With the Material Witness in the Safehouse

by Carla Cassidy

  From the moment he’d arrived in Raven’s Cliff he’d felt an underlying aura of something unsettling. He’d only experienced it once before in his life in a small Louisiana bayou.

  At that time they’d been chasing a schizophrenic man who had kidnapped a six-year-old girl. It had taken only minutes of being in Black Bay to realize that the townspeople appeared to have more secrets than the man they were hunting.

  There had been a happy ending to that situation, and he hoped his hunt for Britta would result in the same kind of ending. With his gun held steady before him, he started up the wrought iron stairs that wound clockwise inside the stone tower.

  “Haunted, it is,” Hazel had said that morning. “If it’s not the ghost of Captain Earl Raven’s wife that haunts the place then it surely is the ghost of Nicholas Sterling who set the curse into motion.”

  “Ghost, my ass,” Ryan muttered to himself. He counted twenty steps before he reached a small landing. He stared upward, but saw nothing, although he heard the scurry of what he assumed were mice. He heard nothing else to cause him alarm, but unexpected tension pressed hard against his chest.

  Fog drifted in the broken windows, tendrils of gray smoke that added to the eerie atmosphere of the abandoned building. He’d just reached the second landing when he heard the echo of something above him. A footfall?

  He tightened his grip on the gun as he entered what he knew was the service area. At one time this room would have held all the lighthouse keeper’s equipment, but now the cabinets that hung on the walls had open doors that displayed empty shelves.

  Above him was the watch room, and around it would be the lookout deck. It had been there that he’d thought he’d seen somebody. He eased up the stairs, his gun leading the way.

  The watch room was empty, but in the dust on the floor he saw bare footprints. Small feet, definitely not a man’s. Did ghosts leave footprints? He didn’t think so.

  He opened the iron door that led to the deck. As he stepped outside, the evening air pressed in, thick and oppressive. The view from this observation point was breathtaking. The ocean pummeled the shore, where rocks jutted upward and glistened with deadly intent.

  Directly across from where he stood was the bluff where a wedding had turned to tragedy. Although a few boats still bobbed in the water below, it looked as if the search-and-rescue operation had been called off for the night.

  He whipped around as he heard a noise to his left. A gasp escaped him as he saw the woman who stood before him. It was obvious that she was naked beneath the gauzy white gown. An intricate shell necklace adorned her pale, slender neck, and her ice-blue eyes seemed to peer right through him.

  “Britta,” he gasped in stunned surprise.

  “Have you come to take me back to the sea?” Her Norwegian accent was thicker than he’d ever heard. That fact, coupled with the otherworldly look in her eyes as she smiled at him caused a wave of horror to roar through him.

  “Britta, it’s me, Ryan.” He quickly holstered his weapon and took a step closer to her.

  “Please, sir, take me back to the sea.” With a tiny sigh her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed at his feet.

  Chapter Two

  Britta dreamed of the sea, of being deep below the surface in the silence of the underworld. The warm water surrounded her, and she felt as safe, as secure as if she were a baby in her mother’s womb.

  However the secure feeling disappeared as the water around her became icy cold and turbulent, tossing her weightless body like a leaf in a water-swelled gutter. The water that had moments before embraced her now imprisoned her, pressing against her chest as if to squeeze the very life from her.

  She looked up and saw the surface far above her, knew that she needed to get there before the sea choked the last gasp of life from her.

  She struggled against the mysterious force that tried to keep her down, panic rising as she moved her arms and legs as fast, as hard as she could.

  The sea wanted her. She was to be a sacrifice. The words pounded in her head, but she didn’t know what they meant. She cried as she swam up…up…needing air, wanting life. When she broke the surface, she cried out.

  And woke up.

  For a moment panic seared through her as she realized she didn’t know where she was or how she’d gotten here.

  The panic didn’t subside when she saw that she was in a hospital bed. Frantically she moved her arms, her legs, to make certain that everything worked all right. A touch of the terror ebbed. Everything appeared to work just fine and she was in no pain.

