Big Shot (11 page)

“It’s been crazy in the E.R. tonight. He’ll probably call when he finds time. Meghan’s case sounds interesting,” he said, changing the subject.

“It’s the worst case of memory loss stemming from a concussion that I’ve ever seen,” the nurse admitted. “Meghan doesn’t remember anything prior to regaining consciousness in the hospital.”

“So she has no idea who attacked her?”

“Not a clue. The doctor did finally let a detective from the DPD in to see her this afternoon, but she couldn’t have told him anything useful.”

“But it’s just a temporary memory loss, right?”

“Right. It should run its course soon, unless there are emotional factors involved. But if you have to be out of it, you can’t beat having Durk Lambert around to hold your hand.”

“Durk Lambert as in Lambert Inc.?”

“Yes. He’s been with her almost constantly. We’re all envious of Angela for getting to see so much of him.”

He couldn’t care less about Durk Lambert, but having another person in the room would make finishing the job much more difficult. All he needed was a few minutes alone with Meghan. Suffocation was easy, quick and silent.

It was his method of choice, though this would be the first time he’d killed a woman in a hospital.

The shame was he couldn’t kill her torturously slow so that he could get his kicks. Now it would be a pillow over the face until her lungs gave up the struggle for oxygen.

It was sad that it had to end this way for such a beautiful woman. But she had brought it all on herself.

Now he just had to find a place he could hang around unseen until the boyfriend went home. It would be a glorious ending to the chapter.

The book would go on. The setting would change to another town, perhaps even another state. He would miss Texas.

Chapter Nine

A frigid mist was falling. The icy crystals clung to Meghan’s skin, stinging like a thousand bumblebees. She pulled the light jacket tighter. It was almost dark. She should be home by now, locked safely inside.

She searched for her house, but even the street no longer looked familiar. The houses had bolted doors and dark windows. They had yards, but no grass—only weeds and flowers that had turned a rusty brown. She was lost. She had to get back to her own street.

She tried to run, but the roots of a spiny tree reached out to trip her. Her feet entangled in the spiky clumps and she fell face-first into the mud.

Laughter filled the night, but when she looked up, she saw nothing. The people who mocked her were hiding behind the dark windows. They were safe. She was the only one left out in the cold.

Wind gusted through the trees with such force that she had to grab on to the trunk of a towering tree to keep from being blown backward. Thunder rumbled. She had to find her way home before it was too late.

Too late. Too late. Too late.

The words echoed all around her until they drowned out the sounds of the wind and her feet slapping against the pavement. She turned a corner. Now there were no houses. No shelter. No place where she would be safe.

Her legs ached. Her lungs burned. Her fate was sealed. She would never get home again. Her knees gave way and she crumbled to the dry, hard earth.

The ground beneath her began to rumble, and the sound of pounding hooves grew so loud it threatened to split her skull into jagged fragments.

A herd of wild horses stampeded toward her, all riderless except for one. The faceless rider reached out his hand as he went flying by. Their fingers brushed, but she couldn’t catch hold. The horse and rider galloped away, leaving her alone in the dark.

Except that she wasn’t alone. Someone was nearby, lurking in the shadows. She could hear his breathing and smell the sickly sweet fragrance of his aftershave.

There were no trees now. No houses. No horse.

She put her hand on her chest. Her gown was wet with cold sweat. Slowly, the room came into focus. She was in the hospital.

Thunder rolled in the distance and rain splattered the window panes. It was storming outside. No wonder the room was so much darker than usual. The only illumination was the rectangle of light that crept in from beneath the door.

Slowly, her pupils adjusted enough that she could see that Durk’s chair was empty. He’d gone home. The nightmare had vanished, but she couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that someone was standing nearby.

“Durk. Durk, are you in here?”

No one answered. Yet she was sure now that she could hear breathing. “Who’s there?” She reached over to push the call button for the nurse. A hand closed over hers.

“Don’t be afraid, Meghan. I’m only here to help.”

