Sworn to Protect

by Susanne Matthews

  “Bitch. Don’t go feeding me that horseshit,” he spat the words at her and yanked her up off the floor. “It might keep them from bombarding you with questions, but I don’t believe it.”

  Nancy could see his irritation in the flush on his face, his fury in the way his voice rose and how stiffly he held himself. He sniffled constantly, but she didn’t think he had a cold. His eyes shone with an unnatural mania, and she swallowed her terror. There was no way she could try to rush the man. He outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds, and on an adrenalin and God alone knew what else high like he was, he could snap her like a twig.

  She had to buy time. Neil wasn’t dead; he couldn’t be. This was their time. They had a future together. Fate couldn’t be that cruel.

  “I don’t understand. Why would the FBI take the encrypted file to you?” she asked, pulling her arm out of his hand, and edging deeper into the kitchen, moving closer to the chair and her sweater.

  “Olsen, Jensen, and Merriweather are always eager to help out the law in whatever way they can. They know you worked there. It’s a logical place to start.”

  “I don’t remember you or that company.”

  “Right,” he said, sarcasm heavy in his voice. “That old amnesia chestnut again.” He followed her into the kitchen. “I’ll take that drink now, neat if you please, and don’t think of doing anything stupid like throwing it at me. There are lots of places to shoot you without killing you until I’m ready. I don’t mind a little blood.”

  She reached the counter, took down a clean glass, searching for a weapon she could use to defend herself, but there was nothing close enough to reach without being noticed. With trembling hands, she splashed an inch of the amber liquid into the glass and moved back toward the table, dismayed to see he’d sat on the chair where her sweater hung.

  “Why don’t you just kill me and get it over with? It’s what you’ve tried to do all along, and you’ve killed so many others in the process.”

  “Don’t temp me. You’ve been a pain in my ass too long. You owe me a little of what you must’ve given Fred to get him to betray me. As for killing others, I simply make arrangements for it to be done. I haven’t killed anyone, yet—well other than the marshal, but he doesn’t count since he’s already legally dead. I attended your funeral, by the way. Very touching.”

  Tears she couldn’t stop trickled down her cheeks, and her knees buckled. Forced to grab the edge of the table for support, she dropped into the closest chair, the one Neil had sat on just minutes earlier when she’d told him she wanted to be a mother. He couldn’t be dead. She’d sense it if he was.

  “Why do you want to kill me? I don’t know you. I don’t know anything.”

  He moved so quickly that the backhanded slap he gave her was unexpected, and she raised her hand to the side of her throbbing face.

  “Don’t play games with me. I’ve had a lousy week, and I’m not in the best of moods. Now, I want to know where Fred, my goddamn money, and the USB drive are.”

  “You’re insane,” she cried, no longer caring what he did to her. “I don’t remember you or that job, or any of what you’re talking about.”

  “Bravo. You almost sound sincere.” He clapped his hands, applauding her performance, and waved the gun in her face. “If you’d minded your own business, none of this would’ve happened. Fred was being well-paid for his services. All he had to do was move the money from point A to point B, but then he got greedy, didn’t he? Or was it all your idea? How did you know? Is there a traitor in our midst? What were you going to do with the file? Blackmail us? Turn us in? You have no idea what you’re up against.”

  His voice sounded eerily familiar, and as they had in her dreams, flashes of images, all convoluted and mixed together, filled her mind.

  “You were there in the restaurant, weren’t you?” she asked, realizing the truth as soon as she spoke the words.

  “Only as an observer. And then Cruz got shot, and I took him out to the van, leaving Boris to finish the job. My mistake. That asshole never could do a damn thing right.”

  Anger replaced her fear. “You’re a monster,” she cried.

  “You think so?” He laughed. “Wait until you see what I have planned to get that brain of yours working again. See how good I am? You recognized me. I’ve cured your damn amnesia. Now, where is Fred and my property?”

