Nine

by Rachelle Dekker

  “Real? What kind of person asks that question after what I just told you!”

  “You know you can buy ones on Amazon that look like the real thing, Jessie. How do you know they were real?”

  “I know an FBI badge when I see one. Are you even listening to what I said? She’s dangerous! Are you home? Did you take her home with you?”

  Zoe’s mind was spinning again. Government agents looking for Lucy, claiming she was dangerous. What if she was? Zoe glanced back out and saw the girl curled up watching the game show like a child. She looked like she couldn’t hurt a fly. And authorities claiming to have anyone’s best interests in mind couldn’t be trusted. Her past had taught her that. So what did they want with Lucy?

  “What did they say exactly?” Zoe asked.

  “They showed us her picture, asked us if we’d seen her and when she left,” Jessie answered.

  “And what did you tell them?”

  “The truth! I’m not trying to get myself in trouble with the government. I’m too weak for jail.”

  “You told them about me?” Zoe could feel her panic start to boil.

  “I told them you took the girl with you. What was I supposed to say?”

  Zoe swore under her breath. If they knew Lucy had left with her, it wouldn’t take them long to track her back here. She stepped out of the bathroom and nearly stumbled into Lucy, who was standing right outside the door.

  Lucy’s eyes were wide and focused. “They’re here.”

  Zoe wasn’t sure what to say with the phone up to her ear, Jessie rambling about prison time. She swallowed and cut the woman off midsentence. “I have to go, Jessie.”

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” Jessie warned.

  “I’ll call you later,” Zoe said and clicked the phone off.

  “They can’t find me,” Lucy said. “They can’t be trusted.”

  “Who are they?”

  “The bad guys,” she whispered. Then her attention snapped to the door, a different level of focus filling her expression. A moment of eerie silence encased the room. Only long enough for Zoe to exhale, then Lucy’s eyes were back on her.

  “They’re close,” she said.

  Jessie must have told them where Zoe lived. How could Lucy know—

  Zoe’s thought was interrupted by a hard rap at her apartment door. She looked at the door, then back at Lucy, whose face was now covered in panic, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

  “Please help me,” Lucy whimpered.

  An image of a small boy Zoe loved with all her heart and two large uniformed men dragging him off flashed across her memory. His tiny words filled her mind. Help me. The wound she’d stitched up time after time opened, and agony dripped out like blood. Zoe hadn’t helped him; she’d let someone else influence him to do things that had ultimately separated them. She should have saved him, protected him, but she’d been too afraid. She couldn’t be afraid now. She could help Lucy.

  Again a knock bounced off the door, followed by a deep male voice. “FBI. Please open the door.”

  “Liar,” Lucy whispered, anger washing over her eyes.

  Zoe was trying to piece it all together, but there wasn’t time now. The only thing she could trust was her gut, and right now it was screaming at her to get this girl far away from whoever was on the other side of the door.

  Zoe flipped a mental switch and moved with precise determination. She grabbed a backpack and stuffed it with all her cash. She opened a desk drawer, retrieved a flip phone that couldn’t be traced, and tossed it in with the money. She left all the rest of her things.

  Then she was motioning for Lucy to follow her into the bathroom, where a single small window was perched above the shower. Barely big enough for them to squeeze through, it was their only exit. Zoe had never opened it; she wasn’t even sure it would open. She carefully balanced on the ceramic tub and yanked at the rusted latch. Nothing. Twice more with all her might, but to no avail. She stepped off, pushed past Lucy, and rummaged in the desk drawer for a screwdriver.

  When she stepped back into the bathroom, Lucy was up on the ledge yanking the lever. Zoe opened her mouth to tell her it wouldn’t budge when it squeaked open, and Lucy pushed the window wide. She looked back for direction, and Zoe mouthed, You first.

  The girl pulled herself through the window, and Zoe stepped up to follow. Hands on the window’s edge, she caught sight of the latch. It was broken off. She paused and eyed it curiously. Lucy had broken the latch completely. That didn’t seem possible. For a half second Zoe questioned what she was doing, risking so much with so little knowledge. Was this a mistake?

