Alice Sharpe

by Cowboy Incognito

  “Who’s there?” he asked.

  The silence remained and Zane realized he must have woken up as someone left his room. Maybe a nurse had come in to take his vitals and found him sleeping soundly. Either that, or his drugged brain had created the noise.

  Settling back against his pillow, he soon fell asleep again. This time he actually had a dream with substance. A wolf chased him through tall, golden grass. He panted from the effort to escape merciless fangs. And then suddenly, he was hanging from a tree, a noose around his neck. The tree was big and black with sprawling branches that scratched at the underbelly of the clouds. Its roots spread below him like an old man’s hands clinging to the cracked earth. His neck hurt. He reached up to yank the rope away. He couldn’t breathe.

  His eyes finally opened but the nightmare didn’t stop. A man stood over his bed, two big hands around Zane’s neck. The pressure increased as the man pressed down harder and harder, grunting with the effort to strangle Zane who, between blankets and tubes, couldn’t move. And he couldn’t budge those merciless hands from their deadly grip, thumbs pressing into his windpipe.

  The light suddenly went on. “Hey! What’s going on?” a female voice yelled.

  The hands instantly released Zane, who grabbed at his throat and gasped for air. He caught a glimpse of a man with shaggy white hair, horn-rimmed glasses and a bushy white mustache. The guy instantly turned toward the woman and pushed her hard. She went down amid a clatter of trays and equipment and the man disappeared out of the room.

  Zane finally untangled himself and got out of bed. The nurse who had been knocked down struggled to sit up. He bent to help her just as an orderly arrived. “What are you doing to her?” the orderly demanded, trying to loosen Zane’s grip on the nurse’s arm.

  “Tom, don’t be silly, he’s trying to help me,” the nurse said as she finally got to her feet. She was a solidly built middle-aged woman with a no-nonsense approach. Her forehead was bleeding, but she paid it no attention. Fury raged in her eyes, but her expression changed to one of horror as she looked at Zane’s throat. “Oh my gosh,” she said. “That man was trying to choke you.” She directed her next comment to the orderly. “Don’t just stand there, Tom. Alert Security. Have them call the police.”

  The orderly took off back down the hall.

  “The man who attacked you looked like Mark Twain,” the nurse said as she blotted her forehead with a cloth. Her gaze dipped to Zane’s neck again. You’d better get back into bed.”

  Zane shook his head and wished he hadn’t when the room spun. “I think I’ll sit for a while. I’m not anxious to lie down again.”

  “The stitches on your face look red. I’m calling the doctor right now.”

  “Please, I’m fine.”

  She pushed the intercom button that hung around her neck, speaking into the unit, asking for the doctor who showed up quickly and checked Zane over. He seemed to be about Zane’s age, with fine blond hair and a boyish smile. He was the same doctor who’d checked on him earlier.

  “Y’all are having yourself a heck of a day,” the doctor said in a rich Southern drawl.

  “That’s one way of putting it.”

  “I’ll stick a bandage on those stitches, just for the night. I don’t think it needs to be redone. Open your mouth now, let’s take a peek at your throat.”

  Zane did as ordered. He’d noticed his voice was deeper than it had been and his throat felt raw. “I’ll prescribe some soothing spray,” the doctor said. “Not much else we can do unless you want us to up the pain medication for a while.”

  “No,” Zane said. “Thanks, anyway.”

  The doctor chuckled. “I took a look at all your X-rays. You have a fair number of healed breaks. Seems like you might lead quite an active life in some capacity. But you apparently mend well, so I suppose a little bitty concussion and a torn ligament or two won’t be much of an obstacle to you.”

  The doctor left soon after. The nurse had yet to go tend to her own cut and hovered close by, obviously distressed that something like this had happened on her watch.

  “I’ll get your meds,” she said at last.

  “No, thanks. I don’t want any more medicine.”

  “Did you know the man who tried to choke you?” she asked.

