Midnight Kiss

by Lisa Marie Rice

  Something really eerie was happening here. Hope circled the pool, almost in a trance, looking down at a little sludge in what had been the deep end of the pool. Luke kept pace with her. If this were a horror movie, Hope would be seeing the deep blue of a filled swimming pool and would dive in.

  But it wasn’t a movie and Hope wasn’t making any movements that could turn dangerous. She was simply circling the pool.

  Luke could see that it had been a nice pool, once. It was large and surrounded by what had once been an attractive mosaic of blue and white tiles and now looked like a jagged mouth missing most of its teeth.

  “Here,” Hope said, shifting some yellowed supermarket ads and leaves out of the way with her sneakered foot. “Here was a big crack.”

  And — there was. A fissure in the cement underlying the mosaic tiles.

  At this point, Luke was simply following her lead, following her wherever she wanted to go.

  She wandered away from the pool, down another abandoned lane, just a rut in the ground. On either side of the rut were old, rusted trailers. Not the fancy kind, the ancient kind. Abandoned, mostly. There were signs that some had people living in them, but they weren’t living lives. Halfway along the rutted path a mangy brindled dog in a rusted cage barked viciously. Luke wondered whether the dog was ever taken out and was tempted to break the padlock with his foot to release the poor creature. But its lips were peeled up showing sharp teeth and its eyes followed their every move, head down, growling.

  Releasing it would be kind but probably not wise. And though Luke had a lot of experience with dogs — K-9s and their handlers had saved a lot of lives in the Sandbox — he didn’t know if Hope was familiar with dogs. He didn’t have any padding to put around his arm in case the dog was feral.

  Hope wasn’t paying the dog any attention.

  Luke didn’t know exactly what she was paying attention to. She seemed to be on a secret mission he hadn’t been briefed on. She ignored the trailers and the people who might have been in them, touching the top railing made of sun-blasted wood of a fence that formed a sort of perimeter around a small collection of six trailer houses.

  Luke winced as she ran her hand along the railing, wanting to tell her to watch out for splinters. But there was no getting through to her.

  He pulled out his cell, doing research on Happy Trails while glancing up every couple of seconds to keep an eye on her. He did a quick threat assessment each time he did, but so far there weren’t any threats unless there was a sniper up on the branches of an old oak. But there were no branches that would have borne the weight of a sniper and a sniper rifle. The biggest threat was the mangy dog, barking and growling like crazy, but it was in a cage.

  He bent down again to his cell screen. He wasn’t a computer genius like Hope or Felicity, who were the techie equivalent of Navy SEALs and Army Rangers, but he was ok with tech. And at any rate he was consulting public records. No breaking and entering necessary.

  Happy Trails was incorporated in 1980. For many years it was a thriving trailer park, making a tidy profit. After 1991 it started going downhill and was in the red for a couple of years after that. At the last tax report, it had made a profit of $10,546. Barely enough to keep going. There had been a fire in 1997 when Hope would have been six years old. But when she was six years old, she’d been living in Boston. With the Ellises.

  Who might be the Sandersons.

  Coming to Happy Trails trailer park was a long shot, but it had panned out because Hope’s reactions showed that she’d been here before, as a little girl. The path from Happy Trails to Boston was murky and unclear but there definitely was one.

  He was scrolling through death notices in 1996 when Hope stopped. She stood there, shoulders stooped, looking exhausted. That was understandable. He suspected she’d taken more than a trip around a semi-abandoned trailer park. She’d taken a trip back through time.

  She looked pale, shaky and he took her arm, telling himself it was not an excuse to touch her. Not, not, not.

  It was costing her a lot and he wanted to get her somewhere where she could regroup. Let her do what she did best — do research online. And while she did that, he could feed her, make her some tea, let her recover from what were traumatic memories. They’d been right to come here but whatever was here to be found, they’d found it. It had given them the certainty that they were on the right path, but it had eaten her up alive. She looked dead on her feet.

  Whatever concrete clues there might have been here were long gone.

