by Rita Herron
“I’m here to see Dr. Harley.”
A moment of apprehension flashed in her eyes. “She’s not here.”
“Look, Miss—” he paused and read her nameplate “—Johnson, Dr. Harley is my sister. I’ve been trying to reach her for days and she hasn’t returned my calls. It’s important I talk to her.”
“I believe she went on vacation.” She checked the calendar on her desk. “Yes, she’s been penciled out for two weeks.”
“That’s impossible,” Adam said. “She wouldn’t have left town without telling me.”
She tugged the beads around her neck. “I’m sorry, sir, but Dr. Bradford sid she phoned to say she was going away for a few days.”
Adam’s hand tightened around the woman’s polished desk. “Then she must have left a number where she can be reached.”
She shuffled the files on her desk. “No, I don’t believe so.”
“Not even with Bradford?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Let me see him.”
“He’s not here, either.”
Adam gritted his teeth. “Where can I reach him?”
She glanced at her calendar again, looking impatient. “He’s also out for a couple of days. I’ll tell him to phone you if he calls in.”
Adam handed her a business card and watched her eyes widen with alarm at his identity. “That’s Detective Black,” he said in a hard voice. “Is there anyone else from her department I can talk to?”
She glanced pointedly at the green clock on the wall. “I’m afraid they’ve all left for the day.”
“Then let me into my sister’s office. I’d like to see if she left something that might indicate where she is. It’s urgent that I reach her.”
She shifted, looking agitated as she shut down her computer for the day. “I can’t do that, sir. All our scientists’ work is highly confidential. Only classified personnel are allowed in the research offices, and then, only with clearance from Dr. Bradford and Seaside Securities.”
Adam strode out the door, more frustrated than ever. Denise would never leave town without making sure he had a number to reach her. He started his car and headed toward her house. He’d check it out one more time before he relented and talked to Sarah Cutter.
SARAH CLIMBED from her car, fought with her umbrella which completely turned upside down with the gusty wind, and rushed up the sidewalk to her apartment, ducking her head to dodge the drizzling rain. Water seeped inside her shoes, soaking her feet, and she shivered, a chill engulfing her as she ran up the steps. If only she could get the frightened woman’s voice out of her head…
Early spring flowers jutted from window boxes of the downtown Savannah homes and the beautiful historic 1790 bed-and-breakfast across the street, hinting at spring and warm weather around the corner, but Sarah felt a fog of gloom descend upon her. Horns honked, a dog barked, a siren wailed in the distance. The garbled noises around her were loud and frightening, the constant barrage assaulting her from every direction. It was all just too much.
She’d wanted to hear music, laughter, beautiful sounds like the song of the robin or a child singing. But so far, she’d heard a woman’s terrified cry, obnoxious traffic noises, thunder and the detectives’ laughter, which had been harsh and ugly.
Trembling and fighting a massive headache, she unlocked her door, nearly jumping out of her skin when she heard something scraping behind her. Footsteps. Rain sloshing. Had that reporter followed her home? She whirled around, thing her broken umbrella in front of her like a weapon, her heart pounding.
Sol. She recognized the scent of his aftershave, the smell of the soap he used. Good heavens, she was so focused on distinguishing the sounds around her she’d forgotten to rely on her other senses.
“You scared me to death,” she signed, realizing the sound she’d heard had been his footsteps on the pavement.
“Why are you out by yourself in this weather? My God, Sarah, you just had surgery.”
“It’s just a little spring shower, Sol. Relax.” She waved him inside, smiling slightly at the worry in his eyes. Sol had always been protective. She’d known he wouldn’t want her venturing out by herself, but she’d never let her impairment keep her from being independent and she didn’t intend to relinquish her freedom now.
Worry furrowed his brow. “You look pale.”
“I’m fine.” She rubbed at her head again and his eyebrows rose. “Just a headache,” she admitted.