  He gave her a look and she shook her head. “Sorry. I’m kind of rattled. For a second I forgot about the amnesia.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  Detective Woods himself showed up a little later. He listened with narrowed eyes as Zane and the nurse related what they’d seen.

  “Was he apprehended?” Zane asked at last.

  “No one saw anyone who even vaguely resembled the man you two have described,” Woods said. “We’ll take a look at hospital video...” His voice trailed off as a security guard entered the room. He carried what looked like a white mop head in his hands.

  “We found this on the second floor, stuffed in a trash can,” he said, and Zane realized they were staring at a wig. “We also found one of them novelty masks, you know, the kind with the bushy eyebrows and glasses and a mustache. I put it in a paper bag for you.” He now raised the bag proudly.

  Woods snatched the bag away. “Next time just leave things where you find them and let us take care of it,” he said. “I’ll get someone to go check out that can, meanwhile, please make sure no one else touches it. And put the wig in another sack. I’ll need to print you.”

  “I guess that explains the Mark Twain vibe,” the nurse said as the guard left.

  “And how he was able to leave the hospital without being noticed,” Woods added.

  The nurse, sporting a bandage on her forehead, insisted Zane climb back into bed. He met her gaze directly. “No,” he said.

  “You’ve had a traumatic event. I know the doctor said you’ll be all right, but it’s time for another sleeping tablet and you need to be in bed to take it.”

  “No more medicine,” Zane said. He knew he was drawing a line in the sand but he’d had it.

  “Really, sir.”

  “No, listen,” Zane said. “You undoubtedly saved my life tonight. I’m very grateful to you and I promise to be a good patient starting tomorrow, but for right now, I need time to sit and digest everything that’s happened and I don’t want to be bothered by anything or anyone. I’m fine, the doctor said so. Go coddle someone who needs it, okay? Please?”

  She produced a reluctant smile. “I’ll check on you in a while.”

  He just nodded.

  Woods shook his head as the swishing door behind the nurse sent chills racing down Zane’s spine. His gaze dipped to Zane’s neck and back to his face. “How are you feeling?”

  “A little sore, a little confused, a little scared, to tell you the truth,” Zane admitted. “And mad.”

  “I’m going to arrange to have Security post someone on your door. You’ll be safe here.”

  Zane had heard that before. He gave a vague nod and waited until Woods had left the room, deep in thought but with a growing sense of conviction.

  He knew what he had to do.

  The closet Woods indicated earlier did indeed hold what was left of his clothing: two black boots, size eleven. That was it. Zane didn’t know if his other clothes had been destroyed when he fell or confiscated by the police to search for fingerprints or some indication of the man who had attacked him on the street and stolen his identity, phone, what have you. He stuck the boots on right over the socks the hospital issued. After grabbing Woods’s card and his own keys off his tray table, he opened the outside door.

  The hall was clear except for a nurse engrossed in entering data into a computer mounted against the wall. Her back was to him. As quietly as he could, he pushed his IV stand the opposite direction, ignoring stiff, aching muscles and a headache he suspected would fell an ox. He’d seen a break room on one of his loops around the hospital floor and he made for that now.

  His luck held. The room sported a table and chairs, a coffeemaker, fridge and
microwave, but no people. He easily removed the IV from his arm and abandoned the stand in a corner. He found a pair of scrubs hanging on a hook and hastily put them on, adding a white lab coat that someone had left draped over the back of a chair. His keys and Woods’s card went into the pocket. The hall was still empty. He knew the elevators were right across from the nurses’ station so he used the stairwell, undoubtedly following the same path the man who had tried to choke him had taken an hour or two earlier. When he opened the door on the lobby floor, he half expected to find a security guard waiting for him, but the cavernous space was almost empty. A second later, he said good-night to the guard on duty at the exit and walked purposefully away from the hospital as though he did so every night of his life.

  Was he really leaving without telling a soul where he was going? Was this what an innocent man did after a murder attempt?

  What else was he supposed to do? Docilely lay back in his bed until his room was surrounded with police and security guards and he might as well tuck himself away in a jail cell?

