Damned

But if she told the psychiatrist everything, the young doctor would think her even crazier than she already did.

The woman’s face flushed with pink color. “Someone’s been asking about you. At least I’m pretty sure you’re the woman he’s looking for. Maybe he’ll be able to help you remember who you are.”

He already had. But he didn’t intend to let her make any more memories. God, how had he found her so quickly? He must have followed the police car to the psychiatric hospital.

Irina strained against the bindings at her wrists, trying to vault out of the bed. “You can’t let him in here! Don’t let him near me! He’s going to kill me!”

“Why do you say that?” the psychiatrist asked, her face tight with concern. “Has he hurt you?”

Irina shook her head, tumbling her hair around her shoulders. Citrus shampoo wafted from her curls. The minute she’d been brought in, they’d washed her. Maybe he wouldn’t recognize her from the dirty street person she’d been. Maybe she could convince him she wasn’t who he thought she was.

She wasn’t a witch.

Drawing in an unsteady breath, she admitted, “He hasn’t touched me.” Yet. “But I know he’s hurt other people. He’s killed them.”

The young doctor’s mouth pulled down at the corners. “He probably has, but only in the line of duty. He’s a police officer.”

No wonder he’d found her so quickly. Even if she somehow managed to free herself and escape, he would track her down again. She had to convince him she wasn’t Irina Cooper. If she couldn’t, she was damned.

As the psychiatrist opened the door and stepped into the hall, Irina tested the restraints, tugging on her wrists. Desperation to free herself renewed her struggle, and the straps dug deep grooves into her skin.

“She doesn’t want to see you,” the young doctor, her voice soft with apology, told someone in the corridor.

Irina held her breath as she listened for his response. But she couldn’t discern his words, only the low timbre of his raspy murmur. Through the partially opened door she watched the psychiatrist’s face, which flushed pink as she gazed up at the man who stood just outside Irina’s line of vision.

The woman shook her head, shifting her braid against her back. Her hair was dark and long, like Irina’s. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I don’t want to upset her any further.”

Unable to see or hear him through the door, Irina closed her eyes and listened for his voice inside her head. But now, when she actually wanted her mind invaded with the thoughts of others, it remained empty. Instead of blackness rolling in, she squinted against the stark glare of the fluorescent lights as she opened her eyes again. What had they given her?

She struggled anew against the restraints, wanting to pull out the IV as badly as she wanted her freedom. She needed to hear the voices now; she needed to know what was going on if she had any hope of protecting herself.

“Send him in,” she yelled as the last of her strength drained from her body. The sedative had worked on her muscles as well as her mind, relaxing them so much that she couldn’t even form a fist now. But even weak, she could fight him…if she could read his mind. He wouldn’t dare to try to kill her here, in the hospital. And she’d be able to identify him. Maybe if he got close to her again, as he had in the alley, she could test her power.

Not that she’d ever had to have someone close to read his or her mind. She had no idea where those women were that he’d killed, but she’d heard their every terrified thought throughout their last moments. She shivered; her struggles to free herself had knocked her blankets to the floor, and she wore only a thin cotton gown. But her reaction was more from fear than cold.

She drew in a deep breath, reminding herself that she’d decided back in the alley that she was through running. Of course, a short while after making that decision she had run out in the street and into the path of that police car. The police officers hadn’t helped her. Since he was one of them, there was no way she could trust them. Or anyone else. She had to help herself.

“I w-want to s-see him,” she called out, her words slurred from the effects of the sedative. She blinked hard, fighting against exhaustion to keep her eyes open.

The door creaked as the man wedged his wide shoulders through the jamb and stepped into Irina’s room, which shrank with his entrance. Like his shoulders, his chest was wide and heavily muscled beneath his thin cotton T-shirt. But his size, which was more muscle than height since he hovered just under six feet, didn’t overwhelm Irina. He’d actually seemed bigger in the alley.

His intensity, apparent in his tautly clenched jaw and the hard stare of his navy-blue eyes, overwhelmed Irina. She tore her gaze from his, turning her attention to the woman who accompanied him. The psychiatrist followed closely behind Irina’s visitor, probably whispering instructions on how not to get her patient hysterical again.

