“Yeah,” Wes said, “they’re both so jolly. Well, Santa’s jolly. Joe’s not. In fact, he’s getting pretty fed up and put out by the way the top brass are jerking him around. I don’t know how many days running this is that first they tell him, yes, Robinson’s on his way, only to call him later and say, no, he’s been detained again.”
“Any word from Albuquerque?” Lucky asked.
“Crash and Blue reported in. No sign of Mitch,” Wes told him. “But he was there. At least the shop owner described someone who looks just like him, down to his pretty green eyes.”
“That’s good,” Bobby said. “That’s great. He’s alive.”
“Yeah, but the mystery thickens,” Wes reported. “He spent nearly four hundred dollars. Bought himself a nice suit, a coupla shirts, some underwear. Total came to three and change, yet our boy used two of the counterfeit bills with two that were unmarked. What’s up with that? And why’s he buying a suit?”
“A few days ago, I wished I’d brought a suit with us from California,” Bobby said. “Because I—”
“Had a date with the supermodel,” Wes finished for him. “Yeah, rub it in.”
“Okay, so maybe there’s a woman involved,” Lucky said. “We need to make sure we look at everyone passing by. Mitch could be with a woman.”
“Or maybe he was just getting himself a disguise. If I wanted to disguise myself,” Wes pointed out, “first thing I’d do is buy myself a suit. Make myself look like a business geek. No one would ever recognize me.”
Lucky stared out the tinted window at the bus station. Mitchell Shaw was out there. Somewhere. Lucky had had a gut feeling that he’d come back for his “bag of tricks.” But maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he and his new suit were long gone, the missing plutonium with him. Maybe the somewhere that Mitch was, was on the other side of the world.
“Did the captain give us any orders?” Lucky asked.
“Sit tight,” Wes said. “Just sit tight.”
“Stop,” Mish said. “Bec, stop here!”
Becca slammed on the brakes.
The lengthening twilight was casting odd shadows in an alleyway that was probably poorly lit at best, even at high noon.
Mish climbed down out of the truck and went between two buildings, one brick, one wood. The pavement—what little was left—was pitted and cracked. The scent of rotting garbage filled the air. It was familiar, as was the latticework of the fire escapes that decorated the outside of the brick building.
Mish closed his eyes to see the image of those iron stairs and landings lit by a stormy night sky that flashed with lightning and…
Yes, he had been here before.
He knew without looking that a few steps farther in, behind the dumpster, was a basement door—once painted a bright red, long since faded by the heat—that stood ajar.
“Mish?” Becca had parked the truck and now followed him.
It was getting darker by the minute, and he moved cautiously past the Dumpster, with its sound of rats scurrying away. He moved closer and…
A basement door.
Ajar.
Faded red.
“I’ve been here.” He was certain now. He turned to Becca. “I remember…”
What? What did he remember?
He closed his eyes. Thunder and lightning. His clothes soaked almost instantly after the downpour started. He’d been following…
Following…Lord, he couldn’t remember who he’d been following or why he’d been here.
“I had my weapon drawn.” Somehow he knew that. He’d gone down the steps to the basement door, and he’d hidden deep in the shadows, his handgun held ready.
Nothing had moved. Nothing. The storm raged for many long minutes, and still he stood frozen, waiting, watching.
But the man he had followed and was waiting for to return—and it was a man—had vanished.
Finally, Mish had crept out. Up those concrete stairs and into the puddles of the alleyway.
Something had made him turn. Some instinct, or perhaps a sound he’d managed to hear beneath the pounding of the rain.
But he’d turned, and lightning flashed, and he saw the face of the man he was after for the briefest split second—before the muzzle flash from the man’s handgun exploded his night vision, before the bullet from that weapon knocked him over and out.
He focused everything he had in him on that scrap of memory, on that split-second exposure of a face.
Forty-five to fifty years old, heavy set, graying beard, thinning hair. Small nose in an otherwise puffy face. He’d been up above Mish, on the roof.
