IF ONLY SHE COULD REMEMBER…

Attacked and left for dead, “Julie Thomas” has amnesia, and doesn’t know why anyone would want to hurt her. But when surveillance video of that night shows Julie holding a baby—a baby nowhere to be found—she panics. Is the child hers? Where is she now? With no answers and no place to go, Julie accepts Detective Zach Jones’s offer to help her solve both mysteries. The handsome, loyal cop makes her feel safe. But someone is trying very hard to make sure her memories stay buried forever.

Witness Protection: Hiding in plain sight

“Whoever attacked me at the park still wants me dead,” Julie said.

She spoke with such certainty and calm, yet every muscle in Zach’s body tensed, every hair on the back of his neck stood on end. She was in danger.

He swallowed the guilt that rose in his throat. “I am sorry. This is my fault.” Every syllable threatened to choke him, each one harder than the last. “I promised I’d take care of you. And instead I revealed right where you are.”

She shook her head and slipped her hand into his and squeezed. “It wasn’t your fault, Zach. But he’ll come looking for me again.”

The fingers in his grip began a slow tremor, quaking even more with every rise and fall of her chest. She was terrified.

Whoever they were dealing with, whoever had attacked her in that park, had disappeared.

* * *

WITNESS PROTECTION: Hiding in plain sight

Safe by the Marshal’s Side—Shirlee McCoy, January 2014

The Baby Rescue—Margaret Daley, February 2014

Stolen Memories—Liz Johnson, March 2014

Top Secret Identity—Sharon Dunn, April 2014

Family in Hiding—Valerie Hansen, May 2014

Undercover Marriage—Terri Reed, June 2014

LIZ JOHNSON

After graduating from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff with a degree in public relations, Liz Johnson set out to work in the Christian publishing industry, which was her lifelong dream. In 2006 she got her wish when she accepted a publicity position with a major trade book publisher. While working as a publicist in the industry, she decided to pursue her other dream—becoming an author. Along the way to having her novels published, she wrote articles for several magazines and worked as a freelance editorial consultant.

Liz makes her home in Nashville, Tennessee, where she enjoys theater, exploring her new home and making frequent trips to Arizona to dote on her nephew and three nieces. She loves stories of true love with happy endings.

Stolen Memories

Liz Johnson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord.

I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.

—Hebrews 10:16

For Kaye and Ruth, who encouraged me as I wrote this book. True friendship is an uncommon and special gift. I’ll never forget yours.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

DEAR READER

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

EXCERPT

ONE

Zach Jones ran his hand down his face until his fingers covered a yawn. Letting out a muted sigh, he stared through the windshield of his parked car, seeing nothing but the lights lining the Minneapolis street. After a long day of chasing down dead ends, he was ready for a couple days off.

A quick glance at the clock on his dashboard revealed that his shift was almost over. Time to head back to the station before turning in for the night. He’d just put the unmarked sedan into gear when the police radio in his car squawked, and he leaned over to turn it up.

“Possible dead body at the corner of Thomas Road and Gavel Drive at Webster Park.” His stomach lurched, his pulse flying. That was just a few blocks away.

Tossing the radio handset into the empty passenger seat, he flipped on the sirens and pulled onto the nearly deserted road. Usually he was the last one to the scene. Homicide was always called in after a dozen patrol officers had swarmed the area.

This close to the scene, he’d probably even beat the uniforms there.

“This is Jones. I’m en route.”

The dispatcher replied with a quick, “Ten-four.” Then after a short pause she added, “Two boys cutting through the park found the body.”

“Are they still at the scene?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Tell them to stay away from the body but not to move. I’ll have questions for them later.”

Trees just beginning to sprout their spring leaves sailed by as he maneuvered around a car pulled over to the side of the road to get out of his way. The lights of the restaurants and stores of the commercial district to his left faded, his mind focused on the scene he was about to reach.

Pulling off the road, he parked at the entrance of a walking path, turned off the sirens but left the red-and-blue lights flashing. He was the first on the scene. He slipped his phone into his pocket, tucked his flashlight into his belt and pulled on rubber gloves as he followed the beam of his headlights.

Two boys, probably no more than twelve, sat next to each other on a wooden bench, hugging their hockey skates as though he was going to demand they give them up. He pushed back his jacket to show them the badge hanging around his neck, a late winter wind seeping through the fabric of his shirt. “You boys call the cops?”

The bigger boy nodded a mop of dark brown hair and let go of his skates long enough to point behind him into the shadows.

Zach squinted but couldn’t make out a form between the tree trunks. “Did you go near the body?”

“No, sir.” Again from the bigger boy. The little one with the blond crew cut hadn’t blinked since Zach arrived. He was probably in shock from what he’d seen.

How bad was it over there?

His skin crawled, the hair on his arms standing up. It wasn’t from the cold. Or even from this case. This wasn’t his first day in the department.

It was something in the air. Something that, after ten years with the Minneapolis P.D., he could almost smell. Something that, after all this time, he still couldn’t name.

“You boys stay here. Okay? Other officers are on their way. And I’ll be right back.”

Swinging his flashlight across the grass at his feet to make sure he didn’t inadvertently step on a vital piece of evidence, he picked his way in the direction the kid had first indicated. After thirty yards, the light from his car was almost no help. A curtain of rich gray clouds had fallen in front of the moon, so he slowed to a near crawl.

And then he saw it.

A crimson pool coated a patch of lawn the size of a dinner plate.

Shivers ran down his spine and he sucked in a quick breath as he flicked his light up to illuminate the body. It was a woman with long dark hair, which was matted across half of her face with her own blood. She lay on her side, one arm stretched out under her head and the other curled under her chin. Her full lips were nearly white.

His stomach clenched.

This part never got easier.

Without a doubt this was going to be the worst night of someone’s life. That person was going to get a call that would change everything, that would shatter a heart.

But Zach would do everything he could to make sure that the person responsible never had the opportunity to do this again, to destroy a family again.

Stepping around the stain of evidence, he reached her side and squatted next to her. The part of her face that he could still make out was covered with scratches and already turning purple. A gash above her left eye disappeared into her hairline and looked to be the source of the bloodstain he’d dodged. Someone had beaten the tar out of her.

A drop slipped down her forehead, and he paused.

Dead bodies in a position like this didn’t usually keep bleeding.

He snapped his gloves at the wrists to make sure they were on tight and pressed two fingers against the spot where her left palm met her forearm. Holding his breath, he waited.

There, beneath the skin and barely palpable, was a pulse.

His heartbeat jackhammered just below his throat.

“Ma’am. Ma’am, can you hear me?”

No response.

He grabbed his phone and punched in the number for the dispatcher. He didn’t even wait for an answer. As soon as the line was picked up, he said, “This is Detective Jones.” He spit out his badge number, standing and searching the streets for any sign of the ambulance that wasn’t going to be in enough of a hurry to get there. “I’m at Webster Park, and the possible homicide victim is not DOA. Repeat, the victim is alive. I need an ambulance and backup here ASAP.”

His voice shook a little on the last word, and he took a steadying breath. He didn’t have live victims. He’d only seen one other in the three years since making detective and joining Homicide.

This one was about as close to death, but still breathing, as he’d ever seen.

“Ten-four. Paramedics are en route.”

“ETA?”

“Three minutes.”

He dropped back by her side, keeping his finger pressed against her wrist. The steady thumps under his touch kept his hope alive, but only just.

Lord, please let this one live.

He didn’t have an explanation for the intensity of the longing in his heart, but he knew she didn’t deserve to die like this, alone and abandoned in a city park that hadn’t seen much traffic since the city started massive construction on a walking bridge.

