White Lies Read online

  “Okay,” he said, exhaling slowly. “So we go to this safe house. What kind of security and communications does it have?”

  “Bulletproof windows, reinforced steel doors. The cabin is isolated, built on a high meadow. There aren’t any roads going up there, so a four-wheel-drive vehicle will be made available to you. The cabin has its own generator, so there aren’t any public utility records. You’re connected to a satellite-dish antenna for communication and entertainment, with both computer and radio-sending capabilities.”

  Steve’s expression was remote as he concentrated, considering the angles. “Are there any active security systems, or just the passive precautions?”

  “Just the passive.”

  “Why not thermal or motion sensors?”

  “To begin with, this cabin is so safe it isn’t even on file. And there’s a lot of wildlife in the area, which would constantly trigger the alarms. We could set up a perimeter of thermal sensors and program the system to sound the alarm only at a large heat source, but a deer would still set it off.”

  “How inaccessible is this place?”

  “There’s just one track leading to it, and I’m being kind by calling it a track. It winds from the cabin across the meadow and down a mountain before it hits a dirt road, then it’s twenty more miles before the dirt road runs into a paved secondary road.”

  “Then a laser across the track would alert us to most visitors, while almost eliminating alarms triggered by wildlife, by covering only a thin strip of the track.”

  Frank grinned. “You know, don’t you, that a bunny is going to hop through that light beam and set off the alarm? All right, I’ll have a laser alarm system set up. Do you want an audible or visual alarm?”

  “Audible, but a quiet one. And I want a portable beeper to carry with me when we have to leave the house.”

  “For someone with amnesia, you sure remember a lot,” Frank murmured as he took a small pad from his inside coat pocket and began making notes.

  “I remember the names of the heads of state of just about every country in the world, too,” Steve replied. “I’ve had a lot of time to play mind games with myself, putting together pieces of the puzzle by cataloging the things I know. I lost everything personal, but I kept a lot of the things related to my job.”

  “Your job meant a lot to you. It does that, sometimes, takes over so much that the personal side of life kind of fades away.”

  “Has it done that for you?”

  “It did once, a long time ago. Not now.”

  “How did you get involved in this? You’re FBI, and this sure as hell isn’t a Bureau operation.”

  “You’re right about that. A lot of strings were pulled, but there are a few people with the power to manage it.”

  “Very few. So I’m CIA?”

  Frank smiled. “No,” he said calmly. “Not exactly.”

  “What the hell does that mean, ‘not exactly’? I’m either CIA or I’m not. There’s a shortage of alternatives.”

  “You’re affiliated. That’s all I can say, other than to assure you that you’re perfectly legal. When you recover your memory you’ll know why I can’t say more.”

  “All right.” Steve shrugged his acceptance. It didn’t really matter. Until he regained his memory, the knowledge wouldn’t do him any good.

  Frank indicated the bag he had brought in with him. “I brought street clothes for you to change into, but first let me get the surgeon in here to finish your exam. After that, I guess you’ll be released.”

  “I’ll need more clothes before we go to Colorado. By the way, where did I live?”

  “You have an apartment in Maryland. I’ve arranged for your clothes to be packed and carried to the plane, but they won’t fit until you’ve gained back the weight you’ve lost. You’ll need new clothes until then.”

  Steve grinned, feeling suddenly light-spirited. “Jay and I will both need new clothes. The snow in Colorado is probably ass-deep to a giraffe.”

  Frank threw back his head and laughed.

  JAY SAT ON the bed in the cramped apartment she’d been using for the past two months. Her heart was pounding and chills kept racing up and down her spine. The implications, and complications, of the situation terrified her.

  Now she knew what it was that had been bothering her off and on for two months; what she had never been able to put her finger on before. When she had been brought here and asked to identify the man in the bed, she hadn’t been able to positively say he was Steve Crossfield. Then Frank had said that the man had brown eyes, and she had based her identification on that, because Steve had had dark, velvety eyes, “Chrissy eyes.” Probably to a man, or on a vital statistics sheet, brown eyes were simply brown eyes. They didn’t allow for chocolate brown, hazel brown or fierce yellow-brown. But Frank had known that the man had brown eyes!

  She pressed her hands to her temples and closed her eyes. Frank must have known the color of his own agent’s eyes, and he had known that Steve’s eyes were brown, so it followed that Frank had also realized she couldn’t base her identification simply on eye color, yet he had led her to do exactly that. She realized now that he had gently maneuvered her into declaring the man to be Steve Crossfield. He must have known there was at least a fifty-percent chance that the man wasn’t Steve, so why had he done it?

  The only answer she could come up with, and the one that terrified her, was that Frank had known all along that the man was the American agent and not Steve. He had taken Steve’s identity and given it to the man, and given the tale substance by having Steve Crossfield’s ex-wife confirm the identity, then maneuvered her into a bedside vigil that would have convinced anyone.

  So Steve, the real Steve, was dead, and the agent had been given his identity for…protection?