Panic struck like lightning. She shoved the man backward, then skirted the rail on the opposite side of the bed and hit the floor feetfirst.

The door to her room flew open before she could escape and she saw the man rush through it, the white of his clothes catching the light.

Oh, no.
Had she been so entangled in the nightmare that she’d just attacked a nurse or maybe even a doctor?

She reached over, flicked on the lamp over her bed and then leaned against the wall. Her breath came in hard, fast gasps, and even now she wasn’t sure if she was awake or still trapped in the nightmare.

The door opened again, but this time it was Durk who stepped inside. She’d never been happier to see anyone in her life.

“Meghan, what’s wrong? You’re white as a ghost.”

“I had a nightmare.”

He rushed to her, dropped the duffel he was carrying to the chair and took both her hands in his. “You’re shaking and your gown is soaking wet. Let me help you back into bed.”

“Not yet.” She fought to shake off the hangover-like confusion that clouded her reasoning.

“Did you dream about the attack?” Durk asked.

“No. That would have been good. At least I might have gained some insight from that. The nightmare was just a terrifying mishmash like my life’s become.”

“You don’t have to talk about it.”

But she did because she was still having difficulty differentiating between subconscious images and reality. “I thought I had woken up. I was back in the hospital, but there was a man lurking in the dark shadows inside my room.”

He put his arms around her and held her close. His touch was familiar and strange at the same time. Part of her wanted to pull away. But the urge to cling to him was too strong to resist.

“It was just a nightmare,” Durk said. “I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

The door creaked open again. Meghan stepped out of Durk’s embrace as Angela walked over and turned off the call button. Her eyes went from Meghan to the bed.

“It looks like you tangled with a herd of mad bedbugs,” Angela said.

Meghan stared at the mussed linens. One corner of the fitted sheet had pulled completely loose and the blanket was in a wad. One pillow was on the floor a few feet from the bed as if she’d hurled it at the departing intruder who she still wasn’t sure was real or phantom.

“She had a nightmare,” Durk answered when Meghan didn’t.

Angela poured some cool water from the bedside pitcher and handed the glass to Meghan. “Must be all those repressed memories fighting their way out,” Angela said. “Don’t quote me on that. That was purely layman’s conjecture.”

A streak of lightning lit the room followed by a booming crash of thunder and a sudden dimming of the lights.

“The storm’s intensifying,” Angela said. “But don’t worry, we have generator backup for all essential needs in case of a power outage.”

Wind whistled around the building, adding a ghostly wail to the thunder and the sound of rain pelting against the glass. Perfect sound effects for a horrifying nightmare.

Now, with the lights on and Angela and Durk nearby, Meghan was beginning to doubt that the man in her room had been any more real than the one on the galloping horse. But just to be on the safe side…

“Was there a male staff member in my room a few minutes ago?” Meghan asked, trying to clarify the mystery.

“Not that I know of,” Angela said. “Why do you ask?”

“Either I dreamed there was a man in my room or there actually was one in here.”

“There are two male nurses on duty tonight. We tend to look in on each other’s patients when it’s storming. Or one of them might have heard you call out during the nightmare and looked in to make sure you were all right.”

“If there was one in here, apologize to him for my shoving him away. I was still in the throes of the nightmare.”

Angela frowned. “In that case you must have been dreaming. Neither Cary nor Jim would have been scared off by you. And if they’d thought they’d upset you, they would have come and told me.”

“Then chalk it up to the nightmare.”

The man had seemed real. But then so had the man on the horse and she knew a horse hadn’t galloped through her room. Meghan finished her water, set the glass on the tray and began to straighten her bed.

“Don’t bother with that. I’ll send someone in to change your sheets and bring you a fresh gown,” Angela said. “Gucci or Prada?” she teased, no doubt trying to provide some much-needed leverage to the moment.

“Go with Gucci,” Meghan said, playing along. “Black silk, with lace at the bosom. And a seam up the back would be nice.”

