Fade To Black

The image of those huge dark eyes in that solemn little face brought stinging tears to his own eyes. He rubbed the back of his hand across them, trying to erase the vision as he wiped away the moisture. He had a son. Dear god, a five-year-old boy he didn’t even know.

And Jesse. Sweet, lovely, fragile Jesse. She seemed so cold, so hard, so suspicious. But five years had elapsed, she’d said. Five years! How could that be? How the hell could that be? Pierce asked himself desperately.

Just a moment in time for him had been five years of limbo for her. One glance in the mirror had told him she wasn’t lying—not that Jesse ever would. Not his Jesse, he thought as his fingers moved to touch the scar on his face.

But the woman back there, the cold-eyed, beautiful stranger was not his wife. He felt something of the loss and betrayal now that she must have felt so long ago when he hadn’t come back, and he despaired for them both.

A car horn blasted in his ear, and Pierce jumped back from the curb, startled to alertness. The driver shook his fist at him as the car zoomed through the intersection.

Pierce paid him scant attention. Automatically he waited for the traffic light to change, then walked aimlessly across the street. A bright red Coca-Cola sign flashed in the morning sun over a corner café, reminding him rather urgently that he was hungry. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. He couldn’t remember anything, in fact, beyond two hours ago.

That wasn’t exactly true, he realized. Ever since he’d seen Jesse’s shocked face, he’d been experiencing certain…impressions. Impressions of darkness and pain, of wandering around hopelessly lost but knowing all the while there was some place he should be, had to be. That certainty had driven him relentlessly through the mists until, almost as if he’d awakened from a long, deep sleep, he’d found himself at the grocery store and everything had clicked back into place.

For Pierce, the world had stopped for five years, then started back up again in exactly the same place. But why? And how?

He gazed at the scar on his left arm. What the hell had happened to him?

Checking his pockets, he pulled out the bills and change he’d gotten back from the twenty he’d used at the grocery store earlier. He had no idea where the money had come from. Someone must have given it to him….

Suddenly the street noises faded. His surroundings disappeared. For just a flash of time, Pierce was back on an island, standing on the beach, staring at the sky. A bird soared high overhead, silhouetted in the brilliant sunlight. It was an image that instantly brought back feelings of anger and betrayal. A nagging premonition of danger. And then a man’s voice at his shoulder. “You’ll need money. Here’s all I can spare. Go home now. Find your family and protect them.”

The vision vanished, leaving Pierce with a pounding headache in the warm morning sunshine.

Find your family and protect them.

Against what? Against whom?

For a moment, Pierce fought an almost overpowering urge to turn around, to go back home and make sure Jesse and his son were okay. But they’d managed just fine for five years without him. How could he help them now? How could he protect them from something he couldn’t even remember?

Wearily he put his hands to his temples, massaging away the pain as the memories and the feelings began to evaporate in the sunshine.

His stomach rumbled again—a demand for fuel—and Pierce knew that whatever had to be faced would best be done by getting back his strength. Besides, Jesse needed some space, and he needed time to figure out what to do.

He opened the glass door of the café and stepped inside. As disreputable as the place seemed to be, his appearance still garnered a few curious looks. He chose a table in the back and carefully studied the one-page menu. The meager selections tempted his appetite beyond reason, making him wonder again just how long it had been since he’d eaten. He chose a club sandwich, then checked his money again after the waitress had taken his order.

The bells over the door chimed, and Pierce’s head swung around, his gaze immediately scrutinizing the man who had just walked in. He was tall and thin with light brown hair and a thick mustache. He took a seat at the counter, and Pierce studied the man’s back for a full thirty seconds, not understanding his own wariness.

Did he know that man?

Caution. It was a deeply ingrained command, an almost instinctive behavior. Pierce’s gaze scoured the room, then came back to his own hands resting on the chipped Formica tabletop. They were trembling—from fatigue and hunger as well as emotion—but what caught his attention now was the raw, broken skin across his knuckles. He studied his hands as though they belonged to a stranger. They were scarred and dirty, the nails broken. Disgusted, he rose from his seat and located the men’s room nearby.

Trying to avoid his reflection in the mirror, Pierce scrubbed his hands with hot water and soap. The raw places on his knuckles stung, but he ignored the pain, automatically blacking it out. When his hands were as clean as he could get them, he filled the basin with cold water and plunged his face into it, hoping the icy shock would restore his memory.

