Secret Delivery

Jack didn’t bother to suppress a groan. So they were back to that story. Of course, he couldn’t completely dismiss it. After all, she was sitting in his office wearing just a nightgown. A wet one at that.

The flimsy cotton clung to her breasts. It was so clingy that he could see her nipples.

He got up, grabbed a raincoat from his closet and put it over her so that it covered the entire front of her body. For reasons he didn’t understand or care to explore, seeing her breasts reminded him that she was a woman. An attractive one at that.

Jack didn’t want to think about that.

He only wanted to remember that this was the person who could destroy him. All because of DNA. As far as Jack was concerned, she was just an egg donor, nothing more.

“Willow Ridge might be a hayseed town to a city girl like you, but we still have a few amenities,” he explained. “Like a security camera in the hospital parking lot, for instance. That camera photographed you leaving the hospital alone. No guard. No nurse. Definitely no indication of a kidnapping. You left of your own free will and without anyone’s coercion or assistance.”

And he should know. He’d studied the tape hundreds of times trying to figure out what the devil had happened.

“You mean I left alone in the dead of winter?” she clarified. There was strong skepticism in her frail voice, and she waited until he confirmed that with a frosty nod. “Did I get into a car?”

Now, here was the confusing part. “No. You just walked away.”

Jack still had that image of her in his mind, too. Wearing the bleached-out green hospital gown, cotton robe and flip-flops, she’d walked out of the front of the one-story hospital, and stumbled on the sidewalk. The cold wind had whipped at her nightclothes and her hair. She’d looked unsteady.

She’d staggered several more times as she made her way through the parking lot.

There’d only been one clear shot of her face that night.

Jack would never forget it.

It was the same frightened, tearstained, shellshocked face that was staring back at him now.

“You said the baby’s name is Joey?” she asked.

All of his muscles went stiff. He didn’t want to discuss Joey with her. But he also knew he didn’t have a choice. Eventually, he had to give her enough details to satisfy her curiosity so he could get her out of there.

“You named him,” he reminded her.

Another blink. “Did I?”

He couldn’t contain his smirk, but beneath it, his concerns were snowballing. “You did. You said you named him after your kid brother who died when you were a child.” And he braced himself.

Alana hugged his raincoat closer to her. “I remember my little brother, Joey. And I remember I was wearing a green hospital gown and robe when I woke up at the house in the woods.”

Jack actually welcomed the change in subject, even though he knew it could only be temporary.

Eventually she’d ask more about Joey.

“What else do you remember about the house, the guard and the nurse?” he asked.

She hesitated a moment. “Everything, I think. It was December twenty-sixth when I woke up in that house. So I must have been there all this time.” Alana’s eyes met his. “Why did they hold me captive?”

Jack shrugged. “You’re the only one who’ll be able to answer that.”

Their eyes stayed connected until she lurched at the sound of the front door opening. Because he was on edge, Jack automatically reached for his gun and went to the door. But the gun wasn’t necessary. The tall, lanky visitor was Dr. Keith Bartolo.

“Doc’s here,” Jack relayed to Alana, only because she looked ready to jump out of her skin.

“Jack,” the doctor grumbled. He pulled off his rainbeaded felt hat, and with his leather medical bag gripped in his right hand, he made his way down the hall.

Jack had known the doctor most of his life, since the man had moved to Willow Ridge over twenty-three years ago and set up a practice. Jack also knew when Bartolo wasn’t in a good mood. Apparently, the fiftysomething-year-old doc didn’t like being called out after hours during a storm. Jack knew how the man felt. He rarely worked late these days because of Joey, but here he was at ten thirty going a second round with Alana Davis when he was supposed to be finishing up paperwork so he could take the weekend off.

“You said you had a sick prisoner,” Dr. Bartolo prompted. He headed in the direction of the lone jail cell at the far end of the hall.

“She’s in my office,” Jack corrected.

The doctor lifted a caramel-brown eyebrow, and Jack stepped to the side so the man could enter. The doc and Alana looked at each other, and Jack didn’t know which one of them was more surprised.

