Heart Of A Hunter

Amnesia. Brain damage. He did not want to go there. She’d be okay. She had to.

His beeper vibrated against his hip. He didn’t bother glancing at it. Sutton was probably three shades of purple by now. But he’d have to wait. Kershaw was after Olivia. He had to make sure Olivia was safe before he focused on Kershaw.

What if he isn’t after Olivia? What if you read him wrong because of your fear for her? Then Kershaw’s timeline was getting bigger by the minute. Sebastian dragged a hand over his face. Don’t go there. Olivia’s accident on the heels of Kershaw’s escape was too much of a coincidence.

The beeper’s renewed massage centered him. What do you know? You know Kershaw wants to hurt you through Olivia. You know he means to keep his promise. You know he’s on his way.

Don’t you?

He took his handheld computer from his pocket and punched in numbers. He was letting his fear for Olivia screw up basics. First things first. Check to see if the fugitives were back into custody.

Not as of five minutes ago. That would be too easy.

Kershaw’s transfer was to the new federal prison in Berlin, and he had a mother who lived in Nashua. She’d been vocal in her demands for a closer incarceration so she could visit. Cruel and unusual punishment having her boy so far away, she’d claimed. As if sonny’s kidnappings, rapes, armed robberies, felony assaults and murders were nothing more than school-yard scuffles. She’d abet her worthless spawn in a second and lie through her false teeth about it. He made a note to put a check on her telephone records and tack on some surveillance.

The safest thing for Kershaw to do was to hunker down. Hunkering down meant getting outside help. But Kershaw also had an agenda. He’d keep moving. Moving, he made a target. All Sebastian had to do was connect the dots.

And protect Olivia.

He swore. One was never supposed to touch the other. That was the agreement. That was the plan. How could he be two places at once? How could he stay by Olivia’s side and stalk Kershaw?

He had to find a way or else all he’d built over the last twenty years was worth nothing.

“BING!” UP POPPED the instant-message window asking if he wanted to accept a message. He clicked yes when he saw Okie’s name highlighted on his buddy list.

Okie: Hey, I think something’s gone wrong.

Sk8Thor: No slip, sliding?

Okie: Slip, slide all right. Slip slide right into a coma.

Sk8Thor: Him?

Okie: Her. U said it’d B ok.

Sk8Thor: He’s hurting, isn’t he?

Okie: Yes.

Sk8Thor: That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?

Okie: Yes.

Sk8Thor: Then what’s wrong?

He could feel the hesitation and cursed it. That’s what came of counting on someone else. But this required finesse, and one trick he’d learned long ago was how to make the best of any hand he was dealt. This one was too sweet to pass up.

Sk8Thor: He wouldn’t help u when u needed it. He had to pay, didn’t he?

Okie: Yes, but, she’s nice, u know. I didn’t want 2 c her hurt so bad.

Sk8Thor: This way he’s hurting more. You’re not gonna quit on me, are u?

Okie: 2 late now.

That’s right. Too late now. You’re my hands and eyes, and you’re my fall guy. One by one he was going to breach each of Falconer’s defenses. Then he’d pull the last pin and watch while all Falconer stood for caved in around him. How far did you have to push a man to betray his ideals? Not as far as most people thought. Affluence made people cream cheese soft. Falconer thought he knew it all, thought he could shed one skin and slip into another without the fat at the seams showing. But Sk8Thor saw through the stitches. A man’s heart never changed. And Falconer’s heart was as black as his. Sk8Thor was lean and mean and hungry. And Falconer, even wearing his hunter skin, couldn’t compete with a lifetime of surviving in the sewers.

Falconer didn’t stand a chance.

“Time to set up for show-and-tell.” He typed one last note to Okie and pressed the send button. Laughing, he asked the screen, “Who do you trust, Falconer? Who do you trust?”

Chapter Three

When Sebastian could no longer put off Sutton, he stepped out of Olivia’s room and got out his phone. Leaning against the hallway wall, he tried to blink away the image of Olivia’s too-still body, but it was etched into his brain. Every detail of angry bruises on chalky skin became a horrid scene filled with accusations. As he punched in Sutton’s number, he started to stride. The only way to stay ahead of the nightmare was to move.

