Читать онлайн книгу «With the Material Witness in the Safehouse» автора Carla Cassidy

With the Material Witness in the Safehouse
Carla Cassidy
A beautiful amnesiac and a world of ever-growing secrets… FBI agent Ryan Burton spent his days investigating every dark secret in the fog-shrouded village of Raven’s Cliff. His nights were spent protecting a beautiful amnesiac witness. At one time Ryan had been her defender and her lover, but Britta Jakobsen had no recollection of either.For Ryan, safeguarding Britta brought back the past – and the passion – they’d once shared. This time, though, as a curse enshrouded the town and Britta became the focus of a madman’s attention, their reunion was no match for the unpredictable danger that hovered just outside the safehouse door…THE CURSE OF RAVEN’S CLIFF – A small town with sinister secrets…


She didn’t remember that they had become lovers…
When Ryan stepped back into the room, Britta’s head was turned towards the window and a shaft of sunlight shone on her platinum hair. His fingers itched, remembering the silkiness of those strands.
She didn’t remember him. Somehow her mind had erased the last seven months. That meant she didn’t remember the shooting she’d witnessed. She had no memory of being a material witness, living her life before the trial in a safehouse with him as her handler.
And she definitely didn’t remember that because their relationship had once been far more than FBI agent and witness, he’d had to let her go.
Or that it had killed him to do so…

CAST OF CHARACTERS
Britta Jakobsen – She was missing for days and now suffers from amnesia. Is there something in the beautiful blonde’s hidden memory worth murdering for?
Ryan Burton – The FBI agent isn’t sure he wants Britta to get her memories back.
Captain Claybourne – Does the fisherman know more than he’s telling about Britta’s disappearance?
Mayor Perry Wells – A grieving father who raises suspicions with his unusual actions.
Hazel Baker – She senses the evil enveloping the town. Is she a part of that evil?
Michael Kelly – Why did he bring Britta to the strange fishing village of Raven’s Cliff?
Camille Wells – She was blown off the bluff on her wedding day and remains lost at sea.
Grant Bridges – His fiancée Camille disappeared on their wedding day. What is his connection?
Patrick Swanson – The chief of police knows all too well about the curse on his small town.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carla Cassidy is an award-winning author who has written more than fifty novels. In 1998, she won a Career Achievement Award for Best Innovative Series from Romantic Times BOOKreviews.
Carla believes the only thing better than curling up with a good book to read is sitting down at the computer with a good story to write. She’s looking forward to writing many more books and bringing hours of pleasure to readers.

With the Material Witness in the Safehouse
CARLA CASSIDY

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Chapter One
Happy is the bride that the sun shines on. If that was the case, then Camille Wells was going to be one unhappy bride, Ryan Burton thought as he stood among a huge crowd of people gathered on the rocky bluffs of Raven’s Cliff, Maine.
The dismal gray sky seemed to plunge right down to the frothing water of the coastline below. A stiff breeze blew everyone’s hair askew and the female guests held on to their skirts.
Beneath the hum of conversation among the attendees was the ever-present thunder of the waves crashing against the rocky shoreline. Despite the fact that it was early May the air held an oppressive closeness broken only by wind gusts, which had been strong enough to decimate the floral arrangements long ago.
Ryan had arrived in the small fishing village that morning with a specific job to accomplish, and that job had nothing to do with attending some fancy wedding ceremony. But when he’d discovered it was the mayor’s daughter getting married, and everyone who was anyone would be there, he’d wrangled an invite from the innkeeper when he’d checked in.
Maybe somebody here knew something about her disappearance. Ryan tried to ignore the tension that knotted in his chest as he thought of the woman he’d come here to find.
Britta Jakobsen was supposed to have begun work as a housekeeper at the inn four days ago. According to the innkeeper, Hazel Baker, Britta had checked in and gone to her room and hadn’t been seen since.
Later today he was to speak with Michael Kelly, the FBI agent in charge of relocating Britta here. To the FBI, Britta Jakobsen was a witness who had fingered a number of bad guys who’d been in a shoot-out that had taken place in Boston six months before.
The shoot-out had not only involved local thugs but also police and FBI agents. It had resulted in the death of one of their own, and the FBI had leaned hard on Britta for her cooperation.
There had already been one attempt on her life, resulting in her being placed in the Witness Protection Program and relocated to this small Maine fishing village.
And now she was missing.
“Ugly day for a wedding.” The deep voice brought Ryan out of his thoughts.
He looked at the barrel-chested bald man standing next to him and nodded. “I’ve definitely seen better.” As if to punctuate his sentence, a fierce wind gust nearly blew him back a step, and the scent of brine became stronger.
“Don’t believe I’ve seen you around these parts before.” The man’s hazel eyes held both a wealth of intelligence and more than a touch of curiosity. “Friend of the bride or the groom?”
“Neither,” Ryan admitted. “I checked into the inn this morning and Hazel invited me to come out for the wedding. She mentioned these bluffs are the best place to get a look at that.” He pointed to the old lighthouse that rose up in the distance. “Hazel told me it’s the stuff of local legends.”
The well-built man offered a small smile. “Hazel is our resident kook. Don’t let her fill your head with nonsense. Is that a touch of Texas I hear in your voice?”
Ryan eyed him in surprise. “It is. Born and raised there.”
The man held out a hand. “I’m Patrick Swanson, Chief of Police.”
Ryan wasn’t surprised. The man definitely had the aura of power and authority. He took the proffered hand, and the two men shook. “Ryan Burton, nice to meet you.”
“So, what brings you to Raven’s Cliff, Ryan Burton?”
Ryan couldn’t very well tell him he was in town undercover to find an important material witness who had gone missing. The last thing they wanted was any kind of publicity. “I’ve heard the fishing is good in these parts.”
He wasn’t sure yet how to handle things with the authorities here in Raven’s Cliff. He’d had to tell Hazel that he’d come to look for Britta because Britta had gone missing from the inn. He was banking on the hope that Hazel wouldn’t want anyone to know that a woman had disappeared from the inn under strange circumstances. It wasn’t good for publicity.
“The locals are pulling in record breakers lately. I’ve never seen fish so big,” Patrick replied.
Ryan nodded absently and gazed around at the group, wondering who among the guests might know something about the woman he sought. Again a fist knotted in the pit of his stomach. To the FBI Britta was a material witness, but to him, she had once been far more.
He focused back on Patrick, who was pointing out the town notables to him. There was Mayor Perry Wells and his wife, Beatrice, and standing nearby was Rick Simpson, the mayoral aide.
The prospective groom, Grant Bridges, was also the assistant district attorney and stood impatiently at the altar that had been set up precariously close to the edge of the bluff.
“I’m going to see if I can find out what’s holding up the ceremony,” Patrick said. With a nod he left Ryan standing alone.
This was probably a waste of time, Ryan thought. He’d tried to question several people immediately upon arriving in town, but the one thing he’d discovered fairly quickly was that despite the fact that part of the town’s revenue came from tourism, the people of Raven’s Cliff didn’t appear to take too kindly to strangers.
What he hoped was that following the wedding there would be a surplus of champagne served and that would loosen lips. Somebody had to have seen Britta. A pretty blond woman like her drew attention. Somebody had to have seen or heard something that would give him a clue as to what had happened to her.
His gaze fell on the mayor, who worked the crowd with ease. Tall, with salt-and-pepper hair, the man had the polish and style of power. As Ryan watched, Mayor Wells shook a man’s hand and Ryan saw a wad of money being exchanged.
He frowned. He wouldn’t have found it odd if it had been the mayor passing some bills to somebody involved in the wedding, but it had been the mayor receiving the bills, not handing them out. The minute the money hit the mayor’s hand, it disappeared into his pocket.
At that moment Hazel stepped up beside him. “Isn’t this exciting?” she asked. Her bright yellow and orange dress threatened to balloon up, but she held it down with slightly chubby hands. “Have you found anyone who has seen Valerie?” she asked.
Britta had come to Raven’s Cliff four days ago under the name of Valerie King. “Not yet, but I’m still hopeful.”
“A woman as pretty as her might have caught the eye of one of our local fishermen. Maybe he reeled her right into a love nest,” Hazel exclaimed, her eyes softening with a streak of obvious romanticism.
