Showdown!

When Bert unlocked the door to the holding room, she followed him inside. A soft snore greeted them.

The stranger was sound asleep on the sofa, his bucket of change balanced on his stomach, rising and falling with each breath.

“At least he isn’t climbing the walls,” Bert muttered under his breath, then called to the detained customer. “Sir? Sir? It’s time to go. Rise and shine.”

The stranger awoke at once, grabbed the bucket before it toppled and rose to a sitting position. “What’s up?”

“You can go,” Bert told him. “Do you remember where you’re staying?”

“Sure. Here. Room 2008.” He pulled the card key from his pocket as if to prove it.

“Good. The elevator is this way.”

The stranger spotted her hovering behind the security guard. His smile was quick and delighted. Dazzling. His eyes were a deep, true blue, his hair dark, a little long and enticingly tousled as it swept over his forehead in a deep wave. An odd tension filled her when he looked her way.

“Hi, cousin,” he said.

“Sorry, I’m not your cousin.”

Had she not learned to be skeptical of people’s motives, she might have believed he thought she really was his cousin. There was an engaging openness and confidence about the stranger, as if he knew where he belonged and was content in that knowledge. She could envy him that.

For the briefest moment, the despair and sense of vulnerability, of always being held hostage to the whims of a dark fate, loomed over her. She felt utterly alone in the world.

Poor little lonely one, she mocked the self-pity. She had an aunt and a cousin, not that they were close, but still, they existed. She had a brother, but she didn’t know where he was or even if he was dead or alive.

As an undercover agent with the FBI, Adam had important work to do, work that often put him in danger and out of immediate contact. She’d learned to be self-sufficient.

“You have the scar,” the stranger said.

The flesh on her thigh tingled. “I’ve had that since I was a child.”

“I know. Since you were three,” he said.

Honey’s mouth gaped. How had he known that?

“It’s time to go,” Bert interjected, checking the time, then moving toward the door. “Do you need help getting to your room?”

“No, thanks.” The stranger turned his probing gaze back to her. “Are you off work now?”

She nodded warily.

“Good. We need to talk.” He pulled on his boots and rose in one fluid motion, standing a good six inches over Bert. “How about something to eat? Your friend can join us.” He pointed to the security guard.

“I’m going home,” Bert said in no uncertain terms.

“Me, too.” She edged toward the door.

The stranger frowned, then reached into his back pocket and brought out his wallet. To her surprise, he showed them a badge. “Zackary Nicholas Dalton,” he introduced himself.

Bert studied the badge. “You’re a deputy sheriff? From Idaho?”

“Right. I had official business here, which is finished. I’d planned to start home in the morning, uh, this morning.” He spoke to her. “I really need to talk to you before I go. This is serious.”

Seeing Bert check the time again, Honey shook her head. “I’m beat. And I’m not your cousin.”

“You could be. Do you remember where you were born? Or who your parents were?”

His words gave her pause. She and Adam had been orphaned when she was three and her brother thirteen. Their father had been killed in a bar shoot-out through no fault of his own; he and a friend happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Two years later their mother had died of a rare antibiotic-resistant pneumonia.

“Well?” the lawman demanded.

“Of course I do,” she said firmly.

“Are they alive?”

She stopped, startled by the question, her eyes locking with the stranger’s.

“Ah,” he said, reading her correctly. “They’re not.”

“That…that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Do you remember them?” the deputy persisted.

“Not my father, but I remember my mother. I do,” she said when he raised straight dark eyebrows over skeptical eyes. “A few things.”

“How old were you when she died?”

Honey nearly answered, but stopped in time. Her past was none of this man’s business.

Bert gestured impatiently. “Let’s go.” He ushered them from the holding room, slammed the door, then gazed at her in uncertainty.

“Go home,” she told the guard. “I’ll be fine.”

“Where can we talk?” the visiting deputy asked, blocking her escape with the hand holding the bucket of quarters.

“We can’t.” She hurried after the guard. “Leave me alone, or I’ll call security again.”

“Listen, I know this sounds weird, but my cousin really does have a three-pointed scar on her leg. She fell on broken glass when she was three. A few months later she was taken from the scene of a car wreck. That was shortly before her fourth birthday.”

“Taken?”

“Kidnapped. Her mother died in the wreck on a lonely stretch of highway. Some pervert took the child.”

Honey was aghast. “How long ago was this?”

“Twenty-two years. Tink would be twenty-six her next birthday. How old are you?”

A wave of panic rushed over her, as if she might indeed be this long-lost cousin, as if her own past had been a lie. She shook off the idea. “Twenty-five, but I’m not the person you’re looking for.” She heard the note of desperation in her voice. Her life was complicated enough without having to deal with this man’s search for his cousin. “I’m not. Really. It’s impossible.”