hand flew to his head. “I was wearing a hat?” He directed his gaze to Woods. “Where is it?”
“It fell off when you tumbled into the street. A car going the other way nailed it.”
“What kind of hat?” he asked.
Kinsey supplied the answer. “A tan Stetson. It looked kind of new and very nice.”
He glanced down at his hands. He’d already noticed calluses and deeply tanned skin, along with old scars, on his knuckles. “Workingman hands,” he said softly. Not the hands of a teacher or a doctor. The hands of a man who got down and dirty on occasion, and instinctively, he knew at least that much about himself. He looked up at Woods. “And I was wearing cowboy boots. That’s what the nurse said.”
“That’s right,” Detective Woods concurred. “Plus, you don’t sound like you’re from around here. In fact, you don’t have much of an accent at all. We’re checking hotels to see if any of their customers are unaccounted for, but it’s questionable anything will come of it. There are thousands of rooms in this city. It’s unlikely anyone has missed you yet, unless you didn’t show up for an appointment or something. The big question is why you were carrying Ms. Frost’s name. What’s the link between you two?”
“I hope that’s a rhetorical question and you aren’t expecting an answer from me,” he said. He looked at Kinsey again. “It’s up to you.”
Her hand brushed his arm. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t imagine why you were carrying my name.”
“In addition to working at the gallery, you’re also an artist yourself, aren’t you?” Woods asked.
She turned to look at him. “Yes.”
“Could he have gotten your name from a third party in relation to your work?”
“I guess so. I’ve done several portraits for people in New Orleans since I moved here a couple of years ago.” She glanced back at him with a question in her eyes. “Maybe one of them gave you my name and you were trying to find the gallery to talk to me.”
“He was walking away from, not headed to, the gallery,” the detective pointed out with a frown.
“People sometimes have a hard time finding the place. It’s very narrow. Maybe he walked right past it.”
“We’ll question people on that street as time and manpower allow,” the detective said. “Including Marc Costello. But as you know, it’s a long one with several businesses and homes farther along...it’s going to take a while. I’d appreciate it if you would also make a list of the people you did work for so we can ask them if they might have given your name to the...victim.” The detective shook his head as he looked at the bed. “Sorry, I’m not sure what to call you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said.
The detective scanned his notebook briefly before directing a comment to Kinsey. “When I questioned you right after the incident, you said he was walking with determination, that he appeared preoccupied.”
Kinsey nodded thoughtfully.
“That doesn’t sound like he was searching for something to me.”
“I guess it doesn’t,” Kinsey agreed.
The detective opened a small manila envelope he pulled from a jacket pocket and shook out a set of keys.
“Those are the keys you showed me earlier,” he said. “The ones they found in my pocket.”
“Yes,” Woods said. “I wanted you to hold them, look at them, see if they jog a memory.” He pointed at the fob, a small disk decorated with a red tractor and the words Red Hot, St. George, Utah. “We checked on that, by the way.”
“It sounds like a strip club,” he said.
The detective laughed. “Yeah, that’s what we thought, too. What it really is, though, is a nickname for a small tractor. We found the dealership that carries it, name of Travers’s Tractors. They’re not missing anyone, but we did fax the police there your photo. They showed it to the staff at the dealership...didn’t get any hits, but a couple of people are on vacation, so they’ll try again in a few days. They also have a couple of other stores in their chain and they said they’d ask around and get back to me, but we’re also contacting them. Keep in mind that sooner or later someone will wonder what happened to you and report it to the police.” His phone rang and he stepped away from the bed to answer it.
Kinsey gestured at all the machines. “Are your other injuries serious?”
“Not as bad as they could have been,” he replied, glancing at each key in turn.
“Were you out long?”
“I woke up in the ambulance.”
“And you didn’t know who you were? That must have been terrifying.”
He ran his fingers over the tractor logo and shook his head before meeting her velvety gaze again. “It wasn’t like that. What I was aware of was that I didn’t know where I was or what had happened to me. There was an oxygen mask over my mouth and nose and my head hurt. I felt confused. I guess there are just certain instances when you decide to wait it out and see what happens. I mean, I could hear the siren, there was a guy sitting next to me who smiled and I was obviously being cared for. That was enough. At first.”
“So you have a concussion?”
“And apparently a hard head, too. There’s bruising and scrapes, a few stitches, stuff like that, but no broken bones, just this fog where my brain used to be. Thank goodness the taxi didn’t hit me or the child I had in my arms.”
“The child you saved,” Kinsey said.
He smiled, ignoring the stress on the stitches. He liked the way her voice softened as she spoke, the look in her eyes as she met his gaze. “Anyway, the doctors said I was lucky.” He paused for a second. Truth was, he didn’t feel real lucky right that moment. He’d gladly exchange a broken arm for the return of his memory. “Thanks for trying to help,” he added. His gaze followed a few strands of dark hair that had pulled loose from the pins atop her head and trailed down along her cheeks, brushing her collarbone, framing her face. She looked as if she’d stepped out of a dream, and he had another gut feeling about himself. He was a sucker for brunettes with red lips. “You were at a party or something, right?”
Her smile lit up her eyes. “The dress gave it away, huh?”
“More or less.”
“We were hosting an opening show for a local artist at the gallery,” she said. After a slight pause, she added, “I wish I knew what to call you. John Doe seems kind of impersonal.”
“You’re artistic,” he said. “Give me a name, something that you think fits.”
She narrowed her eyes as she studied his features. Then she smiled. “My father died before I was born, but my mother told me that he read constantly and what he liked best were Westerns. She said his favorite author was a guy named Zane Grey. How about we call you Zane?”
“Zane,”
