Читать книгу Sudden Recall - Lisa Phillips - Страница 11

THREE

With the exception of telling him where she lived, Sienna had been quiet on the drive to her house. He’d tried to fill the silence with music and found out the painful way that Wyatt had changed all the radio stations to what he called “classics.” Parker wanted to reach over and hold her hand, but to her they were practically strangers.

Instead, he squeezed the steering wheel until he worried it would snap.

“Is there something wrong?”

He glanced over but couldn’t see her expression in the dark of the SUV Wyatt had loaned him. “It’s been a long day.”

“Oh, sorry I kept you out.”

“Not your fault.” He snapped on his blinker and turned onto her street. “You didn’t ask those men to try and kidnap you.”

She turned away and looked out the window.

The clock on the dash read 11:37 when he pulled into her drive next to a van. “Is that your aunt’s car?”

“It’s supposed to give her the feeling of mobility by allowing her to get out on her own, but she doesn’t like to drive so I still have to take her everywhere.”

He didn’t hear any resentment in her voice, just fatigue. Which after the night she’d had, running through the forest and fighting for her life, didn’t surprise him. “Was she in an accident?”

Sienna nodded. “It was before I woke up with no memory. She doesn’t really talk about it, but I found a newspaper article online. A drunk driver hit her car late at night, and now she’s paralyzed from the waist down. She has a nurse come in every morning to help her shower and dress, but I help her the rest of the time.”

Parker didn’t know what to say, so he cracked the door and climbed out. A light over the porch flooded the front of the house with its fluorescent glare. Not a motion sensor. That would have been triggered by the vehicle pulling in. A heat sensor, then? Not many small-town residents had security like that. Parker wanted to meet this aunt of hers.

He waited for Sienna to circle the SUV and then took her hand. Because he wanted to. Because they were both tired, and they could have died tonight. It wasn’t about what he wished could have been, or what they might have had between them had she shown up in Atlanta. It was only about providing the comfort of friendship when they’d both had a bad day.

The front steps had been overlaid with a wood ramp. When Parker stepped his foot on it, a buzzer inside dinged—like a doorbell. They reached the front door just as it swung open to reveal a stout woman in a wheelchair.

With dark hair plastered on her head, she looked like a stern schoolmarm. A fact that was confirmed when she stuck her fingers on her hips and barked, “Took you long enough to get home. Did you get lost?”

Sienna grabbed a gray cardigan from a hook inside the door and pulled it on over the shirt she wore, like armor. “Sorry, Aunt Karen. We got here as soon as we could. Why don’t you head to bed? We’ve all had a long day.” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms.

The woman chuckled, an awkward, rusty sound. “You look more than worse for wear. Are you going to introduce me to your friend?”

Like she didn’t know exactly who he was? Because he’d met her before under entirely different circumstances. And he knew she was CIA. Why was she acting like this was a cover story for a mission?

Karen glanced at Parker, and he lifted an eyebrow in question. Then “Aunt Karen” pinned him with a stare Sienna didn’t catch and shook her head. Did she think she was fooling anyone? Parker wasn’t sure why he was willing to go along with it, but if there was a chance it was for Sienna’s benefit, he would.

At least until he got an explanation as to why Sienna’s CIA handler was here, pretending to be her relative.

Karen glanced between them. “How about I make us some tea? Why don’t you take a hot shower, get warmed up? Your young man and I can get acquainted.”

Sienna glanced at him.

Parker wasn’t going anywhere right then.

She sighed. “Okay, that actually sounds good. I’ll be back down in a minute.”

“You take your time.” Karen wheeled herself into the kitchen.

The corner of Sienna’s mouth curled up. “She’s a little...abrasive, but her bark is worse than her bite.”

“That’s good to know.” Parker squeezed her shoulder. “I’ll be fine. I’m a big tough guy who fights off kidnappers, remember?”

It was supposed to be a joke, but he knew she didn’t take it that way when her eyes darkened. “I remember.”

“Sorry.” He took a step of retreat toward the kitchen. “I’ll make small talk while you clean up.”

She cocked her head to the side. “Why are you staying? It’s late, and you’re more tired than I am.”

He couldn’t tell her that “Aunt Karen” had some explaining to do. So he said, “I don’t want to leave right away if there’s a chance they might come back. I’ll stick around for a little while and then head out. If that’s okay with you.”

She nodded. Honestly, she looked relieved. But Parker didn’t let that sink too far down. His heart didn’t need any more encouragement. Sienna turned to the hall and left him alone in the foyer.

Karen rolled to the doorway. “Kitchen. Now.”

Parker followed because it was the only way he was going to get answers.

The phone on the counter rang.

Karen grabbed the wheels of her chair.

“I’ll get it!” Sienna’s yell came from down the hall.

