Fatal Memories
Tanya Stowe
She was framed! Or was she? If only she could remember… Border patrol agent Jocelyn Walker has no memory of how she turned up unconscious with a cache of drugs—or why a gang is dead set on killing her. With evidence stacking up against her, Joss takes refuge with driven DEA agent Dylan Murphy, who guards—and suspects—her. But will finally trusting each other lead them into a trap they’ll never escape?
She was framed! Or was she?
If only she could remember...
Border patrol agent Jocelyn Walker has no memory of how she turned up unconscious with a cache of drugs—or why a gang is dead set on killing her. With evidence stacking up against her, Joss takes refuge with driven DEA agent Dylan Murphy, who guards—and suspects—her. But will finally trusting each other lead them into a trap they’ll never escape?
TANYA STOWE is a Christian fiction author with an unexpected edge. She is married to the love of her life, her high school sweetheart. They have four children and twenty-one grandchildren, a true adventure. She fills her books with the unusual—mysteries and exotic travel, even a murder or two. No matter where Tanya takes you—on a trip to foreign lands or a suspenseful journey packed with danger—be prepared for the extraordinary.
Also By Tanya Stowe (#ubafefd4b-fe10-53eb-8a1b-d7da8df73491)
Mojave Rescue
Fatal Memories
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Fatal Memories
Tanya Stowe
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-09740-6
FATAL MEMORIES
© 2019 Tanya Stowe
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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Note to Readers (#ubafefd4b-fe10-53eb-8a1b-d7da8df73491)
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Text to speech
Joss heard a sound that drowned everything out.
She’d been dreading a terrible incident and now one was happening. The gang was after agents and innocent people. And somehow she felt as if she could have prevented this.
A powerful engine revved. She looked up. The vertical blinds were closed over her apartment’s sliding glass doors, but a bright light flashed through the crevices—as if someone was shining a spotlight on the doors. The engine revved closer, like it was just below Joss’s window...
Rapid gunfire exploded through the air. Bullets shattered the glass doors, ripping across the entire apartment.
Joss flung herself flat. Bullets tore across the room, destroying everything in their path. They zinged over her head...straight down the hall toward Dylan’s running figure.
She screamed his name before another round shredded through the apartment, sending splinters everywhere...
Dear Reader (#ubafefd4b-fe10-53eb-8a1b-d7da8df73491),
I grew up on the coast of California, with lots of green and the beach. When I married, we moved to the Mojave Desert. When we came over the mountains and I looked down on our brown, flat desert home, I began to cry. My husband hurried to say, “It’s okay. You can live with your parents and I’ll come home on the weekends.”
Of course, we all know that’s not how a marriage works, and our three years turned into thirty-seven. So I was ready for a change. My husband’s next job sent us to the Arabian Desert. I thought the Mojave was so barren, it looked like the lunar landscape. Then I saw the Empty Quarter of Oman, a true lunar landscape, where nothing lives and the land is so flat, you can see a truck on the road, a hundred miles away.
When we moved to Southern Arizona, I discovered a wonderland of plants, such as the humanlike saguaros, thousands of blooming cacti and unique animals called javelinas. Nothing can match skies that turn to fire at sunset or the summer monsoon rains that drop down suddenly, like a curtain of water.
As you can see, I’ve come to accept the Lord’s plan for me to be a “desert rat.” I fell in love with the Sonoran Desert and decided I had to write a story set there. I hope you love it too.
Blessings!
Tanya Stowe
Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.
—2 Corinthians 4:9
For my dad, who showed me the wonders of Arizona.
Contents
Cover (#u3af8a889-8775-5a2d-9fd0-f86d817aa99f)
Back Cover Text (#u5896c0be-d1a8-502d-9abc-aef62a5b6b73)
About the Author (#u9417e5aa-d7c0-510d-9691-0bafd9dfed98)
Booklist (#ua5e76250-7101-5dbf-8efc-6353d10caf7e)
Title Page (#u6feb0359-fbda-5164-b2ca-1c74dcff8546)
Copyright (#u02a40207-2868-5252-a30a-c390a0f3fb11)
Note to Readers
Introduction (#ub49c94e8-d50d-574b-a702-c37665449c73)
Dear Reader (#u101acb89-1cd2-5170-87f8-dd53abe30fa8)
Bible Verse (#u3f1f1c31-29bd-5002-86fb-daca532ab422)
Dedication (#ua2f016d3-d11a-56f2-962e-a9481fe3233d)
ONE (#u7703edae-4308-52db-904c-5f209970a5d9)
TWO (#u4cf129e3-cbba-51ee-b40b-a3f1a66553d0)
THREE (#u321431c5-9aae-5955-9905-bb94be9e40fb)
FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
ONE (#ubafefd4b-fe10-53eb-8a1b-d7da8df73491)
Crawl! The woman woke slowly.
Wake up and crawl!
She tried to move, tried to obey the thought that was so insistent, almost desperate. She lifted her head half an inch off the ground. Viselike pain gripped her temples and she groaned out loud. She froze, trying to ease the agony, but it didn’t go away. Now it pierced like sharp blades...her eyes, her temples, the back of her head.
It hurt so much, she collapsed...breathed in dust and grit. She coughed. The pain split her head in two and she cried out again.
Where was she? Why was she on the ground?
Crawl! Crawl away or you’ll die!
That’s right. The tunnel. She had to get out. Now.
Unable to lift her head without piercing agony, she slid one leg upwards and pushed her body along the ground. The grit scraped her cheek as she moved. No matter. She had to get away.
Raising one hand, she pulled herself a little farther. After a moment she was able to coordinate her hands with her legs. She pushed and pulled herself inch by inch, through the tunnel. Her head throbbed with blinding agony. Her cheek burned and still she crawled forward, driven by fear of what lay behind her. She had to get away.
She dared to look up. Pain shot through her head. Light. Light just ahead!
A click echoed behind her.
Too late! An explosion rocked the darkness. The shock wave slammed her head onto the gritty ground and she slipped into darkness again.
* * *
The headache returned. Or maybe it had never left. She couldn’t remember. It pierced her head like an ax...right between the eyes. And the spinning. She might be awake, but the world was moving around and around, even with her eyes closed. Her body ached from head to toe. Something was pumping cool air through her nose. The rest of her body felt hot, stiff. Impossible to move. Afraid to open her eyes, she held perfectly still, waiting...hoping the world would stop shifting around her.
Wait...someone was singing. Soft, low, smooth as velvet. Beautiful. What was the song? An old hymn. She heard “saved a wretch like me.”
Strong and firm, that voice. Low but not too low. Comfortable. A bit familiar but she couldn’t quite give it a face. Couldn’t remember the name. Who was it?
She tried to speak, but all that came out was a groan. The singing stopped.
Someone grasped her hand. “Joss? Can you hear me, Joss?”
Joss? The name felt reassuring. She tried to lick her lips, but her mouth was so dry, her tongue stuck. Something cool, a dripping, welcome moisture, ran over her lips. Liquid slipped in, onto her tongue, easing the tight, dry feeling.
“More.”
“Here you go.” The voice without a face swabbed her lips again. The moisture eased the stickiness. Made it easier to talk.
“Hurts.”
“What hurts, Joss?”
“My head.”
“That’s because you have a concussion. A pretty serious one. You’re in the hospital.”
A hospital. She wasn’t in danger anymore. Someone was taking care of her. Maybe the man with the gentle, kind...safe voice. She wanted to curl into the safety of that strong voice and sleep. If only she could put a face to it. Maybe if she opened her eyes...
Her lids felt as dry as her lips. Like sandpaper. And the glimmer of light caused the ax to sink deeper into her skull. She squeezed her eyes shut again.
