With the Material Witness in the Safehouse

by Carla Cassidy

  Ryan watched the doctor walk down the hallway, then pulled a cell phone from his pocket. He had arrangements to make for Britta. He had no idea what had happened to her, who had drugged her, but her safety was paramount.

  With the phone call made and plans in progress, he walked back toward Britta’s room, dreading the conversation he was about to have with her.

  When he stepped back into the room, her head was turned toward the window and a shaft of sunlight shone on her platinum hair. His fingers itched, remembering the silkiness of those strands.

  She didn’t remember him. Somehow her mind had erased the past seven months. That meant she didn’t remember the shooting she’d witnessed. She had no memory of being a material witness, living her life before the trial in a safehouse with him as her handler.

  She didn’t remember that their relationship had become far more than FBI agent and witness. She didn’t remember that they had become lovers.

  She turned her head then, as if sensing his presence as he entered the room. “You doing okay?” he asked.

  “Of course I’m not,” she replied with a slight edge to her voice.

  “You haven’t touched your breakfast,” he said, noting the tray that had apparently been delivered while he was speaking to Dr. Jamison.

  “I can’t eat. My head aches from trying to figure out what’s happened to me in the past seven months.” She reached up and grabbed a strand of her hair, twisting it around her finger in what he knew was a nervous gesture.

  Ryan sat in the chair next to the bed. “I can help fill in some of those blanks for you.” He tried to figure out the kindest way to tell her of the path her life had taken since the night she last remembered, and decided a direct approach was best. “There is no job for you to worry about back in Boston,” he said. “Nor is there an apartment for you to return to.”

  She stared at him as if he’d spoken a foreign language. A pulse beat along the side of her neck and he remembered exactly what her skin tasted like there. It was an unwanted memory that he consciously shoved away.

  “Tell me,” she demanded, and pulled her hand from her hair. “Tell me what happened. What I remember is that my life was on track, that I’d landed the job I’d dreamed of and my future looked bright. What happened to bring me here?”

  Her Norwegian accent came through strong again, a sure sign of the stress she was under. “What you remember is right, but the night before Halloween all of that changed. That night you witnessed a shoot-out between several FBI agents and members of a sophisticated but deadly street gang. One of our agents died that night, and you were instrumental in testifying against some of the guilty parties.” He paused to allow her time to digest what he’d told her so far.

  “So you’re an FBI agent?”

  He nodded. “And I was your personal handler, the man who was assigned to keep you safe between the time of the shooting and the trial. Despite one attempt on your life, we managed to get you safely through the process, but because several of the gang members who were still out on the streets had promised retribution, we encouraged you to enter the Witness Protection Program.”

  She raised a trembling hand to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear and once again gazed out the window. Ryan remained silent, unwilling to give her more information until she indicated she was ready for more.

  She finally turned to face him once again, her blue eyes glinting with the strength he’d come to admire in her during the time they’d been together. “So, how did I come to be here in Raven’s Cliff?”

  “This was to be your new home. Your new identity was of Valerie King, a twenty-six-year-old woman from Chicago. You arrived here in Raven’s Cliff Tuesday and were supposed to begin work as a housekeeper in the local inn on Wednesday morning. Your current handler, Michael Kelly, tried to call you, and when he couldn’t get an answer and you didn’t return his calls, he informed me that we might have lost you.”

  “So you came here from Boston to find me?” she asked. He nodded.

  “Kelly was in the middle of another assignment and couldn’t get away.”

  “And you found me at the top of a lighthouse.” She rubbed dainty fingers across the center of her forehead, as if in an attempt to ease a headache. “So, what happens now?”

  “I’ve arranged to take you to a safehouse when you’re released tomorrow.”

  Her eyes, always a window to her thoughts, displayed a hint of distrust. “How do I know you are who you say you are? How do I know that anything you’re telling me is true?”

  Her questions pleased him. They proved to him that, despite the amnesia, her brain was working well. He grabbed his wallet from his pants and pulled out his official Bureau identification. “I’ll get some documentation to bring to you later this afternoon that will support everything I’ve told you.”

  She handed the identification back to him, her gaze holding his intently. “I’m afraid.” The words were just a whisper. “I feel so alone. Can I trust you, Ryan Burton?”

  “With your very life,” he replied.

  She drew a deep breath. “I’m tired now. I think I’ll take a nap.”

  “I’ll be back later this afternoon.” He stood and wished he could take the fear out of her eyes, pull her into his arms and assure her everything was going to be all right. Instead he murmured a goodbye and left the room.

  He’d just stepped out of the clinic when his cell phone rang. His caller identification indicated it was Michael Kelly.

  “How is she?” Kelly asked.

  “Physically she appears to be okay but she’s suffering from amnesia.”

  “Amnesia? You mean, like she doesn’t know who she is?”

  Ryan headed to his rental car. “She knows who she is, but she doesn’t remember the shooting, the trial or anything else that’s happened in the past seven months of her life.”

  “Wow. So, she can’t tell you where she’s been for the past four days?”

