With the Material Witness in the Safehouse

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 completely 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.”

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 understand 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.