Pandora's Box Page 19

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “Your boyfriend won’t live to hook up with another woman. I know how much it hurts when the one you love forgets you entirely and runs off with the first jerk that comes along.”

  “Is that what this is about?” She settled back against her seat and tried her hardest not to look scared. “You still have a thing for me and you’re angry because I don’t want you. This is just like the night you shot at Tyler.” She lowered her voice, trying to create a feeling of intimacy with him to remind him of how close they were. “Think about what you’re doing, Marc. You don’t really want to kill me.”

  He stared a hole through her, but his lips remained stubbornly closed. The gun in his hand didn’t waiver an inch. His eyes slowly narrowed on her face as if he’d read her thoughts and he shook his head at her. “You aren’t as clever as you think you are, sweetheart. I know what I’m doing.”

  “Do you?” It was time to hit him with some hard facts. She took a deep breath, put her thoughts in order, and released the words pushing to the front of her mouth. “I met with Grainger. Do you know about him? The microchips he invented have been planted in several people’s heads, including my own. They turn people into puppets. Do you have one? Is that why you suddenly want to kill me?”

  DeMarco blinked at her, obviously confused. Then laughter rumbled deep in his chest. And he didn’t stop laughing. He laughed as if he’d heard the funniest joke of his life. Wiping tears from his eyes with the back of his free hand, he said, “You always were a convincing liar.”

  “I’m not lying.” With her free hand she lifted the hair from the nape of her neck and showed him where her chip was located even though there wasn’t a tell-tale sign. “Mine is right back here. Grainger couldn’t remove it, but he did deactivate it. Of course I have no idea what horrible things I’ve done because of it.” DeMarco stared at her, unconvinced, so Madison added, “That’s what happened to me at the cabin when you were pretending to be dead. Didn’t you wonder why I’d spaced out.”

  There was a lengthy pause when no one was talking and DeMarco seemed to be considering her words. He bent low and looked out the window to see if Tyler was still busy with the pilot. When he straightened back up, he began to pace. He mumbled to himself, but she couldn’t catch the words. A flicker of hope pushed Madison to keep trying.

  “Do you have blank spots in your memory, Marc? I do. I broke into the agency to use their computer after my father was killed. Next thing I know I’m in a bar. The bartender told me I’d been there for over an hour.” She shook her head hard. “I don’t remember a second of it. That’s what the chip does to you. That’s how you know you have one.”

  She didn’t bother to tell him she had three.

  DeMarco squinted at her. “No. It’s not possible. I don’t have a microchip in my brain. Even if you’re telling the truth and they do exist, I don’t have one. No one would do that to me. I mean, how could they? I would know if someone had messed with my head.”

  “I didn’t know.” She shrugged. “My first clue was lost bits of time. And even then I couldn’t imagine something like this happening to me. But it’s true. I think the person behind it was going to make me kill the president.”

  DeMarco stepped closer, his eyes filled with fear. He looked as if he was going to beg her to help him. But he stopped short. He shook the gun at her instead. “No, dammit! You are not going to suck me in that way. It’s over for you.” He actually patted her on the head. “I’m sorry about this. I didn’t have a choice.”

  “Why didn’t you have a choice? Are you working for someone, or is it the microchip making you do this?”

  “There is no bloody microchip in my HEAD!” He did a violent, crazy dance, swatting at his own face and messing up his clothes. He really had lost his mind. She cringed as the gun swung in her direction again. In his present state he could squeeze the trigger without meaning to.

  “Damn you to hell, Madison Grey! You can go join your father there.”

  He shoved a folded handkerchief into her mouth before she could say another word. He bent over suddenly and kissed her hard on the forehead. “For old time’s sake,” he said. Then he was gone. He’d left her alone in a plane with a bomb. The DeMarco she had known wouldn’t do a thing like that, at least not to her.

  But did she know him? Her memories of DeMarco were fading, growing hazy as if they had been whispers of a dream.

  And Tyler still hadn’t looked in on her.

