The Night in Question

She felt a pinch, then almost instantly her nerves calmed. “Why would someone shoot me?” She heard her own words slur slightly. She tried to lift her wounded hand but it felt like it weighed about three hundred pounds, so she gave up. “Or cut me?” Next she tried to sit but couldn’t manage it. “I need to leave,” she said.

“Why?” Matt asked.

Slowly, she shook her head. “I don’t know why, just that I can’t go to the authorities.”

Reaching into his back pocket, Matt flipped open a soggy wallet. “Too late,” he said. “I’m with the FBI.”

She felt a wave of terror crash down on her. “Am I a criminal or a fugitive?”

“Let’s roll your fingerprints and see,” he said almost conversationally.

Kendall then inked each of her fingers onto a card. She handed the card to Matt. “We can use the computer in my office,” Kendall said. Patting her charge on the shoulder, the doctor said, “You rest. Sometimes it takes a good long while for IAFIS.”

“I…A—”

Kendall gave her a reassuring smile. “Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. Put your head back and rest.”

Easy for her to say. The doctor wasn’t the one with the bullet hole and the knife wound. She bent her arm and covered her eyes from the harsh glare from the light. “Think,” she demanded of her foggy brain. A face blinked into focus for a nanosecond. A tall brunette, impeccably dressed, with short hair. Her sister? Her neighbor? Her victim? She felt hot tears in the corners of her eyes.

An FBI agent? What were the chances? If only I’d been found by an old lady out shelling or an old man sweeping the beach with headphones and a metal detector? Nope, I have to get an FBI agent. “Matt DeMarco,” she whispered.

As her hand went to her throat, an image came back with crystal clarity. Two boats, far enough away that their searchlights couldn’t reach her as she clung to the barnacle-encrusted buoy. She remembered the wide arc of the beams reflecting off the small swells. And strobing red. The latter part made no sense.

Neither did not remembering her own name. Or where she lived. Or if someone loved her or vice versa. What could have happened to erase her memory? It had to be big. Major. And based on her new terror of authority figures, bad.

“KRESLEY HAYES,” Matt said before they headed for his Jeep sometime later.

“I’m sorry,” she said as she concentrated on not swaying as she walked. “Is that supposed to mean something?”

“It’s your name.”

Matt was smiling. She stopped suddenly and looked up into his gray-blue eyes. They were rimmed with inky lashes that matched his black hair.

“Hungry?”

“I’m not exactly presentable,” she said, lifting the top edge of the surgical scrubs Kendall had been kind enough to supply. The doctor had also provided a sports bra and some Crocs. The only problem was Kendall was two inches taller and a size smaller. The pants, which were rolled up at the hem, and the top were like a second skin.

“What?” she demanded.

“You really don’t know who you are, do you?”

“I’ve been telling you that for hours and it’s only now sinking in? How did you find out my name so quickly?” she asked. And why doesn’t it sound at all familiar?

“I hit the national databases. Nothing. So I had a friend run your prints locally.”

Her heart skipped. “My prints are in the system? Am I a felon or something?”

He chuckled. “No, you’re a teacher. Or at least you were. Second grade. A police background check with fingerprints is standard procedure for everyone dealing with children. You would have undergone that before you were hired.”

“What did I do? Fail someone so they shot me and stabbed me?”

“You haven’t been a classroom teacher for a couple of years. So I think we can safely rule out an unhappy second grader. Currently, you’re working toward a graduate degree in child psychology.”

“You have no idea how maddening this is,” she said, her voice cracking. “You got all that information from my fingerprints?”

“And my secret decoder ring.”

“Very funny. Where do I live?” Kresley asked, waiting, praying for something that sounded familiar.

“You’ve got an apartment on Isle of Palms,” he said.

“Thank you for taking me home,” she said.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve got to make a stop first.”

She did mind a little. Maybe if she walked into her own apartment her memory would break through the dam and come flooding back. Apparently patience wasn’t one of her virtues. “Where are we stopping?” she asked.

“The Rose Tattoo.” He hesitated for less than a second. “I’m tending bar there part-time.”

“FBI pay is that bad?”

