His to Take

  all around and finally picked up a woman’s purse near the table where the gifts had rested.

  He glanced up as they entered. “Good luck, you two. Kata really does miss you, man.”

  Beside her, Joaquin tensed. “Thanks. That purse a new look for you?”

  Bailey blinked. He’d resorted to guy humor, rather than acknowledging the truth Logan had given him. His father’s death must have been incredibly traumatic. Why hadn’t he healed? Why couldn’t he seem to engage with his own family?

  God, her life was full of so many secrets, wrapped inside mysteries, all shoved into conundrums right now. Between that and lack of sleep, exhaustion weighed on her. The soreness between her legs was a potent reminder of the man beside her, too. Still, all she wanted to do was touch Joaquin again.

  “Ha!” Logan shot back sourly. “Tara and I got a little carried away last night. She left her purse here and texted me to find it. But personally, I think gray and black are my colors.” He held up the bag with a cheesy smile. “It’s even got these nifty pockets so I can insert whatever weapons . . .” He tilted the purse sideways. Out spilled a small collection of baby toys, all tumbling to the ground in a clatter. A pair of pacifiers, a multicolored rattle, some cloth books with Velcro characters stuck on haphazardly, and a little ball that played music.

  Bailey froze when she heard it. Her blood ran cold.

  “What is that?” she asked, pointing.

  Logan held up the toy, just now finishing its little ditty. “A ball.”

  “No, that song.”

  “‘Hickory Dickory Dock.’” He reared back. “You’ve never heard it?”

  “Her parents were Russian,” Joaquin tossed back in a voice that warned Logan to back off.

  “No, I’ve heard it. How does it go? Can you sing it?”

  “Tell me what you’re thinking.” Joaquin set the backpack down and wrapped an arm around her in a silent show of support.

  “It’s something . . . A memory. I can’t put my finger on it.” She grappled for the memory and came up empty. She sighed in frustration. “I don’t know. Please sing it.”

  Logan nodded. “Hickory Dickory Dock. The mouse ran up the clock. The clock struck one. The mouse ran down. Hickory Dickory Dock.” He rubbed the back of his neck with a grimace. “It sounds less stupid when I’m singing it to infants.”

  Bailey shook her head. “Those aren’t the words I learned.”

  “Maybe your parents sang it in Russian?” Joaquin suggested.

  “No. It was . . . something about a fence, a big tree, a barn, and turning three times.” Bits of the memory rolled through her mind.

  Confusion crossed Logan’s face. “I’ve never heard that version.”

  “Viktor Aslanov taught it to me.”

  “Who knows?” Joaquin hefted the backpack over his shoulder and guided her toward the door. “It’s probably nothing. We’ll be going now. Bye.”

  She stared at him. Why had he been so abrupt?

  “Can I take that?” she asked Logan before Joaquin could pull her away. “I’ll send it back as soon as I can.”

  “Sure.” Logan handed her the little ball.

  Bailey took the toy in hand. It felt spongy and soft, and she could see why babies would gravitate toward it. She shook it, but it remained silent.

  “Bounce it.” He tipped his chin in the direction of the table that had held the gifts last night.

  She did, and it immediately played the tune again. The words Viktor had taught her jumbled in her head once more. But really, did some little kids’ song her biological father had taught her years ago matter? Everything inside her wanted to say yes, but it sounded mental.

  “I don’t need this after all.” Bailey extended the ball back to Logan. “I’m not going to take your daughters’ toys.”

  “If it’s jogging your memory, maybe you need this. Believe me, I’ve heard that sucker so much over the last few months, if it’s gone for a long while, that won’t be a loss.”

  She hesitated. “Your babies won’t miss it?”

  “Probably, but Tara and I also won’t miss them each crying when the other has it. Really.” Logan pushed the ball back in her direction. “Take it. If it will help at all, it’s really a small sacrifice.”

  Every one of these people had been nothing but kind, protective, welcoming . . . Bailey wondered if she’d ever see them again. Damn it, she was going to cry.

  Joaquin hustled her out the door and to a gray SUV before she did. The sun showed hints of cresting over the horizon soon, but everything around her felt still. She couldn’t help but wonder if McKeevy was somewhere lurking in the dark, just waiting for his chance at her. Dominion had felt safe, as had its people. Now they were gone.

  Inside the vehicle smelled of leather and Joaquin. He threw the backpack in the backseat, then climbed beside her and eased out of the lot, sans headlights. At this time of morning, almost no cars congested the streets. He waited until he’d cruised a few lonely blocks before flipping on the lights, punching the gas, and heading away from the club.

