by Jodie Bailey
He almost snapped his fingers. Riley Eldridge, Rich’s cousin. Deep in the North Carolina mountains, about forty minutes outside of Asheville, there was a dirt racetrack near Asher Creek where they’d once gone to see Riley race. She drove a blue-and-gold dirt track race car. Number fifty-seven.
“Got it. Tell him I’m going dark.”
Amy relayed the affirmation, then ended the call. She started to settle the phone into the cup holder, but Sam held out his hand. When the weight of the device was settled on his palm, he rolled down the window and chucked it into the night. He couldn’t risk a trace, even on a burner.
Amy gasped, then she actually chuckled. “Drastic times.”
Yeah, she’d sunk into that place past exhaustion if she was laughing when there was absolutely nothing to amuse her. Sam glanced her way.
She drew her arms tighter around herself as the truck’s heater fought valiantly against the cold air seeping in through the back window. It was losing the battle.
“There’s probably a sweatshirt in my backpack if you want to grab it.”
As Amy reached behind her, Sam hung a left on a road that should lead them toward Asher Creek, the invisible bands around his chest loosening a bit.
He didn’t relax too much. If someone truly was tracking them, tossing his phone wasn’t enough. There was no good way to hide until they’d abandoned this vehicle. If they were confronted on the road, the results would be deadly. This deep in the back mountains in weather this frigid, there were two options available to their would-be killer. He’d either engage them in a blind shootout or run them off the side of a cliff. Neither was an option Sam wanted to explore.
Because no matter how he played either of those scenarios in his head, both outcomes ended with Amy dead.
TWELVE
“Amy.”
Her name drifted in from far away, somewhere in the deep recesses of a dream that refused to shake loose.
No, not a dream. A nightmare. Someone was chasing her. Shooting at her. Dragging her over a steep cliff into darkness...
She sat up suddenly, her forehead colliding with something hard. Something that muttered a deep, growling, “Watch it.”
Her eyes popped open and stared into brown ones only inches away. Brown eyes narrowed with pain.
Sam. He sat back and rubbed his chin where her forehead must have connected.
Last night rushed back. The fire alarm at the hotel, the climb over the balcony railing, the back windshield shattering, his kiss...
Instinctively, she touched his shoulder, but he backed away so quickly he nearly lost his balance. Her hand fell to the bed. No, it wasn’t a bed. This was a cot, but figuring out how she’d gotten here could wait. “Where are we?”
One side of his mouth tipped up in a smile. “You fell asleep in the truck.”
“I fell asleep?”
“Deep sleep. I had to carry you. You didn’t move when we switched trucks or when I brought you inside.” He turned and walked across the room to the door. “Rich and I thought you’d never wake up. And by the way—” he paused with his hand on the door frame “—you snore.” He disappeared before she could get her bearings enough to respond.
She snored? Was he making a joke? It was hard to tell with the way he spoke, his voice monotone, his back to her. In some ways, he seemed to get a kick out of this whole mess they were in. In others, this had to be a giant pain for him. After all, he’d had to haul her into this cabin after...
Wait. He’d carried her?
Her brain was too sleep-drugged to deal with the thought of Sam lifting her in his arms, especially when his kiss had been one of the first things she’d thought of when she’d seen him. Her mind was inclined to believe things it shouldn’t about a man who’d saved her life at the peril of his own.
Amy needed to remember her mother’s mistakes, to be sure she didn’t repeat them.
She stared at the door Sam had exited through, then shook the thoughts away, dragging her palms down her face in a fight to get her bearings. The dark cold interior of the pickup hung over her existence as her last clear memory. His sweatshirt, warm from both the soft fabric and the slight spicy scent of Sam’s cologne. She ran her hands down the arms of the shirt as her senses struggled to catch up to her surroundings. Her brain was reluctant to believe she wasn’t still in a truck careening down a mountain while she dreamed of this place.
If she were dreaming, hopefully her brain would choose better than this. Rough wooden walls enclosed a room that held a low dresser and the metal-framed cot where she’d slept in her clothes, covered by a green wool blanket stamped with a faded US ARMY. The room wasn’t exactly warm, but the chill had less of an edge than the truck had held.
Sam had carried her into this place and she’d been so dead to the world that she hadn’t even known. Amy scrubbed at her face again, desperate to wipe away the hot embarrassment in her cheeks. She never slept that hard, ever. At least not in the past three years, and especially not after someone took a shot at her. It felt as though she’d lived her life with one eye open, always expecting the worst. With last night being the embodiment of the worst, how had her brain let its guard down? Anything could have happened while she was zonked in dreamland.
Somehow her subconscious truly trusted Sam and his friend Rich, at least enough to let her sleep. None of this made any sense.
Neither did the tantalizing aroma wafting through the door. Was that bacon? They were running for their lives with nothing to their names and, at least in her case, no shoes on their feet. How had Sam managed to find bacon?
It didn’t matter. Her stomach demanded she get off the increasingly uncomfortable cot and locate whatever was cooking somewhere in this rustic cabin...even if it meant facing Sam and the memory of that kiss.
