Her other option, going to the nearest phone booth and calling Nick Bradley, made the most sense. Yet she found herself moving across the carport, weapon steadied in front of her, ready to fire... prepared to take down the man who had caused her so much pain. Truth was, if it was Hung Jin, she did not know what impulse would drive her at the moment their eyes met.
She crunched along the gravel, making more noise than she would have liked, her movements clumsy because of the oversize shoes. Just then, she heard Tucker barking—and footsteps coming from the far side of her house. Whoever it was did not seem to be in too much of a hurry. In the gravel, the steps sounded slow, deliberate. She held the gun out, lined up the sights—and saw Nick Bradley turn the corner.
Bradley’s eyes first found the gun, then Lauren’s pained expression. He moved toward her, arms outstretched. “Lauren!”
She met him halfway, near the back door. “Oh, Nick...” Fighting back tears, she crumpled into his arms.
“I didn’t mean to scare you. But I thought it’d be better if I came early, before you got here, just to make sure no one paid you a visit.” Bradley held her tight for a moment, then gently moved her back to scrutinize the bruises that covered her face. “Christ, it looks like you were worked over.”
“And over and over.”
“Hung Jin.”
Lauren nodded, then dislodged herself from Bradley’s grip and moved into the house. She sat down heavily at the kitchen table. He took the seat beside her and again examined her face. “I really think we should have you looked at. You could have some broken—”
“I’m fine.” She stood up and moved over to the refrigerator.
“I’m serious, Lauren. No offense, but you look awful.”
She pulled an apple from the produce drawer and closed the refrigerator. “Thanks for the assessment. And your concern. But right now, all I care about is finding Michael. Did you book us flights?”
“Like you asked. We leave Sacramento in about three hours.”
“Then we’d better get going. I’m gonna grab a quick shower, change into some real clothes, and pack a suitcase. We can be out the door in twenty minutes.”
Lauren headed into her bedroom and saw the container of Xanax on the night table. She picked up the bottle, placed it on the bed to take with her when she packed, then stopped. “No,” she said, tossing the pills into the drawer. She walked into the bathroom and started the shower.
After throwing on a pair of jeans and a sweater top, she packed her suitcase and gave Bradley a condensed version of what had transpired at the cabin, then suggested the plan of action she had devised during her two-hour drive home. With Bradley’s assistance, they would drop Tucker at Carla Mae’s house, then leave the Barracuda in the parking lot of the sheriff’s department. Once airborne, Bradley would call Deputy Vork and recount the details of the kidnapping, escape, and self-defense shooting of the man Lauren knew only as Cody.
Although there would be a furor over her departure from the state until she could be questioned and cleared of all wrongdoing, Lauren felt it would be best to take care of business first and not take a chance on a lengthy detention by the sheriff. Although he had reservations, Bradley reluctantly agreed with her assessment. Due to the secluded location of the house and cabin where she had been held, it could take days before anyone found the dead body. By then, hopefully, she would be back in town.
Once they were on U.S. 50 and headed for the airport, Bradley directed Lauren to his glove compartment. “Pull out the fax. Take a good, hard look at the photo.”
Lauren unfolded the paper and looked at the dark, grainy picture in the late-afternoon light. “Who is this?”
“You mean who
was
it. Special Agent Harper Payne.”
Eyebrows furrowed, she turned to Bradley. “My God, he does look like Michael.”
“Your husband is a hero of sorts in FBI circles. He made headlines all over the country. Hell, all over the world. Seven years ago Payne went undercover to gather evidence against Anthony Scarponi—or Hung Jin, as he called himself. Scarponi was one of the most violent and dangerous assassins in history. And one of the most successful. After testifying against him, Payne had to go into witness protection.”
Lauren felt the blood drain from her face. “He was telling the truth.”
“Who was?”
“Hung Jin, he said Michael was a killer, that he worked for him.” She turned to Bradley. “Is this true, Nick? Was Michael a—a hit man?”
