“You’re not going to ask for their help?”
“I don’t want to risk it, Randi. I trust the guys on my team, but they’re not around right now. I trust the head of Prospero, but he has people around him, people with strong ties to the CIA.”
“Will you be in trouble for what happened back in Colombia?”
“Until I explain everything that happened. Dr. Murdoch and Lawrence Jessup were out of control. They won’t present it that way, but once an investigation is done, they’ll be the ones in trouble. But investigations take time. And we don’t have time right now.”
Randi shivered and hugged herself. “It’s cold.”
“I guess that means more shopping.”
“Having amnesia is expensive.”
He slipped an arm through hers. “You’re going to get through this.”
She wasn’t sure she wanted to get through this because once she found her memory, she’d lose Gage.
They bought a laptop and checked into a hotel with free Wi-Fi. Gage wasted no time setting up on the table by the window.
Randi collapsed across the bed, her feet hanging off the mattress. “What are you searching for? Randi?”
“Don’t be a defeatist. We also have a name from your past—Jessica Lehman.”
“While you’re doing that, I’m going to order some sandwiches from room service.”
“Good idea.” Gage rubbed his hands together and flexed his fingers. “Where are you, Jessica Lehman?”
Randi trapped the receiver between her shoulder and her chin as she ordered from the menu. Then she hung over Gage’s shoulder as he typed in Jessica Lehman followed by Houston.
A spate of Jessica Lehmans scrolled down the screen, and Gage picked up a pen and grabbed a piece of hotel stationery. “These are mostly social-media sites. I plan to click on every one of them. Pull up a chair.”
Randi dragged a chair next to Gage’s, and they started going through every link. They dismissed the married women with children, figuring the Jessica who had written to Randi about dropping in on her from Costa Rica was probably single and childless.
After an hour, they’d narrowed their search to three Jessicas living in the Houston area. Two of the three had blocked their content on their pages, but Gage was able to bounce between several different resources to get their addresses.
He pushed away from the laptop and took a bite of his sandwich. “Not a bad day’s work. Do you feel up to paying a visit to Jessica one, two and three this afternoon?”
“Absolutely.” Her pulse ticked up a few notches. Would she discover her identity today? Would Jessica know what she’d been doing in Colombia?
Randi finished her sandwich and brushed her teeth. She changed tops and ran a brush through her hair before braiding it. “I’m ready.”
“Not so fast.” Gage came at her, holding up a gauze bandage. “Let me look at my handiwork on your arm. Maybe we should get you to a clinic today.”
She extended her arm to him and he peeled back the old bandage. Angry red encircled puckered flesh.
“Does that look normal to you?”
“It doesn’t look bad.” He pressed his fingers against the spot. “Doesn’t feel warm, either. Elle can have a look at that, too. She’s a psychiatrist, so she went to medical school.”
What couldn’t Elle do? Randi didn’t like the way Gage’s voice grew warm and almost tender when he mentioned the glorious Elle.
“Let’s clean it again and put some more antiseptic cream on it.”
“Are you sure there’s no tequila in the minibar?”
Gage chuckled as he squeezed a washcloth under the faucet in the bathroom. “Thought you never wanted to see the stuff again.”
“It sure dulled the pain.”
“This isn’t going to hurt a bit.” He’d soaped up the cloth and washed the wound on her arm with a slow, circular motion. He rinsed it, dried it and bandaged it all with a gentle touch.
So gentle, Randi didn’t want it to end. If this was the only way she could get him to touch her, she’d suffer a million injuries.
Sighing, she rose from the toilet seat. She’d gotten too attached to him. It’s like he said before. It was to be expected that she’d glom on to him. Who else did she have?
Maybe she had Jessica Lehman.
Without phone numbers, they had to pay surprise visits on the Jessicas. Because it was Saturday, they got lucky on their first attempt.
When Jessica number one, a redhead, answered the door of an apartment near the downtown area, Randi’s stomach dropped.
The woman’s face showed no recognition as she slid her gaze from Randi to Gage. “Yes?”
“I know this is going to sound crazy, but do you know her?” Gage tilted his head toward Randi.
By the tone of his voice, Randi knew he’d already figured out this woman wasn’t their Jessica.
Her green eyes narrowed. “N-no.”
“Are you sure?” Randi tilted up her chin. The woman didn’t sound sure.
“I’m sure I don’t know you.”
“Thanks. Sorry to disturb you.” Gage took Randi’s arm as he turned from the door.
“But you’re not the first to ask me.”
They both spun around and Randi tripped against Gage.
“What do you mean? Someone else has come around asking if you know her?”
Hunching forward, Gage braced his hand on the wall beside the door.
The woman flinched, and Randi squeezed Gage’s arm. “Someone asked about me?”
“Two men came by the other day. They showed me a picture. When I first answered the door, I didn’t make the connection. But after you asked your crazy question, it clicked. You’re the woman in the picture.”
“What did these men look like?” Gage had backed off and shoved his hands in his pocket.
Jessica folded her arms and hunched her shoulders. “I couldn’t really tell you—dark hair, jeans. Normally, I would’ve never opened my door to two guys, but they caught me in the hallway while I was opening my door. I felt...uncomfortable.”