He laughed as he turned on East Bay Street. “No. I know one of the owners. I needed a cover for a personal matter, so I tend bar. Here we are,” Matt said as he turned down an alley and parked between a large home and a smaller building.

“Where’s here?” she asked, uneasy when she counted four other cars in the crushed-oyster-shell lot.

“The Rose Tattoo.”

“It looks more like a private residence.”

He turned and offered a smile. Her eyes were drawn to his mouth and she experienced a strong, brief and inappropriate millisecond of desire.

“It hasn’t been a private residence since just after the Civil War,” he explained. “It sat empty for a while, then it was a speakeasy during prohibition. The previous owners renovated it as a bar and lived on the second floor. Then Rose Porter bought it and was on the verge of bankruptcy until Shelby Tanner bought in.”

Reaching across her to grab the door handle, his forearm brushed her belly and Kresley felt a quick zing of excitement spread through her body. His hair smelled like the ocean, but the woodsy scent of cologne still lingered on his skin.

“Hang on, I’ll come around and help you.”

When Kresley stepped out of the car, her knees buckled and if Matt hadn’t been there to catch her, she would have folded like an accordion.

His hands grabbed her waist. Leaning back against the Jeep, she took several deep breaths to fend off the rapid pounding of her heart. Not an easy task with Matt’s square-tipped fingers resting lazily on her skin.

“I’m good,” she said, placing her palms on his chest. Her intention was to gently push out of his grasp. But the feel of solid muscle and the thump of his heart beneath her touch only served as a greater enticement.

Am I always this aware of a man? she wondered. Or is it just this man? And could my timing be any worse? Not having a memory was inconvenient, to say the least.

“C’mon,” he said, wrapping one hand around her waist to lead her to the door marked Deliveries Only.

Together, they entered the kitchen. A woman wearing chef’s whites with the name DeLancey embroidered on the left side of her jacket didn’t even look up from chopping carrots. “Hey,” she said casually, as if a strange woman with tangled hair, wearing ill-fitting scrubs was an everyday occurrence.

“Hi,” Matt said as they walked the length of the sparklingly clean kitchen.

The smells had Kresley’s mouth watering. The scents of garlic, onions, smoky bacon and herbs surrounded her as she neared the exit.

The dual doors were stainless steel with round windows at eye level. Kresley stopped dead in her tracks as an image flashed in her mind. Portholes. Her steps faltered and she put out a hand to brace herself on a nearby countertop. She’d looked out a porthole and seen…something.

She started to shake and perspiration coated her body.

“You’re whiter than pale,” Matt said, grabbing a kitchen towel to blot the sweat from her face and neck. “Are you in pain?”

Kresley shook her head. Her chest was tight and her throat had turned into a vise.

“What is it?” he asked, concern etched in the lines by his eyes.

“I wasn’t supposed to go near the portholes.”

“What do you remember? What triggered the panic attack?”

“The round window.”

“That’s all you got?”

“Yep. A flash. A snippet. I could see the porthole. I moved forward to look out, then nothing.”

Matt’s splayed fingers at the center of her back urged her through the doors. In the wood-panelled dining room there were ornate carvings on the molding and the edge of the horseshoe-shaped bar. More than a century’s worth of varnish polished the bar to a bright sheen. Kresley guessed the worn knotty-pine floors were original to the building. More than three dozen tables in varying sizes were arranged around the room. Each place setting included a charger, a plate and a pink napkin folded into a triangle and secured with a silver ring embossed with a rosebud.

They passed a flight of stairs guarded by ficus trees. Several ferns hung from baskets suspended from the low ceiling.

Matt helped her up on one of the leather barstools, then went around behind the bar and took out a menu.

“Let me get you some water. Then pick whatever you’d like,” Matt said. “DeLancey will whip it up in minutes. I know Kendall gave you that IV but it’s been some time since you ate.”

“But the restaurant isn’t open,” she said, glancing at the closed sign in the window.

“We open for lunch in thirty minutes. Besides, DeLancey lives to cook.”

“Tuna salad,” Kresley said, selecting what she thought would be the easiest of the mixture of traditional southern dishes and trendy cuisine for DeLancey to prepare.

Matt poured her a glass of water, placed a lemon on the rim, and then asked, “Will you be okay for a minute while I take your order to the kitchen?”

