Yet at the thought of a husband, her emotions had remained unstirred.
“That’s all I know,” Jordan admitted. “Although I suspect that the David you mentioned is your husband.”
No emotion or awareness penetrated her shroud of forgetfulness. “So all I really have is more questions. Why did I break into the Swinburns’ house? Where’s my daughter? My husband? And why are those men after me?”
Looking guilty, Jordan shifted in his chair.
“You’re keeping something back.”
“No.” His denial came too sharply and quickly.
“Please. Tell me.”
He set down his drink, knelt in front of her and gathered her hands in his with a compassion that brought a lump to her throat. “All I have are hunches. And hunches aren’t always right.”
Insight into his reluctance dawned slowly. “Mrs. Swinburn said they’d had a death in the family. You think it might have been my husband or—” Her breath caught and unbearable agony shot through her. “Or my daughter?”
He pressed her hands, and she returned his strong, warm grip, afraid to let go of the only friend she knew.
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” he said. “Whoever died could have nothing to do with you. We’ll check the obituaries in tomorrow morning’s paper.”
Not knowing was torture. “Sometimes the papers don’t report deaths until days later.”
“If it isn’t in the paper, I’ll call Hal in the morning and ask him to check out who died.”
She nodded. “We have to deal with what we know—for now.”
His expression of approval chased away some of her chill. “All we’re sure of is that you’re connected to the Swinburns and two men are after you. Is it possible they’re trying to return you to your family?”
She shook her head. “Don’t ask me how I know, but they’re a threat. They don’t intend to help me.”
He released her hands and returned to his chair. “So, what do you want to do?”
“Do?”
“I can’t decide for you, but I’ll help if I can. Do you want to keep running? Try to find your husband? Turn yourself in to the cops?”
“No police,” she replied abruptly. “I doubt sitting in a cell will help my memory return. But running isn’t a solution, either.”
Jordan merely nodded.
“If you were me,” she said, “what would you do?”
Rubbing his temples, he closed his eyes, apparently lost in thought. Tall and muscular, tanned and self-composed, he appeared indestructible, but she knew better. She’d seen the scar of the bullet wound above his collarbone, less than a hand’s width from his heart, and in spite of his veneer of irresistible charm, she had glimpsed the pain in his cobalt-blue eyes.
He had been a gallant rescuer, but also a reluctant one. Why he hadn’t turned her in, or at least turned her out, hours ago was a mystery. If the men who pursued her were as dangerous as she suspected, why was Jordan Trouble risking his life for her?
He could have been motivated by his policeman’s instincts, but he wasn’t a policeman now, and he’d never said why he hadn’t returned to the force after his wound healed. He might have taken disability retirement, but he didn’t appear physically incapacitated.
She’d heard of cops suffering post-traumatic stress syndrome from their harrowing experiences on the street, but the only time Jordan had appeared rattled was that one brief second when he’d realized she had lost her memory. Perhaps his brush with death had turned him into a loner, content with his boat, his books and his music.
“If I were you,” he finally said, “I wouldn’t make any decisions until I had more information.”
“Like turning myself in?”
He nodded.
“My husband probably knows all the answers. It shouldn’t be hard to find him.”
“We can check the phone book.”
Uneasiness clutched her. She couldn’t remember her husband, but she knew she didn’t want to see him.
“The telephone directory will also give us your address—if you still live with him.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“You could be divorced.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.” Divorce might explain her lack of emotional reaction to her husband and her reluctance to find him.
“So what will you do now?”
“I want to learn everything I can about myself and my family. But I can’t find out anything if I’m hiding from the police and those thugs.”
“The cops don’t know who broke into the Swinburns’ house,” Jordan reminded her.
“But those two men know me.” She scowled at the wig on the bed with distaste. “I’ll have to stay in disguise.”
He picked up the shopping bag and handed it to her. “Just a suggestion.”
She opened it and withdrew a pair of scissors, a bottle of dark brown hair dye and a curling iron. Tears tickled the back of her throat. He had recognized how much she had hated that damned wig.
“Drastic times require drastic measures.” She rose, carried the bag into the bathroom and shut the door.
JORDAN FINISHED HIS soft drink and wrestled with his conscience. The name David Swinburn had opened floodgates to those memories he wanted to forget.
Last year, shortly after adding Swinburn’s name to his list of potential suspects, the entire fraud investigation had gone sour, and he’d almost died when his cover was blown. While he recuperated from a bullet in the shoulder, his successors had run into a dead end in their attempts to tie David Swinburn to the statewide real estate scam Jordan had been probing.
Reluctant to add to her worries, he hadn’t told Angel about his investigation of her husband. He had no proof against Swinburn, so why prejudice his wife against him?
Jordan was equally hesitant to explain his gut instinct that she was not only in big trouble but major danger. If he attempted to describe the internal radar that had served him well in the past, she’d think he was crazy.
He’d already witnessed too much anxiety in her eyes. Maybe his was a chauvinistic attitude, but he wanted to protect her, not only from danger but from anything that made her unhappy.
