“I’m sorry. We’ve got business to take care of.”
That voice. I’d heard it somewhere before.
Ethan stood and pulled me gently to my feet. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I nodded toward his shoulder, which had been wrapped in cotton gauze. “How about you?”
He shrugged his good shoulder. “The bullet went straight through. And these guys put some amazing stuff on it. Hardly hurts at all.”
My eyes narrowed. “Uh, okay. So, are you going to tell me how you got here?”
The big man got tired of waiting and took a step closer. “Hi, I’m Sam, and that’s a long story. I think we might need to save it for later.”
“Sam. Have we met before?”
He turned the most amazing green eyes on me. “Like I said. A long story for later. But I do begin to see what all the fuss has been about.”
Was that a blush on Ethan’s face? He turned to Sam.
“Did you find the stun gun?”
Sam held up a weapon, then tucked it in his waistband. “Wouldn’t want to leave that lying around.”
“Stun gun,” I repeated. “Is that what did all this damage?”
“Yeah. Lucky I had your six, huh, Sphinx?” Rayna grinned and turned to Sam. “I’ve called for a pickup. Locals are two minutes out.”
I looked around and saw at least a dozen men in paramilitary jumpsuits restrained and lying unconscious side by side near the van and the loading dock. Dr. Park and Colonel Gordon were among them. They’d all been stripped of their weapons, which were in a neat pile beside them.
Sam nodded. “I’ve still got a bit of a mess to clean up. If you’ll excuse me.” He moved off to oversee the final mopping up.
“The doctor and the colonel were working with Claussen,” I said to Rayna. “He can explain what they’re doing here. Are you going to explain what you’re doing here?”
The woman I’d relied on through all those horrible months in the mines of an unknown world, the one who had saved my life more than once, held my gaze. “We’re here to put things right, Asia. As much as we can.”
I blinked, and it suddenly made sense—her role in the labor camp, her appearance here and now. Even the familiar voice belonged to Captain Sam Murphy, whose ship had once been delayed three hours on the way to Earth. I looked at Ethan, wondering if he knew. He nodded confirmation.
The last reason for holding on to my hatred and fear fell away. How could I blame these people for what they had done? I knew what they had sacrificed to bring me home.
Rayna walked around to the rear of a shot-up Explorer and opened the back door. “Sit up.”
I peered into the back and saw Arthur Claussen lever himself upright from the floor of the vehicle. With a hiss of anger Ethan left my side and headed for the back of the car. I scrambled to follow him.
Claussen looked shriveled and weak in the back of the SUV. Rayna glowered down at him.
“How many ‘patients’ in this facility, Doc?”
The old man shook his head. “Asia is the only one currently.”
“That makes it simple, then.” She nodded in the direction of the building. “Everybody on staff gets a pink slip this afternoon. This branch of Daystrom Futurgenics is closing up shop effective immediately. Where were they taking Asia?”
“There’s another facility in Greenbelt.” Claussen looked at me, then looked away. “Park runs it, but they’ve never let me visit there.”
“But your patients ended up there, didn’t they, Arthur?” Anger rolled off of Ethan in heated waves. I’d never felt that in him before, didn’t know he was even capable of it. It was as if he’d been holding it back for years. “Your patients—and mine. After you were done with them here, Park got them. And what happened to them after he was finished?”
Claussen tried to hold Ethan’s gaze, but failed. “I don’t know that either. I’d always hoped they were . . . rehabilitated.”
“You hoped?” The words came out in a shout. “I tried to find them, Arthur. They’d disappeared. All traces gone, as if they never existed. Except for Conners, who’s dead. And Ida, of course. She wouldn’t let you take her. You son of a bitch.” He started forward, but Rayna caught him.
“Don’t worry, sweets.” Fearless as always, she looked up into his face. “We’ve got this.”
I put a hand on Ethan’s back, felt the muscles roped with tension. He took a breath, but the anger remained in his body, unrelenting as stone.
