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“Houston?” he spat out. “We’re just outside New Orleans.”
Sweet heaven. Even with a multiple choice, she wouldn’t have gotten it right. What the heck was she doing here?
“You honestly don’t remember?” he asked.
“No.” It was the one answer of which she was certain.
“All right, let’s try something easy. What’s the date?”
Again, she tried to concentrate. “Is it June something?”
He blew out a long breath. “Not quite. It’s August twelfth. Okay. Here’s a question that nobody gets wrong. What’s your name?”
She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Absolutely nothing. Her mind was a complete blank.
He stilled, his expression registering more than a little alarm. “You don’t know your own name?”
She shook her head, trying to will away the dizziness that started to overpower her. “I have no idea.” And she didn’t. No idea whatsoever.
She was ready to panic, when it occurred to her that this had to be a dream. Yes, a dream. It was the only logical explanation. A full-fledged, mind-blowing nightmare. All she had to do was wake up, and she’d remember everything. Heck, right now she probably wasn’t anywhere near this lake but in her own bed at home.
Wherever home was.
She blinked hard several times, trying to force a different scene to appear in front of her, but the nightmare was still there. And so was Gabe Sanchez. He stared at her, his dark, suspicious eyes filled with questions that she knew she couldn’t answer.
So, with the taste of the muddy lake still in her mouth, she closed her eyes and let the dream take over.
VOICES WOKE HER. She caught a word here and there, but much of what she heard didn’t make sense. Philip. Frank Templeton. Sanchez.
Gabe Sanchez.
The man who saved her. There were at least two other voices: a male and a female. All three used hushed tones, but they seemed to be arguing.
She forced her eyes open, even though the overhead fluorescent lights made her wince, and pain stabbed through her head. She felt groggy, almost drunk, but she finally managed to see the trio near the doorway. Sanchez, an attractive woman with pinned-up dark hair and a tall blond man.
The woman and the other man wore business suits in neutral colors. No suit for Sanchez. He had on faded jeans, a plain white T-shirt and a shoulder holster that had a pistol sticking out of it. There was a beeper attached to his belt loop.
She glanced down at her own clothes. Someone had dressed her in drab green surgical scrubs. And she was on a gurney.
“I’m not in ICU,” she said to herself. “Or in an emergency room.”
It looked more like a huge supply closet. There were several metal shelves crammed with boxes. A single window graced the far wall, and the blinds were closed, so she couldn’t tell if it was night or day. Or if it was covered with bars. She was afraid it might have bars.
“It’s what you have to tell her,” the woman insisted.
Sanchez shook his head. “I won’t.”
The woman folded her arms over her chest and tapped her foot. “It wasn’t a request. Now, what part of it didn’t you understand?”
“The part where you started spouting Justice Department garbage, that’s when, Teresa.”
“You’d rather have her dead? Because that’s what’ll happen. Heck, it almost did, or have you forgotten that already?”
“I haven’t forgotten anything. I’m the one who pulled her out of that lake.” Sanchez mumbled something under his breath. Leigh only caught the Jesucristo part. “Hell, she almost died in my arms.”
She lifted her head off the gurney. “Who are you people?”
The three rifled their gazes toward her, but they didn’t say anything. She studied each one, trying to interpret their expressions and the snippets of conversation she’d heard.
She definitely didn’t trust the blond man, and yet she couldn’t say why. The woman was no ally either. She didn’t know what to make of Sanchez, but since he’d saved her from drowning, she would cast her lot with him if it came down to choosing sides.
It would, she feared, come down to choosing sides.
“Better yet,” she amended when none of them answered her, “who am I?”
Gabe Sanchez walked toward her with an almost graceful ease. He was tall, over six feet, and muscular. His biceps strained against the cotton T-shirt. He had chocolate-colored hair that was short and neat. Efficient. Low maintenance.
When he got closer, she saw that his eyes were a deep blue. They, too, seemed efficient—his gaze swept over her with a minimal amount of effort. However, she had no doubt that he’d just given her the once-over.
The others trailed behind Sanchez, stopping when he did. They were friends. No, more than that. Or less than that. Maybe much, much less.
God, why was it so hard to figure out things?
“You still don’t remember who you are?” Sanchez asked her.
“No. Why is that? What’s wrong with me?”
“You took a hard hit on the head. It might take a while for everything to come back.”
She touched the bandage on her forehead. There was indeed a lump under the gauze swatch, but she hadn’t needed to feel it to know it was there. That was no doubt the source of her vicious headache.
“I have a concussion?” she asked.
Sanchez nodded. “And a few stitches in your forehead and on your ankle where the rope abraded your skin. The doctor examined you, but he doesn’t think your memory loss has anything to do with the head injury. In other words, no brain damage. He said it was brought on by emotional trauma.”
“Disassociative amnesia,” she softly added. “How long will it last?” But she already knew. Like her aversion to the blond man and the woman, she just didn’t know how she knew it.
It was Sanchez who answered. “The doctor’s not sure. It could be hours. Or days.”
“Or I might never regain my memory,” she provided.
She lowered her head and tried to absorb that. She couldn’t. It was impossible to understand anything while her thoughts whirled around like a tornado.
God, what she was going to do? She didn’t know who she was, not her name, not her age. Nothing. She didn’t know if she was still in danger or if she could trust anyone. She didn’t even know what these people had to do with her.
But they knew.
They likely knew everything about her.
“What’s my name?” she asked Sanchez. She wanted answers, and by God, she wanted them now.