“Where the hell are you?” Sutton barked.

“Hospital.” Sebastian paced the outside of Olivia’s room as if it were a cage.

Sutton swore more colorfully than a seasoned sailor. “What happened?”

“Kershaw got to Olivia.”

Sebastian wished for static over the clean phone line. Anything to break the density of Sutton’s silence.

“Are you sure?” Sutton asked.

Sutton liked black and white, but Sutton hadn’t worked the field in a long time. And the field was nothing but shades of gray.

At Sebastian’s silence, Sutton cursed again. “Not the gut thing.”

Never mind that gut was often the thing that broke a case wide open. “Kershaw swore he’d get back at me through Olivia. The fact Olivia was hurt the same day as Kershaw’s escape can’t be coincidence.”

“Got anything to back you up?”

“Soon,” Sebastian said, thinking of Olivia’s car. Cyril Granger should be done with the automotive autopsy by the end of the day.

“How soon? I need results.”

No doubt because the prison riot, the murder of his men and the escape of three dangerous felons had become a media circus. Wiser to say nothing.

“I’m sending in a team,” Sutton said, his words tight and sharp.

“No.”

A fist banged on wood. “Listen, Falconer, that lone-eagle crap isn’t going to fly this time.”

“You’re glad enough for it when you need clean-up.”

“This situation is raking in too much media. It needs containment now.”

Sebastian stilled. “Kershaw’s here. He’s after Olivia. I’ll get him.”

“I’m pulling you off duty. Take some personal time.”

“Kershaw’s mine.”

“You’re too emotionally involved.”

What no one realized was that he always got emotionally involved. All he had to do was think of the victim and he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t walk away from Kershaw. Not when he was after Olivia. “I can—”

“Bull! If it comes to choosing between Kershaw and your wife, you’ll pick your wife. Why do you think I don’t have any ties?”

It wasn’t a question, but a simple statement of fact. For Sutton, the Service and life were one and the same.

“I know Kershaw.” Sebastian bit his words to contain the temper swirling like a hurricane about to beach. “I know how his mind works—”

“How are you going to handle this?”

“Solo.”

Sutton swore again.

“I want carte blanche,” Sebastian pushed on as a plan formed in his mind. “I want a clear path in the field. I don’t want roadblocks from the locals. But if I need something, I don’t want to have to ask twice.”

“That’s not how we operate.”

“I’ve never let you down.”

“This isn’t the time to go for glory.”

Sebastian sneered. This was a bust that would garner attention, and Sutton wanted it—preferably before the Feebs beat him to it. “If it was glory I wanted, I could’ve had it years ago. I’ve let you take the credit for every one of my collars. I made my bones a long time ago. I don’t have anything to prove.”

“What about Olivia?”

The mention of Olivia brought back the image of her bruised face in 3-D color. He resumed his pacing. “What about her?”

“Who’s going to watch over her while you’re out enforcing the law?”

No, not the law. Justice.

And there was the pinch.

Hunter and husband. Duty and love. And in the middle, justice and obligation. He owed both to Olivia.

The lone eagle. The clean-up guy. The guy who got the job done. People thought he worked alone because he didn’t trust anyone. That wasn’t the reason. He worked alone because he didn’t want the responsibility of someone else’s life on his shoulders. If he got himself killed, then it was his tough luck. He already had three souls on his conscience; he didn’t want any more.

But he had a shoulderful of responsibility now. Olivia was here, in this hospital bed, in a coma, because of him, because of what he did, because of his need to rid the world of scum. Marrying her ten years ago was an act of selfishness. He knew it then; he knew it now. He’d tried to protect her.

And failed.

She was his strength. She was the one weakness he wasn’t able to resist. And she was paying for his flaw. He’d gambled with her safety—and lost.

He closed his eyes and up popped the image of that purple-black bruise marring the left side of her too-white face. For once, he had to make her his priority. He had to stay by her side until she was well. And when she was, they would have to redraw the boundaries of their relationship.

How could he live without hunting? It was in his blood. Yet how could he live without Olivia? She was his soul.