The idea of Britta in love with anyone sent a stab of pain through him. But he knew he had no right to her, and he certainly preferred she be holed up in a love nest than all the other grim possibilities that marched through his head.
“Have you talked to Captain Swanson? He’s the chief of police and maybe he could help.” Her plump features turned into a frown. “Maybe I should have contacted him when she didn’t show up for work the morning after she checked in.”
“I’m sure that’s not necessary. If I know Valerie, it’s just as you said, she’s probably found some guy and thinks she’s in love,” he replied. The last thing he wanted was the local authorities involved in the case.
“She do that a lot?”
“Often enough,” Ryan replied. Of course, it was a lie. Britta wasn’t the type to just take off with a man or for any other reason, which was why a feeling of disquiet swept through him.
He didn’t understand why Agent Kelly had chosen this particular place to relocate Britta. Strangers stuck out in small towns, even places that catered to tourists. A beautiful woman moving to town was noted.
“Oh, they’re finally getting started,” Hazel exclaimed as music began to swell in the air and a hush of expectancy fell over the crowd. “You know Grant sold his house and is staying at the inn right now. The mayor is giving his daughter and Grant a huge house as a wedding gift.”
Hazel said no more as the mayor appeared with his daughter and began the traditional walk toward the altar. “Doesn’t she look beautiful?”
Ryan murmured in agreement. The bride did look pretty in her silk and pearl gown. Burnished gold corkscrew curls fell to her shoulders and a soft smile curved the corners of her lips as she looked at Grant, waiting at the altar.
Yes, she was pretty, but Ryan’s head was filled with the vision of a tall, long-legged blonde with ice-blue eyes. Where are you, Britta? She hadn’t just disappeared into thin air.
It was a good thing the wedding was getting underway, for the weather seemed to be contemplating a turn for the worse. The skies had darkened into an ominous color of gray, and the thundering of the waves against the rocky bluffs grew louder.
It was obvious a storm was approaching. They’d have to hurry to get the vows in before nature released all its fury. The beautiful bride and her father approached the altar, and Mayor Wells did the traditional handing over of the bride to her groom.
Grant Bridges reached for Camille’s hand, but at that moment a gale-force wind tore across the top of the bluff. It moved Ryan forward a step, and the bride reached up to grab her veil.
Everything appeared to happen in slow motion. As Camille reached a slender hand up to hold on to her veil she took a step backward and stumbled. Her mouth opened in surprise as her feet found no purchase.
Grant lunged out for her and desperately grabbed at the sleeve of her dress. For an instant Ryan thought he had her, but then the sleeve tore in Grant’s hand, and with a small cry she tumbled off the bluff and disappeared from sight.
Stunned silence lasted only a minute, and then the crowd erupted with screams and shouts. “It’s the curse,” Hazel wailed. “Captain Raven’s curse has struck again.”
Ryan ignored her and raced to the altar, along with the mayor, Captain Swanson and half a dozen other men. Ryan lay on his stomach and eased up to the edge of the bluffs, looking over to the treacherous rocks below.
He’d expected to see the broken body of Camille. But he saw nothing. Carefully he slid backward from the treacherous edge and stood with feet braced wide apart for balance, unwilling to become another victim to the wind.
Lightning slashed the black sky, and thunder boomed overhead. Bedlam reigned. Grant had collapsed and was weeping like a baby, women screamed and held on to their husbands.
“Do something,” Mayor Wells said, grabbing Patrick Swanson by the arm. “We have to find her.” Perry Wells’s eyes were as turbulent as the sea below.
Patrick shrugged off the mayor’s desperate grasp as he opened a cell phone and spoke to somebody about search and rescue.
Ryan stared up at the angry skies, still unable to believe the tragedy that had just occurred. A freak accident. Hell, it didn’t get any freakier. Of course, if he listened to Hazel, it hadn’t been an accident at all; rather, Camille Wells had been the tragic victim of a curse.
Exactly what curse? Ryan was grounded in reality too much to believe in such nonsense. Still, as he thought of Camille tumbling over the bluff, probably to her death, and the fact that Britta appeared to have disappeared into thin air, he couldn’t control the chill that walked up his spine, raised the hair on his arms and iced the blood in his veins.
A SEARCH-AND-RESCUE TEAM worked for hours. Ryan volunteered to be a part of the effort to find Camille. The storm moved on without rain, leaving behind a gray pall that matched the moods of the men.
Her veil. That’s all that had been found so far. Fishermen in boats dotted the water looking for her body, but so far she hadn’t been spotted either in the water or along the rocks and crevices of the bluff itself.
Mayor Wells was like a man possessed. He’d taken his distraught wife home, then had returned to help search for his daughter. Grant Bridges, the groom without a bride, had been sedated and taken to the local clinic.
Twilight was approaching, and Ryan knew the search would soon be called off for the night. He stood on the shore staring up at the bluff where Camille had gone over the edge. It was as if the earth had opened and swallowed her whole.
Like Britta.
He frowned. Britta wouldn’t have just disappeared on her own. She knew the importance of the FBI knowing where she was. They had gone to a lot of trouble to set her up here with a new identity and a new job. She just wasn’t the type to blow off all their hard work.
Had one of the men who had made an attempt on her life in Boston found her? Even though he’d walked away from her two months ago with the realization that he’d never see her again, he’d taken comfort in the fact that eventually she’d find some man to love, would build the family she wanted and live a wonderful life.
His frown deepened as his gaze swept the area, lingering on the abandoned Beacon Manor lighthouse that still showed the blackened scars of the fire that had consumed the top of the forty-foot conical building some time ago.
He froze as something caught his eye, a flash of white against the blackened beams, a ghostly wraith that was there only a moment, then gone.
If he were a superstitious man, he would have guessed that the apparition was the dead wife of Sea Captain Earl Raven seeking her husband. But Ryan was firmly grounded in reality. He didn’t believe in curses or ghosts.
He rubbed a hand over tired eyes and wondered if it had been nothing more than his imagination. He supposed it was possible it might be the missing bride, although he couldn’t imagine how she would have survived her fall off the bluff and be able to climb the stairs to the top of the lighthouse.
Knowing he wouldn’t be satisfied until he checked it out, he left the bluffs and headed back to his car to drive the short distance to the lighthouse.
As he passed the area that had been set up as a command post for the search-and-rescue team, he caught a glimpse of the police chief. Patrick Swanson had impressed him. Ryan would guess the man to be in his sixties, and although he had the body of a man half his age, he also had the command and cool-headedness that came with wisdom.
The wind had picked up again, buffeting his car as he approached the rocky shore where the lighthouse rose up like a sand castle.
A low-lying blanket of fog had moved in, nearly obscuring the base of the structure. Maybe that’s what he’d seen. A wisp of fog. No ghost, no missing bride, just a freak of nature that had momentarily looked like a person.
He’d have to hurry. Before long total darkness would descend and he’d brought no flashlight with him. Although he sensed no danger, he drew his gun from his shoulder holster.
From the moment he’d arrived in Raven’s Cliff he’d felt an underlying aura of something unsettling. He’d only experienced it once before in his life in a small Louisiana bayou.
At that time they’d been chasing a schizophrenic man who had kidnapped a six-year-old girl. It had taken only minutes of being in Black Bay to realize that the townspeople appeared to have more secrets than the man they were hunting.
There had been a happy ending to that situation, and he hoped his hunt for Britta would result in the same kind of ending. With his gun held steady before him, he started up the wrought iron stairs that wound clockwise inside the stone tower.
“Haunted, it is,” Hazel had said that morning. “If it’s not the ghost of Captain Earl Raven’s wife that haunts the place then it surely is the ghost of Nicholas Sterling who set the curse into motion.”
“Ghost, my ass,” Ryan muttered to himself. He counted twenty steps before he reached a small landing. He stared upward, but saw nothing, although he heard the scurry of what he assumed were mice. He heard nothing else to cause him alarm, but unexpected tension pressed hard against his chest.
Fog drifted in the broken windows, tendrils of gray smoke that added to the eerie atmosphere of the abandoned building. He’d just reached the second landing when he heard the echo of something above him. A footfall?
He tightened his grip on the gun as he entered what he knew was the service area. At one time this room would have held all the lighthouse keeper’s equipment, but now the cabinets that hung on the walls had open doors that displayed empty shelves.
