Fatality? Fatality! No! It couldn’t be her. The normal adrenaline he’d experience may have been enough to kick him into gear, but the surge through his system was stimulated by pure fright.
He felt in his back pocket for his badge. “U.S. Marshal Levi Cooper out of Denver. I was escorting a...um, a person of interest. Now,” he looked closely at the man’s name, “Deputy Fordham, issue my APB. White female, twenty-five years old, five feet four inches, brown hair, emerald-green eyes. Last dressed in gray slacks and an Amtrak royal blue souvenir shirt four sizes too big.”
“You got it. Not just green—emerald-green eyes. Right,” he snickered and stepped toward the train, pulling his radio to his mouth.
“I’ll spread the word,” Dave said. He and Max took off quick and spry for men in their late fifties.
He turned to the EMT who treated the wound on his head every time Levi paused. “The deputy mentioned a fatality. Who and where?”
“She’s at the rig.”
“Take me.”
The smoke escaping as the doors opened made it more difficult to see the crowd. But he could tell they were moving, thinning, walking or shifting to the road.
Lying on the ground next to the ambulance was one lone body bag waiting as if the rescuers had expected many more. Thank God it was just smoke bombs. It could have been a disaster.
His feet slowed. He needed to know. Had to kneel. Felt the damp from the morning grass seep through his jeans.
“Need some help?” the young fireman asked.
“I got it. Thanks.” No matter how many bodies he’d seen, he’d never get used to looking at one that wasn’t breathing. He gently unzipped the black plastic, dreading that this would be his last memory of Jolene.
“That her? Brown hair, average height, blue shirt. That your gal?”
The similarities struck him harder than whatever had hit him over the head. “No.”
He resealed the bag and stood too fast, making his head spin. He shoved his hands through his hair, completely unable to think of what he should be doing. He had expected the woman to be Jolene. Until he’d seen the unknown woman’s face, believing he’d find Jo alive hadn’t seemed possible. This woman had either been mistaken for their target and then disposed or had been intended to be a distraction while they escaped.
“Where was she found?”
“Just inside the dining car.”
Distraction.
“Whoever was on the train may have an accomplice who drove here.” Levi turned in circles, taking in the countryside. One fire truck, two ambulances, numerous cars and trucks, people waiting to board the train.
“We were first on scene and none of the volunteers parked near here. They’re all out on the main road.”
“That’s where she is.” He broke into a run. Clear head or not, he wasn’t going to lose Jo again. “Grab your gear. You’re with me.”
The EMT ran side by side with Levi. “Not sure how I can help you with anything, Marshal. I know I can help back at the train.”
They reached the road, both sides of the single-lane pavement had deep culverts. “He didn’t plan on a road like this. Maybe there’s still time.”
“Not so sure what you’re talking about, sir.”
“Look. There.”
Every step connecting with the asphalt jarred a sharp pain in his head, but Levi didn’t care. A car was half in the ditch, looking like it was stuck on the incline, two men stared at the tires and scratched their heads. The long line of cars and trucks parked bumper-to-bumper had made it too difficult to steal.
His hand went to his hip. No weapon to draw, but no one else was in sight. “You know those guys?”
“Sure, that’s Craig’s car.”
Levi crossed to the stuck vehicle. “U.S. Marshal, pop your trunk.”
The man who was obviously Craig scratched his head again but walked to the driver’s side. “I just called the sheriff. Stan noticed my car jacked at this angle. Looks like the guy got stuck and got scared off. Why’s a marshal here?”
Could the man move any slower?
Levi, with the EMT next to him, waited to hear the latch click. His blood pounded through his body. This had to be it. Someone stealing a car, stuck, then looking for another vehicle. The two locals were lucky to still be alive.
Jo had to be here. She has to be here.
The trunk popped and blessed relief pushed the tension and pain straight from his body. Alive. They’d kept her alive. He staggered a couple of steps into the ditch out of the way.
“There’s a body in here. Craig, go get the sheriff.” The EMT reached through and immediately felt for a pulse, then gently shook her. “She’s alive.”
Craig and his friend ran toward the train.
Waiting for the firefighter to examine Jo drove him crazy. He couldn’t think, let alone concentrate. He knew one thing—he wasn’t leaving her. He’d depend on the locals to handle a search for her abductors.
“I think she’s been drugged. Nothing I can do except transport.”
“I’ve got her. Do whatever’s necessary to get us out of here in three minutes.”
“Yes, sir.” The EMT jogged back the way they’d come, talking into his radio.
Levi scanned his line of sight one last time before sliding to the ground, car tire to his back and Jolene in his arms. When he’d heard “she’s alive” his brain had jump-started.
The guy who had abducted her might be long gone, but he’d be back trying to find them soon. Levi’s window of opportunity to keep her safe was shrinking.
“Don’t you die on me, Jolene Atkins.” He smoothed her hair, tucking it behind her ears, exposing a small scar that wasn’t there the last time he’d seen her.
