When they’d made it to the other side of the washed-out road, he glanced at his passenger. Whitened fingertips dug into the dash, her teeth gritted so tight he swore he could hear them grinding. He didn’t ask if she was okay this time. He already knew her answer: Drive.
The going got easier then. The road debris lightened to wet leaves, mud and the occasional tree limb, though none were big enough to block the way.
To be honest, he wasn’t in the mood to talk. He’d just watched a woman kill two goons, and she’d done it with about as much emotion as a palmetto bug. For all he knew, she’d killed Dr. Evil before she’d stumbled out of the cabin. Maybe she’d kill
him
once he took her where she wanted to go. As vacations went, this one was not going to make the Letterman top ten for good ones.
Eventually, she released her grip on the dash and eased back in her seat on a shaky sigh. The fact that she’d let the sound escape at all surprised him. Maybe she wasn’t as tough as she seemed.
“I need your help,” she said softly.
More surprise. “You need
my
help. I’m the guy you said was no one back there.”
“I was trying to make it clear that you don’t mean anything to me.”
“Gee, thanks.”
She rubbed at her temples as if she had the kind of headache that gripped your head in sharp dragon talons. “Just . . . let me focus for a minute.”
He watched the road and wondered why her explanation hurt his feelings. He couldn’t possibly mean anything to her after only one day. Except he was pretty sure his role as getaway driver was saving her life right about now, not to mention digging himself deeper into a potentially criminal hole he might not be able to haul himself out of.
“What’s the closest town?” she asked. “Mid-sized or bigger.”
He glanced over, noting that she kept blinking as though repeatedly losing focus. Was the blood loss getting to her? “I’m not that familiar with the area, but the last decent-sized town I saw on the way here was Front Royal.”
“Good. Let’s go there. Find a motel, something off the main roads that takes cash, something family-run. No chains that have computer systems. Make up a name. We’re married, and I’m not feeling well. You just want a place for me to rest. Does this SUV have GPS?”
“No. Why?”
“Good, that’s good. We don’t have to ditch it.”
“Ditch it?”
“Park in the back of the motel, out of sight of the road, or even a few blocks away if you can. Then just wait until I come out of it.”
“Come out of what?” Aw, hell, that bald bastard had done something to her. Mac knew he never should have left her alone with him.
“I need you to just listen. I don’t have much time.”
“Time? What does that mean? Is there a deadline I’m not aware of?”
“Please, just listen. You don’t have to remember what I tell you. All you have to remember is . . .” She trailed off, in a hurry but also trying to pick her words carefully. “After . . . afterward, you have to touch me.”
He gaped at her. Was she delirious? But, no, her skin didn’t bear the flushed signs of fever. She did look desperate, though. And scared. And that scared
him
. This woman, who wore the scars from blades and bullets, who shot down two bad guys without blinking—at least, he was still hoping they were bad guys—wasn’t supposed to look
scared
. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Watch the road.”
The tires on her side hit the rumble strip on the shoulder, and he jerked the wheel to swerve back into the lane. “Shit,” he muttered.
“I’m empathic,” she said. “It’s a psychic ability that allows me to tap into your past experiences. It’s triggered by skin-on-skin contact.”
“Okaaaay.” Great, she was nuts. Dr. Evil was probably the loony police, and Mac had helped the whackjob escape. Damn it, he never did manage to get the important things right in his life. He stole a quick glance at the gun resting on the seat between them, noted her fingers were loosely wrapped around the butt. Making a grab for it would probably rank a ten on the stupid-o-meter.
Instead of responding, she switched gun hands again, then reached over and gripped his bare wrist with chilled fingers. He flinched as much at the unexpected contact as the sharp hiss of air that she sucked through her teeth. He glanced over to see she’d clamped her eyes shut and pressed her lips together. Concentration or pain? Maybe both. He had no idea what she was doing, but he didn’t try to shake her loose, certain he would jar her injured shoulder if he did. As absurd as it was, the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her.
Then, as quickly as she’d grabbed him, she let go and sagged back with a moan, her head falling back against the seat. “God.”
