by Alice Sharpe
He touched the top of her shoulder and stared down at her. “You’re right, it’s time to get to the bottom of this.”
“How?”
“By using my head instead of my feet. All I ask is that you trust me.”
“I’ll try,” she said as she stood. “It’s up to you.”
He reached into the box containing several quarts of oil and took out a bottle of juice and a wrapped burrito, which he offered to her. “This will give you something to do while I get this heap running.”
“Thanks.”
He leaned toward her and she moved toward him. The kiss felt like a lover’s version of a handshake at first, but then Adam gripped the back of her head and touched her lips with his tongue, and the kiss blossomed into more.
She pulled away. He stared into her eyes and she could see that he understood. They could not go back to where they’d been just hours before. She would stick by him for their baby’s sake.
That’s all she could guarantee.
Chapter Eleven
“We’re going to Hard Rock, Arizona,” Adam announced after he’d rigged a ramp to roll the motorcycle into the back of the van. He tied the bike upright and slammed the door. “We’re going to need to change our appearances.”
She climbed into the passenger seat as he got behind the wheel. “Is Hard Rock a big place?” she asked. “Do you know a lot of people?”
“It’s pretty small, actually, and I hardly know anyone. I moved there from Tucson to take the job as bodyguard for Devin Holton and his wife, Aimee. Which brings up the matter that we have to assume Holton’s men have reported my current bleached hair and your description must have been circulated. Have you ever wanted to be a redhead?”
“How do I know? But what the heck, why not? What do we do when we get to Hard Rock?” she asked.
“For starters, I want to get some idea what Holton’s wife did after he went to prison.”
“Wouldn’t she just stay at their house?”
“It’s a big estate. The government must have seized it upon conviction. But there may still be someone I know hanging around up there, so I can’t poke around as Adam Parish. I think I’ll use my dad’s name, Frank, and my mother’s surname, Mason. As for what comes after that, it depends on what I find. Holton had a few cronies—maybe I can infiltrate them and get wind of what’s going on.”
“Sooner or later, won’t they recognize you?”
“Maybe not. A good bodyguard’s face is almost invisible. You’re more a walking muscle with a gun than you are a human being.”
“But they must have seen you at the trial.”
“Most of them stayed away from that trial unless they were subpoenaed. It had been moved to Tucson so it wasn’t in their backyard. Plus I grew a big old beard and wore a ponytail.”
“I’ll need a new name, too,” she said. “I think I’ll call myself Daisy Hanks.”
“Cute,” he said. “Let’s get another room and change our appearance.”
Two hours later, Chelsea had short red hair and bright red lips. Adam’s hair was the same length as his beard, less than half an inch. When he donned the reflective glasses Chelsea had chosen, he hardly recognized himself.
Adam admitted that he dreaded the moment Whip learned he was back in Arizona. The man had made it pretty clear that he was in favor of Adam getting out of the country—this change of plans would no doubt alarm him.
On the other hand, maybe he’d heard something about US Marshal Ron Ballard or discovered whoever was acting as liaison between Holton and the outside. Or even better, maybe he’d gleaned some clue as to why Holton seemed to be moving heaven and earth to hunt down and eliminate Adam.
* * *
IT TOOK UNTIL the next afternoon to get to Hard Rock and by the time they drove into the small hamlet, they were tired, hot and hungry. They stopped to eat tacos from a food truck doing brisk business and settled at one of several picnic tables, commenting on how good the food was with every other bite. Chelsea wasn’t fooled by Adam’s idle chatter. His obvious case of nerves set her on edge.
The feeling was enhanced when he suddenly shaded his face with one hand and looked down at the table. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Dennis is over there.”
“Who’s Dennis?”
“Dennis Woods, a very old friend. He’s the one who bought my parents’ house when I went into the program.”
She looked toward the food truck. Two women ordered lunch at the window, while one man stood behind them, hands shoved in his pockets. He caught Chelsea staring at him and flashed her a brilliant smile. She looked away at once.
