Deadly Christmas Memories
Autore
Laura Scott
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Chapter One
Assistant district attorney Madison Callahan hesitated on the concrete steps of the Milwaukee County Courthouse, shivering in the cold breeze coming off Lake Michigan. Had she heard something? Or was she letting her imagination run wild?
Working late and leaving at nine o’clock at night wasn’t unusual, but for some undefined reason she hesitated. Giving herself a mental shake, she continued down the stairs, careful to avoid any icy patches.
When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she instinctively headed toward the reassuring streetlight, digging in her purse for her phone. Normally she walked the three-quarters of a mile to her condo, but since the hour was late, she decided to pull up the ride-sharing app on her phone.
She was moments from confirming her pickup location for her ride when strong arms yanked her backward, causing her to drop the phone. She sucked in a breath to scream, but the arms tightened crushingly around her. The sharp edge of a blade pressed painfully against her throat.
“Drop the case or you will all die, including the two old ladies in the house on the hill.”
Maddy froze, her mind grappling with what was happening. Two old ladies had to be referring to her mother and grandmother, but how did this guy know where her family lived?
She forced herself to speak. “Did Alexander Pietro send you?”
The blade pressed deeper, causing her to suck in a harsh breath from the sharp pain. Something warm trickled over her skin. Blood? Was this man going to slit her throat right here?
Headlights swept over the road, brightening as a vehicle approached, but before she could be relieved that help had arrived, the man holding her suddenly gave her a hard shove, causing her head to crack soundly against the solid steel of the light post.
Pain exploded in her temple and she felt herself falling, arms flailing as she sought to break her fall. Her last fleeting thought was that she needed to find a way to keep her mother and grandmother safe. If anything happened to them, she’d never be able to live with herself.
“Ma’am? Can you hear me?”
She moaned and blinked, the light overhead painfully bright. Her head was pounding so hard she thought she might throw up. “Yes,” she croaked. “I can hear you.”
“That’s good.” An older guy, with salt-and-pepper hair and thick black-rimmed glasses, filled her field of vision. He was blurry initially, but then became clear. “Can you tell me your name?”
“Huh?” Moving her head hurt too much, so she stared at the man. He was dressed in green scrubs, a stethoscope wrapped around his neck.
“Your name,” he repeated patiently. “There wasn’t any ID found at the scene.”
She opened her mouth, then shut it again. Of course she knew her name. Didn’t she? The pain in her head quadrupled and she winced, closing her eyes and swallowing hard, willing the contents of her stomach to stay put.
Panic gripped her throat, making it impossible to breathe. Why couldn’t she tell this man her name? What was wrong? Could it be that the pain was making her confused?
Forcing her eyelids open, she stared at the stranger looming over her. Concern darkened his gaze.
“We need to get a CT scan of her brain,” he said to someone nearby. “Make sure there isn’t any intracranial bleeding.”
If pain was a good way to judge potential bleeding, then she was all for the brain scan. But even as the hospital staff wheeled her over to the radiology department, she couldn’t ignore the strange sense of urgency that weighed heavily on her chest. She needed to get up and out of here; there was something very important for her to do.
But what? There was nothing but a dark void where her sense of self should have been.
Not just her name, but all of her memories were missing, lost in the swirling vortex of black pain.
Thankfully the scan didn’t take long. As she was being wheeled through the hallway back to the ER, at least what she assumed was an ER, a handsome man wearing a navy blue police uniform caught her gaze.
“Maddy? You’re the mugging victim? What happened?”
She stared at him for a moment, hoping she’d recognize him. For some weird reason, the dark navy blue MPD uniform was reassuring.
Wait, MPD? Milwaukee Police Department? How did she know what the initials stood for? Why not Minneapolis or some other city?
No clue.
“Maddy,” he said again, crossing over and reaching for the side rail of her gurney. “What happened? Are you all right?”
It took her a long second to realize this man seemed to know her. “Maddy?” she echoed with a frown. “Is that my name?”
The officer’s face paled with alarm and he kept pace with the orderlies who were currently pushing her through the hallway. “You don’t know your name? Do you recognize me?” he asked.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, feeling as if she was letting this guy down. She hoped he wasn’t her boyfriend or someone she’d once dated. He was attractive, with his short blond hair and deep brown eyes, and she could easily imagine herself dating a guy who looked like him. “My head hurts.”
“Officer, you can’t come into her room,” the orderly said.
“Just try and stop me,” the cop said, his features etched in a fierce scowl. “I’m here to take her statement.”
“I’m getting Dr. Wagner.” The orderly disappeared, leaving her alone with the officer.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Noah Sinclair,” he said, his gaze expectant as if the words would spark some sort of memory.
They didn’t.
