But the fact that neither he nor the feds had actually turned up any leads on her whereabouts kept his doubts and fears alive.
Streetlights illuminated the town square. Most of the storeowners had long gone for the evening and the citizens were tucked safely in their homes within the city limits, the wooded hills and valleys of the mountains. A safe, small Southern town.
Until hed brought Caitlin here and shed disappeared. Now, he wondered if there might be a murderer among them.
Squinting through the sleet, Monahue searched the shadows of the town park for vagrants or unwanteds, then drove past the high school to check for trouble-seeking teenagers, but the street and parking lot were quiet.
The storm grew in intensity as he headed up the mountainside to the house hed rented, the wind bowing branches on the bare trees that comprised the sloping foothills. Winter had set in to stay, and the holidays were just around the corner, a time for friends and family.
He had neither. In fact, Ravens Peak looked as desolate and empty as Miles felt inside.
Hed find out the truth about everything. If Caitlin had been hurt or killed because of him, hed get revenge on the person responsible. And if she were alive, well, hed at least exonerate himself, keep his job and move on with his life.
Either way, hed never get seriously involved with another woman again.
Nighthawk Island
Savannah, Georgia
SHADOWS FLICKERED around the sterile hospital room, the scent of antiseptic and alcohol nauseating. Rain pounded the roof, the monotonous drone
echoing the beat of her heart. Despair threatened to steal her energy, so she forced herself to channel her courage into the will to survive. But she was so confused, she didnt remember her own name. Did she have family somewhere looking for her? A boyfriend, husband?
CaitlinNora
The two names bled together in her mind as if they were one and the same person. Maybe they were. Sometimes the doctor called her Nora. Other times, the nurse had whispered Good night, Caitlin, to her in the darkness.
Here you go, sugar, this should help you sleep. Donna, a robust nurse who usually worked nights, handed her a small paper cup holding a pill, then poured her a glass of water from the plastic hospital pitcher.
She cradled the capsule beneath her tongue, took a sip of water and pretended to swallow it. The bitter taste assaulted her senses, her struggle not to let it dissolve warring with the craving for something to sweep her away from the nightmare shed been living the past few days. Or had it been weeks?
Shed lost all sense of time.
Donna patted her hand in approval, then ambled her bulk to the window and adjusted the shades, drowning out the dwindling light that had tried to cut its way through the fog. Let me know if you need anything else, dear.
She nodded, a show of obedience earning her another sympathetic smile. Then the nurse bustled by, humming Patsy Clines Crazy beneath her breath as she exited.
She spit the pill into her hand, her socked feet slipping on the cold linoleum as she ran to the potted plant by the window. Hands trembling, she dug a hole in the potting soil and stuffed the capsule below the surface, then packed the dirt tightly over it. The screech of the lock turning on the door, shutting her in, brought a fresh wave of panic.
She didnt belong here.
Not in this mental ward or research hospital, whatever it was. Worse, she couldnt remember how shed ended up hospitalized. But shed heard the nurses talking, whispering about the Coastal Island Research Park on Catcall Island, and the more restricted facility on Nighthawk Island. The place was dark, had secrets. The doctors were conducting strange experiments, ones nobody wanted to talk about.
So why was she locked inside?
She wasnt crazy. She hadnt willingly committed herself for experiments or treatment. She hadnt experienced delusions or heard voices until theyd pumped her full of narcotics. Then the voices had started, the strange terrifying dreams, the cries in the night from down the hall.
Cries from other patientsher own
She had to escape. Get help.
Caitlin? Nora
She had a sister somewhere. She felt it, a connection of some kind. But where was she? And why hadnt she come looking for her?
Snack and medicine carts rumbled outside her room, nurses laughter and voices echoing in the night. Somewhere down the hall a chilling scream pierced the air.
She rushed to the window and inched back the edge of the shade. The murky sky and woods surrounding the hospital cast the island in an ominous gray. Shadows of drooping palm trees flickered through the haze, heavy with rain. How far was she from civilization? If she ran tonight, would she be able to escape the island and find her way to a town somewhere?
Her reflection caught in the window. A ragged, frail woman stared back. Dark purple smudges marred her skin beneath bloodshot eyes. Perspiration beaded her forehead and upper lip. Her stomach cramped into a knot, and she staggered back to bed to rest. Slowly shed weaned herself from the narcotics, but going cold turkey triggered nasty side effects that had been nearly impossible to battle alone. Sometimes the sweet need for another shot, a pill, anything to alleviate the pain, to help her rest and obliterate reality was so strong she could barely fight it. But if she succumbed to that desperate need, the dreams, the voices, the crieswould start over again. And this time she might not be able to save herself.