  “Where are we going?” she asked quietly.

  “I don’t know.” He looked tense, worried. “I have to think of some place safe, but with McKeevy and LOSS onto you, I think we have to start playing offense and try to access anything you can remember about the day your family died. Maybe that will help us. If he kept a copy of that research—”

  “I don’t know. If he did, I don’t remember. I was barely five.”

  “But your memories are coming back. There’s a chance we can extract more from your dreams. Anything you can remember might save you. Talk to me about that ball.”

  “The music is sparking something. I don’t know what exactly. It’s . . . fuzzy. Why didn’t you want to tell Logan?”

  “It’s better for him if he doesn’t know anything LOSS might want.”

  Bailey supposed that was true. She didn’t want the people who had tried to help her at any additional risk. In fact, she prayed that, with her gone, Callie would have a perfect wedding.

  With a sigh, Bailey squeezed the ball Logan had given her. She was almost loath to hear the song again, like it might open a Pandora’s box of crap she didn’t want to deal with. But the chime played in her head, taunting and compelling her. Besides, if information was power, she couldn’t procrastinate in learning.

  She tossed the ball against the dashboard, catching it as the rubbery orb bounced right back. It sang to her as she took it in her palm.

  Hickory near the . . . something. The can’t-remember hides on the something-or-other? The rest of the song just faded from her consciousness as she tried to recover the first two lines. Maybe if she could sing that much, the other lines would follow?

  “Anything?”

  “Not enough. It starts with hickory, just like in Logan’s version. Then it veers off. Let me try again.”

  She bounced the ball against the dash one more time and let the melody play. “Hickory near the dock. The mouse hides on the . . . something. From the painted fence, jump three times.”

  “Then what?”

  “That’s all I remember.”

  Her inability to recall the song frustrated her. Not that she’d expected to bounce the ball a couple of times and the song would magically fill her brainpan. But the black spots in her dream, the fate of her family, really upset her—being unable to remember upset her. Why couldn’t she just close her eyes and get it?

  “Take a deep breath and relax.”

  Bailey did as Joaquin asked, but the more than vague edge of annoyance prevented her from actually unwinding. “Nothing.”

  “Hang on,” he insisted. “Hand me the ball.”

  Sending him a sideways glance, she plopped the little sphere in his palm. He stopped at a light, then bounced the toy on the console between them. She shut her eyes again.

  “Hickory near the dock. The mouse hides on the farm. From the painted fence, ju
mp three steps left. Walk a straight line to the . . . something. Hickory near the dock.” She sighed, her vexation climbing. “Is this even important?”

  “Viktor Aslanov rewrote this rhyme for some reason.”

  “He was Russian. Maybe he didn’t know the words.”

  “It’s possible. But we’ve got nothing else. This sounds a little like he gave you directions to something.”

  “Or that’s wishful thinking on your part. It’s just . . . part of it doesn’t want to come out of my memory bank.”

  “You haven’t thought about this in forever. Try one more time.” As he veered onto the highway heading north, he bounced the ball again, and Bailey did her best to listen.

  Nothing new. She still couldn’t remember where the rhyme said to walk the straight line to.

  “Sorry.” She shook her head.

  “It’s all right. We’ll give it a break and work on it later. Maybe you should close your eyes and see if you can sleep.”

  She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “I’m pretty keyed up.”

  Joaquin shrugged, conceding the point. “And I could use some coffee.”

  “I don’t drink it much, but that sounds good.”

  “Okay. Let’s see how much of the rush hour traffic we can beat. When we get to the outskirts of Dallas, we’ll stop.”

  “I’ve encountered plenty of stop-and-go crap in Houston. I’m for anything that bypasses the possibility of more. Why are we going north?”

  “South isn’t going to work,” he tossed back. “No sense in going back to Houston.”

  “True.” Especially since McKeevy knew where she lived. Her lease was up in less than two months. She’d been planning to sign again. Now she’d probably look for another place once she was safe.

  If she was ever safe again.

  “I’m trying to come up with a game plan. If we need to go east or west, I’ll veer.”

  That made sense enough for now. “What do you mean by coming up with a good offense?”

  “In a nutshell? Stop running. What LOSS wants isn’t you, but what they think you might remember: where your father might have buried that research.”

  “Why do they want it so bad?”

  “Could be a million reasons, but my best bet is exactly what Sean suggested: They’re convinced they can genetically alter soldiers to kick the U.S. military’s ass. Remember they want to secede from the Union.”

