A WOMAN WITH A MYSTERY.

by B.J. DANIELS.

Prologue.

Halloween.

The pain. It dragged her up from the feverish blackness, doubling her over in a scream of anguish. Her eyelids fluttered, a flickering screen of light and dark. Three shadows moved at the end of the bed, silhouetted against a shaft of blinding light. They wavered in a whisper of dark clothing and low voices, hovering at her feet, waiting.

"Help me," she tried to say, but her mouth was cotton, her words lost in their whispers.

The shadows moved, blocking the blinding light. She blinked, focused. A scream tore from her throat as she saw them, really saw them. Her eyes locked open, her heart clamoring in her chest at the sight of their grotesque faces as they huddled around her. The three made no move to stop her from screaming and she knew from some place deep inside her that she couldn't be heard outside this room or they would have.

She tried to get up. Another pain shot through her. She pushed herself up on her elbows, suddenly light-headed and sick to her stomach. She could feel the agony again, coming like a speeding train toward her. She had to get away before it was too late.

One of them stepped from the bright light, face hidden behind a hideous mask, voice m.u.f.fled. "It will be over soon."

Her eyes widened, blood thundered in her ears. She knew that voice! Oh, my G.o.d!

Hands held her down as the pain accelerated, the macabre shadows a frenzied flicker of movement and whispers, the horrible whispers, suddenly rising in alarm.

She tried to see what was wrong, but her view was blocked, the hands strong holding her down. She squeezed her eyes shut against the horrifying images, against the paralyzing fear and the unimaginable pain. Gasping for each breath, she fought not to scream, fought not to lose her mind. But she knew it was already too late. The moment she'd seen their masked faces, she'd known. The moment she'd heard the familiar voice. The monsters had come to take her baby.

Chapter One.

Christmas Eve.

Aware only of the letter in his pocket, Slade Rawlins didn't feel the thick wet snowflakes spiraling down from the growing darkness or take notice of the straggling shoppers scurrying to their cars.

He strode down the street toward his office, oblivious to everything but the weight of the letter pressed against his heart, heavy as a stone.

"Ho! Ho! Ho!" A department-store Santa suddenly stepped from a doorway onto the sidewalk in front of him, a blur of red in the densely falling snow. "Merry Christmas!"

Startled, Slade jerked back in alarm as the Santa, his suit flocked with snow, thrust a collection pot at him with one hand and clanged his bell with the other.

Hurriedly digging in his pants pocket, Slade withdrew a handful of coins and dropped them into the pot, then sidestepped the man to get to his office door.

The stairs to the second floor were dimly lit, one of the bulbs out. But that was the least of his troubles. He took the steps two at a time, the sound of Christmas music, traffic and the incessant jangle of the Santa bell-ringer following him like one of Ebenezer Scrooge's ghosts.

"Bah humbug!" he muttered under his breath as he opened the door to Rawlins Investigations and, without turning on the light, went straight to the small fridge by the window. He pulled out a long-neck bottle of beer, unscrewed the cap and took a drink as he looked down on the small town from his little hole of darkness.

Outside, snowflakes floated down from a pewter sky, the cold frosting the edges of his window. Inside, the office was hotter than usual, the ancient radiator churning out musty-scented heat.

He could afford an office in the new complex at the edge of town. But he couldn't imagine himself there any more than he could imagine leaving this town. He felt rooted here, as if some powerful force held him.

And he knew exactly what that force was.

He shook off a chill in the hot room as the phone rang. He'd been expecting the call. "Rawlins."

"I heard you were down here a few minutes ago giving my people a hard time," snapped Police Chief L. T. Curtis.

Slade relaxed at the familiar rumble of the cop's voice. He'd heard it all his life. It had been as much a part of his childhood as the smell of his mother's bread baking. The thought gave him a twinge. Had nothing really been as it seemed?

"Did anyone tell you it's Christmas Eve?" Curtis asked sarcastically. "Why aren't you home decorating a d.a.m.n tree or something?" Slade's father and Curtis had both been cops and best friends.

"I found new evidence in mom's case," Slade said, cutting to the chase. It was all he'd been able to think about since he'd discovered the letter. "I think I know who really killed her."

Curtis groaned. "Slade, how many times have we been down this road? I don't for the life of me understand why you keep pursuing this. The case is closed. It has been for twenty d.a.m.ned years. Her killer confessed."

"Roy Vogel didn't kill her," Slade said, rushing on before the chief could interrupt him. "I found a letter my mother wrote my aunt Ethel before she died."

"Aunt Ethel? The one who pa.s.sed away in Townsend a couple weeks ago?" Curtis said. "I was sorry to hear about it."

