by Rita Herron
Chapter Fifteen
Melissa stirred, her vision blurring as she struggled to discern what had happened on the dock. A rocking motion spiked nausea, the sound of a motor humming from above alerting her to the fact that she was on a boat. She turned her head, squinting through the darkness. She was in a small berth on the bottom level. Her arms and legs were bound, but her captors hadn’t gagged her, which either meant that they hadn’t expected her to regain consciousness or they were so far away from shore no one would hear if she screamed.
She fought hopelessness. The room faded, then cleared again, and she spotted Eric on the floor in the corner. He lay sideways, blood trickling from his head, his face ghostly white.
Please don’t let him be dead.
She shifted and scooted across the floor, each movement causing her stomach to capitulate. “Eric.” She finally reached him, and nudged him with her foot. “Eric, wake up.”
He stirred slightly, and she nudged him again. “Eric, wake up, tell me you’re all right.”
A moan rumbled from his chest, and he slowly opened his eyes. He looked disoriented as he lifted his head. Blood trickled from his forehead down his jaw.
“Are you okay?” Melissa whispered.
He nodded. “What about you?”
“Yes, but we have to get out of here.”
He glanced around the cabin. “Do you know where they’re taking us?”
“No.”
“Did you see Hughes?”
“No, some guy grabbed me and knocked me out, but he was too young to be Hughes.”
“Hired help,” Eric growled. “I’m sorry, Melissa. I never should have let you go through with this.”
“I made my own choice, Eric.”
“But I should have protected you.” He dropped his head forward, his voice anguished. “My mother…I couldn’t protect her, and now you.”
Melissa had no idea what he meant about his mother, but explanations had to wait. They needed to escape. “Do you think you can untie me?”
He nodded. “Roll over, put your back to me.”
She did as he said, and he flipped himself over, so his own bound hands could reach hers. For the next several minutes, they lay in tense silence as Eric struggled to unravel the thick knots.
“Damn it, I need a knife.” He glanced around the cabin, but barring a small foldout sofa-type bed, it appeared empty. Shifting again, he tried the knots once more.
“Tell me what you meant about your mother,” Melissa whispered in an attempt to fill the dreadful silence.
“My father, he abused her,” Eric said in a voice that echoed with old pain. “She finally gave up one day and killed herself.”
“She left you and your brother alone to face him?”
Eric stilled for a moment. “Yeah. I always blamed myself, though. I’ve been helping women escape situations like that for years through an underground service. That’s the reason my brother’s wife, Alanna, came to me when she and baby Simon were in trouble.”
So the job on his patient file was bogus. “Do you work for an agency?”
“No, I’m on my own.”
She closed her eyes, letting the truth wash over her. He wasn’t a cop or a federal agent, but a really good guy. No wonder she had connected with him. And fallen in love.
Still, he’d used her and lied to her. And he hadn’t once mentioned loving her in return.
Even if he had feelings for her, would he blame her for what her father had done to him?
ERIC HAD ALMOST GOTTEN the first knot untangled, when the boat slowed and the motor died. They had docked. He hoped Devlin or one of the other agents had survived and followed them. It might be their only chance to get out of this alive.
The door swung open, and a beefy man sporting tattoos up and down his arms entered, a Glock in his hand—the man he’d seen leaving Hopkins’s office.
Melissa tensed and curled closer to him, but the man jerked Eric upright. His bad leg buckled, and he fought through the pain, but the man kicked the back of Eric’s kneecap, and he nearly crumpled.
“Stop it!” Melissa cried.
“It’s time,” the man mumbled.
Eric offered Melissa a silent look, telling her he would be all right, but the man pressed the gun to his head, then dragged him out the door.
Melissa’s terrified cries rang through the thin doorway as the man hauled him up the steps. Seconds later, the sound of a hawk soaring above made him jerk his head up, and he scanned the area. He was on Nighthawk Island.
He had no idea who had kidnapped them, but he doubted he would leave the island alive.
