In the Dead of the Night (30 page)

When they entered
the restaurant, Jenny stopped dead in her tracks. “I remember this place. We came here after the attempted robbery. We went to the movies afterward.”

“Okay, great.”
Allan felt elated to hear her finally recall something that vividly, and the smile on her face cheered him to think she was finally pleased with the memories that were dribbling back.

He sat next to Jenny.
Dale and Samuel sat opposite them in the booth, the burgundy seats and dark wood reminding him of a Victorian era. Jenny pointed her finger at a steak on the menu. “I ate the rib eye, medium rare. And after the movie, we went to the ice cream place.”

The waitress t
ook their orders, then soon served fresh loaf of breads and salads.

“What about the cottage?” Allan asked.
“Do you remember why you stayed there?”

Everyone stopped eating, Dale and Samuel’s eyes averted while they listened to what Jenny had to say.
Only Allan watched her for any sign of recognition.

She pulled off a piece of bread.
“Don’t remember.”

Samuel speared another forkful of salad.
Dale buttered another slice of bread. Allan sighed deeply.
Patience
. He had to remember patience.

After finishing their meals, taking in a show, and sharing ice c
ream sundaes, the party headed back to the cottage.

When they arrived there
, Lantham, Beasley, and Crowlston sat at the dining table, eating a dinner of fish sticks, baked potatoes, and green beans.

“Hey, folks,” Lantham said, waving a fork in greeting.

“We’re about finished here.” Beasley lifted his clean plate from the table. “If you want to play a game of Monopoly or Scrabble or something.”

Dale pulled out the Monopoly game and set it on the table.

Allan turned to see if Jenny wanted to play the game or take another walk around the lake, this time with every intention of navigating the entire circumference of the body of water with her on a moonlit night. But her eyes had grown as big as silver dollars and her skin as white as her wedding dress. He grasped her hand. “Jenny, what’s wrong?”

Yet in his heart, he knew what was wrong.
The memories of having been in the cabin had flooded back to her all at once, and whatever they were raised chill bumps on her arms as her hand grew clammy.

Allan hurried Jenny over to the couch as her legs seemed to give out on her. Her stomach grew nauseous as her heart rate sped up. She was vaguely aware that the other agents encircled the couch, waiting, watching her, wondering what new memories she had to tell them.

Allan sat beside her, holding her hand and rubbing her back, trying to reassure her.

She took a deep breath and stared at the coffee table. How could she hide the fact she was a deep cover operative working for the same Agency as they were, only out on the limb without a safety line attached?

As planned, she was to have no contact with her supervisor for weeks.
The Agency heads feared Thurman Wilson would discover she was an agent and terminate her. Wilson had been with the Agency, too, and anything he might have found in her house that was Agency-related would have easily clued him in. But like her, he’d been deep under cover…so Allan and his men would never have met him, or if they had, would never have realized he was one of them. And Randy Stevens? Apparently Thurman had known him, too, while he was with the Agency.

She was supposed to have found out who Thurman’s boss was.
That was her mission. Who was he filtering the money to? Then the perfect solution had availed itself when her aunt died so all of a sudden. Jenny had become one of the richest agents with A.T.A. overnight. Using that money and the fact she was a redhead and around the age that he liked, she’d lured Thurman Wilson to see something in her more than just a quick love affair that he would terminate in time with killing precision.

How could she tell Allan, she wasn’t going to be sitting home sipping strawberry margaritas with Roxie, while he was away on a job?
Rather she’d be on some other assignment, deep undercover, trying to catch the heads of terrorist cells herself?

“Jenny?”
Allan coaxed, quietly.

Hell, Roxie was her partner.
Poor thing. She must have been really concerned about Jenny’s welfare.

Allan’s hand caressed her back, warming her inside, chasing away the chill that passed over her heart.
Would he understand that she was an agent like him? Or would he not want her any longer? Most of the agents she knew wanted sweet little homebodies and kids to come home to, not some highly trained special agent that went on missions, too.

She couldn’t consider the repercussions now.
She had to focus on the mission and shove away the feelings that tormented her concerning Allan and their relationship.

Somehow, she had to get word to her boss she remembered who she was.
And somehow, she had to get Wilson. He evidently still didn’t know that she was a deep cover agent, but he would kill her for having been intimate with her in the interim. He must be fuming mad to think she had married Allan, the only agent ever to get close enough to him to shoot him. Then the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae? She’d given the Agency her money for safekeeping.

She could see the hardness in Thurman’s blue contact-colored eyes just by closing her own.
The idea that hateful man had touched her ever made her shudder. Yet she’d had to play her role well, with a fiend like him. Any wrong move would have ensured her death. Even so, she’d only allowed him to have sex with her twice. All she could think of was how he’d killed so many before her, after he’d had relations with them. Even now, she couldn’t believe how long she’d been able to put him off, sweetly, demurely, surely breaking the pattern he’d had with the women he usually picked up.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” Allan asked, breaking into her thoughts.
“Or maybe we can talk in the bedroom.”

She assumed he was concerned she couldn’t divulge the hideousness of what had happened in the cottage with Roxie and she and the two male agents in front of all the men.
She wanted to laugh, if the situation hadn’t been so serious.

In reality, only Roxie and she had enjoyed the solitude of the lakeside retreat, spent their days shopping, watching movies, boating, climbing the mounta
in, enjoying life to its fullest. There were no other agents at the cottage, only Roxie and her.

