Stolen Memories

IF ONLY SHE COULD REMEMBER…

Attacked and left for dead, “Julie Thomas” has amnesia, and doesn’t know why anyone would want to hurt her. But when surveillance video of that night shows Julie holding a baby—a baby nowhere to be found—she panics. Is the child hers? Where is she now? With no answers and no place to go, Julie accepts Detective Zach Jones’s offer to help her solve both mysteries. The handsome, loyal cop makes her feel safe. But someone is trying very hard to make sure her memories stay buried forever.

Witness Protection: Hiding in plain sight

“Whoever attacked me at the park still wants me dead,” Julie said.

She spoke with such certainty and calm, yet every muscle in Zach’s body tensed, every hair on the back of his neck stood on end. She was in danger.

He swallowed the guilt that rose in his throat. “I am sorry. This is my fault.” Every syllable threatened to choke him, each one harder than the last. “I promised I’d take care of you. And instead I revealed right where you are.”

She shook her head and slipped her hand into his and squeezed. “It wasn’t your fault, Zach. But he’ll come looking for me again.”

The fingers in his grip began a slow tremor, quaking even more with every rise and fall of her chest. She was terrified.

Whoever they were dealing with, whoever had attacked her in that park, had disappeared.

* * *

WITNESS PROTECTION: Hiding in plain sight

Safe by the Marshal’s Side—Shirlee McCoy, January 2014

The Baby Rescue—Margaret Daley, February 2014

Stolen Memories—Liz Johnson, March 2014

Top Secret Identity—Sharon Dunn, April 2014

Family in Hiding—Valerie Hansen, May 2014

Undercover Marriage—Terri Reed, June 2014

LIZ JOHNSON

After graduating from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff with a degree in public relations, Liz Johnson set out to work in the Christian publishing industry, which was her lifelong dream. In 2006 she got her wish when she accepted a publicity position with a major trade book publisher. While working as a publicist in the industry, she decided to pursue her other dream—becoming an author. Along the way to having her novels published, she wrote articles for several magazines and worked as a freelance editorial consultant.

Liz makes her home in Nashville, Tennessee, where she enjoys theater, exploring her new home and making frequent trips to Arizona to dote on her nephew and three nieces. She loves stories of true love with happy endings.

Stolen Memories

Liz Johnson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord.

I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.

—Hebrews 10:16

For Kaye and Ruth, who encouraged me as I wrote this book. True friendship is an uncommon and special gift. I’ll never forget yours.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

DEAR READER

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

EXCERPT

ONE

Zach Jones ran his hand down his face until his fingers covered a yawn. Letting out a muted sigh, he stared through the windshield of his parked car, seeing nothing but the lights lining the Minneapolis street. After a long day of chasing down dead ends, he was ready for a couple days off.

A quick glance at the clock on his dashboard revealed that his shift was almost over. Time to head back to the station before turning in for the night. He’d just put the unmarked sedan into gear when the police radio in his car squawked, and he leaned over to turn it up.

“Possible dead body at the corner of Thomas Road and Gavel Drive at Webster Park.” His stomach lurched, his pulse flying. That was just a few blocks away.

Tossing the radio handset into the empty passenger seat, he flipped on the sirens and pulled onto the nearly deserted road. Usually he was the last one to the scene. Homicide was always called in after a dozen patrol officers had swarmed the area.

This close to the scene, he’d probably even beat the uniforms there.

“This is Jones. I’m en route.”

The dispatcher replied with a quick, “Ten-four.” Then after a short pause she added, “Two boys cutting through the park found the body.”

“Are they still at the scene?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Tell them to stay away from the body but not to move. I’ll have questions for them later.”

Trees just beginning to sprout their spring leaves sailed by as he maneuvered around a car pulled over to the side of the road to get out of his way. The lights of the restaurants and stores of the commercial district to his left faded, his mind focused on the scene he was about to reach.

Pulling off the road, he parked at the entrance of a walking path, turned off the sirens but left the red-and-blue lights flashing. He was the first on the scene. He slipped his phone into his pocket, tucked his flashlight into his belt and pulled on rubber gloves as he followed the beam of his headlights.