Someone didn’t want her quickly found or able to tell her tale.

Sirens carried through the trees, ringing between buildings as they drew nearer. The band around his heart loosened.

“Don’t worry. Help is on its way.”

Her only response was the steady beat at his fingertips.

“Hang in there. You just have to hang in there a little while longer. Then we’ll find whoever did this, and he’ll pay. I promise.”

* * *

Everything before that moment was blank.

It took considerable effort, but she pried her right eye open far enough to cringe at the glaring light wedged between white ceiling tiles. Pain like a knife sliced at her temple. She tried to lift her hand to press it to her skull. Maybe that would keep it from shattering. But her arm had tripled in size and weighed more than the rest of her body. She could only lift it an inch from where it lay at her side.

Fire shot from her elbow to the tip of her middle finger, a sob escaping from somewhere deep in her chest and leaving a scar inside her throat as it escaped.

“Julie?”

Julie? She turned to look in the direction of the voice to see who else was in the room, but something plastic tugged against her nose. An oxygen cannula. She didn’t even try to lift her hand to adjust it, instead rolling her eye as far as she could.

A gentle hand with cold fingers pressed against her forearm, but the face was just out of reach. “Julie? How are you feeling?”

Who was Julie? There wasn’t anyone else in her limited line of sight, but that didn’t mean the other girl wasn’t close by.

A face—round and blurry—appeared right above her. Wide-set blue eyes shone with compassion and the same brilliance as her white smile. “I’m Tammy, your ICU nurse.” Cool fingers secured the tubing back into place and brushed across her forehead. “You’ve been here quite a while. I’m glad you decided to wake up on my shift, Julie.” A low chuckle followed. “Oh dear, I’ve gotten so used to calling you that. I’ll have to stop.”

What was she doing in the ICU? On a hospital bed in the ICU? And why had the nurse been calling her Julie?

That wasn’t her name.

“I know someone who’s been looking forward to talking with you.”

She blinked and tried to ask who, but her voice cracked. Only a croak escaped before Tammy pressed a straw to her lips. “Drink a little bit of this.”

She did as the nurse instructed, the tepid water like a creek in the Sahara, soothing her throat as she swallowed it but leaving most of the area untouched. She tried for a longer sip and more water but choked on it. Tammy pulled the cup away and patted a tissue where a trickle had escaped down her chin.

She jolted at the touch, pain searing to the bone.

“I’m sorry. Your stitches are probably still a bit tender. But you’re healing nicely.”

Healing? How long had she been in the unit? How had she gotten there? Because she’d just been—

“If you’re ready, I’m going to let Detective Jones know that he can come in and see you. He’s been waiting to talk with you for three days.”

She tried to shake her head. A detective? As in a police officer? Why were the police coming to see her? What had she done?

She didn’t want to see anyone, let alone a detective. But Tammy disappeared before she could get her body to respond. Everything was moving slower than it should. Her muscles, her joints, her brain.

Only the low hum of Tammy’s voice carried across the room. “Now remember, she hasn’t even seen the doctor yet. Don’t give her a hard time.”

A deep voice agreed that he’d try not to.

As if to show off just how slow her mind was moving, Tammy reappeared almost the instant that the conversation ended, one hand resting on an arm that belonged to someone just outside her range of vision. “This is Detective Jones. He’s with the Minneapolis P.D. I’ll let you two talk while I call the doctor.”

Tammy disappeared. And then a face edged with dark hair appeared right above her. Eyes like deep amber seemed to smile even though the line of his mouth never twitched, and he pressed a hand against the mattress next to her arm, never quite touching her. But she could feel his presence, his strength.

She let out a slow breath.

“De—” Her voice cracked, and he held up a hand to stop her.

“Please. It’s Zach.” Generous lips formed the words, but they seemed to take a long time to reach her ears. He spoke with a familiarity that she couldn’t place. Was she supposed to know this man? “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.” Apparently not. Thank goodness. “I’ve been checking in on you every day. The doctor said you thumped your head pretty good, but the swelling has been going down.”

How was she supposed to respond? “That’s good...I guess.”

“It is, indeed.” His lip twitched, but he didn’t give her more than half a smile. With a quick glance over his shoulder, he continued, “Do you feel up to answering a few questions?”

She wanted to shake her head, but then he’d come back and interrupt her sleep again. She really just wanted to drift back into oblivion where it had been warm and quiet. Where there’d been no pain and her stuttering thoughts were neither important nor questioned.

“Do you remember how you got here?”

She thought about it for a long moment. Blinking her only mobile eye—why wouldn’t her other eye respond?—she tried to peek around the curtain in her mind, to reveal the corners she couldn’t quite make out. The sheet wouldn’t budge, and the harder she tried to move it, the more her head throbbed.

Finally she shook her head.

He scratched at the little point of his chin, his smile dimming for a brief moment, the lines at the corners of his eyes disappearing. “That’s all right. We’ll come back to it. You’ve been through a pretty big ordeal.”

Oh, really? What had she been through that left her straining to uncover her memories and answering a strange detective’s questions? He’d said that it was nice to meet her, but he’d come into her room like he belonged there. Clearly he’d been waiting for her to wake up, and Tammy had gone straight to him. But she wasn’t expected to know him. Why did he seem to know her?

She wanted to ask, but the words just weren’t there.

Zach brushed a wayward strand of dark brown hair off his forehead with the back of his hand, plastering an easy grin in place. Really, it wasn’t so much a smile as it was a visual encouragement, like if he kept looking at her like that she’d be able to get up right then and walk out of this room. “Let’s try something a little easier. We’ve been calling you Julie Thomas because you were found in the park on Thomas Road across from Jack and Julie’s Grill.” So he didn’t know her, and she wasn’t supposed to recognize him. Relief washed over her like the bath she craved. “We didn’t find your ID.”

“It’s in my purse.” It was always in there.

He shook his head slowly. “We didn’t find a purse, either.”

She tried playing out all the movements she’d made before losing her bag. But she didn’t even know where to start. And every possible step was blank. No context. No location. No memories.

“Maybe you can tell me your real name?”

She nodded slowly, controlling every movement to keep the pain from flaring up again. Of course she could. There were just some things a woman never forgot.

He lifted his thick eyebrows as though his anticipation grew with every tick of the clock.

Closing her eye and swallowing against the sandpaper in her throat, she opened her mouth and tried to form the word.

But it wasn’t there.

The name she’d surely heard thousands of times floated just out of reach. Like the string on a balloon caught in the wind, it danced away until her lips sputtered and a tear leaked down her cheek.

Dear God, I don’t even know my own name.

TWO

Zach hated to see a woman cry. More than he despised all-night stakeouts and stale doughnuts, he hated when a woman cried.

He cleared his throat, offering a low whisper. “Your name. Can you tell me your name?”

“I don’t re-remember.” Her words, broken by a soft sob, barely made it to his ears.

He swung another glance across the room to see if the nurse had heard the same thing that he had, but she had yet to return with the doctor.

Turning back to Julie, he leaned a little closer. Maybe he’d misunderstood. “You don’t remember?”

She shook her head again, uneven brown locks falling just onto the white bandage taped to her forehead. “I’m not— I can’t—” She looked away before blinking one watery eye filled with more questions than he could answer. A trembling reached her bottom lip, and she sank her perfectly straight teeth into it. But that wasn’t enough to stop the returning tears from escaping closed lids. Moisture appeared even at the swollen seam of her left eye, still purple and red like an overripe strawberry.

Taking a deep breath, he did the only thing he could remember doing the handful of times Samantha had cried in his presence. With the tips of his fingers, he patted her forearm gingerly, avoiding the patch of road rash just below her elbow. She must have caught herself there because the scrape covered a good bit of real estate.

