Disappear

She smiled gratefully at the tall, balding man. Randy was a sweetheart and he never failed to make her feel better, no matter how badly the day had gone. If she let him, she suspected he’d give his right arm to make her happy, although he’d never come out and asked her for a date or made any kind of obvious move. He was too professional for that, but even more importantly, he sensed the wall Alex kept around herself and respected it.

“I’m too tired to go home and go to bed,” she lied. “I think I’ll just hibernate here like some big old bear until January. Is that okay?”

He strolled into her classroom and perched on the edge of her desk. “No fancy trips this year? No big vacation?”

Alex shook her head and explained Ben’s situation.

“I’m sorry to hear he’s so ill.”

“I am, too.” She sat down at one of the tables in front of her desk. “Ben’s a nice guy.”

“Your divorce was amicable, I take it?”

“Very. The last thing Ben Worthington would do is make a fuss over a divorce. He’s too much of a gentleman.”

“But the marriage didn’t work?”

Alex didn’t discuss anything personal with anyone. She couldn’t. “No,” she said in a curt voice. “It didn’t work.”

Her sharpness brought him to his feet. “I guess I’d better head home. If you get bored during the break, give me a call. There’s a new Mexican place over on Guadalupe Street. We could hit it.”

Alex felt a sweep of guilt—she shouldn’t have been so harsh—but she kept her face noncommittal. “Sure.” She nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind. It sounds like a lot of fun.”

Then their eyes met and both of them knew she wouldn’t call.

He left a few minutes after that. Relief washed over Alex as she picked up her purse and briefcase to follow his path out the door. Randy was the kind of guy any woman would be thrilled to have. Any woman but Alex.

She didn’t want anyone in her life, so it was always best to head off relationships before they started: You never knew when the other person might up and disappear.

GABRIEL O’ROURKE watched the bartender flick his rag at the caged parrot hanging over the bar. The sight provided the most entertainment Gabriel had had in the past two days. There wasn’t much to do in Baja this time of year. Or any time of year, but that was exactly why Gabriel came here, or so he told himself.

He’d left the Agency the year before, and he hadn’t given a damn about anything during that time. Caring cost more than he had to give, emotionally and physically. Burned out and disillusioned, when he needed money he did contract work for the government.

He took a sip of his lukewarm Dos Equis and listened to the conversation of the people sitting behind him in the bar. They’d come in late last night, two couples from Denver. The men had talked incessantly about fishing, but Gabriel had the feeling they’d already been hooked. One blonde, one redhead, the women were much younger than the men and their jewelry outshone the lights above the bar. Gabriel wondered idly if the men’s wives knew where they were.

“Well, pecan is my favorite.” One of the women behind him spoke in a deep Southern accent, the words drifting over Gabriel’s shoulder along with cigar smoke from the man at her side. Gabriel glanced at her in the mirror above the bar—it was the blonde. “We always had it on the table when I was growing up. It’s just not Thanksgiving without pecan pie.”

The redhead said something, the men guffawing at her reply, but Gabriel didn’t hear her. His brain was still trying to absorb what the first woman had said.

Until that very moment, he hadn’t realized tomorrow would be Thanksgiving.

A shadow glided across his memory, the whisper of a young woman with a pale face and stunned expression. He blinked and tried to send her away, but he failed as always. Standing up, he threw a handful of pesos on the bar and left, the cool breeze from the ocean hitting his face as he walked outside.

The ghost of Alexis Mission followed him.

Opening the screen door to his bungalow, Gabriel stepped inside the one-room shack. He grabbed another beer from a cooler he kept stocked, then he turned and went back outside to the porch. Fifteen yards away the Pacific Ocean rolled endlessly, the sky beyond it so dark and deep it made him dizzy just to look at it. He’d been on the sandy strip of beach for a week, his original reason for coming the same as the men in the bar—the fishing. He had yet to rent a boat though, and when he was honest with himself, he knew he probably wouldn’t. He’d come to Baja to recuperate, not to fish.

The month before, he’d finished another job for the Agency…and another relationship, and he’d wanted somewhere private to lick his wounds. Usually he missed the former more than the latter, but this time had been different.

He’d met the woman in a bar and Gabriel had been shocked when she’d come to his table and sat down to strike up a conversation. Like men everywhere, he’d kept his mouth shut and let her do her thing, his ego inflating with each admiring glance she’d sent his way. She’d been beautiful and smart and ambitious. Younger than him, too, a helluva lot younger, but then again…weren’t they all?

She’d moved in two weeks later and out after two months. He’d packed up his shit and left San Diego. It wasn’t home anyway—no place was home. He’d come down here.

And now it was almost Thanksgiving.

Gabriel stared at the water but Alexis Mission’s face formed in the waves and mocked him. Like still photos framed inside his mind, he saw snapshots of her life, times when he’d been there and she’d never known. The rough period right after Los Lobos. The emergency room, then the recuperation. The paintings. Her wedding. The divorce. Her job. Each event had brought him close to her…but never too close.

Gabriel had told so many lies in his work he couldn’t remember them all, but he’d never forgotten the ones he’d told Alexis Mission.

Back then, though, catching Guy Cuvier had been his only goal. The man had gotten away with stealing American technology for years and Gabriel had been so determined to stop him that nothing else had mattered. The result had been disastrous and the deception still haunted him: Alexis Mission’s parents hadn’t been killed. And Richard Mission hadn’t witnessed a murder.

