Only A Memory Away Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Excerpt

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Books by Madeline St. Claire

  Title Page

  Dedication

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  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

  Copyright

  “I’m in trouble.

  “I’ve had that strong gut feeling, ever since I woke up in St. Mary’s a week ago. I left the hospital because I felt it was imperative I find out who I was and what I’d been involved in, before something worse happened.”

  “That’s why you tried so hard to get rid of me?” Karen asked. “Because you didn’t want me to get involved in whatever it was?”

  Judd nodded. “I’m in deeper than I thought. You know the police will be back. I’ve already wasted too much time when I could have been searching for the truth.”

  Karen didn’t hesitate. “I’ll get my clothes on and we can go.”

  “There’s no need for you to come with me.”

  She circled the table and put her arms around his neck. “Do you want the truth, or do you want to be Rambo?”

  He snorted, but sensed his resolve softening.

  “Then take me with you,” she whispered, her mouth close to his ear…

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Madeline St. Claire has loved books from the time she was a toddler and would beg her mother every night to read her “just one more story.” Madeline wrote a novella at the age of ten and some twenty years later experienced the “greatest thrill of my life” when Harlequin Intrigue published her first novel, Private Eyes.

  She shares her life with Robert St. Claire, whom she describes as “my true soul mate and husband of fourteen years.”

  Books by Madeline St. Claire

  HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

  299—PRIVATE EYES

  Don’t miss any of our special offers. Write to us at the following address for information on our newest releases.

  Harlequin Reader Service

  U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

  Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

  Only a Memory Away

  Madeline St. Claire

  This book is dedicated in loving memory to my mother, Jaquith Juin Croker

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Judd Maxwell—He awoke robbed of his possessions and his memory, his only recollection a certainty that someone out there wanted him dead.

  Karen Thomas—This dedicated social worker never had a client so devilishly handsome as Judd Maxwell, or one as determined to refuse her help.

  Marlene Hall—Her secret affair with a lover who wasn’t what he seemed ended in tragedy.

  Ed Thomas—This retired detective knew Judd wasn’t telling the whole truth, but could he save his niece from becoming the troublemaker’s next victim?

  Chapter One

  Marlene Hall had no plans to die that mild August night.

  Rather the reverse. All that final Friday, the young woman had been thinking about her future. If she slowed down and thought with her head instead of her heart, she was sure she could figure out the right solution to her problems.

  And then her man came, and made her last decision for her.

  Quickly, desperately, but efficiently, he stole her future from her. Then tried to cover his guilt beneath the pine needles and acid soil of a lonely mountain forest.

  It was hard labor. When the murderer was finished, he felt exhausted, like someone who in an extreme emergency had lifted a car with his bare hands.

  Looking up through the trees, he realized the moon had risen while he worked. He doused the flashlight and stuck it in his belt. On the long walk back to the road, he tried to wipe the grime from his palms, comparing himself to Judas.

  What a ghastly thing he had done! It had been necessary; he must never doubt that she had given him no other choice. But how ugly it was. Could he ever erase the pictures from his mind? He would have to, if he was to go on living. Yes, he must will himself, with every ounce of his considerable intellect, to forget.

  He found his vehicle where he had left it, in an abandoned lane that led to a disintegrating summer cabin. With force he pulled the car door shut, marking it as an outward sign of his inward decision. He was closing his mind on the other women and on Marlene Hall, the obsessive relationships—everything that had led him here. The powerful thought comforted him, relaxed him. He leaned deeper into the seat, let the engine run. He suddenly felt drowsy, almost peaceful. Pity it was such a long drive back to Silver Creek. He felt as though he could drift off right here, and sleep for hours.

  “KAREN, I’VE FOUND the perfect man for you!”

  Karen couldn’t see through the telephone line, but she knew her old friend from high school like a book. Vivian was doing her best to sound excited but sincere. In truth, both of them knew she was teasing.

  “Really? Tell me,” Karen said. There was no reason to spoil Viv’s fun, even at her own expense.

  “Remember, when we had lunch last week, you said you wished more than anything you could find a man without a past? Well, this is the guy.”

  “Hmm. Only one ex-wife, right?”

  “No, none.”

  “No addiction to alcohol, drugs or his own image in the mirror?”

  Vivian chuckled. “Uh-uh. He doesn’t even smoke.”

  “He’s not openly, secretly or as yet undecidedly gay?”

  A pause, then slowly Vivian answered, “Definitely not.”

  Karen pictured her friend’s arched eyebrow, the tip of Viv’s tongue tracing her upper teeth. So this guy was a real hunk? Genuine interest sparked in Karen, but she kept her tone skeptical in case Viv was only leading her on.

  “No history,” Karen asked, “of ‘searching for himself using the indiscriminate, low-paying job sampling method?”

  “If you don’t believe me, why don’t you ask him yourself? He’s dining at the hospital tonight, if you want to meet him.”

