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He stopped just inside the doorway and his glance skimmed the two men on the other side of the desk. When his eyes met hers, they widened momentarily, then he smiled. That deep dimple she recalled so well creased his left cheek, but his eyes still lacked the devil-may-care expression she remembered so well.
“Hello there, Jane,” he said.
She’d always found his deep voice soothing, but today there seemed to be a harsh edge to it. Conscious of the way he continued to study her, she slowly got to her feet. His gaze swept down, then back up. His smile widened, and all the carefully chosen words Jane had been about to utter tumbled out in random order.
“Matt. I’m surprised to see you. I was just thinking about you.” Realizing that her voice sounded more raspy than usual, she cleared her throat. “Worrying, actually. Well, worrying isn’t exactly the right word. Though I did do that when I heard you were shot, of course.”
Jane knew she was rambling. She forced herself to speak more slowly. “What I was doing before you came in was berating myself for forgetting that you’d left the police force and—”
“Forgetting,” Wilcox broke in, “seems to be a habit with you, doesn’t it?”
Jane turned toward the detective, but not before she saw Matt’s dark eyebrows move together in a quick frown.
“Just what is going on here?” Matt asked.
Wilcox leaned back in his chair. “I’m here to investigate a report of shoplifting. What are you doing here?”
“I was at the station, trying to get some information on a case Jack and I are working on. I happened to hear Baker call you on your cell phone about a matter involving Jane Ashbury and Maxwell’s. I decided to find out what was going on. I know it’s not my case anymore, but call it for old times’ sake. Care to fill me in?”
In the silence that followed, Jane glanced from one man to the other. Matt, with his narrowed eyes and firmly set lips, didn’t look at all like a man who was asking a favor. And Wilcox, with his hard blue eyes and head cocked to one side, didn’t look like one who was predisposed to grant one. But slowly the man’s lips curved slightly.
“Sure. Why not? So far, we have established the fact that Miss Ashbury here ran out of the store carrying this scarf, valued at one hundred and thirty-four dollars. She claims that she became confused, didn’t know where she was, what month it was, or even who she was. That, however, has yet to be proven.”
Matt looked at Jane. Before he could say a word, however, Mr. Jessup spoke up.
“Well, actually, when the salesgirl called me, she did say she had a customer who seemed to think it was May, and was acting rather strangely.”
Matt’s gaze seemed to sharpen. “May?” he asked Jane.
She barely managed to nod before Wilcox spoke.
“All right. So she was confused. Familiar story, right? That doesn’t explain why she took the scarf with her.”
Matt turned to Wilcox and took a step toward the man as he asked, “What’s wrong with you? My guess is, she forgot she was holding it.” He turned his attention to the security guard. “Where did you apprehend Miss Ashbury?”
“She was standing in front of the store, staring into the window.”
“I see. Where was the scarf?”
“In her hand.”
“Had the tag been removed?”
The man shook his head.
“Would you mind telling me just how many shoplifters you’ve known to stop right outside, with the stolen merchandise in clear view?”
Jessup sighed. “None. But she was moving away when I grabbed her. And her story—”
“Needs to be confirmed,” Wilcox finished as he stood up. “Mr. Jessup, let’s go speak to that salesclerk. I think we can safely leave her in Mr. Sullivan’s custody. He used to be a cop.”
A minute later, Jessup closed the door, leaving Jane alone with Matt. The silence in the room seemed to grow, demanding to be filled.
“I’m sorry about Manny,” she said. “I wanted to come see you, in the hospital, but I was told you couldn’t have visitors. Then Zoe took me to—”
“Hey,” Matt broke in.
He stepped toward her, halting once he was two feet away. Jane could almost feel the strength emanating from him. Or was she recalling the way his arms had held her so tightly as she sobbed uncontrollably the last time she’d seen him?