“Sure.”

Kresley rolled her neck around on her shoulders, fighting the fatigue that was quickly replacing the adrenaline. Folding her arms and resting them on the bar, she felt the sutures pull. Ignoring the mild discomfort, she placed her head on her arms and closed her eyes.

She must have dozed off for a second because she jerked upright when she felt a poke on her shoulder.

“Sorry.”

Spinning on the barstool, Kresley found herself looking at a stunning woman with black hair, piercing blue-gray eyes and a warm smile. “I can explain,” Kresley said on a rush of breath.

“No need. I’m Shelby Tanner,” she said. “Matt spoke with my husband while you were getting stitched up. How do you feel?”

There was something awfully familiar about Shelby. “Have we met before?”

“I don’t think so. Is Matt getting you something to eat?”

Kresley nodded. “He’s been very kind.”

“He’s a good guy,” Shelby agreed. “Looks like you could use some proper clothes.”

Kresley looked down at her too-tight scrubs and sighed heavily. “It was these or naked.” Kresley said.

“You look exhausted. There’s a bed in my office upstairs,” Shelby offered.

Kresley found it odd that the woman would have a bed in her office and it must have shown on her face because Shelby qualified, “Sometimes I bring my kids into work when we’re between nannies and my husband is out on a case.”

“A case?”

“He’s with Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Dylan doesn’t work regular hours.”

Great the ATF and the FBI. No memory, but apparently Kresley was making herself known to every law-enforcement agency in existence. “How many children do you have?”

“Three,” Shelby said with unfettered joy in her voice.

“Time for another one,” came a voice from the direction of the stairway.

Suddenly a woman with bleached platinum hair appeared. She was a tribute to the eighties. Big hair, animal-print leggings, wide leather belt and mules with three-inch heels. Class and polish tempered by loud and gaudy.

Her green eyes fixed on Kresley like lasers. “So you’re the one Matt fished out of the ocean who claims to have no memory?” Rose asked with skepticism.

Intimidated by the larger than life woman, Kresley just nodded.

Rose shook her head. “Well, if you ask me, you should be at a hospital getting medical care. What was Matt thinking?” The question was directed at Shelby.

“That there’s no reason she should be in the hospital,” Shelby said. “She’ll have a good lunch and then Matt is going to take her home. Rose,” Shelby continued, “I’ve spoken with Kendall and she assured me the memory loss is real. Trauma-induced amnesia.”

Rose snorted. “I love my niece, but Kendall can be out there.”

Kresley wondered if Rose ever looked in a mirror. She wasn’t exactly a conformist.

“Don’t forget, Kendall swears she met her husband in a past life. Nutty if you ask me.”

“No one asked,” Shelby said pointedly.

Matt appeared then, carrying a plate of food. Kresley was surprisingly glad to see him. Though Shelby had been warm, Rose was making her feel unwelcome. He placed the plate and a set of utensils on the bar. Kresley could feel the heat radiating off his body. She looked up, hoping to get a read on him but then she realized his entire attention was focused on Shelby. And then it hit her. “You’re related,” Kresley said, wagging her forefinger between Matt and Shelby.

“Ah-ha!” Rose clapped her hands once sharply. “See, it isn’t just me. She thinks so, too,” Rose said, the harshness gone from her tone. “I noticed it the moment he walked in here.”

Matt looked at Kresley, though his eyes never really connected with hers. “We aren’t related.”

Rose made a ‘Harrumph’ sound, then turned, mumbling, and went back up the stairs.

“She’s formidable,” Kresley said as she poked at the tuna salad.

“She’s all bark and no bite,” Shelby assured her. “You just have to ease into Rose.”

Kresley looked at Matt. “She wasn’t very warm to you. How long did you say you’d been tending bar here?”

“A few weeks. By the way, I’m scheduled to work lunch,” he said to Shelby.

“I’ll call Susan in to cover for you.”

“Thanks,” he said, bending down only slightly to place a kiss against Shelby’s cheek as she readied to leave the room.

In record speed, Kresley wolfed down the tuna salad, thanked everyone profusely, and then hurried out the back with Matt on her heels.

“What’s the deal?” he asked.

“Lycra Lady hated me,” she said.

