Chapter 1
One
It was very still in the room, still and warm.
Maybe that should have reassured her, but it had the opposite effect.
She fought her way out of the cocooning sleep, the too familiar feelings of panic beating about her like the dark wings of a thousand bats.
She opened her eyes to face the sterile whiteness of a hospital room, and she remembered nothing. Except that she was afraid.
Without moving a muscle she slowly began taking in her surroundings.
Her head pounded like a sledgehammer, and she reached a tentative hand out to touch it, finding a tender scalp beneath a surprisingly heavy mane of hair.
Drawing back her shaking band, she looked at it closely.
It appeared neither foreign nor familiar, a tanned, capable hand with long fingers, short nails and no rings. And her panic grew.
“You’re finally awake then.” A voice broke through her tangled thoughts, and her eyes met the warm, friendly ones of a young nurse.
“I thought you’d sleep forever after that last shot we gave you.
You were pretty upset.” She moved closer, her eyes cheerfully curious behind the wire-rimmed glasses. “How are you feeling, hon?”
She hated being called hon. That little she could remember. “Where am I?” she demanded finally in a faintly husky voice that was equally startling. She didn’t dare ask the more important question—who am I?
“Riverview Medical Center,” the nurse answered, watching her closely. “Is something wrong?”
“How long have I been here?”
“Two weeks,” the nurse answered. “Don’t you remember?”
She shook her head numbly, and the wicked pounding increased. “Not a thing.”
The nurse clucked with professional sympathy, her brown eyes troubled.
“Take a deep breath and try to relax. You’ve had several of these blank spells before—with any luck this one won’t last too long.
They often follow a bad concussion like you’ve had.
Do you remember anything at all this time?
” she asked curiously, making a small notation on the chart in her capable looking hands.
“Nothing. How long have these blank periods usually lasted?” She clasped her unfamiliar hands together in an effort to hide the tremor.
The nurse shrugged. “They come and go.. A few hours, at the most. Once it went on for several days. You just lie back and rest and I’ll get the doctor to answer any more questions you might have.
This is such a shame—they were planning to discharge you today if it was all right with Lieutenant Ryker. ”
“Lieutenant Ryker?” she echoed. “Is he in the army?” It was a stupid question and she knew it. She might not have any concrete memories, but she knew she was in trouble. Deep trouble.
“He’s with the police. You’ve forgotten how you got in here, haven’t you?” She leaned over, taking her pulse.
She nodded miserably. .
The nurse hesitated, glancing toward the door as if expecting help. “You were in a serious car accident, Mrs. Winters.”
The name meant nothing to her. She glanced down at her hands, but there was no ring. No telltale mark of one recently discarded. “How serious?” She managed to keep her voice reasonably calm.
Once more the nurse hesitated. “The passenger in your car was dead, and you had sustained a severe concussion and some unpleasant bruising. You were unconscious for several days, but since then you’ve been healing very rapidly. Except for your occasional bouts of amnesia.”
“And what does this Lieutenant Ryker have to do with all this? Did I commit a crime? Is there some question of negligence?”
The nurse busied herself with the pillows.
“You’ve refused to give us the name of the man who was with you.
That, combined with the three hundred thousand dollars in cash that they found in the trunk of the car has raised a lot of questions.
Questions you won’t answer.” She dropped her wrist lightly on the starched white sheet.
“If you’d just cooperate and answer the police’s questions, I’m sure they would let you go home and recover at your own pace. Sometimes it just takes time.”
She stared at the nurse blankly. “I wish I could. I only wish I could.”
She clucked sympathetically, patting her hand with a reassuring gesture. “Try not to worry. I’ll go find Dr. Hobson. In the meantime you just rest and think about your husband.”
“My husband?”
“You mean to say you don’t remember him either?” she demanded, astonished. “I would have said he was almost impossible to forget.”
“Is he...nice?”
“Nice?” She considered the notion. “Somehow I don’t think so. As a matter of fact, the two of you don’t seem to get along so well. But God, is he beautiful! I wouldn’t kick him out of bed for eating crackers.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Just a figure of speech,” the nurse said hastily. “I’ll get the doctor.”
