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Instead of answering, she tried again to scream. He squeezed her jaw with the barest of force, shaking her slightly. “You don’t want to do this,” he warned. “You don’t want to make problems for me. Do you understand?”
Her body trembled, vibrated, in fact, like a string on a violin that had been drawn too roughly. Finally she blinked, then blinked again. He took that for a reply, but he didn’t remove his hand as he spoke.
“Problems for me mean problems for you. You do not—I repeat—do not want anyone to know you even came here tonight. Your flight records have already been erased and the car you came in is gone. I had it moved the minute you stepped inside here.” He took a deep breath, her scent reaching him before he could ignore it. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
This time he did ease his fingers, but he didn’t take away his hand. She started to speak, her mouth moving against the inside of his palm, sending a sensation into his gut.
“I called the police—”
“No, you didn’t,” he said.
It took her a stunned second to understand. “But I went to the center. I talked to the guard—”
He removed his hand, but kept his grip on her arm. “He’s been taken care of. Did you talk to anyone else, see anyone?”
“No…I…” She looked dazed, almost as if she was slipping into shock, her touch with reality slipping as well. “Ju-just the neighbors…” she said with distraction.
“They’ve been dealt with, too.” Locking his stare on hers, he spoke again. “Now all we have to do is take care of you…”
NUMB WITH DISBELIEF, Alexis watched the man gather up her things. He worked quickly and efficiently—he’d done this kind of thing before. Glancing into the dining room from the living room where she stood, she saw that he’d already removed the extra place setting from the table. If she bothered to look, she was sure she’d see that the linens in her bedroom were back in the closet as well. Within moments, he was finished. Glancing down at her watch, she was shocked by how quickly the minutes passed since she’d come back into the house.
He walked into the kitchen. She lifted her eyes to his face but she already had the details memorized; she could live to be a hundred and she’d never forget what he looked like. Wolfish eyes and thick black hair. Broad shoulders and a muscular body. A square jaw. A cruel mouth.
Cold. Stony. Callous.
His voice was clipped, his demeanor unreadable. Alexis had a fine ear for languages and she’d recognized the barest hint of an accent, something British, maybe Irish.
“It’s time.” The burr sounded again. “Let’s go.”
“Where—”
“Where doesn’t matter!” Until this point, his total calm had been almost eerie, his attitude colder than she could comprehend. Now she heard frustration, got a hint of anger.
He took a step toward her. “Don’t you get it? I’ve got to remove you and we’ve taken way too long already.” He jerked a thumb toward the street. “I can’t guarantee what’s going to happen if we don’t get out of here and soon.”
He headed toward the back door then turned when she didn’t follow. His eyes bored a painful path into her. “Don’t do this,” he warned.
Alexis shuffled toward him, her legs weak, her brain whirling with all the questions she had. How did she know this man was who he said he was? She certainly hadn’t recognized the badge or the name of his agency. And his story… God, it was crazy! She could be walking straight into something horrible instead of fleeing danger. Grief and terror mixed inside her with confusion and alarm. What should she do?
Her panic blossomed. She picked up the photo she’d looked at earlier. Then she tensed her body, pivoted and ran straight for the front door.
Her fingertips were brushing the doorknob when he grabbed her from behind.
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” He twisted her around to face him, his breath hot against her cheeks. “Are you crazy? Do you want to die?”
“Let me go.” She pushed at his hands, but for all the good it did, she shouldn’t have bothered. His fingers were steel bars wrapped around her arms. “I don’t want to leave. I don’t want—”
“Good God Almighty! I thought you were bright.” He shook her slightly, his tone so toxic she stopped her protests. His grip tightened. “Your father told me you had your mother’s brains. Was the poor man daft or was he lying to me?”
Alexis froze. Her father had teased her with those words a million times, his smile as wide as the gold band on his finger, the wedding band he, just like her mother, never removed. Ever.
One by one, the details added up and Alexis’s heart sank from the weight of them.
The man read her reaction immediately. He jerked the small frame from her fingers and stuffed it into his coat pocket. Then he turned and headed for the back door, yanking Alexis along behind him.