Karen shook her head and turned back to Parker.

“Seriously?” was all he said as he folded his arms and leaned his hips against the kitchen counter while he waited for Karen to give him some kind of answer for all of this. Sienna was out of earshot at least, on the phone by the sound of it. That meant he could talk freely with her “aunt.”

The older woman pinned him with a stare. It was no less effective, though he and Karen were no longer on the same eye level as when he’d last seen her two years ago. “I’m not going to tell Sienna who she really is. And you can’t, either.”

“What happened to you?”

“I was hit by a drunk driver. Sienna didn’t tell you? It happened while she was in a coma, so when she woke up, it was decided that I would stay with her.”

Parker said, “You’re lying about being her aunt so you can be here when she remembers whatever it is the CIA wants her to recall?”

“Yes.” There was no guilt in Karen’s expression, but then there never had been. Nor any pity when she’d found him in a sorry state just days after Sienna’s no-show. The day she’d stiffly told him to drop it, to let Sienna be and to go on with his life. To forget about her, like he could do that. Like there was no hope a CIA agent and a SEAL could find happiness together.

“What did Sienna forget that is so important?”

* * *

Sienna grabbed the phone off the desk. “Hello?”

The landline was down the hall in the office, where Aunt Karen holed up most of the day working on what she called her “correspondence.” Sienna figured she just read romance novels, given how many paperback books regularly showed up in the mail.

A sigh of relief was the first thing she heard. “Are you okay?”

“Uh...yes.” Sienna didn’t question the need; she simply strode to the door and clicked it shut without any sound.

“I can’t believe you’re actually okay.”

Who was this woman?

Sienna let the towel drop to the desk. “Why do I want to cry right now?”

“Because I’m the person who you love more than anything in the world, and we haven’t talked to each other in nearly two years.”

Sienna was sort of over other people knowing who she was. “Why would I love you? What’s so special about you?”

The woman on the phone laughed, took a long inhale and then laughed some more.

Sienna set her hand on her hip. “Seriously, I want to know.”

She chuckled, wheezing for breath. “That’s my girl. Don’t believe anything they tell you. At best, it’s nothing but a bunch of half-truths.”

“And at worst?”

“You’re not ready for that.”

“Is Sienna Cartwright even my real name?”

The woman was silent for a minute. “It was your birth name, but you’ve had so many aliases I can imagine it sounds weird.”

“And what did I call you?”

“Oh, right. Amnesia.” She chuckled again. Did people really laugh that much? “I’m Nina. Nina Holmes, your best friend since third grade.”

It couldn’t be a coincidence. Sienna had been living here months, and tonight she’d almost been kidnapped. Now this woman was on the phone, claiming to be her friend? Did this “Nina” think that she would buy it?

“Prove it. Because if you were my best friend, you wouldn’t have waited two years to contact me,” Sienna said.

“I was instructed not to. And there isn’t much I’m allowed to tell you—even if I seriously disagree with the reason. But...you take honey in your coffee.”

“What else?”

Nina was quiet for a second. “Oh, I have a good one. Your favorite dessert.”

It had taken Sienna two months of experimenting with different varieties to figure out the answer to that one for herself. For some reason it had been important to get it right. “If you think you can answer.”

“A scoop of strawberry ice cream and a scoop of chocolate—which is gross when you stir them together, by the way—with broken-up pieces of peanut-butter cups you hide in the freezer.”

Okay, so that was pretty specific. “And on top...?”

“A cherry. Obviously. No whipped cream. Which is also bizarre.”

Sienna smiled. More than anyone she’d met since she woke up from the coma, Sienna believed this woman actually knew her. Not that she thought Karen or Parker were lying, but deep affection welled up in her at hearing this woman’s voice. She knew she could reach out to Nina, but she still had to be cautious.

“Will they try to kidnap me again?”

It was a test, but she had to know what Nina knew.

“My guess, yes. They were hired, and since the first team failed, he’s likely going to hire another team to try again.”

So many questions popped into Sienna’s head, but she focused on the most pressing. “He?”

“I don’t know his name,” Nina said. “You’re the only one who did.”

“What does this man want with me?”

Nina was quiet for a moment. “He wants you to remember.”

“Does he think I don’t want the same thing? It’s all I’ve wanted for a year now. It’s all anyone wants.” Sienna squeezed her eyes shut. “Why is this such a big deal?”

“You’re not ready for that, either.”

“Well, you have to give me something, because I feel like I’m going crazy!”

Sienna took a breath to pray Aunt Karen and Jackson Parker hadn’t heard her. The last thing she needed was for them to look at her like she was something to be pitied. That wasn’t who she was. She was a fighter. How else would she have lasted living this long in a cloud of confusion with no way out and not go crazy?

