Untraceable (5 page)

Micah approached the man, offering to
give him a hand launching the boat.

“
Great, that way Jeanie
doesn’t have to get her feet wet. Hi, I’m Trent Nickels,” he said,
offering Micah his hand.

Micah introduced the two of us as the
young woman climbed down from the truck.

“
Hey,” she said as she
reached for my hand.

“
Your dog is friendly—what
kind is she?” I asked as its muzzle kept nosing up under my
hand.

“
She’s a hound
mix—basically a mutt, but mutts make the best dogs.”

Trent tossed Micah the bow rope and
backed the trailer far enough into the water that the boat began to
float. Micah waded out about knee deep, giving the boat a push and
sending it floating away as the truck pulled the trailer from the
lake. I was considering the fact that Micah was wearing his Italian
leather loafers, but it didn’t appear to bother him that he just
ruined them.

“
Sorry we disturbed your
picnic,” Jeanie said with a little blush.

“
Yeah, ya’ll looked pretty
cozy when we pulled up,” Trent remarked, looking over and winking
at Micah. “Jeanie and I have a place on the other side of the lake
that we like to picnic—no one to interrupt us.”

“
Shut up, Trent,” she
blushed, again. “We have too gotten
interrupted
over there before—and we
were butt naked.”

“
Do many people come out
here?” I asked, trying not to laugh over what she said.

“
Nah, just a few of us
locals,” she began. “Most folks don’t know this lake is back here.
It’s one of the few left that hasn’t been named. You know you look
so familiar to me—I know this is gonna sound stupid, but you
haven’t been on TV before, have you?”

Evidently my blonde hairstyle didn’t
fool Jeanie. “Actually, yes—I was a contestant on Re—”

“
Remake!” she shouted
before I could finish. “Oh, my Lord! You’re Annalisa, aren’t you?
Trent, oh my stars, this is the girl I was voting for on Remake! I
really thought you should have won,” she said, dropping an octave.
“And you must be…” she looked at Micah and decided it best not to
finish her statement. If she recognized him then it was from the
cover of the tabloid that named him as a possible father, but also
said he was involved in the mafia.

“
Yes, I am,” he finished
her unanswered question as he reached out and shook her
hand.

She suddenly appeared nervous and
giddy.

“
Can I get your
autograph?” she asked turning back to me. “My mother is
never
going to believe I
met you.”

“
Sure…” I started to say
as I watched Micah stiffen, his face losing all friendliness
immediately. When I turned to see what caused the sudden shift, I
saw what he saw. Trent was pulling a shotgun out from behind the
pickup’s seat. Micah began moving toward me, but we both realized,
with relief, that he was heading for the boat with the
gun.

He must have noticed the look on our
faces. “Alligators,” he said as he laid it down. “They don’t
usually bother us, but dogs are one of their favorite
snacks.”

“
Are there very many?”
Micah asked, clearly relieved now that he knew what the gun was
for—especially since he was unarmed.

“
I’ve never seen more than
two or three out on the lake, but I don’t like taking my chances
with them—I had a buddy lose his arm to a gator last
year.”

The men vaulted into a conversation
about what type of shotgun and what type of shells he was shooting,
target practice, and eating alligator meat, while I got to ask
Jeanie more important questions.

“
So who owns this
property?” I asked as she gave me a notepad and pen so I could give
her an autograph.

“
I’m not real sure, right
now. It used to belong to one of the big farmers around here. It
was kind of his private hunting and fishing retreat. He had a cool
house built on the other side of the lake, but it’s all closed up
now. Then, when real estate went sky-high, I think he sold it to a
developer who wanted to put in a golf course and a housing
community, but that went bust.”

“
I’m glad. I don’t mean
for the developer’s luck,” I added, “but I’d hate to see all this
destroyed for another housing community—Florida has enough of those
to last a while.” I tried handing her back the paper and
pen.

“
Could you do another one
for my mom?”

“
Sure. What’s her
name?”

“
Trixie, T-R-I-X-I-E,” she
spelled it out. “Can I ask you something personal?”

That was a loaded question, but I
nodded slightly.

“
The stories about your
baby, I mean is he the—” Her face went to a deep shade of
red.

“
The tabloids didn’t have
any of that right. Micah is the only man in my life.”

“
But what about Ryan? I
mean they showed you two together on Remake. Surely you and he—”
She stopped once again, apparently embarrassed but too curious to
prevent asking.

“
He’s my best friend and
no, even Remake didn’t get that relationship in the right light.”
It seemed so funny to me to be discussing Ryan with a complete
stranger and what was even odder was the look of total
disappointment on her face.

“
Oh,” she said slowly. “He
was just so sweet and, oh my stars, that hair and those blue eyes,
but I can definitely see why you’re with Micah, he’s…” she was
giving Micah an honest look-over which I didn’t exactly like, and
at the moment, Trent was looking toward us and he apparently didn’t
care for her doing that either. “Anyway, it’s really cool to have
met you. Are you two thinking about buying around here?”

I smiled and softly answered maybe,
low enough that Micah wouldn’t hear.

Trent was offering to give us a tour
of the lake, but Micah politely declined and said we were going to
finish our picnic and head back to Palm Beach.

Trent suggested that we park the
Corvette by the tree to offer a little more privacy.

“
No,” Micah laughed, “I
don’t think Leese will go for anymore of that kind of picnic. One
interruption was lesson enough.” He pulled the boat to the
shoreline for Jeanie to step in.

“
Yeah, that’s what Jeanie
told me too when we got interrupted,” Trent grinned.