She lay back against the starched white sheets, trying to put a tight control on the panic that was sweeping over her.
She knew nothing, absolutely nothing about who and what she was, and the few little tidbits the talkative nurse had dropped made things even worse.
A strange man dead? A fortune in cash? A handsome husband who hated her?
This must all be some hideous nightmare.
In another moment she would wake in her own bed in.
.. The blankness that met her probing mind filled her with more horror than the thought of a dead man sitting beside her in her car, and she felt the burn of frightened tears stinging her eyes.
But I never cry, she thought, blinking the tears back with a sort of wonder.
She pulled herself slowly out of bed, marveling at the exhaustion that suffused her unknown body, at the weakness in her legs. She moved across the cool, tiled floor to the small mirror above the washstand and examined herself carefully. It was a complete stranger staring back at her.
No, perhaps not complete. It was like looking at a picture of a distant relative. She didn’t know the person in the mirror. But she looked vaguely familiar.
She surveyed the various parts of her. Long, honey-blond hair that could do with a thorough washing, slanted green-blue eyes, a nose too small and a mouth too large.
High cheekbones and a determined chin completed the picture, yet she felt neither strangeness nor recognition.
She looked to be in her early twenties, far younger than she felt.
She turned away from that lost face and moved slowly back to the bed.
She’d lost more than twenty years someplace.
Twenty-some years, and a husband she hated.
“There you are, my dear. Feeling a bit dodgy this morning?” She could only assume this elderly gentleman in the rumpled white lab coat was her doctor, but she eyed him with patent doubt and disapproval. “I don’t know whether you should be out of bed quite yet,” he continued.
She sat back on the side of the mattress, watching him with a distrust that seemed natural to her. “I thought I was leaving today,” she said shortly. “Surely I’ll have to be able to walk?”
He raised an eyebrow. “The nurse says you’ve had another memory loss. I guess you’ve forgotten that you trust me just a tiny bit.”
She stared at him. He looked more like an elderly David Letterman than a doctor, she thought vaguely. And then the realization struck her—how did she know what David Letterman looked like, when she didn’t know her own face?
“How much is missing this time?” he asked.
“Everything,” she said wearily. “I have no idea who I am.”
He frowned. “Amnesia isn’t usually like that.
There should be some patches of memory, some faint traces.
While you’ve had intermittent memory loss, there hasn’t been anything this severe.
You have no pressure building on your brain, no sign of any trauma other than the concussion, but perhaps another CAT scan might be in order. ”
“No!” she protested. “No more prodding. I just want a few answers.”
“Are you certain you just don’t want to go home to your husband?” he asked shrewdly.
“Of course I don’t want to go home to a husband I can’t even remember,” she said, the anger building inside her oddly familiar.
She must have spent a lot of time being angry.
“Do you think that’s enough to frighten me into remembering again?
Maybe I’m just looking for an excuse not to have to identify the dead man in the car I wrecked. ”
“You remember that?”
“No. The nurse told me, I remember absolutely nothing.” Her voice quavered slightly—another sign of weakness that she fought back with fierce determination. She couldn’t afford to show any sign of vulnerability. That certainty stayed with her.
Dr. Hobson looked at her curiously. “What happened to that fiendish temper of yours?” he asked mildly. “You’ve already terrified two of the toughest professionals on this floor.”
“I’m frightened,” she said in a tight little voice. “I can’t be strong all the time.”
“Of course you can’t,” he said soothingly. “No one expects you to be but yourself.”
“Well, I expect too much,” she said in a muffled voice.
He patted her hand. “You do, indeed. Do you think you’re ready to go home? I’m worried about this recent blank spot. Chances are it will pass as swiftly as the others, but still, it concerns me.”
“If I put it off I may never be able to go back,” she said in a quiet voice, steeling herself.
“The sooner I face up to it the better off I’ll be.
The nurse says these blank spells don’t last long.
I’ll probably remember everything by the time I reach home.
Wherever that is,” she added with an attempt at humor that sounded just a bit bitter.