Sworn to Protect

by Susanne Matthews

  “Are you frigging kidding me?” Mahoney all but yelled, his face an angry mask. “That woman is an eyewitness to a mass murder. You can’t just keep her away from me. I’ve got questions...”

  Anderson seemed to grow taller as his face reddened. “Special Agent Mahoney, you forget yourself. Keeping her safe is our responsibility as U.S Marshals. Should she have information for you, rest assured we will pass it along. At the moment, she has no memory of the event, so it’s unlikely she’s of any use to you, but our job remains the same. I suggest you focus your investigation on all of the loose ends we have. Someone hired that Russian assassin. Why don’t you try and find out who? Now, my inspectors and the asset have to leave.”

  Mahoney glared at Anderson and that was one pissing contest Neil was glad not to be involved in.

  “You forget yourself, Director Anderson. You’d better make sure nothing does happen to her. So far your watchdog hasn’t done a good job of it.” He stomped away.

  It was a good thing Todd held Neil’s arm because had he been able to reach Mahoney, he would’ve made good on his earlier threat.

  “Forget about him,” Anderson said, standing stiffly. “That jerk is mine. No one pisses in my sandbox and gets away with it. I’ll contact you over the secure line and keep you updated as long as I can. Once you’re on the move. We’ll use drop boxes as we’ve done before.”

  Neil nodded before following the stretcher, Dan, and Todd to the helicopter. Going dark meant no one, not even Anderson, and certainly not Mahoney, would know exactly where they were. The last time he’d been dark had been when his son and mother-in-law had died. Vanishing was a lot harder than it seemed, and doing so with an invalid would be quite a feat.

  Chapter Ten

  It was after ten when Neil walked into the kitchen, drawn there by the smell of fresh baked cookies. He hadn’t slept well, since he’d spent the last two days and nights in a chair by the bed just as he had at the hospital, haunted by nightmares of the assassination attempt. Mahoney’s words replayed themselves in his head. As much as he hated to admit it, the bastard was right. He’d fallen down on the job, and it couldn’t happen again. At Todd’s insistence, he’d gone for a run following the path through the trees behind the house. Freshly showered and dressed, he felt better than he had in weeks. Florida in the early spring was a hell of a lot warmer than Maryland had been.

  Not seeing Todd, he grabbed a warm cookie off the tray and stepped out onto the deck bathed in sunshine. The large plantation-styled house, fifteen miles west of Jacksonville, built in the early twentieth century, was surrounded by ten acres of fenced land and could only be reached by an electronically gated private road. Renovated and equipped with a state of the art security system, it was as safe a location for Nancy as he could imagine. The solarium, turned from a sitting room into a bedroom suite for her comfort, had mirrored windows made of bulletproof glass. Once she was awake, she would be able to see out, and even when the inside lights were on, no one could see inside. Todd expected they would stay here a month. By then she should be well on her way to recovery—with or without her memories.

  He stared out toward the small lake bordered on this side by a white picket fence which lit up at night. Neil took another bite of his cookie. They’d landed around six in the morning on Monday, and today was Wednesday. Dan was stopping the sedative today. Maybe when Nancy awoke this time, she would remember more, but he was torn on whether that would be a good thing or not. If she remembered, she’d be ambivalent toward him. If she didn’t, once she learned the truth about the last six years, she probably wouldn’t want to have anything to do with him anyway—caught between a rock and a hard place—but it would be easier to protect her if he knew who the enemy was.

  He’d been astonished to discover both Meredith and Fred were staying here as well. Anderson was convinced everything was related and had opted to keep all of his eggs, so to speak, in one basket. It wasn’t standard procedure, but given the overlap on these cases, and the current shortage of manpower since Anderson was determined to keep the FBI at arm’s length, it made sense. Since no one trusted Fred, he’d been given the safe room downstairs, the one without windows and fully shielded to prevent any access to Wi-Fi or satellite signals. There’d been quite the kerfuffle when they’d found a cellphone on him in Delaware, and it hadn’t gone well. The guy must have a death wish.

