He closed his eyes as images of their lovemaking washed through him like cleansing rain.
His eyes startled open when a hand clenched his wrist. He jerked, looking down. Carol Ann was awake and staring up at him.
Her eyes were as dark as her dyed hair, piercing in her sallow face. “Charles?” she whispered in a reed-thin voice.
With his free hand, John pulled a chair up close to his aunt’s side and sat down. “Not Charles,” he said gently. “John.”
She concentrated on his face. “Look so alike… You’re the hero…” she mumbled.
She’d contacted him after the incident with the congressman; that must be what the hero thing was about. “Who is Charles?” he asked.
Her fingers shook against his wrist and her thin lips trembled. It was obvious to John she was agitated, and he patted her bony arm to try to comfort her. “It’s okay, you don’t have to think about him if you don’t want to. Can you tell me what you contacted me about? I’ve forgotten but I know it was important.”
Her eyes suddenly focused on his and this time when she spoke, she seemed more lucid. “Did you…did you find them? Cole and Tyler? Did you?”
“Cole and Tyler?” More names?
Tears gathered in her eyes, trickled down her gaunt cheeks.
“So many wasted years,” she said. “My fault.”
“Why is it your fault?”
She shook her head. “So lost…”
This was going nowhere. He had to try to get her to focus. Who were all these people? Was this the drugs talking, or were these other family members?
“Aunt Carol, you contacted me before, remember? After you read about me in the paper, you called. Why did you call?”
Her brow wrinkled in concentration. Finally, she said, “Charles? Is that you?”
Back to names. No more names, he wanted to tell her. “No, it’s me, John. John Cinca, remember?”
She narrowed her eyes as she stared up at him, and then her grip on his wrist finally slacked and her eyes closed. “Daddy disowned you,” she whispered. “Go away.”
He glanced at his watch. The nurse would be back in a few moments. As he struggled to figure out what to do next, a rattling noise like something scratching against the glass came from the window. Settling his aunt’s frail hand on the blanket, he crossed the room. Paige stood outside. She held aloft a small branch that she’d found to touch the glass, as the window was a good four feet above her head.
The window was the kind that lifted from the bottom. He inched it up.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, heartbeat tripling as he took in the spooked expression on her face.
“He’s here,” she whispered frantically.
“Who?”
“Korenev. I saw him drive up.”
“Did he see you?”
“We were parked behind that truck. I don’t think he saw the car. He couldn’t have or he would have come after me.”
“Are you sure it’s him?”
“In that van, are you kidding? Anyway, he parked a few spots away and limped into the lodge. He was wearing a different disguise this time, but it was him, all right. I moved the car close by. Hurry, you have to come right now.”
He started to lower the window. “I’ll be right out.”
“If you go out the front way, someone will see you. Come through the window. Just hurry.”
John turned back into the room, taking one lingering look at his aunt. She hadn’t wanted to die alone, something he understood on a gut level in a way he probably hadn’t before losing his memory. He doubted he’d ever see her again, and that loss joined all the others gnawing at him. She’d been his one good chance of understanding, and he wished he could stay here with her, keeping a silent and unseen vigil until the end.
“John?” Paige whispered. “I hear voices coming from the sidewalk. Hurry. Please.”
“Goodbye, Aunt Carol Ann,” he said, but she was asleep and didn’t react. Turning, he drew the sash the rest of the way up and climbed through the window, dropping to the ground in a heap and scrambling to his feet. Paige caught his hand and they ran across the grounds.
She had parked behind another cottage and they all but dived into the car, but they drove off in a sedate manner, as though they weren’t trying to outrun a killer, trying to appear innocent and leisurely when their pulses alone could power a rocket to the moon.
* * *
“I
HALF EXPECTED THE WOMAN
at the counter to alert the police, but how did Korenev find us?” John demanded.
Paige had been wondering the same thing.
“Turn left, we need to get off the main road. Hell, we need to disappear.”
“How do we do that?” Paige asked, turning left onto a smaller road.