Above him was the watch room, and around it would be the lookout deck. It had been there that he’d thought he’d seen somebody. He eased up the stairs, his gun leading the way.
The watch room was empty, but in the dust on the floor he saw bare footprints. Small feet, definitely not a man’s. Did ghosts leave footprints? He didn’t think so.
He opened the iron door that led to the deck. As he stepped outside, the evening air pressed in, thick and oppressive. The view from this observation point was breathtaking. The ocean pummeled the shore, where rocks jutted upward and glistened with deadly intent.
Directly across from where he stood was the bluff where a wedding had turned to tragedy. Although a few boats still bobbed in the water below, it looked as if the search-and-rescue operation had been called off for the night.
He whipped around as he heard a noise to his left. A gasp escaped him as he saw the woman who stood before him. It was obvious that she was naked beneath the gauzy white gown. An intricate shell necklace adorned her pale, slender neck, and her ice-blue eyes seemed to peer right through him.
“Britta,” he gasped in stunned surprise.
“Have you come to take me back to the sea?” Her Norwegian accent was thicker than he’d ever heard. That fact, coupled with the otherworldly look in her eyes as she smiled at him caused a wave of horror to roar through him.
“Britta, it’s me, Ryan.” He quickly holstered his weapon and took a step closer to her.
“Please, sir, take me back to the sea.” With a tiny sigh her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed at his feet.
Chapter Two
Britta dreamed of the sea, of being deep below the surface in the silence of the underworld. The warm water surrounded her, and she felt as safe, as secure as if she were a baby in her mother’s womb.
However the secure feeling disappeared as the water around her became icy cold and turbulent, tossing her weightless body like a leaf in a water-swelled gutter. The water that had moments before embraced her now imprisoned her, pressing against her chest as if to squeeze the very life from her.
She looked up and saw the surface far above her, knew that she needed to get there before the sea choked the last gasp of life from her.
She struggled against the mysterious force that tried to keep her down, panic rising as she moved her arms and legs as fast, as hard as she could.
The sea wanted her. She was to be a sacrifice. The words pounded in her head, but she didn’t know what they meant. She cried as she swam up…up…needing air, wanting life. When she broke the surface, she cried out.
And woke up.
For a moment panic seared through her as she realized she didn’t know where she was or how she’d gotten here.
The panic didn’t subside when she saw that she was in a hospital bed. Frantically she moved her arms, her legs, to make certain that everything worked all right. A touch of the terror ebbed. Everything appeared to work just fine and she was in no pain.
She turned her head toward the window where the morning sun streaked in, and stifled a small gasp as she saw a man sleeping in the chair next to the window, a newspaper on his chest.
His buzz-cut, sun-streaked brown hair glinted in the sunlight. Even in sleep his lean features looked stern and slightly dangerous. His face had character lines that let her know he wasn’t a young man, probably in his thirties.
Who was he? Why was he here in her hospital room? And why was she in a hospital?
A new panic gripped her as she tried to remember what had happened the day before. Had she been in a car accident? Had she taken a bad fall?
She tried to remember, desperately wanted to remember, but there was nothing. Her mind was a blank slate. The last memory she had was going into her office at the hotel to take care of some paperwork.
Her job. Whatever had happened to her that had put her here, she hoped it hadn’t jeopardized her job as an assistant manager for the upscale Boston hotel, the Woodlands. The job had been a real coup for her after finishing her degree in hotel management.
At that moment the man’s eyes snapped opened. “Britta.” Earthy green eyes stared at her as he stood and approached the side of her bed. “You’re awake,” he said, stating the obvious. “How are you feeling?”
She clutched the sheet more tightly against her chest. “Okay, I guess. Who are you?”
A deep frown ripped across his tanned forehead. “You don’t recognize me?” He stepped closer to the side of the bed.
He had a wonderful voice, deep and resonating with the hint of a cowboy accent. But, there was nothing cowboy about him. His black slacks clung to long, lean legs and his short-sleeved white shirt exposed strong arm muscles and stretched across his broad shoulders.
His expression told her she should recognize him. Perhaps he was a hotel guest that she’d met. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember. Have we met before? Are you a guest at the hotel?”
She wouldn’t have thought it possible for his frown to deepen, but it did. His eyes searched her features for so long she grew even more anxious.
“My name is Ryan Burton.” He took yet another step closer to her and she smelled the scent of him, a clean masculine scent with a hint of spice. It was oddly familiar. “Are you sure you don’t recognize me?”
“I’m sorry. I…did I hit my head? Is that why I’m here?” It was her turn to frown. Why, oh, why couldn’t she remember?
“Do you know what day it is?”
“Of course,” she replied, and then frowned again thoughtfully. She remembered specifically that yesterday had been October 30. The hotel had been bedecked with fall decorations, and a Halloween gala had been planned for the next evening. She’d been in charge of the festivities, and her boss had been pleased with her arrangements.
“Today is Halloween,” she finally said.
His expression radiated shock. “I’m going to go get your doctor and let him know you’re conscious. I’ll be right back.”
When he left the room, Britta slid her legs over the side of the bed, surprised by the general weakness that gripped her body. She drew a deep breath.
It had been obvious from Ryan’s face when she’d told him the date that she’d been wrong. The newspaper that he’d set on the chair when he’d gotten up should tell her how far off she’d been. Maybe she’d been unconscious for longer than a day.
She was shocked to find herself completely naked beneath the blue floral hospital gown. She clutched the back of the garment closed as she rose unsteadily to her feet.
I’m as weak as a baby, she thought as she reached the chair and grabbed the newspaper. She clutched it to her chest and returned to the safety of the bed. Drawing another deep breath, exhausted by the short foray, she pushed the button that would raise the head of the bed, then opened the newspaper.
Raven’s Cliff Daily News. The bold black letters marched around the top of the paper. Raven’s Cliff? Where was that? She’d never heard of such a place.
The headline screamed in even bigger letters. Tragedy on Raven’s Cliff bluff—Bride Still Missing. She scanned the story quickly, shocked to read that a bride-to-be had fallen off some sort of bluff just moments before exchanging her wedding vows.
She glanced at the tiny print beneath the name of the paper, a startled gasp escaping her as she read the date, May 3.
May? How was that possible? The last thing she remembered was a day in October. Where had the months gone and why couldn’t she remember?
Maybe the newspaper was fake, one of those silly ones people could pay to have printed up. But why would somebody print up a paper detailing the tragedy of a bride falling off a cliff? Or maybe it was a paper from last May.
Frantic, she looked up as the man named Ryan and another tall blonde in a doctor’s coat entered the room. “Is this true?” she asked. “Is the date May third?”
“Hi, I’m Dr. Jamison.” The doctor pulled up the chair next to her bed and sat. “And yes, the date today is May third. What date did you think it was?”
Britta was afraid to answer, knowing that her reply would let the doctor know just how messed up she really was. “Halloween,” she said in a faint voice. “The last day that I remember was the day before Halloween.”
A wrinkle raced across Dr. Jamison’s forehead. “Can you tell me your name?”
“Of course. Britta Jakobsen. Now, please, tell me what’s happened. Why am I in the hospital? Have I been sick? Maybe in a coma?” That would explain the missing time.
“Last night I found you wandering the old lighthouse here in town. You were dressed in a white gown and were wearing a seashell necklace,” Ryan said. “You fainted and I brought you here.”
His words did nothing to alleviate the fear and confusion in her head. Wandering a lighthouse? What on earth was going on? “And where, exactly is here?”
“Raven’s Cliff Clinic,” the doctor replied. “In Raven’s Cliff, Maine.”
Maine? What was she doing here? She’d never been to Maine in her life. Her work, her apartment, everything she knew was in Boston. “Please, tell me what’s happened to me?” She looked at the doctor, then at Ryan, then back again to the doctor, a frantic panic surging up inside her.
Dr. Jamison frowned and reached out for her hand. She’d thought he’d meant to offer comfort, but instead he placed his fingertips against her rapidly beating pulse. “I can’t tell you what’s happened to bring you here, but I can tell you that your vital signs are all good. The tests we’ve run on you show no indication of trauma or illness. However, an initial toxicology screen showed something interesting.”
