Christmas Angel (5 page)

The softness in his voice caused her eyes to well. So much had happened, she didn’t understand. It would be nice if she could find someone who could explain to her where she came from. Nothing made much sense.

“I’d like to check the results of her scan first. My first reaction is to say she can go ahead and get something to eat. And if her tests come out okay, she should be able to leave on her own. I’m afraid all of our beds are full. I can see about transferring her for psych observation.” He offered a raised brow. Angel had the strange feeling she bore the brunt of some underlying communication going on between the two.

Detective Jackson shook his head. “That won’t be necessary. We’ll take care of her.”

Detective Gleason cleared his throat and turned away.

“Well, if at all feasible, I would suggest she be under someone’s watch for at least twenty-four hours. Chances are good she’s sustained at least a mild concussion.”

She lay there, feeling lost to their whims. She wanted to tell them she didn’t know anyone in this town, but she couldn’t truthfully say since she didn’t know for sure where she was. The doctor faced her and spoke with grave authority. “You rest for now and push this button if you feel dizzy or nauseous. And if you need these men to leave, you tell them to get out. Do you understand, young lady?” He smiled, and once she agreed with a nod, he left.

She stared after the kind man in the white coat, her greater concern where she would end up after she left this room. Detective Jackson touched the back of her hand. Jarred from her reverie, she blinked and looked at him.

“Would you like something to eat? I’ll run down to the cafeteria. My captain is on his way here. He’d like to ask you a few questions, if you’ll allow it.”

“Captain?” She’d once met a ship’s captain in New York, but she didn’t know what more she could tell anyone beyond what she had told this man. “Is he like a… sheriff?”

He eyed her. “Yeah, I guess you could call him that. Are you allergic to anything?” He paused at the door.

She frowned, puzzled by the large number of odd-sounding words she simply didn’t understand. “Allergic?”

“It, uh, means is there anything that doesn’t agree with you?”

“Oh. Well, cigar smoke makes my stomach do flips. Those stringy things on pea pods and mice… I can’t look at them without nearly peeing my drawers.”

Detective Gleason turned his head and covered his mouth, hiding a grin from the looks of things. She glanced back at her blue-eyed friend. “Is that what you wanted to know?”

He gave her a lopsided smile. “Close enough.”

The sound of a gruff voice issued from outside the door. “Captain Murphy, of

the Nevada police. Narcotics division. You have an injured eyewitness in there?”

The doctor accompanied a large man into the room. Her eyes widened seeing a man of color wearing a fine suit, breezing in with a look of authority. His expression, however, was dour, and he wore a rumpled coat, but no star on his chest or hat on his head like a sheriff often wore. And why she should know, she couldn’t say. She realized this couldn’t be a dream, for she wouldn’t have been able to conjure anything quite so fascinating. Still, the question of who she was and why she was here eluded her. “Detective Jackson said you were a sheriff.”

Intimidating though he may appear, the “captain,” seemed stumped at first by her question. He eyed her, then reached inside his coat, drew out a small wallet, and produced a quick flash of silver.

“I promise he won’t bite.” Detective Gleason flashed a grin as he nodded to the cowboy-looking detective. “Come on. She doesn’t need all of us in here. I’ll go see if I can rustle some food up for you.”

“Thank you,” she answered. Confident the captain seemed well acquainted with her new friend, she turned her focus to him. “I’m not sure how much more help I can be to you, sir, but I’ll try. Then maybe you can help me find my way back home.”

***

Shado glanced over his shoulder as he stepped into the hallway. “You think she’ll be okay in there?”

Gleason glanced from the room to Shado. “She seems pretty resilient. You worried?”

He shook his head. “Nah, you want some coffee?” He wasn’t prepared yet to admit how he’d let the woman get under his skin. Maybe he still felt responsible for her injury. Maybe more than he was ready to admit kept her in his thoughts.

Gleason shook his head. “Nope, I’m good. Just going to call in and see what forensics might have found out about our hotel guest. They claim the credit card he checked in under was a corporate card, under the name Jonathan Smith. Not unusual for Madam Lee’s variety of services. We’ll run his fingerprints, but we may need Madam’s help to get a physical description. There wasn’t much left of the guy's face. She could sit down with our artist. Might give us a lead.”

“We’ll see. I’m going to see if I can find some food for her.” “You still think she’s innocent in all of this?” Gleason interjected.

“I can’t say without a doubt, but it seems she happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Gleason shrugged. “Guess time will tell.” He pulled out his ancient cell phone.

The deserted corridor afforded Shado time to think back on her facial expressions as he’d interrogated her. True, she was a fragile looking thing, built like a willow, and yet there was a fire in her blue eyes and a dogged determination. Perhaps pride made her appearance deceiving. Still, for reasons he didn’t understand, he possessed a powerful need to protect her. He didn’t want to believe she had anything to do with Espinoza, but with this temporary amnesia, getting to the truth would prove to be a challenge. He glanced up and a silent curse registered in his brain. The cafeteria was dark. Luckily, he’d passed a row of vending machines not too far back. Though it wasn’t as nourishing as a hot beef sandwich, he selected a ham and cheese on wheat, a package of peanut butter crackers, and bought himself some stout black coffee. He turned the corner to the ER as the captain left her room, slipping his notepad in his jacket. From the look on his face, he’d gotten no further with his questions than they had.

“She says she remembers clearly the guy who knocked her over the head. She can’t remember seeing the other guy.”

“I spoke to her doctor while you were in there and in his opinion, she’s suffering from something called retrograde amnesia,” Gleason explained. “Apparently it means she can remember her most recent memories, but not those previously stored.”

