by Linda Turner
His expression more somber than she’d ever seen it, he greeted her with a nod as she and Joe stepped from the car. “I hate like hell that you have to be a part of this,” he told her, “but we’ve searched the area that matched the description you gave us and haven’t found anything.”
“He’s there,” she said hoarsely, hunching her shoulders against a cold that had nothing to do with the chilly weather. “I know he’s there. Did you check along the creek?”
He nodded, grimacing. “There are creeks all over this damn ranch, but they’re seasonal and it hasn’t rained in weeks. They’re all dry.”
Staring past him at the lights that flickered in the darkness among the trees, signaling where the police were concentrating the search, Annie could see the grave again as clearly as if she stood before it. “It’s way back in the back,” she said hollowly. “In the northwest corner. I’ll have to show you.”
No! Joe almost roared. He didn’t want her to so much as set foot on the property, let alone hunt down a shallow grave, but the nightmare would never be over until she did. His face carved in harsh lines, he slipped his arm around her waist. “Why don’t you drive, Sam? We’ll ride with you.”
There was nothing to mark where the grave was, not even a pile of fresh dirt, but Annie gave Sam directions to it without making a single mistake. When he braked to a stop facing a dry creek bed, she pointed to where his headlights cut through a thin stand of cedars. “There,” she said flatly. “I buried him at the base of that big cedar.”
Not convinced, Sam frowned. “Are you sure you’ve got the right place? There are a million cedar trees around here, and that dirt doesn’t look like it’s been moved in a hundred years.”
“That’s it,” she retorted. “Trust me.”
“All right, then,” he sighed. “Let’s check it out.”
Within ten minutes, he had the lights and a portable generator there, as well as the evidence team. Then the dogs were brought in. If Sam needed proof that Annie had the right spot, he got it. The second one of the handlers led a bloodhound to the spot where Annie had indicated, the dog let out a howl that could have curdled blood.
Standing next to one of the powerful lights that stripped away the night for fifty yards in every direction, Joe’s arm a comforting weight around her shoulders, Annie shivered as a second, then a third dog took up the howl, like some kind of eerie twilight bark. Fighting the need to squeeze her eyes shut like a frightened child, she stood straight as an arrow and faced what was to come.
The dogs were taken away, and for the sake of preserving evidence, the grave was exhumed by four officers with shovels rather than heavy machinery. In the tense silence that had fallen with the silencing of the dogs, the sound of the first shovel striking dirt was like the blow of a hammer. Annie flinched, then forced herself to stand still, waiting, like the others, for the first sign of the body. It seemed to take forever.
Although she’d only dreamed of the dead man once, his image was so fixed in her mind that she could have picked him out of a crowd of thousands. She’d thought she’d known what to expect, but the body the four policemen finally uncovered was discolored and cold and starting to decompose. Covered in dirt, the shock of dark hair and the banker’s pinstripe suit clearly visible in the bright light, it was and wasn’t the man she’d buried. The features looked different, like something out of a horror movie. If it hadn’t been for the telltale scar near the mouth, she might not have recognized it at all.
“Oh, God, the scar!” Gagging, she pressed her hand to her mouth and, for the first time, turned away. Shaking, she pressed her face into Joe’s shoulder. “It’s him. It’s him!”
Standing next to her and Joe, Sam motioned for one of the men to bag the body. “Come on,” he told Joe. “Let’s get her away from this circus and back to the car. It’s colder than hell out here.”
Murmuring to her, Joe steered her toward the car, and within seconds, the three of them were headed back to the ranch entrance. Numb with cold, Annie sat in the back seat with Joe and couldn’t get warm in spite of the fact that Sam had the heater turned up to high. She could feel the warmth wrapping around her ankles, but it didn’t seem to help.