  She had no idea how much time she had left to live. DeMarco had stuffed her mouth with the hankie, but he hadn’t tied up both her hands. She simply removed the thing. She parted her lips to scream. Breath gathered in her chest, gearing up for a loud one.

  She hesitated.

  What if the bomb was about to go off? She didn’t want to call Tyler inside and have him die too. Even though she thought he was too close to the plane to live didn’t mean it was true. She had no idea what kind of bomb DeMarco had used. It could be on a remote with him somewhere nearby, finger hovering over the button. Or it could be on a timer set to go off at any second.

  It could even be a dud.

  The question of calling for Tyler or not became mute when he boarded the plane on his own. His smile froze instantly. His eyes immediately went to the handcuff on her wrist. He pulled a gun from the back of his pants, and her eyes widened. Where had he gotten that?

  He looked around.

  “There’s a bomb,” Madison blurted out. “And DeMarco’s alive, but he’s gone now.”

  “DeMarco?” He shook his head. “Never mind. You can explain that one later. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

  “No. We don’t know where the bomb is or what kind of bomb we’re dealing with or how many minutes we have left. You have to get out of here. One of us needs to live long enough to make them pay.”

  Tyler glanced at the gun, then at the handcuffs as if he wanted to shoot the thing off her wrist. But that would be dangerous. He seemed to reach the same conclusion.

  He set his gun down and examined the metal around her wrist up close, turning it this way and that. “Now is not the time to make the supreme sacrifice. I’m not leaving you to die.”

  She opened her mouth to argue with him. Then she shut it firmly. She hadn’t really expected him to abandon her to her fate. The man had been a Navy SEAL, brave and honorable to the end. She couldn’t fault him for the same beliefs she held. In all honesty she wouldn’t walk away either if their positions were reversed.

  Before she could ask him what he was going to do, his cell phone rang. Tyler actually took the time to answer it. He told her, “It’s Brett.”

  Of course it was. She rolled her eyes. A bomb was about to blow them both into tiny pieces and he was going to chat with his Navy buddy. She strained to hear both sides of the conversation as Tyler held the phone with one hand and tested how tight the handcuff was with the other.

  She heard Brett say, “We’ve got a problem.”

  “Tell me about it,” Tyler said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “No, better yet, tell Madison. I’m in the middle of something.”

  “This is important,” Brett’s voice rose even higher.

  “I’m on a plane with a bomb, Brett, and I think it’s about to go off. Talk to Madison.”

  Tyler tossed the phone to her lap. He dug deep into one of his jean pockets and came out with a small packet of silver tools. His set was better than hers. Selecting one, he went to work on the metal cuff holding her in place.

  Using her free hand she lifted the phone to her ear. “Go ahead. What’s the big emergency?”

  There was a long sigh followed by a lengthy pause. Whatever it was, Brett didn’t want to confide in her. He finally said, “My sources tell me that Tony DeMarco is alive and he’s working for the other side.”

  “Old news,” she said. “Is that all you’ve got?”

  “No. I’ve also got his phone records. He’s made a lot of calls to Rico Boracci’s estate in the last few
months.”

  Boracci? No, Madison thought, he had been talking to Roxie. She was almost a hundred percent positive of that. The two of them were working together. One question remained. Was DeMarco helping Roxie of his own free will or did he have a chip in his brain making him do it?

  Tyler yanked the handcuff off her wrist. He grabbed both her arms, hauled her to her feet, and pulled her after him. Seconds seemed to go on for hours. Her heart pounded in protest within the confines of her chest. She held her breath, sure the plane would explode around them at any moment.

  They made it to the door. Tyler raced down the long flight of stairs in a headlong rush with Madison right behind him. They ran as fast as they could, dashing in a straight line. Her legs pumped fast inside the stolen trousers. Getting away from the plane, that was her only goal at the moment. They sped across the tarmac, legs and arms swinging.

  The plane exploded over her shoulder.

  A deafening roar filled her ears.

