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Had she? Where were these commands coming from? How did she know what to do when threatened? Classes... She remembered the exercises; she’d taken training. Every agent in her division was required to learn the basics of law enforcement and firearms. “Quantico,” she whispered.
“That’s right,” he said. “You trained at the FBI facilities.”
The FBI? She was an agent? It hardly seemed possible that a real federal agent would attempt to subdue an attacker with a violin bow. “I don’t think I’m in the FBI.”
“You’re in the NSA, in the Cyber Security division.”
Sure, why not? She turned away from Gorgeous Parka Guy, flipped the violin onto her shoulder and played the opening notes of “Blackbird” to show there were no hard feelings. Perhaps a silly, delusional thing to do, but it seemed like a positive gesture.
Angelica asked Pastor Clarence, “Would you please reach inside his jacket and disarm him?”
“Wait,” Parka Guy said. “I can save us a lot of time if I take off my own weapons.”
“Fine.” Angelica perched on the edge of her hard-back chair and continued to play the classic Beatles song. She segued to “Yesterday.”
Concern about Gorgeous lingered in the back of her mind, but she wasn’t scared of him. The opposite, in fact. She felt safe, ridiculously safe considering that she’d just escaped from four thugs and she was some kind of agent who had special training. She really ought to worry, especially since he was carrying two Glocks, an eight-inch serrated hunting knife and a small-caliber pistol in an ankle holster strapped above his heavy-duty boots.
Stripped of his weapons and his parka, he approached her, stood and waited for her to finish her violin solo. Gently, he took the instrument and the bow from her hands and laid them on the long, wooden dining table. He came back to her, leaned down and gazed directly into her eyes. “Say my name.”
Her breath caught in her throat. The whirlwind of confusion buffeting inside her head went still, and she was suspended, floating in midair. She felt neither cold nor hot, neither right nor wrong, neither safe nor terrified. She was simply there.
“Spencer,” she said. “Spence Malone.”
And then she was in his arms. The cold from outdoors still clung to his Irish fisherman’s sweater, but the internal heat from his body raised the temperature. She snuggled against him, inhaling the natural scent of lamb’s wool and warm man.
He whispered in her ear, “You couldn’t forget me.”
Apparently, she’d guessed correctly.
Chapter Three (#ud9902ce9-98f7-5e28-af7f-04658544f7c4)
Now she knew his name was Spence Malone, but Angelica had no idea what that meant to her. He was incredibly good-looking, just exactly her type. She glided her hand across his rock-hard chest and down his arm. Even through his thick sweater, she felt the ridges of his biceps. Were they lovers?
He tilted her chin so she was gazing up at him. His blue eyes flicked from left to right, reading her expression. “Seems like you’ve forgotten a few things,” he said.
“A few.” She shrugged.
“What do you recall?”
“There were four men, big guys, dumb as dirt.” His penetrating gaze was like a truth-seeking missile, and she wasn’t sure how much she should reveal. She turned toward Trudy and said, “Remember? I told you about them. One had a Texas accent. They were armed with HK417 assault rifles. They took me to a cabin.”
“And she mentioned a van,” Trudy said helpfully, “a dark blue or black van.”
Leaning down, Spence kissed her forehead. The light touch of his lips set off a chain reaction of shivers that had more to do with her internal engine than with the snow and cold. Her inner machinery had definitely come back to life. She exhaled a soft moan.
“What else?” he murmured.
Resisting him wasn’t going to be easy. “Nothing much.”
“It’s okay. You can tell me.”
But maybe she’d better not. Though his tone was gentle and cajoling, she knew he was digging, probing, interrogating. If he discovered the gaps in her memory, what would he do? He said he was a federal agent, but that didn’t mean he was innocent.
She turned the tables with a question of her own. “What do you do for the FBI?”
“Mostly administrative stuff,” he said in a silky voice. “Do you remember where we are?”
“Near Peterson Air Force Base.” Luckily, the pastor had provided her with that much info.
“Do you know why we’re here?”
“For one thing, my parents live near here.” Before she could think twice, she said their names. “Peter and Lana Thorne.”
“General Thorne?” Pastor Clarence straightened his posture, almost as though he was snapping to attention. “You’re their daughter?”
“One of their daughters,” she corrected.