  He turned them around to get back to the SUV parked at the entrance. To get there they crossed a big path he hadn’t noticed before. Hope stiffened and pulled away from him, immediately swerving into the new path. Ohhhh-kay. Luke gave a sigh and followed her. Whatever she was doing, she was compelled to do it and he didn’t want to stifle her.

  Hope walked straight as an arrow down this path, moving in and out of the sunlight, as high trees overhead provided the occasional shady canopy. It had the effect of making her look as if she were walking through spotlights. It made her look like a star on the stage. Luke was beginning to realize she was a star, in every sense there was. He was seeing her down, at her worst. Hunted, in danger. Realizing that her entire life was a lie.

  But that didn’t diminish her. Her sense of purpose, her deep intelligence just shone, like the sun beaming down on her. It was amazing. She glowed in the sunlight.

  Unless … Luke sighed. Unless that was how he saw her. Like a superstar. She sure had superpowers. Beautiful and wicked smart and sexy. That was it. He was attracted to her in a way he’d never been attracted before, which was scary because she was a job and you don’t mess with jobs. It was also exciting because she was, yes, a job but she wouldn’t be a job forever. And afterwards …

  Gah. While he was slobbering over her cute backside and planning for when he could ask her out, she’d rushed ahead down the path. He lengthened his stride and caught up with her.

  Man, it was all wrong. Wrong time, wrong place and she was tangled up in something very bad. But the crazy thing was, Luke was feeling really good. He knew all the bad parts about this situation but he also knew he was feeling … upbeat. The world had been gray and lifeless, mere bony sticks of existence, for a while. Since the trial. He did what was essential because he was a Reynolds and they never faltered. He got up, went to work, ate, worked out, watched some TV, read the newspapers, had the occasional beer with a friend. None of it meant anything, not really. Most of the time he’d felt outside himself, watching himself go through the motions. No colors, no tastes, nothing.

  Now he drew in a deep breath, smelling all the scents of the forest. The scent of new leaves, the dust raised by their feet, the wildflowers growing along the sides of the path. His body felt loose and strong, alive in every cell. He welcomed this challenge because at the end of it, Hope would be free and maybe … hmmm. She’d definitely kissed him back. She was caught up in this too. They were uncovering what had happened to her in the past but once they did, they had the future stretching out ahead of them.

  A future they might share.

  It felt good to think of the future with hopefulness and not dread. With a woman who enticed him like no other.

  The path finally led to a ramshackle wooden cabin fairly deep into the woods. It had shingle sidings that were warped and gray and, in modern-day California, a blaze just waiting to happen. An ancient geezer sat on the rickety porch, like a caricature out of a movie. Not Deliverance, more like Jackass. He had a long gray pony tail, a loose shirt that had been washed a billion times and pants that were too big on him. He looked like someone who’d lost a lot of weight recently.

  The old man was watching them steadily, not getting up but not ignoring them either. Luke stopped about ten feet out. He made sure that Hope was on his left hand side. His right hand was down, loose. He could reach his weapon in less than a second. He’d timed it.

  “Hey,” he said to the old man.

  “Hey b
ack.” The man wasn’t as great a wreck as Luke had thought at first. The entire trailer park was decayed and abandoned and he’d just assumed that the old man would be, too. But though his clothes fit badly, they were clean, and the man’s dark eyes were alive and intelligent. “Help you?”

  Luke reached out to cup Hope’s shoulder. He managed not to frown when he realized she was shaking.

  “Yeah, hope you can help,” he said easily, smiling. Luke had been undercover, at times, for months. He knew how to assume a persona. Right now he was Easygoing Guy, Mr. Average. Affable, harmless. “I’m writing a family history and trying to chase down all the various branches, before I get down to the writing itself. There’s a branch of the family that lived here in Sacramento. Bunch of cousins called Sanderson. My fiancée and I tracked them down to here. It was the last mention of them in a batch of letters I found. They must have moved on — oh — around 1995-1996 maybe, and we don’t know where. Is this ringing any bells?”