  It all fit. The plastic surgery on his face to alter his appearance; the bandaged hands to prevent fingerprints being taken. Had they done surgery to alter his fingerprints, too? Horrible thought: had they also deliberately damaged his larynx to change his voice? No, surely not. She couldn’t believe that. All the doctors had fought so hard for his life, and Frank had been so anxious. No wonder. The man was probably Frank’s friend!

  But was the amnesia real? Or was the man faking it so he wouldn’t have to “remember” any of the details of their supposed life together? Amnesia would be a convenient excuse.

  She had to believe the amnesia was real, or she would go mad. She had to believe that “Steve” was as much in the dark as she was, maybe even more so. And Frank had been sincerely distressed when Major Lunning had told them about the amnesia.

  So that left her back at the beginning. If she told Frank she knew Steve wasn’t really Steve, the game would be up and they would have no more use for her. She was a screen, useful only to provide incontrovertible proof that the man who had survived the explosion was Steve Crossfield.

  So she had to go along with the deception and continue pretending he was Steve, because she loved him. She had fallen in love with him before she even knew what he looked like; she had loved his relentless will, his refusal to give in to pain, to stop fighting. She loved the uncomplaining way he went about recovery and rehabilitation. Except for occasional frustration at his lack of memory, he hadn’t let anything get him down. She had fallen in love with the man while he was stripped down to his basic character, without any of the camouflaging layers added by society.

  She couldn’t give him up now. Yet neither could she take him as hers; she was as caught in the web of circumstance as he was. He trusted her, but she was being forced to lie to him about something as basic as his identity. She knew the man, but she still knew nothing about his life. Dear God, what if he were married?

  No, he couldn’t be. Whatever game they were playing, they wouldn’t tell a woman that she was now a widow, then give her husband another identity. Jay simply couldn’t believe that of Frank. But there could still be a woman in Steve’s life, someone he cared for, someone who cared for him, even though the
y weren’t married. Was there such a woman waiting for him now, weeping because he’d been gone for so long, and she was terrified that he would never come back?

  Jay felt sick; her only choices were twin prongs of the devil’s pitchfork, and either would be pure torment. She could either tell him the truth and lose him, very possibly throwing him into danger, or she could lie to him and protect him. For the first time in her life she loved someone with the full force of her nature, with nothing held back, and her emotions propelled her toward the only choice she could make. Because she loved him, she could do nothing but protect him, no matter what the cost to herself.

  Finally she got up and threw her clothing haphazardly into suitcases, not caring about wrinkles. Two months ago she had stepped into a hall of mirrors, and she had no way of knowing if the reflections she saw were accurate or a carefully constructed illusion. She thought of her chic apartment in New York and how much she had worried about losing it when she’d lost her job, but she couldn’t think now why it had seemed so important to her. Her entire life had been thrown off kilter, and now it rotated on a different axis. Steve was the center of her life, not an apartment or a job, or the security she had fought so hard to win. After years of struggle she was throwing it all away just to be with him, and she had no regrets or moments of longing for that life. She loved him. Steve, yet not Steve. His name, but another man. Whoever he was, whatever he was, she loved him.

  She found a box and dumped into it the few personal articles such as books and pictures that she’d brought to Washington. It had taken her less than an hour to get ready to leave forever.

  As she went back and forth, loading things into the car, she looked around carefully, wondering if any of the people she could see supposedly going about their own business were in reality watching her. Maybe she was getting paranoid, but too much had happened for her to take anything for granted, even the appearance of normalcy. That very morning she had looked into fierce, golden eyes and realized that everything that had happened during the past two months had been a lie. The blinders of trust had been stripped from her eyes, making her wary.

  Suddenly she felt a driving need to be with him again; uncertainty made her desperate for him. He was no longer a patient in need of her care and attention, but a man who, in spite of his memory loss, would be more surefooted than she was in this world of shifting reality. The instincts and reactions she had wondered about were now explained, as was the scope of his knowledge of world politics. He had lost his identity, but his training had remained with him.

  He and Frank were lounging in the hospital room, patiently waiting for her. Jay barely managed a greeting for them; her eyes were on Steve. He had changed into khaki pants and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled back over his forearms. Even as lean as he was, he still gave the impression of power. His shoulders and chest strained at the cotton shirt. With the bandages gone from his eyes, he had shed the last semblance of being in need of care. He looked her over from head to foot and his eyes narrowed in a look of sexual intent as old as time. Jay felt it like a touch, stroking over her body, and she felt both warm and alarmed.

  He got to his feet with lazy grace and came to her side, sliding his arm around her waist in a possessive gesture. “That was fast. You must not have packed much.”

  “It wasn’t actually packing,” she explained ruefully. “It was more like wadding and stuffing.”

  “You didn’t have to be in such a hurry. I wasn’t going anywhere without you,” he drawled.

  “Both of you have to go shopping, anyway,” Frank added. “I didn’t think of it, but Steve pointed out that neither of you has clothes suited to a Colorado winter.”