Mish scanned the roof, scanned the windows of the brick building. He longed for the feel of a weapon in his hands—not that wimpy little .22 he’d found in his boot and left back at the ranch, but a real weapon. A Heckler & Koch MP-5 room broom. Or even an MP-4. Something with a real bite, something that would fit comfortably in his arms.
Then it hit him—he was actually standing here, wishing he had an assault weapon.
An assault weapon.
Who the hell was he?
“Mish, are you okay?”
Nothing moved along the roof-line now, and Mish could see, even with the rapidly falling shadows, that it had been sheer luck that had enabled the bearded man to get the jump on him. It was also equally sheer luck he hadn’t killed Mish.
Or maybe it wasn’t luck. Maybe it was just ineptitude. Or amateurishness.
But if the bearded man had been a real shooter, he would’ve made damn sure he’d finished Mish off before he’d left the scene.
The scuff of a boot against the pavement made him spin around in a defensive crouch and…
Becca.
Her eyes were wide as she gazed at him, as he quickly straightened up.
“What do you remember?” she asked quietly.
“I wasn’t here making a delivery for UPS, that’s for damn sure.”
Chapter 11
“Please,” Mish said.
His steak was as untouched as her grilled-chicken Caesar salad. Why had they bothered to come to this restaurant anyway, if neither of them intended to eat?
Becca thought wistfully of that pizza and beer she’d hoped to share with him, preferably while naked on a motel-room bed.
“You want me just to leave you here,” she repeated.
“To go back to the Lazy Eight tonight. Just…that’s it? Good luck? So long? You’re on your own? Thanks, but I’m no longer needed?”
It had been too many hours since Mish had gotten close to a razor, and with all that stubble on his face, he looked positively dangerous.
Except for his eyes.
Mish’s eyes gave him away.
And his eyes told her he wanted her to stay.
But he leaned forward now, to convince her otherwise. “It’s not as simple as what I do and don’t need, Bec. For all I know, this guy—the man with the beard—is still somewhere around here. In town. Nearby. I don’t know. But I do know that if I’m his target, I don’t want you anywhere near me.”
Becca sighed and gave up even toying with her salad. “So we’re back in that Clint Eastwood movie, huh?”
“He shot me,” Mish said flatly. “He looked at me, he aimed, and he discharged his weapon. And…”
It was her turn to lean across the table. “And what?”
He lowered his voice, looking away from her, the muscles in his jaw clenching. When he looked at her again, his eyes were bleak. “And if I had had the chance, I would’ve aimed and fired my weapon at him.”
“Now, is this an actual memory we’re talking about, or is this another of those things you just somehow know?”
“I’m sure you’re very funny, but I don’t happen to find any of this humorous,” he said tightly.
She reached for his hand. “I don’t mean to be such a smartass, I just…” She exhaled noisily. “Mish, I don’t want to get in my truck and just leave you here. I still haven’t given up on the UPS-man scenario.”
He squ
eezed her hand slightly before he let her go, his eyes dark with regret. “I would have shot him, Bec,” he said quietly. “And yes, that’s a solid memory.”
Odd, that part seemed to have been edited out of the version he’d first told her, after they’d left the alley and gotten back in her truck. Becca tapped her fingers on the table. “What else do you remember from that night?”
“I was carrying my .45—I don’t know what happened to it. It must’ve been stolen with my wallet. The .22 in my boot was just a backup, but…I remember wishing I had an MP-5.”
“MP-5?”
“Heckler & Koch MP-5,” he told her grimly. “It’s a German-made assault weapon. A machine gun. It’s called a room broom, because you use it at a relatively short range to clear a room.”
“Clear a room?” She was starting to sound like a parrot.
Mish nodded. “Yeah, it means just what it sounds like.” He gripped his water glass tightly as he brought it to his mouth and took a sip.