  She saw Lucy looking up at her from the outside, her eyes pleading. There was no turning back now. Ignoring the familiar rage of fear, Zoe let the unknown go and pulled herself through the window.

  SIX

  SEELEY WALKED INTO the motel room, where four agents were rummaging through its contents looking for clues, cataloguing items, and gathering as much information as they could.

  Dave McCoy stepped across the room to meet Seeley.

  “A techie who does fieldwork,” Seeley said. “Where’d they find you?”

  “Unique case calls for a unique approach,” McCoy said.

  “That’s putting it mildly. Anything?”

  “Lucy was here. We found her clothes in the dryer. Looks like she escaped out the back window. The latch is broken. By the time our guys got the manager to let them in, she was long gone.”

  “And this Zoe Johnson?” Seeley asked.

  “Gone as well. Seems she may be helping Lucy.” McCoy stepped backward and grabbed a bagged item off the small wooden desk. “She left her phone behind, which seems odd in this day and age.”

  Seeley took the bag from McCoy and opened it. “Unless it was intentional? We could have tracked this.”

  “Smart girl.”

  Seeley eyed McCoy. “What do we know about her?”

  “Not a lot. Zoe Johnson, twenty-four, has been working at the diner the last eight months. Before that it’s pretty much a blank. She’s not a sharer, according to Miss Mack, who definitely is.”

  Seeley turned the phone in his hand. He imagined when they searched it, they’d find nothing. If she was smart enough to leave it behind, she was probably smart enough not to keep anything of value on it. Which was exactly what he would do. Which meant she had something to hide.

  “Miss Mack also mentioned how peculiar the girl was acting. She said she didn’t seem to know or remember anything,” McCoy said.

  The two men shared a knowing look. More confirmation of Olivia’s actions. Which meant Lucy was scared and alone and needing someone to follow.

  And she’d picked Zoe Johnson.

  “If Lucy doesn’t remember anything, then why run?” McCoy asked, vocalizing Seeley’s thoughts.

  “Olivia must have told her we’re the enemy.”

  “And Zoe? People usually cooperate with authority. Could Zoe know Lucy?”

  “Not likely,” Seeley said. Years of hunting people had taught him that human reactions were often predictable. A history of experiences shaped the way a person reacted to any situation. All one had to do was learn the history to predict the future.

  He guessed if he looked through Zoe Johnson’s past, he’d find evidence of an authority problem. They were a threat to her, so when she was confronted with a scared girl on the run from authority, it would be in her nature to assist. If she wasn’t cutting the girl off, then what was motivating her to continue to help? And how far would that motivation drive her?

  “Anything else?” Seeley asked.

  McCoy flipped through his notes. “The cook, Pete Humble, mentioned that Lucy tried to leave with a sleazy driver—his words, not mine—who offered to give her a ride. Zoe stepped in before Lucy could go.”

  “Any chance the cook remembers which direction the sleazy driver was headed?”

  McCoy smiled. “Said he was pretty sure he got on 45 North.”

  “So was Lucy
just catching a ride to anywhere, or did she mean to go that way?”

  “I’ll go back and talk with the cook and waitress again, see if I can get anything else.”

  Seeley let the silence hang between them as a few things crystalized.

  First, since Lucy didn’t remember who she was, then they couldn’t pursue her as they had known her. They couldn’t expect her to react the way she normally did. She was a stranger now.

  Second, they needed more information on Zoe Johnson. Why was she helping Lucy? What was in it for her?

  He turned his attention back to McCoy. “I also need you to get me everything you can on Zoe Johnson.”

  McCoy nodded.

  Seeley yanked a peppermint from his pocket and unwrapped the plastic. He turned and started toward the exit, leaving McCoy at his back. “Everything you can find, ASAP,” Seeley said, popping the hard candy into his mouth and leaving Zoe’s motel apartment.

  ZOE PAUSED TO survey the area. The trees were still covered in the dark of night, the air cold, nocturnal creatures scurrying across their land. Her mind was spinning, and she needed a moment to focus.