“Leigh O’Brien.”
That didn’t mean anything to her. Only the water and Sanchez saving her meant anything. For all practical purposes, her life had begun the moment she realized she was drowning. That wasn’t a comforting thought. “Where am I?”
“A private clinic near New Orleans.”
So, they hadn’t left the area. But it wasn’t an ordinary clinic. She was sure of that. “Are you a cop?”
“No.”
“Am I a cop?”
The room went deadly silent. “No,” the blond man finally answered.
Leigh didn’t like that hesitation. It sent a wave of panic through her. “Am I a criminal then?” And she braced herself for the answer.
These people might be here to arrest her for something she’d done wrong. Had someone tossed her in that lake because of a drug deal gone bad? An organized-crime housecleaning? What awful thing had she done to make someone want to murder her?
The blond man took a step forward, placing himself slightly ahead of the others. “You’re not a criminal.”
She allowed herself a short breath of relief. Just one. And got down to business. “Since these questions could go on forever, why don’t you just tell me who you are?”
The three glanced at each other before the blond man said anything else. “I’m Wade Jenkins. People call me Jinx. Special Agent Sanchez and I are with the FBI. Agent Teresa Walters is an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms—the ATF.”
“FBI. ATF,” Leigh repeated. “What about me? Am I some sort of agent, too?”
“You’re a concerned citizen.” The blond man burrowed his index finger into his eyebrow. “A concerned citizen with a rather large problem.”
“Obviously,” Leigh snapped. “Believe me, after everything that’s happened, I can guess there’s a problem. Now, other than a concerned citizen, who am I? If I don’t work for an agency with initials, where do I work?”
“At a bookstore in Austin, Texas,” Jinx answered.
“A bookstore?” A bookstore. That couldn’t be right. Nothing about that felt right.
He didn’t elaborate. “Exactly what do you remember about being in the water?”
A good question. Too bad she didn’t have a good answer. “Not much other than Agent Sanchez saving me. Before that, all I remember is struggling and sinking deeper.”
“Any idea who put you in the lake?”
She tried to force the answer to appear in her mind. It didn’t work. She had no more answers about that now than she had when Sanchez had first asked her. “No. I have an image of someone on a bridge, but I can’t make out any of the features. Someone wearing light colors. I don’t suppose that helps you any?”
“No,” Teresa Walters answered in a frustrated huff. “But your amnesia is only part of the problem. This might not be over. Someone might make another attempt to kill you.”
Leigh swallowed hard. She hadn’t considered that. Yet. However, after her adrenaline fatigue wore off, it would no doubt have occurred to her. Amnesia or not, she still had common sense.
She hoped.
Leigh turned her gaze to Sanchez. “Who wants me dead?”
He lifted his shoulder. “We don’t know.”
“Can you at least tell me what it involves? What—”
“The less you know, the better,” Jinx interrupted.
“Maybe that’s your way of looking at it, but I see things from a little different perspective than you do. Someone tried to kill me, and I think I have a right to know why.”
“Jinx is right about this, Leigh,” Sanchez spoke up. “Even if we told you everything, it wouldn’t make you safer. That’s why we’ll provide you with protection.”
She shook her head, already objecting. “Now, wait a minute. I don’t even know any of you, and you want me to place my life in your hands? How do I know you’re not the people who tried to kill me, huh?”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Sanchez answered. “If we wanted you dead, I wouldn’t have pulled you out of that lake.”
“But those two didn’t pull me out.” She pointed to Wade Jenkins and then to Teresa Walters. “The way I see it, I’m in a real mess here. What if some secret’s trapped in my head, and you want me around just long enough to get it? What if you kill me the minute I tell you what you want to know?”
Agent Walters threw her hands in the air. “I give up. Let me know when you can talk some sense into her.”
Leigh was about to tell the woman exactly what she thought of her when Sanchez broke in. “You can trust me, Leigh.” The offer had not come effortlessly. It came with a scalpel-sharp glare.
“Why? Because you saved my life?”
He didn’t answer, but after a moment Jinx did. “Not just that. You can trust him because Gabe Sanchez is your husband.”
Chapter Two
Gabe could almost feel her gaze crawl all over him. He braced himself for the storm he was about to face. And there would be one heck of a storm when Leigh got going with her questions. No doubt about it.
“My husband?” she repeated.
He nodded but didn’t add more than that. The details of their marital status were among a mile-long list of things he didn’t want to discuss with her. Too bad he’d probably have to do just that before this was over.
“Is it true?” she asked. “Are we really married?”
He eased onto the edge of the narrow gurney and stared down at her. No sense standing for what would basically be an interrogation. “I’ll answer that if you’ll tell me the truth. Is this memory loss all an act?”
“No.” Aggravation danced across her eyes. “I wish it were, because I can promise you I wouldn’t be here. I don’t like being here.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Gabe made a sweeping glance around the room. “I don’t care much for it myself.”
Leigh made the same sweeping glance, and when she finished, their eyes met, coming together until they held. “Are you really my husband?”
Well, this was one part of the conversation that he obviously couldn’t put off. Not that it surprised him. If their situations were reversed, he’d want to know the same thing. “Afraid so. You’re not happy about that?”
“The jury’s still out. It’s hard to know if I’m happy about it when I don’t even know you. So, how long have we been married?”
Ah, a test. He’d expected that, too. “Four years, six months.” He paused, thinking. “And eighteen days.”
