Her Forgotten Betrayal(25)

Was he being careful with her for some reason, not telling her some part of their history? Was he leery of getting any more involved with her than he already was? Or had it been garden-variety sympathy transforming his features as he’d stared at her until it felt as if she could fall into him, into them, and never want to come out?

Or maybe her mind was simply fabricating something else that didn’t exist.

She snatched her frumpiest sweats from a low shelf that ran beneath the rack where her professional wardrobe hung—conservative suits and dresses and separates in earth-tone palettes that made her sad each time she looked at them. They were the clothes of a career-obsessed, lonely woman, a woman she was fighting her way back to being. In contrast, the frayed drawstring pants and hooded sweatshirt she plucked from the shelf were a powdery, calm pink, the material worn soft by years of use.

The red set currently in the laundry pile had been her mainstay since moving in. Every morning, she wore them as she did yoga and Pilates and meditated. Which had been her practice for years, she’d been told. Since returning to High Lake, the mind-body connection of the rituals hadn’t really helped. But tonight, the pink sweats made her smile at the thought of wearing them the next time she worked out. She pulled them on and took a deep breath. Calmer, she walked back to the bedside table and the portable phone that sat in its base beneath a lamp.

She made herself grab the handset.

It was time to face the music. She dialed the number she’d been given, while fishing in the table’s drawer with her free hand. She snagged a hair band and, the connection ringing as she tucked the phone between her chin and shoulder, she wrapped her hair into a high ponytail, her sliced-up thumb throbbing beneath Cole’s bandage.

“Code,” a bland voice asked at the other end of the line.

“This is Shaw Cassidy,” she said. “I don’t have a code, but—”

“Is there an emergency?” the voice asked.

“No…not exactly.”

“Hold, please.”

But I think I’m finally losing it, she mentally added while she waited. And, oh, by the way, I’ve broken the one rule you gave me and babbled to my neighbor. He’s moving in to help me…

She had to say something to her Marshals Service handler.

But what?

She had no idea if she were really in danger, and now she’d involved an outsider in her bizarre little drama. That alone needed to be reported to the inspector, who might or might not consider it cause enough for actually interacting with her in some meaningful way. Or, coming clean about the night’s developments might mean she’d be yanked away from High Lake before sunup, which Dawson had warned her would be the consequence of breaking the rules. Though how he proposed to make her leave, she wasn’t exactly certain. Surely she could refuse to go.

She walked to the French doors that opened onto the second-story balcony. Hours earlier, she’d run from this place, screaming at shadows. Now…memory or no memory, stalker or no stalker, was she ready to give up on the life she’d hoped would return to her here?

She pulled back the sheer panels covering the frosty panes of glass. The moon winked at her through shifting trees. The property’s currently leafless, skeletal pecan grove had made for an ominous vista every other time she’d stared at it in the middle of the night. It was almost morning now, and the early light sparkling off the restless, bare trees calmed her. The entire bedroom, as she looked around it again, felt more like home than it had before.

After the events of the last few hours, she should be more terrified than ever. Instead, she suddenly couldn’t bear the thought of decamping to some other location where she’d have even less of a chance to regain who she was. She wanted back some peace, some control. And yes, a part of her wanted this forgotten place to mean something to her, even if it was giving her the creeps. If nothing else, she wanted her grandmother’s home to be where she got to the bottom of her fears, not where she decided to give in to them.

Your mind’s telling you you’re in danger, Cole had said. Listen to your instincts. Trust me to help you figure out the rest of this.

“Ms. Cassidy,” Chief Inspector Rick Dawson greeted her in his clipped, masculine voice. “Is there a problem?”

The man’s impersonal demeanor had always made disinterested seem as if it would be a giant leap up the charisma scale. But he’d made it clear that if she did finally recall anything of significance, or if there were ever a problem she couldn’t deal with on her own, he was to be her first and only contact.

Instead, tonight, when her reality had become too terrifying to endure alone, she’d run to someone else.