Dangerous Memories (6 page)

Chapter Six

Jolene stretched her arms, tried opening her eyes and quickly covered them. She wanted two aspirin before she moved too much. The pain in her head warranted stronger stuff than she had in her medicine cabinet. She rubbed her temples and swung her feet over the side of the bed, hitting a wall.

“Ow.” Her eyes popped open. Her mind reset on what had happened the day
before and the memory that was still clear in her mind. “Levi?”

“Hey, welcome back.”

She heard his voice and soon a shirtless marshal emerged around the corner of a hotel bathroom.

“What happened?”

“You’ve been asleep for over twenty-four hours,” he said, slipping into a T-shirt that lay across the back of a chair. “Bathroom’s all yours.”

I lost an entire day?

“The
last thing I remember is the steward going into the train after you.”

“Short summary version. The guy chasing us drugged you. I found you before he escaped, drove you to Dallas against doctor’s orders and checked us into this hotel.”

“And the guy who started the fire got away?”

One king-size bed. He’d slept there, the pillow next to her confirmed it.

“Just some major smoke
bombs. And yeah, I stretched out on the bed. Don’t get any ideas. I didn’t let you take advantage of me.”

Was her face that plain a road map for him to read? She popped out of bed, determined to get away from him. Her only choice was the bathroom he’d just vacated. She slid the door shut.

No lock? What kind of a hotel didn’t have a lock?

“You are so full of yourself.” She still
wasn’t clear of him since the steam was filled with his smell. She looked at the unmarked travel soap in the shower—his scent. Fresh, like it had just rained, clean.

Things were so different and yet she hadn’t changed. The same person she was the day of the funeral stared back at her in the mirror. She felt hungry and well-rested even with the headache. No different than any other morning
where she’d normally get dressed and go to work.

Oh, my God.

“These aren’t my clothes.”

“Yeah, well, the ones you had are still at the hospital,” he said close to the door.

She gripped the counter by the sink. She couldn’t speak, it was like she’d forgotten how. She was so completely mortified that he’d seen her naked.

“I sweet-talked a nurse into getting you dressed and
sneaking you out at shift change.” The words came through the door as if he were talking against the crack. “If anyone checks, it’ll appear like you’re still in the hospital with a new room. Might hold ’em off for a day.”

“Oh.” She leaned her head toward the sound of his voice. Was this a surge of disappointment and a sigh coming from her?
Ridiculous.

“We got separated.” She could open
the door, but if she did she’d want him to hold her and she was terrified the kiss they’d shared had just been another distraction. “Someone tried to abduct me. Again.”

“I know you don’t feel like it at the moment, Jo, but I promise you’re safe with me.” His voice remained close to the door, softer, full of regret. “I’m not letting you out of my sight until I can turn you over to another
marshal.”

She shoved the door aside. “You’re going to leave me?”

Panic. Pure and simple panic sat on her chest and she couldn’t push it off. If she went into WITSEC she’d have another fictional existence. A new life, taking nothing with her. None of her friends, no Levi.

His hands were secure on her shoulders. Firm, but not holding her in place...just close enough to make her want
more.

“It’s the only way and what your father wanted.”

“
I
don’t want that life.” She shoved past him and the temptation to have his arms wrap tighter around her. “I don’t believe that’s what my father intended. He convinced me to leave Boulder. He wanted me to have a life, not constantly be looking over my shoulder like he had done for twenty years.”

“That’s not what his letter
said.”

“His letter said I needed protection
if
I remembered. Well, I haven’t remembered. I don’t want to remember!”

Concentrate on the problem, not the man. Think.
She moved to the window overlooking the outskirts of Dallas.

“Take it easy.” When he moved toward her, she held her finger up and he stopped in his tracks. “In case you’ve forgotten, I nearly got you killed twice. I can’t
do this alone.”

“Isn’t there a way to just catch these guys and be done with it?”

