Undercover Memories (2 page)

Thoroughly out of sorts now, she unlocked the door and went inside. At least there was a semblance of warmth due to the small fire still burning in the woodstove, and that also gave a tiny bit of light.

A graphic designer by trade, she could probably work on the laptop for a couple of hours. She’d brought along the work for the Red Hook album cover. Surely the battery was up to that, but was she? Maybe it would be best to just go to bed and get the night over with. Tomorrow was a brand-new day, and if it started like this one was ending, she’d drive home early. But if the weather cleared and she was able to stop feeling sorry for herself, she’d take a walk by the river.

She got ready for bed in the dark. The flashlight could wait until morning. As she’d left for this cabin directly from the chapel, the only nightclothes she’d packed had been flimsy little silky wisps appropriate for sashaying in front of a new husband. Needless to say, she hadn’t unpacked them. She’d spent the past two nights in sweats and a long-sleeve T-shirt, and they were where she’d left them that morning, hanging over a towel bar in the bathroom, which she found by touch.

She hurried across the freezing floor, contemplating digging in her suitcase for another pair of socks but abandoning that idea because of the dark. She pulled back the covers of the unmade bed and flung herself down onto the mattress, curling into a tight ball and praying for warmth.

And knew immediately she wasn’t alone.

Brian…

He’d changed his mind and come after her. She could almost hear him whispering her name.

Did she want him here? No! Who did he think he was?

Funny, she hadn’t seen his car.

That wasn’t the only thing that was funny. Something smelled kind of earthy.

She reached out a hand slowly and touched a piece of wet fabric. “Brian?” she whispered.

Someone grasped her wrist in a decidedly unfriendly fashion.

Screaming, she wrenched her hand free and bolted out of the bed. But her legs got tangled in the covers and she fell flat on her face. Breathing heavy now, she pulled at the sheet and blankets that constrained her, desperate to escape.

Hands clutched her by the arms and pulled her to her feet. A man—it had to be a man; it was too big to be a woman—shook her.

“Shut up,” he said.

Like hell. She screamed louder and kicked.

“Stop it,” he said, and shook her again.

She could not get free. Who was this brute who lurked in her bed, wet and steamy and terrifying? What had she been thinking to come to such a remote spot by herself? She could scream all night and no one would hear her.

She gulped a deep breath and tried to gather her thoughts. She had to do something or she’d end up the headline in a newspaper: Woman Found Raped and Beaten to Death in Mountain Cabin.

She shut her mouth and recoiled at the sound of his deep, labored breathing.

“Thank the Lord,” he said, and his grip lessened a fraction. She wrenched away again and took off. This time she ran right smack into the wall.

He was there again, towering over her, peeling her away.

“Calm down,” he muttered.

“Wouldn’t you like that? Who are you? What do you want?”

He was silent. Was he making a list or something? She struggled a little, but his hold on her was firm.

“Turn on the light,” he finally said.

“I can’t. The electricity is out. Let me go. I’m warning you, my husband will be here any minute and he’s ex-military.”

His finger rolled over the top of her left hand. “You’re not wearing a ring,” he said. “And there isn’t anything in this cabin to suggest a man was ever here. Don’t start yelling again, please. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Who are you?”

It took him a few seconds to mutter, “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I don’t know if I’m Brian,” he said, and his voice was strange, too. Slurry, as if he’d been drinking, but his breath didn’t smell of booze. “I don’t know who I am.”

“Will you let go of me if I promise to hear you out?” she asked calmly, but her heart was jumping in her chest. Nothing he said made any sense.

“If you run into the night you’ll freeze to death,” he warned her.

“If you stand here in those wet clothes much longer, you’ll freeze to death, too,” she countered.

He slowly dropped his hands.

She scooted out of reach, but this time he didn’t come after her. His shape was large in the small room, but a little stooped. His breathing was uneven. “Are you hurt?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“How—”

“I don’t know.”

“So you don’t know who you are or how you got hurt.”

“No. I may have fallen down a waterfall.”

“I’d better have a look at you,” she said.