“I have this recurring dream where I’m in a room,” he told her. “Locked in with these other people. The door bursts open, and these men come in carrying assault weapons. There’s a struggle, and one of the weapons—it’s an Uzi. God, how do I know the names of these things?” He took a deep breath and when he spoke again, his voice was matter-of-fact. “In the struggle, an Uzi is kicked toward me, and I pick it up, and I use it to clear the room of the men with the weapons. One sweep with my finger on the trigger, and I kill them all. That’s what it means to clear a room.”
Becca shook her head, refusing to believe that could have happened—at least not as emotionlessly as he made it sound. “Mish, I know you’re trying to prove that you’re a terrible person, but you should hear some of my dreams. There’s this one where I’m in a furniture store and—”
“I recognized the men in that van today,” Mish told her.
That…van? She didn’t say the words aloud, but she was certain they echoed on her face.
“The one with the tinted windows. Parked by the bus station?” he clarified. “I don’t know where I know them from—both the shorter man with the tattoo and the man with the light-colored hair—but I definitely know them from somewhere.”
Becca didn’t understand. “Why didn’t you say something to them? Approach them, find out who they are? Maybe find out who you are?”
“They were definitely running some kind of surveillance,” Mish told her. “And I know you were joking this afternoon, but it’s possible they are looking for me.”
“Surveillance?” Becca was incredulous. “How could you know what they were doing in that van? You couldn’t see inside. I’m sorry, Mish, but—”
“I didn’t have to see inside. I knew there were three men, even though I didn’t see more than two—because Tattoo brought three cups of coffee with him. Three large cups, which I took to mean they were planning to stay awhile. Blondie shook his muscles out when he got out of the van—they’d obviously already been there for some time. So long, in fact, he was in a rush to get into the bar and use the head.”
“Use the…? What’s a head?”
“Men’s room,” he said. “Lav. It’s called a head on a ship.” He rolled his eyes. “Great. Now I’m a sailor.”
Becca laughed. She couldn’t help herself.
Mish smiled, too, but it faded far too quickly. “Becca, go home.”
She rested her chin in the palm of her hand, clearly going nowhere. “What if you don’t remember anything else?” she asked. “What if the rest of the details of who you were don’t ever come back to you?”
Mish shook his head. “I haven’t really thought in terms of a worst-case scenario.”
“Maybe,” she said softly, “not remembering wouldn’t necessarily be the worst-case scenario.”
He gazed at her for a moment, clearly understanding what she was getting at. He’d thought it himself, many times. If he never pushed to find out the truth, if he just let go of whatever he’d done or been in the past, if he started over, from scratch…
“It would be kind of like being born all over again,” Becca continued. “It could be a blessing. If you honestly think you did such terrible things…”
“You make it sound so tempting,” he whispered. “But I’m here. I can’t leave Wyatt City without at least talking to Jarell.”
“Ah,” she said. “There you go. Now you know exactly how I feel.”
She met his gaze staunchly as he searched her eyes.
After several long moments, he nodded. “All right. I’ll get us two rooms for tonight.”
He was determined to keep his distance. Becca nodded, too. She’d let him win that battle.
For now.
Mish flipped through the TV channels twice more, but it was just like playing a game of solitaire that had run its course. Nothing new or interesting had magically appeared.
An infomercial on selling real estate. A late-night talk show with some actress who had a body like a POW-camp survivor—emaciated and bony and completely unappealing, compared to Becca’s soft curves.
Compared to Becca’s lush breasts and soft thighs and…
Mish changed the channel, shifting uncomfortably on the bed, refusing to think about Becca, naked in his arms.
The movie channel was showing a romantic comedy about a man who, after only one glimpse of a beautiful young woman, knew that she was his destiny. From what Mish could tell from the few minutes he’d watched earlier, the hero was determined to win the girl’s heart by any means, including outright deceit. He lied about his name, his identity, his profession, his past.