But he knew all about it from the monthly report he received. She’d fallen on a rollerblade date four months ago. Three stitches just in front of her right earlobe. He ran his thumb over the healed mark. “If I ever meet Darrell Taylor, I’ll give him a strong lecture on what a good date should be. Never did tell your dad about the ER visit. Neither did you. Hang on, hon.”
They hadn’t killed her, just drugged her to get away without making a scene. When he caught them—and he would—they’d never harm her again.
Chapter Six
Jolene stretched her arms, tried opening her eyes and quickly covered them. She wanted two aspirin before she moved too much. The pain in her head warranted stronger stuff than she had in her medicine cabinet. She rubbed her temples and swung her feet over the side of the bed, hitting a wall.
“Ow.” Her eyes popped open. Her mind reset on what had happened the day before and the memory that was still clear in her mind. “Levi?”
“Hey, welcome back.”
She heard his voice and soon a shirtless marshal emerged around the corner of a hotel bathroom.
“What happened?”
“You’ve been asleep for over twenty-four hours,” he said, slipping into a T-shirt that lay across the back of a chair. “Bathroom’s all yours.”
I lost an entire day?
“The last thing I remember is the steward going into the train after you.”
“Short summary version. The guy chasing us drugged you. I found you before he escaped, drove you to Dallas against doctor’s orders and checked us into this hotel.”
“And the guy who started the fire got away?”
One king-size bed. He’d slept there, the pillow next to her confirmed it.
“Just some major smoke bombs. And yeah, I stretched out on the bed. Don’t get any ideas. I didn’t let you take advantage of me.”
Was her face that plain a road map for him to read? She popped out of bed, determined to get away from him. Her only choice was the bathroom he’d just vacated. She slid the door shut.
No lock? What kind of a hotel didn’t have a lock?
“You are so full of yourself.” She still wasn’t clear of him since the steam was filled with his smell. She looked at the unmarked travel soap in the shower—his
scent. Fresh, like it had just rained, clean.
Things were so different and yet she hadn’t changed. The same person she was the day of the funeral stared back at her in the mirror. She felt hungry and well-rested even with the headache. No different than any other morning where she’d normally get dressed and go to work.
Oh, my God.
“These aren’t my clothes.”
“Yeah, well, the ones you had are still at the hospital,” he said close to the door.
She gripped the counter by the sink. She couldn’t speak, it was like she’d forgotten how. She was so completely mortified that he’d seen her naked.
“I sweet-talked a nurse into getting you dressed and sneaking you out at shift change.” The words came through the door as if he were talking against the crack. “If anyone checks, it’ll appear like you’re still in the hospital with a new room. Might hold ’em off for a day.”
“Oh.” She leaned her head toward the sound of his voice. Was this a surge of disappointment and a sigh coming from her? Ridiculous.
“We got separated.” She could open the door, but if she did she’d want him to hold her and she was terrified the kiss they’d shared had just been another distraction. “Someone tried to abduct me. Again.”
“I know you don’t feel like it at the moment, Jo, but I promise you’re safe with me.” His voice remained close to the door, softer, full of regret. “I’m not letting you out of my sight until I can turn you over to another marshal.”
She shoved the door aside. “You’re going to leave me?”
Panic. Pure and simple panic sat on her chest and she couldn’t push it off. If she went into WITSEC she’d have another fictional existence. A new life, taking nothing with her. None of her friends, no Levi.
His hands were secure on her shoulders. Firm, but not holding her in place...just close enough to make her want more.
“It’s the only way and what your father wanted.”
“I don’t want that life.” She shoved past him and the temptation to have his arms wrap tighter around her. “I don’t believe that’s what my father intended. He convinced me to leave Boulder. He wanted me to have a life, not constantly be looking over my shoulder like he had done for twenty years.”
“That’s not what his letter said.”
“His letter said I needed protection if I remembered. Well, I haven’t remembered. I don’t want to remember!”
Concentrate on the problem, not the man. Think. She moved to the window overlooking the outskirts of Dallas.
“Take it easy.” When he moved toward her, she held her finger up and he stopped in his tracks. “In case you’ve forgotten, I nearly got you killed twice. I can’t do this alone.”
“Isn’t there a way to just catch these guys and be done with it?”
“Whatever your dad found stirred up this hornet’s nest. Our best bet is to find it and turn it over to the DoJ. Then they can reopen the case.”
“We don’t know what it even is. And afterward, I’ll be stuck wherever. Doing whatever. Lying forever.”
“You’ll be alive.”
She didn’t want to admit he was her only choice. She hated that phrase. Her dad had repeated “we have no choice” with each slumber party invitation he refused to let her accept. Her first date was verified and checked out by the Marshals Service. If her dad hadn’t been a chaperone at the senior prom, there might have been someone undercover there, too. Maybe there had been. She didn’t know anything anymore.
The Marshals Service had kept its end of the bargain with her mother. WITSEC had protected them even though her mother had been the actual witness.
It didn’t matter. They had to catch the one person responsible for killing her parents. If they didn’t, she would never have a real life. Bottom line—she didn’t want to live like her father and she would never share that life with anyone she loved. Keeping that secret or dragging someone into that situation wouldn’t be fair.
