Undercover Memories (21 page)

“John! What’s wrong?”

He shook his head, but at least he sped up again. Only for a while, though. They were just leaving Parker on their way to the freeway, but he pulled over to the curb instead of taking the ramp. He turned in the seat and stared at her.

“What is it?” she repeated.

“What you just said about Korenev eliminating the people who saw his face. That’s why he killed Jack Pollock. And then he went inside to make sure the wife was dead, too, because maybe she’d seen him through a window or something. That’s why he was going to kill you. It’s why he took out the old guy in the fire truck and Matt, too. Did you see the long, dark hairs caught in Matt’s fingers?”

“I saw something brown.”

“Matt must have grabbed at Korenev’s fake beard or wig. I bet Katy saw his face, as well. This trip to Cheyenne is a farce, a diversion. We have to turn around.”

“What? No. We have to get Katy.”

“Katy isn’t in Cheyenne any more than Korenev is. He knows about Miner waking up. That news clip said ‘as previously reported.’ In other words, it had already been aired, so Korenev knew about it when he called.”

“How do we know he watches TV or listens to a radio or—”

“Because he does. He knew about the composite sketch made of him. He’s no idiot. He also knew exactly when we entered Katy’s apartment. He gave us less then five minutes before calling, and he didn’t ask if we were there yet or anything, did he?”

“No.”

“Because he knew. He was close by and he knew we were there. So he sends us off to Cheyenne while he does the most logical thing—for him.”

“Which is what?” she said. “Can’t we drive toward Cheyenne while we talk?”

“Korenev is not in Cheyenne. He’s on his way to Green Acre to take care of Miner, the last loose end, besides Katy and me. And you, Paige. You, too.”

“No,” she said firmly. “He told you to go to Cheyenne because for some unexplained reason, getting rid of you is his major goal. He won’t jeopardize an opportunity to get rid of all three of us in one fell swoop just because of Chuck Miner.”

“Yes, he will. It’s precisely because he has Katy that he can call the shots. Until he gets his hands on me or you, she’s safe. And I’m telling you, she’s not in Cheyenne. You heard her call out your name, right, and him silence her? Even I heard that. She’s with him and he’s on his way to Green Acre, which is where we’re going, too.”

“No,” she cried as he made a U-turn. “Absolutely not. I forbid it. The man is a murderer. We have to rescue Katy.”

He pulled the car to the opposite curb. “Paige. Trust me one more time.”

“No,” she said. She was not backing down. She’d been selfish, she’d been blinded by her feelings, but no more. She was too late for Matt, but Katy was still alive. “No,” she said, tears running down her face now. “I can’t.”

He sat back as though stunned by her objection. “We don’t have time for this,” he said.

“Then drive to Cheyenne.”

He took a deep breath. “Paige, listen—”

“No.” She gathered her thoughts. Her hands shook, her voice quavered. “John, I think it’s possible you’ve never had a family or really loved anyone or been responsible for them in such an organic way that it’s built into your DNA. Maybe that’s one of those closed doors Natalie sensed about you. But my crazy family is part of me and I cannot, I will not, abandon them on a whim and a hope.”

He shook his head.

“If Korenev sees me in Cheyenne without you,” she added, “he’ll just kill Katy and me both. You’re willing to walk away knowing that?”

Now his voice shook, too. “I’m not walking away. I’m heading a different direction because it’s the only way to save you and Katy. Can’t you see that? Come with me.”

“And can’t you see that you’re off on another wild-goose chase? You want to know your past so badly you’re willing to abandon good sense.”

“I can’t believe you think that of me,” he said.

“And I can’t believe I allowed myself to love a man who would abandon me when I needed him most. What am I supposed to think?”

He stared hard at her a minute. “Then this is where we finally say goodbye,” he said, his voice cracking. “I’ll go my way and you go yours. I want you to take the gun—just in case. Don’t argue with me. Just point it and pull the trigger if you have to.”

“If you’re so sure about this, then why are you giving me your gun?” she asked.

It took him a moment to answer. “Because I love you, too,” he finally said.

Lips trembling, Paige turned her face away.

