by Kay Hooper
Mute, she shook her head wearily.
The closed fist swung at her, the blow so brutal it rocked her head back with almost enough force to break her neck. One more like that, she thought dizzily, and he’ll never get his damned answer.
An oath out of the darkness was evidence that the unseen watcher agreed with her. “Careful!” he growled. “She can’t tell me what I want to know if she’s dead.”
She wanted to point out that it was just a matter of time, that her life was dripping out onto the cold concrete floor, but couldn’t allow herself to speak because if she opened her mouth, she would scream. She couldn’t scream. Wouldn’t scream.
“Just answer the question, Dinah. Just tell us where to find it, and we’ll let you go.”
If she’d been able to summon the energy, she would have laughed. Let her go? She was never going to leave this cold, damp room, not on her own two feet. She would never see the sunlight again. Never see Kane again.
Didn’t they realize that she knew that?
Another blow, possibly less brutal but at the moment she was no judge of degree; the pain was constant, radiating throughout her body in hot waves. What they had already done to her was killing her; these sadistic blows were merely finishing the job.
“This isn’t working,” the man doing the actual beating said unemotionally to the watcher. “I told you it wouldn’t.”
“Then start breaking her fingers.”
“She won’t feel it. Her hands are numb.”
“Then start breaking something she will feel.”
The shadow loomed over her, reaching, and Dinah tried desperately to think of something else, anything else.…
Kane. Oh, God, Kane, I wish—
Again the scene shifted, and this time she found herself hurrying down a vaguely familiar hallway.
“Faith?” Dinah caught up with Faith, her frown clear evidence of worry. “Did you find anything?”
“No,” Faith replied. “Nothing. But there’ll be another chance to look, sooner or later.”
Both women kept their voices low, and neither relaxed until they reached the stairwell and hurried down.
“We’re running out of time,” Dinah said.
“Something else,” Faith said. “I think my phone’s been tapped.”
“What?”
“It’s just a feeling, but I think so.”
Dinah said nothing for several flights, then, as they reached the parking garage, she grasped Faith’s arm to halt her. “I’ve got a feeling too, and it’s a bad one. We’ve gone as far as we can alone, Faith. We need help.”
“I don’t trust the cops, Dinah, you know that.”
“I know that. But there’s a federal cop I know I can trust.”
“I trust federal cops even less.”
“But you trust me. And I trust him,” Dinah said.
Faith bit her lip in indecision, then shook her head. “Not yet, please. I want one more chance to find the evidence we need. It’s important to me.”
It was Dinah’s turn to hesitate, but finally she nodded. “Okay, a few more days—”
“A week. I need at least a week.”
Obviously against her better judgment, Dinah agreed. “A week then. But after that, I call out the troops. Understand?”
“All right. Now let’s get out of here before the wrong person spots us together.”
They split up just outside the stairwell, each going to her own vehicle quickly and quietly. Faith started her car and watched Dinah’s Jeep pull out of its parking place; she hesitated a few moments to allow the other woman time to leave the garage. The place seemed full of shadows, and, suddenly nervous, she locked her car doors.
Faith glanced at the big purse beside her on the front seat and murmured, “I’m sorry, Dinah. But you’d try to stop me. And I can’t let them get away this time. I just can’t.…”
Faith opened her eyes with a start, bewildered to find herself on a couch. She was half-propped on a pillow and covered with a blanket, and had the confused sense that far too much time had gone by.
“Faith?” Kane sat down on the edge of the couch near her hips and reached to touch her face, his own strained and pale. “Jesus, don’t ever do that to me again.”
“Do what? What happened?”
“You were out cold,” he said. “I asked you to concentrate on trying to reach Dinah, and the next thing I knew you were toppling off the piano bench, limp as a dishrag and completely unresponsive. If it hadn’t been for a strong pulse and the fact that you were breathing with no trouble, I would have called EMS.”
“How long was I out?”
“More than an hour. It’s nearly midnight.” Kane drew a breath and leaned back, his hand falling away from her face. “Noah’s told me stories about this. Some of the genuine psychics he’s encountered go into a trancelike state in which all the vital signs slow down. As if the body needs to draw on its resources, tap in to whatever energy is available to use those extra senses. That’s what seemed to be happening with you, so I didn’t interfere. How do you feel?”
Faith took stock of her physical condition and realized she felt all right, just a little tired. Her emotional state, however, was another matter entirely. Going into that “trancelike state” had been like falling into a deep, black hole, and the terror of completely losing her grasp on the here and now was not something she would willingly repeat.
“I’m okay,” she said. “But please don’t ever ask me to do that again.”
Kane nodded, but his eyes were eager. “Did it work? Did you reach Dinah?”
Faith shied away from telling him further details about Dinah being tortured. There was no reason for him to hear that. No reason at all. Instead, she concentrated on the other two scenes.
