The Stranger in Room 205

What he really wanted right now was to be alone. A chance to think. To break through the mental barrier that was keeping him from his memories. He was certain that he could do so if he only had the time to work at it a bit…on his own, without disruptions. But as the door opened again and a short, squarely built older man he assumed to be the doctor strode briskly into the room, he knew it would be a while yet before he would be left alone. Now he had only to keep up his pretense until his mind cleared, which he fervently hoped it would do before he had to deal with the police. If the memories didn’t return soon… Well, he would take this one step at a time.

Seeing the doctor, Serena smiled and stepped back. “I’ll get out of the way now and let Dr. Frank take care of you. You’re in good hands here, Sam.”

Sam. The name sounded strange…but maybe just a little familiar? Was it possible that it really was his own? “You’re leaving?”

Again, he found himself reluctant to see her go, perhaps because she was, for now, the first thing he remembered.

“Maybe we’ll see each other again before you leave,” she said lightly.

“I hope so,” he murmured, and realized that he meant it. At the moment, she felt very much like his only friend.

The hospital was quiet, all the school bus passengers treated and released to the care of their relieved families. At the end of the hallway, Dan Meadows stood talking to an attractive young woman who was scribbling in a battered notebook. Serena could tell from the police chief’s posture that he was rapidly growing impatient answering the reporter’s questions. She moved to rescue him.

“As I said,” she heard Dan saying in a flat, clipped voice, “no charges will be filed against the bus driver or anyone else until a full investigation of the accident has been conducted. Now I really don’t know what else you want me to say, but—”

“What have I told you about hassling the local authorities, Lindsey?” Serena asked with a faint smile.

Her employee grinned with the irreverence Serena had come to expect from the youngest member of the Evening Star staff. “You wouldn’t deny me one of my favorite pastimes, would you?”

“For the sake of the newspaper’s future dealings with the police department, I’m afraid I’m going to have to. Is there anything else you need for your article?”

“I’ve got everything I need about the bus accident,” Lindsey answered. “But I hear we have another interesting story in Room Two Oh Five. Who’s the mysterious stranger, Serena?”

“I’m waiting to hear that, myself,” Dan said, giving Lindsey a repressive look. “Until we have all the facts, there’s really nothing for you to write about him.”

“Dan’s right, Lindsey. All we know now is that he was found on Bullock Lake Road, suffering injuries from what appears to be a severe beating. I think you’ll have to wait until tomorrow for further details. He’s not strong enough to deal with the police and the press this evening.”

“Is he awake yet?” Dan asked.

She nodded. “I talked to him for a few minutes. He said his name is Sam Wallace. I’m afraid that’s pretty much the extent of what I learned about him. Dr. Frank’s with him now.”

“He refused to talk about what happened?” Dan frowned, as if that confirmed his suspicion that Sam Wallace had been involved in something shady.

Serena shook her head. “He didn’t refuse. He’s groggy, in pain. It seemed difficult for him to concentrate. He was quite pleasant, actually, just a bit confused. I’m not sure he even remembers what happened.”

“He’s claiming amnesia?” Dan’s lip curled in open disbelief.

“No.” Honestly, sometimes Dan took his official skepticism a bit too far. One would almost accuse him of being paranoid—if anyone had the nerve to do so to his face. “He’s simply disoriented, Dan. I would imagine that’s a fairly common reaction to a concussion.”

He nodded reluctantly. “I’ll try to talk to him when the doc’s through with him. If he can identify his attackers, we’ll have a better chance of finding them if we don’t wait too long.”

“He’s in a lot of pain.”

He gave her one of his rare smiles, though it didn’t quite reach his glittering dark eyes. “Don’t worry, Serena. I won’t browbeat your stray. Just want to ask him some questions.”

“So do I,” Lindsey agreed.

Serena gave her a look. “Go file the school bus story. Everyone in town’s going to want the details of that tomorrow.”

Lindsey’s expression implied that a mysterious wounded stranger was of as much interest to her as the mercifully minor school bus accident, but she had the discretion not to say so. She nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Serena. You, too, Chief. I’ll be wanting details of your investigation into this guy’s story, of course.”

