Distant Memory (27 page)

Curses filled the room, and she removed her hands in time to see Nick struggle to his feet between the beds, his shoulder lowered to ram the gunman, but Massey had anticipated the attack and brought a brutal elbow to Nick’s nose. With his feet bound by the duct tape, Nick was unable to steady himself. He fell back on the bed. Blood gushed from his nostrils.

Massey took two steps back. “Well, how much longer would you like to do this? I have a little time, and I could use the exercise.”

“Leave her alone,” Nick said, the force of his words blowing drops of blood that ran from his mouth and nose. “You coward. Cut me loose and I’ll give you all the exercise you can handle.”

“Really?” Massey replied with a sardonic smile. “Another day, another time, I would welcome it, but I have a job to do. Now tell me who you are and what your interest is in all this.”

Nick hesitated, and Massey started for Lisa.

“All right, all right,” he shouted. “But you have to promise to leave her alone.”

“I make no promises, and you’re in no position to demand them.”

Lisa made eye contact with Nick, whose eyes conveyed profound sorrow and deep apology. “I’m okay,” she said, rubbing her jaw.

“I’m a federal agent,” Nick said flatly.

“Which agency?”

“Does it matter?”

“Which agency?” Massey repeated hotly.

“NSA,” Nick said.

“National Security. So you deal with intelligence work done in communications,” Massey said.

“What? I don’t—” Lisa retook her seat on the bed. She fought back hot tears.

“The NSA,” Massey said, sounding like a schoolteacher lecturing a
high school class, “and its companion, the CSS—the Central Security Service—work to keep secret transmissions secret and to collect foreign intelligence. There’s more to it, but you get the idea.” Then, turning back to Nick, “What’s your interest in Ms. Keller?” Massey demanded.

“Oh, please,” Nick said mockingly. “You know that as well as I do. That’s what started all of this.”

“She contacted you and said she had information about Moyer Communications? Whom have you talked to?”

“No one,” Nick answered. “The accident—or something else—caused her to have amnesia. I’ve been protecting her.”

“Hoping that her memory would come back, is that it? In fact, that’s why you took her to your home, isn’t it?”

“I still don’t understand,” Lisa said. “Nick, you offered to take me to the police or to a hospital more times than I can count.”

“I’ll answer that, Ms. Keller,” Massey said. “Had you accepted the offer, he would have led you along for a while and then begun to drop hints about all sorts of bad things that might happen at the police station. You would have changed your mind.”

Lisa felt sick. The one man she was starting to trust turned out to be lying to her. “You’ve been watching me the whole time.” Pieces were starting to fall into place. “You’ve been spying on me.”

“No, Lisa, it’s not like that at all,” Nick protested.

“Yes, it is,” Massey said. “It’s probably worse, Ms. Keller. I find it interesting that he calls you Lisa, your middle name. I’ll bet that he was hoping the name would jog your memory.”

“The call you made from McDonald’s,” Lisa said, feeling her anger rise. “It was part of the setup. You had your friends fix the house, filling it with clothing just my size.”

“Lisa, listen,” Nick began. “You were in danger. When you contacted us, you were enmeshed in Moyer’s organization. That’s why you ran. Whatever you learned put your life in danger. You came to us for help. They blew your cover.”

“My cover?” The churning in Lisa continued. Everyone around her was untrustworthy. Each presented a threat.

“That is a good question, Ms. Keller,” Massey said. “Are you a Good Samaritan or a professional player?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Lisa countered.

Massey turned to Nick. “I bet you know. How about it, Mr. Blanchard? Is she a teammate or just some do-gooder?” When Nick hesitated, Massey took a step toward Lisa.

“Agent,” Nick blurted. Massey stepped back. “She’s one of ours.”

“What!” Lisa was numb with shock.

“What is an NSA agent doing driving a truck?” Massey asked.

Nick frowned. Lisa focused on Nick, wanting to hear the answer too.

“It was my cover,” Nick finally said. “I drove a truck in college. The NSA uses unmarked, unregistered trucks to transport their equipment.”

“And the house?” Lisa asked. “Is that really yours?”

“Yes,” Nick said. “Everything I told you about my family is true.”

“Including your sister?” Lisa asked.

“Yes. I really have a sister on the East Coast. You’re wearing her clothes.”

“This is too much to take in,” Lisa said. She turned to Massey. “What was I doing in Moyer Communications?”

“Systems security,” Massey said, “and that’s all you’re getting out of me. It’s time to adjourn this meeting.”

“There has to be another way,” Lisa said, refusing to surrender hope.

“There’s not. Now who dies first?” Massey raised the gun and pointed it at Lisa. “I think you should be first, Ms. Keller. After all, you’re at the center of all of this.”

There was a loud knock at the door.

D
etective Bill Hobbs stood to the side of the motel room door, as did Officer Jay Tanner. Hobbs knocked on the door again and waited, listening intently. He was sure that he had heard voices prior to his first knock.

Hobbs and Tanner had arrived at the motel just ten minutes before and had driven through the parking lot looking for the Mitsubishi Gallant.

“There must be twenty ways to leave the area,” Tanner had said to Hobbs, “and a hundred motels and hotels in Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties. Yet you ferret it out on instinct.”

Hobbs and Tanner had parked in front of the lobby and questioned the desk clerk. She recognized the woman in the picture that Hobbs showed her as the same woman who had checked in a short time before.