  “I don’t know,” she yelled back at him. He was going to kill her, but if Neil was dead, she didn’t want to live anyway.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Neil slowly opened his eyes, the stench of manure so strong it gagged him. It took him a moment to realize where he was. What the hell was he doing on the floor of the horse’s stall? He was lucky to be alive lying here like this. Had he slipped? His head pounded, and his vision seemed occluded. He swiped at his face, shoving a clot of drying blood and dirty straw aside. Thank God he’d mucked out the stalls earlier.

  The horses neighed, and with the sound, his memory returned. Someone had tried to kill him. Nancy! He reached for his glock, finding his holster empty. No matter, the Ruger was still at his ankle and would do the job—as long as she was still alive.

  Using the wooden stall for support, he pulled himself upright. His legs wobbled and the earth reeled. For a moment, he thought he would pass out again, but the dizziness faded, and he hurried out of the stable. His heart pounded in time with the pulsing pain in his brain. Splashing water from the trough onto his face to erase the last if his confusion, he rushed toward the house and tiptoed up to the kitchen window. Staying as low as he could, he glanced inside, hoping to see Nancy.

  From where he stood, he saw an unfamiliar man sitting at the table, a glass of whiskey in front of him, his gun pointed at Nancy. He exhaled the breath he’d been holding, thanking the powers that be that she was still alive. There was no doubt his would-be killer was shouting at her, but the clamor of the wind and the rain made it impossible to hear what he was saying.

  Neil weighed his options. Considering the man’s position, there was no way he could go in the front door—most likely the man had locked it anyway—but there was another way inside, one he used regularly to bring wood into the cabin.

  Moving to the back of the house, he stripped naked, removed his boots, knowing his manure-infused clothing would immediately give him away. The icy rain chilled him to the bone, but cleared his mind. Slowly opening the door to the storm cellar, grateful he hadn’t locked it earlier, he descended the stairs, avoiding the creaky fourth step and the logs he’d left piled along the edge of the lower stairs earlier in the day. His track suit sat on top of the laundry basket, where Nancy had left it after doing the laundry. Grateful for something warm to wear, he pulled on the fleece-lined pants and jacket, zipping it halfway up. He added a pair of socks before crossing the basement to the door leading upstairs into the main house. While he was moving as quickly as he could, the seconds seemed to crawl by. Edging his way up the steps slowly, praying none of the stairs would creak or crack under his weight, he inched the door open, hoping the howling wind would cover any noise it made. He crept down the hall, staying as close to the inside wall as he could.

  “How did you find me?” Nancy asked.

  Neil heard the bravado in her voice. She was terrified—who wouldn’t be considering there’d already been three attempts on her life. How long could she keep this up?

  “After I saw the tablet, I knew you’d somehow managed to escape the house in Florida. No doubt the marshal had a lot to do with that. At least, I don’t have to worry about how much he knows, and my associates will find and pick off the others one by one.” He chuckled. “Don’t look so crestfallen, although considering those deaths are on you...” He took a sip of whiskey. “We have believers and followers everywhere. Some of them are dumb as posts and don’t even realize they’re playing for our team and paying lip service to the other. Like that idiot FBI agent, Jarett Mahoney. He’s been very forthcoming with information. Of course the cocky bastard would se
ll out his own mother for a bigger office, but the cause can use men like him. In the end, he’s as disposable as the rest of the riff-raff.”

  “Your cause?” she asked.

  Neil slowly exhaled. He’d always disliked Mahoney, but to find out the man was implicated in this ... He edged closer to the kitchen, staying in the shadows, grateful the light wasn’t anywhere near him.

  “Nancy, Nancy, Nancy.” Clive repeated her name as if saying the word pained him. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. You had the file open at least four minutes before I caught you there—that’s long enough to see what you shouldn’t have seen. It was a good thing for me that I’d already convinced Olsen that you were a threat to the company. That man is so close to joining us, but I digress. This country has gone to hell in a handbasket, and my associates, the Citizens Eliciting Change, can’t meekly stand by and watch it be eroded further by weak government officials, more interested in greasing their pockets than making this country the leader it used to be. We’ll sweep the next election and get rid of the vermin sucking our country dry.”

