reminded him that she was a woman. An attractive one at that.
Jack didn’t want to think about that.
He only wanted to remember that this was the person who could destroy him. All because of DNA. As far as Jack was concerned, she was just an egg donor, nothing more.
“Willow Ridge might be a hayseed town to a city girl like you, but we still have a few amenities,” he explained. “Like a security camera in the hospital parking lot, for instance. That camera photographed you leaving the hospital alone. No guard. No nurse. Definitely no indication of a kidnapping. You left of your own free will and without anyone’s coercion or assistance.”
And he should know. He’d studied the tape hundreds of times trying to figure out what the devil had happened.
“You mean I left alone in the dead of winter?” she clarified. There was strong skepticism in her frail voice, and she waited until he confirmed that with a frosty nod. “Did I get into a car?”
Now, here was the confusing part. “No. You just walked away.”
Jack still had that image of her in his mind, too. Wearing the bleached-out green hospital gown, cotton robe and flip-flops, she’d walked out of the front of the one-story hospital, and stumbled on the sidewalk. The cold wind had whipped at her nightclothes and her hair. She’d looked unsteady.
She’d staggered several more times as she made her way through the parking lot.
There’d only been one clear shot of her face that night.
Jack would never forget it.
It was the same frightened, tearstained, shellshocked face that was staring back at him now.
“You said the baby’s name is Joey?” she asked.
All of his muscles went stiff. He didn’t want to discuss Joey with her. But he also knew he didn’t have a choice. Eventually, he had to give her enough details to satisfy her curiosity so he could get her out of there.
“You named him,” he reminded her.
Another blink. “Did I?”
He couldn’t contain his smirk, but beneath it, his concerns were snowballing. “You did. You said you named him after your kid brother who died when you were a child.” And he braced himself.
Alana hugged his raincoat closer to her. “I remember my little brother, Joey. And I remember I was wearing a green hospital gown and robe when I woke up at the house in the woods.”
Jack actually welcomed the change in subject, even though he knew it could only be temporary.
Eventually she’d ask more about Joey.
“What else do you remember about the house, the guard and the nurse?” he asked.
She hesitated a moment. “Everything, I think. It was December twenty-sixth when I woke up in that house. So I must have been there all this time.” Alana’s eyes met his. “Why did they hold me captive?”
Jack shrugged. “You’re the only one who’ll be able to answer that.”
Their eyes stayed connected until she lurched at the sound of the front door opening. Because he was on edge, Jack automatically reached for his gun and went to the door. But the gun wasn’t necessary. The tall, lanky visitor was Dr. Keith Bartolo.
“Doc’s here,” Jack relayed to Alana, only because she looked ready to jump out of her skin.
“Jack,” the doctor grumbled. He pulled off his rainbeaded felt hat, and with his leather medical bag gripped in his right hand, he made his way down the hall.
Jack had known the doctor most of his life, since the man had moved to Willow Ridge over twenty-three years ago and set up a practice. Jack also knew when Bartolo wasn’t in a good mood. Apparently, the fiftysomething-year-old doc didn’t like being called out after hours during a storm. Jack knew how the man felt. He rarely worked late these days because of Joey, but here he was at ten thirty going a second round with Alana Davis when he was supposed to be finishing up paperwork so he could take the weekend off.
“You said you had a sick prisoner,” Dr. Bartolo prompted. He headed in the direction of the lone jail cell at the far end of the hall.
“She’s in my office,” Jack corrected.
The doctor lifted a caramel-brown eyebrow, and Jack stepped to the side so the man could enter. The doc and Alana looked at each other, and Jack didn’t know which one of them was more surprised.
Alana swallowed hard. “I know you.”
“Of course you do.” Dr. Bartolo stared at her. “I was the attending physician when Jack brought you to the hospital last Christmas.”
That was it. Apparently that was all the bedside manner he intended to dispense. The doctor plopped his bag onto Jack’s desk, unzipped it and pulled out a digital thermometer. After putting a plastic sleeve over the tip, he stuck it in Alana’s mouth.
“Why is she a prisoner?” the doctor asked as the thermometer beeped once.
“She stole a car.”
Even though Alana didn’t say anything out loud, her eyes said plenty. Jack could almost hear her giving him a tongue-lashing. Yes, she’d stolen the car. She’d admitted that. But according to her, it’d been to escape.
So, was it true?
He could check with the sheriff who’d posted the stolen car report and get the name of the person who had filed the claim. That would lead him to Alana’s so-called guard. Jack hoped this wasn’t some kind of lovers’ quarrel. But he immediately rethought that. Maybe that would be the best solution for him. Find whoever was behind this so she could drop the amnesia act.
If it was an act.
The thermometer made a series of rapid beeps. Dr. Bartolo pulled it from her mouth and looked at the tiny screen. “Your temp’s just a little over a hundred. Not too high. Any idea what’s wrong with you?”
She shook her head.
“Okay.” Dr. Bartolo didn’t appear to be any more convinced of that than Jack did of her amnesia story. He flicked the plastic disposable tip into the trash and placed the thermometer back into his bag. “Are you taking any meds?”
Alana glanced at Jack. “No.”
Jack frowned. “She said a guard and a nurse gave her some sedatives, and they’d been doing that for some time now,” he explained. And he didn’t think she’d forgotten that already. Her eyes narrowed slightly as if she hadn’t wanted to share that information with the doctor.
“Sedatives?” the doctor questioned. “What kind?”
She shook her head again, causing Jack to huff. Before the doctor’s arrival, she’d been chatty, so why hush now? “The kind of sedatives that might cause memory loss,” Jack provided. “Or not. She could be making that part up.”
That caused