“Go easy, Joss. There’s no hurry.” But his tone held a thread of something that said there was. Impatience? Frustration or worry? What was it?
She opened her eyes again, just a slit. The light didn’t hurt as much this time. Didn’t create the blinding pain. She waited a moment, then opened them all the way. His face was above her. Curly brown hair, a bit long. The shadow of a dark beard. He needed a shave. A slightly Roman nose. Not prominent. Just strong. A hooded brow over hazel eyes, more green than brown. His eyes almost matched the color of the collared sweater he wore. A slight frown creased his forehead.
Worry. Definitely worry she’d heard in his voice. Worry for her. That was a nice thought. As she studied him, the frown eased and he smiled. “It’s good to see you back.”
Back. Where had she been?
She licked her lips. “What happened?”
“There was a cave-in. You were trapped in the tunnel.”
“A tunnel? What was I doing in a tunnel?”
The frown returned. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
She tried to shake her head but it hurt. Instead she closed her eyes and tried to think. To picture a tunnel. But all she could see was the gray mist behind her closed eyes. “I—I don’t remember a tunnel...or a cave-in.”
She heard him inhale slowly. “That’s all right. It’s normal not to remember the details of an accident. It’s the brain’s way of healing.”
Normal. This didn’t feel normal. It felt empty. Scary. There was nothing beyond the gray mist. Nothing. Not even a memory of the handsome face at her bedside.
“Who...are...you?”
His features went slack with surprise before he gathered himself. “I’m Dylan. Dylan Murphy. We met about a month ago, when I came here from DC.”
She swallowed hard. Nothing he said pierced the fog in her brain. “Where is here?”
“Tucson. We’re in Tucson.”
He didn’t attempt to hide his concern now. He stared at her.
Panic built inside her. Her gaze shot around the room, trying to find something familiar, something she knew. Nothing rang a bell. It all seemed strange and foreign.
Dylan gripped her hand. “Stay calm, Joss. It’s all right.”
She shook her head in spite of the pain. “It’s not all right. Nothing’s right. I can’t remember an accident or anything about Tucson. I don’t know who you are. You called me Joss, but I don’t know my last name.” Her head pounded with renewed force, so she squeezed her eyes shut. “I can’t remember anything!”
Hot tears leaked out from her tightly squeezed eyes and ran down her face. A soft finger wiped the tears off her cheek, and his voice pierced through the pounding inside her head. “It’s all right, Joss. I’m here. I remember, and I won’t leave until you do too.”
His words slid into her heart and loosened the tight band of fear that threatened to crush it. She gripped his hand as she slipped into the fog.
* * *
Dylan Murphy took a slow, calming breath and tried again.
“Look, Holmquist.” The other man was actually a special-operation supervisor for the border patrol. Dylan was a drug-enforcement agent, on special assignment from Washington, DC. He’d been back in Tucson for over a month now, and so far working with Holmquist and his agents had been a piece of cake...until yesterday, when Jocelyn Walker had disappeared.
Things had changed drastically, and now Dylan would have to fall back on his position as the tough hard-liner, the role that had earned him his reputation. He didn’t have any other choice.
When they’d first brought Joss in, he’d been so concerned with her survival, the possibility of her losing her memory had never occurred to him. This was a new wrinkle...one that had initially thrown him for a loop.
He didn’t want to believe Joss was guilty, but she couldn’t remember what had happened, and the cold, hard facts were undeniable. Dylan had to face them...and had to force her coworkers to do the same.
“You have to put in a request for a search warrant. We need to get into Officer Walker’s apartment to see what we can find.”
The supervisor turned to face him, his dark features growing darker. “Find? Exactly what do you think you’re going to find in my officer’s home?”
Dylan inhaled. “I don’t know. That’s why we have to get in there.”
Holmquist’s features hardened. “What’s the rush? If Officer Walker survives, she’ll be in this hospital bed for a long time.”
“I agree. Long enough for her partners...” All of the border-patrol officers standing around the hospital waiting room turned abruptly. Dylan raised his hands. “If—I repeat if—she has partners in crime...they will have ample opportunity to clean out any evidence.”
Holmquist looked as if he were about to explode. “I don’t care how special the Drug Enforcement Administration thinks you are, Special Agent Murphy, you have no right to come in here, accusing one of my best officers of a criminal act.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but she was found in a collapsed tunnel beneath the Nogales border, with a stash of heroin worth five thousand dollars.”
“I know how it looks!” The officer’s raised voice reverberated around the quiet room before the man halted. Fisting his hand, he shook it loose and looked around. “Let’s go someplace where we can discuss this more calmly.”
He spun and stalked away. Dylan followed. He didn’t look at the men and women around him—anger and bitter resentment would be reflected on every face. Jocelyn Walker was popular with her fellow officers. Despite the fact the twenty-seven-year-old had risen through the ranks rapidly, much faster than some of her older counterparts, she had managed to maintain a good rapport with most of her coworkers. Competent, eager to learn, outgoing and humble, she had earned their respect without a problem.
She’d earned Dylan’s as well. He’d liked her from the beginning and they’d developed a teasing banter that made working together pleasant. It didn’t hurt that she had a winning smile, silky, long black hair and the prettiest gray eyes Dylan had ever seen. Her beauty certainly turned his head the first time he’d met her. But he refused to let it get in the way of his investigation. As far as he could tell, her looks had not earned her special attention in the force. It just made the overall package of Agent Walker easy to take.
As soon as his suspicions began to take form, he knew he was going to have a hard time convincing her supervisor—or any of her coworkers—that she might be involved with the gang he’d been sent to Tucson to investigate.
Holmquist stopped at the coffee machine and punched in his order. A cup slid down and black coffee poured into it. The swishing, pouring sound echoed through the taut, conspicuous silence in the waiting room. When it finished, the captain removed his coffee and, without a word to Dylan, stalked through the hall, past the nurses station, to the elevators.
Dylan followed silently, suspecting the man needed time to gain control of his temper. They reached the bottom floor and walked outside. Even at 2:00 a.m., the emergency room was crowded. Holmquist crossed to the opposite curb of the parking lot, where it was quiet and the lights not so bright. He stepped over the curb, to the rock-filled interior of the divider, where he stopped and took a sip of his coffee.
Dylan waited and stared at the lightning crackling across the distant night sky.
August. Monsoon season in Southern Arizona, when storms from the Gulf of California sweep up from Baja to bathe the desert in torrential downpours. One minute everything was dry, and the next a deluge soaked the parched earth. The desert turned green and cacti blossomed with bright blooms. Everything turned brilliant and bright. Dylan hated to admit it, but it was beautiful. And the skies... Light or dark, the skies were always spectacular. Lightning would rip the clouds open, and thunder would rock the earth. This season, and all that came with it, was one of the things he’d missed about home. Probably the only thing.
He shook his head with an abrupt gesture, stopping the memories before they could flood in. “Look, I don’t want to think that one of our own could be guilty.”
Holmquist shook his head. The olive green of his uniform almost disappeared in the night, but the bright yellow lettering of his name and border-patrol patches stood out in the light from the entrance across the way. “Joss is not one of yours. She’s my officer and I don’t believe I could be that wrong about her. After fifteen years in the US Border Patrol, I know people.” He turned to Dylan, his features set. “I know my people.”
Dylan shrugged. “You said she hasn’t been her normal self. We’ve all noticed that she’s been off track, different for the past week—distracted and lost in her own thoughts. Now she shows up in the middle of a drug shipment, beneath a cave-in.”
“Yeah. One that looks like the perfect setup to me. You’re the expert on tunnels. You tell me how one of those new systems that, according to you, has been so ‘expertly designed by the Serpientes,’ would collapse like that.” The sarcasm in his tone wasn’t hard to miss.