  It had been a couple of hours since they’d slipped out her bathroom window. The first had passed in a flash of adrenaline and running for what felt like their lives. Once they were sure they weren’t being followed and slowed their pace, Zoe’s rationality had kicked in.

  She’d crawled out a tiny window, away from the FBI, with a girl who had no memory but claimed to know the men after her were “bad guys.” Doubt started to creep in, her own panic that maybe she was on the wrong side. Could it be possible that Lucy was the “bad guy” and Zoe had just placed herself in danger? Again, she’d broken rules that she’d put in place for a reason. Don’t trust anyone—even some sappy, scared puppy. Yet here she was, wandering through the darkness, heading toward she-wasn’t-sure-what with she-wasn’t-sure-who. It suddenly all felt like a terrible mistake.

  “Why is the FBI after you?” Zoe asked.

  Lucy was walking a couple of feet ahead and turned to see that Zoe had stopped. She followed suit and turned to look at her. “They’re bad guys.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  Lucy thought for a moment. “I don’t remember.”

  Zoe exhaled in disbelief. “Then how do you know they’re bad?”

  Lucy shook her head. “I don’t—”

  “Remember,” Zoe finished for her. Frustration boiled in her chest. She let her head fall back as she closed her eyes. “What am I doing?” she said under her breath.

  “Helping me, because you said you would.”

  Zoe looked back to Lucy, a question forming in her brain. She almost felt nervous asking it. “Earlier, how did you know the FBI was going to knock on my door?”

  “I heard them,” Lucy said.

  “Before they were there?”

  “Yes. I heard their footsteps outside on the pavement.”

  “And just now, you heard me talking to myself?”

  Lucy nodded. “I hear all kinds of things.”

  An impossible idea was starting to take form in Zoe’s mind. “Like what?”

  Lucy paused a moment as if searching with her ears. “The stream that runs through these woods is east of us. It’s filled with frogs this time of night. Something big is moving north, not human big but large enough to crack a branch, and there’s a fox digging under a log a few yards away, probably found a mouse.”

  “How do you know it’s a fox?”

  “I can smell it.”

  Zoe stared at the girl, trying to get her mind to rationalize what her imagination was drawing up. “Where were you before the forest?”

  “I told you I don’t remember,” Lucy said.

  “Who is Olivia?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why are those men chasing you?” Zoe could feel heat rising up her back as her voice rose in volume.

  “I don’t remember,” Lucy answered, her voice sounding smaller.

  “Who are you?” Zoe snapped.

  “I don’t know!” Lucy replied in kind.

  “Think, Lucy.”

  “Why are you yelling at me?”

  “Because I need you to remember!”

  “I don’t, I can’t!” Lucy tucked her head between balled fists and shook it back and forth. “I can’t, I can’t.” She hit the sides of her skull with her fists and sniffed as emotions gripped her voice. “I don’t remember.”

  Sympathy washed over Zoe, and the anger that had been rising up her spine crumbled to guilt. She moved toward Lucy and placed her hand on the girl’s shoulder. Lucy raised her head, and in the moonlight Zoe could see the lines that tears left on her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry I can’t remember,” Lucy whispered. She held Zoe’s eyes tightly, and Zoe’s guilt expanded. Lucy’s body may have been fully grown, but her mind and soul were still fully innocent. As if she only knew black and white and no shades of gray. Zoe might as well have yelled at a little girl.

  “Don’t be sorry,” Zoe said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled. I’m just trying to understand what is going on here. How do you know the people after you are bad? Can you tell me that?”

  Lucy sniffed and wiped the back of her hand across her nose. “I can feel it.”

  “Like you can hear things?” Zoe asked.

  “Like I know now that you are very afraid.”

  Zoe dropped her hand from Lucy’s shoulder and swallowed. Too many fictional plots and irrational ideas crashed around inside her brain. She cleared her throat and shook the make-believe free. She wouldn’t jump to conclusions.

  “Maybe there are answers in Corpus Christi,” she said.