  No way. Depending on other people didn’t sit well with him, not when the stakes were high and not when another gut feeling told him he knew how to take care of himself. It would be tricky defending himself against an unknown foe. Reason said that tonight was the culmination of something ongoing. He had no recollection of where he’d been or what he’d been doing. The killer would be back unless Zane managed to disappear until his memory returned, and that’s just what he planned to do.

  But where does a man without a penny, without an identity, without a friend in the world, actually go?

  The keys jingled in his pocket as he walked and he took them out as he passed beneath a streetlight. Red Hot. A tractor dealership in Utah. Apparently no one had recognized his photograph. But maybe seeing a living breathing human being would be different.

  If he remembered his geography, Utah was about four states away from New Orleans. A couple of thousand miles or so. It would take days to hitchhike there.

  Well, it wasn’t as though he had anything else to do, was it? He kept walking.

  *

  KINSEY STOOD ON the front porch of the house facing her mother, Frances. The abrupt door opening had caused her to stumble backward in her heels, and now she held on to a flaking post to steady her nerves.

  What a day.

  “Where have you been all night?” Frances demanded. “I called three times. Why are you all dressed up?”

  Kinsey knew she and her mom shared certain similarities in appearance. Both were on the petite side, though Kinsey was a couple of inches taller, both curvy, both with deep brown eyes. Kinsey’s hair was her natural shade of dark brown while Frances had dyed her hair her entire life. Currently reddish-brown, silver roots showed in the center part. Over sixty now, the years had started to show in the lines on her face and the sag in her shoulders. Kinsey had never understood why her mother settled for backbreaking, low-paying employment as she was well read and intelligent. Frances had stressed that no job was more or less noble than another.

  Where they differed was internal: Kinsey open and curious, Frances suspicious and very much a mind-your-own-business woman. Kinsey artistic, sketching her way through life, as proficient at mixing paints as her mother was at whipping up pancake batter.

  “We had a show,” Kinsey said, deciding on the spot to skip the details about the bicycle and the cowboy. “Let’s go inside.”

  “We better not,” Frances said, softly closing the door behind her. She and Kinsey were now almost lost in shadows. Just a sliver of moonlight and the light filtering through a nearby window helped them see each other. “Bill is finally asleep,” she added. “He’s had a tough day and I don’t want to chance waking him and get him coughing again.”

  “Were you waiting for me? I almost had a heart attack when the door opened like that.”

  “I was afraid you were him,” Frances said, glancing behind Kinsey as though expecting someone else to materialize. Kinsey actually looked over her shoulder, but there was no one there that she could see. On the other hand, she couldn’t see much.

  “Him who?” she asked, her mind leaping straight to Ryan. Had he said or done something upsetting? What? What could he possibly say or do? “What’s going on?”

  “It’s Bill’s nephew, Chad. Bill got a note from him saying that he was coming today or tomorrow. I’ve been on edge ever since reading it. Bill doesn’t want him here.”

  “Oh, dear,” Kinsey commiserated. She knew her mom didn’t get along with Chad. “Can you call him and tell him that?”

  “Neither Bill nor I know his phone number. I don’t think he wants anyone to know how to reach him. That way, he can call all the shots. The last time he came, he accused me of stealing Bill’s coin collection. He prowls around here making demands.”

  “Like what?”

  “He wants me to show him all the things he remembers his uncle used to have, things like those coins and stamps and heaven knows what. And when he isn’t taking inventory, he’s eating, and guess who he expects to do all the cooking?”

  “What can I do to help you?” Kinsey asked. For the life of her, she couldn’t think of a darn thing.

  Frances took a deep breath. “When I couldn’t reach you, I called James Fenwick.”

  “Mr. Dodge’s attorney?”

  “Yes. You’ve met him.”

  “Guy about fifty, kind of stuffy?”

  “I wouldn’t describe him that way,” Frances said. “He’s been very kind to Bill. Lately he’s been helping him go through his collection of books.”