“Interesting how?” Ryan asked and took a step closer, and once again Britta was struck by the fact that the clean, but subtle spicy scent of his cologne seemed intimately familiar to her.
She wondered in the back of her mind how well they had known each other? But she couldn’t think about that right now. There were other, more-pressing issues to be concerned about, like what had happened to her and how she’d ended up in Raven’s Cliff, Maine.
The doctor looked at Ryan, then back at her. “There’s a privacy issue involved here. Would you prefer that Mr. Burton leave the room while I speak with you about your condition?”
Britta had no idea who Ryan Burton was and why he had apparently spent the night in her room, but the idea of him leaving her all alone scared her almost as much as anything the doctor might say to her.
“No. Whatever you have to say you can speak freely with Mr. Burton here,” she replied. Privacy be damned, she didn’t want to be alone.
Dr. Jamison released her hand and sat back in his chair. “I found traces in your system of a new designer drug that’s springing up in the area. I believe the street name for it is Stinging Flower.”
“That’s impossible,” Britta exclaimed. “I don’t take drugs.”
“There were three fresh injection sites on your thigh,” Dr. Jamison said. “If you didn’t willingly take it, then somebody gave it to you.”
“What is it? What does it do?” Ryan asked.
The world seemed to tilt on its axis for Britta. She’d lost seven months of her life, was in a town where she didn’t belong and had been injected with some kind of new drug. Tears pressed hotly at her eyes, but she swallowed against them, refusing to allow either man to see her cry.
“We don’t know a lot about it yet. All we know for sure is that the drug contains a derivative of the stinging cells of the anemone.”
“What’s an anemone?” Britta asked. She reached up and twisted a finger in a strand of her hair, the rhythmic motion somewhat calming.
“They’re sea animals that usually live on rocks and in the sand and look like flowers,” Dr. Jamison explained. “They’re armed with a toxin that paralyzes their prey, and it seems some illustrious person has managed to get those toxins into a new street drug.”
“But she wasn’t paralyzed when I found her,” Ryan protested. “She was walking around, although it was like she was in a daze.”
“Apparently, the street drug has a number of other components to it and one of the effects is that while it doesn’t paralyze, it does put the person under the influence into a state of high suggestibility.”
“You mean, like a hypnotic trance?” Ryan asked.
The doctor nodded and once again gazed at Britta. “And I would attribute your state of amnesia to the residual effects of the drugs combined with some sort of emotional trauma.”
“Is the amnesia permanent?” She was afraid of his answer. She dropped her hand from her hair and instead clutched tightly to the sheet that covered her.
“My professional opinion is I don’t know.” He offered her a smile of apology. “My personal opinion is that probably not. I think if you give your body and your mind some time to rest, time to recover, eventually your memory will probably return. Even though we’re a small clinic with limited resources, I’d like to keep you here under observation for another twenty-four hours.”
She wanted to protest, but then she remembered how weak she’d been when she’d left the bed to retrieve the newspaper. She nodded her assent reluctantly and then added, “But I need to make some phone calls, to check on my job and see what’s happened with my apartment.”
“I’ll leave you two alone for now.” Dr. Jamison stood and smiled at Britta. “I’ll have somebody bring you in a breakfast tray.”
“I’m really not hungry,” she protested.
Dr. Jamison shot her a sympathetic look as he headed for the door, then stopped and wagged a finger at her. “You have to eat. It’s important that you take care of yourself.”
Ryan followed the doctor to the door. “I’m going to have a chat with Dr. Jamison, then we need to have a long talk.”
There was an intensity in those lush green eyes of his that made her want to run and hide. She had a horrible feeling that the bad news wasn’t finished yet.
“YOU KNOW her name isn’t Britta,” Ryan told the doctor as the two men walked down the hallway. It was imperative that Ryan guard her real identity, so when he’d brought her in he’d checked her in as Valerie King. “Her name is Valerie King, and she isn’t from Boston but Chicago.”
Dr. Jamison frowned. “Then it’s possible she’s suffering some false memory issue from the drug. What’s your relationship to her?”
“A close personal friend. She doesn’t have any family. I’m all she has. Four days ago she was supposed to call me when she got settled here in Raven’s Cliff. When she didn’t call and I couldn’t get in touch with her, I decided to come and see what was going on. I arrived yesterday in town just in time to help with the search for Camille Wells.”
Dr. Jamison grimaced and shook his head. “Terrible tragedy. Last I heard they haven’t found her body yet. The mayor and his wife are absolutely beside themselves with grief.”
Ryan remembered that brief moment when he’d seen money pass between the mayor and another man. It had struck him as being odd at the time. There had been something covert about the exchange, but in the wake of Camille’s stumble off the bluff, it had been forgotten until this moment.
Even now he wasted no time or thought on the mayor or the tragic wedding ceremony. “There’s nothing more you can do for Valerie? Nothing to help with the amnesia?”
“I think she’s suffering a temporary fugue state, but I can’t give you any real prognosis. The brain is a complicated thing. Add in a drug that we know little about and don’t know how to counteract, and there’s not much we can do.”
“You’ve seen this drug before?”
“Only twice.” Dr. Jamison glanced at his watch, then looked back at Ryan. “Both times the victims, if you will, were college girls who had been at keg parties. They were brought in by friends who got scared.” He shook his head. “Booze and stupidity are a dangerous combination.”
“Valerie is neither a drinker nor stupid,” Ryan replied. “I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t release any information about her being here or anything else about her condition. Until we know what’s happened to her and who might be responsible, I’d prefer nobody know she’s been found and under what circumstances.”
“I would have no reason to release any information, and I’ll make sure my nurse understands that, as well.” Dr. Jamison glanced at his watch once again. “I’m sorry, I’ve got other patients waiting. I’ll check in with you later this afternoon.”
Ryan watched the doctor walk down the hallway, then pulled a cell phone from his pocket. He had arrangements to make for Britta. He had no idea what had happened to her, who had drugged her, but her safety was paramount.
With the phone call made and plans in progress, he walked back toward Britta’s room, dreading the conversation he was about to have with her.
When he stepped back into the room, her head was turned toward the window and a shaft of sunlight shone on her platinum hair. His fingers itched, remembering the silkiness of those strands.
She didn’t remember him. Somehow her mind had erased the past seven months. That meant she didn’t remember the shooting she’d witnessed. She had no memory of being a material witness, living her life before the trial in a safehouse with him as her handler.
She didn’t remember that their relationship had become far more than FBI agent and witness. She didn’t remember that they had become lovers.
She turned her head then, as if sensing his presence as he entered the room. “You doing okay?” he asked.
“Of course I’m not,” she replied with a slight edge to her voice.
“You haven’t touched your breakfast,” he said, noting the tray that had apparently been delivered while he was speaking to Dr. Jamison.
“I can’t eat. My head aches from trying to figure out what’s happened to me in the past seven months.” She reached up and grabbed a strand of her hair, twisting it around her finger in what he knew was a nervous gesture.
Ryan sat in the chair next to the bed. “I can help fill in some of those blanks for you.” He tried to figure out the kindest way to tell her of the path her life had taken since the night she last remembered, and decided a direct approach was best. “There is no job for you to worry about back in Boston,” he said. “Nor is there an apartment for you to return to.”
She stared at him as if he’d spoken a foreign language. A pulse beat along the side of her neck and he remembered exactly what her skin tasted like there. It was an unwanted memory that he consciously shoved away.
“Tell me,” she demanded, and pulled her hand from her hair. “Tell me what happened. What I remember is that my life was on track, that I’d landed the job I’d dreamed of and my future looked bright. What happened to bring me here?”
Her Norwegian accent came through strong again, a sure sign of the stress she was under. “What you remember is right, but the night before Halloween all of that changed. That night you witnessed a shoot-out between several FBI agents and members of a sophisticated but deadly street gang. One of our agents died that night, and you were instrumental in testifying against some of the guilty parties.” He paused to allow her time to digest what he’d told her so far.
“So you’re an FBI agent?”
He nodded. “And I was your personal handler, the man who was assigned to keep you safe between the time of the shooting and the trial. Despite one attempt on your life, we managed to get you safely through the process, but because several of the gang members who were still out on the streets had promised retribution, we encouraged you to enter the Witness Protection Program.”
