True Shot

by Joyce Lamb

  There, he fumbled the keys out of his pocket and unlocked the passenger-side door. His clumsy fingers mismanaged the latch on the glove box, but he finally got it open and shoved a hand inside to retrieve Sam’s gun. He wished now he’d stashed it somewhere in the motel room after he’d liberated it from her lax fingers in the car earlier. He could have had it aimed at that thick-necked dickwad right now.

  Racing back to the motel, Mac didn’t think about anything but getting to Sam, helping Sam, hoping to God he wasn’t too late. At Room 109, he eased the door open and stepped inside. Outside the bathroom doorway, he swung the gun up to point at the head of a man who looked big enough and bad enough to break Mac in two with a flick of one thick wrist. Dr. Evil must get his goons from Muscles ’R Us.

  “Time for you to go,” Mac said.

  Mr. Muscle glanced over his shoulder, startled.

  At the same moment, Sam shifted, lightning fast, and before Mac could blink, she had the henchman bent forward over the vanity, his right arm twisted up and behind his back. She kept viciously twisting that arm until his fingers relinquished their grip on his weapon. The gun hit the tile floor, and she used her foot to expertly sweep it out the door and onto the carpet in the other room, well out of Marco’s reach.

  Mac let his breath out in a relieved—and impressed—huff. Hot damn, the woman could move.

  Mr. Muscle jerked against her grip, but she held fast, pissed and surprisingly strong. “Who are you?”

  “Marco Ricci. Flinn sent me to pick you up.”

  “Who is that?”

  “Flinn Ford. He’s our boss.”

  Mac watched her face in the mirror. Uncertainty creased her forehead, maybe because not only didn’t she recognize the name—she couldn’t—but she also must have noticed that Marco hadn’t appeared the least bit confused or surprised by her questions. He knew she had no memory.

  Marco must have glimpsed the uncertainty, too, must have taken it as a sign of weakness, because he jerked back, hard, sending Sam careening back against the wall opposite the vanity. A pained grunt exploded from her, and her knees buckled. He turned and grabbed her and pushed her into Mac.

  Mac caught her with one arm, the momentum knocking him back a step. He fought to keep his balance without letting her fall, knowing even as he did it that he’d taken his eyes off the biggest threat. He had only the impression of that threat lunging at them.

  “Shoot him!” Sam shouted.

  Mac pulled the trigger.

  Marco reeled back. The edge of the bathtub smacked into the backs of his knees, and he toppled backward, landing on his ass in the tub.

  Mac might have laughed at how ridiculous the bulky man looked with his huge legs draped over the edge of the tub. But he was too busy thinking, holy shit, he’d just shot the man. And that man was pissed as he clamped a hand over the blood oozing from his upper left arm and growled several “fucks” in a row, each one growing in intensity.

  “Mac.”

  Mac hesitated to look behind him at Sam. He didn’t even know how she’d gotten there. He’d lost track of her in the chaos—the chaos he’d caused when he’d made the mistake of looking away from Marco. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  “Mac,” she said again, her calm voice a sharp contrast to Marco’s violent stream of expletives. “I’ve got him.”

  He finally glanced at her. She stood a few feet behind him, about where Marco’s gun had stopped its glide onto the carpet. She held that gun in one steady hand, sighted on the man bleeding in the tub. She might have sounded calm, but her face—dead pale and sheened with a film of perspiration—looked murderous. Her left arm hung limp at her side.

  “Are you okay?” Mac asked. Stupid question. Of course she wasn’t. Her injured shoulder had just been slammed against the wall. It was a miracle she was still standing.

  And then he noticed her finger flexing on the trigger. “Don’t.”

  She froze but didn’t shift her eyes from Marco.

  Much as Mac wanted to kick the living shit out of the man for hurting her, he wasn’t going to let her add a third to today’s body count. “We need to get out of here,” he said. “The cops’ll be here any minute.”

  She didn’t waver, and neither did the gun in her hand, gripped so tightly her knuckles turned white.