  The blast knocked Madison off her feet. Her arms swung like a windmill gone crazy. She flew through the air, landing hard enough to push every ounce of air from her lungs. She rolled until she felt the soft grass beneath her. Landing flat on her back, Madison gazed up at the pale blue sky even as burning debris fell around her.

  Tyler crawled over to her. He collapsed beside her, his hand on her arm. “Next time,” he gasped, “we take the bus.”

  She smiled in-spite of the danger, or perhaps because of it. Adrenaline rushed through her body. Tyler grinned at her. They were alive. He leaned over her, ready to kiss the breath out of her.

  From far away she heard the annoying sound of Brett’s voice as he screamed, “Hey, is anybody there? Are you alive? What the hell’s going on? Answer me!”

  The phone was still in her hand. She pushed it at Tyler. Brett could tell Tyler what he’d told her. At the moment her ears were ringing and she felt bruised from head to toe. By the time she sat up, she was going to have her options lined in a neat little row. Someone was going to pay for trying to kill her. Her only problem was deciding who to go after first.

  She was ready to take out the bad guys.

  Madison rolled onto her side and watched what was left of the plane burn. Hair fell over half her face. She saw the pilot running toward them, wanting to help. No doubt he’d already called the fire department. The police would come too. To avoid being hauled in for questioning, she and Tyler were going to have to hit the road and fast.

  ******

  Within the hour, Madison and Tyler walked across an empty casino floor. It was too early in the morning for the serious gamblers. A few tourists entered through the glass doors, and a couple of casino employees went about their work as if no one was around. Madison and Tyler had borrowed the stunned pilot’s car, leaving him to deal with the police. Hopefully he would keep his mouth shut about them.

  Madison sat on a stool, pushed a quarter into the one-arm bandit, and pulled the lever. She stared at the rolling pictures as if fascinated. When they stopped, she gave up another quarter.

  Tyler sighed. “What now? We can’t just sit here and feed these things all day.”

  “Your father knew we were getting on that plane. Anyone else? Did you tell your friend Brett?”

  “What are you getting at?” He glared at her. “Don’t assume the bomb was planted by someone I trust. We could have been followed. Anyway it was your pal DeMarco who actually planted the thing.”

  “Well, I think my pal might be working with someone you think is on your side.”

  He didn’t have anything to say about that.

  The pictures stopped spinning and a few quarters dropped into the tray. She’d won. The loud sound jarred her already sensitive head. She worked on giving them back to the machine, one at a time. Even with a load of crap on her mind she could see how gambling could become addictive.

  “Brett told me DeMarco has been calling Boracci’s estate day and night,” she said. “Of course that doesn’t mean he was talking to Boracci. We still don’t know who’s behind everything, although my money is on Roxie.”

  “We need to find out before their aim and timing improves.”

  “What do you suggest?” she asked. “I’m open to anything that will speed things along.”

  He turned on his stool, plucked a quarter from her tray, and fed the machine in front of him. “Well, we can say the hell with it and fly down to Rio.” He winked at her. “I know a beautiful little secluded beach down there. If we put our heads together, considering all of our training, we could keep the authorities at bay forever.” He pulled the metal arm down. “Or we can attack the bad guys one by one and beat the truth out of them.”

  “Or trick them into telling us,” she said.

  “Whatever works.” His head tilted to the side the way a dog looks at a person when they make a strange noise. “Your choice. We’ll do whatever you decide.”

  Sure, put it all on her.

  “Rio sounds really nice,” she admitted. “Maybe we can go after we clear my name.”

  He nodded. “Sounds good.”

  “But first I need to check my father’s house for clues.” She put the last quarter into the machine and gave the lever a final pull. When the pictures stopped rolling, none of them matched. She hoped it wasn’t an omen of things to come. “Later maybe we can go to Boracci’s. I want to have a long talk with him without interruptions. Do you think you can keep his security team busy?”

