He sat up a little straighter, trying to remember. In his mind’s eye, James saw himself backing away, stumbling, falling as he avoided . . . who? what?

Fireplace? He saw the raised brick hearth at his farmhouse, recalled stumbling backward, trying to avoid . . . what? who?

A woman.

He touched his cheek again.

A blistering memory teased at him . . .

You’ll never see me again!

The words stabbed through his mind.

Who had spat them out so viciously?

He should know.

But he didn’t.

Now he asked the nurse, “Who made the emergency call?”

“Don’t know,” she admitted.

“So who was I fighting with?” he demanded again.

He saw a shadow flicker across Dr. Monroe’s face. “No one’s really sure. The police want to talk to you, hear your side of the story.”

“The person who I was fighting with. He—she’s not here? Wasn’t admitted?” James asked, thinking the person might be injured as well.

“Not that I know of.”

The nurse interceded. “She could have been taken somewhere else.”

“She?” he said, his worst fears confirmed. “Who?”

Rictor shook her head. “No one knows what really happened. Yet.”

“But I was in a fight with a woman and ended up here?” he clarified, agitated. “Is she all right?” He was sitting up now, ignoring the pain.

“The police think it was with your girlfriend.”

Something deep in James’s gut tightened, and he felt there was a grain of truth to the story.

“My girlfriend?” he repeated, faces of women he’d seen in the past flitting through his brain, faces he couldn’t name . . .

“Megan Travers.”

“Megan.” He said the word as if tasting it, felt Monroe’s hard gaze and Rictor’s curious one studying him as he tried to bring up a face to match the name. An image teased at his brain, but it was shadowy and vague, the features indistinguishable. Slowly, he shook his head, and a dark thought burned through him. What if she hadn’t made it? What if the reason they were being so coy and the police so adamant about wanting to talk to him was that she was dead, that he . . . oh, God, that he’d killed her? An accident. Surely. “But she—Megan—she’s all right?” he asked, his heart thudding, a deep fear clutching his soul.

“I don’t know anything about it.” Monroe avoided his eyes. A bad liar. “You’ll have to ask the detective.”

Detective? Not just a cop called for a disturbance. The nurse had said “investigation,” hadn’t she? So it only made sense that detectives would be involved.

“But she didn’t die,” James said, his voice tight. God, what had happened?

The nurse started to say something, but the look the doctor sent her shut her up.

James grabbed her arm.

“I have to know,” he said, his voice a rough whisper. She gazed pointedly at his gripping fingers, and he dropped his hand.