Unforgettable

Taking his gun with her, she headed toward the kitchen. “I hope egg salad is okay.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I told you before, call me Caitlyn. I’m not old enough to be a ma’am.”

And you can call me Jack, even though I’m pretty sure that’s not who I am. He rolled the name around in his memory. Jack Dalton. Jack. Dalton. Though the syllables didn’t resonate, he didn’t mind the way they sounded. Henceforth, he would be Jack Dalton.

Caitlyn poked her head into the dining room. “If you want to wash up, the bathroom is the first door on the right when you go through the living room.”

He followed her directions, pausing to peek into the closet near the front door. If he was going to be on the run for any period of time, he’d need a jacket. A quick glance showed a couple of parkas and windbreakers. Nothing that appeared to be his size. A rifle stood in the corner next to the vacuum cleaner.

At the bathroom, he hesitated before closing the door. If the men who were chasing him showed up, he didn’t want to be trapped in this small room with the claw-footed tub and the freestanding sink. He checked his reflection in the mirror, noting the bruises on the right side of his face and a dark swelling on his jaw. Looked like he’d been in a bar fight. Was that the truth? Just a bar fight? The simplest answer was usually the correct one, but not this time. His problems ran deeper than a brawl. There were people who wanted him dead.

He searched the medicine cabinet. There was a wide selection of medical supplies. Apparently, a woman who swaggered around with a tool belt slung around her hips injured herself on a regular basis. He found a bottle of extra-strength pain reliever and took three.

After trekking through the forest, his white T-shirt was smeared with dirt, and he didn’t exactly smell like a bouquet of lilacs. He peeled off the shirt and looked in the mirror again. In addition to patches of black and blue on his upper right arm and rib cage, a faded scar slashed across his chest from his clavicle to his belly button. He had a couple of minor scratches with dried blood. A deeper wound—newly healed—marked his abdomen. What the hell happened to me? These scars should have been a road map to unlock his memory.

Still, his mind was blank.

He washed his chest and pits. His worst injury was on the back of his head, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. No matter how he turned, he couldn’t see the damage.

There was a sound outside the bathroom door. A car approaching? They could be coming, could be getting closer. Damn it, he didn’t have time to mess around with bandages or sandwiches. He needed to get the hell away from here.

He slipped through the bathroom and looked out the front window. The scene in front of her house was unchanged. Nobody was coming. Not yet.

Caitlyn called out, “Hey, Jack.”

“I’ll be right there.”

She charged into the living room and stopped when she saw him. A lot of women would be repulsed by his scars. Not Caitlyn. She stared at his chest with frank curiosity before lifting her gaze to his face. “White or rye?”

“Did you get a good look?”

She shrugged. “I’ve seen worse.”

Her attitude intrigued him. If he hadn’t been desperate to get away from this area, he wouldn’t have minded spending time with her, getting to know what made her tick. “Are you a nurse?”

“I used to be a reporter, embedded with the troops.” She moved closer. “I know some basic first aid. I could take care of those cuts and bruises.”

He didn’t like asking for assistance, but the head wound needed attention. He went to his chair by the table and sat. “I got whacked on the back of my skull.”

Without hesitation, she positioned herself behind him. Her fingers gently probed at the wound. “This looks bad, Jack. You should be in the hospital.”

“No doctors.”

“That’s real macho, but not too smart.” She stopped poking at his head and pulled a chair around so she was sitting opposite him. Their knees were almost touching. “I want you to look at my forehead. Try to focus.”

“You’re checking to see if my pupils are dilated.”

“If you have a concussion, I’m taking you to the hospital. Head injuries are nothing to fool around with.”

He did as she asked, staring at her forehead. Her eyebrows pulled into a scowl that she probably thought was tough and authoritative. But she was too damn cute to be intimidating. A sprinkle of freckles dotted her nose and cheeks. Her wide mouth was made for grinning.

In her blue eyes, he saw a glimmer of genuine concern, and it touched him. Though he couldn’t remember his name or what kind of threat brought him to this cabin, he knew that it had been a long time since a woman looked at him this way.

She sat back in her chair. “What really happened to you? You didn’t get that head injury in a car accident.”