Aw, hell. I’m in over my head.
He’d be more useful by remaining neutral, emotionally distant. After less than twenty-four hours with her, he was already beginning to think of her as more than just a luscious body and a gorgeous face.
When Angel stepped out of the bathroom, it was as if he’d been hit by a bolt of lightning. Even in the dim light of the motel room, her extraordinary attractiveness was unmistakable. She hadn’t cut or dyed her long blond hair but had twisted it into an elegant French braid. With her hair pulled back from her face, her brown eyes seemed twice as large. And full of apology.
“As much as I hate that wig, I couldn’t change my hair. My memories are gone. If I alter my appearance, it’s like erasing what little of me is left.”
He shrugged in an effort to hide the impact she had on him. “Then you’ll have to wear the wig when we leave the room.”
“I will, but won’t the men who’re after us recognize you?”
Before he could answer, his cell phone rang. He grabbed it off the dresser.
“Where are you?” Hal demanded in an angry voice. “I came by the marina and your boat was gone.”
“Long story. What’s up?”
“All hell broke loose at the station after I talked with you last Are you near a television?”
Jordan glanced at the ancient mahogany console in the corner. “In a manner of speaking.”
“Turn on Channel 44.”
Before Jordan could ask more questions, Hal hung up.
In two strides, Jordan crossed to the set and twisted the dial. The television hummed and took several seconds to warm up before the picture appeared. The anchorwoman was just beginning the ten o’clock news.
He settled into a chair, and Angel, with a puzzled look, perched on the edge of the bed and glued her attenti
on to the set.
“The body of David Swinburn,” the anchor announced, “a prominent Sunset Bay real estate agent, was discovered early this morning by his housekeeper in his posh waterfront home.”
Film footage of a covered body being wheeled through the wrought-iron gates of a waterfront mansion toward the medical examiner’s vehicle scrolled across the screen.
Jordan cast a quick glance at Angel, pale and tight-lipped, then focused on the news.
“Police are releasing no details of the killing but have issued an all points bulletin for the arrest of Sara Swinburn, the deceased’s ex-wife.”
A color photograph of Angel and the toddler, the same picture he’d seen at the house on Turtle Key, flashed on the screen.
“Sara Swinburn has not been seen since Sunday afternoon,” the anchor droned, “and is believed to be traveling with her two-year-old daughter, Brittany, and driving a late-model red Nissan. Anyone with knowledge of Sara Swinburn’s whereabouts should call the number on your screen immediately.”
Angel turned horror-filled eyes on him. “I’m a murderer.”
Chapter Four
Teetering at the edge of a black abyss, Angel fought to maintain consciousness. She forced herself to inhale a deep breath, released it slowly and felt her dizziness recede.
“The police wouldn’t be looking for me if I hadn’t killed him, would they?” she asked shakily, hoping Jordan would contradict her.
The forbidding set of his handsome features mirrored her distress, and she could almost hear the gears of his mind shifting rapidly behind the midnight-blue of his eyes.
When he spoke, caution tempered his voice. “Next of kin are always suspects in any murder case, because most victims are killed by someone they know.”
Bile rose in her throat, and she swallowed convulsively to keep from being sick. How could she have murdered her ex-husband when the idea of killing anyone was so repugnant?
She is believed to be traveling with her two-year-old daughter, Brittany.... The words from the newscast rang in her head, precipitating another sickening wave of nausea and light-headedness.
Struggling against the blackness, she drew a deep breath. “If Brittany isn’t with me, where is she?”
Jordan sat beside her and clutched her shoulders. “Don’t go to pieces on me now, Angel.”
“My name is Sara,” she said flatly.
“You’ll always be Angel to me. And the nickname’s a good cover.”
She met his rock-steady gaze and fought against panic. “Is it possible I’ve lost my mind? That I killed my husband, even my—”
“Stop it!” He gave her a shake, then gathered her into his arms. “You’re exhausted and suffering from a blow to the head, but you’re not crazy.”
When she’d awakened this morning without memories, she had believed her situation as bad as it could get, but lack of memory was a stroll in the park compared to the crisis she faced now.
She yielded instinctively to the comfort of Jordan’s embrace. Rocking her gently against his chest, he smoothed her hair with a gentle hand. Her silent tears drenched his shirt where her cheek rested against the reassuring thud of his heart. Jordan was the anchor that grounded her against the unknowns she faced, the rock of assurance that kept her from shattering into a million hysterical pieces.
Terrifying, yet unanswerable, questions battered her. If she had murdered her ex-husband and worse, she would never be able to live with that knowledge. And if she hadn’t, without her memory, how could she clear her name and find her daughter?
“What should I do?” Her voice cracked with emotion.
He tightened his arms around her. “You should get some sleep. You can’t do anything tonight. And who knows? You could awake tomorrow with your memory intact.”
If she had killed David Swinburn, she didn’t want to remember. She shivered at the possibility that her mind had shut down to save her from recalling that awful deed.
Jordan released her, knelt beside the bed and, as if she were a child, removed her shoes and socks. The tenderness of his gesture and the comforting contact of his hands with her bare feet bolstered her courage.
