Читать книгу Heir to Secret Memories - Mallory Kane - Страница 13

Not until Jay reached the edge of the city did he relax his hunched shoulders and breathe a bit easier. They’d made it, for now. The whole process, from the moment the brutes had broken in the door, slamming the woman forward into his arms, until he’d cranked the car, had probably taken no longer than five minutes, eight at the most. Unless there had been a third guy watching the alley, Jay was sure he’d lost them.

As he took a right off the main road, he glanced over at his unconscious passenger. She was limp and still, her face shadowed, her braid draped across her shoulder and over her breast.

For a split second, his eyes lingered there, where the rope of wheat-colored hair rose and fell with the slight movement of her breathing.

Pulling his eyes back to the road, he drove the familiar route to his safe house. He’d always felt vaguely foolish about the elaborate escape plan he’d devised, but waking up with a bullet wound and no memory tended to make a guy paranoid.

Obviously, some deeply buried part of his brain had remembered enough of what had happened to him to keep his survival skills intact.

He took a long breath and thought about the last few moments. What he’d always feared had happened, with a twist, and now he was running away from thugs with an unconscious woman beside him.

Not just any woman either. The woman whose face haunted him, whose image he’d tried time and again to capture.

He searched her face. There was no doubt in his mind. She was the girl in his drawings. The girl in his head.

She’d said they’d known each other years ago. Had they been lovers? Was that why her face was the clearest memory he’d managed to glean from his battered brain?

She’d called him Johnny. Implied he’d come from serious money, and that he’d been kidnapped and presumed dead. Obviously whoever had wanted him dead back then still did, and they’d kidnapped an innocent child to find him.

Kidnapped.

Clenching his jaw against the panic that washed over him, he forced himself to think about it, testing the idea in his brain. It made sense. Was that why he was so damned afraid of the dark? Why the headaches that assaulted him yielded up such a suffocating claustrophobia?

He wiped sweat off his face, tongued his split lip, and waited for his pulse to slow as the panic finally eased.

Maybe he should have taken the woman to the police. Maybe he should have left her there with the thugs. It wasn’t impossible that she’d deliberately led them to him.

Shaking his head he pushed damp hair off his forehead; neither of those choices were an option. He’d recognized her the instant he opened the door, as soon as he’d looked into her eyes. He’d always known those eyes were green and gold. He’d known her chin stuck up pugnaciously when she was mad.

Somehow, somewhere, in his malfunctioning brain, he knew she had once been the most important person in the world to him.

She still was, because if she’d known him seven years ago, then she was the one person who could help him regain his lost memories, the one person in the world he might be able to trust.

A cell phone rang. He jumped, startled, the car swerving under his unsteady hands.

“What the hell?” It must be hers.

She whimpered and stirred.

Jay tried to ignore the phone, but he couldn’t. If he was going to make any sense out of what was happening, he had to have every bit of information available, including who was calling this mysterious woman from his past.

He reached out and felt around for the phone, doing his best to ignore her rounded woman’s body. His mouth quirked and he shifted uncomfortably as he searched blindly, keeping his eyes on the road. It had been a little too long since he’d touched a woman.

The ringing continued. She moaned, saying something, but didn’t wake.

He pulled over to the side of the road and took the car out of gear. He searched her pockets. Finally, on the fourth ring, his hand closed around the hard plastic case in her jacket pocket. He pulled it out and looked at it. The caller ID was blocked.

After hesitating for a brief second, he pressed the answer button and listened.

Just then Paige stirred and lifted her head. She blinked and moved, then froze, gasping with pain. Her wide, terrified eyes glittered, pleading with him in the darkness.

“Give me the phone,” she whispered, her words strained and breathless.

“Who is this?” the voice on the other end of the phone demanded.

He didn’t speak. There was something in the background, some sound that seemed familiar. He listened intently, his head beginning to throb, as the voice spoke.

“Paige? Don’t play games with me.”

Paige reached into her pocket with her right hand, moaning involuntarily as she moved. She pulled out a minitape recorder and turned it on, then tried to take the cell phone with her left hand, but she couldn’t manage it.

She had a tape recorder. He was impressed.

The voice from the phone called her name again.

Without a word, Jay held the phone up to her ear.

“Katie,” she sobbed dryly, pressing her head tightly against the phone. He held it steady for her.

“I’m sorry. I…dropped the phone. Where’s Katie?” As if just remembering the tape recorder, she held it close to the cell phone. She listened for a moment, then cut her eyes over at Jay, looking away when he met her gaze. “Yes. I found him. You should know. You had me followed.”

She listened, breathing in short bursts. She was obviously in pain.

He pushed away the easy compassion that rose in him. She was negotiating with these people, using him as a bargaining chip.

