“Look, if you’re worried I’ll try something, don’t flatter yourself. There’s no room in my life for that kind of complication. At the moment, you’re just another assignment. I will keep you alive and safe in spite of yourself. Once this is over, you’ll go your way, and I’ll go mine. If having Zabat get his hands on you isn’t motivation enough, remember what Richard will do if he finds you.”
Mike’s words stabbed her. Her situation was precarious. She was putting all her trust in a man who saw her only as a job, an extension of his goddamn meal ticket. She shuddered. If Richard ever found out about this, the suffering she’d endured before would be nothing compared to what he would inflict on her.
“Don’t worry. I don’t have a death wish,” she answered, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
“Lex.”
Mike’s voice was soft and cajoling once more, its whiskey smoothness wrapping around her, insinuating itself through her defenses.
Damn him.
“I’m just a cop with some undercover experience. Andy and Colette know more about this cloak and dagger stuff than most secret agents learn in a lifetime. If they think this is the best way to hide, then I believe them. They’ve saved hundreds of lives over the years. You can rest assured I’ll keep my distance when we’re alone, but regardless of what you want, in public, we have to behave like a couple in love.”
She gaped. Couples, especially newlyweds, were often overly affectionate in public—kissing, holding hands, touching. The thought of his hands on her, so gentle when he’d consoled her, sent waves of desire crashing against the walls she’d built around herself. Walls that would never withstand a frontal assault like that.
“I . . . I . . . ”
“I know you don’t really like me much, and I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot,” Mike whispered. “Surely you can bury the hatchet for a short while. Both our lives are at stake here. Think of it as acting in a play—a necessary one if you want to keep breathing.”
“I’m a lousy actress, Mike. If my skills are what will make this work, we’re doomed. And it isn’t that I dislike you, it’s just . . . ”
“It’s okay. Look, why don’t you get some sleep now? We can talk about this in the car, maybe keep our public appearances down to a minimum, and let people think whatever they like. Some honeymooners never leave their rooms.”
Rather than continue what she knew was an argument she’d lose, she nodded.
Mike pursed his lips before heading to the door. He turned back to her. “Get some rest. We’ve got a long drive tomorrow.” He closed the door.
Listening to his footsteps move down the hallway, Alexa collapsed onto the bed, wrapping her arms around herself. If it weren’t for the fact that surrendering to Zabat would get Mike killed—and possibly Andy and Colette—she would do exactly that. Death would be far preferable to what Richard would do to her if he were to find her, especially if he believed anything had happened between her and Mike. She’d run from him three times, but thanks to that bullet, she would be powerless to escape from him now.
Slowly, using every scrap of courage she still had, she pulled herself together.
Damn him.
This crippling terror was what Richard wanted, what he’d always desired. Wouldn’t he love knowing he had her at his mercy now? She had absolutely no proof he knew she was alive. Everything about the dream, the chalet, and Zabat was conjecture. They’d pulled the facts together to fit one possible theory. Lots of people cut ties with their in-laws when a spouse died, and without children . . . There could be any number of reasons why Zabat was keeping her alive. Maybe he was doing it to keep the other three men who’d been there in line. Here she was letting Richard dictate her actions and reactions. How pathetic was that?
He won’t break me. Not now, not ever.
Taking a deep breath, she undressed, carefully folding each item of clothing since she’d be wearing them again in the morning, and pulled on the heavy flannelette nightgown Colette had given her. After taking her medication, she reached over to turn off the lamp. Lying back in the darkness, she pulled the blankets up to her neck and stared at the ceiling. At some point in time, someone had stuck glow-in-the-dark stars on it. She gazed at the improvised Milky Way.
“Laura Sykes Gravelle.” The name rolled off her tongue.
She might not be much of an actress, but it wouldn’t take much to give in to her attraction for Mike. Pretending would be easy. It was remembering it was all pretense that would be difficult.
Chapter Fifteen
Mike reached for the gun under his pillow from force of habit as the bedroom door opened.
