fourteen

SOUTH CAROLINA

Irish drove for several hours up to Charleston. They stopped there at a rental car agency and traded in the car for another one. He had no choice but to use his credit card, but at least he knew there wouldn’t be any little devices planted in the new rental. He hoped the pursuers, if there were any, were concentrating on the Tennessee car rather than his credit card charges.

They bought food at a convenience mart, then ate it at a rest stop where Amy could walk Bojangles. With the dog resting between them on the front seat, they headed north along I-95. He planned to stop in Myrtle Beach. Plenty of tourists. And plenty of cheap motels, the kind that didn’t ask for identification.

Before leaving Jekyll Island, Amy had called her insurance company and arranged for her car to be picked up and repaired when the police finished with it. Since the bad guys obviously knew where she was, all subtlety went by the board.

Everyone also knew the identity she’d been using. That had been a bit of a problem with the police when they discovered she’d registered at the motel under a false name and gave a false license tag number. She had explained somewhat awkwardly that she used a friend’s name because of fear.

The police hadn’t questioned that, not with the Memphis police backing her story. But Irish had more curiosity about it. Model Citizen Amy Mallory didn’t seem the type to have false identities tucked away.

“Did that identification really belong to a friend?” he asked after they’d ridden in silence for an hour.

Amy was still for a moment, and he didn’t think she would answer. Then, very softly, she said, “It belonged to my mother. She sometimes traveled with someone wanted by the police. One of them made her this identity. It’s been … sitting in a box for years.”

“You surprise me, Dr. Mallory.”

“I learned some unusual things from her and the ‘uncles’ who came and went.”

He bet she did. He knew something about her background, but not the details. He wondered what kind of impact it had had on her. She seemed remarkably well-adjusted to him, but he wondered whether beneath that disciplined exterior there weren’t some underlying traumas.

And she wasn’t always as cool and disciplined as she liked others to believe. He’d had a brief taste of wildness, a passion that had been unbridled. What else was there under her cool exterior?

She was a contradiction. Prim and proper when he’d first met her, but willing to run away with a forged identity, apparently without any compunction. She disabled an armed gunman and cried over a dog. He saw fear in her eyes, but she had never asked him for help.

She was strong and resilient and resourceful. She was also appealingly vulnerable. Now those qualities were running together in an irresistible package.

He wanted to know more about her mother. A general’s daughter turned war protester and flower child. Arrested once for drug possession. Put on probation. Then she’d fled the state and changed her name. Her legal name of Mallory hadn’t surfaced again until she’d died. That much he knew from his own investigation.

“Tell me about your mother,” he said. She’d talked about her grandfather but had said little about her mother.

“She was very loving,” Amy said, “but not very wise in picking her friends. She often took in … protesters wanted by the police, or drug dealers who used her sympathies to get her help. She would give her last dime to someone she thought needed it more. In fact, if she saw a one-armed person, she would probably cut off her own arm and give it to them. People recognized that. And used it. But she never changed.”

“How did she support you?”

“Usually waitressing. She was also good at crafts. She made dolls and bears, and dresses for both. Happy things. She was the ultimate optimist.”

He considered all that. “And your grandfather? How did she feel about him?”

“Sad. But she didn’t trust him. She was afraid he would try to take me away from her. One time, she said it might be better for me if he did.” Her hands nervously stroked Bo. “I never thought so. I always wanted to be with her.” Her voice faded.

Irish was fascinated. There was more to the story. A lot more. “Why didn’t she trust him?”

She was silent for a moment. “She had thought she was in love. She was seventeen, and he was twenty-two and a Vietnam war protester. My grandfather had him arrested for statutory rape.”

She hadn’t told him that before when she’d talked about her grandfather. How many other secrets were there? But he’d learned that silence was the best prompter. He waited.

“The man died in jail. I never knew exactly how or why. I tried to find out. The newspaper account said he was beaten by other inmates. That’s when my mother ran away. My grandfather didn’t know, but she was pregnant then; she was afraid he would force her to get an abortion or give up the baby.”

“You were the child.”

“Yes,” she said softly. “My mother could no more kill a child of hers than accept the injustice of what happened to the man she loved. But she didn’t have good care when I was born, and she couldn’t have other children. I think that’s one reason we lived as we did, even when the antiwar movement was over and other people moved on. She always wanted to be around children. When people drifted away from communes, she usually found someone for us to bunk with, or them with us. She needed to be needed, even if sometimes she was more child than adult.”