How could he tell her the truth? He didn’t have the right to ask for her help; he was a stranger. She didn’t owe him a damn thing. “I should go.”

“Stay.” She rested her hand on his bare shoulder. Her touch was cool, soothing. “I’ll patch you up as best I can.”

For the first time since he woke up this morning, he had the feeling that everything might turn out all right.

Chapter Three

Caitlyn only knew one thing for sure about Jack. He was stoic—incredibly stoic. His ability to tolerate pain was downright scary.

Moments ago, she’d closed the wound on his head with four stitches. Though she’d used a topical analgesic spray to deaden the area, the effect wasn’t like anesthetic. And she wasn’t a skilled surgeon. Her clumsy stitching must have hurt a lot.

He hadn’t flinched. When she had finished, he turned his head and calmly thanked her.

After that, he had wanted to leave, but she insisted that he stay long enough to eat something and have some water. After sewing him back together, she was invested in his survival.

Also, she was curious—an occupational hazard for a journalist. She wanted to get Jack’s true story.

They sat at her dining room table, and she watched as he devoured an egg salad on light rye. She’d found him a faded black T-shirt that belonged to her brother, who wasn’t as big as Jack but wore his clothes baggy. The fabric stretched tight across Jack’s chest. Underneath were all those scars. How had he gotten wounded? In battle? The long ridge of puckered flesh on his torso was still healing and couldn’t have been more than a couple of months old. If he’d been injured in military service, he wouldn’t have been discharged so quickly.

She nibbled at her own sandwich, trying to find a nonintrusive angle that might get him talking. In her work, she’d done hundreds of interviews, some with hostiles. The direct question-and-answer approach wouldn’t work with Jack.

“You’re not from around here,” she said, “What brought you to the mountains?”

“Beautiful scenery. Fresh air.”

Spare me the travelogue. “Where did you grow up?”

“Chicago.”

Was he a kid from the burbs or a product of the mean streets? Instead of pushing, she offered an observation of her own. “One of the best times I had in Chicago was sailing on Lake Michigan at dusk, watching as the lights of the city blinked on.”

He continued to eat, moving from the sandwich to a mouthful of the beans she’d heated on the stove.

“Your turn,” she said.

“To do what?”

“I tell you something about me, and then you share something about yourself. It’s called a conversation.”

His gaze was cool, unreadable and fascinating. The green of his eyes contained dark prisms that drew her closer. “You have questions.”

“We’re just having a chat. Come on, Jack. Tell me something about growing up in the Windy City.”

“The El,” he said. “I don’t care for underground subways, but I always liked riding the elevated trains. The jostling. The hustle. Made me feel like I was going someplace, like I had a purpose.”

“Where were you going?”

“To see Mark.” As soon as he spoke, his eyebrows pinched in a frown. He swallowed hard as though he wanted to take back that name.

“Is Mark a friend?”

“A good friend. Mark Santoro. He’s dead.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Me, too.”

His friend’s name rang a bell for her. Even though she hadn’t been following the news regularly, she knew that the Santoros were an old-time but still notorious crime family. For the first time in weeks, she glanced longingly at her laptop. Given a few minutes to research on the internet, she might be about to solve the mystery of Jack Dalton.

“I haven’t been honest with you, Caitlyn.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t have a car accident.”

“What else?”

“There are some guys looking for me. They’ve got a grudge. When I came here, I thought I could use your car for a getaway. But that’s not going to work.”

“Not that I’m volunteering my SUV for your getaway, but what changed your mind?”

“If I have your car, it connects you to me. I don’t want anybody coming after you.”

She agreed. Being targeted by the Santoro family wasn’t her idea of a good time. “We should call the police. I have a friend, Danny Laurence, who’s a deputy sheriff. He’s somebody you can trust.”

“I’m better off on my own.”

He rose from the table, and she knew he was ready to depart. She hated the thought of him being out there, on his own, against powerful enemies. She bounced to her feet. “Let me call Danny. Please.”

“You’re a good person, Caitlyn.” He reached toward her. When his large hand rested on her shoulder, a magnetic pull urged her closer to him. Her weight shifted forward, narrowing the space between them. He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “It’s best if you forget you ever saw me.”

