With the Material Witness in the Safehouse

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.”