GABRIEL PICKED a no-name motel on the edge of the interstate three hours away. The place was run-down and deserted, which was exactly why he’d picked it. Paying cash, he then drove the van to the last room at the back of the low concrete-block building and parked, turning to look at Alexis as he switched off the engine. She was sitting on the floor of the vehicle and barely seemed aware of where they were. Her entire life had just been turned upside down and he was the one shaking the globe. If she ever found out the truth, the glimpses of resistance he’d witnessed earlier would pale in comparison to what would follow.
He pushed his thoughts aside and climbed out of the van. With one hand on his weapon, he let his eyes sweep the parking lot. As they’d escaped through the back of the Missions’ house to the van, he’d thought he’d heard a car drive by the front, but his men had told him to leave and he had, without looking back. He studied the empty blacktop before him now, then he twisted the door handle and reached inside. “Let’s go.”
She didn’t resist. Climbing out of the vehicle without a word, she walked beside him to the door of their room. The fact that his hand was wrapped around her upper arm assured her cooperation. He kept a steady hold on her until they stepped inside and he’d thrown the lock behind them.
The tiny room was clean, but that was all Gabriel could say about it. A small table in one corner was propped up by a telephone book, its lamp askew, the chair beside it worn and threadbare. Gabriel knew nothing about decorating, but the last time he’d seen a spread like the one stretched over the sagging bed, the year had been 1970-something.
He strode toward the bathroom and flipped on the light. A harsh fluorescence lit the room. He checked behind the shower curtain, then made the mistake of glancing into the mirror.
He’d aged ten years in the past forty-eight hours.
His skin was the pasty color of an old man’s, his hair spiky and dark. A black shadow covered his jaw-line and circles of exhaustion hung under his eyes. He scrubbed his face with his hands and looked again. God in heaven, no wonder Alexis Mission had been scared of him. He scared himself.
A sudden squeak sounded in the room behind him. His hand on his weapon, Gabriel pivoted and pushed through the door…then he relaxed. Alexis had lain down, the box springs so worn they creaked under even her slight weight. Walking over to the bed, he studied her but her expression was blank when she looked up at him.
“Are you hungry?” He glanced over his shoulder to the parking lot beyond the window. “I’ve got some stuff in the van if you are.”
She stared at him for a moment, then without a word she rolled over and faced the wall.
He stood silent and still. For now, she’d shut down, her emotions and reactions too raw and exposed for her to even comprehend, but later she’d have more questions. He’d seen it happen before. Gabriel turned to the chair in the corner and dragged it to the door with one hand. Propping it under the knob, he sat down wearily, his body unsteady, his mind drained. He wished he could sleep but knew he couldn’t.
A long time would come and go before he could experience that luxury again.
ALEXIS CLUTCHED her paper coffee cup, the steam rising slowly between her face and Gabriel O’Rourke’s. They were sitting inside the van, somewhere off the main highway, exactly where she had no idea. He’d woken her after what felt like only a few hours’ sleep, and they’d gotten into the vehicle, driving for a full hour before he was satisfied enough to stop and get them coffee from a run-down all-night diner. She wasn’t too sure what he was doing, but she suspected he was checking to see if they were being followed. The knowledge didn’t make her feel any better. Neither had waking up and realizing he’d been watching her as she’d slept.
He was trying his best to fool her, but she was sure the man sitting in front of her knew more than he was letting on. She swallowed the pain and confusion that filled her. “Who do you work for, again?”
“You’ve already asked me that and I’ve answered it. Asking me again is not going to get you a different response.” A lock of dark hair fell down on his forehead before he pushed it back impatiently. “It doesn’t matter anyway. All I’m here to do is make sure you understand what has happened and what’s going to happen next.”
Despite everything he’d said, she couldn’t accept—didn’t want to accept—what he’d told her. It wasn’t possible, she kept telling herself. “I—I can’t just walk away like this. No funeral. No services. It’s not right.”
His glance went to the deserted highway that ran beside them, exactly as it had at least a dozen times while they’d been sitting there drinking coffee. When his eyes came back to Alexis, they held a different kind of darkness from before, and she trembled, despite herself.
