Make Mine a Marine (54 page)

Before she could redirect her question, his party answered and he stepped away to conduct his phone conversation in hushed, efficient tones. Emma plunged her hands into her pockets and shifted her curiosity to the man lying handcuffed on the pavement. She had to raise her voice to be heard over his cursing and muttering about his rights.

"Do you really know my husband?" she asked.

"I'm not saying nothing now! You're screwed. He's screwed. Hell, I'm—" He spat the words at her, and in an instant she found Drew Gallagher's strong back positioned between them, protecting her from her assailant's spew of foul language. She could see neither Drew's face nor the man's, but suddenly the man fell silent.

"Anything else you want to say?" challenged Drew. His lanky height topped Emma's by only a few inches, yet an indefinable energy radiated from his broad shoulders, making him seem bigger and brawnier. He shielded her, made her feel feminine. He made her feel safe.

"What's this guy's interest in your family?" asked Drew, taking her elbow and guiding her several feet away, but not so far that he couldn't keep watch over the man in handcuffs.

Her personal life was none of his business, but unnerved by the unexpected warmth that radiated from deep inside her at the protective gesture, Emma answered. "He says he has a computer disk that can help me locate my husband."

"Your husband? How long has he been missing? Have you reported it to the police?" He slipped his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket.

"He's been gone five years." Her tone silenced a chain of professional questions he no doubt wanted to ask. The same questions she'd answered more times than she could count. "And there's nothing the police can do to help me."

"Five years?" He said the words and an odd transformation took place. The intensity in his catlike eyes wavered, and suddenly Drew Gallagher was miles away from her.

Realizing the hopelessness of her situation, she tried to draw him back, to show him the validity of her concern. "How can I know if he's telling the truth? If he has that disk hidden somewhere, I may never get a chance to see it."

Suddenly back, he drilled her with a look that made her feel silly. "That's Stan Begosian. He's wanted in an investigation for creating and distributing child pornography. You want me to release him before the cops get here so he can give you a disk he may or may not have? For all we know, it's a scam. That disk—if it does exist—might contain nothing more than pictures of children he's taken. It could have been a picture of your little girl."

"That's enough."

"I'm not trying to be cruel, but whatever he claims…don't believe it."

Emma bristled at his easy dismissal of her last shred of hope. "He knows who I am. That has to mean something."

"It means he's a conniving lowlife." Drew splayed his fingers across his hips and stepped closer. "Look, the cops will search his place. Ask them to look for the disk."

Emma tipped her chin to look him in the eye. "Apparently your goal is simply to get your man, regardless of the cost his actions or yours have on anyone else."

He pressed his mouth into a grim, flat line. Emma clenched her toes inside her pumps to keep from backing away from the disquieting intensity of his eyes. "I rescued your daughter today from that creep. I just saved your butt. And now I'm the bad guy?"

Two black-and-white units pulled up, giving Emma an opportunity to sneak a breath she wasn't aware she'd been holding. With their hands on their holstered guns, the officers hurried out and surrounded Begosian. Drew turned to acknowledge them, then raked his fingers through his hair, shaking loose his mane of wheat-gold waves. His shoulders rose and fell in a deep breath before he turned back to her.

"This has been more fun than I can stand, but we have to stop meeting like this."

Her heart thumped in a funny rhythm at the veiled disdain in his voice. Maybe she hadn't properly thanked him. But, savior or not, he'd cost her a lead in finding Jonathan.

More than that, she couldn't be around a man whose simple eye contact made her pulse pound in her veins. The instantaneous awareness felt too much like betraying her husband.

"No, Mr. Gallagher. We have to stop meeting, period."

Chapter Two

Drew inhaled deeply, the sharp winter air freezing the salty taste of sweat at the corner of his mouth. He raised his shoulders, pushing his right palm slowly forward. Then, stepping out, he thrust his left hand in the same precise, controlled manner.

Sleep had eluded him yet again. Or rather, the nightmares had failed to elude him.

His spare loft-style condo, in a reclaimed building near downtown Kansas City, suited his early morning kata. A second-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, he routinely worked through the inexplicable images that haunted his sleep by performing the ritual exercise of form known as kata.

Even in winter, he stripped to the waist, opened the windows, and exorcised his demons through the meditative routine. Turn. Kick. Punch. Breathe.

The stifling air of the jungle sucked the breath from his lungs. And still he ran.

Drew lunged to the side, stretching his arms like graceful wings. He narrowed his eyes, pushing the scene from his mind with the same controlled force.

The stamp of booted feet hounded his steps. Palm fronds with stalks as thick as his forearms snapped into place behind him. While he chased his quarry, he, too, was being pursued. He was both men.

He cocked his elbow and jabbed in slow motion. He kicked to the side and focused on his peaceful center.

"Stand fast or I'll shoot!"

"No, you won't. You'll never take me alive." The grenade pin sailed into the endless gulf of jungle foliage. "We’ll both die."