Serpientes—Spanish for snakes—was the name of the new gang Dylan had been sent to Tucson to investigate. The appearance across the country of bags of heroin stamped with a distinctive red snake had sent the DEA scrambling for more info on the group based in Arizona.
The discovery of a sophisticated tunnel beneath the border at Nogales brought up a red flag. Usually tunnels dug under that border were hasty, ramshackle crawl spaces—scratched-out hollows a man could barely shimmy through. But these new tunnels were clean-cut and bolstered with supports that were strong enough for a mine. They made the transportation of drugs easy.
The violent kidnappings of two known Tucson gang members had ended in murder. All signs suggested that the Serpientes were transporting massive amounts of drugs across the border and were trying to take over the distribution of those drugs throughout the entire Southwest territory. A gang war was imminent unless the DEA could identify the leaders of the Serpientes and stop them.
The strongest link Dylan had to the Serpientes was the professionally designed tunnels, including the one where they’d found Walker. He had hoped to trace the tunnels to a qualified engineer.
Surprisingly there weren’t too many of those around. He had already asked for information from mining companies, engineering organizations and schools. Hopefully they’d find a connection and maybe, just maybe, that info would lead to an explanation as to why Joss had been there.
He shook his head. “That tunnel was too well designed. It wouldn’t have collapsed on its own. That’s why I called in a team of experts to examine it and take some samples. It’ll be a while before tests tell us if they purposely destroyed that tunnel and how. In the meantime the disappearance of Walker’s brother looks suspicious.”
Holmquist nodded. “Joss is close to him...really close. He’s her only living relative. It doesn’t make sense that he hasn’t shown up after several calls and messages. We even sent a man to his apartment.”
“The collapsed tunnel was discovered this morning. If Jason Walker could be here, he would.”
Holmquist looked up. “What are you saying?”
Dylan focused his gaze. “You and I both know how dangerous the Serpientes are. The Mexican police chief who discovered the first tunnel had death threats sent to him. Do you think the Serpientes would be above using a family member to get what they want from a border-patrol officer?”
“You’re suggesting Jason Walker could be in danger...that maybe the Serpientes have him?”
Dylan’s nod was slow. “That’s one possibility.”
The captain gave him a sideways glance. “Another possibility is that Jason Walker is involved with the gang and dragged his sister into the middle of it. That’s what you really believe, isn’t it?”
Dylan didn’t answer and the older man shook his head. “You’ve been gunning for Joss for weeks now. Why are you so sure she’s involved?”
Dylan thought about the abrupt change in the woman’s outgoing demeanor lately. The downward tilt of her head when they discussed the gang. The sideways glances when he tried to meet her gaze. The tense poses when she thought no one was looking. And especially her nervous habit of fingering her gun holster when she was worried. She’d been doing that a lot over the past few days.
“Let’s say I recognize a person with something to hide. Joss Walker is that person. I’d stake my career on it.”
Holmquist ran a hand around his neck and looked away. After a few minutes he agreed. “It’s a substantial career to throw away. They don’t call you the ‘gang buster’ for nothing.”
Dylan sensed a victory and pushed home his point. “Look, I’m not saying she’s guilty. I’m saying something is not right. We owe it to her to check it out. If we don’t do it, someone else will. The press...other agencies...everyone is hungry for answers. They’ll look at her quick advancement, at everything she’s accomplished, and question her integrity. More important, they’ll question your group. We owe it to her and to the rest of your officers to find the truth.”
After a long while, the older man released a heavy sigh. “You’re right. I don’t like it, but you’re right.”
With that, he tossed the last of his coffee onto the ground, crushed the cup in his fingers and stalked toward the entrance, where he threw the mangled container into the trash.
Upstairs, in the waiting room, he called his employees together. “Agent Murphy has made a valid point.”
Dylan ignored the virulent glares sent his way as Holmquist continued. “This looks bad for Joss. Those of us who know her know she’d never betray the department...or us. But the rest of the world doesn’t. They’re going to look at this situation and paint Joss dirty before she even gets out of that bed. So...” He shifted his shoulders, as if lifting a weight off, and looked around. “Instead of sitting around here like a bunch of whipped puppies, we’re going to go out and do our job. Let’s prove Joss innocent before the rest of the world has a chance to accuse her of being guilty.”
The men and women nodded their heads. “Henderson, you’ve known Joss the longest. I’m sure you’d like to stay here and wait for word on her condition, but you know her best. Tomorrow I want you at her brother’s apartment. Rouse the neighbors. Get some answers. I want to know where he is or when he was last seen. You know his girlfriend too, right?”
Daniel Henderson spoke up. “Maria... I do know her. I went with Joss to a birthday party for Maria’s little sister, at their house.”
“Good. Take Cupertino with you. Go to the mother’s house. Question the girlfriend. I want to know everything I can about Walker. Evans and Hughes, go to that mechanic shop where he works. See what they know. I’m going back to the office to see about getting a warrant to search Joss’s apartment. One of you needs to stay here with her.”
“I’ll do it,” Dylan spoke up before anyone else had a chance. “I want to be here if she wakes up.”
Holmquist’s jaw tensed, but he worked it loose slowly. “Yeah. You’re right. It might be best if someone not from the department is here when she starts to talk. That way no one can say we covered for her.” That statement was aimed at Dylan. “The rest of you, go home. Get some rest. Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day.”
The group gathered their things and tossed their empty cups into a nearby trash can. Angry glares shot in Dylan’s direction before everyone headed to the elevators.
At last he was alone. He rubbed his hands over his face and sank into a nearby chair. He’d been up since 4:00 a.m., when he’d first gotten the call. The cave-in had created a sinkhole in a cemetery on the US side of the border wall.
At one time, Dylan’s team of DEA agents and the border-patrol officers had a storage building near the cemetery under surveillance. They had detected an unusual amount of traffic at the empty building and suspected it might be the cover for a tunnel. It was the perfect setup. Drugs could be delivered via the tunnel beneath the wall into the building then loaded into vehicles to be shipped out, all inside the cover of the large structure.
Unfortunately, traffic to and from the building had stopped so Dylan called a halt to the surveillance. This morning when a section of the cemetery collapsed, Dylan expedited a search warrant for the property. They found the opening of a tunnel and Walker trapped inside.
Obviously the Serpientes knew about the surveillance, realized the tunnel had been compromised and were willing to let it be destroyed for another purpose.
But what purpose was so great they were willing to lose a tunnel and five thousand dollars’ worth of heroin to accomplish it? Not a small amount to a normal person, but for a group with such perfect, undetected access across the border, the heroin’s value wasn’t much more than chump change. Dylan suspected the Serpientes could have transported three times that. Holmquist was right. The cave-in looked like the perfect setup. But why would the gang want to incriminate Walker? What did she know that they wanted silenced?
Just one of the questions he prayed she could answer when she woke up the next time.
Dylan jerked to his feet and strode to the door, to look into her room. The nurse was finishing her hourly check on Walker’s vitals. She looked up and motioned him into the room.
“Any improvement?” He kept his voice low, almost at a whisper.
“Not yet. But in situations like this, it helps to have someone the patient knows talk to them. You can touch her, hold her hand. It will help her to stabilize.”
The nurse smiled and left the room. Dylan stared at Joss Walker’s still form. She had a tube around her face, an IV in her arm and an oxygen monitor on her thumb. When she’d arrived, the staff had done what they could to clean her, but gray dust coated her normally black, silky hair. Still caught up with a band, her long ponytail trailed across the white pillow. A raw, bright red scrape marked her chin.
Her free hand rested limp and lax, palm up on the bed next to Dylan. He lifted it and turned it over on his, palm to palm. She had long fingers, with nice, well-shaped nails. He’d noticed those details before. It seemed there were lots of things he’d noticed about Joss Walker.
