“This is ridiculous, Esme,” she said to the cat winking sleepily at her from the foot of the bed. “And it’s not working. How did we end up here?”
Here being Shaw’s grandmother’s bedroom on a secluded mountain estate she couldn’t remember any better than she did her family or the life in Atlanta, Georgia, she’d been whisked away from.
Her body and flannel nightdress were drenched in sweat. Her mind, her thoughts, every part of her was shivering. Not from fear. But from the possibility that she might never remember what she had to in order to reclaim the successful life she’d been assured had been hers before that awful night.
She wrapped her arms around herself and gave her mind a mental shake.
Jeez.
Maudlin much?
A bedside lamp illuminated the room. Its cheery glow was no match for the dark spell the dream had cast. Something thudded softly beyond her closed bedroom door, jerking her gaze toward the hallway.
“Did you hear that?” she whispered to her cat.
Nonplussed, Esmeralda began cleaning her front paws, ignoring Shaw. As the regal blue point Siamese moved, her gold charm sparkled, a pendant Shaw had discovered in a drawer in the downstairs parlor and spontaneously attached to Esme’s collar. If anything really were wrong, certainly her cat wouldn’t be lounging around taking a relaxing bath.
Inhaling, Shaw willed her racing pulse to settle to a more sane pace.
After the shooting, at first it had been only the nightmare filling her mind with jumbled images and voices, and then with anger and violence and hate. She never recalled anything of substance about the dream or that night, not once she awoke. And even if she had, she couldn’t trust that the memories would be real. It was entirely possible, her neurologist had warned, that her nightmares were the spinning nonsense of a still-broken consciousness. It could be simply her brain’s attempt to repair the damage done to her psyche. Or her sanity could finally be unraveling for good.
Because, these last few days, she’d started hearing noises and bodiless whispers and even footsteps while she was awake and bustling about this alien-feeling, Victorian monstrosity that was supposed to be making her feel safe.
As much as she could within the physical restrictions of her recuperation, she’d been digging through the mansion’s contents for answers. Who was she, really? What was she? She hadn’t been cleared to drive yet. There was no Internet access or cable TV up there. What else was she going to do with her time but organize and clean each and every room until she’d convinced herself there was nothing of importance to discover? No matter how hungry she was to know something, to be someone, that moment of enlightenment never came.
Except there was something, some memory, lurking nearby. It was as if she could sense an elusive piece of her mind’s puzzle just beyond her grasp, so close it nearly maddened her. Each time she failed to capture it, she fought off a fresh wave of helplessness. Helplessness, giving up, was something she was certain the real Shaw Cassidy never allowed herself to feel. She hadn’t always been like this. She was certain of it. She hadn’t forever been this apprehensive, unsure creature. She had to find a way to make it stop. Whoever she’d been, this was not who she planned to remain from now on.
She flung a pillow across the room and ran her hands through the honey-blond hair that was curling into her eyes. She caught herself smoothing her fingers over the side of her face, brushing her temple and the gunshot’s lingering scar. It would heal completely, the doctors had promised. The rest of her would, too—if she could find a way to relax and stop trying to force her memories to return. Relaxing, evidently, was something else she didn’t do terribly well.
She pushed herself off the enormous bed. Her legs shook, forcing her to cling to the carved mahogany post beside her. Smooth swirls of inlaid botanicals teased her fingertips. The same floral motif adorned the four bedposts, the headboard, and the bed’s foot rails. Nature’s glory had been captured along the embroidered hem of the coverlet. On the walls, faded paper offered glimpses of wood nymphs and tree sprites peeking around bushes.
She sighed. This luxurious room had been her sanctuary ever since the hospital released her and the U.S. Justice Department had convinced her to convalesce at this lonely hilltop estate. She wondered if this room had once been a childhood haven. Very little of anything in the mansion made her feel safe now. A part of her had started to wonder if it ever truly had.
Her slippers on, her chenille robe wrapped warmly around her, she scooped up Esmeralda and confronted the closed bedroom door. Gritting her teeth, she yanked it open. She escaped into the hallway without incident and flipped the switch to light the chandelier at the top of the split-landing stairwell. From there, staircases led to both the front and back of the house.