One Forgotten Night Page 17

  “Philadelphia police,” he said in a low voice. “I need your help. Can you stop this plane from taking off?”

  The agent waved to the technician. “Wait a second, Carl.” Then he asked Mike, “What’s going on?”

  “I’ve got a delicate situation here, but I’m sure you’ve had plenty of experience with this kind of thing.” Mike had learned that appeals to people’s vanity rarely failed to enlist their cooperation.

  “There’s no danger, none at all to you or to your plane or passengers,” Mike hastened to assure the agent, noting that he had turned rather pale. “But there’s a passenger on that plane who can’t be allowed to leave. I want to get her off the plane without any fuss.”

  The agent asked for the passenger’s name and used his computer to verify that Nina had checked aboard. “She’s one of our first-class passengers, Officer,” he said, sounding shocked.

  “Yeah. Now I can’t just march onto the plane and get her, because she’s traveling with someone, and I don’t want to tip him off. So how do we get her off the plane?”

  The agent beckoned to one of the flight attendants who had been standing near the jetway staring curiously at Mike. “This is Janet, our first-class cabin attendant,” he said. “Janet, the police need our help.”

  Mike gave her his most winning smile. “Okay, Janet,” he told her, “here’s what I want you to do....”

  * * *

  Nina had thought about canceling her trip and letting Julien handle the auction on his own. She’d been brought home in a police cruiser Sunday night—after resisting all efforts to get her to the hospital. She’d had enough of hospitals lately, and she knew that she was all right. “I’m just shaken up a little,” she had insisted, and finally the paramedics had packed up their ambulance and driven off.

  She was shaken, literally: still shivering with reaction long after the crash. But her thoughts kept turning to what had happened right afterward, when Mike had appeared as if by magic outside her car and pulled her to safety. She’d been dazed, in shock, but his kiss had brought her to life.... Later, the memory of that searing kiss had made her burn—with rekindled desire, she couldn’t deny that. But also with indignation. What did Mike think he was up to, following her around as though she were a criminal? In his eyes, it seemed, she was.

  In the end, Nina’s anger at Mike and his dogged, suspicious pursuit had helped her get over the aftereffects of the accident. It had warmed her, driving out the chill of panic and shock. She stopped shaking and was even able to go through her desk and locate her auto insurance policy and a photocopy of the car’s registration. By the time she went to bed after a long, hot soak in the tub, she felt that she was almost back to normal. Or as normal as it gets for a psychic amnesiac, she thought.

  She’d woken the next morning with her mind made up about two things.

  First, she’d go through with the trip to Colombia—she didn’t want to let Armand down, and anyway there was nothing for her to do as far as the accident to her car was concerned: she’d already filled out the police report, and the insurance company would take care of everything else. Besides, she’d be back in a couple of days, and she desperately needed a change of scene.

  Second, she would call Mike Novalis. If nothing else, she owed him her thanks for saving her life last night. Maybe he’d turned up at the accident site for the worst possible reasons, but the fact remained that he’d gotten her out of her car when she was too dazed to do anything. If he hadn’t done so, she’d have been killed when the BMW blew up.

  But there was more to it than that. She remembered her earlier decision: to talk to Mike after she returned from Colombia. Now, thinking of the kiss and her reaction to it, she was more certain than ever that there was unfinished business between the two of them. And it wasn’t just the passionate kiss that had convinced her of that—it was the way he had held her, murmuring to her and touching her hair with his lips, as if nothing in the world mattered to him but her. So she’d make one more try to break through his suspicion and resistance. It would be worth the effort if only she could feel his arms around her like that again.

