He, on the other hand, was an entirely different story. Oh, he might put on a good show, but no matter what sort of academic haircut and tweed jacket they stuffed him into, he would never be able to shake his past.
Matt Pollard knew all too well how to define evil. Something deep down in his gut told him the two visitors to his class had come to remind him of that fact.
By the time Pollard made it from his office to the parking lot, he’d managed to convince himself that the visitors were just curiosity-seeking locals. He’d grown to be an expert at rationalizing things away. He tossed his unbleached canvas book bag in the backseat of his silver-blue Prius and climbed in behind the wheel. He’d ditched the tweed for a fleece jacket made from recycled soda bottles and wore a Nepalese wool beanie against the overcast winter day. He was tall and fit, and apart from the rumpled clothing, he carried himself with a military bearing. He looked a decade younger than his thirty-seven years and could have passed for a student rather than a professor.
His cell phone rang before he made it out of the lot.
“Pick up,” Pollard said, activating the hands-free mike. He grinned when he heard Marie’s voice.
“How’s that sexy wife of mine?” Pollard pushed through a stale yellow traffic light and was surprised to see a white Ford Explorer shoot the red light behind him.
“I have Ellie lined up to babysit.” Marie’s honeyed voice purred from the dash speaker.
“That’s good… ” Pollard watched in the rearview mirror as the white Explorer fell into the flow of traffic two cars back. “Really good,” he mumbled.
“You don’t even know what I’m talking about, do you?”
Marie’s teasing yanked him pack to reality.
“Sorry, honey,” he confessed, an eye still watching the Explorer. “I really don’t.”
“Wow,” Marie laughed. She had to be used to him after thirteen years. “For a genius professor you’d forget your shoes if you didn’t stub your toes all the time.” Marie’s family sprang from Bremerton, Washington, and her easygoing Pacific Northwest demeanor came through even when she was miffed. “You know you have to guess now, right?”
Pollard tapped the wheel, thinking. The white SUV stayed glued to his bumper as he another corner.
“Listen,” he said, biting his bottom lip. “You’re going to think I’m crazy, but someone might be following me.”
“Oh no, you don’t, Mr. Matthew,” his wife chided. “You’re not getting off that easy—”
“Seriously,” Pollard said, fighting to keep calm.
He took another right.
The Explorer followed.
“You’re a bona fide genius,” Marie said. “Lose them and get your butt home. Simon is getting on my last nerve and we have tickets—”
“I’m serious, sweetheart.” The white SUV maneuvered around the only remaining car on the road and moved up just inches behind the Prius.
“Maybe they just happen to be going the same direction.” Marie’s voice held a frightened edge.
“Maybe,” Pollard said, but his churning gut told him otherwise. His past was hunting him down. “I’m not far away, but I’ll make a block before I come home and see what happens. If I can’t lose them I’m going to call the police.”
Sweat beaded on his upper lip, hidden by his dark beard. He turned right again, a block before his street.
The SUV stayed on his tail, unwavering. He could make out the faces of the two earlier visitors to his classroom. The blond man wore a ball cap and sunglasses and leaned forward from the backseat. The woman sat in the passenger seat; her eyes still sneered with boredom. The driver was a smallish Hispanic man with a craggy face he’d never seen before.
Pollard swallowed hard. “Take Simon to the bedroom,” he said, feeling sick. “Lock the door and get my shotgun out of the closet—”
Nothing but dead air crackled over the speakers.
“Marie,” Pollard shouted at the silence. “Marie! Are you still—”
“Matthew? You sound absolutely flummoxed.” The voice was cold and soulless. “You have a beautiful wife, such an innocent child. Come home so you can formally introduce us.”
Pollard’s retched, his throat seared with acid dread.
He shoved the gas pedal to the floor and whipped the wheel sharply left, spinning the little Prius in the narrow residential street. Metal shrieked and groaned as the front fender careened off the tailgating SUV’s driver’s door, then slid down the side. He caught the glint of a cruel grin on the woman’s face as he sped past toward his wife and son.
CHAPTER 11
Pollard burst through the front door.
“Marie!”
A male voice answered him from the around the corner in the parlor where Marie kept her piano. “We’re all here, my friend,” it said. “Please, come join us.”
Pollard froze at the doorway when he saw the dark man with a thin mustache lounging on the love seat. His legs were crossed and a glowing cigar hung from his fingers. Marie sat in a matching chair to his right. She was tall and slender with short caramel-blond hair pulled back with a red polka-dot band. Her normally wide smile had fallen away and her lips parted in shock. Her chest shook with uncontrolled sobs as she clutched their squirming baby in her arms as if he was a life buoy.
A thuggish man with a crooked nose and broad shoulders crowded in between the back of the chair and the wall, towering over her, arms folded across a chest. A sparse beard did little to hide the burn scars on his lips and chin. The glint in his eye said brute intimidation was a favorite pastime.
The front door slammed as the man and woman from the SUV came in behind Pollard. He shot a glance over his shoulder and saw that a third man, the Hispanic driver, limped badly. His heart sank. Five to one were impossible odds.
“Matt…” Marie looked up when he came in the room. “Who are these people?”
Simon, just under a year old and teething, sucked on a peeled carrot. He was just beginning to take a few steps and stood on Marie’s knee, holding the edge of her chair.
Pollard’s face twitched with rage. “What are you doing in my house?”
The man on the love seat looked back and forth from Matthew to Marie. At length, he turned his body to face Marie, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.
She coughed as the cloud of smoke from his cigar enveloped her.
“You must forgive me, my dear. I’ve been hopping from Africa to New York then Spokane… I must confess the last several hours have been a blur.” The man yawned, blinking as if he was about to fall asleep. He shot a glance up at Pollard, batting his eyelashes. “I am shocked your husband has not mentioned me. We were… Matthew, would you have called us friends?”
“Hardly.”
“Pity.” The man gave an exhausted sigh. “I would have called us friends. My name is Valentine Zamora. The man behind you is my associate, Julian Monagas. We had the good fortune to work with your husband some years ago.”
“You know these people?” Marie turned toward Pollard, eyes pleading to understand.
Zamora stood, reaching for the baby.
Marie screamed, but Monagas yanked her back by her hair.
Pollard roared, bolting to protect his family no matter the odds. Something heavy caught him across the back of the head, driving him to his knees. He pushed himself up with one arm, holding his head with the other, waiting for the waves of nausea to pass.
Zamora stood beside the love seat, an anxious Simon pressed to his chest. His actions were soft and gentle, but his face and words made it clear he had dispensed with all other niceties.