Damned

He shook his head. “No. She’s not the woman I’m looking for.”

He was dedicated to finding her for her sisters, for the sake of saving her from Roarke, but not for himself. He didn’t need anyone and he fully intended to keep his life that way. Single.

She smiled and tucked a strand of dark hair that had escaped her braid behind her ear. “Then…why are you still here?”

His gut twisted as he considered leading her on with lies and sweet talk. But he’d never wasted time practicing either. So he’d probably make a fool of himself trying to make a fool of her. He drew in a bracing breath. “I told you I’m a police officer, but I didn’t tell you that I’m suspended from duty.”

Her smile remained even as the gleam in her eyes dimmed. “I know. Since you didn’t have your badge, I called the precinct before I brought you in to see her. Your lieutenant explained your suspension.”

“He did?” Ty couldn’t explain it himself, couldn’t remember all the details of his last day on the job. He had been doing a favor for Ariel, checking on one of her students. After that…

“He told me you might have another reason for being here besides looking for someone’s lost sister. All you need for reinstatement to active duty is a psychiatric evaluation.” She paused and studied him before asking, “Is that why you’re still here?”

The idea of someone messing with his head, invading his thoughts and dredging up his past had bile rising in his throat. He swallowed it down before nodding. God, he hated putting himself out there. And if it were only his future he had to consider, he wouldn’t.

“I guess it’s time,” he conceded, holding in the sigh that expanded his lungs.

“You know, it’s going to take more than one session for a complete evaluation.”

He hoped it would take only one session for him to plan how to get Irina out. He nodded his agreement, unable to spit out the words. But then he asked, “So why’d you let me into her room when you knew I was suspended?”

She smiled. “Your lieutenant vouched for you and your integrity.”

A muscle twitched in his cheek as guilt flared. But his lieutenant knew about the witch hunt, even though he didn’t entirely believe in it. They’d had to bring in the police after the attempt on Ariel’s life and then when Elena’s daughter had been kidnapped. Both those incidents could have been avoided if Ty had acted faster than Roarke. He couldn’t take the chance of the guy beating him to Irina. Again.

Irina awoke to night. Or at least she assumed it was. No sunshine penetrated the shade and heavy drapes on the window. Not even an artificial light glowed. She could have been enveloped in the blackness of other people’s thoughts, but not a single spark glittered. And the only thoughts in her head were her own, full of fear and frustration.

How long had she slept? Minutes? Hours? Days? With the drugs pumping through the IV into her veins, she had no concept of time. She would have blamed months of malnutrition instead of sedatives for her exhaustion, but she was too desperate to waste time on sleep…unless she was drugged.

She flexed her wrists, her tendons pressing against the straps that pinched her skin. She had to figure out a way to get the psychiatrist to remove the restraints. Whenever she’d spoken last to the young woman, Irina had fought to remain calm even as frustration had nagged at her. She couldn’t waste any more time trying to convince the doctor of her sanity. The killer was coming for her.

Sparks flickered before her eyes, glowing like embers on a dying fire, then his voice spoke inside her head. I have to get the charm before I get any weaker. I have to kill her. And now I know where she is. So close. So helpless…

Goose bumps rose as her skin chilled. Her breath shuddered out of her lungs, but the pressure on her chest didn’t ease. She fought against the panic. She couldn’t give in to hysteria if she hoped to ever have the restraints removed. She dragged in deep breaths through her nose, trying to calm herself.

But a big hand closing over her mouth and nose cut off her breath. Oh God, she’d slept too long. She’d missed her opportunity to escape. She had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Not anymore.

He’d found her again. And he had her now.

Chapter 3

“Shh…” murmured a deep voice close to her ear, warm breath stirring her hair across her cheek.

Irina thrashed her head on the pillow, trying to shake his hand from her mouth, but he held tight, his palm warm, like his breath, against her lips. She couldn’t open her mouth, couldn’t scream, couldn’t bite. And her arms, bound to the bed, provided her no defense. She was entirely helpless.

Physically.

Mentally she might be able to read his intentions. But she dare not close her eyes, dare not invite the blackness into her mind that already enveloped her body.