“I swear. I will. You just tell me where and when. But I have to talk to Katie. I won’t do anything for you unless you prove to me she’s all right.”

Jay glanced at her pale, pinched face. He was surprised at the strength of will in her voice. She was obviously in pain, judging by the way she avoided moving her left arm. He was pretty sure she had a dislocated or broken shoulder. He hoped to hell it wasn’t broken.

“Katie, honey? Hi.”

Jay held the phone, feeling her inner struggle. He could tell she wanted to drop the tape recorder and press the phone as close as she could to her ear. He had to give her credit for having the presence of mind to record the call.

He didn’t look at her, offering her as much illusion of privacy as he could. Her voice was thick with tears, and at the same time deliberately and pitifully cheerful.

“Are you okay, sweetie? They’re being nice to you?” She paused, and took a long, shaky breath. “It’s dark at night? Oh, Katie. I know you don’t like the dark.” Her voice quivered. “But remember what I told you? God wraps us up in the soft dark night to keep us safe.”

Jay winced. They were holding the child in the dark. An echo of the panic that had seized him earlier rippled through him again. He rubbed his temple where a headache was starting.

“You have Ugly Afghan? I’m so glad. Keep it wrapped tight and pretend it’s my arms, okay?”

Jay heard her voice almost break. She swallowed audibly. “Be brave, okay?” Paige continued. “No, I know you don’t like canned soup, but you eat it and stay strong. We’ll have p-pizza real soon, okay, hon—”

She stopped abruptly, listening. Jay glanced at her. Her face was still pale, her lips white with tension. “I understand,” she grated. “If you hurt her, I swear I’ll—”

She slumped. “They hung up.”

Jay glanced at the phone. Nothing showed on the display window except the battery indicator and the digital clock.

She took it away from him.

After he’d pulled back onto the road, Jay glanced at her. “So your plan is to trade me for your daughter?”

She looked at him, her eyes dark and haunted, but her chin held high. “What do you think? You’re a grown man. She’s just a baby.”

Jay allowed himself a wry smile at his earlier thought that he might be able to trust her.

“They told me they’d kill her. They’re keeping her in the dark. Katie hates the dark.” Her voice broke. “Will you help me?”

“How do you think I can help? I don’t know you. I sure don’t know them. What do you want me to do, offer myself to them?”

She met his gaze. “The Johnny I knew would have done anything in his power to protect a child.”

Jay’s heart slammed into his chest with the force of a blow. The Johnny she’d known.

“And you think I’m that man?” he asked. The effort of holding hope at bay inside him harshened his voice.

She held his gaze for a moment, her eyes wide and haunted. Then she shook her head. “I don’t know.”

An odd pang of hurt and disappointment sliced through his heart at her words.

It wasn’t hard for him to imagine how frightened and alone the child must feel. Ever since he’d awakened, wounded and lost, with murky water closing over his head, he’d been haunted by nightmarish visions of unrelenting darkness and suffocating panic.

But he’d also been comforted by the vision of a beautiful young woman, this woman. If he weren’t careful, she could make him believe in himself.

She moved to put the phone back into her pocket, and cried out softly when she moved.

“That was smart of you to record the call.”

She didn’t say anything.

Jay turned left, into what looked like a part of the swamp but was really a road. As many times as he’d driven this route, daylight, nighttime, rain, he still had trouble navigating the deep, narrow ruts.

Precisely two-tenths of a mile later, he turned again and pulled up in front of a broken-down cabin.

His safe house. It was ironic that he was here with this woman he didn’t remember who wanted him to give himself up for her child.

Paige winced in pain as the car came to an abrupt stop in front of an old abandoned shack. Ever since she’d regained consciousness and realized she was in a car with Johnny driving, she’d felt every bump in the road through her hurt shoulder. She couldn’t move it, and the pain radiating down her arm and up her neck was excruciating.

When the car stopped, she raised her head, biting back a moan. “Where are we?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Well, you can’t stop here. We have to find Katie—” She paused, realizing she had no idea where to even start looking.

Her plan had ended at Johnny’s door. She hadn’t considered what she would do after she found him. Now pain and exhaustion were making it hard to think.

Johnny came around and opened the passenger door.

“No, wait. Please. We have to go back. My daughter’s out there. They have her locked in the dark.”

“We can’t do anything until we see how badly you’re hurt. You’re just going to have to trust me.” He leaned down and looked at her. “Can you stand?”

“Of course I can.” Paige tried to move, but the seat belt held her trapped. She fumbled with the catch, her shoulder screaming with agony.

“Hold on. Let me.”

Johnny leaned over her and placed his large, callused hand on top of hers, stilling her desperate movements. She pulled her hand away and sat stiffly as he quickly and efficiently unbuckled the seat belt.

Then he slid his arms gently behind her back and under her knees.

“What are you doing?”