  She’d gone to the office, and after a briefing with Armand and a call to her insurance agent she had sat at her desk, staring at the telephone. She really should tell Mike that she was grateful for what he had done...and at the same time she could tell him that she wanted to talk to him. Why wait until she got back? She reached for the phone and dialed his home number, figuring that he was unlikely to be home in the middle of a Monday morning. This way she could say what she wanted to say without putting him on the spot; he’d have time to decide how he wanted to respond, and if he didn’t want to see her...well, he didn’t have to call back. It was his choice. Nina realized that her strategy wasn’t designed to make it easy for Mike alone. By talking to his machine instead of to him, she was also protecting herself from a direct rejection. Of course, the downside was that now she would have to wait to find out how he was going to respond.

  She left her message and hung up, and almost at once she began replaying what she had said. Had she stammered? Had she sounded whiny? Maybe she shouldn’t have left a message at all—

  Cut it out! she ordered herself. What’s done is done. There’s nothing so irrevocable as a message left on someone’s answering machine. You did what you wanted to do, didn’t you? You can live with it.

  Nina cleaned off her desk, took Debbie to an early lunch and then said goodbye to Armand. She walked briskly back to her apartment, picked up her suitcase and took a cab to the airport to meet Julien and Marta. The Duchesnes were horrified to hear about the accident; Marta threw her arms around Nina and cried, “Thank God you weren’t hurt!” and Julien promised her that Z and D would provide a rental until she could get around to replacing her car. Nina had been a little concerned about how she and Julien would get along; it was, after all, their first meeting since she broke the engagement. Her fears proved to have been groundless. He couldn’t have been friendlier or more sympathetic. And now here she sat, comfortably ensconced in first class, with Marta next to her and Julien across the aisle, waiting for the last few passengers to trickle aboard so that the plane could take off.

  A flight attendant appeared at Nina’s side. “Miss Dennison?”

  “Yes.” Nina looked up, curious.

  “Can I see your seat assignment card, please?”

  Nina fished the cardboard stub out of her purse and handed it to the woman, who examined it with a puzzled frown. “There’s nothing wrong with this ticket,” she said.

  “Is there a problem?” Julien asked, leaning across the aisle.

  “Just checking something, sir,” the attendant told him with a brisk professional smile. She turned back to Nina and spoke in the low, carefully modulated voice that people who work with the public use to deflect attention from potential scenes. “I don’t know how this happened, but we have a gentleman with the same seat assignment as yours,” she explained quickly. “His ticket doesn’t look quite right, but frankly, he’s causing a bit of a scene in the gate area. We’d put him in another seat, but as you can see, our flight is full today. This gentleman may be holding an illegal ticket, but before we can notify airport security, we need to check your seat card against his to show that yours was issued first and has the proper authorization codes.”

  Nina couldn’t follow the attendant’s bureaucratic explanation. All she knew was that the woman needed her cardboard stub. “Go ahead, take it,” she said.

  “Oh, no.” The attendant looked shocked. “You must never relinquish your seat card, not even to a flight attendant. Keep it with you at all times. If you’d just step out to the gate area, we’ll get this settled in a second and get you on your way.”

  “Okay.” Nina got to her feet.

  “This is ridiculous!” Julien exclaimed.

  “It’s just routine, sir,” the attendant said soothingly. “We’ll be under way in a moment. In the meantime, would you like another glass of champ
agne?”

  Nina shrugged apologetically at her traveling companions, and the attendant ushered her down the aisle and out of the plane. As she stepped out of the far end of the jetway, someone walked up and took her arm, and she jumped a little in alarm.

  “Mike!” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  * * *

  Mike wasn’t sure that he had pulled it off until he saw the flight attendant coming out of the jetway. With her was Nina, her long green raincoat swinging around her ankles. Mike gave a hasty glance down the jetway. No one was following the two women—yet.

  He took Nina’s arm, and when she stared at him in surprise all he said was, “I’ll explain later.” To Janet he said, “Good work. Thanks.”

  The ticket agent stepped forward anxiously as Mike began hustling Nina out of the gate area. “Is everything all right?” he asked over Nina’s increasingly loud protests.

  “Just fine.” Mike tugged a little harder at Nina. He gave the man a broad grin and said, raising his voice a bit. “I’ll get out of your way now. And remember, I’m counting on you to keep anyone from leaving that plane.”