The nightmare never varied. The one memory branded into his subconscious mocked him with his inability to understand it. He was at once both killer and victim.

Awake, Drew forced the hellish images back into the abyss of his past. The low temperature in the loft chilled his skin. He breathed deeply through his nose and released it slowly through his mouth, creating a cloud of frosty air.

Nearing the end of his kata, he concentrated on the controlled perfection of his movements.

Listen.

He ignored the command just as he ignored the other meaningless images in his mind.

"May I help you?"

Drew stumbled, his form slipping for an instant. The ever-present chaos of his jumbled memories had never included a woman's voice. Not that voice. Not her voice.

Yet it was there, clear as the brisk winter air surrounding him.

"Sir, may I help you?"

Drew stopped in mid stride, cursed himself, then quickly apologized. He bowed to the sunrise, toward the honor of his sensei. He grabbed a towel and wiped his face, then tossed it around his shoulders to absorb the dampness there. His morning routine hadn't erased the odd snippets of dreams from his mind. He couldn't tell if he was insane or clairvoyant. Were the disturbing images from his past or future?

Funny how amnesia could make a man question everything—even his gifts. He either had one hell of a memory trying to break through, or one hell of a psychic ability that he had forgotten.

The irony of his situation failed to make him laugh.

He crossed to the kitchen and poured himself a mug of hot coffee. He spread strawberry jam on wheat toast and sat down to read the next chapter in his dog-eared copy of the Andrew Gallagher detective novel he'd picked up at a flea market. The series of cheap pulp fiction books provided easy reads. His lone bookshelf overflowed with the paperbacks he'd collected, not because they had any antique value, but because they reminded him of where he'd come from and who he had chosen to be.

He'd spent a lot of months healing in a Central American hospital. He knew that. Books printed in English had been hard to come by, but a sympathetic nurse had brought him some novels from her brother who'd gone to school in the States. With nothing in his head to miss or look forward to, he'd filled the time reading every last Gallagher novel. The cagey fictional detective used too much hardware to solve his cases for Drew's taste, but he always landed more on the side of good than evil by the story's end. With no other inspiration to guide him, Drew had adopted the hero's name and profession, and dedicated his life to solving the biggest mystery of all.

Himself.

"Sir, may I help you?"

The voice, along with smoky blue eyes, drifted into his thoughts and made it impossible to concentrate on the story he was reading. Instead of fighting the image, Drew gave up. If work was all he had, then he'd better get to it. He went to the table beside his bed, turned on the lamp, and picked up his notebook.

Thumbing through his daily notes, he found the address he had looked up yesterday. Emma Ramsey, Executive Director, LadyTech. Mrs. Pinstripe, with the brick-loaded purse, and legs that belonged on a Rockette, ran a corporation.

How the hell had she gotten into his head? She'd said that they'd never met. Was her appearance in his mind a real memory, or an image projected there by errant hormones?

No. Definitely real. She hadn't spoken those words to him at the museum. Yet he recognized them.

He remembered them.

Drew expelled his breath with a sigh, and felt the sting of the December air on his skin. He closed the windows, shed his sweats, and stepped into a hot shower. But the knowledge that he was on the edge of an important recollection lingered, chilling him.

Five years with nothing but a nightmare remaining from his former life. Until now. Until her.

Why?

He stuck his head under the full blast of the water and let the wet heat beat down on his scalp. Outside, the sun breaking the horizon teased him with the promise of hope for a new day. But until he pieced together the shattered remnants of his past, he had no hopes, no future. How many special sunrises had he forgotten? How many promises had he failed to keep?

Emma Ramsey seemed to be a key to unlocking at least one of those hidden answers. At least, his subconscious seemed to think so. But after her icy dismissal yesterday, he'd need some kind of bargaining chip to prompt her to talk.

The solution that came to him seemed too easy. Drew turned off the water, grinning. He ran his fingers through his hair, squeezing the excess water from the shoulder-length strands and wringing the lingering doubts from his mind.

With enough purpose to finally begin his day, he wrapped a towel around his waist and shaved with an electric razor. Maybe he'd done enough good deeds yesterday to make up for his one little misdeed.

Once he had dressed and donned his holster, he went to the coat rack and reached into the pocket of his padded leather jacket. He pulled out the three-and-one-half-inch computer disk that he'd palmed from Begosian in the parking lot yesterday.

At the time, he thought it might be evidence for the D.A.'s case, and had planned to give it to the boys in blue. Then, he'd been tempted to hand it over to Mrs. Ramsey; she'd sounded so desperate for any clue about her husband. The possibility of any lead, no matter how unlikely, slipping through her fingers had made a chink in that ladylike armor of hers and revealed a soft, vulnerable woman.

An alien impulse to shield her from that kind of hurt had spurred Drew to protect her, to try to talk some sense into her. He'd wanted to hold her, tell her she didn't have to always be so strong. But then she'd regained that icy superiority and told him in no uncertain terms that she didn't appreciate his brand of help. He patted the disk and enjoyed the empty victory of denying her what she wanted.

