A Season To Believe

Not that she didn’t want to talk to Matt. She had a million questions to ask him—over a year’s worth, in fact. But something about the way his eyes had narrowed when he’d uttered those words suggested strongly that he wasn’t going to be the subject of their discussion. Unless, that is, she moved quickly.

“No one ever told me why you left the force,” she said.

Matt paused in the act of scooting his chair closer to the table and looked up sharply. His eyes met hers, a dusky shade of sea green, slightly wide with surprise. When he frowned, that color turned murky. Jane felt a tremor in her chest, but held his gaze as she continued.

“I tried to come see you at the hospital after you were shot,” she said quietly. “But you were in intensive care for a long time, and I was told you weren’t allowed visitors. Then it was time for Zoe and I to—”

“Leave for Maine,” Matt said. “I know. I was the one who set that up, remember?”

Remember? How she hated that word.

“Of course I do. I remember everything that has happened to me since I woke in the hospital. For example, I recall the fact that I never got a chance to thank you for all you did for me. You, and Manny.”

Her voice deepened as her throat tightened over the name. She swallowed as she gazed across at Matt, saw his expression go bleak, watched him glance away briefly before meeting her eyes once more.

“There wasn’t anything to thank us for,” he said softly. “We were doing our job. I just wish we could have finished it.”

Jane shook her head. “You went far beyond just doing a job. Despite my lack of memory, which gave you a lack of motive, you and Manny stuck with me, did everything you could…”

Her words trailed off as she thought about all the times one or both of the men had sat in her room, explaining things she found confusing, making her laugh when the darkness closed around her. She drew a deep breath.

“You were needed elsewhere. And it was hardly part of your job to arrange for me to get a new identity. In fact, I realize now that you two spent a lot of time with me, in a case that was going nowhere. That could have gotten you into a lot of trouble.”

With Matt’s eyes gazing into hers, Jane felt an embarrassed flush heat her cheeks. The word trouble, when used with respect to Matt Sullivan and Manny Mendosa, was a woefully inadequate one. It would serve her right if Matt reminded her then and there just how inadequately.

A year ago August, the two detectives had been told to put her investigation on a back burner while they worked another case. Two weeks later, Manny had been killed by an unknown assailant. That was more than “trouble.” That was tragic. And, until now, she’d been robbed of the opportunity to express her sorrow over Manny’s passing to the man in front of her.

“I wanted to call you, after I heard about Manny,” she said softly. “But—”

“I know,” Matt interrupted. “I was undercover. In fact, I heard about Manny’s death while driving up the coast, carrying some marked bills as the final step in flushing out the head of a money-laundering scheme. We got the guy, but not before he shot me.”

He paused and glanced away again. Jane saw a frown drop over his eyes. It disappeared in a flash as he returned his attention to her.

“I got your card when I finally regained consciousness. It was good to hear from you. You know how it is when you’re tied to a hospital bed—not much to do but read your cards and letters and catch up on your soaps.”

He grinned as he finished speaking. Jane was quite familiar with the way Matt Sullivan used humor to deflect pain. It was a trait she’d adopted herself, finding it easier to laugh at life as she tried to dodge its slings and arrows than to let herself be swallowed up in the shadows lurking in the darkness of her unknown past.

“Soaps?” she said, taking the bait offered. “Aren’t you the fellow who sat by my bed, telling me what a waste of time they were? How they distort reality?”

“Yep. Same fellow. Turns out that sometimes reality begs to be distorted, or at least ignored for a bit.” Again he paused. Leaning forward, he looked meaningfully into her eyes. “Only for a while, of course. Then it’s time to deal with whatever you’ve been handed.”

Jane fought the temptation to look away. “It appears you’ve done that admirably. You mentioned that you’re a private detective now. Do you like working on your own?”

“I work with my cousin, Jack. Also an ex-cop.”

“Still trying to put the bad guys away?”

