Undercover Memories (16 page)

“John, come back to me,” she whispered.

He lowered his head until his nose pressed against her cheek, then dipped lower, his breath hot on her neck.

“John?” she repeated, pulling away just far enough to see his face. “Are you in there, honey?”

He blinked again and shook his head as though to clear his mind. The fuzzy, unfocused look slipped away, replaced with his usual disarming gaze. The old John was back. “You shouldn’t be out here. It’s dangerous,” he said.

“I agree. Let’s—”

He withdrew his hand from hers and opened it between them, staring horrified at the owl that lay in his palm. He dropped it as though it was a hot coal. Paige managed to hook the chain before it fell to the dock and slipped between the cracks.

“Where did I get that?” he asked. As he spoke, he rubbed his palm against the denim of his jeans as though scratching an itch.

“You must have found it when you looked for your clothes,” she said, pocketing the necklace and promising herself she’d lock it away in her suitcase as long as she stayed with John.

He looked down at himself as though checking out his clothes. It was obvious to Paige that he didn’t remember getting dressed.

“Did you have another dream?” she asked.

He nodded.

“The same as before?”

“I think so. Except there was a part of the dream that was really nice. You and I made love.”

She must have frowned, because he suddenly leaned over and cupped her chin. “I’m just teasing, Paige,” he said, kissing her lips. “I know it wasn’t a dream. Your scent is all over me, driving me crazy.” The next thing she knew, he’d picked her up and was carrying her off the dock, his mouth locked on hers. If he slipped and they both fell onto the ice, they’d probably break through and drown.

She didn’t really care. She was his for the taking, anytime, anywhere.

But he set her down once they were ashore and stared down into her eyes.

“How long have you been out here, John? Aren’t you freezing?” she asked.

“Now that you mention it, yeah, I am,” he said, but he cradled her face in his hands and kissed her again.

“Why did you come to the lake? How did you even know there was a lake?”

“I didn’t know. I don’t know how I got here.”

“But the dream…”

He cast her a look and sighed, running a hand through his hair.

“You don’t want to talk about all this, do you?” she said.

His hand slid down her arm until he grasped her hand, and they began walking down the path toward the motel. “About what? Me waking up in a cold sweat, grabbing for clothes in the dark, running like crazy while owls swooped down over my head, stopping in the nick of time before I catapulted myself off a pier? No, come to think of it, I don’t want to talk about it. There’s nothing to say except I’m running like hell, every night it seems, trying to get away, and I have a horrible feeling what I’m trying to get away from is myself.”

She did her best not to look alarmed, but cripes. Natalie had said he had closed doors. Just what was behind those doors, and would either of them survive his finding out?

“I can’t believe I slept through you leaving,” she said to fill the emptiness. The only sound was of their feet crunching against icy ground, and she suspected the sound grated on his nerves as much as it did on hers. “When I woke up and saw that open door, it scared the hell out of me.”

He stopped and turned her to face him. “I left the door open?”

“Uh-huh.”

He shook his head. “I can’t believe I was so self-involved I left you asleep and alone in a room with an open door. With a mad killer on the loose, no less. I’m beginning to think I really do belong in a loony bin.”

She wasn’t sure she didn’t agree. “We should get out of here,” she said. “Carol Ann Oates is only a few hours away.”

“You’re going to think I’m a chicken, but I’m almost afraid what she might have to say about me.”

Once again, Paige kept her thoughts to herself. Last night she’d been so sure about him, but after this morning, she had to ask herself a couple of cold, hard questions.

Was she allowing her emotional needs to trump her common sense?

Was she using John to forget her own past?

In essence, was she just like him, two peas in the old pod, both of them running, both reluctant to stop and catch a breath, both afraid of what would happen if ever they did?

Chapter Eleven

They reached Seeley Lake in the early afternoon. Deer Creek Spa turned out to be several miles from the actual town, located on acres of forested land that was reached after crossing a quaint bridge. The spa consisted of a main lodge and several nearby buildings, including smaller ones that appeared to be individual cabins. Each was constructed of ponderosa-pine logs with steep green metal roofs. Walkways connected all the buildings to each other, ending in ramps leading to each covered porch.