“You’re with the Milwaukee Police Department, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Yes. Maddy, I need to understand what happened. Who did this to you?”
“I don’t know what happened.” Boy, was she sick and tired of saying that! “All I know is that I woke up here, in the hospital with a skull-splitting headache.”
“Listen, how about I call your brother? I’m sure once you see Matt, your memory will return.”
Brother? It seemed wrong that she couldn’t remember a brother. Although maybe she wasn’t close to her family. For some reason she couldn’t explain, she didn’t want this cop calling anyone on her behalf.
“No. Please, don’t.” Reaching up, she managed to grasp his wrist, the warmth of his skin oddly reassuring. “I—Just give me a few minutes, okay? I’m sure I’ll remember everything soon enough.”
Officer Sinclair’s deep brown eyes held indecision. She tightened her grip.
“Please. I need some time.”
He glanced down at her hand on his arm, then lifted his gaze back to hers. “Okay, I’ll hold off for now. But I hope that doctor comes back soon. I have a few questions.”
“Thank you.” Her hand slipped from his arm and she closed her eyes in an attempt to clear her mind. Her poor brain cells were scrambled like eggs. All she needed was a little rest.
She concentrated on breathing, in and out, allowing her muscles to relax. Someone, maybe the cop, turned the overhead lights off, leaving her alone.
Oh, that was much better. She had no idea if she normally did this type of relaxation technique, but it seemed to come automatically.
In and out. In and out. Slow your breathing and your heart rate.
Ignoring the vague sounds coming from the hospital staff, she concentrated on keeping her mind clear. Was it always this easy to think of nothing in particular?
She must have dozed a bit, because someone suddenly bellowed, “Hey! What are you doing in there?”
Prying her eyes open, she saw a deeply tanned man hovering close to her bedside. For a moment, his pale eyes held an angry malevolence, but then he turned away. “Cleaning,” he muttered, pushing past the cop and the doctor and then hurrying away.
“Did he hurt you?” Noah demanded.
“No. He’s just one of the cleaning staff.”
“Maybe,” Noah said in a low voice, his gaze following the tanned man as he made his way into another room. “I don’t like it, though. I think it’s best to get you out of here as soon as possible.”
She looked up at Noah, searching her memory for anything that would help her remember. But there was only a vast emptiness. No name. No memory.
Nothing.
A horrible sense of helplessness tightened her chest. She’d asked for some time, but so far, that hadn’t helped much. She still didn’t remember anything. And then another terrifying thought hit her squarely in the gut.
What if her memory was gone forever?
Noah leveled the doctor with a hard stare. “Does she have bleeding in her brain or not?”
The ER doctor, Daniel Wagner, shook his head. “No, her scan was clear.”
“Then I’d like to take her home.” Noah had been upset to find out that Maddy Callahan had been mugged near the courthouse. But what was even more disturbing was that she didn’t remember her own name. Or anything about her family.
The only thing working in his favor at the moment was that Maddy didn’t remember him, either. Which meant she wasn’t glaring at him or telling him to get lost in that lofty tone of hers.
Noah knew she blamed him for her brother Matt being stabbed in the stomach eighteen months ago. Matt and Maddy were twins, and truthfully she had a right to be angry. Noah had hesitated a fraction of a second too long, allowing the female drug addict to lunge at Matt, sticking the blade deep.
At least Matt hadn’t been injured too badly; the tip of the knife had managed to miss his liver by a fraction of an inch. Matt claimed the assault wasn’t Noah’s fault, yet right after the injury, Matt had abruptly decided to pursue becoming a K-9 cop.
Noah knew the real reason was that Matt didn’t trust him to be his partner any longer, and he couldn’t shake the guilt that clung to him like a soggy woolen sweater. After all, Matt wouldn’t have been hurt in the first place if Noah had reacted instantly to the threat.
Old news, he reminded himself. Time to get over it.
His radio went off, and he quickly turned away to answer it. His latest partner of just over six months, Jackson Dellis, was asking if he needed assistance to question the mugging victim. He assured the younger man he had it under control. Since their shift was officially over, he told his partner to go home and that he’d file the report on the mugging victim himself. Jackson didn’t hesitate to agree.
Noah turned back to the doctor. “I’m a friend of the family and I’d like to take her home now,” he repeated.
“Well...” The doctor hesitated, obviously not happy with the thought of letting his patient go. “She still seems to have some cognitive issues.”
“More like amnesia, don’t you think?” Noah countered. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you trying to tell me she has to stay in the hospital until her memory returns?”
“Not exactly,” Wagner backtracked. “But she needs to be watched closely for worsening signs and symptoms.”
Yeah, he could understand that. “Listen, Doc, I promise I won’t leave her alone. But since we don’t know what happened to her, I think she needs to be taken someplace safe.”
