by Rebecca York
Annie moved, taking the guard totally by surprise.
Max had time to curse as she brought the guy down. The gun went flying. Max kicked it under the dresser, then turned to the struggling figures. Annie had hauled the guard up onto the bed.
“Don’t kill him!” Max shouted. “He’s just doing his job.”
“I won’t hurt him,” Annie said puffing. She was already using a bra to tie the guard’s hands behind his back.
Max grabbed the gun she’d left on the dresser. Pointing it at the guard, he said, “Settle down.”
“Get her off me!”
“Are his hands secure?” he asked Annie.
“Yes.”
Training the revolver on the men, Max moved closer. “Tie his legs,” he told her.
Annie looked around, grabbed a pair of panty hose and finished the job.
Max checked the bonds, then quickly searched the guard’s pockets, from which he extracted a set of keys. After unclipping the man’s cell phone from his belt, he lifted the captive into the chair and tied him to it.
“I’m sorry you’re caught in the middle of a bad situation,” Max said. “We’ll call the Perkins house tonight and get someone to free you.”
“I’ll get you for this!”
“I hope not.”
Max fixed a gag over the man’s mouth, then stuck the gun into his own belt and covered it with his shirt. Turning to Annie, he said, “We’d better split.”
“You mean get out of here?”
“Exactly.”
ANNIE LOOKED BACK at the guard. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. When the man glared at her, she followed Max out of the room.
Outside, the sun was shining, and a gentle breeze was blowing off the water.
“Just act like we belong here,” he said, seeming to enjoy a morning stroll as he led her away from the ocean. He was good at this, she thought. He knew how to play a lot of roles; he knew when to talk to people and when to fight. He had said someone had trained her for a secret mission. Well, his training was better than hers.
She saw the cabana where he must have made the phone call the night before. At the main house, he stopped beside a black SUV. After trying several of the guard’s keys, he found one that fit the lock.
They both got in and he headed up a driveway. When he reached the road, he sighed. “Max Dakota strikes again.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, that boat wasn’t such a great place to hide out.”
“It would have been, if that guard hadn’t been so conscientious. So let’s put it behind us,” she said.
After a moment, he gave a tight nod. “Okay,” he answered in a low voice, then added, “I think what we need to do now is get the hell out of Florida.”
She felt panic grab her. “No!”
His head whipped toward her. “Why not?”
“I…I can’t go. I have to get to Sea Kingdom. And first I have to leave that piece of paper at Fort De Leon. I haven’t even done that yet.”
Max shook his head. “We’re going to be a lot safer somewhere else. Our fingerprints are all over that boat. That may not be a problem for you since yours aren’t on record, but mine are in the FBI database.”
“You can leave,” she said, “but I have to stay here.”
“I’m not going without you.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” she said, making an effort to speak calmly and directly.
He cast her an annoyed glance. “I don’t much like your attitude.”
“Why not?”
“Because I thought the two of us had gotten close last night. At least, I felt that way after you let me touch you where I’m pretty sure no one else has.”
She swallowed hard. “Oh, Max, I…” That was all she said before stopping and scrambling for words. There was so much she wanted to say to this man, but she didn’t know how to say it. Or even if she should. Reaching over, she laid her hand over his.
Max pulled to the curb in the residential neighborhood, under a tree covered with pink flowers. The blossoms and their scent surrounded the car, lending an air of unreality as he cut the engine and reached for her. Without hesitation, she came into his arms, clinging to him, feeling herself shake.
Hardly able to get the words out, she whispered, “Sometimes I…I feel like I’m not…acting on my own. Like something is making me do what I’m doing. Like when you said we should leave Florida, I knew I couldn’t do it.”
The admission was like jumping off the top of a tall building. She clung to Max, fighting the hot feeling in the back of her throat.
“Annie, we have to do something about you,” he said in a tight voice.
She raised her head and stared at him. “What?”
“Get rid of that thing under your skin.”
She felt a shudder go through her. “I can’t.”
“Are you afraid it will hurt?”
“No.” She moistened lips that had suddenly turned dry as sand. “It’s part of me.”
“Yeah.”
“How does that make you feel about me?” she managed.
He ran his fingers through her hair. “I’m okay with it,” he said, and she wondered if he was telling the truth. Before she could ask any more questions, he changed the subject. “What we have to do is get ourselves some new transportation. Then we have to tell someone that security guard is on the boat.”
“Yes.”
“And we have to make sure Trainer doesn’t scoop us up.”
“Right,” she agreed, feeling her throat clog again. What he had said at the beginning of the conversation was correct. They should get out of Florida. But she knew that if she tried to do so, she’d die or go crazy or something equally horrible. So she’d just have to let Max take what precautions he could.
He drove to the outskirts of the business district to a place where he told her he could rent a car. After leaving her and the SUV several blocks away, he hurried to make the transaction, and she scooted down low in her seat, hoping Sheriff Trainer wouldn’t walk by while she waited.
