“I CAN’T BELIEVE you’re here.” Emily shook her head in obvious bemusement. “And the three of us together again.”
Emily and her new husband had recently bought a house in town only a block from the river. It reminded Nell a little too much of the Dubeau home, although this one was more modest. She could tell, though, that it was as dignified and gracious as Emily herself. Nell couldn’t help thinking this was the daughter her own parents had wanted her to be.
Emily sat now in a wing chair, a pretty, elegant woman with her masses of blond hair worn up in a simple twist. She’d kicked off her shoes, but beneath slacks she wore tights or knee socks with an elaborate pattern of climbing vines.
It hadn’t been her face so much as her Princess Grace carriage that brought back Nell’s first memory of her.
“I used to tease you and insist your mom must make you walk around with a heavy book on your head for an hour a day,” she blurted.
Both women stared at her. “You remember,” Hailey whispered.
After a moment, Emily burst into delighted laughter. “Yes! After the first time you said that, I tried it.” She wrinkled her nose, reducing the air of dignity. “I was really good at it.”
They all laughed now.
Hailey sat on the carpeted floor, her back to one end of the sofa and her knees drawn up. She wore ragged, faded jeans and was engulfed by what looked like a man’s sweater that had reached midthigh before she’d sunk to the floor. If she’d started the day with any makeup, it was gone. Maybe the bright hair was statement enough.
Seeing the two of them, the contrast, did bring hazy memories.
“Why were we friends?” she asked, then blushed as she realized how untactful that sounded. “I mean, Emily, you’re so chic and I’m not.”
“And I’m really not,” Hailey chimed in.
A smile curved Emily’s mouth. “You should remember,” she said to Hailey before looking at Nell. “I looked like...like the classic flagpole even in eighth grade. I’m five foot eleven, you know. I towered over everyone, boys included, from kindergarten on. And I had these big feet.” She lifted one in demonstration. Yes, it was probably a size eleven. “My mother kept saying—with thinly veiled desperation—that everyone would envy me someday, because I’d have the face and figure of a high fashion model.” That merry laugh rang out again. “That didn’t quite happen, but at least I did, eventually, acquire some figure.”
Hailey grinned at her, their intimacy momentarily excluding Nell. “But not until you were sixteen.”
Emily smiled at Nell, erasing her momentary feeling of loneliness. “I thought I’d never get my period. Or meet a guy who’s taller than me and doesn’t love having a girl he can cuddle against his chest.” Her fond gaze wandered toward the kitchen, where they all heard the sound of running water. Nell had met Jason when she arrived and liked him immediately. He wasn’t that much taller than Emily—six foot one or two, maybe—and lean to the point of being skinny. He was also gentle, friendly and obviously in love with his wife. The way he’d looked at her had made Nell feel a pang of envy. He’d chatted for a minute and then excused himself, leaving the women alone.
“It’s true,” Hailey said. “The three of us were sort of misfits, in different ways. Emily got over it. I never did.” She didn’t sound as if she minded.
“I felt like a misfit.” Nell knew that much. “Always so awkward, so...”
When she hesitated, Emily finished her sentence. “So unsure of yourself.”
Nell blinked. She’d expected to hear “so sad.” This at least was different. It also fit with her recently recovered memories. “Yes” was all she said.
“My mother kept bucking me up,” Emily continued, her expression compassionate. “I’m pretty sure yours tore you down instead.”
“Yes,” she said again. She had ducked her head in a way that was uncomfortably familiar. I still do that, she realized in dismay. Hiding. “I wish I knew why.”
“Maybe you should ask her,” Hailey suggested. She, too, was watching Nell with kindness and sympathy.
Nell managed a smile. “Maybe I will.”
“You were the first one of us to have a boyfriend, you know,” Emily said slowly. Her forehead was crinkled a little.
“What?” Nell’s heartbeat picked up speed and everything in her clenched with intense anxiety.
