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  “He never mentioned that priest again? And you never saw him again?”

  “No, he didn’t mention him. And I never saw him again after ..that day at the jail.”

  “Did Ryan Murphy ever hit you?”

  Astonishment spread over Mary Elizabeth’s face “No, never He never criticized, either. In fact, he often thanked me for one thing or another. He just...never let me inside his soul. That was the agony of our marriage.”

  Mary Elizabeth looked at her watch, then toward the door nervously. Julie understood. Her coffee was cold; she’d not taken even a taste of it. She’d been fascinated by the description of Murphy.

  “I should go,” Julie said. “My little boy will be waiting ”

  A slight smile came to Mary Elizabeth’s face. “You know, I wasn’t surprised when I read that Ryan had saved lives. He was absolutely without fear And despite his detachment, he was very protective of Laura and myself. God help anyone who tried to hurt us.”

  “A complicated man,” Julie observed not for the first time

  “I’m a teacher,” Mary Elizabeth said “I always thought I could reach anyone if I was patient enough. Maybe that’s why I was so attracted to him. A challenge. One I wasn’t able to overcome.” She looked closely at Julie “Perhaps you can ”

  “The doctors say he may not be the same man he was before Amnesia can change a personality.”

  “What is he like now?” Mary Elizabeth asked in a low voice

  “Confused. Bewildered. But still independent. He doesn’t like asking for help.”

  “He doesn’t remember anything?”

  “No. He can read, write, add and subtract. He doesn’t know how he can do these things, but he can do them The doctor said he could probably remember learned skills. Are there any other skills you’re aware of?”

  “Mechanics. He could fix anything And baseball. He played baseball in college ”

  Julie was taking mental notes The priest. Mechanics Baseball She hadn’t wanted to put them in writing, afraid doing so might inhibit the conversation “What did he read?”

  “Everything. Novels. Biographies. Psychology ”

  “Psychology?”

  “He majored in criminology and psychology in college. He was always interested in why people did what they did.”

  Julie’s heart started pounding harder. Suddenly she remembered Dan’s absolute pronouncement: “He’s fishing.”

  She pushed the memory away. She rose from the table. She had what she wanted for the moment Some places to start. The pnest, for one. Why had Ryan not wanted the man to meet his wife?

  It seemed one answer led to another question.

  “Would you consider testifying for him?”

  Mary Elizabeth hugged herself with her arms “Don’t ask me,” she said. “It’s not fair to Laura She’s forgotten him. She has a father she likes and admires”

  “I won’t, unless it becomes absolutely necessary.”

  Mary Elizabeth shook her head, but then whispered, “I...don’t hold any ill feelings toward him. I really do wish him well.”

  “You won’t mind if I call again?”

  “No.”

  Julie handed her a card. “And if you remember anything more, particularly the priest’s name, you’ll call me?”

  She nodded again

  Julie held out her hand. “Thank you for being so honest.”

  Mary Elizabeth took it. “I hope you’re successful.”

  “Would you see him? I’m sure he has some questions...”

  “No,” she said, dropping Julie’s hand. “That part of my life is over. I really don’t want to revive it.”

  “I understand,” Julie said, stepping back.

  A moment later, the door closed behind her.

  They came for him at nine in the morning. Four men in uniform.

  Despite his words to Julie yesterday, he had hoped to see her again. She’d probably had second thoughts about representing him. He hoped she had. Still. it would have been nice to see her.

  In fact, it would have been more than nice. He’d tried to guard against the attraction he felt for her, the hope she always brought with her. He tried not to want her, not to hope for that occasional touch that made him feel alive and human He tried not to think of how it would feel kissing her, running his fingers over the fine features of her face, touching her hair.

  But perhaps the absence of temptation would reduce the yearning in him. He doubted it, though He doubted it very much.

  The bracelet around his ankle was unlocked and he was given some clothes. The shirt was white, and the trousers white with a blue stripe down each leg The material was sturdy, even abrasive, but he awkwardly put the pants on without comment One of the officers helped with his shirt, over his broken arm.

  “You know the drill.” said one guard who approached, his hands filled with chains But Ryan didn’t. He also knew that with the possible exception of Dr. Dailey and Mrs. Farrell no one believed him He suspected even they had their reservations.

  When he didn’t respond, he was jerked to his feet. A chain was fastened around his waist, and then his right hand was cuffed to the waist chain. Another chain ran from the waist down to his ankles where manacles were attached to each ankle Only his left arm, still held rigid in a cast, remained free.

  Humiliation flooded him, and he was glad Julie Farrell wasn’t around.

  One of the guards pushed a wheelchair up to him. “We have to take you down in this.”

  He looked around the room. There was nothing of his here. A couple of magazines he’d read. He sat down awkwardly, the clink of chains ringing loudly in his ears. One guard pushed the chair, one went ahead, and two strode beside him. He felt as if he must be very dangerous indeed.

  He was wheeled out in the corridor, past a station of some kind People in the hall stopped to stare at him. The guards moved to a bank of elevators, taking one several floors down. Then he was rolling down another corridor. They were near the door leading outside when he saw Julie Farrell.

