“Madame, a man was brought in yesterday and he has...how do you say...ah, amnénsie. He cannot remember who he is.”
Did she dare hope? She looked around, wishing John would get there so they could go to the hospital and check. “Oh, my God. I bet that’s my Michael. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Tell him his wife is on her way.”
She hung up and chewed her thumbnail. What was taking John so long? Worry crept into her consciousness. Something might have gone wrong. It was ridiculous that they’d split up without a means to contact the other.
Any other man, she might’ve worried that he would’ve skipped out on her, but not John. She’d never met a man with more honor. Besides that, he loved her. They were going to spend their future together. Either he found Rory on his own, some local was having a problem and he stopped to help, or Logan found him. She just couldn’t fathom any other possibilities.
She paced from the hangar to the front office and back, growing more and more worried. At the roar of an engine behind her, she turned around and nearly collapsed with relief to see him straddling a sleek black motorcycle.
She jogged his way as he parked just inside the hangar entrance. “The plane’s in good shape. They’ve been cleaning up the runway all morning. There’s just one new development I need to tell you about first, something that might change everything.”
He had his back to her as he set his helmet on the seat, so she didn’t see the stone-cold look on his face until he turned around. “Funny, I have some news like that to share with you, too.”
He pinned her with a look so frosty she stopped dead in her tracks. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything, Alicia.” He pulled a thick file from her computer bag and set it on the bike seat next to his helmet.
Confused and scared by his distance and coldness, she cupped his cheek with her hand. He flinched and pulled away.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay? Does this have to do with the news you have to tell me?”
“Not long after I bought this bike, I figured out I was being followed by Logan and his crew. They thought I was going to lead them to you, but I took them on a wild-goose chase all over the island until I finally lost them, so you’ll have plenty of time to escape.”
“Logan? He found us?”
John nodded, but his face remained a blank mask. She wanted to pound her fists on his chest to snap him out of whatever weird trance he was in. “Yeah, he found me.”
“How?”
His eyes flickered to the file on the bike seat, then his lips twisted into a sardonic grin. “He said you tipped him off.”
Her heart sank. What lies had Logan convinced John of? “John, whatever Logan said to you, he’s wrong. You know me. You know I’d never give you up like that. I love you.”
“That’s what I thought, too. Then he gave me this.” He picked up the file and thrust it toward her.
“What’s in here?”
“Proof that you had set me up to take the fall for Rory’s prison break and murder. That you set me up as your murderer. Tell me that this isn’t true.”
A ringing started in her ears. Impossible. How had Logan gotten that information? She’d been so careful. No one was ever supposed to find out about the plan she’d aborted at the last minute. With trembling hands, she flipped open the file. Her stomach lurched and the ringing in her ears got louder. This couldn’t be happening....
Amid several documents that Logan or someone on his team must have fabricated for the express purpose of making her look even more despicable, it was there—the brilliant, cruel plan she’d had for vengeance against John. She paused on the photographs of the crime scene in her house that she’d staged days before she’d left Arizona on her mission to kill Rory. Whoever had taken those photographs had disengaged her state-of-the-art security and sneaked in right under her nose, before she’d even left town.
There was no other possibility because the day she’d decided she couldn’t go through with the plan against John, she’d stripped the bathroom down to bare walls and floors, ripping out the tub, sink and toilet. Then she’d torched the room because she knew she’d never be back and she didn’t want anyone to accidentally find the trace evidence she’d planted.
They’d had this smoking gun the whole time they’d been chasing her and John. And they’d finally found the right window of opportunity to use it.
“John, you have to listen to me. Let me explain.”
“Did Logan fabricate all this evidence or is this true? You owe me this truth, Alicia. No more lies. Not to me.”
He was right. She did owe him that. After all he’d sacrificed for her, even though it probably meant she’d lose his trust permanently, she answered, “Logan was thorough in his research.”
With a guttural growl, he pushed away and prowled to the far side of the hangar, bracing an arm on the plane’s wing.
“John, listen. This file doesn’t tell the whole story.”
“What’s the story, then? You have about thirty seconds before I walk.”
“I couldn’t go through with it. Not to you. I would have never been able to forgive myself. And then once I saw you again, once I admitted to myself that you were innocent and that I was in love with you, I couldn’t believe what I’d almost done.” She took hold of his shirt in both hands, needing him to understand that everything had changed. She’d changed. She’d become a better person for him. He had to see that, didn’t he? “I almost ruined your life, but I didn’t. Because I never followed through with any of these plans.”
He squeezed his eyes closed then opened them wide and stood stiff and tall, facing her down. “I got so caught up in the fight to convince you of my innocence and find Rory, so caught up in the idea that I had something to prove, that I lost sight of protecting myself. I let my ego take over. Rory, Logan, you, our black ops crew—you all used me for your own ends, like my integrity was a weakness for you to exploit.” He removed her hands from his shirt and took a step away from her.