  “How am I supposed to do that? Officer? Officer?”

  Mike ignored the agent’s worried questions and strong-armed Nina into the corridor.

  “What are you doing?“ she was sputtering indignantly.

  “We’ve got to get out of here” was all he said. “Hurry up.”

  Instead she dug in her heels. “But I’ll miss my plane—I’m going to Colombia.”

  He took her by the shoulders. “Oh, no, you’re not. You’re coming with me. Now get moving.”

  She glared at him. “I may have lost my memory, but I haven’t lost my mind,” she said. “I don’t know what this caveman act is all about, but believe me, we can talk when I get back—”

  “I’m not putting a move on you, for God’s sake,” he yelled. “I’m trying to save your life.” Dimly he was aware that passengers had stopped to stare at them.

  “But I don’t understand— I’ve got to explain to Julien—”

  “Julien’s the one who’s trying to kill you. Now run!” He took her by the wrist and pulled her after him. And she ran. She kept gasping out questions and protests, but she ran.

  He got her all the way to the front of the terminal, but she backed off when he tried to put her in his car.

  “Look, Mike,” she panted, “you’ve got to tell me what’s going on. I can’t just run off with you. Where are the other cops? What’s this about Julien? And let go of me, you’re going to break my arm.”

  “Just get in the car,” he said urgently. “I’ll explain after we get out of here.”

  “Explain now,” she challenged.

  “There’s no time.” He let go of her arm, and she rubbed her wrist but did not run away. “Do you trust me?” he asked her.

  She looked at him. “Yes.”

  “Then get in.” He climbed into the driver’s seat and an instant later he heard her door slam. He gunned the engine and roared out of there.

  Chapter 10

  “Buckle up,” Mike growled as he took a corner on two wheels at forty-five miles an hour, and Nina obeyed.

  “I’ve already been in one car crash this week,” she observed mildly. “Let’s not try for two.”

  He took his eyes off the road for a split second, just long enough to grin at her, and she felt as if her heart would burst. He looked wild, dangerous and exactly right.

  “Do you mind telling me where we’re going?”

  “We’re getting out of this airport—” Mike cursed under his breath as the driver of a white sedan, obviously confused by the maze of ramps and bridges leading out of the airport, abruptly changed lanes in front of him “—and then we’re gonna find a phone.”

  “To call help?” Nina prompted.

  “Not exactly.” Mike bypassed the highway turnoffs and instead took a sharp right under a bridge and over a railroad crossing, heading into South Philly’s maze of narrow streets. He kept one eye on the rearview mirror. So far there was no sign of pursuit, but he knew that the time he’d bought by yanking Nina from the flight had been only a matter of minutes. Once she failed to return to her seat, it wouldn’t take Julien Duchesne long to figure out that something was up. He’d undoubtedly come storming out of the plane, demanding an explanation. Mike had prepared the ticket agent and the flight attendant with a cover story, hoping to keep Duchesne from figuring out that he had engineered Nina’s disappearance. He was pretty sure he could count on Janet to stick with the story, but once Julien got arrogant and started to throw his weight around, the nervous ticket agent might very well crumple.

  Mike stole a quick glance at his wristwatch. Eight minutes had passed since Janet brought Nina off the plane. Duchesne would be raising hell soon—if he hadn’t started already. He checked the mirror again. Nothing.

  “What are you looking for? Do you think someone is following us?” Nina was twisting in her seat, craning to look out the back window.

  “Not yet. But maybe soon.”

  “Mike, please, tell me what’s going on.”

  He heard the fear in her voice and gave her a reassuring smile. “I meant what I said back there. I think your life’s in danger. I think if you’d gone to Colombia with your fiancé Duchesne you never would have come back.”

  “Julien’s not my fiancé,” she said absently, then asked, “Why would he try to kill me?”

  “He’s not? Since when?”