  The girl’s face lit up. “Yes, I need to go there.”

  “We need to get there,” Zoe corrected.

  Lucy smiled. “You won’t leave me?”

  The question knocked free blocked memories of the brother Zoe had abandoned. She’d followed the rules set by authority, because that’s what she’d been taught to do. She’d feared the consequences of not doing what she was told. So she’d left him, and everything had changed. Maybe if she’d stayed she could have saved him.

  She wouldn’t do that again. This time she would break the rules. Even the ones she’d set for herself.

  “I was never going to leave you,” Zoe said.

  Lucy’s smile grew. She reached forward and tucked her fingers into Zoe’s. Zoe felt the warmth of the girl’s palm heat her own hand and then her heart. It had been so long since someone had needed her like this. It brought both joy and pain, because last time she had failed.

  “We have to be smart, and careful,” Zoe said.

  “So they don’t find us,” Lucy said.

  Zoe nodded. “I have a friend who can help.”

  “Where?”

  “Dallas.”

  “And he can get us to Corpus Christi?”

  “Yes.”

  Lucy nodded. “Then we go to Dallas, together.”

  An old, comforting feeling started to fill Zoe’s bones. They would face trouble hand in hand. Them against the world. Suddenly the deep loneliness that was a result of trusting no one dimmed, and Zoe couldn’t deny the warmth that took its place.

  This time she smiled. “Together.”

  SEVEN

  SEELEY CROSSED THE parking lot outside Memphis Medical Center. McCoy had connected Zoe Johnson to a Dr. Holbert who had seen Zoe regularly until the girl was fifteen, when she abruptly stopped seeing the doctor twice a week. There was hardly any other information from that point to now. It was as if Zoe Johnson had become a ghost, and Seeley intended to find out why.

  He walked through the main entrance sliding doors, a burst of hot air hitting him from the overhead heater. The medical center’s lobby was a large, open area with upholstered maroon chairs, shining white floors and matching walls, bright overhead lighting, and a wide wraparound desk set up in the middle.

  An elderly woman with silver hair and brigh
t blue–rimmed glasses sat behind the desk and smiled at Seeley as he approached. He gave a friendly grin in return and pulled his badge from the inside of his leather jacket. He flashed it quickly and her face turned serious.

  “What can I help you with, sir?” she asked.

  “I’m looking for a Dr. Simon Holbert,” Seeley replied.

  “Second floor, west side, suite number 12. Is he in some sort of trouble?”

  “I just need to speak to him. Do I take those elevators there?” Seeley asked, pointing to the ones on the right side of the room.

  She nodded. “To level two. I hope everything’s alright. Simon is such a nice man.” Her face was twisted with curiosity, and her tone begged for details. Seeley was certain this would be the story that filled the break room for days to come. This Barbra, according to her name plate, didn’t seem like the kind who waited one moment to share a snip of gossip if it presented itself.

  He thanked her and crossed to the elevators, hit the button, and stepped inside when the doors opened. He could feel Barbra’s eyes on his back as the doors slid closed behind him. After a moment’s ride he stepped onto the second floor. He walked down the wide hallway, its outside wall constructed of glass to show the parking lot below. A pretty nurse smiled at him as she passed. He didn’t miss her flirtatious glance or the appealing curves of her body. He knew her skin was probably warm, her golden hair probably soft, and for a brief moment he wanted her.

  It passed as quickly as it had come. The pleasure of her, the joy of human connection, wasn’t for men like him. He’d tried that once, and it had betrayed him.

  Seeley refocused on the task at hand. Suite 12 was marked by a black door like all the rest on the right-hand side of the hall. A small plaque on the left side of the door read Dr. Simon Holbert, MD, Child Psychologist. With a sharp twist of the golden knob, Seeley was inside the office.

  Another pretty girl was sitting behind a receptionist’s desk in the far corner of the small waiting room. A light tan couch and matching chairs circled a wooden coffee table topped with casual reading materials.

  Seeley crossed the room and pulled out his badge. “I need to speak with Dr. Holbert,” he said. “Is he in?”