“Did he see you?”
“Yes. But remember, he doesn’t know me from a hole in the wall. He probably thinks I’m flirting with him.”
“We’d better get out of here,” he said.
But Dennis turned as Adam stood. His eyes narrowed and then he grinned. “Adam?” he called. “Adam Parish, is that you? Man, I haven’t seen you in forever. Where the hell have you been?”
He said all this as he strode across the grass, headed for Adam, who was powerless to quiet him without creating more of a scene.
“Dennis,” Adam said, extending his hand.
Dennis shook it vigorously, then turned his attention to Chelsea. “Do we have you to blame for Adam’s mysterious disappearance? Not that I would blame him.”
Adam performed the introductions. “What are you doing all the way up here in Hard Rock?” he asked.
Dennis laughed. “It’s only an hour or so from Tucson, you idiot. Anyway, I’m doing a job, what else? My company is replumbing the old Stop and Shop. They’re making it into a tropical fish store.” He paused for a second. “Tell me what you’ve been up to. I called around trying to find you—”
“Why? Is anything wrong?”
Dennis laughed. “Man, you’re jumpy, aren’t you?” He looked at Chelsea and shook his head. “Our boy is wound a little tight.”
“Tell me about it,” she said with a smile for Adam.
Dennis slapped Adam on the shoulder. “Well, the main reason was to tell you that Stacy is pregnant again. As a matter of fact, the baby is due in three weeks. We’re growing right out of your old house.”
“Congratulations,” Adam said after a swift glance at Chelsea’s stomach.
“The other reason is the exterminators found something that must belong to you when they were crawling around the basement looking for termites.”
“What do you mean?”
“A sealed box, pushed way up in the crawl space under the smallest bedroom there in the front. Someone wrote Do Not Open on it. Ring any bells?”
“None.”
“Didn’t your dad build that house when you were a baby?”
“Yeah.”
“So the box has to have belonged to someone in your family, ergo, as the last surviving member, it’s yours.”
“So what’s in it? Discarded toys, old dishes?” Adam asked.
“I asked around but no one knew where you’d gone, so I opened it to make sure it wasn’t trash or something. It looked like a lot of papers so I taped it back up. It’s heavy, I will say that.”
“Interesting,” Adam said in an offhand manner. But Chelsea heard the curiosity in his voice and she suspected Dennis did, too. “Where is it now?” he added.
“We were getting ready to paint the inside of the house so I took it and a lot of other things to our storage garage,” Dennis said. “Good thing I did, too, because the house was broken into a few days later.”
“Oh, no, did you lose a lot?”
“Just some electronics, stuff like that, but they tore the place up pretty good. Thankfully no one was home, no one got hurt.” He paused and shook his head. “Sorry, bro, I forgot for a moment about your mom and...everything.”
“It’s okay.”<
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Dennis looked at Chelsea. “His mom was the greatest. Always went to bat for ‘her kids.’ Remember, Adam, remember that girl who ran away from home?”
“I remember,” Adam said, his voice subdued.
“Your mom was determined to find her and get her back in school. Ms. Parish was just outright amazing.”
“I wish I could have known her,” Chelsea said.
“Yeah.” He looked back at Adam. “I’m real glad you’re back. I hope you can stick around.”
“Me, too,” Adam said.
“I know Stacy will want to see you. And you, too,” he added with a glance at Chelsea. “Maybe you guys could come for dinner.”
“Let’s talk about it in a few days,” Adam said. “Right now would it be too much trouble for you to get the box out of storage?”
“No trouble at all. The place is on the way home. I’ll be back in Hard Rock tomorrow so I could give it to you then. Will you still be here?”
“I’ll be here.”
“Say four or so, right where we’re standing?”
“Sounds good. And until we can talk some more, mind not saying anything to anybody about my being here?”
