“This is ridiculous,” Mac finally said as he stripped off his belt and put that and his gun in its holster on a bedside table. “Okay, so we have…feelings…for each other. So we’d both like to make wild, passionate love. It isn’t going to happen. We both know it. That’s the bed and we need to just buck up and get into it without worrying about…things.”
His little speech brought a smile to Grace’s lips. She watched as he pulled off his T-shirt. The muscles in his upper body rippled when he moved, the fine dusting of hair on his chest looked soft and comforting.
“It would help if you stopped staring at me as I undress,” he said softly, eyes smoldering.
“Sorry,” she said, and then aiming for the same matter-of-fact tone he’d used, added, “You’re an awfully good-looking guy. I’ve always been a sucker for hairy chests.”
They both realized the import of her words at the same time. Another memory, this time about her taste in men. She tried to extrapolate the revelation into a full-blown husband, but it wouldn’t happen. With an apologetic smile, she went to the bathroom and attended to toiletries. Wearing nothing but his jeans, Mac took his turn next.
He looked great bare-chested, wedge-shaped and strong and powerful. He would look perfect in the ocean, she thought. Graceful. She bet he was a great swimmer.
Grace slipped off her torn, oil-smudged dress and got between the covers. Her plan was to lay very still until Mac fell asleep, then sneak out of bed and sit in the chair by the window. Memories could float to the surface when she was awake and could control them—she had no intention of allowing them free rein in her subconscious.
Mac came out of the bathroom. He stripped off his jeans and climbed into the bed wearing boxer shorts.
“I figured you for a briefs man,” she said.
“Nope. Boxers. Why the sudden interest in my underwear?”
She turned on her side to face him and found him lying on his side facing her. The light in the room was extremely dim, thanks to the curtains, but she could see the gleam of his eyes and the flash of his teeth. “Turnabout is fair play,” she said. “You’ve been ogling my undies for days now.”
“Strictly professional interest,” he said, reaching over to run a finger along the bra strap that had slipped down her arm.
She hoped he didn’t feel her shiver. She said, “Is that so?”
“Absolutely,” he whispered.
“Mac, do you like to swim in the ocean?”
“I’ve never done it,” he said.
“Never?”
“Billington isn’t well-known for its oceanfront property.”
“But you were in the army. I saw your picture at your aunt’s house. You’ve traveled.”
He shrugged. His shoulders were bare above the sheets, and his skin looked dark and tantalizing against the white linen. “A little. Mostly the desert. There wasn’t a lot of time for frolicking on the beach.”
“You served in the Gulf War, didn’t you?”
“How do you know that?”
“Your aunt told me.”
“It’s not something I’m fond of remembering,” he said, his tone suggesting this line of questioning was over.
But she wasn’t done. “That crash you mentioned, the one that killed your friend. You were on that helicopter with him.”
He was silent for so long she was sure he wasn’t going to comment. Not that she needed him to. She’d heard enough conversation at Mac’s aunt’s house to know that he’d been aboard. He finally sighed deeply and said, “I couldn’t save Rob,” he said. “I tried…but I failed.”
“That’s not the way I heard it,” she whispered.
She could feel his laserlike glare on her face as heat suffused her cheeks. She added, “I heard that because of your quick thinking and training, Rob stayed alive long enough to be rescued.”
“For all the good it did him,” Mac said.
“At least he died in a hospital and not in the middle of a desert,” she said. “That must have been a comfort to the people who loved him.”
“Grace,” he interrupted, his voice firm but not unkind. “I know your curiosity about my life stems from your frustrated curiosity about your own life, but please, can we give this topic a rest?”
“I don’t understand why you blame yourself,” she said.
He just stared at her.
“Like you blame yourself for your wife’s infidelity. I even think you blame yourself for not saving the wino last year or that poor man in the alley.”
The stare turned into a glower.
“Mac?”
“Question-and-answer time is over,” he said firmly.
This time, there was no doubt in Grace’s mind that he meant it. He closed his eyes. She figured the gesture was as much to punctuate his intent to stop their conversation as it was to fall asleep. After a couple of minutes, she said, “Let’s buy bathing suits and go swimming tomorrow.”
His eyes opened, pinning her with their intensity. “This isn’t a vacation.”