Two boys, probably no more than twelve, sat next to each other on a wooden bench, hugging their hockey skates as though he was going to demand they give them up. He pushed back his jacket to show them the badge hanging around his neck, a late winter wind seeping through the fabric of his shirt. “You boys call the cops?”

The bigger boy nodded a mop of dark brown hair and let go of his skates long enough to point behind him into the shadows.

Zach squinted but couldn’t make out a form between the tree trunks. “Did you go near the body?”

“No, sir.” Again from the bigger boy. The little one with the blond crew cut hadn’t blinked since Zach arrived. He was probably in shock from what he’d seen.

How bad was it over there?

His skin crawled, the hair on his arms standing up. It wasn’t from the cold. Or even from this case. This wasn’t his first day in the department.

It was something in the air. Something that, after ten years with the Minneapolis P.D., he could almost smell. Something that, after all this time, he still couldn’t name.

“You boys stay here. Okay? Other officers are on their way. And I’ll be right back.”

Swinging his flashlight across the grass at his feet to make sure he didn’t inadvertently step on a vital piece of evidence, he picked his way in the direction the kid had first indicated. After thirty yards, the light from his car was almost no help. A curtain of rich gray clouds had fallen in front of the moon, so he slowed to a near crawl.

And then he saw it.

A crimson pool coated a patch of lawn the size of a dinner plate.

Shivers ran down his spine and he sucked in a quick breath as he flicked his light up to illuminate the body. It was a woman with long dark hair, which was matted across half of her face with her own blood. She lay on her side, one arm stretched out under her head and the other curled under her chin. Her full lips were nearly white.

His stomach clenched.

This part never got easier.

Without a doubt this was going to be the worst night of someone’s life. That person was going to get a call that would change everything, that would shatter a heart.

But Zach would do everything he could to make sure that the person responsible never had the opportunity to do this again, to destroy a family again.

Stepping around the stain of evidence, he reached her side and squatted next to her. The part of her face that he could still make out was covered with scratches and already turning purple. A gash above her left eye disappeared into her hairline and looked to be the source of the bloodstain he’d dodged. Someone had beaten the tar out of her.

A drop slipped down her forehead, and he paused.

Dead bodies in a position like this didn’t usually keep bleeding.

He snapped his gloves at the wrists to make sure they were on tight and pressed two fingers against the spot where her left palm met her forearm. Holding his breath, he waited.

There, beneath the skin and barely palpable, was a pulse.

His heartbeat jackhammered just below his throat.

“Ma’am. Ma’am, can you hear me?”

No response.

He grabbed his phone and punched in the number for the dispatcher. He didn’t even wait for an answer. As soon as the line was picked up, he said, “This is Detective Jones.” He spit out his badge number, standing and searching the streets for any sign of the ambulance that wasn’t going to be in enough of a hurry to get there. “I’m at Webster Park, and the possible homicide victim is not DOA. Repeat, the victim is alive. I need an ambulance and backup here ASAP.”

His voice shook a little on the last word, and he took a steadying breath. He didn’t have live victims. He’d only seen one other in the three years since making detective and joining Homicide.

This one was about as close to death, but still breathing, as he’d ever seen.

“Ten-four. Paramedics are en route.”

“ETA?”

“Three minutes.”

He dropped back by her side, keeping his finger pressed against her wrist. The steady thumps under his touch kept his hope alive, but only just.

Lord, please let this one live.

He didn’t have an explanation for the intensity of the longing in his heart, but he knew she didn’t deserve to die like this, alone and abandoned in a city park that hadn’t seen much traffic since the city started massive construction on a walking bridge.

Someone didn’t want her quickly found or able to tell her tale.

Sirens carried through the trees, ringing between buildings as they drew nearer. The band around his heart loosened.

“Don’t worry. Help is on its way.”

Her only response was the steady beat at his fingertips.

“Hang in there. You just have to hang in there a little while longer. Then we’ll find whoever did this, and he’ll pay. I promise.”

