He could not sate his desire for Megan Wells

She was vulnerable. Needy. Still grieving over her dead husband. But terror had swept over him when he’d seen her car on fire. For a minute, he’d thought she might be dead.

Where had this desperate fear, this insatiable desire come from?

Images suddenly bombarded him. Images of another time when Megan had readily slipped into his arms. A warm spring day when they had walked naked into the ocean, laughing and teasing like old lovers. A night when he hadn’t needed an invitation to kiss her.

How could he see these things so vividly in his mind when he couldn’t remember anything about his life? When the name Cole Hunter still sounded foreign to his tongue? When Megan swore they had never met?

Could the doctors have made some mistake in identifying him?

Memories of Megan
Rita Herron

MILLS & BOON

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Award-winning author Rita Herron wrote her first book when she was twelve, but didn’t think real people grew up to be writers. Now she writes so she doesn’t have to get a real job. A former kindergarten teacher and workshop leader, she traded her storytelling for kids for romance, and writes romantic comedies and romantic suspense. She lives in Georgia with her own romance hero and three kids. She loves to hear from readers, so please write her at P.O. Box 921225, Norcross, GA 30092-1225 or visit her Web site at www.ritaherron.com.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Megan Wells—A psychiatric nurse who just lost her husband, Tom. Was his death an accident or murder?

Tom Wells—A psychiatrist at the Coastal Island Research Park who lived for his work. Did he die for it, as well?

Clay Fox—A detective with the Savannah Police Department. He was supposed to meet Tom Wells to get inside information about the research foundation. Was the psychiatrist murdered for his mission?

Cole Hunter—A man with a new face and no memory who has taken Tom Wells’s place at the research center. Will he take his place with his wife also?

Dr. Davis Jones—A doctor at the foundation; he loves women, money and prestige, and will do anything to attain them. But would he commit murder?

Dr. Warner Parnell—A brilliant doctor—is he crossing the line with his medical techniques?

Arnold Hughes—The CEO and cofounder of the Coastal Research Park—is he really dead or has he returned with a new face and name to run the company?

April Conway—Megan’s best friend—or is she?

Connie Blalock—Tom’s secretary—is she as innocent as she seems?

Daryl Boyd—A schizophrenic patient who claims strange things are happening in the psych ward—is he really as crazy as everyone thinks?

To

All those real-life doctors and researchers

who strive to make the world a better place

(this series is NOT about you!)

and

my husband, Lee,

for being one of those doctors,

and for always stopping to answer my questions

and

last but not least,

Melissa Endlich

for liking my crazy ideas instead of calling the funny farm!

Always, Rita

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

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter One

“Your husband is dead, Mrs. Wells.” Detective Larson sat down in the armchair across from Megan, his expression grave. “His body washed up on the shore a few hours ago.”

Megan clutched her abdomen, the horror of finally hearing her fears confirmed seeping through her body like a slow-spreading virus. It had been six agonizing weeks since Tom had disappeared. Six weeks of not knowing.

Nausea rose to Megan’s throat at the images that speared her. She dropped her head forward into her hands and tried to breathe.

“I’ll get you a glass of water.”

Megan nodded, too numb to do anything else, while the detective hurried to the kitchen.

Behind her, Megan heard the officer opening cabinet doors, turning on the faucet, but the sounds barely registered. Seconds later, he returned and handed her the glass. Megan sipped slowly, grateful for the wetness soothing her parched throat. “Do you know what happened to him?”

The cop’s muddy complexion paled as if he, too, had seen the grisly images that had come unbidden to Megan’s mind. Had he been there when they’d dragged her husband from the sea and actually seen Tom’s body? The ice clinked in the glass as Megan’s hands shook. She didn’t want to know the details.

“Most likely drowned, but the coroner’s doing an autopsy.” Detective Larson shrugged. “I’m not sure how much he’ll be able to determine…”

He let the sentence trail off and Megan clenched the glass of water as if it were a life jacket and she was being dragged into the undertow herself.

“You said he liked to fish sometimes, to take his mind off his work. My first guess would be that he was out late, and didn’t realize how far he’d drifted off shore, got caught in the tides and fell overboard.”

Megan’s gaze swung to his. “But Tom was an excellent swimmer.”

“You know how difficult it is to fight an undercurrent, even for the best of swimmers. A bad thunderstorm came through that night, too.”

She nodded, silently admitting Tom had been drinking a lot those last few weeks, and had been a daredevil when it came to the weather. He’d been drinking and secretive. And tired. And disturbed about something. Only he wouldn’t talk to her.

She’d known he was unhappy. Had worried he’d stopped loving her, that he’d planned to ask for a divorce, but hadn’t gotten up the nerve. They had finally separated, but she’d hoped they could work out their differences.

Now she would never know.

But she couldn’t bring herself to ask the questions that had haunted her for the past six weeks.

The detective shuffled, his breathing noisy. “We’ll let you know as soon as the body is released so you can make plans for the burial.”

Oh, God, there would be so much to do. Nausea gripped her stomach again. She’d have to make funeral arrangements. Tell his parents. The people at the research foundation.

Tom had been so young. Barely thirty-one. They’d only been married two years. They’d temporarily sublet this flat because they hadn’t decided for sure where they were going to live. They’d had so many plans when they’d married.

They’d picked out new furniture, not burial plots.

The cop gently patted her shoulder. “Well, let me know if I can do anything for you, Mrs. Wells I’ll let myself out.”

“Thank you.”

She hugged her arms around her middle until she heard the click of the door, and the police car drive away. Finally she forced herself to stand on unsteady legs. But her stomach convulsed and she rushed to the bathroom, sank to her knees and let the tears fall.

The pregnancy test she’d taken earlier mocked her from the sink.

It had been negative. Again. Tom had wanted a baby so badly. She’d felt like a failure when their attempts at conceiving had failed.

Now he would never have a child.

And she had nothing left of him but troubled memories.

And questions. Lots of unanswered questions.

“YOU SAID MY NAME WAS WHAT?” The man pivoted to study the doctor as he unwound the last of the bandages from his face. He was too afraid of what he might see when the last one fell away.

Dr. Crane peered over his silver spectacles, worry creasing his brow. “Cole Hunter. You’re a psychiatrist. You’ve just signed on at the Coastal Island Research Park on Catcall Island. You are—”

“Yeah, yeah, you told me. Thirty-five, single, a workaholic.” Frustration clawed at him. “So, why can’t I remember all this?”

“Because you suffered severe head trauma in the car accident. Your memory should return in bits and pieces. Hopefully you haven’t lost that scientific mind.”

The doctor chuckled at his own joke, but Cole remained stoic. Nothing about the past few weeks had been funny.

He strained for the memories again, for any snippet of his past life. Cole Hunter. A psychiatrist. Somehow during all those painful hours of lying in the hospital he hadn’t imagined himself being a doctor of any kind.

Of course, until a few days ago he’d been in too much pain to care about the past. He’d been struggling through every minute. The long hospital stay, the surgeries, the bandages. The fear of not waking up. The fear of being paralyzed. The fear of looking like a monster.

“Now, see what modern medicine can do.” Dr. Crane spun the stool around so Cole faced the mirror, placed his hands on Cole’s shoulders and directed him to look. “It may not be quite the same as your old face, but it’s not bad. There’s a little swelling and bruising, but it’ll fade.”

Cole stared at the stranger in the mirror, cold terror sweeping over him. Not only did he not remember his name, but he didn’t recognize the face staring back at him, either.

