She chuckled. She couldn’t help it. Soon a full-bellied laugh worked up her throat and out of her mouth. The thought of someone trying to kill her for information when she couldn’t even remember what she had for breakfast was insane.
Clay shook his head at her. “This is serious.”
“I know.” So why couldn’t she stop laughing? She must be hysterical, the logical part of her mind whispered. But the emotional part needed release from the tension. She’d almost drowned. Now she had killers after her. And no memory. To top off her ridiculous predicament, the only person standing between her and the killers was a dangerous-looking hunk in black leather who rode a motorcycle like a professional and had an unsettling way of making her believe in him when all the facts said otherwise. No wonder she was losing it, laughing so hard her eyes brimmed with more tears.
Watching as if he expected her to shake apart into a thousand pieces, Clay patted her on the back. “You aren’t going to start crying again, are you?”
She shook her head and clamped down hard on her laughter by holding her breath. A minute or so later, her laughter abated, but she couldn’t control her edgy nerves or the prickly ball of heat in her gut as Clay watched her with concern.
“I’m okay now,” she assured him, taking a sip of ice water and almost erupting into another spasm of laughter when she thought how ridiculous it was for her to be reassuring him. But she fought back the impulse.
“So your boss sent you to protect me?” she asked.
“That’s part of my job.”
“And the rest?”
“Will have to wait until your memory returns.” He paid their bill, left a healthy tip and walked her to the rear exit of the coffee shop where he’d parked his bike.
She didn’t like his refusing to say more. What was he keeping from her? And why? Deciding to trust him had been difficult enough, and now he had her second-guessing herself. Did he need time to think up more plausible excuses, or did he feel it futile to confide in her until her memory returned?
The worst of the thunderstorm had passed, although dark clouds still blocked the sun, and the air was laden with a muggy humidity that made her clothes stick to her. In the parking lot, stray raindrops rippled oil in black puddles that reminded her of the giant gaps in her memory, gaps that made her so vulnerable. The gusting wind hadn’t died down much, and she appreciated the luxury of dry, new clothes in the chilly air. Still, she was glad she’d left her damp underwear on beneath the clinging red blouse, especially since Clay’s sharp eyes never seemed to miss anything. So she buttoned the denim jacket as Clay looked at her in speculation.
She raised her chin. “What?”
“I should get you to a doctor.”
“Why do I hear a ‘but’ coming on?”
“Because I don’t want to take you to a hospital. Too many questions,” he explained before she could ask. “The more people who see us together, the easier it will be for your pursuers to find you.”
His businesslike tone and his casual mention of danger sent a shiver icing down her spine that had nothing to do with her damp underwear, the chilly wind or the storm clouds still overhead. “We could separate to avoid being seen together.”
Exasperation roughened his tone. “Is that what you want? You want me to abandon you to those guys who ran your car into the Atlantic?”
She looked into his stormy eyes and wondered if he was lying again. She suspected no matter what she said, no matter how much she protested, Clay had no intention of leaving her to face the danger alone. He would follow his own conscience and do what he thought best. He had too much honest determination in the set of his chin, too much stubbornness in his clever eyes, too much character in the slant of his cheekbones to abandon a woman in trouble.
She wondered if a man had ever before made her feel vulnerable, scared and yet oddly on-the-edge-of-her-seat wild at the same time. Maybe it was the direct look in his eyes or the way his eyebrows knitted together in concern, but she found herself believing his story. He wasn’t faking his concern. “This is for real, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Someone’s really trying to kill me?”
“My boss seems to think so.” From a compartment in his bike, he removed a chamois and dried water off the seat with clever hands that had long, strong fingers. He swiped the chrome with a few extra strokes, caressing each curve of the metal, stroking the hard edges and corners with a familiarity that told her he’d repeated this task many times. Finally, he wrung out the chamois and placed it back inside the compartment.
“You still want to hide me?”
“Yes.” He swung his leg over the cycle and handed her a helmet while he put on his own. “But first we need to take you to a doctor.”
She accepted the helmet, had trouble with the chin snap and let him tip up her chin so he could fasten it for her. Their gazes locked and she suddenly felt as if she was falling. “I thought you said—”
“No hospitals. A local doctor’s office would be best.”
“Without an appointment?” He had to be kidding. He obviously didn’t live around here, where a typical wait for a consultation took one to two hours—and that was just to get inside the examination room.
Leaving the details to him and wondering why she could remember trivia like the waiting time in a doctor’s office and not the important facts about her life, she swung onto the back of the bike. As at ease with her decision to go with Clay as she was with her position behind him on the black leather seat, she placed her feet on the footrests. Melinda might not have her memory, but she still had her instincts—instincts that told her this man with his hard edges and tempestuous eyes would make a good protector.
Melinda twisted her fingers through Clay’s belt and prayed she wasn’t making the biggest mistake of her life.