  “She has no clue.” Ryan reached his car and got inside.

  “Is this amnesia permanent?”

  “The doctor doesn’t know. He thinks it might have been tied to a drug she was apparently given.”

  “You need me to come out there?” Kelly asked.

  “Not right now. At the moment she’s still in the clinic. What I do need you to do is see what you can find out about a new designer drug, street name Stinging Flower.”

  “Stinging Flower. Got it,” Kelly replied. “What are your plans?”

  “I’m getting Britta settled into a safehouse here in town.” Ryan tightened his grip on the cell phone. “Then I’m going to do a little investigating and see what I can find out about where she’s been for the last four days and who administered the drug to her. Something isn’t right here in Raven’s Cliff. I feel it in my bones.”

  “You’ll keep me informed?” Kelly asked.

  “Of course,” Ryan replied, then the two men said their goodbyes and hung up.

  Ryan sat behind the steering wheel and gazed up to the second-floor window that was Britta’s clinic room. Have you come to take me back to the sea?

  A chill walked up his spine as he thought of Britta in that gauzy white dress with the shell necklace around her neck and the blank look in her eyes. What had her words meant? Where had she been for the past four days, and who had injected her with a hypnotic drug?

  When he’d first heard she was missing, he feared that a member of the gang had somehow found her and delivered on their promise of retribution. He no longer believed that. If a member of the Boston Gentlemen had found her, she’d certainly be dead.

  It would have been easier if she weren’t suffering from amnesia. He put his key into the ignition and started the car.

  In one way the amnesia was something of a blessing. She wouldn’t remember that he was the man who’d kept her safe for months, but she also wouldn’t remember that he was the man who had broken her heart.

  Chapter Three

  “I don’t understan
d how I can know that my parents immigrated to New England when I was thirteen years old, that my first-grade teacher’s name was Mrs. Zoller and that I wore a navy blue dress to my high school prom, but I can’t remember what’s happened over the past seven months of my life.” Britta released a sigh of frustration and twisted a strand of her hair around her index finger.

  “You heard what the doctor told you—don’t try to push it, and hopefully your memory will eventually return,” Ryan said as he turned the steering wheel to make a left-hand turn.

  She released her hair and cast him a surreptitious glance. He’d shown up this morning at the clinic with newspaper articles, clippings and official documents to substantiate everything he’d told her the day before.

  She’d read about the shooting in Boston, about testifying at the trial and had finally agreed to go with him to the safehouse. She really had no other choice. She wasn’t sure whom she could trust, but Ryan Burton had the right credentials and she felt as if she had little other choice.

  “Where is this place you’re taking me?” she asked.

  “A little bungalow down by the docks.”

  She frowned and turned her attention out the window. The skies were overcast and the streets were still fairly deserted due to the early morning hour. The shops they passed looked quaint and inviting, but an unexpected shiver whispered up her spine. “Wouldn’t it be better if we just left this place altogether?”

  She didn’t know whether the chill came from the knowledge that she had no memory, that she was in the company of a man she didn’t know if she could trust or if it came from the gray-shrouded little fishing village itself. All she knew was she had an overwhelming desire to escape, but escape where?

  Ryan shot her a quick glance, his intense green eyes giving nothing away of his inner thoughts. “We can’t leave here until I know for sure where you’ve been and what happened to you in those missing four days.”

  “You’re worried about the last four days of my life and I’m missing months,” she replied dryly.

  He pulled into the driveway of a tiny pale blue cottage with yellow trim. He parked in front of the detached garage, then unfastened his seat belt and turned to look at her once again.

  “I’m not particularly worried about the months you can’t remember because I know where you were and what you were doing for most of that time. But you came here and promptly disappeared. Somebody gave you a drug that has a hypnotic effect and we don’t know who or, more important, why. The answers to those questions are here and we’re not leaving until we have them.”

  She could drown in his eyes, the green depths pulling her in. She broke eye contact with him and rubbed a hand across her forehead where a headache pounded with unrelenting madness.

  “Let’s get settled in,” he said.

  Together they got out of the car and he led her to a side door. He unlocked the door and they entered into a small kitchen. The blue and yellow colors of the exterior continued here with yellow curtains at the window and blue-and-yellow tiles on the floor.

  It was a cheerful room, but the cheerfulness couldn’t ease the edge of disquiet that fluttered through her. She was putting her trust in a man she couldn’t remember, staying in a town where something had happened to her that she knew in her soul hadn’t been good.

  What’s more, even though she didn’t remember Ryan, just looking at him evoked an edge of something she couldn’t quite identify…a tension of sorts that had nothing to do with the situation but everything to do with the man.

  Wanting to explore the place she would call home for at least the next couple of days, she left the kitchen and entered into the small living room.

  Once again the floor was tiled, probably because of the close proximity to the ocean and the sandy beaches. The furniture was simple, a sofa and love seat in dark beige, wooden coffee table and an entertainment unit holding a television and several ragged paperback novels.

  The hallway led to a bathroom and one small bedroom with a double bed and a dresser. The walls were a cool summer green, complemented by the green-and-white spread on the bed.