Shoving her hands through her hair in a vain effort to shake out the tangles, Amy made her way into a large open living area that housed a tiny kitchen, a four-person table and two garish floral-print sofas that had seen their better days in the ’70s. A thin pillow and another wool blanket covered one of the couches, probably where Sam had slept. Three more doors stood closed around the small cabin space, and the rough hardwood floors creaked beneath her feet.
Sam turned from the small stove and set a plate of eggs on the table next to a thick orange mug of heavy black coffee. “Bacon will be up in a second.”
Sliding into a chair, Amy rested her chin on her fist. This had to be a dream. Or a nightmare. It no longer mattered. Apparently, she and Sam were in this together, and he hadn’t answered her earlier question. Well, he didn’t get to dodge her. It was her life in danger, not his. “I’m asking again. Where are we?”
“Rich had a pretty genius idea.” He kept his back to her, fussing with a sizzling pan on the stove.
Fine then. He’d answer when he was ready. She’d had enough psychology classes to puzzle this one out. Deputy Marshal Sam Maldonado liked control. Refusing to answer her was either a professional habit or an incredibly annoying side effect of his need to be in charge.
She watched him work at the stove, letting her mind drift, too tired to direct her thoughts. Whatever Sam had done in the army before he moved over to the Marshals Service, the work had been good to him. His back and shoulders were strong beneath a gray T-shirt. His brown hair was sleep-rumpled, giving him the appearance of a college kid who was past caring about appearances during a stressful exam week. When he finally turned, his brown eyes struck her again, catching her attention the way they had the first time she’d ever seen him.
They seemed to see right through her.
He walked to the table and slid into the chair across from Amy’s, dropping a plate of bacon between them onto the scarred blond wood. “Eat. You’re bound to be hungry, and I don’t know how long we’ll be here. The timing of our next meal could be iffy.”
“You’re all personality befor
e you get your coffee, aren’t you?” She wasn’t a morning person either, but honestly, he could be a little bit friendlier.
“Nice can get you killed.”
Alrighty then. Gone was the Sam who had shared his thoughts with her the night before, the Sam who had looked at her as though there were things he wasn’t saying.
The Sam who had kissed her. She was now hiding out with a hard-boiled film noir detective. The joy.
Amy reached for her coffee and took a cautious sip. It was hot and strong. Not the way she liked it, but there was no way the man had scrounged up cream along with bacon and eggs. “Where is your friend Rich?” He had to be around somewhere. If he was anything like Sam, it was highly doubtful he’d dumped them off and run.
“He’s keeping an eye on things outside. He’s more familiar with this area than I am.”
“And where is this area?”
“We’re several miles outside of a little town called Asher Creek, halfway up a mountain in some pretty thick woods. Rich’s cousin Riley lives nearby. This is her fiancé, Zach’s, place. He’s prior service military as well. He came by earlier and dropped off some food and a bag of clothes that belong to Riley, even some shoes. I figure y’all are close enough to the same size.” Sam took a sip of coffee. “We’re safe for the moment, but since I have no idea how they tracked us before, I can’t say for how long.”
Amy set her coffee mug next to the thick white plate of rapidly cooling eggs, the sight and scent overwhelming her stomach. “Any more clues on how they keep finding us?”
“We’re safe unless one of us has some random implant we don’t know about.” He seemed to almost smile, then simply shrugged. “I left the truck at a racetrack on the south side of Asher Creek, about forty-five minutes from here. Hopefully, they’ll assume we continued to head north toward DC.”
The whole situation made little sense. She knew how this worked. There should be other marshals. Backup. Redundancies. “Why are we stuck out here alone?”
“Because we don’t know how deeply we’ve been compromised or if someone inside is involved.” Sam slid a piece of bacon from one side of his plate to the other. “The issue is deep enough for us to be found and to compromise a safe house. Keeping you off the grid is our safest course of action right now. You’re not the only one. Around the country, we’ve got other witnesses being shuffled and double-guarded as we speak.” He shoved in a bite of eggs, then aimed his fork at her plate. “Seriously. You need to eat.”
He was so casual about it all. WITSEC could be compromised. We’re totally cut off from help. I’m cooking breakfast in a cabin for the girl who nearly got me killed. How’s the weather?
Picking up her fork, Amy shoved the eggs around her plate, then reached for a slice of bacon instead. Maybe it would sit better in her stomach.
Sam wiped his hands on a paper towel, then dropped it to the table. “I know you’ve told me a bit about this other witness, Layla, but if you’re willing to talk it might give us some new information I can pass on to my team when we’re able to make contact again. If you’ll let me, we can bring her in to safety.”
“At this point, you and your team probably already know more than I do.”
“How about we try anyway? You can start at the beginning.” He tipped his chin at her plate. “While you eat.”
He might be right, but he sure was bossy. Amy loudly crunched a piece of bacon. It was crispy, practically shattering in her mouth, exactly the way she liked it. There, I ate a bite. Happy? “First, tell me why I should trust these people I’ve never met. You’ve mentioned Rich, Riley, Zach...”