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe when he ransacked your place he found something that led him to Carol Ann.”
“Maybe, but how did he know she was in Montana?”
“Okay, maybe he called Mademoiselle Batiste, who mentioned having spoken to us.”
John shook his head. “Maybe, but it seems really remote. The woman told you she wouldn’t talk to a man about my aunt’s whereabouts.”
Paige slid him a glance. “Your aunt?”
“Yeah. I have an aunt, or will for a while. She’s terminal.”
“I’m sorry. Did you learn anything from her?”
“No. She thought I was someone named Charles or Cole or Tyler—she was a little out of it. Damn, Paige, how did Korenev know where we were?”
“He’s been one step ahead or one step behind all the way,” she said.
“But those steps were based on logical conclusions to be drawn from what you told him, what he heard on the radio or what he knew about me. This is different.”
“It’s like he followed us here,” she said, “but if that was the case, he could have attacked us at the motel.”
“Maybe it took him a while to get that leg fixed up. Wait a second. Pull the car over.”
They had just rounded a turn and were now skirting Seeley Lake, which spread to their left. The right side of the road was heavily forested. “Where?”
“Anywhere.”
“But there’s no cover here. If he comes around that corner, he’ll see us.”
“I don’t think it matters. I think he sees us all the time. Pull over. Hurry.”
Paige pulled onto the verge. John was out of the car before it fully stopped. She stayed behind the wheel with the engine running, her gaze glued to the rearview mirror. John walked around the car, pausing every few inches to lean down and feel around. She finally rolled down her window to ask what he was doing.
“John?”
As he approached her window, he opened his hand to reveal two small black boxes affixed to a magnetic strip.
“What are those?”
“Tracking devices. Korenev must have planted them on your car outside my warehouse while we were preoccupied looking at photographs or something. Before he broke down the front gate, you know, just in case we weren’t inside or got away. One was fixed to the undercarriage behind the back bumper, the other one up under the same wheel well where you put your spare key as a matter of fact.”
“But two?”
“He probably figured we’d stop looking once we uncovered one of them. That’s how he found us. He couldn’t walk into the hospital with a gunshot wound because they’d report it, so he’d have to take the time to find someone to help him who wouldn’t talk. He just took his time getting his leg fixed and then followed the yellow brick road right to our doorstep.”
“Could there be more?”
“Not where he could have easily stuck them. I’d say probably not.” He threw both devices over the top of the car into the forest. “Let’s get as far away from here as we can,” he said as he scooted back inside. “Drive fast.”
“Where do we go now?” Paige asked.
“Missoula has the closest international airport?”
“I think so. Why?”
“You said there were important papers in those boxes you brought from your apartment,” he said. “Does that include your passport?”
“Yes, why? Oh, wait, I get it. We’re going to Kanistan. Will you be able to get on an airplane? Won’t they have your name or something? If you do get out of the country, will you be able to get back in?”
“The answers to your questions are I don’t know, I don’t know and I don’t know. But I also don’t know where else to go from here. If I get caught, I get caught.”
“You’re turning into a fatalist.”
He’d been looking out the back window—no need to ask who or what he was looking for—but turned back to her now.
“Stop at the first store that might sell a prepaid cell phone, will you? I need to borrow more money. Do you have credit cards? I’ll pay you back.”
“I know you will. I saw your bank account.”
“Speaking of the bank account, Paige, has it occurred to you that Korenev could be a hit man of some kind and that he could be coming after money I stole from someone or took as a bribe and then didn’t deliver what I’d promised? Or the money could be his? We could have been partners or something. The timing all seems to fit.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
He shook his head. “I have.”
“I can see that. But that’s because we disagree about
you
.”
“What do you mean?”
She glanced at him again. “I think you’re a decent guy with indecent problems. You think you’re a thief and a scoundrel and a crook—or worse.”
“Hmm…”
“And if you’re right about any of that, then why hasn’t Korenev even asked you for the money or demanded it back? He just seems hell-bent on destroying you.”