Dan glared after Lindsey as she sauntered into an elevator. “Have I ever mentioned that I really don’t much like being questioned by your reporters all the time?”

“You’ve alluded to it a time or two,” Serena replied. She knew Dan didn’t mean anything personal against Lindsey, whom he’d known since she was a toddler. There were times she even suspected Dan was rather fond of Lindsey in his own gruff way—but he did not like reporters in general.

Dan had already turned his attention to the hospital room at the other end of the hall. “Okay, Sam Wallace,” he murmured as if to himself. “Time to find out just who you are—an innocent crime victim, or someone we don’t want in our town.”

Serena had been wondering that herself. For some reason, she was having trouble picturing Sam Wallace—wounded or otherwise—as an innocent victim.

Chapter Two

T wo hours later, Sam—the name he was still using for lack of a better one—was lying on his back in the hospital bed staring at the ten o’clock evening news on the TV mounted high on the wall across from his bed, hoping something would trigger the memories that had so far eluded him. He’d been straining to come up with even the foggiest detail, but the only result thus far was a pounding headache and a mounting frustration tinged with panic.

It was beginning to seem inevitable that he was going to have to admit the truth to someone—probably the cop who’d been in earlier, asking questions that Sam had deliberately answered as vaguely as possible. The chief had left with a promise that he would be back—or had it been a warning?

Sam wasn’t at all sure Meadows had bought his story that he’d been passing through this area in search of work and had been mugged by a couple of guys who’d given him a lift. Claiming pain, fatigue and confusion, he hadn’t given any details that would get anyone arrested, and Chief Meadows was not pleased with the sketchiness of the tale. Hell, for all Sam knew, it could be true. He just didn’t remember any of it.

He cringed at the thought of saying aloud that he had lost his memory, that his mind was a blank, that he was utterly at the mercy of the staff of this tiny, apparently rural hospital. So far the characters he had encountered—with the exception of the cop—had been friendly, cheerful, laid-back and unpretentious. He had obviously landed in Smallville, U.S.A.—but from where?

He knew somehow he wasn’t from around here; his speech patterns sounded different even to his own ears. Besides, he just didn’t feel…Arkansan. Whatever the hell that meant.

But why was he here? Why had no one come forward to identify him? To ask about him? Was he really so alone that no one knew where he was? Was he as nameless and mysterious to everyone else as he was to himself at the moment?

He didn’t like the idea that there was no one who cared whether he lived or died. Nor did he like lying in this bed wearing nothing but a backless hospital gown, a sheet so thin he could probably read a book through it, with a couple of bags of liquid dripping through a needle taped to his arm. Maybe if he could just see whatever he had been wearing when he’d been found, it would trigger his memory.

“What happened to my clothes?” he demanded of a thin, pale-skinned male who came in carrying a tray of vials and needles.

The man looked startled. He blinked almost lashless blue eyes. “Er, what clothes?”

“The ones I was wearing when I was brought in.”

“I don’t know, sir. I’ll ask someone as soon as I get a blood sample.”

“My blood’s all been sampled. There’s none left.”

The technician looked as though he didn’t know whether to smile. “Er…”

Sam sighed. “Hell. Just stick me and then find my clothes, will you?”

He was beginning to lose patience with all of this. The hospital, its staff—and his own stubbornly closed mind.

He was informed a short while later that he hadn’t been carrying a wallet, at least not that anyone from the hospital staff had found. There had been, he was assured, nothing in the pockets of his jeans or shirt. While his lack of personal items backed up his story of having been robbed, it gave him no clue as to his identity.

“Damn,” he growled as soon as he was alone again. Why couldn’t he remember? What was wrong with him?

Another nurse came in, this one tall and bony. “I’m Lydia, your nurse for this shift. How are you feeling?”

He eyed her warily. “That depends. What are you planning to poke into me?”

She smiled and held up a thermometer. “Only this. Pain free, I assure you.”

He reluctantly opened his mouth.

“Oh, and I have to ask you some questions,” she added, opening a clipboard and snapping a ballpoint. “LuWanda never finished filling out these papers and admissions is having a hissy fit.”

