“I thought you said we hated each other,” she protested faintly.
“Well, sometimes it’s awfully hard to tell the difference between hate and love,” the nurse said. “Maybe you can spend the next few weeks finding out which one it is.”
“Maybe. I just hope it turns out to be the right one.” She was unable to make her voice sound overly optimistic.
“If it’s not, I’ll give you my address and you can send your husband to me,” the nurse said, straight-faced.
She finally found she could smile. “I’ll be happy to.”
“Oh, I nearly forgot. Lieutenant Ryker would like the pleasure of your company,” she said, her voice heavy with sarcasm, picking up the discarded hospital robe and heading for the door. “Don’t let him scare you—he’s all bark and no bite. Dr. Hobson’s told him to go easy on you, but I wouldn’t count on it. Just don’t let him browbeat you.” She smiled. “Good luck to you.”
And then she was alone once more, staring down at the shiny green vinyl floor and wondering what ghastly crimes she had committed.
None. She knew that with an instinct both sure and comforting. Unfortunately she had no memory, no way to refute any accusations.
Maybe she wasn’t suspected of anything. Maybe she was just being paranoid. She looked down at her elegant clothes and considered her absent husband. Somehow she didn’t think paranoia was a major part of her difficulties.
lieutenant Ryker was more than happy to inform her what her difficulties were. He was a middle-aged man, with sandy hair, sandy eyes, and a tense manner that was slightly intimidating. Not the ogre that the nurse had painted, but no charmer either. She sat across from him in the private lounge and crossed her ankles with a casual disdain that seemed to come naturally.
“Mrs. Winters, we’re releasing you into your husband’s custody today—against my better judgment, I might add. You must remember that you have given your oath that you’ll remain in his care until this matter is cleared up.” His eyes were faintly contemptuous.
“What matter?”
“Dr. Hobson told me you have a temporary memory loss.” He looked skeptical. “How very convenient for you. To summarize briefly, Mrs. Winters, you were found in a wrecked car near the Jersey coast with a dead man beside you in the passenger seat. We finally got an ID on him, no thanks to you. George Andrews. You had a concussion that may or may not have been caused by the accident, and the autopsy showed that rather than dying from injuries sustained in the accident, your companion had been strangled. Now obviously you haven’t the strength to strangle a man of Andrews’s height and weight. Obviously, also, you must have a good idea who did it.”
“Why do you say that?” she countered swiftly. “How do you know that man didn’t knock me unconscious before someone showed up and strangled him?”
“Highly unlikely, Mrs. Winters. There were signs of a struggle—you had bloodied and broken fingernails, and there was no blood on Andrews’s body.”
“Blood? What about DNA testing...?” From somewhere in the recesses of her knowledge came the question.
“It was your blood, Mrs. Winters,” he said wearily. “And the dead man isn’t your only problem. There’s also the question of three hundred thousand dollars found in the trunk of your car. Your fingerprints are all over that money, Mrs. Winters. Yours and Andrews’s.” His voice was hard, implacable and furious. “You have refused to cooperate with the police from the first moment you regained consciousness, telling us absolutely nothing, and you still refuse to do so. We know several of your companion’s aliases from a fingerprint check, but after that the trail gets cold. We know he was a criminal, Mrs. Winters. A petty, blackmailing criminal.” He shook his head angrily. “Maybe your husband will be able to convince you to do the honorable thing.”
And maybe you can go to hell, she thought silently, maintaining an impassive countenance. “What was I doing with this man? Where was my husband?”
“I think you can answer that far better than we can, if you wanted to. All we know of your movements is that you left your husband five weeks ago, two weeks before you turned up in that wrecked car. Perhaps you’ve changed your mind and feel like enlightening us?” He didn’t look hopeful.
She shook her head. “I’m afraid I can’t.” Despite the man’s hostility she wanted the same answers that he did, and she made an effort to smile politely. “I simply don’t remember. Not right now, at least. I should before long, or at least that’s what the doctor assures me.”
He snorted, his contempt obvious. He must have thought she was a spoiled, frivolous creature, and yet she didn’t feel very frivolous, except for this silk suit she was wearing. Had she got it from her handsome husband, she wondered, the one she’d run away from? Or from her dead lover?
“Is my husband here yet?” she asked, dreading the moment when she had to meet the stranger who would have so much control over her life, the stranger she had run from. There seemed no way to avoid it much longer.
Apparently there was. “He’s not coming,” Lieutenant Ryker said shortly. “He’s gotten a friend of his to come and get you. I don’t imagine his feelings toward you are any too charitable right now.”
“I imagine not,” she agreed faintly, wondering desperately what, besides a husband she hated, would await her when she arrived at her forgotten home.
The answers were there. The answers she needed, the reason she’d run.
But more than answers might await her. She couldn’t picture a place, or a person. But she recognized the familiar feelings that swept over her as she contemplated her return.
Longing.
And fear.
Two
The car sped across the endless stretch of crowded highway, the landscape brown, dead and dreary. What an awful time of year, she thought gloomily. Everything dead from winter, the spring teasingly out of sight. She wondered dismally where she was going. Bucks County, they’d told her. Somehow that didn’t sound promising.