His angular face harsh in the meager light that came from the lit dash, Sam parked next to Joe’s car and left the motor running. His arm resting against the top of the back seat, he turned sideways in the seat to face his passengers. “I’ve got to ask you some questions, Annie,” he said carefully, quietly. “I know you probably wish I’d do this another time, but your memories are probably never going to be fresher than they are right now.”
He looked so miserable that she couldn’t help leaning forward to pat his arm. “It’s okay, Sam. I know you’re just doing your job.”
His mouth quirked into a rueful smile. “Yeah. But sometimes it’s the pits. So tell me about that night and how you remembered where the body was.”
“I was walking in the woods looking for Joe and it just came to me,” she replied. “I could see the creek and knew there was a strip center down the road, close to Interstate 10. And suddenly, I just knew.”
“You knew what?”
“That the land I was seeing was on the old Driscoe Ranch. It was like a veil lifted for just a second and everything fell into place.”
“Do you remember how you got here that night? Who you were with? What kind of vehicle you transported the body in? We know someone else had to be with you, Annie. Who was it? Give me a name, a description, anything.”
Closing her eyes, she tried to force the memory past the wall that was once again in place, but all she remembered was the fear. “I was scared,” she said shakily. “Terrified. That’s all I remember—just being scared out of my wits the whole time I was digging the grave.”
“Scared of what?” Joe asked. “Of who?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember anyone else being there.” Suddenly realizing what she had just said, she blanched. “Oh, God, maybe I really did kill him and was afraid of getting caught—”
“Stop it!” Joe ordered harshly. “Do you hear me? We’ve already been through all this, and I don’t want to hear another word about you killing anyone. For God’s sake, we left town because someone was trying to terrorize you! He’s the son of a bitch who probably did this. He’s the one you should be looking for,” he told Sam angrily. “He’s been to our apartment, dammit! Surely someone must have seen him.”
“We’re working on that,” Sam said. “We still don’t know how he got inside the mansion to leave that delivery on your doorstep, but we think someone visiting one of the tenants was probably on the way out and let him in. With so little to go on, it hasn’t been easy. But we got a break tonight, thanks to Annie. We won’t know how big a one until the lab boys do their thing.”
That was all Joe needed to hear. “Then you don’t need us any more. I’m taking her home.”
“Not without a uniform, you’re not,” he said, and reached for his radio. “From now on, you’re under twenty-four-hour surveillance until whoever’s after Annie is safely under lock and key.”
Nothing could have pleased Joe more. “You won’t hear any complaint out of me. Let us know if you find out anything.” Opening his door, he pulled Annie out after him. “C’mon, honey, let’s go home.”
News of the discovery of Robert Freeman’s body hit the streets the next morning, and Annie awoke from a troubled sleep to find her face, along with that of the dead man’s, splashed across the front page of the paper. Horrified, she stared down at the picture of herself and told herself this couldn’t be happening, but the constant ringing of the telephone told her the nightmare was all too real. Newspaper and television reporters from as far away as Houston and Dallas called, wanting exclusive interviews. And those who didn’t call were camped out on the front porch of the Lone Star Social Club, just waiting for her to stick her nose out the door so they could bombard her with questions.
Agitated, her stomach clenching with nerves, s
he hated being the focus of their attention. A man had died a horrible death, and she had buried him. There was nothing else she could tell them. Why couldn’t they leave it at that? Didn’t they know that if she remembered anything, she’d go to the police immediately?
Feeling as if she were trapped in a dark, bottomless prison with no way out, she forced down breakfast because the baby needed her to eat, but the French toast tasted like cardboard and tended to stick in her throat. Halfway through, she pushed it away and rose to her feet to prowl around the kitchen.
Joe didn’t say a word, but she felt his eyes on her and turned to find him watching her in concern. “I’m sorry,” she said, waving helplessly at her abandoned plate. “That’s all I can manage.”
The phone rang—again. Unable to stop herself, she flinched. After the first five or six calls, Joe had let the answering machine take over, but it was the constant ringing that grated against her nerve endings. Would it never stop?