  “You can have this room and I’ll bunk on the sofa,” Ryan said from behind her.

  She turned to face him. “Who owns this place?”

  “A young couple who comes here for a month in the summer and rents it out the rest of the year. For the next three months the FBI has rented it.”

  “Three months? Surely we won’t be here that long.” She felt as if she’d already lost so much of her life. She didn’t want to lose another three months. But when this was all over, where would she begin her new life? She raised a hand to her head once again where her headache had intensified.

  “Headache?” he asked. She gave him a small nod and thought she saw a flash of sympathy darken his eyes. “Why don’t you lie down for a little while? I’ve got phone calls to make, and once you feel better, we’ll talk about how things are going to go here.”

  At the moment lying down sounded like a wonderful idea. She hadn’t realized how weak she still was until this moment. The bed looked inviting, and at least if she took a little nap, she wouldn’t have to worry about the fact that she couldn’t remember her immediate past and had no idea what her future held.

  As Ryan left the bedroom, Britta stretched out on the bed. She lay on her back and stared up at the ceiling, trying to process everything she knew, but finding it impossible not to dwell on all the things she didn’t know.

  She wasn’t even wearing her own clothes. Ryan had arrived at the clinic that morning with a bag of clothing from a nearby discount store. Although the underclothes had been the right size, the sweatpants and sweatshirt were far too big and an ugly color, not quite yellow and not quite green.

  With a sigh she closed her eyes. The dream began before she realized she’d fallen asleep. She saw herself in a long white gown. An intricate necklace of seashells lay heavy around her neck.

  The sand was warm beneath her feet as she walked the shore. The moon overhead was full, illuminating the tumultuous waves with a ghostly light.

  The sea called to her, wanting her to come home. She walked toward the water, unable to fight the siren song that sang in her head, urging her forward.

  She barely felt the salty water that embraced first her feet, then her legs, although she gasped slightly as it reached her waist and then her chest. She continued to walk until the water was up to her neck, then her chin, then finally over her head.

  There was no panic, nothing except a strange calm acceptance that this was where she was supposed to be. The sea was her destiny.

  It wasn’t until she was deep beneath the surface where the moon no longer shone that panic first stirred in her. Her heart pounded as she realized she couldn’t breathe. Her lungs began to burn and she tried to swim up, but anemones in various shapes and colors wrapped around her and held her in place. She fought, thrashing her arms and legs in an attempt to escape.

  “Britta!”

  The deep voice pulled her from the dream, and her eyes snapped open to see Ryan sitting on the edge of the bed. For just a moment it seemed completely natural for him to be on the bed with her, and that only added to her confusion.

  He stood, every muscle in his body rigid as he shoved his hands into his pocket. “You must have been having a nightmare. You were crying out.”

  She sat up and tried to remember her dream, but it slipped away as full consciousness returned. “I’m sorry.” She worried a hand through her hair. “How long was I asleep?”

  “About an hour. How’s the headache?”

  “Better.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood.

  “I fixed lunch. Are you hungry?” he asked as they left the bedroom.

  She nodded, surprised to discover that she was hungry. The catered clinic food had been abysmal, so she didn’t know when the last time was that she’d had a good meal.

  He pointed her to a chair at the table where he’d already set plates and sil
verware, then went to the refrigerator and pulled out a bowl of pasta salad. He set it in the middle of the table, then returned to the fridge for a platter of cold cuts. “It’s nothing elaborate.”

  “It looks good.”

  He handed her a bottle of diet soda, then poured himself a glass of milk. It was disconcerting that he knew her well enough to know what she’d want to drink, and yet she couldn’t remember a darn thing about him.

  “We need to go by the inn and get my things,” she said once he was settled in the chair opposite her. “I’m assuming I arrived here in town with at least a suitcase.”

  “I don’t want to do that,” he replied. “I bought you some extra clothes and I’ll get you whatever else you need.”

  She frowned. “I don’t understand. Why can’t I just get my own things?” Maybe the familiarity of her own clothes would jog something in her memory.

  “Right now the only person who knows that you’ve been found is the doctor and a nurse or two. I don’t want anyone else to know because I intend to ask questions about you, questions that will hopefully make somebody nervous enough to show themselves.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then we find out just what in the hell happened to you over those four days.”

  An unexpected chill walked up her spine. She wasn’t at all sure she wanted to know what had happened to her.

  RYAN SHOULD NEVER HAVE gone into the bedroom when he’d heard her crying out. Seeing Britta lying on the bed had brought back a rush of memories he’d tried hard to forget. Even now, as he sat across the table from her, those memories of making love with her lit a simmering flame in the pit of his stomach.

  She’d been a wildly passionate lover, a woman comfortable with her own body and equally comfortable with his. They’d been holed up in a duplex for months and there had been few places in that tiny space that they hadn’t made love.

  He cast her a surreptitious glance. She picked at the pasta salad as if finding it nearly unpalatable. “You know, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it,” he said. “I’m not exactly a master chef.”