chapter Four
It was just after six when Sheriff Atkins arrived at Linda’s house. Linda had left for her shift at the hospital an hour earlier, Samantha and the new puppy, Scooter, were in her bedroom, and Tamara, Seth and the sheriff all sat down at the kitchen table.
It had been a strange afternoon. Once Linda and Samantha had come home, Tamara had spent most of her time with Samantha playing with the new little black fur ball.
Seth had taken his cell phone, the files from Atkins and his laptop into the guest room where Tamara had slept the night before and worked through the afternoon. He’d tried not to get distracted by the sight of the bed where she’d slept the night before, the faint clean scent of her that lingered in the air.
He’d thought that by working in another room from where she was located, he wouldn’t be so distracted, but he’d been wrong. The thought of her long dark hair spilled over the white of the pillowcase distracted him. He didn’t want to entertain thoughts of how warm and soft her body would be against his underneath the bedsheets.
He just wanted to figure out what had happened to her and get her back where she belonged. He didn’t want to think about how lush-looking he found her lips, how much he liked the sound of her voice and how she created an ache inside him that he hadn’t felt in a very long time.
She now looked at Seth from across the table, obviously eager for him to share the information he’d gathered about her throughout the afternoon, information he hoped would kick-start her memory and lead them to their killer.
Atkins appeared tired, but also anxious to hear what he had to say. Seth had a legal pad in front of him and once he’d offered the sheriff a cup of coffee and they were settled in, he began.
“Tamara Jennings, thirty-two years old, you live alone in an apartment in Amarillo, Texas. You were married briefly but divorced two years ago. You were fairly easy to find by a driver’s license and the photo on the license was good enough to make the identification.” He paused and looked up at her, waiting for some kind of an aha moment.
Her hair shone like black silk with the early-evening sunshine streaming through the window. She shrugged with a frown. “Nothing rings a bell. You could be talking about anyone.” Her eyes grew slightly glassy, as if she was fighting back tears, but she nodded for him to continue.
Seth glanced back at his notes. “Nothing criminal in your past, not even a speeding ticket. I couldn’t find any living relatives. According to your neighbors in the apartment complex where you live you don’t socialize with anyone in particular, you’re friendly but pretty much stay to yourself. Nobody I spoke to could give me the name of a boyfriend or even a close friend. You own a successful business designing and maintaining websites for a variety of businesses and work out of an office in your apartment.”
Once again Seth looked at her, hoping to see something, anything in her eyes that might indicate a glimmer of memory, but there was nothing in the blue depths but the swimming start of tears.
To Seth’s surprise it was Atkins who reached out and patted the back of her hand. “It’s all right. It will all come back to you in time. You’re just going through a rough patch, that’s all.”
Tamara cast him a grateful smile and Seth wished it had been he who had reached across the table to comfort her, he who had been the recipient of her smile.
He clenched his jaw muscles and looked back down at his notes. “According to DMV records you own a blue Ford Focus. It isn’t currently parked at your apartment building in Amarillo.”
“So, I probably drove it here to Amber Lake.”
Both Seth and the sheriff nodded. “I’ve got my deputies looking everywhere for the car, but so far it hasn’t turned up,” Tom said.
“I checked your ex-husband out,” Seth said. “He’s a real estate investor who moved to California months after your divorce.” He’d mostly gotten details about her ex out of curiosity, but he wasn’t about to admit that out loud. “He hasn’t been out of the San Diego area since the time you’ve been missing from your apartment. I ruled him out, but we all know that the killer we’re looking for is probably right here in Amber Lake.”
He turned his attention to Tom. “I don’t want to step on toes here, but I’m starting at the beginning with a reinvestigation into Rebecca Cook’s and Vicki Smith’s murders.”
“You aren’t stepping on my toes,” Tom replied. “I welcome the help and you know you have my full force at your disposal. Just tell us what you need and we’ll see that it’s done.”
“The first thing I want from you is your gut instinct,” Seth replied. “Is there anyone you’ve investigated so far that shot off any alarms in your head? Somebody that you felt might be guilty but had no evidence?”
Tom frowned and shook his head. “I wish I could tell you a name, but I can’t imagine anyone in this town having the capacity to do what’s been done to these women.”
Seth glanced over to Tamara, who appeared lost in thought, a delicate frown etched into her forehead. “Tamara, we really have no reason to hold you here. If you want to return to your home in Amarillo, then you can. We can’t keep you here, but I’d like for you to stick around here and see if we can find something or somebody here in town to shove past your amnesia. Right now you still remain our best lead to getting this guy.”