“I’ve been out of the hospital for a year now,” Matt said. “If anyone should apologize, it’s me. I’ve been meaning to look you up, but—”
“But,” Jane interrupted. Embarrassed by where her earlier thoughts had wandered, and the weakness she’d shown that long-ago day, she went on quickly. “You’ve been busy putting your life back together. I understand how that goes.”
Matt’s jaw tightened. He knew Jane wasn’t offering an empty reassurance. If anyone knew what it took to put a life back together—or create a new one out of nothing, for that matter—it was Jane Ashbury.
In the middle of May, nearly a year and a half ago, he and his partner had been called to the scene of a suspicious accident. A car had gone off a cliff near the ocean and burst into flames, but not before a young woman had been thrown onto the rocks. There were no skid marks to suggest that the driver had been speeding, and the wheel tracks on the grassy cliff indicated the car had come from an odd angle. Any identification that the woman might have been carrying had been destroyed by the fire, and her body and face had been shattered by the impact.
When a check of fingerprint files, dental records and missing persons lists all came up blank, the woman was tagged with the designation normally given to unidentified bodies—Jane Doe—and given the number thirteen to distinguish her from those who had come before and those who would follow. When she came out of her coma, in the middle of June, she had no idea who she was and didn’t recognize the face the plastic surgeons had created for her.
He and Manny had elicited the aid of the media, and Jane’s story was widely covered by newspapers and television. Numerous people came to see her, hoping she might prove to be their missing sister, daughter, wife. What few people knew, however, was how devastating both her celebrity and the subsequent disappointments had been for Jane. Matt knew, though. He had witnessed the last of such visits, had held Jane in his arms as she mourned the fact that, yet again, all parties concerned had been disappointed and she still was left without an identity.
However, when she pulled away from him that day and dried her eyes, a new Jane had emerged.
That quietly self-controlled person stood in front of Matt now—more or less. She wasn’t as painfully thin as he remembered; the hair that had been shaved prior to the emergency operation on her bruised brain had grown out to frame her slender face in a chin-length cap of light brown; and the scar at the left corner of her mouth had faded to the palest of pinks.
But her smoky gray-brown eyes held the same mixture of vulnerability and determination he’d seen the day she declared she was ready to move forward, that she would never search for her past again. However, from what the security guard had said, it seemed that today Jane’s past had come searching for her.
“So,” Matt said. “You remembered something.”
Jane’s eyes widened. “No. I didn’t.”
Matt gave her a small smile. “Jessup just told me you thought it was May. That was the month your car went over that embankment.” It hadn’t been her car, of course. The vehicle subsequently had proved to be stolen. Glossing over the inaccuracy, Matt got to the heart of the matter. “Don’t you think there might be some connection?”
“No.” She took a step back as she spoke, and broke eye contact. Her gaze fell on the scarf. “I was looking at this scarf one minute, then hearing some Christmas tune the next, and suddenly wondered why the store would play that kind of music so early in the year.”
From the evasiveness in her whiskey-toned voice, Matt knew there was more to the story. He considered pressing the matter, then thought about Wilcox’s attitude and decided to hold off, for the moment. Instead, as Jane slowly met his gaze again, he lifted the scarf from the center of the table.
“Good taste,” he said, then let it fall back into a soft puddle as he looked into Jane’s eyes. He tried to lend some lightness to his next words. “Well, for the record, I don’t believe for one moment that you’re some shoplifter making up a story to escape apprehension.”
Jane stared at him. Her wide mouth began to twitch, as if she was fighting a smile. “You still talk like a cop.”
Matt shrugged. Some of the tightness eased from his shoulders. “Force of habit. Besides, I’m still in law enforcement, sort of. I’m a private detective now.”
Jane lifted one brow. “Did you come here thinking I might need your services?”
There was no missing the almost desperate note in that low, throaty voice of Jane’s, a sexy quality that was the direct result of injuries sustained in a crime unsolved. Temporarily unsolved, Matt reminded himself. Now Jane Doe Num—Jane Ashbury—was no longer a half-forgotten part of his life. She was here, in front of him, a bit of unfinished business that had too long been pushed to the back of his mind by events that had turned his own life upside down.