Watching her jump like a startled cat when the phone rang for the third time in as many minutes, Joe swore viciously. She was pale as a ghost, with dark circles under her eyes, and she had to be exhausted. He’d held her in his arms all night long, and he knew better than anyone just how little she’d slept. She was on the edge, dammit, and too damn thin! She needed to eat, to rest, but as long as reporters were hounding her and she thought she was somehow responsible for Robert Freeman’s death, he knew there was little chance of her doing either.
Making a snap decision, he pushed back from the table. “I don’t know about you, but if I have to listen to that damn phone ring all day, I’m going to go crazy,” he said tersely. “Get dressed, honey. We’re getting out of here for a while.”
He took her out the back way so that the reporters camped out on the front porch of the old Victorian wouldn’t see them, then spirited her down to the Riverwalk. Turning the opposite way from Joe’s Place, he strolled hand in hand with her like they were lovers on a holiday and made her laugh at least a half-dozen times. And although there was a plainclothes policeman only three steps behind them every step of the way, they were, for a little while at least, able to forget last night and the decomposing face of a man Annie had apparently been the last one to see alive.
Even on the Riverwalk, however, they couldn’t escape the real world for too long. With Annie’s picture boldly splashed across the front page of every paper in the city, it wasn’t long before she was recognized. Joe caught more than one startled glance thrown their way and knew if he had seen them, Annie had, too. He felt her stiffen beside him, her steps falter, as a bald-headed man with a beer belly hanging over his belt openly stared at her with a suspicion he made no attempt to hide. For two cents, Joe would have decked him. But that would only have caused a scene, and that was the last thing Annie needed. So he just shot the jerk a go-to-hell look and turned Annie back the way they had come.
“I need to check in with Drake at the restaurant,” he told her when she gave him a puzzled look. “And you need to put your feet up for a while. If you want, you can even take a nap in my office.”
It was a good idea, but the second they stepped into the restaurant, Joe knew he’d made a mistake. The place was unusually packed for a weekday morning, and it wasn’t hard to figure out why. There was a friend or business acquaintance at just about every table, all of them no doubt wanting to reassure themselves that Annie was okay since they hadn’t been able to get her on the phone. And she didn’t know any of them from a stranger in the street.
When she got her memory back, she was going to be overwhelmed. Now, however, she had to greet and chat with people she didn’t remember, which was bound to be stressful for her. But there wasn’t much he could do about it. When friends went out of their way to check on you, you couldn’t just brush them off.
Forcing a smile, he nodded in greeting and tightened his fingers around hers. “I hate to tell you this, sweetheart,” he said in an aside that carried no farther than her ears, “but it looks like all our friends have shown up at the same time to make sure you’re okay.”
Startled, she looked around. “Friends? Where?”
“At every table. Lord, it looks like our wedding reception.” Grinning ruefully, his eyes met hers. “I know this is the last thing you want to do today, but I don’t think that we’ve got much choice. They’re here because they’re concerned about you, sweetheart. You’re going to have to talk to them.”
After all that she had been through, he wouldn’t have blamed her if she balked, but she had always had class. Squaring her shoulders, she dragged on a smile that wasn’t just for show but actually reached her eyes. “Then you’ll have to introduce me,” she said simply. “Let’s start with the couple at the table by the fountain. They look really worried.”
“They’re my godparents,” he told her. “And they’re crazy about you.”
The next two hours were a blur that Annie never quite remembered later. Feeling as if she and Joe had stumbled upon a surprise party in their honor, she smiled and laughed and charmingly apologized for her faulty memory just about every time she turned around. People whose faces didn’t look the least bit familiar hugged her and kissed her, and she could do nothing but return the affection and wonder who they were. Joe, bless him, stayed faithfully by her side and, when he got the chance, tried to drop hints in her ear about who everyone was so she could keep track. After the twentieth introduction, she stopped trying to keep the names straight and struggled instead just to keep smiling. When everyone was satisfied that she was okay, she promised herself, she was going to go home and go to bed.