  “So, you’re the cookie thief,” Todd said, coming to stand beside him and handing him a cup of coffee.

  “Thanks. Guilty as charged. They’re really good.” He washed the bite of oatmeal raisin cookie down with coffee. “What’s up? You look as if you’ve swallowed something rotten. It’s not the cookies, and the coffee’s not that bitter.”

  “Paxton’s in the wind, but I’ve got an update on Bob Ashman.” He scowled and rubbed the top of his head.

  Neil recognized the tell and knew his partner was upset.

  “I was sure they would find that guy dead in the computer room,” he said shaking his head in disbelief.

  “You weren’t that far off,” Todd admitted, raising his own coffee mug to his lips and drinking. “He was stuffed in an old utility cupboard in the hospital morgue—not too far from where we were Monday. Some newbie intern got lost looking for old records and found him late yesterday afternoon. With the cooler temperature and the heavy smell of decomp down there, he might have gone a week or so before they’d have gone looking for the source of the aroma.”

  “You would think someone would have noticed he was missing,” Neil said, leaning a hip against the edge of the table. “Didn’t the guy have friends or family?”

  “He did. His wife called the police Sunday night when he didn’t come home from work. They gave her the old forty-eight hour spiel. Poor little lady has no idea the mess she’s in.” He shook his head once more. “They ran the prints they found in the computer office, and they came back belonging to Boris Yakinov, a young Chechen who entered the country eight years ago on a student visa, and then vanished.”

  “Another Russian?” Neil straightened in surprise. “How the hell does someone on a visa disappear?”

  “Believe me, Homeland’s on it. Chechnya considers itself an independent country, but essentially, yes. They’re a federal subject of Russia, whatever that means. I really need to brush up on world politics.”

  “The last I heard, they were rebelling.” Neil chuckled. “So, Boris came to the land of the free, changed his name to Bob, got married, got a job, and somehow ended up dead,” he summarized shaking his head.

  “More or less, but there’s a catch to his failed American dream. The only fingerprints they found in the computer room were his, so it looks as if he put the loop on the computer to give Olga time to murder Nancy. Maybe she threatened him, but I don’t think he expected her to off him, too.”

  “You’re sure she did it?” There really was no honor amongst thieves.

  “Not much doubt,” Todd conceded, setting down his empty coffee cup. “They found her fingerprints on the closet door. She injected him with a slow-acting curare derivative. He was tied up and gagged. Either she had help or she pistol whipped him first. Not sure how she would’ve gotten him downstairs, but ... The drug gradually paralyzed all the muscles and organs in his body including the lungs, and he suffocated. If he was conscious, it must have felt like being buried alive.” Todd shuddered. “Incidentally, that poison is the same stuff they found in the syringe and medication bag in Nancy’s room.”

  Neil choked on the bite of cookie he’d taken. Doctor Howard had said the port would’ve opened roughly half an hour after the attack.

  “If the staff hadn’t found the syringe under the bed,” Todd continued, patting him on the back to ease the coughing, “Nancy might have died anyway, even after the assassin herself was dead. You okay?”

  “Yeah. Did Anderson interview Ashman’s wife?” Neil asked, wanting to erase that image from his mind.

  “He did. He says she’s a couple of sandwiches sh
ort of a picnic. Cute but dumb as a post. Sadly, she’s pregnant. You’ll never guess where she works … Paxton Construction. Apparently, she’s the payroll clerk.” He grinned. “From his description, I’m glad she doesn’t sign my paychecks. That guy’s name keeps coming up, doesn’t it? I’d give my eye teeth to know what Nancy found out about him.”

  “So would I,” Neil said. “You said the guy’s in the wind?” He drank deeply, emptying his mug.

  “Yeah. He hasn’t been at work for a week. The FBI have someone watching the house, but no one’s gone in or out since they’ve been there. Do you want breakfast?”

  “What have you got?”

  “Bacon, eggs, and home fries.”

  Neil smiled. “Sounds good. When I’m done, I’ll check on Nancy. Dan said she should be waking up later today.”

  “When she does,” Todd said, leading the way back into the house, “she’ll have questions.”

