A Hard Man to Forget (25 page)

“
You’re hurting me,” she said through gritted
teeth.

“
Why didn’t you tell me you were alive? Do you know
what I’ve been through the last few months? Do you know how
horrible I’ve felt?”

By then, his grip was so tight she was starting to see white spots
before her eyes. Lifting her right foot, she slammed it down on his
left. He released her instantly, howling in pain.

The moment he lifted his head, she knew she’d made a
mistake.

Fury gleamed in his eyes. “So we’re picking up where
we left off, are we? You still can’t forget him, can you?”

Anger had twisted his face into a parody of its former self. The
effect was terrifying.

She tried retreating faster. Too slow.

He pushed her, hard. She stumbled backward in the dark, the
backpack slipping from her shoulder. Pain exploded in her skull as
her head collided with the edge of the dumpster behind her. Dazed,
she slid down the grimy surface.

Then he was towering over her, a dark shadow in the night. She
peered up at his angry face, watching him reach for a metal pole from
a few feet away.

He raised the bar high above his head. “Damn it, Meredith.
Why won’t you love me?”

The bar came arcing down. She lifted her arm to ward him off—

SHE CLOSED HER EYES against the memory. She couldn’t stop the
onslaught that followed as every detail of her hidden past came
flooding back.

Her name was Lisa Creighton. She was originally from a small town in
Arizona. The reason her family hadn’t come forward was because
she didn’t have any. There was no one to notice if she’d
gone missing, no one who would have cared. She’d been adopted
at a young age by an older couple who were dead now. There were no
other relatives.

She’d been drifting for about a year, hunting down clues
related to her birth parents. The trail had finally led to
California. Her heart clutched when she realized the possible
explanation for her resemblance to Meredith. She might have found the
last remnant of her long-lost family at last, but too late.

Harrisville was the birthplace of the man named on her birth
certificate as her father. That was why she’d come here. Except
when she’d stepped off the bus, she’d had a run-in with a
stranger. A man who believed she was someone else.

“Laura?”

At the sound of that voice—
his
voice—she came
crashing back to the present.

She lifted her eyes to meet those of the man seated across from her.

And she finally realized she was in terrible danger.

“You remember, don’t you?” Dr. Walker’s voice
was composed and cool. Too cool.

Laura nodded. There was no use denying it. She was sure her
expression had given her away. Her sudden fear, her revulsion toward
this man she had trusted inherently, felt as though they were written
across her features.

“Everything?”

She hesitated a moment too long. He sighed sadly.

“I was afraid of that. I knew it might happen eventually, but I
tried to fight it as long as I could.”

Laura didn’t know why this struck her as such a betrayal
considering everything else he’d done. “You kept me from
remembering, didn’t you? You did something to my mind to block
my memory. That’s why the hypnosis never worked.”

“It’s true I ensured the hypnosis would be ineffective.
But I couldn’t completely prevent your memory from returning,
no matter how hard I tried. You seem to have gained a stronger will,
Meredith. Subconsciously, you just couldn’t stop trying to
remember.”

A manic gleam she now recognized had entered the doctor’s eyes.
A shudder ran through her system. She recalled what her memory had
revealed to her. Meredith was dead after all. It appeared Simon
wasn’t the only one having trouble reconciling that fact.

She struggled to keep her voice as calm as possible. Dr. Walker
appeared a mere hair’s breadth away from cracking, and she
already knew the violence he was capable of. “You were her
doctor, weren’t you?”

“I was
your
doctor, Meredith. Now that you know who you
are, you have to accept your identity.”

Laura gritted her teeth. “What do you mean, I have a stronger
will?”

“Just that when I knew you before, you were more amenable to my
help. But when I began working with you again two years ago, I found
you more resistant.”

“Not as easily susceptible to suggestion?” she
challenged.

He shrugged lightly. “I suppose it was to be expected,
considering how we parted ways.”