His assessment of the crash made him doubt the theory that Jane had sent the car over the embankment herself, either accidentally or as a suicide attempt. When he and Manny were temporarily pulled off the case, they were certain that they’d eventually be able to prove that Jane’s “accident” had been a murder attempt.
Matt frowned. It was obvious that Wilcox had done nothing with the case the man had inherited. And maybe it was just as well. No one had ever been punished for Manny’s murder, or for the damage that had been done to Matt’s body and life. The idea of justice denied ate at him daily. Maybe he would feel better if he caught the person responsible for the attempt on Jane’s life and brought him, or her, to justice.
But first there was this matter of shoplifting to deal with.
“Well, to be honest,” Matt said, “I don’t consider this much of a case. I’d be very surprised if Mr. Jessup doesn’t return with an apology for having doubted you.”
Jane looked deeply skeptical, but before she could say anything, the door opened and the security guard entered the room. Wilcox followed him, but stopped just inside the door.
“Miss Ashbury,” Jessup said as he approached Jane. “I’m sorry for the…misunderstanding.”
Pure relief softened Jane’s features as she came around the desk and faced the security guard. “I’m free to go, then?”
The man nodded. Jane gave him a wide smile, then opened her arms and gave him a quick hug. When Jane stepped back, the guard blinked and straightened the cap that had been knocked askew by her enthusiasm.
Matt fought a smile. The Jane he remembered had seemed to be far younger than her estimated late-twenties to early thirties. The doctors explained this was because she had no memory of the personal experiences that forge maturity. However, the Jane he’d met upon entering this room had seemed wary and suspicious in a most adult way. He was glad to see that she’d managed to keep at least some of the childlike openness he’d found so refreshing.
“And thank you, Matt.”
Jane had turned toward him. Still smiling, she crossed the room and, before he could anticipate her intent, she went on tiptoe, threw her arms around his shoulders and drew him into a tight embrace.
Automatically Matt’s arms went around her slender body. In an instant he realized this wasn’t anything like the hugs he’d exchanged with Jane before, when she’d been as thin as an eleven-year-old girl. The woman he now held was still slender, but had developed gentle curves that seemed to melt into him, warming him, stirring him in ways he hadn’t allowed his body to experience in far too long. Without willing them to, his arms tightened around her.
For the second time that day, Jane felt the life she’d spent a year carefully building shift beneath her feet. As she found herself drawn into Matt’s embrace, a strange heat washed through her body, and although she had no memory of ever experiencing this particular sort of knee-weakening warmth, she knew what it was. It was the moment she’d read about in all those romance novels, when the woman’s body responds to a man’s. To the man. The one she is meant to be with, now and forever.
But real life, she heard a voice say, isn’t anything like a romance novel. The voice was Matt’s, she realized, echoing from a moment when he’d stood over her hospital bed. He’d tried to explain that there were better ways to fill the blanks in her knowledge than watching movies and television or reading fiction, then he’d handed her a book about the science of the brain and another on world history.
But today proved that he’d been wrong all those months ago. This was just like those novels—a moment of breathless expectation, of heart-pounding joy, of…of absolute idiocy.
A chill slithered through Jane. Kyle Rogers had elicited similar sensations. As she reminded herself of the painful lessons she’d learned in the past year about confusing love with physical attraction, she released her hold on Matt’s neck. As she stepped back, Matt’s arms released her slowly. She found herself standing a foot in front of him, staring mutely into those dark-lashed green eyes of his. Embarrassed heat flooded her cheeks, and she forced herself to speak.
“It was super of you to come down and help me out of this mess. I really appreciate it.” She paused. “I’m sure you have more important things to be doing. And Mr. Jessup here should no doubt be out looking for real shoplifters, so if he’ll return my purse to me, I believe it’s time I headed home.”