“I thought you understood.” He leaned closer, his manner hard and impatient. “I don’t know how to say it any other way than I’ve already said it a thousand times. You can’t see the bodies or bury them. It would take too much time. In fact, we’ve already…taken care of that.” He held out his hands almost in defeat, the first gesture he’d made that seemed human to her. “I’m sorry, Alexis, but they’re gone.” He shook his head. “They are gone.”
She wasn’t sure if it was his voice or the use of her name, but all at once his words sunk in, the reality of what they actually meant ripping into her with a force that tore her breath away. The last vestige of her denial was destroyed along with it.
“They’re dead,” she whispered.
He nodded, a tinge of something that looked like pity crossing his expression before he could prevent its appearance.
“Toby’s only four,” she said inexplicably.
“He was four.”
His use of the past tense didn’t escape her, but Alexis refused to let herself cry. She wouldn’t let him see her do that. It took everything she had, but she composed herself, then looked up. Gabriel O’Rourke stared back. His eyes held the total force of his intensity and it was directed straight at her.
“You cannot go back to Los Lobos. Ever. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she said numbly.
“The house will be sold. The proceeds will go into a bank account and they’ll be forwarded to you. Everything else—any other accounts they might have held—will be sent to you later.” He crumpled his coffee cup and dropped it to the floorboard of the van. “I’m going to put you on a plane in a bit and you’ll fly away from here. People will meet you at the other end. They’ll take care of you.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll get a new life.”
“A new life? I don’t want a new life. I want my old one back.”
“That’s impossible. It’s gone.”
“That easily?” She snapped her fingers, her voice breaking. “You can erase people’s existence just like that? Their history? Their lives? Everything they are? You have that much power?”
He ignored the question. “After this, you’re going to be someone else. My organization doesn’t put people into the Witness Protection Program but they will help you. You’ll get a new home and a new name—”
She laughed, an edge of hysteria accompanying the sound. “Do I get a new family, too? A new mom and dad? How about a baby brother? Can we add a little sister, too?”
He didn’t react at all. He simply stared at her, those bottomless black eyes taking it all in without a flicker.
She blinked and looked away, the finality hitting her again, harder than ever. She thought of a thousand things she wished she’d grabbed from the house. Her mother’s fake pearls. The video of her graduation. Toby’s Pooh bear. Her father’s favorite sweater. None of it valuable but all of it priceless. Then she thought of the photo. When Gabriel O’Rourke had ripped that picture from her hands, he’d taken her history as well. Her past was gone. Her family was gone.
She was gone. The person she’d been twenty-four hours ago no longer existed.
And she had a bad feeling that she didn’t even know the real reason behind the nightmare. “Why?” she said almost to herself. “Why?”
Surprising her, the man in black answered her question, his voice a knife. “Your father was an honorable man, that’s why. He always did the right thing.”
“And Mom?”
He shrugged, the emotion he’d allowed her to see already evaporating, already disappearing. “She loved him.” He paused. “Just like they both loved you. That’s one thing that’s for certain.”
“Nothing’s for certain.” Alexis looked down, into her coffee mug. An oily reflection of her face looked back, more real to her right now than her actual existence. She lifted her eyes. “Not anymore. You’ve taken that away from me.”
“But you have your life,” he answered. “And you will be safe. I’ll see to that.”
She tried to doubt him but she couldn’t. For the first time since they’d met, she knew Gabriel O’Rourke was telling her the truth.
HE TOOK HER to a small private airstrip, three hours away from where they’d been. They didn’t speak the whole trip, both occupied with their own thoughts and regrets. He’d let her ride in the passenger seat after they’d finished their coffee, his fears growing dimmer with each mile he put between the house on the quiet street and them. When they arrived and he’d parked, Gabriel turned to the young woman beside him.
He thought he’d aged, but Alexis Mission now looked like an entirely different person. Part of the change was at his insistence. They’d stopped at a twenty-four-hour drugstore and gotten a bottle of bleach and some harsh makeup. In a service-station bathroom near the interstate, the brunette he’d grabbed inside the Mission home had become a blonde with a slash of red lipstick that didn’t match her skin tone.
The changes to Alexis Mission went beyond just the physical, though. Her eyes were completely empty, her demeanor that of another person. She was someone less sure, he decided. Someone less confident, the darkness of depression already settling into her soul.