The doctor didn’t have to worry about what he said to her. His thoughts were more likely to upset Irina—if she could tap into them the way she had before.

“Is she the woman you’re trying to find?” the psychiatrist asked.

The man brushed a hand through his short black hair, in which the fluorescent lights picked up glints nearly as blue as his eyes. Irina forced herself to meet his gaze, expecting the burning hatred that had scorched her in the alley. But her vision dimmed, his face disappearing into the blackness that enveloped her. Only little sparks of blue relieved the dark.

His voice a raspy whisper, he lied to the doctor. “No.” But his mind called out to her. Irina?

Her heart lurched with the shock of recognition of another kind. This wasn’t the man who’d chased her from the alley. He was the man who’d made her consider leaving it in the first place, calling her name, telling her to believe.

“Who are you?” she asked.

The psychiatrist answered for him, “This is Ty McIntyre, a police officer.”

Suspended police officer. She heard his silent amendment to the doctor’s claim. More than that, her stomach muscles tightened with the pain and pride that omission, even silent, cost him.

“You don’t recognize him?” the psychiatrist asked Irina. “He isn’t the man you claim is trying to kill you?”

Oh God, the bastard has already found her!

Fear raised goose bumps on Irina’s skin, but was it her fear or his? Irina shook her head. “No.”

He was not the man she’d claimed was trying to kill her, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t just as dangerous—or maybe even more dangerous. Her connection with him was so strong, his thoughts so compelling that she had risked leaving her hiding place of the past few months. With the killer, she had only his actions to fear; with this man, she had her own to fear. She struggled to break the connection between them, fighting her way out of the darkness.

Yet the connection remained. The anger tightening the muscles in his stomach twisted hers into knots. Tension radiated from him as he stared at her.

She shifted against the mattress, unnerved by his intent scrutiny and her own inexplicable reaction to it. Her pulse quickened, her breath grew shallow and heat licked at her stomach.

The young psychiatrist cleared her throat. “Well, then…” she prompted the man as she pulled open the door again. “Since she isn’t who you’re looking for…”

“Who is she?” he asked as if Irina weren’t in the room, as if he weren’t staring directly into her eyes.

Irina lifted her chin, pride stinging at the way he’d dismissed her. But at least her pride had returned; she’d buried it for a long time under months of dirt and delusions. The voices hadn’t been the delusion. Thinking herself crazy had been the delusion.

“Jane Doe, for now,” the woman answered Ty McIntyre. “Until we learn her true identity.”

Irina opened her mouth to tell him not the name she’d been given at birth but the one she’d been called the past twenty years. That was her legal identity but not her true one. But his anger coursed through her veins, burning her with its intensity. She didn’t dare trust him. Too many people had died already. She didn’t want anyone else to get hurt.

The faint echoes of old screams reverberated inside her head. She closed her eyes, refusing to relive the gruesome memories.

“Jane Doe,” McIntyre repeated in a murmur, but in her mind, he shouted, Irina Cooper. Irina Cooper.

Since he knew who she was, why didn’t he tell the psychiatrist? He must have a reason for keeping her identity secret. Irina wished she could read his intentions toward her in his thoughts. But she couldn’t, and fear quickened her pulse. Like the man from the alley, Ty McIntyre would hurt her if she wasn’t careful.

She intended to be very careful.

“I’m tired,” she claimed. “You can both leave.” But she couldn’t see if they complied. Black enveloped her, broken only by sparks of blue, the same dark blue as his eyes.

I have to get her out of here before he finds her!

That was his last thought, flitting through her mind, before wood snapped against wood as the door closed behind him and the doctor. Not that distance made Irina’s ability to read minds any weaker. She could be miles away and the connection just as strong as if she stood face-to-face. But usually those people had some relationship to her, like her mother, her sisters or other people who’d meant something to her. Except for the killer. And this man, Ty McIntyre, who might not want to kill her but whose connection with her was stronger than any other.

She tugged at her wrist again, but the restraint refused to give. All her struggle and she’d only worked the fabric-and-Velcro strap a tiny bit looser.

She had to find a way to free herself and get the hell out of here. Because she knew if she didn’t get out of the hospital soon, she would probably wind up in the morgue. If there was even anything left of her to examine…