THREE DAYS AFTER MEGAN had received the news of her husband’s death, she stood huddled in her raincoat while they lowered his body into the cold damp ground. Nearly a hundred flower arrangements decorated the dried grass surrounding the grave, their vibrant colors at odds with the dismal day. The church had been packed with Tom’s family and their friends, with various scientists and other employees from the Coastal Island Research Park (CIRP). The preacher offered a few words of comfort, read some scripture, then ended the grave side service with a prayer. Tom’s mother dropped a rose onto the grave and broke into sobs, her husband pulling her into his arms. Megan’s heart clenched as the visitors began to disperse.

A breeze stirred the trees surrounding the cemetery, dead fall leaves scattering across the grass and flapping against tombstones, crunching beneath the soles of people’s shoes as they milled about, speaking in hushed tones. Connie, Tom’s secretary, cried into her hands.

Exhaustion pulled at Megan as the visitors offered condolences, but she forced herself to shake hands, occasionally sparing her best friend April a glance, silently thanking her for staying by her side, offering support.

Tom’s parents had been anything but supportive, their anger over their loss directed at her, as if by marrying Tom she had caused his death. Of course they never had been logical where she was concerned. She was a measly nurse at the research facility, had grown up on the wrong side of the social tracks and had never been good enough, beautiful enough or classy enough for their precious son.

But at least they’d handled most of the details of the funeral. They’d wanted to choose the casket, the flowers that would serve as the blanket cover and to oversee the myriad details, while all she’d wanted to do was curl up in a ball and grieve.

Connie suddenly stood in front of her, looking lost. “Meg—” Her voice broke.

Megan pulled her into her arms and tried to soothe her. “It’ll be okay, Connie.”

“But you and Tom have been so good to me. I don’t know what I would have done…what I’ll do.”

Tom had helped Connie get up the courage to leave her abusive husband. She was still fragile.

“Just know Tom would be proud of you for taking care of your son,” Megan said softly. “And he’d want you to be strong, to keep doing that.”

Connie pulled away, trying to compose herself, and nodded. “If you need me, Megan, I’m here.”

Megan thanked her, weariness settling in her bones as Connie turned and walked away. The long line of people wanting to speak to her stretched in front of her and she felt herself sway.

April grabbed her elbow. “Here, you’d better sit down.”

Megan nodded dumbly and sank into a metal folding chair, the sea of people blurring in front of her. Tears streamed down her cheeks, mingling with the rain. She didn’t want to be here amidst this crowd of strangers. She wanted to be alone to mourn. Oh, God, there were so many things to mourn for.

The marriage that should have lasted forever.

The man who had died before she could make him happy.

The chance to make things right that was lost forever.

COLE HUNTER WATCHED the casket being lowered into the ground, a bitter chill engulfing him. Oddly, Tom Wells had turned up missing the same day Cole had had his own accident. It could have been his body being lowered into that hole just as easily as Wells.

And for a brief second when he’d seen the casket and the hole in the ground, he’d had a flash that it was him being lowered. That he was Tom Wells and he had died.

Warner Parnell, the doctor at the research center who’d been helping Cole with his recovery after the accident, frowned solemnly. “He was a good man. We’ll miss him at the center.”

“It…it seems strange that I survived, but he died on the same day.”

Parnell gave him a sympathetic look. “Don’t succumb to survivor guilt,” he said in a low voice. “As a doctor, you know that’s dangerous.”

Cole folded his hands. The harsh reality of the timing obviously hadn’t escaped him and had played with his head. He had felt guilty that luck had been on his side that day and he had survived. Granted he had a new face, his memory was shaky and his stride hindered by a slight limp, but hell, at least he was still able to walk.

He shuddered, wondering if he should have come. He hadn’t wanted to. In fact, he had the oddest feeling that he normally didn’t attend funerals, but he couldn’t remember why. He’d hoped seeing so many of the research center’s staff in one place might jog some memory cells.

“I didn’t know him very well, did I?”

Parnell shrugged. “No. You met only once. At the center when you came for the interview. I believe you corresponded through e-mail about your research, but I’m not certain.”

Shaking off the uneasy feeling, Cole stared across the smattering of faces, a few of them familiar from the three days he’d spent getting acquainted with the research center.

His gaze settled on Tom Wells’s wife. Megan.

A nurse in the psychiatric ward.

Another eerie sensation skittered across his nerve endings, a flash of some kind of memory tugging at him. He must have met her before, probably at the facility or at one of the dinners for the center when he was being interviewed. She wouldn’t be an easy woman to forget.

She had the face of an angel, the figure of a temptress and the lips of a lover.

But he had no right to even think such lurid thoughts, especially at a funeral.

From her grief-stricken face, she’d obviously cared for her husband deeply.

During those long, lonely days in the hospital, he had thought about his life, the fact that he had no one. No family who’d come looking for him. No woman who searched him out, sat by his bedside, vowed that she loved him.

Apparently he hadn’t made any friends in Oakland, either.

In a strange way, he envied Tom Wells.

He knew that was sick. The poor man was dead, for God’s sake, and here he stood, alive and breathing, feeling sorry for himself.

One by one, the visitors stopped to speak to Megan.

“I’m going to give her my condolences,” Parnell said.

Cole hesitated. Finally he took a deep breath and shuffled across the damp ground through the throng of people. Her gaze rose and met his across the crowd. Raindrops dotted her face, mingling with tears, the raincoat shielding her honey-colored hair and shapely body. But it was the shadows beneath her haunted blue eyes that made his gut clench.

An older man and woman Parnell had pointed out as Wells’s parents stopped beside her. Megan stiffened, clasping her hands tightly together. Cole moved into the shadows of the funeral home tent, close enough to hear.

“You will send us Tom’s things, won’t you?” the woman asked in a clipped voice.

“Yes, if you want them.”

“Of course we do.” Mrs. Wells flashed Megan a cold look. “He never should have come here, you know.”

Megan jutted her chin in the air. “I’m not going to argue with you at Tom’s funeral. I don’t think he’d want that, Kathleen.”

Mr. Wells pulled at his designer tie. “Let’s go, honey.” He threw a sorrowful glance over his shoulder at the grave. “There’s nothing more we can do.”

The couple strode off, huddled together. Hurt strained Megan’s features. A fleeting feeling that he’d lived that moment before struck Cole, then disappeared as quickly as it had hit him.

Without remembering how he reached her, Cole found himself standing in front of her, not knowing what to say, but extending his hand, wanting to take away the sting of the Wells’s attitude.

She slowly lifted her small hand and placed it inside his, the whisper of her soft skin brushing his callused fingertips. A small surge of awareness skated through him. Her lips parted slightly as if she, too, felt the odd connection between them.

A wave of images suddenly flashed through his head like a movie trailer. Images of Megan Wells looking at him with those haunted blue eyes. Images of her crying on his shoulder. Images of her raising on tiptoe to smother his mouth with kisses. Images of her lying naked in his arms and calling his name in the darkness of the night.

He snapped his hand back and felt himself grow weak. What in the hell had just happened? Those flashes seemed so real. But they couldn’t have been memories.

Could they?

Chapter Two

Megan’s hand trembled as she pulled it from the stranger’s, a slight chill slithering up her spine. She pulled her raincoat around her, trying to place his face in the fog of grief engulfing her, yet she had never met him before. Or had she?

And why was he looking at her so intensely?

