Deadly Memories Read online

  “Seems he found a connection between you and Vadim, only our boy was calling himself Renzo Adrik at the time. De Carlo asserts you’ve gone after an old enemy on your own. What did Vadim do to you, Thorne?”

  The name Renzo Adrik slugged Jack hard. He’d chased that will-o’-the-wisp for a year before he’d realized the name was an alias.

  “I’m no rogue. I’m not going after Vadim alone.”

  And wouldn’t unless he had no choice.

  Gripping the phone, he dug deep for control. “I’m protecting Sophie and helping her regain her memory. Byrne, I’m still asking for your help.”

  Chapter 11

  When Jack’s call ended, Sophie watched him stalk off into the woods. Judging from his rigid shoulders and clenched fists, the purpose wasn’t a call of nature.

  What terrible news had the colleague told him?

  She fretted, running over possibilities in her mind until Jack returned a few minutes later. His scarred hands hung loose at his sides, but he wore his official mask.

  “Will your friend help us?” she asked, trying to sound upbeat and not anxious. She’d spread their food on napkins on the blanket and gestured to him to join her.

  He nodded, grabbing the wine bottle and opener. “I could use a drink.”

  “Can you tell me what he said?”

  He remained silent until he’d opened the bottle and poured the dark red wine into plastic cups. He handed her one and gulped down his own. He poured more.

  “Byrne’s arranging for another car and a safe house. We can go there tomorrow. He’ll see if he can trace the leak in the task force.”

  The vise tightening all her muscles released its grip. “Oh, Jack, that’s wonderful!”

  “Yeah, wonderful.” But his tone and expression belied his words. He peered at the supper displayed between them. “This that Tuscan grilled chicken?”

  So he wanted to change topics, did he? Okay, for now. “Yes, and there’s salad and bread. I bought plastic utensils but forgot plates. I’m afraid it’s a communal spread, like in medieval times.”

  She placed the salad container and the loaf of crusty bread beside the chicken. The mingled aromas of herbs and garlic tantalized.

  They ate in silence for a few minutes. Small creatures scurried in the underbrush, stirring the scent of wild mint.

  Sophie watched Jack tear at the chicken, a poor substitute for Vadim. His amber brow beetled, a sign he was working out something in his mind.

  Finally she could stand it no longer. The chicken was delicious, but she could eat no more until they’d talked. She had to make him trust her enough to tell the rest. “That Swiss cheese I told you about? I’ve filled in some more holes.”

  He regarded her over a chicken leg. The marinade glistening on his lips tempted her to lick it off. “You remembered? What?”

  “Maybe the day’s excitement shocked my system so that memories popped up. I was washing in the spring when images that are more than mirages came back. Kind of film clips. Not everything. I remember Rome and some sights in Florence.”

  “Any Rinaldis or…what was the other family?”

  “Pinelli.” A sigh of disappointment escaped her. “No, that’s still a mystery. But I also remember some of my time with Vadim.”

  At that, he dropped his food and wiped his mouth. His blue eyes bored into her like lasers. “If anything critical filled those holes, you wouldn’t dole it out piece by piece. Tell me anyway.”

  “I remember the lost luggage and having my credit card cut up in the restaurant. I had Vadim’s number and called him. You know the rest. He took me in. We went shopping in Venice and to the lido, the beach.”

  “At Jesolo.” He scrutinized her as though searching her mind. “What about…him?”

  She desperately wanted Jack to believe her. She wanted his trust—and more. “Vadim was generous, courteous and kind. Yes, he kissed my hand a few times, and I kissed him on the mouth. Once. That was merely a thank-you. That’s all. He never hit on me. He was my host, not my lover, and I know nothing about his business.”

  Relief and something else flashed in Jack’s eyes before he shuttered his expression to skepticism. “You filled most of the holes. What’s still empty?” He picked up his wine again.

  “Memories are coming back to me in chunks, but they don’t include the day I was to fly home.”

  “The day he tried to kill you.”

  She sagged, wishing she could give him what he wanted. What he needed. “Right.”