She moved, defeated, to the edge of the bed and there he was directly in front of her again.
“What do you remember?” He raised a finger to stop her protest. “Just talk to me. Don’t try. Start with why you think your family was in protective custody.”
“Dad testified against one of the men who murdered my mother. The guy was stabbed while in a federal penitentiary and died. But the Department of Justice was never able to connect his actions to the person my mom was supposed to testify against.”
“Accurate so far. What do you remember about the day of the murder?”
“Nothing much. Men arguing with my mother. I think she yelled at my dad.” The headache was worse. She needed aspirin. “It’s more impressions than words or actual memories.”
“That’s okay. You said you remembered hiding in your toy box. Why?”
“That’s where I thought they found me.” She didn’t like the look on his face. “You’ve given me that look before. The same one that says I’m on the right track, but the wrong train.”
“Let’s not talk about trains,” he said, rubbing his head and scratching around a small bandage.
“Are you hurt?”
“The bastard hit me over the head. Gave me six stitches.” He put his hand on her knee as he sat next to her, but quickly pulled it back when she jerked.
“Oh, my God.”
“I’m okay. Nothing serious. And I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Not that. I just remembered.” She faced him, finally excited she had something new to share. “It happened on the train, with all the smoke and noise I couldn’t tell you.”
“Go ahead, don’t force it.”
“Close to the murder, I’m not certain what day it was, but I remember hurting my finger on the upstairs railing. For some reason, some of the nails— What are they, the little tiny ones?”
“Finishing nails.”
“That’s right.”
Levi watched as her words faded and she was taken back twenty years. He wanted to ask a dozen questions, but knew to keep his mouth shut. Her words had to come at their own pace.
“I hurt my finger and went to my mother so she could fix it. I couldn’t help seeing that someone was in the kitchen with her. I think it was one of her clients and a secretary. They were all arguing. My mother looked really worried.”
The memories were coming back a lot faster than he’d anticipated. “Do you remember anything about the day? Was it sunny? Dark? Raining?”
“I remember a lot of rainbows.”
“There were crystals hanging in the window. They must have caught the light and shot prisms through the room. So it was during the afternoon.”
“How do you know about the crystals?”
“Photos from the scene. Layout of the house.”
“So that would explain the ‘rainbow man’ from my dreams.”
A rainbow man? She’d been holding out on him a lot more than he’d thought.
“Can you picture him?”
She shook her head and flattened her lips. “No.”
In his experience, when witnesses were compelled to remember, they either filled in the gaps with wrong information or shut down. Changing the subject should get her relaxed without forcing the issue. “Why was your mom worried?”
“I don’t know, but she was. She had the dish towel drying dishes. Dad said she only cleaned the kitchen when she was worried. She’d cleaned every day for a week. I didn’t think of that before.”
She smiled, obviously excited about her discovery. If only she knew how much she looked like the photo of her mother. It must have been hard for Joseph to watch her grow up without thinking of his wife every day.
“Why do you think it was unusual to clean the kitchen? Everybody does it.”
“We had a part-time maid, someone who helped my mother.”
That wasn’t in the reports. How many other people had been in the house who aren’t in the freakin’ report? “So she didn’t live with you or have a key to the house?”
> “I don’t think so. LuLu watched me when I was sick. And allowed me to play in the downstairs living room while she dusted. She’d let me sit on top of the vacuum and would push me around. I loved staying home from daycare.”
“Do you remember LuLu’s real name?”
She thought a moment, cupping both her cheeks with her slender, delicate fingers. Physically growing more tense with each glance around the room. “I can’t. It’s all blurring together. I don’t know what’s real and what’s a dream.”
“Time to stop.” He took her hands from her face, relieved she let him touch her without jumping out of her skin. “Don’t force it.”
“Why not try? I’ve remembered more in the last ten minutes than twenty years.”
“Your dad was right. Your memory has been coming back with a vengeance. You just didn’t realize it.”
“If you don’t want me to talk, then you should. Why didn’t you mention you’d seen the file on my mother?”
“I see the case file on all my witnesses.”
“Okay then, spill.”
“I’m not going to tell you what I know.” He wanted to. Wanted to be completely honest for once. “Don’t read any secretiveness into it, either. If I told you, it may change what you actually remember. But I can say that there was no mention of a part-time maid in any reports. She would have been a good person to interrogate at the time of the murder.”
“Dad would have mentioned her.”
“Then we assume her information has been removed from the files,” he said, looking a bit worried for once. “Or she’s there and not listed as having access to the house.”
“So where do we start?”
“You get showered and dressed. Then we go visit your old house.” He propped his back against the headboard. “I’m not leaving you alone. I’m sticking to you like leather seats on a hot humid day. No buts or arguing. Get used to it.”
Her cute little dimpled jaw fell open with a little puff of astonishment, but she quickly recovered and retreated to the bath. He heard the water spray and needed to close his eyes. He’d driven throughout the night. Until they identified her mother’s client, the mysterious housekeeper and this Rainbow Man, he’d be sleeping with one eye open.
Dangerous Memories Page 6