“What exactly did you do to Meredith Randall?”

“I helped you. When you came to me, you were lost. You were in
so much pain because of the miscarriages, and that man wasn’t
helping you. He didn’t know what you needed, how to take care
of a delicate soul like yours. I did. I knew the moment you stepped
into my office that I was the only one who could give you what you
needed. I helped you come to terms with the pain. I gave you the love
that cold, dark man you married never could.”

A wave of revulsion churned in Laura’s stomach. “You’re
the man she was going to leave town with, aren’t you?”

He nodded sadly. “We could have been so happy together.”

“But in the end, she couldn’t do it, could she? She loved
him too much.”

Walker’s face contorted with rage. He slammed a closed fist
onto the desk. “
You
loved me! You told me so yourself.”

“Because you made her think she did,” Laura snapped,
unable to control herself. “She was depressed. She came to you
for help, and you manipulated her. You tried to replace her love for
her husband with something twisted.”

“He couldn’t make her happy. I was there for her in ways
he never was.”

“Then why wouldn’t she leave with you?”

Walker gave a fierce shake of his head. “He had you confused. I
came to get you that day, but you told me you couldn’t do it.
You said you wanted me to leave. It didn’t feel right. You said
you were going to stay with that man, that you loved him after
everything we shared.”

“So you killed her.”

His eyes snapped with rage. “It was an accident. I tried to
reason with you, but you backed away from me. The next thing I knew
my hands were around your neck and I was squeezing. You kept trying
to get away, but I couldn’t let you go. I couldn’t let
you stay with that horrible man. I kept holding on to you, tighter
and tighter. And then you finally stopped fighting.

“I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. I had to get rid
of the body. I looked up and saw the lake through the window. It
seemed like the perfect solution. They’d think you killed
yourself. But no matter how many times they dragged the lake, they
couldn’t find you.”

Laura closed her eyes briefly to block out the image. Meredith really
was in the lake, down in the depths where her body would never be
discovered.

When Laura opened her eyes, Walker was staring at her, his intensity
making her skin crawl. “And then I saw you that night at the
bus station. You weren’t dead after all.”

Laura fought against a shudder of disgust. “I’m not
Meredith.”

Her words were loud in the absolute silence. He smiled in response,
his smile just as mad as the gleam in his eyes.

“That’s what you said that night. I didn’t believe
you then either. I saw the way you looked at me. You were afraid. You
remembered the way I hurt you. You would have told the police. I
would have been ruined.”

“So you tried to kill...me again.”

“I tried. You have more lives than a damn cat, Meredith. You
just won’t die.”

Laura gritted her teeth against the invocation of that name.

“And after everything I did to give us another chance,”
he continued, his voice pleading. “When you didn’t die, I
realized that memory loss was a distinct possibility. I volunteered
to take on your case. I took care of you all over again, the way I
was meant to. You see that, don’t you?”

Laura couldn’t believe her ears. The man was actually trying to
convince her he’d had her—their—best interests in
mind.

“You wanted me to need you. The way you made
her
need
you.” She didn’t bother to hide her disgust. She
remembered all too well the urge she’d felt to call him at
every turn over the last few days, the need for his counsel. How much
of that had been planted in her subconscious by this man? How much of
it had been genuine? She would never know. The sense of being
violated was overwhelming.

There was sadness in the doctor’s eyes now as he surveyed her
through hooded lids. “It doesn’t matter, does it? No
matter how hard I try, you’ll never love me the way you love
him. When that Jason person told me about the man you’d seen, I
knew of course who it had to be. I thought I could finally get rid of
Randall and he would no longer be a problem. But it’s too late.
He’s made you fall in love with you all over again. Two years
together and I couldn’t make you feel the way you do for him
after a few days.”

He moved toward the desk. Laura watched in horror as he picked up the
sharp blade of a letter opener from the mahogany surface. “But
it doesn’t matter. I won’t let him have you. I won’t
let him hurt you the way he did before.”