* * *

Everything before that moment was blank.

It took considerable effort, but she pried her right eye open far enough to cringe at the glaring light wedged between white ceiling tiles. Pain like a knife sliced at her temple. She tried to lift her hand to press it to her skull. Maybe that would keep it from shattering. But her arm had tripled in size and weighed more than the rest of her body. She could only lift it an inch from where it lay at her side.

Fire shot from her elbow to the tip of her middle finger, a sob escaping from somewhere deep in her chest and leaving a scar inside her throat as it escaped.

“Julie?”

Julie? She turned to look in the direction of the voice to see who else was in the room, but something plastic tugged against her nose. An oxygen cannula. She didn’t even try to lift her hand to adjust it, instead rolling her eye as far as she could.

A gentle hand with cold fingers pressed against her forearm, but the face was just out of reach. “Julie? How are you feeling?”

Who was Julie? There wasn’t anyone else in her limited line of sight, but that didn’t mean the other girl wasn’t close by.

A face—round and blurry—appeared right above her. Wide-set blue eyes shone with compassion and the same brilliance as her white smile. “I’m Tammy, your ICU nurse.” Cool fingers secured the tubing back into place and brushed across her forehead. “You’ve been here quite a while. I’m glad you decided to wake up on my shift, Julie.” A low chuckle followed. “Oh dear, I’ve gotten so used to calling you that. I’ll have to stop.”

What was she doing in the ICU? On a hospital bed in the ICU? And why had the nurse been calling her Julie?

That wasn’t her name.

“I know someone who’s been looking forward to talking with you.”

She blinked and tried to ask who, but her voice cracked. Only a croak escaped before Tammy pressed a straw to her lips. “Drink a little bit of this.”

She did as the nurse instructed, the tepid water like a creek in the Sahara, soothing her throat as she swallowed it but leaving most of the area untouched. She tried for a longer sip and more water but choked on it. Tammy pulled the cup away and patted a tissue where a trickle had escaped down her chin.

She jolted at the touch, pain searing to the bone.

“I’m sorry. Your stitches are probably still a bit tender. But you’re healing nicely.”

Healing? How long had she been in the unit? How had she gotten there? Because she’d just been—

“If you’re ready, I’m going to let Detective Jones know that he can come in and see you. He’s been waiting to talk with you for three days.”

She tried to shake her head. A detective? As in a police officer? Why were the police coming to see her? What had she done?

She didn’t want to see anyone, let alone a detective. But Tammy disappeared before she could get her body to respond. Everything was moving slower than it should. Her muscles, her joints, her brain.

Only the low hum of Tammy’s voice carried across the room. “Now remember, she hasn’t even seen the doctor yet. Don’t give her a hard time.”

A deep voice agreed that he’d try not to.

As if to show off just how slow her mind was moving, Tammy reappeared almost the instant that the conversation ended, one hand resting on an arm that belonged to someone just outside her range of vision. “This is Detective Jones. He’s with the Minneapolis P.D. I’ll let you two talk while I call the doctor.”

Tammy disappeared. And then a face edged with dark hair appeared right above her. Eyes like deep amber seemed to smile even though the line of his mouth never twitched, and he pressed a hand against the mattress next to her arm, never quite touching her. But she could feel his presence, his strength.

She let out a slow breath.

“De—” Her voice cracked, and he held up a hand to stop her.

“Please. It’s Zach.” Generous lips formed the words, but they seemed to take a long time to reach her ears. He spoke with a familiarity that she couldn’t place. Was she supposed to know this man? “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.” Apparently not. Thank goodness. “I’ve been checking in on you every day. The doctor said you thumped your head pretty good, but the swelling has been going down.”

How was she supposed to respond? “That’s good...I guess.”

“It is, indeed.” His lip twitched, but he didn’t give her more than half a smile. With a quick glance over his shoulder, he continued, “Do you feel up to answering a few questions?”

She wanted to shake her head, but then he’d come back and interrupt her sleep again. She really just wanted to drift back into oblivion where it had been warm and quiet. Where there’d been no pain and her stuttering thoughts were neither important nor questioned.