“This doesn’t look like a place for sick people, does it?” Paige asked.

“No. Is there a chance you misunderstood Mademoiselle Batiste? Could Carol Ann just be vacationing?”

“I don’t think so, but she did have a really thick accent and my French is rusty at best.”

“When this is all over, let’s go to France. You can brush up on your language skills.”

He said it with a smile, as if it was a joke, but she put a hand on his arm. “And what will you do?”

“I’ll visit the market and buy wonderful food and cook it for you, then I’ll take you to bed and make love to you for hours.”

She fanned her face. “Okay, you’re on. France it is.”

There was still a smattering of snow on the grassy ground around the buildings. They followed the road past an exit earmarked for visitor parking, pulling in behind a delivery truck toward the back of the building. Signs pointed the way to the office, which was located inside the doors of the lodge.

The lobby was enormous, with several offices opening off of it and elevators leading up to a second-story mezzanine. Several people, some in wheelchairs, sat around a circular, freestanding fireplace while a man with a soft-looking red beard read from a thin book using a mellow, soft voice. Many of the listeners seemed to be asleep, but some nodded as though his words held great meaning for them.

“May I help you?”

The inquiry came from a short, freckled young woman with a strawberry blond ponytail and a serious-looking pair of black-framed glasses perched on her button nose. Holding a clipboard, she looked like a child playing receptionist.

“We’re looking for Carol Ann Oates,” John said.

“And you are?”

“Friends.”

“I’m sorry, but we have strict rules here. Absolutely no unannounced or unexpected visitors. I can’t even worry Ms. Oates with your presence. She’s left strict orders to be left alone except by the people on her list.”

“Who’s on her list?” Paige asked.

“I don’t know. No one has ever come to see her so I’ve never looked. Everyone has to make out a list, though.”

“Could you look?” John said. “Maybe we could speak to one of her contacts.”

“Let me just call up her file on the computer.” She moved around the big wood counter and tapped on the computer keys. “Ms. Oates just has one contact and he’s not a local,” she said. “John Cinca.” She wrinkled her nose and added, “I don’t know why but that name seems familiar. Anyway, there’s a phone number here. It looks like we tried to call him two days ago but he didn’t answer his phone. I’ll copy the number for you—”

“Don’t bother,” John interrupted. “I’m John Cinca. I lost my phone.” It was obvious to Paige he expected the diminutive receptionist to point a finger and accuse him of murder right there on the spot.

But how did John get to be the only name on the older woman’s contact list? Natalie had said he’d gone to see a relative in Canada. But they apparently hadn’t been close during his life, so why now all of a sudden?

Paige and John exchanged worried glances. No way to talk things out in front of the receptionist. It would have to wait.

“Do you have proof of your identity?” the receptionist asked.

“I lost my driver’s license in the same accident that got my phone. I do have this, however,” John said as he withdrew his passport he’d taken from the manila envelope and handed it to her. She studied the picture, then John’s face.

“Okay,” she said, handing him back his passport. “But you’ll have to speak to her doctor first. I’ll see if Dr. Ming is in his office.”

After a quick phone call, the receptionist turned back to them. “He said I should send you right over,” she said. “He’s actually with Ms. Oates right now.” She whipped out a piece of pink paper and, using a pen, circled the lodge and a small building across the grounds, tracing the path between them with ink. “She’s in Hawk’s Hollow. Use the back door over there. It makes finding it easier. You can wait for him here, miss.”

Paige had started walking away with John and paused upon hearing the last comment. “I can’t go with him?” she asked, turning.

“I’m sorry. You’re not on the list. You can wait here, though.”

“No, thanks, I’ll wait in the car,” Paige said, turning back to John.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “It’s pretty cold.”

She answered in a soft voice. “This place kind of gives me the willies. I’ll be okay.”

“I shouldn’t be long.”

“Take your time. I’ll work on my project.”

