Silent Memories

by Pat White

  “They want me to bring you in,” he said.

  She glanced at him.

  “I work for the FBI. You might know something that could help us solve a case. Do you remember Raymond Phelps?”

  She closed her eyes. Raymond. The scent of cinnamon tickled her nose. Then nothing.

  “No,” she said.

  “You lived with him for the past fifteen years.”

  “My husband?”

  “Your guardian.”

  Her guardian? But why would she need a guardian unless…no. Her throat swelled, her mind swam in images of loss. Wheat-blond hair, pale blue eyes, a comforting smile…gone.

  Her mother must be dead. Why else would she need a guardian? There was no one. No one to love her. Loneliness welled up inside. She grasped her throat, her vision blurred. Why was it so cold?

  The chill of emptiness welcomed her, pulled her down, swallowing her like a pearl in quicksand.

  “What the hell?” he pulled over and grabbed her shoulders forcing her to face him.

  “Annie, what is it? Damn it, talk to me.”

  His deep voice faded. The strength of his hands warmed her tender skin. He wanted her to stay here, with him, in this place filled with evil. No reason to stay. Her mother was gone. Men wanted her dead. She didn’t belong here, she’d never belonged…

  “DAMN IT, JACKSON, do it,” Sean demanded into the phone. He paced the dumpy motel room. He didn’t dare look at the bed.

  One hour. She’d been out for sixty long minutes.

  “I can’t break into the Appleton system. Not using traditional methods,” Jackson said. The quirky technology expert had a lot of good qualities, but breaking the rules wasn’t one of them.

  “Break into the system,” Sean demanded.

  “I’ll need authorization.”

  “Screw authorization.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to bring her in?”

  “If you can’t figure out what meds they had her on, there will be nothing left to bring in. She’s unconscious, damn it.”

  A heavy pause filled the line. Sean needed this guy’s help.

  “Listen,” he started, “we’ve got to find out what they were giving her that brought her around. I want Raymond Phelps out of circulation and this woman has the power to do it. If you can’t hack into their computer system, I’m going to have to break into Appleton.”

  Jackson sighed. “Give me a couple of hours.”

  “Thirty minutes.”

  “Hell, I’m not that good.”

  “Right now, I need you to be great.”

  Sean hung up and took a deep breath. He’d nail Raymond Phelps if it killed him. He rubbed his thigh. The bleeding had stopped, but the grating pain still hurt like hell.

  Not as bad as Raymond was going to hurt when they locked him away from his money and power. Sean couldn’t believe what that guy thought he could get away with.

  Annie.

  Raymond practically bought her from her family, locked her up with books and chemical supplies and treated her like a lab rat. She never did see it that way. It would have taken an ounce of common sense to figure out she was being used and manipulated by Phelps. Common sense, something Annie definitely lacked.

  He glanced at her slight body enveloped in shadows. The brilliance of a genius wrapped in the innocence of a child. What a combination. He knew people weren’t as innocent as they looked. Hadn’t he spent the past twelve years putting “innocent” people away? Criminals, all of them, abusers, like his old man.

  “Son of a bitch.” He paced to the window and pushed aside the worn, rust-colored curtain with his forefinger.

  Stay focused. This isn’t about the bastard who tried to break you.

  Studying the handful of cars in the parking lot, he wished he could have taken Annie straight to the boat, but he couldn’t risk it. What if she needed to be rushed to a hospital? He glanced at her still body, stretched out on the double bed. Guilt hammered away at his conscience for not getting her to a hospital.

  But questions would be asked, the word would get out, and Zinkerman’s men would come crashing down on them with guns loaded. Sean couldn’t risk losing her to these men. She was too…valuable.

  “Too valuable,” he muttered, hating the sound of the words.

  Nailing Phelps was the goal, nothing else mattered, and Annie was the one person who held the key.

  “I don’t believe you…” she whispered from the bed.

  He took three cautious steps toward her as if navigating a minefield. Her head writhed from side to side and her fingers crunched the bedcovers.

  “I thought…you loved me,” she muttered through trembling lips. “Mom loves me. I want to go home.”

  Rooted in place, he watched her relive their last conversation. Did she remember what he’d done? How he’d used her to gain valuable information about Raymond?

  “Raymond!” she shouted and sat up. Looking around the room, she clutched the covers to her chest.

  When her gaze landed on Sean, she seemed to look right through him.

  “Where am I?” she said.

  “In a motel. You passed out. How do you feel?” he asked as softly as he could. Relief coursed through him.

  “I’m scared. Why am I so scared?”

  Without thinking, he took her hand. He couldn’t help himself. “You’re okay.”

  Her eyes widened and her gaze drifted to their hands.

  “I’m sorry.” He slipped his hand from hers and paced to the vinyl chair across the room. He should have known physical contact would terrify her.

  “I saw this face,” she whispered. “An older man…pointed chin and dark eyes.”

  “Raymond,” he said, settling in the chair.

  “My guardian?”

  He nodded.

  “My mother…is she…dead?”

  “No, your mom’s fine.” He leaned forward, wanting to go to her again.

  “I can’t remember,” she said, her voice cracking. “It’s like…my head is stuffed with cotton. Why can’t I remember?”