  “Maybe.” The man stood up, very thin but agile. He took a step forward and brought his hand up to his chest and rubbed his thumb across the tips of his fingers, in the universal symbol of gimme.

  Well. Maybe he had intel or maybe not. Only one way to find out. Luke let go of Hope, reached into his right front pocket and pulled out a C-note. His loose money was in his right hand pocket and ordinarily he wouldn’t have used his right hand for this. But the man was clearly unarmed. If there was a rifle somewhere, it was in the house, not out on the porch.

  Luke leaned forward, holding the hundred dollar bill folded in half lengthwise, held between his first two fingers. The geezer walked slowly down the steps toward him and snatched the note, putting it in his shirt pocket.

  “Sandersons, eh?” He looked at Luke then at Hope, and frowned. “Yeah, we had some Sandersons here in the 80s and 90s. Parents were stoners but didn’t deal. Kids were straight. Not overly bright but not druggies either. Got into a few scrapes with the law when they were young. Got out of high school okay, the parents took off for Mexico. The kids were going to a community college when they disappeared.”

  He looked at Hope again, frowning. Hope stepped closer to Luke, an unconscious movement. Luke had to nail himself down not to put his arm around her. “The parents or the kids?”

  “Kids. Told you the parents lit out for Mexico. Cheap weed. The kids just disappeared. Well, they weren’t kids, they were in their early twenties. But they were gone —” he snapped his fingers. “Like that. Never saw anyone ever again. It was right after the crash.”

  Hope stepped forward, tense, fists clenched. “What crash?”

  Luke held out another C-note between two fingers.

  The man stared at her intently. His eyes widened, then his face closed up. He looked at them another moment, gaze lingering on Hope, avoiding the money Luke held out, then turned, walked back up to the porch, entered the shack and slammed the door shut. Dust puffed up from the shingles around the frame.

  “Hey!” Luke shouted. He glanced at Hope then vaulted up the steps. He banged on the door with the side of his fist, making more dust puff out. Shards of wood and stucco fell from the overhang. They hadn’t said anything to make the geezer clam up. What had happened? He’d been happy to accept the first C-note, why didn’t he want the second? Just for a little information.

  He pounded on the door for a full minute but there was silence. He was tempted, but the cop in him wouldn’t allow him to simply kick the door in. He’d done it before but only with probable cause. He didn’t have that here. And the man was definitely uncooperative now anyway. Luke wasn’t willing to beat intel out of him.

  So Luke simply stood, staring at the unpainted door, completely frustrated.

  “Luke?” He turned at Hope’s soft voice. His heart clenched when he saw her standing there looking so fragile and lost. “I don’t think he’s opening that door and I don’t think he’s going to talk to you.”

  No, the geezer wasn’t going to open that door and wasn’t going to talk to him again. And short of kicking in the door and beating the geezer up, which wasn’t going to happen, there was nothing Luke could do.

  “And you’re tired,” he said gently.

  She nodded her head. “Yeah. Exhausted.”

  The sun was behind the trees, casting dappled shade. For a moment, branches parted in the gentle breeze and the setting sun beamed a light on Hope’s face and all Luke could do was stare. She was exhausted and dispirited but also so incredibly beautiful. The sun lit her face like a spotlight, showing the pale perfect skin, fine bones, that spectacular forest green color of her eyes, the color of the trees around them. Then the beam of sunlight was cut off and what was left was a lovely young woman so tired there were smudges under her eyes.

  There was more here to be learned after all, but Luke thought that she wouldn’t be the one to learn it. Whatever was here was traumatizing to her. He could come back tomorrow by himself but he didn’t want to leave her alone. A four-man team from Black Inc was working in Modesto, helping a bank beef up its security. Maybe they could detach a unit who could come and interrogate the old man. Maybe apply more pressure than Luke was willing to do in the presence of Hope.

  Right now, she was close to breaking and he wanted her away from here. There was a connection, a definite connection. That was enough for the moment. They’d made progress.

