in that direction. Both Jack and the doctor watched her as she made her way into the tiny room.
“Okay,” Dr. Bartolo said the moment the bathroom door closed. “What’s this all about? Did she come back to town to try to get Joey from you?”
“I don’t know.” There was so much about this that didn’t make sense. “She says she doesn’t remember giving birth to him.”
“Is that so?” Bartolo stayed quiet a moment. “I guess that means she can’t or won’t say why she left town the way she did.”
“She says she doesn’t remember that, either. But she does remember being taken captive after leaving the hospital.” Jack paused to figure out how best to phrase this. “Is it possible she’s crazy?”
“It’s possible,” the doctor readily agreed. “After all, most normal women wouldn’t just abandon their newborn the way she did.”
True. Her behavior here tonight hadn’t convinced him that she was doing any better than she had been eight months ago.
“But maybe it’s something equally obvious,” the doctor continued. “Maybe she’s broken the law. Maybe she’s a criminal, and she’s telling you she has memory loss to cover up something else.”
Jack mulled that over and cursed.
He bolted toward the bathroom. The door was locked, of course. So he pounded on it. “Alana, open up!”
Nothing.
Not so much as a sniffle.
Though he was riled enough to bash down the door, he resisted. Because he knew it wouldn’t do any good. There was a small window in the bathroom, and if his instincts were right, Alana had already used it, to escape.
Jack raced down the hall, past the jail cell and headed for the rear exit. It was raining harder now, but that didn’t slow him down. He ran to the east exterior side of the building, to the sliver of an alleyway that separated the sheriff’s office from City Hall. The narrow space was made even narrower by a dark green Dumpster stuck right in the middle. And it was pitch black.
Someone screamed.
Alana.
With his heart pounding now, he drew his gun and raced around the Dumpster. Jack spotted her white nightgown. She appeared to be struggling with someone.
“What’s going on?” he called out.
Just like that, the struggle stopped, and Alana fell back against the wall. Hard. She stayed on her feet and pointed in the opposition direction from where he was standing.
Jack thought he heard footsteps, but he couldn’t be sure because of the pounding rain. Keeping his gun ready just in case, he went to her.
“Did you see him?” Alana asked.
“See who?” Jack automatically looked around.
“It was the guard from the house,” she said, still pointing. “He was trying to make me go back.”
Jack heard another sound.
A car engine.
He sprinted to the alley opening that led to Main Street, and stopped just short of the sidewalk. Using the sheriff’s office for cover, he glanced around the corner.
A dark-colored car sped away.
Mud or something had been smeared over the license plate, and he couldn’t even get a glimpse of the driver because of the heavily tinted windows and the darkness.
It was possible the driver was just a visitor. Some innocent guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But just in case, Jack turned to get his patrol car. He simply wanted to ask the driver a few questions. But then he looked back and saw Alana, just as she collapsed on the ground.
Chapter Three
Alana heard voices. They were only whispers at first. But they became clearer within just a few seconds.
She didn’t open her eyes. Not yet. She waited, listening, trying to figure out what was going on.
Was it safe?
Or did she need to be prepared to run again?
Judging from the sterile smell and the feel of the bed beneath her, she wasn’t back at the house in the woods. Nor was she in the alley next to the sheriff’s office. She was in a hospital. And the voice, at least one of them, belonged to Jack Whitley. He was talking to Dr. Bartolo.
She peeked out. Definitely a hospital. The walls and bedding were stark white, and there was an IV in the back of her hand. Sunlight threaded through the blind slats and onto the thermal blanket that covered her.
Neither the guard nor the nurse who’d held her captive was there. Everything felt safe. Which was a facade, of course. It wasn’t safe unless Jack had caught the guard after he’d attacked her in the alley.
Maybe he had.
The last thing she remembered before losing consciousness was Jack going after him. If he’d succeeded, then perhaps the nightmare was over.
Well, part of it, anyway.
There was still the issue of her son.
Her mind no longer felt like sludge, and Alana didn’t have to think hard to remember everything. She was a jewelry designer. Born and raised in San Antonio. One sibling, her older brother, Sean. She had friends and a life that had disappeared eight months ago.
The day she went into labor.
She could recall each pain. Every moment. Including the birth of her precious son. She’d loved him instantly. A kind of love she hadn’t thought was possible until she’d held him in her arms for the first time.
But there were blanks. The missing twenty-four hours of her life that followed the delivery. And even some of the time immediately before it. They were crucial gaps of time—she had no idea what had put her in that creek or what had happened to make her leave her newborn son and walk out into the cold December night. She only knew the end result. She’d been held captive, escaped and then nearly been killed again.
“You’re awake,” she heard Jack say. He walked closer, crammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and stood over her.
He was still wearing the same clothes he’d had on the night before. And he hadn’t shaved. A dark, desperado stubble covered his chin, and there were smudgy circles under his eyes. He probably hadn’t slept.
“Why am I in the hospital?” she asked.
“The fever for one thing. It’s gone now, but Dr. Bartolo thinks you had a virus of some kind. You also hit your head when you fell in the alley. He needed to check and make sure it wasn’t serious. It’s just a bad bump.” He glanced at Dr. Bartolo on the other side of the room before his attention returned to her. “Don’t you remember?”
She