He nearly swallowed the thermometer. “Mmph.”

“Hold on a second.” She waited until the electronic thermometer beeped, then pulled it out and glanced at it. “Normal.”

He wouldn’t have advised her to bet money on that.

“Now, about this form. All we’ve got so far is your name, Sam Wallace, and the month and day of your birth. June twenty-second. Correct so far?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“What year were you born, Mr. Wallace?”

He managed a smile. “How old do I look?”

She rolled her eyes. “He wants to play games,” she murmured. “Okay, I’m supposed to humor the patient. You look…” She eyed him consideringly while he held his breath. “Thirty-three?”

“Thirty-one,” he corrected with an exaggerated grimace. It sounded like a nice age. Not too young, not too old.

“So you were born in nineteen…” Her voice trailed off as she scribbled numbers on her form.

“Address?”

“I’m, um, between addresses right now. Between jobs, too,” he added to answer her next question.

“Do you have insurance?”

Lady, I don’t even have a name. “No.”

“Next of kin?”

He closed his eyes. “None.”

“Are you in pain?”

“Just a mother of a headache.”

“I’m sorry. Only a few more questions. Are you allergic to any medications?”

He was tired. So damned tired. He should tell her the truth. I can’t remember. There’s nothing between my ears but dead air. Call in your experts, lady. One genuine freak, here for their viewing pleasure.

He couldn’t do it. Maybe he’d tell someone tomorrow. Or maybe by then it wouldn’t be necessary.

“No,” he murmured. “I’m not allergic to anything.” And it would serve him right if they injected him with something and he died a horrible, painful death from an allergic reaction.

She asked him other questions about his medical history. Keeping his eyes closed, he made up answers in a lethargic monotone.

You’re an idiot, Sam. Or whoever the hell you are. A coward. A fool. A liar. A jerk. Tell the lady the truth.

But still he lied. For he, himself, was afraid of the truth.

He heard her close the cover of the clipboard. “All right,” she said. “That’s enough for now.”

Sam let out a long, ragged breath when he was finally alone again. He was so fatigued he could hardly move, both mentally and physically exhausted. Every inch of him ached. He needed rest. He wanted out of this place. He hadn’t a clue where he would go when he left.

He didn’t even know what he looked like, but there were a few things he’d learned about himself during the past couple of hours. He had more pride than was good for him, he didn’t like admitting weakness or vulnerability and he utterly hated being at the mercy of others.

All those traits felt familiar to him. Felt right. So who the hell was he? And why couldn’t he remember?

He really was a nice-looking man beneath the bruises. Even flat on his back in a hospital bed, there was a sort of…well, grace to him, Serena mused the next morning, studying Sam from the chair beside the bed. His lips were slightly parted, and he wheezed a little when he breathed—a result of the blows he’d taken to his chest. His lashes were long against his scraped cheeks, oddly dark in contrast to his golden hair. Those thick curling lashes were the only softening feature on his firmly carved face.

She thought of the sketchy history he’d given Dan. He’d implied that he was a rootless drifter, rambling from place to place, supporting himself with temporary jobs. No permanent home, no family. Looking again at his beautifully shaped hands, marred only by the abrasions across his knuckles, she wondered what the odds were that those temporary jobs had involved sitting behind desks crunching numbers. She found it hard to believe those rather elegant hands had ever wielded a shovel or a sledge hammer. And if his clean oval nails hadn’t been professionally manicured recently, she’d kiss her sister’s dog—right on his slobbery mouth.

Raising her gaze from the man’s hands to his face, she was momentarily disconcerted to find his brilliant blue eyes open and trained unblinkingly on her. “Oh. Good morning.”

“Serena.”

He said her name as if it was important that he had remembered it. She nodded. “Serena Schaffer.”

“You’re the one who found me.”

“Yes. How are you feeling?”

“Tired. Have you ever tried to sleep in a hospital?”

“No. I’ve never been hospitalized.”