CLAY NEEDED TO DITCH his Harley. The men back on the beach would have called for backup and would be searching the area by now. On his bike, he and Melinda were simply too conspicuous. He hoped that after he’d parked behind the coffee shop no one had found his bike, disabled the alarm and hidden a bug that would transmit a signal for a tail to follow them. Without a thorough inspection, he couldn’t be sure they’d gotten away from any interested observers, but he refused to take additional time to search, not when Melinda had fought such a difficult battle deciding whether to trust him. He’d seen her eyes mirroring her indecision, and he felt relief that she’d decided to cooperate.
He needed to go to ground. Hide Melinda.
For the umpteenth time, Clay wished he knew more about who he was up against. It could be one handler and his entire cell. Or the operation against them could come from higher up; that meant different cells, satellite surveillance, wiretaps and local law enforcement’s cooperation if the leader had enough authority. If the betrayal inside the agency rose high enough, whoever was in charge could bring in outsiders who would believe they were aiding a totally legitimate operation.
Clay would strategize differently against different opponents. A few renegades would be much easier to hide from than a well-organized, high-profile search. Pulling into traffic, hoping they could spare the time for a doctor’s visit, Clay automatically watched for a tail. He saw nothing, but didn’t let up on his scrutiny, relying on his prodigious memory to keep track of the seemingly random traffic around them.
One positive point: The two men who’d forced Melinda into the sea knew it was unlikely she had the documents on her. The men had probably intended to grab her and force her to take them to the documents. And if Melinda’s pursuers reported in, they’d likely be told to follow, not kill, her in the hopes of obtaining the documents for themselves.
As much as Clay wanted to search her house for the documents, as much as he wanted to press Melinda for their location, he knew his first priority had to be the safety of the woman clinging so fiercely to his back. Papers might be valuable for the secrets they told. But her life was precious, too. She was too young to die in some thirty-year-old consp
iracy, and he intended to ensure her safety.
However, her proximity was doing things to him. Unexpected things. Like making his pulse beat just a little faster. Making his adrenaline rush a little harder.
It must be the danger, Clay thought, and the complications that had set in within such a short time. He could never resist a good puzzle, and what could be more intriguing than a person with no memories?
Her amnesia was one humongous problem. He wanted to hide her and study the documents. But she had no memory of them. So while they waited for her mind to heal, their pursuers could steal the documents if they found them first.
While he didn’t know if such a thing were possible, he wished a doctor could give her some kind of medicine to relax her enough for her to remember. His mission had become much more complicated in the last two hours. He felt equipped to deal with swift pursuit, the danger to their lives and even her amnesia, but it was his confusing reactions to her that had him white-knuckling the clutch. How could he be attracted to a woman who didn’t know who she was?
Even with no memories, her core personality shined through. First off, she was smart and sensitive, using her eyes, ears and intellect to figure out as much as she could about an untenable situation. She evaluated everything he told her, and yet, in the end, she had to rely on her instincts.
She had good ones. He was on her side. He respected her fears and her gutsy decision to throw in her lot with him. Vowing not to disappoint her, he drove right past a three-story medical building. He wanted a smaller medical practice and kept his eyes peeled for a house that had been converted into an office building with a doctor’s shingle hung out front.
When he didn’t spy what he had in mind, he settled for a walk-in clinic—one of those anonymous places where the personnel frequently rotated and where it wouldn’t be unusual for everyone in the waiting room to be strangers to one another as well as the doctors and nurses.
He parked his bike around back again, then signed Melinda in under an alias. The waiting room was full of senior citizens with various stages of the flu, a two-year-old with cheeks swollen like a chipmunk and a construction worker with a gash that looked as if he needed stitches.
An hour and a half later, Clay realized they’d wasted their time. At least Melinda didn’t have a concussion, but the doctor had no solution for her memory loss. As they headed to Clay’s bike, he suspected he was more disappointed over the news than Melinda. The doctor had recommended rest and told them that if her amnesia was due to the blow to her head, her memory could come back at any time. Or the amnesia could be caused by psychological trauma and her memory might take months to return—if it ever did.
So he knew little more than when they’d come in. Had the delay given their pursuers time to spot them? Or call in their tag number to another team up the road?
He wouldn’t take that chance.
A few miles down the highway, Clay found a motorcycle dealership across from a used-car lot. He paid the dealer to store his bike, and then he purchased a white midsize sedan with cash and a fake ID he had ready for such an occasion. Once they settled into the car, Clay missed the feel of her pressed to his back, and now, without the wind to drown out their conversation, he’d have to respond to her questions.
Only she didn’t ask any. While she rested her head back against the seat and closed her eyes, he helped himself to a piece of cherry gum from his jacket pocket. The stress of the day had clearly caught up with her. Dark circles beneath her closed eyes and the weary tilt of her head told him she badly needed rest.
Her hair was dry for the first time since he’d found her on the beach, and it hung straight and shiny, framing her high cheekbones. Long bangs emphasized her wide-set eyes, which remained closed.
Where should he take her?
Clay had a hideaway prepared, a place where he could decode the documents and where it was unlikely they would be found. But he didn’t want to compromise their location by going there more than once. Without the documents, he’d have to backtrack.