Alana swallowed hard. “I know you.”

“Of course you do.” Dr. Bartolo stared at her. “I was the attending physician when Jack brought you to the hospital last Christmas.”

That was it. Apparently that was all the bedside manner he intended to dispense. The doctor plopped his bag onto Jack’s desk, unzipped it and pulled out a digital thermometer. After putting a plastic sleeve over the tip, he stuck it in Alana’s mouth.

“Why is she a prisoner?” the doctor asked as the thermometer beeped once.

“She stole a car.”

Even though Alana didn’t say anything out loud, her eyes said plenty. Jack could almost hear her giving him a tongue-lashing. Yes, she’d stolen the car. She’d admitted that. But according to her, it’d been to escape.

So, was it true?

He could check with the sheriff who’d posted the stolen car report and get the name of the person who had filed the claim. That would lead him to Alana’s so-called guard. Jack hoped this wasn’t some kind of lovers’ quarrel. But he immediately rethought that. Maybe that would be the best solution for him. Find whoever was behind this so she could drop the amnesia act.

If it was an act.

The thermometer made a series of rapid beeps. Dr. Bartolo pulled it from her mouth and looked at the tiny screen. “Your temp’s just a little over a hundred. Not too high. Any idea what’s wrong with you?”

She shook her head.

“Okay.” Dr. Bartolo didn’t appear to be any more convinced of that than Jack did of her amnesia story. He flicked the plastic disposable tip into the trash and placed the thermometer back into his bag. “Are you taking any meds?”

Alana glanced at Jack. “No.”

Jack frowned. “She said a guard and a nurse gave her some sedatives, and they’d been doing that for some time now,” he explained. And he didn’t think she’d forgotten that already. Her eyes narrowed slightly as if she hadn’t wanted to share that information with the doctor.

“Sedatives?” the doctor questioned. “What kind?”

She shook her head again, causing Jack to huff. Before the doctor’s arrival, she’d been chatty, so why hush now? “The kind of sedatives that might cause memory loss,” Jack provided. “Or not. She could be making that part up.”

That caused some concern in the doctor’s eyes. “If there’s a possibility of memory loss, she needs to be hospitalized. I’d also need to do a tox screen to see if there’s anything in her blood.”

“Would a fever that low cause her to hallucinate?” Jack asked Dr. Bartolo. “Or could sedatives do that?”

He lifted his shoulder. “Not the fever but possibly the sedatives. Why? What makes you think she’s hallucinating?”

“A couple of things, but we can try to figure out all of that at the hospital.” And once he had more details, he’d have to deal with the stolen car issue. It was entirely possible that the sheriff of the town where the stolen car complaint was filed would come and take Alana back to face those charges.

Jack hated that he felt relief about that.

But he did. The sooner he got Alana Davis out of Joey’s life, the better.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Alana announced, standing. But she had to catch his desk to stop herself from falling. Or maybe it was all an act to get him to feel sorry for her.

“Across the hall.” Jack pointed in that direction. Both Jack and the doctor watched her as she made her way into the tiny room.

“Okay,” Dr. Bartolo said the moment the bathroom door closed. “What’s this all about? Did she come back to town to try to get Joey from you?”

“I don’t know.” There was so much about this that didn’t make sense. “She says she doesn’t remember giving birth to him.”

“Is that so?” Bartolo stayed quiet a moment. “I guess that means she can’t or won’t say why she left town the way she did.”

“She says she doesn’t remember that, either. But she does remember being taken captive after leaving the hospital.” Jack paused to figure out how best to phrase this. “Is it possible she’s crazy?”

“It’s possible,” the doctor readily agreed. “After all, most normal women wouldn’t just abandon their newborn the way she did.”

True. Her behavior here tonight hadn’t convinced him that she was doing any better than she had been eight months ago.

“But maybe it’s something equally obvious,” the doctor continued. “Maybe she’s broken the law. Maybe she’s a criminal, and she’s telling you she has memory loss to cover up something else.”

Jack mulled that over and cursed.

He bolted toward the bathroom. The door was locked, of course. So he pounded on it. “Alana, open up!”