“Always the man of mystery,” Dennis said. “Sure, why not?” He glanced back at the taco truck. “I’d better go order something. See you tomorrow.” He looked at Chelsea and added, “Great meeting you.”
As Dennis returned to the truck, Adam and Chelsea walked across the street to the van.
“You okay?” she asked him as he unlocked and opened the back door. He sat on the floor of the van and pulled her to stand between his legs before wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his head against her breasts.
“Adam?” she prodded. “Are you okay? Do you have any idea what’s inside that box?”
“No,” he said, lifting his head to look at her. “It’s hard to picture my mother crawling around under the house with all the spiders and bugs, so that leaves Dad. I can’t stop thinking about that appointment my mom had with the police chief. Dad could have cleaned out any evidence she’d intended to give the chief to prove he was running wild. Maybe he had a diary or something, maybe he crossed a legal or ethical line—maybe he hid what he found under the house after he—”
“Killed her? Oh, Adam, honey, you’re borrowing trouble,” Chelsea cautioned. “Wait and see what’s in the box.”
“I’ve never told anyone this,” he whispered without looking at her. “I heard the fight they had the night before she was killed. She was begging him to tell the chief something and he kept saying he couldn’t. He was drinking, she was crying. The last thing I heard was her saying she’d do it herself and then it sounded like he slapped her. I left the house when he started apologizing.”
“Adam, listen to me,” Chelsea said, lifting his chin to stare into his deep gray eyes. “You were a kid interpreting what you heard. Who knows what was really going on or who slapped who?”
He rested his head against her again, hugging her tight as though grounding himself. “It killed me not to tell Dennis you’re having our baby.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“That’s what normal people do. They hold normal conversations. I don’t feel very normal right now, do you?”
“No.”
He was quiet. She’d been trying to stay at least a little aloof, but his vulnerability shook her. She smoothed the back of his head and ran her hands down his neck to his broad shoulders. “Being here is hard for you, isn’t it?”
“I just hadn’t counted on running into Dennis and all these old feelings... He lived three doors down from me when we were in school. I’ve known him forever, but so much has happened in the last year or so that today he seemed like a stranger.” He looked up at her, the expression in his gray eyes unfathomable.
“When this is over, we’ll go have dinner with him and Stacy, who I assume is his wife. You’ll have a couple of beers and talk about old times—it will all come back.” She leaned down and brushed his lips with hers.
“How do you know?” he murmured.
“Isn’t this what you keep telling me? My memory will return and presto, I’ll have a family I remember, friends, a career...our past?”
“For better or worse,” he said.
“Exactly.”
He stood up. “Then it’s time to make it happen. I’m going to take the motorcycle up to the Holton place.”
“Okay. I’ll take the van into the city center. I need some walking-around money.” He gave her his wallet. “Whoa,” she said as she glimpsed a row of large-denomination bills.
“You’re looking at the bank of Adam,” he said.
“What about later, when this is over?”
“I’ll have to make more,” he said. “But right now, my main goal is to keep both of us alive.” As she stared at the money and absorbed his words, he took out a fifty and handed it to her. “Is that enough?”
“Plenty. Adam, did you ever tell me what kind of human trafficker Holton was?” she asked as he opened the back of the van and climbed inside. Kneeling by the bike, he started untying the knots he’d created to keep it upright.
“The worst kind. Young girls used as sex slaves. While hiding behind a more or less legitimate commodities business, he coerced, corrupted, bought and sold teenagers.”
Chelsea shuddered. “That’s just awful.”
“Yes. And now he’s sitting in a nice clean jail cell getting three meals a day and orchestrating this assault on you and me and heaven knows who else, while many of the girls whose childhoods he stole still struggle to survive drug addictions and sex slavery. Doesn’t seem very fair, does it?”
Chelsea helped him get the bike out of the van. “That’s an understatement but at least you helped put an end to it. That’s got to make you feel good.”