Matt grinned. The action caused sexy dimples to appear on his cheeks. “Rose is just…blunt.”

Kresley gingerly maneuvered herself into the passenger’s seat. The lidocaine had worn off and she was starting to feel the pain of her injuries. “Who exactly got you my address?”

“Gabe got it off your DMV records.”

Good God, another name to remember. “And Gabe is…?”

“Gabe Langston is a local P.I. and a friend. We met a few years back when Gabe came to Quantico for some training.”

Kresley closed her eyes and relaxed against the headrest. Other than the single flash of a porthole, nothing else had sparked a memory. They crossed over Charleston Harbor and Sullivan’s Island. Kresley knew that because she could read the road signs. At least she knew she could read. When Matt slowed and turned into a parking lot, there was nothing familiar about the apartment building at the corner of Hartnett Boulevard and Twenty-fifth Avenue. “I live here?”

“Unit 1B.”

Matt pulled into a parking spot in front of the apartment. Kresley felt a tickle of uneasiness when she saw the door but nothing felt familiar.

“I’ll go in with you.”

Unlatching her seatbelt, she said, “Thank you.”

They had barely stepped out of the car when a rotund woman with hair dyed a shade of red not known in nature hurried toward Kresley. Matt waited at a distance.

“You were supposed to come to the office two days ago,” she said, her eyes little more than angry green slits.

“Because?” Kresley prompted.

“Because?” she spat. “You’re three months behind on your share of the rent. You promised me you’d have the money to me yesterday. Instead you stayed out all night and half the day today.” The woman was so worked up she punctuated her tirade by shaking her finger in Kresley’s face. “Your roommate paid up. I want your share in a money order. No more rubber checks. Got it?”

Roommate? Kresley tried to hide her confusion. “Uh, how much do I owe you exactly?”

“Fifteen hundred plus another seventy-five in late fees.”

“I seem to have lost my keys,” Kresley said.

The landlady didn’t appear to be the least bit sympathetic. Digging into the pocket of her housecoat, she yanked out a large ring, flipped through the keys, then removed one and handed it to Kresley. “Add another fifteen on for key replacement.”

Matt waited until she’d waddled three or four feet back toward the door bearing a bronze plaque announcing Leasing Office before he joined Kresley. “She’s a little ray of sunshine, isn’t she?”

Kresley unlocked the door to unit 1B and opened it just a crack. Tilting her head back to compensate for his height, she said, “Well, thank you,” and stuck out her right hand.

Matt chuckled softly. “That was a great kiss-off but if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to take a look around, just to make sure the apartment is secure.”

Matt came in and the first thing he noticed was a framed photograph of two women on a beach. One was Kresley.

The other one was Janice.

Chapter Three

As Kresley was looking around to see if any of these supposed roommates were home, Matt marched in like some recruit, his attention honed on a photograph on the entertainment center. There was no question. It was Janice. Turning the photo toward Kresley, he asked, “Who is this?”

As soon as she saw the image, she heard the words in her head again. Trust no one. “I—I don’t know.”

“Her name is Janice Cross,” Matt said.

Kresley shook her head.

He reached her in three long strides. His blue eyes blazed as his fingers closed around her upper arms. “Think! She’s six feet tall, has short brown hair.”

“I know her,” Kresley managed. “I don’t know how I know her. Or why.”

“That isn’t very helpful,” Matt said, scowling.

“I’m doing my best here,” she shot back. “Kendall said my memory would come back in fits and starts so you’ll just have to wait until I have the right fit or the right start. Now, thank you for everything you’ve done.” She went to the door and opened it. “I need to shower and try to figure out where my bank is so I can see if I have enough money in my account to hopefully pay the mean landlady. So, good bye.”

Grudgingly, Matt left.

Kresley was glad to be finally alone. She went to the kitchen first, opening the refrigerator to find only a jar of mustard surrounded by a half-dozen Chinese take-out cartons. There were several magnets on the fridge, all for restaurants that delivered.

The dishes in the dishwasher were clean and the place was tidy. She went down the hallway and found the first bedroom. In one bedroom, she picked a pair of size-ten panties off the floor. No way they belonged to her. Going to the closet, she found half the clothes were size ten; the others were a size six. Several gowns hung in the back, all with the expensive, exclusive label, Gianni.