“Not so quick—”
Jane had almost forgotten Wilcox. She turned to him as he finished, “I think the three of us have a few things to discuss.”
Chapter Two
The security guard told Detective Wilcox to lock the door when they were finished speaking, then left the room. Neither Matt nor Wilcox had moved during all this. They stood on either side of the door, silently glaring at each other.
“You haven’t done a thing on Jane’s case, have you?” Matt asked the moment the door was shut.
“There hasn’t been a thing to do,” Wilcox replied. “I told her to call me if she remembered anything. Until today, I haven’t heard a word from her.”
The man turned to Jane. “You say you became confused downstairs because you suddenly recalled standing on a beach in the middle of May. Is that right?”
Jane nodded.
“Well, you could have been remembering a day from this past May, right?”
Jane was tempted to lie. It would make things far more simple. But the truth mattered more than convenience.
“No.”
Wilcox’s square features registered skepticism. “You sound rather certain of that.”
Jane shrugged. “I didn’t go to the beach this past May.”
“Okay. What, exactly, did you recall today, standing in front of the scarves?”
“Just what I told Mr. Jessup. I heard the Christmas music playing, and for one second, I could remember standing on the beach and thinking how warm it was for May. Then I became irritated that a store would play Christmas tunes so early.”
“Nothing more?”
Jane shook her head.
“Well, that’s not enough to relaunch any investigation.”
That was fine with Jane. She was releasing a slow breath of relief, when Matt spoke up.
“You have never believed that someone tried to murder her, have you. You still think she tried to kill herself.”
Wilcox met Matt’s accusation with one of his own. “You and Mendosa never put together a shred of real evidence to convince me otherwise.”
“Oh, come on. Are you forgetting that the seat belt broke? It would hardly make sense to buckle up if one were intent on suicide. And do you really think Jane would know how to rig a car to explode?”
“That evidence was inconclusive.”
“Wilcox, none of the evidence in this case, taken a piece at a time, is conclusive. But when you put together the fact that Forensics found scuff marks indicating that the car had been pushed off the cliff, that the air bag had been disabled, and that the steering wheel revealed only Jane’s fingerprints—not even one belonging to the owner of the car—any cop with two brain cells to rub together could make a case for attempted homicide.”
Jane tensed as Wilcox took a step toward Matt. Matt was a couple of inches taller, but the police detective’s muscular form carried a silent, credible threat.
“If someone tried to kill her, why haven’t they made another attempt? Her whereabouts and the fact that she hadn’t died in that accident were well publicized.”
“Exactly,” Matt replied. “As was the fact that she had no memory and that several of her doctors believed the amnesia might have been caused by the trauma to her head, and thus be permanent. Why risk getting caught while making another attempt to kill her, when the media made it clear that there were no clues to her past, meaning the authorities had no idea who would have a motive to murder her?”
Wilcox shook his head. “Look, Lone Ranger. I know that you and your partner enjoyed tilting at windmills, solving the impossible cases. Me, I have enough to do pursuing criminals I have half a chance of catching.”
He turned to Jane. “You should go see that therapist person who was working with you, the one who hypnotizes people. If she manages to help you recall a fact I can follow up on, then call me.”
With that, Wilcox turned and left the room.
Jane drew a deep breath, then let it slide quietly through her barely parted lips. She reached for the purse Jessup had placed on the desk, then turned to Matt.
“Well, I think that was enough excitement for one day. I’d better be getting home.”
Matt turned to her, effectively blocking the path to the door. “First, we need to talk. I understand there’s a coffee shop in the basement.”
Jane frowned as she placed her cup next to a small plate that was almost completely covered by an enormous chocolate chip cookie, then lowered herself into the chair Matt had pulled out for her. We need to talk, he’d said. It hadn’t been a request. And what a good girl she was being, responding to the man’s understated demand like a sheep stepping back into formation at the direction of a border collie.