  “What kind of food do you like?” he asked, hoping to jolt her out of her despair and exhaustion.

  “What?” Hope turned her pretty puzzled face up to his.

  “When we get to the safe house, I’m going to order us a nice meal. I’ve got the menus of all the local restaurants on my ipad, courtesy of the Black Inc guys. I think there are more or less all the cuisines. And I think we need to have a proper meal. So what would you like? There’s even a vegan menu in there somewhere.”

  Luke repressed a shudder. She liked meat, he knew that. But vegan menus were always high on the list for women. She could order the vegan menu if she wanted, he was ordering steak from an Italian place his buddy Ed said had spectacular food. “So what do you want to eat?”

  “Carbs,” she answered. “Lots of carbs. Meat. And dessert.” She sketched a smile. “Now that you mention it, I’m starving.”

  “Okay,” he said easily, gently turning her around so they could make their way back to the SUV. She stumbled and he put his arm around her waist. It wasn’t a hardship. “Carbs and meat it is. What kind of security guy would I be if I saved you from the bad guys but let you starve to death?”

  Washington, DC

  “Well, that went well,” Court Redfield’s campaign manager said, tablet in hand. Scott Petrie had been hired on the recommendation of one of Court’s golfing buddies and it had been an inspired hire. Petrie was efficient and ruthless and Court’s polls had risen a percentage point each week Petrie had worked for him.

  Court had just finished an interview on CNN and he had no idea how Petrie had done it, but all the questions had been softballs, pitched gently. The interview had been a love fest and he was certain the polls would rise more quickly now.

  They were on a roll, he could feel it. If you paid attention, you could feel it like a good surfer can feel the building up of a big wave, even through the board.

  If only he didn’t have this goddamned mess to deal with. If only he could concentrate on the campaign and not have to worry about Hope Ellis, who was supposed to be dead but wasn’t. Goddammit.

  And worry about his son, who could never know the truth.

  Petrie followed him into the dressing room, silently ticking off items. “Here,” he said, “we’re already trending on Instagram and Twitter.” He tilted his tablet so Court could see … what? Basically hashtags, phrases and numbers. He was tired and it looked like hieroglyphics to him. He wasn’t good with this stuff. He couldn’t read it easily like Petrie and his generation could. But he couldn’t let on that it was nonsense to him, either. One of his main rivals had been pilloried in the press, print a
nd especially online, when he accidentally mentioned listening to your Walkman. Rex Henry, now known everywhere as T-Rex the Dinosaur. It was Petrie who’d started the meme, the instant he heard the interview.

  Petrie was the master of trolling.

  Now Court made a point of being photographed either with a tablet or his cell in his hand.

  “Great,” he said, pushing the tablet away. He sat down and instantly the makeup people surrounded him like gnats. In a flash, he had a makeup cape on and a woman with a very nice rack he deliberately didn’t look at was smearing some cream on his face, then removing it with cotton balls. He hated the fuss but at least he didn’t have to talk to the makeup people.

  Petrie hovered, shifting out of the way of the makeup people dancing around. Petrie wanted to talk but goddammit, that’s why Court hired the man in the first place. To take care of this shit for him.

  And he needed to find out what Resnick was doing.

  The makeup crew was fast. The cape was whisked away and Court stood up and turned to Petrie and spoke loudly. “Write up a report and email it to me. I need to get home, my wife’s not feeling well and she’s my priority.”

  Petrie’s eyes dropped to the tablet. He nodded and moved away. Statements like that in public had been Petrie’s idea. Court’s wife was fine — her priority was a divorce in case he wasn’t nominated. She’d ride to the White House if she could and if he didn’t make it, she had her divorce lawyer on retainer. She was his third. He couldn’t afford a fourth, not with the wave of morality he intended to ride all the way to the top.

  In the meantime, Court never neglected an opportunity to let slip how tight he and the She-Devil from Alabama were.

  It didn’t help that Bard hated her. He’d hated number two as well. And he blamed Court for his mother’s death.