Angel Face

by Suzanne Forster

  As soon as she was within his reach, Jordan spoke in a low, hard tone.

  “Don’t turn and don’t scream. Just open the door and go inside. I’m right behind you.”

  Her clipboard clattered to the porch, followed by her briefcase. She cried out, but he muffled the sound with his hand and forced her into an armlock to keep her from turning. Her heart was trying to leap out of her throat. Her face was damp, too, as if she’d been walking in the rain. This was a mortal woman in every way, and he was damn glad. His experience with angels was limited.

  Now he needed to get her into the house as quickly as possible.

  Pressure against the back of her knees tumbled her against him. It should have been easier to control her that way, but she was surprisingly strong for her size. She tried a head butt, but he saw it coming, and he used her own inertia to keep her off balance. Once he’d wrestled her inside and kicked the door shut behind them, she seemed to realize that it was pointless.

  He strengthened his hold on her anyway, clamping his arm tighter around her middle, and even more aware now of how small and fragile she seemed. He’d nearly lifted her off the floor, and his grip on her wrist was massive. Lose the hero complex, he thought, fighting any twinges of concern that he might be hurting her. She wasn’t going anywhere until he was done with her. He wanted her to know that. He didn’t want her to have any doubts about that, none at all.

  “What do you want?” she asked breathlessly.

  “Some answers. That’s all, just answers.”

  She nodded as if she understood, and he was strongly tempted to turn her around so he could get a look at her. He wanted that look. Damn, he did. But it was too soon. He had to make sure she didn’t have another sick game up her sleeve. Yesterday she’d suckered him royally, and he wasn’t letting down his guard anytime soon. In fact, he was going to check her for weapons.

  He forced her arm just high enough to totally immobilize her and began to pat down the front of her raincoat. He’d dealt with naked bodies of all sizes and shapes on a daily basis. It was part of the job, but touching a woman through her clothing, especially with both of them breathing heavily, was a strangely disturbing experience. She might even think he was trying to rape her.

  “This is not an assault,” he assured her. “It’s a search.”

  She let out a muffled cry, but he pressed on, patting her down thoroughly. When he was satisfied there was nothing in the pockets or the lining of her coat, he delved underneath the rustling material and came into contact with her silk blouse and slacks.

  He swept his hand up and down her body, aware of the heat pouring off her. Her belly was taut and her shoulders jerked as he brushed over her breasts. She began to tremble and moan, and his reaction was both male and protective. He didn’t like roughing her up, but once again he fought off the noble impulses. The woman was a murderer. She killed in cold blood. She’d already proven she could outwit him and the CIA. If anyone needed protection here, it was him.

  He searched her even more aggressively, perhaps reacting against his need to protect her as he delved into the recesses of her armpits and slid his hand between her legs. It was the one place he had not gone, and her thighs locked like steel when she felt him there. But this time she was a moment too late. Maybe she hadn’t meant to trap his fingers and press them up against her, but that’s what happened. Sweat broke out on Jordan’s brow and he hated himself for the bolt of lighting that burst inside him. He might as well be a goddamn rapist.

  “All right, all right!” He swore under his breath. “I won’t touch you again. Let go of me.”

  “Let go of you?”

  She opened her legs, and he let out a breath that must have sounded explosive. They both went quiet for a moment, but hearts were racing and nerves were sparking with strange and unpredictable force.

  “Turn around,” he told her as he let her go. “But do it slowly and keep your hands in the air.”

  It took her what seemed like days to do as he said. And when finally she faced him dead on, she scrutinized him as if he were the murderer. She rubbed the arm he’d pinned, fear and pain hollowing her pale face. He recognized the emotions, but not the woman.

  Who the hell was this?

  Fooled you, fooled you, someone whispered.

  He’d been certain when he watched her get out of the car. Now he wasn’t. The severe black raincoat and knit cloche made her face look drawn and plain. She’d tucked all her hair up inside the hat, exposing chalky, blue-veined skin, the alabaster bones of a classical statue, and huge, wary dark eyes. If this was the woman in the picture, she’d not only inflicted some hell, she’d suffered some. Life had tried its best to beat her into submission, and now he could join the crowd.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I’ve made a mistake. This is the wrong house.”

  “No, you were looking for this house. I saw you check your directions.”

  “I had an appointment. It was prearranged. Please, just let me go!”

  “Appointment with who?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ve made a—”

  He reached over and pulled off her hat. She cried out as if he’d struck her, and ebony hair tumbled all over the place. But still he wasn’t sure.

  “You said you wouldn’t touch me,” she whispered.

  This was not what he expected. Where was the evil? This was no avenging fury. She was scared silly, and with good cause if she wasn’t who he thought. Every nuance of her body language, from her wary posture to her expressive eyes said, Let me go, please! She was imploring him to end his siege on her, an innocent bystander, and he only wished that he could.

  If he’d made a mistake, it was a bad one. But this could be a ploy on her part, and he didn’t trust himself to know the difference right now. He didn’t trust his own instincts, and that was also a Jordan Carpenter he didn’t recognize. He’d made a grievous error in judgment years ago, and he was still living with the consequences. He’d misread that situation, too, completely.