“Faith?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t reach Dinah the way you mean, the way you wanted me to. There were just … more flashes, more scenes from the past. But more helpful this time, I think.”
“Helpful how? What did you see?”
She told him as much as she could remember about the two memories, which seemed to prove that she and Dinah had indeed been working together on some kind of investigation. She tried to recall all the details, but so much was frustratingly vague, and she was unhappily aware that there were now even more questions. Including the nagging one about what it was she had hidden from Dinah. And how she had been able to hide anything at all if she and Dinah had been able to communicate as easily as Katie claimed.
She’s just a little girl, and probably got it only half right.…
Faith went still for a moment, wondering if that thought was hers or someone else’s. She didn’t know, couldn’t tell.
“So it must be connected somehow with my past, with what happened in Seattle,” she said finally, forcing her mind back. “That must be why I was so determined that they wouldn’t get away with it again. We were looking for evidence, and I had found something, something small enough to hide in my purse—and I didn’t tell Dinah about it, at least not then.”
“And you have no idea what that evidence was?”
Faith shook her head. “It was … it was almost as if I were watching a movie, just looking on and listening in while they—while we—talked. I don’t know what she was thinking, what I was thinking. All I know is that I had found something, and for some reason I didn’t want her to know I’d found it, at least not until I could …”
“Could what?”
She groped for the elusive knowledge, and finally sighed in defeat. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. I’m sorry.”
“Think carefully, Faith. Was there anything at all that could help us figure out where Dinah is?”
Unwillingly, she thought of that cold, damp place with its concrete floors and shadowy walls, thought of the two men interrogating Dinah, one unemotionally efficient in dealing out agony and the other urgently insistent on getting information from her before she died.
She’s dying. I know tha
t. How can I tell him?
And like a distant answering whisper in her mind came the words, You can’t tell him.
“Faith?”
Steadily, she said, “I don’t think so. There was something vaguely familiar about the hallway of that building where I was looking for evidence, but I have no idea what or where it is. In fact, I have no real sense of where either of those two memories took place.”
“Do you think you’d recognize either place if you saw it again?”
“That hallway, yes. The other … I don’t know. But the hallway, that building, seems more important. If I was looking for evidence there—and if I found something—then it has to help us find Dinah. Doesn’t it?”
“I wish I knew.”
“We can look for it. Begin with places that seem likely—the building where I worked, others in the area. It’s a start, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Of course it is.”
She gazed at his face, feeling a strong pang of loneliness. He was entirely focused on Dinah, thinking of nothing except possible ways of finding her. It reminded Faith yet again of how unconnected she was, to anything or anyone.
“I wish I could be more help,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
Kane looked at her. “You are helping, Faith. You’ve given me more pieces of the puzzle than I’ve been able to find in all the weeks since Dinah disappeared.”
“But we still don’t know what the puzzle is supposed to look like.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Kane said.
Faith hoped he was right. But all she could do at the moment was wonder wretchedly if it was all her fault that Dinah was dying.
And wonder what Kane would do when he found out.
“There’s really nothing more I can tell you, Miss Parker.” Dr. Murphy closed the folder and gazed across her desk. “Your visits here during the time you’ve been my patient have all been unexceptional, regular checkups or very minor complaints. I continued the prescription for contraceptives you’d been using before you came to Atlanta, but the only other medication I prescribed was a course of antibiotics for a mild infection.”
Faith wasn’t sure how to phrase the questions she wanted to ask. Finally, she chose bluntness.
“So I was sexually active?”
The doctor’s brows rose slightly, and a flicker of sympathy showed in her eyes. “You don’t even remember that?”
“I don’t remember anything before waking up in the hospital.”
“That’s … quite unusual. Amnesia tends to center around the traumatic incident. The patient seldom recalls the events just before the trauma occurred. But in virtually every case I know of, the missing time is only a matter of hours or days.”
“In my case, years are missing. A lifetime, in fact.” Faith managed a smile. “And I’m trying desperately to—to collect the pieces of my life and put them back together. So anything you can tell me, Doctor …”
Dr. Murphy laced her fingers together atop the file on her blotter and gazed at Faith steadily. “I see. I hadn’t realized your amnesia was so extensive. That would, however, explain the changes I see in you.”
“Changes?”
“In your manner and bearing, your eyes. You said you visited Haven House yesterday. They told you there was abuse in your background?”
“Yes. Though Karen didn’t know any details. I gather my ex-husband was … physically abusive?”
“Physically and emotionally. You told me you had warned this man to stay away from you, and that you had some confidence that he would because you had medical evidence of past injuries that could ruin his career and put him behind bars.”
“Is he the reason I came to Atlanta? Did I want to get three thousand miles away from him?”
“I couldn’t say, Miss Parker. You never said as much to me. And I honestly don’t know if you were afraid he’d follow you here. I referred you to Haven House because you displayed many of the aftereffects of abuse. You had tension headaches and a low resistance to infection, a poor appetite. Your sleep was disturbed more often than not, and you were reluctant to make friends or form emotional attachments. I thought it would be healthier for you to spend time with other women who had suffered abuse, especially since you had done so the last few months you’d lived in Seattle.”