* * *

H
E LEFT THROUGH THE BACK
door and picked up his pace. Across the way, he saw Paige unlocking the door of her car and scooting inside. It felt weird to be without her.

No time for dawdling. Sooner or later, that receptionist would figure out where she’d heard his name before—like on the news. He wanted to be long gone before then.

The doctor met him on the front porch of Hawk’s Hollow. He was an Asian man of fifty or so, his black hair streaked with gunmetal gray. He, too, wore black-framed glasses. Perhaps that was the compulsory style for any Deer Creek staff member who needed vision correction.

He was dressed casually just like everyone else here. No uniforms, no lab coats, no dangling stethoscopes.

John kept the introduction short and sweet. He was aching to ask the doctor if the man knew why John’s name was on Carol Ann Oates’s list of contacts but was almost certain that would arouse suspicion. So far the man didn’t seem to make any connections to the name John Cinca, and that was good.

“I wasn’t aware your aunt had made allowances for visitors. I’m sure glad she did,” the doctor said.

His aunt. At last, someone he could talk to. “How is she?” John asked.

“Terminal. And that’s not something we say lightly around here. Our credo is as long as there’s life, there’s hope. There are many worthwhile alternatives to mainstream medicine. But Carol Ann is very ill, and even she knew when she came to us this time it was to have a place to die on her own terms.”

“Then she’s been here before?”

“Twice. Her disease was diagnosed late last summer and she came immediately. I had great expectations our treatments would work. She went home, but returned after the holidays. Things had gotten worse, but once again, we were hopeful. Then she called a week ago and asked if she could come here one more time. I knew why, and as I said, so did she. I gather she’s alone up in Canada. Never married, as you know. Carol Ann is wealthy, capable and fiercely independent, not the kind to suffer fools kindly.”

“But she didn’t want to die alone,” John said.

Dr. Ming nodded. “While I hope your presence can give your aunt some sense of peace, I have to warn you that she’s in and out of consciousness and on some pretty high-level painkillers, so she’s not always coherent. Lila, her nurse, is in there with her. Someone is always with her. Limit your visit to ten minutes, please.”

He walked down the ramp toward the lodge, his shoulders stooped as though the burden of failing to find a miracle for a patient weighed heavy on him. John took a deep breath and let himself into the darkened room.

A large woman sat in a chair in the corner, knitting needles flashing as she worked on something big enough to cover her lap. She looked up as John entered.

The room was warm and a bit stuffy, the furnishings sparse but expensive. The aroma of fresh flowers in a vase competed with the odor of medications and illness.

The most defining element of the room was the state-of-the-art adjustable bed. The woman tucked under the covers was about the same color as the bleached sheets.

John approached warily, not sure what he would find, half hoping and half dreading that one look at this woman would bring recollection crashing into his head or that she would rise and point a finger and tell him why children screamed accusations in his dreams.

Carol Ann Oates wasn’t as old as John had expected. Sixty, maybe a little older. Her hair was dark brown with long gray roots, her features sharp in her thin face. She looked as though she might be an uncompromising woman when she wasn’t hovering near death. For now, she lay very still, the rattling sound of her breathing the only sign she lived.

While her pallor and thinness were alarming, she didn’t seem to be in any pain. John peered at her face in an attempt to see a family resemblance with himself or even with the photograph of the grandparents who had raised him, but he wasn’t even sure those were her parents. He found nothing familiar in her features.

Could his aunt explain where all the money in the bank came from and what had happened to him as a child? “I’ll be back here in ten minutes,” the woman in the corner whispered as she rose and set aside her knitting. “I could use a breath of fresh air.”

John nodded. He was glad not to have to ask questions—if Carol Ann ever woke up—in front of a stranger. Unsure exactly how to proceed, he once again wished Paige were with him. He had a feeling she would instinctively know just how to go about this.

For a second, as he stared out the window, he was back at the little lake behind the motel, standing out on the dock, looking down at Paige, not sure who she was, just knowing she was important to him. He’d nuzzled her neck, inhaling her scent, wanting her desperately.