Her memories came fast and furious as a mental family portrait formed. There were two girls and two boys. Angelica was second or third oldest depending on who was doing the counting. She and her sister, Selena, were identical twins, and they always argued about who was born first. The youngest—a boy who chose the marine corps over the air force, much to his father’s chagrin—had moved out last year. Though Dad was mostly retired, her parents kept their six-bedroom house in the hills above Manitou Springs.
She was looking forward to visiting them and having them meet Spence, which meant he must be important to her. Since it wasn’t her habit to introduce casual lovers to the parents, Spencer Malone must have a different significance. Maybe she worked with him. He was a born leader, similar to her high-ranking father. Both were tough, competitive and feisty.
She gave him a grin. “You and Dad are going to love each other.”
The gleam from his cool blue eyes dimmed. “You introduced me to your father yesterday.”
“Indeed.” Couldn’t be. That’s not something I’d forget. She treasured every moment with her mom and dad. Family was everything to her.
“We were at their house for dinner. You don’t remember?”
“Give me a minute. It’ll come back.”
He sat her on the hard-back chair. His touch became less sensual and more clinical as he massaged her scalp. “Does your head feel sore? Is there a possibility of concussion?”
“I was afraid of this,” Trudy said as she clenched her fingers into a knot. “It’s amnesia, isn’t it?”
“Maybe,” Spence said. “She needs a CT scan. And she ought to be examined by a doctor.”
“We put in a 911 call,” Trudy said. “It felt like an hour ago.”
“I’ll call again,” Clarence said. “They warned me about slow response time on account of the weather. And there was a pileup accident on I-25. When I told the dispatcher she wasn’t bleeding and didn’t appear to have broken bones, he suggested I drive her myself if it was possible.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Spence said.
“Wait!” Angelica waved both hands to interrupt the plans that were being made for her. She was wide-awake, sitting right here, and she didn’t like having other people take control of her life. “I don’t need a hospital. I didn’t hit my head.”
Spence hunkered down in front of her. He captured her fluttering hands and held them. “Would you remember if you had?”
“Did you find any bumps on my head?” she demanded. “No, you did not. And my skull doesn’t feel concussed. There are plenty of other places on my body that are painful, but not my head.”
“Where does it hurt?” he asked.
“My lips are chapped and were bleeding.” She yanked her hands from his grasp. “My feet are stiff and sore. My throat is scratchy.”
“She has bruises,” Trudy said. “I noticed them when she was changing clothes.”
Shrinking back in the chair, Angelica wrapped her arms protectively around her midsection. She knew very well that she had injuries. Both her knees were scraped. A massive contusion spread from her rib cage to her lower pelvis on her right side. Though she couldn’t see her back, she felt an occasional throb of pain.
The physical damage might have come from a hard fall or a car wreck. She might have been beaten but didn’t remember, didn’t want to remember. She’d been doing her best to ignore these aches and get back to the business at hand—whatever that was.
She glared at Spence. “No way do I have a concussion.”
“There are other ways to lose your memory.” He placed his hand on her knee, reestablishing contact. “You could have been drugged.”
She glanced down. Her eyelids closed. For an instant, she caught a glimpse of what had happened. A brief sliver of memory revealed itself, and she saw things as they had occurred instead of as they were now.
Her wrists were fastened to the arms of a chair with duct tape. She wasn’t uncomfortable but firmly secured, immobile. Behind her back, disembodied voices talked about dosage. They mentioned a drug.
She repeated their words, “A derivative mixture of benzodiazepine and propranolol.”
When she looked up, she saw Spence nod. “Those are drugs that could be used to induce memory loss.”
“I knew that.” Oddly enough, that was her first outright lie. She knew zip about drugs and memory loss, but she wanted desperately to speak with some kind of authority.
“If you were drugged,” Spence said, “we need to take you to the hospital for tests. Be reasonable, Angelica. I want you to be checked out. I feel responsible.”
“Please don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Feel responsible.”
She bolted to her feet. Even though she couldn’t exactly identify her career at the moment, she was dead certain that she was well respected in her field. She’d always been an achiever, proud when her slacker sister teased her for being “daddy’s little darling.” Ever since Angelica hit her first home run in T-ball, she’d been a winner. Valedictorian and senior prom queen in high school, magna cum laude from college, and she’d received dozens of grants in computer cryptography, science and hacking.