“Wow,” Hailey said. She and Emily both were looking at her in puzzlement. “I’d forgotten. You talked about him, but I never saw him.”
“I did, once, but only because I ran into you two by accident.” A tiny hint of old hurt sounded in Emily’s voice. “You’d barely told us about him. I guess it was new, but...”
“Who?” She swallowed. “Who was it?”
Emily shook her head. “That’s the thing. He didn’t go to school with us. You said he was older, like sixteen or seventeen. You thought he really liked you.”
“How could he not have gone to school with us?” Nell asked, trying to understand. “Was there a private school or something?”
“You said he was on his own. Like a dropout? Truthfully, it freaked me out. This guy you were keeping secret, who didn’t even go to school? Or—wow—was even older than he’d told you. Later, I told the police about him, but I don’t know if they ever found him.”
Oxygen seemed to be short in the room. It was a struggle to make herself sound collected and only mildly surprised. “Maybe I made him up.”
But Emily was shaking her head again. “Uh-uh. ’Cuz I did see him. He was actually pretty cute. At least, I thought so then.” She grimaced. “All I remember is that he had dark hair and brown eyes and he was dressed kind of scruffy and he seemed alarmed by me.”
“I don’t remember him at all.” I don’t.
Then why am I scared to death? As if...
She didn’t know. Only that this boy meant something.
“Did I tell you his name?”
Emily’s forehead crinkled as she thought. “It would be in the police report. Buck. No.” Her face cleared. “Beck. That was it. You never said a last name, though. Maybe Beck was his last name.”
“You’re right.” Nell made a face. “My mother would have had a cow.”
They talked about other things for a few minutes, and when Hailey excused herself Nell said good-night, too. Although she liked both of these friends, tonight she felt agitated and overwhelmed.
Beck.
Snow was falling again by the time she and Hailey left, but this time in big wet globs. The walkway and street were already slushy-looking. Emily had apologized because she and Jason had to park in the driveway. The garage, apparently, was full of unpacked stuff; combining separate households meant they had duplicates of lots of household items, plus furniture they hadn’t decided whether to keep or not. “I swear, by next winter,” she had said when they first arrived, “I want an empty garage and a remote control opener.”
Hailey had parked at the curb in front of the house, Nell across the street, having wedged her small car in between two hulking SUVs. Hardly anyone in town drove a car, she’d noticed, never mind one as modest and aging as hers. Four-wheel drive seemed to be a necessity, and she was beginning to see why. Even Hailey hopped into a Subaru Forester. She was already halfway down the block when Nell started across the street, stepping carefully. Even so, icy dampness penetrated to her toes. She really needed new boots.
She was midstreet when she heard the roar of an engine. Somebody was driving way too fast. For an instant, confused, she came to a stop. It was so dark, with the falling snow obscuring porch lights and streetlights. No headlights touched her.
Then she saw it, huge, black and bearing down on her. Fueled by a shot of adrenaline, she tried to run, but her traction wasn’t great in these boots, either, and she slipped and almost went down. It was terror that kept her on her feet and had her running and then throwing herself into the narrow gap between her front bumper and the white SUV she’d parked behind. She hit her shoulder on the way down and ended up splayed on the pavement between vehicles. The monstrous black SUV or pickup or something passed so close she braced herself for the scrape of metal. It didn’t come. What felt like an angry roar receded.
Wet and cold, bruised and probably scraped, she nonetheless scrambled to her knees and then her feet. Instinct drove her to get into her car, lock the doors, get away.
Run, run, run.
But oh, God— Where were her keys? She’d had them clutched in her gloved hand.
Frantic, Nell scrabbled in the wet snow on the pavement, praying they hadn’t slithered beneath one vehicle or another.
She could run back to Emily’s.
No. She wanted her own burrow. Colin.
Her hand closed over the keys and relief poured into her, making her sag. Her shoulder and one knee hurt, but she made it back to the driver’s side of her small Ford, unlocked it and all but fell inside, locking the door immediately.
