Mission: Memory Recall

Blowing out a breath, she grabbed her keys and headed out to her SUV. She wasn’t going to sleep tonight because she was too keyed up. She might as well go over the evidence obtained from the rooftop. Because if someone else was after Marcus, as she suspected, they would have a fight on their hands to keep him out of harm’s way.

* * *

When Bethany parked her SUV in the parking lot of the police station and got out, she was immediately approached by Marie and Milo.

“Why did you have Marcus arrested?” Marie demanded. “He wasn’t the one shooting. He was helping people get to safety.”

Bethany could see their deep concern for their employee. He’d obviously made an impression on them, but then, he was good at getting people to trust him then running out on them. She decided they needed to know who it was they were putting such faith in.

“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but he’s not the man you think he is.”

“He told us all about his past...or rather that he didn’t know his past.”

Bethany narrowed her eyes at them. “He told you he didn’t know who he was yet you hired him, anyway?”

Milo nodded. “He needed help. That was obvious. We met him when he first arrived in town. He attended a service at our church. He seemed lost and alone, but a decent fellow. At first we gave him small jobs around the diner but he kept going above and beyond what was asked of him. We soon realized he was a decent, hard worker, and wanted to know more about him, so we had him over to supper.” He took a breath. “That’s when he told us about the amnesia and how he was looking for answers about his life. We encouraged him to stay here in town and let us help him.”

“And you truly believe he can’t remember his past?”

“Sure. Why would he lie about something like that?”

“When you said you knew him, I was thrilled,” Marie stated. “I couldn’t wait to tell him. Now I’m regretting that a little bit. I had no idea you would arrest him.”

“You said yourself you had no idea who he was or what he’d done. You can’t be too shocked to discover he was on the run.”

“No, ma’am. No idea,” Milo reiterated. “That boy was trying to be found by someone. He contacted the news station in Dallas, hoping they could spread his story around but the producers wouldn’t help him. Apparently, it didn’t make good news. He also had the local PD fingerprint him and run his prints, but they came back without a match.”

Bethany wasn’t surprised about the fingerprints. Military files weren’t usually included in local print searches. Those were generally limited to the criminal databases. But she was shocked to hear Marcus had made attempts to try to be identified. What sort of game was he playing?

“So am I the first who’s come looking for him? Have there been other instances like the one today?”

“Not a one. As far as we know, he’d never been to Little Falls before. He just ended up here. We never expected this. Marcus arrived in town seven months ago and nothing like this has happened. Are you sure the person who was doing the shooting was after him?”

“Who else would he be after?”

“Well, you’re CIA, aren’t you? Don’t you people have enemies?”

Bethany wanted to quickly reassure Marie that this shooting had nothing to do with her, but she tamped down the thought before she voiced it and said instead, “We’re investigating all possibilities.” She hadn’t done field work except for her time spent tracking Marcus since the night of the ambush. She’d immediately requested and been granted a desk analysis job. It wasn’t unusual for agents to opt out of field work for a brief time, but her reprieve had turned into a permanent position a long time ago. No one except Dillon had brought up the idea of her going out into the field in over nine months’ time. And the chances that someone was targeting her on the exact day she’d located Marcus seemed much too impossible to be true. Marcus had to have been the target of that sniper’s bullet.

She turned her focus away from the incident and to the couple in front of her. They’d been around since this morning and it was now pushing 8:00 p.m. Had they been here all day waiting on news for someone they hardly knew? “What are you two still doing here?” she asked. “Visiting hours have been over for quite a while.”

“We brought something for Marcus, only that Patrolman Dwight won’t let us see him to give it to him.”

“Well, he’s not really allowed any outside belongings.”

“But surely his Bible isn’t included in that,” Marie proclaimed. She reached into her bag and pulled out a large, well-worn, leather Bible. “I know for a fact he reads from it every night without fail. Maybe you could get it to him?”

The pleading in the woman’s voice was something Bethany couldn’t ignore. “I suppose I can.”

“Thank you,” she said as she handed it over.

Bethany watched the couple load into a pickup, wave and then drive away. She stared at the Bible in her hands. Was this really Marcus’s Bible? When she’d known him, he hadn’t been religious.

She flipped through the pages and noticed writings and markings with notes in the margins. Whoever this belonged to had used it, studied it. She shook her head. Another thing about this entire situation that didn’t seem to make any sense. As she turned to go into the jail, a piece of paper slipped through the pages and landed on the ground. She knelt to pick it up. The paper, too, was well-worn, but it wasn’t a page from the Bible. It was a napkin with a drawing of a woman’s face...a woman with long hair and full lips, in head garb. She recognized it immediately.

The drawing was of her.

Anger burned through her. He claimed not to remember her and now she’d found something like this? But if his feelings for her hadn’t been real, then why the ploy to pretend he cared about her?

The events of the day had left her confused and frustrated. Nothing about all this made sense and she was beginning to wish she’d never discovered Marcus was still alive.

Bethany walked inside, past the on-duty officer—the skinny guy named Dwight who wouldn’t allow Marie inside with the Bible. He was the only one on duty and was engrossed in something on his computer.

“This place really shuts down at night, doesn’t it?” she asked him.

He nodded her way. “We don’t have much activity downtown at night. We usually only keep one or two officers in the precinct while the rest patrol.”

She thought about what Marie and Milo told her about Marcus’s attempts to discover his identity but hesitated asking Dwight about it. Finally she voiced the question. She did need to cover all her bases. “Officer Dwight, before I arrived in town today, did Marcus ask anyone around here to fingerprint him?”

“I heard he asked the sheriff about running his prints because he said he couldn’t remember his name, but I don’t think anything turned up.”

“Do you know if they ran his prints through the military system?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t on duty at the time.”

She thanked Dwight then walked down to the jail area and pressed the automated button that opened the door. Marcus was the only prisoner. The hall was dark but she spotted a small light in the back cell so she knew Marcus was still up. When she approached the cell, she was shocked to see him on his knees, by his cot, head bowed and praying.

The image caught her off guard and she suddenly felt like an intruder. Through the bars, she placed the Bible on the shelf then turned and left, leaving him alone in the private moment.

A feeling of unease coursed through her. She should have been resting easily having proved once and for all that Marcus Allen was alive and that all the suspicions she’d had were true. But her mind was working overtime, trying to process everything, but the events of today were like pieces of different jigsaw puzzles. Was it possible Marcus was telling her the truth? That he’d suffered amnesia and had no idea what had happened to him the night of the ambush?

Bethany closed her eyes and sighed wearily. She’d thought when she’d found him, everything would finally make sense.

Now, nothing did.

She walked back into the bull pen and approached Dwight. “I’d like to go through the evidence gathered today on the rooftop.” She’d watched Dwight bag and tag each item earlier and place it inside the locked evidence cabinet for safe keeping.

“It’s kind of late, isn’t it?”

“Not for me.”

He shrugged, pushed to his feet and headed for the evidence locker, keys in hand.

Bethany followed behind him and watched as he pressed the key into the lock. It gave without turning and she immediately saw him tense.

“The lock is busted.” He pulled open the cabinet door.

The shelves were empty.

The sniper’s rifle and all the evidence of the rooftop shoot-out were gone.

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