EIGHTY-ONE

MIKE

“WHAT’S going on, Lori?”

Mike Quinn steeled himself. He was standing in front of the Gypsy hotel, and it was raw out here. Drizzly wind gusts were rattling the awning and whipping his trench coat, but it was the only quiet spot he could find to return the detective’s call.

“I wanted to give you a heads-up,” Lori said. “Sue Ellen and I won’t be searching for your fiancée anymore.”

“You’re letting Clare go?”

“No, the opposite. The chief of detectives doesn’t want us reaching out to other jurisdictions. We’re turning our files over to the FBI tomorrow afternoon.”

Mike cursed.

“Sorry, but those are the orders. After all the running around we did, Sue Ellen is fit to be tied about the decision. And I have more bad news.”

“Tell me.”

“Over drinks tonight, a friend of yours and mine who’s close to the Major Case Squad confided that your fiancée’s bizarre hospital breakout has made the detectives on the Annette Brewster case consider taking another look at her.”

“You can’t be serious.” Mike closed his eyes. “They think Clare is involved in Brewster’s abduction? Come on, you know that’s crazy.”

“Crazy or not, the theory is gaining momentum. Some of them think it’s plausible that she left the hospital because she’s faking her memory loss and knows more than she’s telling.”

“For what reason?”

“The speculation on Clare’s motives vary. There’s a theory that she took a payoff to set Annette up. And another that she struck a deal with the perpetrators who were holding her, agreeing to stay silent for a bribe—or because they threatened her in some manner, scaring her into silence—which is one answer to why they let her go.”

“Lori, you know Clare. You don’t believe any of this, do you?”

“It doesn’t matter what I believe. The plausibility of it alone could make her a person of interest. Even worse, if they do decide to pull the trigger on Clare, the brass will have a horrendous conflict of interest problem on their hands—and it’s you.”

“They’re trying to make me the problem? Are you kidding? Sounds more like they’ve got no results, so it’s cover-your-ass time.”

“Look, you know Sue Ellen and I believe Clare is a victim in all this. That’s why I’m warning you. The chief of detectives is sweating bullets. He doesn’t want to catch any political heat. So he’s going to the commissioner tomorrow to discuss whether or not they should turn over the entire Annette Brewster investigation to the Feds.”

Quinn watched the rain falling and suddenly felt the sky was, too. He was silent for so long, Lori assumed her signal had cut out.

“Mike? Are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“You okay?”

“Sure. This is nothing I can’t handle.”

“If you think so,” Lori said, but her tone was full of doubt.

“Thanks for the heads-up.”

Mike ended the call staring grimly into the unsettled night. Despite his own calm assurances to Lori, he was filled with dread. He and Clare were already caught up in a bad dream. FBI involvement could plunge them into a genuine nightmare.

Once that bogus theory—that Clare was “faking” her memory loss—was conveyed to the FBI, ungodly pressure could be put on her for a “confession” of her involvement in Annette Brewster’s abduction, or any “knowledge” of the perpetrators who had engineered her disappearance.

An ordeal like that would give a stable person a mental breakdown, let alone someone who was struggling with memory loss. And after it was all over—after they got nothing useful from the woman he loved—she would be placed right back in the hands of Dr. Lorca, in an even more distressed state than he’d found her. She’d be drugged and isolated again, taken from everyone who cared about her.

Even if he were to hire the best attorneys, the FBI could decide to press a circumstantial case against her or make an argument for commitment. She could end up remanded to a mental institution for years.

Mike could see no clean way out of this, not unless Clare could come up with some useful memories about the details of her abduction.

Or Annette Brewster was found.