He grabbed the helmet. “It does. I couldn’t save those who were lost into the ether but at least it’s not still continuing, at least not with Holton.”
She stared into his eyes, caught up in a wellspring of emotion. Chills ran up her spine and arms, radiating across her shoulders, and in a complete turnaround, she suddenly wished they were on their way to Florida, still running, still hiding.
Instead they stood in what felt like the lion’s den.
* * *
THIRTY-EIGHT MILES of more or less straight highway bordered by fields, cactus, rocks and tired old buildings connected Hard Rock and the Holton property. Hazy mountains in the distance glimmered in the afternoon heat. Many of the small farms and ranches along the way could only be reached via long, dusty driveways, leaving acreage close to the highway. One farm appeared to have tried raising a grain crop. Whatever it had been, it was now a few acres of what looked like shriveling yellow weeds. In another month, even those would dry up and disappear.
Adam wasn’t sure the mesa that Holton had owned was really a mesa. It did have three sheer, vertical sides, but one sloped enough for some enterprising soul in the past to have created an access road. This road was usually traffic-free, so Adam was surprised to pass a couple of trucks. He wondered if there were new owners now.
The small guard shack at the top of the road stood empty and he drove onto the property unchallenged. He knew from experience that the main house was at the far northern edge. Other than the main house and the staff quarters, the only other major structures on the property were a new storage shed and an old house and goat barn that had been occupied years before by homesteaders, who’d tried to raise goats but gave up after several disasters wiped out the herd.
He slowed down the bike when he caught sight of a building under construction. He came across what appeared to be a road leading in that direction and, out of curiosity, he turned.
Judging from the boxlike contours, it was going to be a modern-looking structure. Had the acreage been divided into lots and sold? Would the m
esa someday resemble a subdivision? That would really set Holton off. He’d liked being the king of his mesa.
Half a dozen vehicles cluttered the work site, along with more than a dozen workmen. Adam stopped the motorcycle next to a white trailer marked with a sign that identified it as the project office for Diaz Construction. The familiar noises of saws, hammers, drills and men shouting to be heard over the din filled his ears and reminded him of San Francisco.
This was as good a place as any to start asking questions and narrowing down possibilities. No doubt these people would also know what had become of Aimee Holton. He took off his helmet but kept the sunglasses in place. Who knew whom he might run in to around here? He wasn’t taking any chances of being recognized.
* * *
CHELSEA FOUND A parking spot and took off on foot. Her plan was to strike up a conversation with someone willing to talk about Aimee Holton. In a small town, Devin Holton’s arrest, trial and conviction had to have fueled the rumor mill for months. Surely someone would know where his wife went after she lost her home.
Occasionally Chelsea caught an unexpected glimpse of the small bump in her abdomen in a shop window. Until today, she’d not yet started to think of herself as a mother-to-be and that realization now filled her with a mix of joy and trepidation. What if her memory never came back? Sure, she could get reacquainted with her old life, with family and friends, but would she ever regain the connection to them she must have once felt? On top of that, the possibility of losing Adam terrified her, but that created another conundrum. Did she feel so close to him because he was the only familiar person on earth? She’d accused him of fear—was she just as guilty?
Well, at least she and her baby would start out on the same playing field.
The first business she reached was a furniture store. The sole saleswoman was so focused on selling the brocaded chair Chelsea had feigned an interest in that all her leading questions and comments fizzled out and died.
Next she found a clothing store, and for a moment, she stood outside the window admiring the pink, form-fitting dress on the mannequin, as it was so unlike the jeans and T-shirts she currently lived in. She wondered for a second what her closet at home looked like, then stepped inside. The dress from the window seemed to call to her from the back of the store, where one just like it shone as a glittery beacon of femininity. She wove her way through the circular racks and this time was able to touch the silky fabric and admire the daring plunge of the neckline. She could almost imagine Adam’s expression if she showed up wearing this dress...