“They had a picture of me?”
“Yeah, asked me if I knew you and where you were. Didn’t know the first, so I couldn’t help them with the second. I don’t think I would’ve if I could’ve. They gave me a weird vibe. What’s going on? Do I need to be concerned about this?”
“Not at all. My friend just had a little memory loss. We’re trying to trace her movements and your name came up.”
“And those guys?”
Randi slipped her fingers into Gage’s back pocket to steady herself. “I guess they’re looking for me, too.”
Gage couldn’t get much more out of Jessica, so they turned to leave.
Before Jessica slammed the door, she called out, “Be careful. If those guys were looking for me, I’d be worried.”
Randi sat ramrod straight in the rental car. “They can’t be the CIA. The CIA doesn’t know anything about Jessica Lehman. It has to be Zendaris. He hasn’t given up on me.”
“Which means Zendaris knew about Jessica, knew you might contact her when you got to the States. And he knows you’re still alive.”
“M-maybe he just wants to find me to make sure I’m okay. He thought I was dead.”
“He left you for dead, Randi. Why would he care about your well-being now, unless...?”
She clasped her hands between her bouncing knees. “Unless he wants to stop me from talking. He wants to kill me, doesn’t he? He wants to finish the job he started at his compound.”
Gage clamped a hand on one of her knees to stop its up-and-down motion. “If Zendaris knows you have amnesia, he’d want to stop you before you regained your memory and could tell us anything.”
“And by stop, you mean kill.”
“I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you, Randi. Zendaris is a dangerous man and you’re in a dangerous position.”
“Don’t worry.” She yanked her thin jacket around her body. “You’re doing a fine job o
f not sugarcoating anything.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Would you want me to? You’ve always impressed me as the type who would want to hear the truth.”
Like the truth about his marital status? The truth about his relationship with the psychiatrist? What gave him that crazy idea?
“Of course I do.” She smacked the dashboard. “Now let’s go find the other two Jessicas before the real Jessica Lehman reveals anything to Zendaris’s men.”
They took a short drive from the downtown area to Rice Village where bars and restaurants lined the streets of the college town. Gage parked the car on a residential block, and pointed across the street. “Odd-numbered addresses on that side.”
They located the apartment house and pushed a number of buttons at the entrance until someone buzzed them in. It didn’t take long. College students were lax about their security.
Little did they know there was a big, cruel world out there.
Gage punched the button for the third floor in the elevator and knocked on the second door down the hallway. No response.
“Should we try later?”
“Yeah, unless we get lucky with the next Jessica.”
They did not get lucky. The third Jessica no longer lived at the address that Gage had found, and the current residents of the house were either unable or unwilling to give them a forwarding address.
They returned to the apartment in Rice Village where the bars and restaurants were coming to life for their Saturday-night visitors.
“Maybe we can catch her before she goes out for the night.”
Gage knocked on the apartment door again, and still nobody answered.
“I guess this wasn’t such a great idea.” Randi wedged a shoulder against the door. “Maybe my Jessica doesn’t live in Houston anymore.”
“Could be.”
A door in the hallway creaked open, and a young woman poked her head out and looked both ways. “Are you looking for Jessica?”
Randi shrugged off the door. “Yes. Is she around? I—I’m an old friend.”
The woman’s eyes widened. “You’re a friend of Jessica’s?”
“Uh-huh. Haven’t seen her in a while and thought I’d drop by while I was in town.”
“When’s the last time you saw her?” The woman bit her lip and darted a gaze at Gage.
Randi also shot a glance at Gage out of the corner of her eye. Why was this woman giving them the third degree? That was their job.
“Umm,” Randi raised her eyes to the ceiling, “a year ago, maybe.”
The woman puffed out her cheeks and released a long breath, looking as if she’d come to some sort of decision. “I hate to be the one to give you bad news, but Jessica had an accident.”
Gage made a quick movement beside her, but it must’ve been minuscule because Jessica’s neighbor never took her eyes off Randi’s face.
“An accident?” Randi tilted her head and took another step forward. “What kind of accident? Is she okay?”
The woman narrowed the opening of the door even more, so that she looked like a disembodied head floating in space. “She was hit by a car. She’s in a coma.”
“Oh, my God.” Randi gasped and had to flatten her hand against the wall. “That’s terrible. When did it happen?”
“A few days ago.”
“It must’ve been a bad accident.”
“That’s what the cops are calling it.”
Gage cleared his throat and spoke for the first time to the jittery young woman. “What are you calling it?”
“She’d had an argument that day with someone who’d come to her place.” She pointed to the worn hallway carpet. “Standing right where you’re standing now.”
“What were they arguing about?”
“I couldn’t hear, but then later that night the car hit her in a crosswalk. Hit and run. The guy didn’t even stop.”
“So you think someone hit her on purpose?”
“Seems awfully suspicious, doesn’t it?” The woman blinked her eyes at Gage. “Who are you, anyway?”
He jerked his thumb at Randi. “Friend of hers. Is Jessica at the hospital?”
“St. Joseph’s.”
“Did you get a look at the person she was arguing with?”
