Page 16 of Diagnosis Attraction (Soulmated #4)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The jackpot question, Matt thought.

“We went to rescue the women. Lang caught us there. He tied Elizabeth up and started torturing her. He had the guy named Southwell take me away to the basement.”

“And how did you get away?”

“I was able to escape when the shooting started upstairs,” Matt said. “Elizabeth was tied up when one of Lang’s guards came in and shot him.”

“Why?” Harrison asked.

“No idea,” Matt answered.

We were there at the wrong time, Matt silently added. We must have entered a dispute between Lang and one of his men. We were lucky to escape with our lives.

“I guess you were lucky to get out of there alive,” Harrison said, and Matt breathed out a little sigh. The guy was buying it.

“The guard named Tony shot Lang. Southwell shot Tony.”

“And how did you get away?”

“I untied Elizabeth, and we fled.”

“How did the fire start?”

Matt shook his head. “No idea.”

We were lucky to get out alive, Matt repeated. You don’t want to punish us for rescuing a bunch of women who were in a terrible situation through no fault of their own.

Harrison looked at Elizabeth. “You had amnesia. How did you get your memory back?”

“Bits and pieces started coming back to me.” She cleared her throat. “Dr. Delano helped me by using hypnosis. Finally, I remembered enough to know about Lang.”

“And why didn’t you come to the police?”

“I’d seen Lang at a reception talking to a police official.”

Harrison’s eyes narrowed. “Which one?”

“I don’t know his name. I only saw him in uniform and realized he and Lang were tight.”

Harrison snorted. “Convenient.”

You know we’re good citizens. You want to help us, and Lang’s death closes the case, Matt suggested.

“I think Lang’s death closes the case,” the detective said. “But I’d like an official statement from both of you about your involvement.”

“At the station house?” Matt asked.

“Yes.”

If we could just disappear, I’d go that route, Matt said to Elizabeth. But it’s kind of inconvenient not being able to get to our money.

And having a criminal investigation hanging over us.

Still, he wished to hell he could read the man’s mind. This could be a trap, or it could be the key to getting them out of trouble, but they’d still have to dance around the part about the women.

They followed Harrison to the station, agreeing on what they would say as they drove.

There was a bad moment when they went inside, and Harrison took them to separate rooms.

Matt saw the look of panic on Elizabeth’s face.

Just tell him what we agreed on. And if we have any questions, we can confer.

Harrison asked them each to write an account of what had happened since Elizabeth had crashed her car into a lamppost. He wrote about treating her, having Polly take her home, and Lang’s thugs coming after her.

He silently checked in with her several times, seeing that she was writing a similar account without using the exact words.

The part about the women was the hardest, but Elizabeth pleaded client confidentiality, and Matt said she had given him only minimal information about them.

Harrison came in to read Matt’s account and asked a few questions.

“So we’re cleared of any involvement in Mrs. Kramer’s murder?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He let out the breath he’d been holding. “Thank you for taking care of this.”

“I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being manipulated,” Harrison said.

Matt kept his features even. “We’ve just told you what happened to us.”

“Uh-huh. Are the two of you planning to stay in the Baltimore area?”

Matt hesitated. He had been thinking about what they had to do next, but he didn’t want to share that with the detective.

“I think we’re going to try to decompress,” he said. “But we haven’t made any firm plans.”

“And while you were with Elizabeth, the two of you hooked up?”

“Yeah,” Matt clipped out. And I don’t want to discuss it.

To his relief, they were out of the police station a couple of hours after they’d entered.

Harold Goddard had checked his clipping service and online sources four times a day, looking for any item that might pertain to Matthew Delano and the woman named Jane Doe. He knew the doctor and his patient had disappeared after the nurse who’d taken in “Jane” had been murdered.

He also scanned through the online Baltimore Sun—where an interesting item caught his eye because it involved Dr. Delano. A crime boss named Derek Lang had been shot to death in a bordello he owned outside the city. One of his men had turned on him for unknown reasons. And another one had taken out the killer. Interestingly, he’d been using the same gun that had killed Polly Kramer, the nurse who had taken in Jane Doe. And there was another piece of information at the end of the story. The woman known as Jane Doe was named Elizabeth Forester.