That made the doctor bristle. “Our hospital is safe,” he protested.
Noah wasn’t in the mood to argue. When he swept another gaze over the ER, he noticed the mop that the tanned guy had been using was lying on the floor as if it had been dropped and abandoned. The man himself was nowhere in sight.
Maybe he was being paranoid, but Noah couldn’t help but think that Maddy’s injury was related to the case she was scheduled to take to trial in less than a week.
Noah knew all about Alexander Pietro’s drug-running business; he was one of the cops who’d helped arrest him. They had plenty of evidence, but Pietro had serious mob connections in Chicago, and Noah wouldn’t put it past them to attempt to free Alexander by doing whatever was necessary.
Even threatening to take out the assistant district attorney handling the case.
The fact that Maddy was still wearing a pair of black slacks, topped with a dark gray blazer over a blue blouse that matched her eyes, confirmed that she’d been working late down at the courthouse.
“I’ll check with my boss,” Dr. Wagner said. He left Maddy’s room and Noah remained where he was at the foot of her gurney. As far as he was concerned, no one was going to touch Maddy without his permission.
He glanced back at her, noticing once again the long slice along the front of her neck. A small portion of the scratch had been deep enough to require a few stitches. Imagining the way the mugger must have held a knife to her throat brought a flash of anger.
Nope. No one was going to touch Maddy Callahan again. No way, no how.
“Is there a problem?” A female physician entered the room. She was tall and beautiful with long curly red hair and it took him a minute to recognize her as Dr. Gabrielle Hawkins, the infamous trauma surgeon who’d saved the lives of numerous cops on the force. She was the best trauma surgeon on staff at Trinity Medical Center.
The prettiest one, too. Married, of course, to Deputy Shane Hawkins.
“Dr. Hawkins, I’m Officer Sinclair.” Noah held out his hand and she gave it a firm shake. “This patient is Maddy—”
“Callahan,” Dr. Hawkins finished, her eyes on the patient lying on the gurney. “I recognize her from when I took care of her brother Miles after he suffered a gunshot wound last April.”
Noah figured he shouldn’t have been surprised; rumor on the street was that Dr. Hawkins was exceptionally smart and never forgot a name or a face. “Yes. I have reason to believe she’s in danger, so I’d like for her to be discharged into my care as soon as possible.”
“Hmm.” Dr. Hawkins skirted around him to approach Maddy. “Ms. Callahan? Can you open your eyes for me?”
Noah gripped the edge of the side rail as Maddy struggled to comply. Dr. Hawkins used a flashlight to examine Maddy’s pupils and then had her follow a few basic commands. When she finished, she questioned Maddy about what she remembered.
“I don’t remember anything,” Maddy said, her brow deeply furrowed with obvious distress. “I don’t understand, why can’t I remember?”
Dr. Hawkins’s smile was gentle. “It may be that you’ve suffered some sort of traumatic experience. I suspect that your memory will return on its own, but I’d like you to follow up in the neurology clinic in a week if the memory loss continues, okay?”
“All right,” Maddy agreed and Noah knew then she really wasn’t herself. The Madison Callahan he knew would never agree to a doctor’s appointment in the middle of a trial.
Then it hit him. Until Maddy had her memory back, there wouldn’t be a trial.
Oh, sure, maybe another ADA could pick up the case, but he knew from personal experience that getting ready for a trial took hours and hours of preparation. Maddy had grilled him about his testimony for a full eight-hour day and he was just one of the officers involved. What about the others? He couldn’t imagine going through all that prep again.
Would the DA ask for a continuance? And if so, for how long? It wasn’t as if they could just tell the judge to wait for Maddy’s memory to return. Victims had a right to a speedy trial. What if they were forced to let Pietro out on bail?
The thought of Alexander Pietro being back on the street filled him with dread. Not just because the guy had threatened to kill every cop who’d participated in the bust, but more so because months of hard work would be lost forever. They’d have to start from scratch to build another case against him.
Placing more innocent lives at risk.
Noah curled his fingers into fists, knowing that he was taking the entire drug-trafficking case too personally. Because of his younger sister, Rose, who’d died of a heroin overdose when she was a senior in high school.
Another death that was mostly his fault. First Rose, then his former college girlfriend, Gina. One guilt piled on the other, with Matt’s injury sitting at the top of the lopsided guilt cake.
He shook off the depressing thoughts and focused on the immediate issue at hand. Maddy hadn’t wanted him to call Matt, but he’d called his former partner’s cell number anyway. Matt didn’t answer, so Noah left a vague message asking for a return call. Hopefully, Maddy’s memory would return by the time Matt called back.
