True Shot (12 page)

Marco’s narrowed black eyes cut to him. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with. She’s unpredictable in this condition.”

“Yeah, well, she might not have her memory, but I have mine.” Mac turned his attention to Sam, fine with it when she chose to keep her focus on Marco. “This Ford guy and his thugs tracked you down. They tried to kill us.”

If possible, she went even paler. Mac didn’t have to be psychic to know that she was confused about who to believe. “You are Sam
Trudeau
,” he went on. “Your family lives in Lake Avalon, Florida. You have two sisters who love you and desperately miss you.”

“You made a choice a long time ago, Agent West,” Marco said. “Your family doesn’t know what you’ve become. They wouldn’t understand. They’d only—”

Mac took a step toward Marco, almost overwhelmed by the urge to punch or kick or otherwise strike the man. “You don’t know squat about her family, so shut the hell up.”

He reined in his temper and tried again to reason with Sam. “Look, just think about what’s happened here. Why would I, a man who doesn’t know where to find the safety on a gun, charge in here to save you from this guy who looks like some kind of mercenary? Isn’t it obvious who’s on your side?”

She hesitated for two more seconds, then thrust the gun at Mac, handle first. “Cover him. I’ll tie him.”

Mac exchanged the gun for the cord, relieved. Sam Trudeau was a smart woman.

“Get up,” she said to Marco.

The other man awkwardly maneuvered his massive body out of the tub, swearing profusely. When he managed to get to his feet, he clamped a bloody hand around his upper arm, a muscle throbbing at his temple. “Flinn won’t let you go. He’ll hunt you down.”

“Shut up,” Mac snapped. “Do what she tells you to do and maybe you’ll walk away from this.”

Marco rolled his eyes. “Fucking amateur.”

Silent, Sam steered him into the larger room, then dragged the chair away from the small desk. “Sit.”

Marco obeyed, and she knelt behind the chair, all focus and concentration. The big man started swearing all over again when she angled his injured arm back to tie his hands, but her stony expression didn’t change.

She’s so cold, Mac thought. Even now, so vulnerable without her memory. He couldn’t blame her. No way would he be all smiles and snarky comments in her situation. And then he realized Marco was watching him, a slight smile curling the corner of his mouth. Years of reporting experience had made Mac an ace at reading body language.

This guy had a plan.

 

“Be careful, Sam.”

She didn’t acknowledge Mac’s repeated warning as she finished securing Marco’s left ankle to the chair leg then moved behind him to double-check his wrists. She couldn’t get her thoughts straight, couldn’t focus on the facts. If this Flinn Ford really was her boss, shouldn’t she trust—

Marco suddenly clamped cold fingers around her own, and she tumbled out of reality and into something else . . .

Pain rips through my arm, and the gunshot’s echoes are deafening. He shot me. That prick
shot
me! Fuck, it burns—and then I’m on my ass in the tub, fireworks shooting out of the top of my head—

“Sam !”

She shot to her feet and fought the dizzying blackout wave, steadying herself with a hand on the back of the chair. When she focused on Mac, she saw that his face was whiter than before, eyes wide and questioning and so very blue.

She put a hand over the sleeve of the flannel shirt and winced at the answering acid-burn of pain. What the hell happened ? Had Mac shot her by mistake? But, no, he wasn’t babbling apologies. She’d seen how he’d reacted after he’d shot Marco. He’d been white-faced and freaked. This man didn’t take shooting someone, even accidentally, in stride. Besides, her sleeve sported no bullet hole. Yet, she felt the unmistakable trickle of blood making its way down her arm.

“Sam, are you okay? Are you with me?”

Mac again. Demanding and panicked.

She would have nodded, but a surge of pain behind her eyes stopped her.

Mac moved toward her. Wrapping his fingers around her wrist, he gently turned her hand palm down.

Instead of the pain she’d expected, fear flashed through her, along with an image of herself cornered in the bathroom by Marco. No, not
her
fear. That was Mac’s point of view, Mac’s fear . . . how was that even possible? How could she know so intimately what
he
had felt and seen then?

“You’re bleeding.”

She heard the horror in his voice, had just a glimpse of the streams of blood flowing over the back of her hand, before the room slipped again, into another memory that wasn’t hers.

I knew it. I
knew
she was a spy. “N3?”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

M
ac knelt at Sam’s side on the floor, alarmed at how quickly her eyes had rolled back before she’d dropped. He’d never seen anyone pass out before, and it was heart-stopping.

After another glance at Marco to make sure he was indeed secured, Mac turned his full attention on Sam. He checked for the pulse at her throat, relieved to find it strong and even.

What was he supposed to do now? Carry her out of here? Go on the run with a woman who didn’t remember she was a spy? A
psychic
spy. A
trigger-happy
psychic spy.

Jesus. This was more bizarre than any episode of
The Twilight Zone.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she instantly winced.

He shifted to block the light streaming through the window from hitting her in the face, inordinately relieved to have her back. “You okay?”

She blinked several times, apparently having a tough time focusing.

Mac set aside the gun, though he kept it well within reach, and went to work rolling up the sleeve of her shirt. The sleeve that had no bullet hole in it, yet she bled as if she’d been shot.

She didn’t protest but pressed the heel of her free hand to the center of her forehead with a low moan.

The muscles in his chest clenched. “Headache?”

She gave a barely perceptible nod.

“Did you hit it when you fell?”

“I don’t think so.”

He checked her arm. Blood smeared over her pale skin, and he grimaced at the mess—and metallic scent—while his stomach did several flips. The whole time, she lay still, her breath hitching every few seconds.