In less than twenty minutes, they were on the road again. Max checked them into a big motel on the highway, using a credit card under a different name.
When he’d closed the door to the room behind them, he said, “If we’re going to hang around here, we have to change our appearance.”
“Max, I know I’m putting us at risk.” She should tell him again to just leave her. But the words wouldn’t come.
He plowed on as though she hadn’t spoken. “I’m going out to buy some hair dye and scissors. And different clothing. You lock the door, and don’t open it to anyone but me. And try to get some sleep. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
She nodded and he left. After locking the door behind him, she pulled the bedspread aside and lay down, her tension making it impossible to sleep. He was gone longer than she’d anticipated, and she was huddling on the bed with her stomach in knots and her heart pounding when finally, she heard a knock at the door.
Jumping up, she crossed the room and asked, “Who is it?”
“Max.”
Quickly she turned the lock, and he stepped inside, closing the door behind him.
She was profoundly glad that he had come back to her safe and sound, but she’d learned to read his expression, and something on his face made her go tense. There was a look in his eyes that she’d seen before. The look that said he didn’t trust her.
“Max?”
Wordlessly, he reached for her, and she felt a spurt of panic.
“It’s okay,” he said.
Still uncertain, she put up a defensive hand. When he pulled the hand down, real fear crackled through her. She’d given him her trust. Now she knew that that had been a serious mistake. She had been ordered to trust no one and she was finding out why.
In panic, she tried to jerk away. But he held her fast, then withdrew something from his pocket and put it over her face.
A muffled scream rose in her throat.
“Easy. Take it easy. I don’t want to hurt you.” His voice was like the buzz of insects in her ear. “Annie, I’m sorry.” She was still trying to fight him when consciousness slipped from her.
EVEN THOUGH HER BRAIN felt as if it was mired in a fog, she registered panic because she didn’t know where she was or what had happened. Then she forced her eyes open and was assailed by a red-hot pain under her arm.
The panic didn’t lessen when she saw Max sitting beside her on the bed, staring down at her, his expression anxious and apologetic.
A recent memory leaped into her mind. Max had come back to the motel room. Then he had grabbed her. Hurt her. No. Not hurt, she corrected.
She should run from him. She tried to push herself up, but her body felt like lead. “What…what did you do to me?” she asked.
“You had a little operation. How do you feel?” he asked in a soft voice.
“An operation?” she gasped, cringing from him.
Regret flashed across his face. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you about it first. But you said you wouldn’t let me do anything about that damn implant. I knew I had to get it out of you. And I knew I had to make you unconscious to do it.”
She stared at him, trying to take his words in, but her mind was too fuzzy for coherent thought.
He reached for her hand, held it gently. “It’s gone. Do you feel different? Or have I made a serious mistake?”
She tried to consider the question, but she still didn’t feel as if her mind and body belonged together.
“Annie?”
Closing her eyes, she struggled to collect her scattered thoughts. She was still missing a lot of her memories, and that was no less disturbing than it had been earlier. But something was different. She felt a new kind of calm that had been impossible before.
“I feel better,” she murmured.
“Good, that’s good. Can you tell me how it’s better?”
“I don’t feel like…I’m always in overdrive.” She gave a small laugh. “But maybe that’s because you gave me something to put me to sleep.”
His hand clasped hers. “What if I told you I had us booked on a flight out of Florida? Would that send you into a panic like it did this morning?”
She focused on the idea of getting out of the area. “No,” she finally said, knowing that something had truly changed within her.
“Do you want me to leave you alone?” he asked, and she saw the tension on his face. He had tricked her. But now she understood his motives. He had wanted to help her, and he had known she wouldn’t allow it.
“Stay with me,” she murmured.
He let out the breath he must have been holding. Shifting his grip on her hand, he meshed his fingers with hers.
She liked the feeling of being linked to him. Hand to hand.
“Can you lie down?” she asked. “I want to feel your body next to mine. Both of us naked,” she added, because she didn’t seem to be able to control her tongue.
“Naked.” He laughed. “You’re not going to get much rest if we’re naked.” He eased down beside her. “If the place where I cut you hurts too much, tell me. I can give you something for the pain.”
“You operated here?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Where did you get supplies?” she asked, stretching her coherence to its limits.
“My agency has contacts all over the country—well, all over the world. I called a doctor we’ve worked with. He’s getting a large payment for giving me the stuff I needed.”
“And you’re trained in emergency medicine,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah.” He looked at her consideringly. “Maybe I gave you too much Mickey Mouse tingle juice.”
“What?”
“Anesthetic. That’s what they called it when I had my tonsils out as a kid.”
“Tonsils?”
“Glands in my throat. They were sore all the time.”
“Umm.”