“I know, but maybe the water will be therapeutic. Maybe it will hasten more recollections.”
He smothered a yawn in his fist. “That sounds reasonable.”
“Does everything always have to sound reasonable to you?” she teased.
He closed his eyes again, and this time, an aura of abandonment followed. His face, in repose, looked lean and vulnerable. He said, “Hmm.”
The way he relaxed reminded her of the way a child abandons their concerns at night. Had her own baby looked like this when he or she went to sleep? Was that why the memory seemed so poignant to her?
Did her baby miss her? If she never remembered who she was, would her baby even remember her? She couldn’t help asking one final question. She whispered, “Mac?”
Without opening his eyes, he murmured, “Hmm?”
“You must have some fond memories of your mother,” she said.
He was silent.
“I know you were young when she left, but there must be something that stands out, something of her that…remains.”
His eyes half opened as his lips gently curved into a wistful smile. “Every morning,” he said softly, “she would ask me about my dreams of the night before. I’d tell her as much as I could remember, then she’d tell me what the dream meant. I remember her voice, kind of far away and whimsical, and the soft look of her eyes.”
“You must have been very young,” Grace said.
“Yes. But I learned quick. If I couldn’t remember a dream for her to interpret, I’d make something up.”
“To prolong your time with her,” Grace said.
“To keep from disappointing her,” he said, yawning into his fist.
Grace felt for the stretch marks she could barely discern by touch. As her fingers grazed her skin, she knew, she absolutely knew she had a child somewhere.
Anxiety all but choked her. She closed her eyes and bit on her fist, determined to stay strong, trying to conjure an image, unable to form anything more tangible than a feeling. But this feeling was real.
She had a child, and the child was alive.
She knew it.
ACCORDING TO the digital alarm clock provided by the motel, it was five o’clock when Grace jerked awake. Mac’s pillow was bare.
Had he abandoned her?
She switched on the light and looked around the empty room, heart pounding in her ears. A note beside the lamp caught her attention.
I’ve gone out to get a few supplies. Stay in the room. Please. I’ll be back soon.
She took a deep breath and got out of bed. Nine hours of sleep should have refreshed her, but she felt sluggish instead. At least her sleep hadn’t been fraught with monstrous shadow people. Or knives…
She decided to take a quick shower and had just put back on her once pretty coppery dress when she heard a noise at the door. She opened it with a welcoming smile.
Mac stood there, card-key in hand, arms juggling plastic sacks and newspapers. “You didn’t even ask who it was before opening it,” he said with a frown as he walked past her. “Lock the door, use the chain,” he added.
She did as he asked. “Who else would it be but you?” she said. “Yum. What smells so good?”
“It could have been Elvis or the guy from the parking lot,” Mac said. “It could have been someone else, someone who hasn’t introduced himself yet.” He dropped a bag on the small table flanked by two chairs that took up the corner of the room. With a sigh, he added, “Breakfast is served.”
“You mean dinner,” she said, opening a foam cup of coffee and taking a sip.
“I mean breakfast. We slept all of yesterday and through most of the night.”
She pulled the cup from her lips. “But it’s dark outside—”
“The sun hasn’t come up yet. I found one of those twenty-four hour stores a few blocks from here and picked up a few things. I gassed up the car and bought us a couple of breakfast burritos. Do you like breakfast burritos?”
She shrugged. She was hungry enough to try almost anything, but she couldn’t get over the hours they had wasted sleeping. The tension in her stomach came back with a vengeance.
Mac separated what appeared to be four different newspapers into sections as Grace unwrapped their food. She handed him his share and he handed her half of the newspapers. “Look for any mention of a shooting or a knifing taking place night before last night outside of Macon,” he said. He took a bite of the burrito and grinned. “Not bad.”
She couldn’t believe the change in him. Gone were the hollows beneath his eyes. Even the shiner had all but faded away. Gone also was the weariness. He seemed revitalized, ready to tackle the world. It took all her willpower not to pull him out of his seat and force him into the car.
They were so close….
Instead, she focused on the wee tendrils of optimism she felt sprouting in her own heart. Mac’s enthusiasm and his clear, bright eyes gave her hope that this ordeal would be concluded before another night fell. Trying out a positive outlook, she said, “Today’s the day.”
