lawyer is.”
“You sound doubtful of the amnesia,” Kane noted.
“I think it’s very convenient, that’s all.”
“Convenient for whom, dammit? Faith could have answered a lot of my questions, but now …”
“Let’s wait until we talk to her before we rule her out as a possibly helpful source.”
“And we can talk to the rest of the hospital staff on Monday,” Kane said, “and see if they have anything helpful to add. I just have an awful feeling we’re going to hear more of the same—lovely opinions of Dinah that don’t help us one bit.”
“That awful feeling is probably an empty stomach,” Bishop said prosaically. “We haven’t eaten since breakfast. And there’s probably nothing in your apartment.”
Kane recognized the attempt to take his mind off things, and smiled. They settled on take-out Chinese food, and by seven o’clock, were in the process of putting away the leftovers. When the doorbell rang, Kane assumed it was a delivery boy from the grocery store he’d called. But when he went to the door, he found a woman he didn’t recognize standing there.
She was just a bit over five feet tall and too slender by at least a dozen pounds, but she was a knockout. Gleaming dark red hair with golden highlights, luminous pale skin as smooth and without flaw as polished porcelain, full lips—the bottom one currently being worried by small white teeth—rich with natural color, a straight nose, and big eyes the most unusual shade of green he’d ever seen.
After he silently acknowledged her beauty, he realized she was frightened, and that made him speak more gently than usual.
“Can I help you?”
She was staring up at him, an odd series of emotions crossing her face. Disappointment, bewilderment, pain, speculation, frustration, helplessness. She took a step backward.
“No. No, I—I think I have the wrong apartment. I’m sorry I bothered you.”
Before she could turn away, he reached out and grasped her arm. It felt very fragile. “Wait. Are you—Do you have any information about Dinah?”
She looked at his hand on her, then up at his face, her own frozen in indecision. “I don’t think so,” she whispered.
Kane didn’t release her. A sudden memory surfaced in his mind, a memory of a still, slight figure in a hospital bed glimpsed briefly as he’d stood in the doorway. Her thin face was so colorless and immobile that it had appeared to him masklike, an inanimate thing holding no life. Eerie and ghostly, especially with the nearby machines audibly counting off the beats of her heart to insist, with a machine’s irrefutable logic, that she was, in fact, a living creature.
It was almost impossible to recognize that comatose patient in this woman, whose rioting emotions were the very definition of chaotic life. But suddenly he was sure. “You’re Faith, aren’t you? Dinah’s friend.”
Her eyes searched his face, but whatever she was looking for she apparently didn’t find. A little sigh escaped her, and she said, “Yes. I’m Faith.”
TWO
He didn’t know her.
There hadn’t been a flicker of recognition in those first seconds.
They hadn’t been lovers.
And since they hadn’t been lovers, her dreams could not be memories of a relationship.
As Kane MacGregor led her into his apartment, that realization swirled in Faith’s mind, baffling, frightening. What could it possibly mean?
He didn’t know her, yet her response to him had been immediate and intense. She knew he could feel her shaking, and she was afraid the heat in her skin would also betray her. His voice, his touch, his face, all were utterly, painfully familiar, a small pool of bright, clear certainty in the ocean of blackness all around her, and she feared it would kill her if she had to turn away from that, from him, and plunge alone into the dark unknown.
But she would have to. There was only one explanation she could think of to account for the dreams, one thing that made a certain kind of sense to
“You sound doubtful of the amnesia,” Kane noted.
“I think it’s very convenient, that’s all.”
“Convenient for whom, dammit? Faith could have answered a lot of my questions, but now …”
“Let’s wait until we talk to her before we rule her out as a possibly helpful source.”
“And we can talk to the rest of the hospital staff on Monday,” Kane said, “and see if they have anything helpful to add. I just have an awful feeling we’re going to hear more of the same—lovely opinions of Dinah that don’t help us one bit.”
“That awful feeling is probably an empty stomach,” Bishop said prosaically. “We haven’t eaten since breakfast. And there’s probably nothing in your apartment.”
Kane recognized the attempt to take his mind off things, and smiled. They settled on take-out Chinese food, and by seven o’clock, were in the process of putting away the leftovers. When the doorbell rang, Kane assumed it was a delivery boy from the grocery store he’d called. But when he went to the door, he found a woman he didn’t recognize standing there.
She was just a bit over five feet tall and too slender by at least a dozen pounds, but she was a knockout. Gleaming dark red hair with golden highlights, luminous pale skin as smooth and without flaw as polished porcelain, full lips—the bottom one currently being worried by small white teeth—rich with natural color, a straight nose, and big eyes the most unusual shade of green he’d ever seen.
After he silently acknowledged her beauty, he realized she was frightened, and that made him speak more gently than usual.
“Can I help you?”
She was staring up at him, an odd series of emotions crossing her face. Disappointment, bewilderment, pain, speculation, frustration, helplessness. She took a step backward.
“No. No, I—I think I have the wrong apartment. I’m sorry I bothered you.”
Before she could turn away, he reached out and grasped her arm. It felt very fragile. “Wait. Are you—Do you have any information about Dinah?”
She looked at his hand on her, then up at his face, her own frozen in indecision. “I don’t think so,” she whispered.
Kane didn’t release her. A sudden memory surfaced in his mind, a memory of a still, slight figure in a hospital bed glimpsed briefly as he’d stood in the doorway. Her thin face was so colorless and immobile that it had appeared to him masklike, an inanimate thing holding no life. Eerie and ghostly, especially with the nearby machines audibly counting off the beats of her heart to insist, with a machine’s irrefutable logic, that she was, in fact, a living creature.
It was almost impossible to recognize that comatose patient in this woman, whose rioting emotions were the very definition of chaotic life. But suddenly he was sure. “You’re Faith, aren’t you? Dinah’s friend.”
Her eyes searched his face, but whatever she was looking for she apparently didn’t find. A little sigh escaped her, and she said, “Yes. I’m Faith.”
TWO
He didn’t know her.
There hadn’t been a flicker of recognition in those first seconds.
They hadn’t been lovers.
And since they hadn’t been lovers, her dreams could not be memories of a relationship.
As Kane MacGregor led her into his apartment, that realization swirled in Faith’s mind, baffling, frightening. What could it possibly mean?
He didn’t know her, yet her response to him had been immediate and intense. She knew he could feel her shaking, and she was afraid the heat in her skin would also betray her. His voice, his touch, his face, all were utterly, painfully familiar, a small pool of bright, clear certainty in the ocean of blackness all around her, and she feared it would kill her if she had to turn away from that, from him, and plunge alone into the dark unknown.
But she would have to. There was only one explanation she could think of to account for the dreams, one thing that made a certain kind of sense to
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