“Do you remember how you got here?”

She thought about it for a long moment. Blinking her only mobile eye—why wouldn’t her other eye respond?—she tried to peek around the curtain in her mind, to reveal the corners she couldn’t quite make out. The sheet wouldn’t budge, and the harder she tried to move it, the more her head throbbed.

Finally she shook her head.

He scratched at the little point of his chin, his smile dimming for a brief moment, the lines at the corners of his eyes disappearing. “That’s all right. We’ll come back to it. You’ve been through a pretty big ordeal.”

Oh, really? What had she been through that left her straining to uncover her memories and answering a strange detective’s questions? He’d said that it was nice to meet her, but he’d come into her room like he belonged there. Clearly he’d been waiting for her to wake up, and Tammy had gone straight to him. But she wasn’t expected to know him. Why did he seem to know her?

She wanted to ask, but the words just weren’t there.

Zach brushed a wayward strand of dark brown hair off his forehead with the back of his hand, plastering an easy grin in place. Really, it wasn’t so much a smile as it was a visual encouragement, like if he kept looking at her like that she’d be able to get up right then and walk out of this room. “Let’s try something a little easier. We’ve been calling you Julie Thomas because you were found in the park on Thomas Road across from Jack and Julie’s Grill.” So he didn’t know her, and she wasn’t supposed to recognize him. Relief washed over her like the bath she craved. “We didn’t find your ID.”

“It’s in my purse.” It was always in there.

He shook his head slowly. “We didn’t find a purse, either.”

She tried playing out all the movements she’d made before losing her bag. But she didn’t even know where to start. And every possible step was blank. No context. No location. No memories.

“Maybe you can tell me your real name?”

She nodded slowly, controlling every movement to keep the pain from flaring up again. Of course she could. There were just some things a woman never forgot.

He lifted his thick eyebrows as though his anticipation grew with every tick of the clock.

Closing her eye and swallowing against the sandpaper in her throat, she opened her mouth and tried to form the word.

But it wasn’t there.

The name she’d surely heard thousands of times floated just out of reach. Like the string on a balloon caught in the wind, it danced away until her lips sputtered and a tear leaked down her cheek.

Dear God, I don’t even know my own name.

TWO

Zach hated to see a woman cry. More than he despised all-night stakeouts and stale doughnuts, he hated when a woman cried.

He cleared his throat, offering a low whisper. “Your name. Can you tell me your name?”

“I don’t re-remember.” Her words, broken by a soft sob, barely made it to his ears.

He swung another glance across the room to see if the nurse had heard the same thing that he had, but she had yet to return with the doctor.

Turning back to Julie, he leaned a little closer. Maybe he’d misunderstood. “You don’t remember?”

She shook her head again, uneven brown locks falling just onto the white bandage taped to her forehead. “I’m not— I can’t—” She looked away before blinking one watery eye filled with more questions than he could answer. A trembling reached her bottom lip, and she sank her perfectly straight teeth into it. But that wasn’t enough to stop the returning tears from escaping closed lids. Moisture appeared even at the swollen seam of her left eye, still purple and red like an overripe strawberry.

Taking a deep breath, he did the only thing he could remember doing the handful of times Samantha had cried in his presence. With the tips of his fingers, he patted her forearm gingerly, avoiding the patch of road rash just below her elbow. She must have caught herself there because the scrape covered a good bit of real estate.

At his touch, Julie jerked her arm away, then squeaked as every muscle in her body tensed. The veins in her neck popped out, her lips pulling back to reveal clenched teeth.

“It’ll be all right.”

The words didn’t hold much weight. How could they? The only person who could help him solve her case couldn’t remember her own name. She was locked somewhere in her own mind, and he had yet to decipher a shred of evidence to help her fill in the missing pieces, to figure out who had left her beaten and on the brink of death.

The metal legs of the nearby chair scraped along the floor as he pulled it up to the bedside and slumped into it. Scrubbing a hand down his face, he rested his elbows on his knees, wrinkling the creases of his gray slacks.

“I can’t see you.”