  To her surprise and relief, Jack reached across the blanket serving as their picnic table and laced his fingers with hers. “Remembering that much is a good sign. The doctor said you might never remember the actual attack. If you’ve recovered this much, more of that day will return, too.”

  “Thanks for that. I can’t prove I wasn’t part of what Vadim was doing or that he wasn’t my lover, but I know.” The great burden of guilt, heavy as the stones in one of the tombs behind them, fell from her shoulders and smashed into dust.

  “I began to believe in the amnesia a few days ago. Mostly because of your distress about what you might’ve done. I believe you now.”

  The warmth in his clear gaze sent her heart tumbling. “You don’t know how much I needed to hear that.” Emotion clogged her throat. She slipped her hand from his and reached for the foil to cover the leftover chicken.

  Wordlessly Jack took care of the salad and bread. When they finished putting away the food, he poured them both more wine. He reclined on the blanket, propped himself on one elbow and gazed up at the stars.

  “This hide-and-seek with Vadim’s thugs,” he said, “there’s something odd about it.”

  “What do you mean?” Pleased that he was sharing his thoughts with her, Sophie sipped her wine.

  “I don’t want to scare you.”

  “Get real, Jack. It’s way too late to avoid that.”

  “Roger. No whitewashing. Vadim could’ve had his men blow us away at any time. Today Slick and his thugs shot at the car but not in the windows. Not to kill. It’s like Vadim wants you kidnapped, not killed.”

  “He tried to kill me before. Why is it different now?”

  “An excellent question. I’m working on it.”

  Before he drifted away from her in his thoughts, she had more to tell him, too.

  “There’s one more thing you should know about.” Sophie reached behind her for her tote. Tipping the bag on its side allowed her to roll out the statuette. “This figure is Santa Elisabetta Rinaldi. She appears to be the only family I’ve found in Italy.”

  His eyebrows rose. “This was in your bedroom.”

  “There was a card with it from an antique shop. I probably bought her with a traveler’s check.”

  She levered the little saint upright. She sucked in a breath at what she saw. “Oh, no, a bullet must’ve struck her. I saw the hole in the tote but didn’t think anything was damaged.”

  She turned the marble icon so Jack could see the chip.

  He peered at it and pushed on the base. It slid sideways. “The base is loose. You can get that fixed in the States. Looks like it’s been repaired before. She’s old.”

  Sophie surveyed all sides of the little saint before she nodded. “No harm done to the sculpture at least.”

  One side of his mouth twitched toward a smile. “Why did you keep this from me?”

  She sighed as she slipped the saint back into the tote. “I was afraid you’d think I stole it from the villa.”

  A laugh sputtered from Jack, spraying wine onto his shirt. He mopped at the droplets as he sat up. Mirth crinkled his eyes and softened his harsh features. “This is all you’ve hidden in that tote? Your family saint?”

  She straightened. Indignant, she tilted up her chin. “She’s precious to me, all I have of my ancestry. And my nonna’s letters, they’re in the tote.”

  “Sophie, Sophie, I should’ve known.” He scooted closer and cupped her chin. “I was seeing everything through my o
wn lens, a glass that distorts even the innocent.”

  She felt the wine-scented puff of his breath on her face and gazed into his eyes, as blue as the summer sky. If he kissed her, she’d forget what planet she was on, let alone ask what she wanted to know.

  She pulled back, breaking the spell. “So now you trust me?”

  His index finger traced the shape of her jaw, lighting tiny fires as it went. “There aren’t too many people I trust. But yes, Sophie, you I trust. Why?”

  She drew a deep breath, then dived in. “Do you trust me enough to tell me what else you learned from your phone call?”

  The rising half moon filtered lace patterns through the oak leaves onto Sophie’s face. The pale light didn’t stop Jack from recognizing the challenge on her features.

  “I saw your anger when you disconnected,” she said. “You walked away to calm yourself. What is it?”

  He searched for a solution in his empty wineglass. When nothing magically appeared in the residue, he set it down. “You might as well know. When I cut communication with the task force, De Carlo put out a call to have me brought in.”