The Agency must have had the staff at Pilgrim Pines Resort make up an entry that said the ladies stayed there to keep Allan and his team from learning the truth.
Yet her boss had to have sent her there to try to force her to remember her past, figuring it was safer than sending her back to Waco where Wilson would evidently have his henchman watching for her return.

Now what was she to do?

Somehow she had to sneak Allan’s phone away from him and call her boss. Garcia had to know at once that she was all right and ready to return to her assignment.

But for now, she had to placate Allan and his men.
She couldn’t blow her cover and let them know who she was, unless her boss approved it.

She reached over
and patted Allan’s thigh. “Let’s take a walk.”

“Are you sure you’re up to it, Jenny?
You seem pretty shaky.”

“Yeah, I’ll be all right.”
Especially after she put Wilson behind bars. She’d failed her mission. Discover who his boss was. Now all that was left was to take Wilson out of the picture, for good. No more of his siphoning money to the terrorist cause.

Allan helped her up from the couch.
She couldn’t believe how wobbly she still felt. And she couldn’t get over the fact she was one of them. Now she knew why she’d killed the men. Two of Thurman’s henchmen had discovered her trying to contact her boss. That was the last time she’d made that mistake.

What had made the agents move into the Waco area?

A blunder no doubt. Probably someone had happened to recognize Thurman in Waco and messed up her undercover operation. On the other hand, they’d managed to rescue her before Wilson had forced her to marry him, then killed her. She’d put off the marriage long enough, she was certain.

Allan escorted her outside, his hand securely wrapped around her arm as if he wo
rried she would collapse any moment. Lantham, Beasley, and Crowlston joined them on their stroll this time. Lantham led the pack a hundred yards ahead on the gravel road.

The sunlight hadn’t yet faded completely from the cloudless sky.
Pine tree shadows filtered across the road as everyone’s shoes crunched on the rocky path. The fragrance of pine needles scented the air as a whisper of a breeze whooshed through the trees.

“What do you remember?” Allan asked.

“I beat Roxie at Monopoly. Three days in a row. She’s pretty good-natured though. She’s just not good at being a ruthless property owner like I am.”

He leaned over and kissed her cheek.
“And the guys?”

“Don’t remember anything about them.”
She had to lie, in part. She wasn’t about to make up fake agents to anger Allan further. But there was no way she could tell him she was an agent herself, and so was Roxie, for that matter. Or that they had every right to stay at the cabin like any of the other agents of A.T.A.

“Something upset you, Jenny.
Something you remembered.”

There
was
something. The phone call between Thurman and someone in her house that one day. What had he said? She rubbed her temple. “It had to do with the phone call he had at my house. The one he had when I overheard him speaking.”

“When you thought he had a girlfriend behind your back?”

That’s what she thought when she had barely any memory of it. Probably she’d mixed it up with the memories of her ex-fiancé. But now she knew very well Wilson thought she’d been showering, and she’d taken the opportunity to see if he would call his boss. She’d hoped he would attempt to give his boss an update on his progress with marrying her and getting his greedy hands on the money.

“I think he was calling his boss, now that I think further
on it. He called him…Blue.”

After that, she’d attempted to contact her boss, and that’s when Thurman’s men discovered her at a phone booth at a park.
She’d killed them, just like she’d killed Randy Stevens, one bullet to the brain. She hadn’t any choice. Wilson would have killed her instantly, if he’d known she was an agent.

She’d removed their weapons, jewelry, anything that would ID them.
Not to hide their identity, as she was sure the two men’s fingerprints would show they were on the FBI’s most wanted list. But instead, she had to make it appear to Wilson that the men had been robbed by common thieves, not killed by an A.T.A. agent.

Beasley begin to speak into a phone.
“She believes Wilson’s boss was named Blue.” He paused while everyone else remained quiet, the only sound, the crickets singing noisily in the woods and the party’s shoes kicking stones or grinding leather soles against crushed gravel. “How much more does she remember? Well, she recalled having been in the cottage finally.” Again there was a stretch of silence. “No, she didn’t say anything about agents being in the house with them. She says she doesn’t remember.”

H
e stopped walking. “You want to talk to her?” His voice had elevated in disbelief.

Her hear
t thundered. Now what? Would her boss permit her to tell the agents what her job really was? With renewed hope, she wished it were so. Now that she knew the situation, she wanted everything clear between Allan and her.

“Yes
, sir.” Beasley approached her and handed the phone to her.

She took the phone and lifted it to her ear, scarcely breathing.
“Yes?” Her voice shook and so did her hand, to her annoyance. She was a deep cover agent, not some frail, wilting rose.

“Jenny, do you remember everything?”
He sounded concerned, fatherly. He’d always been that way with her.

“Yes.”

“You remember who you are and what your mission was?”

“Yes.”

She was certain Garcia was rubbing his chin the way he did when he was mulling over a tough decision. “I don’t want the others to know.”

“But
—”

“I know Allan.
There’s no way he’ll want you to complete your assigned mission. He’ll get himself killed trying to protect you.”

She stared at the ground, not wanting to look at Allan who she knew was watching every move she made, or the other agents who also waited in breathless anticipation.

“Jenny, do you understand?”

She was torn between revealing
the truth to her husband and keeping him in the dark to do her job. Now she understood how difficult it had been for Allan not to reveal the truth to her about his assignment to protect her. She reached her hand out to him and squeezed his hand firmly. She smiled slightly, but she couldn’t disguise the concern she was sure still shown in her eyes, or in the wrinkle of her forehead.