  “Since Saturday night. I broke it off.” She gasped, horrified. “That’s not what makes you think he’s trying to kill me, is it?”

  “I don’t know why he’s after you. I’m just glad you dumped the scum.” Quickly Mike detailed the case against Julien: the fact that he had seen Julien near Nina’s car, and Gina Donnelly’s hunch that Nina’s brakes and air bag had been tampered with. “And, yes, I was staking out your apartment,” he told her before she could ask how he’d happened to see Julien there. “I know you’re not going to like this, but I’ve been following you for a week. I—I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “My God, you’re serious,” Nina exclaimed. “Are the police going to arrest Julien?”

  Mike had been waiting for this. He hated to drop the bomb on Nina, but he wouldn’t allow himself to deceive her. “The police aren’t in on this, Nina. Just me.”

  She looked at him, puzzled, and he spelled it out. “Right now I’m not even officially on the police force. I was suspended this morning.”

  Her eyes widened. “Why?”

  “Because I threatened to pound the snot out of Julien Duchesne if anything happened to you. Oh, and I also manhandled a senior FBI agent.”

  “You did what?” Nina’s head was spinning. She’d been off-balance and out of breath ever since their mad dash through the airport. Now she wondered if she was hearing things.

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about what’s been going on, Nina,” he said. “I don’t know much of it myself.” Mike knew that if he told Nina about the FBI’s top-secret smuggling case he could kiss his future in law enforcement goodbye. As it was, he’d be bloody lucky not to wind up in jail for interfering with a federal investigation. It was a risk he was ready to take—he’d crossed the line when he asked Debbie for Nina’s flight number. So he proceeded to fill her in on the little he knew about the FBI investigation: that it involved international gem smuggling with suspected links to the Colombian cocaine cartels, that Z and D was one of the import firms under investigation, and that Julien Duchesne was working with the feds. “Duchesne’s protected,” Mike wound up bitterly. “He’s in so tight with the feds that they won’t listen to anything against him. And I’ve got to admit I don’t have any hard evidence.”

  Nina was still trying to adjust to the fact that the suave, polite man with whom she’d lunched and dined for the past week had tried to kill her. It wasn’t easy. Despite all the shocks she’d suffered since waking up with amnesia, she still expected the wo
rld to be a fairly logical, orderly place. But she believed Mike. More than that, she trusted him. If he said she was in danger, she had to take his word for it—and she had to let him help her.

  “Okay, so going to the police is out,” she said gamely. “What do we do?”

  “I’m afraid it’s even worse than that,” he told her grimly. “As of now, we’re fugitives.”

  “What?”

  “After I blew my top at the federal agent and was suspended, I was ordered to stay away from you. Duchesne’s going to get on the phone to his FBI buddy—in fact, he’s probably already done it—and they’re going to put out a ‘stop and detain’ order on me for messing up their investigation.” He cut her a sidelong glance. “I’m afraid I’ve dragged you into a mess.”

  “It sounds like you dragged me out of a worse one,” Nina said, and impulsively reached out and clasped his shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’m okay. I know you’ll figure something out.”

  “There’s another thing...ah, just what I’m looking for.” Mike pulled into a small, dingy shopping center: a convenience store, a dry cleaner, a copy shop and a singularly uninviting Chinese restaurant.

  “I hope we didn’t come here for dinner,” Nina murmured.

  Mike brought the car to a halt next to a phone booth. “Nope. I want you to make a call.”

  He told her about the message on her answering machine, bracing himself for a blast of outrage. But she said nothing about the fact that he’d tapped into her messages; she just looked thoughtful.

  “So you think this package I sent to my brother, whatever it is, is important?”

  Mike nodded. “Just a hunch. But I want you to call him and have him open it and tell you what’s in it. Don’t worry, I’ve got his number.”

  Nina went to the phone. Her brother answered on the third ring. “I can’t explain now, Charley,” she said hurriedly. “Just do me a favor. Open that package I sent you, right now. Tell me what’s in it.”