  He wasn’t letting her out of his sight until he knew the truth; he was certain of that much. If she was Angel Face, there had to be some way to flush her out, something he could say or do. He searched his memory and realized he knew everything. He had enough information to put her on death row.

  She had stopped rubbing her arm, but she didn’t look any less injured by what he’d done. Her eyes had gone dull, shadowed by an emotion he didn’t understand, except that it resembled pain. It was almost as if he’d let her down.

  She knew him. This was no mistake. She knew who he was.

  He stared at her with physical force. “Let’s stop pretending we don’t know what this is about, all right?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m Dr. Jordan Carpenter, and you came here to kill me.”

  “What?”

  “I know who you are, Angel Face. I know everything about you, even the things you can’t remember yourself.”

  Her expression had turned to one of mute horror. He couldn’t tell if it was confusion or shock, but she had begun to back away from him.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “I’m doing interviews for a study. I was given this address, but there must be some mistake.”

  “There was no mistake.”

  She was looking for a way out. He moved nearer the front door in order to block her. One question ran through his mind over and over again. Did he have the wrong woman? He should have checked her ID, but he’d been thrown off by his own physical reaction to the search, and by hers. He wouldn’t have recognized her real name, anyway. It wasn’t in the dossier.

  “Be careful!” he warned. “Behind you!”

  She was inching away from him, unaware that she was about to hit the tree branch where the bird perched. She turned and let out a startled cry, which sent Birdy flailing for cover.

  The bird tried desperately to fly. Her mutilated wings fanned ma
dly, grasping at thin air. It was painful to watch, but there was nothing anyone could do. By the time Jordan got there, Birdy was on the ground, shaken but apparently unhurt, and the woman had dropped to her knees.

  She was checking the bird for damage, for broken limbs or anything else, and he could hear the distress in her voice. Birdy was fine, but the woman was in some kind of agony, and Jordan remembered his reaction of last night when he’d found the cage turned over. He’d been prone on the floor, nearly senseless with grief.

  “What’s wrong with this bird?” she asked.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Yes. Why can’t it fly?”

  “The wings are clipped.”

  She looked up, disbeliving. “Why would you ever do that to a bird?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. So it won’t fly away?”

  “But birds are supposed to fly. That’s how they survive. It’s how they protect themselves.”

  Jordan didn’t have time to explain that he hadn’t done it, and he didn’t like it any better than she did. She wasn’t interested in his excuses. She was still bent over the bird, trying to comfort it, tremors running through her.

  “What if a cat got into the house?” she said in an agonized whisper. “This poor thing would be slaughtered—”

  When she looked up again, there were tears welling in her eyes. Jordan watched, stunned, as they spilled over and rolled down her face. He’d never seen such luminosity, such compassion.

  Except once.

  “It’s you,” he whispered. “You are her, Angel Face. You killed your own father. You were an informant—”

  She sprang to her feet. Jordan saw her coat whip open and thought he’d missed a weapon. She was armed, but there was no time to react. She ripped something out of the lining, snapped it in two, and tossed it in the air. When he looked up, his field of vision exploded in blue-white fire. He could see nothing but a blinding burst of radiance. The stench that filled his nostrils smelled pungently of eggs, rotten eggs. Sulfur dioxide gas, he realized.

  There was no pain and no report. He hadn’t been shot, but long before he could see again, he knew she was gone. He also knew he would find her. When he’d come around the house behind her earlier, he’d made it a point to get her license plate number.

  When his vision cleared, he found what she’d used to blind him. There was a burnt magnesium flare on the floor. It was about the size of a firecracker and charred black from the combustion. Firestarter had warned him that she was a quick-change artist. She changed faces, he said. He’d also called her an escape artist. Jordan could now verify that she was both, but she wouldn’t get away from him again.

  CHAPTER 9

  THEY’REright behind you. They’re trying to kill you, and this time they won’t fail. They’ll hunt you down wherever you go. They won’t let you escape again. There are no second chances! Look what they’ve done already. They’re everywhere, even in your computer, setting you up, luring you into traps. They give you drugs. They read your mind. They find the things you care about and use them against you. They used him against you. But why did you ever think it would be different? That he would be different?

  He isn’t. He isn’t. Oh God, he isn’t.

  You should never have believed them. Never have come back.

  There isn’t time to take anything with you, not even the picture, but you’ve always known it would be like this, that you would have to leave everything behind.

  ANGELA stood by a wall of windows, watching quicksilver Learjets taxi back and forth against a hazy blue sky. She’d been waiting in the terminal all afternoon with nothing but a half-empty canvas pack on her back and a heart full of cold certainty. The shaking had finally stopped, replaced by an emptiness that felt like calm in comparison. She had made a critical decision. She was going away, leaving the country.

  It was starting to come back to her, the dark corner of her life that she’d walled off. Right now, it was nothing more than hushed noises in her head—the whispering of ghosts—but it was enough to tell her that she was no longer safe here. There was nothing safe here, not the work she had filled her days with or even the people she had thought of as friends.

