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He clenched his jaw against the protective feelings surging inside him. He couldn’t say she was welcome. Hell, he shouldn’t be doing this. Mitch took her by the arm and led her to the hall bathroom. “Wash your hands and face,” he instructed, “and I’ll get you some clothes.”
She obeyed without question. She definitely wasn’t herself. He might not know her well, but he knew that much. The Alex Preston he’d argued with was strong and self-reliant, not the submissive type at all.
Mitch hurried to his room and rounded up a T-shirt and a pair of running shorts that tied at the waist. Right now wasn’t the time to analyze why he hadn’t already called in and reported finding her to the dispatcher, or the reason she’d chosen his house in which to take refuge. Chief Lowden would be annoyed that Mitch hadn’t called him right away. But he had questions for Alex first. Questions that couldn’t wait.
At least that was what he kept telling himself to justify putting off what he knew he should do. He paused outside the bathroom door. “This is the best I could do.” He offered Alex the clothes. “There’s a tube of antibiotic cream in the medicine cabinet for your knees.”
Her hands not shaking quite so badly now, she accepted the items and managed a faint smile. “Thank you. This hospital getup is the pits.” She shrugged out of the lab coat and dropped it to the floor. The back of the gown had worked its way open and was showing off more than she realized.
Mitch couldn’t prevent the wicked grin that tilted his lips, or the equally wicked retort that flew out of his mouth before he could stop it. “I don’t know, from some angles it’s not so bad.”
Realizing where he was looking she blushed and closed the door in his face. He shook his head in disbelief. He’d just flirted with her. What was wrong with him? Hadn’t he learned his lesson already? Time for more coffee. Strong coffee. Because he definitely needed to clear his head.
By the time Alex found her way to the kitchen, the smell of fresh-brewed coffee had filled the air and Mitch had downed one cup and was working on a second.
“Have a seat.” He motioned to the table and chairs occupying the center of the big, old-fashioned kitchen. He reminded himself that he wasn’t supposed to notice the athletic muscle tone of her legs, or the way his too-big T-shirt made her look even more vulnerable. “Coffee?”
“Please.” She sat down gingerly.
He imagined that she was pretty sore from the unexplained beating she had taken. At least she wasn’t shaking now, he noticed. He poured her a cup and sat it down on the table in front of her. “Are you hungry?”
She shook her head, then moistened her lips. Mitch cursed himself for following that last move with too much interest.
“I don’t think I could handle any food right now.”
She closed her eyes and he knew she was reliving the scene that had taken place in her hospital room.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened.”
Her eyes opened and she looked up at him with a kind of pain that tugged hard at his emotions. “I’d been lying there for what felt like forever trying to remember what went down with…with Deputy Miller.” She shrugged halfheartedly. “Finally, I had to get up. I couldn’t lie there a minute longer.” Hesitating briefly, she frowned. “When I sat up I heard a sound like glass cracking and something hit the pillow right behind me. I guess it was instinct, but I rolled off the bed and onto the floor even before I realized what had actually happened. I knocked the telephone off the table in the process.”
She stared into her cup for a while as she gathered her courage and began again. “I guess the deputy heard the crash. The door flew open and he rushed in. I tried to warn him to get down, but it happened too fast.” She pressed trembling fingers to her mouth. “I tried to stop the bleeding…but I couldn’t.” Tears welled past her lashes and slid down her cheeks. “All I could think to do then was run from the danger.”
“So you came here?” He worked hard not to be affected by her vulnerability, and at the same time to keep an open mind.
She nodded. “I was afraid. I didn’t know where else to hide. I knew no one would look for me here. And this was the only other place I remembered besides the hotel.”
She was right about that first part. No one would have ever looked here. Not even him. She obviously didn’t remember the words that had passed between them in this very room on the night before last, since she felt comfortable coming here. “How can I be sure that you didn’t call out to Deputy Saylor for the shooter to take down so that you could escape?”