“Sounds like the stuff that happens in my wife’s soap opera,” the captain muttered. “But I won’t argue with the doc. Still means she could pick out a face from those guys at the hotel. If they let her go, maybe we can get her something to eat, a place to rest, and see if she’s up to going through a few photos. With any luck, she could lead us right to the killers. Do we have a name on the vic?”

Gleason spoke. “The manager of the hotel said he checked in this morning as a Jonathan Smith. Apparently on business from San Francisco. Forensics is still on the scene.”

“Good.” Captain Murphy nodded. “See what more we can find on this guy. Why was he at the Imperial? Who was he supposed to meet? Who sent him? We need to find out if these guys were Espinoza’s men and if she….” He tipped his head toward the room. “…is a part of all of this.”

Shado opened his mouth to offer his opinion and decided to wait. Gleason was far easier to reason with. He watched the ER doors swoosh open and the captain disappear into the night.

“Do you think maybe it’s better she stays here, even if it’s in the psych ward?” he asked.

Gleason shrugged. “You heard the captain. He wants us to bring her down to the station.”

“Yeah, I heard him. But you just explained she virtually has no memory except the short term. Where’s she going to go?”

Gleason shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ll get her a hotel room, maybe? Put someone on her to watch her.”

“What if it takes longer than the doctor thinks for her memory to return? What if those goons come looking for her?”

Gleason’s face clouded. “Assuming she’s innocent, I suppose we could arrange for her to be placed in a holding cell, to keep her safe, but legally we can’t do so without just cause for longer than a few hours. Besides,” he offered with a wry grin, “she doesn’t impress me as the type who would go for that.”

Shado scratched his face, realizing it’d been days since he shaved. “Maybe we should talk to the doctor again? See what he can do?”

Gleason shrugged. “Maybe the psych unit is the way to go. They could place her up there without an evaluation. But I don’t particularly like the idea of some doc poking around her brain at this point.”

Neither did Shado. “Doc made it pretty clear she was to get plenty of rest and quiet to allow her memories to return on their own.” He paced the hall, pausing long enough to toss back the remainder of his now cold coffee. He pitched the cup into a trashcan with more force than was probably necessary. This whole thing frustrated him on so many levels. “I’ve got to get this sandwich to her. Maybe it’ll help.” He stepped quietly into the room. She lay in the semi-dark, her face illuminated by the soft light above her bed. He stood immobile, watching her sleep. Her wheat-colored hair, still matted in spots with blood, spilled out from beneath the bandage they’d wrapped around her head. Something jarred loose inside him. A piece of a solid wall he’d built up around his heart with the untimely passing of his brother.

Breathing deep against the tidal wave of fresh pain threatening to crumble his self-made solitude, he looked at her with renewed determination. He’d taken an oath to serve and protect, and even if she lived a lifestyle he didn’t much approve of, she was nonetheless deserving of police protection, especially from the likes of someone as powerful as Espinoza. Even if she wasn’t directly involved, she was witness to a murder. He couldn’t abandon her, not now. Or maybe he was merely providing an adequate excuse for wanting to be around her. As though hearing his thoughts, she turned and looked at him. A soft smile emerged on her face.

He held out the plastic-covered sandwich, hoping to cover for his blatant staring. “I, uh… brought you this. The cafeteria is closed. Ham and cheese is the best I can offer.”

She accepted the package and inspected it from every angle as though she’d never seen vendor food. Maybe she’d run away from one of those communes hidden up in the mountains and gotten mixed up with the wrong kind of folks.

“Where did you say this came from?” She sniffed it and made a face.

He gently took it from her and peeled back the protective cellophane. “A vending machine. Granted, it’s not the Ritz, but it will tide you over until….”

She reached for the container and her fingers brushed over his, sending a strange jolt straight to his groin. Her blue eyes met his, and he noticed for the first time the green flecks, which made them appear turquoise. Fishing it out of the container, she sniffed the sandwich and took a small bite, chewing it thoughtfully. Her expression questioned whether she liked it or not. “Until what?” she asked, swallowing the bite and taking another.

He shifted uncomfortably, not sure how to explain. “Yeah, here’s the thing. The captain would like you to come down to the station and look at some books.” “Books? What kind of books? Why?” She’d about finished the half of the ham and cheese and he fingered the crackers in his pocket, in case she was still hungry.

“He thought maybe if you looked through a few pictures you might recognize the man who did this. I wasn’t able to get a good look at his face with him holding you in front of him.” It made his blood boil to see women and children used as human shields by men who had no balls. “The captain thought if you could go through a few mug shots, maybe you’d recognize your attacker. I’d be right there to help you though. Promise.”

She shrugged. “Like I told your captain, I’ll do what I can to help you, but I need to find my way back home.”

“Do you remember where that is?” If she happened to remember anything, it certainly would make all their lives a little easier.

“I know it must have something to do with the Sweet Magnolia. Why else would I have been there?”

The million-dollar question
. “But you don’t remember your name?”

She sighed and dropped the remainder of the sandwich in the plastic. “The doctor said he thought my memory would come back in a few days.”

“He’s a good doctor. I’m sure that’s true.”

“The truth is until I remember, I have nowhere to go. He suggested the police would help me find a shelter. He said there are places where women can go or maybe special cells where people stay overnight.” She grabbed his hand. “I don’t want to go to jail. I’ve done nothing wrong.” Her eyes pleaded with him. “What’s going to happen to me?”

As justified her fears were, he was unprepared to deal with them. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll work something out. We have no reason to believe you’ve done anything wrong.” He scratched the back of his neck, debating the truth of his statement. He pried from her grasp and occupied his hands with pouring her a glass of water. “Here, drink this.”

She took it from him and smelled it first, carefully taking a sip. “It’s water,” she remarked with surprise.

“Yeah.” He regarded her curiously. “You finish it. I’ve got to step out and visit with Detective Gleason.”