The fictional Drew Gallagher wasn't above using a bit of blackmail to find the answers he wanted, and neither was he. He pocketed the disk and shrugged into his jacket.

He knew Emma Ramsey. From somewhere in a murky past he couldn't remember. Maybe, with this bit of leverage to persuade her, she could figure out where she'd asked him so politely for help. It couldn't hurt to try to break through that snobbish reserve of hers and force some cooperation from the woman.

For a man with nothing to lose, it couldn't hurt at all.

* * *

Emma inhaled for five steps, exhaled for five steps. Never once losing her rhythm, she power-walked the perimeter of the LadyTech warehouse. Arms pumping, she clutched a five-pound weight in each hand, squeezing out her frustration on the spongy foam-rubber handles.

Criminy! She should be concentrating on the disaster that had nearly taken Kerry from her forever. Or lining up the questions she wanted to ask Kerry's counselor about Faith, her daughter's imaginary friend who convinced her to take foolish chances. At the very least, she should be reviewing her encounter with the man who had said he could help her find Jonathan, and consulting LadyTech's legal staff to find out more about Stan Begosian and his background.

She shouldn't be obsessing over dangerous-looking private detectives who thought they knew her.

To Mr. Gallagher's benefit, instead of working on the Consolidated Technologies buyout, Emma had frittered away most of her morning brainstorming ideas on where they might have met. It certainly couldn't have been at a P.T.A. meeting. And he didn't appear to have the means or even the interest in being a client of LadyTech. Her company worked at the wholesale level worldwide, supplying businesses with communications technology and products for retail.

Maybe he was somehow connected to her husband. But if Gallagher had served with Jonathan, he'd lost the swagger and clean-cut looks that marked a soldier, even in civilian clothes.

That stuck her with only one unsettling option. Upon his resignation at age thirty-five, Jonathan had remained with Marine Corps Intelligence as a consultant. Although he revealed little about the purpose and destination of his missions, Emma knew he'd worked with some very dangerous, very powerful people. Criminals. Terrorists. Spies. Subversives.

Any one of which fit Mr. Gallagher's looks and demeanor a whole lot better than a soldier.

So who was the good guy in all of this? The nervous man who'd forced Emma into her van, claiming he could help find her husband? Or the man with the transfixing eyes and gallant ways who had cost her a chance to discover the truth?

"Oooh!" She articulated her frustration on one five-step breath. She wished she could just walk away from yesterday and return to her dull, predictable routine. She'd made a good life for herself and Kerry, living like a loyal wife instead of a widow, waiting for Jonathan to return one day.

But last night Andrew Gallagher had filled her dreams. Today, he nagged her conscience, forced her into taking two extra laps of after-lunch walking just to purge his image from her brain so she could get some work done.

Why were these sensations coming to life again within her? She shouldn't be worrying about lion-haired mystery men whose intense gazes stripped her to her very soul, and whose callused handshake left her quaking with some unnamed and raw physical attraction. Andrew Gallagher had been aggressively, unapologetically male, with none of the gentle edges she had loved in Jonathan.

That was what disturbed her the most, she realized. That a man so unlike her husband should be the first to again stir to life her own feminine awareness. An awareness of physical and emotional needs that had fallen dormant over the years.

One, two, three, four, five. Inhale. Emma concentrated on her stride. She didn't want to feel. She didn't want to care about another man again. Not now. Not ever.

"Mrs. Ramsey?"

She screamed and whirled, fists poised to protect herself.

"Whoa!" With his palms raised in surrender, Andrew Gallagher stepped out from between the stacks of crates behind her.

"Damn you." The thumping in her chest verified that her heart had indeed started beating again.

His chiseled stone face softened with the hint of a smile. He'd clearly caught her off guard, and seemed to be enjoying the advantage. "Let me guess. You carry those weights in your purse, don't you?"

Emma frowned. "I carry everything in my purse."

Then she got the joke. Of course. She'd clobbered him yesterday. Relaxing her defensive posture, she lowered the weights. And raised her guard. "I can have security here in sixty seconds."

That took the grin off his face. The unforgiving stamp of pride that replaced it made Emma wish she hadn't sounded so harsh. He stepped toward her, backing her against a crate. He reached out, resting his hand on the wooden frame beside her head.

He never touched her, but he trapped her just the same—more effectively than the superior strength Begosian had used against her. His arm blocked her on one side, his tall, lean body on another. He left her an escape. She could simply step to the left and be free of his consuming presence and the heady leather-and-male scent of him.

"It'll take longer than that. They're responding to a silent alarm in one of your outbuildings."

"But the computer codes—“

“—were impossible to override."

Emma's partner, BJ, the brilliant mind behind their most sophisticated software and security systems, programmed computers as powerful as those used by the national defense. LadyTech's security chief—and BJ's husband—Brodie Maxwell, through unique skills of his own, had been making it his business to protect people for a very long time. Between the two of them, it should be harder to break into the LadyTech warehouse than into the White House.