“Just let me carry you. You could have other injuries. You could have hit your head. You don’t need to be walking.”

Paige closed her eyes against the expectation of agonizing pain, and was surprised at the tenderness with which he lifted her into his arms.

She allowed herself to be carried. There was an awkward moment when he wrestled the cabin door open, jostling her shoulder, but soon he deposited her on a couch and went around lighting lanterns.

As light filtered into the corners of the room, Paige took in her surroundings. The shack was old and built of rough-hewn wood. The furnishings were sparse and stark.

At one end of the room were a wood stove and a counter with shelves that held a few plates and cups and pots. At the other end was a dark curtain that she figured must hide a sleeping area.

There was almost nothing to indicate that anyone lived here. But when Johnny lit the last lantern, Paige saw the sketches tacked to the wall in front of the couch.

These were dark slashes of charcoal, like nightmares brought to life under the artist’s pencil. Her heart twisted in compassion. How many times had he sat here, trying to make sense of the pieces of memory his mind fed him?

Her fertile imagination made her wonder if these were visions of his kidnapping. They evoked all her darkest emotions. Anger, fear, even hatred.

She couldn’t even imagine what he must have gone through. If the drawings were any indication, the place where they’d held him must have been a dark and frightening place.

She looked away, fear welling up in her throat until she thought she would scream. If they were holding Katie in a place like that…

“Can’t you hurry?” she asked, struggling to stand. Her knees collapsed beneath her as she reeled at the pain. “We have to find Katie.”

Johnny tossed the matches down on a table beside the last lamp he’d lit. “I need some light to look at your shoulder.”

“Fine. You’ve got light. Do something. My daughter is out there.”

He walked over to the kitchen area.

She gritted her teeth in frustration. “Aren’t you listening to me?”

He stuck a cup under her nose, a cup filled almost to the brim with a dark liquid. The sweet, hot smell of brandy hit her. “What’s that for?”

“Drink up. You’ll need something to numb the pain.”

“I can’t be drunk. I haven’t eaten all day. What if they call?”

“I’m sure if they call you’ll manage. Now drink it.” His harsh voice brooked no argument.

Paige shot him a venomous glance and reluctantly took the chipped cup. Her throbbing shoulder was sending waves of nauseating pain through her. The idea of stopping it for a little while was seductive.

She drank. The fiery stuff gagged her. She coughed, then drank some more. When she’d managed to down about half the cup, he took it and set it aside, then sat down beside her.

She tensed.

“Why did these people send you to find me? Why would they think you knew where I was?” he asked as he laid his hand on her shoulder.

Paige didn’t want to answer that question. She was stuck here, dependent on him. She had to have his help. If she told him the truth about why they’d kidnapped Katie, he might not believe her. He might not want to help her.

“That’s a good question,” she said, hoping he’d drop the subject.

“I’m listening if you want to give me a good answer,” he said, smiling slightly. “Tell me about us.” His hand gently traced the line of her shoulder, running over the place that hurt so badly, the place where she knew something was wrong.

“Us,” she repeated wryly. She was feeling woozy from the brandy, but at least every breath wasn’t total agony now.

“You said we met seven years ago.”

“In Jackson Square. I was on my way to work. I went to school during the day and worked at night.”

Johnny was feeling her shoulder with both hands now, his touch at once familiar and alien. They were Johnny’s gentle, caring fingers, but back then his hands had been soft.

Now rough calluses scraped her skin, and his arms were bronzed by the sun. He was different.

It was a very interesting difference.

“You asked if you could draw me.” She smiled sleepily. “You said I had a classic face.”

“You do.”

She lifted heavy eyelids to find his gaze roaming over her eyes and nose and mouth. It felt like gentle fingers tracing her features. His lashes shadowed his eyes as his gaze lingered on her suddenly dry lips. She licked them.

He frowned, then blinked. “I don’t think your shoulder is completely dislocated. That’s good,” he said, putting a hand on either side of her shoulder, where it hurt so bad.

“Have you ever done this before?” Paige didn’t like the way her words were coming out. They were slow and slurred. But she did like the way Johnny’s hands felt. The warmth of his roughened fingers was comforting. They seemed to soak the pain right out of her.

“Let’s say I have some experience. Tell me what happened after I drew you.”

His hands were gently massaging her shoulder. It hurt, but not as much as moving it herself did.

“I was seventeen. You may have been twenty-one.” She was back there again, sitting in the hot sun during the day while his talented hands created magic on paper. Then at night in her apartment, those hands created magic on her body. She closed her eyes as the memories stirred sweet yearnings inside her. “We fell in love.”

She had trusted him, but he’d broken her heart.

“You promised me you’d come back for me. You gave me this ring.” She started to hold up her left hand, but Johnny was squeezing her shoulder.