Jane recalled Matt and Manny trading jokes and insults about past cases, arguing over who had found what evidence, who had missed seeing something. It had been a comfort listening to them, not just because they made her laugh, but because she learned that the emptiness she found in her mind each time she tried to recall the past hadn’t affected her ability to follow a conversation, to make the connections necessary to find things funny, sad, amusing or frightening.

“As many as possible,” Matt replied. “Keeps us pretty busy. Not too busy, though, to take up old cases. Yours, for example.”

Jane was aware that her smile had frozen. “You heard what I told Wilcox, Matt. Nothing has changed. I still have no idea who I used to be. And, without knowing who I am, there’s no way of establishing who might have had a motive for trying to kill me. If that is, indeed, what happened.”

“If you’re referring to Wilcox’s suggestion that you tried to commit suicide, forget it. And something has changed. Today your memory started to return.”

“No.” Jane reached blindly for the chocolate chip cookie, brought it to her mouth and said, “It didn’t,” then took a bite.

“Really?” Matt lifted one eyebrow. “How would you describe the event that caused you to insist that it was the middle of May?”

Jane chewed slowly. She felt the combination of dough and chocolate soften in her mouth, but could taste nothing, as she thought back to the incident at the scarf counter. She shrugged as she swallowed.

“A moment of confusion. There was a lot of noise, and people and music…” She paused to fight a sudden chill. “It was my first real experience with Christmas crowds, actually. Last year, Zoe and I stayed with her family in a town that consisted of three square blocks surrounded by farms.”

“What’s that have to do with thinking you’d been standing on the beach yesterday?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I had a subconscious yearning for somewhere quiet and peaceful. You know, a daydream.”

“A daydream. Hmm. Tell me about this daydream.”

The speculative expression in Matt’s narrowed eyes made Jane uneasy. Or maybe it was remembering how she’d felt standing at the glass counter and discovering she had no idea what month it was, where she was, and worst of all who she was, that made her reluctant to discuss the fleeting but oh-so-real image that seemed to have thrown her into such confusion.

“It wasn’t really anything,” she said, then picked up her coffee cup.

Matt was aware that Jane was evading his question. He should know, being the self-acknowledged king of evasion himself. Remembering how transparent Jane had been when she first recovered from her three-week coma, he wondered if she’d learned this tactic from observing the way he and Manny joked around in an attempt to keep the particulars of her accident from her, hoping that she’d remember these things on her own.

Matt watched Jane take a drink, saw her mouth twist with distaste as she backed off from the cup.

“You don’t like eggnog-flavored coffee?”

Her eyes met his as she lifted her chin. “Certainly.”

Matt felt that her voice sounded a tad too defensive, but he wasn’t going to let this minor mystery deflect him from going after the larger story.

“You told Wilcox you weren’t at the beach this past May, right?”

Jane took another sip of coffee before placing the cup back on the table. She nodded, then picked up her cookie and began breaking it into tiny pieces.

“Okay. How about June?”

Matt watched as Jane turned her attention to the sliver of cookie between her fingers, then raised her eyes to his.

“No. And I didn’t go to the beach in July or August, either. I’ve been too busy.”

Matt couldn’t miss the fear shadowing those unusual smoky eyes of hers. How could he have forgotten that haunted look, or the fact that Jane had always responded better to teasing than to police-type inquisitions? Maybe he’d been taken with the fact that she seemed so much more…grown-up, courtesy of the businesslike red jacket she wore and the sophisticated way her hair had been cut to fall in soft, spiky layers around her face.

“Too busy for the beach?” Matt purposely exaggerated his surprise. “Didn’t you learn anything from me and Man—from that day we took you to Ocean Beach and demonstrated the fine art of surfing? I must say, whoever took over the job of educating you in the joy of living definitely fell down on the job.”

Jane’s smile was weak, but Matt took a great deal of satisfaction in having managed to get that much.