There was no warning. Walker lunged at her before his words had
evaporated from the air.

Laura lurched to the side, overturning the chair and throwing herself
to the ground. Howling in anger, the doctor tumbled over the space
where she’d been seated seconds before.

Laura scrambled to get away. She tried to climb to her feet. A
viselike grip closed around her ankle and pulled hard. She was jerked
back onto the carpeting, her scream deafening in the enclosed space.

“You can’t get away this time,” Walker wheezed, his
grasping fingers climbing up her legs. “I can’t let you.”

“You don’t have a choice,” Laura groaned. She drew
back her left leg and delivered a savage kick to his chest that sent
him flying backward. He didn’t release his grip on her calf,
pulling her with him. She kicked again, with one foot than the other,
until he finally let go.

“No!” he screamed, his cry like an animal in pain.
Struggling to her feet, Laura could practically feel his breath on
her neck. He lunged again and she felt the whoosh of air as he missed
her by inches. Barely on her feet, Laura made a desperate grab for
the door.

It flew open moments before she reached it. Then Simon was there to
pull her into his arms.

“You!” Walker hissed behind her. “Let her go. I
won’t let you have her!”

“Hold it, Doctor.”

The hard command from behind Simon caught them both off-guard. Laura
glanced back over her shoulder. Walker’s eyes went wide as two
police officers stepped through the doorway, their weapons aimed
directly at him.

He looked at her, his expression pleading. “Meredith...”

Laura stared back without an ounce of compassion. “I’m
not Meredith.”

His face contorted with rage again in a heartbeat. A cry of agony
filled the air. He lunged toward her.

Gunshots exploded in the room. Laura’s hands flew to her ears
to block the deafening sound.

Walker lurched backward. Blood soaked his shirt, splattered on his
face and neck. His mouth formed a circle of shock. He grimaced in
pain. Through it all, he never took his eyes off of her. Her face was
the last thing he saw before he crumpled to the ground.

The next few moments were a cacophony of sound and movement. The room
seemed flooded with police, all barking out orders at the same time.

Numb, Laura was oblivious to it all. The noise receded into a single
dull roar. She watched the action through unseeing eyes. All she was
conscious of was Simon’s arms around her.

THE NEXT HOUR passed in a blur. She and Simon were separated. Police
officers, so many Laura had lost count, flooded the offices, along
with the paramedics. They declared Dr. Walker dead on the scene and
took the body away.

The police officers bombarded her with questions, and Laura was
slowly to piece together what happened from their statements.
Apparently Simon had figured out that Dr. Walker was the same
therapist Meredith had visited. Suspecting she was in danger, he
called the police, making his claim vague enough that they would be
willing to investigate. She would be eternally grateful for his
quick-thinking. She didn’t want to think what would have
happened if he’d had to explain the whole story to convince the
police to come. They probably wouldn’t have believed him.

Fortunately, they’d found physical evidence in the office to
support the assertion that Walker killed Meredith Randall, beginning
with the little box Laura had found. An item whose significance she’d
never realized until now.

It was exactly how Simon had described it. He’d recognized it
instantly.

Meredith’s treasure trove.

Walker must have taken it as a way to remember her. He’d had it
the whole time.

Laura grew increasingly impatient with all of the questions.

All she wanted to do was find Simon. There was no much she wanted to
ask him. But most of all, she just wanted to see him.

Eventually, the officers lost interest in her. She gave her statement
and they said she could leave.

“Do you know where Simon went?” she asked the man who’d
taken her statement.

“He was in the reception area last I saw.”

Nodding her thanks, Laura hurried in that direction.

People continued to pour through the waiting room. Laura spotted
Simon instantly. He sat in one of the chairs, elbows resting on his
knees, his head cradled in his hands. He looked exhausted. He looked
beautiful. Her heart surged at the sight of him and she quickly moved
toward him.