At his touch, Julie jerked her arm away, then squeaked as every muscle in her body tensed. The veins in her neck popped out, her lips pulling back to reveal clenched teeth.

“It’ll be all right.”

The words didn’t hold much weight. How could they? The only person who could help him solve her case couldn’t remember her own name. She was locked somewhere in her own mind, and he had yet to decipher a shred of evidence to help her fill in the missing pieces, to figure out who had left her beaten and on the brink of death.

The metal legs of the nearby chair scraped along the floor as he pulled it up to the bedside and slumped into it. Scrubbing a hand down his face, he rested his elbows on his knees, wrinkling the creases of his gray slacks.

“I can’t see you.”

He jumped up like her words had set the seat on fire and leaned over her bed, staring into her open eye. “Better?”

The muscles in her neck relaxed, and even the steady beat of her carotid artery seemed to settle from a frantic rhythm. She patted at her mattress until her fingers found his hand resting close by. She didn’t exactly hold his hand. But she seemed to need the touch to confirm his proximity.

He didn’t mind so much. Whatever he could do to help this girl. She sure needed it, and he felt somehow responsible for her. Of course, it wasn’t his fault that she’d been attacked. But since rescuing her, he’d kept an eye out for any word of a missing person matching her description. Nothing yet.

Never taking her wary eye off of him, she said, “We don’t know each other. I mean, we didn’t know each other. Before. Right?”

“That’s right.”

She coughed, the sound low and raspy like her throat was retaliating after not being used for so many days. Grabbing the pink plastic cup from the table, he pressed the straw to her lips, and she drank greedily.

When her gulps began to slow, he pulled the cup away and set it back on the rolling table. “Better?”

Only her eye moved to look in his direction. “No. I still can’t remember my name.” Her words were soft but filled to the brim with a pain he couldn’t even imagine. She didn’t sound bitter, just betrayed. Her mind refused to do what she needed it to—give her the information stored in it.

“It’ll be okay.” Another useless phrase. It promised something he couldn’t back up. But there wasn’t anything else to say, so he patted her hand.

“How did I end up here? What happened?”

He looked down at the spot where her fingers curled into his. She was clinging to anything that felt stable, and he didn’t blame her. The nurse had told him to take it easy on Julie. Telling her the whole truth wasn’t fair to her in this condition. It could send her reeling like a roller coaster. She didn’t know that she’d been some lunatic’s punching bag, that her face, covered with long, narrow bruises, suggested he’d used a pipe or other weapon. At least the doctor had confirmed that she hadn’t been sexually assaulted, and all her internal organs—except her brain—were in good shape. It was her mind he was worried about, so he picked his words carefully. “I was kind of hoping you could tell me.” He chuckled halfway, but she didn’t respond in kind. She wasn’t ready for that yet. “It looks like you got a pretty good knock on the head first. The doctor says you don’t have any defensive wounds, so you were probably knocked unconscious right away.”

She raised a hand to her cheek, covering one of her bruises, unspoken questions brimming in her eyes.

He nodded, confirming her injury. “But I’m not really sure what happened. We found you in Webster Park. Does that mean anything to you?”

She closed her eyes, finally offering only a tiny shake of her head.

He gave her fingers a little squeeze. “All right. We’ll figure it out.”

“We?” Her tone rose, laced with hope.

“You’re my case. I’ll see it through until it’s solved, which means figuring out your name and where you belong.”

“Thank you.” Her words didn’t make much of a sound, but he had no problem reading her lips. They weren’t quite as white as they had been when he’d first laid eyes on her. In fact her whole face had gained some color, if not quite enough.

Well, he’d been hoping to start with her real name. But that wasn’t going to happen today. Maybe there would be some good news back at the station. After seeing her safely to the E.R. on the night she’d been discovered, he’d immediately requested the footage from security cameras near the park. If those were in, maybe they’d have something telling. Or at least something to point him to the next step.

There were other ways of finding out her name. Like canvassing both of the Twin Cities with her picture. No. That was impractical. There had to be a better way to show her picture to thousands of people. Like in a newspaper. Or online. Or both.

He was about to ask if she’d be open to running a story in the paper when a booming voice filled the room. “Well, well. Look who finally decided to wake up.”

Julie cringed at the noise, her hand balling into a fist. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “Just the doctor.” Who had no bedside manner.

Zach kept that last part to himself.

The silver-haired man in the white lab coat marched across the tiled floor, the nurse right behind him. The doctor didn’t bother to introduce himself. He just started giving orders instead. “You need to go. You’ve waited around long enough, and now you’re just adding to her stress. She doesn’t need any of that right now.”

Nodding, Zach pulled his hand away from hers. In a movement faster than he’d seen from her thus far, she scrambled her fingers until they clutched his.

“Will you come back?”

He paused just before stepping away, taking in the panic building in Julie’s eye. He didn’t begrudge her the fear. Even he couldn’t be sure exactly how much danger she was in. By the light of day, he’d been able to make out the marks in the grass at the park, where she’d been dragged away from the street and into the shadow of the trees. Someone had wanted her permanently out of the picture.

Bending over so that she could clearly see his face, he gave her a slow wink. “Count on it.”

* * *

Letting the door to the station swing closed behind him, Zach walked to his desk, falling into his chair, which rolled away from his computer under his weight. He walked his feet forward, until he was right where he needed to be—staring at a blank screen and wondering if that’s what Julie felt like every waking minute.

He grabbed the phone and jabbed in the number he knew by heart.

“This is Tabby.”

“It’s Zach.”

Tabitha let out a deep, throaty laugh. “To what do I owe this pleasure, Detective Jones?”

When people first met Tabby, they generally had a hard time believing that the sixty-year-old firecracker with a shock of white hair was the Tabitha Guster, Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter for the Star Tribune.

Zach didn’t have any trouble believing it, though. Tabby had been his mom’s best friend since they were roommates at the University of Minnesota forty years ago. Tabby had become more family than friend, and as the reporter covering the police beat, she and Zach had spent plenty of family dinners talking cases.

But the last time they’d talked, he hadn’t been able to give her any information about an ongoing investigation, and she’d been none too happy with him for it. Would she be willing to do him a favor now?

Better to start off easy than dive in headfirst. Every Minnesota boy raised in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes knew to jump feetfirst the first time. This situation was no different. “How’re you doing?”

“Just fine. And your mom and the family?” She was playing along. Tabby had almost certainly spoken to his mother more recently than he had.

“We’re all doing very well.”

“Glad to hear it.” She paused, waiting for him to speak. When he didn’t hop right in, she continued, “I have to interview the police chief in twenty minutes. Want to tell me what this is about? Or should I call you back later?”

He leaned an elbow on the desk and rested his chin in his hand. “I need your help.”

“Oh?” Her voice jumped an octave. “Work or pleasure?”

“Work.”

She laughed with the kind of giddy joy he’d expect from someone half her age. But the truth was that the police beat still made her heart thump a little harder. And as a detective in need of her help, he was at her mercy. “Whatcha got?”

“I need to identify a victim, and I was hoping you could help.”

“Which one?”

He paused, questioning his decision. Maybe this was a bad idea. It wasn’t too late to keep this out of the papers and off-line. But then how was he going to figure out who she was and why she’d been attacked? He’d been checking the missing-persons database every day, but still hadn’t found anything. If no one noticed Julie was gone, then he had no clear indication of how much danger she might really be in. “The one from Webster Park. She woke up.”

“And she can’t tell you her own name?” Tabby laughed like it was a funny joke, but stopped at his grunt. “She has amnesia?” Her words ran together, her tongue moving faster than she could enunciate.