Rayna turned back to Claussen. “The Greenbelt lab is closing down, too. We’ll send in another team to see to it. And you, Dr. Claussen, are retiring from psychiatric practice due to health concerns.”
“The people who run Daystrom have a lot of connections,” Claussen protested. “How are you going to explain all this? And I don’t have any health concerns!”
Rayna lifted her shoulders. “Oh, I’m sure it won’t be hard to find a few irregularities in the company accounts, irregularities for which Park and the colonel will be found responsible. That will supply a good reason for their disappearance. And I regret to tell you that you do have health concerns. You’re losing your memory.”
Claussen shrank back, horror draining the blood from his face. “No! You can’t!”
“Yes. We can. And we will. But don’t worry. We won’t take any more than is necessary to protect Rescue. And Asia and Ethan, of course. You made this very easy for us, Doc. No family to relocate. No friends to provide explanations to. Your colleagues will cluck their tongues over the fact that your stroke left you unable to continue your work, but they won’t really miss you.”
I watched Claussen’s face as Rayna laid it out, and I almost felt sorry for him. I could tell by the way Ethan listened with his head down and his jaw clenched that he felt it, too. Of course, the old man wasn’t beyond using that remnant of feeling to his advantage.
“Ethan!” He stretched out a hand. “You aren’t going to let these insane people do this to me—please! I was only trying to help Asia. You know that!”
“Do I?” Ethan looked at him, the expression in his eyes deep and cold and unyielding. “It seems that all you’ve done for all these years is to use me to hurt the ones I love. First Elizabeth. Then Ida and Asia. As cruel as it is, I’m glad these people are going to erase your mind. I can’t seem to help myself.”
“Ethan, you can’t mean that. You know I loved Elizabeth.”
“Maybe you did, but trying to repress her memories killed her. You did that to her, Arthur. And if there is one argument against taking your memory, that would be it. You’ll be able to forget what you did. I never will.”
Ethan had started to tremble, the emotion he couldn’t express in action leaching out of him in rolling tremors. I reached for his hand, squeezing him back when he latched on with surprising need.
Another surprise: Claussen sighed. “She wasn’t stable, Ethan. She never had been. I should have known better than to try and save her. I should have warned you when she first brought you home to me. But she seemed better at first. I thought . . .” He slumped to one side in the back of the SUV. He looked aged beyond his years, defeated, used up. “Never mind. The past is the past. Perhaps it’s time we both let it go.”
Ethan considered him. Then he looked at me and took a deep breath. “I might actually agree with you there, Arthur. The future seems much more interesting.” Something about the way he said it, his voice warm and intimate, melted my heart right down into a puddle in my chest.
Sirens began to wail in the distance. Rayna grasped Claussen by the elbow and stood by as the old man clambered out of the vehicle. She walked him over to a spot near the unconscious bodies of Gordon and Park.
Then she spoke to Sam. “Are we ready for pickup?”
He nodded. “Ready.”
Sam and Rayna backed up a few steps in our direction. The air began to crackle and pop as if we were inside the speaker of a badly tuned radio. The noise grew unbearable, until I was forced to cover my ears and
squint to protect my eyes. Then, suddenly, there was nothing but silence, and the smell of ozone. And when I looked up, Gordon and Park, Claussen, the guards and all their weapons were gone.
The sirens were coming closer.
“We have to move before the locals get here. Just one last thing to take care of.” My friend stepped closer, her expression uncommonly serious. She glanced at Sam, who simply nodded. “We’ll need someone to replace Dr. Claussen in Nashville. We’d prefer it be you, Ethan. People with your kind of skill and heart are hard to find. And you’re already familiar with the protocol. But if you don’t want the job, we’ll understand.”
“If I refuse, do I get to experience the protocol myself?”
Rayna grinned. “What good would it do? You’ll be living with the woman who could beat the system with half a brain. She’d remember everything.”
Ethan smiled, but I could tell he wasn’t ready to give Rayna the answer she wanted. Too many doubts still haunted him—or maybe the past still had a hold on him despite his interest in the future.