“What happened?” he whispered. “What were you hiding? Did you find yourself trapped, like I did?”
He hadn’t told Holmquist why he suspected Joss. He didn’t like to remember. But now, in the silence of this room, with tubes plugged into Joss’s body, he couldn’t stop the memories.
An image of Rusty came to him, his best friend since they were in grade school. Hair to match his name. Fun-loving. Mischievous but never hurtful or mean. They’d stayed good friends...even when Rusty started using pills to keep him going.
At first Dylan believed his friend’s claims that he could stop anytime. He just needed a little help. Needed to get that scholarship so he could go to college. After all, his parents didn’t own a ranch and have money like Dylan’s. Rusty had to pay his own way.
Dylan believed him...even felt guilty for his own accident of birth. He turned a blind eye to the missed assignments and dark moods. He covered for his best friend...until the day his seventeen-year-old sister Beth was found with Rusty, both of them dead from overdoses. That day had changed Dylan’s life forever.
All the dropped glances and lies he’d used to hide the truth about his friend were emblazoned in his memory like white-hot embers. Those images were never far from his thoughts.
That’s why he recognized the signs of deceit in Joss. He knew them well. Personally.
He looked at her unconscious body. Black dirt was caked beneath Joss’s neatly shaped fingernails, evidence that she’d crawled away from the explosion. It was what saved her life. Dylan had seen the path she’d made as she’d dragged herself over the gritty gray floor of the tunnel. She must have woken in the stygian darkness, afraid, desperate...and crawled for her life.
A wave of empathy swept over him. Guilty or not, she didn’t deserve that. He gripped her hand. “I’ll get them. I promise. I’ll make them pay.”
His harsh, whispered words echoed across the silent room. He searched her face, hoping for some awareness, some movement. Nothing. Not a flicker of her eyes. Thick eyelashes lay on her cheeks. No thin, wispy lashes for this woman—they were thick and crisscrossed each other in riotous abandon. She didn’t wear makeup. She didn’t need it with those lashes. And eyebrows to match. Thick and dark, they defined her face, gave it character above her gray eyes. Straight nose. Slightly pointed chin. She had what Dylan supposed would be called classic features. Whatever that meant. He’d heard the expression and it seemed to fit Joss.
And that’s where his wandering thoughts needed to stop. He put her hand on the bed and rubbed the bristles forming on his chin. The late hour was getting to him. He needed a break.
Dylan left the room and headed for the coffee machine. He shifted his shoulders and twisted. Hours of inactivity and lack of sleep were a potent combination...even dangerous. The last thing he needed was to imagine Joss Walker as anything other than a suspect. He couldn’t lose sight of the suspicion that she was covering up for someone and had probably broken the law she’d sworn to defend.
He punched in the number for a cup of coffee and took a sip of the scalding liquid. It burned its way down his throat, searing away any lingering images. After a while he felt loose and relaxed...enough that if he sat in one of the chairs, he might fall asleep. So he stepped around the corner from the waiting room, leaned against the side of the coffee machine and slid all the way to the floor. With his knees bent up and the hot coffee in his hands, he was uncomfortable enough to stay awake. He let his head rest on the cold metal wall of the machine and closed his eyes.
Quiet slipped over the waiting room. The silence helped him think. Where was Jason Walker? Dylan was almost 100 percent certain that’s who Joss was protecting. Everyone knew she was close to her brother. Dylan had known her for a little over a month, and he knew the details of her past. Joss wasn’t secretive. They’d discussed many things, including how she hated monsoon season. Her father, the owner of a corner convenience store, had been killed in a robbery gone haywire right after a massive storm.
Joss’s mother ran the store and took care of her kids until she contracted a rare kidney disease and passed away when Joss was still in high school.
Jason Walker left college to take care of his sister and the family business, but it was too much for him. He lost the store and started to work as a mechanic, at the shop where he was still employed. Joss went on to college, graduated with honors and entered the academy, where she finished at the top of her class. She’d often spoken to Dylan about the sacrifices her brother had made and how much she owed her good life to him. When she talked about it, she almost sounded guilty...an emotion Dylan understood only too well.
It seemed her father’s tragic death had charted her path, much as his sister’s death had set Dylan on his course. They had that much in common. Did they also share the need to protect someone they cared about?
The click of a door opening interrupted Dylan’s stream of thought. Probably the nurse taking Joss’s vitals again. He closed his eyes. But when he didn’t hear the corresponding click of the door closing, it puzzled him. Peeking around the corner, he saw a man dressed in medical scrubs—but he’d come from the door leading to the stairs, not the nurse’s station, which was in the opposite direction. He’d held the door in a stealthy manner so it would not click shut. His head was shaved, and tattoos covered one arm and crawled up his neck. Dylan couldn’t see what they were. Something else caught his attention. The man carried a syringe in one hand. His efforts at silence and his furtive movements struck an alarm bell.
The man paused to look around. Dylan ducked behind the machine. He wanted to know where the guy was headed before he acted. After a few moments he looked out again. The man was headed straight for Joss’s door.
Dylan dropped his empty cup and lunged to his feet. He moved quietly so the man wouldn’t see him coming, but Dylan would never be able to stop him from entering Joss’s room in time. The man was too far ahead of him. He had to do something.
“Hey!” His shout rang through the halls of the sleeping hospital. “What are you doing?”
The man halted. Seeing Dylan running toward him, he spun and ran for the stairs. Dylan dashed across the space, to catch him at the portal. Just as Dylan reached for him, the man spun around, slashing crosswise with the hypodermic needle. Dylan dodged, hit the chairs behind him and tumbled over. He landed hard and was momentarily stunned. By the time he got to his feet, the man was out the door and gone.
Torn between giving chase and staying by Joss’s side, he hesitated. A nurse came running up. “What’s going on?”
“Someone tried to get into Joss’s room. Stay with her!”
He dashed down the stairs, pausing at each floor. At the bottom, he ran into the hall. A security guard was looking out the window by the exit. Dylan moved toward him, holding out his badge. The guard straightened.
“Did a man with a shaved head come by here?”
“Yeah, just jumped into a truck and drove away.”
“Did you see the license plate?”
“No, but I got a good look at the truck. Older Toyota. Four-wheel drive with the tow bar. Gunmetal gray. Seen better days.”
“Would you recognize the man if you saw him again?”
“Maybe. Caught my attention, since he seemed in a hurry. Walked outta here pretty fast.”
“Call the Tucson police. I think he might have tried to kill a patient.”
The guard hurried to his desk and picked up the phone. Dylan pulled out his cell and dialed Holmquist’s number. The officer answered on the second ring.
“I’m sorry to say we’re going to be dealing with another agency sooner than either of us wanted. I told hospital security to call the police. I’m going to arrange twenty-four-hour protection for Walker. I think the Serpientes just sent a man to kill her.”
TWO (#ubafefd4b-fe10-53eb-8a1b-d7da8df73491)
Dylan strode down the hospital hallway and nodded toward the nurses at their station. He was getting to be a familiar face here. Five days, and Joss still swam in pain and memory loss. He’d barely left her side, but there’d been no break in her pain, no flashes of recollection.
He was starting to worry. Every day the Serpientes grew stronger. Another body had been discovered in the desert, executed. The victim was another known gang member, but why he was executed and how he was connected to the Serpientes remained a mystery.
The group was so new and close-knit, he had not yet found anyone willing to inform on them. But they were making enemies with the rival gang, and some of those members were beginning to talk. Information had begun to filter in, and Dylan had taken the time to meet with his agents. That meant precious time away from Joss.
Holmquist stood outside her door, chatting with the guard. The supervisor gestured to the closed portal. “Her doctor’s in there now.”
“I see.” Dylan nodded. “Any change?”
