by 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?
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...
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.
Books by Tanya Stowe
Love Inspired Suspense
Mojave Rescue
Fatal Memories
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Fatal Memories
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
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DEAR READER
EXCERPT FROM TRAIL OF DANGER BY VALERIE HANSEN
ONE
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 nor
mal. 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?”