Nothing.

Not so much as a sniffle.

Though he was riled enough to bash down the door, he resisted. Because he knew it wouldn’t do any good. There was a small window in the bathroom, and if his instincts were right, Alana had already used it, to escape.

Jack raced down the hall, past the jail cell and headed for the rear exit. It was raining harder now, but that didn’t slow him down. He ran to the east exterior side of the building, to the sliver of an alleyway that separated the sheriff’s office from City Hall. The narrow space was made even narrower by a dark green Dumpster stuck right in the middle. And it was pitch black.

Someone screamed.

Alana.

With his heart pounding now, he drew his gun and raced around the Dumpster. Jack spotted her white nightgown. She appeared to be struggling with someone.

“What’s going on?” he called out.

Just like that, the struggle stopped, and Alana fell back against the wall. Hard. She stayed on her feet and pointed in the opposition direction from where he was standing.

Jack thought he heard footsteps, but he couldn’t be sure because of the pounding rain. Keeping his gun ready just in case, he went to her.

“Did you see him?” Alana asked.

“See who?” Jack automatically looked around.

“It was the guard from the house,” she said, still pointing. “He was trying to make me go back.”

Jack heard another sound.

A car engine.

He sprinted to the alley opening that led to Main Street, and stopped just short of the sidewalk. Using the sheriff’s office for cover, he glanced around the corner.

A dark-colored car sped away.

Mud or something had been smeared over the license plate, and he couldn’t even get a glimpse of the driver because of the heavily tinted windows and the darkness.

It was possible the driver was just a visitor. Some innocent guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But just in case, Jack turned to get his patrol car. He simply wanted to ask the driver a few questions. But then he looked back and saw Alana, just as she collapsed on the ground.

Chapter Three

Alana heard voices. They were only whispers at first. But they became clearer within just a few seconds.

She didn’t open her eyes. Not yet. She waited, listening, trying to figure out what was going on.

Was it safe?

Or did she need to be prepared to run again?

Judging from the sterile smell and the feel of the bed beneath her, she wasn’t back at the house in the woods. Nor was she in the alley next to the sheriff’s office. She was in a hospital. And the voice, at least one of them, belonged to Jack Whitley. He was talking to Dr. Bartolo.

She peeked out. Definitely a hospital. The walls and bedding were stark white, and there was an IV in the back of her hand. Sunlight threaded through the blind slats and onto the thermal blanket that covered her.

Neither the guard nor the nurse who’d held her captive was there. Everything felt safe. Which was a facade, of course. It wasn’t safe unless Jack had caught the guard after he’d attacked her in the alley.

Maybe he had.

The last thing she remembered before losing consciousness was Jack going after him. If he’d succeeded, then perhaps the nightmare was over.

Well, part of it, anyway.

There was still the issue of her son.

Her mind no longer felt like sludge, and Alana didn’t have to think hard to remember everything. She was a jewelry designer. Born and raised in San Antonio. One sibling, her older brother, Sean. She had friends and a life that had disappeared eight months ago.

The day she went into labor.

She could recall each pain. Every moment. Including the birth of her precious son. She’d loved him instantly. A kind of love she hadn’t thought was possible until she’d held him in her arms for the first time.

But there were blanks. The missing twenty-four hours of her life that followed the delivery. And even some of the time immediately before it. They were crucial gaps of time—she had no idea what had put her in that creek or what had happened to make her leave her newborn son and walk out into the cold December night. She only knew the end result. She’d been held captive, escaped and then nearly been killed again.

“You’re awake,” she heard Jack say. He walked closer, crammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and stood over her.

He was still wearing the same clothes he’d had on the night before. And he hadn’t shaved. A dark, desperado stubble covered his chin, and there were smudgy circles under his eyes. He probably hadn’t slept.

“Why am I in the hospital?” she asked.

“The fever for one thing. It’s gone now, but Dr. Bartolo thinks you had a virus of some kind. You also hit your head when you fell in the alley. He needed to check and make sure it wasn’t serious. It’s just a bad bump.” He glanced at Dr. Bartolo on the other side of the room before his attention returned to her. “Don’t you remember?”