Holmquist scuffed a foot in a frustrated gesture and shook his head. “Not a one. She’s asking for you though.”
Dylan tensed. Everyone had noticed and remarked on Joss’s growing attachment to him. She asked for him continually and seemed agitated when he was gone. “I was the first person she saw when she woke. I’m her only familiar face. That’s all.”
The captain stepped closer, away from the guard so only Dylan could hear. “Yeah. She trusts you. But I gotta wonder what you’re gonna do when she finds out you think she’s guilty.”
Dylan met the man’s level stare. “By that time her memory will have returned and it won’t matter what I think. Right now I want her to be as comfortable and relaxed as possible.”
Holmquist worked his jaw, a habit that showed his frustration. “Right. So you can solve your case. That’s all that matters, right?”
“That’s all that should matter to you too. The Serpientes are vicious and Joss could be their next victim. That’s more important than how she feels about me.”
“There’s more than one way to be a victim, Murphy.” His tone was stone cold. “Joss has been through enough. I don’t want to see her hurt more.”
Dylan met his gaze. “Trust me. Nothing hurts worse than knowing people are dead because of you.”
Joss’s supervisor studied him, but Dylan said no more. Finally the man turned away. “This case is going nowhere. We have no new leads and it’s not even in my jurisdiction. We will have to return to our regular duties monitoring the border checkpoints like nothing ever happened. It’ll be turned over to the police now that they’re involved.”
“And me.”
Holmquist twisted his neck from side to side as if it hurt. “And you.” The words seemed to leave him with a sour taste.
“You’ll be happy to know you’re still on the case. I just got word this morning. I’ve been given permission to expand the task force to include most of your unit. I need all the help I can get.”
“With you as the lead?”
Dylan nodded.
Holmquist looked away. “I don’t like your tactics, Murphy. You’re a driven man. But I guess you’re the one for the job. The sooner we get these creeps, the sooner Joss will be safe...from all of you.”
“You have my word, sir. Joss is safe with me. I intend to keep her comfortable while she regains her memory. Things between us won’t go any further than that.”
Holmquist studied Dylan. “I think you’re driven enough to keep that promise.”
Dylan tried not to flinch. He’d never thought of himself as driven. Strong-willed. Purposeful and successful. But not driven. Especially not so driven as to take advantage of Joss’s emotional state. No matter what Holmquist thought.
“Well, lead agent, I hope you have somewhere to go, because we’ve hit a dead end. Joss’s brother hasn’t shown up for work since the day before the cave-in. And what’s more, Maria Martinez, Walker’s girlfriend, and her family have disappeared. No one’s at home and the little sister hasn’t been to school.”
“We’re not at a dead end yet. One of my agents here in Tucson found a contact who’s talking. We have a name for their leader. Vibora.”
Holmquist shook his head. “Viper. Sounds about right for this guy. He’s crazy.”
“I’ve got my home office searching records for any connections to the name Vibora. If we can find a real name associated with that gang tag, we’ll have our first lead. See if you can expedite a search warrant for Walker’s apartment and the Martinez home.” He paused. “You should be happy. We didn’t find anything in Joss’s apartment.”
“Nope. It was clean as a whistle.”
“Well then, Joss is in the clear. You should be relieved.”
“I would be if any other special agent was in charge.”
Dylan smiled. “I think you just paid me a compliment.”
Holmquist returned a tight little smile before he turned and walked away. “Don’t let it go to your head, Murphy.”
* * *
“Are you telling me I might never regain my memory?” Joss held her breath. Doctor Hull avoided meeting her gaze by studying the computer screen on the cart by her bed.
“I’m saying it’s too soon to tell. Physically you are doing phenomenally well. Most people with a concussion as severe as yours would still be struggling to sit up. You were in excellent condition before your...accident.”
Joss’s jaw tightened. “That’s what they tell me. I, of course, don’t remember.”
The doctor’s eyebrows rose and he looked at her over the screen. “You’d think after what you’ve been through you would be willing to give yourself time to rest.”
She took a deep, tight breath. “If I knew what I’d been through, maybe I would. But right now all I want is to remember. I want my life back.”
“You still have no recollection of the accident or anything leading up to it?”
Joss closed her eyes and rested on the pillow. She willed her racing mind to be calm, to think...to remember. All she could see was a gray wall behind her closed eyes. Her jaw tightened and she looked at the older man.
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just this irritating feeling that something is about to happen. I need to remember... I need to...” She sighed. “I need to stop something. But I don’t know how or even what it is.”
He pulled a pen light out of his coat pocket and kept up the conversation while he examined her pupils. “Maybe if you stop putting so much pressure on yourself, things will come back to you.”
“Someone tried to kill me. There’s a guard outside my hospital room and border-patrol officers hover around me 24/7. I don’t think I’m the one putting pressure on myself.”
He paused. “Are they bothering you? If you want me to ban them from your room, I will.”
She shook her head and the little movement brought on a twinge of vertigo. She closed her eyes, letting the moment of dizziness pass before she spoke again. “No. They’re trying to protect my feelings, so they won’t answer my questions. But that doesn’t help me when I know someone is trying to kill me. Or that I was found in a tunnel beneath the border, with a cache of drugs. They all seem to think I’m innocent, but...”
Dr. Hull waited, not rushing or pushing for a response. That, more than anything, gave her the courage to say what she really felt. “No matter how kind they are, that sounds guilty to me.”
“Is that how you feel—guilty?” He turned her head to the side, gently examining the bruise and swelling at the base of her skull.
Did she feel guilty? So many emotions swirled inside of her. Confusion. Anger. Fear. Mostly fear...of the unknown...of men she couldn’t remember trying to kill her. And now fear of not ever remembering. Of disappointing all of those very nice people outside her room.
They all seemed to care so much about her, and she couldn’t remember their names. As kind as they were, they seemed to want...need confirmation from her that she was innocent. Confirmation she couldn’t give them.
The only one who didn’t make her feel that way was Dylan. He didn’t seem to have expectations. At least not the same hopeful kind she sensed in everyone else. He made her feel like the truth was as important to him as it was to her.
The doctor’s gentle fingers touched a particularly tender spot and she winced.
“Still pretty sore there, I take it.”
She looked up to meet his gaze. “They all know so much about me and I know nothing.”
“You need to give yourself a break. You had a serious head injury and you’ve only been cognizant for a short while. Besides you know more than you think.”
“Like what?”
“Well, you know you heal quickly.”
She directed a frown in his direction.
“I’m not just placating you. Think about what you know instead of what you don’t. You’re very healthy and strong-willed. That’s apparent.”
That comment made a small wry twist slide over her lips. “I take it I haven’t been the best patient.”
The doctor’s lips lifted. “You’re impatient and you have a strong sense of right and wrong. Most people aren’t so willing to admit they might be guilty.”
That was the truth. She expelled her breath, slow and easy. Some of the taut, tense fear flowed out with it.
“As your doctor, I order you to stop fixating on what you don’t know and start rediscovering yourself. You’ll find more answers there than in your determination to remember what happened.”
“But something’s wrong. It needs to be stopped. I know it. I can feel it.”
“Probably. But if your friends are doing their jobs, they’ll find the answers without your help. In the meantime, you concentrate on you. On what makes you feel good and relaxed. Stop beating yourself up. Someone else already did that for you.”
Joss relaxed her shoulders and tried to ignore the tight band across her stomach. “I know one thing. You’re a pretty good doctor.”
He gave her a nod. “Remember that when you get my bill.” He patted her leg through the blanket. “I’ll see you later today to sign your release papers. You’re going home.”
Home. Where was that? An apartment or a house? What did it look like? Comfy? Or bare essentials? Did she like to cook, or was she more of a takeout person? Did she have a pet? Was something warm and furry waiting for her? If so, did someone think to take care of it while she was in the hospital?