He cupped the base of her neck, and rubbed the tight muscle. “Where did you go?” Sol asked. “I’ve been sitting outside your apartment for an hour waiting on you.”
Sarah fixed them some tea and settled on the sofa, bracing herself for her godfather’s reaction when she told him where she had been. She wasn’t surprised when disapproval and worry flitted across his features, but the anger in his voice unnerved her.
“You shouldn’t have gone to the police.” Sol paced to the opposite side of the room by the bookcases and studied the family photos on the wall, his shoulders hunched. When he turned to face her, his gray eyes reflected concern, his wrinkles drawn around his mouth. “You had bad dreams, strange dreams, when you were little and underwent all those surgeries, Sarah, remember? Some of the dreams were a direct result of the medication, some of them from the trauma you suffered when you were little. Why can’t you see that this is the same thing?”
Exhaustion pulled at Sarah, making her signing short and jerky. “I know what I heard. And I think it was real.”
“What did the police say?”
She hesitated, picked up her cat, Tigger, and hugged him to her chest. “They didn’t believe me.”
Sol nodded. “Promise me you’ll see Dr. Armstrong—”
“He’s a shrink,” Sarah protested. “I don’t need to see a shrink.” Pain shot through her temple and she swayed on the sofa, but Sol steadied her.
“I think I’d better lie down,” Sarah whispered.
Sol nodded and helped her to her room. “Yes, rest now, honey. We’ll talk about this later.”
After Sol left, Sarah changed into a comfortable blue nightshirt, stretched out, closed her eyes and tried to block out the sounds of the storm raging outside along with the worry in Sol’s voice and the sound of the woman’s terrified cries. Sol didn’t want to believe anything bad had happened at the research center. After all, he was the director and cofnder of CIRP and oversaw the various companies that relocated there. CIRP was still campaigning to draw new companies in. He was the perfect man for the job, but he also knew the sting of negative publicity. After all, Sol had been left to clean up her father’s mess.
Still, the woman had sounded so frightened— Sarah had to believe that her cries for help had been real.
ADAM JIMMIED THE LOCK on his sister’s back door and crept into her apartment. Not bothering to turn on the lights, he called her name softly, even though he instinctively knew she wasn’t home. Four days worth of newspapers lay piled on her front stoop, her mailbox had been crammed full of unopened mail and her indoor plants drooped from lack of care.
The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. His sister was a type A personality. She paid her bills on time, tended to her plants religiously and kept her house neat and orderly. Like clockwork, she read the paper with her morning coffee. He’d lectured her on precautionary measures for a woman living alone ages ago, and she adhered to them rigidly, just as she did the other details in her life. When she traveled, she always asked him to bring in her mail so a possible burglar wouldn’t know she’d left town.
Now, although things appeared neat on the surface, the house smelled unoccupied, hinting at her absence. He quickly searched the rooms but found nothing amiss, then checked the bathroom for wet towels but found a lone, dry towel hanging neatly on the chrome bar. Even odder, her makeup was sitting on the vanity. His anxiety growing, he checked the closet in her extra bedroom. Her suitcase was sitting inside, where she always kept it. If she had left town without telling
him, why hadn’t she packed a suitcase or taken her cosmetics?
He booted up her computer and scrolled her file manager, searching for her calendar, but he needed her password. What would Denise choose as her password?
His palms grew moist as he punched in guesses— her birthday, his birthday, her graduation date. Frustrated, he pounded the machine. What was the biggest day in Denise’s life? The day she’d earned her doctorate. Bingo.
Minutes later, he scanned her schedule. She didn’t have plans to leave town until July, over three months from now. In fact she had meetings with her research assistant set up this week to discuss her current project, but as usual she had some acronym, a code name, for the project to keep it secret. He’d have to talk to her assistant.
