She began shaking her head, still trying to drive off until the barrel of the gun was level with her head.

Megan’s heart dropped.

Fear curdled through her blood.

Panic jettisoned through her, and she started to turn. To run.

Leave here. Now!

“Get out!” the attacker growled.

Megan froze.

That voice!

Did she know this person? This nutcase?

She couldn’t tell. All she could focus on was the barrel of the gun.

Black.

Deadly.

Aimed straight at her heart.

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3

Valley General Hospital
Riggs Crossing, Washington
December 4

“I have to leave.” James Cahill gazed hard at the nurse adjusting his IV. Lying in bed, doing nothing, was getting to him. The hospital walls were closing in on him. And the not remembering? That was killing him.

“In due time,” she said pleasantly, offering him a sympathetic smile. Sonja Rictor, RN, according to the name tag that swung from a lanyard at her neck. In her forties, a knowing smile on her face, her curly red hair clipped away from her face, a sprinkling of freckles sprayed across a slightly upturned nose, she was slim and attractive. And, he guessed, blessed with a will of iron behind that empathetic grin.

“The time is now.” It was all he could do not to grab her wrist and give it a shake, to emphasize that he was serious. He’d always been a little claustrophobic, blessed or cursed with a lot of energy. That much he did remember. Being confined in a hospital was definitely not his thing.

“I understand.”

“Do you?”

She gave him an “I’ve heard it all before” look that, he supposed, was meant to shut him up. It didn’t.

“Mr. Cahill—”

“James. It’s James,” he said, not interested in any kind of formality.

“I’ll talk to the doctor, James.”

He felt a sharp prick as she adjusted the needle, but he didn’t wince, didn’t want to appear to be a damned wuss.

“He’ll get you out of here as soon as he thinks you’re ready.” She shook her head. “Trust me, these days we don’t keep patients a second longer than absolutely necessary.” Stepping away from the bed, she asked, “So, how’s your pain?”

“It’s fine.”

“On a register of one to ten, ten being the highest-intensity pain?” She motioned toward the wall, where a chart had been tacked. The chart was a display of cartoon faces, everything from a pleasant, pain-free grin under the number 0 to a contorted, red-faced grimace at 10. “When you say you’re ‘fine,’ is it fine as in here?” She indicated a calm, happy-looking face under the number 2. “Or?” She moved along the row of ever-increasing unhappy faces. “Here?” She tapped a gloved finger at a sweating, frowning image at 8.

Shifting on the bed, he felt a sharp jab in his shoulder. Blast. “I’m okay.”

“Uh-huh.” Disbelief.

“I said, ‘I’m okay.’ ”