“Uh-huh.”

Measured breaths were the only sound coming from the other end of the line. Finally she sighed. “What do you want me to do?”

Zach chewed on the inside of his cheek and scratched at his chin. “Any chance you could run an article and a picture? See if anyone can identify her?”

“You think this was a mugging?” She sounded hopeful, and he hated to dash that theory, but all the evidence pointed away from that simple of an explanation.

“Well, her purse was missing and hasn’t been located yet. But she was wearing a gold tennis bracelet and diamond earrings that weren’t touched.”

“And?” Apparently she could hear the unstated question in the tone of his voice.

“And she was dragged about fifty yards into the park to conceal her body between trees.”

A rush of air slipped through Tabby’s lips. “I should guess not, then. And you think it’s safe to run her picture? If we post it on our social media networks, it could be seen by anyone in a matter of minutes. You want her attacker to be aware that she can’t remember her own name?”

“I don’t know.” He shoved his fingers through his hair, curling his fingers into a fist and pulling on it. Why couldn’t this be an easy case? Nothing about it was black-and-white. Nothing was straightforward. Nothing really made much sense.

Then again, most of his cases started this way.

They just didn’t usually start with a live victim.

Clearing his throat, he glanced at the blank computer screen. He had to do something to help Julie find her memories. Whatever it took.

“You run her prints?” Tabby asked.

“Of course. No hits on the regional database, and the feds said there’s a backlog for IAFIS right now. Who knows how long it’ll take? Two weeks. Maybe three. What if we don’t have that long?” The Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System was the largest database of its type in the world. It was also managed by the FBI, and Zach had no clue where his case fit into the thousands of others looking for information from the system. Julie’s case certainly wasn’t at the top of their list, even if she was at the top of his.

“What if the dirtbag is still out there? How are you going to keep him from coming after her?”

“That’s why I called the best writer in the state.”

She laughed. “Don’t go blowin’ smoke, young man.”

“Hey, if anyone could write up a story that conveniently left out the details of her location without making it sound like that’s exactly what they’d done, it’s you.”

After another chuckle, she agreed to meet Julie the next day. They hung up, but the tightness in his gut didn’t alleviate.

He had to find Julie’s real name and her family. Someone had to be looking for this girl. And after at least three days, they would know she was gone. Why hadn’t she shown up among the listed missing yet?

He flipped on his monitor and the computer hummed to life. The keys on his keyboard clacked as he hammered on them, opening up the missing-persons database for the fifth time since that night in the park. He narrowed the search down by her age—about twenty-five. Except it wasn’t easy to tell under all the scrapes and bruises. He widened it to anyone between the ages of twenty and forty just to be sure he wasn’t missing her. He continued to narrow it down. Female. Caucasian. Long brown hair.

Well, it had been long when he’d found her. At the hospital they’d chopped off most of the hair in front to get a better look at that gash.

And those eyes. Enormous and brown like a doe’s in spring.

The database searched its information, pulling from every corner of the state. Only two names reported missing within the past month popped up. AnnaBeth Doorsey, a thirty-nine-year-old mother of five from Duluth, and Elsie Sorenson, a twenty-one-year-old college student from Saint Paul.

Neither one looked like Julie.

Slamming his hand on his desk, he almost missed the sound of his name ringing through the bull pen. “Jones!”

He jerked out of his thoughts to stare at Lucas Ramirez, the new guy in Homicide. “What’s up?”

“The chief got a call today from the U.S. Marshals Service, asking if we had any reports of missing kids or babies.”

Zach stared at the man, squinting as he tried to shift his thoughts from the image of Julie in his mind. “Babies?”

“Yeah.” Ramirez looked at his notepad and read from his scrawls there. “We don’t have any active cases involving unidentified or missing kids right now, but the marshal who called, Serena Summers, said that they think there might be a Minneapolis connection to a witness they’re protecting.”

“Not that I know.” Shaking his head, Zach turned back to the only two women who matched his search but didn’t match his Julie. And then he added over his shoulder, “Any word on those security camera videos I requested?”

“Oh, yeah. I got those.”

Zach jumped to his feet and took the discs from the younger man. “You look at these yet?”

“Just this one. From out in front of Jack and Julie’s.” Hope bubbled in his chest. Until Ramirez popped it. “Nothing on it from the night of the attack. The manager said the camera is on a rotating recording system. It was recording the back loading docks during the night delivery after ten.”

Perfect. “What else did you get?”

“A few more restaurants, an ATM camera and the street camera from the corner of Thomas and Gavel.”

Zach kept the videos from two restaurants and the street camera and handed the others back to the other detective. “Do you have time to take a look at these?”

“Are you just looking for the dark-haired girl who was attacked?”

“Yes. And anything else that seems unusual or out of place.”

“Sure.” Ramirez sat back down at his desk, sticking the first disc into his computer.

Zach matched his motions, settling in to watch the silent black-and-white clips. The first two videos showed nothing but the evening crowd, bustling in and out of popular restaurants near the park. The gaggle of men and women jumbled together and made any specific face or feature indistinguishable. Even when he slowed the images all the way down, he couldn’t make out anything beyond gender.

After two hours, his eyes burned and head throbbed from staring so intently at his screen, hoping to see something he wasn’t even sure was there. Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he got up and walked to the water fountain. Bending over, he took several long sips, then stretched his back as he returned to his upright position.

“You find anything?” he said as he strolled by Ramirez’s desk.

“Nope. Nothing yet.”

Zach nodded to show he’d heard the response, but his mind was already miles away in an almost deserted park. Maybe this was just a futile search.

He’d hit roadblocks in other cases, but he’d never felt quite so defeated so early into an investigation.

He’d just never had the image of such beautiful eyes seared in his mind, eyes that begged for his help. And the way she grabbed for his hand at the hospital, afraid he wouldn’t return, clutched at his heart.

Shoving his third and final disc into his computer’s player, he sighed. At least this camera, unlike the restaurant cameras, was angled toward the faces of the pedestrians, most of them walking toward their cars parked along Thomas Road. He sped up the video as the time stamp passed the dinner rush and through long periods without anyone using the crosswalk. The clock on the footage showed almost 2200 when a lone figure carrying some sort of case against her chest, with both arms wrapped around it, stopped at the corner.

He pushed his chair back and sat straight up in it before leaning closer to the screen. The figure looked like a woman with dark hair, and as she swung to look over her shoulder, her hair fanned out, long and just a little wavy.

Just about like Julie’s the night that she’d been found.

On the screen, the woman jabbed at the crosswalk button several times, looking behind her twice before she finally ventured out into the road, checking for oncoming traffic from both directions. The light hadn’t changed in her favor, but she still hurried into the street, pausing only to brush something from her cheek into the bag she was carrying.

And then she disappeared from the camera’s view.

He rewound the scene and slowed it to a crawl and zoomed in on her. Frame by frame the figure moved across the street. And then she stopped for a fraction of a second and looked right into the camera.

Julie.

Even without the scrapes and black eye she now sported, there was no doubt this was her.

His stomach lurched. It was their first real clue. But what did it mean? Only that she’d been attacked sometime after ten o’clock that night.

And then she reached for her cheek.

He’d thought it was a hair in her way, but at the slower speed, he could clearly make out the five little fingers and the care with which she tucked the wayward hand back into the blanket in her arms.

“Ramirez? Do you have the number for that contact in the marshals’ office you just told me about?”

“I think so.” Papers rustled on the other desk, but Zach couldn’t tear his gaze away from the woman looking directly into the street camera and carrying what was undoubtedly a baby.