  “Take it easy, honey.” The endearment slipped past his defenses. “You’ve been through a lot—the accident, brain trauma.” Being used by people you thought loved you.

  “I don’t like you,” she blurted out.

  He fisted his hands to calm his trembling fingers.

  “You scare me,” she said, a little softer this time.

  He warmed at the raw honesty. The old, naive Annie was surfacing. He hoped her memory of their supposed love affair didn’t surface, as well. That would throw her for a loop.

  “I’m sorry if I frighten you,” he said.

  “It’s just that…” She fingered a hole in the bedspread. “You’re so big.”

  That brutal honesty again. He smiled. “Don’t be afraid of me.” Be scared as hell of me.

  “How do you feel?” he said. “I was worried.”

  “I feel goofy, like I drank a bottle of wine. Do I drink wine?”

  “Once in a while.” His chest ached with the memory of a lazy afternoon and a bottle of chardonnay. Damn fool.

  “Do you know a lot about me?” she said.

  “A few things.” As much as the average husband would know about his wife.

  “What’s my favorite food?”

  “Toss-up between mashed potatoes and licorice.”

  She placed her fingers to her lips and his body automatically tightened.

  “I don’t remember what licorice tastes like.” She glanced up. “My favorite color?”

  “Purple.”

  “Do I like chocolate?”

  “Not as much as grape bubble gum.”

  “What’s my favorite book?”

  “Anne of Green Gables.”

  “TV show?”

  “You never missed Monday night pro wrestling.”

  “Wrestling.” Her gaze shot up to meet his. “How do you know all that?”

  “I was working undercover as your bodyguard for the FBI. I was
with you most of the time.”

  “Then why can’t I remember you?”

  “The accident caused serious swelling around your brain.”

  Because I ripped out your heart and squashed it under my boots.

  “Do you remember anything at all?” he asked, hoping she’d remember where she hid evidence that could put Phelps behind bars.

  “I remember the hospital. Nurse Lydia. The day you came…” She edged to the opposite side of the bed.

  “Annie?”

  “It was you.” Her blue eyes widened.

  “Annie, calm down.”

  She shifted off the bed and stumbled backward toward the bathroom. “Too fast in the car. You did this.”

  He stood, extending his hand. “Annie, wait—”

  “No, I remember…you hurt me.”

  Backing up, she fumbled into the bathroom and locked the door. Hell, how could he blame her for wanting to get away from him? She was right. He did hurt her. Only, it wasn’t the way she thought. He hadn’t driven her car off a cliff. She had done that all by herself out of anger and confusion. And pain.

  “Annie, unlock the door,” he called through the cheap wood.

  “No.”

  “What if you pass out like before? I’m here to take care of you.”

  “Go away!”

  “I can’t help you if you’re locked in there.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  “I care about you.” A knot balled in his chest.

  “You’re lying!”

  “Let me help you.”

  “If you want to help, get my mom or Raymond.”

  “I can’t do that,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “Come out and I’ll explain.”

  “No!”

  He went for the jugular, knowing her honor would drive her to do most anything.

  “Listen to me. You were working on a scientific formula that could hurt people if it falls into the wrong hands.”

  “I don’t believe you. I wouldn’t create something bad. I’m good. I’m a good girl.”

  He gripped the doorknob at the sound of panic in her voice. Had he pushed her too far?

  “Open the door,” he demanded.

  “Leave me alone!”

  “Open it now or I’ll break it down.”

  Silence.

  “Annie!”

  The image of her passing out and banging her head against the porcelain tub drove him nuts. He took a few steps back, and then rammed the door with his left shoulder. Once, twice. On the third try, the door popped open.

  His breath caught at the sight of her curled into a ball in the bathtub, her arms wrapped around bent knees and her teeth chattering as if she’d been frozen in a block of ice.

  “Don’t…hurt me,” she said through clicking teeth.

  His blood ran cold. Memories flooded to the surface. His mother’s wails, his father’s grunts.

  The pale yellow bathroom walls closed in, suffocating him. He took a step back, then another. Before he knew it he was in the parking lot, looking up into the rain.

  He grabbed the cell phone from the rented sedan and punched in his boss’s number, then ambled toward the pop machine behind the office. Too bad it didn’t spit out pints of whiskey.

  “Agent Connors,” his boss answered.

  “It’s MacNeil.”

  “Everything under control?”

  “She woke up. You talk to Jackson?” He dropped four quarters into the machine and punched the cola button for a quick sugar buzz.

  “Gave him the unofficial go-ahead. Also, the psychologist says not to pressure the woman. If you force her memories, she could regress.”

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Let her remember on her own.”

  “She remembers Raymond.”

  “Really?”

  “Just his face.” He flipped the metal tab and soda fizzed over the lip of the can.

  “What else does she remember?”

  “That’s it.” He hesitated. “Listen, I need off this one.”

  “Why?”

  “In more than ten years, have I ever asked to be reassigned?”

  “No. You burned out?”

  “More or less.” He placed the cold can to his forehead.

  “I don’t like it. The fewer people involved in this case, the better. For the woman’s sake.”