She turned her bright blue eyes toward him, hers holding the faint edge of inner haunting. “I’ll stay. The life you just told me about, the woman who lives in Amarillo, doesn’t feel like they have anything to do with me. I need my memories not just to help you and Sheriff Atkins, but so that I can truly get back where I belong, and I think the key to unlocking them is here in Amber Lake.”
Seth didn’t try to analyze why her decision to stay pleased him. He told himself it was simply because she was their best hope for catching a killer.
“So, what’s our plan?” Tom asked.
“Right now my plan is to get Tamara out first thing tomorrow and take her around town to see if anything strikes a chord with her. I also intend to reinterview everyone who had anything to do with the first two victims.”
Tom nodded. “We have a lot of abandoned barns and buildings in the area and we’ll start a grid search to find the missing car. It’s got to be somewhere not too far away and maybe it will hold some clues. And I’ll be glad to make available anyone you want to talk to at my office.”
“I appreciate it,” Seth replied. Once again he looked at Tamara, who stared out the nearby window where the light of day had begun to turn the golden hues that occurred just before twilight.
He wished he knew her well enough to be able to guess what she was thinking, although it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that she had to be feeling lost and so alone.
Half an hour later he walked Sheriff Atkins to the door and then returned to the kitchen to find Tamara in the same spot at the table, her gaze appearing to be captured by something in Linda’s backyard.
She turned to face him as he walked over to the coffeemaker on the countertop. “Want a cup?” he asked.
“Please.”
He poured them each coffee and then once again sat across from her at the table. She cupped her hands around the mug, as if seeking the warmth from the liquid within.
Before they could say anything Samantha appeared in the doorway with her pooch in her arms. “Scooter and I are going to my friend Amy’s for a couple of hours. Don’t worry, I already checked in with Mom and she said it was fine. I’ll be home by ten.” She flew out the back door without waiting for a response.
“I feel like I’m intruding into everyone’s lives here,” Tamara said once Samantha had left the house. “You’re sleeping on a sofa instead of a bed and I’m taking advantage of your sister’s generosity.”
“Nonsense,” Seth replied. “First of all, I’ve slept on a lot of sofas in my lifetime and Linda’s is one of the most comfortable. Second, you aren’t taking advantage of anyone. You’re an invited guest in this house.”
“And a useless key to a serial killer,” she exclaimed in obvious frustration.
“Maybe a little useless now,” he agreed, “but you never know when your memory is suddenly going to return and hopefully with that you’ll know a face, remember a detail that will give us what we need.”
She raised her mug to her lips and took a drink and then set the mug back on the table. “All I remember right now is sand...sand everywhere and the scrape of a shovel.”
“The scrape of a shovel?” He looked at her in stunned surprise. She hadn’t mentioned that before. “You were aware enough to hear a shovel while you were being buried?”
“I guess so.” Her eyes went a midnight-blue. “My only memory is of sand, covering me, suffocating me and the noise of a shovel digging and scraping nearby. I couldn’t move, but I know I was conscious while I was being buried.” A shiver shook her shoulders and she stood, as if unable to sit while those horrible images swept through her mind.
Seth stood as well, wanting...needing to lighten the darkness in her eyes, steal away some of the horror that lingered there. Without thinking about right or wrong, Seth reached for her and she came willingly into his embrace.
She leaned heavily against him, the top of her head fitting neatly beneath his chin as her body continued to shiver against his. He wrapped his arms more tightly around her, as if he could somehow absorb whatever darkness flowed through her.
She didn’t cry and finally the shivering that had swept over her halted, but still she remained in his embrace as if he were her lifeline in a sea of the unknown.
And wasn’t that just what he was right now for her, he reminded himself. But she did feel good against him, her feminine curves melting into him as her arms reached around his neck.
He tried to maintain his objectivity. He tried to think of her only as a victim who needed comforting, but it was as a man he smelled the sweet fragrance of her hair, felt the press of her breasts against him, and he felt himself responding as a man. Fearing that she might notice, he released her and stepped back from her, needing some distance before he completely embarrassed himself.
As good as she felt, as much as he might want her as a man, he needed her more for what was locked inside her head. Somehow, someway, he had to crack her memories open as quickly as possible, before another body wound up buried in the sand.
They returned to the table where once again she sat and cupped the mug in front of her, her gaze not quite meeting his.