“Not anymore. I couldn’t go through with it. John, please. You know me. You know I couldn’t hurt you. Don’t jump to conclusions and walk away without letting me explain.”
Then he smiled, but it was the cruelest, most calculated smile she’d ever seen. She pulled back, feeling as though she’d been slapped.
“Like you did to me? Except you didn’t just jump to conclusions and walk away. You planned to frame me for murder and being a traitor to my country.”
What could she say to that? Yes, she had. But that was before. She’d changed so much since then. She’d let go of the bitterness and embraced her chance for love, for a new life with the man who had more honor in his little finger than she had in her whole body. “But I didn’t.”
It sounded like the flimsiest of retorts to her ears. A pathetic justification for the horrific thoughts she’d harbored and nearly acted on. A tear rolled down her cheek, with a million more behind it waiting to come out. She almost said “It wasn’t my intention to hurt you,” except that it had been. As much as she’d wanted to kill Rory to extract revenge, she’d wanted John to pay for hurting her, too.
“I’ve changed.” It was the only real argument she had.
His sigh in response was deep and pensive. “Maybe so, but I don’t think I have it in me to give my heart to someone who nearly ruined me after I’d devoted two years to our relationship, to loving and cherishing you with everything I had in me.”
Nodding, she wrapped her arms around her middle. There was no argument to counter the truth in his words. She couldn’t blame him for being unable to forgive her.
“With the plane, you should be able to get away safely.”
She stared down at the ground. “This can’t be happening.”
“That was my thought exactly when Logan told me you tipped him off on where to find me
so he could ambush me, then gave me this file.”
He picked up the motorcycle helmet. Desperate and hurt, she rushed forward, blocking his bike from leaving.
“I love you. I know now that I’ve always loved you and I was just too full of pride to see that. I was too scared that loving you would strip me of control and power and all the things I thought I needed to thrive. I didn’t tip Logan off about where you were and despite that I planned to frame you, I couldn’t go through with it. Because I love you. And you love me. And if you drive away, there’s nothing left of us and I’ll die inside, John. Because I can’t live without you. I don’t want to.”
He put the helmet on, visor up, and straddled the bike. She met his icy stare through her tear-filled eyes.
“I deserve better than this.” His voice was husky, proving that behind the ice-deadened eyes lived the soul of a man she’d deeply hurt.
“Yes, you do. And I’m going to do better. I’m going to prove you can trust me, if you’ll just give me a chance.”
Lines of heavy sorrow settled over his face. He swallowed. He reached out, cradling her cheek in his hand. She closed her eyes and let the tears roll from her skin to his. Giving it all up, the pride, the control, the hard-hearted operative she’d become, the hate for Rory. Everything. For love.
“Please,” she breathed.
Then the warmth and strength of his hand was gone. “Goodbye, Alicia.”
Chapter 15
Alicia stood at the foot of Rory’s hospital bed, watching him sleep.
Without John by her side, she was utterly lost, and her only anchor was this new purpose—to clear his name.
Impatient to get on with her plan, she unfolded her knife and pricked Rory’s broken right arm just above the edge of his cast. In his sleep, he flinched, then groaned, looking absolutely helpless.
She smiled, dreams of vengeance coursing through her blood. Not for herself, but for John. What she’d figured out in the hour since he’d left her was that she needed him so much more than he needed her. He’d changed her for the better in fundamental ways, showing her that trust and love made her stronger, not weaker, that having a true partner didn’t mean giving up control, but instead making control less important. Nothing, she learned from John, was more important than honor.
It was why she’d undertaken the most honorable course of action possible—to force Rory to tell the world the truth about John’s innocence, then confess to every one of her sins and surrender herself to ICE.
Rory’s eyelids fluttered open, then closed, then open again. Wide-open and terrified. He pushed back, pedaling up the bed as if he was trying to get away from her. Too bad for him she’d found soft restraints dangling from the bedframe and had secured them over his left wrist and both feet. “Alicia? How did you...”
So much for John Doe’s supposed amnesia.
“I told them I was your wife.” She scraped the point of her knife over the blanket covering his leg as she strolled up the bed. “It’s fitting, don’t you think? Our futures were bound together from the moment you shot me. It gives new meaning to the vow ‘Till death do us part.’”
He settled back down against his pillow, feigning a casualness she knew was masking his fear. “If you’re going to return the favor, then get it over with. Save the theatrics.”
She smiled and got down low to his face, the better to hear his erratic breathing as she pressed the side of her blade into his neck. Not so forceful as to draw blood, of course. She couldn’t have the nurses or doctors suspecting anything, but it was enough to watch him squirm in pain. “My poor, delusional husband. Actually, your doctors released you into my care. Isn’t that wonderful news? Your discharge order should be coming through the hospital’s computer network any minute now.”
Before coming to stand vigil at Rory’s bedside as the worried wife, she’d taken the time to do that part right, hacking into the computer’s network and faking his doctor’s discharge orders. If her code had executed as she’d designed it to, then a nurse would be walking through the door any minute to take out Rory’s IV and bid them farewell.