She didn’t have to think hard for those memories to flood through her. Plus, the left side of her head was throbbing. “Yes. I remember. I was trying to get away because I was scared of the doctor. And you. But you caught me. Did you catch the man, too?”

Jack shook his head. “Sorry.”

Fear instantly returned. If the man had gotten to her once, he could get to her again. But Alana didn’t think that was her biggest concern right now. There was something guarded about Jack’s expression. For one thing, he wasn’t glaring at her. In fact, he was treating her like a patient.

“Did you see the person who tried to grab me in the alley?” she wanted to know. “Not really.”

“It was the guard,” Alana concluded, though she hadn’t actually seen his face. “You’ll have to find him.”

Jack nodded, but it seemed to be a gesture to appease her. He eased his hands from his pockets, dragged a chair closer and sat down beside her bed.

Oh, no. She got a really bad feeling about this. He was obviously about to have a heart-to-heart chat with her.

“After I got you to the hospital last night, I called your brother, Sean, in San Antonio,” Jack explained. “Do you remember him?”

“Of course,” she said after she got her teeth unclenched. Great. Just great. Now her overly protective big brother knew everything she’d told Jack. But that also meant that Sean had known she’d been held captive.

He was probably already on his way to Willow Ridge.

Sean would powerhouse his way into the hospital and try to take over. His goal would be to get her away from there so he could convince her that she didn’t want to try to claim her son.

“I remember almost everything,” Alana mumbled. Including her brother’s objection to her being pregnant. Sean had hated the fact that she planned to become a single mom. Not because he was truly concerned about the challenges that might bring, but because of appearances. He believed their conservative business associates would think less of Alana and therefore think less of their company and him. Plus, Sean had also expressed concern that Alana’s focus might be on a child and not solely on her career.

“Good.” Jack followed that with a crisp nod. “I’m glad you’re getting your memory back.”

She’d been ready to try to get out of the bed, but that stopped her. “Good?” Alana contested. “Okay, what’s wrong?”

He scrubbed his hand over his face. “You recall why you walked out of here eight months ago?”

Alana hated to admit this, but she had no choice. If she told Jack as much as she knew, he might be able to help her put the pieces together. “No. But I know I gave birth to Joey. And I know I love him. I also want to see him. Now.”

Jack stayed quiet a moment. “That wouldn’t be a good idea. You have a virus, remember, and in case it’s something more, it’ll be another ten hours or so before the antibiotics take full effect. You wouldn’t want to make him sick, would you?” His tone was sympathetic enough, but there was a lot of emotion and anger simmering right beneath the surface.

“Oh, I get it,” Alana grumbled. “My brother told you to be nice to me.”

“Among other things,” Jack admitted. “He’s coming to take you home.”

Alana wanted to curse. “How much time do I have before Sean gets here?”

“An hour. Maybe two. He said he’d be here around noon, and it’s a little after ten right now.”

She sat up. “I don’t want him to see me like this. And I don’t want to go with him.”

Jack caught her arm and eased her back down onto the bed. “Sean told me that Joey’s birth father was dead.”

That clenched her teeth again. “You obviously had a long conversation.”

“We did. But Sean and I had that particular discussion eight months ago when I was trying to track you down.”

Everything inside her went still. She hadn’t thought of it sooner, but of course Jack would have tried to find her. Too bad he hadn’t. It would have saved her eight months of captivity, and that was just the beginning. It had also cost her time with her precious baby. She’d missed so much already.

Too much.

She wouldn’t miss any more.

“Sean didn’t know why you ran off the way you did,” Jack continued. “But he had a theory. He thought it was because you were clinically depressed. ”

Maybe. But that didn’t feel right, either. “Depressed, why?”

“Because of the death of Joey’s birth father, Neil Franklin.”

She shook her head. “My relationship with Neil had been over for months before he died. In fact, I ended things with him when I learned I was pregnant and he said he didn’t want to be a father.”