“Whatever your dad found stirred up this hornet’s nest. Our best bet is to find it and turn it over to the DoJ. Then they can reopen the case.”

“We don’t know what
it
even is. And afterward, I’ll be stuck wherever. Doing whatever. Lying forever.”

“You’ll be alive.”

She didn’t want to admit
he was her only choice. She hated that phrase. Her dad had repeated “we have no choice” with each slumber party invitation he refused to let her accept. Her first date was verified and checked out by the Marshals Service. If her dad hadn’t been a chaperone at the senior prom, there might have been someone undercover there, too. Maybe there had been. She didn’t know anything anymore.

The Marshals
Service had kept its end of the bargain with her mother. WITSEC had protected them even though her mother had been the actual witness.

It didn’t matter. They had to catch the one person responsible for killing her parents. If they didn’t, she would never have a real life. Bottom line—she didn’t want to live like her father and she would never share that life with anyone she loved. Keeping
that secret or dragging someone into that situation wouldn’t be fair.

She moved, defeated, to the edge of the bed and there he was directly in front of her again.

“What do you remember?” He raised a finger to stop her protest. “Just talk to me. Don’t try. Start with why you think your family was in protective custody.”

“Dad testified against one of the men who murdered my mother.
The guy was stabbed while in a federal penitentiary and died. But the Department of Justice was never able to connect his actions to the person my mom was supposed to testify against.”

“Accurate so far. What do you remember about the day of the murder?”

“Nothing much. Men arguing with my mother. I think she yelled at my dad.” The headache was worse. She needed aspirin. “It’s more impressions
than words or actual memories.”

“That’s okay. You said you remembered hiding in your toy box. Why?”

“That’s where I thought they found me.” She didn’t like the look on his face. “You’ve given me that look before. The same one that says I’m on the right track, but the wrong train.”

“Let’s not talk about trains,” he said, rubbing his head and scratching around a small bandage.

“Are you hurt?”

“The bastard hit me over the head. Gave me six stitches.” He put his hand on her knee as he sat next to her, but quickly pulled it back when she jerked.

“Oh, my God.”

“I’m okay. Nothing serious. And I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Not that. I just remembered.” She faced him, finally excited she had something new to share. “It happened on the train, with all the
smoke and noise I couldn’t tell you.”

“Go ahead, don’t force it.”

“Close to the murder, I’m not certain what day it was, but I remember hurting my finger on the upstairs railing. For some reason, some of the nails— What are they, the little tiny ones?”

“Finishing nails.”

“That’s right.”

Levi watched as her words faded and she was taken back twenty years. He wanted to ask
a dozen questions, but knew to keep his mouth shut. Her words had to come at their own pace.

“I hurt my finger and went to my mother so she could fix it. I couldn’t help seeing that someone was in the kitchen with her. I think it was one of her clients and a secretary. They were all arguing. My mother looked really worried.”

The memories were coming back a lot faster than he’d anticipated.
“Do you remember anything about the day? Was it sunny? Dark? Raining?”

“I remember a lot of rainbows.”

“There were crystals hanging in the window. They must have caught the light and shot prisms through the room. So it was during the afternoon.”

“How do you know about the crystals?”

“Photos from the scene. Layout of the house.”

“So that would explain the ‘rainbow man’
from my dreams.”

A rainbow man?
She’d been holding out on him a lot more than he’d thought.

“Can you picture him?”

She shook her head and flattened her lips. “No.”

In his experience, when witnesses were compelled to remember, they either filled in the gaps with wrong information or shut down. Changing the subject should get her relaxed without forcing the issue. “Why was your
mom worried?”

“I don’t know, but she was. She had the dish towel drying dishes. Dad said she only cleaned the kitchen when she was worried. She’d cleaned every day for a week. I didn’t think of that before.”

She smiled, obviously excited about her discovery. If only she knew how much she looked like the photo of her mother. It must have been hard for Joseph to watch her grow up without
thinking of his wife every day.

“Why do you think it was unusual to clean the kitchen? Everybody does it.”