“I’m sorry about your husband,” he said in a gruff voice. “I’m afraid I didn’t know him very well—I’d just been hired to work at the center.”

He was nervous, she realized, remembering that Tom had an aversion to funerals as well. Maybe it was a man thing. Not that she enjoyed going to them herself, but sometimes people didn’t have a choice. In fact, she’d already been to enough funerals to last a lifetime.

At ten she had lost her only grandparents. At seventeen, she’d buried her parents.

And now Tom.

She shook her head, operating on autopilot. “Thank you for coming, Mr.…”

“Hunter. Cole Hunter.” A frown pinched his dark eyebrows as he shifted. “Anyway, I just wanted to offer my regrets.”

Megan nodded, clasping her hands together as his dark eyes bore into hers. “I suppose I’ll see you at the center.”

“I suppose.” He lifted his hand to wipe away the raindrops sliding down his cheek. A long scar curved his hand, another smaller one darkened his hairline. She wondered what had happened to him, but forced herself not to ask. Tom’s mother claimed she’d grown up on the wrong side of the tracks of Savannah, but even in shanty town, Megan had been taught manners.

“Yes. As a matter of fact, we’ll be working together.” His voice lowered, sympathy etching it with gruffness. “That is, when you feel like returning to work.”

Megan nodded. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. Then again, work would probably fill the endless, empty days ahead. Help take her mind off of her grief. And her patients’ problems were so troubling they usually made hers feel trivial. Except Tom’s death wasn’t trivial. “You’re in psychiatry?”

His dark eyes looked somber. “Yes.”

For the first time, Megan realized he was handsome. Not in the gentlemanly way Tom had been, but in a more rugged way. He was big and muscular; he stood about six foot two, had broad shoulders, and a wide strong jaw.

Guilt suffused her—how could she notice a man’s looks when Tom had just been put in the ground? What kind of wife was she? Had she been?

One who had disappointed her husband…

Cole Hunter shifted again, wincing as if his leg hurt. He was leaning on a dark wooden cane. So, he had been hurt recently. The reason for the scars, perhaps the reason he was so lean…

“I was actually coming to work with Tom.”

Megan’s throat closed. A dozen other questions tumbled through her head, but the realization that she would see this man again, and probably on a daily basis, shook her to the core.

The trouble was she had no idea why the idea upset her so. She only knew that she didn’t want to be around him. And that the eerie feeling she’d had when they’d first met had just magnified tenfold.

COLE STEPPED BACK AS MEGAN stood to leave, and offered a hand for support, but she refused his help, looking wary as if he’d said or done something to upset her. Odd, how just a few moments before he’d met her, he’d had visions of knowing her, of seeing her before, when now his mind almost seemed blank. Like a deep tunnel, long and empty and devastatingly dark.

Briefly he wondered if they could have had an affair.

No, she hadn’t acted as if she’d known him at all.

Of course, his face looked different, but if they’d known each other before, if they’d met, she would have recognized his name.

Instincts told him he wasn’t the kind of man to sleep with another man’s wife.

Or was he?

Confused, he hunched inside his jacket and followed the other mourners. God, he hated that damned cane. A tall redhead gathered Megan Wells into a protective embrace. Obviously a close friend, Megan leaned on the other woman as if she were exhausted. He imagined she was. His own muscles protested the long walk. He hated the weakness right now. Hated any kind of weakness.

The light rain drizzled down, the fall wind kicking up, stirring wet leaves and forcing the flowers from other graves to sway and droop as he limped across the grass.

Parnell turned to wait for him at the edge of the cemetery. “How’s the leg?”

Cole grimaced. “Getting better.” He squinted through the hazy sky as Megan and her friend climbed in the car. “Have I met Mrs. Wells before?”

“Not that I know of.” Parnell frowned and pulled out his keys. “Why do you ask?”

Cole shrugged. “I don’t know. She just seems…familiar.”

“You probably saw a picture of Tom and her somewhere. I believe he’s got one in his office.”

Cole chuckled softly. “Probably.”

“Get some rest. I’ll see you at the center.”

Cole flicked his hand in a wave as Parnell jogged to his car. Cole couldn’t move quite so fast. The scent of sorrow and dank muddy ground assailed him as he headed down the embankment. He dreaded going back to his place.

The small apartment at the edge of the research center didn’t hold a damn bit of recognition for him. A place he’d been told he’d agreed to rent when he signed on with CIRP and made his transition from…where did they say he’d come from? Some little research hospital in the foothills of Tennessee?

But he remembered none of it. And the apartment he’d chosen to live in didn’t feel like home at all. It felt like a prison.

MEGAN SET THE CUP OF TEA on the kitchen table and folded her hands in her lap. “Thanks, April. I don’t know what I would have done without you the last three days. Please tell all the nurses and staff members how much I appreciate the food they brought.” Casseroles and homemade dishes filled the butcher block counter. So much food. Food she had no appetite for.

“Who was that man talking to you before you left?” April asked.

Megan blew into the tea to cool it. “His name is Cole Hunter. He’s a new psychiatrist at the center.”

Sympathy filled April’s eyes. “It looked as if he upset you.”

Megan shrugged. “He came here to work with Tom.” She didn’t want to tell her the rest, how his touch had given her the strangest feeling. How just looking into his eyes had been unnerving. April would think she was crazy.

“I’m so sorry, Meg.” April leaned over and hugged her. “I know how much you wanted things to work out for you and Tom.”

Megan nodded, warming her hands on the oversize mug and rolling her shoulders. Tension clawed at her, the lack of sleep and emotions over the past few days finally wearing her down.

“You look exhausted. Drink that and get some rest.” April grabbed her raincoat. “And call me if you need me.”

“I will. You be careful.” Megan rose and latched the lock on her front door, her eyes narrowing when she glanced out the window and watched April sprint to her car. Seconds later, April climbed in her Volvo and drove away, rain spewing from the back of her car as she sped toward the cottage she rented on Skidaway Island. Megan let the curtain slip back in place, but a dark sedan across the street drew her eye. It was parked in the shadows of a live oak, the Spanish moss drooping like spider legs, casting it in shadows made worse by the dark sky. She peeled the curtain back and studied the vehicle for a moment, trying to see if someone was inside. Was a cigarette glowing from the interior? Had she seen the car in the neighborhood before? Could it belong to one of her neighbors? People she’d never met because she and Tom had both been too busy at work to entertain? Too busy trying to hold their marriage together?

Except for those last few weeks when he’d moved out, when she sensed he’d given up…

Had she seen the car while he was gone?

After several tense seconds, she decided she must be getting paranoid. The car was empty. And there was no reason for anyone to be lurking outside her apartment. No reason anyone would follow her or want to harm her. After all, Tom’s death had been accidental, not suspicious.

Chuckling at her runaway imagination, she carried her tea to the bedroom, bypassing Tom’s closet with a tentative glance. At some point she had to sort through his things and clear them out. At least what he hadn’t taken with him when they’d separated.

But not tonight. She was too battered by Tom’s funeral.

She slipped beneath the covers and finished the tea, grateful for the small shot of bourbon April had laced it with. Weariness pulled at her, but the uneasiness she’d felt earlier rose again to taunt her. Could someone have been outside watching her? And if they had, who were they?

She couldn’t quite forget the trouble surrounding Nighthawk Island and the research center just a few short weeks ago. That Arnold Hughes, the CEO and cofounder who’d been behind the unsavory sale of some of their research, might not be dead as the police hoped. That his body had never been found.