Rayna could see it, too. “Think about it. Talk it out between the two of you. That’s the way things’ll work from now on, trust me.”
“Oh, yeah.” Sam shook his head. “Lots of talking.”
I suddenly found myself staring at my feet, embarrassed by their assumptions about Ethan and me. Now that the adrenaline of the rescue had worn off, I was shaking with doubt. The last time we’d spoken, I’d walked out on him. Before that, the only promises we’d made had been whispered in the throes of passion—hardly the basis of a long-term relationship. Maybe once he’d seen I was safe, he’d be ready to move on. He ought to at least have that chance.
I felt his hand beneath my chin, lifting my face to his. His blue gaze had warmed to the color of a tropical sky.
“Whatever we decide, we’ll decide together.” He smiled at me. “And we’ll let you know.”
EPILOGUE
I crossed the room to Ethan’s desk and set the cup of fresh coffee next to his elbow. Absorbed in the journal article he was writing, he looked up from his computer with an absent smile.
“Thanks.”
I wasn’t about to let him get away with that. I went behind him, wrapped both arms around his neck, and began to nibble at one earlobe. His hands went slack at the keyboard, and he closed his eyes.
“Mmm.”
“Um-hmm.” My hands slid down his chest and over his belly, stopping just short of his belt and the growing bulge in his jeans below that. He shifted in the chair, and his hands caressed my arms. I kissed his neck and backed off to grin at him.
He looked up with a smile, capturing one of my hands in one of his. “Extended coffee break?”
“No, just making sure you’re paying attention. Don’t want to get to be an old married couple just yet.”
He pulled me into his lap—a lap pleasantly accentuated by the thick ridge of his erection—and kissed me thoroughly. “Just because we’ve had an anniversary doesn’t mean we’re an old married couple.” He trailed his lips along the underside of my jaw and down my throat. “And don’t ever think I’m not paying attention.”
“Too bad you’ve got an appointment in five minutes or I’d take you up on that coffee break.”
“Damn. Can’t be a regular—Barry’s not due until 1:00. Must be someone new.”
I grinned. “Yep. New and very special, remember? Ray’s bringing him herself.”
“Oh, yeah!” Ethan’s eyes sparked with anticipation. “Is Sam coming, too?”
“Ray didn’t say. I don’t think this is a social visit, though. Definitely a new client from Rescue, but she was very mysterious in her email.”
Ethan frowned. “Mysterious how?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “Lacking the usual details, for one thing. And why the special delivery?”
“Now you’ve got me curious.”
I moved from his lap to a spot in the chair next to his desk. I had a thrill of déjà vu as I sat there, the smell of the coffee and the old leather of the chair mingling with Ethan’s own scent to take me back to the beginning of our adventure together.
It had been spring when we’d started, an April day a lot like today, the leaves tiny and bright green on the trees outside his window, the rain running gently down the glass. Not much had changed in the big living room he used as his office in the house we now shared. The floor had been freshly waxed and new rugs scattered over it. My degree as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker had been tacked up on the wall alongside Ethan’s medical diplomas. The rest of the house actually looked like someone lived in it. Otherwise it was much as Ethan had kept it the day I met him and he changed my life. And I his.
I must have been drifting along with those thoughts, because I didn’t see Rayna and our new client come up the walkway to the front door. Ethan had gone back to work on his article. We both jumped when we heard the doorbell.
We grinned at each other—part embarrassment, part anticipation—and went together to answer the bell.
We opened the door and stood gaping at what was on the other side for a long moment. My heart started a slow thud in my chest, and I reached for Ethan’s hand before I could say a word. His hand gripped mine like he felt we both would be swept away if he let go.
“Ethan, Asia.” Rayna’s energy was as effervescent as always. “This is Jack.”
With Rayna on the front porch was a boy of about four or five, his hair dark and shaggy, his large blue eyes solemn and unnaturally old. He looked at us, but said nothing.
“Hi, Jack,” Ethan and I said together. Smiling, I stepped back a little. “Want to come in?”