Why were they separating him and Melissa? Why not kill them together?
His captor shoved him into a dark sedan and slammed the door. Five minutes later, the car stopped, and he was dragged into a lab. The building was small, with several other labs along the hall, all sterile and functional with Restricted warning signs. One sign noted possible biohazard materials, another germ warfare. The lab was filled with petri dishes and appeared to be a hot room for growing germs.
The man shoved him onto a gurney, then a doctor garbed in sterile attire, mask and gloves included, moved above him, a hypodermic in hand. Hopkins?
“Now we’ll find out how strong your willpower is, Mr. Caldwell. See if you can resist our techniques.”
Eric recognized Hopkins’s voice.
“What are you planning to do to me?” Eric asked.
“Brainwash you to do our dirty work.” Hopkins laughed. “Then our hands will be clean.”
Eric had to escape. He fought against the ropes, then bucked upward, trying to knock the needle from the doctor’s hand, but the beefy man who’d dragged him in pounced on his throbbing leg. Another man restrained his arms, and the doctor fed him the shot.
MELISSA CURLED INTO A BALL, hopelessness engulfing her. Eric was gone. They’d taken him at gunpoint hours ago.
He was probably dead.
The anguish that consumed her was overwhelming.
You have to fight back. You’ve been on your own before, you can do it again.
Yet the thought of going on, knowing Eric had been murdered, nearly paralyzed her.
The boat rocked and swayed where they’d docked. Why hadn’t they come to kill her yet? Was Hughes behind the kidnapping, or had someone intervened to keep her from knowing his identity? The man who’d dragged Eric from the cabin was obviously a hired gun. Had he murdered her mother?
The door swung open and fear knifed through her.
She was shocked to see Eric at the door.
Relief made her giddy, but evaporated when she spoke his name and he didn’t respond. His eyes were glazed, his pupils dilated, his posture stiff as if he hadn’t heard her. She glanced behind him, searching for the gun man, but saw no one.
“Eric, hurry, untie me.”
He didn’t acknowledge her plea. Instead, he continued to stare into empty space, like a robot.
“Hurry, before they come back.”
He stalked toward her. Then he jerked her up by her bound arms and began to drag her up the steps. Fear replaced her earlier relief.
“Eric, what are you doing? Talk to me!” Panic made her words shrill. “Stop it, Eric, you’re hurting me. Tell me what’s going on.”
He gripped her arm tighter, then dragged her off the boat. Her toes scattered broken shells in the path. Darkness shrouded the island, and a screeching sound echoed in the distance as if a wild animal had cornered its prey.
Melissa understood the feeling.
She cringed at the vacant look in Eric’s eyes. He’d obviously been drugged, but what else had they done to him?
Had the scientists destroyed Eric’s memory as they had done to that cop?
“Walk ahead.” His command sounded harsh, his voice deeper than Eric’s as he pushed her forward. She stumbled, her bound legs making it impossible to walk.
“Untie me, Eric, and we can run.”
He hauled her forward, then shoved her through th
e underbrush until they reached a clearing on the cliff.
“Eric, you’re scaring me. What’s going on? What did they do to you?”
He stared straight ahead, his mouth a flat line. Finally he spoke, his tone lethal. “You have to die.”
Fear chilled Melissa’s spine. The scientists had hypnotized him. She had to bring him back, to save him. Both of them.
He pulled out a gun, and she froze. She was going to die.
And whoever had drugged Eric had somehow convinced him to do the killing.
But how? Why?
To frame him…
“Eric, you don’t want to hurt me.” She struggled to maintain a calm voice, afraid a panicked cry might trigger whatever hypnotic suggestion they’d given him. It had to be a hypnotic suggestion, that was the only explanation that made sense.
But she didn’t think a person could be hypnotized against his will.
He aimed the gun at her. “It will be over soon.”
Melissa shivered. He spoke in a monotone, like someone programmed to kill her. Was that part of the research on Nighthawk Island? Were the scientists hypnotizing, brainwashing men to be trained assassins, to kill on demand?