Wait! Did she have a boyfriend? No. Surely not. If she did he would have been in to see her, right? All of Dr. Hull’s orders flew out the window as panic built inside her. She didn’t even know what she liked to eat!
The door opened and Dylan eased into the room. His curly hair looked slightly mussed, and the shadow of a beard graced his jawline. Instead of appearing scruffy, he seemed warm and welcoming, like he was ready for an afternoon on the couch. Joss couldn’t believe how much the idea appealed to her. Sitting beside him, watching football, with tons of cheese puffs and potato chips.
Okay. She liked football. Cheese puffs. Potato chips.
And Dylan. And not necessarily in that order.
Dr. Hull was right. Concentrating on what she knew, instead of what she didn’t, helped. But there were two things she couldn’t forget, no matter how hard she tried. People were trying to kill her. So was home a safe place?
Second, she had to go, safe or not. She needed to trigger her memory, because something bad was going to happen if she didn’t stop it. Time was slipping away and she had to do something!
Groaning, she covered her face with her hands.
“Did the doctor give you bad news?”
The sound of Dylan’s voice, deep and resonant, somewhat eased the tight ball of fear in her stomach. His voice was the only thing she remembered...that and his singing. He had a habit of humming old hymns. She’d fallen asleep and woken many times to the sound of his low-key tones. She remembered some of the lyrics clearly. They came through strong, piercing the haze of pain. They were about the only things she did remember from the past few days. Those songs and his voice brought her comfort. With all the anxiety flowing through her, she needed that comfort more than anything right now.
A small smile slipped out... She couldn’t stop it. She was that relieved to see him.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On how you and Holmquist feel. Dr. Hull says he’ll be releasing me today.”
“That’s good news. Why does that make you unhappy?”
She hesitated. “You’ll have to make special arrangements, send more personnel to watch over me and...”
“Stop right there. You are not to think about those details. Let us do the worrying.”
Easier said than done. But with him, it worked. That calm reassurance went deep. How did he do it? What was it about him that eased the terror threatening to eat her alive?
That sense of safety with Dylan helped her go a step further and admit the truth. “I—I don’t know what I’m going home to.”
His eyebrows rose in a quizzical gesture. “You’re right. That is something to worry about. I don’t know how I’d feel either. Am I a neat freak? Do I hang my clothes or drop them? Am I a toilet paper up or down fellow?”
Joss giggled and a sharp pain shot through her temples. She stilled instantly, but couldn’t stop a little chuckle. “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”
“Okay. But seriously. I can’t help you there. I don’t know what your place looks like.”
“No? I thought you said we were friends.”
“Not that kind. We’re friends and we got along well. We’ve only known each other since I was transferred here to be the special agent on this case. About a month. We hadn’t graduated to visiting each other’s places, but we have common beliefs. We’re both Christians. You understood when I said my work was more of a calling...a God-given mission.”
That’s why the words to his songs comforted her so much. She was a Christian. She knew the songs. They meant something to her. It made sense. But what made more sense was the voice singing them. Dylan was reliable, strong in his faith but most of all safe. She sensed that now, even when she couldn’t remember anything else about her life.
Oblivious to where her thoughts had led her, Dylan continued. “We work well together.”
That gave her pause. “How?”
Her interruption threw him off. “What do you mean?”
“How do we work well together? Holmquist tells me you’re called the ‘gang buster.’ What do I do that helps you?”
He hesitated. “I think... I think we have the same goal...to protect people. That’s very important to me.”
“Why?”
Again he let the question lie while he thought about it. Was he trying to decide how much to tell her, or was he hesitating because he was going to tell her something personal about his own life? She hoped it was personal. She wanted to know more about him. Wanted to understand her deep-seated attraction to him.
He’d been her near-constant companion since she had awakened. He made her feel safe and protected. But she sensed her feelings went deeper. Had she been attracted to him before her accident? She needed to know, to understand something about her past and especially about him.
“I had a sister. Her name was Beth.” His voice dropped when he said her name. Almost as if he couldn’t speak the name out loud. Joss tensed. Whatever he was about to tell her pained him a great deal.
“She was my little sister, two years younger than me. She was beautiful and bright. Long dark hair...like yours. Only, hers was curly like mine.” A smile flashed across his lips. Gone in a moment. “She followed me everywhere...even in high school. That’s why I should have seen it. I should have realized.”
He shook his head. The pain in his expression went so deep, it hurt to see it. Reaching out, she grasped his hand. His touch was familiar. It had been like an anchor these past few days, keeping her from flying into empty space, from losing herself in darkness. She hoped she could do the same for him.
“Don’t. Don’t say more. I’m sorry I asked.”
He shook his head and gripped her hand, met her gaze. “It’s important, Joss. I want you to know.”
There was more...so much more behind the words. Something he wasn’t saying. But his hand was warm and strong. She wanted to bring it to her lips and kiss it, to thank him for trusting her.
But that would make him uncomfortable. Her emotions were too strong and overwhelming for the casual relationship he’d described. He’d told her they were friends. They clicked and worked well together. His words exactly. But Joss had the feeling “clicked” had meant a lot more to her, something Dylan didn’t want to acknowledge or discuss. Every time she’d tried to express her gratitude, to explain the unusual bond she felt with him, he grew uncomfortable and changed the subject. So she held her feelings and the words back.
“All right.” If she couldn’t comfort him in the way she wanted to, she could at least give him permission to share his heartache. “Tell me.”
He swallowed. “I went off to college and left Beth behind. Two years later she was dead from an overdose. She was seventeen.”
Joss was silent for a long while, as she searched for words. “I’m sorry. So sorry. But it wasn’t your fault...you were young.”
He gripped her hand with both of his and looked deep into her eyes. “But that’s the problem, Joss. It was my fault. I could have stopped it. She had a crush on my best friend, Rusty. He got her involved in the drug scene. I knew he was hooked on painkillers long before Beth started hanging out with him. I turned a blind eye to his usage, Joss. I covered up for him. I could have told his parents...told mine. They would never have trusted him with Beth. But they knew he was my best friend, thought he’d never let anything happen to her...”
His words trailed off into excruciating silence. Anger twisted his features. Anger and frustration...pain so strong, Joss could barely stand it.
She didn’t know what to say, didn’t understand the significance of why it was important for her to know. She only understood how it had impacted his life. “That’s why you say your work is a God-given mission.”
He nodded, never loosening his grip on her hand. “I stood over her coffin, stared at her emaciated body—I barely recognized my beautiful, vibrant little sister. My parents told me she was having problems. They thought it was an eating disorder, maybe depression. They didn’t suspect drugs and I didn’t want to believe Rusty would betray me like that...not until the evidence lay in front of me. I promised God right there and then that I would devote my life to stopping drug traffickers.”
She gripped his hand. “You’ve done it, Dylan. Holmquist tells me you have one of the best records of success in the DEA. That’s why they sent you here. You can be at ease. You’ve honored your promise.”
“More than a promise, Joss. A vow, and it was my duty.” He lifted her hand, squeezing tighter. “My sister died because I covered for my friend Rusty. I was responsible.”
His intense gaze made her uncomfortable. “What are you trying to tell me, Dylan? Is there something I should know?”
The tension in his body eased and he released her hand. “No. No. I’m just... I don’t talk about Beth much. Not ever, really. I guess I got carried away.”
She smiled. “Thank you...for sharing. It means a lot to me.”
He looked away and shifted. “You need to stop thanking me so much. I’m only doing what needs to be done. And besides.” He gave her a sheepish grin. “We don’t usually talk about serious stuff. I call you ‘hot shot.’ You call me ‘special.’ We argue over football teams. Mine, of course, is better.”