  “Do not trust this man, Samantha,” Marco said. “He doesn’t know who you are.”

  She flicked a questioning glance at Mac.

  “He’s trying to manipulate you,” Mac said.

  “He doesn’t know what you are, Samantha,” Marco said.

  Her indecision appeared to grow, worry lines creasing her forehead.

  Mac knew he needed to gain her trust. If he proved he wasn’t a threat to her, maybe she’d believe he really wasn’t. Relaxing his stance, he tucked her gun at his lower back.

  Alarm widened her eyes. “You didn’t put the safety on.”

  “Shit.” He fumbled the gun back out and peered at it. He had no flipping idea where the safety was.

  “Behind the trigger,” she said.

  He spotted the tiny button and pushed it. “Got it. Thanks.”

  He gave a sheepish shrug as he restashed the gun at his lower back. “Guess it’s kind of obvious that I’m not much of a bad guy if I don’t even know how to work the safety.”

  When the tension in her shoulders relaxed some, he knew he’d said the exact right thing. “So . . . we should probably tie him up, right? So he can’t follow us. We can use the cord from the window blinds.” Been there, done that.

  She nodded. “Get it.”

  While Mac attacked the blinds, Marco worked on Sam. “You’re making a mistake, Samantha.”

  “Shut up.” Her voice was low and lethal.

  You tell him, Sam.

  “There was an accident,” Marco said, softer now, apparently shifting gears. “You were injured. That’s why you don’t remember.”

  She said nothing.

  “Your name is Samantha West,” Marco said. “You’re a covert operative for the FBI.”

  She let out a choked, disbelieving laugh. “Right.”

  “Flinn Ford recruited you as a teenager. You’ve been working with him, with us, for several years. He’s concerned about you.”

  “Is that why he sent a goon with a gun after me?”

  “The weapon was to protect you.”

  Mac walked up with the cord dangling from his fingers. “So that’s what you were doing when you pointed it at her. You were protecting her.”

  Marco’s narrowed black eyes cut to him. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with. She’s unpredictable in this condition.”

  “Yeah, well, she might not have her memory, but I have mine.” Mac turned his attention to Sam, fine with it when she chose to keep her focus on Marco. “This Ford guy and his thugs tracked you down. They tried to kill us.”

  If possible, she went even paler. Mac didn’t have to be psychic to know that she was confused about who to believe. “You are Sam Trudeau,” he went on. “Your family lives in Lake Avalon, Florida. You have two sisters who love you and desperately miss you.”

  “You made a choice a long time ago, Agent West,” Marco said. “Your family doesn’t know what you’ve become. They wouldn’t understand. They’d only—”

  Mac took a step toward Marco, almost overwhelmed by the urge to punch or kick or otherwise strike the man. “You don’t know squat about her family, so shut the hell up.”

  He reined in his temper and tried again to reason with Sam. “Look, just think about what’s happened here. Why would I, a man who doesn’t know where to find the safety on a gun, charge in here to save you from this guy who looks like some kind of mercenary? Isn’t it obvious who’s on your side?”

  She hesitated for two more seconds, then thrust the gun at Mac, handle first. “Cover him. I’ll tie him.”

  Mac exchanged the gun for the cord, relieved. Sam Trudeau was a smart woman.

  “Get up,” she said to Ma
rco.

  The other man awkwardly maneuvered his massive body out of the tub, swearing profusely. When he managed to get to his feet, he clamped a bloody hand around his upper arm, a muscle throbbing at his temple. “Flinn won’t let you go. He’ll hunt you down.”

  “Shut up,” Mac snapped. “Do what she tells you to do and maybe you’ll walk away from this.”

  Marco rolled his eyes. “Fucking amateur.”

  Silent, Sam steered him into the larger room, then dragged the chair away from the small desk. “Sit.”

  Marco obeyed, and she knelt behind the chair, all focus and concentration. The big man started swearing all over again when she angled his injured arm back to tie his hands, but her stony expression didn’t change.