She raised a trembling hand to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear and once again gazed out the window. Ryan remained silent, unwilling to give her more information until she indicated she was ready for more.
She finally turned to face him once again, her blue eyes glinting with the strength he’d come to admire in her during the time they’d been together. “So, how did I come to be here in Raven’s Cliff?”
“This was to be your new home. Your new identity was of Valerie King, a twenty-six-year-old woman from Chicago. You arrived here in Raven’s Cliff Tuesday and were supposed to begin work as a housekeeper in the local inn on Wednesday morning. Your current handler, Michael Kelly, tried to call you, and when he couldn’t get an answer and you didn’t return his calls, he informed me that we might have lost you.”
“So you came here from Boston to find me?” she asked. He nodded.
“Kelly was in the middle of another assignment and couldn’t get away.”
“And you found me at the top of a lighthouse.” She rubbed dainty fingers across the center of her forehead, as if in an attempt to ease a headache. “So, what happens now?”
“I’ve arranged to take you to a safehouse when you’re released tomorrow.”
Her eyes, always a window to her thoughts, displayed a hint of distrust. “How do I know you are who you say you are? How do I know that anything you’re telling me is true?”
Her questions pleased him. They proved to him that, despite the amnesia, her brain was working well. He grabbed his wallet from his pants and pulled out his official Bureau identification. “I’ll get some documentation to bring to you later this afternoon that will support everything I’ve told you.”
She handed the identification back to him, her gaze holding his intently. “I’m afraid.” The words were just a whisper. “I feel so alone. Can I trust you, Ryan Burton?”
“With your very life,” he replied.
She drew a deep breath. “I’m tired now. I think I’ll take a nap.”
“I’ll be back later this afternoon.” He stood and wished he could take the fear out of her eyes, pull her into his arms and assure her everything was going to be all right. Instead he murmured a goodbye and left the room.
He’d just stepped out of the clinic when his cell phone rang. His caller identification indicated it was Michael Kelly.
“How is she?” Kelly asked.
“Physically she appears to be okay but she’s suffering from amnesia.”
“Amnesia? You mean, like she doesn’t know who she is?”
Ryan headed to his rental car. “She knows who she is, but she doesn’t remember the shooting, the trial or anything else that’s happened in the past seven months of her life.”
“Wow. So, she can’t tell you where she’s been for the past four days?”
“She has no clue.” Ryan reached his car and got inside.
“Is this amnesia permanent?”
“The doctor doesn’t know. He thinks it might have been tied to a drug she was apparently given.”
“You need me to come out there?” Kelly asked.
“Not right now. At the moment she’s still in the clinic. What I do need you to do is see what you can find out about a new designer drug, street name Stinging Flower.”
“Stinging Flower. Got it,” Kelly replied. “What are your plans?”
“I’m getting Britta settled into a safehouse here in town.” Ryan tightened his grip on the cell phone. “Then I’m going to do a little investigating and see what I can find out about where she’s been for the last four days and who administered the drug to her. Something isn’t right here in Raven’s Cliff. I feel it in my bones.”
“You’ll keep me informed?” Kelly asked.
“Of course,” Ryan replied, then the two men said their goodbyes and hung up.
Ryan sat behind the steering wheel and gazed up to the second-floor window that was Britta’s clinic room. Have you come to take me back to the sea?
A chill walked up his spine as he thought of Britta in that gauzy white dress with the shell necklace around her neck and the blank look in her eyes. What had her words meant? Where had she been for the past four days, and who had injected her with a hypnotic drug?
When he’d first heard she was missing, he feared that a member of the gang had somehow found her and delivered on their promise of retribution. He no longer believed that. If a member of the Boston Gentlemen had found her, she’d certainly be dead.
It would have been easier if she weren’t suffering from amnesia. He put his key into the ignition and started the car.
In one way the amnesia was something of a blessing. She wouldn’t remember that he was the man who’d kept her safe for months, but she also wouldn’t remember that he was the man who had broken her heart.
Chapter Three
“I don’t understand how I can know that my parents immigrated to New England when I was thirteen years old, that my first-grade teacher’s name was Mrs. Zoller and that I wore a navy blue dress to my high school prom, but I can’t remember what’s happened over the past seven months of my life.” Britta released a sigh of frustration and twisted a strand of her hair around her index finger.
“You heard what the doctor told you—don’t try to push it, and hopefully your memory will eventually return,” Ryan said as he turned the steering wheel to make a left-hand turn.
She released her hair and cast him a surreptitious glance. He’d shown up this morning at the clinic with newspaper articles, clippings and official documents to substantiate everything he’d told her the day before.
She’d read about the shooting in Boston, about testifying at the trial and had finally agreed to go with him to the safehouse. She really had no other choice. She wasn’t sure whom she could trust, but Ryan Burton had the right credentials and she felt as if she had little other choice.
“Where is this place you’re taking me?” she asked.
“A little bungalow down by the docks.”
She frowned and turned her attention out the window. The skies were overcast and the streets were still fairly deserted due to the early morning hour. The shops they passed looked quaint and inviting, but an unexpected shiver whispered up her spine. “Wouldn’t it be better if we just left this place altogether?”
She didn’t know whether the chill came from the knowledge that she had no memory, that she was in the company of a man she didn’t know if she could trust or if it came from the gray-shrouded little fishing village itself. All she knew was she had an overwhelming desire to escape, but escape where?
Ryan shot her a quick glance, his intense green eyes giving nothing away of his inner thoughts. “We can’t leave here until I know for sure where you’ve been and what happened to you in those missing four days.”
“You’re worried about the last four days of my life and I’m missing months,” she replied dryly.
He pulled into the driveway of a tiny pale blue cottage with yellow trim. He parked in front of the detached garage, then unfastened his seat belt and turned to look at her once again.
“I’m not particularly worried about the months you can’t remember because I know where you were and what you were doing for most of that time. But you came here and promptly disappeared. Somebody gave you a drug that has a hypnotic effect and we don’t know who or, more important, why. The answers to those questions are here and we’re not leaving until we have them.”
She could drown in his eyes, the green depths pulling her in. She broke eye contact with him and rubbed a hand across her forehead where a headache pounded with unrelenting madness.
“Let’s get settled in,” he said.
Together they got out of the car and he led her to a side door. He unlocked the door and they entered into a small kitchen. The blue and yellow colors of the exterior continued here with yellow curtains at the window and blue-and-yellow tiles on the floor.
It was a cheerful room, but the cheerfulness couldn’t ease the edge of disquiet that fluttered through her. She was putting her trust in a man she couldn’t remember, staying in a town where something had happened to her that she knew in her soul hadn’t been good.
What’s more, even though she didn’t remember Ryan, just looking at him evoked an edge of something she couldn’t quite identify…a tension of sorts that had nothing to do with the situation but everything to do with the man.
Wanting to explore the place she would call home for at least the next couple of days, she left the kitchen and entered into the small living room.
Once again the floor was tiled, probably because of the close proximity to the ocean and the sandy beaches. The furniture was simple, a sofa and love seat in dark beige, wooden coffee table and an entertainment unit holding a television and several ragged paperback novels.
The hallway led to a bathroom and one small bedroom with a double bed and a dresser. The walls were a cool summer green, complemented by the green-and-white spread on the bed.
“You can have this room and I’ll bunk on the sofa,” Ryan said from behind her.
She turned to face him. “Who owns this place?”
“A young couple who comes here for a month in the summer and rents it out the rest of the year. For the next three months the FBI has rented it.”
“Three months? Surely we won’t be here that long.” She felt as if she’d already lost so much of her life. She didn’t want to lose another three months. But when this was all over, where would she begin her new life? She raised a hand to her head once again where her headache had intensified.
“Headache?” he asked. She gave him a small nod and thought she saw a flash of sympathy darken his eyes. “Why don’t you lie down for a little while? I’ve got phone calls to make, and once you feel better, we’ll talk about how things are going to go here.”
At the moment lying down sounded like a wonderful idea. She hadn’t realized how weak she still was until this moment. The bed looked inviting, and at least if she took a little nap, she wouldn’t have to worry about the fact that she couldn’t remember her immediate past and had no idea what her future held.
As Ryan left the bedroom, Britta stretched out on the bed. She lay on her back and stared up at the ceiling, trying to process everything she knew, but finding it impossible not to dwell on all the things she didn’t know.