Mac looked up from scanning the front page of a newspaper. “Today is what day?”
“Today is the day we get an answer,” she said, discovering that giving voice to a good thought was like pumping gas into an empty tank.
He folded the paper down and almost scowled at her. “The underwear store is a long shot,” he said softly.
“I know,” she said. “A million-to-one chance. I guess I’m feeling lucky.”
He turned his attention back to the newspapers and she felt a little of her unwarranted optimism fade. She buried her head in the newspaper and scanned every headline.
After several minutes of silence, disrupted only by the rattle of paper, Mac said, “There’s nothing in here. Did you find anything?”
She glanced down at the Atlanta edition in her lap. “A hit-and-run in downtown Covington and a man who shot his best friend over a bagel. Nothing about a dead man in a parking lot outside of Macon.”
“Nothing here, either. Of course, it might be yesterday’s news by now.”
They rustled through the rest of the papers but found nothing pertinent. “Why don’t you call the place where we stayed and ask the desk clerk?” Grace asked at last.
“I imagine they have caller ID,” Mac said. “If there was a murder, the police will be on the lookout for calls like that. Too risky.” He shuffled around at his feet until he pulled from one of the shopping bags a pair of red plastic flip-flops. “For you,” he said.
She took the shoes and put them on her feet. “Nice,” she told him, wiggling her toes.
“Better than nothing,” he said.
“Did you get me a box of hair color?” she asked him.
He glanced at her hair. “I really think you ought to go to a salon for that.”
“But the time that would take—”
“Is time well spent, Grace. If we’re going to saunter into an uppity place like L’Hippocampe, we’d both better look more the part.”
“But Mac—”
He leaned forward and patted her knee. “Grace, your dress is torn and smeared with grease and those flip-flops aren’t going to win any fashion points. A couple of hours getting ourselves prepared will pay off in the end. It’s not even 6 a.m. Trust me.”
Like she had a choice! He held the car keys, he was in charge. She bit her lip and nodded, glancing at the nightstand clock.
“Check out the bag from the store,” he told her. “I bought you a present.”
She dug into the abandoned sack and felt her fingers close around a small, rectangular box.
“You shouldn’t have,” she said, smiling as she withdrew a new deck of playing cards.
“Just don’t ask me to play poker again,” he grumbled.
AFTER THEY each chose a change of clothes, Mac used the time Grace spent having her hair colored to use a remote Internet connection located in the middle of the shopping mall. From his vantage point, he could see the front of the salon and the main entrance of the mall. He found nothing in any online newspaper about a murder in the right spot at the right time.
Did that mean Elvis had only wounded the man and that the man had subsequently escaped? Or did it mean Elvis took the body with him?
He could still see the Elvis impersonator jogging back toward the motel. Empty-handed. Well, except for the gun.
The abductor must still be out there, waiting for another chance to nab Grace.
He couldn’t even begin to fathom what Elvis’s role in all this was.
He was so deep in thought that it took him a second to realize the striking blonde leaving the salon was actually Grace. Her hair was still short, but now it was shaped and framed her delicate face. The color and cut made her blue eyes sparkle, her lightly tanned skin glow.
She’d chosen a form-fitting deep blue blouse and a slinky white skirt, which rode on her slender hips. White sandals wrapped her toes and ankles. He’d been with her when she bought these clothes and he’d marveled at how she’d just pulled them off the rack. How she ended up with such a sexy ensemble without hours of plotting and planning was a mystery to him.
He was mesmerized by the way she walked, too, without affectation but with the grace he’d always noticed in her, as though she owned whatever pavement on which she placed her feet. And his weren’t the only male eyes glued to her swaying hips. While Grace had made a very pretty brunette, she made a truly dazzling blonde.
“You look…stunning,” he said, walking up to meet her. She’d applied makeup sometime during the past couple of hours, and she’d applied it with real skill.
She smiled as she took his arm. The two of them kept walking toward the exit. Even her smile looked different.
“It’s going to take some time getting used to you this way,” he added.
She touched her hair. “I kind of hoped I’d look into a mirror and my name would pop to mind,” she admitted.
“No such luck?”
“’Fraid not.”