“I’m sorry I can’t help you right now,” she said softly.
She finally looked up at him and once again in her eyes he saw a haunting fear. “I want to help you, but there’s a small part of me that’s afraid of my memories. I’m afraid that if I remember who put me in the sand and why, if I remember every sensation, every moment of my time with my killer, I’ll go crazy. There’s a part of me that’s scared that by helping you, that by remembering, I’ll lose myself to complete madness.”
* * *
TODAY WAS THE DAY SHE might face the person who tried to kill her, the monster who had buried her in the sand dunes. Tamara checked her reflection in the bathroom mirror, grateful that Samantha had a generous spirit and an awesome wardrobe. Today Tamara was clad in a pair of jeans and a bright yellow T-shirt. She’d hoped that by wearing the color of beautiful sunshine some of her nerves might calm, but so far it wasn’t working.
She turned away from the mirror, knowing that Seth was waiting for her in the living room. They’d all eaten breakfast together an hour earlier, then Samantha had left with friends and Linda had gone to bed after her night of working. Now it was time to leave the safety of this house and venture out on a treasure hunt for her memories.
She reached for the bathroom doorknob to leave, but paused for just a moment, remembering the brief, but wonderful time the night before that she’d spent in Seth’s embrace.
He’d told her she’d been married, but she couldn’t remember ever feeling so safe, so secure in a man’s arms as she had last night with Seth. In fact, whenever she thought about her marriage, a knot of new anxiety formed in her stomach.
What kind of a man had she married? And why had they divorced? And why did thinking about it all make her feel so anxious and unsettled? She gave a mental shrug and left the bathroom. Until she remembered her past, there was no point in speculating about anything. All she knew about herself were the facts that Seth had managed to discover.
He rose from the sofa as she entered the living room. As always, her breath caught in her chest at the sight of him. He was so handsome, and as his gaze flicked over her from head to toe, a warmth grew inside her and she remembered how quickly he’d stepped away from her last night, but not before she’d realized he was aroused.
“Yellow is definitely your color,” he said. “You look bright and cheerful.”
“Good, then my disguise worked,” she replied drily.
“Nervous?”
She nodded. “I want my life back, the memories of who I am, but when I really think about remembering the minutes before my near death, the back of my throat closes up and I feel like I’m suffocating.”
“Trust me, there will be no suffocation in your life while I’m around.” He pulled his truck keys from his pocket. “Ready for the town tour?”
“I wish I could say I was looking forward to it.”
He frowned. “But you want to get your memories back. You need to know your past, to know who you are and what your life consisted of before all this. Without your past I’d think it would be difficult to have a future.”
“You’re right, of course,” she agreed as they stepped out the front door and into the warm June sunshine. “I just hope that when I do get my memories back I don’t discover that I was a thief or something terrible.”
He opened the passenger door for her and grinned. “Tamara, if you were something terrible we’d all know it by now. If you were a criminal, it would have come up in my background search. If you were a mean, hateful woman, your true colors would have bled through by now.”
She climbed into the truck seat and watched as he rounded the front of the vehicle to get to the driver’s side. She didn’t know what kind of evil wind had blown her into the sand dunes and to her near death, but fate was definitely smiling on her when it had been Seth who had found her.
She wasn’t sure where she’d be at this instant in time if not for Seth and his family. The fact that they’d taken a risk allowing her into their lives without knowing anything about her wasn’t lost on her.
“Just relax,” Seth said as he climbed behind the steering wheel and started the engine. “I have a feeling this is something that the harder you work at, the less success you’ll have.” He cast her another one of his killer smiles. “The sun is shining, you’re healthy and safe and best of all, you’re with me.”
A bubble of laughter escaped her at his obvious stab at mock conceit, but the laughter quickly faded. “Samantha told me yesterday while you were on the phone that you’d come here for vacation. I guess I screwed that up for you.”
“Vacations are highly overrated,” he replied easily as he backed out of the driveway. “I like my work and really had only decided to take a vacation because I wanted to spend some time with Linda and Samantha.”
“They’re wonderful. Are your parents alive?”
“No. They died in a car accident eight years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, at the same time wondering when her parents had died. If she’d mourned deeply for them. The fact that after speaking with her neighbors he couldn’t even come up with the name of a friend pierced her with sadness. “Surely I had a cell phone. Can’t it be pinged or whatever to locate it?”
“If you had a cell phone it must have been a pay-as-you-go, and without a phone number we have nothing to ping,” he replied.