“Is she a dangerous criminal?” the clerk had asked. “She must be or you wouldn’t be here. I knew it the moment I laid eyes on her. You can tell these things when you’ve been in this business as long as I have. Do you want me to show you the room?”

“No ma’am,” Hobbs had said, wondering why the woman hadn’t called the police if she was so sure she was renting a room to a fugitive. “Please stay here. We’ll find the room just fine. Do the rooms have a back window or door?”

“No, they’re just like every other motel you’ve stayed in. One door, one window, both on the front wall.”

“Okay, thank you.” Hobbs turned to leave.

“You’re not going to have a bunch of cops racing in here with sirens on, are you? I got a business to run, and I don’t want you scaring all my guests away. We got a reputation, you know.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Hobbs replied. “Do you have a master key?”

“Yes,” the woman said. “Do you want it?”

Hobbs thought that was obvious but politely said, “Yes, please.” She handed the key to him. “Are there additional locks on the doors?”

“You mean like a chain lock?” the woman asked. “No. I’ve been meaning to have them installed.”

“How many guests do you have tonight?” Hobbs asked.

“Not many. The people you’re looking for are at the end of the wing. The room next to them is unoccupied. The rest of the lower rooms are filled. There’s no one on the second floor.”

Outside the lobby, Tanner asked, “Should we call for backup?”

He looked across the lot at the end room of the motel wing. “I don’t want to wait for them to get here. We know someone is wounded, probably Blanchard, since the woman did the actual check-in with the clerk.”

“They may also have been the ones who killed the man we found in the street.”

“My gut tells me different. Call for backup, then let’s see if anyone is home,” Hobbs said.

“You know that we are out of our jurisdiction,” Tanner said seriously.

“As you’ve mentioned before,” Hobbs answered without emotion. “I know. But time is important on this.”

Now Hobbs was wondering what to do next. He had hoped that he would knock on the door and the woman and Blanchard would answer,
invite them in, and explain everything. That, of course, was a fantasy. He raised his fist and pounded on the door loudly. “Police,” he said. “Open the door!”

Two doors down, an elderly man poked his head out. “What’s going on?”

Tanner spoke up. “Go back in your room, sir, and lock the door.”

“But what’s going on?”

“Do as I say, sir.” Tanner’s voice carried the solid ring of authority. The man ducked back into his room.

Hobbs inserted the master key into the lock and looked at Tanner, who stood ready with his gun drawn. Tanner nodded.

Hobbs jumped as he heard a loud bang from inside the room. The dim light that had been shining through the thin drapes suddenly went out. In a single fluid motion, Hobbs turned the key and pushed open the door hard. The room was black inside.

Tanner charged it, his gun leading the way. “Police! On the ground—everyone on the ground!”

There was a shot.

When Lisa had first heard the knock on the door and someone shout “police,” she had felt a moment’s hope. But Massey’s commands had been quiet, succinct, and filled with dark threat, and now she sensed only horror. Massey held her by the hair, his gun, the barrel still warm from the spent shot, pressed to her head.

“No words, no screams,” he had said. His professional, gentlemanly manner had dissolved into something visceral and primitive. “You will not resist, or I’ll put a bullet in your brain. I can move faster without you.”

Lisa wondered why he hadn’t done so. Then she realized, she was his
hostage, his security in case things failed to go as planned. She held no hopes that she would live one moment past the end of her usefulness.

As they moved through the empty motel room, Lisa wondered if she was fortunate that he had not been cornered, or unlucky because he might actually make his escape.

Massey was quick on his feet. Within a second after the first knock and the word “police,” he had taken in the situation. She had watched his eyes settle on the thin door that connected their room to the adjoining room.

By the second knock, Massey had already opened the door to the other room. He paused for a moment, and Lisa saw him clench his jaw. There was another door on the other side, and it was locked. Of course there would be two doors, Lisa realized. It was the only way to maintain privacy. Each room could lock the other room out.

Just as she was thinking that Massey was trapped, he kicked the narrow panel and the door flung open. In a brutal lunge of unbelievable speed, he yanked Lisa by the hair, dragging her to his side, then pushed her ahead of him as if she were a human shield, pausing only long enough to fire one round at the entrance door.

“This way,” he whispered harshly and shoved her toward the window. He stopped, pulled the curtain back slightly, and peered out. “Good,” he said. His affirmation made Lisa feel even more anxious.

He shoved her toward the door. “Open it,” he commanded.

“But—”

With cruel force he rammed the gun into the small of her back, sending fiery bolts ripping up her spine. Lisa nearly fainted from the pain, but she held on to consciousness by a strength that originated beyond her. Groping for the handle, she found it and turned the knob sharply. The door opened, and she and Massey exchanged the dark of a lightless room for the gloom of night.

Tanner fell to the floor with a cry of pain. Hobbs, knowing that any hesitation could mean his death, kept moving. “On the ground! Everyone on the ground!” He caught movement to his left. The dim light that poured in from the parking lot lamps was enough for Hobbs to see only the two beds and the other furnishings in the room.

Backing up, he reached behind him, feeling for the light switch. The room was suddenly bathed in effulgence.

“Bed!” Tanner said hoarsely. “Behind the bed.”

Hobbs was on the move, stepping over his fallen friend, pointing his gun between the two beds. A man lay facedown on the floor. “The other room,” the man said. He rolled over on his back and then sat up. He was struggling with something. Tape. His hands and feet had been taped.