More worried now, he searched the file drawers for notes and found several pads filled with statistics, chemistry and math equations, stuff he didn’t begin to understand but knew were important to her work. Denise had also kept a daily journal since she was twelve. He searched her office, but couldn’t locate it, so he hurried to the den, but came up empty again. Finally he discovered the thick navy-bound book wedged between her pillows. He hesitated before opening it—this journal was private. Denise never allowed anyone to read it, and had been furious when he’d asked her about it as a teenager. He’d violate her privacy if he read it now.
But what if it told him where she was?
The storm reached a crescendo outside and so had Adam’s nerves. Denise never went anywhere without taking her journal. Never. She had only been then when their parents died. The journal had been like a security blanket to her, a place to pour out her troubled feelings.
The simple fact that the book was here confirmed his suspicions. Something bad had happened to his sister, and if she had left town, she hadn’t left of her own free will.
Chapter Three
Instead of a restful, soothing nap, the voices came to Sarah again. Dull, muffled, breaking in and out, destroying her peace.
“Wh…at are you g…oing to do to me?”
“Just shut u…p, the…”
“No!”
“Re…lax, Doc, it won’t…hurt. It’ll j…ust sting a little.”
Sarah bolted up, sweat-drenched sheets tangled around her legs, her pulse racing, her breath coming in gasps. She had to have been dreaming. How else was it possible for her to hear the same voices in the hospital and here again in her own house? Her house was empty. So where had the voices come from? The doctors had mentioned delayed hearing—was that what was happening? Were these voices a part of the conversation she’d heard in the hospital?
Lightning streaked through the blinds and she fisted the sheets in her hands, fighting her unshakable terror of the storm. Shadows from the starless night hovered about her bedroom, taunting her. Lightning flashed again.
No, not lighting—her apartment lights were blinking signifying someone was at her door. This time a ding sounded in the background.
The doorbell. She’d never heard it before and had assumed when she’d had the apartment customized to fit her needs, they’d disconnected it. Thankfully, the bell emitted a soft musical sound that reminded her of bells ringing, one familiar sound from childhood. She pushed her hair from her face, grabbed a robe and stumbled toward the den, then checked the peephole, expecting to see Sol again. But that big detective, Adam Black, stood on her doorstep, dripping rain from his black hair, his dark face even more intimidating in the shadows with lightning illuminating his hard, sexy features. His eyes were almost as dark as his hair, his cheekbones etched in granite, his shoulders so broad he must have to custom order his clothes. He pounded the door with his fist and she jumped, then finally pulled herself together enough to unlock the door.
“Can I come in?”
She flinched at the harsh set of his jaw as she read his lips. He smelled of rain and wet leather and some earthly scent that reminded her of the woods and sex. Her stomach quivered. Why did the man make her think like that?
He had a black leather jacket slung around his broad shoulders and a pair of well-worn jeans hugged his muscular thighs. Encased in work boots that had seen better days, his feet seemed enormous. He looked as if he should be riding a wild mustang across the prairie.
Or riding a woman in the darkness of her bedroom.
Shaken by her own thoughts, her legs threatened to buckle so she clutched the wall for support.
He seemed oblivious to her reaction. “Look, Miss Cutter, I’m getting soaked. Can I come in?”
A clap of thunder boomed and she jumped, the sound almost as shocking as the tension radiating between them.
He must have realized she was too stunned to move so he pushed his way inside, more gently than she’d imagined, then kicked his boots on the hall rug, brushing his jacket to alleviate the moisture soaking his hair. She stepped inside the kitchen, retrieved a towel and handed it to him. Their hands brushed slightly and heat suffused her, fire curling low in her stomach. His gaze dropped to her cotton robe where it had fallen open at her breasts, revealing the thin nightshirt she’d thrown on to sleep. She belted the robe, a blush rushing up her face. Why did this stranger affect her so? He didn’t like her. And she wasn’t sure she liked him.
He studied her silently as he ran the towel over his head, down his face and long neck. Finally, he handed the towel back to her, a half smile curving his mouth. “I won’t bite, you know.”