She drove on automatic pilot, half numb, half terrified. For the first time she realized how well she knew the streets of this town, at least until she reached the outskirts.
Nell was shaking by the time she turned into Colin’s long driveway and finally braked in what had become her parking spot. Lights were still on in his house. Motion-activated lights above the garage came on, too.
Stiff and hurting, her teeth chattering, she got out and limped across the yard to his front porch. She had barely pressed the bell when the door swung open.
“Nell...?” His expression changed. He reached for her, pulling her inside and, after a quick, hard look past her, closed the door behind her. “What happened?” he demanded. “Did you fall down?”
She hugged herself to try to contain the shivers. It was hard to talk with her teeth chattering. “I almost got run over.”
“You had an accident?”
She shook her head. Her teeth clacked like castanets. “I was...I was...crossing the street,” she managed to answer.
“Oh, damn.” He began peeling her outer garments from her, after which he touched her cheek with such gentle fingers, she didn’t know why her face stung. “You’re hurt.” His voice was guttural. Taking her completely by surprise, he swung her into his arms and carried her to the sofa, close enough to the fire that she sighed in new relief.
“You’re soaking wet.” Now he mostly sounded angry. “I want to see where you’re hurt, then we’ll decide whether you need the E.R. or just a hot bath.”
A hot bath sounded like heaven, but the apartment had only a small shower.
“Show me.”
Self-conscious, she pulled her turtleneck over her head and then craned her neck to see her shoulder. It was flaming red and when he gently manipulated it, she winced.
“You’re going to have a hell of a bruise,” he growled.
The shakes were subsiding. “I think I whacked my knee instead of twisting it,” she said. Under his peremptory stare, she half stood and eased her jeans down, too. Her knee was swelling, but not badly, and, oh, boy, but she was going to have a hell of a bruise there, too, to quote him.
“I’m okay,” she muttered, pulling the jeans back up. When she reached for the turtleneck, Colin tossed it away.
“We’ll see how you feel after a bath. Here, put your arms around my neck.”
No one had ever carried her before like this. Or at least...no one in her memory. Stiff and self-conscious and excruciatingly aware of his strength, his scent, his body, she kept her gaze fixed on Colin’s strong jaw, rough with a day’s growth of beard. In an effort to distract herself, she tried to picture her father carrying her like this and couldn’t.
Colin’s bathroom was positively sybaritic, the tub huge and surrounded by a forest of deep green tiles, a few scattered ones textured with what looked like the imprint of pinecones. He started the water running, tested it with his hand, then rose to his feet and looked at her. “Can you get undressed by yourself?” His voice was a little gruff.
“Of course I can!” Nell couldn’t quite bring herself to meet his compelling gray eyes but that didn’t mean she had to sound like a languishing heroine of some 19th century Gothic romance.
Although...she hadn’t known the meaning of the word shy until now. Here she was wearing nothing but her bra and unsnapped, wet jeans. For once in her life she wished she wore boring undergarments. This bra happened to be black with hot pink polka dots, the cups framed with hot pink lace. And oh, yes, she hurt and the fear still came and went like ocean waves, pounding and receding, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t also feel aware of him with every cell of her body.
His hand curled into a half fist, he stroked the cheek that wasn’t scraped with his knuckles. “Okay,” he murmured, the deep voice tender. “I’ll run over to the apartment and bring you dry clothes.”
“Thank you,” she said huskily.
He still didn’t move for a moment, and she knew his gaze rested on her face. But then with a nod he went.
She peered first into the mirror and saw that a long scrape decorated one side of her face. Her hair was plastered to her head and dripping, and her eyes looked wild. No wonder he’d reacted with alarm at first sight of her on his doorstep.
Her knee was stiffening. Swinging that leg over the side of the tub was a challenge, but sinking into the hot water was heavenly.
When the door opened partway, she crossed her arms over her breasts, but all he did was set a pile of clothes on the floor and quietly close the door again.