  For Annie’s sake, he needed to be as far away from her as possible. He couldn’t stand her purity and innocence. He knew, if ordered, he’d chew her up and spit her out again to reach his goal. Maybe it was time for a new goal.

  “MacNeil?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Stick with her for a couple of days. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Sooner.” He didn’t know how much more of this he could take: Annie playing twenty questions one minute, being terrified of him the next.

  “I’ll do what I can,” Connors said. “Sounds like you could use a vacation. Fly to some island and have some half-naked woman bring you umbrella drinks.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  He shut the phone and stuck it in his back pocket. A vacation is exactly what he didn’t need. No, he needed to dive into a new case, chase down another bastard like Raymond Phelps and put him away for life. All a vacation would do is force him to think about things that kept him up at night.

  He had to get away from Annie, her sweet voice and gentle nature—and from the gut-wrenching fear he read in her eyes when she looked at him.

  Although naive, she was smart enough to be scared of him, to know what he could do to her physically and emotionally.

  “It’s my job,” he muttered to himself, running his hand through wet hair.

  His job. Get the bad guys. Put them away for life. Make sure they wouldn’t hurt anyone ever again.

  He’d almost nailed Phelps. The FBI was so close to exposing his plan to release a dangerous virus and then hold the world hostage by offering the only cure—Annie’s vaccine.

  But Raymond’s order to have Annie killed threw a monkey wrench into everything. Sean would blow his cover unless he did as he was told. He had no choice: one way or another he had to purge Annie from his heart.

  That’s when it became clear to Sean that he and Annie could never sit on a front porch sipping lemonade, and never take a vacation in the Grand Canyon as he’d promised. It was all a game of make-believe.

  Only, he couldn’t help but fantasize about what a great mother she’d be. He couldn’t forget the image of Annie naked in his bed, reaching out for him, opening and closing her fingers like she did when she wanted something.

  And she’d wanted him. She’d made that painfully clear on more than one occasion. But he wasn’t real. He was a pretend lover with a cast-iron heart and guts to match. Cold, emotionless guts coupled with an animal magnetism that had drawn her in and made her fall in love with him. Cold, heartless guts passed down from generation to generation of MacNeil men.

  He stilled at the memory of her eyes just now, round with fear, her body curled into a defensive shield. To think the woman had everything taken from her in the past year: her family, her memory…love.

  “No!” he pounded his fist against the soda machine.

  She didn’t really love him. It was a first-time crush, infatuation that lit the sparkle in her eyes whenever she’d paused from her work to smile at him. It was a sheltered girl’s need for attention by someone other than a father figure.

  She didn’t know the real Sean MacNeil, didn’t know what he was capable of. But she knew now.

  Her eyes no longer sparkled when she saw him. Fear and loathing darkened the pale blue. She didn’t know who she was or why people wanted her dead, and the only man who could help her was a monster without a conscience.

  “A monster that scared her half to death.” He cursed and started back to the room. As long as she was his assignment, he’d do right by her. He’d go back and apologize for scaring her, try and expla
in why he’s so worried about her health.

  If only he knew the answer to that himself.

  On the other hand, her fear and distrust would keep things in perspective until Connors sent another man. Through her eyes, Sean would be reminded of what he really was, forcing him to forget about absolution from this woman. Her fear would keep them apart.

  He approached the motel room door and knocked softly. “Annie? I’m coming in.”

  He slipped his key in the door and turned the lock. Darkness clogged his vision, a shaft of light peeked out from the bathroom door.

  “Annie?” He blinked to get his bearings.

  He heard a squeak from the corner and the hair bristled on the back of his neck. He reached for his gun. Something whacked him in the head, sending the weapon flying and Sean to his knees. A cord snapped tight around his neck, pinching the air from his windpipe. He gasped for breath as stars danced across his vision. He could barely make out the image of Annie, tied to a chair, her body shaking.

  The helpless look in her eyes shot adrenaline to every nerve ending in his body. She was going die because of his incompetence.

  He edged his fingers between the cord and his neck. No good. He couldn’t loosen the grip.

  “No chance, man,” his assailant whispered into his ear, giving the cord a quick jerk to increase the pressure. “Let’s hear ya squeal. C’mon.”

  “Enough!” a man ordered.

  The cord ripped free, slicing across Sean’s skin. He gasped for air and was hit from behind, flattening him to the musty carpet.

  Cold steel pressed against the back of his head. “Should I kill him?”

  “Not yet,” a second man said. “We need answers first.”

  Chapter Four

  “We’ve been looking for you, MacNeil,” a man said from the bathroom doorway. He wiped his hands on a grayed towel. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

  Sean was a dead man.

  “The name’s Hatch.” The man took a few steps toward him and extended his hand. Sean glared at it.

  “No? Okay, we’ll get right down to it. My partner and I have been ordered to find the lady and take her someplace safe. That is, after we figure out your role in all this.”

  “I’m her husband,” he choked out.

  Hollow laughter bounced off the paneled walls. “I don’t think so. But I’m curious what you want with her. She’s not exactly a beauty queen.” Hatch fingered Annie’s hair and she whimpered, recoiling at his touch.