“You’ll be fine,” he repeated, whipping off his sport coat to spread over her. “Just hang in there.”
“I didn’t fall,” she whispered, shaking uncontrollably.
“What?”
Her gaze locked onto his. Fear deepened in her gray eyes. “I didn’t fall,” she said. “I was pushed.”
VALERIE SAT ON THE BED in the emergency room at Mercy General Hospital and tried to corral her racing thoughts.
No way could he have been the same man.
No way could he have remained unchanged after thirty-one years.
And yet she’d seen him with her own eyes!
Her heart had almost stopped when she’d looked up into those black eyes. Eyes just as cold and dark as the ones she remembered.
“Devil eyes,” she’d always called them.
She shivered, just thinking about him. “I have to get out of here.”
“What’s your hurry?” Dr. Allen asked her. He was a young, good-looking resident who wore faded jeans and scuffed Nikes and made Valerie feel about a hundred and two. “You just got here.”
“I don’t like hospitals,” she muttered.
He looked down at her with a wounded look. “I’m hurt. Truly hurt by that remark.”
“Nothing personal.” She’d been trying to ignore his flirting ever since she’d been brought in, but it wasn’t easy. Dr. Allen was nothing if not charming.
“So what’s the verdict?” she asked wearily.
“A few cuts and bruises. You’re going to be pretty sore for a few days. I’m still waiting to have a look at your X rays, but I don’t expect to find any broken bones. You’re one lucky young lady, from everything I’ve heard.”
Valerie supposed it wasn’t every day one got pushed in front of a city bus and survived. If she closed her eyes, she could still feel herself pitching forward into the street, could still feel that moment of terror when she’d looked up to see the bus racing toward her like some huge steel monster. She could actually feel the heat from its engine, like the hot breath of death.
She put a quivering hand to her forehead. She had to get out of here. Find out what was going on.
Find out who wanted to kill her.
“Look, I’m perfectly fine,” she insisted. “Good as new. And I really do have to be going. There’s a press conference I have to get to.” She tried to hop down from the bed, but every bone in her body screamed in protest. She groaned and offered only a token struggle when the doctor eased her back down. “I can’t stay here,” she whispered, as a wave of dizziness swept over her.
Dr. Allen said sternly, “I’m afraid the press conference will just have to wait. At least until I get those X rays.”
“How long?”
“We’re a little short-staffed this afternoon. Could take a while.”
Valerie suppressed another groan. The antiseptic smell of the hospital made her nauseous, and for a moment, she thought she might actually pass out. Not just from the scent, but from the memories. She hadn’t been in a hospital since those long, lonely nights six weeks ago, when she’d kept vigil over her mother, waiting for her to die.
Dr. Allen patted her hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll get you sprung as soon as I can. In the meantime, try to enjoy our hospitality. I’ve given you a mild painkiller to make you a little more comfortable. Relax and let the medication take effect. Doctor’s orders. You look as if you could use a little downtime.”
Downtime? Valerie wasn’t even sure she remembered what that was. She’d been operating on nervous energy and caffeine for so long, she was afraid to stop, afraid that if she did, she might never get going again.
But in spite of her determination to get out of there as quickly as possible, the medication made her feel a bit woozy, and she knew there was no way she could get herself home, let alone to Austin Colter’s press conference.
Maybe I should call Julian, she thought, but even that task seemed too great.
Besides, she didn’t feel like dealing with her boss at the moment. He would be more interested in getting a good story than in her welfare, and Valerie wasn’t up to any questions. She first wanted to sort out what had happened for herself, but she couldn’t seem to stay focused. Her mind began to drift as the drug took effect, and suddenly she was back in the little house in a Chicago suburb where she’d grown up, going through her mother’s personal belongings the day after the funeral.
Valerie had wanted to get the painful job over with as quickly as possible. But that afternoon, she’d found more than just possessions in her mother’s house. More than just memories. She’d found a truth so devastating, her life had been changed forever.
For over thirty years, Valerie had believed her father guilty of the heinous crime for which he had been convicted. Why else had she and her mother been called such vile and vicious names after her father’s arrest? Why else had their home been targeted for terrorism? And more important, why else had she and her mother fled town in the middle of the night? Why had her mother changed their names, hidden their true identities, if not to escape the stigma of being the wife and daughter of a child-killer?
For over thirty years, Valerie had tried to hide from her past; from the shame and self-doubt that were almost consuming at times. She was the daughter of an infamous kidnapper who had taken the life of a child. What did that make her? Cletus Brown’s blood ran in her veins. Was she like him in any way? Was she, herself, capable of violence?
For over thirty years, Valerie had never allowed herself to become close to anyone. She’d never had any friends to speak of, had never gotten involved in a serious relationship. She’d told herself it was because she was too busy building a career, but deep down, she’d always known it was because she was afraid that the terrible names people had called her in the past—the awful things they’d screamed at her when her father had been arrested—were true. That she was tainted, the offspring of a monster.
Only in her dreams had her father remained an innocent man. Only in her dreams was the real villain the man with the cold, black eyes. A man Valerie had never been able to forget.
For over thirty years, Sergeant Colter had haunted her sleep.
But it wasn’t until after her mother’s death, when Valerie had found her mother’s diary hidden away among a cache of newspaper clippings and books about the Kingsley kidnapping, along with mementos from their former life, that Valerie had finally understood why she’d never been able to forget Sergeant Colter.
Her instincts about him had been right. He was an evil man who had set her father up. He’d made her father take the fall for a crime he hadn’t committed. Cletus Brown was an innocent man.
Valerie’s mother had gone to her grave still believing in him. They hadn’t left Memphis because Grace Brown thought her husband guilty, but because she was afraid for her daughter’s safety. There were men in Memphis, powerful men, who were willing to kill to keep Cletus Brown behind bars. To keep the truth from coming out.
And so Violet and Grace Brown had disappeared, and Cletus had gone silently to prison where he had remained for the past thirty-one years.
As Valerie had read her mother’s diary that afternoon, it had become crystal clear to her what she must do. She would prove to the world that her father was innocent. She would free him from prison, and in so doing, free herself from the awful burden of guilt she had carried with her for almost her entire life.
The very next day, Valerie had quit her job at the Chicago Sun-Times, sent her résumé to the Memphis Journal, packed up a few of her belongings, along with her mother’s diary and the box of mementos, and