  She was walking quickly down the corridor toward him, toward the bank of elevators, and stopped when she saw him.

  His fingers turned into fists, and his stomach knotted. He hadn’t wanted her to see him like this, chained like some kind of mad dog. His head went up and he fixed his eyes at some spot beyond her. He tried to make them emotionless. He tried not to care.

  The guards paid her no mind. Perhaps they didn’t even know who she was. Even as he steeled himself to pass her, she stopped the guard in front and spoke to him. He shrugged. “Make it quick,” he said.

  Ryan wanted to look away but he couldn’t. Her gray eyes appeared a deeper gray, and they swirled with an emotion he couldn’t identify.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I hoped to get here before...”

  “Before I was dragged away in chains,” he finished bitterly.

  She flushed. “I’ll get up to Reidsville as soon as they let me. I saw your former wife last night. She really cared about you. She still does.”

  That was difficult to believe. Just as it was difficult to believe anyone could really care about a killer. Being chained like one made him damn well feel like one. For the first time. he felt guilty of a crime he didn’t remember.

  “You’ve paid your debt,” he said tightly. “In fact, you’ve more than paid it.”

  “Sorry, counselor, we have to go,” the lead guard said. “The bus is waiting ”

  Julie’s gaze bore into him. “I’ll see you in a few days.”

  The chair started moving, eliminating the need to reply He kept his gaze averted as a guard pushed open a door, and then he was outside. A cool wind brushed his hair, and moisture dripped from gray skies in a steady drizzle. His chair was pushed to a waiting bus with bars on the window. The doors opened, he stood, then took several awkward steps in the chains. He reached the steps and stopped, not knowing exactly how to mount them. His legs were none too steady from lack of use. He wasn’t at all sure of them, pa
rticularly with the restraints

  He prayed Julie Farrell wasn’t watching.

  “Get in, Murphy,” one of the guards said impatiently “We don’t have all day.”

  Unable to grab anything for balance, he took a tentative step. The chain between his ankles allowed just enough slack to make one step at a time Sweat running off his forehead, he reached the top.

  Another guard met him there. He gestured toward a gate set in the middle of a grate separating the driver from the rest of the bus Six other men were seated inside, each seated next to a window in a row by himself

  “Take the window seat in the front row,” said the guard at the gate.

  Ryan moved slowly, wondering whether he had ridden on this bus before, wondering whether he had been haunted by his crime, whether he’d felt what he was feeling now that he was about to visit hell.

  He sat down, and the guard regarded him jovially. “You the one who’s claiming amnesia?” he said, “The cop who killed his partner?”

  Ryan didn’t answer.

  “You’ll remember home when you get there.” The guard gnnned, turned and went through the gate, locking it.

  The bus started out of the driveway onto the road Ryan looked back. Julie was standing there.

  Deprived of memory, of freedom, of dignity, of hope, Ryan forced himself to turn away He felt trapped in a long, dark tunnel that had no end And he knew there was no room in it for Julie Farrell

  Chapter 6

  Julie watched the bus disappear and felt strangely bereft. She hadn’t realized how much she’d looked forward to seeing him, to telling him what she had learned She’d hoped to see some kind of smile when she told him how well his daughter was doing, that his ex-wife still cared about him.

  She’d been too late. And he hadn’t welcomed her attempt to speak with him. She wouldn’t forget his eyes. She’d thought for a moment they must resemble those of a cornered tiger proud, defiant, yet terribly anguished at finding itself trapped by something it didn’t understand with no way to fight back.

  Helplessly, she’d had to stand back as the guards had continued along the hall to the door, and for some reason she’d followed and watched as he’d climbed into the bus. To her dismay, she knew part of her climbed in there with him.

  She tried to work on a new brief for the law firm later that morning, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Ryan or the trapped look in his eyes. Her mind kept going back to her conversation with Mary Elizabeth as she searched for a key to the old Ryan Murphy. All the riddles had to make sense eventually.

  The fact that despite lingering bitterness Mary Elizabeth still cared about him said a lot. That he had thanked her but could not say he loved her would probably keep a roomful of psychologists happy for weeks, if not months. What was so terrible in his background that he wouldn’t—or couldn’t—speak of it to his wife?

  Every time she tried to convince herself he wasn’t guilty of the crime, she was reminded of his secrecy, the missing money Mary Elizabeth had mentioned, his unexplained disappearances. She had found dozens of excuses for Doug when the same things occurred. And she’d been wrong.

  Was she wrong again? Did she just want Ryan Murphy to be innocent so strongly that she was ignoring the facts and making small inconsistencies appear greater than they were? Inconsistencies occurred in every case. She kept reminding herself of that. There was no such thing as the perfect case

  She shook her head. trying to shake his image away Worrying wouldn’t help either of them. She mentally set Ryan Murphy aside and started to work on legal precedents. But they no longer held interest for her. Mental gymnastics involving a complex legal question didn’t compare to the real life tragedy that faced Ryan. For the first time, she realized how much she really missed the tempo of criminal law

  But in the meantime she had a child to support. She went back to work.