“You have to trust me,” he whispered, his voice a soft rasp.

She shivered, her apprehension not lessened even though she knew he wasn’t the man from the alley.

“I’m going to protect you.”

Because he’d failed someone else? He didn’t say anything either aloud or in his head to confirm her suspicion, but instinctively Irina knew that he had. And that failure haunted him, driving him to never fail again. So when he said he’d protect her, he meant it.

“But I have to get you out of here.”

Before Donovan Roarke does.

Her heart clenched. Donovan Roarke. That was the name of the man whose evil thoughts filled her mind, whose evil deeds had traumatized her, damning her to a life of insanity…until this man, his voice whispering inside her head, had pulled her back from the edge. Ty McIntyre.

She jerked her chin up and down in an anxious nod of agreement. She had to get out of the hospital. She knew Roarke was coming for her and she couldn’t get out by herself. She couldn’t even get up from the bed.

“You trust me?” he asked.

She moved her head in another nod, her mouth sliding over his palm. In the silence, his breath audibly caught, and his eyes glowed bright, like a blue beacon in the darkness. She was glad that he couldn’t read her mind, because once he got her out, she intended to run again. From him.

“You have to do what I say. Everything that I say,” he insisted.

While she’d forgotten chunks of her life, even before the past few months, she remembered that she’d never done well at following orders. Maybe that was another reason her adoptive parents hadn’t been able to love her.

“I’m going to take my hand away. If you scream, I won’t be able to get you out of here.” I won’t be able to save you.

Because he’d be in a jail and she’d be here. Alone. At the mercy of a madman.

Come on, Irina, trust me. That last thought, and his hand lifted from her mouth, hovering just an inch away from her lips as he waited for her to scream. While he requested her trust, he didn’t give his.

“I’m not crazy,” she assured him in a soft whisper.

He moved his hand from her face to her wrist and the restraint binding her to the bed. “I know.” I know everything.

And there was so much she didn’t know—about herself, about her sisters, about the witch hunt. But what she wanted most to learn couldn’t wait until he’d set her free. “Who are you?”

“Ty McIntyre.”

She hadn’t forgotten the psychiatrist’s introduction. But his name told her nothing. “Who are you to me?”

Why had his thoughts pushed into her mind before she’d ever met him? What was their connection?

“I’m a friend.”

Pieces of her past were missing, so much she’d forgotten or lost to drugs and alcohol. But if he’d been a friend, she would have remembered him. Ty McIntyre wasn’t the type of man any woman could forget. Instead of screaming Liar! at him, as she had at the killer, she just whispered, “No, you’re not.”

“I’m here for your sisters.” For you.

“You’re working for them?” Donovan Roarke had claimed the same thing.

“They’re friends of mine,” he said. “I’m going to bring you to them, but we have to hurry.”

“Yes.” She expelled a nervous breath. Her sisters were part of that missing past. Only faint memories of them remained, like faded photographs in an old album.

“We have to hurry,” she agreed. “He knows where I am.”

He didn’t doubt her certainty, either aloud or in his head. He just uttered the man’s name with the intensity of a curse. “Roarke.”

“If he’s the one…”

Who killed your mother. Your aunts. Who tried to kill your sisters and niece. “He’s the one.”

Scream after scream echoed through her mind. All the pain. All the horror. She trembled under the force.

“Don’t be afraid,” he told her.

For so long she’d known nothing but fear…except for when she’d lost all touch with reality. And she’d done that too long, giving up when she should have been fighting.

The thought flickered through her mind that maybe she should be fighting him…despite his intentions. He might want to protect her, but she had no way of knowing if he would be able to keep his promise. She didn’t know him. Yet somehow he seemed so familiar to her….

The restraints undone, he helped her from the bed. As she reached for the IV, pulling it from her arm, his fingers fumbled with the ties holding her gown together in the back.

Her breath hissed out as his knuckles brushed her bare skin. “Hey—”

“Shh…it’s okay,” he assured her. “You can’t go out there in this.”

“But…”

“I brought other clothes.” Before the cool air did more than brush her naked skin, he pulled a scratchy cotton shirt over her head, dressing her as if she were a child. Or helpless. She wouldn’t be helpless anymore.