Jack looked up at Rayna. She nodded.
“Don’t mind if we do.”
The two of them came into the front hall and Rayna shook off the rain, shrugging out of her coat before helping Jack out of his. She handed both dripping garments to me and led the boy to the battered, comfortable couch in front of the bay window in Ethan’s office. Ethan claimed the chair he always used with his clients. I hovered near the doorway, uncertain.
“Coffee, Ray? I just made some fresh.” I was desperate to break the ice. “I’ve got milk and cookies, too, if you’d like some, Jack.”
Jack lifted one eyebrow. I took that as a “yes.” Rayna winked at me. I scurried off to the kitchen, wondering whether I was trying to be helpful, or just trying to escape. I fumbled with the coffee, nearly dropped the container of milk, ripped open a new package of Pepperidge Farm with enough force to break into the National Treasury and stood shaking in the center of my kitchen for a full minute before I was ready to join the group again.
What was Rayna up to this time? She’d brought us all kinds of returnees in the months since we’d taken on this job for Rescue—men and women of all ages, people who’d been gone for years of “outside time” or mere days, people rescued from outbound slave ships or from labor camps as I had been, from markets or brothels or private estates. But a child? Rayna had never brought us a child before—and something deep inside me said this was no ordinary case.
I took a steadying breath, picked up the tray I’d filled with the coffee, milk, and cookies, and walked back out to the main room. I put the tray down on the desk and handed Jack the milk and a chocolate chip disk as big as his hand. He accepted them silently, catching my eyes for a swift second.
“You’re welcome,” I whispered.
I gave Rayna her coffee and perched beside Ethan on the arm of his chair. He captured my hand again in that grip that told me he was as nervous about this as I was. We both knew something was up. We looked to Rayna to explain.
She set down her coffee cup. “Okay, I’ll get straight to it, since I can see you two are on the edge of that chair. We found Jack in a processing center on Del Origa.” We must have looked blank, because she elaborated in the next breath. “The Grays have a few of them around their sector of the galaxy—central hubs where lots of people are brought in, examined, assessed, then shi
pped out to the actual worksites. We were damned lucky to find the place—been looking for it for months.
“Anyway, the capture was real ugly,” she went on. “The facility was well fortified and the Grays didn’t give it up without a fight. Lots of innocent people got caught in the crossfire. By the time our guys made it inside, there were only a few hundred people left alive, and there was precious little data available to reintegrate them back on their home planets.”
Rayna paused and watched Jack, who munched his cookie, his eyes roving around the room. “There were a couple dozen kids in a special compound, separated from their parents. No records on them. We were able to reunite a few with their families. Most we couldn’t. We’ve had to improvise.”
“How do you mean?” Ethan sat forward to get the details.
Rayna was never one to mince words. “We’re looking for placements for them.”
“Placements?” I repeated, though I knew what she meant.
Ethan made it clear. “You mean homes.”
“Yep.”
“Foster homes or permanent ones?” I asked.
“The chances we’ll find their parents or anything that will link them to their homes is virtually nil.”
I studied the boy who sat motionless on the couch next to her, his hands gripping the half-empty glass of milk, the eyes that had seemed too damn old for his innocent face now cast downward toward the floor.
“There’s something special about this particular little guy, isn’t there.” I made sure she knew I was on to her. “A reason you brought him to us besides your thought that we might need some company.”
Rayna’s mouth ticked upwards at one corner. “You always were quick on the uptake, Sphinx. Yeah. Jack is resistant to programming, like you. He remembers everything. Including, it turns out, his parents’ names. They were taken along with him, but killed in the raid. No other identifying info.”
Jesus God. My heart broke for the boy, who sat regarding me now with that ancient blue gaze. What must it be like for him, carrying the weight of all that memory on those child’s shoulders? I could hardly bear the weight of it, and I had had years to build up the strength to do it. And Ethan to help me.
Unchained Memory (The Interstellar Rescue Series Book 1) Page 34