“You seem more interested than the cops were.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder. “I looked out my peephole, but I couldn’t see anyone.”
“Did Jessica say anything to you about the argument?” Randi twisted her fingers in front of her. This couldn’t be related to her, could it?
“I don’t really know her like that. You know, she’s a graduate student in the Spanish department, T.A. and everything. I’m just trying to get through my second year.”
A graduate student in the Spanish department? Randi swallowed. “Maybe we should see if we can visit her. Has her family been around?”
“Not here, but you know what?”
“What?” Gage’s voice had taken on an edge, but the woman had missed it.
“I think that’s why the argument didn’t register with me—it might’ve been in Spanish.”
Randi’s hand braced against the wall, contracted into a fist. “Well, Jessica does speak fluent Spanish, so that would make sense.”
“Anyway, sorry about your friend. I gotta go.” The neighbor slammed the door, but Randi had the feeling she was peering at them from her peephole.
Grabbing her hand, Gage said, “Let’s go.”
Instead of leading her back to the elevator, he took a turn toward the stairwell. He let the fire door slam behind them, and then pinned Randi against the wall. “It’s her. It has to be her.”
“I know.” Randi licked her trembling lower lip. “They went after her. “Maybe she refused to tell them anything more about me. Maybe they asked her to contact them if I came to see her, and she refused.”
“It’s all speculation, but I know one thing.”
“What?”
“We need to get into that apartment.”
Chapter Twelve
“Break in, you mean?”
Randi’s whole frame stiffened beneath his grip. Gage didn’t want to keep dragging her along from one misadventure to another. She needed to heal—both body and soul.
But their race to discover Randi’s identity just got put on a stopwatch. If Randi didn’t recover her memories about Zendaris soon, his thugs would make sure she never did.
He pulled her into his arms, and she molded against his body along every line just like she belonged there. He cupped her face and ran his thumb along her lower lip. He couldn’t tell where his pulse ended and hers began.
Brushing his mouth against hers, he whispered against her lips. “Are you up for this?”
“Yesss.” Her warm breath feathered the corner of his mouth.
“I can drop you off at the hotel and come back here alone.”
“No.” She clung to him tighter, grasping his jacket with both hands. “Don’t leave me alone.”
“Not going to happen.” He wedged a finger beneath her chin and kissed her again. “Ever.”
She kissed him back, twining her arms around his neck.
He slid one hand into her thick hair and curved the other arm around her waist, dragging her flush against his body. He could take her right now in this stairwell and shut out everything. Shut out the danger. Shut out the voice of reason in his head. Shut out Zendaris.
She pulled away. Breathing heavily, she placed her palms against his chest. “We both know this is a bad idea.”
“A bad idea for now.” He cinched her wrists and planted a kiss on each palm. “We need to at least wait until Miss Nosey Neighbor leaves before breaking in.”
“Let’s be grateful for her nosiness.”
They jogged down the three flights of stairs. When the cold air hit Gage’s face, it brought him back to reality and his responsibility toward Randi. He needed to rein in his lust—or he’d have a lot of explaining to do to Elle.
They climbed back
in the car and drove down the street—close enough to monitor Jessica’s apartment building, but not right across the street where they might be noticed.
An hour later, the neighbor, wearing a red coat, sailed down the front steps of the apartment building and jumped into a waiting car.
“Let’s do this.” Gage grabbed his backpack from the backseat, and they headed toward Jessica’s building. Someone let them in after the third buzz, and they took the stairs again.
Gage pulled some tools from his pocket and tried the deadbolt first. It wasn’t even secured. He picked the lock on the door handle and pushed it open when he heard the click.
A musky, sweet scent washed over him as he stepped into the darkened room. Randi’s warm breath teased the back of his neck, and she bumped into him when he stopped.
“Shut the door. I’ll turn on the small lamp. We don’t want any bright lights shining from this apartment.” He sidled to the right and felt the base of a small lamp for a switch, and then turned it.
A soft, yellow glow stole across the living room, and Gage whistled through his teeth as he took in the tossed pillows, upended cushions and rifled drawers.
Randi stamped her foot beside him. “They beat us to this, too.”
Gage shrugged. “We had to figure they would. If they went to the trouble of running down the poor girl, they’d definitely search through her stuff. It doesn’t matter. They already know who you are. They’re just looking for an address or maybe a relative where you’d stay. We’re searching for other clues.”
He spread his arms. “Does any of this look familiar to you?”
“Nope.” She sank to the couch and shuffled through some magazines on the coffee table. “She definitely speaks Spanish.”
Gage slipped his flashlight out of his pocket and skimmed the beam across Jessica’s bookshelves. “Maybe you were a graduate student at Rice, too. Maybe that’s how you two met.”
“Oh?” Randi looked up from shuffling a stack of papers. “From graduate student to arms dealer’s mistress? That’s a leap.”
Gage plucked a framed photo from the shelf and held it under his flashlight. “There’s a resemblance between the two of you. Family?”
She crept across the room and peered over his shoulder. “Tall, long, dark hair. I told you. There are plenty of women like me in the world.”
Trap, Secure: Navy SEAL Security Page 14