When in doubt, act. If he couldn’t physically leave, then he’d have to figure out a different way to track.

“Give me a team,” Sebastian said. Teamwork wasn’t his strength, but for now he was grounded. Someone else would have to do the flying. If he couldn’t do the hunting, then he wanted to head the team that would. “I’ll find him.”

“A team?”

“Four men.” With four men, he could cover his target. If he had to operate with a team, he wanted men he could trust. “Grayson Reed. Noah Kingsley. Dominic Skyralov. Sabriel Mercer.”

Sutton whistled. “The best of the best.”

“Do you want this circus over or not?”

A heartbeat. Two. “I’ll set it up.”

Sebastian punched out. The win should have felt good. It didn’t.

Kershaw was on the loose. Olivia was his target. And he’d have to depend on others to catch his prey.

SHE AWOKE THIS TIME to a view of night through a window. Clouds raced across the moon, leaving a moving trail of patchy light on the gray linoleum floor. The metallic click of an artificial pulse kept her own company. The strong smell of sickness and floor wax twitched her nose. The blanket covering her right arm was strangely heavy.

When she moved her head to look at the warm weight, pain shrieked like a banshee and zigzagged through her brain with a lightning burn. The room spun around her. Her vision dimmed. Nausea rose and fell with roller coaster sharpness.

What’s happening? Where am I?

Suddenly a hard and warm wall caught her. She fought against the strangling hold until a calming murmur penetrated through the roar in her mind. “Olivia, shh, it’s okay. I’m here.”

Olivia? Who was Olivia? Limbs shaking, she clung to the solidness of the man holding her to steady herself. Who was he? Why was he here? Did she know him?

“Do you want me to call a nurse?”

Nurse? “No,” she croaked.

“Are you dizzy? The doctor said that was normal.”

Doctor. A vague image like a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle reassembled itself in the black of her mind. Real? It seemed so opaque—as if the glue holding the pieces together wasn’t quite dry. Yesterday? Today? Brown hair streaked with white. Droopy face. Hospital. Someone—the man holding her?—answering a myriad of questions whose answers didn’t mean a thing to her. Was she making up the impatience that throbbed from him like the boom of a drum? Accident. She was in an accident. At least that’s what the man said. Car, he’d said. And the scarecrow woman, too. Her voice, thin and sharp like her body, had mixed words into a whirl until none made sense.

Then the doctor had poked and prodded, asking her to do all sorts of things—smile, chew, swallow, follow his fingertips, walk, stand on one foot—until all she could feel was layer upon layer of pain.

Just when she thought she could return to the security of her bed, someone had rolled in a wheelchair. Then they’d dragged her from machine to machine until fatigue took over. Finally, they’d left her alone, and she’d slipped into the welcoming blankness of sleep.

She saw all this in her mind as if it were happening to someone else, making her feel as if she had no more substance than a ghost.

“I should call a nurse,” the man said. His worry was crushing, and all she wanted was distance.

“No.” She didn’t want any more poking and prodding. She wanted to be alone. Struggling out of his hold, she slipped to the other side of the bed and hung on to the side of the mattress with fists curled around the stiff sheet. A wave of nausea surged, then ebbed. The throb in her head steadied. The room stabilized.

“Olivia?”

“I have to…” The words were in her head. She could feel them there, pinging like flies against a lightbulb in the dark. They stumbled across her tongue like stinging bees and spit out already half spent. “…go bathroom.” She slid one foot to the coldness of the linoleum floor and held her breath while the room wavered around her.

“Let me help you.”

“No.” Don’t touch me. But she got tangled in the wires connecting her to machines.

He came around the bed, unhooked the clothespin-like device biting her finger and untangled the white cord that had wrapped itself around her forearm. Dark eyes stared down at her, their intensity unnerving. Who was he? Why was he here? Her skin crawled with an electric buzz when he wrapped an arm around her waist and helped her up.

“I fine.” She shrank away from the too close contact of his body against hers.

His hand reached for her chin and gently forced her to look into his eyes. “Olivia…”

She saw pain flash bright in the near blackness of his eyes, felt an unasked question float between them, sensed a fear that echoed along her nerves, sending them jangling like alarms. “I have…to go.”