“I can give you a way out of that house, but that’s all I can do. Karen was right about one thing, you do have to remember on your own.”

“How do you know she told me that?”

“It was the plan.” Nina paused. “Do you want an out or not? Because I’m in your neighborhood, so if you want space to figure this out I can help you. I’ll pick you up.”

Sienna wanted to say yes. She wanted to jump at the chance to see this woman she was clearly deeply connected to, if the way her chest was twisting was any indication. Did people really feel like that about those they were closest to? She might have that with Parker, if she allowed herself to find out how deep the well of her feelings for him went. And if they really did know each other like he claimed.

But something about Nina told her their bond had been forged through weathering hard times together. The kind of connection lifelong friends have. A bond that surpassed a blank memory. Her heart knew this woman, just like her heart knew Parker. But which one did she choose?

“This offer has a time limit. I’m not supposed to be here, but I received word from a contact that something was going down tonight. By the time I got to the scene, I heard the suspects were either dead or had already been arrested and you’d escaped. So I came to see if you needed anything.”

“I appreciate that.”

“But you don’t want to come?”

“I need answers. Coming with you isn’t going to give them to me any more than staying here will.”

Nina said, “Then I suggest you take another look at that shoebox you have under your bed.”

* * *

Karen calmly took a sip of her coffee. “Sienna hid something.”

Parker ignored his. “What happened to her?”

“You mean why did my best asset wind up in a coma for a year before she woke up with no memory of who and what she is?” Karen tutted. “She was supposed to retrieve some merchandise and switch it out with a fake so that the seller didn’t pass on anything sensitive when he made the sale. We think she made the switch, realized she was in danger and hid the original. Somehow the seller found out he had a fake and gave Sienna to the buyer so he could get the location out of her.”

A second of silence was the only indication Karen felt anything for Sienna’s well-being. “The extraction team found her unconscious in a bathtub of water. She told you the rest.”

Parker’s mouth went dry. He tried to swallow. “Is this the reason she didn’t meet me?”

Karen shook her head like it was a dumb question, but Parker didn’t regret asking. She said, “It was weeks between you and this mission. The two are unrelated.”

“And yet Sienna, and you, are here. In my town. Why is that?”

“It’s because of her.”

Parker didn’t say anything. How had she known to come here?

“She was convinced this was where she lived. For whatever reason—” Karen eyed him, like it was his fault “—she had some kind of tie to this place. I found her staring at a map online, trying to see if anything looked familiar. This is where she picked.” Karen paused. “Out of the entirety of the continental United States, Sienna picked the tiny town where you live. I could hardly tell her she was wrong when she was so convinced she should come here.”

Parker didn’t want to gloat, but it was hard to hold it back. He’d told her at length about his hometown. As a woman with little to no geographical ties, she’d soaked it up.

“I see.”

Karen glared.

“I’m sorry about your injuries.”

She sniffed. “It’s not as bad as it looks, but it did serve a purpose. Sienna has had plenty of time to remember who she was.”

“But she hasn’t, and now someone tried to kidnap her. You think it’s the buyer or the seller?”

Karen shrugged.

“Who are they?”

“We’re not sure. Sienna knew. We’re blind on this one until they make enough of a move that we can find out who they are. We’re tracking the chopper, but the two dead and the one in your custody had no IDs and no cell phones on them. One had a British military insignia tattoo, but aside from that we have no clue as to their identities.”

Parker wasn’t even going to ask how the CIA knew anything about the men from the scene. Whatever his team learned from the man in custody, the CIA had discovered minutes later. But if it protected Sienna, who was he to complain?

“So what did Sienna intercept? What was this ‘seller’ trying to pass off?”

“That’s classified information, and until I get a reply as to your security clearance, I can’t tell you much more than I have. Suffice it to say, what she hid was highly sensitive. It cannot fall into the wrong hands.”

“You realize I won’t leave this alone.”

Karen sighed. “I was afraid of that.”

“I was there. I saw the danger she was in, and they knew me. I’m convinced they did. Likely now they’ll think Sienna and I are working together. It may even be why they moved in.”

“They moved in because they found her.”

“Then she needs to be relocated. Immediately.” Parker would book vacation days and sign up for that detail first thing tomorrow...from a highway two states away, if that’s what it took to keep Sienna safe.

His heart was tied up in this. It was impossible to deny that fact. When Sienna remembered who she was and who they were to each other, then he’d know where he stood. Until then, there was nothing he could do about that. But he could keep her safe.

Karen sent him her stern schoolmarm look again. “The CIA are the ones calling the shots in this, Jackson Parker. Not you.”

The gasp was audible. Parker turned and saw Sienna in the hallway, her eyes wide.

“The CIA?”