WAITRESS AT the Blue Coyote Truck Stop looked as if her feet hurt and she needed a smoke.
But there was no mistaking the interest in her eyes or the way she bent over the counter to expose the front of her low-cut uniform. “Want anything else with your coffee, honey?” She put one hand on her hip. As if she learned it in the movies, Cruz thought. “Anything at all, you just tell me right out.”
“More coffee will be fine, thanks.” The soup had been hot and filling, all he really needed. The coffee was an unthinkable luxury.
It was a Wednesday night, almost 2:00 a.m. She’d have cash from tips in her pockets and credit cards, too. But he wouldn’t touch the cards. Too dangerous.
“The praline pie is pretty good tonight. Lemon meringue’s fair. You look like you could use a couple slices.” The waitress topped off his coffee and pushed the worn metal canister of sugar toward him.
“No thanks. I don’t eat sugar.” He had to keep his body clean. Strength came first. With his strength restored, he could concentrate on revenge.
His eyes flickered through the quiet restaurant. There was no one else around except for a short-order cook bustling somewhere in the kitchen.
When the waitress leaned in closer, he focused and made her forget everything but that she was tired and ready for a smoke. Her eyes went blank and she stood behind the counter, motionless.
He cleaned out both of her pockets and moved around the counter, fishing through the purse she kept pushed to the back of the low shelf.
Ninety-seven dollars. Car keys, too. He’d risk driving for an hour, no more. He knew exactly where his brother would be waiting.
Wind howled across the floodlit courtyard. The rain that had been threatening all night finally broke loose, pelting the windows with small bits of gravel.
Time to go.
The cook yelled. Cruz released the waitress from the images he’d just constructed.
“No dessert.” The waitress looked dizzy for a second. Then she turned, frowning, her eyes predatory. “Hell, just what do you do for fun, honey?”
Cruz watched a layer of oil gleam on the surface of his coffee. Once he had trained for the sheer joy of being the best. He had laughed at danger.
But three years ago, something had changed. At first it was little details like reflexes off by mere seconds. After that had come the memory blips and subtle mood shifts. His handlers had told him not to worry, that the changes were to be expected. Stress, they said. The result of constant training.
Like a fool he’d swallowed their lies, one after another. He had never questioned what he was told, not even when the mood shifts became severe.
That’s when they’d increased his medicine, and the new surgeries had begun. He’d believed every lie they’d told him, despite the continued deterioration of his mind and body.
Cruz drank his coffee slowly, savoring its heat even though he knew it was a poor mix of bad beans and sloppy preparation. After months in captivity, fed from an IV with only enough nourishment to keep his heart and vital systems functioning, even bad coffee was ambrosia.
“Looks like you could use a little fun.” The waitress was very close now, her fingers on top of his. Cruz had a clear line of sight down the front of her dress, and there was no bra anywhere. The woman couldn’t have made her invitation any plainer.
He couldn’t have been any less interested.
“I’ll take my bill now.” His face held no emotion as he pushed away the empty cup and stood up. He’d taken a chance to come inside only because he’d needed food, cash, and little time to warm up. He’d already dismantled the single surveillance camera at the front door, and he’d handle the waitress in a moment.
“You’re leaving already? Honey, there’s no bus for another three hours, and I know you don’t have a car.”
His fingers shot around her wrist. “How do you know that?”
“I saw you walk in from the woods, that’s all. Kinda odd, I thought, but hey, it’s a free country. You ain’t one of those damned tree huggers, are you?”
“What else did you see?”
“You looked around everywhere and you didn’t go near any cars, so I figure you walked from one of those parks up north. We get hikers in here now and again. They look thin, the same way you do.”
He released her wrist. She’d made a lucky guess, nothing more.
He put a five-dollar bill on the counter—one of hers—and smoothed it with his fingers. He had forgotten what it felt like to have money of his own.
For too many years he’d let other people control him. He’d been an empty-headed killing machine pumped up with the certainty that he was some new, advanced kind of hero.
Now he knew better.
“Keep the change.” Cruz picked up the backpack that was never far from his reach, scanning the parking lot outside.
“Hell, honey, why not tell me to go suck exhaust and die? And where are you going at two in the morning anyway? If you ask me, you don’t look so good.”
“I’m fine.”
“Maybe you are, but the nearest town is fifty miles away, and that’s a damn long hike.”
He could walk twice that distance. He could run it easily, in fact, despite his long confinement. Good genes, Cruz thought wryly.
He studied the waitress’s face, sifting through the fairly boring mind beneath her straw-colored hair. “I’m catching a ride to El Paso. I’ve got friends waiting for me there,” he said calmly, pleased that all the old training was in place.
Never tell the truth when a lie will do. Never trust anyone outside the team.
She rubbed her wrist slowly as if it hurt. “You one of those G-Men working over at the New Mexico base?”
Nothing changed on Cruz’s face. “What makes you ask?”
“Don’t know. Your eyes, maybe. You don’t say much, but you don’t miss much either. And you sure don’t like the idea of anyone watching you.”
So she wasn’t as stupid as he’d first thought. “I’m FBI,” he said quietly. “And I’ve never been here, understand? If I hear you told anyone different, I’ll be back and that won’t be good for you.” As he spoke, he shaped the warning, driving it like a knife into her brain until she nodded, looking disoriented.
“FBI.” She rubbed her forehead as if it hurt. “Sure—never seen you,” she repeated.
He sensed that she was afraid of him now. Pleased, he tightened his knapsack over one shoulder. After reinforcing his warning and wiping her memory of him, he headed out into the night, but it was hard to focus. His head ached and the coffee left him a little dizzy.
He heard the rumble of distant tires and the