“What?” She pushed out of her chair, sending it scraping across the floor. “Someone tried to kill me!”
Mitch sat his cup down, watching closely for every nuance of her reaction. He had to play devil’s advocate. Had to see and feel her response. “The second bullet could have been the one that hit your pillow to make it look as if someone was trying to kill you.”
She braced her hands at her waist. “You can’t believe that. Why would I have come here? Why would I try to help that deputy if I’d wanted him dead? Do you think I would have—?” A gasp stole the rest of what she intended to say as her mind evidently replayed those final moments in the hospital.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Preston,” Mitch offered, with absolutely no contrition. “But until we solve this case, you’re my prime suspect. Despite the fact that you came here, running only made you look more guilty.”
She stared directly into his eyes. “I ran because I was afraid. I don’t know why I came to your house,” she said flatly. “And I can’t tell you what happened in that car with Miller.” She flung her arms upward in frustration. “I don’t even know how I got all these bruises. But the one thing I can tell you is that I didn’t kill anyone. I know that.”
She swayed slightly and had the presence of mind to drop back into her chair before Mitch had to reach for her.
“All right,” he relented. “Let’s say for the moment that I believe you. How do you propose we go about proving your story? After all, you lied to me about why you were here from the beginning.” She might not remember just yet, but he couldn’t put it out of his head.
That got her attention. Confusion claimed her features. “I don’t know why I lied to you. But there must have been a reason I held anything back.”
Incredibly, he believed her. Mitch swore silently. This was nuts. He should just take her back to the hospital this minute and put her under guard in a room with no windows. What the hell was he thinking standing here allowing himself to swallow her story hook, line and sinker?
But he did. That was the hell of it. He was furious that the Colby Agency had sent her here without coordinating with his office. He was even angrier that she had lied to him and that she seemed determined to make Phillip look bad somehow. But, damned if he didn’t believe, deep in his gut, that she was innocent of any wrongdoing where the murders were concerned.
Before he opened his mouth and made an even bigger fool of himself, the telephone rang. He crossed the room and snatched up the receiver before the second ring. “Hayden.”
“Sheriff, you’re not going to believe what me and Willis found in that P.I.’s hotel room.”
It was Roy. Mitch glanced at the clock. “Roy, I thought everyone had called it a night?”
“I know,” he crooned. “But I just couldn’t wait till morning to do this. I talked Willis into coming over here with me after the search ended for the night.”
Mitch studied Alex, who was staring into her coffee cup again as if it held all the answers she needed. “So what’d you find?”
Roy’s excitement was palpable. “We found a high-powered rifle hidden under the mattress. How much you want to bet it’s the same one that killed Saylor?”
Chapter Two
Mitch sat in the darkness of his bedroom staring at the telephone on the table next to the bed. A faint beam from the moon filtered through the curtains silhouetting the table and the items that sat upon it. The digital alarm clock read 12:45 a.m.
He leaned back in his chair and told himself again that he couldn’t delay making that call any longer. For almost an hour now he’d been sitting here like this, mulling over all that had happened and putting off the inevitable. Roy had called his buddy in ballistics and gotten the promise of a priority test to confirm if the high-powered rifle found in Alex’s hotel room was, in fact, the one used to kill Saylor. They would have their answer some time tomorrow.
Mitch hadn’t told Roy that he had Alex in custody. What was the point? The search wouldn’t resume until daybreak. That was soon enough to announce the news in Mitch’s opinion, though for the life of him he couldn’t understand why he was delaying that call as well. He told himself that it was the right thing to do. First he needed to interrogate Alex further, and he wanted to do that on his own terms.
She wasn’t up to questioning tonight, that was certain. He hadn’t bothered to tell her about the rifle they’d found either. She might make a run for it in the middle of the night if she thought that new evidence, which made her look even guiltier, had been found. Continuing to behave in a completely unprofessional manner, Mitch had allowed her to finish her coffee and then he’d shown her to his spare room. Fifteen minutes later she’d been sleeping like a baby.