“Okay.” He looked away. She swallowed hard. A hollow keening rang inside her. The sense of loss was so deep she nearly buckled beneath it.

“I’ve got you.” He tightened his hold on her.

“No. I’m. Fine.”

“Let me…”

Pain again. In his voice. In the pinching of his forehead. In the downward arch of his eyes. She tried to relax in his grip, but tasted tears with each step.

She walked stiffly, grateful when they arrived at the bathroom. He turned on the light. “Do you…?” He shifted his weight and glanced at the toilet against the beige tile wall. “Do you…um…need—”

“No.” She pushed away his supporting hand. The thought of him watching her while she emptied her bladder was too embarrassing. “I’m fine.”

“I’m right outside if you need help.”

She nodded, then regretted the move when it set the room in motion once more. Holding on to the sink with one hand and the wall with the other, she held her breath until the man was no longer blurry.

Forehead rucked like a V of geese, he nodded and closed the door.

Once alone, she let her breath out in one long swoop. Turning, she braced both hands against the sink and caught a reflection in the mirror. Long strands of dark hair hung limply around a pale face streaked with blotches of purpling black on the left. A row of stitches crimped the hair-line from temple to ear. The eyes, with their eerie ring of blue around too-wide pupils, lent the image an air of panic—as if the woman in the mirror would take off at any second. Was that what the man had seen? This panic? Was that what scared him?

Me? she wondered, searching every corner of the face. No, how could it be? She would know herself, wouldn’t she? Nothing looked familiar.

“Olivia.” She tasted the name and swallowed it all wrong. It didn’t fit.

“Olivia.” She tried again, straining for a scrap of recognition. She bit her lower lip with her upper teeth and watched helplessly as the image before her started to shake and tears to race a shiny run over the pale cheeks.

“Mrs. Falconer,” she sobbed. The echo of the name they’d called her as they’d probed and poked grated like a door needing oil. “Olivia Falconer.”

They’d called the man with the intense eyes and the serious face her husband. Safe, they’d told her. He’ll keep you safe. A quiver of cold prickled down her spine, raising goose bumps along her arms. Married. She was married. To him. Then why did he feel like a stranger? As if she’d never seen him before? Shouldn’t she feel something more than panic when he held her, when he looked at her?

She peered deep into the eerie blue eyes, tried to climb into the dark pupils to find the answers hidden beneath the shell of skull. And saw nothing. Her breath came in short bursts. Sweat, cold and clammy, slipped her hands along the edge of the white sink. And all she could hear was the thud of her heart.

She reached a hand to the image of the woman she did not recognize in the mirror. “Who are you?”

The knock on the door made her gasp. “Olivia? Are you all right? Should I get the nurse?”

“No. I’m…fine.” Closing her eyes against the reflection taunting her, she backed to the toilet and took care of nature’s call. Then she sat elbows on knees, head in hands, eyes closed, trying to glimpse into the deep velvet blackness of her mind. When he called to her again, she reluctantly stood and opened the door.

He helped her back into bed. She slid as far away from him as she could. He took the open mattress space as an invitation and climbed in beside her. The solidness of his body against her side, the furnace of heat he generated, stiffened her.

Go away. Leave me alone, she wanted to say, but the words stuck in her dry throat. An ill feeling crawled across her skin like a long-legged spider. She did not want to anger this man. Was he dangerous? Did a part of her know that? She rolled onto her side and stared at the restless chase of clouds over the moon. What was happening to her? Why was there nothing in her mind? What would become of her?

“The doctor said you could come home today,” the man said, startling her with his ability to read her mind.

Home? Her heart thudded hard in her chest. Where was home? Why could she draw no pictures of the place where she’d lived with this man? For how long? The ache in her head started to burn again. Her throat tightened. She couldn’t go to a strange place with a strange man. But if not with him, then where?

She drew the blanket tight under her chin. “Am I losing my mind?”

