“That’s right. Briefly.”
“But…it wasn’t you who…who did this to me.” She struggled against the confusion that nearly overwhelmed her.
A dark scowl brought out the stormy green of his eyes. “No. I found you after you were hurt, after whoever did this ran away.”
“Oh.” That made sense. She’d definitely seen his face at some point. And heard a helicopter.
“Do you remember now?” he prompted.
He seemed anxious for reassurance, but before she could piece together the separate images floating around in her brain, a shorter, stouter man appeared in the doorway wearing a police uniform.
“Look at this. She’s up!” he bellowed, removing a cowboy hat as he entered the room.
A cowboy-hat-wearing cop wasn’t something she’d expect to see in California, but it wasn’t so unusual here. She might’ve smiled, except the muscle that flexed in Cain’s jaw told Sheridan he wasn’t pleased about the interruption. Dropping her hand, he stepped away.
In the few seconds it took her new visitor to reach her bedside, Sheridan realized she knew this man, too. She’d gone to high school with him, the same as Cain. Unlike Cain, however, he’d lost a lot of hair and gained a lot of weight.
“Ned?” she said uncertainly.
“Hey.” Holding his hat in one beefy hand, he rested the other on her bedrail and smiled, revealing the gap he’d always had between his teeth. His twin sister had one just like it—for being fraternal twins, they looked surprisingly similar—unless she’d had it fixed since Sheridan had seen her last. “How ya feelin’ little lady?”
She glanced at Cain, but he wasn’t watching them. He’d taken up his post along the wall and was once again staring pensively out the window. She could see his profile, the long sweep of his dark lashes, his bold, prominent chin, straight nose and well-shaped lips—
“Sheridan?”
She dragged her attention away from Cain. “Yes?”
“How are you feeling?”
“Better. I think. What’s wrong with me?”
“Not much now. Doc says you’re healing nicely. The swelling in your brain has gone down. You had some internal injuries, but that’s all going to be fine, too.”
“How long have I been in the hospital?”
“A week.”
That sounded like an eternity. “Where’re my parents?”
“I don’t know. We’ve tried to reach them, but the phone at their place in Wyoming—it is Wyoming, isn’t it?”
She managed a careful nod.
“No one answers.”
Why not? she wondered. They were always there, as reliable as rain.
And then it occurred to her. They were on a two-week cruise to Alaska. They wanted to get some traveling in before her younger sister had her baby, which was due… She’d lost track of time; she didn’t know when. “They’re on vacation,” she said.
“That explains it.”
A man’s hand, holding a piece of wood, flashed through Sheridan’s mind. But that had to be part of a dream…. “What happened to me?”
“Someone attacked you. That’s why I’m here. I’m Whiterock’s chief of police.”
Attacked her?
The figure with the club reappeared in her mind. Evidently he wasn’t a figment of her imagination. She’d been attacked before, years ago, but the situation had been different back then. How was it that this kind of violence had visited her again?
Maybe this time she’d see justice done. “Do you know who did it?” she asked.
Ned’s lips formed a hard, flat line. “Not exactly. But we have our suspicions.”
That was no solace. They didn’t know, which meant more of what she’d experienced twelve years ago—more wondering, more waiting, more fruitless hoping. “Who do you suspect?” she asked, but Cain interrupted.
“The wrong man. He’s wasting his time, that’s all he’s doing.”
“We’ll soon find out, won’t we?” Ned said. “Surely she saw more this time.”
They were relying on her? A strange panic set in because Sheridan couldn’t identify the man who’d attacked her. She couldn’t recall anything about the incident. At least nothing clear or sequential. Nothing that made sense or hinted at reasons and names. Just those bizarre, upsetting images. “I don’t think so,” she said helplessly.
“Tell me everything you remember since you first drove into town, darlin’.”
Her mind searched for a starting place, a string to follow to the point where everything went wrong. She was currently living in Sacramento, working with The Last Stand—a victims’ charity she’d founded five years ago with Skye Willis and Jasmine Stratford. No, not Stratford. Not anymore. Jasmine was married and living in New Orleans with her husband these days.
Her thoughts were so tangled….
“Why’d I come back to Whiterock?” she asked. With a bit more information, she might be able to put it all together….
“You wanted to come after I called you about the rifle,” Ned said, but that elicited nothing.
“I did?”
“You said you’ve learned a thing or two about investigatin’ crime since you moved and wanted to help me solve Jason Wyatt’s murder. That was three weeks ago.”
She couldn’t remember three weeks ago, but she could remember Jason. That part of the past came rushing back like a horror video on fast-forward: Cain’s stepbrother putting his arm around her in that steamy truck, trying to kiss her. Her unwillingness to let him. The way she’d wiped a spot on the window with her hand, hoping for a glimpse of Cain. Then the door being wrenched open—
She squeezed her eyes shut as the barrel of the rifle materialized in her mind. Stop. Stop. Stop! She wasn’t ready to relive that nightmare.
“Sheridan?” Ned pressed.
Sweat dampened the valley between her br**sts. “I—I’m not myself yet,” she murmured. “Maybe…maybe you should come back later.”
Cain turned. She could feel him observing her closely, assessing the situation in that silent, watchful way of his. He’d changed some, filled out, grown harder around the edges, more rugged. But his mysterious, aloof air was vintage Cain.
Ned let go of the bed rail and began rolling the sides of his hat toward the crown. “When?” he said. “I’m not sure if you’re aware of it, but this hospital’s seventy miles from Whiterock, darlin’.’”