* * *

I
N THE END, THEY FOUND
a car rental place and Paige, being the only one with a valid driver’s license and a credit card, rented another vehicle. Within ten minutes, she drove away in the rental with a few of her belongings as John took off in the other direction in her car.

He’d told her about the south fence at the Cheyenne airport and how she was just supposed to sit there until Korenev called on her cell. It would be dark by then, but there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that Korenev would know she’d come alone before he made that call and he would suspect a trick, or worse, just shoot her and Katy and go after John again.

John had always come through when it counted, so how could he have left now? His betrayal scorched her heart way worse than Brian’s had. It reached deeper and tapped into things darker. More than once, she flipped tears from her cheeks as the traffic around her blurred.

She’d started to believe in him— No, wait, she’d believed in him from the very start. Even with the quirks and nightmares and mounting evidence of corruption, she’d known on an internal level who and what he was.

Or had she?

She couldn’t bear to think of him, but that opened her mind to images of Katy, bound with duct tape and stuck in the trunk of some old car. Paige knew firsthand how frightening Korenev could be with his icy eyes and cold steel blade, with his cavalier brutality. And Katy was way more delicate than Paige, more protected. She must be terrified.

The phone rang as it began to rain.
John, please, please, be John calling to say you’ve changed your mind
. No matter how tenuous their future was at this point, Katy needed him. She needed him.

She knew she shouldn’t answer the phone while driving, especially in an unfamiliar car, but she did it anyway. “Yes?”

“Paige,” a man said.

“Yes? Who is this?”

“Paige, darling, don’t you recognize my voice?”

And suddenly she did. “Brian? What do you want? Why are you calling? Is something wrong?”

“I guess it depends on how you look at it,” he said.

What did that mean? “Is Jasmine okay?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “She left.”

Paige stared at the bus traveling in front of her and tried to make sense of Brian’s words. “Where’d she go?”

“She got a lot of media attention after the attack. There were interviews and some went national. Well, you probably saw them. She was everywhere for a day or so. She just loved the attention and the camera loved her. She got an offer to audition for a reality show so she flew off to L.A. She’s not coming back no matter what. She’s gone.”

Almost speechless, Paige managed a subdued, “I’m sorry.”

“Maybe it’s for the best,” he said. “Things haven’t been so good between us lately. Damn it, Paige, the truth is I knew the day after I went back to her that I’d made a terrible mistake.”

Paige literally did not know how to respond.

“Seeing you the other day with another guy was like a pail of cold water in my face. I’ve screwed up big-time, Paige, I know that, but what we had was good. I’m asking you to give me another chance.”

After several seconds of silence, Paige finally managed to speak. “This isn’t a good time for me.”

“No, don’t say that,” he begged. “Please don’t say that, darling. Listen to me. When Jasmine showed up at our wedding and wanted me back it was like the planet fell back into orbit. But in the end, I just hurt you and myself, too, and now I want to fix it. Just tell me you’ll give us a chance. Think about what we had. We can have it again.”

Hadn’t Paige felt that exact way when she saw him? Everything had seemed perfect for a moment and she’d been ready to sell her soul just to have back what had been taken away from her. How big a hypocrite would she be not to understand how Brian could have felt the same way?

But his timing really was terrible.

* * *

J
OHN STRUGGLED TO PUT
Paige out of his mind, but the way she hadn’t been able even to look him in the eyes when they parted seemed to have lodged somewhere in his chest. If he was wrong about Korenev, Paige might very well pay for it with her life. That thought alone was enough to consider turning around. Perhaps they should just face whatever happened next together. Together—that was the key word.

But that word no longer described them and he seriously doubted it ever would again. Besides, he didn’t think he was wrong, and if he was right, not only would Paige be safe and sound hundreds of miles away from the inevitable carnage, but he would save her sister. That was what mattered: saving Katy. Otherwise Paige would carry the unwarranted guilt of her sister’s fate for the rest of her life.

So he kept driving Paige’s car, her presence so real he could almost see her sitting beside him, her absence even more real.