“And did it appear to you that Haven House and the women there helped me?” Faith had no idea where her dispassionate voice was coming from; all she knew was that they were discussing what seemed to be the life of a stranger.
“I believe so. I saw steady improvement.”
“And yet you say that I’m more different now?”
“Yes. There’s a certain look many abuse victims share, a certain tension in their bearing and actions. That was evident the last time I saw you. It isn’t today. If I didn’t know, I would never guess you’d been abused.”
Questions about that abusive ex-husband rose in her mind, but Faith was all too aware that the doctor could not answer them.
“I wish there was more I could tell you,” Dr. Murphy said with obvious sympathy. “But you were reluctant even to confide in me as much as you did, and probably wouldn’t have except that you said your doctor back in Seattle had urged you to make me aware of the history of abuse for medical reasons.”
“Medical reasons?”
“The effects of abuse can last for years, Miss Parker, both physically and emotionally, and it’s always wise to make your doctor aware of the background in such cases. You had no lingering problems from physical injuries, but knowing your history would make me more apt to spot complications in the future.”
Faith decided not to ask what those complications might be. Instead, she said, “I see. Thank you, Doctor. For the information, and for taking time out of a busy morning to talk to me.”
“You are my patient, Miss Parker.” For the first time, Dr. Murphy smiled. “I only wish there was more I could tell you.”
“You’ve … told me a lot,” Faith said.
“You were a long time,” Kane said when she got into his car outside the clinic. “Did you have to wait for the doctor?”
“No, she saw me right away.”
“So? Did she prescribe muscle relaxants?”
Faith shook her head. “No.”
Kane had his hand on the gearshift, but paused before putting the car into motion and gazed at her questioningly. “What else did she tell you?”
Impossible to keep the information to herself, no matter how much she wanted to; for all Faith knew, that violent ex-husband might lie behind all the violent things that had happened. So she told Kane, staring through the windshield all the while because she couldn’t meet his eyes.
“That gives us another possibility, I suppose,” she finished, her voice very steady. “It doesn’t seem to fit with what I’ve been remembering, but it’s conceivable that he’s somehow involved. But the doctor didn’t know his name, and I can’t remember it. Easy enough to find out, I suppose.”
“Faith.” Kane put a hand on her shoulder and turned her until she looked at him. “I’m sorry.”
She wondered if the return of her memory would mean she’d be unable to bear a man’s hands on her. It seemed an alien possibility at the moment. “There’s no reason to be sorry, not about this. I don’t remember him hurting me, I’ve told you that. I don’t remember anything about him.”
She thought she sounded indifferent, and she even managed to smile, but apparently something betrayed the misery she felt, because Kane’s fingers tightened on her shoulder.
“I’m sorry there’s been so much pain in your life. If I could do anything to …”
“To make it better?” This time, her smile felt more natural. “You can’t. But my amnesia might turn out to be a blessing when all’s said and done. I don’t remember the pain or the grief. Honestly, it’s like it all happened to somebody else. But at least the facts are coming together. With a little luck, if I finally do remember, at least I’ll be prepared.”
Kane n
odded. “Still, it’s a hell of a way to find out about yourself and your past.”
“I don’t seem to have a choice.” She fought a sudden and almost overpowering urge to throw herself into his arms and cling with all her strength. Afraid that showed as well, she went on hastily. “So we add my ex to the list of things we need to investigate further. And go on. Where to now?”
He didn’t answer immediately; his eyes searched her face as though looking for something, but in the end he didn’t voice whatever it was that disturbed him. He released her and put the car into gear.
“The emergency room where you were first brought after the crash.”
That made sense; he was still looking for something to connect her accident with what had happened to Dinah weeks afterward.
“You said Dinah visited me the day she disappeared?”
“She did. And since the police traced her movements of that day very carefully, we know she spent little more than half an hour with you in the morning.”
“And then?”
“She went to her office and was in and out several times until early afternoon. Doing routine things, according to her editor. Sometime between noon and one P.M., she left her office—and hasn’t been seen since. Except by her captors, of course.”
Faith didn’t want to think about Dinah’s captors, about what was taking place in that cellar. She was agonizingly aware of the minutes ticking away. Of Dinah’s life energy fading away.
There’s so little time left …
Her realization? Or Dinah’s?
She forced herself to think. “Between noon and one. But it was night when that dog attacked her, I’m sure of it. So if what I saw actually took place, and took place that day, where was Dinah during the hours before dark?”
“So far, nobody’s come forward to admit having been with her. She walked out of her office building and might as well have been swallowed up by a black hole.”
Faith thought of that hallway in her dream, and of the shadowy, lonely parking garage. Had that been Dinah’s office building? “Can we go by Dinah’s office later?”