That Tom had been working on something secretive the last few months, something that had made him jittery and even more closed off from her than before. And that a stranger had been at Tom’s funeral. A man who had recently been in an accident of some kind himself but who’d taken her husband’s place at the hospital.

A man who had come out of nowhere.

COLE WALKED THE OUTER BANKS surrounding the research center on Skidaway Island, amidst the tall sea oats and damp grass, well aware security tracked his every move. He inhaled the scent of ocean, needing the familiarity, because nothing else about his life seemed remotely familiar.

Not the idea of being a psychiatrist or the people he’d met at the funeral or the little apartment he’d returned home to.

Home.

What did it mean for him? He had no friends. No family. Not even back in Tennessee where Davis Jones, the head of the psychiatric ward had told him he’d moved from. Hell, Jones had even shown him his résumé, but the information on it seemed foreign as well. Apparently he’d gone to Vanderbilt, worked at a small private practice before signing on with the research facility in Oakland.

Wind whistled through the sea oats, a seagull swooped onto the shore in search of crumbs, and water lapped at the shore in a soothing rhythm. The doctor warned that it would take time to recover his memories. The sea stretched before him, endless and all consuming, just as the blank spaces in his mind. How much time would it take to recover? Would his memory ever fully return? Would he ever feel like the real Cole Hunter again?

An image of Megan Wells’s grief-stricken face flashed into his mind, emotions gripping him. If they had never met, why had he experienced visions of her when he’d touched her?

HE WAS WATCHING HER. Standing beside her bed, his dark eyes staring at her, his hand outstretched.

Shadows hugged the walls, the curtain billowing out from the window, the whisper of a familiar scent filling the room. His cologne. The one she had given him for Christmas last year.

The one he’d hated.

Megan struggled to reach for his hand but her arm was too heavy. Frustration welled inside her. She focused her energy on lifting her hand, but just as she did, he took a step backward. His frame stood silhouetted in the moonlight, the dark look of concern on his face so somber, a whimper bubbled in her throat.

What was wrong?

It was Tom, wasn’t it?

He opened his mouth as if to speak, his eyebrows pinched the way they did when he was trying to concentrate. But when he opened his mouth, no sound came out. She tried to reach for him again, but he slipped farther away, almost floating now, the distance sucking him in some kind of surreal vacuum… What was he trying to tell her?

“Don’t go,” she whispered. “Please, don’t leave me.”

His lips moved again, slowly as if it were painful, and she traced the movements, studying the words. “Be careful, Megan. Don’t trust anyone.”

Megan jerked upright, her heart pounding. Throwing back the covers, she searched the darkness, a gasp escaping her when she saw the curtain fluttering from the opened window.

Someone had been in her bedroom.

The window had been closed when she’d gone to bed.

HE HUNKERED LOW IN THE CAR, hiding in the shadows of the giant live oak, his only light the cigarette glow in the dim interior of the car. His gaze latched onto Megan Wells’s house while he pressed his cell phone to one ear.

“How did the funeral go?”

He snorted. “It was a funeral. How the hell do you think it went?”

His partner chuckled. “Do you think she suspects anything?”

“No, leastways she’s not asking any questions.” He took a drag from the cigarette, savored the nicotine taste, then blew a smoke ring into the air and watched it swirl in front of him. With a gloved hand, he wiped the fog from the tinted window. A light flickered on in Megan’s bedroom. She was awake now. Probably sitting up in bed, that blond hair tousled around her cheeks, her nightgown clinging to her supple body.

“Good, keep it that way.”

He jerked his thoughts back on track. Back to the scene at the graveyard. “But—”

“But what?”

“That guy Hunter, he talked to her for a few minutes after the service.”

A long tense silence followed. “What did they talk about?”

“Nothing really. Just chitchat, but he kept watching her, sort of creepy, if you know what I mean.”

“Like a man wanting a lay, probably. She is good-looking.”

Worry knotted his stomach. Megan Wells was a sharp nurse, intuitive, sensitive to her patients’ needs. Smart. Maybe too smart. He shrugged off the worry. “Yeah, I guess that was it.” He remembered the way Megan Wells’s long blond hair had looked spread across her pillow. Imagined the silky blond strands wound around the black leather of his glove. Damn right she was good-looking.

Unfortunately her good looks wouldn’t matter if she started asking questions.

Chapter Three

Megan’s heart pounded as she switched on the light and grabbed the cordless phone. She had to search the apartment.

Sliding from the bed, she reached for the umbrella on the desk, planning to use it as a weapon if necessary. Praying she wouldn’t need it, she inched through the room, pausing every few feet to listen for an intruder, but silence hung in the air, deathly calm and frightening.

Her fingers tightened around the umbrella base as she rushed to close the window. On guarded feet, she tiptoed to the doorway and peered into the hallway. Nothing but shadowy blank walls. She took a tentative step, then crept down the hall and checked the small den. Darkness bathed the area, cloaking it in heavy shadows, the leaves of the ficus plant in the corner spearing the wall like thready fingers ready to grab her.

The floor lamp looked ominous, the sofa, the closet, every small crevice a possible hiding place. Taking a deep breath, she flicked on the light, and braced herself. Thankfully her apartment was laid out as one open room, so she could see both the kitchen and den at once. Her gaze searched the parameters. Nothing. She sucked in a deep breath and tiptoed around the corner, then checked underneath the breakfast counter. Again nothing.

Thank God. Adrenaline surged through her as she ran to the door and checked the locks, the windows, the closet. But everything remained intact. No spooky demons or monsters hiding inside or beneath anything.

Her breathing still unsteady, she crept back to the bedroom and stared at the room. The deep maroon walls looked almost bloodlike, the shadows of the tree limbs ominous. She had once thought the room a cozy sanctuary for her and Tom.

Now it seemed frightening. She glanced outside for the dark sedan, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. The car was gone. Still, someone had been inside her house.

Should she call the police? And tell them what? That she thought someone had been in the house because her window was open?

Or had she just imagined that someone had been there? Had she been dreaming of Tom? But what about the faint scent of a man’s cologne lingering in the room? Was she imagining that, too?

Stumbling back to bed, she reminded herself how safe she had felt when she and Tom had moved in.

Now she felt anything but safe.

MONDAY MORNING, COLE stepped inside the research center on Catcall Island, feeling lost. His leg throbbed and he leaned on the cane in disgust. He needed a good run, some vigorous exercise to release his tension, but running was definitely out of the question. And the exercises he did to strengthen his leg were painful, slow and frustrating as hell.

“Good morning, Dr. Hunter. I’m Connie, your secretary.”

He offered a strained smile. Had he met her?

“I worked for Dr. Wells.”

“I…I’m sorry about your boss.”

She gestured toward Wells’s office, which adjoined hers, although each had separate entrances to the hall as well. “I’m afraid Dr. Wells didn’t get a chance to tell me much about you, but welcome to the center.”

“Thanks.” Unfortunately he couldn’t tell her much, either.

“If you need anything, just let me know.” She backed toward her desk where he noticed the computer. “Dr. Parnell mentioned that you won’t be seeing patients for a while.”

“That’s right. I need time to get acquainted with things.” He pushed open the door to Wells’s office. His new office. “But thanks for the offer.”

“The delivery man brought in your boxes already.”

Great. Only he had no idea what was in them.