  Murphy spent two days in the infirmary, spending most of his time taking many of the same tests he’d taken at the Atlanta hospital It was obvious the prison psychologist didn’t believe his amnesia, and Ryan endured the tests only because he hoped to find out more about the other Ryan Murphy. He’d also been warned by Mrs. Farrell to do everything he was told, and do it politely, in preparation for the upcoming parole hearing.

  But the damned ink spots still just looked like ink spots, and he said so. The psychologist, Dr. Butler, looked smug. “You said the same thing ten years ago ”

  He must have been smart ten years ago. “Did I?”

  Dr Butler’s demeanor was distinctly suspicious and unfriendly. “You won’t get away with this, Murphy,” he said. “I don’t care what those doctors in Atlanta said. I don’t believe you have amnesia any more than I do.”

  Ryan had a retort, but he didn’t think it wise to use it. He’d told himself over and over again to listen, to observe, to soak up information he needed to survive.

  More tests. Questions about the government, about current events. Who was president? Who was the last president? What happened to a president named Kennedy? He knew many of the answers because he had read and listened these past few weeks, and his mind was like a sponge. But beyond anything recently acquired, his memory was blank.

  He tried to tell Butler that.

  The doctor stared back at him. “Amnesia patients have difficulty with short-term memory. They don’t remember things they learned the day before. You don’t seem to have that problem ”

  Dr. Dailey had said the same thing and had consulted with other doctors about it. It had been one of the things that troubled him about Ryan’s amnesia, had made him doubt the reality of it. Finally, after calling neurologists and researchers throughout the country, he’d been told that insult to the hippocampal system produced highly individual patterns of sparing and loss of memory. Patients differed greatly in the nature of the damage. Ryan didn’t think he would try to explain it to Butler, though.

  “Dr. Dailey can explain it,” he finally said after a dozen questions

  Butler’s lips tightened. He looked at a file in his hands. “I see you checked out a number of books on psychology before your.. accident”

  Ryan said nothing. There was nothing he could say. He remembered nothing.

  “Perhaps you were already planning to stage an accident.”

  His silence obviously irritated the psychologist who shook his head “I’m having you sent back to your old cell in the protective custody wing,” he said. “Perhaps that will help restore your memory.”

  Maybe it would Ryan had thought the prison itself might. But the forbidding-looking fortress had induced nothing in him other than the gloom such a facility would probably instill in anyone. Neither had the arriving procedures startled any memories, only a deep sense of degradation The personal search had been the most humiliating thing he could possibly imagine. He had to undress completely, then open his mouth, allow someone to search. Finally he was told to lean over.

  “The hero,” one guard taunted as he roughly conducted the intimate search.

  Ryan wanted to strike out. He felt rage build inside him even as the search ended God help him, but it took every bit of control he had to contain it.

  Was that where the violence came from? The thought was chilling enough to cool the instinct to strike.

  Two days passed, then four, then six, and no word from Julie Farrell. Mrs. Farrell, he reminded himself He had no right to use her first name. Had she done what he’d asked and dropped the matter? He hoped so. For her sake, he hoped so.

  Yet waves of desolation swept over him as he thought about losing her, losing the visits, losing the one bright thing in all the emptiness.

  After five days, Julie felt she was making progress in her bid to free Murphy She had a job lined up for Murphy in the auto garage she used extensively She hadn’t found him a place to stay yet. She’d called on several advertisements, but all balked at renting to a paroled convict.

  She knew she needed those two things. A job and a place to stay. The parole
board required both. She had avoided thinking about the one possibility that had reluctantly raised its ugly head her own home had a room over the garage that the previous owner had used as a rental apartment It had one large room that included a kitchen area, and a nice-size bathroom. The entrance was private

  Did she want to risk allowing a convicted murderer so close to her son? Could she ask some other family to assume that risk if she wasn’t willing? She used to enjoy arguing moral questions This was one she wanted to run from

  Still echoing in her ears was the call two days ago from William Lewis, assistant chief of police.

  His message had been short, the warning clear. “You’re playing with fire, Mrs Farrell. Murphy was guilty as hell, and he’s smart enough to fool you, me and any doctor I’ve met. He’s ruthless and he’s deadly. You’ve been a former prosecutor. You know how these people use the psychiatric card Don’t let him use you like he used us ten years ago. Think real long and hard before trying to put him back on the streets.”

  She had She had searched her conscience and heart and soul It wasn’t only her son’s safety that worried her It was her attraction to the man. She didn’t understand it, but it was strong, so strong that her blood warmed whenever she saw him or, God help her, even thought of him.

  Had she allowed that attraction to cloud her common sense? Yet she felt gut deep that Ryan Murphy wasn’t a murderer and never had been. She wasn’t sure what made him confess, but there were just too many questions. The fact that she’d once convicted an innocent man had always weighed heavily on her. She didn’t want another innocent man to suffer that way.

  She swallowed hard. She knew she wouldn’t tell Dan the possibility of renting Murphy her apartment, not yet Besides, it was a last resort.

  But at least she was learning more about Murphy, and none of it was very ominous. Murphy’s prison record was spotless, except for two fights in the first year of his imprisonment. He had, in fact, earned his college degree in prison and had done advanced work in literature through a correspondence program