by Rebecca York
He began to tick them off, until she stopped him again. She didn’t know many of the places he’d named.
She switched from geography to biology—to a question she could answer herself. “What’s a Coleoptera?”
“An order of insects that includes beetles and weevils, the largest ordinal group in the animal kingdom.”
“Where were you born?” she threw into the list.
He hesitated for several seconds, then shook his head.
“Can you multiply forty-two by three hundred and seven in your head?” she asked quickly
“Yes.”
She flirted with a little grin as she realized the question was too literal. “What’s the answer?”
“Twelve thousand, eight hundred and ninety-four.”
Without pencil and paper, she’d have to take his word for it. Instead, she made up a word problem. “And if one man digging a ditch can complete the project in six days, how long will it take three men to do the job?”
“Two days.”
“I’m impressed.”
“Why? That was an easy question. Ask me about rowboats going down the river at five miles an hour when the current is moving at six miles an hour in the opposite direction.”
She laughed. “I always hated that kind of problem.”
“I like math.”
“You have math classes?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the first thing you remember about your life here?”
“Watching Swinton and Anderson in the research center.” His face hardened, and he didn’t elaborate.
She hated to get into deeper water, yet she wanted to trigger memories—and emotional responses. “When was the first time Beckton hit you?
“He slapped my face—on the rifle range. He was angry because I failed a qualification test, but I missed the target because somebody had bent the gunsight.”
“Who would do that?”
“Someone who wants to stop Project Sandstorm.”
“Who?”
He shrugged.
“How do you know?” she demanded
“Things happen. Colonel Emerson gets angry and announces new procedures.”
“What other things have happened?” she demanded.
“A man was killed. The chief of security. His name was Fenton.”
She drew in a sharp breath. “How was he killed?”
“I heard them talking about it. He fell off a roof. Winslow thought he was pushed. And McCourt took over,” he added.
So that was why a guy in his thirties had such an important position, she thought as she struggled to take in the implications.
“Do you know anything else about it?”
When he shook his head, she sighed. He might not have any more information about the security chief, but his own life was a different matter. “The incident with the gun? When did it happen? A year ago? Months?”
“Time. . . I did not think about time at first,” he answered slowly. “I think it was some months ago.”
Her mind was starting to overload. She had wanted information about him, about this place. But his simple answers were providing more than she could handle.
Who was he? What was his background? How had he ended up at Stratford Creek? In her mind, she replayed the scene when he had first come out of the shower. He had been all lean muscle and sinew, and unblemished skin, except for the recent injuries. If he’d been a criminal before coming here, it didn’t show.
“Your face looks strange. What thoughts are in your mind?” he asked.
She felt herself blush. “I was remembering how your body looked after your shower.”
“Why does that make your face red?”
“Social conventions,” she answered. “It’s not exactly polite to think about another person with no clothes on—and admit it to them.”
“I think about you that way.”
“Oh.” She flushed again and fumbled for another topic. “Tell me about your assignment.”
He didn’t answer.
“What are you supposed to do?” she asked, her hand tightening on his arm.
“I cannot talk about that.”
“Why?”
His gaze slid away from hers, and she sensed that he didn’t want to tell her the answer.
“You must go,” he said suddenly.
“Why?”
“You should not be with me. Alone. You will get into trouble.”
“How do you know that?”
“The same way I knew about Major Fenton. I hear people talk. I listen to what they say. Granger and Winslow were laughing about your assignment checking personnel records. Winslow called it shoveling chicken shit.”
She nodded. Probably they talked in front of him quite a bit without realizing how much he was taking in.
“Dr. Kolb will come back.”
“Where is he?”
“He was called away. I was waiting for him. You came instead.”
She wondered if someone had sent the doctor a note—like the one she had received.
“Go,” Hunter said.
She raised her face toward his. “Do you want me to leave?”
A shadow crossed his eyes. “I made the mistake of wanting something from you before.”
The look and the words made her heart squeeze. In this little room, she had created the illusion of privacy. Just as she’d imagined they wouldn’t be disturbed in the locker room.
But the same conditions prevailed as the last time they’d talked. Someone could come in at any time. It might be Dr. Kolb. It might be McCourt. Or even a security team with tranquilizer guns. And this time Hunter wouldn’t be the only target. This time she’d get a reprimand—or worse—for disobeying Emerson’s orders.
In the locker room, she had told Hunter she would help him. With all her heart, she longed to assure him that none of the unspeakable things they’d done to him would ever happen again. More than that, she wanted to tell him that she would help him get his memory back. That he would be whole again. Yet she’d come to realize that she couldn’t say any of that. If she gave him assurances, they might be a lie. And the worst thing she could do was lie to him.
“If you are my friend, Kathryn Kelley, please go away!” he said again, his voice harsh.
She knew he was right—at least for now. She allowed herself only a quick squeeze of his shoulder. Unable to look into his eyes, she turned and hurried across the little room, but she felt his gaze burning into her back all the way to the door.