“I don’t recommend it. Every few minutes someone comes in to draw blood, take your blood pressure and temperature and listen through a stethoscope that feels like it’s stored in a freezer. They’re obsessed with my bodily fluids—intake and output. Every time I try to move into a more comfortable position, this damned IV pump starts beeping, nagging at me to be still.” To demonstrate, he bent his right arm, kinking the thin tube that ran from the IV pump to the needle taped into the back of his hand. A moment later the pump began to beep, and darned if it didn’t sound petulant. Sam sighed and straightened his arm. The machine went silent.

Serena had waited patiently through his litany of complaints. “Does it feel better to have that off your chest?”

His bruised mouth quirked. “A bit.”

“Then I’m glad I was here to listen.”

“I guess I unloaded on you because you’re the first person to come into this room in hours who wasn’t carrying a needle.”

“Are you sure there isn’t someone I can call for you? A friend or family member who could be with you while you recover?”

“There really isn’t anyone I want notified right now. But thanks for offering.”

She wouldn’t want to be so alone in a hospital. She knew if anything happened to her, she would have legions of family and friends around her, giving her sympathy and support. She felt sorry for anyone who didn’t have that emotional base to draw strength from.

He must have read her expression. “I’m fine,” he assured her. “I’ll just be glad to get out of here.”

“Where will you go then?”

The corners of his mouth tightened. She couldn’t tell if he was annoyed with her questioning or unhappy with the answer. Was it true that he had no place to go? No one to turn to? Serena would hate to find herself in that position.

When it became obvious that he had no answer for her, she changed the subject. “I talked to Chief Meadows earlier. He said he hasn’t made any headway in finding the two men who robbed and beat you. There’s been no sign of that pieced-together pickup truck you described.”

“I’m not surprised. I don’t think they were from around here. Probably just passing through the area, looking for trouble.”

“Like you?” she asked in a murmur.

He met her eyes without blinking. “I wasn’t looking for trouble. Unfortunately, it found me, anyway.”

She knew that feeling. She hadn’t been looking for trouble when she’d found Sam Wallace in that ditch, either. But she had found him—well, her sister’s dog did—and now, for some stupid reason, she felt rather responsible for him.

The sounds of the hospital drifted in through the door she’d left partially open. Nurses talked, equipment beeped, someone coughed, someone else cried. Illness seemed to creep through the hallways like a malicious spirit, constantly trying to outsmart the few overworked doctors in this small, outdated and under-funded institution. The staff did the best they could with what they had, but most folks in these parts went elsewhere for serious medical attention, into bigger towns with more financial advantages. Serena hoped her stranger was getting the care he needed here. Head injuries were so unpredictable.

LuWanda, the heavyset nurse who’d taken care of Sam when he’d arrived, marched in. “Time to take your vitals, Mr. Wallace.”

He scowled. “You can just damned well leave my vitals alone.”

LuWanda laughed as though he’d made a lighthearted jest. “Don’t worry, I won’t touch anything I haven’t touched before. Oh, and I want to get a pulse ox reading. The doc’s still concerned about those blows you took to the chest. Have to make sure you’re getting plenty of oxygen.”

He gave Serena a look as the nurse clipped something around his right index finger. “Pulse ox,” he murmured.

She stood. “Whatever that is, I hope yours is good.”

“Ninety-nine percent,” the nurse announced when something chirped. “Better than mine—I smoked for twenty years. Guess you’re not a smoker, huh, Mr. Wallace?”

“Guess not,” he answered vaguely.

Serena took a step closer to the bed. “I have to go. Is there anything I can get for you, Sam? Books, magazines, personal items?”

“No, thank you. I’m fine.”

Definitely the independent sort, she thought. He had nothing to his name but a backless hospital gown and he still didn’t ask for anything. A very intriguing man, this Sam Wallace—whoever he was.

“Well, then—I’ll see you later.” She moved toward the door. She had no doubt that she would be back. Something about the lonely, slightly confused expression in his bright blue eyes kept pulling her here.

Was she being a complete fool to let herself get involved with him, even on this temporary and casual basis?

“Well? What did you find out about him?” Petite, red-haired, green-eyed Lindsey Gray pounced the moment Serena walked into the Evening Star offices. “You went to see him at the hospital again, didn’t you? Did you talk to him? Did you learn more details about what happened to him?”