He stole a quick glance at the road, doing his damnedest to keep the SUV in its lane, then shifted his attention back to her. She’d gone so pale her skin looked waxy. His heart beat hard and fast against his ribs, concern alternating with the urge to park the truck, get out and walk away. No, make that:
Run
away.
“What just happened?” he asked.
A wince creased her forehead. “Some asshole beaned you in the head with, what, a pipe of some kind? An aluminum baseball bat?”
His foot lifted off the gas, alarm an electric current zipping up his spine. “What?”
“Keep driving.”
He obeyed automatically. How the
hell
could she possibly know what Skip Alteen had done to him?
“When I touched you just now, I relived the moment when an intruder crept up behind you and cracked you in the skull with a blunt object. You were contemplating a bottle of liquor at the time. Absolut vodka. And thinking about what a loser you are.”
“Jesus.” He couldn’t think beyond that.
“Jesus.”
“It’s called empathy.” She sighed, sounding more spent than a combat-weary soldier. “A jacked-up kind of empathy,” she added under her breath.
“How could you—”
“I don’t have time to explain. You just have to trust me.”
“
Trust
you? You’re kidding, right?”
“I have to tell you some things.
Now
. Please don’t interrupt me with questions. After I’m done, after I . . . forget . . . you have to touch me.”
“After you forget
what
?” It was like they spoke two different languages, and neither had even a basic grasp of the other’s.
“The transponder you removed from my shoulder released a drug into my system. It’s going to wipe out my memory. Flinn said ninety minutes, but it’s probably more like fifteen. I have to tell you what I need to know, and after the drug takes effect, you’re going to put your hand on me, skin-on-skin, so I can retrieve the information from you in an empathic flash.”
“Are you sure the drug hasn’t already taken effect? Or maybe you’ve lost too much blood. Because you’re sounding, well, crazy. And not the simple kind. I’m talking bat-shit crazy.”
“You don’t need to understand. You just need to
listen
. In one hour, maybe two, we can go our separate ways. That’s all I need from you. Two hours. Just give me that then go away.”
Their eyes met. He could see in the dark depths of hers that she truly believed the fairy tale she’d fed him. Yet the prospect of this nightmare ending in as little as an hour . . . well, he couldn’t deny the high quotient of temptation on that. They’d be in the DC metro area by then, too. He could easily take her to a hospital and turn her over to the professionals who wear white and keep a handy supply of sedatives and straitjackets.
He checked on the gun. Her fingers had tightened on the grip, and he had no doubt that if he refused, she wouldn’t hesitate to use that weapon to get what she wanted. He really,
really
had no desire to end up with a gun pointed at his head, especially by a woman who looked inches from losing it.
“Fine,” he said.
CHAPTER TWELVE
S
he didn’t like the way he watched her, like a cat planning his next pounce.
Sam let her body melt farther into the seat when he agreed. Easier than she’d thought, yet she’d noticed the speculation in his greenish brown eyes before he’d acquiesced. He probably had his own plan—a stupid plan that would get them both killed. But, damn it, she had no choice now but to go with it and hope for the best. Time was ticking away.
Based on the nausea building steam in her stomach, she suspected Flinn had indeed told her the truth about the fail-safe. The drug might be responsible for the piercing headache, too, but her reluctant sidekick’s painful past probably had caused it. Figures she’d end up with a guy who’d gotten violently whacked over the head and not a klutz who’d simply slammed his finger in a car door.
Regardless, she needed to get her thoughts in order so she could tell Mac what she needed to know in a way that would make sense to her after she lost her memory. It was a long shot, but it was all she had.
“You were right,” she said. “I’m an intelligence operative. The man we left tied up at the cabin is Flinn Ford. He’s my boss at N3.”
“N3?”
“National Neural Network. It’s a secret division of the FBI. The agents have psychic abilities.”
He cast a dubious glance at her. “A secret division of the FBI with psychic operatives? How gullible do you think I am? I’m the epitome of the grizzled old newspaper reporter. Without the grizzled and old parts.”