“Let me,” she protested, fumbling in the darkness for the pants. But as she lifted her leg to pull them on, dizziness overwhelmed her, and she swayed…only a few inches before her back settled against his solid chest. His arms came around her, helping her tug up the pants of the scrubs he must have stolen for her, his fingers fast and sure as he stretched the elastic waistband over her hips.

Heat streaked through Irina’s stomach at the brush of his knuckles against her navel, the brush of his hard body against her softness. Her limbs still weak, she melted deeper into his warmth, into his strength.

“Irina…” His breath stirred her hair again, then his fingers as he tunneled them into her thick curls.

“What…?”

“A braid,” he said as if concentrating on his task. And perhaps he was, because she could pull no other thought from his mind despite their closeness.

“Ty?” She used just his name to question his action, not wanting anyone to overhear their conversation and learn she was awake and not alone.

Intent on her hair, he murmured, “The psychiatrist.”

“She’s helping?”

“Yes, but she doesn’t know it,” he admitted. “You’re going to be her.”

It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been someone she wasn’t. But she wanted it to be the last. She wanted to be Irina Cooper now. For as long as she lived.

He knelt in the darkness, and Irina felt his big hands on her feet, his skin warm against hers as he peeled off the slipper socks to pull on canvas shoes. She reached out, dizzy again, and used his broad shoulders to steady herself. Muscles rippled beneath her hands. Then he stood, his body bumping against hers.

Dizziness lightened her head again as awareness rushed through her, quickening her pulse. She dragged in a deep breath, his scent of mint and soap so fresh and clean, unlike where she’d been, what she’d been.

“And here’s her jacket,” he said, sliding the sleeves over the scrubs she wore.

A plastic tag dug into Irina’s breast while something heavy dragged down the coat pocket and knocked hard against her thigh.

“You have the keys.”

She’d like to know how he’d gotten them, but she couldn’t waste time asking, nor did it really matter. Getting out before Roarke got in was all that mattered.

“You have to let me in and out of this room and the ward and act like you’re her,” he instructed.

“But…”

“The hospital’s old. Dimly lit. The nurses’ station a distance away. We can do this, Irina.” He expelled a ragged breath. “I keep calling you Irina. You remember you have sisters, so you must remember—”

“My name?” Despite the fierce knocking of her heart against her ribs, she smiled. “I wouldn’t have asked who you are if I didn’t know who I am.”

“So you are faking.”

“Amnesia? Some of it’s real.” But she was still having trouble with that, with distinguishing what was and what wasn’t real.

Was he? She reached out, sliding her hand along the soft bristle of day-old beard on his hard jaw. Her pulse raced at the jolt of awareness, of recognition, that overwhelmed her. She heard his thoughts again.

God, he was asking too much of her, expecting too much. She wasn’t like Ariel and Elena.

Her sisters. He thought of her sisters, and in comparison, she didn’t measure up. She pulled her hand back from his face and curled her fingers into a fist to stop the tingling. Of course she wouldn’t measure up. She knew where she was, what she had become.

He asked, “Can you do this?”

“Act like the psychiatrist?” She would have been one…if she hadn’t lost track of reality. “Yeah, I can do that.”

She’d do anything to get out of the hospital before the killer got in…even trust a man who scared her as much as Ty McIntyre did.

Ty held his breath as Irina fumbled with the keys, locking her empty room behind them. At the end of the hall, one of the nurses glanced up from the desk at the station. Irina lifted her hand in a brief wave. The nurse paused, then waved back. “You’re here late, Dr. Kimber,” she called out.

Nerves twisted Ty’s guts into knots. God, it was over. This quickly. From a distance, Irina could pass for the dark-haired, dark-eyed doctor. But her voice…

She coughed as if clearing her throat. Ty dared not touch her or even whisper the warning burning his mind. Don’t answer back. Don’t.

She must not have been able to read minds, as she’d told the police and the psychiatrist, because she spoke. “Officer McIntyre wanted to double-check that Jane Doe isn’t the girl he’s looking for.”