  Kinsey could easily picture the room Mr. Dodge used as a bedroom. Every wall was covered with floor-to-ceiling shelves and each of those housed a wide array of books. She felt bad that she’d been less than flattering in her description of James Fenwick and now she mumbled, “That’s very nice of him.”

  “Yes, it is. He’s one of the few considerate people left on the planet. Anyway, Mr. Fenwick is out of town on business, but he’ll come straight here when he drives home tomorrow. He said he’ll leave before dawn.”

  “Good. What if I come by before work just to make sure things are okay until he gets here? Would that help?”

  “Yes. Thank you. I know how busy you are.”

  “I wanted to ask you something, Mom,” Kinsey added. “Do you know a woman named Sherry or Mary Smith?”

  Her mother shook her head. “No. Why?”

  There was no way in the world that Kinsey was going to add more stress to her mother. She omitted the fact that people had been asking about Bill Dodge’s housekeeper—she’d tell her that tomorrow when the poor woman wasn’t so overwhelmed. “No reason. I just heard the name.”

  Frances nodded. “Come early, okay? Bill is better in the morning and always enjoys your visits. And heaven forbid, you don’t want to run into Chad.”

  Though Kinsey had never met Mr. Dodge’s nephew face-to-face, she did know his name was Chad Dodge. If her mother was any judge at all, Chad was a greedy, demanding man. Everyone knew he was set to inherit this house when Bill Dodge died, but apparently he wasn’t content to wait.

  Fatigue dragged at Kinsey as she agreed to be back bright and early in the morning. Her feet in the stacked-heel sandals hurt like blazes, her hair drooped down her sticky neck. Frances stepped back to ease open the front door and listen intently, her profile vivid in the stream of light flowing from within the house. Though still attractive, the years were taking a toll and Kinsey glanced away.

  “I hear Bill coughing,” Frances said. “I have to go.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Kinsey said. “Try not to worry too much.”

  Her mother slipped inside and closed the door behind her. Kinsey heard the slide of the dead bolt. It was a relief to collapse back into her car, start the air conditioner and polish off the now-tepid iced tea.

  Fifteen minutes later, it was an even greater relief to turn onto Hummingbird Drive, a charming name for a decidedly ordinary-looking
road. She pulled into her parking spot behind the house and got out, juggling the apple and banana she hadn’t eaten yet, longing for the privacy of her own space in the apartment above the detached garage and the cool softness of her bed.

  A voice from the shadows made her drop both pieces of fruit and she whirled around to find herself facing a large man. Even as she gasped, he moved into the light and she saw who it was.

  With a hand on her chest, she blinked unbelieving eyes. “Zane?”

  He had knelt to retrieve the fruit. “I didn’t know for sure where you lived,” he said softly as he straightened up. “I knocked at the main house, but no one is home.”

  “My landlord is up fishing in Alaska,” she said. “My place is above the garage.” She couldn’t make sense of his being here. “Why aren’t you in the hospital? You sound funny.” She saw now that he wore hospital scrubs with a white lab coat. That didn’t make any sense, either.

  “I wasn’t followed here,” he said. “I made sure of that.”

  “Followed? What’s going on? Wait, do you remember things about yourself?”

  “No,” he said. “No, that’s not it.” He looked directly into her eyes and her breath caught from his intense gaze that easily penetrated the dim light. “May I come inside for a few minutes?” he asked in that newly hoarse voice.

  She wasn’t sure what to do. It seemed insane to invite a stranger inside her home, especially one twice as big as she was. But she picked up no violent vibes directed her way. “I have to admit I’m curious about what’s going on and why you’re dressed like that, so I’ll bite, come on in.”

  He followed her up the outside stairs and waited while she unlocked the flimsy little lock on her door, which, come to think of it, needed to be changed to a stronger one. When she turned to face him in the light of the room, she gasped again.

  “What happened to your throat?” she asked, eyes wide.

  He didn’t answer immediately. His gaze seemed to fly around the room, from one wall to the next, one painted canvas after another, as though he couldn’t quite take them all in at one time.