She had to jar him from this trance. “Eric, you don’t want to do this,” she said softly. “You know you don’t. You’re a good man, a protector. Remember, you wanted to save your mother from pain, but you couldn’t.” She inhaled. “You helped all those other women escape their abusive husbands and boyfriends. You could never hurt a woman.”
His jaw tightened, his eyes flickering, as if her words had registered on some distant plane.
“You have a brother, Cain, you told me about him and his wife. And they have a son, Simon, isn’t that his name?” She was grasping now, determined to reach him. “You came to CIRP to find Arnold Hughes and make him pay for hurting other people because you’re not evil like them. You can’t hurt anyone, you protect and save others. You helped me.”
His hand shook slightly, the gun wobbling.
“Remember me, I’m Melissa. We worked together to teach you to walk again. And now you don’t need the wheelchair anymore. We made love the other night, Eric. I lay in your arms and you held me and we kissed….”
He blinked, his eyes flittering sideways, his body wavering.
“Remember how sweet it was, Eric. I whispered that I love you, then we made slow beautiful love together in my cottage. It was tender and passionate, and we wanted the night to last forever.”
The gun lowered slightly and hope dawned, featherlight but alive.
“I kissed your scars, made them disappear, because when I’m with you, I don’t see them, I see only a strong man who’s always protected the weaker ones around him. You tried to rescue your mother, your clients and me. You didn’t want me to set a trap for Hughes because you wanted to keep me safe, Eric, not hurt me.” She inched forward, although she couldn’t walk more than baby steps.
“You told me you care about me, and you wanted to keep me from being hurt again. I am safe, Eric, safe when I’m in your arms.”
His hand trembled, the mask on his face slipping. She had him, she just had to keep talking.
But a man appeared in the background, hidden in the shadows.
“Shoot her, Caldwell. You’ve been trained to be a killer, now carry out your orders.”
Melissa’s heart sank as he raised the gun and aimed.
“YOU’RE A KILLER, you’ve been trained to shoot.” Eric heard the words. They were true.
He had killed before. Memories of a car explosion splintered through his brain. A man begging for his help, for mercy. Eric watching him die.
And then there were fights. His own father. Other men. Holding a gun on someone. His brother, the cops, hounding at the door to stop him.
“Eric, please, hear me now, it’s Melissa. I love you, you don’t want to hurt me.”
“Do it, Caldwell. You have a job to do. Finish it.”
Yes, he had a job to do. The reason he’d come to this island. To get revenge. He had to complete the mission.
He angled the gun, aimed.
“Eric, think about your mother. What would she want you to do? Think about Cain, his wife. We could have that, too. A family.”
The voice—Melissa? She sounded so familiar. He knew her….
No, he had lost her. He had done something bad to her, she hated him.
“Kill her. Go ahead and shoot,” the man ordered.
“You’re not a killer. You’re a protector, a savior,” Melissa whispered. “You aren’t bad like them, Eric. Don’t let them win.”
He walked both sides of the law. And he had used his fists before on another man….
“You’re good, Eric. That’s the reason I fell in love with you.” Melissa’s whispers called to him, reaching through the murky haze to his soul. “I want us to be together.”
“She’s lying, Caldwell. Do it. Do it now.”
“No, Eric…I love you.”
Eric’s hand trembled, but he aimed the gun, pressed the trigger and fired.
MELISSA DROPPED to the ground, the sound of gunfire rippling through the air, stealing her breath. For a split second, she thought she’d been shot, then realized that Eric had pivoted when he fired and hit the man behind him. She tasted dirt and tried to stand, but her chin scraped the ground with her feeble attempt. A helicopter roared above and descended into the clearing. Two men rushed through the underbrush. Eric seemed transfixed, his gaze focused on the bleeding man on the ground.
“Eric, hurry, untie me!”
He suddenly spun around, saw her and started toward her, but another gunshot rang out and his body jolted, then hit the dirt.
“No!”