  “I know,” Neil admitted, huffed out a breath, and refilled his coffee mug from the carafe on the counter. “I don’t know how I’m going to tell her we’re married, let alone about her mother and our son. She’s bound to ask about Moira soon—she did at the hospital when she first woke up. And then there’s going into the program. She may not put up a fuss about going into it, considering what she’s been through, but she may draw the line at going in as my wife. Right now, to her, I’m little more than a guy she dated a few times.”

  “Don’t borrow trouble,” Todd said opening the fridge door and pulling out a carton of eggs. “Just be your old charming self and let things play themselves out naturally.”

  “I’ll do my best. The last thing Doctor Howard said to me was that patients who’ve been through what she has often have personality changes. Let’s hope this new Nancy is willing to take a chance on me.”

  * * *

  Nancy opened her eyes, immediately aware of the different sounds and scents around her. Inhaling with some difficulty, she recognized the aroma of orange blossoms, a far cry and definite improvement over the medicinal smells she recalled vividly. This wasn’t a hospital room, and the familiar blips she’d grown used to hearing were gone. The machines surrounding her had dwindled to one lone IV pole, and she was in a bed—a huge one—definitely not a regulation hospital bed. She wrinkled her nose at the slight discomfort of an oxygen cannula which had replaced the mask she remembered. The one thing that hadn’t changed was her thirst. The sound of pages turning drew her gaze to the windows. Someone sat in a chair looking at a magazine. Without her glasses, things were blurry, but she was sure it was a woman.

  “Mom,” she croaked.

  The figure stood and hurried over to the bed.

  Disappointment filled her. She might not be in a hospital, but this woman, dressed in pale blue camo scrubs, wasn’t her mother either.

  “Hi, Ms. Frost. I’m Julia. I’ll be looking after you for the next little while. How do you feel?”

  “Sore ... Thirsty,” the words formed in her mind and struggled out of her mouth.

  Julia moved to the other side of the bed, poured water from a pitcher into a glass.

  “I’ll bet. You’ve been in a coma for some time. Here.” The woman leaned forward and offered her the bent straw. “Slowly now. Small sips to start. You don’t want to bring it back up.”

  Nancy sipped cautiously as instructed, and allowed the cool liquid to soothe her parched throat.

  “Not too much. You can have more later.”

  Two more sips, and Nancy melted back into the pillow, the small movement exhausting her. Feeling like Rip Van Winkle awakened in a new unfamiliar world, she tried to make sense of what she knew—not that it was a lot. She’d been in a coma? Why? For how long? There was so much she wanted to ask, but uttering the words she needed suddenly seemed like a daunting task. Where was her mother? Struggling, she managed to make a sound she hoped was enough like the word to be understood.

  “Where?”

  “I’m not 100 percent sure where we are, but it’s nice and warm here. It was still cold and snowy in Minnesota,” the nurse answered. “It’s a government safe house.”

  That wasn’t the answer Nancy had expected, and her mouth dropped open in surprise.

  “Why?” Had the place been converted into some kind of rehab center? Private medical facilities cost an arm and a leg. She didn’t have that much medical insurance.

  “You’re in protective custody. Dan and I are here to look after you.” Julia sat on the edge of the bed and reached for her wrist to take her pulse.

  Nancy frowned. Looking after people in protective custody was what Neil did. That was probably why he’d been at the hospital with her, but it didn’t explain where her mother was and why she hadn’t been there, nor did it explain why someone wanted her dead.

  The image of the woman in her hospital room flashed into her mind, bringing with it a fresh wave of pain.

  “No …. Memory,” she whispered.

  The nurse nodded and released her wrist. “It’s a little fast, but nothing to worry about.” She wrapped a blood pressure cuff around her arm. “The meds they gave you could account for some of that. You may remember more as time passes. Head injuries can be tricky. You had a couple of broken ribs as well—that’s why your chest is sore. Those take ages to heal, and there’s a new scar on your abdomen. The doctor did a terrific job stitching you up.”

