her hard drive and smashed it.”
“Good. But that’s not enough. We have to shut the woman up for good.”
Southwell waited for instructions.
“I understand why Patterson couldn’t get to her earlier,” Derek said, thinking aloud. “There were too many people around the crash scene, asking her questions, trying to figure out who she was. Wait until the shift change at the hospital. They don’t have as many people on at night.”
“Got it.”
He considered his options. “I don’t want you to take care of her there. I mean, she’s in a hospital, and we could get into trouble with the cause of death. Bring her to me. I’d like to ask her some questions about why she’s been nosing around in my business, starting with what put her on to me in the first place. Maybe I can think of something that will jog her memory.”
“Yes, sir.”
Southwell left, and Derek leaned back in his chair, thinking of the methods he’d use in his basement interrogation room. In the movies, tough guys held out against torture. In reality, everybody ended up spilling their guts. And he was pretty sure that with a woman like Elizabeth Forester, it wouldn’t take long. After he got what he needed, he’d have some fun with her before he killed her.
* * *
ELIZABETH’S HEART LEAPED at the offer from Mrs. Kramer, but she still forced herself to ask, “Are you sure it wouldn’t be an imposition?”
“Of course not, dear.”
“Thank you.”
The woman had just solved one of her biggest problems—by offering a place to stay. But there was still the basic problem, with totally unexpected complications.
She’d been lying in this hospital bed trying to dredge up a memory—any memory—until the man standing across the room had put a hand on her, and everything had changed. At least for the few moments when they’d been touching.
She had a little sliver of herself back, courtesy of Dr. Delano’s touch. Now she recalled the first day of nursery school. Playing field hockey. What had seemed like a college classroom.
Of course there was the little problem of the sexual arousal that had flared between them. His and hers. But she understood that he was a man with high moral standards, and he wasn’t going to let himself get dragged into an inappropriate relationship with a female patient, which was why he’d flat-out refused to touch her again.
He’d opened a door in her mind just a crack and slammed it shut again. She’d alternated between being angry that he wouldn’t help her and wanting to plead with him to give her more of herself back. But she’d understood where he was coming from and had kept from embarrassing herself any further.
Then that nice nurse who had taken care of her earlier had showed up and thrown her a lifeline to deal with her present day-to-day situation.
“I’d be very grateful to stay with you, but I insist on paying you—as soon as I find out who I am. I mean, assuming I’m not indigent or something.”
“You’re too well cared for to be indigent,” the doctor said. “It’s obvious that you were living at least a middle-class lifestyle.”
“Okay.” She looked from him to the nurse, wanting to be absolutely sure the woman had thought through her offer. “You’re certain it’s all right?”
“I’d love the company.”
The doctor left, and the arrangement was settled quickly. Probably the hospital was anxious to get rid of a patient who couldn’t produce an insurance card, even if she was living a middle-class lifestyle.
“I’m going off shift in half an hour,” Mrs. Kramer said. “Once you get dressed, I’ll get a wheelchair and take you down. I can meet you in the waiting area near the elevator.”
Climbing out of bed, Elizabeth stood for a moment holding on to the rail. She’d been lying down too long, and her legs felt rubbery. Or maybe that was the result of having a concussion.
When she felt steadier on her feet, she crossed to the small bathroom and turned on the light. She’d deliberately avoided looking at herself until she was ready. Now she raised her gaze to the mirror and stared at the woman she saw there. She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but the face that stared back might as well have belonged to a stranger.
Disappointed and unsettled, she stood for a moment, composing herself. Trying not to look in the mirror again, she washed her face at the sink and brushed her teeth with the toothbrush the hospital had provided.
Doggedly she focused on the simple tasks in order to keep from thinking about anything more stressful—like how she was going to figure out who she was and why she had crashed her car. The easy answer was that she’d been speeding. As she pictured herself driving, she realized she knew the part of town where they’d told her the accident had occurred.
That stopped her. She’d come up with another memory—this time on her own. Well, not a memory of anything personal.
The observation about Baltimore—that was the city she was in—brought up another question: What else did she know? Maybe not about Elizabeth Doe specifically but about the world around her.
She stopped and asked herself some questions she imagined would be standard for someone in her situation. She couldn’t dredge up the correct date. But she knew who was president. And she knew... She struggled for another concrete fact and came up with the conviction that she could make scrambled eggs that tasted a lot better than what the hospital had served her this morning.
“Your clothes are in the closet,” Nurse Kramer said through the bathroom door. “Do you need help?”
“I think I can do it myself,” she said, because she wasn’t going to depend on other people if there was a chance for independence—even in small things.
By the time she stepped back into the room, Mrs. Kramer had gone back to her duties and Dr. Delano wasn’t there, either. She felt a stab of disappointment but brushed it aside. Probably he was wishing that some other doctor had examined her. And staying as far away as possible from her was probably the way to go, from his point of view.
After crossing to the closet, she took out the clothes that someone had hung up for her. Dark slacks. A white shirt and a dark jacket. A very buttoned-up look, except that the outfit was a little scuffed around the edges from the accident.
She looked at the labels of the garments. They were from good department stores. Not top-of-the-line but good enough. Another piece of information that she found interesting.
She’d been wearing knee-high stockings and black pumps with a wedge heel. Not the shoes she’d wear if she had wanted to impress someone. These were no-nonsense footwear. Did that mean she walked a lot as part of her job? Or maybe she had bad feet.
There was also underwear on the hanger, and that was more interesting than the exterior clothing. She’d been wearing a very sexy white lace bra and matching bikini panties. Apparently she liked to indulge in very feminine underwear. She took everything back into the bathroom, then decided that she might as well take a shower before she left. It would feel good to get clean. Too bad she didn’t