He stepped inside, scanning the space. The office seemed familiar, yet foreign at the same time. Propping the cane beside the desk, he stretched out his leg and began to rifle though the desk. The next few hours, he searched his memory for anything to jog his mind as he unpacked the stacks of research books and material he had been told belonged to him. Books and notes on schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, hypnosis, manic depression and every mental disorder known to man filled the boxes. He thumbed through each one, frowning at some of the technical jargon. Was he supposedly a specialist on one particular disorder? And if so, why didn’t any of the material ring a bell in his foggy brain?

Hopefully they would, he told himself, he just had to be patient. Be patient and move through the days, settling in and familiarizing himself with the routine, the research center, with the work Tom Wells had been doing. Wells’s own books and research manuals cluttered the bookcases on one wall, the materials piled haphazardly as if in no particular order. A small oval plastic cup overflowed with paper clips, shredded paper filled the trash can, and a coffee stain darkened the sleek black top of the desk. The man obviously hadn’t been obsessive compulsive about neatness.

Except that all his notes were typed, not handwritten.

Probably couldn’t read his own writing.

He halted, wondering how he had made that deduction. Was it the first sign that he was a psychiatrist? It was a small tidbit but he clung to it. Now what should he do?

A silver-framed five-by-seven photo of Megan Wells and her husband occupied the corner of the desk. His gut clenched at the ghostly feeling that encompassed him.

She wore a pale blue sundress that accentuated her eyes, he wore a white polo shirt and khaki shorts. Tom’s arm was thrown around his wife’s shoulders, wind whipped through their hair, sails flapped in the breeze, and the bright sun gleamed off their smiles. They had looked amazingly happy.

He didn’t think he was normally an emotional man, but it seemed like a betrayal to Wells’s memory for him to move into his space so soon after his death. To take over his office and discard his personal things. To put Wells’s wife’s photo aside and add one of his own. Not that he had any personal photos to add.

But Jones had insisted that Tom would have wanted his work to continue, that Tom lived for his research and prided himself on his commitment to his profession and his patients.

What about his wife? Had Wells been a doting husband or had he been so obsessed with his work that she had taken second place?

He shook away the troubling thought, wondering why he had even given it a moment’s interest. Megan Wells had looked happy in the photo. And she had been grief-stricken at her husband’s funeral. Besides, she was not his problem.

God knew he had enough of his own.

Still, so far the memories of her had been more tangible than any others.

Maybe she held some secret key that might unlock his past.

MEGAN ENTERED THE RESEARCH center hospital area through the security checkpoint, stopping only to accept brief offers of sympathy from various employees.

“I’m surprised to see you here,” Doris, one of the young research assistants said.

“It’s better to keep busy.” Megan moved on for fear of breaking down. Several of the other staff members echoed the same sentiment as she veered down the corridor toward Tom’s office.

Two of Tom’s colleagues, Davis Jones and Warner Parnell, seemed engrossed in a serious discussion as they approached her from the opposite direction. Something about the case study on autism treatments, she heard one of them say. But as soon as they spotted her, the conversation instantly died.

“We didn’t expect you to come back to work so soon.” Dr. Jones, a handsome man in his early forties with thick tawny hair and a tanned complexion, met her in the hall in front of Tom’s secretary’s office. Through the crack in the doorway, Megan saw Connie stooped over the computer.

“I’m not officially on duty,” Megan explained. “So I thought I’d come and clean out Tom’s office.” She hadn’t been able to touch his personal things at home yet.

Dr. Parnell, an older gray-haired gentlemen with thick dark glasses nodded. “Probably a good idea.”

“Let me know if I can help, Megan,” Dr. Jones said.

Megan nodded, anxious to escape the doctors. Davis Jones had always made her uncomfortable. Both his cocky smile and his reputation with the ladies raised her defenses fast. She’d observed Dr. Parnell at work with some of the schizophrenic patients. He could be kind and sympathetic, yet ruthless when dealing with a disgruntled patient who refused medication. She’d also heard that he was working on some new treatment for autism that straddled the ethical line endorsed by the American Medical Association. Was that what they had been discussing in hushed voices?

She slipped past them into Connie’s office, pasting on a brave smile for the twenty-five-year-old brunette. Tom had treated her for depression. Newly divorced with a three-year-old, Connie had been desperate for a job when Tom hired her.

Connie’s green eyes reflected remorse. She’d made great strides since starting therapy and taking the job. Hopefully Tom’s death wouldn’t cause her to have a setback.

“Hi, Mrs. Wells.” Connie’s voice quivered with emotions.

“Hi, how are you doing?” Megan’s nursing instincts kicked in.

Connie’s thin shoulders lifted slightly. “Hanging in there. But I sure do miss Dr. T.”

Megan smiled, surprised to hear Connie refer to him that way.

“I know he’s actually been gone for weeks, but all that time—” Her voice broke, and she grabbed a tissue from the box on her desk, dabbed at her eyes and swallowed, “…all that time I prayed they’d find him alive.”

“I know, honey. So did I.” She squeezed Connie’s shoulder. “But we’ll get through this. Just keep telling yourself you have a job now. You have to stay tough for your family.”

Connie nodded. “You’re about the bravest lady I know, Mrs. Wells.”

“I’ve told you a dozen times to call me Megan. And you don’t give yourself enough credit—you were brave to leave your husband, and you’re raising your son on your own. That takes courage.”

Connie nodded again, seeming to draw strength from Megan’s words. Megan brushed at her khakis. “I came to clean out Tom’s office, and to take his personal things home.” Megan closed her hand around the doorknob to Tom’s office, but Connie stood, waving a hand.

“You won’t believe this, but they’ve already brought in a replacement for Tom.”

Megan had already pushed the door open though.

She paused, stunned, when she saw Cole Hunter sitting behind her husband’s long polished desk.

COLE FELT AS IF DÉJÀ VU had struck him the minute he spotted Megan standing in the doorway. Impossible.

Jones had told him he had never been in Tom’s office or met Megan before. So, how could he have déjà vu?

“I…I didn’t realize you were going to be here,” Megan said.

Cole’s stomach clenched. “I didn’t, either.” He stood, ready to apologize. “Jones said they’d planned to put me in a cubicle, but since…” He let the sentence trail off when he saw the horrible meaning register in Megan’s eyes. No sense wasting good office space, Jones had said. But he didn’t tell her that part. That he had thought Jones seemed cold, impersonal. Then again, sometimes scientists were cold and impersonal. They had to be.

Another little tidbit, he realized, wondering if these small flashes of insight were memories prying through the empty spaces in his mind.

She squared her shoulders. “I came to get his personal things.”

Cole’s gaze strayed to the photo of her and her husband.

“You looked very happy,” he said, his voice tight.

Emotions skated across her face. A happy memory obviously surfacing. Then sadness. And something else he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“That was in the Keys, right? Your honeymoon?”

Her gaze flew to his. “How…how did you know that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe someone told me.” The image of Megan in an ankle-length white cotton dress floated through his mind. She’d looked like an angel. Other memories crowded through the haze. A kiss. A long walk on the beach. A sailboat. “The boat tipped and you fell in the water.”

His throat grew thick. She was staring at him, a frightened look in her big blue eyes. “Who told you about our honeymoon?”

He had no idea. Worse, just as quickly as the images had come to him, they disappeared. And once again, his mind was an empty hole.

MEGAN GRIPPED THE EDGES of the photograph, searching Cole Hunter’s face for some explanation about his comment, but he offered none. Instead he seemed confused, almost as troubled as she was about his knowledge.