“Well, I assume this is what you usually look like, which is the whole point. Maybe someone else will look at you and your name will pop into their mind.”
“But you don’t really believe that will happen, do you?”
“No. I’m sorry, but I don’t.”
“I’m nervous, Mac.”
He nodded. He could feel the quiver in her arm as it rested against his side.
As she strode out of the mall beside him, he felt a stab of regret for not making love to Grace when he’d had the chance. The Grace of a day or so ago had needed him. The Grace of today looked well on her way to discovering herself and he had the distinct feeling she wouldn’t need him or maybe anyone else once she had.
He metaphorically shook his head to clear such thoughts. His job was to keep Grace safe. His objective was to help her rediscover her identity.
After that, he needed to go home and help track down the man who had stabbed poor old Jake to death.
Not Jake. Michael Wardman.
Unless the killer was hurt and wounded somewhere behind them.
Or alive and kicking somewhere up ahead…
“ANYTHING LOOK familiar?” Mac asked.
Grace had been both expecting and dreading this question. As she peered out the car window and took in the sights of Miami, she had to admit nothing struck a familiar chord.
Not the faded blue skies or miles of white, sandy beaches. Not the pastel buildings or hoards of people walking down the sidewalks. Not the skateboarders, the vagrants, the tropical shirts, the shoppers, the sidewalk diners. Not the smells of spicy food, the palm trees rustling in the slight breeze, the afternoon light slanting across the pavement.
Nothing.
But it felt right.
Feelings weren’t enough, however. She was sick of feelings. She wanted clear-cut pictures, irrefutable proof. “No,” she said, striving to keep the disappointment out of her voice.
It was three o’clock in the afternoon and they’d been driving without a break since leaving the mall. Mac’s eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, but she was well aware of how often he checked the traffic behind. She was also aware of how often his gaze drifted to her, how often it lingered a heartbeat, and she wondered if it was because she looked so different or if it was something more.
How could he have feelings for her that went further than mere physical attraction when she felt so invisible?
She made herself look away.
She didn’t want to, though. She wanted to stare at him. As they rolled closer to a possible conclusion, she was afraid she was about to lose him.
She’d chosen a long skirt to hide the scabs on her knee, a long-sleeved blouse to cover the fading bruises on her arms. Mac looked sophisticated and sexy as all get-out in linen slacks and a bronze shirt. She’d chosen his clothes as he didn’t seem to know how to shop for anything other than blue jeans and gray suits.
Mac drove directly to L’Hippocampe, finding it on a side street after admitting he’d memorized directions on the Internet while he waited for her. The shop was narrow, with gilded gold lettering on the door and an arrow directing patrons to a small parking lot in the rear.
They got out of the car and walked around to the front, Grace gripping to her chest the small brown bag that held the beautiful bra on which she pinned all her hopes for an easy resolution to this nightmare.
The air was warm and redolent with the aromas of the nearby sea. They could hear laughter and music in the distance.
He had his hand on the door. She felt a tornado of apprehension rip through her body and put her hand over his. “Mac, wait. What if you’re right? What if no one in here knows me? Then it’s all over.”
“No, it’s not all over,” Mac said.
“What would we do next?”
“If they don’t know you in here, we’ll find a place where we can watch our backs and wait for your old pal Elvis to show up,” he said.
“Or wait in a dark alley for a limping, bleeding former kidnapper to wander across our path?”
“Exactly,” he said, and surprised her by leaning down and brushing her lips with his. “Don’t put all your eggs in this one basket,” he murmured against her cheek. “It’s a long shot. It’s always been a long shot. Too many variables. Too many conjectures. We aren’t without a plan B.”
“Plan B,” she repeated.
He straightened up and grinned. He had such a nice grin. Even with the sunglasses, she could see the way it crinkled the skin at the corners of his eyes.
“There’s always a plan B, baby,” he said softly. And with that, he opened the door.
Stepping into L’Hippocampe was like stepping into a very ritzy lady’s boudoir, all done in gold and white, with draping fabrics reflected over and over again in floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Grace found the place strangely comforting and wondered if she’d ever before walked through the front door.
The carpet was deep and plush, the dainty French provincial furniture stained white with gold embellishments. There was no visual clue as to what the store actually sold.