But just when part of the crowd left, others, including Phoebe and Alice Truelove, arrived, and the process started all over again. Exhausted, her head throbbing and her back starting to ache, she reinforced her smile and thought of the nap she was going to take when this was all over. Then she started to cramp.
At first, she told herself it was her imagination. She was just tired and had been on her feet too long as she and Joe circulated among their friends. But the small twinge that caught her in mid-sentence quickly turned into a very real cramp that ripped through her abdomen like a rusty knife. Ashen, she gasped and clutched at Joe’s arm with one hand while the other protectively covered her belly.
Caught in mid-sentence, he glanced down at her with a distracted smile that vanished the second he saw her distress. “What is it? You’re pale as a ghost.”
“The baby,” she said faintly, only to wince as another cramp caught her. “Oh, Joe, I think something’s wrong!”
“Excuse us,” he said curtly to a restaurant-supply buddy, who had stopped by just to offer them his support. Without another word, he swept Annie up in his arms and quickly carried her to his office. Setting her down in his big office chair, he knelt next to her and cupped her face in his hand. “Are you in pain? Where does it hurt? Should I take you to the hospital? Dammit, sweetheart, talk to me! What do you want me to do?”
Helpless tears welled in her eyes. “I don’t know,” she cried, clinging to his hand. “I’m so scared! I know you can’t be as happy about it as I am—not yet, anyway—but I don’t think I could take losing it. Not on top of everything else. Please…”
“Hush,” he ordered with gruff sternness and pressed a quick kiss to her mouth. “You’re not going to lose the baby. Just hang on while I call Dr. Sawyer.”
His hands were steady as he turned to his desk and quickly found the phone book, his voice even as he called Annie’s obstetrician to relay the problem to her. But on the inside, his gut was churning, and he silently admitted to himself that he was scared out of his mind. Could a woman die these days from a miscarriage? God, he couldn’t lose her! Not now. Not when he was just finding her again.
The doctor wanted to talk to Annie directly, so Joe quickly put her on the line, then stood at her side and listened to her end of the conversation with growing misgivings. He didn’t know much about the aches and pains of a normal pregnancy, but even he could
tell that things didn’t sound good.
When she finally handed him back the phone to hang it up, she was paler than before, her eyes stricken. “She said to get to the hospital as fast as we can. She’ll meet us there.”
Two hours later, Joe was prowling the hospital corridor outside the emergency room, ready to tear the place apart if he didn’t get some answers soon. When Annie’s doctor stepped out in the hall, he reached her in two long strides. “How is she?” he demanded. “Is she okay? She hasn’t lost the baby, has she? When can I see her?”
The older woman smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “She’s going to be fine, Joe. And so is the baby. You can see her just as soon as we get her transferred upstairs to a room.”
“A room? You’re keeping her?”
“Just overnight,” she assured him. “Just to make sure.” Her smile fading, she warned, “You’re going to have to see that she takes better care of herself. She’s not eating right or getting enough rest. I know there’s not a lot anyone can do about her memory, but all this stress isn’t good for the baby, Joe. Or Annie. She’s too thin. But it’s her blood pressure I’m really worried about.”
Joe stiffened, alarmed. “Her blood pressure! What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s through the roof, that’s what’s wrong with it! And that’s nothing for a pregnant woman to play around with, Joe. If something isn’t done to get it down, she and the baby could be in real trouble.”
Staggered, he took the news like a blow to the head. “It’s this damn murder! I guess you saw this morning’s paper?”
Elizabeth Sawyer nodded. “It must have been hell for her.”
“It was. She hardly slept last night, and today, we haven’t been able to turn around without running into a reporter or friend. She’s trying to rest, but how can she when the only thing people in this town are talking about is her?”
“Then a short stay in the hospital will at least get her away from the gossip and notoriety for a while. Maybe things’ll die down by tomorrow.”