By the time she had left the building, she had decided. She was going to force a confrontation with Emerson, because he was the only one with the authority to make a difference in Hunter’s situation.
Climbing into her car, she barreled off. After half a block, she slowed her pace, reminding herself again that it would be stupid to charge half-cocked into the office of the Chief of Operations. She had to understand her goals and then think clearly about what she wanted to say.
Pulling under the shade of a maple tree, she made a concerted effort to bring her breathing back to normal. When she reached into her pocketbook for a tissue, she found the medical forms.
Stupid, she thought. Very stupid.
Climbing out of the car, she returned to the medical center. When the nurse at the front desk looked up inquiringly, she slapped the papers onto the desk. “I forgot these.”
Thirty seconds later, she was out of the building again and looking up and down the sidewalk to see if anyone was watching. Luck seemed to be with her. Keeping her pace steady, she walked back to her car. What she wanted was to give Hunter back a normal life. However, she suspected the Chief of Operations didn’t give a damn about that. He and the rest of the staff thought of Hunter as the subject of an experiment. They were training him for a dangerous assignment, and they wanted her to help make sure he completed it successfully. Somehow, she had to make it seem as if her private agenda meshed with her official duties.
And maybe she had an ally, she th
ought, as she remembered the note. Someone who had been willing to give her the gift of a few minutes alone with Hunter. She considered the senior staff, pondering the possibilities, but could come up with no obvious candidates. Some of them seemed in favor of her working with Hunter. Some had voiced opposition. But she couldn’t be absolutely sure which men were revealing their real feelings and which ones were secretly glad she’d been assigned to shoveling chicken shit. The only thing she knew for sure was that whoever had left the note was afraid to come out into the open.
Which only reinforced the growing realization that both she and Hunter were in a precarious position. Every contact with him made her surer that the story about his criminal background was a convenient fiction. If she operated on that premise, the logical way to help him was to bring back his buried memories by finding touchstones to his past and using them to trigger remembered responses. And if they’d made it impossible for him to remember his past life, teaching him about social norms would help him cope when he finally got out of this place.
The plan had a certain elegance, and she found herself with a genuine smile on her face for the first time since she’d arrived at Stratford Creek.
She took it as a good omen when she stepped into the anteroom to Emerson’s office and saw that the tough-as-nails secretary was away from her desk.
“Sir?” she called, as she knocked on his door. “Mr. Emerson, I need to speak to you. And—”
The door flew open, and she found herself facing Chip McCourt.
Their gazes locked, and she thought for a moment that he was going to bar her way. Instead, he stepped aside and ushered her into Emerson’s office.
“Did you get my message?” the man behind the desk asked.
She came to a jerky stop two feet inside the room. Was Emerson the one who’d left the note on her car? As soon as the idea surfaced, she dismissed it as wishful thinking. If he’d wanted to contact her secretly, he’d hardly be talking about it in front of McCourt.
Without waiting for a reply, the Chief of Operations waved her toward one of the guest chairs. “I received an updated copy of your clearance this morning he said, thumping a folder that sat in the middle of his desk blotter. We’ve been trying to track you down so we could discuss your assignment.”
“Good,” she answered, striving for composure as she lowered herself into the seat. She’d come prepared to do battle. Now she needed to tone down her approach.
“You were supposed to be working on performance appraisals. Where were you?” McCourt asked.
She turned toward him, made eye contact. “Dropping off my medical forms.”
He nodded curtly, and she was sure he was going to check up on her. Thank God she’d remembered to leave the forms.
“The senior staff have been discussing how you might instill some of the social graces in . . . Hunter,” Emerson said. “Dr. Kolb picked up on what you said at the meeting about most individuals learning to interact with other people in a home environment.”
Kathryn tried to conceal her surprise. “Dr. Kolb?” she asked.
“He wondered if you’d be willing to take on that role with our subject.”
“What role, exactly?” she asked cautiously.
“Providing a home-like atmosphere for him. I’ve been studying your professional background carefully, and I see you have a very impressive record with delinquents and other troubled teenagers. And you did an internship as a house mother at an inner-city home for runaways.
“Yes.”
“In many ways, Hunter is like an undisciplined teenager. At least in his emotional development. I think you could be very effective with him.”
“I hope so,” she responded, still trying to figure out where he was headed.
“What if we moved him into the guest cottage where you’re already living? You could have access to him before and after the regular training day and when he has a break from other activities. Socialization lessons might fit naturally into that kind of arrangement.”
She tried not to goggle. Emerson was offering her more than she would have dared to ask for.
“That sounds like a very effective arrangement,” she managed. “I’d be able to teach social skills and reinforce them over an extended period.”
“Don’t minimize the risk to yourself,” McCourt interjected. “We can give you a beeper to sound an alarm if you get into trouble. And we can have men stationed near the house. But we can’t guarantee he won’t fly off the handle.”
