With the Material Witness in the Safehouse

Britta was afraid to answer, knowing that her reply would let the doctor know just how messed up she really was. “Halloween,” she said in a faint voice. “The last day that I remember was the day before Halloween.”

A wrinkle raced across Dr. Jamison’s forehead. “Can you tell me your name?”

“Of course. Britta Jakobsen. Now, please, tell me what’s happened. Why am I in the hospital? Have I been sick? Maybe in a coma?” That would explain the missing time.

“Last night I found you wandering the old lighthouse here in town. You were dressed in a white gown and were wearing a seashell necklace,” Ryan said. “You fainted and I brought you here.”

His words did nothing to alleviate the fear and confusion in her head. Wandering a lighthouse? What on earth was going on? “And where, exactly is here?”

“Raven’s Cliff Clinic,” the doctor replied. “In Raven’s Cliff, Maine.”

Maine? What was she doing here? She’d never been to Maine in her life. Her work, her apartment, everything she knew was in Boston. “Please, tell me what’s happened to me?” She looked at the doctor, then at Ryan, then back again to the doctor, a frantic panic surging up inside her.

Dr. Jamison frowned and reached out for her hand. She’d thought he’d meant to offer comfort, but instead he placed his fingertips against her rapidly beating pulse. “I can’t tell you what’s happened to bring you here, but I can tell you that your vital signs are all good. The tests we’ve run on you show no indication of trauma or illness. However, an initial toxicology screen showed something interesting.”

“Interesting how?” Ryan asked and took a step closer, and once again Britta was struck by the fact that the clean, but subtle spicy scent of his cologne seemed intimately familiar to her.

She wondered in the back of her mind how well they had known each other? But she couldn’t think about that right now. There were other, more-pressing issues to be concerned about, like what had happened to her and how she’d ended up in Raven’s Cliff, Maine.

The doctor looked at Ryan, then back at her. “There’s a privacy issue involved here. Would you prefer that Mr. Burton leave the room while I speak with you about your condition?”

Britta had no idea who Ryan Burton was and why he had apparently spent the night in her room, but the idea of him leaving her all alone scared her almost as much as anything the doctor might say to her.

“No. Whatever you have to say you can speak freely with Mr. Burton here,” she replied. Privacy be damned, she didn’t want to be alone.

Dr. Jamison released her hand and sat back in his chair. “I found traces in your system of a new designer drug that’s springing up in the area. I believe the street name for it is Stinging Flower.”

“That’s impossible,” Britta exclaimed. “I don’t take drugs.”

“There were three fresh injection sites on your thigh,” Dr. Jamison said. “If you didn’t willingly take it, then somebody gave it to you.”

“What is it? What does it do?” Ryan asked.

The world seemed to tilt on its axis for Britta. She’d lost seven months of her life, was in a town where she didn’t belong and had been injected with some kind of new drug. Tears pressed hotly at her eyes, but she swallowed against them, refusing to allow either man to see her cry.

“We don’t know a lot about it yet. All we know for sure is that the drug contains a derivative of the stinging cells of the anemone.”

“What’s an anemone?” Britta asked. She reached up and twisted a finger in a strand of her hair, the rhythmic motion somewhat calming.

“They’re sea animals that usually live on rocks and in the sand and look like flowers,” Dr. Jamison explained. “They’re armed with a toxin that paralyzes their prey, and it seems some illustrious person has managed to get those toxins into a new street drug.”

“But she wasn’t paralyzed when I found her,” Ryan protested. “She was walking around, although it was like she was in a daze.”

“Apparently, the street drug has a number of other components to it and one of the effects is that while it doesn’t paralyze, it does put the person under the influence into a state of high suggestibility.”

“You mean, like a hypnotic trance?” Ryan asked.

The doctor nodded and once again gazed at Britta. “And I would attribute your state of amnesia to the residual effects of the drugs combined with some sort of emotional trauma.”

“Is the amnesia permanent?” She was afraid of his answer. She dropped her hand from her hair and instead clutched tightly to the sheet that covered her.