Going to the second bedroom, she picked up a pillow and sniffed the faint scent of perfume. That didn’t send a cascade of memories flooding back, either. She was so frustrated. Clearly there were other women sharing the apartment with her. If just one of her roommates came back, she could maybe get some answers to her questions. Opening the closet in this room revealed size twos and size fours. The size-two slacks were too long to be Kresley’s, and, like the other closet, there were several Gianni gowns—these were a size two.

Of all the clothing, the size fours were the most conservative and the most casual. The kind of thing you’d expect a graduate student to wear. Like me?

She decided this must be her bedroom. One she shared with a size two woman. All she saw was white furniture and girl stuff. Lots of pink things. Lots of lime green. A treadmill sat in the corner. Instead of its intended use, it was covered with blouses, dresses and slacks waiting to be ironed. There was a weight set as well as a kickboxing book on one side of the room. Kresley checked the treadmill clothes. Size two. By default, that made Kresley the kickboxer. There was a message board on the back of the door, but it had been wiped clean, leaving only hints of what had been written there. Two words, one started with the letter O maybe? Or D? Then what looked like a phone number since there were ten numbers beneath the top line. Too faint to make out.

Her search of the living room, dining room and computer nook also yielded nothing unique or special. It was a nice apartment. The only thing that was missing were her roommates. Her first instinct was to call and report them missing, but she didn’t really know if they were missing. They could be on vacation, out shopping, spending the day at the beach—anything was possible. But the prickling sensation on the back of her neck told her something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

Then she realized what was missing. There wasn’t much in the way of personal items. No credit cards, no driver’s licenses, no catalogs, no junk mail. And no telephone. Not a single landline.

“Maybe we all used cell phones,” Kresley said aloud. She added that to her list of things she needed to figure out.

There was a laptop in the small alcove. She powered it on and it asked for a password. Kresley’s frustration level went up several notches. If it was her computer—which was only twenty-five percent possible—then the password was probably something she’d remember easily, like her birth date. Except right this instant, she didn’t remember squat.

She cursed softly, then walked down to the leasing office. It wasn’t that she wanted a bonus interaction with the landlady, she just needed to borrow a phone.

It took some doing, begging actually, and giving her the lone gold earring as collateral, to get the woman to loan Kresley her cell phone. Going back to her apartment, she had the weird feeling of being watched. Glancing around, she noticed nothing out of the ordinary and berated herself for being a wuss. Kresley called information for a number and then waited as the call was automatically dialed.

“Gabe Langston.”

“Mr. Langston, we haven’t met but my name is Kresley Hayes.”

“How are you feeling?”

“A little disoriented. I was wondering if you could find out if I had a cell phone and if so, who the carrier is. Oh, and you don’t happen to remember my birthday, do you?”

“April thirtieth,” he said without missing a beat. “You’ll be thirty at the end of the month.”

“Good for me,” adding that to her list of less-than-pleasant things. “My bank info?”

“Don’t worry, turning thirty doesn’t hurt as much as being shot.”

“Well, that’s something.”

“Is my guy there?”

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t get worried if you see a large blond guy with a neck like a redwood. He works for me.”

“Why would I see him?”

“He’s going to be watching out for you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Someone attacked you with a knife, then shot you and then tossed you in the Atlantic to drown. Matt and I agree that this person probably assumes you’re dead, but just in case, Matt asked me to have someone keep an eye on you.”

A chill danced along her spine. “I think my roommates are missing.”

“When were they last seen?” Gabe asked.

“I’ll find out from my landlady when I return her phone.”

“Do that and then give me a call. In the meantime, I’ll work on that bank information.”

“Okay. Thanks.” She clicked off, and headed for the bathroom to finally shower.

Very careful not to get her bandages wet—not an easy task by the way—Kresley enjoyed the feeling of the water pouring down on her. She was salty, sandy and sticky. And scared. The salt and sand washed off. The scared did not.

Knowing her name didn’t mean she knew who she was. But at least it had given her something to focus on other than what might have happened out in the ocean. Though she was grateful to Matt and Gabe for their protection, she wondered if it was enough.