Nell stayed in the tub long enough to warm herself through, but not as long as she’d have liked. She imagined Colin pacing outside the bathroom. He would want to know what had happened, and she needed to tell him.
He’d brought underwear but not a bra, she saw. Despite the long soak, her arm was reluctant to lift, so she decided to skip putting the one she had back on. She squirmed and wriggled to get the T-shirt and fleece mock-neck over her head, then had to sit on the closed toilet seat to ease the jeans up and get on the heavy socks. Finally, she looked in his drawers until she found a comb and used it to restore order to her wet hair. For the moment, she decided to leave her pile of wet clothes on the floor. She could ask him for a plastic grocery bag to stuff them in so she didn’t drip all over the floor.
He must have heard the door open, because he was pouring boiling water into a mug when she reached the kitchen.
“Cocoa,” he said without looking at her. “I hope you like it.”
“It sounds wonderful.” She smiled tentatively as he turned. “You must have a sweet tooth.”
“Yeah, I do.” His gaze swept over her, head to toe. “You look a little better. You should take some ibuprofen, though.” He lifted a bottle from the counter and when she held out a hand shook out two pills into her palm. He’d already poured a glass of water, too.
Colin sent her to the living room and carried two mugs of cocoa when he followed her. This time he sat down beside her on the sofa and put the mugs on the coffee table.
“All right.” He was, momentarily, all cop. “Tell me what happened.”
She told him the story and watched his expression harden.
“No headlights.” It wasn’t a question.
She shook her head anyway.
“You think he was trying to run you down.”
Nell’s whole body tightened. “It...felt like it. But, honestly, I guess it’s possible the driver didn’t see me at all. Visibility was really bad, and if he just hadn’t turned his headlights on yet...”
“Where did he come from?”
Startled, she looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“Was there any other traffic? Would you have heard this vehicle coming down the street, turning the corner?”
Chilled, Nell gazed down into her cocoa, cradled to warm her hands. “I think so. Even if I wasn’t thinking about it, I wouldn’t have stepped out into the street without a glance and without being aware of a car engine. I mean, that’s automatic.” She frowned. “I think he must have been parked at the curb down the block.”
“Watching for you.”
“Oh, God,” she whispered.
He set down his own mug with an abrupt motion and clasped her free hand in a reassuring grip. “Nell, it may have been a neighbor or some idiot teenager.”
“But you don’t think so.”
His dark eyebrows rose. “Do you?”
Once again she hesitated, only reluctantly shaking her head. “It felt...malevolent.” She studied his face. “This is what you were afraid of, isn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t have encouraged you to come home if I’d expected anything like this. Like I told you, some of my worry really was a product of occupational paranoia. I may still be overreacting, but having something like this happen is too suggestive to make me happy.”
“Maybe I should leave.”
His eyes had darkened. “I think it’s too late for that, Nell. Now people know you’re alive, that your memory isn’t a complete blank. Whoever he is, he may be afraid that this visit home will have triggered your memory to return. He could follow you.”
“I haven’t told anyone where I came from or what name I live under.” Her voice had risen.
Colin held her gaze, his own steady, if worried. “You did tell your parents. Anyone could have noted the license plate number on your car. People could find out I was in Seattle a few weeks ago. I mentioned seeing you on the local news. Anyone could find you, Nell. I can watch out for you here. I can’t if you’re in Seattle.”
Her fingernails were probably digging into his flesh, but she held on to his hand anyway. “Yes.” She steadied her voice. “Okay.”
He grilled her on what she’d seen of the vehicle and she was embarrassed to admit that she couldn’t even swear it was an SUV versus a pickup with a canopy, and no, she wasn’t absolutely positive it was black, only that it was a dark color. And no, she hadn’t caught even a glimpse of a license plate.
“I was just so scared,” she explained. “And it was snowing and...”