He jumped up like her words had set the seat on fire and leaned over her bed, staring into her open eye. “Better?”

The muscles in her neck relaxed, and even the steady beat of her carotid artery seemed to settle from a frantic rhythm. She patted at her mattress until her fingers found his hand resting close by. She didn’t exactly hold his hand. But she seemed to need the touch to confirm his proximity.

He didn’t mind so much. Whatever he could do to help this girl. She sure needed it, and he felt somehow responsible for her. Of course, it wasn’t his fault that she’d been attacked. But since rescuing her, he’d kept an eye out for any word of a missing person matching her description. Nothing yet.

Never taking her wary eye off of him, she said, “We don’t know each other. I mean, we didn’t know each other. Before. Right?”

“That’s right.”

She coughed, the sound low and raspy like her throat was retaliating after not being used for so many days. Grabbing the pink plastic cup from the table, he pressed the straw to her lips, and she drank greedily.

When her gulps began to slow, he pulled the cup away and set it back on the rolling table. “Better?”

Only her eye moved to look in his direction. “No. I still can’t remember my name.” Her words were soft but filled to the brim with a pain he couldn’t even imagine. She didn’t sound bitter, just betrayed. Her mind refused to do what she needed it to—give her the information stored in it.

“It’ll be okay.” Another useless phrase. It promised something he couldn’t back up. But there wasn’t anything else to say, so he patted her hand.

“How did I end up here? What happened?”

He looked down at the spot where her fingers curled into his. She was clinging to anything that felt stable, and he didn’t blame her. The nurse had told him to take it easy on Julie. Telling her the whole truth wasn’t fair to her in this condition. It could send her reeling like a roller coaster. She didn’t know that she’d been some lunatic’s punching bag, that her face, covered with long, narrow bruises, suggested he’d used a pipe or other weapon. At least the doctor had confirmed that she hadn’t been sexually assaulted, and all her internal organs—except her brain—were in good shape. It was her mind he was worried about, so he picked his words carefully. “I was kind of hoping you could tell me.” He chuckled halfway, but she didn’t respond in kind. She wasn’t ready for that yet. “It looks like you got a pretty good knock on the head first. The doctor says you don’t have any defensive wounds, so you were probably knocked unconscious right away.”

She raised a hand to her cheek, covering one of her bruises, unspoken questions brimming in her eyes.

He nodded, confirming her injury. “But I’m not really sure what happened. We found you in Webster Park. Does that mean anything to you?”

She closed her eyes, finally offering only a tiny shake of her head.

He gave her fingers a little squeeze. “All right. We’ll figure it out.”

“We?” Her tone rose, laced with hope.

“You’re my case. I’ll see it through until it’s solved, which means figuring out your name and where you belong.”

“Thank you.” Her words didn’t make much of a sound, but he had no problem reading her lips. They weren’t quite as white as they had been when he’d first laid eyes on her. In fact her whole face had gained some color, if not quite enough.

Well, he’d been hoping to start with her real name. But that wasn’t going to happen today. Maybe there would be some good news back at the station. After seeing her safely to the E.R. on the night she’d been discovered, he’d immediately requested the footage from security cameras near the park. If those were in, maybe they’d have something telling. Or at least something to point him to the next step.

There were other ways of finding out her name. Like canvassing both of the Twin Cities with her picture. No. That was impractical. There had to be a better way to show her picture to thousands of people. Like in a newspaper. Or online. Or both.

He was about to ask if she’d be open to running a story in the paper when a booming voice filled the room. “Well, well. Look who finally decided to wake up.”

Julie cringed at the noise, her hand balling into a fist. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “Just the doctor.” Who had no bedside manner.

Zach kept that last part to himself.

The silver-haired man in the white lab coat marched across the tiled floor, the nurse right behind him. The doctor didn’t bother to introduce himself. He just started giving orders instead. “You need to go. You’ve waited around long enough, and now you’re just adding to her stress. She doesn’t need any of that right now.”

Nodding, Zach pulled his hand away from hers. In a movement faster than he’d seen from her thus far, she scrambled her fingers until they clutched his.