A small Cessna taxied out of a rusted hangar to their right and headed to where they were parked. Behind the plane, the tips of the mountains were just beginning to glow in the rising sun’s rays. Gabriel handed Alexis an envelope and she took it woodenly, placing it in her lap.
“There’s some cash in there to get you by until the money is wired. My people at the other end will give you more.” He held out a small white card and she took it, too. “That’s how you can reach me. It’s a drop number.”
She looked at him impassively.
“You call it and leave a message,” he explained. “Then I phone you back. You won’t ever get me directly. The system doesn’t work that way.”
Her eyes went to the piece of paper with the phone number written on it. She stared at it for a moment then she crumpled the note into a ball and opened her fingers. It fell to the floorboards.
“You might need that,” he said softly.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “You’ve done enough already.”
Her stiff reply wasn’t a compliment. Alexis Mission held him accountable for everything that had happened because she had no one else to blame. Similar damnation had been heaped on him before.
But he hadn’t cared then.
He felt the need to say something. “Alexis, your family was… Your mom and dad…”
“Don’t bother,” she said. The swosh of the plane’s rotors drawing close, she opened the van’s door, a wave of frigid air sweeping into the vehicle as she stepped out. She spoke through the window, her fingers gripping the edge so tightly her knuckles went white. “I don’t want to hear whatever you’re trying to say to me. I’ve had enough of your lies to last me forever.”
Her glittering gaze met with his, then she turned and walked away.
CHAPTER THREE
Ten years later, Austin, Texas
ALEX WORTHINGTON dusted off the last table in her workroom and picked up an errant paintbrush that had escaped her notice. Tucking the brush into a nearby drawer, she surveyed the area one more time. When Claiborne Academy’s final bell rang at Thanksgiving break, most of the staff fled as quickly as the students, but not Alex. She liked to return in January to a tidy space and a fresh start.
Fresh starts were her specialty. She’d had quite a few of them.
Claiborne itself represented one of the better ones. Alex had been the school’s resident artist for almost four years, her longest stretch anywhere. A private facility, the exclusive Austin school that blended art and technology was the favorite of parents who had plenty of money and wanted to spend it on their kids. When they’d hired her, she’d warned the administrators she wasn’t a teacher and they’d said they weren’t looking for one. Claiborne was innovative—the facility needed someone who would “guide” the children into developing their own creativeness, not teach them.
Atypical in its schedule as well as its philosophy, the academy shut down completely between Thanksgiving and New Year’s so the students and their families could head across the globe to second homes and exotic vacations. The faculty escaped as best they could and collapsed…working at Claiborne demanded a lot.
Alex was different though. She didn’t mind the hours any more than she minded tidying up her area, especially at this time of year. For obvious reasons, the holiday stretch always left her feeling restless and anxious. She usually planned an out-of-the-way trip herself, but before she could make reservations this year, Ben had called.
They’d married six years ago. After two, they’d divorced but had remained really good friends. Ben had asked her to spend Christmas with him and Libby, his twenty-year-old daughter. Alex couldn’t turn him down. Twenty-five years her senior, Ben was dying from a rare liver disease and he wouldn’t see another Christmas. If he wanted Alex with him, then she had to go. She owed him that much…and probably a lot more.
Taking down the last of the few decorations she put up each year—a gathered stalk of dried corn and apples—she told herself she’d get through tomorrow, then concentrate on Ben and Libby. They each needed Alex in a different way, and helping them would take her mind off her memories and all the ghosts that came with them.
But just thinking about the past summoned everything to her. Her fingers suddenly tightened on the dried corn husks and pieces of the chaff fluttered to the floor. She stared at the yellow bits, then all at once, despite her best intentions, her heart started to pound and her mouth went dry. With a quiet groan, she closed her eyes. Behind the lids, the image of her mother’s wreath appeared. The lopsided arrangement looked just as it had on the door of the house in Los Lobos the day Alex had come home from Peru.
Gabriel O’Rourke’s face came next, but before it could fully form, a voice broke the silence.
“Hey, you’re supposed to go home first and then fall asleep!”
Alex’s eyes shot open. Randy Squires, Claiborne’s dean, stood in the doorway of her classroom and grinned.