“Getting out of the way was a lot more important than trying to see a license plate. Hey.” He let go of her hand and wrapped his arm around her instead.
After a stiff moment, Nell let herself relax against him, laying her head against his chest, broad and solid. A bubble of laughter arose, and when he cocked his head to look at her face, she had to explain what Emily said about men preferring to have a dainty woman instead of an Amazon.
He chuckled. “Can’t say I ever thought one way or another about a woman’s height.”
Of course she now burned with self-consciousness, because she’d implied he was cuddling her for, well, romantic reasons rather than simple reassurance. But he seemed to be rubbing his cheek against her hair even though it was still damp, and his big hand was gently kneading her shoulder. And did police officers make a habit of cuddling citizens even if they had just had a close call?
He let out a sigh. “Damn,” he murmured. “I’m sorry, Nell. I got you into this.”
Like another slap of snow in the face, he’d managed to remind her of his oversize sense of responsibility and, yes, his need to win, or maybe only find answers. One or the other of which had kept him looking for her all these years.
She didn’t look at him when she straightened. After a moment, his arm fell away from her. She knew he was watching her, but she made a production of picking up her mug and taking a sip. Nell tried to think of something to say, then remembered she did have one more thing to ask him about.
“Emily and Hailey told me something.” Finally she did turn her head and met his eyes. “They said I had a boyfriend, I guess right before I disappeared.”
His gaze sharpened. “Did they say who?”
“Only that his name was Beck, Emily thinks. She says she told an officer who interviewed her back then, so it should be in the reports somewhere. He wasn’t a student at the high school. I said he was on his own, like maybe a dropout. Or I guess he could have been older, like a community college student?” But Nell couldn’t imagine herself at only fifteen hooking up with a guy in college. “For some reason, I didn’t want to introduce him to my friends, but she did see him once when she ran into us by accident. She said he looked wary.”
“I read your file not long ago. I’d swear there was nothing about a boyfriend.”
She shrugged. “It may not mean anything. I might have only met him the week before or something, but... How?” she blurted. “I was shy! And I could never have told my mother. Can you imagine?”
“No.” He was scrutinizing her the same way he had that night at the library, before he’d introduced himself. As if she were a...a victim, or a suspect. It was disconcerting. What was it police spokespersons always said? A person of interest. Not a woman he’d tugged into his arms a minute ago.
“You don’t remember him.”
“No.” Why did that sound defiant? Maybe because she had one of those creepy feelings, as if a ghost had brushed her. If she pushed up her sleeves, would she have goose bumps? “I was shocked when they told me.”
All he did was watch her.
“You don’t believe me,” Nell said indignantly.
“I believe you.” But he said it slowly enough, she didn’t believe him.
“I really don’t remember him,” she insisted. Only...it didn’t come out as strongly as she’d intended.
One of Colin’s eyebrows quirked.
Dismayed, Nell looked down to realize she’d wrapped her arms tightly against her torso and was squeezing. Hugging herself for comfort.
“I don’t,” she said again. Third time’s the charm. Except the theory didn’t work.
“What is it, Nell?” It was the deep, tender tone that got to her, as it did every time.
“When Emily said that,” she told him in a low voice, “about me having a boyfriend, I was surprised but also really anxious.”
“Thinking about him scared you.”
She closed her eyes for a moment. “Yes.”
“Then we’ll have to find out why.” He sounded practical and calm, exactly what she needed.
“How can we? What if he was really on his own, like a runaway?”
“I doubt he was, at least in the sense you mean. I gave this some thought not long ago. We don’t have street people in Angel Butte, and there’s good reason. Winters are too damn cold. Admittedly, there wasn’t any snow on the ground when you disappeared. Even so, where would this guy have been sleeping? If he’d been homeless, he’d have been dirty, probably stunk. Would that have appealed to you?”
She was shaking her head before he finished. “No, I probably wouldn’t have let him get near me.”
“So this Beck had to be living somewhere he could take showers, wash his clothes. He might have been staying with a friend, who introduced you.”