As the front door silently closed behind them, a wall of dark gold curtains in the back parted. A woman wearing a white suit and a discreet smile appeared. With her upswept colorless hair and multiple strands of oversized pearls circling her long neck, she looked dated, but as elegant and as ageless as the room. Both the woman and the boutique were jarring notes of antiquated civility, especially as they existed only a block from the wild, vibrant world of Miami Beach.
“Good day, Mrs. Priestly,” the woman said. “How nice to see you.”
Mrs. Priestly!
A name, handed out casually, just like that.
Mrs. Priestly…
A sharp intake of breath from Mac, a stuttered, “You…you know me?” from Grace, whose knees sagged as Mac’s grip on her arm tightened.
The woman came to a stop a few feet in front of her. “Of course I know you. You’re Katrina Priestly.” A gentle smile curved her lips as her voice softened. “How are you?”
Her tone was oddly solicitous, but the comment itself was offered in such a restrained way that Grace didn’t know what to make of it. Struggling to keep her head on straight, she stammered, “I’m fine…I…”
Words failed her. A blizzard began howling through her mind. She glanced up at Mac. He’d taken off his sunglasses and looked as shocked as she felt by this woman’s offhanded gift of her identity. He recovered quicker, however, and said, “Mrs. Priestly wasn’t sure you’d recall her. It’s been a while since she’s been here.”
The saleswoman shook her head. “No, not so long. She was here a few weeks ago. Maybe three months. That’s all.”
“Are you sure?” Mac persisted.
“Please,” the woman said, gesturing to the two chairs fronting a desk. Mac guided Grace into one of the chairs and took the other as the saleswoman seated herself behind the desk. She opened a drawer and withdrew what appeared to be a large ledger.
The woman opened the book and leafed through the pages until she uttered a soft exclamation of success and turned the book so they could see the entry.
October 2: Mrs. Katrina Priestly, four 66-01, one 66-06, one dozen 66-26.
“Is this some kind of code?” Mac asked.
“It means Mrs. Priestly bought four of our neutral brassieres, one black and one dozen panties. It says here they were shipped on November 1.”
Grace opened the paper bag and brought out the bra. After a cursory inspection, the saleswoman said, “It’s one of ours, though I can’t be certain if it’s from this order or the one before. May I ask what’s going on? Does this have anything to do with the…accident?”
Mac started to speak, but Grace cut in. “The accident? What accident?”
The saleswoman’s expression mutated from sympathetic to alarmed.
“Mrs. Priestly is confused—” Mac said, his voice dropping as he apparently searched for a good explanation.
The saleswoman provided it herself. “Oh, my. I didn’t realize you were aboard the plane, too.” She patted Grace’s hand and added, “Please let me say again how shocked we all were. Your husband seemed such a dashing young man. Is there anything we can do for you? Anything I can do?”
Grace couldn’t have uttered a word if her life depended on it. A wave of nausea washed through her body. Her head felt like exploding. She heard Mac’s voice and made out a few words.
“—so you can see that Mrs. Priestly is having a rough time right now. Would you please write down the last address you have for her?”
“Of course,” the saleswoman said, producing a small card and copying information from a different book. Grace stared at the woman’s hand as she wrote, trying to concentrate. Her heart felt like it was up around her tonsils. She could barely breathe. She stood abruptly and almost fell over. Mac grabbed her arm and steadied her.
The saleswoman’s gaze flickered between the two of them again. At last, she said, “I lost my own husband a year ago. I understand how…difficult…this must be for you. I’m terribly sorry.”
Flashes exploded in Grace’s head like muffled fireworks. She stared at Mac and the saleswoman without clearly hearing either one of them. Their mouths moved, their eyes cast her sympathetic glances. She had to do something, she had to faint or run away—do something, anything to escape the storm in her head.
Darting frantic glances around the room, she saw her reflection here, there and everywhere, so many times, so many blond women, so many dazed blue eyes.
One moment, she was standing there, and the next, she was on the sidewalk, the brilliant sun blinding her, leaning against the rough bark of a palm tree. Memories banged against each other. Nothing made sense.
She felt two warm hands grip her shoulders. She turned to collapse against Mac.
“Grace,” he whispered against her hair.