Opting to keep her whereabouts to himself until morning might not really bother anyone connected with the official search, but not telling Ashton was a whole other can of worms. There would be hell to pay if he didn’t tell Ashton. Whatever the man’s personal claim on Alex, as her attorney he wouldn’t appreciate being made to wait a moment longer than necessary.
Pushing to his feet, Mitch blew out a weary breath. He padded across the carpeted floor and sat down on the edge of his unmade bed. Until just over one week ago his professional life had been pretty much a breeze, other than the long hours. The worse thing that ever happened was the occasional drunken brawl at one of the college hangouts, or, even more infrequently, at the campus itself. With its five thousand students, Fulmer College was a pretty busy place. Despite the number of rowdy college students the school seemed to draw, trouble rarely found its way into Raleigh County.
But it sure as hell had waltzed into town with Alex Preston. She’d managed to not only turn his professional world upside down, but his personal life as well.
After calling information and requesting the number for the hotel, Mitch selected the option so the number would be automatically dialed. His voice rusty with sleep, the desk clerk offered his practiced welcome greeting, then transferred the call to Ashton’s room.
He answered on the first ring.
So, Mitch wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep. The thought only irritated him all the more. “This is Hayden. I’ve found Alex.”
“Is she all right?”
As had been the case from the start, the anticipation in the other man’s voice was a good deal more than professional concern. His relationship with Alex clearly went much deeper. That shouldn’t bother Mitch, but somehow it did.
“She’s fine.”
“And what does that mean?” Ashton snapped. “The last time you told me she was fine, she’d lost part of her memory. Where is she?”
Mitch struggled to control the unwarranted fury that rocketed inside him. “I said she’s fine. She’s sleeping.”
“Where the hell is she?”
“Here,” Mitch ground out. “At my house.”
The brief silence on the other end of the line spoke volumes. “Why is she at your house?” Ashton’s tone was guarded this time, almost accusing.
“She said she figured it was the last place anyone would look.” Mitch massaged his stubbled jaw in an attempt to stop the muscle jerking there.
“Give me directions,” Ashton ordered, “I’ll be right there.”
“No. I told you she’s sleeping.”
More silence.
“You can see her in the morning,” Mitch offered.
“I don’t know what you think you’re up to Hayden, but you’d better think long and hard before you step too far over that line. I won’t tolerate you coming between me and my client.”
Mitch shrugged off his shoulder holster and tossed it onto the bed behind him. “I’m getting tired of your threats, Ashton.” He gritted his teeth to hold back the rest of what he wanted to say. This was Mitch’s county. He didn’t need any big-city know-it-all telling him how to take care of his business.
“You can’t stop me from seeing her, you know that.”
“I have no intention of trying to stop you,” Mitch pointed out. “Be at my office at nine in the morning. You can see her then.”
That tense silence again. “I’ll be there at eight,” Ashton countered hotly, “and if you ask her just one question outside my presence I swear you’ll regret it.”
“I wouldn’t dream of questioning her without you,” Mitch assured him. “See you at nine.” He hung up the receiver before Ashton could protest.
One thing was crystal clear, Mitch decided as he climbed into bed with his usual sleeping companion, his weapon, he had to get his head together before morning. Whatever it was that had allowed Alex to get so deeply under his skin in such a short time, he had to find a way to ignore it. Because if Mitch was half as easy to read where Alex was concerned as Ashton was, the hotshot lawyer already knew too much.
ALEX SLOWLY OPENED her eyes and stared at the ceiling of her room. Something was different, but she couldn’t be sure what. A dull ache throbbed deep in her skull, making focused concentration impossible. She stretched and sore muscles screamed in protest. The memory of a fist slamming into her stomach, of steel fingers gripping her throat and shoving her hard ricocheted through her mind. The ache in her skull exploded into fierce pain. She groaned and sat up, resting her head in her hands.