  “I’ll do my best.” She went to move past him, but he pulled her against his side and whispered in her ear. “I am sorry about DeMarco. You trusted him, and he screwed you over, but I hope you know you can trust me no matter what.”

  She did.

  And no one was more surprised than her.

  ******

  Chapter Sixteen

  Madison caught an airplane home and went straight to her dad’s house. She’d been even more afraid to fly than usual, but what choice did she have? Grainger’s final words kept ringing in her ears. If her father had hidden a deep, dark secret in his own Pandora’s Box he wouldn’t have been dumb enough to keep it in his house. But she was hoping to find a clue that would lead her to it.

  So she had gone to her dad’s while Tyler went to pay his father a visit. The idea of him trusting Malcom Law made her uneasy, especially after the plane the president had sent for them was blown to pieces, but Tyler had insisted he could take care of himself.

  She hesitated in the doorway. It felt wrong, being in her father’s house without permission. She almost expected him to come in from the kitchen with a fresh pot of tea or swagger down the stairs, fixing his tie. Her eyes blurred with tears. She angrily swiped at them with the back of her hand. It still wasn’t time yet. She couldn’t afford to lose control of her emotions, not while she and Tyler remained in danger.

  She pushed the door shut behind her and went to work. Madison took it a room at a time. She tipped out drawers, emptied the closets on the floor, and searched every pocket of every piece of clothing her father owned. Nothing. She’d been hoping to find a key or paper with a clue on it. Although it would have been nice to find the box itself, Madison knew her father hadn’t been a fool. He wouldn’t leave something important in his home unguarded.

  Two hours of searching left her empty handed. She sat in the center of the living room floor surrounded by a mess of discarded crap. Apparently her father had kept every tiny thing she’d ever made at school.

  Nostalgia pushed the mysteries she’d been working on to the back of her mind.

  Then there were pictures, hundreds and hundreds of pictures taken over the years. They featured a multitude of faces from Madison to her mother to people Madison didn’t recognize. Some of them were probably forgotten relatives. She even found some of her father when he was in college. There was one of him in front of a fraternity with his three friends, showing off the new tattoos on their hands. She wondered if the ‘P’ stood for power.

  Madison remembered her father�
��s weathered hand. The tattoo had faded over the years, but it had still been there. Every time she’d asked about it, he’d given her a different story.

  She wondered if after everything came to light, would she still feel like shedding a single tear for her father?

  An explosive memory flashed in her mind like lightning. She saw the hand pressing down on her mother’s wrist. On the hand was a tattoo, the same tattoo her father had had, and she got a quick flash of the young man’s face. It was gone before she had time to figure out who she was looking at.

  Why couldn’t she remember who had killed her mother?

  She sat up straight and sucked in a deep, painful breath. Her gut told her that her mother had been killed by one of her father’s buddies. But which one?

  The sun had gone down outside. Her father’s house was almost in complete darkness. She considered getting off the floor long enough to turn a light on, but she rather liked sitting in the dark. At least she couldn’t see the mess now. She was going to have to clean it up and put things in order. Eventually she’d have to decide what to keep, what to sell, and what to throw out.

  A noise caught her attention. Her ears strained to hear it again. Was it her imagination, or had the noise come from inside the house?

  Madison pulled her gun from the back of her slacks. She stood slowly, careful not to make any noise herself. She crossed the room into the foyer. Her eyes traveled up the stairs. Already adjusted to the darkness, she could pick out every detail in her father’s home. If someone had broken in, she was ready for them.

  Another noise. She slowed her breathing and took it a step at a time, heading for the kitchen. Turning sideways she pressed her shoulder against the kitchen’s swinging door. Careful not to make it creak, she pushed it open an inch. From what she could see, nothing appeared to be disturbed.

  The door slammed her back, moving in the opposite direction. Before she hit the ground she realized someone had been on the other side the whole time. The intruder had waited for her to get close before kicking it. She landed on the floor, rolled to her back, and pointed the gun at the kitchen doorway. There was no one there.