“We had a part-time maid, someone who helped my mother.”

That wasn’t in the reports.
How many other people had been in the house who aren’t in the freakin’ report? “So she didn’t live with you or have a key to the house?”

“I don’t think so. LuLu watched me when I was sick.
And allowed me to play in the downstairs living room while she dusted. She’d let me sit on top of the vacuum and would push me around. I loved staying home from daycare.”

“Do you remember LuLu’s real name?”

She thought a moment, cupping both her cheeks with her slender, delicate fingers. Physically growing more tense with each glance around the room. “I can’t. It’s all blurring together.
I don’t know what’s real and what’s a dream.”

“Time to stop.” He took her hands from her face, relieved she let him touch her without jumping out of her skin. “Don’t force it.”

“Why not try? I’ve remembered more in the last ten minutes than twenty years.”

“Your dad was right. Your memory has been coming back with a vengeance. You just didn’t realize it.”

“If you don’t want
me to talk, then
you
should. Why didn’t you mention you’d seen the file on my mother?”

“I see the case file on all my witnesses.”

“Okay then, spill.”

“I’m not going to tell you what I know.” He wanted to. Wanted to be completely honest for once. “Don’t read any secretiveness into it, either. If I told you, it may change what you actually remember. But I can say that there was no
mention of a part-time maid in any reports. She would have been a good person to interrogate at the time of the murder.”

“Dad would have mentioned her.”

“Then we assume her information has been removed from the files,” he said, looking a bit worried for once. “Or she’s there and not listed as having access to the house.”

“So where do we start?”

“You get showered and dressed.
Then we go visit your old house.” He propped his back against the headboard. “I’m not leaving you alone. I’m sticking to you like leather seats on a hot humid day. No buts or arguing. Get used to it.”

Her cute little dimpled jaw fell open with a little puff of astonishment, but she quickly recovered and retreated to the bath. He heard the water spray and needed to close his eyes. He’d driven
throughout the night. Until they identified her mother’s client, the mysterious housekeeper and this
Rainbow Man
, he’d be sleeping with one eye open.

He’d purchased a burner cell to update his office on the train fiasco and ask a pal for a favor. Still hadn’t made the call yet. Sherry would be furious and think he was out of his mind.

If she hadn’t thought he was nuts for helping Jo
before, she would when he told her that his non-witness was on the verge of identifying a murderer who looked like a
Rainbow Man
.

* * *

“I
T
SHOULD
JUST
be a couple of more blocks. We’re going to drive by once to see if we can spot anyone watching the house.”

Levi spoke in his natural, calming manner. Seemingly unconcerned that Jolene was about to enter her childhood home. A place
she’d only allowed herself to remember with happy childlike impressions.

But she saw his eyes, searching the mirror, the streets, watching those walking by just a little longer than normal. His voice might be soothing, but his body spoke a different language. Defensive, ready to strike, protective, fingers tight on the steering wheel, ready to race the car and get them out of there in an
instant. She knew he’d readied his gun at the hotel, verified how many bullets he had one last time before placing it in his holster.

So many of the things she’d wondered about over the past four years made sense now. She loved the curiosity in his eyes that had seemed to be constantly searching and seeking. His toned body came to mind without thinking. Who wouldn’t admire that? She’d mentioned
it to her father once and he’d said Levi had a great gym membership.

It was hard to remember the “friendship” between her dad and the “new kid at work” hadn’t been real. It seemed very sincere at the numerous dinners Levi had joined. None of that mattered. Her father was just a case number to Marshal Cooper. She was an obligation and Levi felt guilty for not keeping her safe. He sat next
to her because of a promise to her father. And she let him because she needed his assistance.

Nothing more.

She should remember their being together had nothing to do with feelings or friendship. No matter how many kisses they shared, he’d made it very clear two years ago that nothing else could happen between them. In the many hours they’d spent together during the past two days, there
had been no attempt to assure her things were different.