Page 23 of Peace Under Fire

He flinched, and instinctively massaged his eyes—which he knew from experience would do absolutely nothing to ease the pain or waylay the migraine.

At the rate this new migraine was progressing, he should call a cab instead of driving home himself. When the headaches got really bad—which this one had all the markers for—his brain and eyes got fuzzy, which meant he couldn’t trust his driving skills.

“Jacob.”

The voice came from behind him. It was instantly recognizable, and the very last voice he expected to hear. Especially here.

He froze. Was he imagining it? Had the migraine launched an auditory hallucination? He wasn’t sure he wanted to turn around and find out. If she wasn’t there—hell—then a new nasty symptom had entered the game. He forced himself to turn and face this new fear head on.

The woman standing in the middle of the hall twenty feet away was not a hallucination.

“Mandy?” he asked in a stunned voice.

She’d tucked her long brown hair up beneath a white floppy hat. That, along with the purple sunglasses that swallowed her face, were obvious attempts to disguise herself. From who? Not him, obviously, as she’d been the one to hail him.

She took a faltering step toward him before stopping again. For a moment, she seemed to sway. But that might have been him. Christ knew he was off-balance as hell.

“I need to talk to you.” She paused before adding as an afterthought, “Oh, and you’re being followed.”

He focused on that.

“I am?” He narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure?” The question escaped his mouth before his throbbing brain had a chance to think it through.

She cocked her head, and he just knew that she was rolling her eyes behind those oversized sunglasses.

“Am I sure? Really?” Her voice rose. “You’re asking me that now? After everything? Of course I’m sure.”

The snap in her voice threw him even more off-balance. She’d never been short with him before. But, yeah, that had been a stupid question. He was blaming it on the damn migraine short-circuiting his intelligence.

“You must have dreamed it?” he asked tentatively.

“Bingo,” she drawled, starting toward him.

The closer she got, the stronger his sense of unreality grew. Not only did she sound completely different than he remembered—short-tempered and brusque rather than sweet and inviting—but she looked completely different too. The skin of her face, at least what he could see of it from beneath the hat and glasses, looked pinched and gray. Deep lines bracketed her mouth. Her open coat revealed a stained and wrinkled t shirt. His gaze dropped to her jeans, which looked much the same.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, still processing the differences between his memory and current reality.

“I told you, I need to talk to you. Since you’re being followed, the clinic felt like the best place to talk to you without your new friends noticing.”

She took several steps closer, and he caught a whiff of body odor. Tension was boiling off her. It tightened her cheeks and pulled her lips tight.

“Are you even listening to me?” she asked, her voice rising and then cracking.

“I’m listening.” He shook his head slightly, trying to think past the dull throbbing in his skull. “How many are there?”

She stopped and rolled her shoulders in the kind of shrug that indicated tight, achy muscles.

“Excuse me?” Her voice sounded tired now.

“The men following me, how many are there?”

“How do you know they’re men?”

At least he was sharp enough to sidestep that question and avoid being accused of misogyny.

“A figure of speech. How many? I don’t suppose you happened to see them in real time, or was it just in your dream?”

“There were two in the dream. And no, they‘re following you, in the hope you’ll lead them to me, so I didn’t go looking for them in real time.”

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