Available Darkness Season 2

safe. And no, I didn’t tell you I was FBI because I’m part of a secret division. Most people think I’m an analyst, and while I wanted to tell you the truth, I couldn’t.”
    “Why don’t I remember any of this, the stuff about the serial killer?”
    “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Maybe the amnesia from your accident runs deeper than the doctors thought.”
    “This doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “I would remember something like that. And I don’t have amnesia. I remember my family, my friends, and … ”
    “Are you sure?” he asked.
    Hannah tried to remember her mother, or her college friends, but again came up fuzzy, and more confused than before. She could remember something , but wasn’t sure if that something was honest memory, or fabrication.
    She shook her head, waiting for her other voice to chime in and give her some direction. Unfortunately, the silence said she was on her own — just her and her confusion.
    “I don’t know,” Hannah said, swallowing her rising fear. It was one thing to be uncertain of Greg and his motives, another to suspect the candor in her memory.
    Greg moved his hand from the steering wheel and opened his fingers, waiting for Hannah to take his hand as it hovered above the center console. She did, shivering as his fingers wrapped tightly around hers. She swallowed her throat’s climbing knot while trying to bury tears she didn’t want to lose.
    Hannah fought the growing urge to ask Greg about the phone call. She wanted to know who he was talking to and what he was trying to do to her. Now she could barely remember what he’d said in the recording. Everything felt fuzzy, like a blur.
    “Don’t ask him,” her other voice warned. “You need to play dumb until you get another chance to run.”
    Another chance to run? Run to where? He’s working with the FBI! He’s trying to protect me.
    “No, he’s not, Hope. Don’t trust him. He told you a lie — John wasn’t trying to kill you. Don’t you think Sergei would’ve said something?”
    Maybe Sergei didn’t know. Or — what if the man who answered the phone was John? He was pretending to be someone else so he can find me now?
    “You would know if it was John. Trust me, Hope. Trust yourself.”
    Hope. There’s that name again.
    She asked Greg, “Hannah’s not my real name is it?”
    “No, your name was Hope Barnett,” Greg said. “Like I said, you changed your name about 10 years ago, but no one else knows. It doesn’t matter now, anyway. We have to put you in hiding. I’ve gotten word that he’s looking for you, and that he’s in town.”
    “The killer?”
    “Yes. His name is John Sullivan. Does that name ring a bell?”
    “No,” Hannah said, lying.
    Greg got off an exit roughly halfway between the vineyard and home, then pulled into an apartment building she’d never seen in a city whose name she didn’t know.
    “What is this place?”
    “Somewhere safe,” he said, as if it was. “We’re going to stay here, ride things out until I hear something.”
    “Something about what?” she asked.
    “That John is dead.”

    * * * *

CHAPTER 5 — John and Larry

    Larry raced to Mike Mathews’ apartment, wobbling the van with too much velocity the entire way there. Neither spoke of Tiny’s death, not that either needed to. They would grieve when the war was over. For now, they had to focus on finding Hope, which they’d only do if they found Mathews.
    As the van hit a pothole hard, and seemed like it might rip in half, Larry looked over at John and said, “I really ought to get a fucking sports car, as much racing around as I’m doing for you. We got that in the budget? Maybe somethin’ like the Batmobile! That shit would be rad.”
    “I left you a ton of money,” John said. “Don’t even tell me you blew it all already!”
    “Well, not all of it,” Larry said grinning and shrugging.
    “Jesus, how much Mountain Dew do you drink?”
    “Enough to piss green, but that could also be because of that stripper chick I was bangin.’”
    John laughed.
    It felt good to laugh before dealing with Mathews. With Duncan and Cromwell both dead, Mathews would be exactly the type of loose cannon they couldn’t risk working with. John had to get out from under Omega’s thumb while he still had a chance to save Hope. Unlike killing Cromwell, he had no compunctions about killing Mathews. The man was on a power trip and didn’t care whom he killed on the way to accomplishing his