As sunlight faded into evening shadows, he drove into Green Acre, a picturesque town with a distinct Western flair. He passed a metal sculpture of a moose and another of a bear as Paige’s GPS directed him to the hospital.

As he drove through the ever-darkening parking lot, he kept his eyes peeled for a battered van but didn’t see one. That didn’t mean much, as Korenev had undoubtedly traded in that vehicle for another. The man treated the world like a giant used-car lot.

Which raised the question: Where was Katy? She was obviously with Korenev, or had been when he called them at Katy’s apartment. If Korenev was already here, that probably meant Katy was close by, but where? Korenev wouldn’t have taken her into the hospital with him, but he could have dumped her anywhere along the way or stuck her in a trunk and parked almost anywhere in this town. John looked over the sea of cars and knew he didn’t have time to investigate each of them.

First things first. He’d start by checking out the hospital.

The building was undergoing major renovation and John passed signs apologizing for the inconvenience almost every place he turned. Patient rooms were on the second floor so he took the elevator, sharing the ride with a couple of orderlies and a cart of covered meal trays. Apparently it was dinner hour.

The small alcove with a centralized nursing station was unmanned when John got there and he stood around for a few minutes, anxious beyond endurance but unsure how to proceed. Monitors behind the counter obviously reflected the vital signs of various patients, but they were labeled with room numbers, not names and so, were of no help.

A team of workers plied their trade nearby, making a heck of a racket as they wielded drills and hammers. John was about one second away from jumping over the counter and trying his hand with the computer to find Miner when a plump woman carrying a stack of folders finally appeared from behind a sheet of thick plastic that hung across the hallway. She sidestepped the workmen and quickened her pace when she saw John.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long. Half the staff is out with the flu and this construction is driving the rest of us nuts. How can I help you?”

“Miner?” John asked.

“Charles Miner? Chuck?”

Charles?
John narrowed his eyes, the name resonating in his head. He’d never made the leap from Chuck to Charles and it wasn’t an issue right now, but his aunt had called him Charles.

“Room 220,” she added. “I’m not sure he’s allowed visitors. Check with the guard outside his room. Down the hall on the left. Just be cautious of the uneven floor, please. Turn right and go straight past the stairway. Wait, I think Mr. Miner was having some tests. Oh, you’ll find out when you get there.”

“Has he had any other visitors today?” John asked.

“I don’t think so. Like I said, we’ve been in and out of his room.” The nurse turned back to what she was doing and John took off down the hall, his heart hammering inside his chest. He wouldn’t put anything past Korenev, and with all the chaos and inattention abounding in the hospital, who knew where he was or even what he currently looked like?

Halfway down the corridor, John came across an empty metal chair by the door of room 220. There were two women standing farther down the hall, but neither wore a police or security-officer uniform.

So where was the guard? Out of habit, John patted himself to check for his gun before recalling he’d forced Paige to take it.

As he paused, uncertain how to proceed, the door of room 220 opened inward and three people in lab coats exited. One rolled a cart covered with glass vials of what appeared to be blood samples. The other two were laden with stethoscopes, clipboards and medical paraphernalia John didn’t recognize, although he didn’t actually stand there staring at them. Instead, he walked on down the hall, pausing in front of a closet marked Supplies, straining to listen to the conversation among the people exiting Miner’s room.

“Hey, where’s the guard?” the woman rolling the cart said. The cart made an amazing amount of noise on the uneven floor as its contents rattled together.

A man with a deep voice responded. “Must have taken a coffee break.”

“I’ll be glad when this construction is over,” the third person said as they continued down the hall, their voices fading. John saw his big chance, but knew it probably wouldn’t last long. He retraced his steps in a hurry and let himself into the room, closing the door behind him.

He came face-to-face with a curtain and hesitated again. It shielded whoever was in the room from view when the door was open, so it would provide him cover once he was behind it. On the other hand, it would also obscure the identity of any newcomer. Better to have no surprises. He silently pushed the curtain aside.

Chuck Miner looked to be in his mid-thirties, though with all the cuts, bruises and bandages, it was hard to be certain. He also appeared to be asleep, which seemed amazing considering how many people had just left his room.