“Mike, are you awake?” Andy asked, speaking loudly enough to wake him if he hadn’t been.
“Yeah. Is it time to get up?” He couldn’t see the clock from his bed.
“It’s a quarter after two. I just got some information from my contacts. We need to discuss it now.”
There was no arguing with that voice, and the acid in Mike’s stomach bubbled.
“You’re in a hell of a mess, my friend. I’ll meet you downstairs.”
Ten minutes later, dressed and wide awake, Mike stepped into the kitchen and straight over to the coffeepot.
“You keep strange hours, old man,” he said, pouring himself a cup of the fresh brew and dropping into a chair at the table. “Don’t you ever sleep?”
“Not when Jean-Louis calls my special line. He’s my impeachable source at CSIS. There isn’t a database he can’t crack. There’s no easy way to tell you this, Mike, but according to him, there is no joint RCMP SQ investigation regarding you, Alexa O’Brien, or Nicoli Zabat and a possible threat to national security, nor has there been. In addition, no one knows anything about missing C-4 recovered from last week’s drug raid or back in April or May. Everything you’ve been told is a lie.”
“But that makes no sense,” Mike said. How could that possibly be true? “I didn’t believe all of it when I heard it either—especially about the C-4—but Chief Inspector Doucet told me about it personally and Luc supported him, although come to think of it, the whole damn thing was news to the captain, too. But the SQ offices were definitely bugged. He found some of the devices himself.”
“Or he thought he found some. Did you see them? Did you verify they were active?”
Mike rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, no, but the captain would have no reason to lie about them. Two men died in holding, for God’s sake.”
“And there’s no record of that either.”
Mike jumped out of the chair and began to pace.
“This is ridiculous. You expect me to believe Doucet made all this up? Why?”
“I don’t know. While you may believe what he told you is true, nothing fits with what Jean-Louis was able to uncover. Both stories can’t be true, but that’s not the worst of it. There are absolutely no files concerning Alexa O’Brien in protective custody. According to what he found searching all digital records, Alexa O’Brien, a school teacher from Toronto, died in an accident on the QEW near Oakville, Ontario, last Easter. A drunk driver jumped the lane. He was killed, too. According to everything Jean-Louis can find, Alexa O’Brien was never in Montreal.”
“But that’s impossible,” he exclaimed. “What about the hospital? She had surgery. Someone killed a nurse to get to her. Colette saw the scar on her back. My God, the poor woman spent almost four months convalescing in a convent.”
“I asked the same things. That’s why I was waiting up. Jean-Louis got back to me a little while ago. There’s been no back surgery to remove a bullet performed at any of the Montreal hospitals in the last year. Similarly, no nurse was killed anywhere in the city, and as far as a convalescent home at a convent, the last one closed twelve years ago. I asked him to send me a picture of Alexa O’Brien. Have a look.”
Mike reached for the printed copy of an Ontario driver’s license and a provincial health card as well as the picture of the woman on a slab in the morgue. There was
no denying each picture showed the same woman. The problem was, the woman in the picture bore no resemblance to the woman he knew as Alexa O’Brien. If this was Alexa O’Brien, who was the woman upstairs?
“I don’t know who the hell this is, but it obviously isn’t Alexa. What’s going on?”
“As I said before, I don’t know, but it looks like someone is pulling a fast one. Mike, I’ve got to ask. What proof do you have that she’s who she says she is? How do you know she isn’t part of this whole charade? It could easily be a trap designed to get rid of or discredit one person—you.”
Mike dropped back into the chair. Hadn’t he thought the same thing a mere twenty-four-hours ago? Could he have been taken in by her innocent act? And what the hell would be the point? Far easier and cheaper to put a bullet between his eyes. There was no way she could’ve faked the nightmares and the terror when he’d discovered those cameras. Some sick bastard had her in a sadistic trap and for some reason had allowed him to stumble in. She’d been content in her gilded cage until he’d pointed it out to her. Maybe that was his role—make her suffer even more.