She had told only a few of the nurses about their short trip to the Keys. As far as she knew, Tom had told no one. Of course, anyone who had come in his office might have asked about the photo, so Tom might have explained the picture. He certainly wouldn’t have shared any details, though.

Tom was not that kind of man.

He kept his personal life and feelings to himself, his business life almost a different entity. If she hadn’t worked at the center herself, she might never have met his colleagues.

“I’ll step outside while you go through things,” Cole offered.

Megan nodded, needing some space. Not only did she dread the task ahead, but being in close proximity to Cole Hunter unnerved her. His presence seemed to take up all the space in the office, filling it with a different sense, a huge, breathtaking masculine one.

A frightening one.

Or maybe it wasn’t him at all, but just the fact that he’d been sitting in her late husband’s chair.

He reached for the cane and leaned on it, then moved to the door, hesitating. “I’m sorry if my being here makes it more difficult for you.”

Megan clamped down on her lip with her teeth. “It’s not your fault.”

He gripped the door, confusion in his eyes again. “I didn’t ask for Tom’s office, Megan. Dr. Jones insisted. In fact…”

“Yes?”

“I feel uncomfortable being here, too.”

Megan’s anxiety lifted slightly. She understood how difficult it was to be the new man on the block. As a nurse and employee of CIRP, she should be welcoming him, easing his transition.

“I do need to review his files at some point,” Cole said.

“All right.” Megan placed the photograph in the box. “Will you be taking over his patients also? And his research?”

He glanced down at his hand as if her question disturbed him. “Not right away. I recently had an accident myself.”

“I’m sorry. Was it serious?” Megan remembered the scars.

“Yes. I haven’t fully recovered.” She waited for further explanation but he didn’t elaborate. In fact, she sensed the accident was difficult for him to discuss. She understood about not sharing one’s problems, too; her entire life had been a hard road, one that had kept throwing her curves when she least expected it.

Just as it was doing now.

Cole stepped into Connie’s office, wondering where the brunette had disappeared to. He felt a small headache pulsing behind his eyes. He poured himself a cup of coffee from the corner table and massaged the side of his temple. What had happened back in Wells’s office? How had he known where the photo of Megan and her husband had been taken? Had one of the other doctors told him? According to Jones, he had only met Tom Wells for a brief minute or two when he’d interviewed for the job. Would he have shared something personal with a stranger? Most men didn’t.

“Dr. Hunter, are you all right?”

He pivoted, sloshing hot coffee on his hand.

“Oh, my goodness.” Connie grabbed a napkin and wiped at his shirt. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Not your fault.” Cole had said the same thing to Megan. “I have a headache, that’s all.”

“Can I get you some aspirin?”

He had no idea why the young woman was so jittery. Was she nervous around all men? “I guess it’s just the stress of a new place.”

“I know what you mean. I was a wreck when I first came here.”

A smile twitched at his lips.

“That must seem weird since I’m acting so nervous now, but I really was a mess. Dr. Wells and his wife have helped me immensely.”

He narrowed his eyes, not quite comprehending.

“I figured Dr. Jones told you. He doesn’t like me very much.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because I was a patient. Dr. Wells helped me with my depression. And his wife, Megan, she’s a real doll, so kind and understanding. Anyway, Dr. Jones wasn’t thrilled when I took the job here. I guess he thought the center shouldn’t hire former patients. He probably thinks I’m not very stable.” She blushed as if she realized she’d been rambling.

He nodded sympathetically.

“If you want someone to show you around, ask Megan. She knows everyone in the psych ward. All the doctors, I mean.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” he said. As soon as the words left his mouth, the hair at the back of his neck prickled. Before he even glanced sideways, he knew Megan Wells stood in the doorway. He smelled her body spray, a very soft hint of jasmine, the kind of fragrance she always wore to work. Subtle but fresh. She hated heavy perfumes; too many of the patients had allergies and reactions.

His heart stopped beating. How in the world had he known that?

“WHAT’S GOING ON?” Megan stiffened. Connie and Cole Hunter were staring at her as if she’d interrupted some private conversation.

“Nothing,” Connie said with a smile. “I was just bragging to Dr. Hunter that if he needed someone to show him around and introduce him to the staff, that you were the one to do it.”

Megan shook her head at Connie’s exuberance. Sometimes she acted seventeen instead of twenty-five. Cole’s potent masculinity probably intimidated her. Her husband had been a big man.

Now, why would I think that, she thought irritably?

She and Cole were going to be working together. In spite of the circumstances, she had to behave like a professional.

“I’d be glad to introduce you and show you the facilities,” Megan offered. “Whenever’s convenient for you.”

“Thanks. I had a short tour when I was here, and I’ve met a few people since I arrived, but I’m still not familiar with the layout of the center.” He gestured to the door. “Shall we go now?”

“Certainly.” She left the small box of items in Connie’s office. “Follow me.”

She wound through the maze of offices, pointing out the various names of the doctors and scientists and noting each one’s specialty. Just being here brought back so many memories of Tom. Maybe she should transfer.

Most of the doors remained closed, and she didn’t want to disturb the doctors’ work by going inside. Cole would have to meet them one by one as the situation called for or at one of the weekly staff meetings.

“Where are the labs?” Cole asked.

“On the second floor.” Megan paced herself to suit his pained gait as she led him through the hospital. The next hour she showed him the various floors and departments, pausing to introduce him to different nurses and counselors.

“Two doctors on this floor are researching a new drug to treat manic depression,” she pointed out. “And Dr. Hornsby’s pet project is dissociative identity disorder.”

“Tell me about the psychiatric ward,” Cole said as they entered the wing for the mental patients.

“We see a variety of patients here, some are outpatient and some are here for long-term treatments and must be confined.”

“Are all of the patients using research oriented treatments versus traditional therapy?”

Megan shook her head. “Not all. The ones who are have come on a volunteer basis, or they’re severe cases where traditional techniques or medications haven’t been effective.”

They’d reached the main floor of the mental ward where patients were received and assessed. “We have counselors and therapists who assess and interview patients when they first come in. Of course we take referrals from other physicians as well.”

“It’ll take you a while to get to know everyone,” Megan said, sensing he was becoming overwhelmed.

“Ms. Wells,” Janie, one of the volunteers called. “Can you come in here a second? Mr. Boyd is asking for you.”

“He’s been diagnosed with schizophrenia,” Megan explained softly to Cole. “But he’s been doing so much better with the new medication.”

Cole followed her inside the small room. Megan winced when she saw Daryl Boyd hunched into a ball on the floor, his hospital gown gaping. “Mr. Boyd, what’s going on?” she said softly, kneeling beside him.

A tuft of thin gray hair spiked haphazardly over his freckled head, his eyebrows were bushy, and his eyes wild. He glanced at Cole and pointed a shaky finger. “Who’s that?”

“This is Dr. Hunter,” Megan said. “He’s—”

“Get him out of here,” he screeched, “he’s one of them.”

Megan reached out to comfort him, afraid he’d lapsed into one of his exhaustive states. “One of who?”

“The bad doctors,” the old man said in a high-pitched voice. He rocked himself back and forth, hugging his arms around bony legs. “You don’t know what they do in here. I do.” Panic rose in his shrill voice. “Get him out of here. Make him go.”

Megan frowned. She needed to calm Boyd. “Mr. Boyd, Dr. Hunter is new on the staff—”

“No, I’ve seen him before. He does bad, bad things. Make him leave!”