As he turned onto what was obviously the main drag of the small town, Tamara focused her attention out the window and tried to relax her mind.
Amber Lake was a quaint small town that displayed touches of community pride here and there. Trees had been planted in the sidewalk at regular intervals, providing shade to the shoppers who found themselves out in the heat of the day.
There were the usual stores—hardware, grocery, a discount apparel shop as well as a dress boutique—some fast-food places, a café and a fancy restaurant called the Golden Daffodil.
Yes, it was a nice, quaint little town, but nothing looked even vaguely familiar, nothing jogged a single piece of her memory.
“Nothing,” she said dispiritedly after several minutes.
“Don’t be so impatient,” he replied easily.
“I’m trying not to be, but I was hoping that something that I saw would at least spark a tiny piece of memory.” She sighed in frustration.
Seth pulled into a parking space at the south end of Main. “Why don’t we get out and take a little stroll. It’s a nice morning and maybe you’ll see something in a shop window or somebody you’ll recognize.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she agreed. Moments later they walked together down one side of Main with the intention of returning to the truck by walking on the opposite side of the street.
They walked at a leisurely pace, small-talking about the weather and Samantha and the newest member of the household as Tamara took in each store window they passed, every person who nodded and smiled as they went by.
“I’m assuming you aren’t married,” she said after they’d walked for a few minutes.
“You’ve got that right,” he replied.
“What about a significant other?”
“Nope, nobody. All I’ve had in my life for the past couple of years is work. Besides, after watching what Linda went through with her divorce from her husband, I decided for sure that I never wanted to get married.”
“Bad divorce?”
“Terrible,” he replied. “I didn’t like her husband, Mark, when they married and I liked him a hell of a lot less by the time the divorce was finalized.”
“Does he live here in town?” she asked.
“Two blocks away from Linda.” He drew a deep sigh. “As much as I find him an arrogant, controlling ass, I have to give him props for being a good father to Samantha. She spends most of her weekends at his place and she adores him.”
“That’s important. Girls need their fathers in their lives.” She frowned. “But you shouldn’t allow your sister’s experience to deter you from having a family. I’ve seen how you are with Samantha and you’d make a great dad.”
He laughed, a deep, full-bodied sound that swept pleasurable warmth through her. “It’s easy to be a favorite uncle, but I’m not so sure that I’d be good dad material, and in any case it doesn’t matter. I have no intention of ever getting married.”
“I wonder why I got divorced?” Tamara asked, although she knew he had no answer. She found it difficult to imagine herself a married lady, but then she found it impossible to know exactly what kind of a woman she’d been before Seth had dug her out of the sand.
“Hopefully you’ll know soon,” Seth replied.
Although he said it easily, Tamara felt the pressure to remember, the need to help him find the person who had already killed two women and had tried to kill her, a man who could at any moment decide to claim another victim.
“How about an early lunch?” Seth suggested when they reached the Amber Lake Café.
“Sure,” she agreed.
As they walked into the front door of the restaurant a jingle of wind chimes sounded and Tamara had a visceral sense of déjà vu.
She said nothing as she followed Seth to a booth and slid across from him. The chimes sounded familiar, like a musical echo in the very back of her brain. She didn’t want to get his hopes up, didn’t want to jump to any conclusions.
She might have heard the same kind of wind chimes in another place, she might even possess some herself in her apartment in Amarillo. A single noise wasn’t enough to indicate that at some point in the past she’d visited this particular café.
“Hey, folks,” a blonde waitress with a name tag that read Lucy greeted them, with two menus. “Can I start you off with something to drink?”
“I’d like a diet cola,” Tamara said.
“And a glass of iced tea for me,” Seth replied.
“Be back in a jiffy,” Lucy said as she left their booth.
Tamara opened her menu and made her decision, then looked at Seth as a thought occurred to her. “Since we know who I am and where I live is it possible I can access my bank account and get out some cash?”
“I don’t see how that can be done without us driving into your bank branch and somehow explaining the situation to them. You don’t have a bank card and I’m assuming you wouldn’t know your pin number. Is there something you need?”
“A loan?” she ventured. She felt the warmth of a blush fill her cheeks. “I’d like to buy some clothes for myself instead of borrowing everything from Samantha. I’d just feel better if I had a few things to call my own.”
“I should have realized how difficult it has been for you.” Seth smiled at her. “Just tell me how much you want and I’ll get it for you when we pass by the bank.”
“Maybe a hundred dollars?” she said tentatively.