She shook her head. Grace wasn’t right. Nothing was right.
Next thing she knew, she was sitting in the car, Mac leaning over her, fastening her seat belt.
She felt so odd. Lowering her head into her hands, she closed her eyes.
“It’s okay,” Mac said, but she knew he was wrong.
Nothing was okay.
MAC SAT BEHIND the wheel for a few moments, unsure of his next move. Grace wouldn’t meet his gaze; in fact, her head remained buried in her hands and she was ominously still.
Her husband had been dead a little more than two months. She must still be reeling with grief, he thought, a stab of jealousy hitting him square between the eyes. He’d expected to feel jealous of a living man, but of a dead one? How futile was that?
He finally got out of the car and turned on his phone as he walked a distance away. It took a couple of calls to reach Aunt Beatrice’s doctor, George Handerly, the man Aunt Beatrice had introduced to Grace as her accountant, the doctor who had taken a blood sample from Grace and had it analyzed.
The doctor spent the first few moments relating the results of Grace’s drug tests. He rattled off substances easily available on streets across the nation, from Miami to Billington. The drugs were so ordinary that knowing their names was of no help. There was no way of knowing if they’d been self-ad-ministered or forced upon her, but their presence did explain Grace’s initial confusion and overriding fatigue.
But not her memory loss.
The doctor said he’d examined Grace when he took the sample and that it had appeared to him that she had suffered a blunt trauma to the head sometime before. But not a terrible one, and he was perplexed why she had amnesia.
Unless it was hysterical amnesia or caused by drugs they hadn’t tested for…
Mac related Grace’s reaction to the saleswoman’s disclosures. He wanted to know if he should take Grace to a hospital. He also told the doctor that the saleswoman had provided a few additional facts about Grace after she left the store. If she didn’t recall them on her own, should he tell them to her?
“Don’t barrage her with facts. And given how paranoid she seems to be of doctors, I’d skip the hospital for now. You said you know where she lives?”
Mac glanced at the paper the woman inside the store had used to write down Grace’s last known address. “I think so,” he said.
“Take her there,” the doctor said. “Maybe her husband or her family will be available to help her through this. Ideally, she has a doctor you can consult. Take her home.”
“Her husband is dead,” Mac said.
“Just take her home,” the doctor repeated.
Mac clicked off his phone with a heavy heart.
Grace’s husband had died in a single-engine plane crash almost two months before. The saleswoman wasn’t sure of every fact, just that Daniel Priestly had died way before Christmas.
In other words, Grace’s memory of her husband leaning over her, threatening her with a needle, didn’t seem to have anything to do with her current plight. Maybe his sudden death explained what sent her off the deep end though.
Was there a deep end?
How could he know for sure? The drug angle was fuzzy. Grace ending up a thousand miles from home was suspicious. He still couldn’t swear Michael Wardman’s death was connected to Grace. Even the would-be Macon abduction might have been motivated by the simple desire to take Grace back to Florida—not to harm her but to return her.
With a knife at her throat?
But hadn’t Elvis told her someone or something called B.O. wanted her back home?
As he slid back into the car, he looked over at her. She was staring straight ahead, hands folded in her lap. When he just sat there, she finally turned to face him. Whatever makeup she’d applied in the salon that morning had done an admirable job of holding up to her tears.
“I’m remembering things,” she said, pain flashing in her eyes.
“What kind of things…Katrina?”
“Kate,” she said softly. “Call me Kate. Danny is dead. In a plane crash, before Thanksgiving.”
He watched the tears stream down her cheeks and felt a new flash of jealousy. He wasn’t proud of it, it was just there.
Her eyes suddenly grew wide. “My babies,” she cried, grabbing for her seat belt. Fumbling with the buckle, she added, “Mac, start the car. Now, please. I don’t have one child, I have two. Twins. Oh, my God. Where are they? Who’s looking after them? Please, Mac, hurry.”
The memory of her children seemed to have come out of the blue, sudden and violent. Her distress was contagious. He knew Boward Key was south of Key Largo, and as he wound his way through traffic toward Highway 1, he couldn’t help but wonder what kind of situation he and Grace were about to encounter.
“Hurry,” she pleaded, sitting forward and straining against her shoulder harness.