She wasn’t even wearing her own clothes. Ryan had arrived at the clinic that morning with a bag of clothing from a nearby discount store. Although the underclothes had been the right size, the sweatpants and sweatshirt were far too big and an ugly color, not quite yellow and not quite green.
With a sigh she closed her eyes. The dream began before she realized she’d fallen asleep. She saw herself in a long white gown. An intricate necklace of seashells lay heavy around her neck.
The sand was warm beneath her feet as she walked the shore. The moon overhead was full, illuminating the tumultuous waves with a ghostly light.
The sea called to her, wanting her to come home. She walked toward the water, unable to fight the siren song that sang in her head, urging her forward.
She barely felt the salty water that embraced first her feet, then her legs, although she gasped slightly as it reached her waist and then her chest. She continued to walk until the water was up to her neck, then her chin, then finally over her head.
There was no panic, nothing except a strange calm acceptance that this was where she was supposed to be. The sea was her destiny.
It wasn’t until she was deep beneath the surface where the moon no longer shone that panic first stirred in her. Her heart pounded as she realized she couldn’t breathe. Her lungs began to burn and she tried to swim up, but anemones in various shapes and colors wrapped around her and held her in place. She fought, thrashing her arms and legs in an attempt to escape.
“Britta!”
The deep voice pulled her from the dream, and her eyes snapped open to see Ryan sitting on the edge of the bed. For just a moment it seemed completely natural for him to be on the bed with her, and that only added to her confusion.
He stood, every muscle in his body rigid as he shoved his hands into his pocket. “You must have been having a nightmare. You were crying out.”
She sat up and tried to remember her dream, but it slipped away as full consciousness returned. “I’m sorry.” She worried a hand through her hair. “How long was I asleep?”
“About an hour. How’s the headache?”
“Better.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood.
“I fixed lunch. Are you hungry?” he asked as they left the bedroom.
She nodded, surprised to discover that she was hungry. The catered clinic food had been abysmal, so she didn’t know when the last time was that she’d had a good meal.
He pointed her to a chair at the table where he’d already set plates and silverware, then went to the refrigerator and pulled out a bowl of pasta salad. He set it in the middle of the table, then returned to the fridge for a platter of cold cuts. “It’s nothing elaborate.”
“It looks good.”
He handed her a bottle of diet soda, then poured himself a glass of milk. It was disconcerting that he knew her well enough to know what she’d want to drink, and yet she couldn’t remember a darn thing about him.
“We need to go by the inn and get my things,” she said once he was settled in the chair opposite her. “I’m assuming I arrived here in town with at least a suitcase.”
“I don’t want to do that,” he replied. “I bought you some extra clothes and I’ll get you whatever else you need.”
She frowned. “I don’t understand. Why can’t I just get my own things?” Maybe the familiarity of her own clothes would jog something in her memory.
“Right now the only person who knows that you’ve been found is the doctor and a nurse or two. I don’t want anyone else to know because I intend to ask questions about you, questions that will hopefully make somebody nervous enough to show themselves.”
“And then what?”
“Then we find out just what in the hell happened to you over those four days.”
An unexpected chill walked up her spine. She wasn’t at all sure she wanted to know what had happened to her.
RYAN SHOULD NEVER HAVE gone into the bedroom when he’d heard her crying out. Seeing Britta lying on the bed had brought back a rush of memories he’d tried hard to forget. Even now, as he sat across the table from her, those memories of making love with her lit a simmering flame in the pit of his stomach.
She’d been a wildly passionate lover, a woman comfortable with her own body and equally comfortable with his. They’d been holed up in a duplex for months and there had been few places in that tiny space that they hadn’t made love.
He cast her a surreptitious glance. She picked at the pasta salad as if finding it nearly unpalatable. “You know, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it,” he said. “I’m not exactly a master chef.”
She looked up at him and smiled. It was the first smile she’d offered him, and the power of that gesture kicked him right in the stomach. “It’s very good. I’m just not as hungry as I thought I was.” She set down her fork, obviously deciding not even to pretend to eat.
“I’m overwhelmed at the moment by everything that’s happened since I woke up in the clinic,” she said softly. “I guess I’d feel more comfortable if I at least remembered you.”
He’d feel more comfortable if she never remembered him. “We just need to take this one day at a time,” he replied. “Hopefully in the next couple of days I can find out what happened to you, and in the meantime maybe your memory will start to come back.”
“I hope so,” she said fervently. She tilted her head slightly to one side and gazed at him for a long moment. “I feel as if I’m at such a disadvantage here. You know me well enough to know what I’d want to drink with my lunch and yet I don’t know anything about you.”
“I know what you like to drink because while you were in my custody we ate meals together, but we didn’t share a lot of personal information.” He looked down at his plate so she wouldn’t see the lie in his eyes.
If and when she regained her memories there would probably be hell to pay for the lies he was telling, but he’d worry about that when the time came.
“So, we weren’t really friends?” There was a faint wistfulness in her tone.
He could only imagine that in her present state she was desperately seeking a connection to somebody…to anybody. “We were friendly,” he conceded.
She smiled again, and the flame that had lit in the pit of his stomach burned a little hotter. He got up from the table, feeling the need to get out of there, to escape her nearness.
Besides, he had work to do, and it wouldn’t get done by him sitting here with her. “I’m going to finish unloading the car, then head out for a couple of hours.” He didn’t wait for her reply but went out the back door and to the car.
He had not only his suitcase in the trunk, but also several shopping bags from the discount store. He gathered up everything and returned to the cottage.
Britta followed him into the living room where he dumped all the bags on the sofa. “There’re clothes and toiletries for you in here.” He placed his suitcase on the floor and opened it. On top of his clothes was a cell phone and charger. “This is for you,” he said as he handed her the phone, then plugged the charger into an electric socket in the wall.
“I’ll give you my number so that you can call me if you need me,” he continued. “Stay away from the doors and windows. Nobody knows you’re here and I want to keep it that way.”
“So basically I’m a prisoner here,” she said flatly.
He forced a lazy grin to his lips. “That’s right, darlin’, and I’m your number-one jailer.” He laced his voice with his Texas drawl. “And while I’m out trying to figure out what’s going on in this little village, you might want to use your energy and cook me up a good dinner.”
Her eyes narrowed and her back went rigid, just as he knew they would. She’d hated it before when he’d used the little-woman routine on her, which was why he wanted to use it and see if it brought back any memories. The fact that she merely nodded and didn’t explode let him know just how fragile she was.
“I should be back in a couple of hours.” Once again he felt an incredible need to gain some distance from her. “Lock the doors and call me if you need anything.”
He didn’t wait for her reply but instead stepped out of the back door and into the briny-scented air. This was going to be more difficult than he’d thought.
When he’d walked away from Britta months ago, he’d put her in his past. He’d been determined never to see her again, that she would never be part of his life again. But her disappearance and the fact that she might be in trouble had changed everything.
He stood in front of the house and gathered his thoughts. He’d start at the docks. He wasn’t sure of the best way to proceed, but he’d decided to play the role of Britta’s boyfriend, desperately seeking any information about his missing lover.
He patted his pocket where he had a picture of himself and Britta tucked inside. It had been taken months ago, and it was a particularly good photo of Britta.
As he headed toward the docks, dark clouds hung low overhead and the scent of decaying fish grew stronger despite a wind that had picked up. The ocean looked unwelcoming with whitecaps shooting up with tremendous force. A rumble of thunder in the distance announced a coming storm.
A group of men sat at an old wooden picnic table, their sunburned faces identifying them as men who spent most of their time on the water. Ryan ambled toward them with a friendly smile. If he was ever going to pull out his good-ol’-boy-from-Texas act, now was the time.
“How you all doing?” he asked, then cast his gaze back out to the tumultuous sea. “Guess it’s not a good day to be out fishing.”
“We can afford to take a day off,” a man with white hair and a grizzly beard said. “Been pulling in the best hauls of our lives lately.”
“Ryan Burton,” Ryan said, and stuck out his hand.
“They call me Captain Claybourne,” the old man said as he grabbed Ryan’s hand in a firm shake. He pointed to the man next to him, a young man with a shock of blond hair. “This here is Sam Lanier.” Ryan nodded, and Captain Claybourne then pointed to the man across the table. “And that’s Alex Gibson.” Alex Gibson raised a hand in greeting, his bright blue eyes holding a touch of reserve.
