“Everything’s taken care of, sweetheart. I’ll be there soon,” he said. He didn’t wait for a response. It was in that moment that he noticed a strange, older man staring at him. There was an odd sense of recognition, though it wasn’t entirely mutual. The man shifted his weight as Micah drew closer, extending his hand as though he expected a firm shake in return.
“Mission accomplished, soldier.”
“I think you’ve got the wrong guy,” Micah said. The old man’s attempt to grab hold of Micah’s attention was odd, and not the least bit impactful. Micah tried to ignore him–reaching Valerie was all that mattered to him in that moment. Once he knew she was safe, the two of them would get the hell out of Dodge. Various outcomes played out in his head; his focus locked on surviving long enough to do one good thing with his life. An errant billfold broke his concentration, striking him in the chest as he walked past the old man. “What the hell was that for?”
“Here,” Jacob Hurst said. He picked the billfold off the ground and handed it to Micah. “Look inside.”
Micah reluctantly complied with the request and opened the billfold, revealing the picture of a man he wouldn’t have been able to pick out of a lineup before that moment, but whose name had been inexplicably tied to his own. “Ross Sheridan. Why are you handing me his I.D.?”
“That’s yours, son.”
“I’ve never met him,” Micah said. He averted his gaze, hoping the headaches wouldn’t make a sudden appearance. “Perhaps you should file a missing persons report with the Miami P.D. May stand a better chance of finding him.”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Ross. We both know that’s entirely unnecessary.”
“Buddy, my name is Micah Brantley. I’ll admit, this guy bears some resemblance to me, but we aren’t exactly twins. Shit, if you tried hard enough, I’m sure you could find another schmuck or two who could pass for me.”
Hurst took a step forward and lowered his voice to a growl. “Do you have any idea how simple it would be for me to erase your identity as Micah Brantley and bring you down on the wealth of charges you’ve accumulated over the past few years? A murder rap carries more than a few years,” Hurst said. Anger welled up inside him, but he forced it to the wayside in favor of more stable emotions. “And that’s assuming they don’t just throw your ass in the electric chair. Think about it, Einstein. Come with me, and you get your old life back. Fight it, and you will go down to a depth you did not know existed.”
Micah felt the familiar tinge of pain in his head. The melding of memories of his own life and the one that felt so real, as though everything happened within the body of another. None of it made any more sense to him now than it had when the sensation had first started happening. He turned to leave, eager to get away from the source of the headache. Hoping in vain that leaving would mean an end to the third-degree questioning. “This is bullshit. I’m out of here.”
Hurst removed his pistol from the holster on his hip and aimed it at Micah. He pulled back the slide and chambered a round. Micah stopped and turned to look back at the barrel. “Consider your options. Is this really the way you want to go out?”
Micah stood rooted in his spot, looking around for something of an exit strategy. The only thing close to fitting the bill was a parked Jaguar.
“Figure it out…?
The moment the first word left Hurst’s mouth; Micah bolted for the other side of the Jag. It wasn’t a strategy without its flaws, but his options were limited. The most important thing at that moment was creating some separation between himself and the lead meant to deliver him to his maker. Hurst fired a shot as Micah shifted his weight and ducked behind the luxury SUV. The bullet grazed Micah’s left arm.
“Poor move, junior,” Hurst yelled out as he ran over for cover behind a retaining wall.
“I told you, I’m not the guy you’re after.” Micah said.
“Those operations must have done one hell of a job on your brain. Can’t say I’m surprised. Hell, you’re the first subject to have passed through all the testing done in the lead-up to this operation. If you weren’t being such a pain in the ass right now, we’d be celebrating with steaks and whiskey.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Those nightmares you’ve been having or, should I say, those memories you’ve been recalling.”
“How could you possibly have known about those?” Micah’s heart threatened to beat its way straight out of his chest. The realization that the disparate worlds that made up the cavalcade of thoughts and dreams and memories were tied together was almost too much to handle. Were the situation a bit more relaxed, he would have sat down almost immediately; though he wasn’t sure that would’ve done much good.
“Sonny boy, you’ve got some enough high-end tech in your person to feed a starving nation for a decade, at least,” Hurst said. “You didn’t take a shit without the smell coming back to us. And your girlfriend, don’t even get me started on that.”
Micah fired a warning shot at the reattaining wall. “This is between us, old man. Leave her out of it.”
“It’s Hurst, son. It’s pitiful how sure you are of things with that lady of yours. You think you’ve got something special, that you can trust her with anything, but the truth isn’t so squeaky clean. Right now, you’re expecting Valerie to be at home, waiting for your arrival, so the two of you can skip town. Maybe go off and, oh, I don’t know, disappear somewhere no