“Are you a doctor?”

“No, but I’m the only other person here, so I guess you have to settle. First I need to find a flashlight. I’m going out to the kitchen.”

“Okay,” he said, and she heard the squeak of the bedsprings as he sat down.

She took her first deep breath as she left the bedroom, feeling the walls to keep from tripping. The living room wasn’t pitch-black, thanks to the meager firelight, but she ran into an ottoman anyway and swore under her breath. She should leave. Damn, her keys were in her jeans pocket, and the pants were back in the bathroom.

Okay, then she should keep going to the door and run back to the Pollocks’ house. It was only a mile or so. Better then winding up a headline.

She kept going to the kitchen. She needed that flashlight and maybe a nice big butcher knife.

It took a few minutes of opening drawers and rummaging through the contents in the dark, but her fingers finally touched a smooth, cylindrical object. She fumbled with it until she found a switch and pushed it.

“Let there be light,” the man whispered from a few feet away.

She turned the beam onto him. Judging from the arm he threw up to his face, she’d blinded him.

“Sorry,” she muttered, lowering the light. She held a cleaver in her right hand, down by her side. If he took one step toward her—

“Well,” he said. “Am I?”

“Are you what?”

“Am I Brian?”

Of course he wasn’t Brian. His voice was too deep and he was far too big, and anyway, Brian wouldn’t act the way this man acted. But she raised the light again to get a good look at her intruder and found a well-built man in his late thirties wearing a torn, wet, bloodstained suit that might once have been pretty sharp looking. His face was scratched and bruised. One eye was puffy and swollen. His bottom lip appeared cut, and there was a split in his chin that probably needed stitches if it wasn’t going to leave a scar.

Pushing a mat of thick black hair away from his battered-looking forehead, he gazed at her with dark eyes that revealed nothing. He didn’t look like a businessman. In fact, he looked as if he’d be more at home in an alley than in a high-rise, but that could be because he also looked as though he’d gone ten rounds with a prizefighter—and lost.

“No. You aren’t Brian,” she said.

“Pity.”

She shook her head. “Not really.”

He pulled a chair out from the table and sat down as though it was either that or fall on his face.

Who was he, and what was he doing in her cabin? Now that she’d seen his face, she wasn’t as frightened of him, and why was that? There wasn’t one cuddly thing about him. She should be running for her life.

Instead, cleaver still in hand, she sat down on a chair opposite him, the two of them trapped in a puddle of yellowish light that portended poorly for the flashlight batteries. “You think you fell down a waterfall?” she asked.

“I don’t know for sure,” he said, touching his lip and wincing.

“You must know
something,
” she insisted.

He raised his gaze to hers. “I wish I did, lady, but I’m afraid that what you see is what you get.”

Chapter Two

While she built up the fire, he told her about waking up on the riverbank in his current condition. It was a struggle to get the words out. For one thing, his head felt as if it was going to explode. And for another, he was tired beyond endurance.

He didn’t mention the gun, which was still in its holster tucked under his jacket. He wasn’t sure why he was reluctant to tell her. He just was.

“The second time I woke up I was in the forest. It was almost dark and it was raining,” he added as she handed him a cup of tea she’d brewed on the gas stove in the kitchen. She was a restless woman, or maybe she was just nervous, which, given the circumstances, wasn’t surprising. Still, given the state of his head, he wished she’d stop moving around so much.

He had a feeling that at any other time in his life, he would have enjoyed watching her move. She was very slim with blond hair cut kind of uneven in a quirky way, falling long over one side of her face. Her ears were each pierced two times, and she wore small stones that glistened in the flickering light from the fire just as the whites of her eyes did. She looked to be in her late twenties.

“So you just stumbled around until you came to my cabin?” she asked.

“I broke into another one first,” he admitted. “But there wasn’t anything to eat. Yours looked lived in, so I came through a window in the mudroom. You had food in the fridge and your bed looked too good to pass up.” He paused for a heartbeat. “In retrospect, probably not the best idea to pass out in an obviously occupied place, but my thinking was a little fuzzy.”