The past was becoming clear to her. She worked at the Cyber Security division of NSA and focused on cryptography and hacking. Her long-term memory was reassembling itself. The short-term still eluded her.
In any case, she didn’t want to be tucked away in a hospital. Though she didn’t know why, being here—in the field—was an opportunity for her. Going into the hospital meant admitting defeat. She needed to convince Spence that she was okay, and they should get back to work. “I’m fine.”
“Do you remember dinner?” he asked.
“Of course, I do.”
“Prove it.”
Dinner at the home of General and Mrs. Thorne with one outside guest followed a certain ritual. Angelica, along with her brothers and sister, had attended hundreds of Lana’s simple but elegant dinners. This one wouldn’t be much different.
“The centerpiece on the table was made of pinecones painted orange and blue...” It was football season, and her father was a season ticket holder. “In a salute to the Denver Broncos.”
“What did we talk about?”
She knew this one: the primary topic for every true Bronco fan. “We discussed the quarterback. Elway was mentioned.”
Spence nodded, and she brightened. I’m going to get away with this. She continued, “Mom served Cornish game hens and cheesy potatoes. The pie was pecan.”
She could tell by his expression that she’d nailed the menu of her mom’s favorite dishes. “Is that accurate?”
He gave another terse nod. “Do you remember why we’re here?”
She took a leap of logic. He was FBI; she was NSA. He had come looking for her. “We’re on assignment together.”
“I still want you checked out,” he muttered. Then he looked toward Pastor Clarence. “Can you give me a ride to my car?”
“Sure, but I need to dig out the driveway to the garage. And that might take half an hour or forty-five minutes.”
“I’ll hike,” Spence said as he started loading his weapons back into their holsters. After he slipped into his parka, he picked up the extra-large backpack and dropped it at her feet. “I brought your clothes, boots and a jacket. While I’m finding the car, you can get dressed.”
“I’m not going to the hospital,” she said firmly. “I’ll call my dad. He can pick me up.”
“Not a chance.” Spence forced his words through a tight-lipped grin. “I want General Thorne to like me. That’s sure as hell not going to happen if I tell him how I slacked off on the job and let his daughter get kidnapped. And then, even worse, I have to call him for help.”
Though Angelica didn’t want to turn to Daddy for help, she considered having Spence rescue her to be equally frustrating. She hefted the pack by one strap and slung it over her shoulder causing a pain that crawled up and down her spine. She held her breath and willed the hurt to stop. She didn’t have time to be injured. She refused to be taken out of the game.
Spence said she was kidnapped. Kidnapped? That must be why those thugs had her in the van and why he’d been searching for her. “Did they demand a ransom?”
“No.”
Well, of course not. Kidnappers wouldn’t ask the FBI for money. “What about my father? Did they contact him?”
“This isn’t about money,” Spence said. “At least, it’s not about the piddling amount that a kidnapper could demand.”
She didn’t understand. If her kidnappers hadn’t been after money, why did they take her? “Is it because—”
He stepped up close, interrupting before she said too much. He gave a quick glance over his shoulder at Clarence and spoke to her softly. “We’ll talk about this later.”
“But I—”
“Later.” He took the backpack from her grasp, asked directions from Trudy for someplace private and carried her pack up the staircase and into a guest bedroom. Pillows were stacked at the head of a queen-size bed, and the brightly patterned duvet was neatly made. With the door partially closed so the pastor and his wife couldn’t hear, Spence whispered, “I’m guessing that they kidnapped you because of the computer codes you were working on before we left. That’s the bad news. The good news is that you must have hit a nerve. You’re on the right track.”
“Would computer codes be worth more than a ransom?”
“Hell, yeah.” He raked his fingers through his sun-streaked hair. “The weapon codes stored at NORAD can be used to activate, launch, deploy and shut down various missile and satellite systems, mostly for ICBMs. Foreign governments would pay a small fortune for that information.”
“I got it.”
“Do you remember the kidnappers or what you told them?”
“I’m drawing a blank.” What if she’d given up the codes? She might have already betrayed their mission. This investigation might have a real unhappy ending. “I’m sorry.”
“Once we get back to the hotel, I have a technique that’ll help you remember.” He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Get changed. I’m going to pick up the car.”