Why was it he could remember Jesse and their life together so clearly, so vividly, and not anything about the immediate past? He could remember his childhood, his parents and the sterile, loveless home he’d grown up in. He remembered college at Georgetown and even friends he hadn’t seen or heard from in years. He could remember traveling in Europe and Asia before he’d met Jesse, and the secret he’d deliberately kept from her, the side of himself he’d never told her about.

Guilt welled inside him as he thought about the evasions and half truths he’d told her for years. She’d innocently accepted each and every one without question.

Except for the past five years, the memories were all coming back to him now, pouring through his mind so fast he felt a little dizzy.

For years, before he’d met Jesse, Pierce had been a specialized agent for a very elite agency that operated within the CIA. Very few operatives even had knowledge of the group whose specialty was deep cover. Pierce had been recruited out of college because he had a certain reputation for living on the edge and because of the antique business he’d inherited from his parents. It gave him the perfect excuse to travel around the world without arousing questions. His real identity had become a deep cover for him, the very best kind because no one ever suspected.

Not even Jesse.

He gazed at his reflection in the mirror. He’d never told her even after they’d married—not just because of the oath he’d sworn to uphold—but because he’d always thought the less she knew the safer she’d be. It had been his duty to protect her.

It still was.

The washroom door swung open, and Pierce whipped his head around, his hand reaching for a weapon he knew instinctively he hadn’t had in years. The man who’d been sitting at the bar now stepped inside the room. He gave Pierce barely a glance as he headed for a basin and began washing his hands. Quickly Pierce drained the sink, then combed his fingers through his damp hair, trying without much success to look a little more presentable.

The man was studying him in the mirror. Pierce turned and their gazes met. He searched the man’s face for some sign of recognition. Something other than the niggle of suspicion was worrying him.

“Nice day, isn’t it?” the man asked pleasantly as he dried his hands on a paper towel.

“It’ll probably rain this afternoon,” Pierce replied automatically, not exactly sure where the response had come from.

Somehow the answer seemed expected. Something flashed in the man’s blue eyes, and then he smiled slightly, his mustache tilting at one corner. “One thing’s for sure. You can never predict the weather this time of year. Be a fool to try.” Then he turned, tossed the paper towel in the trash bin and exited the washroom.

Shaken by the encounter and having no idea why, Pierce waited a few seconds, then followed the man out. The stranger was seated at the counter again and didn’t look around. But Pierce’s appetite was gone. He tossed some bills onto the table and hurried through the café door.

Outside, the sun blinded him. Pierce leaned against the building’s redbrick facade as the full realization of his plight hit him square in the face. He’d just spent the last of his money, he was still hungry, and he had absolutely nowhere to go.

Wiping a streak of sweat from his temple, he pushed himself away from the building and started walking down the street.

* * *

“Now, let me get this straight,” Jay Greene said as he sat across the kitchen table from Jessica. “You’re telling me that Pierce Kincaid—a man who disappeared five years ago—strolled through your back door this morning as if he’d only been gone half an hour?”

Jessica nodded weakly. “He even brought me the ice cream I’d sent him out to get that day, right down to the correct flavor.”

“And you have no idea where he is now?”

“I took Max next door, and when I came back, he was gone. That was this morning, Jay. He looked so tired, so…ill. I can’t help but think of him out there wandering the streets. It’ll be dark soon—” The look on Jay’s face stopped her.

“I wouldn’t get carried away with the pity just yet, Jesse. This whole memory thing seems a little too convenient for me.”

“You think he’s lying?” Her voice sounded anxious, shaky.

“Wouldn’t be the first time a husband just up and took off. Think about it.”

She had thought about it. Endlessly. “But…we were so happy,” Jessica protested. “We were both excited about the baby. The shop was doing great, we’d just bought this house—”

“And maybe he woke up one morning and decided he couldn’t handle the responsibilities anymore. It happens, and Pierce Kincaid was always a bit footloose, if you ask me. You said yourself he ran the business in a haphazard fashion, and frankly he never struck me as the family-man type.

“Now, out of the blue, he appears on your doorstep, just when you’ve gotten your own life in order. Look at this place, Jesse. It’s worth a small fortune, and so is the shop. When he tired of whatever the hell he was doing, why wouldn’t he want to come back here?”

Jessica stared absently out the window. Jay wasn’t telling her anything she hadn’t thought of herself, but it still wasn’t easy to hear. It wasn’t easy to think that Pierce might have walked out on her. That he had lied about his feelings for her.

She had been so sure. So sure their love had been real.