She blinked as she studied him. Grizzled? Not in the least. Handsome, yes. And those dimples . . . my God, they were adorable. She shook her head, then grabbed at the car door to steady herself against dizziness. She had to stay on topic.
“Flinn impregnated a fellow N3 operative named Zoe Harris. I think he’s trying to create some kind of super psychic spy by combining the DNA of two N3 empaths.”
The car’s front end dipped forward slightly as he took his foot off the accelerator. “Holy shit.”
“Don’t slow down. Keep. Driving.”
“Okay, okay. Just chill.”
“I’ll chill as long as you don’t slow down.”
He cranked his speed back up to a non-attention-getting 65 mph. “How did you hook up with these people?”
“That’s not important.”
“Look, maybe I could just take you to Lake Avalon. Charlie and Alex can help you—”
“No!” She bit her lip as a stab of longing pierced her chest. She hadn’t seen her sisters in so long. Hadn’t heard their laughter, shared in their joys. Alex was in love, Mac had said. Sam couldn’t even imagine her baby sister being old enough for a serious romantic relationship. Last time she’d seen her, Alex had been a precocious thirteen-year-old, totally enamored of every stray animal she could find.
And, crap, she’d let her mind wander again. Losing focus like this had to be the drug working its way through her system. And it was happening much faster than the ninety minutes Flinn had told her.
“Charlie and Alex can’t help me,” she said, in control again.
“But we removed the transmitter, so Ford can’t follow you, right? Why not just leave it all behind and go home? Your family would love to see you again. They’d find a way to help.”
She rested her head against the car seat and closed her eyes. So tired. So . . . so tired. “I have to find out what he planned with Zoe. She has a sister. She’d want me to . . .” She trailed off, losing the thread. Zoe has a sister . . . why was that important again?
“If Zoe were any kind of friend to you, then she’d want you to be safe. With people who love you. And I know law-enforcement types who can help.”
That snapped her straight. “No law enforcement. No police. No FBI. No CIA.”
“How about DEA? Secret Service? U.S. Postal Inspectors?”
“This isn’t a joke.”
He gave a sheepish shrug. “Sorry. Humor . . . that’s how I deal with stress. And you have to admit, this is . . . stressful.” Then he muttered, “Understatement-of-the-year alert.”
She massaged the ache in her forehead with the tips of cold fingers. She couldn’t think straight, her thoughts growing sluggish and scattered, disconnected, as though a kind of numbness deadened the firing of her synapses. It was happening too fast. She had so much more to tell Mac. “I need to contact . . . Sledge.” She used his nickname deliberately. The less Mac knew about other N3 operatives, the better. “He can help.”
“Sledge? As in hammer?”
She couldn’t think of his number, though. Couldn’t even bring forth the first three digits of a number she knew as well as her own. Luckily, she had a backup: “His number’s in my phone.” She glanced around the interior of the SUV. “Where’s my bag?”
“It’s back at the cabin.”
Crap.
Crap
. Everything she needed to survive was in that bag. Her personal cell phone. Contact numbers. Money. “We have to go back.”
Mac snorted. “I don’t think so.”
“Turn around.”
“We’re not going back.”
“We
have
to. My bag—”
“Is probably now in the custody of the guy who’s after you. Remember him? Bald? Smarmy?”
“Yes, of course. Flinn.” As she said it, she realized he hadn’t meant that as an actual question. She couldn’t keep up.
“Why is he after you, anyway? Isn’t that information you’re going to need, you know, later?”
“He wants to . . .” She trailed off, not sure suddenly. Think,
think
. “He wants to stop me from telling his superiors what he’s doing.” Yes, that sounded right. Didn’t it?
“So if this N3 is part of the FBI, wouldn’t his superiors be at FBI headquarters? We can go there right now. It’s not that far from here, in downtown Washington.”
She tried to think of Flinn’s boss, but either the drug had destroyed the memories or she’d never known. Is that even how the drug worked? Slowly nibbling away at her mind? Or would it happen all at once? She’d blink and everything would be gone. She’d be blank.
Focus.
“I don’t know who his superiors are.”