“Melissa!” He barely raised his head, his voice a raspy whisper.
Two men stalked toward Melissa, jerked her up and dragged her toward a dark sedan that appeared from nowhere.
She screamed for Eric, but another man emerged from the sedan.
“Miss Fagan?”
She gulped, shocked. She recognized him from the center. “What? Who are you?”
“I’m Arnold Hughes. I need to know if you’re really my daughter.”
Chapter Sixteen
Pain needled Eric’s side where the bullet had pierced him, but he rolled sideways and sat up. Dear God, he’d almost killed Melissa.
He pressed his hand to stem the blood and searched the space to find her.
A dark sedan had driven up, a driver stood beside the vehicle and another man—Stinson, the war vet with the artificial leg—faced Melissa. What the hell was going on?
He quickly checked behind him. Hopkins was still down.
The sound of another chopper spun above him, and the trees and dirt rustled with its landing.
“Melissa!”
Stinson grabbed her arm and shoved her into the sedan. Eric vaulted upward and stood, blood dripping down his side, but his bad leg buckled, throbbing where his attacker had kicked it earlier. Damn it. He would never make it.
Through the clearing, voices sounded, and Detectives Black and Fox jogged toward them, weapons drawn. Devlin approached, too, his wounded arm in a sling. Two other agents circled the vehicle.
“It’s over,” Devlin shouted to the driver. “Put your hands up and surrender.”
Stinson gripped the car door and glanced at Eric, then Devlin and the surrounding cops and agents, his expression grim. “Hold your fire.”
Devlin trained his weapon on Stinson, a heartbeat of silence following. But Stinson shocked everyone by raising his hands and surrendering without a fight. “You can take me in, but don’t shoot. I don’t want Melissa harmed.”
Eric frowned and hobbled closer while Devlin handcuffed Stinson and his driver. Black radioed for a stretcher for Hopkins.
Melissa climbed from the car, and Eric met her gaze.
Guilt slammed into him as he remembered holding a gun on her. Her face looked pained, but she started toward him. “Eric?”
He held his side, his emotions torn. He wanted to drag her into his arms and make sure she was all right. But how could she forgive him for almost killing her?
“What’s Stinson got to do with this?” he asked.
She bit down on her lip. “He claims he’s Arnold Hughes. He wanted to know if he’s my father.”
MELISSA RECOGNIZED the anguish in Eric’s eyes and understood he blamed himself for what had happened earlier. Her own head was spinning from the ordeal and from shock at learning the man she’d been helping with therapy was actually Arnold Hughes.
She reached out to Eric, but he drew back. Detective Black approached him. “We need to get you to the hospital.”
Eric nodded. “Hopkins?”
“He’ll make it. I can’t wait to interrogate him and Stinson, though.”
Eric frowned, his body growing weaker. Fox met Melissa and guided her to the helicopter, and a few minutes later, they were in the air.
“We need to stop his bleeding,” Melissa said.
Black found some bandages and gauze from the emergency kit. “Here, will this work?”
Melissa nodded, removed the items and tore his shirt. Eric froze, riddled with pain and shame. He didn’t deserve her care.
She pressed gauze to his wound, then applied pressure to stem the bleeding, and wrapped his side with bandages, her gaze meeting his. “You saved my life,” she whispered.
He shook his head, hating himself. “I almost killed you.”
“You were brainwashed, Eric. You didn’t kill me, because you couldn’t. You shot Hopkins instead.”
Eric closed his eyes, wanting to believe her, but images of the fear in Melissa’s eyes when he had pointed the gun at her face haunted him. He’d been violent. Evil. Out of control.
People could fight hypnosis, brainwashing, if they were strong. Hopkins never could have forced him to be a killer if he didn’t already possess an inherent dark side.
The images would stay with him forever.
“I want testing done,” he heard Melissa say to Detective Black. “I have to know if Mr. Stinson is Arnold Hughes, and if he’s my real father.”
“We’ll run tests right away,” Black assured her.