It took her a few seconds to realize the fierce agony wasn’t real, only remembered from an event that hovered behind an impenetrable wall that wouldn’t allow her to recall the last six days of her life. When she’d finally convinced herself it wasn’t real, the dull ache was all that remained.
How had she lost that whole block of time? Why couldn’t she remember? The concept seemed completely foreign to her. She should simply be able to retrieve those lost hours like so much data on a floppy disk. But she couldn’t. The flash of memory she’d just experienced was only the second little frame of recall she’d had since waking up in the hospital the day before yesterday.
The neurologist had said that it could be all or nothing, and would likely come in spurts. There was no way to speculate how much she would recall, and no reliable means to speed up her recovery.
Frowning, Alex returned to the problem at hand. Where was she? The image of Mitch Hayden offering her clean clothes at the bathroom door zoomed into vivid 3-D focus. She was at his house. That’s right. She’d come here because she knew no one would look for her here…she’d be safe. Something else she couldn’t remember nagged at her, making her a little less sure of the safe part, but she couldn’t grasp it. She hadn’t actually left the hospital with this destination in mind, she’d just wound up here and then the notion that no one would look for her at this particular location had gelled. He was the sheriff, after all, why would anyone look for her at his house?
Gingerly, she touched the bandage on her forehead. The image of fire blasting from the muzzle of a handgun aimed at her face seized her. She gasped with remembered terror and hugged her arms around her middle. She squeezed her eyes shut and rocked back and forth to calm herself. Her heart pounded so hard her chest hurt. He was going to kill her. He would never let her live knowing what she surely knew—his identity. Alex didn’t know how she knew it was a he, she just did. She was as certain of it as she was that he would try to kill her before she remembered. He had to…
“Good morning.”
Alex snapped her eyes open at the sound of a deep male voice. Mitch Hayden’s slow southern drawl to be exact. He stood in the doorway, propped against the frame. As she watched, he straightened and moved toward the bed. She grappled for the composure that usually came so easily for her. Whoever had worked her over had definitely scrambled her thinking. She was in the middle of a huge identity crisis that involved murder and mayhem and all she could do at the moment was notice how good the sheriff looked. Flashes of memory from last night kept popping into her head. His shirt hanging open, revealing a magnificent chest. His scent, something male and musky, when he’d held her so close as she broke down in his arms. Something about him drew her. It didn’t make sense.
“Good morning,” she returned as calmly as her churning emotions would allow when he paused a few feet away. Feeling vulnerable in her current position, she climbed out of bed and straightened her borrowed clothes, then combed her fingers through her hair in an attempt to pull herself together on the outside at least. “I appreciate you not taking me back to the hospital last night.”
“You don’t need to thank me,” he said quietly, those Artic-blue eyes clocking her every move. “It wasn’t a favor to you. I had my reasons.”
She was his prime suspect. How could she forget? Alex folded her arms over her chest and for a long moment studied the handsome sheriff who appeared hell-bent on adding to her misery. One single frame of memory flickered—Mitch Hayden angry and shouting at her. She flinched. The snatch of recall disintegrated as suddenly as it appeared. She cursed silently for not being able to hold on to the fleeting images long enough to decipher what they meant. She had to remember. Her freedom—not to mention her life—depended upon it.
“I didn’t shoot either of those men.” Alex blinked back the uncharacteristic urge to cry. She was stronger than this. She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. Much stronger. “In fact, I think you should stop wasting time trying to decide whether or not I’m guilty.”
He lifted one tawny eyebrow. “What makes you think I haven’t already decided?”
Uncertainty pulled the plug on her bravado, but she stood firm against the sinking feeling. “If you had, I’d have been in a cell this morning instead of in your bed.”
That cool gaze flicked from her to the rumpled sheets and back. “This isn’t my bed,” he said tightly.
Drawing courage from her direct hit, she replied, “Close enough.”