Angela winked and smiled flirtatiously at Durk. “A gown like that, and you’d have your male sitter needing artificial respiration.”

“And I’m sure Nurse Angela would be only too happy to provide that service,” Meghan teased once the nurse had left them alone.

“It’s her duty,” Durk said.

Meghan turned to Durk, actually taking a good look at him for the first time since he’d rushed to her nightmare rescue. He’d apparently gone home and showered and changed while she’d slept. He looked terrific. She, on the other hand, looked like a drowned, Hospital Barbie rip-off.

“I was definitely glad to see you walk through that door,” Meghan said. “But you shouldn’t have come back here tonight. You need some sleep. You probably have cows to take care of tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll doze in the chair. I can fall asleep anywhere, though I’m sure the cows are missing me.”

But he couldn’t keep spending all his days and nights with her. The real mystery was why he’d want to when she was only a woman he’d dated a few times two years ago.

The answer had to lie somewhere in her forgotten past.

In the meantime, she had to be careful not to fall for him. He hadn’t found any reason to hang around two years ago. There was no reason to think he’d be any more interested now.

* * *

T
HE SHEETS WERE CRISP
and unwrinkled. Meghan’s gown was fresh and clean, though it was still a faded blue with an immodest opening in the back.

Durk was dozing in the more comfortable of the two chairs in the room, his head on the pillow, his stockinged feet propped on her bed.

Meghan was wide awake.

She thought of turning on the TV for late-night reruns of sitcoms taped before she was born, but she didn’t want to disturb Durk.

Durk Lambert, her cowboy protector whom she knew almost nothing about. He was one more mystery in a world of the unknown. She had no reason to doubt him—or any real reason to trust him, except that he watched over her like a grizzly guarding a mischievous cub.

She reached for a fashion magazine that Durk had picked up for her in the hospital gift shop that afternoon. She thumbed through it quickly, barely glancing at the designer creations that graced every page.

The clothing in the publication didn’t tempt her. She was far more interested in what hung in her closet. Was she as casual as Durk with his jeans and supersoft knit pullovers? Or did she go for the more chic fashion?

Did she sleep in worn tees and run out for the morning paper in a ratty robe or did she go for slinky negligees? And most important of all, had she actually put herself out there as bait and lured a killer into her world?

Why would a P.I. with a reputation for being smart make such a tragic mistake?

There was little she could do tonight, but she was leaving the hospital in the morning with or without an official release. She still had a dull headache off and on, but she was no longer dizzy or nauseous and she was certain she’d aced the last half-dozen routine neuro checks—except for the memory tasks.

The memory would surely return soon. In the meantime, she could investigate herself and her actions over the last few days and weeks. She wasn’t quite sure how she’d go about it, but she had no trouble using the television remote, operating the hospital bed or reading the hospital’s menu of unappetizing meal options. So why not assume that her investigative skills would also come back to her as needed?

She got out of bed, went to the bathroom and then stopped to drape her extra blanket across Durk. She bent to straighten his boots and noticed an iPad jutting from his worn leather duffel.

He hadn’t had it with him before so he’d obviously picked it up on his last trip home. She practically salivated in anticipation as she lifted the digital tablet from the duffel.

Endless, forgotten facts at her fingertips—unless Durk had the machine password protected so that she couldn’t get onto the internet. That would be legitimate grounds for waking him from a sound sleep.

She flicked on the monitor as she climbed back into the bed. The screen lit up and rows of icons appeared. Once she was connected, she typed “Durk Lambert” in the search box and clicked.

Her efforts were instantly rewarded. She’d hit pay dirt.

She scanned the first dozen entries.

Durk Lambert addresses international oil executives.

Durk Lambert, a formidable CEO in the oil industry.

Durk Lambert to head national committee.

Durk Lambert attends meeting with congressional leaders.

Durk Lambert named the wealthiest and most eligible bachelor in Texas.

And in case there was any doubt they were talking about the Durk Lambert now sleeping with his stockinged feet propped on the foot of her bed, the last heading included pictures.