Aunt Ethel had been a cantankerous spinster a good ten years older than Slade's mother. Because of some family disagreement years before the marriage, Ethel had never liked Slade's father, so had hardly ever come around.

"Yeah, well, she left everything to me, which amounted to several boxes of old letters," Slade said as he leaned against the radiator, needing the warmth right now. "Did you know my mother was seeing another man?" Even as he said the words, he had trouble believing them.

"Where the h.e.l.l did you get an idea like that?"

"She as much as admits it in the letter."

"Bull," Curtis said. "Not your mother. She worshiped the ground your father walked on and you know it."

"I thought I did. But it seems my mother had a secret life none of us knew about."

"In a town like Dry Creek, Montana? Not a chance."

While relieved that Curtis was having trouble believing it too, Slade couldn't disregard what he'd found.

His mother's murder was one of the reasons he'd become a private investigator. He'd been the one who'd found her. Twelve years old, Slade had come home early from school and had to call his father at the police station to tell him. That day, he'd promised himself-and her-that he'd find her killer-no matter what his father said. Joe Rawlins had been afraid that Marcella's killer might come after his kids next and had told Slade to let him handle it.

Later that evening, the troubled young man who lived down the street was found hung in his garage. Roy Vogel had left a suicide note confessing to Marcella Rawlins's murder. All these years, Slade had never believed it. He'd always been suspicious of anything that wrapped up that neatly. But there had been no other leads. Until now.

"I just have a feeling about this," Slade said.

"Well, I'm telling you, you're all wrong, feeling or no feeling," Curtis said. "I wish to h.e.l.l you'd just get on with your life and let your mother rest in peace."

"That's not going to happen until her murderer is brought to justice."

Curtis swore. "d.a.m.n, but you're a pain in the-"

"But you'll take a look at the letter tonight at Sh.e.l.ley's?" They'd all spent every Christmas Eve together as far back as Slade could remember. L. T. and Norma Curtis had been his parents' best friends and had finished raising Slade and his sister Sh.e.l.ley. But they'd been like family long before that.

"You haven't told Sh.e.l.ley?" Curtis asked.

"Nor do I intend to unless I have to."

"It will never come to that," the chief said. "Because you're dead wrong."

Slade hoped Curtis was right about that. But then there was the letter. The chief would know who had been friends with Marcella Rawlins twenty years ago. And if he didn't, his wife Norma would.

"Go Christmas shopping. Buy some eggnog. Give this a rest until after the holidays," Curtis advised, surely knowing his words were falling on deaf ears.

Once Slade got something in his head, nothing could stop him. "I'll see you tonight at Sh.e.l.ley's. I want you to see the letter. This can't wait until after the holidays."

"Merry d.a.m.n Christmas then." Curtis hung up.

Slade replaced the receiver and turned again to the window. The snow fell in a silent white cloak, obliterating the buildings across the street. But he knew this town and everyone in it by heart.

Did that mean he'd known the man his mother had been seeing? Still knew him? He's still here, Slade thought. And he thinks he got away with murder. He doesn't know I'm coming for him. Yet.

He thought of what the chief had once told him about people trapped in their own lives, in their own illusions of reality, unable to get out, and wondered if he wasn't one of them. Well, then so was his mother's killer, he thought, as he raised his bottle, the snow falling so hard now he could barely see the Santa below his window, although he could still hear the bell.

It had been snowing the day he'd found his mother's body. He hadn't seen her at first-just the Christmas tree. It had fallen over on the floor. As he'd moved toward it, he was thinking the cat must have pulled it over. Then he saw her. Marcella Rawlins lay under a portion of the tree, a bright red scarf knotted tightly around her neck, one of the Christmas ornaments clutched in her hand. On the radio, Christmas music played and, as tonight, somewhere off in the distance, a seasonal Santa jangled his bell.

Behind him, the soft scuff of a heel on the hardwood floor jerked him from his thoughts. He remembered belatedly that he'd failed to shut and lock his office door. d.a.m.n.

"We're closed!" he called out, not bothering to turn around. He took another drink and watched the snow fall, waiting for the footsteps to retreat.

When they didn't, he turned, a curse on his lips.

She stood silhouetted against the dim light from the stairs, her body as sleek and curved as the long-neck in his hand and just as pleasing as the cold beer. She didn't move. Nor did she speak. And that was just fine with him.

He ran his hand down the neck of the sweating bottle, enjoying the slick wet feel of it as much as he liked looking at her. Something about her reminded him of another woman he'd known and with the lights off he could almost pretend- The bell suddenly stopped, the snow silencing everything down on the street. Slade could hear the quickened beat of his heart, the radiator thumping out heat and the faint sound of Christmas music drifting from the apartment next door.