  “The hospital? Another doctor? No thanks, no more type-A’s, please.”

  “He’s not a doctor, Karen…he’s a patient.”

  “A patient?” Vivian worked in the psychiatric ward at St. Mary’s. “In your department?”

  Smothered laughter came across the line. Drat it, Vivian had gotten her. “Okay, okay. You’ve fixed me up with Norman Bates. What’s this all about?”

  “No, Karen, nothing like that. No psychos. Oh…” Vivian stopped laughing and audibly drew a breath.

  At last she’s going to get serious, Karen thought.

  “He’s an amnesiac.”

  AS KAREN DROVE to her appointment with Judd Maxwell the following afternoon at three, she wondered if she was going crazy.

  Vivian had been kidding, of course, about a possible romance with the mysterious mental patient Still, his story had been intriguing. A gorgeous thirty-three-year-old man found in a kind of trance, parked in the trees just off a deserted stretch of Highway 18. Unable to recall where he’d been going or how he’d gotten there, or even who he was. There was nothing in the auto to identify the man but the vehicle registration: a resultant search of Department of Motor Vehicle records revealed nothing more than his vital statistics and a defunct post-office box address in faraway Los Angeles. The highway patrol specul
ated that Maxwell had blacked out for some reason, and then been robbed of his wallet and other valuables by some opportunistic thief. The HP had spotted Maxwell slumped in the driver’s seat and stopped to investigate around midnight last Friday.

  As administrative assistant to the chief of psychiatry at St. Mary’s in Granite City, it had been Vivian’s job to contact the social services department and request they transfer Judd into the state system since he apparently had no health insurance and the private hospital couldn’t keep him on. However, it had been Vivian’s idea to call her good friend, social worker Karen Thomas, direct rather than going through the usual channels.

  As Karen paused for a downtown traffic light, she fiddled with the Ford Festiva’s air conditioner, absently wishing she’d gotten the AC serviced before this record-breaking heat wave. She frowned, more at her impulsiveness than the oppressive humidity, remembering that she’d felt instant sympathy for the amnesiac and for how alone and terrified he must feel. She hadn’t thought twice about acting on Vivian’s suggestion that she press the county social services director to assign her as Maxwell’s social worker. The director had agreed, saying the case shouldn’t be unusually difficult: find the man a place to stay, perhaps in a men’s halfway house; get him a referral to the county mental-health clinic; monitor his progress until his memory returned.

  But after Karen had had some time to think, she had begun to realize how much simple, base curiosity was mixed with her desire to help Judd Maxwell. And the closer she got to her appointment with Judd and his attending psychiatrist, Dr. Bergman, the more ashamed she felt for indulging her curiosity, and the more apprehensive.

  She needed no reminding that in the two years she’d worked in the mountain community since getting her master’s degree, most of her clients had been senior citizens. The needs of the indigent elderly was her area of expertise; Alzheimer’s disease and senile dementia were the closest she’d come to dealing with mental problems. She’d never had a real psych case before, or a male client under age seventy, not to mention someone afflicted with total amnesia, for goodness’ sake.

  Karen turned into the parking lot in front of the hospital and began searching for a space as she fought off a wave of nerves. Time was growing short, and she still wasn’t sure how she should go about establishing rapport with her new client. Vivian had described Judd as coherent but uncommunicative when the nurses brought him his meals. Not reassuring.

  Karen pulled her car into a slot and grabbed her purse and a 35mm camera off the seat. She had thought that perhaps an offer to take Judd’s photo, to run it in the local newspaper, would break the ice. As she slung the camera strap over her shoulder and headed for the main doors, she pictured herself extending the camera to a befuddled Judd so he could see it. “If you have friends or relatives in the area, they’ll see your photo in the paper and come forward to claim you.”

  Oh, right, putting it that way would make the poor man feel like a lost piece of luggage! If she didn’t get a grip, she’d make a fool of herself and end up hurting the patient more than helping him.

  The faint pneumatic whoosh of the hospital’s automatic doors sounded ahead of her. The glass pocket doors slid slowly apart, then burst wide as arms of steel shoved them to the sides. A wild man exploded through the opening. Karen jumped aside a second before the tall, dark figure nearly mowed her down.

  She caught a flash of his angry face—eyes hooded like an eagle’s, jaw grinding. She doubted he even saw her. He strode quickly toward the street. In shock from the near collision, she stared at his leather-clad back, longish hair rippling like black waves over his collar.

  Karen hitched her purse higher on her shoulder as she wondered what episode had set the stranger off. Had he just gotten the doctor’s report that a loved one was terminally ill, or been fired from some job within the hospital? When he bypassed the parking lot, heading for the street, she felt relieved. It would be dangerous for someone in such a state to take the wheel of a car.

  The automatic doors, amazingly, still functioned. She walked through into the coolness of the lobby, and was almost run over a second time.

  Vivian catapulted toward her, caught Karen by the forearms and gripped hard. “Did you see him? Did he go out the front?”

