Running on Empty

Running on Empty
Michelle Celmer

Detective Mitch Thompson had caught the biggest break of his life when the biggest surprise of his life landed right dab in the path of his…shopping cart. But the beautiful woman he rescued from the floor of the local discount store couldn't remember her name or her attacker.Every time Mitch tried to let Jane Doe go, something kept bringing them back together, until the only place she felt safe was in his arms. Now they were racing against time to find the mysteries hiding in her memory, because as good as they were together, someone wanted to keep them apart–forever.

“Earth to Jane.”

She looked up into Detective Thompson’s concerned face. Only then did she realize she’d stopped right in the middle of the lot, blocking traffic.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I—I think I remembered something. But it was more like a feeling than an actual memory.”

“What did it feel like.”

“I felt…alone.”

“You’re not alone.”

“Not yet.”

If she saw a flash of guilt in his eyes, it was gone almost instantly. “Let’s go inside.”

They stepped through the automatic door, and she once again felt that sudden and brief surge of adrenaline.

“I think I remember being here,” she said, excitement and hope erupting inside her like a geyser. Maybe it would all start to come back now. Maybe this nightmare was almost over.

Or maybe it was only beginning.

Running on Empty

Michelle Celmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

MICHELLE CELMER

lives in southeastern Michigan with her husband, their three children, two dogs and two cats. When she’s not writing or busy being a mom, you can find her in the garden or curled up with a romance novel. And if you twist her arm real hard, you can usually persuade her into a day of power shopping.

Michelle loves to hear from readers. Visit her Web site at www.michellecelmer.com, or write her at P.O. Box 300, Clawson, MI 48017.

For Steve

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Prologue

It would be so easy to kill her.

So easy to wrap his hands around her neck and squeeze until the life drained from her body. To plant the barrel of his gun to her temple and pull the trigger.

Only that wasn’t part of the game.

He liked to see them suffer. To know that for the rest of their lives they would live in fear. Fear of him. And this one, she would suffer. She would learn her place. She stuck her nose in where it didn’t belong, took what was rightfully his.

But when he got what he was looking for, when he no longer needed her and the game was over, she would pay.

With her life.

Chapter 1

Running across a body in a cordoned-off crime scene was rare enough in a community the size of Twin Oaks, but the odds of running over one in the toy department of the local Save Mart had to be about a million to one.