"Mr. Rawlins?" Her voice was as seductive as her silhouette and almost...familiar.

He frowned and tipped the bottle toward her in answer, telling himself he was letting his imagination run away with him.

"Do you mind if I turn on a light?" she asked.

He did. He was tired and all the holiday cheer and the letter had left him on edge. Why couldn't she just stand there? Or leave? He'd bet his pickup she wouldn't look half as good in the light. And once he'd seen her, he wouldn't be able to pretend anymore.

She flicked the light switch.

He blinked, too shocked to speak. He'd been wrong about the light. She looked even better than she had in silhouette. Dangerous curves ran the length of her, from the full, rounded b.r.e.a.s.t.s straining against the thin silk of her blouse beneath the open wool coat to the long, shapely legs that peeked between her skirt and her s...o...b..ots, all the way back up to her face. And, oh, what a face it was. Framed in a wild mane of curly dark hair. Lips lush. Baby-blues dark-lashed and wide.

It was a face and body he'd spent months trying to forget.

He swore under his breath, more in shock than anger, although he'd spent most of the last year looking for her, worrying that she was dead-and blaming himself for letting it happen.

"I need your help," she said, a slight catch in her voice. "I know it's Christmas Eve..."

He shook his head in disbelief. A thousand questions leapt into his mind, all having to do with where she'd been, what she was doing here now and why she'd left him. Oh yes, especially why she'd left him, he thought bitterly.

"What the h.e.l.l do you think you-" He took a tentative step toward her, then stopped as he saw her expression. Blank as a wall. No recognition. She didn't know him!

He let out a colorful curse.

"I really shouldn't have bothered you." She turned to leave.

He knew if he had any sense at all, he'd just let her go. If only he'd done that the first time.

"Just a minute." He reached for her, afraid the moment he touched her, she would disappear again. Another one of Scrooge's ghosts.

His hand brushed hers. She turned back to him, her blue eyes glistening with tears. She didn't evaporate into thin air. Didn't disappear like a mirage before him. And after touching her, he knew she was most definitely flesh and blood. But not the woman he'd known.

This woman was a walking sh.e.l.l of that woman, and he couldn't help but wonder what had happened since to make her that way.

"I'm sorry, you just caught me by surprise," he said, looking into all that blue again. Just as he had a year ago, when she'd come running out of the snowstorm and into the street. He'd tried to stop his pickup in time, but the snow and ice- He'd jumped from his truck and run to her. She'd lain sprawled in the snow just inches from his b.u.mper. When she'd opened her eyes in the headlights, they were that incredible blue-and blank. Not as blank as they were now. There'd been something in her expression...something that had hooked him from the moment his gaze had met hers.

"Here," he said, offering her a chair as he closed his office door, afraid she'd change her mind and leave. "What can I do for you?"

She seemed to hesitate, but accepted the chair he offered her, sitting on the edge of the seat, her handbag in her lap, her fingers clutching it nervously.

He leaned against the edge of his desk and stared down at her. Easy on the eyes, but hard on the heart, he thought. He knew better than to get involved with her again. But curse his curiosity, he had to know.

Last year when she'd come to in the street, he'd picked her up and put her in the cab of his pickup, planning to take her to the hospital. But she'd pleaded with him to just take her somewhere safe. She had no memory. No name. No past. But she'd been convinced someone was trying to kill her and had pleaded with him not to involve the police.

"I need your help," she said now.

"My help?" he asked, still looking for some recognition in her gaze. But it appeared she didn't know him from Adam! Either he wasn't that memorable or the woman had a tendency to forget a lot of things. "Why me?" help?" he asked, still looking for some recognition in her gaze. But it appeared she didn't know him from Adam! Either he wasn't that memorable or the woman had a tendency to forget a lot of things. "Why me?"

She shook her head and clutched her purse tighter. "I'm afraid this was a mistake." She started to get up.

He was on his feet, moving toward her. "No," he said a little more strongly than he'd meant to. "At least give me a chance."

She lowered herself back into the chair, but seemed apprehensive of him. Certainly not as trusting as last time, he thought with no small amount of resentment.

He'd taken her in and tried to unravel her past, believing she must be suffering from some sort of trauma.

But two months later, he was the one who'd gotten taken in. Just when he thought he might be making some progress into her past, she'd disappeared without a trace, along with a couple hundred dollars of his money and a half dozen of his case files. He'd spent months looking for her, fearing someone had had killed her. Wanting to wring her neck himself. killed her. Wanting to wring her neck himself.

And now she was back. Alive. And in trouble. Again.

"I'm afraid you're going to think I've lost my mind," she said, her voice as soft as her skin, something he wasn't apt ever to forget. She shivered as if her words were too close to the truth.