Mish watched for a few more minutes before turning off the set in utter disgust. He knew how the movie would end. True love would triumph and the girl would forgive the hero.
But real life didn’t work that way. Real life was filled with unmendable hurt, with unforgivable wrongs, with irreparable damage.
And most people didn’t get a second chance at anything.
He lay back on the bed, aching with an awful emptiness, staring up at the plastered ceiling, knowing full well that he was one of the lucky ones. He’d been given a second chance—a chance to detach himself from all of the wrongs he’d ever done. A chance to start fresh, to live clean, to do right.
So what was he doing? He was lying here, nearly jumping out of his skin, desperate to cross the motel courtyard and knock on the door to room 214.
Becca’s room.
She’d wanted to spend the night with him again. She’d told him so. But he’d turned her down, obsessed with the idea of protecting her from himself.
He’d checked them into their rooms, said good-night, and then he’d taken a long, cold shower. He’d shaved, too, although for what reason, he had no clue. He was here for the night. Alone.
And Becca was in her room. Alone. Way on the other side of the motel complex.
But now he lay here—alone—unable to think about anything but the softness of Becca’s lips, the perfect fit of his body to hers, the sparkle of her eyes, the satisfied smile that curled her lips after he…after they…
Oh, Lord. He had to stay away from her. He had to.
Mish stood up, unable to keep from pacing. He was unable to stop himself from pacing right over to the TV where his room key sat, pocketing the key and pacing right out the door.
Room 214 was on the other side of the swimming pool, up on the second floor. He found the room without even counting windows—he already knew where it was. Behind the heavy draperies, he could see the glow of her light still on. She was awake.
Okay, he’d go over and knock on the door, ask her if she wanted to meet at the Waffle House for breakfast in the morning.
Mish crossed the courtyard, went up the stairs. He could hear the sound of a radio playing from inside room 214, heard Becca singing along. She had a sweet voice, low and musical.
He stood, leaning his head against her door, listening to her sing, and he knew without a doubt that he hadn’t come here to ta
lk about breakfast.
He’d come to stay until breakfast.
He couldn’t do it. Try as he might, he couldn’t stay away from her. Try as he might, he wasn’t worthy of this second chance he’d miraculously been given.
Because here he was, yet again, right on schedule, giving in to temptation, choosing to do wrong instead of right.
He didn’t know his name, but he knew with a gut-clenching certainty that before this was through, he was going to hurt this woman.
How hard could it be not to knock on her door? All he had to do was put his hands in his pockets or behind his back. And then he had to turn away, not think about the fact that she would probably greet him with a kiss, pull him into her room, surround him with the sweet scent of her freshly washed hair, the paralyzing softness of her smooth, clean skin. She would fall back on her bed with him, wrap herself around him and…
Mish couldn’t turn away. And he couldn’t keep his hands behind his back. He lifted one, about to rap loudly right next to the sign that said 214, but he never got the chance.
The door opened.
And Becca stood there, wearing cutoff jeans and a halter top that showed off a pair of smooth, bare shoulders that looked too damned good even when covered by a perspiration-stained T-shirt. She was carrying an open pint of ice cream, a plastic spoon stuck in the top.
“Mish! You startled me!” She was surprised to see him. And pleased. Very pleased.
“Yeah,” he said, jamming his hands into his pockets and taking a step back from the door far too late. “Hi. Sorry. I realized we never talked about the morning. I didn’t want to wake you up too early if you wanted to sleep in and…”
And she knew exactly why he was standing there, knew it had nothing to do with making plans for the morning. Mish could see her awareness in her smile, in the warmth of her eyes.
“I was just coming down to your room,” she told him. She held out the ice cream. “I thought maybe you might want to share this with me. It’s so hot tonight, and…”
And she’d intended to come to his room and share more than ice cream. He knew that, too. And she knew he knew…
“They were all out of cones,” she said, “but I figured we could just spread it on ourselves. Take turns licking each other clean…?”
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