He hated that he could do nothing for her pain and did his best to be gentle as he sought the source of blood. It didn’t take him long to find the small, round puncture. He shifted himself, rather than her arm, and found the matching wound on the backside of her arm. It was uglier and messier than its twin.

He sat back on his heels. How the hell did a bullet pass through her arm without also passing through her sleeve?

“We have to go.”

She was right. Why the cops weren’t already pounding down the door, he had no idea. Probably budget cuts. Or maybe the sound of gunshots wasn’t unusual in this part of town.

First things first: He had to stop the bleeding.

Pushing to his feet, he headed for the bathroom, where he grabbed a hand towel. Back at Sam’s side, he wrapped the towel around her arm and tucked the ends down between the fabric and the uninjured part of her arm. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do until he had time to tend to it properly.

She grasped his arm, her grip strong despite the clamminess of her skin. “Help me up.”

He steadied her as she swayed to her feet. She looked sick, like she might keel over any second. “ Are you—”

“I’m fine. Let’s go.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A
re you sure taking the Suburban was a good idea?” Mac asked.

“Yes.” Sam’s fingers nimbly accessed the navigation menu.

“If he escapes his bonds, he’ll still be stuck without transportation.”

That made sense. Assuming the guy didn’t just commandeer someone else’s ride. But that would take time, Mac reasoned. So, regardless of what Marco managed to do, they still had a head start.

He relaxed a fraction. That was when his hands, clamped tight around the steering wheel, started shaking. Reaction had set in.

In the course of an hour, he’d pointed a gun at one man’s head and shot another. The unfamiliar acrid, burned scent of his shirt—the smell of gunpowder—turned his stomach. He’d
shot
a man. Not dead. But he still wanted to pull over and throw up. At least he’d hit the guy in the arm instead of the head or chest.

Determined not to think about it, he glanced at the navi screen. He was impressed that even though Sam didn’t know who she was, she still knew how to work the menus.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“We’re heading south on Commerce. Pick up Highway 55 east.”

“Toward Washington? Shouldn’t we keep to the country?”

“I need to find a place to hole up until dark,” she said.

“We.”

“What?”

“
We
need to find a place to hole up until dark.”

She didn’t nod or correct herself, and Mac got that she was already making plans to ditch him. “About sixty miles from here,” she said, “there’s a Metro station.”

He nodded. “The DC subway. Perfect. And then what?”

“You drop me off and go home.”

“Easier said than done. I don’t live around here, and my plane ticket home isn’t good until next week.”

“Then you’ll figure something out. It’s not my problem.”

He glanced sideways at her. “Thing is, you’re kind of my problem.”

“They won’t go after you. They want me.”

“Do you even know who ‘they’ are?”

“It doesn’t matter. They’re not after you.”

Instead of continuing to argue with her, he pulled into a new neighborhood that had dirt for lawns and a freshly paved road. Most of the homes lining the street were still being built, and he could practically smell the new wood, vinyl siding and fresh paint.

She tensed in her seat, sitting up straighter. “Where are you going?”

“I’m finding a place to park so I can clean up your arm.”

“I don’t think—”

“The Suburban has tinted windows. No one can see in.”

“We need to keep moving.”

“We left Super Mario back there without any transpo. And he doesn’t know which way we went. We can take ten minutes to prevent you from getting a nasty infection.”

Her eyebrow ticked up, and he glanced away, surprised at how he already knew what that slight change in her expression meant:
What the hell are you talking about?
Even more surprised at the clench in his gut that could mean only one thing: He was starting to care about her. Not just her safety or getting her home in one piece. He was starting to really
care
. A flush started creeping up his neck.

“Super Mario?” she asked.

“Just trying to deal,” he said, more or less under his breath.

Spotting a two-story home with stone accents, a two-car garage and a FOR SALE sign in the yard, he steered the SUV into the pristine concrete driveway and killed the engine. “There. We’re just here to check out the real estate.”

He snagged the bag of medical supplies from where he’d dropped them on the floorboard. As he fished out the bandages, surgical tape and hydrogen peroxide, he tried not to think about how he was about to treat this woman for yet another bullet wound—one that he had no idea how she’d received.

She sat still and quiet, head resting against the seatback, while he turned in the driver’s seat and began to unwind the towel he’d wrapped around her arm. The metallic scent of blood filled the truck and, swallowing against the surge of bile in his throat, he folded the towel so that a clean, blood-free portion was visible. He drenched that part with hydrogen peroxide.

“This is going to sting,” he said.

“I can handle it.”

Of course she could.

“How’s the headache?” he asked.

“Still there.”

“The same or worse?”

“It’s starting to let up.”

He could tell by the pinched look around her eyes that she was lying. Her headache was massive. Not that there was anything he could do about it.

He went to work on what he
could
do—cleaning up her injured arm. Three swipes into it, he realized his mind was about to be blown.

Her skin under the blood was unmarked. Not a bullet wound in sight.

What the fuck? He’d
seen
it. Hadn’t he? Or had he seen what he’d expected to see? But, no, there’d been no mistaking the double wounds. And, besides, there was
blood
.

As if alerted by his stillness, she rolled her head toward him. “What?”

“Uh . . . you tell me.”

Frowning, she angled her head to peer down at her clean upper arm. “Oh.”

“Oh? That’s all you’ve got?”

Her forehead creased, and she rubbed at it. “Memory’s gone, remember?”

“But you get that this isn’t normal, right?”

“And up until now, everything that’s happened has been normal?”

“Okay, you’ve got me there. But you did have a bullet wound right here, didn’t you? I didn’t imagine it.”

“It felt like a bullet wound.”