“Lindsey, take a breath or something,” Serena ordered, shaking her head in exasperation. “Geez, you’d think we’d never seen a stranger in this town before.”

“We haven’t very often. And never quite like this—so what did you find out?”

Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, Serena gave a little shrug. “You’ve heard as much as I have. He said he was hitching through this area looking for temporary work when two men in a patched-together pickup truck gave him a ride, robbed him, beat him up and left him for dead in that ditch. He can’t describe the men very well because he has very little memory of the beating—a slight memory loss due to the concussion, which the doctor said is normal.”

“Where’s he from? What’s his story?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask many questions. He’s in a lot of discomfort, Lindsey. He isn’t up to being interviewed.”

Lindsey pouted. She was the only twenty-five-year-old woman Serena knew who could actually pout and get away with it.

To her disgust, Lindsey was destined to be thought of as cute, when what she really wanted to be was sharp and sophisticated. After obtaining a degree in journalism, she had gone to work for a newspaper in Little Rock for a couple of years before moving back to her little hometown to be close to her father, who was in ill health. She’d taken a significant pay cut to work for the Evening Star, but she took the job very seriously, attacking it with the same dedication she’d have given a position with the Washington Post or New York Times.

Sometimes Serena thought Lindsey took her job too seriously. She was constantly on the lookout for the “big story”—and the truth was, there just weren’t that many big stories in Edstown. With the exception of a recent rash of burglaries, not much happened around these parts. She mercilessly hounded the mayor and poor Chief Meadows, both of whom held a deep distrust of reporters and an ingrained aversion to any bad press about their town. But there was no doubt that the newspaper had been better since Lindsey arrived.

Speaking of which, Serena glanced around the unarguably shabby offices, which were quiet and deserted now that the evening edition had been printed and delivered. She knew some people were born with ink in their veins, that the smell of newsprint and the sounds of press machines gave them an almost sexual thrill. Serena looked around and saw only clutter and chaos.

She had never wanted to own her great-grandfather’s newspaper. That had been the destiny of her older sister, Kara. Serena was a lawyer, not a newshound, and she would just as soon have kept it that way. Unfortunately, there’d been no one else to take over after their father died last year, and three months later Kara left town with a wanna-be country music star, leaving Serena with Kara’s stupid dog and full responsibility for Great-granddad’s newspaper. Her first impulse had been to sell, but the very idea had distressed her mother so much that Serena had reluctantly agreed to give it a shot.

“Where’s Marvin?” she asked, glancing at the managing editor’s empty office. “He and I were supposed to discuss last month’s ad revenues this evening.”

Lindsey rolled her eyes. “Where do you think he is? He decided to pop over to Gaylord’s for a ‘quick nip’ before your meeting. That was two hours ago.”

There would be no discussing anything with Marvin tonight, Serena thought with a grimace. The aging editor—a longtime crony of her late grandfather’s—had been spending more and more time at Gaylord’s since his wife died two years ago. Marvin was tired and lonely and burned out, resistant to modern technology, nostalgic for the old days, but he didn’t want to retire. He’d said he would have no reason at all to get out of bed if he didn’t have a job to go to. As much as she truly hated the very thought, Serena was beginning to believe that she was going to have to pressure Marvin into retirement. It broke her heart, but it was rapidly becoming necessary.

Damn it, Kara, this should be your job.

Pushing a hand through her hair, she sighed heavily. “I’ll try to catch him tomorrow, I guess. Are you finished for the night?”

Lindsey shook her head and hoisted her oversize macramé bag onto her shoulder. “I’m going to the town council meeting. I’d better get moving, it starts in ten minutes.”

“I thought Riley was covering the council meeting tonight.”

“He is. I’m just going out of curiosity. Maybe I’ll have a chance to corner Dan after the meeting to ask what he’s found out about the men who mugged your stranger.”

“He isn’t my stranger,” Serena protested, though she was uncomfortably aware she’d fallen into the habit of thinking of him that way.

Lindsey waved a hand dismissively. “I’d just like to know exactly what Dan has done. What he’s found out—about the muggers or the victim. And what he’s going to do tomorrow.”

“You know how Dan hates it when you badger him about the way he does his job.”