There were no gaps in those particular memories, including the big blowup when Neil had even questioned if he was indeed the father of her unborn child. That accusation had been more than enough to cause Alana to walk out. But then she’d had to listen to months of her brother saying “I told you so” and trying to pressure her to give the child up for adoption.

And then all those memories collided with her present situation.

“Why all these questions about Sean and Neil? Did Sean do something to get me to abandon Joey here at the hospital? Is that why I left?” she demanded.

Jack didn’t jump to deny it. Nor did he confirm it, either. He took his time answering, and the moment he opened his mouth, his phone rang. He jerked it from his pocket as if he’d been expecting an important call.

“I have to take this,” he said, and he got up, stepped outside and shut the door.

Alana wanted to listen to his conversation—it might pertain to her. But Dr. Bartolo put her chart aside and walked closer. “I got your lab results back. You had traces of a drug called Rohypnol in your system.”

“Rohypnol,” she repeated. “The date rape drug?”

The doctor nodded and must have noticed that she was on the verge of panicking. “You weren’t sexually assaulted,” he continued. He reached over and began to remove the IV. “But there was enough of the drug in your system to explain your memory loss.”

God knows how many doses of the Rohypnol she’d been given. The nurse and guard had forced her to take it almost daily. She was certain of that. What Alana wasn’t certain about was discussing it with the doctor. For some reason, she didn’t trust him. Had he done something to make her feel this way? Or was she just being paranoid?

If so, she had a reason for the paranoia. Someone had also tried to take her from that alley. He’d grabbed her, hard, and was dragging her away when Jack arrived.

“I delivered your son,” the doctor added a moment later.

“Yes.” She studied his body language. His forehead was bunched. His breathing, short and a little rough. “I don’t suppose you know why I left the hospital?”

She expected a quick denial. But it didn’t come. His breathing got even shorter. “You said some things when you were in labor. Maybe it means nothing. But you said someone had run you off the road.”

Alana forced her mind to the crash. The images were all there. Cold and crisp. Images of her in her car in the water. But nothing of what’d happened moments before impact.

“I told Jack what you said, and he checked out the creek road again,” the doctor explained. “He didn’t find any tread marks or any other sign to indicate that you had slammed on the brakes or swerved to miss going into the creek.”

“That proves nothing. Someone could still have been after me,” she quickly pointed out. She winced a little when he pulled the IV needle from her hand.

“You’re right.” He dabbed the IV puncture with some cotton and then slipped a bandage over it. “Something sure had you spooked. You remember what that was?”

This suddenly felt like an interrogation. Or a threat to remind her that remembering wouldn’t be a good idea.

Alana shook her head. “I don’t know. Do you?”

His head jerked back a little in a gesture of surprise. “Of course not. I told Jack everything that went on and everything you said to me.”

She wasn’t so sure. “What else did I say?”

“Some of it was rambling,” he readily answered. But he didn’t say anything for several moments. “I got the feeling you were withholding information, that you were in some kind of trouble. Were you?”

Probably. But she kept that to herself.

Alana went back through those memory gaps. If someone had indeed run her off the road, then something had happened to precipitate it. Maybe it was as simple as a case of road rage. Some hotheaded driver had cut her off and caused the accident.

Yes, that was possible. Better than the alternative. But why hadn’t there been any sign of her slamming on the brakes? And what had she been doing in Willow Ridge?

“When you were in labor, you mentioned an important meeting,” the doctor continued. He took her chart and jotted down something on it. He didn’t look at her. He kept his focus on whatever he was writing. “Guess you don’t remember that, either?”

She didn’t, and even though Alana tried hard to recall any details about that, she drew a blank.

“An important meeting,” Dr. Bartolo repeated. “Maybe it had something to do with your job?”

This chat was making her more uncomfortable by the minute. She looked around in case she needed an escape route. But that wasn’t necessary. Jack came back through the door.

Alana cursed the relief she felt at seeing him. For some reason, she trusted him. However, he didn’t extend much trust to her. He shoved his phone back into his pocket and stared at her. He didn’t sit or offer her any more pseudo sympathy.

“You’re looking at me as if I’m crazy,” she said.