“I’ll write the discharge order, Officer Sinclair, if you promise Maddy won’t be left alone,” Dr. Hawkins said.
“I promise I’ll stay with her until someone from her family takes over.”
Dr. Hawkins nodded. “Done. I’ll have the nurse come in to explain what you should look for.”
The nurse, a plump blonde with a cheerful smile, came into the room rattling off a list of signs and symptoms to be on the lookout for. Noah was glad when she handed him a packet of paperwork listing everything she’d just told him.
“Thanks,” he said, folding the papers in half and sticking them in his back pocket. “Maddy? Do you need help sitting up?”
“I can do it,” she said with a wince. She gripped the rail, pulling herself upright. She swayed, and he quickly moved closer and placed a steadying arm around her shoulders.
“Easy now,” he said. “Take your time, there’s no rush.”
“I’m okay,” she said, and the familiar stubborn edge to her voice made him smile. This was the Maddy Callahan he remembered.
The same woman Matt had warned him to stay away from the first time he’d laid eyes on her. Matt didn’t want his baby sister, born a few minutes after him, to be in a relationship with a cop. The way Matt had lost his father, who’d happened to be the former chief of police as well as being murdered while visiting a crime scene, had made Matt overly protective. Noah had completely understood where his former partner was coming from.
The warning hadn’t been necessary since Noah had no intention of being in a relationship with anyone, especially not Madison Callahan.
Maddy swung her legs over the edge of the bed, placing her feet on the floor, then frowned at her stocking-covered toes. “Where are my shoes?”
“Here.” Keeping a hand on her arm, he used his feet to bring the flats into position so she could slip them on.
“Thanks.” She stood, then reached out to grab his arm. “Whoa. The room spins when I move too fast.”
A flash of guilt assaulted him. Was he causing more harm than good by taking her out of here? Maybe he’d be better off asking for her to spend the night at the hospital so he could sit at her bedside, keeping an eye on her.
Then his eyes fell on the discarded mop. A tall man with thinning hair stood beside the mop, arguing with a middle-aged lady. There was still no sign of the man with the tanned skin, and the hairs on the back of his neck lifted in alarm.
No way did he believe the guy who’d been looming over Maddy was a hospital employee.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Noah asked. “I can probably convince Dr. Hawkins to admit you upstairs.”
Maddy looked puzzled. “Who?”
“The red-haired doctor.”
“You know her?” Maddy asked.
It was on the tip of his tongue to explain how she knew Dr. Hawkins, too, but he decided that would only make her feel bad. “Yeah, she’s married to a cop, a deputy from the sheriff’s department.”
“Oh, I see. No, I don’t want to stay here. I’d rather go home.” She frowned. “I must not have a purse or a phone, huh?”
“Unfortunately not. It appears the mugger took them.” He bent over to grab her long coat off the chair. “Here, let me help you with this.”
“Thank you.” Maddy slid her arms into the sleeves as he held the coat for her. “Your mother must have taught you manners.”
“Yeah.” He didn’t bother to elaborate since his mother had died a long time ago, and what was left of his family was scattered all over the globe. He and his siblings weren’t at all close. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his older brother. Three years? Four? Rose’s death six months after losing their mother to cancer had torn their family apart and, like the famous nursery rhyme, there hadn’t been a way to put the pieces back together again.
He knew the Callahan clan was a tight-knit family and he wondered again why Matt hadn’t returned his call. Should he start calling her other brothers? The only problem was that he didn’t know their numbers and obviously Maddy couldn’t help. Right now, she didn’t realize she had five brothers—Marc, Miles, Mitch, Mike and Matt—every one of them older than her.
Wrapping his arm around Maddy’s waist, he matched her slower pace as they made their way out of the emergency room. She stopped, looked surprised to see the Christmas tree in the lobby of the ER, as if she hadn’t known the holiday was near. When they were outside, he gestured to a squad car in the small parking lot across the street. “That’s our ride.”
“Okay.”
She ducked her head against the cold wind, walking alongside him down the sidewalk toward the parking lot. As they reached the road, a car came out of nowhere, heading straight toward them.
“Look out!” Noah grabbed Maddy around the waist and leaped out of the way, landing in a snowbank on the other side of the road. The car came close enough to clip the back of his legs, then careened from view.
Noah stared at the retreating taillights, knowing that he wasn’t imagining things. This was the second, maybe even the third, attempt on Maddy’s life—if you considered that the tanned guy who’d been in Maddy’s room wasn’t a hospital employee—all in the span of a few hours.
All these incidents were related, he was convinced, to the upcoming trial of Alexander Pietro. And the thought of Maddy being in danger, not to mention having lost her memory, gave him a desperate sense of urgency.
Right now, he was the only one who could keep her safe.