He’d committed one.

It’d been self-defense, of course, but Richard had shot Guy Cuvier. Gabriel had worked quickly, knowing nothing but a total disappearance could keep the Missions safe afterward. He’d been wrong about that and regretted the decision as much as he now regretted telling Alexis that her family had died. The idea had seemed like a bad one at the time; in retrospect, it was the worst thing Gabriel could have done.

In the past few years, it seemed as if things had begun to smooth out for Alexis. The new name had become her own, the town her home, the life, one she liked. Deep down, however, Gabriel often wondered if her adjustment was genuine. In his eyes, she wore her past like a mask she couldn’t take off. The divorce had set her back, too. Before she’d even married the guy, Gabriel had predicted the outcome. Ben Worthington had been too old for Alexis. He was incapable of giving her what she searched for, what she needed.

Truth be told, Gabriel had actually thought at one point about making contact with her, but he’d held back. Why disrupt her life a second time? Six months after Los Lobos, part of the lie he’d told her had actually come to pass, but there was no good reason to revive her sorrow. She’d already grieved for her parents and brother—unearthing an empty grave just to dig a real one was too cruel to even consider. Gabriel carried enough guilt as it was.

He told himself she wouldn’t have listened to him, anyway. Before leaving the cold mountains outside of Los Lobos, Alexis Mission had made herself perfectly clear; he was the last person on earth she ever wanted to see again. She hated him.

Gabriel hadn’t felt the same way about her. He’d made a promise to watch over her, but for the past ten years that pledge had meant nothing to him.

He’d kept vigil over Alexis Mission because he couldn’t stay away.

THEY SAID they heated the pool, but the water still felt icy to Alex. She stuck her big toe into the deep end and tried not to think about it, choosing instead to simply dive in and swim. As it was with most things, that seemed to be the best policy. With even, steady strokes she sliced through the water and quickly reached the other end. Touching the cold tile with her fingertips, she sucked in a breath then flipped over to head back the way she had just come.

The natatorium wasn’t usually empty but it might as well have been tonight. Only two other swimmers occupied the lanes to either side, their strokes splashing loud enough to keep her company. Everyone was sleeping off their Thanksgiving feasts; going to the YMCA was the last thing on their minds.

In general, Alex liked it when no one else was around and she was the only one in the water. Tonight, though, she welcomed the other swimmers. There was something creepy about the echoing walls, something unnerving about the size of the room.

She was nervous and edgy, more behind her anxiety than just the holidays: For the past few days she’d been sure someone was following her. Every time she’d stepped outside her apartment, she’d experienced the horrible sensation of eyes on her back. Her neck would tingle and she’d look around sharply, but so far she’d spotted no one. The feeling refused to leave, however.

Thrusting these thoughts away, she swam for almost forty minutes, her arms and legs growing heavy toward the end. A half-hour workout was her usual maximum, but tonight she wanted to tire herself out completely. She finished the final lap then clung to the edge of the pool and fought to regain her breath. When her huffing and puffing slowed and she looked around, she realized everyone else had left. She was all alone.

Paddling quickly to the edge of the pool, Alex climbed out and grabbed the towel she’d draped over a chair. She made her way to the ladies’ locker room and within fifteen minutes, she’d showered and dressed and was on her way to the parking lot.

The day had been a repeat of Alex’s other Thanksgivings. Over the years, she’d developed a finely tuned ritual, a way she both remembered then walked away from her past. The rite was never completely successful of course, but one day it might be. One day she might find herself unable to recall every single detail.

As she always did, she’d started the morning by writing a letter to Toby. There were ten of the white envelopes now, sitting in a box, just waiting. He would never read the letters, of course, but they weren’t for her little brother anyway. They were for her. She didn’t want to forget him. When she finished that task, she sat back and closed her eyes. The memories she kept tightly guarded the rest of the year were then allowed out.

The empty house. The icy road. The look on Gabriel O’Rourke’s face when he’d told her her family was dead. As soon as she could, rendering the images with sharp, swift strokes, Alexis had re-created the photo that he’d ripped from her hands that night. Holding that sketch, she sat in the middle of her bed and let the past flood her. At first, the ritual had almost killed her, but lately, the mental pictures had begun to dim. If she hadn’t had her charcoal memory, her mother’s eyes would be a blur now, her father’s expression a dim relief. Alex wasn’t sure if this was good or bad.

She immersed herself in the pain for an hour and then she stopped. The ghosts went back into the lock-box she kept inside her heart. The framed drawing returned to its position on her nightstand and she forced herself through the day.

The YMCA had been a last-minute addition to her routine. Because of her anxiety about being followed, the ritual hadn’t cooperated and the past kept breaking in, flashes of the night she wanted to forget coming back. Reaching her car, Alex knew she’d have to think of something else to do to keep it all at bay. She’d pick up some movies, she decided impulsively, throwing her gym bag into the car and starting it. Something that would keep her mind more occupied than the book she’d been saving for that evening.

She stopped at the video store down the road from her apartment and grabbed two mindless films. The Thai place next door was open, so she went in there as well and ordered takeout. By the time she reached home, she’d managed to kill another hour. Glancing down at her watch, she figured she only had four more hours to endure. She’d allow herself a single sleeping pill then hopefully wake up to a day with fewer memories.