Around-the-Clock Protector (4 page)

“You’re lying!” Ava tightened her grip on the pistol, the only thing holding Agent Nash at bay. Doubt raked her thoughts, turning them like fall leaves.

She stared at the business card in his fingers, fighting to grasp even a wisp of a memory, but she kept coming back to the same conclusion.

He was an agent, intent on bringing her in. He’d say and do anything to accomplish his mission.

Her moment of hesitation evaporated. “Put this truck back on the road. We’re going to the police station.”

“Not until you put the gun down and listen to me. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Tension knotted her nerves, straining them until she thought she’d implode.

“But you will if you have to?” Staring into his eyes, she tried to find the truth. She was tired of running, tired of watching her back 24/7.

“Yes,” he whispered.

It was true. She could see it in the determined set of his jaw, in the unwavering stare he focused on her. She swallowed, gauging the level of force he would no doubt use on her if given the chance. He was a tiger ready to pounce.

A trickle of fear dripped down her spine. “I’ve got no memory of you. Explain that.”

“We spent one night together. The night before your overseas assignment with Borisov. I watched you climb into the limo from your bedroom window. Please look at the card.”

Ava sucked in a deep breath. Had he been there? Had he really been there? Her memories were a ball of tangled thread. No two ends tied together, but she did remember that single moment. Looking up at her bedroom window. Climbing into the car. Was it enough to believe him?

She blinked.

In that instant he yanked the gun from her hand and tossed it onto the floorboard on the driver’s side.

Panicked, she grabbed for the door handle, desperate to escape, but he was too quick.

Carson locked his arms around Ava before she could jump out of the pickup and run. He’d seen her panic flare with an intensity that threatened to push her over the edge.

Screaming, she fought him, but he held on to her.

“Ava! Stop. Think about the baby.” Carson swallowed
as she gave up the fight and settled against him. She was shaking as he loosened his grip.

What had happened to her after she got into the limo? The information
was
locked in her head.

“I’m taking you to Doc Resnick. Maybe he can help before we get on the military transport out of here at dawn.”

“Please don’t take me to McLean.”

He tipped her chin up with his hand and stared down into her eyes. “You’ve been missing for four months. I can’t help you if I don’t know where you’ve been. You must have some kind of recall.”

“Recall? I’ll show you recall.” She shrugged away from him and pulled up the sleeves of her blouse one after the other.

A wave of anger crushed him as he stared at her arms, bruised and dotted with needle marks.

He turned on the dome light, reached out and rotated her right arm, scanning her skin. “Defensive wounds, too. You put up one hell of a fight.”

“Yeah. But did it do any good? I don’t know who gave these to me.” She shrank away from him. “I don’t know what they did to me, my body, or my baby.”

Rage circulated inside him, followed by concern. She’d been given drugs—the evidence was in plain sight. Had it affected her unborn child?

“I’ve got to get you to Doc Resnick.”

“And what then?”

Carson slid back over into the driver’s seat and recovered the gun from the floorboard, along with her business card.

“We make sure you’re both okay.”

“I’d like that.” She looked over at him and he resisted the urge to touch her.

“Have you got a first-aid kit?” she asked.

“Yeah. In my pack.”

“You’re still bleeding. I’d like to patch you up.”

“A peace offering?”

“For now.” A slow smile spread on her lips.

He pulled out his backpack from under the seat and set it between them. Digging in to a side compartment, he pulled out the packet of gauze, antibiotic cream, alcohol preps and skin tape he always kept with him.

“It’s not much.” He handed it to her and slid his pack back down onto the floor. Inching closer, he raised his arms and pulled off his T-shirt to expose the injury.

Ava sucked in a breath, unable to explain the odd pounding of her heart. “Lift your arm.”

He obeyed, raising his right arm and locking it behind his head.

She tried not to stare, tried not to make an idiot of herself, but her eyes were drawn to the taut lines of his chest highlighted in the dome light.

“Alcohol. I need some of that.” Flustered, she opened the small plastic first-aid kit and took out three prepackaged preps.