As if that would happen. There weren’t a whole lot of handsome mystery men who appeared on her doorstep. For the past month, she’d been a hermit who barely talked to anyone. “You won’t be easy to forget.”

“Nor will you.”

“For the record, I still think you need to go to the hospital.”

“Duly noted.”

From outside, she heard the grating of tires on gravel.

Jack had heard it, too. In a few strides, he was at the front window, peering around the edge of the curtain.

A 1957 vintage Ford Fairlane—two-toned in turquoise and cream—was headed down her driveway. She knew the car, and the driver was someone she trusted implicitly. His vehicle was followed by a black SUV with tinted windows. “Do you see the SUV? Are these the people who are after you?”

“Don’t know,” he said. “They’ve seen your car so you can’t pretend you’re not here. Go ahead and talk to them. Don’t tell them you’ve seen me.”

“Understood.” She gave him a nod. “You stay in the house. I’ll get rid of them.”

Smoothing her hair back into her ponytail, she went to the front door, aware that she might be coming face-to-face with the enforcers for a powerful crime family. Panic fluttered behind her eyelids, and she blinked it away. This wasn’t her first ride on the roller coaster. She’d gotten through war zones, faced terrorists and bloody death. A couple of thugs from Chicago shouldn’t be a problem.

From the porch, she watched as the Ford Fairlane parked near her back door. The black SUV pulled up to the rear bumper of her car before it stopped.

She waved to Bob Woodley—a tall, rangy, white-haired man who had been a longtime friend of her family. He was one of the few people she’d seen since moving back to the cabin. A retired English teacher, he had been a mentor to her when she was in her teens. “Hi, Mr. Woodley.”

He motioned her toward him. “Get over here, Caitlyn. Give an old man a proper hello.”

When she hugged him, he must have sensed her apprehension. He studied her expression. His bushy eyebrows pulled into a scowl. “Something wrong?”

“I’m fine.” She forced a smile. “What brings you here?”

“I was visiting Heather at the Circle L when these two gentlemen showed up. Since I’m a state congressman, I figured it was my duty to extend a helping hand to these strangers by showing them how to find your cabin.”

She looked past him toward the SUV. The two men walking toward her were a sinister contrast to Mr. Woodley’s open honesty. Both wore jeans and sports jackets that didn’t quite hide the bulge of shoulder holsters. Dark glasses shaded their eyes.

Woodley performed the introductions. “Caitlyn, I want you to meet Drew Kelso and Greg Reynolds.”

When she shook their hands, their flesh was cold—either from the air-conditioning in their car or because they were reptiles. “What can I do for you?”

Woodley said, “We understand that you had a visitor this morning.”

How did they know about Jack? Had her cabin been under surveillance? “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

“The dappled gray mare,” Woodley said. “You had Heather come over and pick it up.”

“Oh, the horse.” She rolled her eyes in an attempt to look like a ditzy blonde. She didn’t want these men to take her seriously, wanted them to dismiss her as harmless. “Silly me, I’d already forgotten about the horse.”

The one named Reynolds said, “It belongs to someone we know.”

“Your friend needs to be more careful,” she said. “The horse showed up on my property without a saddle or a bridle or anything.”

The friendly smiles she offered to the two thugs went unanswered. They meant business.

The taller, Drew, had sandy hair and heavy shoulders. His mouth barely moved when he spoke. “We’re looking for the guy who was riding that horse.”

“I didn’t see anybody.” She widened her eyes, even fluttered her lashes. “Like I said, no bridle or saddle.”

Drew said, “If you saw him, it’d be smart to tell us.”

His comment sounded a bit like a threat. “Who is this person? What’s his name?”

“Tony Perez.”

With complete honesty, she shook her head. “Never heard of him. But I’ll be on the lookout. Is there a number I should call if I see him?”

Drew handed her a business card that contained only his name and a cell phone number.

“I guess that wraps up our business.” Woodley checked his wristwatch. “I’d better shove off.”

She wanted to cling to him and plead for him to stay until these two men were gone. “Can’t you stay for coffee?”