  “C.E.C. Citizens Eliciting Change,” she said. “Paxton signed over the controlling interest in his company to them. You’re nothing but domestic terrorists.”

  He laughed. “Hardly. We’re patriots and we will save this country, one way or the other. Sadly, you won’t be around to see it happen.”

  “Was Paxton one of you?” she asked, her voice filled with curiosity.

  Don’t make him mad, honey.

  “Paxton was an ass who spent more time controlled by his dick than his brain. Colleen convinced him he was turning the company over to her to keep it out of his wife’s hands.” He emptied the glass and poured himself more whiskey. “After his wife was murdered—an accident that was Cruz’s fault, not mine—he tried to break it off with her and take back his firm. She tried to reason with him, but apparently the man did love his wife. We needed his company. A construction business can purchase materials we might need in the event we had to reclaim our country the way our forefathers did, materials that would put others on the Homeland Security radar. Those guys have given some of our allies enough grief. But that doesn’t answer your burning question. How did I find you?” He leaned forward, his gun resting on the table, aimed squarely at Nancy’s heart.

  Neil didn’t dare make a sound.

  “Drop boxes. Apparently, it’s how the marshals communicate when they go dark. We hacked Anderson’s lines, all of them, found the one we needed and used GPS to locate this place. Those guys need to shake things up. They’re too predictable. I didn’t expect to find you here. I thought some tech guru would be trying to open my file, but instead, I must admit, having you alive is a bonus. Enough chit-chat. If you were waiting for your white knight to rescue you, now you know he won’t. Where’s Fred and that flash drive?”

  “I don’t know where Fred is. I’ve never even met the man,” she answered and Neil heard the fear and defeat in her voice. “Neil found a USB flash drive in my bag and gave it to Ewan who put a copy on that tablet along with Paxton’s files in case my memory came back and I could open it, but it didn’t.”

  The man burst out laughing. “Bullshit. That’s rich, but I don’t buy it for a minute. I saw you with the marshal. You didn’t look like strangers to me.”

  She shook her head. “But it’s true. I don’t know anything if I ever did. What did you do to Neil? I didn’t hear a gunshot.”

  Neil crept down the hall, inching the last few feet to the edge of the kitchen wall.

  “I didn’t shoot him, but he’s definitely dead. I brained him with a horseshoe I picked up in the shed—what the police would call a weapon of opportunity—then I threw him under the hooves of one of those horses, the skittish one that was already dancing around. Whoever finds him will think it was an accident. By now, I’m sure those horses have stomped him to death.”

  Nancy gripped the table. “I don’t believe you,” she cried.

  “Then we’re even, bitch, because I don’t believe you either. Now, for the last time, where are they?”

  “I don’t know,” she yelled back at him through gritted teeth, tears running down her cheeks. “How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t know where it is. Damn it. I don’t even know what it is.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?” the man asked, his voice getting louder as his fury increased. “Because you’re a liar. I still don’t know how you and Fred managed to access that file.”

  “I told you I don’t know. I don’t remember doing it,” she said.

  Neil held his breath. The hysteria in the man’s voice terrified him. From the mirror in the hallway, he could see into the kitchen. The disheveled stranger stood over Nancy, now, shouting at her. He grabbed her hair and the wig came off in his hand.

  He dropped it as if it burned him. “What the hell?” He stared at her and burst out laughing. “Not the best look for you.” He wrinkled his face. “I should kill you slowly to make you suffer for the time and effort you’ve cost me. Now, I will ask you one last time. Where is that USB drive, Fred, and my goddamn money?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered tears pouring down her cheeks.

  The man struck her with the hand holding the gun, she fell to the floor, blood trickling from her mouth. He yanked her upright, encircling her throat with his left arm and pointing his gun at her with his right.