Quite obviously ill at ease now, he turned back toward the door and started out of the room. “You should eat. You’re going to need your strength. I’ll wait for you in the kitchen.”
Was that a warning? Alex mused as she watched him go. It sure sounded like one. She frowned when she considered that she needed to call Victoria. That first day in the hospital she’d been too disoriented to call anyone, then the killer had struck again before she’d had a chance to demand her rights be acknowledged. Alex squeezed her eyes shut to block the vivid mental images that accompanied the memory of Deputy Saylor’s murder.
Determined to pull it together she headed in the direction of the bathroom she’d used last night. She had to find a way to clear herself of suspicion. And since her memory was not cooperating, she’d just have to utilize her investigative skills.
Alex closed and locked the bathroom door, then took care of essentials. As she washed her hands she studied her reflection in the mirror. Her right cheek was still slightly discolored from…the sound of the back of a hand slapping against her cheek reverberated in her head. She jerked at the remembered sting. Alex touched her cheek and tried to remember more. Trees. Darkness. Someone shouting in the background. A male voice. The feel of the leaf-covered ground beneath her. The wind going out of her lungs when someone kicked her in the stomach. The sound of gunfire. Stark fear.
Trembling violently, she snapped back to the here and now. Alex fumbled around in the drawers until she found a brush. Taking slow, deep breaths to counter the adrenaline surging inside her body, she tugged the brush through her hair. Calm down, she ordered the frightened eyes in the mirror. You’re safe now. Sheriff Hayden had no intention of allowing anything to happen to her. She was his only witness—and suspect. Another of those fleeting images slipped in then out of her thoughts. Hayden shouting at her, fury in his expression. And then that strong pull she felt for him…some kind of unexplainable connection.
Alex shook off the worrisome thoughts and forced one foot in front of the other until she found him in the kitchen. He’d poured her a cup of coffee and prepared toast. He stood, leaning against a nearby counter, waiting patiently.
He wanted answers. The evidence against her was apparently considerable since he wasn’t out beating the bushes for another suspect. Or maybe he just hoped she would remember everything and save him the trouble. She sat down and took a much-needed sip of coffee. Her stomach rumbled. She tasted the toast he had gone to the trouble to butter and waited for him to begin his new round of interrogation.
But he didn’t.
Unable to tolerate the prolonged anticipation, she asked, “How does the evidence stack up against me?”
“Your prints are on the murder weapon.” He nodded to the right hand she’d just lifted to take another bite of toast. “You had the powder residue to prove you were holding the weapon when it fired.”
Alex stared at her hand. She swallowed, hard. Her appetite vanished and she dropped the toast back onto the saucer. “Well, there’s a good start for a murder case,” she allowed. She stared directly at him then. “Now all you need is motive, and you can nail me.”
She didn’t miss the little flutter of muscle in his tightly clenched jaw before he responded. “That would help. But then, if I have to, I’ll nail you without it if you killed my deputy.”
Averting her gaze from his intense one, she sipped her coffee thoughtfully. Anxiety coiled in her stomach threatening her flimsy hold on composure, chinking away at her certainty that she was innocent. She had to be. She would never kill anyone unless it was to save her own life—or someone else’s. Some part of her felt like the sheriff knew it, too. Otherwise she would be in a cell.
“You realize, of course, that I don’t have to answer any questions without legal counsel present,” she said then. She hardly recognized the strained voice as her own. God, she was a mess.
“I didn’t ask any questions.” Those too-discerning eyes remained focused on hers.
Alex almost laughed at that one. He wouldn’t ask any questions, because he knew that legally he couldn’t. But he could make her feel the pressure of proving her innocence. “I can’t tell you what happened, because I don’t know,” she admitted with complete candor. “And I don’t know how Miller tied into my investigation, but he isn’t the reason I came here.”
Hayden didn’t say a word. He simply stood there, waiting for her to continue if she chose.