“If you can trust me, you can trust them. I do. What’s to question?” The words were cocky, but uncertainty clouded his expression. He reached for his coffee and drained the cup, then got up from the table and went the counter. He refilled his mug but kept his back to her, facing the window as he spoke. “I don’t know how much weight this carries with you given it’s been three years since you last saw her, but Rich knows your sister.”
“Eve?” Amy’s heart crashed against her rib cage, fueled by grief and longing, along with the familiar fear the bitterness her twin sister might harbor. “Rich knows Eve?”
“Remember, she goes by Jenna.” Sam set his coffee on the table and looked at something over her shoulder. “We should talk about her. You need to know everything that’s happened.”
“Everything? There’s more than what you told me last night?”
Shoving his coffee cup to the side, Sam reached for her hand, then drew back, clasped his hands on the table. “Grant Meyer was arrested because of your sister. Several months ago, he went on an all-out blitz to eliminate you. He had the wrong woman. Amy, Grant Meyer went to jail because he kidnapped and tried to murder your sister.”
* * *
“No.” Amy’s voice, thin and weak, barely reached Sam’s ears. She shoved the chair away with the screech of wood against wood and paced into the middle of the small living area, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, his sweatshirt dwarfing her.
Did she realize she was still wearing it? Last night, he’d suggested she grab it because the truck’s heat couldn’t keep up with the brutal cold flooding in through the shattered window.
This morning, seeing her in his navy blue hoodie with Colorado emblazoned across it in bold white letters felt as though they were somehow more than endangered witness and assigned marshal.
Kissing her hadn’t helped.
Before Sam met her, when she’d first disappeared months ago, Sam had studied her file and talked to her twin sister, learning everything he could. He’d spent time with her during meetings with Edgecombe. He’d watched her sleep in his truck, fully aware of the trust her rest implied. She might talk a big game and be fond of questioning him, but she trusted him.
She’d given him a gift, a piece of her heart he was supposed to protect along with the rest of her, from a threat that was still very real.
There was the problem. The threat to her life was still in motion. This was still a situation where the forty-two second countdown could start at any moment. He shouldn’t be having thoughts about her outside of his job. He’d retrieved and protected dozens of witnesses and fugitives in his five years on the US Marshals Service’s elite recovery team. Never once had he become personally involved.
He’d definitely never kissed a witness. Had never even desired to.
But as Amy Brady paced the living room and stopped to stare into the stone-cold fireplace, Sam wanted nothing more than to walk across the room and hug her. To make her feel better. To restore color to her cheeks, which had grown incredibly pale when he’d dropped the bombshell about her twin. On top of multiple brushes with her own mortality the night before, this news had to be devastating.
Sam was halfway to her before he stopped himself in an awkward spot between the kitchen table and the couch. He shouldn’t. It didn’t matter that something about her drew him closer. She wasn’t his friend. She wasn’t the woman he loved. She was his assignment and nothing more. Once they figured out who was tracking them, he’d turn Amy over to the main team assigned to her case and walk away, never to see her again. That was the way this job worked.
Besides, she didn’t need to get close to a guy like him, one whose tortured thoughts dogged him all day and kept him awake all night. One who couldn’t sleep without the nightmares of his failures, without the blood on his hands returning to haunt him over and over again.
In all honesty, she deserved a better protector than him as well. His game was off. Lack of sleep and fear had dulled his carefully honed edge.
Sam stalked to the kitchen table, picked up his coffee mug and drained it. The liquid burned all the way down, searing the truth into his core.
Fear. Fear was the reason Amy Brady was different than any other person he’d been tasked to protect. Last night by the side of the road, her fear
had reached out and gripped the same emotion that laid inside of him, waiting to pounce. He’d laid his hands on her shoulders, looked her in the eye and seen himself. In that moment, he’d lost a piece of his heart to her.
Now, she stood less than twenty feet away with her hands drawn into the sleeves of his sweatshirt, probably because they were shaking and cold.
He knew the feeling, knew the way fear could burst from inside with the force and heat of a volcano or could creep up from the core, icy and paralyzing.
No way could he leave her alone to process the turns of her life. He might be a failure, but he wasn’t a monster.
Sam slammed the mug to the table and stalked across the room before he could change his mind. He pulled Amy close, her head tucked beneath his chin and her hands balled into fists against his chest. His fingers splayed across the middle of her back.
She was shaking. For several heartbeats, Sam simply held her, then he shifted and rested his chin on the top of her head. She was so tiny and, despite all of her fight, so fragile.
He would protect her from Grant Meyer’s people if he had to die doing so. The ferocity of the truth almost knocked him backward, but he held on, unwilling to let Amy feel him crack.
“Is she okay?” Amy’s voice muffled against his shoulder, more feeling than sound.
“She’s safe.” The truth could wait. She was safe, but she was likely under police protection until federal agents figured out who was behind these attacks. Jenna wasn’t Amy, but there was nothing to stop someone from using one twin to draw the other into the open.
Amy nodded. Although he’d expected her to pull away, she stayed close, her shivers subsiding as she rested in his arms. Sam let her rest, drawing comfort from her. There was something about her that reached inside of him and made him feel twice as tall and three times as strong as he was. He could almost forget his past mistakes, could almost hope there was a way to start again.