“Sorry, kiddo. I’m running late for an appointment in Pinedale.” He strolled toward his vintage Ford Fairlane. “I hope you gents can find your missing friend.”

They gave him a nod and headed toward their SUV. Caitlyn breathed a little sigh of relief. They were leaving. The crisis was averted.

Before Woodley climbed behind the steering wheel, he said, “Don’t be a stranger, Caitlyn.”

He drove down her driveway and turned onto the road. The two men stood beside their SUV talking. With every fiber of her being, she wanted them gone. These were two scary guys. Why hadn’t Mr. Woodley been able to see it?

They came back toward her. Drew said, “We want to take a look around. To make sure he’s not hiding around here.”

“That’s not necessary.” She positioned herself between him and her front porch. “There’s nobody here but me.”

Drew glanced over his shoulder at the other man, Greg Reynolds. He was neat and crisp. His boots were polished. His charcoal sports jacket showed expensive tailoring, and his thick black hair glistened in the sunlight. She guessed that he was a man of expensive tastes, definitely the boss.

Greg gave a slight nod, and Drew walked toward her cabin. Short of tackling him, there was no way Caitlyn could stop him. Still, she had to try.

“Hey.” She grasped his arm. “I told you. There’s nobody here.”

Slowly, he turned toward her and removed his sunglasses. He didn’t need to speak; the curl of his upper lip and the flat, angry glare from his eyes told her that he wouldn’t hesitate to use violence. And he would most likely enjoy hurting her.

She stepped back. Silently, she prayed that Jack had hidden himself well or had managed to slip out the back door.

“This is for your own safety,” Drew said. “Tony Perez is dangerous.”

As she entered her cabin, her heart was pumping hard. She shoved her hands into her pockets so no one would notice the trembling.

Jack had cleaned up every trace of his presence. On the dining room table, there was only one plate and one bottled water. She watched as Drew went into the bathroom. Jack’s discarded clothing had been in there. Apparently, his shirt and undershirt were gone because Drew emerged without saying anything.

When Tony brushed past her, she caught a whiff of his expensive cologne. It smelled like newly minted hundred-dollar bills. He rested his hand on the door handle of the front closet and yanked it open. She noticed that her rifle was gone.

IN THE LOFT ABOVE the stalls in the horse barn, Jack lay on his belly and sighted down the barrel of Caitlyn’s rifle. This weapon lacked the sophistication of the sniper equipment he was accustomed to using. Her rifle scope was rudimentary and so poorly mounted that he had removed it. At this range, he trusted his marksmanship. His first shot would show him the correction for this particular weapon, after which he would be accurate.

His plan was simple. Take out the tall man with sandy hair; he was the most deadly. Then the boss.

Holding the rifle felt natural, and he easily comprehended the necessary strategy in an assault situation. These skills weren’t inborn. He couldn’t remember where he’d learned or who taught him. But he knew how to kill.

When Caitlyn and the men entered the house, Jack adjusted his position, trying to keep track of their movements through the windows. So far they hadn’t threatened Caitlyn, except for that moment when she touched the sandy-haired thug. The bastard looked like he wanted to kill her. If he’d hurt her, Jack would have squeezed the trigger. He’d gotten Caitlyn into this mess, but he wouldn’t let her be harmed.

The optimum scenario would be for them to make their search and then go. She wasn’t a part of this.

Not being able to see what was going on inside the house made him edgy. If they didn’t come outside soon, he needed to move in closer to protect her. He started a mental timer for five minutes.

In the corral below him, the two horses—one light and one dark—stood at the railing. Their ears pricked up. They nickered and shifted their hooves. Animals could sense when something was wrong. The horses knew.

He was nearing the end of his countdown when the small group emerged from the back door. Caitlyn looked angry. Earlier, she’d tried to act like a dumb blonde and had failed miserably. Her intelligence showed in every move she made and every word she spoke.

The two men walked ahead of her toward the barn. Jack got ready to shoot. His position gave him an advantage, but he needed to time his shot so there was no chance they could retaliate. He wished there was some way to signal Caitlyn to keep her distance from them.