While he kept working through the puzzle, he kept driving.
MELINDA WASN’T TOO worried by the doctor’s prognosis. Opening her eyes, she took in the scent of cherries and recognized the street Clay was driving on, knew if they made a right, they’d head toward the racetrack, and if they kept going straight, they’d eventually run into the interstate where they could head north toward Jacksonville, west toward Orlando or south toward Miami.
When Clay passed a local fast-food restaurant, she recalled eating French fries and drinking a chocolate shake with some people her age, who were wearing tank tops and shorts as if they’d just come from the beach. Yes, her memories were starting to return, but she kept that information to herself.
She glanced at the big man driving and realized how little she knew about him. He didn’t look like a spy. At six and a half feet tall, she couldn’t imagine him merging into a crowd and being unnoticeable. While he seemed competent and smart, she wanted to know more about him. “How did you come to join the CIA?”
“The agency recruited me right out of military intelligence. I went straight into military intelligence after college.”
“What was your major in college?”
“Linguistics and mathematics, specifically logic.”
“Really?” She couldn’t keep the surprise out of her tone. Although she’d never attended college, she envisioned math students as short, nerdy guys with broken glasses taped at the nosepiece and plastic pocket protectors. “Why does the CIA need someone with your skills?”
“I’m into puzzles.”
She frowned. “Like crossword puzzles?”
“I’m a cryptanalyst. My math skills come in handy when I break codes.”
“I would have thought computers do that nowadays.”
Clay turned right, heading north, methodically chewing his gum. “Computers can’t think. They only process information. I program them and tell them how to think.”
“O—kay. You just lost me.” Or maybe it was watching his strong jaw chew that made it difficult to concentrate.
“Suppose someone from Cuba transmits a message to Russia. The computer can sort and analyze and translate much faster than a human brain—but it needs me to guide it, to think creatively. The computer needs directions.”
She grinned. “And so do you. This road dead-ends up ahead. Make a left up there and—”
“Did your memory come back?”
She shook her head and he kept his face perfectly and carefully neutral. Melinda told herself she needed to be more careful. Clay noticed details. It had been a mistake to admit that she recognized their location. While she’d decided to trust Clay, she planned to keep a few secrets to herself until she could be absolutely sure he was really there to protect her. “I just know where I am. Like I know how to speak.” She stretched her feet out and tried to change the subject. “Were you sent on this mission to decode something?”
“Let me back up and explain.” Over the next fifteen minutes, Clay told her that her brother, Jake Cochran, had sent her copies of papers that once belonged to her mother, that her mother had worked for the CIA and been murdered, and that the papers might have been written in code.
After listening to his explanation, she realized Clay wanted her to hand over those papers to him! While she couldn’t remember the diaries or photographs or letters her brother had sent, strangely, she envisioned a cardboard envelope that had arrived in yesterday’s mail, and she saw a label in dark, bold handwriting addressed to her. The return address had been from Jake Cochran. Now if only she could remember what she had done with the envelope. She suspected she hadn’t opened it right away, because she couldn’t recall the contents—that memory remained fuzzy like everything else that had happened this morning up to the time Clay had pulled her out of the sea.
Just as she’d become used to Clay’s frequent glances in the rearview mirror and decided she had nothing to worry about, he scowled at the mirror and
peeled sharply to the left. “Hold on.”
Thankful for her shoulder harness, she braced one hand on the dash and peered over her shoulder. She saw a kid on a bike, several trucks and a bunch of cars. “What’s wrong?”
“We’re being followed.”
She scowled into the mirror. “You sure?”
“See that gray car?”
“Yes.”
“Watch.”
Clay veered into the left lane and the car behind followed suit. Then he pulled back into the right lane and turned right. So did the gray car.
Her stomach churned. “How did they find us?”
“Maybe we never lost them. Maybe they picked us up at the coffee shop or at the doctor’s office.”
“But you were careful.”
“Look. These men are professionals. I assumed there were only a few of them, but they may have several teams. Or they called in reinforcements. Or one of us may have a bug on our clothes we don’t even know about.”
“I saw a movie where Will Smith had to remove his shoes and his belt buckle and ran away in his underwear.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“You have a plan?”
“I’m making it up as I go along.”
“That’s reassuring.”
Clay sped through traffic while Melinda tried to fight down the churning in her gut. Five-o’clock rush hour was swiftly approaching, and she didn’t know whether that was to their advantage or disadvantage. Clay couldn’t drive as fast, but it might be easier to lose their pursuers in the traffic.
“There.” She pointed. “Pull into that parking lot and around the back of the warehouse.”
Without question, Clay followed her directions. The warehouse was a commercial site fronting the highway on one side and the intracoastal waterway on the other. The building hid them from the road, and if Clay had gained enough lead time, the gray car should drive right by.
Clay looked right and left. “We need to hide our vehicle under something. If they have us pegged with satellite surveillance we’re sunk.”
Lovers in Hiding Page 5