  She turned her head toward the window where the morning sun streaked in, and stifled a small gasp as she saw a man sleeping in the chair next to the window, a newspaper on his chest.

  His buzz-cut, sun-streaked brown hair glinted in the sunlight. Even in sleep his lean features looked stern and slightly dangerous. His face had character lines that let her know he wasn’t a young man, probably in his thirties.

  Who was he? Why was he here in her hospital room? And why was she in a hospital?

  A new panic gripped her as she tried to remember what had happened the day before. Had she been in a car accident? Had she taken a bad fall?

  She tried to remember, desperately wanted to remember, but there was nothing. Her mind was a blank slate. The last memory she had was going into her office at the hotel to take care of some paperwork.

  Her job. Whatever had happened to her that had put her here, she hoped it hadn’t jeopardized her job as an assistant manager for the upscale Boston hotel, the Woodlands. The job had been a real coup for her after finishing her degree in hotel management.

  At that moment the man’s eyes snapped opened. “Britta.” Earthy green eyes stared at her as he stood and approached the side of her bed. “You’re awake,” he said, stating the obvious. “How are you feeling?”

  She clutched the sheet more tightly against her chest. “Okay, I guess. Who are you?”

  A deep frown ripped across his tanned forehead. “You don’t recognize me?” He stepped closer to the side of the bed.

  He had a wonderful voice, deep and resonating with the hint of a cowboy accent. But, there was nothing cowboy about him. His black slacks clung to long, lean legs and his short-sleeved white shirt exposed strong arm muscles and stretched across his broad shoulders.

  His expression told her she should recognize him. Perhaps he was a hotel guest that she’d met. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember. Have we met before? Are you a guest at the hotel?”

  She wouldn’t have thought it possible for his frown to deepen, but it did. His eyes searched her features for so long she grew even more anxious.

  “My name is Ryan Burton.” He took yet another step closer to her and she smelled the scent of him, a clean masculine scent with a hint of spice. It was oddly familiar. “Are you sure you don’t recognize me?”

  “I’m sorry. I…did I hit my head? Is that why I’m here?” It was her turn to frown. Why, oh, why couldn’t she remember?

  “Do you know what day it is?”

  “Of course,” she replied, and then frowned again thoughtfully. She remembered specifically that yesterday had been October 30. The hotel had been bedecked with fall decorations, and a Halloween gala had been planned for the next evening. She’d been in charge of the festivities, and her boss had been pleased with her arrangements.

  “Today is Halloween,” she finally said.

  His expression radiated shock. “I’m going to go get your doctor and let him know you’re conscious. I’ll be right back.”

  When he left the room, Britta slid her legs over the side of the bed, surprised by the general weakness that gripped her body. She drew a deep breath.

  It had been obvious from Ryan’s face when she’d told him the date that she’d been wrong. The newspaper that he’d set on the chair when he’d gotten up should tell her how far off she’d been. Maybe she’d been unconscious for longer than a day.

  She was shocked to find herself complet
ely naked beneath the blue floral hospital gown. She clutched the back of the garment closed as she rose unsteadily to her feet.

  I’m as weak as a baby, she thought as she reached the chair and grabbed the newspaper. She clutched it to her chest and returned to the safety of the bed. Drawing another deep breath, exhausted by the short foray, she pushed the button that would raise the head of the bed, then opened the newspaper.

  Raven’s Cliff Daily News. The bold black letters marched around the top of the paper. Raven’s Cliff? Where was that? She’d never heard of such a place.

  The headline screamed in even bigger letters. Tragedy on Raven’s Cliff bluff—Bride Still Missing. She scanned the story quickly, shocked to read that a bride-to-be had fallen off some sort of bluff just moments before exchanging her wedding vows.

  She glanced at the tiny print beneath the name of the paper, a startled gasp escaping her as she read the date, May 3.

  May? How was that possible? The last thing she remembered was a day in October. Where had the months gone and why couldn’t she remember?