“Hunter won’t hurt me,” she said with conviction. She’d just given him the perfect opportunity to assault her, and he’d acted with a lot more civility than the security forces “And if guards are looking over our shoulders, we won’t make much progress.” She thought for a moment, remembering the comments about the surveillance system in the locker room being disabled. “And no microphones either.”
Emerson looked uncomfortable. “Okay,” he agreed in a flat voice.
McCourt gave her a wry look but said nothing. Probably he thought she was being foolish. Perhaps she was pushing her luck. But she wanted the arrangement to work, and she knew that their interaction would be stilted if they had an audience.
“Of course, I’d want to see some quantifiable progress,” Emerson interjected. “I’d want a report from you on my desk after the first week.”
“A week isn’t much time,” she countered.
“I insist on results. Or we try another approach.”
Beat socialization into him? Drown him until he saw things their way? She refrained from asking the sarcastic questions.
She wasn’t sure if she’d won a major victory or stepped into a carefully constructed trap, but she allowed herself to be cautiously optimistic as the three of them discussed details. Still, she didn’t relax. Perhaps Dr. Kolb had come up with the idea because he expected her to fail. Maybe he and Swinton had hatched the plan together because they saw it as a way to make her look unprofessional and get her off the project.
As she left the building with McCourt, she was glad she hadn’t let her guard down. He’d only participated in the conference when called upon to outline security procedures. Now he asked, “So are you going to function as his mommy or his wife in this little domestic drama?”
“His sister,” she shot back.
“Ah.”
“You don’t think it’s a good plan?” she countered.
“It’s not my place to make those kinds of judgments.”
She wanted to say she was glad of that. Instead, she tried a friendly, “I’ll let you know how things go.”
“Your report will make interesting reading.”
“I hope so.”
Back at the cottage, Kathryn inventoried the kitchen supplies, then drove to the small shopping center on the grounds to buy some additional groceries. Apparently, Kolb had even suggested that she prepare meals for Hunter. Maybe he’d expected her to back down on menial work, but she didn’t mind a little cooking. In fact, when she had the time, she’d found it was a good way to unwind.
As she circled the parking lot, she mentally reviewed the meeting in Emerson’s office. Really, it was stupefying that he’d allowed her such unrestricted access to Hunter. Either he had enormous confidence in her. Or. . . Or what? She didn’t know.
She deliberately shut off the disturbing speculations as she pulled into a parking space. Instead, she began to think about what foods might trigger Hunter’s memories. Most men liked steak. She’d get that. And they should have ice cream for dessert—and apple pie. She wished she knew what candy bar had been his favorite. If they had CD’s, she’d buy some symphonic works to play on the machine in the living room.
As she headed toward the door, one of the security guards she’d seen in the locker room, the one named Ken Reid, was just exiting the building carrying a sack of groceries.
When he spotted her, he stopped short, causing the man behind him to crash into his back.
Reid turned and cursed. “Watch where
you’re going,” he growled.
The other man launched an equally angry retort. For a tense moment it looked as if there might be a fight. Then a guard who had been standing at the door started toward them, and Reid hurried off.
Kathryn took in the little scene with a mixture of anger and resignation, wondering why Emerson staffed this place with jackasses like Reid. On the other hand, maybe he hadn’t handpicked the security men, she thought, trying to be fair. Still, if she had the power, she’d get the man and the others like him detailed to patrolling the compound’s perimeter.
Inside, she showed the temporary card she’d been given to the tall blond woman checking IDs. Apparently, her credentials hadn’t been activated in the computer because the gatekeeper wouldn’t let her enter.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to step into the office,” the woman said.
Kathryn tried to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “I’m in a hurry. I was told I could get some groceries here.”
“We can’t let you through without verification.”
“What’s your name?” Kathryn asked.
“Miss Collins.”
“Well, Miss Collins, why don’t you call William Emerson’s office? I was just there.”
“We don’t call the Chief of Operations about a matter like this. We check with personnel,” the woman said firmly.
“Is there somewhere else I can shop?”
“I believe you’re temporarily restricted to the facilities here.”
She’d pushed that out of her mind. With a sigh of resignation, she took a seat in the small office. Half an hour later, she was impatiently tapping her foot when Miss Collins reappeared, all smiles.
“Sorry to hold you up,” she said sweetly. “Go on in.”
“Thanks!”
By the time Kathryn was finally allowed to make her purchases, she was fighting off the paranoid feeling that the delay was deliberate, although she couldn’t imagine why.
When she arrived back at the cottage, it was already four in the afternoon. Yet it looked much later, she thought, as she eyed the dark clouds filling the sky.
Suspecting they were in for a thunderstorm, she quickly carried the groceries into the kitchen. It was strange to be setting up housekeeping with a man she didn’t know. Strange that the doctor had suggested this arrangement. Strange that Emerson had agreed. But she wasn’t going to complain.