  Nancy frowned. A head injury, broken ribs, and a scar on her stomach? What the hell happened to her? She must’ve taken one hell of a tumble down that hill. The pain in her head increased exponentially, and a tear slipped down her cheek.

  “Hurts that much does it?” the nurse asked, releasing the air in the cuff, her voice filled with sympathy. She stood and reached for something on the table.

  Nancy wanted to nod, but was too exhausted to try. Instead, she let the tears of fear and confusion trickle down her face.

  “Pain meds coming right up.”

  Within minutes, the safe, comforting grayness took her again.

  The next time Nancy awoke, the pain in her head wasn’t quite as bad as it had been. Several hours must’ve passed because, while the room wasn’t exactly dark, it wasn’t as bright as it had been earlier. Unfortunately, without her glasses, most of what she could see was nothing more than a blur of color here and there. The nurse stood next to the bed changing the IV bag.

  Nancy cleared her throat, causing the nurse to turn, a smile spreading across her face.

  “Hello again. That was quite the nap you had. I’m Julia, remember? Thirsty?”

  “Yes,” she said softly, answering both questions at once. She might feel better, but talking was no easier than it had been. How had her voice grown so rusty that it had forgotten how to make the sounds she needed?

  The nurse offered her the straw, and she drank deeply, enjoying the sensation of the cool liquid slipping down her throat.

  “On a scale of one to ten with one being, ‘what pain?’ and ten being ‘It’s killing me,’ how bad is it?”

  Nancy tried to smile, but her face didn’t feel as if it was cooperating. Her chest was sore, but not the way it had been, and although the elephants in her head might be fewer, they were still tap-dancing up a storm.

  “Seven?” she croaked.

  The nurse nodded. “I can give you another shot now, but it’ll knock you out again. If you can wait a bit, I’ll give it to you in about twenty minutes. Someone really wants to talk to you, and he should be back any second. He’s worn a path in and out of this room the last couple of days.” She crossed her arms and smiled. “Meredith says your husband hasn’t left your side since the moment you came out of surgery.”

  Husband? Meredith?

  The nurse had to have the wrong patient. Before she could say anything, the door opened. Julia turned and grinned.

  “Perfect timing, Marshal Copeland, your wife just woke up.”

  Marshal Copeland? I married Neil Copeland?

  Her heart raced and heat suffused her. That was
impossible. Unless Julia was as nutty as a fruit cake, something was definitely wrong. Neil was a great guy, and while she liked him and enjoyed his company, his job took up too much of his time. He was a lot like her father had been in that respect. Even her mother had commented on it. There was no way she would’ve married him. Hell, she’d debated the wisdom of joining him on the ski weekend, but the thought of seeing that much snow had been far too tempting to pass up. Now, look at the mess she was in.

  She gazed at the shadow near the door. Her brain might be on vacation, but her hearing was as acute as ever. Mom maintained she could hear a mouse run across a shag carpet.

  One of her worst habits was listening in on conversations, even when she did her best to tune out the talkers, especially people who opted to yak for extended periods on their cellphones ignoring the fact they were bothering everyone around them. Sometimes, bits and pieces of those conversations lingered in her mind, and more than once she’d had to stop herself before saying something she wasn’t supposed to know.

  Neil whispered to the nurse as he moved closer to the bed.

  “I’m so sorry, no one mentioned that. It’s my fault. I should’ve read the whole chart. I hope I haven’t caused any trouble,” she answered, tripping over her words in her apology.

  Nancy frowned, the movement difficult as if her forehead couldn’t crease. Were they keeping secrets from her?

  “Relax, Julia. We don’t have a users’ manual for something like this. Todd has your supper ready. Give us a few minutes, and when you’re finished, you can come back and settle her for the night.”

  “Twenty minutes tops. She’ll need her pain medication by then. Try not to upset her too much more. She looks pretty rattled already, no thanks to my big mouth.” Julia turned to her. “I’ll see you soon.”

  Neil moved over to the bed, close enough for her to almost make out his facial expression.

  “Hi. Remember me?”

  “Yes,” she murmured, her voice rusty to her own ears. Never one to beat around the bush, she wanted answers, and she wanted them now.