“She isn’t,” Ty said, taking Irina’s hand as if to shake it. “Thank you for coming back tonight, Doctor.” He tugged her down the hall, away from the nurses’ station. “I don’t want to keep you.”

And hopefully neither would her coworker.

“How is she?” the nurse called out. “Does she need anything?”

Irina shook her head, then murmured the name of a drug and the number of milligrams she’d administered through Jane’s IV. “She should sleep through the night.”

“What do you think is wrong with her?” the nurse asked, rising from her chair at the desk. Her shoes squeaked against the worn linoleum.

Ty’s breath caught. He couldn’t believe that Irina had pulled off the disguise as well as she had. But if the woman got any closer, their duplicity would be discovered for sure. He’d broken into the doctor’s locker and stolen her keys and coat for nothing.

As the woman walked closer, Irina stepped deeper in the shadows of the poorly lit hall, then gestured toward him. “Let me walk Officer McIntyre out first,” she said, jingling the keys in her hand.

“Of course,” the nurse said, turning back toward the station.

Ty expelled a ragged breath as they headed toward the other end of the corridor, where locked doors separated the psychiatric ward from the rest of the old hospital.

“We’re not out yet,” Irina said, clenching the keys in her hand. “I don’t know which one….”

Neither had she for her room, but she’d found it fast enough to not draw too much attention to them. “Try the big ones first,” he advised.

She bent her head and focused on her task, her bottom lip pulled between her teeth. The tip of the first key struck the opening of the chamber but wouldn’t slide inside. The second slid in but wouldn’t turn the lock. When she reached for the third, the nurse called out again.

Ty glanced over his shoulder, and his heart slammed into his ribs. She’d gotten up from the desk and walked toward them. “Having trouble, Dr. Kimber?”

Irina shook her head, tossing the braid he’d haphazardly pulled together in the dark back and forth across her back as if whipping herself. “No, it’s just hard to see in the hall,” she called back, then cleared her throat again and added, “They have to get more light in here someday.”

“Electrical system’s too old, like everything else around here,” the nurse commented, patting her head of graying hair. A rueful smile lifted her lips. “Except for you young interns and residents.”

The lock clicked as Irina turned the third key. She reached for the knob, her hand shaking. “I’ll be right back,” she told the nurse as she slipped ahead of Ty into the outside hall. A bank of elevators stood across from them, the dull metallic doors shut tight. Ty strode over and slapped the down arrow while she relocked the door to the psychiatric ward. The keys rattled as her hands shook.

“You’re doing great,” he murmured when she joined him in staring at the doors. He glanced toward her, then to the stairwell beyond her. Dare he wait for the elevator?

“How far up are we?” she asked, her voice unsteady with nerves.

“Top floor. Eighteenth.”

Her mouth, her lips naturally red and full, pulled into a grimace. “A lot of stairs.”

“A lot of stairs,” he agreed as he pulled his gaze from her and concentrated on the elevator light. He couldn’t afford the distraction of a woman who could look the way she did with no makeup. Her lashes were naturally thick and long, framing those big, dark eyes, while her honey-toned skin revealed not a single flaw.

Was she really the same woman Elena had envisioned in the alley, unkempt and out of her mind?

Behind them, the knob rattled on the door to the psych ward. “She realized I’m not Dr. Kimber,” Irina said, her dark eyes widening in alarm.

Ty grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the stairwell. “Come on. We gotta get out of here.”

Automatic hinges held open the door to the stairs just long enough that Ty caught the arrival of the elevator and the man stepping out. He had dark red hair and eyes that burned with hatred and madness. “Oh God!”

He shoved Irina toward the stairs, gasping an anxious, “Run!”

Even though her feet hit the steps, she peered up and around him. Ty didn’t know if she caught a glimpse of Roarke before the door closed. He was more concerned about Roarke catching a glimpse of them.

“Hurry!” He caught her around the waist, half carrying her as their feet skimmed over the steps, hardly touching them as they ran down flight after flight, their frantic footfalls echoing eerily in the cement stairwell. His bad leg, broken in the collapse of another staircase, throbbed with pain as his foot hitting each step jarred the still-healing bone and muscles. He gritted his teeth, biting back the pain, forcing it from his mind to focus instead on getting her to safety.