Megan stroked his back while April ran in with an injection. Cole arched an eyebrow as if to ask if he should help, but Megan gestured for him to leave. As soon as he stepped from the room, Daryl Boyd broke down and began to cry.

“What happened?” April asked.

“He was asking for me,” Megan explained. “When I came in, he was agitated.”

“They hurt people, they—” the old man began to hum “—they hook you up to these wires and put this helmet on you and fry you. My head, it sizzled, it—” he grabbed his head, covered his ears and rocked faster “—I thought it was going to explode.”

“Listen, Daryl—”

“You got to be careful, Ms. Megan.” Boyd dropped his head forward like a child, emitting a low screech. “Don’t tell ’em I told you, don’t tell ’em,” he whispered. “Or they’ll kill both of us.”

Chapter Four

Cole stood in the hall, watching the hustle and bustle of the staff, troubled by the patient’s response to him. Schizophrenics often lapsed into delusional behavior, he reminded himself, so he shouldn’t be so disturbed that the man had accused him of doing disreputable things.

There was no way Daryl Boyd had ever seen him before.

The fact that he had a new face was proof of that.

But had he confused him with someone else?

He had heard about the trouble at the center a few weeks ago, that the CEO Arnold Hughes had disappeared and was thought dead, although some speculated that he might have escaped the explosion on his boat. That Hughes might return to Nighthawk Island to run the company or that he was still running it via some kind of secret mode of communication. Police suspected some questionable techniques were being tried at the center, and Nighthawk Island, with its special security and isolation was being scrutinized.

There couldn’t be any truth to the things the delusional Boyd had said, could there?

Why had Cole chosen to leave his old job and join the center with the negative publicity surrounding it?

Maybe because he believed in the research and development of the area; the doctors were doing revolutionary things and he wanted to be a part of it. Maybe because he’d believed all the trouble at the center had ended with Santenelli’s death.

Even as he rationalized the answer, it didn’t feel right.

Perhaps something had happened back at Oakland that had prompted him to transfer.

Megan Wells stepped into the hallway, looking calm in spite of the horrific wailing echoing from the confines of the room. “He’ll be okay in a few minutes, once the sedative takes effect. April’s going to stay with him until he goes to sleep.”

Cole nodded. “Does he have those episodes often?”

“No, that’s what’s so troubling.” Megan wrinkled her nose. “He’s usually very friendly with the staff. I’ve never seen him get so agitated with a doctor before.”

“Was he under your husband’s care?”

“Yes, but Dr. Jones is treating him now.” Megan folded her arms across her waist. “Boyd had been responding to this new drug. Hopefully Dr. Jones can adjust the dosage and stabilize him.”

“Right.”

“Are you going to be taking on patients right away?”

Cole’s hands tightened by his side. “No, not for a while. I need some time to acclimate. Review charts.”

Besides, how could he help others when he couldn’t sort out his own life?

“What’s your specialty, Dr. Hunter?”

“I…” he struggled to remember when the answer suddenly came to him. “Dissociative identity disorder. I was working on hypnosis techniques to help traumatized patients regain repressed memories.”

Megan’s gaze locked with his, her blue eyes sparkling in the glare of the hospital lights. His groin tightened, and the strong pull of sexual awareness thrummed through him. But he ignored the simmering attraction as research data on the disorder flashed through his head. The latest cases identified in the States. The patients here who were under Wells’s care.

Had he read about them or was it a memory surfacing?

“I should have known,” Megan said interrupting his thoughts.

“What? I mean why?”

“Because that was one of Tom’s areas. I suppose that’s the reason you were brought in to work with him.”

Cole nodded. “I’ll be looking over his files this week.”

April emerged from inside the room, thumbing her fingers through her bangs. “He’s finally resting. Did something happen to trigger his episode?”

Megan shrugged. “Not that I know of. He did get more agitated when Dr. Hunter came in, but he was upset before then.”

April introduced herself. She was attractive, Cole noticed, tall and slender with a heart-shaped face and almond colored eyes. Although she didn’t have the same gut-wrenching effect Megan Wells had on him.

Too bad; she was much more attainable than a woman who’d just been widowed.

Irritation hit him. How could he think about a flirtatious relationship with anyone, much less a dead man’s wife, when his life was in such turmoil?

For a brief second, April sized him up, a flicker of approval in her smile. “It’s nice to have you on board, Dr. Hunter. If you need help learning your way around, feel free to ask.”

“Actually, Me… Mrs. Wells has been giving me the tour.”

April’s smile seemed tight. So she had been interested.

“All right.” April brushed his hand with long nimble fingers. “I’d be glad to brief you on anything else you need.”

“Daryl mentioned something about patients being hooked up to electrodes,” Megan said, seemingly oblivious to the tension between him and her friend. “It sounded like shock treatment. April, do you know of anyone using that technique now?”

April shook her head, removing her plastic gloves. “But I wouldn’t go around asking questions, Meg.” Her voice grew low. “You know how sensitive some of the scientists and doctors are about their work, especially the classified projects. If I were you, I’d just keep my mouth shut and do my job.”

APRIL’S WARNING BUGGED Megan as she walked Hunter back to his office. She certainly understood privileged information, confidential cases, and the importance of not divulging the research center’s confidential work, but in light of Tom’s death and this new man’s presence, curiosity ate at her. The timing of everything—Arnold Hughes’s disappearance, Tom’s death, Cole Hunter’s appearance and now Daryl Boyd’s claims about strange things happening at the center seemed way too coincidental.

“Thanks for the tour,” Cole said when they reached Tom’s office. Now Cole’s.

“Certainly.” Megan tried to ignore the subtle tension between her and this man. It had been eons since she’d felt this magnetism. Maybe never.

Guilt suffused her for the thought. Just what had attracted her to Tom?

The fact that he’d been safe. That he’d offered security, someone to lean on, when she’d never known any. She noticed a stack of mail on one of his bookshelves, a card on top. She picked it up without thinking, her eyes tearing when she noticed her name scribbled on the envelope. Tom had bought it for her but hadn’t given in to her.

“What’s that?” Cole asked.

“A card from Tom.” She opened the envelope and removed the card, smiling at the yellow daises on the cover. Daisies were her favorite flower. Inside, she skimmed the few words he’d written, Dear Meg. I know things have been rocky, but I still do love you.

Why hadn’t he given her the card?

She brushed a tear away, faintly aware Cole was watching her. Before she realized what had happened, he stroked her arm.

Megan jumped back, amazed at the tingle that spread through her at his touch.

“I’m sorry.” An odd look darkened his eyes as if he’d felt the same electric charge pass between them. Several tense seconds lapsed before he spoke again. He indicated a folder in his hands. “Did you know what your husband was working on?”

Megan startled, remembering how secretive Tom had been the last few weeks she’d seen him. “Not exactly. He pretty much kept his work to himself.”

But she wanted to know, she thought, a firm resolve setting in. She wanted to know that he hadn’t been involved in anything illegal or unethical. That he had loved her and that he had died in an accident. That if he had lived, they could have worked things out.

Then she could put the questions in her mind to rest. And maybe she could move on with her life without so many misgivings.

COLE SPENT THE AFTERNOON poring over the case files he’d inherited from Tom Wells.

Amazing, but Wells’s notes on hypnosis seemed familiar.

As did the details and information on three of his patients. Harry Fontaine. Frank Carson. Jesse Aiken.

Just as Wells’s wife Megan felt familiar.