* * *

Julie popped a piece of melon into her mouth, set her fork back on her dinner tray and picked up the newspaper for the tenth time, staring hard at the picture on the front of the section. Who was the woman gazing back at her?

She knew that it was her own likeness. After all, Tabby Guster had taken the photo when she’d stopped by the day before. Zach had told her this could help them identify her and begin to put the pieces of her life back together. She’d been only too eager to agree.

But now that she stared at the square chin, full lips, brown eyes and pixie cut that she didn’t recognize, it tore at her insides.

How could she not even know her own features? How could they be so foreign when they were literally at the tip of her nose?

With a finger she traced the short hair in the photograph then touched the real hair at her temple. The nurse said they’d cut off a lot of it that first night. But Julie didn’t have anything to compare it to.

The disposable cell phone that Zach had left with her let out a low hum as it scooted across the table at her bedside. Setting the paper down, she scooped it up. “Hello?”

“Hey, it’s Zach.”

“Hi.” She twisted to catch a glimpse of the clock on the adjacent wall. It was after eleven. “Are you still on duty?”

“No. Why?”

“Oh. It’s just kind of late—”

He sucked in a sharp bite of air. “Did I wake you? I’m sorry.”

“No. Not at all. I was just— I’m just looking at the article in the paper. Again.” Oh, why did she add that? She sounded like she was so interested in herself that she couldn’t stop reading about the woman without her memory.

“It’s a good article.” He paused for a long time, but she could tell he wanted to say more. Finally he filled it in. “It’s a pretty picture.”

Where her self-berating had just been, warmth filled her chest at his compliment. And with it a bit of trepidation. She wasn’t used to being complimented like that. At least she didn’t think she was.

He cleared his throat, effectively turning the conversation to less awkward ground and relieving her of the pressure of finding an appropriate response. Thank goodness.

“I was actually calling to let you know that we’ve gotten a couple tips from the hotline.”

“Already? Did you find out who I am?” The smile that tugged on her mouth refused to go away, growing as fast as the hope blooming in her heart.

“Not yet. But there are a few that we’re going to follow up on and see if anything pans out.”

Like a leaking balloon, hope escaped, leaving a weight heavy on her shoulders.

“Thanks for letting me know.”

“We’ll figure out who you are. I promise.”

His words were kind, but were they really in his control? She replayed them as she hung up the phone and leaned back against her pillows with closed eyes. She needed help beyond this world. God was going to have to heal her brain and restore her memories, or she might always be Julie Thomas—not who she really was.

A squeaking wheel jerked her out of her reverie, and she glanced up just as a large blond man in a maintenance uniform rushed across her room. He’d left his mop and yellow bucket sitting by the door, which he’d closed behind him.

She tried to wave him off. “I don’t need anything.”

But he ignored her, and before she could make sense of his presence, he reached her bedside, pressed his meaty hands to her throat and squeezed.

THREE

Julie tried to scream, but no breath could pass through her constricted airway. The pressure on her throat made her eyes water and her chest burn. Darkness clouded the corners of her vision, but she fought the temptation to succumb to its sweet release.

And she fought the man standing next to her bed, the man who was causing her agony.

All she could see were his broad shoulders and beefy arms, his face just out of her line of sight, but she clawed at him, digging her nails into every bit of flesh she could find. As she raked her fingers down his arm, he growled and yanked his hand away from her throat before hitting the elastic bandage covering the brace around her arm with his fist.

Every point from her wrist to her elbow screamed at the abuse, but she pushed it from her mind, gasping for oxygen before he pressed against her air pipe again.

He leaned in closer, but she could still only see his blond hair, wrinkled forehead and squinty eyes, the lines at the corners taut with the effort it took to keep her from flying out of the bed. She kicked and pushed and tried to scream, but again, there was no sound.

Grasping for the nurse’s call button near her waist, her fingers caught only the very edge before her attacker shoved it to the floor, the plastic landing with a sharp report on the tile floor.

She needed a weapon. Something. Anything to make him back off long enough for her to catch a breath and call for help.

And still the darkness called, willing her to just close her eyes and drift off to sleep, whispering that this fight wasn’t one she could win.

But she had something to live for. She did.

She just didn’t know what it was.

With jerking motions, she patted her chest and stomach, hoping to find a scalpel or a pair of scissors or a syringe. Her search came up empty, and she flailed her arms until her uninjured hand connected with the side table holding the dinner tray she’d picked at all evening. The metal lid clanged as it bounced off the wall and reverberated when it reached the floor. If she could just get a hold of the edge of the tray, maybe she could hit him in the side of the head. But her fingers couldn’t find a purchase on the rounded edge, and it, too, slipped from her grasp, clattering to the floor.

As the suffocating pressure below her chin increased, she swiped her hand over the table one more time. And then she found just what she needed.

A fork.

Clutching the handle in her fist, she swung it at his arm with as much force as she could muster. When the tines broke skin, she pressed it farther into his arm before yanking it back and stabbing him again.

“Ow!” he screamed, as if she wielded a dagger.

She plunged it into his arm, and his fingers loosened. Gulping air, she jabbed at him over and over, puncturing skin and pulling out every time.

She wasn’t seriously injuring him, but it couldn’t feel much better than a bee sting.

Finally he let go altogether, and she had the freedom to let loose the blood-curdling yell that had been trapped. It filled the room, went right through the door, flooded the hallway and was promptly followed by a ruckus outside her room that would have brought her out of a coma.

She knew Brad, her night nurse, was on his way just by the rhythm of his feet on the floor by the nurses’ station. And his steps were not alone. But her attacker vanished. He kicked the mop bucket by the door and it sloshed water, which fell onto the floor with a clap, a sweet pine scent filling the room. The chatter of a handful of high-pitched voices demanding to know what had happened reached her long before she could make out their forms.

“Who was that coming out of your room?”

“What happened?”

As Brad reached her bedside, she held a shaking hand out to him, needing the stability and support that she’d come to expect from the only other man in her life for the moment, but Brad didn’t reach out to her. Instead he picked up the end of her IV tube, which had pulled free during the struggle, and looked at the mess. Leaking saline had left a trail from her stomach down the side of the bed and halfway across the floor.

Where was Zach? He’d know what to do. He’d know how to make her trembling stop.

“What happened?” Brad asked again, his words nearly drowned out by the pounding of her heart in her ears.

“Call security.” Her words came out on a wheeze, and she sucked in air as fast as she could. “That man attacked me. Tried to—” She pointed at her throat. “Tried to strangle me.”

Brad’s eyes grew wide, if a little doubtful. “Are you sure?”

Hadn’t he seen the man running down the hall? She nodded, pushing herself up on her elbow and ignoring the pain that sliced down her arm.

He snatched up the phone and punched in a few numbers before telling the person on the other end to send up security and have them check the back stairwell and exits for a man with blond hair in a blue maintenance uniform. Two female nurses hovering in the doorway followed suit, hurrying in the direction of the attacker’s hasty exit.

As Brad’s voice chirped on, Julie sank back against the elevated bed. The rush of adrenaline had vanished, stealing her strength.

“I’ll be right back to get you cleaned up, Julie. Security is on its way.” Brad turned to go, but she grabbed at his arm.

“Call Zach. Please.”

“Who?”

“Detective Jones. Tell him...tell him I need him.”

* * *

Zach jabbed the hospital’s elevator button three times, probably harder than it required to light up, but he didn’t have time to wait for it. When the doors didn’t open, he abandoned the lift and ran into the stairwell, taking them two at a time for three flights before running down the corridor.

His breathing was rapid and painful by the time he reached the ICU. The night nurses shot him strange looks, but the big guy, the one who had called him, waved him toward the security guard in a black uniform.