She ripped them open with more gusto than she’d intended.

“You’re going to enjoy this, aren’t you?”

“No. But probably more than you.”

Gingerly she reached toward him and brushed the wad of wipes over his wound.

He pulled in a sharp breath and let it out through pursed lips.

“The worst is over.” She pulled her hand back without looking at him, sure he could see the color flaming in her cheeks.

Touching him turned her emotions inside out.

“This should soothe the burn.” She cleaned her pinkie with an alcohol prep and squeezed out a generous amount of antibiotic cream onto her finger. Gently she smoothed it on his injury.

“You can fix me up anytime,” he whispered against her ear as she placed a square of gauze over the wound.

His nearness drummed up desire in her body and she fought the crazy sensations that pounded out a sensual rhythm inside her.

“Hold that.”

He pressed his hand over the bandage, catching her fingers before she could pull them away.

Heat raced up her arm and into her body. Her breath caught in her throat. She stared at him, mesmerized by the primal gleam in his eyes. She allowed
her gaze to settle on his mouth before drawing it back up to his eyes.

A snippet of a memory bounced off her brain and she raced to catch it, snagging it just before she pulled her hand from underneath his.

Carson beat back his raging lust and pressed the piece of gauze down as hard as he could, letting the pain do battle with his out-of-control thoughts.

“Give me the tape,” he said, holding out his hand.

Ava tore off a strip of skin tape and handed it to him.

One by one, he taped the edges of the bandage over his wound, rubbing it extra hard for good measure before he grabbed his T-shirt and put it back on.

“Thanks,” he said as he pulled back out onto the Interstate, disgusted with himself for wanting her the way he did. She was his mission and he’d do well to remember that the next time he let his mind cross the line.

T
HE BALANCE OF THE DRIVE
into the greater Seattle area was completed in silence. On several occasions he believed Ava was asleep, but then he’d feel her eyes on him in the shallow darkness.

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe her story. She had the physical scars to prove it. It was more of a caution. Was it possible she’d been turned by the Russians? Had she been able to give them top secret information during the four months she’d been MIA?
And where the hell would she have gotten the information in the first place with her unclassified clearance level?

“I remembered something.”

The whisper of her voice pulled Carson’s focus from the road for an instant.

“A name.” She straightened in the seat. “I must have dozed off, because it was there when I woke up. Hinshaw.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah.”

“First or last?”

“I don’t know. Probably last. I don’t think I know anyone named Hinshaw, but then, I don’t know what I know anymore.”

Carson reached out and brushed her hand with his. Heat zapped up his arm and spread into his system. He pulled back, irritated with his body’s overriding response to her.

“It’s a start. My guess is, once the drugs are out of your system your head will begin to clear.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“The psych department at McLean is your best bet.”

Tension filled the air inside the cab of the pickup. “How do you know they’re not to blame for the mental shape I’m in right now? How do you know they’re not the ones who altered my memory in the first place?”

Carson considered her summation. She had a
point. He was punching around in the dark and not making contact with anything solid.

“I don’t. I’m going to reserve judgment until after you’ve had a chance to talk to Doc Resnick.”

“Who is he?”

“Retired CIA. Ran the department at McLean for thirty years. I’d trust him with my life.”

Apprehension coiled around Ava’s body, pulling her nerves tight. She was at Agent Nash’s mercy for the time being. Unarmed, and tired. Maybe he was right. Maybe seeing Dr. Resnick was the answer.

She tried to relax as he maneuvered the truck off the freeway and glanced in the rearview mirror.

“We’ve got company.”

She reached for the armrest on the door, feeling the pickup accelerate as Carson turned right onto a four-lane highway.

Traffic was light. He changed lanes, pulled around a couple of cars and back into the outside lane.

She tried to relax as she looked in the side mirror, but the vehicle had followed their every move.

Her heart rate climbed. “You can’t let them catch us.”

Carson stepped down on the gas pedal, glad the old Ford had a souped-up motor under the hood.

Pulling into the left lane, he passed a slow-moving car and swung back into the right lane.