  She’s so cold, Mac thought. Even now, so vulnerable without her memory. He couldn’t blame her. No way would he be all smiles and snarky comments in her situation. And then he realized Marco was watching him, a slight smile curling the corner of his mouth. Years of reporting experience had made Mac an ace at reading body language.

  This guy had a plan.

  “Be careful, Sam.”

  She didn’t acknowledge Mac’s repeated warning as she finished securing Marco’s left ankle to the chair leg then moved behind him to double-check his wrists. She couldn’t get her thoughts straight, couldn’t focus on the facts. If this Flinn Ford really was her boss, shouldn’t she trust—

  Marco suddenly clamped cold fingers around her own, and she tumbled out of reality and into something else . . .

  Pain rips through my arm, and the gunshot’s echoes are deafening. He shot me. That prick shot me! Fuck, it burns—and then I’m on my ass in the tub, fireworks shooting out of the top of my head—

  “Sam !”

  She shot to her feet and fought the dizzying blackout wave, steadying herself with a hand on the back of the chair. When she focused on Mac, she saw that his face was whiter than before, eyes wide and questioning and so very blue.

  She put a hand over the sleeve of the flannel shirt and winced at the answering acid-burn of pain. What the hell happened ? Had Mac shot her by mistake? But, no, he wasn’t babbling apologies. She’d seen how he’d reacted after he’d shot Marco. He’d been white-faced and freaked. This man didn’t take shooting someone, even accidentally, in stride. Besides, her sleeve sported no bullet hole. Yet, she felt the unmistakable trickle of blood making its way down her arm.

  “Sam, are you okay? Are you with me?”

  Mac again. Demanding and panicked.

  She would have nodded, but a surge of pain behind her eyes stopped her.

  Mac moved toward her. Wrapping his fingers around her wrist, he gently turned her hand palm down.

  Instead of the pain she’d expected, fear flashed through her, along with an image of herself cornered in the bathroom by Marco. No, not her fear. That was Mac’s point of view, Mac’s fear . . . how was that even possible? How could she know so intimately what he had felt and seen then?

  “You’re bleeding.”

  She heard the horror in his voice, had just a glimpse of the streams of blood flowing over the back of her hand, before the room slipped again, into another memory that wasn’t hers.

  “I’m an intelligence operative. The man we left tied up at the cabin is Flinn Ford. He’s my boss at N3.”

  I knew it. I knew she was a spy. “N3?”

  “National Neural Network. It’s a secret division of the FBI. The agents have psychic abilities.”

  “A secret division of the FBI with psychic operatives?” Okay, not a spy. She’s nuts. Crackers. Totally whack. And she actually thinks she can fool me. “How gullible do you think I am? I’m the epitome of the grizzled old newspaper reporter. Without the grizzled and old parts.”

  “Flinn impregnated a fellow N3 operative named Zoe Harris. I think he’s trying to create some kind of super psychic spy by combining the DNA of two N3 empaths.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Mac knelt at Sam’s side on the floor, alarmed at how quickly her eyes had rolled back before she’d dropped. He’d never seen anyone pass out before, and it was heart-stopping.

  After another glance at Marco to make sure he was indeed secured, Mac turned his full attention on Sam. He checked for the pulse at her throat, relieved to find it strong and even.

  What was he supposed to do now? Carry her out of here? Go on the run with a woman who didn’t remember she was a spy? A psychic spy. A trigger-happy psychic spy.

  Jesus. This was more bizarre than any episode of The Twilight Zone.

  Her eyes fluttered open, and she instantly winced.

  He shifted to block the light streaming through the window from hitting her in the face, inordinately relieved to have her back. “You okay?”

  She blinked several times, apparently having a tough time focusing.

  Mac set aside the gun, though he kept it well within reach, and went to work rolling up the sleeve of her shirt. The sleeve that had no bullet hole in it, yet she bled as if she’d been shot.

  She didn’t protest but pressed the heel of her free hand to the center of her forehead with a low moan.