  “You mean the man who just—”

  “Come on, Karen, we’ve got to catch him.” Vivian dragged her toward the entrance. “It’s your new client, Judd Maxwell. He just had an awful fight with Dr. Bergman, and if we don’t catch him, he’ll completely disappear out there.”

  Galvanized by duty, Karen sprinted for the street, her flat shoes and slacks-clad legs carrying her faster than Vivian’s high heels and narrow skirt. Karen shaded her eyes with her hand and swiveled her head both ways as Viv caught up with her on the sidewalk.

  “Do you see him?”

  Karen scanned the small park across the street. “Darn it, no. Let’s try the corner.”

  The old hospital was situated in the heart of what had become over the years a congested downtown area. The two women bobbed up and down as they tried to see over the heads of the passing pedestrians.

  “I knew it,” Viv wailed, “he’s vanished, like a needle in a haystack.”

  “There’s still a chance we can find him. I’ll run back and get my car. Wait here in case he doubles back.”

  When they were together in the car, Karen asked, “Any idea which way he’d go?”

  “None. He still hasn’t gotten his memory back.”

  “Well, let’s try circling the hospital first. What in the heck happened this afternoon?”

  “Another failed hypnosis session. Dr. Bergman and Judd tried their best, but he never succeeded in going under.”

  “That’s not unusual, is it?” Vivian’s gaze swept the sidewalks in front of the little shops and eateries as she answered. “No, there are plenty of patients who don’t respond, especially if they’re strong willed. Dr. Bergman tried to convince him to not give up, but I guess Judd got impatient and thought the doctors were wasting his time. That’s when the argument started. I didn’t hear it all, because the head nurse went in with them and shut the door behind her. But pretty soon Judd burst out and demanded to be released. Dr. Bergman had no legal right to hold him, so they buzzed him through.”

  “Hmm.” Karen thought she already knew the answer to her next question. “Did the doctor ask you to follow him?”

  “No, that was my idea. The medical staff might be ticked off at his behavior, but I couldn’t let him just take off, could I?”

  Karen smiled. “You should have been a social worker, Viv, not a medical secretary.”

  “I know.” Vivian sighed. “You’d better turn here or you’ll run into a one-way street.”

  “Okay.” Karen’s hopes were fading; they’d circled the hospital within a two-block radius with no sign of Judd. Nonetheless she said, “In case we find him, you’d better tell me everything you know about his condition.”

  “Well, Dr. Bergman submitted his preliminary workup to the chief this morning, and I just happened to overhear them discussing it.” The two women exchanged a grin. “They’re sure now the amnesia wasn’t caused by concussion or some other physical problem, so it must be what they call psychogenic in nature. That’s the kind of amnesia you get when something so traumatic happens to you, you can’t consciously face it. Forgetting the incident is like an overload protector.”

  Karen was fascinated. “But you said he’d forgotten everything about his past, not just whatever scared him to death.”

  “It’s complicated, but it has to do with the way the mind is divided. Judd has lost all episodic memory, memories of his personal life, along with the triggering episode, but he’s still got what they call his skills-and-knowledge memory intact. When they asked him who the president is, he remembered, but he couldn’t tell them anything about his own family, stuff like that. And he’s got no idea what he did for a living, but the chief says if Judd was a carpenter, for instance, he could
probably pick up a hammer and frame a house, no problem.”

  “Is there anything the doctors can do, besides hypnosis, to help him get his memory back?” Karen asked.

  “I don’t know. I think they were going to recommend some other form of psychotherapy if the hypnosis didn’t work. Frankly, I think the docs were surprised he hadn’t started regaining his memory on his own. This is Tuesday, and the blackout occurred last Friday.”

  A DISCOURAGED KAREN dropped Vivian off at the hospital. They’d searched for two hours, but Judd Maxwell had simply disappeared.

  It was nearly five o’clock; Karen saw no point in returning to the office. She was getting painfully tired of eating alone at home every night, so she told herself she might as well stop for dinner before starting the commute home to Silver Creek. From the pay phone at a fast food restaurant she called her supervisor; as usual, he was still in.

  Her boss told her Maxwell was a fool to have taken off like that, but it wasn’t Karen’s fault and she shouldn’t feel badly about it. Karen hung up, wondering if the director had detected in her voice the worry she’d tried to conceal. It was a waste of emotional energy, of course, fretting about Maxwell’s fate. Though she never wanted to become callous, as some social workers inevitably did, she was beginning to wish she could toughen up a bit She’d been told by several sources that a little more professional detachment would make her work easier, and she believed it.

  She ate a broiled chicken burger and a diet cola, charmed by the presence of an adorable little baby and his young parents at the next table. But as she started home in the still sweltering heat, her thoughts returned to her almost-client. And five miles outside Granite, as she pumped gas into her car, a dark man with a long stride passed, walking on the verge of the road.