“It takes strength to live that kind of life,” he said. “To be true to your own values.”

She looked surprised. “I suppose in some ways she was,” she said. “In other ways, very naive. She accepted anyone who had any kind of cause, and that often got her in trouble. She just wanted to see good in everyone.”

“Except your grandfather?”

“Oh, even him, I think. She didn’t tell me everything that had happened between him and my father. She told me part of the story—that my father was unjustly imprisoned and killed, and that she left home to take care of me. My grandfather told me the rest of it; he’d never forgiven himself for what happened.”

“But she never contacted him?”

“I think she was afraid he would try to take me and raise me ‘properly.’”

“Would he have?”

“I think he would have tried at one time. He hadn’t known she was pregnant. I showed up on his doorstep as a distinct surprise.” She hesitated. “I hated him for a long time. He had a big house and a lot of money, and I remembered what a hard time my mother and I often had. I thought she would have lived longer if she’d had good medical care.

“It took me a long time to realize that it was the life she chose. And I can never say she was unhappy with it. She marched to a different drummer. She didn’t care about money or possessions. Only causes. She attended nearly every demonstration in town. I grew up carrying signs.”

“But you didn’t keep carrying them?”

“No. I suppose I had too much of my grandfather in me. Although I loved my mother, I always longed for a home and security. I wanted to be good at what I chose to do. But I have a bit of her passion for justice, even if I didn’t agree with all her causes.”

“And she’s why your field is protest movements?”

“Sometimes I knew more than I wanted to know,” she said. “But yes, I suppose I was drawn to what had drawn her.”

“How old were you when she died?”

“Fifteen. She was ill for several months. Most of her friends had disappeared or died or gone to jail. She made me promise to contact my grandfather.”

He allowed her to talk at her own speed. He had put the car on cruise control, and he stretched out his legs, trying to relax his aching body.

But she didn’t continue, and he didn’t push.

Instead she leaned against the door and looked at him. He didn’t take his eyes from the road, but he could feel the intensity of her gaze. He felt himself growing warm, but not because of lust. Instead it was the intimacy that bounced around inside the car.

Words would have shattered it. They were bound together by her earlier comments, ones he suspected she had seldom uttered before. And bound by violence and danger, and a baffling mystery.

And now she trusted him. If not completely, then more than anyone else at the moment. He was damned determined to fulfill that trust.

The question had been where to go. He had only a little money and his credit cards, and he wouldn’t be surprised that whoever was after Amy had the resources to trace any credit purchases he—or she—made.

He’d thought about contacting some of his friends, but all of them were either military or law enforcement. He didn’t want to get them involved in something that might well hurt their careers. Not unless he had to. He still felt guilty about Doug, and the position he’d put him in.

Irish had never felt comfortable about asking for favors.

After looking at the map, he’d confirmed his thoughts on Myrtle Beach. He’d sensed how much Amy liked the beach and the ocean, and they needed a couple of days both to relax and to go over her grandfather’s papers. It was a resort area, filled with tourists, and that was another plus.

The problem, of course, was renting a place without giving identification. It would have to be less than the finest accommodations. But at the moment, any bed would look good to him.

He looked at the clock. Four in the morning. The last road sign said thirty miles. He started looking for the type of motel that expected more John Does than not.

The smell of ocean was back with them. Amy had rolled down her window and leaned her head back. She must be exhausted. Neither of them had had much sleep in the pasty forty-eight hours.

Another twenty miles, and he saw row after row of motels. He picked one—obviously an independent—with a vacancy sign and drove to the office. They would look for something else tomorrow.

Surprisingly, Amy was wide awake. She’d said nothing for the last hour.

“Stay here,” he said. He half expected a protest, but none came, only a soft sigh.

Irish paid cash for a double room with two beds. He hesitated before doing it, but two rooms required two names, and perhaps questions. And he wanted to keep an eye on her. He scribbled John Huey on the registration card. It was a byline he remembered from some newspaper and thought it far better than John Doe. He added a fictitious license tag number.

Amy raised an eyebrow after he drove to a room and led her to it.

“We’re sharing,” he said. “I’m not taking my eyes off you for the next several days.”

She didn’t protest. She didn’t agree. He wondered whether she had reached the limit of her strength. Hell, no one had a better right.