So they did share football! She’d gotten something right. They also had common beliefs, as well as faith and confidence in the justice system. Maybe Dr. Hull knew what he was talking about. All she needed to do was to concentrate on what she did know. That was easier to do around Dylan, because for her, he was special.
Swallowing her fear, she said, “Which is my team?”
A sly twist slipped over his lips. “Well...how will you know I’m telling the truth? Maybe I’ll make you a Wildcat so when your memory comes back, you’ll remember the Sun Devils and know I got you.”
The attempted joke didn’t work, mainly because it reminded her that she might not ever remember. That made her future a big black hole, just like her past. She turned to him, all humor gone. “I trust you. You’re the only one I can trust right now.”
The wry twist faded and he looked away. “You know, I’m going to try to catch Holmquist before he leaves.”
The door closed behind him and the room seemed empty. In spite of what he had said, her release from the hospital was going to be a tactical nightmare. The city police would have to schedule someone to watch over her 24/7. Maybe her friends—the friends she couldn’t remember—would have to volunteer their time to guard her. The extra expense and stress would be ridiculous. Who would pay for it? How long could it last?
And...those men were still out there...trying to kill her. Why? Was that the terrible thing she needed to prevent? Her own murder? That was a horrifying thought.
She was letting the deep dark holes overwhelm her again. She tried to slow the raging questions exploding in her mind.
If Dylan would just come back. He was so strong and vital. His presence filled a room...drove out the dark holes. She could wrap his vitality around her like a warm, safe blanket and she needed that...needed something or she might tip over the edge.
As if on cue, the door opened and he returned. A slight smile tilted his lips. “Holmquist is staying. He wants to be here when you check out.” He seemed relieved.
She said nothing. Her supervisor’s concern was nice but she really wanted Dylan there. “You’re coming with me, right?”
“Of course. Wouldn’t miss your return home.”
An undertone of intensity laced his lightly stated words and gave her pause. “Why?”
He frowned. “Because we need to answer the all-important question. Do you throw clothes in a corner or hang them neatly in the closet?”
Caught off guard, she let another small chortle slip out. “Owww. I told you not to make me laugh.”
“Can’t help it. I’m dying to find out your dark secrets.” His words held an undertone of...something. A sincerity that took her by surprise. She stared at him.
He lifted his gaze upward, clearly striving for a deep-in-thought expression “I’m pretty sure you are a ‘hang it very neatly’ type.”
He meant to make her laugh, but she sensed something behind his words. What was it? Was she an unpleasant, uptight woman he didn’t like?
“You make me sound like a prude. Am I?”
He stopped to consider. “No. Thorough. By the book. Sincere. Passionate about your work. But easy to be around. Energetic and full of questions. Fun. You’re surrounded by friends all of the time. You told me once you don’t like to be alone...ever.” He started to say more but halted and clammed up. A strange look came over his features...a look she couldn’t define. Was he holding something back? Picking and choosing what to tell her about herself?
When he said no more, she released a sigh. “Maybe I’m someone I’d like if I knew me.” Her tone sounded more forlorn than she’d intended.
“Everyone likes you, Joss. You’re a good agent and a great person.”
Shaking her head, she met his gaze. “If I’m such a good agent, what was I doing in that tunnel with a payload of illegal drugs?”
* * *
Dylan was saved from answering when Holmquist walked in. Surprised at how relieved he was, he stepped away and turned to stare out the window.
Finding out why Joss was in that tunnel was the reason he was here, spending every free moment with her rather than pounding the street, searching for answers. Yes, his team of agents was on the job, and they were making breakthroughs. But he should be with them. Yet when she posed the question...gave him the perfect opportunity to start probing for answers...he backed off. Hesitated. What was wrong with him?
Holmquist reviewed the details of Joss’s release with her. She asked a few questions, a thread of fear running behind every word. She was scared and barely hanging on. That was the reason he’d stopped probing. Because he hadn’t wanted to push her into that dark hole.
But why was he hesitating now...almost feeling guilty? He glanced at Joss. In some ways she reminded him of Beth. Not so much in looks, even though they both had dark hair. But more in personality. Beth had been bright, outgoing and fun, but a thread of insecurity had run deep, pushed her in the wrong directions. She’d hungered for approval...for support from others, including Rusty. That need had led to her death.
Dylan sensed the same longing in Joss. She’d always seemed competent, sure of her work, but he’d sensed an underlying need to belong, not to be alone. And now that underlying need had come to the surface. She was completely vulnerable. Now was the time to push for answers, not to ease up.
He needed to get on course, to break those fears loose so they could get to the truth...for both their sakes. “While we wait, let me bring you up to speed.” He addressed his comments to Holmquist. “We have an initial report about those traces of chemicals we found on the support post in the mine. They definitely come from some sort of explosive. They don’t know the type yet.”
“Explosives.” Joss shook her head. “In the mine? What does that mean?”
Holmquist shot a puzzled glance in Dylan’s direction, obviously wondering why he was discussing details of the investigation in front of Joss while she was in her fragile state. But Dylan ignored him.
“It means the cave-in was deliberately set.”
Her features brightened. “Does that prove they were trying to kill me? That I’m innocent?”
Dylan shook his head. “Unfortunately no. The explosion could have been a cover-up. You could have set the explosion and been trapped.”
Now Holmquist gave him an angry frown. But Dylan ignored it. Joss was almost as passionate about her work as he was. Or at least she had seemed to be...and that was what he needed to determine. Now that she was vulnerable, the truth might come out. Had her loyalty been an act? Was she good at making them all like her? Was that her true motivation—the need to be liked, not the desire to stop crime? If that was true, she was just like his sister, and that weakness could have turned Joss away from a righteous path. She might care more about the people she loved than the law, and that love could have led her into that tunnel.
Now, with no recollection of her past, the real woman beneath the facade would come to light. With no memory to protect her, the next days would reveal Joss’s guilt...or innocence.
With his resolve renewed, he faced Holmquist. “Also, my home office can find nothing on Vibora. Nothing.”
“Vibora?”
Both men turned to Joss as her brow furrowed.
Dylan paused. “What? Do you remember something?”
Her frown deepened, almost as if it hurt to think. After a long while she shook her head. “No. Nothing. But I know what it means. Viper. Do I speak Spanish?”
She looked at Holmquist, and her expression was so full of hope, it almost hurt to see it.
He shook his head. “Just enough to get by.”
The beginnings of a smile flitted over her lips. “Then I remember it. The name means something to me.”
She looked happy that she had one memory. She didn’t realize that already knowing the leader’s gang name, when all of them had just discovered it, implicated her.
Holmquist looked at Dylan, his features grim and angry. Dylan looked away. The truth was the ultimate goal...no matter how much Holmquist didn’t want to hear it.
The captain’s radio crackled to life.
“We’ve got an intruder matching the description of the attacker. He’s on the fourth floor, headed toward the stairs.”
Joss’s room was on the fifth floor. Holmquist’s gaze darted to Dylan. Dylan was younger, faster and probably stronger. Holmquist gave Dylan a sharp nod and he dashed out the door.
As it closed behind him, Joss cried out. “Wait! Don’t go!”
Her desperate tone sent a sharp pain through him, but he pushed it aside and turned to the guard outside. “You heard the report?”
The man nodded.
“Holmquist is inside. Whatever happens, don’t leave this door unguarded.”
Another nod. Dylan strode down the hall and raised his voice. “Everyone clear this hall.”
He shut the door of the room closest to him and went on to the next. A nurse pushing a cart full of medications paused.
He gestured to the nearest room. “Go on. Step inside and close the door.”
A man in a hospital gown pushed an IV stand on its wheels. He turned and headed to his room. “That’s too far. Go in here.”
Dylan guided the patient to the nearest room and closed the door.