He’d had another flash of an image when he’d touched her earlier today. Before he’d seen her open the card, he had known it had daisies on the front.

But how could he know that? And how could he recognize those files if he’d never read them or met the patients?

Impossible.

Unless he had spoken with Wells on the phone about them? Perhaps they’d consulted since they’d been studying similar areas of work. Maybe he should use some of the hypnotic treatments to try and regain his own memory. He’d have to speak to his doctor about it.

And maybe Wells had told him about Megan. That she liked daisies.

But he doubted it.

Remembering the questions he’d had about his work back in Oakland, he searched the Rolodex, listing the companies affiliated with CIRP until he found a listing for Dr. Frank Chadburn, director of the psychiatric department at Oakland.

He punched in the number. Maybe Chadburn could shed some light on Cole’s life and fill in some of the details about his move to Savannah.

“I DIDN’T THINK YOU WERE working today.” April poked her head into the file room.

Megan glanced up from the folders in her lap, hoping guilt didn’t show on her face. She’d been scanning the charts for anything that might support Daryl Boyd’s allegations. April would simply say the man was delusional, which she knew was true to an extent, but still, the timing of Tom’s death with Cole’s Hunter’s appearance, and the patient’s rantings bothered her. She had heard of a shock treatment similar to the one he’d described that had been used at another facility, but it had been banned. She didn’t know of anyone here who would try to implement it. But she had to know for sure.

Thankfully, she hadn’t found anything suspicious.

“I couldn’t face going home yet, thought I’d clean up the files.”

April frowned. “I know it’s tough, Meg. But you can’t stay here around the clock.”

Megan stuffed the folders back into place. “It’s just that the house is so quiet, April. Not that Tom was there that much before, but…but at least I knew he was coming home.” Even though they’d been separated, it hadn’t seemed final.

Not like death.

April leaned over and gave her a hug. “I know, honey. But it’ll get better. In time.”

Megan stood, her legs and back aching from bending over to reach the lower drawers. “I guess I’ll head home now.”

“You want to grab dinner?” April asked.

Megan shook her head. “I still have a dozen casseroles at home. Besides, I’m not even hungry. But if you want to stop by, I’ll heat one up.”

April shrugged. “Actually I’ll take a rain check. I may have a date later tonight myself.”

Megan arched a brow. “A keeper, I hope.”

April laughed. “Maybe.”

“So who is the lucky guy?”

“I’d rather not say, Meg. I don’t want to jinx it just yet.”

Curiosity niggled at Megan. “Someone from the center?”

April winked. “Now, that’s all I’m going to tell you.”

Megan laughed, fighting irritation. Although she considered the woman her best friend, April could sometimes be secretive.

Just like Tom had been.

She grabbed her purse, ready to leave. Tonight she’d sort through his things, maybe see if she could access his files. And maybe she’d figure out what he’d been hiding from her.

“DR. CHADBURN, THIS IS COLE Hunter.”

“Yes, how are you doing?”

Cole’s fingers tightened around the phone as he focused on the man’s voice. He didn’t recognize it. “I’m settling in. I suppose you heard about my accident.”

“Yes, so sorry, son. You were on your way to Savannah when it happened.”

“So I’ve been told. My memory’s pretty foggy, though.”

“Ah, I see. Well, what can I do for you?”

Cole leaned back in the swivel desk chair and massaged his temple, fighting another headache. “I’m trying to talk to people and see if it jogs my memory. Can you tell me the circumstances surrounding my transfer from Oakland.”

A moment of hesitation followed. Finally Chadburn cleared his throat. “I’m not sure what you mean, except that you’d been in touch with the research center there for months. The facility is much larger, with more cutting edge techniques for treating psychotic disorders. It seemed a natural fit.”

Cole frowned. So it had been a smooth transition.

Then why did he have this nagging feeling that just before his accident he’d been arguing with one of the doctors? Trouble was, he didn’t know if it had been someone from Oakland or CIRP. And he had no idea what they might have argued about.

“I JUST RECEIVED A CALL from Frank Chadburn at Oakland. Cole Hunter called him.”

He yanked his cigarette pack from his pocket and tore open the cellophane. “Damn. What did he want?”

“Chadburn said he wanted to know the conditions of his transfer here. Chadburn stuck to the story we’d worked out.”

“Thank God. You think he suspects something?”

“I don’t know. Hunter claimed he was just trying to jog his memories by talking to people he knew.”

He lit the cigarette, inhaled, tried to calm himself.

“Just keep a handle on the situation. Spend some time with Hunter, make him focus on work. That’s the only reason he’s here, you know.”

“Right.”

“And Wells’s wife?”

“I’m watching her as well.” A job he didn’t mind at all.

But he didn’t like the fact that Hunter had spent the morning with her. Or that he was asking questions. And if he got anywhere near the truth, if he went searching for information about the real Cole Hunter, he’d have to do something to stop him.

MEGAN STOPPED BY CONNIE’S office to pick up the box of items she’d packed earlier.

“You heading home?” Connie asked.

“Yes. How about you? Don’t you need to pick up your son from day care?”

Connie flicked off her computer. “Yeah. After I check on Dr. Hunter, I’ll hit the road.”

“You want me to wait so we can walk out together?”

“No, go ahead. He might need something. You look worn-out, Megan.”

“I am. Give little Donny a hug for me.”

Taking a last look at the closed door where her husband used to sit, Megan clutched the box in her hands and left. But she couldn’t squelch the questions tumbling through her head as she walked down the hall to the lower parking deck. Why did Cole Hunter rattle her so?

The sun was beginning to fade, and the early evening shadows in the garage played havoc with her nerves. Last night she had thought someone had come into her house. Had she been dreaming? Had she somehow opened her window without remembering it or had someone really been there? And if so, who? And why?

Hurrying now, she fumbled with her keys, checking the parking lot for other workers. Odd that the place was nearly deserted when it was only a little past five. Of course, the evening shift had just come on the hospital at three, so she had missed the daily changeover. A footstep sounded behind her and she scanned the area behind her, but saw nothing. The whisper of cigarette smoke drifted toward her.

Her pulse racing, she finally unlocked her SUV and slipped inside. Still scanning the dark spaces of the garage, she locked the car door, then carefully placed the box onto the floor, and started the engine. Heart racing, she threw the car into gear and sped out of the lot. A pair of headlights nearly blinded her as she pulled onto the street. The car swerved and honked at her, then raced on. Megan exhaled a shaky breath and forced herself to lift her foot from the accelerator. She was fine. Safe.

For heaven’s sakes, if she didn’t stop this, she was going to need therapy herself.

Music usually relaxed her, so she switched on the radio and turned onto the highway toward Savannah. The bay bridge loomed ahead and she fell into traffic. A strange odor permeated the car, though. She sniffed, trying to put her finger on the scent, but she couldn’t figure out the source. She glanced around the vehicle for a damp towel or bag of trash that might be causing the foul smell, but saw nothing. The traffic slowly eased over the bridge, the pace picking up as some of the cars turned toward Whistlestop Island.

A small white puff of smoke drifted up in front of her. It took Megan several seconds to realize the smoke was coming from her vehicle. The engine was on fire.

She tried to remain calm as red-hot sparks spewed from the hood. It must have overheated. She’d pull over and let it cool. Call a mechanic.

She swung the Explorer to the side of the road, bouncing as it hit the rocks along the coastal line, then stopped just before going over the embankment. Her heart racing, she jumped out of the car. A second later, the entire vehicle burst into flames.

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