a good mile of it on foot and came up with nothing.” He leaned forward, pointing his finger to emphasize the point. “Zilch, zip, nada! Not a tire track, a skid mark or a footprint. There was no sign of wreckage, no nothing.”
Frustrated, he sank back in the chair, stretching his legs out in front of him and tilting his cowboy hat back on his forehead with the tip of his thumb. “Granted, that was one hell of a rainstorm last night and it’s not like I went out there expecting to find a big sign pointing me in the right direction, but damn, if there’d been an accident or she’d broken down or had a flat tire, there was no sign of it—and no car.”
“Maybe she just had a fight with her boyfriend?” Cruz said, snapping his fingers as the idea came to him. “She got out of the car and he drove off, left her there and by the time he got back, she was gone!”
“Possibly,” Joe nodded, arching a brow. “But it doesn’t explain the head injury.”
Cruz sank back. “Oh, yeah.”
“And it’s not likely she gave herself a club on the head.”
“Not very.”
“Besides, why hasn’t the guy reported her missing then?”
“Good point,” Cruz acquiesced good-naturedly. “What about a robbery then? She could have been accosted, robbed—that would explain her injury, maybe even the memory loss.”
“I thought of that—or a carjacking,” Joe said, yawning again. “At least, that would be my bet at this point. But we’re trying not to overlook anything—grand theft auto, kidnapping, missing persons but as of about thirty minutes ago, there have been no stolen vehicles reported and no one has reported her missing. So until that happens, or we find a car or some other piece of evidence, we wait.”
“Well one thing’s for certain,” Cruz pointed out. “She sure as hell didn’t walk out there—at least not in the shoes she was wearing. They may have been water soaked, but they were practically new.”
“So that means somebody had to have taken her out there and purposely left her,” Joe concluded, folding his arms across his chest. The thought had his frown deepening.
“Left her for dead,” Cruz added quietly.
The sober thought rendered them both quiet for a moment. Joe remembered the terror he had seen in her eyes. It took more than an accident to put that kind of fear in a person’s eyes.
“I guess that means you’re looking at an attempted murder,” Cruz stated.
Joe glanced up. Having someone trying to kill you would have you looking pretty damn scared. “Sorta looks that way, doesn’t it?”
“Signs seem to be there,” Cruz continued. “And it would explain the head injury, the lack of any evidence, any clues.”
“Somebody took her out there,” Joe said in a quiet voice, closing his eyes and seeing her panicked face in the darkness. “Somebody who wanted her dead.”
“Have you been thoroughly poked and prodded?”
Rain looked up at the sound of Carrie’s voice and smiled. The portly nurse had been nowhere in sight when she’d returned to her room earlier after an exhausting series of tests and an examination by the doctor.
“Thoroughly,” she said, pushing away her empty lunch tray. She wasn’t sure about the rest of her, but her appetite certainly appeared to be healthy.
“Good,” Carrie said, pushing her solid frame through the open doorway and floating quietly across the worn linoleum floor. “We don’t feel people are doing their jobs around here unless they make our patients feel like pincushions.”
Rain held out her arm, looking down at the row of bandages left from the various blood samples that had been drawn. “Then I think it’s safe to say you’ve got hardworking people on your staff.”
“And your examination with Dr. Martinez? That went okay?”
Rain thought of the tall, good-looking doctor and his kind, compassionate nature. “Yeah, it went all right. He took a lot of time, explained a lot of the things to me about my head injury and the memory loss. And he talked about possible prognosis and told me not to try to force myself to remember, that if things were going to come back, they’d come back in their own time.”
“That’s true. You can’t push these kinds of things.”
“But he also admitted there was a possibility I’d never recover my memory, or only bits and pieces of it.”
“There’s always that possibility,” Carrie admitted. “But then, every prognosis has a worst-case scenario.”
Rain smiled. “You sound just like the doctor.”
“Oh, Lord, don’t tell me that!” Carrie said with a cackle. Reaching out, she patted Rain on the arm. “You feeling a little better about things now?”
Rain laughed. “I’m not sure if I feel better or if I’m just tired of thinking about it. But the doctor was very kind—you’ve all been.”
“Well, Cruz—he’s the best. We may not have a lot to brag about here in Mesa Ridge, but we can brag about him,” Carrie said, reaching for the lunch tray. “Why don’t you try to take another little nap now. I’ll get this out of the way—” She stopped as she glanced down at the empty tray. “Well, will you look at this—another clean plate. You know, if you aren’t careful, those people in the kitchen are going to start thinking you like the food around here. Then we’ll all have to suffer for it.”
Rain smiled, liking the feeling and liking the sturdily built nurse and her no-nonsense manner. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I can’t seem to get enough.”
“Well, darlin’, there’s nothing the matter. This is exactly what you need,” Carrie said, pulling a thermometer out of the cabinet beside the bed and giving it a violent shake. “Some regular meals and a whole lot of rest.” She popped the thermometer into Rain’s mouth. “I understand you managed to get in a short nap before lunch, too.”
Unable to speak with the thermometer in her mouth, Rain nodded. There had been just enough time after she’d returned to her room after her appointment with the doctor for a catnap before they brought her lunch. It hadn’t been a very long nap, just long enough for her mind and body to rest and her subconscious to dream and conjure up images of a man—tall, dark and mysterious. He had been reaching out to her with strong, powerful arms and she’d felt warm and secure in his embrace.
She had awakened from her nap feeling strangely comforted and calmed by the dream. Did she know the man? Was he someone from the life she’d forgotten, someone who would be looking for her?
“Then I’d say that’s just what the doctor ordered,” Carrie was saying in response to her nod. “A little rest and relaxation and you’ll be as good as new.” She pulled the thermometer from Rain’s mouth and squinted to read it. “How’s your head feeling?”
Rain touched the tender spot on the top of her head and winced. “Oh, it’s still there.”
Carrie’s smile faded as she peered through