  The muscles in his chest clenched. “Headache?”

  She gave a barely perceptible nod.

  “Did you hit it when you fell?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He checked her arm. Blood smeared over her pale skin, and he grimaced at the mess—and metallic scent—while his stomach did several flips. The whole time, she lay still, her breath hitching every few seconds.

  He hated that he could do nothing for her pain and did his best to be gentle as he sought the source of blood. It didn’t take him long to find the small, round puncture. He shifted himself, rather than her arm, and found the matching wound on the backside of her arm. It was uglier and messier than its twin.

  He sat back on his heels. How the hell did a bullet pass through her arm without also passing through her sleeve?

  “We have to go.”

  She was right. Why the cops weren’t already pounding down the door, he had no idea. Probably budget cuts. Or maybe the sound of gunshots wasn’t unusual in this part of town.

  First things first: He had to stop the bleeding.

  Pushing to his feet, he headed for the bathroom, where he grabbed a hand towel. Back at Sam’s side, he wrapped the towel around her arm and tucked the ends down between the fabric and the uninjured part of her arm. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do until he had time to tend to it properly.

  She grasped his arm, her grip strong despite the clamminess of her skin. “Help me up.”

  He steadied her as she swayed to her feet. She looked sick, like she might keel over any second. “ Are you—”

  “I’m fine. Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Are you sure taking the Suburban was a good idea?” Mac asked.

  “Yes.” Sam’s fingers nimbly accessed the navigation menu.

  “If he escapes his bonds, he’ll still be stuck without transportation.”

  That made sense. Assuming the guy didn’t just commandeer someone else’s ride. But that would take time, Mac reasoned. So, regardless of what Marco managed to do, they still had a head start.

  He relaxed a fraction. That was when his hands, clamped tight around the steering wheel, started shaking. Reaction had set in.

  In the course of an hour, he’d pointed a gun at one man’s head and shot another. The unfamiliar acrid, burned scent of his shirt—the smell of gunpowder—turned his stomach. He’d shot a man. Not dead. But he still wanted to pull over and throw up. At least he’d hit the guy in the arm instead of the head or chest.

  Determined not to think about it, he glanced at the navi screen. He was impressed that even though Sam didn’t know who she was, she still knew how to work the menus.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “We’re heading south on Commerce. Pick up Highway 55 east.”

  “Toward Washington? Shouldn’t we keep to t
he country?”

  “I need to find a place to hole up until dark,” she said.

  “We.”

  “What?”

  “We need to find a place to hole up until dark.”

  She didn’t nod or correct herself, and Mac got that she was already making plans to ditch him. “About sixty miles from here,” she said, “there’s a Metro station.”

  He nodded. “The DC subway. Perfect. And then what?”

  “You drop me off and go home.”

  “Easier said than done. I don’t live around here, and my plane ticket home isn’t good until next week.”

  “Then you’ll figure something out. It’s not my problem.”

  He glanced sideways at her. “Thing is, you’re kind of my problem.”

  “They won’t go after you. They want me.”

  “Do you even know who ‘they’ are?”

  “It doesn’t matter. They’re not after you.”

  Instead of continuing to argue with her, he pulled into a new neighborhood that had dirt for lawns and a freshly paved road. Most of the homes lining the street were still being built, and he could practically smell the new wood, vinyl siding and fresh paint.

  She tensed in her seat, sitting up straighter. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m finding a place to park so I can clean up your arm.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “The Suburban has tinted windows. No one can see in.”

  “We need to keep moving.”

  “We left Super Mario back there without any transpo. And he doesn’t know which way we went. We can take ten minutes to prevent you from getting a nasty infection.”

  Her eyebrow ticked up, and he glanced away, surprised at how he already knew what that slight change in her expression meant: What the hell are you talking about? Even more surprised at the clench in his gut that could mean only one thing: He was starting to care about her. Not just her safety or getting her home in one piece. He was starting to really care. A flush started creeping up his neck.