“So, the fishing business has been booming,” Ryan said as Captain Claybourne gestured him to a seat at the table.
“I’ve been fishing these waters for fifty years, and I’ve never seen anything like it,” Claybourne exclaimed, and shook his head. “We’re pulling in new records every day. It doesn’t seem to matter what kind of fish it is, they’re all as big as I’ve ever seen them.”
“Gonna make us all wealthy men,” Sam said with a wide grin.
“Don’t be spending the money too freely,” Alex said. “You never know with the sea when things might go bad again.”
There was a sober moment of silence, then Captain Claybourne eyed Ryan curiously. “You vacationing here in Raven’s Cliff?”
“Actually, I’m trying to chase down a woman,” Ryan replied.
“Aren’t we all,” Alex replied dryly.
The other two men hooted. “Don’t let Lucy hear you saying stuff like that,” Sam exclaimed. “Lucy owns Tidal Treasures, a little trinket shop,” he explained to Ryan, “and she and Alex have been seeing each other.”
“Well, I’m here in town looking for my girlfriend,” Ryan replied as he pulled the photo from his pocket. He handed it to Captain Claybourne, aware of a subtle hierarchy among the men. “She got here a couple of days ago but nobody has seen her since the night she arrived.”
Claybourne looked at the photo then shook his head and handed it to Sam. “Sorry, I haven’t seen her around.”
“Me, neither,” Sam replied.
Alex took the photo and studied it, then shrugged his broad shoulders. “Sorry.” He handed the photo back to Ryan, who pocketed it once again.
“Have you talked to Captain Swanson?” Claybourne asked.
“Nah, I’ve been reluctant to go to the authorities. Valerie has a history of disappearing then turning up again,” Ryan replied. “Besides, he has enough on his hands with the accident that happened at the wedding of the mayor’s daughter.”
“Yeah, we weren’t invited to the wedding, but we heard about it,” Sam said. He shook a cigarette from a pack and lit it. He took a deep pull, released the smoke, then shook his head. “Crazy, huh, how she got blown off that cliff and just disappeared. You’d think her body would have been found by now. We all searched.”
“Sometimes the sea doesn’t give up what it takes,” Alex said.
Ryan stood, knowing there was nothing else to ask them, no reason to linger. None of them had displayed any suspicious-looking expressions as they’d looked at the photo of Britta. “Well, I appreciate your time and it was nice meeting you all.”
“Sorry we couldn’t be of help. You going to be around the area in case we do see your woman?” Claybourne asked.
“I’ll be around,” Ryan replied. He didn’t want to give them any information about where he was staying to lead anyone to Britta, so with a small wave, he left the men and headed farther up the dock.
His cell phone rang and he grabbed it from his pocket and checked the caller ID. It was Michael Kelly. “I did some checking into that drug you asked me about,” he said when Ryan answered. “I can’t find any information on Stinging Flower. It’s not in the database and nobody I’ve asked has ever heard of it.”
Ryan frowned with frustration. He’d been hoping to learn more about the drug that had been injected into Britta. “You’ll keep digging?”
“Yeah, but I have a feeling at least for now it’s a dead end. You sure you don’t need me out there? I could help you turn over stones to try to find out what happened.”
“No, I don’t want two of us asking questions and bringing unwanted attention to all this. I met the captain of the police department. He seems like a sharp guy. I don’t want to get him involved in this because I’m afraid he’ll dig deep enough to find out that Valerie King isn’t who we say she is. The fewer people who know the truth about her, the better. If I have to go to him later, I will. But at the moment I’m trying to keep this as low-key as possible.”
“Okay, it’s your call,” Michael said. “Is she still not remembering anything?”
“Nothing,” Ryan replied. “Who knows if she’ll ever remember what happened in Boston. I just wish she could remember where she’s been since she arrived here in Raven’s Cliff.”
“You have any ideas at all?”
Ryan frowned once again. “No, not a clue,” he finally replied. “But hopefully that will change over the next couple of days.”
After he hung up, Ryan remained standing on the dock, staring out at the storm clouds that drew closer. The approaching darkness in the sky filled him with a sense of apprehension.
He was a man trained in dealing with facts, and there was absolutely no factual basis for what he felt in his soul. And what he felt was that there was an evil here in Raven’s Cliff and for four days Britta had somehow been a part of it.
Chapter Four
After Ryan left the cottage, Britta carried the bags of items he’d bought her into the bedroom and began to unpack them. Toothpaste, toothbrush, deodorant and hair products went into the bathroom on a shelf, then she pulled out the clothing he’d bought for her.
By the very items he’d chosen for her, she’d guess that he didn’t know her as well as she’d thought. She frowned as she pulled out two pairs of baggy sweatpants, one in blue and one in black. There were matching sweatshirts, as well, and both were two sizes too big.
She couldn’t remember a lot of things, but she was sure this wasn’t her normal choice of clothing. He’d certainly not opted for making a fashion statement, unless it was a bad one.
As she pulled out a pair of flannel pajamas, she stifled a groan. She was relatively certain she’d never slept in flannel pajamas in her life.
More than anything Ryan had said to her, this indicated that their previous relationship had been strictly business. Still, there had been that moment when she’d awakened in the bed and had stared at him seated next to her and a memory had niggled, teasingly trying to make itself known.
For just a moment she thought she could remember the hot taste of his mouth. For one insane second she thought she had a memory of being in his arms, of his hard, muscled body pressed intimately against hers.
She shook the crazy thought out of her head and hung the clothes in the closet. The strange thing was that while there was a sense of comfortable familiarity about him, she also felt just a touch of disquiet where he was concerned. It wasn’t exactly fear, but just the feeling that she needed to be wary.
She had no choice but to trust him for the moment, but if she got a sense that he was a real, physical threat, she’d run. She might not know everything about her past, but she’d do whatever necessary to ensure she had a future.
He’d already indicated to her that there had been one attempt on her life while she’d been in his custody. She wondered if a member of the gang she’d testified against had found her here in Raven’s Cliff. Had one of them somehow held her against her will? Injected her with the drug that had stolen her memories?
But why would they do that? She’d already been in court and testified. Her memories of the shoot-out that night at the hotel were documented in court files. What good would it do anyone to try to get rid of her now, so long after the fact? It just didn’t make sense.
She hoped Ryan came back with some answers. According to what he’d told her, she’d entered the Witness Protection Program. That meant she’d agreed to leave her old life behind. She’d given up her job, the little apartment she’d called home and all her friends.
She had no relatives. She’d lost both her parents three years ago. Thank God they hadn’t been alive to see the mess that her life had become.
What she needed to do was focus on where she went from here. Surely Ryan didn’t intend for them to be here in Raven’s Cliff for too long, and then she’d be relocated.
The last bag she opened was the one she had brought with her from the clinic. Inside was the white gown she’d been wearing when Ryan had found her, along with the necklace that had been around her neck.
She pulled out the gown and ran a trembling hand over the gauzy material. The bottom was dirty and crusted with sand. She’d hoped by touching it, by looking at it closely, a memory would blossom in her head, but all she got was a vague feeling of fear.
The necklace was made of dozens of chunky pretty shells threaded onto a thin piece of fishing line. Where had it come from? Who had made it? And why had she been wearing it and the gown and wandering in the old lighthouse? She ran her hand across the shells.
Go to the sea.
The words were a faint whisper in her ear and she quickly snatched her hand away from the odd necklace, quieting the strange inner voice.
Unsettled even more than she had been, she shoved the items back into the bag and placed them on the floor of the closet, then left the bedroom.
The first thing she did when she returned to the kitchen was check the refrigerator to see what food was in there. It was fully stocked, as was the freezer. Apparently the FBI had the power not only to change who you were, but also to stock a refrigerator with enough food to last a month.
She pulled out a package of steaks to thaw. She’d cook the evening meal tonight, but if Ryan thought she was going to spend the days here cooking and cleaning for him he had another think coming.
Her mother had been a strong, independent woman, a wonderful role model for Britta. Chores at her house had been equally shared between husband and wife, and Britta’s father had never treated her mother like “the little woman” whose only job was to cook and clean for him.