Dark. Hands. Reaching for her. Terror. She tried to hide under the cover like a hermit crab retreating into its shell. Please. Please. Go away. Then she was screaming.…

“Amy …”

Hands again. Grabbing at her.

Then she felt arms go around her. Not rough or hostile.

“Amy.” The voice came again. Gentle. Comforting. The fear stared to fade.

Her eyes flickered open. Her head felt heavy, her throat thick, her mouth dry.

“It’s all right, Amy. You’re safe.” Hands were on her. This time, warm, comforting hands. Even possessive hands. Bo whined plaintively beside the bed.

The memories came flooding back. The men bursting into her room. The gunshot. So loud in the confines of the small room. A shiver of fear remained.

She looked up at him. Pale light was creeping through the drawn curtains behind him. His hair was mussed, and his cheeks had a golden stubble again. He wore jeans but no shirt, and he looked obscenely attractive. The proximity of his body, and the heat radiating from it, comforted her, warming the chill that pushed her under the covers.

He held her for a moment, then she inched away, embarrassed. She’d been embarrassed when they had gotten ready for bed last night. Fortunately they had both been too tired to do much more than fall into their respective beds.

Amy was only too aware they’d slept together the night earlier, but that, she’d told herself, had been reaction to near death. Nothing more.

That’s all this is, too.

But despite the warmth of his hand that still held hers, the panic didn’t subside, and she knew part of it came from being so close to him.

Her entire world had been turned upside down. All the sanity she worked so hard to construct was gone. And now she was in a motel room with a man she barely knew. It didn’t help that he had twice saved her life. He had appeared at the same time as the violence. She had slept with him after only a few conversations.

She didn’t know him, or what he wanted. The fact that she had fallen so easily under his protection panicked her even more than the nightmare that had returned after many years. Don’t trust.

Yet she had. She wanted to. She needed to.

Could there be anything as awkward as waking up with a lover who was a stranger? Even a stranger with whom she’d shared several more than traumatic events? She didn’t think so. The silence grew heavy between them, and she knew her eyes were probably something less than friendly.

She saw him straighten. His hand slipped away from her, and he stood.

Bo crawled up on the bed, and she hugged him, a distraction—a needed distraction—from the tall man beside her. She was very aware that she wore only the long T-shirt she usually slept in, that her hair was probably sticking out at every impossible angle.

The last few days had been a blur of pain, fear, and confusion. And now desire accompanied those feelings. It only increased the sense of bewilderment, loss of control, loss of reality, loss of who she was—or thought she was.

Irish combed his hair with his fingers. “You look comfortable. Why don’t I take a shower first, then you? We’ll get some breakfast and look for somewhere a little better to stay.”

Again those conflicting feelings. She didn’t want him to leave. He looked so solid and safe … and appealing as he was. But the sexual tension that was always between them was rising, too. She didn’t need that distraction.

In fact, she needed time alone to think. To assess.

She nodded, and watched as he disappeared into the bathroom.

She’d thought she wanted time alone to think. But that wasn’t possible when she heard the water run, and her mind went to the image of Irish Flaherty standing in the shower with steam rising around him.

It made steam rise around her.

She used the remote to click on the television. She wondered whether there would be anything on the news about the death on Jekyll Island. She also wondered whether the world was continuing as always for millions of people while her own had turned lopsided.

It was. A celebrity interview occupied one station, a cooking segment another. She turned to CNN, only to hear market news. The stock market was up.

Good for it.

But the noise was, in an odd way, comforting.

She finally rose and went to her purse, digging out a brush and running it through her hair. She looked in the mirror over a low dresser. Her eyes were bloodshot, her face pale without makeup. Her gray eyes were uncertain, deepened by dark shadows ringing them. Her hair looked lank. Not even the brush helped.

Did all men look better than women when they got out of bed? Or was she just plagued?

She went over to the boxes that Irish had brought in. She wondered whether he would discover anything she hadn’t. He was a trained investigator, but she was a trained historian, schooled to find the oddity.

And if he did find something? What would he do with it?

Such speculation ran nowhere. The shower had stopped, and she heard the sink faucet turn on. He would probably be shaving now.

Damn it. She’d never been so unable to concentrate on one thing before. Her mind was spinning like a whirling dervish.

Because you don’t want to concentrate. You don’t want to remember blood exploding on you. You don’t want to remember feeling so close to death. You don’t want to remember someone holding a gun on you. You don’t want to think about Irish Flaherty or what he wants or what will happen when he finds it.