“We’ll make it two hundred and if you need more than that I want you to come to me.” He leaned forward across the table, his eyes like a gray bank of calming fog. “And it’s not a loan. We’ll consider it living expenses for a material witness in a murder investigation.”
“A material witness who can’t remember anything,” Tamara said dispiritedly.
At that moment the waitress returned with their drinks and they placed their orders. “So, I guess if we’re going to small-talk over lunch we’re going to have to talk about me,” Seth said teasingly.
“Actually, I’d like that topic of conversation,” she replied lightly. “You can tell me all about your work for the FBI and about your life in Kansas City.”
“I don’t have a life in Kansas City,” he said drily, “but I love talking about my work.”
And he did. While she ate a club sandwich and he wolfed down a double cheeseburger he talked about the cases he’d worked in the past and the evil he’d seen over the years working as a profiler.
Tamara found everything about him fascinating, from what he did for a living to the way the left corner of his mouth moved upward to begin one of his sexy smiles. She found it fascinating the way his eyes went from soft dove-gray when he talked about things he cared about to a cold steel color when he spoke of things he didn’t like.
It would be easy for her to develop a little bit of a crush on FBI Special Agent Seth Hawkins, even though she knew it would also be foolish.
For all she knew there was a man somewhere in Texas worried sick about her, a man who loved her, a man she loved to distraction. But, if there was such a man, then why couldn’t she even remember him? And why wasn’t he looking for her? Surely she would have some sense of loving...of being loved.
Why when she tried to remember her former life, before the sand dunes, before Amber Lake, did a tight squeeze of anxiety grip her stomach? Had she fled her apartment in Amarillo because of something bad? Because of something sad?
She was attracted to Seth but when she looked into his eyes she not only saw a man’s attraction, but also an FBI agent’s need...the need for answers she didn’t have at this time.
As they finished up the meal she once again cast her gaze around the café. It was like a hundred cafés that the Midwest sported, homey and warm and filled with people who had grown up together, who were friends and neighbors and gathered here on a regular basis.
Hanging on the wall behind the counter was a large picture of a piece of pie with the caption Enjoy A Piece of Amber Lake Café’s Famous Caramel Pie.
Sparks shot off in her head. She remembered that sign, and she’d had a piece of that pie. Her mouth filled with the solid memory of the flaky crust, of the gooey richness of caramel.
“I’ve been here.” The words whispered out of her as she turned to stare at Seth. “I’ve eaten here before,” she exclaimed as a wave of excitement washed over her.
“Are you sure?” Seth sat up straighter in his seat, his gaze intense as it held hers.
She leaned back against her seat and once again stared at the sign advertising the pie and as she did snippets of memories snaked through her head. “A plump waitress, a chicken salad sandwich, the shadows of twilight filtering in through the front windows and a piece of caramel pie and coffee for dessert,” she said softly. “I was definitely here.”
“Twilight, that means you were probably here for dinner.” Seth’s voice brought her out of the kaleidoscope of flashing snippets of memories.
“The plump waitress was a redhead. She served me,” she replied, once again looking around the café for a flame-haired waitress. She pointed to a woman working the other side of the café. “I think that’s her.”
Seth shot out of the booth and approached the waitress. Tamara could see the energy that wafted from him, felt the energy drumming inside her own veins. Remembering eating a piece of pie wasn’t much, but it was something and gave her the hope that more would follow.
Seth returned to the booth with the waitress, who wore a name tag that read Annie. She smiled at Tamara and shoved a strand of her crimson hair behind one ear. “Sure, I remember her,” she said. “She was in for dinner Monday night and I waited on her.”
“Was she alone?” Seth asked.
“Ate alone, left alone,” the waitress replied.
“Did I mention where I was going, what I was doing here in town?” Tamara asked.
“I’ve got to be honest with you, hon. I don’t remember making any small talk with you. You ordered. I brought your food and that was it. Sorry I can’t be more helpful, and now I’ve got to get back to my customers.” With an apologetic smile she hurried back to her side of the café.
Seth sank back down in the booth, his eyes bright with hope. “This is good. This is very good. Maybe this is a sign that your memories are starting to break loose. Now we know you were here and ate dinner on Monday night and you were found at the dunes on Tuesday. This is the beginning of solving the puzzle, Tamara.” He reached across the table and took hold of her hand.
She clung tightly as she held eye contact with him. She had a feeling that if this was just the beginning, then she knew she’d probably have to go to hell and back as the rest of her memories returned.