“You want me to wait?” Fox asked.
Luke shook his head. “No, I’ll assume custody of her now.”
Stella gave him a helpless, frightened look from the back, but he ignored it. Although when he climbed out, he shucked off his jacket and wrapped it around her arms to shield her from probing eyes as he coaxed her into the hospital. She halted in the entrance, her body trembling. He smoothed a damp strand of hair from her cheek in comfort, but she pulled away from him, as if he were the enemy.
“What’s going to happen to me?” she asked in a low, shaky voice.
“They’re going to examine you, take trace evidence. Make sure you’re healthy enough to…”
“To be arrested?”
His gaze met hers. “This exam is as much for your safety and protection as it is for us, Stella. They might discover evidence that someone else was at the crime scene, too.”
Or that she’d been assaulted and had defended herself. He latched onto the thought. As awful as that idea was, the other possibilities were more daunting.
She bit down on her lip, her tangled hair falling over her forehead and across her cheek. He was tempted to reach out and push it back again, but jammed his hand inside his pocket instead. He couldn’t allow himself to touch her. The other officers would see what a complete and utter fool he’d been. Think he’d lost his edge and couldn’t function on the case.
And he had to work this case.
Losing J.T. had made him look incompetent. And then falling under Stella’s seduction…
Besides, touching her was too personal. It meant reviving memories he couldn’t deal with right now. Rubbing salt into wounds that were so fresh he felt as if they’d just been sliced open. Tearing into layers of his heart that had been ripped away one time too many already.
Yes, he had to work this case. Prove he could handle it.
Because he had to know the identity of the dead man in Stella’s bed, and his relationship to her.
And if she had killed him.
AS THE DOCTOR escorted Stella back to the examining area, Luke Devlin stationed himself at the door like an armed guard, proving to Stella that there was no love lost between them.
Weak and drained, she mentally prepared herself for a different type of interrogation. But the minute Luke Devlin had deemed himself her police guardian and ordered these tests, she realized nothing could have prepared her for the humiliating ordeal of being treated as a suspect in a murder investigation.
The doctor, a middle-aged man named Morton, had icy hands that scraped, combed and touched virtually every inch of her. She felt violated in ways she hadn’t known existed.
On the heels of those vile feelings, an uneasy realization swept through her—the familiarity of being treated like a subject instead of a person. That sudden premonition was as unsettling as the remainder of the exam, which she barely endured without screaming.
As soon as the physical torture ended, an Asian psychiatrist, Dr. Wong, put her through a battery of psychological tests and questions that proved to be even more exhausting.
By the time she finished, she wasn’t just worried about her memory loss but her sanity. And she still hadn’t been allowed to bathe. It was almost as if they were playing mind games, leaving the stench of blood and death on her, hoping to drive her to a confession.
“So you don’t remember anything before you woke up in that hotel room, Stella?”
Thank heavens the woman had finally accepted that she didn’t know how to respond to the title Mrs. Devlin. It simply was too foreign for Stella to believe that she’d been married and didn’t remember a wedding or her husband.
It shocked her even more to know that she’d married that cold, unnerving man who’d ridden up front in the police car with another officer while she’d suffered the inhumanity of being shoved in the back behind a cage like an animal. He hadn’t spoken to her on the ride to the hospital, and had simply presented her to the doctor who worked with the forensic scientists and crime scene unit, as if he had no personal or emotional involvement with her.
Then again, maybe they hadn’t had one. Maybe that’s the reason she’d left. She’d been running from him.
Had he come looking for her? Had he cared what happened to her? Or had he simply viewed her departure in his calculating, unemotional way and said good riddance?
“Stella?”
She jerked back to the present, exhaustion weighing her down. She was incredibly thirsty, too, her mouth so dry her lips were sticking together.
“No, I told you I don’t remember anything.” She rubbed a weary hand over her forehead, then noticed the blood again and cringed. “When can I get a bath?”
“We’re almost finished.”
“How about a drink of water?” In spite of the heat outside, her teeth chattered. “And a blanket?”
For the first time since she’d arrived, Dr. Wong’s expression softened. In response to her request, the doctor retrieved a pitcher of water from a sideboard, poured Stella a glass and handed it to her. She also grabbed a blanket from the closet and wrapped it around Stella’s shoulders. Stella drank the water greedily, already craving more as she tugged the blanket tighter around her.
When she finished the second glass of water, Dr. Wong narrowed her eyes. “Have you been ill recently?”
“I…don’t know. Why do you ask that?”
“Because you seem dehydrated. And you’re pale, have faint bruises beneath your eyes.”
A desperate sob rose in Stella’s throat. “I’m just so tired.”
“What’s your full name?”
“Stella Segall…that’s all I know.”
“Where do you live?”
Stella searched her memory banks for some clue, some memory, anything to stir from the depths of despair threatening to swallow her. Finally she shook her head. “I don’t remember.”
“Do you have family?”
She shrugged, any patience she’d had dissipating. “Not according to Agent Devlin. And if I remembered one, don’t you think I would have asked for them by now, called and begged them to get me out of this godawful mess?” She raked her jagged bloody nails across the table. “Why? Did Agent Devlin lie to me? Has someone come forward looking for me? Do I have a mother, a sister or a brother maybe?”
Dr. Wong averted her gaze slightly, and Stella read the gesture as an answer. Luke Devlin hadn’t lied.
He was the only person she had. And he had brought her here in handcuffs.
What a sad testament to her life. Why didn’t she have friends? Family? What had happened to bring her to this point?
You’re a murderer.
The voice whispered in the far recesses of her mind, taunting her.
Was she really such a horrible person?
Dr. Wong crossed her legs, her clipboard planted firmly on top of her black suit skirt. “Where have you been staying the past year?”
“I don’t know!” Frustration exploded in Stella’s voice. “Why do you keep asking me the same questions over and over? I told you I don’t remember anything but waking up in that room and seeing the b-blood.” She gulped, the images flashing again, sweat trickling down her neck and back.
“I’m hoping to spark your memory.”
Stella