They’d fled several stories when a door slammed open above them, metal crashing against concrete. Ty didn’t have to look up to know that the door was from the eighteenth floor and the person joining their mad dash was Donovan Roarke.

“You can’t save her!” the deranged killer yelled, his voice a harsh shout in the confined area. “All you’ll do is die with her, McIntyre.”

From his years on the force, Ty knew there was no sense in trying to deal with a lunatic. He didn’t care about Roarke’s threats against him; his total focus was on Irina. Her arm slid around his waist, her fingers clenched in his shirt as he dragged her along with him. In their haste to escape the hospital and the killer, they fell against the metal railing and bounced off the cement-block walls. Each crash jolted his leg, the pain traveling through his limb like an electrical shock. But he couldn’t slow down.

“You’re not a witch, McIntyre. You don’t deserve to die like they do. Give her to me and I’ll let you live,” Roarke yelled out his bargain between ragged pants for breath.

Ty’s life for hers? Irina had family who cared about her, who loved her. It wasn’t a fair trade.

“Go to hell,” Ty shouted back. Roarke didn’t need his condemnation, though. His actions were certain to send him there, but Ty fully intended to expedite his trip.

“I gave you a chance,” Roarke said as if resigned, then he fired.

Bullets sprayed against the concrete walls, raining dusty bits of cement onto them as they ran. “Come on,” Ty said, rushing Irina down the last flight. His hand closed over hers on the knob of the door to the first floor; together they turned it.

From the corner of his eye Ty glimpsed Roarke, flights above them, leaning over the railing, taking aim, his Glock directed at them. His hand over her head, Ty pushed Irina down as he ducked. Bullets bounced off the metal frame over them as they crawled through the partially open doorway. On the other side, Ty shoved his shoulder against the steel door, fighting the automatic hinge to push it closed. More shots fired, only the door separating the bullets from his body as the metal protruded from each hit.

“Come on!” he commanded Irina, his hand wrapped around hers as he propelled them both through the lobby, deserted at this late hour. Antique furnishings sat empty but for a faint film of dust. An old turnstile door stood between them and the canopy-covered entrance. Ty jammed them both into one section, her body soft and warm as she trembled against him.

“It’s okay,” he assured her even as more shots rang out behind them. The thick plastic of the turnstile splintered from the bullets. Ty bent over Irina, sheltering her with his body as they shoved the door forward, then stumbled out onto the sidewalk. He kept her close, her feet hardly touching the asphalt as he ran across the dimly lit lot to where he’d left his truck parked.

Hand shaking, he fumbled with his keys, clicking the automatic locks. When she moved to head around the passenger’s side, he held tight to her jacket, lifting and pushing her through the driver’s door and onto the seat. “Stay low.”

More shots rang out behind them, breaking the quiet of the night. Then, in the distance, sirens whined. At least someone had called the police. On him for helping a patient escape the psychiatric ward? Or on the madman who relentlessly pursued them, firing shot after shot at them?

Ty jammed the key into the ignition, his hand reaching for the shifter before the truck engine even sprang to life. He slammed into Reverse, tires bouncing over the curb as he pulled out of the parking spot and into the drive.

“Keep low,” he ordered Irina again as she lifted her head. He doubted she was trying to glance out the windows, though. She had that look in her eyes, that glazed-over, unfocused gaze of someone blind.

But his skin didn’t prickle; it wasn’t his mind she was trying to read—if telepathy was her ability. God, he could keep her safe from Roarke’s actions—or at least try—but he couldn’t keep her safe from the madman’s thoughts. He pushed her down, her face in his lap, her breath warm through the denim covering his thighs.

The rear window shattered, shards of glass biting into the back of his head and his neck, then raining down over them and the leather seat. “Son of a—”

He jerked the wheel, sending the truck careening back and forth across the driving lanes as he steered for the street. A moving target was harder to hit.

“Are you okay?” she asked, her voice thready with fear and adrenaline. “Did he shoot you?”

“No.” But blood trickled down the back of his neck from the glass splinters embedded in his skin, the sting of the cuts a faint echo of the pain throbbing in his leg.