Harold went to his Solomon Clinic database and looked up the Forester woman. He wasn’t surprised to find out she was on the same list as Matthew Delano—the list of babies born because of fertility treatments by Dr. Solomon.

As he read that information, the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. He’d been putting together men and women from the clinic, and there were two of them who had found each other all by themselves.

What were the odds of that? What were the implications? What were they going to do next?

He started digging for more information and found out where each lived, although he was sure he wouldn’t find them in separate dwellings.

They’d be together.

From the article, it wasn’t clear exactly how they’d been involved with the crime boss, but it seemed they’d escaped a dangerous situation.

What was their next move?

He didn’t know these people, but he had a good guess about what they were going to do. Swift and Branson, the last couple who had found each other, had gone to Houma to investigate their backgrounds. He’d bet his government pension that Delano and Forester would do the same. Did he have to kill them? Or could he head them off?

Perhaps his first move was to send someone to search her house and his apartment.

“I guess we can get back to normal life,” Elizabeth murmured as they headed for the car.

“What’s normal?”

“If you put it that way, I don’t know. But we should start by telling Donna Martinson that she and the women are in the clear.

“Right.”

They made the call, both happy to relieve the director’s mind.

“What now?” Matt asked.

“I want to go back to my house and get some clothes. And now that I’ve got my memories back, I thought of something else. My baby book. Maybe we’ll find some clues in it.”

“I guess it’s all right to go there.”

“You’re not sure.”

“Old habits die hard.”

They drove to her neighborhood and parked out front, then walked to the back.

“I know you wanted to look at some of the papers in the office, but I think we should skip that for now,” Matt said as they approached the door.

She answered with a little nod. “But I should get a spare key, so that we can lock up when we leave.”

She went to the office, opened the middle desk drawer and took out the key she kept on one side.

“At least they left it. You know, I’m going to have to do stuff like get a new driver’s license.”

“Yeah. Maybe they’ve got you in the computer, and you just have to call up, explain what happened and ask for a new one.”

She grimaced. “First I’d have to prove who I am.”

“You have a point.”

She looked at the name tags she’d saved from conferences. “They probably won’t accept those. But that gives me an idea. If I stop by work, they’ll know me at the office.”

“And as your doctor, I can verify that you were the woman I treated for amnesia at Memorial Hospital.”

“I hope all that’s going to work.”

“Let’s get your clothes and get out of here.”

“With the baby book.”

They climbed the stairs, and Elizabeth retrieved a suitcase from her bedroom closet. She opened drawers, pulling out tee shirts and jeans. Then she took some clothing from the hangers in the closet, glad to have some of her own things.

“The baby book is in a box at the top of the closet—on the left,” she told Matt. He reached up to the shelf and brought down the book. It had a padded exterior covered with faded pink silk. In silver letters, it said, “My Little Girl.”

He handed it to Elizabeth, and she held it carefully.

“I guess my mom was excited about having a baby.”

Opening the cover, she flipped through the pages. In front was her birth announcement and then congratulatory cards.

She could sense Matt’s restlessness as she went through the contents.

“Bring it along. We’ll look at it later. I want to get out of here while the getting’s good.”

The words were just out of his mouth when they heard a door open and footsteps on the first floor.

They both froze, and she gave him a panicked look.

Did you lock the door behind us? Matt asked.

Yes. Do you think it could be one of Lang’s men down there?

I’m betting they got out of town—the ones who could still travel.

So who is that?

I’d like to know. But we’ve got one thing going for us. He’s taking his time. He must not know we’re here.

They listened as whoever it was pawed through kitchen drawersandthen ambled down the hall to the office. After rummaging around there for a while, he headed for the stairs.

It sounds like only one intruder.

Unless he’s got a lookout down there. Get behind the door.

Elizabeth flattened herself against the wall, waiting tensely as she read what Matt had in mind.

The man apparently didn’t know his way around the house. When he reached the second floor, he walked into the guest room, stayed for a few minutes, then headed for Elizabeth’s bedroom.

As he walked through the door, Matt hit him with a power bolt. He staggered back, but he stayed on his feet and pulled out a gun.