“Do you think I killed David Swinburn?”
He stood and turned to rummage in the bag he’d carried in with the cooler. When he faced her again with his features composed, his expression told her nothing about his feelings.
“A good detective keeps an open mind until all the evidence is in.”
“Are you a good detective?”
A flash of sorrow destroyed the neutrality of his face. “I was, in the beginning.”
Abruptly, in the quiet coziness of the motel room, a barrier had dropped between them, as invisible as air, as impenetrable as steel.
With cool politeness, he offered the clothing he’d removed from his bag. “If you don’t want to sleep in your clothes, you can wear this.”
Afraid to trust her voice, she accepted his T-shirt without thanks. As if walking through a thick fog of unreality, she went into the bathroom to change. Fearful of what she might discover in her eyes, she avoided the mirror and stripped off jeans, sweatshirt and bra and shrugged into the soft, oversize shirt that dipped to her thighs.
A sudden weariness clobbered her like a knockout punch, bringing with it blessed numbness. Leaving her discarded clothes in a heap, she stumbled into the bedroom to the far side of the king-size bed, where Jordan had turned back the covers, and slipped between the cool sheets.
The sleep of exhaustion closed in and erased the horror of the day the instant she hit the pillow. As she lost consciousness, she decided Jordan’s tucking a blanket around her with a soft good-night must have been a dream.
AT SUNRISE, JORDAN SIPPED complimentary motel coffee from a foam cup and dangled his feet from the seawall outside the room. Along the tide line, seagulls scavenged for food in the pale light and split the dawn quiet with their strident cries. The bracing smell of salt water and the cloying sweetness of oleanders in bloom filled the air.
A typical, peaceful morning on the Gulf Coast. At least, it should have been, but Angel’s sudden and problematic intrusion into his life had blown his formerly calm existence to hell and back.
Had she killed David Swinburn?
Gentle and vulnerable, she seemed an unlikely murderer. His too-brief police career had taught him, however, that, contrary to movie and television plots, most killers weren’t calculating and evil, but regular folks who yielded to their baser instincts in a moment of passionate rage. And a spouse was always a suspect because of the thin line between love and hate and the vehement fervor those emotions generated.
He picked up a smooth shell and skipped it along the surface of the bay, disturbing the water’s calm just as Angel had ruffled his life. He had learned long ago that apathy, not hate, was the opposite of love. And he’d never heard of anyone committing murder while caught in the throes of apathy.
He had to consider the possibility that Angel, provoked by something her ex-husband had said or done, had lost control, killed him and fled in horror at her actions.
If she was a killer, what was he going to do about it? He had returned to the dilemma he had wrestled with all night, a ticklish situation that placed his conscience at odds with his professional training.
If he were smart, he would hand her over to the police and let them sort it out. But how could he just dump her when she had no memories, nothing to use in her own defense?
As an experienced investigator, he’d cleared his share of cases, and he still had his skills. He could hide Angel until he’d uncovered the facts of the case or until her memories returned. He shrugged off that option, too, knowing if the police—or the thugs on her trail—found her in the meantime, he didn’t want to be responsible for the consequences.
He had only one other choice and had leaned toward that solution all night. It looked about as appealing in the morning light as it had then. The lesser of three evils.
It was time to act.
“Mike, Jordan Trouble. I need your help.”
“What’s up?” An alert, all-business tone replaced Michael’s grogginess.
“I’m on my cell phone, so I’d rather not say. You never know who’s monitoring the airways. Can you meet me?”
“Just tell me when and where.”
“How about where the softball team meets after practice? In an hour?”
“See you then.”
Jordan hoisted himself to his feet and pocketed his phone. Placing the call had been the easy part. The tough part would be telling Angel what he’d done.
After a last, longing look at the bay and the channel that led to the open waters of the gulf, away from the monumental dilemma he’d stumbled into, he returned to the room, unlocked the door and slipped inside. Enough light seeped around the closed draperies to reveal Angel, curled on her side, asleep as he had left her.
The sight of her, her face flushed with sleep, one slender leg escaped from beneath the covers, sent a hot rush of desire straight to his groin. As if debating her problem all night hadn’t been tough enough, he’d also had to resist the temptation to slide across the wide bed and pull her warm and supple body into his arms. Along with the lust, feelings he’d tried to bury washed over him, stirring his hunger for closeness. He had alienated himself from everyone who had ever loved him, and until last night he had welcomed the solitude.
A year ago, he’d learned the hard way that closeness brought its own kind of pain, and he refused to suffer that agony again. But most important of all, Angel already had the deck stacked against her. She didn’t need his lack of detachment and subsequent bungling to add to her difficulties.
In another hour, she would be safe in Michael Winslow’s capable hands, and as soon as the boat was ready, he’d take off for Key West, do a little scuba diving, fish for marlin and make Oblivion live up to her name.
Angel stirred and moaned in her sleep, and her plaintive whimper wrenched his heart.
A Woman of Mystery Page 5