything...” She stared at the newly married couple. Their love was palpable—like another presence in the hospital room. “But if I was married or engaged, wouldn’t I remember...him?”

“Maybe you don’t want to remember,” Dalton suggested. He apparently suspected that was who had hurt her.

Was she such a horrible judge of character that she would have fallen in love with a monster?

The petite blonde stepped closer to the bed and reached for her hand. She twisted the ring on her finger.

“What are you thinking?” she asked. Such intelligence shone in Claire’s eyes that she wanted to hear her opinion.

“It looks like this ring has been on your finger for a while,” the other woman replied.

Her stomach pitched. And yet the person who’d put that ring on her hand hadn’t even filed a missing persons report for her? What kind of man was her fiancé? The monster Dalton Reyes apparently suspected he was?

Agent Stryker glanced at his watch and said, “If we’re going to make our flight, we should get going...”

“We should stay,” Claire told her husband. “We could help...”

“You could,” Dalton agreed. “But you’re not. You’re going to leave for your honeymoon and have a wonderful time.”

Claire hesitated.

Even her husband looked uncertain. “Let’s talk in the hall a moment...”

Her stomach sank again as the two men stepped out of the room. She was certain that Agent Stryker was going to try to talk Dalton into handing her case over to Agent Bell.

“Don’t worry,” Claire told her. “We only offered to help because we owe him—not because we don’t think he’s capable of solving the case on his own. Dalton is a very good agent.”

She nodded in agreement. “I know. I wouldn’t be alive if he wasn’t.”

“He’s not like Ash and Blaine Campbell, though,” Claire continued. “They were marines—they grew up knowing what was right and what was wrong.”

Anger surged through her, and she opened her mouth to defend him. The special agent obviously knew what was right and wrong.

But before she could speak, Claire continued, “Dalton grew up on the streets—in a gang. He had to figure out for himself what was right and wrong. I think that’s even more impressive.”

“So do I,” she said. But everything about Dalton Reyes impressed her. She couldn’t help wondering about herself. What kind of person was she? Was she an honorable person? Did she know right from wrong?

“This must be so hard for you,” Claire said, “not having your memories. Not knowing how you grew up—who your family is or your friends...”

She wondered if she had any—since nobody had filed a report about her missing. Dalton and Agent Stryker stepped back into the room, and like the love between the Strykers, there was love between the men—a strong bond of friendship.

Her heart ached with an overwhelming sense of loss. But she hadn’t just lost her friends; she had lost herself, as well.

Dalton uttered a long-suffering sigh, even while his dark eyes twinkled with merriment. “I had to give this guy some advice for the honeymoon.” He turned toward Claire. “You’re welcome.”

The new bride laughed. “Like you have any experience with honeymoons or will ever have any experience...”

Apparently, as well as growing up on the streets, Dalton had grown up determined to remain single. She hadn’t been surprised when she’d overheard him telling Blaine Campbell that he wasn’t marrying anyone. Ever. She faintly remembered him saying something in the ambulance when the paramedic had mistaken her for his bride. She’d been in and out of consciousness, so she hadn’t picked up on his words but on his tone. He had been appalled that someone had mistaken him for a groom.

At the moment she could relate as she glanced down at her hand again. She wanted to take off the ring. She couldn’t believe she was engaged. It didn’t feel right.

“If you two don’t get going, you won’t have any honeymoon experience, either,” Dalton warned them.

Claire glanced at her. “But I could help...”

“I have help,” Dalton said. He wrapped his arm around the young bride and steered her toward the doorway. “I know you two can’t stand spending time together, but you’re going to have to suck it up for the next fifty or sixty years.”

The newlyweds chuckled—confident in their love and their relationship.

She glanced down at her ring again. Why would she be wearing this when she obviously hadn’t felt that way about whoever had put the ring on her finger? But then, a love like the Strykers’ was rare and special.

“It was nice meeting you,” Claire called back to her.

She had met Claire. She wasn’t sure if they’d met her—because she wasn’t sure who she was, except not Jane or Mercedes. But maybe she would need to start thinking of herself as one of those names since she was unlikely to ever remember her own. She waved at them. “Enjoy your honeymoon.”

The Strykers both hugged Dalton before leaving. He stared after them a moment, as if tempted to call them back, before he turned back to her.

“Who is your help?” she asked. While it would have been selfish to keep them from their honeymoon, she would have trusted the Strykers to help her.

“Trooper Littlefield is going to stand guard in your room,” he told her, “while I go to Chicago to follow up a lead.”

“Littlefield?” she asked.

Was that the trooper whose car had been stolen? Because of that and because something about him or his uniform was vaguely, unsettlingly familiar to her, she wouldn’t feel particularly safe with him. But then, she didn’t feel particularly safe with anyone but Dalton.

“He’s a good officer,” Dalton assured her. “He’s the one who called me when he noticed the vintage Mercedes. He knew something wasn’t right about it.”

Her in the trunk—that was what hadn’t been right about it. What if he hadn’t seen the car? What if Dalton hadn’t stopped it?

She would be dead. She was certain of it. She shuddered with the realization that someone out there wanted her dead. What kind of person was she that someone could hate her enough to try to kill her more than once...?

“Are you okay?” Dalton asked, his voice even deeper with concern. “Claire didn’t upset you, did she?”

She shook her head. Claire hadn’t upset her, but meeting the other woman had. “I just wish...”

“What?” he asked.

“I wish I knew what kind of person I am,” she said. “If I’m like her...” Or if she was someone who’d earned another person’s hatred? “I just wish I knew who I am...”

“You may not know your name,” Dalton said, “but you know who are you are—you’re strong and smart and brave.”

But she felt like none of those things. She was terrified—terrified of the person determined to kill her, terrified to be away from Dalton Reyes and terrified to find out who she really was.

* * *

ALL HE’D HAD to do was bide his time. Eventually the dark-haired agent had left—along with the other federal agents. They weren’t bodyguards; they were investigators.

He wasn’t worried about what they would find. He’d been careful so that nothing could be traced back to him. Not even her...

But still she had to die.

And it would be easier for him to kill her now that the agent was gone. He’d left behind the bald-headed trooper for her protection.

All he’d had to do was wait him out. With the amount of coffee the man drank, it was inevitable that he would leave her to use the restroom. He was waiting for him there—hiding inside a stall.

He waited until the trooper was preoccupied at the urinal before he stepped out. The trooper didn’t have a chance to pull his gun—to catch more than a shadowy movement in the mirrored wall—before he struck him. Hard. Harder than he’d even struck her.

As the trooper dropped to the tile floor, he dropped the bloodied pipe next to him. He was wearing gloves, so it couldn’t be traced back to him. He was careful to leave no evidence behind. Anywhere.

He reached for the buttons on the trooper’s uniform. Dressed like the trooper, he would have no trouble getting into her room and finishing the job he’d started. He looked quite official in uniform—every bit the lawman he’d always hated. He grinned at his reflection in the mirrored wall.

The woman was going to be dead soon.

Very soon...