He didn’t say anything else. But she wanted him to keep talking. “I love hearing about when you were a boy. About your family. You lived with your mother and father in a house?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you have your own bedroom?”
“I had to share a bedroom with my brother.”
“Tell me more things.”
“Like what?”
“Everything.”
“There was that time I got caught smoking behind the garage and my dad took me to a VA hospital to see guys with lung cancer.”
“More,” she demanded, not following all of it, but still fascinated.
“You want to hear about how I got sick in the pie-eating contest at the state fair?”
“Yes.”
“I threw up a lot of cherry pie.”
She laughed.
“How about in first grade when Ken Wilkie and I stopped up the sink in the boys’ room?”
“Tell me good things.”
“Like when my dad built us a tree house and let us spend the night in it?”
“Yes.” She drifted on the sound of his voice, trying to stay awake. But finally she couldn’t hold on to consciousness any longer.
Sometime later, her eyes snapped open. “Do you have…the thing you took out of me?” At his nod, she said, “I want to see it.”
Without any objection, he got up from the bed, crossed to the dresser and picked up a small plastic bag. Carrying it back, he held it up.
It didn’t look like much, just a flat rectangle with rounded corners. She murmured incoherently and drifted off to sleep.
She woke again some time later to hear Max talking on the phone in a low voice, and she had the feeling this had happened before.
“Yes. Good,” he said, then looked over at her. “She’s awake again. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Who was that?” she asked.
Crossing to the bed, he sat down again. “Steve Claiborne from my organization. He had some good news. The DEA got the drugs—and Nicki Armstrong. And one of her thugs is willing to cut a deal on the Jamie Jacobson murder.”
“Cut a deal?”
“He’s willing to confess to his part of it in exchange for a lighter sentence. So I don’t have to leave with my assignment unfinished.”
“Good,” she murmured. “And Sheriff Trainer?”
“He’s disappeared, but they’ll find him,” Max said soothingly.
He gently stroked her cheek. “How are you feeling?”
She moved her arm. “A little sore.”
“Probably more than a little. What about some pain medication?”
“I can handle it.”
His gaze locked on her. “Because you’re tough?”
“Because I want to stay coherent.”
He nodded. “Well, is there anything more you can tell me about yourself?”
She managed a small laugh. “You mean, was that thing screwing up my memories, and now I can tell you why I’m here?”
“Yeah.”
She tried to concentrate on her past, but to no avail. “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t have any more insight.”
“But you’re willing to let me take you out of Florida?” he asked, and she wondered if he’d covered that ground before.
“Yes.”
“And we can forget about leaving anything at the fort?”
She considered the question, then answered in the affirmative again.
“Good. Because Steve Claiborne is already on his way down here. He and another colleague, Jed Prentiss, are picking us up in a couple of hours.”
“But we can come back before the governor goes to Sea Kingdom?” she asked anxiously, although the strength of the feeling had lessened. “Because even with that thing gone, I know I have to be there.”
“We can.”
“Should I trust you?”
“Yes.”
“Like I did when you came through the door and slapped some kind of buzz-brain stuff over my face?” She couldn’t stop the words
from coming.
“Buzz-brain?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah.” He looked apologetic. “I’m sorry. But it had to be done and you wouldn’t let me.”
“I understand,” she whispered, then closed her eyes again, snuggling against him, thinking that they were alone in a bed and she’d like to make love with him. Instead, she went back to sleep.
The gentle stroking of Max’s fingers in her hair woke her. “Time to get ready.”
“Okay.”
She lay there for a few minutes, then eased off the bed, wincing.
He was instantly at her side. “Now you’re going to take something for the pain. When we get to Baltimore, Thorn Devereaux—I work with him, too—will give you a salve that will work better.”
She dutifully swallowed two pills, then let Max help her on with her shoes and escort her to the car.
The medication not only took the edge off the pain, it made her drowsy again.
“Just go back to sleep,” Max advised. “I’ll take care of you.”
Surrendering to the feeling, she closed her eyes. Her peaceful dreams lulled her into a deep sleep and she drifted off.
A sudden vibration and a deep rumble woke her with a start. Her heart pounding, she looked around wildly and felt terror grip her throat. Where was she?
A narrow enclosure. A window.
She turned her head to the side and looked out. When she saw clouds and blue sky, she had to fight to drag in a breath. It came out again on a scream.
Sheer, blind panic tore at her.
She was up in the air again. High over the land. Last time, she had been terrified as she’d fallen…fallen….
This time was worse, because she was higher. Safety was farther from her grasp. And she knew she was going to die.
Chapter Fourteen
“Annie, it’s all right.” Max was beside her, gripping her.
She didn’t listen. She couldn’t listen.
Instead, she clawed at the belt holding her down. When the buckle released, she surged up.
In front of Max, she could see the back of another man sitting in a chair. There were windows in front of him and more terrifying open space. Banks of instruments surrounded him.