Bradley glanced at Lauren, then turned his attention back to the road. “After you called me I checked in with a buddy of mine at the FBI. The trial transcript is sealed, as is the case file. But he did tell me that Michael got some plastic surgery and went into hiding after the trial.”
“But I’d know, wouldn’t I? I mean, I’d know if he was in witness protection.”
Bradley shrugged. “Maybe. Probably. Unless he didn’t stay in the program.”
Lauren was silent, trying to think it all through. She looked down at the picture, then shook her head. The faxed photo was of poor quality, but the resemblance was obvious.
“You said his name was Anthony Scarponi.”
Bradley nodded. “Hung Jin is the name he used when he was captured. He claimed to be of Asian lineage. They all thought it was an attempt at an insanity defense.”
“That wouldn’t be too far from the truth.” She sighed and rested her head against the window. She felt fatigued, and the strain of the car ride drained her further. The confirmation that her husband may have killed people—whether while undercover or not—made her feel even worse. “So how does all this work into Michael’s disappearance?”
“The government wanted Michael to testify again in a new trial against Scarponi. I’m guessing Scarponi figured that his way out of this mess was to eliminate Michael, prevent him from testifying. Michael must have discovered that Scarponi was close to finding him, and he fled... the cross-country ski trip was a cover, a fabrication so he could get away. If that’s the case, he did it to protect you.”
“Michael would’ve told me. He wouldn’t have just left me.”
“If he thought your life was in danger? I think he would have. Look at it this way. If you knew the truth and he told you he was leaving, you’d either try to stop him, or you’d want to go with him.”
Lauren closed her eyes. Although she did not want it to be true, she could not argue with Bradley’s reasoning. In fact, she knew he was correct on all counts. If so, the only thing that might have saved her from never seeing Michael again was a chance car accident that left him without his memory. Ironically, his amnesia may have served to bring them back together. With that thought, exhaustion took over, and she drifted off to sleep.
Lauren awoke groggy and fatigued exactly an hour later, as Bradley was parking the car in the long-term lot at Sacramento International. Even though she was still in a partial daze and moving slowly, they managed to check the Colt through and make it onto the plane with twenty minutes to spare.
After fastening her seat belt, Lauren rested her head back and sighed deeply. As she lay there, she remembered what Bradley had told her about Michael’s association with Scarponi. How could he have killed? Even if it was part of his job to infiltrate Scarponi’s organization... how could he have done that? Michael was such a gentle man, such a good soul. Or so she thought. That he was not the man she thought she had fallen in love with weighed heavily on her. Though the physical pain of Scarponi’s torture sessions was now past her, an end to the emotional pain seemed out of reach.
The prospect of finding Michael, of once again lying in his arms, was what she had been longing for. It was what had kept her alive when others might have given up. Now, she was unsure if that was what she really wanted. After all she had just learned, she did not know what to do, what to feel... even what to say when she did finally find him.
As their plane roared into the air, daylight was giving way to dusk under intense cloud cover. Fifteen minutes later, the Boeing 737 had leveled off. Lauren pulled out a Walkman to help get her through the flight. “Agoraphobia,” she said to Bradley. “Loud music helps.”
“Anything I can do?”
“It’s a lot better than it used to be. Most of the time I can manage. But the last couple of days have been quite a test for me.” A smile broke out across her lips. “In more ways than one.” She reclined her seat back as far as it would go, then let out a pained groan.
“You okay?”
“Everything hurts.”
“You want some aspirin? I’m sure they’ve got something on board.”
Lauren nodded and Bradley touched the flight attendant call button. A few minutes later, a man was handing her a cup of water and two Motrin. She downed the pills and laid her head back.
“I’m not one to give in to pain,” she said, turning her head and watching as the fading orange sun spread its expansive reach across the horizon and hung there. On the opposite side of the plane, the sky had already turned a sapphire blue.
“I believe that.”
“My daddy used to swing me in our hammock behind the house on nights like this,” Lauren said, staring off at the dark sky.
“A father and his daughter share a very special relationship.”
“Do you have any children?”
Bradley was looking off at the night sky as the swoosh of the plane’s skin brushing through the wind currents hissed in the background. “I lost the only child I had.”