“Tell me what happened.” His words were sharp, like the smack of a hammer against wood.

The security guard had pimples and a patchy beard. He wasn’t much more than a kid with a walkie-talkie and a flashlight, and he took two steps back at Zach’s approach. “Umm. Got here as fast as I could when I got the call, but the guy had already vanished. We checked the back stairwell, and he’s not there, either.” The kid wrung his hands and looked toward the ceiling tiles. “I guess he’s long gone.”

“When did you get the call?”

Zach could almost see him calculating the time as he stared at his watch through narrowed eyes. “I guess about twenty minutes ago?”

He let out a short breath, jamming his hands onto his hips. “Can you be more specific?”

The kid shrugged and shook his head.

“You can go.” Zach dismissed the guard but couldn’t seem to take the single step required to enter Julie’s room. Straightening his shoulders, he tried to prepare himself for whatever he might see. Brad wouldn’t have been so calm on the phone if she’d been severely injured. But he’d said she needed Zach.

It had at once exhilarated and terrified him.

He liked being needed. He liked taking care of people who couldn’t take care of themselves. Except Julie was an unknown. Nothing about her or her situation was certain or easy.

And he couldn’t stay away from her.

He strolled across the room, his shoes silent against the tile. She was so small beneath the blanket, her feet not even close to reaching the end of the mattress. The bed was angled so she was partially sitting up, but her eyes were closed, as though she was fast asleep. Maybe he should go. Let her get some real rest after another traumatic event.

But she’d asked for him.

At her side he rested a hand on her arm. She was so pale. Her face and lips were nearly white, the only real color a ring of yellow already materializing at her throat and the still purple bruises.

Her good eye fluttered open, and her swollen one even managed a slit through which he could make out a matching brown iris. The corners of her lips shifted into a low-wattage smile. “You came.”

“The nurse said you needed me.”

Her eyes drifted closed again, and she bit both her top and bottom lips until they disappeared. “I did—do.”

“All right. I’m here.” He brushed a strand of hair out of her eye, but jerked his hand back immediately. That was way more than professional, and he couldn’t afford to be anything but with a victim. He had to rein in any wayward feelings and get down to business. “You want to tell me what happened?”

“I must have seen or done something pretty incredible.”

He lifted his eyebrows, but she continued without any other prodding.

“He still wants me dead.”

She spoke with such certainty and calm, yet every muscle in his body tensed, every hair on the back of his neck stood on end. She was in danger. And it was his mistake. If he hadn’t suggested the newspaper article, her attacker might still believe his work was done.

He swallowed the guilt that rose in his throat. “I’m sorry. This is my fault.” Every syllable threatened to choke him, each one harder than the last.

Her eyebrows rose, the top of her nose wrinkling as she stared at him. “Funny. You don’t look much like the guy who was in here before.”

“You know what I mean. I promised I’d take care of you. And instead I inadvertently led that guy right to you.”

She shook her head, shifting her arm out from under his hold, and his fingers immediately missed the absence of her warmth. Until she slipped her hand into his and squeezed. A breathy sigh escaped, her shoulders relaxing into the pillow. “It wasn’t in the paper. Tabby didn’t say where I was.” With the lift of her sprained wrist and the wave of a single finger, she halted his intended interruption. “If he was watching the paper, he would’ve noticed there wasn’t a story about me. About my body being found. He knew I was alive. And he would have found me eventually.”

His heart thudded twice and then returned to a normal rhythm. She was absolutely right. But the guilt still poked and prodded his insides, leaving him sore, as if he’d taken a hockey puck to the gut.

“And he’ll come looking for me again.”

She was so matter-of-fact about it that he choked on his own breath, coughing and sputtering while she stared at him out of one eye. Of course, she was right. Someone certainly wanted her dead, so why didn’t she look more scared?

The fingers in his grip began a slow tremor, quaking even more with every rise and fall of her chest. This was her fear in physical form. Her face showed no sign, but her hand trembled. While wearing a facade of confidence, she revealed the truth only to him. She was terrified.

And he had to scare her even more.

Whoever they were dealing with had disappeared. Right along with a baby she’d been carrying.

“You’re not in this alone.” The words were out before they were even fully formed in his mind, and he backed them up with a gentle smile.

She turned her head away to face the closed blinds over a window that looked out on the parking lot. Her eyes were closed, and for a moment, he wondered if she’d fallen asleep. But then she whispered so softly that he had to bend all the way over to hear her words.

“What if I’m not who you think I am? What if I deserved this?”

What was going on inside that barren mind of hers? Her forgotten memories provided a breeding ground for fear to fester. With no truth to combat the lies, they easily stole her peace. She needed someone to remind her that she was a good woman with a kind heart.

He could do that. He wanted to do that.

Letting go of her hand, he walked around the end of the bed until he could squat so his face was right in her line of vision.

“Look at me, Julie.”

One lid slowly lifted, her pupil dilating until it seemed to blend with the darker circles in the outer rings of her eye.

“First of all, no one deserves something like this. No one. Do you understand me?”

She nodded.

“Second, you’re not a criminal. No matter what you can’t remember, the core of your heart, the person you are deep down, is still there.”

She nibbled on the corner of her bottom lip, her eyebrows pulling together to make three little lines above her nose. “How can you be so sure?”

“I see it in the way you treat people and the way you reach for my hand when you need something stable.” She let out a little laugh, half embarrassment and half uncertainty. “You trust me, and I trust you. Criminals don’t trust cops.” Then he added a little wink. “Plus, I ran your fingerprints. If you’d committed a crime anywhere in the state of Minnesota, I’d know about it.”

Her laugh this time was hearty if a bit hoarse. “Thank you.”

“I’m just sorry that he found you. But I swear, I won’t let it happen again. We’ll find him and you’ll be safe.”

He liked being right at her level as emotions flickered in her eye, first relief, then uncertainty and finally resignation. She didn’t have a choice but to see this through. But maybe knowing she wasn’t facing it alone helped her to find some strength.

He stood, and her eye grew wide. “You’re not leaving, are you?” The pitch of her voice rose, her hand clenched into a fist around the brace and bandage between her thumb and forefinger.

“I was just going to grab a chair. My legs will fall asleep if I stay in that position too long. All right?”

A chagrined smile fell into place as she nodded. But her grin was immediately broken by a yawn that cracked her jaw.

As he carried the chair from the corner, the urge to ask her about the baby he’d seen in the security video battled with the voice telling him that she needed rest. If she heard about a missing baby, she wasn’t going to get a minute of sleep. He needed her mind fresh and prepared to remember anything that might surface when the U.S. Marshals arrived.

Still the voice that demanded to know the whereabouts of the missing child poked at the back of his mind.

He didn’t have to cannonball into the question. He could dip a toe in. He could just check the temperature.

Sitting down, he was almost directly on her level again. Her eyelid had drooped, the lines of tension on her face vanished in the peace near sleep.

“Julie?”

“Hmm?” The sound was little more than a hum in the back of her throat, her eyelashes barely fluttering against pale cheeks. For the first time, he noticed a path of freckles running across her nose. They were close together on her nose but turned sparse as they reached her cheeks. She embodied both the innocence of youth and the fear that was very adult. And it twisted into his stomach.

“I got a call today from a marshal, who is interested in your case. She wants to talk with you tomorrow.”

Her brows furrowed, eyes still closed. “About what?” Her tongue sounded thick, like every word was a fight to get out.

He pressed his finger and thumb around his mouth, scraping at the dark shadow growing there. “I’m not sure exactly. She wonders if you might be able to recognize someone that she’s been investigating. I suppose she wants to know everything you know.”