They walked toward the corral. Coming closer, closer. They were less than fifty yards from his position. The tall man was in front. His hand slid inside his jacket, and he pulled his handgun.

Jack aimed for the center of his chest, the largest target. If he’d been using a more sophisticated weapon, he would have gone for a head shot.

He heard Caitlyn object. “What are you doing? Why do you have a gun?”

The other man assured her, “We have to be prepared. The person we’re looking for is extremely dangerous.”

Damn right. Jack knew he was capable of lethal action. A trained killer. Damn it, Caitlyn. Get out of the way. The slick-looking man with black hair, the boss, stayed close to her. Too close.

Jack adjusted his aim. He’d kill the boss first. As he stared, he realized that he knew this man. Gregorio Rojas. He was the younger son of a drug cartel family that supplied the entire Midwestern United States.

Hatred flared in Jack’s gut. His finger tensed on the trigger. Rojas was his sworn enemy. Take the shot. Rid the world of this bastard whose actions have been responsible for so much misery, so much death.

Rojas paused, took a cell phone from his pocket. After a brief conversation, he motioned to the other man. They headed back toward their vehicle.

Still, Jack didn’t relax his vigilance. Rojas was still within range.

His memory was returning. The blank spaces knitted together in a tapestry of violence. Take the shot.

Chapter Four

Jack knew he had killed before. As he stared down the barrel of Caitlyn’s rifle, his vision narrowed to his target. The center seam of Rojas’s tailored jacket. His hands were steady. He was focused. Cool and calm, as always.

He remembered another time, another place, another killing.

He was in the city, the seedy part of town. On the fourth floor of a dirty brick hotel that rented rooms by the hour, he set up his sniper’s nest and assembled his precision rifle with laser scope, silencer and tripod. With high-power, infrared binoculars, he observed the crappy apartment building directly across the street. Fourth floor, corner unit. Nobody home.

He checked into the hotel at sundown. Hours passed. Dusk turned to nightfall when lights flickered on throughout the city. Not that he had a glittering view.

When the lamp in the apartment across the street came on, he eased into position. Though he sat in the dark, the glow from a streetlight reflected dully on the barrel of his rifle and silencer.

He peered through his scope. Through the uncurtained window of the apartment across the street, a man with fiery red hair paced from room to room with his gun in his hand, looking for danger.

“I’m here,” Jack whispered. “Come to the window, you bastard.”

This man deserved to die.

But his target hadn’t been alone. A small woman with brassy blond hair and a child entered Jack’s field of vision. Two witnesses.

The killing had to wait.

From the loft in the barn, Jack watched as Rojas and his companion got into the SUV and drove away from Caitlyn’s cabin. She turned on her heel and rushed back into her house, moving fast, as though she had something burning on the stove.

When the black SUV was out of sight, he rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling in the barn that needed patching.

He knew who he was.

A stone-cold killer.

INSIDE HER CABIN, Caitlyn wasted no time. She dove into the swivel chair behind her small desk in the living room and fired up her laptop. It felt good to see the screen come to life. Back when she was a working journalist—especially in the field—her computer had been an ever-present tool, almost an extension of her arm.

Her hands poised over the keyboard. But I’m not a journalist anymore. Not right now. She had no assignment, no story to investigate, and she wasn’t entirely sure that she wanted to go back into the fray.

Her main reason for moving to this cabin had been to purposely distance herself from the 24-hour-a-day news cycle. During this time of self-imposed seclusion, she hoped to regroup and decide what to do with the rest of her life.

Her parents and nearly everyone else who cared about her had encouraged Caitlyn to seek out a safer occupation. Not that they wanted her to quit writing, but they hoped she would leave the war zones to others. As if she’d be satisfied reporting on garden parties? Writing poetry about sunshine and lollipops?

She wasn’t made that way. She thrived on action.

Jack’s arrival at her doorstep might be fate. She hadn’t gone looking for danger, but here it was. She had armed thugs searching her cabin. If Jack Dalton had a story to tell, she wouldn’t turn away.

She jumped on the internet and started a search on the name of Jack’s supposed “friend,” Mark Santoro. Expertly, she sorted through news stories, mostly from the Chicago Tribune, and put together the basic facts.