  Jay looked at Frank, at his clear, calm eyes and friendly face. He’d been a rock for her to lean on these past two months, smoothing the way for her, doing what he could to make her comfortable, and all the time he’d been lying to her. Even knowing that, she simply couldn’t believe he’d done it for any reason other than to protect Steve, and because of that she forgave him completely. She was willing to do the same thing, so how could she hold it against him?

  “There’s no point in shopping here,” Steve said. “Or even in Denver. If we go to a city, we’ll have to get what some department-store buyer thinks is stylish for a winter vacation. We’ll stop at some small-town general store and buy what the locals buy, but not at the town closest to the cabin. Maybe one about a hundred miles from it.”

  Frank nodded at that impeccable logic, as well as the ring of command in Steve’s raspy voice. He was taking over the show, but then, they hadn’t expected anything else; amnesia didn’t change basic character traits, and Steve was an expert at logistics. He knew what to do and how to get it done.

  Jay didn’t exhibit any surprise at the precautions. Her deep blue eyes were calm. Having made her decision, she was ready for whatever happened. “Will we need any sort of weapon?” she asked. “After all, we’ll be pretty isolated.” She had the urbanite’s distaste for guns and violence, but the thought of living on a remote mountain put things in a different light. There were times when guns were practical.

  Steve looked down at her, and his arm tightened around her. He’d already discussed weapons with Frank. “A rifle wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

  “You’ll have to show me how to shoot. I’ve never handled a gun.”

  Frank checked the time. “I’ll make a call and we’ll get started. By the time we get to the airport, the plane will be ready.”

  “Which airport are we using?”

  “National. We’ll be flying in to Colorado Springs, then driving the rest of the way.” Satisfied with the way things had turned out, Frank went to make his call. Actually he had to make two calls: one to the airport to have the plane readied, and another to the Man to bring him up-to-date.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  AFTER A SERIES of small delays, it was midafternoon before the private jet actually took off from Washington National Airport, and the sun was already low in the pale winter sky. There was no way they could make it to the cabin that night, so Frank had already made arrangements for them to stay overnight in Colorado Springs. Jay sat by a window, her muscles tense as she looked down at the monochromatic scenery without really seeing it. She had the sensation of stepping out of one life and into another, with no bridge by which to return. She hadn’t even told her family where she was going; though they weren’t a close-knit group, they did usually know everyone’s location. She hadn’t seen any of them at Christmas because she had remained at the hospital with Steve, and now it was as if a tie had been severed.

  Steve sat beside her, his long legs stretched out as he lounged in the comfortable seat and pored over several current news magazines. He was totally absorbed, as if he’d been starved for the written word. Abruptly he snorted and tossed his magazine aside. “I’d forgotten how slanted news coverage can be,” he muttered, then gave a short laugh at his own phrasing. “Along with everything else.”

  His wry tone splintered her distracted mood and she chuckled. Smiling, he turned his head to watch her, rubbing his eyes to focus them. “Unless my vision settles down, I may need glasses to read.”

  “Are your eyes bothering you?” she asked, concerned. He’d worn sunglasses since leaving the hospital, but had taken them off when they had boarded the plane.

  “They’re tired, and the light is still too bright. It’s a little hard to focus on close objects, but the surgeon told me that might clear up in a few days.”

  “Might?”

  “There’s a fifty-percent chance I’ll need reading glasses.” He reached over and took her hand, rubbing his thumb over her palm. “Will you still love me if I have to wear glasses?”

  Her breath caught and she looked away. Silence thickened between them. Then he squeezed her hand and whispered roughly, “All right, I won’t push. Not right now. We’ll have time to get everything settled.”

  So he intended to push later, when they were alone in the cabin. She won
dered exactly what he wanted from her: an emotional commitment, or just the physical enjoyment of her body? After all, it had been at least two months since he’d had sex. Then she wondered who had been the last woman to lie in bed with him, and jealousy seared her, mingled with pain. Did that woman mean anything to him? Was she waiting for him, crying herself to sleep at night because he didn’t call?

  They spent the night at a motel in Colorado Springs. Jay was surprised to find there was only a light dusting of snow on the ground, instead of the several feet she had expected, but random flakes were swirling softly out of the black sky with the promise of more snow by morning. The cold pierced her coat, and she shivered as she turned the collar up around her ears. She would be glad to get something more suitable to wear.

  Steve was tired from his first day out of the hospital, and she was exhausted, too; it had been a hard day for both of them. She lay down across the bed in her room and dozed while Frank went to get hamburgers for dinner. They ate in Frank’s room, and she excused herself immediately afterward. All she wanted was to relax and gather her thoughts. To that end she took a long, hot shower, letting the water beat the tension out of her muscles, but it was still hard to think coherently. The risk she was taking frightened her, yet she knew she couldn’t go back. Couldn’t—and wouldn’t.

  She tied the belt of her robe securely and opened the bathroom door, then froze. Steve was stretched out on her bed, his arms behind his head as he stared at the television. The picture was on, but the sound was off. She looked at him, then at the door to her room, her brows puckered in confusion. “I thought I locked the door.”

  “You did. I picked the lock.”