The car followed, picking up speed.

His nerves felt frayed. He made a hard right onto a two lane highway and gunned the engine.

He watched the speedometer climb past seventy.

The pursuing car dropped back, only visible on the tops of the rises approximately half a mile behind.

He maneuvered a sweeping left-hand corner and slammed on the brakes.

The pickup shuddered, its tires bouncing on the pavement in protest at the sudden deceleration.

Whipping the steering wheel hard to the right, he turned onto a narrow road and pulled down into the trees.

He killed the headlights and rolled to a stop.

Watching in the rearview mirror, he saw the chase car flash by.

“We ditched them for now.” He put the truck in Reverse and backed out. His senses were heightened as he scanned the highway in both directions. They’d managed to lose the tail, but for how long?

A nagging suspicion took root in his brain.

He glanced at Ava. “You okay?”

“Yeah. My stomach’s a little queasy, but I’ll live.”

“Doc lives in Tacoma. It’s not far from here. We’ll be there within the hour.” He pulled back onto the highway and headed for the main road.

“And then what?”

“If we’re lucky, we find out what happened to you in the last four months.”

Ava tried to alleviate the dread infusing her body. She couldn’t go back to CIA headquarters. She had to find a way to convince Carson of that fact…or she had to escape. Her life and the life of her unborn child depended on it. Maybe the doctor would come up with something. Maybe he’d be able to retrieve her lost memories. Maybe then Carson Nash would believe her.

C
ARSON SAT
in the darkest corner of Dr. Gary Resnick’s home office, listening to the coaxing notes of his voice as he took Ava deeper into hypnosis.

So far his attempts to unlock her secrets had failed. On a couple of occasions she’d even answered Gary’s questions in Russian. An event that concerned him.

He rocked his head back and forth, trying to relieve the tension in his neck and between his shoulder blades. They were running out of time. The transport was scheduled to leave McChord AFB at 6:00 a.m. and he planned to be on it. Memories or no memories.

“On the count of three, you’ll wake up. One, two, three.”

She opened her eyes and leaned forward in the chair. “Please tell me you got something.” There was desperation in her voice and Carson fought the urge to reassure her.

“I’m afraid not, but with drug therapy I might be able to get something.”

Ava grimaced. “No. No drugs.”

She stood up. “Is there any chance you have extra clothing. I need to shower and change.”

Carson came to his feet. “There’s no time.”

“Please.” She turned toward him, staring at him through eyes the color of deep-sea water. He relented. God only knew how long she’d been wearing the same clothes. A shower was a minor luxury.

“You’re about the size of my daughter, Penny,” Dr. Resnick said. “She’s away at college. Her room is down the hall, second door on the left. I’m sure you can find something in there to wear. Take whatever you need.”

“Thank you.” She turned to leave the room.

“Fifteen minutes, max,” Carson said to her back.

She nodded.

He watched her leave the room, but didn’t speak until he heard a door close somewhere down the hallway.

“Level with me, Gary. What’s going on in her head?”

“Memory modification, and or annihilation. It’s an effective technique I pioneered and taught at McLean. Some of the interconnecting neuropath-ways in the brain are blocked, so she may remember, say, her address, but not her phone number. A childhood memory, but not what she ate for breakfast. The blocks I encountered in her are solid, but sometimes you can get minor recall by exposing the
patient to familiar settings. The only other way through them is with drug interdiction.”

“She’s already been put through hell. There are at least a dozen needle marks in her arms.”

“There’s only one way to set blocks this solid. Traumatic stressors. They increase suggestibility. She may have witnessed a horrific event sometime after she went missing.” Gary smoothed his hand over his head. “But her use of Russian concerns me the most. Have you considered she might be a double agent working for the Russians?”

Carson studied his friend in the dim light of the office. He’d considered it, all right. It would explain why they’d been holding her at the cabin, and it made sense that the CIA wanted her back in the fold. But for prosecution or counterintelligence measures, he wasn’t sure. Then there was the NSA’s involvement.