She felt like a fool and braced herself for his teasing laughter.
But he didn’t laugh. Instead he kept watching her with those mesmerizing eyes.
“You got any coffee?”
She stared at him, then signed, “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t read sign language,” he said.
Resigned, she silently cursed herself for even trying, and reached for her Palm Pilot. “What are you doing here?”
“I need to ask you some more questions.”
Fury snaked through her. “To make fun of me again?”
He studied her for a long moment, his dark eyes raking over her, lingering on her mouth. Finally he shook his head. “No. I’m sorry about that. I want to hear your story.”
“Why?”
He motioned toward the kitchen and she remembered he’d asked for coffee, so she made a pot, then poured them both a cup, not surprised when he took his black. Her hands trembled when she handed him his mug.
They sat at her small pine table, the room feeling unbearably small with his large body taking up all the space. He seemed to take in the details of her kitchen, the cheery yellow paint and ceramic cats, with a tiny smirk. She tried not to look at his mouth, to wonder what he would look like if those full lips ever really smiled. But even if she hadn’t latched on to his mouth to read his lips, she would have been mesmerized by them. He wrapped his big powerful hands around the yellow coffee mug and she decided he had to be the sexiest, most masculine man she’d ever laid eyes on.
Tigger loped in and rubbed up against him, and he surprised her by reaching down and scratching the tabby’s back. She couldn’t believe her cat had taken to this man. Tigger usually reserved affection for her and her alone. Where was his loyalty?
“Does he go out?”
Sarah shook her head, biting her lip when he frowned at the cat’s mangled tail. But if the cat’s deformity repulsed him, he didn’t show
“Okay, tell me once more about this woman you heard.” He sipped the coffee, his intense gaze trapping hers.
She hesitated at the spark of awareness in his eyes.
“You said you wanted to help this woman?”
“Why?” she wrote. “Do you believe me now?”
“Maybe. Let’s just say I went to the research center and did some checking.”
Sarah sat back in the chair, her breath catching. He’d actually followed up and done what she’d asked. Just when she’d convinced herself everything had been a dream, he’d found something to substantiate her story? “I…a…” She hesitated, trying to
think how to word her next question. “Is there a Dr. Harden or Harper who works there?”
“Dr. Harley.”
Oh, God. “And she’s missing?”
Pain darkened his black eyes, the first real emotion she’d seen, other than that simmering sexuality. “I have reason to believe she is.”
Her pulse raced. “Who is she?”
He ran a hand through his hair, raised his head and looked straight into her eyes, a sense of desolation radiating from him. “My sister.”
Adam steeled himself against the sympathy in Sarah Cutter’s cornflower-blue eyes, and the allure of knowing she was half-naked beneath that flimsy robe as he explained briefly about Denise’s sudden vacation.
“Write down everything you remember,” he said gruffly. He sipped his coffee, once again zeroing in on the faint scars on her hands as she wrote.
Basically, her story remained the same as before, offering him little to go on. As had Denise’s journal. He had a few more pages to skim, but so far the portions described very personal feelings about her divorce and her co-workers, with a few notations about apprehension over her research.
“Are you sure you didn’t hear someone mention her name before your surgery, then you dreamed about her afterward?”
“I couldn’t hear before the surgery.”
“But you read lips, right?”
She nodded.
“You might have seen her name on a chart somewhere?”
Her writing became short and jerky. “I didn’t hear anyone mention her name before the surgery and I don’t remember seeing her name anywhere, either. Does she work with hearing implants?”
“No, neurology. Tell me about the implants. You said they were a special prototype?”
“Yes, they’re still in the experimental stages. I had several surgeries when I was young, but there was too much damage to my ear to repair. This implant has a special microchip inside. It’s similar, but even more sophisticated than the cochlear implants and another new one that’s under clinical study called the Vibrant Soundbrid