“I’m sorry.”
Bradley closed his eyes. “It’s a part of my life I try to forget about.” There was silence for a moment and then he added, “Having a little girl was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Lauren smiled. “According to my mother, that’s what my father said about me.”
“Is he still alive?”
Lauren looked down. “No, he died when I was fifteen.” She recounted her story of the intruder and the Colt, then told him, “My dad was a very proud man. He didn’t handle being confined to a wheelchair very well. I don’t remember him being happy much after that happened. Just bitter.” She closed her eyes and for a moment was lost in memories of her father. “A few years after getting shot a blood clot from his leg caused an embolism and he died. We thought we’d beaten that burglar that night. But in the end, we only bought my dad another five years. A miserable five years.”
Bradley reached over and brought Lauren close. With the armrest in the way, it was somewhat awkward, but it was exactly what she needed at the moment.
“Lauren,” he said, brushing her hair off her face, “I don’t think you realize how much your father cherished those years he had with you. He may never have told you how much they meant to him, but I can tell you if he had it to do all over again, he wouldn’t have traded those five years in a wheelchair for anything if it would’ve meant you weren’t there to spend them with him.”
Lauren was silent, her head buried against Bradley’s left arm and chest. “He died in my arms, Nick. All of a sudden his body convulsed and then he went limp. I didn’t know what was happening. My mother was at the market, and I didn’t know what to do. I called for an ambulance and then looked at him on the floor, wearing only underwear. I guess when he died, he lost his bladder. I smelled it, the urine... I quickly dressed him and tried to drag him into his bed so he’d have some sense of dignity when the ambulance arrived.”
She went quiet again, but it was only because she was fighting the urge to cry. She lost the battle suddenly as tears dripped freely and she began to weep. “All the life had drained from his body... he was limp, there was just nothing there, nothing I could do. I couldn’t get him onto the bed.” She kept her face buried in his arm, hoping no one around her was aware she was crying. Finally, she wiped the tears away, took a deep breath to calm herself, and said, “You’d make a damned good shrink, you know that? I’d forgotten all about that night. It was very painful.”
Bradley gently brushed away the few remaining tears on her bruised face. Lauren knew he was trying to comfort her—and, she had to admit, it was working. He had actually brought out repressed memories of her father that she had buried so deep no counselor had been able to reach them. Perhaps Michael’s disappearance and her ordeal in the cabin had opened her mind enough that it would now be able to heal. She composed herself and pushed away, sitting upright in her seat. “I’m sorry, that was very intense.”
“Please don’t be,” Bradley said softly, realizing her discomfort. “We all keep more than we’d like to admit bottled up inside. I think of all people, you’d agree with that.”
Lauren nodded, then turned away and looked out the windows on the opposite side of the plane.
Bradley placed a hand on her forearm and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “I want you to know that I’ll never let anything happen to you. Consider me your guardian angel.” He smiled. “Not that you need me. Maybe I should hire you to watch over
me.”
Lauren smiled and rested her head against Bradley’s solid shoulder, staring out at the night sky as the whoosh of the wind lulled her eyes closed. As he stroked her hair, she fell asleep again, memories of swinging on the hammock in her daddy’s arms drifting silently through her mind.
Melissa Knox shut her spiral notebook, gathered her papers together, and chatted for a moment with her friend Holly, who was inviting her to a party this weekend.
“I’ll see if I can make it, I have to check with my father,” she said as they walked into the hallway at The George Washington University’s Media and Public Affairs Building. She turned and looked back at the area outside the lecture hall, where Agent Stanfield was supposed to be waiting for her. He had been her personal bodyguard the last few days, a security measure her father had insisted on. As annoying as it had been, she suddenly felt naked in his absence.
“Missy, you okay?” Holly asked.
“Yeah, I just—that agent who was assigned to me isn’t here.”
“The good-looking guy with the tight ass?”
Melissa laughed. “That’s the one. But don’t get your hopes up. He’s married.”
“Too old for me anyway. Besides, he’s too stiff. He hardly smiles.”