She’d never hated more the giant empty whiteboard in her head where there should be a colorful riot of memories, impressions, life. All she could do was shake her head. Was Beck one of those bad things her brain was determined to block out?
“Tomorrow, I’ll look to find out what Emily said at the time, and what was done to locate this guy.”
Nell nodded, hopefully maintaining her dignity. “Thank you.”
He frowned at her. “You look beat.”
“It’s been an eventful day.”
“Yeah, it has.” Again he made one of those lightning assessments. “How do you feel?”
Nell had to think about it. “Better. The ibuprofen helped, I think. The hot bath, too.”
“You do know you’re going to hurt come morning, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Think you can sleep?”
“Probably.” Which would bring dreams. If only she could remember them better. She suffered from chronic nightmares that she suspected had to do with whatever had happened here in Angel Butte, but she couldn’t be sure because the images always faded no matter how hard she tried to hang on to them. Tonight’s near disaster was bound to make a nightmare surface.
Lines gathered on his forehead again. “Did you tell your friends where you’re staying?”
The question kicked up her pulse. “No. I only said I’d gotten an apartment and Hailey said cool, that meant I was staying for a while.”
His face relaxed. “Good. Let’s keep it that way.”
“Someone could follow me.”
“They could. Keep an eye out. Whenever you’re on your way back here, take a few extra turns and make sure no other vehicle is making them with you.”
Nell almost laughed, remembering her frantic efforts to shake any pursuit that night after he’d confronted her in the library parking lot and said, I know you.
“I can do that.”
She could tell she had made him curious, but he chose not to ask, only nodded and repeated, “Good. I’ll walk you over to the apartment.”
He was probably desperate to get rid of her. There was no reason whatsoever to feel hurt at the thought.
“Here I’ve consumed another one of your evenings,” she said in chagrin. “I’m sorry.”
He lifted her chin, and Nell realized she’d been hiding behind the fall of hair. I’m not like that, she thought, and wondered if she were reverting to the more introverted teenager she must have been. Shy was okay, a coward wasn’t.
A spark that might have been anger lit his eyes. “I’d have been upset if you hadn’t come straight here.”
She swallowed with difficulty. “Message received.”
His eyes narrowed, but he let her go. Only, it felt as if he were caressing her as pulled his hand back. It was all she could do not to turn her head to maintain the contact. Even...nuzzle a tiny bit.
They stared at each other for a moment. Nell had no idea what he was thinking. Her heart was pounding hard, but not in fear. Something more unnerving yet was happening to her.
“You ready?” he asked roughly.
Ready? For an instant she didn’t understand what he meant. Or maybe she wanted to think he meant... Oh, God. Her cheeks warmed. What was wrong with her?
“Yes.” She shot to her feet. “Do you have a plastic grocery bag I can put all my soggy clothes in?”
For a beat, he didn’t move. She could swear there was heat in his eyes—probably the reason for the glow she could feel on her cheeks.
Then he moved his shoulders as if to ease tension, and at the same time managed to erase from his face whatever he’d been feeling. “I’ll get one.”
He kept his distance on the walk to the apartment door, staying several feet away as she unlocked. “You didn’t say what your plans are for tomorrow.”
“I’ve gotten a couple more names of people who should remember me pretty well. I’ll try to talk to them. I also thought...” She hesitated. “I want to go to the park. I need to see where it happened.”
He closed the distance and gripped her arm. “Not alone, Nell.”
“I actually was hoping you could take a few minutes,” she admitted.
“Of course I can. Call me when you’re ready.”
Nell nodded, feeling shaky again. “Yes. All right.”
He looked down at her, his eyes shadowed in the artificial light. Then he nodded and let her go. “Good night, Nell.”
“Good night.” She whisked inside, locked the door behind her, and started up the stairs to the small apartment that didn’t feel nearly as safe as it had before somebody had tried to kill her.