“My professional opinion is I don’t know.” He offered her a smile of apology. “My personal opinion is that probably not. I think if you give your body and your mind some time to rest, time to recover, eventually your memory will probably return. Even though we’re a small clinic with limited resources, I’d like to keep you here under observation for another twenty-four hours.”

She wanted to protest, but then she remembered how weak she’d been when she’d left the bed to retrieve the newspaper. She nodded her assent reluctantly and then added, “But I need to make some phone calls, to check on my job and see what’s happened with my apartment.”

“I’ll leave you two alone for now.” Dr. Jamison stood and smiled at Britta. “I’ll have somebody bring you in a breakfast tray.”

“I’m really not hungry,” she protested.

Dr. Jamison shot her a sympathetic look as he headed for the door, then stopped and wagged a finger at her. “You have to eat. It’s important that you take care of yourself.”

Ryan followed the doctor to the door. “I’m going to have a chat with Dr. Jamison, then we need to have a long talk.”

There was an intensity in those lush green eyes of his that made her want to run and hide. She had a horrible feeling that the bad news wasn’t finished yet.

“YOU KNOW her name isn’t Britta,” Ryan told the doctor as the two men walked down the hallway. It was imperative that Ryan guard her real identity, so when he’d brought her in he’d checked her in as Valerie King. “Her name is Valerie King, and she isn’t from Boston but Chicago.”

Dr. Jamison frowned. “Then it’s possible she’s suffering some false memory issue from the drug. What’s your relationship to her?”

“A close personal friend. She doesn’t have any family. I’m all she has. Four days ago she was supposed to call me when she got settled here in Raven’s Cliff. When she didn’t call and I couldn’t get in touch with her, I decided to come and see what was going on. I arrived yesterday in town just in time to help with the search for Camille Wells.”

Dr. Jamison grimaced and shook his head. “Terrible tragedy. Last I heard they haven’t found her body yet. The mayor and his wife are absolutely beside themselves with grief.”

Ryan remembered that brief moment when he’d seen money pass between the mayor and another man. It had struck him as being odd at the time. There had been something covert about the exchange, but in the wake of Camille’s stumble off the bluff, it had been forgotten until this moment.

Even now he wasted no time or thought on the mayor or the tragic wedding ceremony. “There’s nothing more you can do for Valerie? Nothing to help with the amnesia?”

“I think she’s suffering a temporary fugue state, but I can’t give you any real prognosis. The brain is a complicated thing. Add in a drug that we know little about and don’t know how to counteract, and there’s not much we can do.”

“You’ve seen this drug before?”

“Only twice.” Dr. Jamison glanced at his watch, then looked back at Ryan. “Both times the victims, if you will, were college girls who had been at keg parties. They were brought in by friends who got scared.” He shook his head. “Booze and stupidity are a dangerous combination.”

“Valerie is neither a drinker nor stupid,” Ryan replied. “I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t release any information about her being here or anything else about her condition. Until we know what’s happened to her and who might be responsible, I’d prefer nobody know she’s been found and under what circumstances.”

“I would have no reason to release any information, and I’ll make sure my nurse understands that, as well.” Dr. Jamison glanced at his watch once again. “I’m sorry, I’ve got other patients waiting. I’ll check in with you later this afternoon.”

Ryan watched the doctor walk down the hallway, then pulled a cell phone from his pocket. He had arrangements to make for Britta. He had no idea what had happened to her, who had drugged her, but her safety was paramount.

With the phone call made and plans in progress, he walked back toward Britta’s room, dreading the conversation he was about to have with her.

When he stepped back into the room, her head was turned toward the window and a shaft of sunlight shone on her platinum hair. His fingers itched, remembering the silkiness of those strands.

She didn’t remember him. Somehow her mind had erased the past seven months. That meant she didn’t remember the shooting she’d witnessed. She had no memory of being a material witness, living her life before the trial in a safehouse with him as her handler.

She didn’t remember that their relationship had become far more than FBI agent and witness. She didn’t remember that they had become lovers.

She turned her head then, as if sensing his presence as he entered the room. “You doing okay?” he asked.