  Neil bit his tongue to keep from crying out. If he tried to rush him now, the man would shoot Nancy before he was halfway across the room, and holding her as he did, his arm around her throat, there was a chance Neil’s bullet might strike her instead of him. If there was hell on earth, this was it.

  Clive released her neck, but before she could move away, he grabbed her by both arms. “Where are they?” he yelled again, his mania in complete control of him, shaking her as if she were a rag doll.

  “I don’t have it. Feel free to look around. There are no computers here, no USB drives.”

  He threw her down onto the chair, but stood behind her so that Nancy was between Neil and the assailant. The man bent down close to her, the gun caressing her jaw.

  “You know, we could’ve been good together.”

  “Was what was on that flash drive worth the lives of all those innocent people?”

  She was trying to pull herself together and Neil’s admiration grew.

  “No one’s innocent,” Clive said and laughed. “I suppose it won’t hurt to tell you since after I tear this place apart looking for it, I’ll do the same to you. That file has a list of all our supporters, both foreign and domestic. If the foreign names got out, their governments would disavow them, but the Americans? Well, let’s just say that overthrowing the government is the kind of act that would merit the death penalty and none of us are prepared to die for the cause just yet. That’s why I need the USB. Just give it up. If you do, I’ll be merciful, but if you don’t...” He put his finger on the trigger. “Thanks for the drink. How about we have a little fun? How many times can I shoot you before you tell me what I want to know?” He aimed the gun at Nancy’s shoulder.

  Neil fired his weapon, but not fast enough to stop him from getting a shot off. The scene in Nancy’s hospital room replayed itself as Neil rushed across the kitchen. The gunman lay in a pool of blood, the left side of his head gone. On the chair, Nancy slumped forward, blood seeping from her body onto the white linen tablecloth.

  He touched her carotid pulse—it was faint, but it was there.

  Pulling out the cell phone in his pocket, he pressed number two on the speed dial.

  “Hello?”

  “Ray, it’s Neil. Call Anderson. They found us. The assassin’s dead, and Nancy’s been shot. I need an air ambulance out here right away. I don’t care if they have to fly through a hurricane to do it.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Neil ended the call and eased Nancy onto her back on the floor. Her moan was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard.

  “It’s okay, s
weetheart. I’ve got you.”

  Blood oozed from her shoulder. So much blood. He grabbed the dish towel, applied pressure, and started to pray.

  * * *

  Pacing the small waiting room in the surgical wing, Neil was unable to calm down. Nancy was in surgery again, just as she’d been more than a month ago, but this time there wasn’t any fear she’d die. The bullet had fractured her clavicle, but there shouldn’t be any complications.

  No, his fear came from the possibility that Nancy could’ve recovered her memories, and if she did, she might not want anything to do with him. He couldn’t lose her again.

  “Mr. Adams?” the nurse said, coming into the room and using his alias.

  “Yes?”

  “Your wife is in recovery. Everything went well. I can take you to her.”

  The fact Nancy had only been shot in the shoulder was a miracle considering how close Clive Connors had been. Neil hadn’t stopped blaming himself for letting the guy get the jump on them. In the rain, he’d opted not to do a perimeter search. The power lines hadn’t gone down, they’d been cut, turning off the electric fence and making it easy for Connors to slip in unnoticed. He must’ve sat and watched, waiting until Neil went out to start the generator, and then he attacked.

  The animals had tried to warn him. He’d heard the sound and dismissed and then … Wham! He would never understand why the horses hadn’t trampled him. Maybe one of those angels Nancy believed in had been by his side. He’d been lucky to escape with six sutures in his head and badly bruised ribs.

  Entering the room, the nurse stopped next to the second bed, and Neil stepped closer to Nancy. The nurse drew the curtains to give them some privacy.

  Nancy stirred in the bed, and he reached for her hand. She opened her eyes and smiled.

  “Hey there, pretty girl,” he said. “We have to stop meeting like this.”

  She nodded, but tears filled her eyes. She squeezed his hand gently.