“Andy, I’ve stayed alive all these years by believing my gut, and while it’s misled me a few times lately, it tells me the woman asleep in my old bed is telling the truth. I’ll be honest, I was skeptical at first myself, but . . . I can’t begin to explain what your friend found. It would take a hacking genius to get by RCMP and SQ firewalls, but if your friend can do it, who’s to say someone else didn’t go in and change things first? Did you send him the sketches she drew?”
“I did. Whoever that man is, he isn’t Sergeant Todd Callaghan of the RCMP. There is no man by that name stationed in Ottawa. Callaghan is very much alive and works out of the Regina detachment in Saskatchewan. He’s in his late forties and black. I’m sorry, but someone’s lying.”
“And we don’t know who,” Mike finished. “Maybe she isn’t Alexa O’Brien, but she’s in trouble. I’ve seen her pain. Someone is trying to destroy her, drive her crazy, and I don’t know how he’s doing it, but my money’s on Doctor Fields.”
For the first time since Thea’s death, Mike felt powerless to do anything to help himself or anyone else.
“So, what are you going to do?” Mike asked. “I can’t ask you to put yourself in danger, but I made a promise I intend to keep.”
Andy shrugged and smiled. “We’ll carry on as planned. If your gut tells you she’s the real thing, I believe you. Someone has gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to erase this woman’s existence and create these alternative facts. I don’t know about you, but I want to know who and, more importantly, why.”
Mike nodded. “Then the first thing we have to do is keep her safe.”
• • •
“You can both sit up now,” Andy said. “There hasn’t been a car behind us or Colette in more than half an hour.”
Mike flipped the lever on his seat so that the back came up. Alexa did likewise, straightening the quilt that covered her legs. Instead of going to Florida with Colette, Andy would be stopping over in Toronto and meeting with a couple of contacts. He had the picture of Alexa that Colette had taken before cutting and dyeing her hair, and he was going to try to identify exactly who she was. If she was Alexa O’Brien, then someone had altered her digital footprint. Doing so was one thing, but it didn’t change the memories of the people who’d known her. But if she wasn’t Alexa, then he’d know that, too, and she was going to have a hell of a lot of explaining to do.
They’d left Sainte Adèle just before seven and had taken a series of back roads, some barely plowed, making the ride a rough one. Lex had dozed for a while, but she hadn’t really spoken to Mike or anyone else since last night. He was going to have to tell her what Andy had shared with him, but he really didn’t know where to start. Lex didn’t seem angry, more like withdrawn and pensive.
Mike had spent the wee hours tossing and turning in the room next to hers. Things didn’t add up. Undercover work was all about acting, pretending to be someone you weren’t, but you usually knew what role you were playing. Right now, it was all some convoluted mystery no one could figure out. He needed to talk to Henri sooner rather than later, but that in itself could be suicide.
He yawned. Making believe he was married to the woman beside him would be a challenge, not only because at the moment he didn’t have a clue as to her true identity—although he was inclined to believe she was the real Alexa O’Brien—but because the more time he spent with Lex, the more vivid his memories of his wife were. He could see himself falling for Alexa as hard as he’d fallen for Thea, and that could be a problem.
My God. During those early years, they hadn’t been able to keep their hands off one another. He couldn’t get enough of her. How many nights had they lain there after making love, cuddling, talking about the future? They’d made plans to travel, prioritizing the places they wanted to see and the things they wanted to do. Just looking at her had filled him with so much love it hurt, but nothing like the pain of losing her had. He couldn’t go through that hell again.
He glanced over at Alexa. She probably hadn’t slept any better than he had, but you would never know it to look at her. This morning, Colette had added a beige beret, matching gloves, and a faux fur knee-length jacket to her disguise. She looked rich and polished. The rings Andy had given him were burning a hole in his pocket. He’d have to give them to her soon, but he might as well wait until they were alone. At the moment, she appeared to be wrestling with demons of her own.