She studied him a minute. “You really don’t know your name?”

“No.”

“I have to call you something.”

“Call me John Doe. It’s as good as anything else. What should I call you?”

“Paige Graham. Okay, John Doe. What do you want to do?”

“Sleep,” he said, quite honestly. “Though if you want me to leave, I understand.”

“I’m not going to force you out into a thunderstorm,” she said.

“I appreciate that.” He rubbed the back of his neck and did his best not to groan. “How about we put off making further decisions until morning? Maybe if I sleep, my memory will return. You take the bed—”

“That’s okay. It’s kind of…swampy. You can have it. I’ll take the couch. If you’ll hand me your damp clothes, I’ll hang them here by the fire. And I should bandage a couple of these cuts—”

He waved her off with a limp flick of his fingers. “I’m too tired to worry about anything right now. You’re sure about the bed?”

“Positive.” He saw the way her gaze flicked toward the front door. There was no way to keep her from leaving as soon as he closed his eyes. Nor was there any way to make sure she didn’t use the big knife she’d hidden in the desk drawer unless he tied her up, and he wasn’t going to do that. Frankly, at that moment, he didn’t particularly care what she did. He had to sleep.

He got to his feet and looked into her gray eyes. “Good night, Paige Graham.”

She almost smiled. “Good night, John Doe.”

* * *

T
HE LIGHTS WENT ON AT
6:45 a.m. Paige knew this because she’d spent the night sitting on the sofa with the cleaver, just in case. At the moment when the lamp blazed, she was staring at the clock, trying to figure out what to do.

Getting power back made that decision easy. The first order of business was to see if there was anything on the news about an escaped convict or a serial killer. She got up quickly and crossed the room to the small television set that sat inside a hutch. She turned it on and adjusted the old-fashioned rabbit ears until the only channel she’d been able to pick up was clear enough to watch.

She heard the shower start running, but she kept the volume low anyway. More rain was predicted for today. A woman in New York had won the lottery. Firemen had saved a puppy that fell through the grating into a culvert. Interest rates were up. Unemployment was down. She was about to give up and go start a pot of coffee when the picture on the screen changed to one of a forest. A reporter stood next to what appeared to be an abandoned campsite.

As Paige listened to the sketchy details, her fingernails bit into her palms. At a nearby park that was still closed for the season, an unidentified man had been savagely attacked. He’d been airlifted to Green Acre and was listed in critical condition and in a coma. Another man was wanted in connection with the attack. His name was John Cinca and he was a bodyguard working out of Lone Tree, Wyoming. Police were combing the area looking for him. A car rented under his name was found abandoned in the park. Another car was there, as well, abandoned, this one stolen. There were no witnesses and the reason for the attack was unclear.

They flashed a picture of John Cinca on the screen.

John Doe.

Paige found herself standing. She had to get out of here! She ran to the door and looked through the window.

During the night, the rain had turned to snow and left a few inches on the ground. She would leave a visible trail if she attempted to walk away. Her car was
right there
. She had to get her keys.

But John was in the bathroom, and so were her jeans with the keys in the pocket. The bedroom door was ajar and opened the rest of the way noiselessly. She all but floated across the floor to the bathroom. That door opened silently, as well. She could discern the outline of John’s body through the shower curtain. Yikes, he was muscular! She grabbed her jeans, closed the door and retraced her steps across the bedroom.

Once in the living room, she pulled the keys from the pocket and snagged her coat and handbag off the back of a chair. She glanced back at the bedroom door—the coast was still clear although the shower had gone off. Man, why hadn’t she grabbed her shoes?
No matter, just get out while the getting is good.

She opened the door and tiptoed onto the deck, avoiding the plank she’d noticed squeaked the day before. Looking back as often as she looked forward, she made it to the car but chose to unlock it with the key rather than risk the noise it made with the keyless entry button. The door opened quietly and she slipped inside. She left the door unlatched but the car started beeping when she inserted the key, so she closed it, wincing at the thud it made.