He drew a labored breath, then futilely pulled his arms up, tugging on the restraints. “You put something on my chest. What is it?”
“Something you taught me to make when our crew went on a mission in Uzbekistan.”
His facade of calm disappeared. “You strapped an IED on me?”
She smiled. This, the threat, was better than killing him, better than hurting him. She only wished John had been by her side to witness it.
“You wouldn’t blow me up in a hospital. You’d hurt civilians.”
“You’re right. And I thought of that, too. I’d never hurt civilians—you’ve done enough of that yourself. So here’s the plan. If you run, I’ll wait until you’re outside, then I’ll detonate.” She pinched his cheek, then waved the cell phone she’d specially programmed. “That’s what remote detonators were invented for, silly.”
“And if I cry for help and tell the staff you’ve strapped a bomb to me?”
She shrugged, having already thought of that possibility, too. “Then we’ll both be arrested, which is fine because we’re both criminals. It won’t take the authorities long to figure out that you’re an escaped murderer. Any other questions?”
He opened his mouth, but closed it again as a nurse bustled into the room. Alicia collapsed her blade and slid it into her pocket.
“Mrs. Morris, why is he restrained?” the nurse asked in a heavy French accent.
Alicia shook her head and forced a worried, nervous-wife look onto her face. “He was having a nightmare in his sleep, and his arms were flailing everywhere. I was afraid he’d hurt his broken arm or pull out his IV. I didn’t know what else to do.”
The nurse got down to the task of removing the restraints. “You could have summoned a nurse.”
“I’m sorry. This ordeal has me flustered. I thought I’d lost my beloved Michael forever.” She smoothed a hand over his stomach and watched the nurse remove the last of the restraints, then Rory’s IV.
“Mr. Morris’s discharge papers came through.” She set a small stack of papers on the bed.
“I don’t think I’m well enough to leave,” Rory said. “I don’t know who this woman is. She’s not my wife. I think she’s trying to kidnap me.”
Bold move. But she was ready for that.
She summoned a sob and held out a photograph on her phone of the two of them embracing in wedding fineries that had only taken a couple minutes to fake on Photoshop. “Oh, Michael, the doctor thought this might happen. He said the best thing for your memory was to be at the condo, surrounded by your family. We can look at more of our wedding pictures tonight and I’ll make your favorite dinner. The children have been so worried about you.”
“Everything is going to be all right, Mr. Morris. I know you’re groggy, but your wife is right. Being with your family is the best thing for you right now.” The nurse then proceeded with a tedious accounting of the orders, what he should eat and how much he should sleep, as well as several prescriptions for pain relievers and sleep aids that Alicia had fake-ordered for him.
When the nurse was done, she patted the back of Rory’s hand. “You two are free to leave. Let me summon a wheelchair and escort.”
Rory must have believed her threats to be real—which they were—because he gave nary a sound nor put nary a toe out of line.
As a polite young man pushed Rory’s wheelchair from the elevator into the lobby, Alicia said, “Our car’s right out front. Thank you for taking such great care of him. Bless you all for the work you and this hospital do. You gave me my husband back.”
At the curb in front of the hospital, she waved, the cell phone detonator in her hand. “I’ll be right back with the car. Don’t you go wandering off again. That’s what landed
you in this hospital in the first place.”
Despite the obvious threat of the bomb, she half expected Rory to make some kind of move when she turned her back to him. It must have been a testament to how injured he really was because when she pulled her car to the curb, he was still waiting benignly in the chair under the watchful gaze of the hospital attendant.
The logistics of driving him in the car while keeping Rory subdued were tricky, because there was no way she was going to blow them both up, and so she was grateful that she’d taken time to think this part out, too. She got out of the car to help him into the passenger’s seat along with the attendant’s help, then waved the attendant away and returned to the driver’s seat. Before she hit the road, she showed Rory the stun gun she’d been carrying around as back up in her computer bag.
She’d never considered the stun gun as an effective means of neutralizing a hostile until Rory had used it on Diego right before he shot her. But now, she loved its versatility and ability to take down men far bigger than she, and so took it with her everywhere.
“You remember this? You used it to disable Diego. It was an ingenious idea, so I bought the same model. You want me to try it out on you?”
“You’re going to pay for this, you bi—”
She depressed the button on her stun gun as she rolled forward, hoping no one saw the spectacle, though she was sure enjoying it. Even if somebody did see, she and Rory would be long gone before anybody could do anything about it.
It bothered her, how much she enjoyed watching Rory writhe in pain. It wasn’t a noble way to feel about inflicting pain on someone, but she couldn’t help it. She’d grown into a woman in the CIA family. She’d killed for the first time at twenty-two, then participated in her first enhanced interrogation—aka torture for information—at age twenty-four. The muscle memory of the amoral life she led was bound to linger for years to come. Still, it was shocking how much further from humanity she’d fallen since getting shot, since she let Rory and vengeance drag her down.
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