“Ha.” There was genuine humor in her shallow laugh. “That’s not much these days.”

A smile that matched hers fell into place for just a moment. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to just laugh with her? But it would do neither of them any good so long as someone was after her and a baby was missing. “Julie, do you remember anything else about that night?”

“Like what?”

He let out a slow breath, praying for the words that would neither frighten nor mislead. “Were you alone that night? Was there anyone else with you?”

The shallow rise and fall of her chest stopped for a long heartbeat. “I can’t remember anything.” And then just before her breaths turned deep with sleep, she sighed. “Yet.”

FOUR

Zach slammed his car door behind him, hustling between parked vehicles toward the hospital doors. Checking his watch, he pulled on his jacket as he reached the main entrance. The deserted main entrance. He was supposed to meet the marshals there at ten-thirty. He’d been running a little late, but maybe they had been, too.

Maybe they wouldn’t show at all.

Was it wrong that he’d been hoping for that all morning? He just couldn’t shake the suspicion that this interview wasn’t best for Julie. He was almost certain it would be useless for Serena Summers and her partner.

Just as he straightened his tie and ducked his head inside to make sure they weren’t waiting for him there, a nondescript navy blue sedan pulled into the parking lot. It angled into the nearest parallel lines before both the driver’s-side and passenger doors popped open.

A tall guy with dark, wind-tossed hair stepped out from behind the wheel. He wore a dark gray suit and a pressed white shirt, his shoulders pushing at the seams of his coat and not because he was excessively brawny. He had a sturdy build, and he walked with his chin high and back straight. That had to be McCall. Serena had said she was bringing her partner with her.

Serena—all graceful movements and willowy lines—met up with McCall at the front of the car. She stepped in front of him when the passage was too narrow for them to walk side by side, and the big guy’s eyes never left her form. It wasn’t an outright assessment of his partner, but there was something in his eyes that revealed a strong emotion between them. Maybe it was just respect.

Maybe not.

Zach stepped from beneath the cement overhang to greet them. Reaching out to shake the thin woman’s hand, he said, “Marshal Summers?”

She had a firm grip and an easy smile. “Call me Serena.” Nodding her head, she indicated the man at her side. “This is my partner, Josh McCall.”

McCall’s shake was even tighter than Serena’s had been, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Zach gave back as good as he got, and a flicker of admiration appeared in the other man’s eyes, if only for a second.

“Zach Jones, Minneapolis P.D.”

“Good to meet you.” Josh let go and put his hand into his pocket, hunching his shoulders against the brisk early spring wind.

Serena’s eyes shifted toward the sliding glass door, but Zach didn’t move to lead them inside to his witness. To his Julie. First, he had questions that required answers. And the hospital waiting room wasn’t the place to find any kind of privacy.

“I know you’re eager to talk with Julie, but you should know that she doesn’t have any memory of the night she was attacked.”

Josh and Serena shared a quick look, their eyes meeting in a flash and tearing apart just as quickly. Josh cleared his throat, but it was Serena who spoke. “None at all?”

Shaking his head, he frowned. “As of two o’clock this morning, she can’t remember a thing. Including that she was carrying a baby the night that she was attacked. And I haven’t told her about that yet.”

Two sets of eyebrows rose in unison before Josh responded. “You know that’ll have to come up today, right?”

A gust of wind picked up Serena’s long ponytail, whipping it back and forth over her shoulder. She wrestled it back into place with her free hand, the other clutching a brown folder to her chest.

Shivers ran down Zach’s arms, the cold stealing its way to his skin, joining the doubts bombarding his mind. He wanted to find the missing baby just like the marshals, but would telling Julie about the child really do anyone any good? He battled a vision of her terrified features when she learned what he’d seen in the video. She’d be horrified to discover that a baby had gone missing from her care. That kind of emotional trauma could just be a setback on her road to healing—and to ultimately uncovering what really happened that night.

Whether Zach’s doubts played across his face or she was a pro at reading people, Serena leaned toward him. Her movement was barely a few inches, but it caught and held his attention. “I bet you’ve become pretty close to your witness.” Her voice was low and a little husky. “We don’t want to scare her, but we’re dealing with something bigger than one missing child.”

He’d figured as much.

Josh didn’t bother changing his body language, his stance firm and unmoving. “We just need to ask her a few questions. Your witness—”

“She’s a victim.” At Zach’s interruption, Josh’s chin snapped up, so Zach continued, “She’s not just the only witness, she was beaten to within an inch of her life. She can’t recall her name or where she lives or who her family is.” His words picked up speed as his pulse did the same. “As if one attack wasn’t enough, someone snuck into her hospital room last night and tried to kill her again.”

Almost certainly Serena’s training and experience were the only things keeping her jaw from flapping open at his declaration. Her eyes were bright with the revelation of the second attack, and she held her packet even tighter below her chin. “Is she all right?”

“She’ll be okay. The doctor said there was no permanent damage. But I hope you can see why I’m hesitant to add to her emotional strain, especially knowing that she hasn’t been able to remember anything, and this is probably all a dead end.”

Josh caught Serena’s gaze yet again, his eyebrows pinching together as he pressed his hands deeper into his pockets. “So she saw someone last night?”

“Ye-es.” Zach dragged the word out, not quite sure where Josh was going with his line of questions.

“So she could identify him?”

“Yes. She could probably pick him out of a lineup or identify a mug shot.”

Serena’s smile dipped, turning grim as her brown eyes squinted directly at him. She had to be picking up on his hesitation. As silence hung over their small group, she rubbed her chin and glanced at the ground.

Josh watched her closely, his stance alert, but he held back, letting her take the lead, despite a nearly palpable tension radiating from him.

“Zach, it’s imperative that we talk with your witness. We have to know as much information as she can give us. There are lives on the line—babies are disappearing.”

Babies.

His gut clenched. Hard. This was bigger than the missing baby he was already looking for. And he couldn’t look himself in the mirror if he didn’t do everything in his power to help those kids.

With his hands on his hips, he asked, “What’s going on?”

The marshals glanced at each other again, and Josh gave a quick nod before speaking. “Serena and I have been keeping tabs on a man named Don Saunders.”

Josh paused, as though waiting for any reaction from Zach. “Never heard of him.”

“Don was arrested in connection to a murder and was being transported for questioning in police custody near Saint Louis, but a couple of his buddies staged a car accident, and he escaped.”

Zach sucked in a harsh breath. Letting a suspect escape could shatter an officer’s confidence. Being a cop was hard enough when everything was going right. But a man could drive himself crazy wondering what he could have done differently.

Poor guy.

But what did this have to do with Julie and missing babies?

Serena seemed to be able to read his mind, answering the question before he could ask it. “Other marshals tracked Don down in Denver, where they found him about to board a plane with an unidentified child. We still haven’t been able to locate the baby’s parents or figure out where she came from.

“Don escaped again before we could figure out what was going on, but we were able to locate Sam Wilson, one of the guys who helped to set up the last break. At first he was pretty closemouthed, but after a few weeks in custody, he folded like a hot dog bun, revealing that he’d been working with a man named Frank Adams to stage the car accident. According to Sam, Frank has a place pretty close to this area, although we don’t know exactly where.”

Like dominoes tumbling down in a row, the pieces of the story all fell into place. Zach nodded slowly, crossing his arms over his chest to keep the edges of his jacket from whipping around in the breeze. “So you figure that a missing baby near Frank’s known hideout might have a connection to this Don Saunders.” He didn’t bother phrasing it as a question, and Serena’s slow nod confirmed his assessment of the situation.