“I don’t know,” John said. “Which seems to be my catchphrase.”
They’d just entered the small town of Seeley and it appeared the pickings for something like a phone might be limited until they spied a new drugstore. They went inside and found exactly one pay-as-you-go model. Paige waited until they were back in the car before she asked John why he couldn’t just use hers.
“I want one that won’t trace back to either of us.”
“Because?”
“The police are about to get an anonymous tip about the current whereabouts of Anatola Korenev.”
Chapter Twelve
In Missoula, they stopped at a coffee shop for a late lunch. While John figured out how to get a tip to the people where it would do some good, his gaze never strayed far from Paige, who had found a power outlet and was busily booting up her laptop.
Had he ever cared about a woman the way he was beginning to care for her? Had anyone ever been as good a friend or lover, been as generous as she was? And what had he given her in return?
Well, he’d almost gotten her stabbed, shot, mutilated, her sister hurt, her old boyfriend mugged, and look at the way she kept glancing at the door as though waiting for a killer to walk through it with a pronounced limp and a missing finger.
All thanks to him.
He had to figure this out, get his memory back and reassure himself he was exactly the man he hoped he was minus all the confusion and doubts. He wanted reasonable explanations for his bizarre dreams and seemingly shady behavior. He wanted to find out if he and Paige could build something together that wasn’t fueled by mutual terror.
When he completed his call, he returned to the table. She tore her gaze from the door and looked up at him, producing a smile. “Good news. Kanistan does not require a visa. We have two tickets to New York and connecting flights to Kanistan. Only one plane a day goes there and it leaves New York at midnight, so connecting flight times are going to be tight. Bad news. We either return the very next day or we stay a week. I booked the next day.”
“That probably explains my short visit last time,” John said, not voicing his first thought, and that was if he was still wanted for murder, it was likely they’d never even make it to New York, let alone Kanistan. His stomach knotted at the thought of being taken into custody, or maybe it knotted because he was allowing Paige to travel with him and who knew what they would find—or who would find them. Instead, he said, “One day should be enough. This is the end of the road for me. I feel it coming to a head. I either find out the truth or I go to the cops.”
“I looked up news in Lone Tree, as well,” she continued. “The paper said the body of a retired fire chief was found in the residence of John Cinca. They also mentioned the gunfire and all that. Speculation is that you’re dead.”
“They’ll find Korenev’s fingerprints somewhere in that place,” John said. “I’m beginning to believe I may not rot in jail, after all.”
They ate sandwiches in a hurry, then made their way to the airport, where they parked Paige’s car in long-term parking in case they had trouble getting back to it. They stuck all their gear except for an overnight bag in the trunk, including John’s weapon.
Once inside the terminal, Paige called her sister, who didn’t answer her phone, and then tried Matt. He also didn’t answer. John spent the time on the lookout for security officers or anyone else who paid him undo attention.
As Paige pocketed her phone, he noticed she looked upset. Once again, he sought to set her free of this crazy ride-along role she’d taken with such conviction. “It’s okay if you go home,” he said.
She looked at him as though startled from thought. “What?”
“Home. If you need to go home, go. I’ll take care of Kanistan and you take care of your family. I’ll call you when I get there and tell you what I find—”
“Hold that thought,” Paige said. “Why didn’t I think to call home? As in my mother, I mean. She should be home.”
Paige pulled out her cell again and made the call, relief evident in her voice as she launched into a conversation with someone, probably her mother.
When she hung up a couple of minutes later, she gave a brief report. “Mom hasn’t seen Katy in a few days but didn’t expect to because of the move. She says no news is good news and she’ll go check on her at her new place tomorrow and call me back. Oh, and she’s devastated for me about what happened at the wedding and wants me to come home so the two of us can go over to Brian’s place and tell Jasmine what we think of her. And lastly, her current boyfriend asked her to marry him yesterday and she said yes and wants me to be maid of honor—again.”
“She sounds like a character,” John said.
“That’s one way to put it. Okay, now tell me what we’re going to do in Kanistan.”