True Shot (17 page)

The scent of damp decay wafted in from outside, carried on the nighttime sounds of tree frogs, crickets and the distant swish of tires on puddled asphalt. The moon peeked through clouds, high and bright in the sky.

Her head felt heavy and achy, her vision smudged around the edges. Disorientation stuck to the inside of her brain like wadded plastic wrap, and she had to focus to smooth out the wrinkles. She was on the road, on the run, with Mac Hunter. They were on their way to Charleston to meet Arthur Baldwin, a man who might be able to tell her more about her identity.

“Sam?”

She closed her eyes tight, willing away the throb in her temples. “How long was I gone?”

“A couple of minutes. I was getting ready to call 911. What the hell happened? One second we were talking about you taking a nap, and the next, you were catatonic.”

She had no idea what to say. She’d gone into his past, relived the moments with his sister as though they’d happened to her. Now, with a clear head and no catastrophe to deal with at the moment, she fully comprehended her psychic ability.

And she’d tapped into a very tough conversation Mac had had with his little sister.

The muscles in her chest constricted as it hit her that he’d lost both of his parents far too soon, and tragically. He’d sacrificed his own hopes and dreams to do what was best for a loved one. How amazing was that?

“Hey.”

The soft word turned her head back toward him, and even in the darkness, she could see the depth of his concern. Or maybe it just emanated off him in empathic waves. “I’m okay,” she said.

“Maybe we should see a doctor.”

“I feel fine.”

“I’d feel better if—”

“I was in your head.”

He jerked back an inch. “What? You were what?”

“You touched me, didn’t you? Right before I blanked out?”

“I don’t remember . . . no, wait. Yeah, I did. I touched your hand, and just like that you were gone.”

“That’s how I told you it works when I was telling you everything I could before I lost my memory. I said it was skin-on-skin contact.”

He rose to his feet with a crack of knees. “Your psychic ability, you mean.”

She had to duck her head to see him clearly and was struck by the way his dark hair gleamed in the moonlight, though his eyes remained shadowed.

When he took a step away from the car, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans, she unbuckled her seat belt and got out to stand beside him. “Don’t you want to know what I saw?”

“Was it something bad?”

She smiled then, the expression feeling unnatural on her lips. “It was something sweet. Really quite sweet. You and your sister . . . Jenn?”

He nodded. “Jennifer. She’s a freshman at Florida State.”

“You were trying to talk her into moving from Philadelphia to Lake Avalon.”

“That wasn’t sweet,” he said with a snort. “That was hell.”

When he started to turn away, she stopped him with a hand on his sleeve. “You gave up so much for her.”

“Not really. I mean—”

“
The New York Times
?”

He edged back a pace. “Oh. Wow, that’s—you’re creeping me out right now. You got all that from a simple touch?”

“That’s what I did—
do
for the FBI. Imagine how handy it must be to find out what a terrorist knows simply by touch.”

Mac whistled. “No waterboarding necessary.” He cocked his head. “But I touched you right after we left our buddy Marco back at the motel. You were pretty out of it, like you couldn’t stay awake, but I touched you more than once and nothing happened. At least, you didn’t respond as if anything happened.”

“Maybe it’s erratic. Or maybe the memory drug has messed with my system in other ways.”

“You had a pretty bad headache at the time. Maybe that interfered with your ability?”

“Maybe.”

They fell quiet, and Sam felt again his frustration and sadness from the flashback. Yet his fierce love for his sister—and determination to protect her—had taken precedence. Sam ached for the man who’d sacrificed so much to do what he considered the right thing.

“I’m sorry you had to give up your dream,” she said.

His shoulders lifted and dropped with a shrug. “No big. Lake Avalon’s a nice place to live. If you factor out the pipe wrench–wielding psychopaths, that is.”

The edges of her vision darkened as that memory from his past washed over her again. Weird how she seemed to have more memories about his past than her own. A pulsing ache began in her temples, and she pressed her fingers to both sides and tried to massage it away.

“Another headache?” Mac asked.

She nodded.

“Maybe you’re getting psychic hangovers.”

Oh, if it could be that easy. “That sounds so benign.”

“A nap helped then.” He gestured toward her open car door. “You can sleep while I drive. Once we get to the Charleston area, we’ll need to find a place for the night. Unless you want to kick down the Ponzi dipshit’s door in the middle of the night.”

She laughed at that. And, just as smiling had felt so odd, it struck her that her body seemed unaccustomed to laughing as well. She hoped that was because of the amnesia, and not because her real life was that sad.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Y
ou need to find her,” Dr. Toby Ames said. “Time is running out.”

Flinn noted that the doctor’s tone carried an unusual tinge of anxiety. This was the same man who barely batted an eyelash when a researcher destroyed some recently harvested, and irreplaceable, fetal cells. That had been before the latest developments, though—before the project ended up in the ICU in critical condition.

“I’m doing everything I can, Toby,” Flinn said into his cell phone. “Relax.” Which was kind of ironic advice, considering the doctor’s call had interrupted his evening of pacing a path into the living room carpet. The latest update on Samantha’s whereabouts—only an hour ago—had been the same: still missing.

“The more time that goes by, the more difficult it will beto—”

“I know,” Flinn said. “I’m as eager as you are to get this thing done.”

“You don’t seem to appreciate the delicacy of what I have to do. The procedure is—”

“Christ on a cracker, take a breath.” Flinn did the same. It wasn’t like his partner to freak out, and the last thing he wanted to do was irk the man. Without Toby and his ability to use the specialized knowledge they’d obtained from the researcher in San Francisco, Flinn’s hopes for success would take a hit. And that would displease his partners.

“I’m just worried, Flinn. We’ve lost Zoe, and since Andrea sent Mikayla to Afghanistan, we’ve lost access to her—”

“I promise you I’ll let you know as soon as I have Samantha in my custody. And I
will
find her. Mikayla, too. That will just take a little more time.”

Toby let out a long breath. “Where do you think Sam’s going?”

Flinn pressed his lips together tight. “The worst possible place. Home.”

“But you’ve drilled it into her head for years that it’s not safe.”

“She doesn’t remember that.”

“Then perhaps we should both get to Florida. We’ll be in position to move quickly once she’s intercepted.”

Flinn nodded. A good idea. “I’ll have Natalie arrange your flight.”

“What about you?”

“I’d prefer to remain flexible.”

“What should I tell Andrea if she asks?”

“Tell her you’re taking vacation.” For such a brilliant scientist, the man could be dim sometimes. “And don’t worry, Toby. Things have a way of working themselves out.”

Toby grunted. “The eternal optimist. It never seems to occur to you what will happen to us if we get caught.”

Flinn grinned into the phone. “Because we won’t get caught, Dr. Ames. We’re on a mission from God.”

He was still smiling when he cut off the call.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

S
am sat straight up in bed, heart hammering. What was that?

“It’s just thunder.”

She turned her head toward the soft voice, blinking against muzziness and almost total darkness. “Where are we?”

“Motel outside Charleston. Remember?”

She had a vague memory of falling into bed as soon as she and Mac had entered the tiny room. He’d roused her to clean her bullet wounds and change the bandages, and she must have fallen asleep the moment he’d finished.

“Everything’s okay, Sam. Go back to sleep.”

Accepting the soothing explanation, she shifted into a more comfortable position under the warm weight of blankets and drifted back to sleep, into an unfamiliar world . . .

 

Pasting on a flirtatious smile, she walked over to the mark . . . no, that was her father’s . . .
Ben’s
word. Flinn preferred “target,” saying it had a mission-centric connotation. A matter of semantics, in her opinion. Either way, someone was going to get screwed.