A search of the kitchen cabinets yielded a notebook and a pen. She grabbed herself a cold can of diet soda, then sat down at the table to make a list of what she wanted her new life to be. Someplace in the back of her mind she knew it was a desperate attempt to regain control.
She knew she could never go back to the kind of job she’d once wanted, as manager of an upscale hotel. She’d seen enough movies to know that when you entered the Witness Protection Program you not only gave up friends and family, but also any ties to the kind of job you’d once had. She was a bit surprised that she’d been set up as a housekeeper at the Cliffside Inn.
Maybe in her next life she’d be a waitress or a cashier in a grocery store. The degree she’d obtained in hotel management would probably never be used again.
A rumble of thunder broke the silence and a small sliver of fear tightened her stomach muscles. Funny, she didn’t think she’d ever been afraid of storms before, but the kitchen was suddenly too small, too dark, and the approaching storm touched off an unexpected edge of anxiety.
She tried to focus on the paper in front of her but jumped and let out a small squeal as lightning flashed at the window, followed by another growl of thunder. Rain began to pelt down, and she found it impossible to sit any longer.
Surely the rain would bring Ryan back soon. It surprised her how much she didn’t want to be alone. As another strobe of lightning flashed, she left the kitchen and went into the living room.
At that moment she heard a key in the front door and Ryan came in, dripping water and cursing beneath his breath. “Does the sun ever shine in this place?” he asked, obviously not expecting an answer.
She hurried into the bathroom, grabbed a towel, then returned to the living room and handed it to him. He flashed her a grateful smile as he swiped it over his short brown hair.
She curled up in one corner of the sofa and fought the impulse to jam her hands over her ears as the thunder crashed overhead. A vision flashed in her head…she saw the hotel lobby decorated in gold and orange for the holiday. The lobby of the Woodlands Hotel offered lush elegance and an aura of luxury and serenity. But that vision was shattered by the acrid scent of gunfire that filled her nose. In her mind she saw one man dive for cover behind a love seat and another topple over the back of a chair. A scream. A moan. And blood. Blood everywhere.
The vision disappeared as quickly as it had come. “Are you all right?” Ryan asked, eyeing her curiously.
“I’m… I think I just had a memory.”
He tossed the damp towel to the tile floor and moved to the sofa to sit next to her, bringing with him the odor of the rain and that faint scent that stirred something deep inside her. “A memory of what?”
“The shooting that night at the hotel. It was just a flash. I smelled the gun smoke, saw men diving for cover and that was it. But that’s a good sign, isn’t it? Maybe with time I am going to get back all of my memories.”
He nodded, his gaze enigmatic as it lingered on her. “It’s a start,” he finally said.
“The days I’ve been missing since I arrived here, do you think it’s the work of one of the gang members?” she asked.
“I don’t think so. If one of the gang members had found you, they wouldn’t have kept you for four days, but at this point I’m not ruling out anything.”
She frowned thoughtfully. “I can understand them wanting to kill me before this all went to trial, but if I already testified against them, then why would they still want to kill me? Why did I have to go into Witness Protection after the trial was over?”
“Several reasons. First of all, we never got the specific shooter who killed our agent. Although you insisted you saw him perfectly, he wasn’t among the men we rounded up. Those men you testified against were all tried on a variety of charges, but the man we most wanted escaped. Because you saw that shooter we’ve always known that there was a possibility of you being our star witness in a new trial. The second reason is revenge, pure and simple. These are real bad guys and reputation is everything. If you testify against them and they let you get away with it, then that diminishes their reputation.”
She noticed there was no trace of his lazy Texas drawl at the moment. He stood and plucked at his wet T-shirt. “I’m going to change into some dry clothes. There’s no point in me going back out until this rain passes.”
He dug around in his suitcase, sitting open in one corner of the room, then pulled out a clean T-shirt and a pair of jeans. “You okay?”
“I guess. I’ve spent most of the time you’ve been gone today trying to figure out what happens to me when we leave here.”
“We get you relocated someplace else and you build a new life,” he replied, making it sound as easy as packing a bag.
“But no matter where I go, these people, these gang members will be looking for me.” Even though she tried to suppress it, her fear was rife in her voice.
He dropped his clean clothes on a nearby chair, then once again sat next to her on the sofa. He reached out and took her hand in his. As his long, warm fingers curled around hers, confusion filled her head.
He’d told her their past relationship had been a strictly professional one and yet she was struck with the feeling that this wasn’t the first time he’d held her hand.
“I promise when we leave here, I’ll get you settled someplace where you’ll be safe,” he said. “You’ll have a new name, a new occupation and we’ll get you far away from Boston. This gang isn’t everywhere. They’re a local gang and their power isn’t all reaching.” A frown raced across his forehead. “I don’t know why they kept you in the New England area to begin with, you should have been sent someplace farther away than here.”
She stared down at their hands. She wasn’t sure why, but his touch evoked contradicting emotions inside her. On the one hand, it felt comforting and familiar with an edge of excitement. On the other hand, his nearness to her, his fingers entwined with hers, made her feel vaguely threatened.
He jerked his hand away from hers and abruptly stood. “I hope you figured out what’s for dinner. I’m used to eating around five o’clock.” He grabbed his clothes from the chair and disappeared into the bathroom.
She stared after him, irritation replacing her fear. He had to be right. Their previous relationship had to have been strictly professional, for surely there was no way she’d have any other kind of a relationship with a man who was as irritating, as chauvinistic as Ryan Burton seemed to be.
RYAN STOOD beneath a lukewarm shower, trying to ignore his weakness where Britta was concerned. He’d always considered himself a strong man. He’d had to be strong to survive the childhood he’d been handed. As if surviving the battlefield of his parents’ marriage hadn’t been enough, years of military training followed by his FBI work should have increased his strength, not just physically but emotionally.
And yet Britta made him weak. She made him forget that he had vowed a long time ago to hold himself detached from any woman who might blow into his life. Short-term affairs were fine, but he had no desire to let anyone in on a permanent basis and he didn’t intend to change his mind for one beautiful Norwegian blonde.
The second he’d taken her hand in his he knew he’d made a mistake, but she’d looked so scared, so lost, and all he’d wanted to do was ease some of that fear. But the moment he’d taken her hand in his he’d wanted to go further, he’d wanted to draw her into his arms, feel the warmth of her silky smooth skin against his.
He got out of the shower, dried off, then pulled on a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt. By the time he left the bathroom he felt better able to cope with Britta.
She was in the kitchen, seated at the table, a notebook and pen in front of her. “What are you doing?” he asked as he rummaged in the cabinets looking for a can of coffee.
“I’ve been trying to decide where I want my new life to begin when this is all over.” She leaned back in the chair and frowned thoughtfully. “What do you think about Seattle?”
“Too rainy,” he replied.
“What about Arizona?”
“Too dry.”
She grinned at him. “I can see you’re going to be no help.” Her smile fell and she looked at him curiously. “Why did I come here to Raven’s Cliff? I mean, who decided it?”
Ryan found the coffee container and began to make a pot. “It was FBI Agent Michael Kelly who set up this location and the job working at the inn. He came late onto your case. The agent before him was Bill Rankin, who set you up with your new identity.”
“All these people, it would be nice if I could just remember one of them.”
“You wouldn’t remember Kelly, you never met him in person.” As the coffee dripped into the glass carafe, Ryan leaned against the cabinet to wait for it to finish. “Kelly told me he picked this village after seeing an ad in a tourist magazine for a housekeeper at an inn. He figured it would be a good fit for you. Coffee?”
She nodded and stared at the paper in front of her where he noticed nothing had been written. He poured them each a cup of coffee, then placed a sugar bowl on the table, knowing she liked her coffee sweetened.
“Doesn’t look as if you’ve made much headway in picking a place to start a new life.” He sat in the chair opposite her.
She smiled ruefully. “It’s more difficult than I thought, trying to decide on a place to start again. Boston was always my home. I don’t know anything else.” Her smile faded. “One thing is certain, you have to buy me some different clothes. I appreciate what you got for me, but they’re all too big and too hot.”
He’d intentionally bought the clothes big, figuring if she looked like a bag lady it would make things easier on him. “It isn’t as if you’re going to be modeling in a fashion show,” he replied. “As long as they are serviceable.”

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