  “Brought in? Like a criminal?”

  “Exactly. He thinks I’ve gone after Vadim on my own.” He felt he’d fly apart if he remained still another moment. He pushed to his feet and paced in their patch of moonlight. “He called me a rogue officer.”

  “Vendetta, the Italians say. Now why exactly would he think that?”

  He would tell her the least he could. “He dug into my background and found I have history with Vadim. He put two and two together and got ten.”

  “But your friend agreed to help anyway. You told him about the leak you suspect, about why you aren’t checking in?”

  “I spelled it all out. He believed me, thank God. He’ll do what he can to clear up this mess.” He flexed his fingers, stiff from tension, and stared up at the moon. “Until then, damn it, I’m a wanted man.”

  He heard the swish of Sophie’s shoes on the rough grass as she crossed the clearing toward him. When she took one of his hands in her soft one, sparks that had nothing to do with static electricity arced from his palm to another, more responsive body part.

  Cursing his testosterone, he observed their joined hands. His scars stood out white as bone in the moonlight. Twins of the scars on his soul. Hell of a maudlin thought.

  “De Carlo’s not far off, is he?” she said, yanking him to attention. “I’m guessing that getting Vadim is more than a job to you. What did he have to do with the deaths of your wife and son?”

  A jaw muscle he felt twitch was the only betrayal he allowed of the powerful emotions storming inside him. How could he tell her without exploding into a million pieces?

  He jerked away and wheeled toward the woods. “You don’t want to go there.”

  “Oh, but I do. Your vendetta makes this mess a wheel within a wheel—a complex mess with circles of danger. If I’m in the center—the bull’s-eye—I want to know everything.”

  Not much riled Sophie usually, he’d come to understand. She went along to get along, even when she shouldn’t. But on this she wasn’t backing down.

  He shook his head. “I don’t talk about it.” He couldn’t. The prospect of telling the story made his chest ache and every muscle in his body tense.

  “Maybe you should. Holding in all that grief is eating you alive.” He could hear the choked-back tears in her voice. “I care about you, Jack.”

  For a moment he stood silently contemplating the gloomy darkness surrounding them. Should he face the deeper shadows within him? Could he? Moment of truth.

  Sophie knew he’d decided when his shoulders rose and fell in a shuddering sigh.

  When he turned around, she saw all the pain and anguish he’d held at bay etched on his face and in his eyes. He was such a strong man, so tall and leanly muscled, not handsome but so very male.

  Hating to see him suffer, she wanted to take the two steps between them to wrap her arms around him, but his rigid stance stopped her.

  “Grief? You think I haven’t grieved for them, for my son?” His jaw clenched as he sought control. “No, what I harbor in here—” he thumped his chest hard with a fist “—is more primitive and more savage. If you’d ever had a son murdered in cold blood, you’d know.”

  “Murdered,” she whispered. By Sebastian Vadim? A child? Jack’s pain became her pain, his anger hers, an anger so powerful that her lungs seemed filled with ashes. All at once her legs felt too weak to hold her, and she went to sit on the blanket beneath the tarp.

  “You would seek vengeance at any cost,” he continued, his focus inward. “You’d nurture your hatred, sharpen its claws and focus it until you could hunt down the murderer and destroy him.”

  She blinked back tears. “Tell me what happened.”

  He glanced up, seemingly surprised to hear her voice. He came to the blanket and sat on his heels opposite her. “I’ve never told anyone the whole story. I don’t know if I can.”

  “Take your time. I’m here.”

  “Five years ago, when I was a U.S. deputy marshal in Miami, a gang sold a jewelry wholesaler some stones that were illegal diamonds from West Africa.”

  “Blood diamonds, mined by captives or slaves and sold for arms,” Sophie offered.

  “Sebastian Vadim’s specialty,” Jack said with a bitter laugh. “These had been cut somewhere in Europe and smuggled into the States by boat. One of the gang members flipped to the cops. They nabbed the gang and the diamonds. The ring-leader was the owner of the boat, but he vanished.”

  “Vadim.”

