“You’re on TV every day. Nobody recognized you? You didn’t make eye contact with anyone besides Jay?”

She closed her eyes as though resetting the scene in her mind and trying to squeeze out a memory. “I think maybe…maybe…” She opened her eyes but made a small sound of frustration. “Possibly I made eye contact with a man at the bar, but I don’t know if I’m remembering or imagining.”

“Maybe when you’re not trying so hard it will come back to you.” He studied her for several moments, then said softly, “Unless this loss of memory thing is all a hoax and you remember everything.”

If her feet hadn’t been secured, he thought she would have launched herself out of the chair and straight at him. Her face was flushed with so much anger, he thought she might try to attack him in spite of being hobbled. “Why would I fabricate a memory loss, Mr. Gannon?”

“Well, one good reason would be that you woke up next to a dead guy, and you’re covering your ass.”

“Nothing I did caused Jay to die.”

“Let’s say the sex got rowdy or kinky.”

“Let’s not.”

“Before you knew it, your lover wasn’t moving. Or you had a lovers’ tiff that turned ugly.”

“We weren’t-”

“Maybe Jay went into cardiac arrest, which freaked you out, and you were useless to try and help him. Anything’s possible. You were both drunk on scotch-that was in the newspaper, too-maybe scotch isn’t your drink. It makes you wild, irrational, violent. You-”

“None of that happened!”

“How do you know if you can’t remember?”

“I would remember if I’d killed a man accidentally or otherwise.”

“Are you sure?”

The taunt only maddened her more. “I’ve had it with this. And with you. Get this tape off me!” she yelled.

“You can scream all you want, nobody is going to hear you, and you’ll only make that golden throat of yours hoarse. You wouldn’t want that to happen.”

Blue eyes blazed at him. “I’m going to see you in prison for this. I can’t wait to cover your trial. I’ll be there with a microphone and camera the day they lock you up.”

“Do you know how Jay died?”

“No!”

“Did you kill him?”

“No!”

“Did you fuck him?”

CHAPTER 6

THE VULGARITY SHOCKED THE ANGER OUT OF HER.

“What?”

“Want me to spell it?”

She looked away, then down at the floor. “I need to use the bathroom.”

The crudity had been intentional, and it had served its purpose. Anger sometimes escalated into stubbornness. If she went tight-lipped on him out of sheer obstinance, then he’d gain nothing.

Now that she was subdued, he could be more lenient. A little more. He knelt down in front of her and used his pocketknife to slice through the duct tape around her ankles, then peeled it off.

“Thank you.” She tried to stand but dropped back into the chair. “My feet have gone to sleep.”

He cupped her elbow and steadied her as she stood up and took a tentative step. “Ouch.”

“Wiggle your toes.”

It was a long minute before she was able to put her full weight on her feet. He kept his hand around her elbow as they shuffled toward the bedroom, where the bathroom was.

“Have you lived here since you left Charleston?”

“Yes.”

“Alone?”

“A raccoon hung around for a few months.”

“You didn’t get married?”

“No.”

They were in the bedroom now. He reached through the open bathroom door to switch on the light. This afternoon before he left, he’d gone over the fixtures with a disinfectant solution. He’d hung a clean towel on the bar. A new roll of toilet paper was on the spool. He’d put an unused bar of soap in a dish he pilfered from the kitchen.

All the while he was cleaning, he’d asked himself why he was bothering. It wasn’t like she was going to be a guest. But now he was glad he’d gone to the effort. It made the room, and by extension him, more presentable.

“Weren’t you engaged?” she asked.

“Yes.” He stood aside and motioned her into the bathroom. He could read the question in her eyes, but he wasn’t going to discuss his broken engagement. Not yet. “Hurry up. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

“You haven’t freed my hands.”

“You’ll manage.”

“I can’t go with my hands bound behind my back.”

“I bet you can if you have to go bad enough.”

Once she’d cleared the bathroom door, she kicked it shut. He turned the knob and pushed it open. “The door stays open.”

“That isn’t necessary.”

“It is if you want to use the bathroom.”

“You’re punishing me, aren’t you? For…for before. You’re humiliating me out of spite, when all I did was my job.”

“If you’re not going to pee, back in the chair you go.”

She thought it over, then said, “Can you at least close the door halfway?”

He conceded her that much. While she was attending to her business, he moved restlessly around the bedroom. He went over to the window and looked out on a night that was black and still. He fiddled with the sash on the window shade, then batted at it angrily and moved to the bed and sat down.

Damn right he was holding a grudge against her. Giving her a taste of humiliation. Doesn’t taste good, does it, Miss Shelley? If she felt helpless and out of control, good. Because that was how he’d felt five years ago, when she’d entertained her television audience with his personal crisis. Smugly she’d broadcast his degradation with the enticement of a carnival barker.

Thinking of it now made his hands close into fists. He wouldn’t hit her, but he might hit the wall, pound at it in outrage over the injustice of what had happened to him and how Britt Shelley had contributed.

With him in this fractious frame of mind, it wasn’t very smart of her to mention Hallie. Weren’t you engaged? Not smart of her at all to reopen that wound.

He was sitting on the edge of his bed when she used her foot to open the bathroom door. “You-” The word died on her lips. His expression must have conveyed to her the bitterness roiling inside him. He certainly didn’t try to conceal it.

She wavered there on the threshold between the two rooms, looking ready to duck back into the bathroom for safety. Enjoying her apprehension, he stood up slowly. “Turn around.”

“What for?”

“Turn around,” he repeated with emphasis.

Her face filled with distress. “Mr. Gannon, please. I know you probably think that I…that the news coverage I gave the…the fix you got yourself into was perhaps…”

“Exploitative?”

“I was young and green and terribly ambitious. I was trying to build an audience.”

“At my expense.” He began walking toward her and she started backing up.

“It was a long time ago.”

“My memory of it is fresh.”

“You don’t want to do anything now that would get you into even more trouble.” She cried out when he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around. “Oh, God,” she whimpered. “Please don’t hurt me.”

Putting his mouth directly above her ear, he whispered, “Relax, Ms. Shelley. I only wanted to check your hands, make sure you weren’t bringing something out with you.” He released her abruptly.

She turned, took several deep breaths, swallowed. He watched as her fear evolved into anger. “You deliberately frightened me into thinking-”

“What? That I’m actually the brute you painted me to be?”

“What did you think I might sneak out? A razor?”

He didn’t respond. He hadn’t brought her here to bicker. “We’re wasting time. Go sit down.”

“How long must we keep this up?”

“Until I’ve got from you everything I need.”

“Everything you need for what? What is this leading to? The kidnapping, the Gestapo-type interrogation. What do you plan to do?”

“I plan to make you sit down.” He hitched his chin toward the living area. “If you don’t sit down willingly, I plan to tie you to the chair.”