  “Ma’am? Sorry to keep you waiting this long. The flight to Mexico City is ready to board.”

  Angela turned to the smiling face of the young woman who’d come to get her. The shiny jumpsuit she wore set her apart from any airline personnel Angela had ever seen. But then, this wasn’t any airline.

  “If you’ll just follow me,” she said.

  Her graceful turn forced Angela to quickly reconsider the decision she’d made. She drew a breath and felt it sink to the pit of her stomach. This was it, her last chance to change her mind.

  “THE number you dialed is no longer in service, and there is no new number. Please hang up and try again. The number you dialed is no long—”

  Jordan hit the Talk button on his cordless phone and amputated the singsong voice midword. He was trying to call Firestarter, or Edwin Truitt, or whatever the hell the agent’s name was, but he’d been getting that message repeatedly. The contact number no longer existed.

  Why? What had happened?

  He’d gone through the operator and even called the CIA directly. Whoever answered the phone had informed him the number was not an agency listing, and the CIA didn’t use code names for their personnel. When he finally got an agent on the line, all the man would say was that the CIA didn’t comment on ongoing investigations.

  He dropped the cordless on the couch and came to a stop in the middle of the living room. One of his mother’s hand-knotted rugs was twisted in his bare feet, as if he’d been dragging it with him. Maybe his thoughts would slow down if he did. Birdy had been tracking his movements, too, and she looked wobbly enough to fall off her perch again.

  “The woman shows up at my place with a story about being lost.” Jordan ran through the sequence of events aloud, in search of some coherent thread. “She poses as an innocent victim, then blinds me with a James Bond device and vanishes, possibly taking my CIA connection with her.

  “Any brilliant thoughts?” He queried the bird who was mute for once.

  The phone jangled on the couch. Jordan picked it up and saw the words “Private Caller” on the digital display. He hit the Talk button.

  “Dr. Carpenter, Mitch Ryder here. I think I found your missing person.”

  “Mitch! Fast work. If anybody could do it, you could.”

  Jordan had put the detective on Angela’s disappearance. He knew Mitch’s skills in that area because he’d consulted with him during the stalker incident and been so impressed with his expertise he’d referred him to the hospital’s legal counsel, as well as to his own patent attorney.

  Jordan had one ace up his sleeve in this Angel Face mess, and that was her license plate number. After she disappeared from his house, the first call he’d made had been to Mitch. He’d left a voice mail message, asking him to find out what he could about the owner of the plates.

  “Wish I had more for you, Doc,” Mitch was saying. “But this haystack has no needle. Other than what I got through DMV, there’s no history on this woman, financial or otherwise, and when someone goes to that much trouble to conceal information, there’s usually espionage involved. I’m guessing the government, but it could be private industry.”

  Jordan knew what government agency was involved, but he didn’t say so. “Did you get anything at all?”

  “Yeah, and you might find this interesting. She lives in one of those attached rental units on Balboa Island. She went straight there after leaving your place, probably packed a bag, and that’s when she made her mistake. She took a taxi to John Wayne Airport. There’s a private terminal there called Million Air.”

  “What’s Million Air?”

  “It’s where the rich guys keep their jets. Very few people know about this, but if you ask nice—and especially if you’re a woman and you look nice—you can score flights to almost
anywhere in the world, and there’s no record of it. Some of these pilots are deadheading, and they’re happy to take on a passenger or two and make a little spare cash.”

  “That is interesting, Mitch.” Damn interesting. “Did she catch one of the flights?”

  “I asked that very question and got blank stares, but I think a little cash would loosen some tongues, if you know what I mean.”

  “Sure, make a donation to the cause and bill me.” Jordan continued jotting notes as Mitch gave him the details about the Million Air flights, and by the time the detective was done, Jordan had already formulated a plan. There was just one vital detail missing.

  “Did you get her name, Mitch?”

  “Oh, yeah, didn’t I tell you? It’s Angela Lowe. Her name is Angela Lowe, or at least that’s the one she’s using. She may work for a biotech company called SmartTech as a research assistant. I got that information from her apartment, although the company doesn’t list her as one of their employees. There are no records on this woman anywhere, other than the driver’s license, and I’m surprised to have found that.”

  Jordan wrote the name down without any sense of recognition. It meant nothing to him, but obviously he had not expected it to. Her name had been left out of the CIA case files, and Firestarter had never revealed it. Maybe that’s why he’d thought it would be meaningful.

  Angela Lowe. He stared at the name, studied it. What kind of woman was this? he asked himself. She played tricks with dead birds yet was distraught over one with clipped wings. She’d brutally victimized three doctors and was working on her fourth, but he couldn’t stop thinking of her as the victim. She had eyes like Bambi, for God’s sake. They could destroy a man, those eyes. And had. She was as soaringly lovely as sun peeking through clouds . . . with a soul twisted into as many knots as the rugs on his floor. What kind of woman was this?

  Mitch’s voice broke into his thoughts, and Jordan realized he’d left the other man hanging.