She went to the window, opened the draperies, and looked outside. Rain clouds had darkened the sky and the parking lot despite the fact that it was morning. Rain splashed in the parking lot, and puddles were evidence that it had been falling for some time.

The door to the bathroom opened. Steam drifted into the room, as did a light clean scent.

“See anything?” he asked. His voice, deep and rumbling, rolled across the room.

“Just rain,” she said as she turned to face him. His light brown hair was damp, his face was clean-shaven. He wore faded, snug-fitting blue jeans and a T-shirt. She watched as he pulled on a long-sleeve shirt and rolled up the sleeves, leaving the front unbuttoned, then saw him attach his gun holster to the back of his belt. A chill ran through her. He did it as casually as someone might pull on a pair of shoes.

She tried to keep the distaste from her eyes, but when his gaze met hers, his eyes were quizzical and one side of his mouth was turned up in question.

“I’ll take Bo out while you use the shower,” he offered after a moment’s silence, his eyes growing neutral.

“Thank you,” she said formally, feeling like a fool but not sure what else to say. Bo, however, broke the awkwardness. He had perked up at the word out, and was standing next to the door.

Flaherty, too, seemed unsure of what to say, and that was certainly uncharacteristic.

“You won’t need a leash. He trusts you now. He will stay right on your heels.”

“He’s well trained.”

“Not really. He just doesn’t want to get lost.”

Banalities. They were talking like the strangers they were, not the lovers they had been. Distant. Matter-of-fact. Not as if killers were after them or they had shared death as well as a bed.

But he didn’t say anything else. Instead, he opened the door. “Come on, Bo,” he said, and the dog followed. She felt a moment’s betrayal, even though she was pleased that her dog had accepted him, and he apparently liked Bo. He was, in fact, a natural with him, which meant he was a natural with other animals as well. One could not fake that.

If nothing else, that one thing had added to her trust. She trusted him with her physical safety if little else.

She pulled a pair of slacks and knit shirt from her suitcase, along with her small personal kit with its toothbrush, toothpaste, and minimum makeup. She found a little bottle of shampoo on the counter, which surprised her, then stepped into the shower. She’d always heard that cold showers cooled the heated beast. Hopefully, it might do that now.

She turned the water on and shivered as she was struck by what seemed to be little pieces of ice. Despite the shock, she let it run. After several minutes she turned on hot water and washed her hair.

She would cope. She would use this day to return to normal, as normal as one could be under the circumstances. There was still her tenure hearing. Still responsibilities that called her back to a world she knew and understood and wanted. She let the water run until it started to grow cold, and then she stepped out.

The scent of his aftershave still filled the room. A wet towel had been neatly folded and placed on the sink counter. All his toiletries had been returned to a small leather case.

Stop it, she told herself. Her thoughts were drifting dangerously again.

She looked for a hair dryer, but there was none. She supposed she should be grateful for the shampoo. Using a towel to blot up water, she settled for combing her hair, then adding a touch of lipstick.

Breakfast. Another motel. And always the specter of masked men and guns. She took a deep breath. She would survive this. She would solve the mystery. She would get tenure.

She would remember this as an … adventure. Flaherty would remain a … partner. She would not become involved with a man she knew so little about. She didn’t even know whether he already had a relationship with a woman. Maybe even a wife, though she deeply doubted that. But even the thought of him with another woman hurt. And that was humiliatingly excruciating.

And then there was the fact that she had given herself into his care so easily. She couldn’t remember when she hadn’t taken care of herself. She’d been the caretaker in her family far more than her mother had been. She’d taken pride in that, and in taking care of herself.

It was time to start taking care of herself again, to stop allowing events to twist her in the wind.

She gathered everything together and went into the other room.

It was still empty. Amy packed everything in her suitcase, then looked out the window.

No Flaherty. No Bo.

Panic started eating at her again.

She grabbed the key and went outside. The car, parked ten spaces down, was still there. Then she saw them. Flaherty was talking to someone. A tall man whose face was turned away from her.

Bo was almost standing on Flaherty’s feet.

She waited, willing the stranger to turn around. He didn’t, but he gestured toward the road. Directions. She tried to relax. Flaherty was just asking for directions.

Still, as she turned around and went back into the room, an odd disquiet accompanied her.