  “That sounds awfully . . . sci-fi.”

  “From what we can glean, your father’s research was incredibly advanced. He was years—maybe even decades—ahead of his peers. It’s also possible he was a hell of a snake-oil salesman and fed LOSS a bunch of mumbo jumbo about his capabilities, and they believed it.”

  “Seems like they’d want some proof.” Why else would they give a scientist so much money? Bailey frowned.

  “Yeah, I’ve thought that. Something has convinced them this information will solve all their ills, because they’re awfully willing to kill for it. Maybe the bit of research they received early on convinced them they needed the rest. Who knows? Our problem is just keeping you alive. I think the key is finding whatever your father may have hidden.”

  “Do you know for certain he hid anything?”

  “No,” Joaquin admitted. “But a man flushing his life’s work down the toilet willingly . . . I don’t buy that.”

  Bailey shrugged. “But you’re not upset about your job.”

  “I’m passionate about justice. I haven’t given up on that. I’m just going down a different path for it.”

  And then what? she wondered, but didn’t ask. Maybe she didn’t want to know which of the four winds he’d follow out of her life once this danger had passed.

  “So you’re thinking we try to find whatever Viktor Aslanov might have salvaged. Where do we start?”

  Joaquin hesitated. “I’ve been thinking about this. I think we have to go back to the scene of the crime.”

  “I don’t know where he did his research.”

  “But we know where LOSS came looking for him and murdered his family. Maybe they had some hunch to hunt for the information there.”

  “Go back to that farm I see in my dreams?” The idea horrified . . . even as it made sickening sense.

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know where it is,” she protested automatically.

  “Sean can tell us.”

  He probably could, but . . . “LOSS has had something like fifteen years to search the place. If my biological father hid the research there, wouldn’t they have found it? Wouldn’t the place be occupied by someone else or torn down or something?”

  “We’ll find out. But if I’m going to spark your memory, I have to hope that something on the property will seem familiar. You could be looking at . . . anything and have a flashback of your past. The photo of McKeevy worked wonders.”

  Bailey couldn’t argue with that, though she wished otherwise. “I’m scared.”

  “I don’t blame you. I’ve never been able to face the house I grew up in. You lost your whole family and you don’t know what this will stir up. You’ve been nothing but brave since I took you from Houston. Can you do it a bit longer? For me?”

  His speech was part wheedling, part blackmail. Bailey sighed. But what choice did she have? If she wanted a life, she had to explore every possibility.

  “Yes.”

  * * *

  JOAQUIN called Sean as they headed north. Beside him, Bailey slept. They’d stopped for some fast-food breakfast and coffee. When they’d handed him a greasy bag at the drive-thru window, she’d wrinkled her nose; then she’d picked off all the cheese and nibbled delicately at the sandwich.

  He smiled at the memory, then sent her a glance. No idea why he felt so . . . attached to her. Everyone else in life he’d been able to just walk away from. His mother had his sisters. His sisters had their husbands. None of them needed him.

  But Bailey? She did.

  It wasn’t pity that kept him with her, though. Far from it. He didn’t like being away from her, even felt weirdly off-kilter when she wasn’t near. He liked to see her smile, got hard when she laughed. Seeing her so serene now filled him with peace. What the hell was up with that?

  “You two all right?” Sean said by way of greeting once he answered.

  “Fine. Thanks. Just driving,” he said in low tones so he didn’t wake Bailey. “Do you have the address of that farm she lived on with her parents?”

  “You going there?”

  “I don’t know what else to do. But she makes a good point that LOSS has had years to comb the place.”

  “The feds, too. They took all kinds of equipment—sonar, X-ray, infrared cameras—and didn’t find anything except a colony of mice by the barn.”

  “The one thing you didn’t have was Bailey’s memories.”

  “You got us there. It’s worth a try.”

  Sean rattled off the address, then caught him up to speed on their plan to keep the wedding safe. Joaquin knew that Bailey really hated to miss it. Honestly, he kind of did, too. Sean and Callie deserved a good start to their marriage, and Joaquin had never seen a committed relationship with three people, but with Thorpe’s iron will, Callie’s devotion, and Sean’s ability to negotiate truces, they’d have a great future.

  Joaquin wondered what the hell he’d do with his life when this case was over. He had no job now. His shithole apartment didn’t really qualify as a home. He’d drifted from his family, and the one close friend he’d had was dead. He was over thirty . . . and had nothing to show for it.