  “Except he was using an alias, Renzo Adrik. When the case went to trial, I was assigned to protect the main witness.”

  “The gang member who went to the police?”

  He nodded. “Vadim-Adrik got a message to me that if I didn’t give him the witness, he’d hurt my family.”

  “Oh, Jack!” Just thinking about it made her heart ache.

  His shoulders were hunched, his hands fisted on his thighs. She could see him fighting for control. “Tonia and I were separated. She and David were living in Fort Lauderdale,” he said, his voice gravelly with emotion.

  “David. Your son’s name was David?”

  “He was three, would’ve been four the next month. I saw him as often as I could, but Tonia and I’d been growing apart ever since he was born. She was…high-maintenance. And she said I was never there.” He uttered a strangled sound that could’ve been a bitter laugh or an anguished cry. “She was right. In more ways than one.”

  Sophie wanted to ask how but felt it was better to let him tell the story his way.

  “I arranged for protection, but Tonia balked at agreeing to anything I said. She and I were divorced, quits, but I loved my son.”

  Quits. Not just separated, but the marriage was over. Sophie tried to ignore the little bubble of relief inside her. A selfish reaction, not admirable or compassionate.

  So his son’s death was the true source of his grief and anger. Yes, protecting the weak was what Jack was all about. “Tell me about David.”

  “He was…a gift, a terrific kid, smart and happy. He threw his whole little being into everything.” A wistful smile played over his mouth. “Whenever I was with him at bedtime, I had to read a Bob the Builder, only he pronounced it ‘Bob the Bidder.’ I was teaching him to play catch, but…” Sucking a ragged breath, he bent his head.

  When he looked up, tears filled his eyes. “While the witness against the diamond gang testified on the stand, Tonia took David and slipped past the cop on duty.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “She must’ve been driving to her mother’s in Tampa. It was raining, one of those brief Florida squalls that seem like the whole sky is dumping on you. Reconstruction of the crash indicated she’d skidded off the road into a stand of palms. The Camry rolled over and over and landed upside down in a drainage ditch.”

  “An accident?”

  “No. She was a careful driver.
She’d’ve pulled off to the side and waited for the rain to clear. But there was no paint from another vehicle, no second set of skid marks. The cops knew about Adrik’s—Vadim’s—threat, but he was gone. There was no proof he called me or that he even existed. In the end, the crash was listed as accidental.”

  “Maybe it was.” But she didn’t really believe her hopeful words.

  “I know better. He called my cell phone again. To ensure I knew they’d been forced off the road. Murdered.”

  Sophie’s heart sank at the thought of what he’d endured. At what he still endured. A cloud covered the moon, so she could barely see him, but she heard him sniffing back tears.

  He passed a hand over his eyes and inhaled a ragged breath. “I should’ve convinced Tonia to let the cops protect them. I should’ve been with them. God, they were innocent—murdered because my job put them in a monster’s way.” He coughed, cover for a sob. Or a howl of pain.

  Sophie felt the grief and guilt emanate from him in physical waves. In his eyes, he’d failed to protect the ones closest to him. Atlas’s burden was a pebble in comparison.

  She squeezed his other hand. He held on, as she had done ages ago, it seemed, in the Venice hospital. That this strong man allowed her to see his pain, to see him weep, humbled her. “How did you find out?”

  “When the squall stopped, a passing motorist spotted the wreck and called police on his cell phone. I heard the call in the courthouse. Got to the scene—hell, I don’t have any idea how I got there. I must’ve driven, because ambulances and fire trucks were just pulling up when I did. I reached the car first. The doors were jammed, but I saw…oh, God, I can still see him.”

  He pulled away from Sophie’s grip and pounded his fist on the dirt beside him.

  Sophie imagined the horror he’d met and how frantic he’d been when he couldn’t do anything. She blinked back tears. “Tell me. Get it out.”

  “Tonia was dead. Because it wasn’t a head-on collision, the air bag didn’t deploy. Her head hit the windshield as the car rolled. But David…David was in the back, hanging from his child seat, upside down. Blood was dripping…so much blood…but his eyes…followed me.”