“We’re running out of leads to follow up on.” Josh tugged at his earlobe, hunching his shoulders. “This is the best tip we’ve got.”

Zach couldn’t stop a humorless chuckle from escaping. “A woman who doesn’t know her own name is your best lead?”

With mirrored smiles, Josh and Serena nodded. “It may be a long shot, but if Julie can identify Frank in any way, then we can confirm he is—or at least was recently—in the area. And then we know who we’re looking for.”

All right. There was no way to protect Julie from this questioning. And when she knew the truth about the missing child, she’d pummel her own mind to unearth the details and solve the disappearance.

As he led the marshals into the busy hospital, Zach shot up a quick prayer that this meeting would lead to the location of the missing baby and not derail any progress Julie had made thus far.

* * *

Julie leaned against her bed, the muscles in her legs trembling after the short walk across the room. She’d barely splashed water on her face, combed her new hairstyle and checked out the swelling around her eye before her strength had vanished. But she’d pushed herself to get back across the room. No way did she want the nurse—or Zach—finding her in a heap on the bathroom floor.

“Julie?”

She yanked the belt of her robe tighter at her waist before looking up into Zach’s face. But he wasn’t alone. Grabbing the lapels, she pulled them together beneath her chin, never taking her gaze off the tall man and slender woman standing just behind Zach.

He hustled across the room, cupping her elbow and helping her slide back onto her bed, her slippered feet dangling just above the floor.

“Are you all right? You look really pale.” His grip on her arm loosened, but he didn’t back away.

She nodded slowly. “I’m okay.” Her gaze traveled back to the couple still in the doorway. Her questions must have shown on her face, as Zach didn’t wait for her to ask them before answering.

“These are the U.S. Marshals I told you about last night.” A quick glance over his shoulder had the woman walking quickly across the room, her hand outstretched.

“Serena Summers.” Her grip was gentle around Julie’s brace, but her smile didn’t quite wrinkle the fine lines at the edge of her eyes. “And this is my partner, Josh McCall.”

The man strode toward them, his gaze even and detached. No, that wasn’t quite right. He was engaged but calm, a shield of professionalism blocking his true emotions.

Julie wrapped her arms around her middle. Maybe she could just crawl back into bed and pull the covers over her head. Whatever they wanted with her, she couldn’t give it to them. It certainly would require remembering more than that her face didn’t usually look like it had been used as a punching bag.

But that was all she had at the moment.

And only God knew how much longer it would be that way. The doctor had said he didn’t think it was a permanent condition, but he couldn’t pinpoint when her memory would return.

Until then she wouldn’t be much help to anyone.

Zach dropped his hand, and she immediately missed the warmth. “The marshals think that you might have come into contact with someone that they’re searching for.”

She shrugged and shook her head. “Do you think the man you’re looking for is the one who attacked me? I can’t remember anything from before that night.”

“Detective Jones filled us in on your condition. I’m so sorry. But we hope you might be able to help us.”

How was she supposed to respond to that? She was sorry about it, too. It didn’t change the reality.

“We’d appreciate it if you’d take a look at a headshot to see if you recognize him.” Serena snapped the elastic tie from around her file and flipped through the pages within.

Julie looked at Zach, who nodded slowly, his eyes bright with hope and encouragement. “All right. I’ll try.”

Serena held out a five-by-seven image, the man in the picture standing against the evenly spaced height lines of a police wall, a black plaque at his chest announcing his name as Adams, Frank. His hair was dark and ruffled, maybe beginning to gray at the temples. He had narrow-set eyes that looked almost black, but it could have been just a shadow. The bridge of his nose zigged and zagged, clearly broken at least twice. Thin lips were nearly hidden behind a five o’clock shadow, which could do nothing to camouflage the pink scar that slashed across his chin. It ran from the corner of his mouth toward the center of his jaw, perhaps a reminder of a fight gone terribly wrong.

She squinted and leaned forward, bringing the image closer to her face.

Did she remember those features? Was the scar or crooked nose familiar?

Waiting for the familiar sense of recognition to flood her mind, she didn’t dare shift her gaze away.

But it never came.

Instead, a sinking sensation carried her stomach to her toes and she pressed her hand against the recently vacated spot. Looking up into Zach’s tense features, she shook her head. “If I’ve ever seen him before, I don’t remember.” Handing the picture back to Serena, she continued, “I’m sorry. His face doesn’t ring any bells.”

The marshal tucked the image back into her folder, her eyebrows pinched together. She glanced at her partner, who crossed his arms over his chest, then seemed to think better of his stance, instead letting his hands drop to his sides and find their way into his pockets.

“What about the guy who attacked you here in the hospital last night? Could it have been him?” Zach slipped a hand into hers, squeezing her fingers until she met his gaze.

She closed her eyes, reliving that horrifying moment when she’d thought she’d never be able to breathe again. “No.” Zach offered a reassuring squeeze in her pause, and she ran her free hand over her butchered locks very slowly. “The man last night had light hair, and his eyes weren’t as dark.”

“You’re sure?”

She chewed on her lip and stared toward the ceiling for a long moment. Her mind had been letting her down for days now, and she found it difficult to trust even the few memories she’d made since waking up here at the hospital. What if it wasn’t recalling the right details from the night before?

No. The man last night had had a narrow face and pale eyes. She was sure of it.

Almost.

“No. Yes.” Something prickled at the back of her eyes, and she pinched them closed to fight the building moisture. “I don’t know.”

Zach rubbed the back of her wrist with a gentle motion, making figure eights with his forefinger. “It’s okay. Just do the best you can.” When she looked up from the movements of his finger, she found his eyes filled with compassion, a worried frown puckering the skin between his eyebrows.

“I’m pretty sure that the man here wasn’t the man in your picture. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help.” She leaned against her pile of pillows, letting her eyes droop.

Walking across the room and trying to remember an unknown face had sapped her energy. At least the interview was over. It was time for a nap.

But the marshals had another question. “Julie, were you alone the night that you were attacked?” This from Josh, who met her gaze with kindness but an intensity that she could not fathom.

“You mean, was I with Frank Adams? I don’t know.” She let out a quick sigh. “I—I don’t think so. But I don’t know anything for sure.”

“Not Frank. Was there anyone else with you before your attack?”

“Who?”

Zach ran a hand over his face but didn’t release her fingers from his grip.

“I was with someone.” The words rushed forward on a breath, a strange combination of question and certainty, followed immediately by a hiccup. With trembling fingers she wiped a hair off her forehead. “Who was I— How do you know?”

Serena opened her mouth, but Zach shot the marshal a look and cut in. “You were caught on a security camera a couple blocks from Webster Park.”

“What? What was on it? What did it show? I wasn’t alone?”

He nodded.

Her breathing lost all rhythm, every inhalation a surprise, every exhalation too fast. “Who was it? Who was I with? Was I with Frank?”

“No.” Zach jabbed his fingers through his hair and closed his eyes, as though he didn’t want to see her reaction when he told her the truth. “You were carrying a baby.”

“A baby?” The words whisked around her mind, making almost no sense. They were testing her, trying to see what she remembered. She couldn’t have had a child with her. Could she? She pressed a hand to her stomach. “My baby? Do I have a baby?” Her voice rose with each word until it filled the room, carrying down the hallway. “I’d remember if I had a baby, wouldn’t I?”

Pressing a palm against her cheek, Zach forced her to meet his gaze, despite her rapid blinking. “We don’t believe it’s yours. Your doctor said you show no signs of having given birth in the last year.”

Her breathing slowed as tears rushed to the forefront. Maybe they were from relief. “It’s not mine.” More likely they were from fear. “But where is it? What happened to it?”

“We were hoping you could tell us that.”

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