“NO, SWEETHEART. You’re not going crazy.” Sebastian leaned in closer, wanting so badly to hold her. She bit her lower lip and curled her legs up to her chest, rounding her shoulders away from him like a baby in the security of a womb. Even though the doctor had warned him that the amnesia would cause anxiety, he hadn’t expected this rejection. Needing some sort of connection, he touched her shoulder. She rounded away from his touch and nestled her head deeper into the pillow, closing him out.

Swallowing hard against her withdrawal, he rolled onto his back. She doesn’t know me. Hands behind his head, he stared at the ceiling. Where do we go from here?

How could this person who wore Olivia’s skin, spoke with Olivia’s voice, moved with Olivia’s grace, not be Olivia? Medical explanation aside, reality was hard to take. How could one moment erase ten years, a lifetime? Don’t dwell on it. She’ll be back. This is just temporary.

“You were in a car accident.” He tried to reach her on the level of facts, if not on the physical one that grounded him. “And your brain was a little shaken up. The doctor said it might take a while for you to get your memory back. Headaches, anxiety, dizziness. They’re all normal. They should all go away. And we’re going to do everything we can to help you.”

The information Aurora had faxed him earlier in the day wasn’t reassuring. Given the location of the damage to Olivia’s brain, permanent memory impairment was a possibility. What if Olivia never remembered the life they’d shared? What if she never loved him again? What if this Olivia left him for good?

He gave a sharp shake of the head. No, he couldn’t accept that. “Dr. Iverson recommended a rehabilitation therapist who specializes in traumatic brain injuries. She’ll help you improve your motor skills and give you techniques to improve your concentration and manage the pain.” And if he was lucky, she’d perform a miracle and give him his Olivia back—the way she was before. “I’ve arranged for her to meet us at the house.”

He turned his head toward Olivia. She wasn’t asleep. Her muscles were wound too tight; her breath came too fast and shallow to be restful. “Olivia?”

She didn’t answer. The force of her fear stole his breath. And all he was doing was adding to it. His touch had once calmed her, aroused her, made her melt. Now, it sharpened her fear.

As she’d slept earlier, he’d tried to get into her head. What would it be like to remember nothing? The depth of the dark emptiness had almost swallowed him whole. No shared past. No trust. No love. Only fear. Getting into the most evil of criminal minds couldn’t compare to the terror of having a lifetime erased.

If he believed in prayer, he would pray now. But he didn’t. Hadn’t in a long time. The future—their future—had always seemed so bright. But now, caught between an Olivia who wasn’t Olivia and Kershaw’s need for vengeance, he couldn’t conjure up any of the dreams that usually saw him through his trips through the sewers of society for the scum that thrived there.

Catch the scum. Get back to Olivia. That was the plan. Always.

But the rules had changed and this was a whole new game.

Sebastian ran a hand over his face. He was stuck here, waiting, just waiting like a paralyzed slug. The trail was getting cold. He couldn’t look for Kershaw. He couldn’t find the information he needed. He couldn’t seek the triggers to bring the whole damn thing to an end.

And in the panic-stricken eyes of the woman who looked like Olivia, he could not find the wife who’d been his haven.

Kershaw was God-knows-where. The team he’d requested was on its way, giving Kershaw time to do whatever evil his rotten mind plotted. Olivia wasn’t safe here—not even with him watching over her, not even with the guard outside the door. Every doctor, every nurse, every aide who walked through that door was a possible threat. He needed to get Olivia to the safety of the Aerie. And for that, he needed to earn a slice of her trust.

He slid out of her bed and into the hard chair beside it. She would come back to him. She had to. In the meantime, she needed him even if she didn’t know him. He leaned forward, dangling his hands between his knees. Closing his eyes, he touched her the only way he could—with his voice. “Let me tell you about home…”

THE NURSE HAD SHOOED Sebastian out of Olivia’s room while they got Olivia ready to go home. Leaving the stiff stranger in the bed was a relief, and he hated that it was. She was his wife; she deserved his understanding. How was he going to get through the weeks, maybe months, before she was well again without going crazy?

Paula had dropped off a bag of clothes the night before and threatened to return early enough to spirit Olivia to Nashua rather than let her return to the Aerie. Sebastian hadn’t told Paula about Kershaw yet, but he would have to, and he dreaded the blowback that would create.