“Will you come back?”

He paused just before stepping away, taking in the panic building in Julie’s eye. He didn’t begrudge her the fear. Even he couldn’t be sure exactly how much danger she was in. By the light of day, he’d been able to make out the marks in the grass at the park, where she’d been dragged away from the street and into the shadow of the trees. Someone had wanted her permanently out of the picture.

Bending over so that she could clearly see his face, he gave her a slow wink. “Count on it.”

* * *

Letting the door to the station swing closed behind him, Zach walked to his desk, falling into his chair, which rolled away from his computer under his weight. He walked his feet forward, until he was right where he needed to be—staring at a blank screen and wondering if that’s what Julie felt like every waking minute.

He grabbed the phone and jabbed in the number he knew by heart.

“This is Tabby.”

“It’s Zach.”

Tabitha let out a deep, throaty laugh. “To what do I owe this pleasure, Detective Jones?”

When people first met Tabby, they generally had a hard time believing that the sixty-year-old firecracker with a shock of white hair was the Tabitha Guster, Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter for the Star Tribune.

Zach didn’t have any trouble believing it, though. Tabby had been his mom’s best friend since they were roommates at the University of Minnesota forty years ago. Tabby had become more family than friend, and as the reporter covering the police beat, she and Zach had spent plenty of family dinners talking cases.

But the last time they’d talked, he hadn’t been able to give her any information about an ongoing investigation, and she’d been none too happy with him for it. Would she be willing to do him a favor now?

Better to start off easy than dive in headfirst. Every Minnesota boy raised in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes knew to jump feetfirst the first time. This situation was no different. “How’re you doing?”

“Just fine. And your mom and the family?” She was playing along. Tabby had almost certainly spoken to his mother more recently than he had.

“We’re all doing very well.”

“Glad to hear it.” She paused, waiting for him to speak. When he didn’t hop right in, she continued, “I have to interview the police chief in twenty minutes. Want to tell me what this is about? Or should I call you back later?”

He leaned an elbow on the desk and rested his chin in his hand. “I need your help.”

“Oh?” Her voice jumped an octave. “Work or pleasure?”

“Work.”

She laughed with the kind of giddy joy he’d expect from someone half her age. But the truth was that the police beat still made her heart thump a little harder. And as a detective in need of her help, he was at her mercy. “Whatcha got?”

“I need to identify a victim, and I was hoping you could help.”

“Which one?”

He paused, questioning his decision. Maybe this was a bad idea. It wasn’t too late to keep this out of the papers and off-line. But then how was he going to figure out who she was and why she’d been attacked? He’d been checking the missing-persons database every day, but still hadn’t found anything. If no one noticed Julie was gone, then he had no clear indication of how much danger she might really be in. “The one from Webster Park. She woke up.”

“And she can’t tell you her own name?” Tabby laughed like it was a funny joke, but stopped at his grunt. “She has amnesia?” Her words ran together, her tongue moving faster than she could enunciate.

“Uh-huh.”

Measured breaths were the only sound coming from the other end of the line. Finally she sighed. “What do you want me to do?”

Zach chewed on the inside of his cheek and scratched at his chin. “Any chance you could run an article and a picture? See if anyone can identify her?”

“You think this was a mugging?” She sounded hopeful, and he hated to dash that theory, but all the evidence pointed away from that simple of an explanation.

“Well, her purse was missing and hasn’t been located yet. But she was wearing a gold tennis bracelet and diamond earrings that weren’t touched.”

“And?” Apparently she could hear the unstated question in the tone of his voice.

“And she was dragged about fifty yards into the park to conceal her body between trees.”

A rush of air slipped through Tabby’s lips. “I should guess not, then. And you think it’s safe to run her picture? If we post it on our social media networks, it could be seen by anyone in a matter of minutes. You want her attacker to be aware that she can’t remember her own name?”

“I don’t know.” He shoved his fingers through his hair, curling his fingers into a fist and pulling on it. Why couldn’t this be an easy case? Nothing about it was black-and-white. Nothing was straightforward. Nothing really made much sense.