  Maybe the newspaper was fake, one of those silly ones people could pay to have printed up. But why would somebody print up a paper detailing the tragedy of a bride falling off a cliff? Or maybe it was a paper from last May.

  Frantic, she looked up as the man named Ryan and another tall blonde in a doctor’s coat entered the room. “Is this true?” she asked. “Is the date May third?”

  “Hi, I’m Dr. Jamison.” The doctor pulled up the chair next to her bed and sat. “And yes, the date today is May third. What date did you think it was?”

  Britta was afraid to answer, knowing that her reply would let the doctor know just how messed up she really was. “Halloween,” she said in a faint voice. “The last day that I remember was the day before Halloween.”

  A wrinkle raced across Dr. Jamison’s forehead. “Can you tell me your name?”

  “Of course. Britta Jakobsen. Now, please, tell me what’s happened. Why am I in the hospital? Have I been sick? Maybe in a coma?” That would explain the missing time.

  “Last night I found you wandering the old lighthouse here in town. You were dressed in a white gown and were wearing a seashell necklace,” Ryan said. “You fainted and I brought you here.”

  His words did nothing to alleviate the fear and confusion in her head. Wandering a lighthouse? What on earth was going on? “And where, exactly is here?”

  “Raven’s Cliff Clinic,” the doctor replied. “In Raven’s Cliff, Maine.”

  Maine? What was she doing here? She’d never been to Maine in her life. Her work, her apartment, everything she knew was in Boston. “Please, tell me what’s happened to me?” She looked at the doctor, then at Ryan, then back again to the doctor, a frantic panic surging up inside her.

  Dr. Jamison frowned and reached out for her hand. She’d thought he’d meant to offer comfort, but instead he placed his fingertips against her rapidly beating pulse. “I can’t tell you what’s happened to bring you here, but I can tell you that your vital signs are all good. The tests we’ve run on you show no indication of trauma or illness. However, an initial toxicology screen showed something interesting.”

  “Interesting how?” Ryan asked and took a step closer, and once again Britta was struck by the fact that the clean, but subtle spicy scent of his cologne seemed intimately familiar to her.

  She wondered in the back of her mind how well they had known each other? But she couldn’t think about that right now. There were other, more-pressing issues to be concerned about, like what had happened to her and how she’d ended up in Raven’s Cliff, Maine.

  The doctor looked at Ryan, then back at her. “There’s a privacy issue involved here. Would you prefer that Mr. Burton leave the room while I speak with you about your condition?”

  Britta had no idea who Ryan Burton was and why he had apparently spent the night in her room, but the idea of him leaving her all alone scared her almost as much as anything the doctor might say to her.

  “No. Whatever you have to say you can speak freely with Mr. Burton here,” she replied. Privacy be damned, she didn’t want to be alone.

  Dr. Jamison released her hand and sat back in his chair. “I found traces in your system of a new designer drug that’s springing up in the area. I believe the street name for it is Stinging Flower.”

  “That’s impossible,” Britta exclaimed. “I don’t take drugs.”

  “There were three fresh injection sites on your thigh,” Dr. Jamison said. “If you didn’t willingly take it, then somebody gave it to you.”

  “What is it? What does it do?” Ryan asked.

  The world seemed to tilt on its axis for Britta. She’d lost seven months of her life, was in a town where she didn’t belong and had been injected with some kind of new drug. Tears pressed hotly at her eyes, but she swallowed against them, refusing to allow either man to see her cry.

  “We don’t know a lot about it yet. All we know for sure is that the drug contains a derivative of the stinging cells of the anemone.”

  “What’s an anemone?” Britta asked. She reached up and twisted a finger in a strand of her hair, the rhythmic motion somewhat calming.

  “They’re sea animals that usually live on rocks and in the sand and look like flowers,” Dr. Jamison explained. “They’re armed with a toxin that paralyzes their prey, and it seems some illustrious person has managed to get those toxins into a new street drug.”