Unless Alexa was willing to cooperate, this plan had disaster written all over it. He’d known she wouldn’t like it, not just because of the marriage aspect, but because she’d insisted on being part of the decisions for her safekeeping. Well, he hadn’t had a choice either. Everyone he knew, every place he’d considered, was tainted.
A close look at his personnel file and a half decent Internet search would turn up everything anyone needed to know about him, and a hell of a lot that was none of their business. He couldn’t save anyone at the moment, not even himself. He’d never felt so helpless, so out of his depth. He was drowning here, and if he wasn’t careful, he would be taking Alexa down with him.
“I’ll bet you miss getting up early for school,” he said, indicating the yellow bus beside them.
“I still get up early,” she answered. “The nuns insisted on it, and while I don’t miss everything about school, including banana bus duty, I do miss the kids.”
“Where did you teach?”
“Lester Pearson Elementary. It’s in Scarborough. I’ve been there seven years.”
He asked her many questions about her past, and hopefully, he was framing them in such a way that she wouldn’t recognize that he was questioning her. If Andy was going to look into her identity, he needed a place to start.
“Inquisition over?” she asked.
Andy chuckled from the front seat.
“He always was a nosy little bugger.”
“I was just curious,” Mike lied. “We don’t really know one another. I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”
“It’s fine. It isn’t as if my past life is any kind of secret. I mean, you know all about Richard. I don’t have anything else to hide. Besides, we’re together for the next ten days or more, so I’ll get my chance to play Twenty Questions, too.”
Seeing one more opportunity, he nodded. “That guy you mentioned, the one who was involved with the hit and run . . . does he still work there?”
“You mean the one I think Richard attacked?”
He nodded.
“Tom Chapman. He was off for six months but came back before the end of February. Unless he transferred at the end of the year, he should still be there. Why?”
“No particular reason. I just wondered.”
Feeling the heat on his face, Mike stretched as well as he could in the confines of the back seat and turned to the window to watch the endless stream of snow-covered fields and trees. The storm had struck here,
too, but with less vehemence than in the mountains. Ahead of them, there were more cars on the road than there had been.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“On the 417, just west of Kanata,” Andy answered. “We’re getting off there. We can get a bite to eat, use the facilities, and then Colette and I will head to the airport. You can take the 416 to the 401 and then go on to Cornwall. Scott’s expecting you around lunchtime.”
“Tell me about Scott,” he said. Alexa would want to know, too, even if she didn’t say so.
“Scott Ranger’s in his forties. He was a minor player in the game, picked up and delivered sensitive materials under the guise of playing hockey in the European League, and I was one of his handlers. Unfortunately, he got on some goon’s bad side and was blindsided, earning him a concussion and ending his hockey career. Without that cover, he had to retire from active duty, but we still use him now and then. Cornwall’s a border city, strategically placed near Montreal, Ottawa, the United States, and Akwesasne, the Mohawk reserve. It’s been in the news more than once because of illegal tobacco trafficking.”
“Yeah, I heard of the place when I was undercover. So how does Scott go from being a hockey player/spy to a hotel owner?”
“It wasn’t really his idea. He bought the hotel franchise with his ‘severance’ package, expecting to make a nice living and do the normal Canadian thing: get married, have a couple of kids, and invest in the community, which he did. But then, we realized the strategic value of his location and offered him a part-time job. A delivery here, a pickup there and, of course, room and board for sensitive people when necessary. It’s a nice place. Colette and I have stayed there a few times. There’s a gym where Alexa can do the exercises she needs to do and a pool with a spa. Colette added a couple of swimsuits to your luggage this morning, and of course the cast comes off. There might be a Jacuzzi tub in your room, but I wouldn’t count on it. He’ll have a folding wheelchair ready for you, too. There are a couple of excellent restaurants nearby, as well as the one on the premises, so you won’t starve.”
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