She smacked his shoulder and told him
to shut up as she stepped into the boat, thanking Micah as she
went. The dog jumped inside as Trent prepared to push
off.

“
I’m already wet,” Micah
pointed out. “Get in and I’ll shove you off.”

Trent thanked him, climbed to the back
of the boat and sat down as Micah went out about knee deep again,
and gave them a powerful push that sent them drifting past the
cypress and into the clear. The boat motor was started as they
waved goodbye and headed across the lake.

“
They seem like a nice
couple,” I remarked.

“
Yes, but unfortunately,
I’m afraid these woods are going to become very popular now—at
least with the locals.”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
I have a feeling Jeanie
is going to tell every person she knows that she met you here.
People will be coming out here to see if they can catch a glimpse
of the lovely Annalisa.”

I rolled my eyes.

“
You haven’t quite grasped
how big your stardom is yet, baby.”

“
Bigger than I ever wanted
it to be,” I stated. “I only did the show because I wanted to sing
an apology to you.”

He pulled me to his chest, with one
hand against the side of my head and the other against my back.
“I’m sorry. That’s my fault, but I knew it would be the only way to
get you to agree to the show.”

I looked up wondering how it could
have been his fault. I didn’t have to ask; he understood the
expression.

“
I told Don that you would
refuse. The money and the fame I knew didn’t interest you, but I
had a feeling that, even if you were in love with Ryan, there would
be an ache in your heart to at least tell me you were sorry for
what happened. His line about a song being a great way to get a
message across and then asking if there was someone that you’d lost
touch with that you’d like to sing to, came straight from me. I
gambled almost every penny I had that you would say
yes.”

“
So that’s where the
hundred and twenty million dollars went?”

“
Networks want big money.
I started forming the concept about the show the day after you left
me.”

“
But how did you know
you’d be able to find me?”

He gave me his crooked smile that said
I needed to rethink my question.

“
Honestly, Micah. You had
already taught me a lot about hiding. I just didn’t have a clue
about the money leaving a trail.”

“
There are very few people
in this world that are skilled enough to make someone completely
untraceable. The Boss out of New York is the master at
that.”

“
You mean like a ‘Jimmy
Hoffa’ kind of untraceable?”

Micah laughed at my
reference into something I knew little about. “No—people are still
looking for him. If you fall into the hands of the
Capo Dei Capi, which in Italian basically means
the boss of all bosses, most people won’t even know you ever
existed. He’s a lot like Mom except that instead of building a new
life, he’ll erase your old life. Small, close-knit families will
vanish completely if he is involved. The guy is pretty scary, and
that is coming from me—and I don’t scare easily. That was one
reason I was a little freaked when my Boss told me who was
intervening on my untouchable status.”

“
But surely he isn’t going
to try to make you vanish,” I stated with a quiver. Suddenly, I was
afraid of the implications of this person taking an interest in
Micah. “I mean, why save you if he’s going to eliminate you anyway,
right?”

“
People of his caliber
don’t do things without reason. I’ve been a little concerned that
he might have done it to, eventually, get me to work for him—maybe
he even wants my entire family.”

“
But you don’t have to,
Micah. I mean you could decline—couldn’t you?”

“
Sure I could—and then my
family and your family would most likely vanish. People like him
are never turned down without repercussions.”

I was suddenly so sick. The tiny few
bites of my lunch were ready to leave the safety of my stomach as I
turned away from him and doubled over against the tree. I was
fighting the nausea hard, but I didn’t know if I would win this
battle because all I kept thinking was this might not be the end of
our troubles at all—this might be the beginning of something worse
than I ever imagined.

Micah was immediately alarmed as he
tried to comfort me. “I’m sorry, baby—I guess I need to be careful
with my new found interest in telling the truth—I didn’t mean to
upset you this badly. Are you going to be okay?”

I put my trembling and suddenly very
cool fingers to my temple. “Please don’t ever stop being truthful
with me, Micah—just next time at least make sure I’m sitting down.”
The tears rushed up, which was actually good for me because their
presence blocked the nausea from rising higher in my throat. “It’s
not over, is it?” I sobbed, my back still turned to him.

I didn’t hear a reply, but I did hear
him open the car door. Then his arms were around me as he scooped
me up and carefully placed me into the passenger’s seat. I was
trying to look at him, but the tears were distorting my vision. I
knew what he was doing; he was making sure I was sitting
down.

“
I don’t think so, but I’m
praying it is. We’ll just have to wait and see, but until then I
want us to be happy and to keep moving into this new
life.”

I dried my tears and realized that
bravery at this point would be the better face to show him. “When
can we leave to go burn those files of yours?”

He smiled slowly. “I don’t want you
flying on an empty stomach. Do you think you could get a decent
amount of food in you before I either make you cry or make you
sick?”

“
Put that picnic basket in
my lap and I’ll eat on the way to the airport.”

He leaned in the car, pushing my head
against the seat as he kissed me with a deep passion, “I love you,
Annalisa Gavarreen. But we’d better stop at your house for some
clothes and to at least tell your mother what we’re up
to.”

Within three hours we were sitting in the back
of a jet and heading to New Orleans.

CHAPTER three

It was well after dark when we made it
to his home. He wanted me to get some rest, but I wanted to build a
fire and send his memories up in smoke.

“
I can build a fire in the
fireplace, but it’s going to take a while to burn everything in
here,” Micah began. “It’ll make for a really late
night.”

“
How about out by the
pool? The fireplace out there is huge.”