  “But she wasn’t paralyzed when I found her,” Ryan protested. “She was walking around, although it was like she was in a daze.”

  “Apparently, the street drug has a number of other components to it and one of the effects is that while it doesn’t paralyze, it does put the person under the influence into a state of high suggestibility.”

  “You mean, like a hypnotic trance?” Ryan asked.

  The doctor nodded and once again gazed at Britta. “And I would attribute your state of amnesia to the residual effects of the drugs combined with some sort of emotional trauma.”

  “Is the amnesia permanent?” She was afraid of his answer. She dropped her hand from her hair and instead clutched tightly to the sheet that covered her.

  “My professional opinion is I don’t know.” He offered her a smile of apology. “My personal opinion is that probably not. I think if you give your body and your mind some time to rest, time to recover, eventually your memory will probably return. Even though we’re a small clinic with limited resources, I’d like to keep you here under observation for another twenty-four hours.”

  She wanted to protest, but then she remembered how weak she’d been when she’d left the bed to retrieve the newspaper. She nodded her assent reluctantly and then added, “But I need to make some phone calls, to check on my job and see what’s happened with my apartment.”

  “I’ll leave you two alone for now.” Dr. Jamison stood and smiled at Britta. “I’ll have somebody bring you in a breakfast tray.”

  “I’m really not hungry,” she protested.

  Dr. Jamison shot her a sympathetic look as he headed for the door, then stopped and wagged a finger at her. “You have to eat. It’s important that you take care of yourself.”

  Ryan followed the doctor to the door. “I’m going to have a chat with Dr. Jamison, then we need to have a long talk.”

  There was an intensity in those lush green eyes of his that made her want to run and hide. She had a horrible feeling that the bad news wasn’t finished yet.

  “YOU KNOW her name isn’t Britta,” Ryan told the doctor as the two men walked down the hallway. It was imperative that Ryan guard her real identity, so when he’d brought her in he’d checked her in as Valerie King. “Her name is Valerie King, and she isn’t from Boston but Chicago.”

  Dr. Jamison frowned. “Then it’s possible she’s suffering some false memory issue from the drug. What’s your relationship to her?”

  “A close personal friend. She doesn’t have any family. I’m all she has. Four days ago
she was supposed to call me when she got settled here in Raven’s Cliff. When she didn’t call and I couldn’t get in touch with her, I decided to come and see what was going on. I arrived yesterday in town just in time to help with the search for Camille Wells.”

  Dr. Jamison grimaced and shook his head. “Terrible tragedy. Last I heard they haven’t found her body yet. The mayor and his wife are absolutely beside themselves with grief.”

  Ryan remembered that brief moment when he’d seen money pass between the mayor and another man. It had struck him as being odd at the time. There had been something covert about the exchange, but in the wake of Camille’s stumble off the bluff, it had been forgotten until this moment.

  Even now he wasted no time or thought on the mayor or the tragic wedding ceremony. “There’s nothing more you can do for Valerie? Nothing to help with the amnesia?”

  “I think she’s suffering a temporary fugue state, but I can’t give you any real prognosis. The brain is a complicated thing. Add in a drug that we know little about and don’t know how to counteract, and there’s not much we can do.”

  “You’ve seen this drug before?”

  “Only twice.” Dr. Jamison glanced at his watch, then looked back at Ryan. “Both times the victims, if you will, were college girls who had been at keg parties. They were brought in by friends who got scared.” He shook his head. “Booze and stupidity are a dangerous combination.”

  “Valerie is neither a drinker nor stupid,” Ryan replied. “I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t release any information about her being here or anything else about her condition. Until we know what’s happened to her and who might be responsible, I’d prefer nobody know she’s been found and under what circumstances.”

  “I would have no reason to release any information, and I’ll make sure my nurse understands that, as well.” Dr. Jamison glanced at his watch once again. “I’m sorry, I’ve got other patients waiting. I’ll check in with you later this afternoon.”