The hall was empty. He unlatched his gun from its holster and released the lock. Directly in front of him, the elevator lay at the junction of the T-shaped hall. The door to the stairwell was around the corner...out of his vision. He moved forward, settled against the wall and peeked around the corner. The hall was empty. The intruder had not yet reached this floor.
Dylan waited, gun drawn. Hands bracing the gun, wrists taut. Nothing happened.
Should he move closer to the storage room on the right? Wait inside, then pop out and get behind the intruder?
No. Better to keep himself between the man and Joss.
He heard a noise in the stairwell. Heavy footfalls echoed from behind the door. The intruder was close. Dylan gripped the gun. At that moment the elevator dinged. The doors slid open. A man, his wife and two laughing children prepared to step out.
“Get back! Stay inside!”
The frightened father pulled the children to him and pushed his wife inside. The mother frantically jabbed at the elevator buttons. Dylan turned to see the stairway door slowly closing.
Groaning his frustration, he ran toward it. Carefully he pulled it open and waited for gunfire. Nothing happened, so he peeked out. The man was gone. Stepping inside the echoing stairwell, he could hear footsteps—so many, it was hard to distinguish where they were coming from. He paused, listening, and heard the low instructions of the police as they systematically moved up the stairwell together.
Then he heard steps above him. He shouted, “This is Agent Murphy. He’s headed to the sixth floor.”
No men were stationed on the sixth floor. Three officers were stationed below him, plus the guard at Joss’s door. Dylan was ahead of everyone. If the intruder were to be caught, he’d have to do it himself.
He took the steps two at a time, reaching the sixth floor just as the door shut. He flung it open and waited. No shots were fired. He moved into the hall in time to see another set of elevator doors close and the lights above flash on. This was the surgery level and, the elevator was strictly for service. It didn’t open onto the other floors, but went straight to the basement.
Spinning, Dylan took the stairs two at a time, shouting again. “He’s on the service elevator, headed for the basement. I don’t have a radio. Call security and have them send someone there.” He met the three policemen coming up and they all headed down.
One of the policemen’s radios crackled, but no one responded. “I’m not getting any reception in the stairwell.”
Dylan stifled his frustration and they descended to the bottom, coming out in the brightly lit, wide-open basement. The entrance to the laundry room on the right. On the left, a massive generator. Other doors led to other rooms. Too many rooms. Too many nooks and crannies in which to hide.
One of the policemen gestured across the room. “Look.”
Yet another door at the far end was closing. A bright shaft of sunlight slashed across metal steps before it closed. Dylan raced across the room, with the other men close behind. They lunged out the door in time to see a gray Toyota truck screech away through the alley.
The guard had seen the same truck speeding away the first time the gang had tried to reach Joss. This time Dylan was close enough to see the license plate, but a coating of strategically placed mud made it indecipherable.
Clever. No traffic cop would stop them for a blob of mud, but at the same time, no one could track them. The Serpientes were cunning, deceptive and incredibly bold to attack Joss twice while she was under protection.
What did they want from her? What did Joss know that they were so desperate to silence?
THREE (#ubafefd4b-fe10-53eb-8a1b-d7da8df73491)
Joss shifted in the hospital chair. It squeaked, a sound that grated against her nerves. She’d sat here for almost forty minutes. Dressed and ready to go. Waiting. And waiting. Holmquist had demanded a thorough search of each floor of the hospital before he would agree to let her leave.
After the latest scare and Dylan’s recognition of the familiar Toyota truck, Holmquist had insisted she stay one more night at the hospital. In all honesty, Joss hadn’t minded the extra night of service in bed. The staff had stopped monitoring her vitals, so it had been a relatively peaceful night...probably the last for a few nights to come. Because frankly, going home wouldn’t be the relief everyone thought. Holmquist said it would be nice to be in her own bed again, right? Dylan commented on how she would feel better surrounded by her own things.
They were both wrong. Going home had taken on the epic proportions of a nightmare because she couldn’t remember a thing about it...not her bed, nor a single solitary possession. She didn’t even recognize the sweats Dylan had brought for her. Were they from her closet or the store?
She didn’t know and the whole idea of going home frightened her. What if this long-awaited moment came and nothing jogged her memory? What if nothing looked familiar? Worse...what if she opened her closet and didn’t like anything she saw inside?
The thick gray wall in her mind, the one she’d encountered when she first opened her eyes, remained in place—thicker than ever. As the time passed and the person on the other side of the gray mist—the pre-explosion Jocelyn—moved farther and farther away. Dr. Hull had told her to focus on what she knew, and she had diligently worked at that. The problem was, the harder she tried, the less she liked the woman Dylan described.
Easygoing. Ummm...not. She was wound about as tightly, and just about as fearfully, as a person could get.
Fun. Well, she might crack a smile if she could find something to smile about. No. That wasn’t true. Dylan made her happy. He was the only bright spot in all of this.
He said she was a good agent. Right. So, why had she been alone, out of uniform, in a tunnel full of thousands of dollars’ worth of heroin?
No matter how many different questions she asked herself, she always circled back to that one. And that was where she hit the blank wall of gray mist with nothing behind it. Nothing.
She sighed. The chair creaked and she cringed. Her head ached. Soon it would be pounding. She was weak. Her legs felt like wet noodles. If they didn’t hurry up with this inspection, someone might have to carry her into her apartment.
A vision of Dylan lifting her in his arms popped into her mind. He gave off a sense of whipcord strength. He wouldn’t have trouble lifting her. How would he smell? Aftershave or not?
Wait. How much did a bulletproof vest weigh? The bulky apparel wrapped around her torso felt pretty heavy to her. Coupled with her own weight...
How much did she weigh? How tall was she? She’d glanced in the mirror during one of her trips to the bathroom, and the woman staring at her didn’t look familiar, just tall and gangly and too heavy to carry.
Okay. So being carried into her place was not a good idea. She groaned and covered her face with her hands.
People were trying to kill her. Guards stood outside her room and throughout the building to protect her. She had a ticking time bomb in her head, warning of some impending danger, and here she sat, worrying about her weight.
Some kind of agent she was.
The more she knew about herself, the more nothing fit together. She wasn’t the person she had been...the good and sturdy agent everyone liked. Would she ever be that person again?
The door flew open and she jerked.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Dylan’s voice rolled across her jangled nerves. That voice. Deep and smooth. Coming out of the darkness. The only thing that still felt familiar and safe. She released a small sigh of relief.
“Are you all right? You look a little pale. Do you need some help?”
Absolutely not. No lifting or carrying. No contact. “No. I’m fine.” She lunged to her feet.
Too fast. Too soon. The world spun in a dangerous whirlwind and she tilted. Before she knew it, an arm snaked around her waist and held her still.
Whipcord strong. Stable. Safe. Silly or not, she leaned into his shoulder and rested, waiting for the world to right itself again.
* * *
Dylan only meant to catch her, to keep her from falling, but the minute his arm went around her waist, something happened. She felt slender and so fragile. He could wrap his arm completely around her even with the bulky bulletproof vest. He already knew how fragile her mental state was, but to feel her slight, wispy frame sent a wave of protectiveness washing over him.
She was terrified and trying so hard to be brave and strong. He grasped her tighter and turned her body slightly inward. Her head slipped perfectly into the crook of his neck and he held her there. Safe. Protected.
I won’t let them get to you, Joss. Not like they got to Beth...at least not until you remember.
That was what he was here for, right? To keep her calm and stable so she could remember. That was all. With that thought, he placed his other hand on the curve of her waist and gently pulled her away. Her head was wobbly and her gaze a bit unfocused. He ducked to look into her eyes. The sight of those gray eyes, so wide and lost, almost undid him. He wanted to pull her into his arms and keep her there.
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