LITMIR.BIZ

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and plotted how to get herself free of the hospital. She didn’t have time to loll around. Someone seemed hell-bent on killing her, and her savior, Zane MacGregor, was locked up. They’d strapped him into handcuffs, for God’s sake. Her car was wrecked, her cell phone was confiscated and someone was trying to convince her that her first husband was still alive.

      Scratching at her wrist where the tape from the IV was pulling, she tried to think about the future, what she would do when she was released. In the past ten days her life had changed irrevocably. She still didn’t know if Aaron was alive or not, she had no idea who had tried to kill her, and then there was Zane MacGregor, whom she ridiculously felt she was falling for.

      Falling for? You barely know the man. The police think he might be involved in your abduction. Ten days trapped in a cabin does not a love story make. This is crazy. It has to be the Vicadin talking.

      But, the truth was, ever since she’d been “rescued” by the police, her thoughts had been with MacGregor and his dog, one being interviewed by the local cops, the other under a veterinarian’s care. At least Harley had survived the gunshot—one of the few bits of good news from today.

      She edged toward the precipice of the bed, trying to see into the corridor. The door to her room was ajar and over the rustle of footsteps and ding of an elevator she heard bits of disjointed conversations.

      One high-pitched voice was worried about a patient in room 314, afraid that the antibiotics wouldn’t halt his pneumonia. She was wondering where the hell the doctor was.

      Another voice, a male voice, was talking on the phone, trying to give someone on the other end information about dosages of medications.

      A third was gossiping, and Jillian had to set her jaw as she was the subject of the conversation.

      “…just like the others, I guess. Not a stitch on and tied to a tree. Can you believe it?”

      The response was muted; Jillian couldn’t catch it.

      “I know, it’s beyond weird to think a serial killer is around, like, here, in Grizzly Falls. Why here? I keep telling Jason it’s the middle of nowhere, so who would think a psycho would end up here?…What? Oh, I don’t think so. Someone we know? God, wouldn’t that be the creepiest. I mean, we’ve got our share of village idiots. Oh, that’s not P.C. I mean we’ve got more than our share of ‘local color,’ what with Ivor Hicks thinking he was abducted by aliens.”

      “Abducted, and he still gets orders from them,” the other woman said, and Jillian recognized Nurse Claire’s nasal tone. “Don’t forget Grace Perchant, who found one of the cars. She’s the gal who’s always seeing ghosts.”

      “Spirits. Like she’s got a direct line to the ghost world.”

      “Oh, sure. If you ask me, that Grace is already in another world.”

      They chuckled together as a phone rang, interrupting their conversation.

      Great, Jillian thought, more anxious than ever to get out of the hospital. She’d been in her room only a few hours, but already the four walls were beginning to close in on her.

      She tried to convince herself she should stay. A voice in her head reminded her of the fact that she wasn’t a hundred percent yet. What’s wrong with letting someone else take care of you? Why can’t you relax, sleep in a warm bed, let the doctors and nurses monitor your injuries? Then you can pull yourself together, think about leaving in the morning or even later, after you’ve slept and eaten breakfast, had a shower and put everything into perspective. Then you can figure out what you’re going to do.

      So far her care here at Pinewood General had been good. She’d been served a dinner of broiled chicken, green beans, some kind of squash, a dinner roll and a cup of fruited Jell-O. Not exactly five-star restaurant fare, but not bad. And an aide had bathed her with warm rags that had felt like heaven, though she still couldn’t wait for a long, hot shower.

      So what’s the rush?

      Are you going to start looking for Aaron again?

      Or are you going back to Seattle?

      Closing her eyes, she couldn’t decide. And then there was MacGregor. She couldn’t just leave him or Harley…. Dear Lord, she was a mental case!

      What about the police? You’re not done with them yet.

      She groaned at the thought of another interview.

      The last thing she wanted to do was talk to the police again. She’d already given her statement and suffered through an interview with not only two female detectives, but also a team of agents from the FBI, all of whom seemed to think that she was a victim and that Zane MacGregor was the twisted sicko who had been terrorizing this area of the Bitterroot Mountains.

      Jillian knew better now.

      Ever since he’d cut her away from that solitary cedar tree and carried her to safety, she’d trusted him. Zane MacGregor meant her no harm, and now, from what she understood, he was in jail, trying to explain himself.

      Her conversations with the police had been tedious and tense. First she’d undergone questioning from the two female detectives from the Pinewood Sheriff’s Department, Regan Pescoli and her partner, the quieter Selena Alvarez. That interview had been before a fun Q and A with the FBI.

      It seemed that everyone associated with the police wanted to hang MacGregor for the recent spate of killings. They clearly wanted answers—a solution—and they were hell-bent on pinning the blame on someone, someone like MacGregor.

      Jillian had made it clear that she wasn’t buying into any of their theories against the man she insisted had saved her. The cops had been irritated with her that she had been more concerned with Zane MacGregor’s fate and his dog’s health than she was about trying to nail him as a serial killer.

      “That’s ridiculous,” she’d told them, unable to hide her anger as Alvarez had taken notes and taped the conversation on a small recorder. Petite, with sharp features and hair black enough to shine blue under the fluorescent lights, she seemed the more serious, less explosive of the two.

      The taller detective, Pescoli, had stood near the doorway, as if giving herself and Jillian a little space. Tanned and slightly freckled, though it was the dead of winter, she’d obviously spent lots of time outdoors. But under the fluorescent glow of the hospital lights, Pescoli had appeared dead on her feet, dark smudges showing under her eyes, curly red-brown hair surrounding an angular, uncompromising face. She seemed intense. Driven. Angry.

      “MacGregor didn’t try to hurt me,” Jillian argued. “He saved me, for God’s sake. You saw him carrying me away from the tree where I…where I’d been tied and left. If it weren’t for Zane MacGregor, I’d be dead!”

      The cops were unmoved. “But if you didn’t see your attacker, how do you know it wasn’t him?” Pescoli had folded her arms over her chest, almost defying Jillian to lie to her.

      “I just know,” she asserted. “I got the sense that the person who jumped me from behind wasn’t as tall as MacGregor or as heavy.”

      Alvarez had stepped in. “But you really didn’t catch a glimpse of his face or any identifying marks?”

      “No.”

      “Did you see his hands?”

      “I saw nothing. Just…black gloves. I felt the weight of him as he forced me to the ground. He pressed a rag over my face and I fought but couldn’t push him off. I passed out.”

      Pescoli nodded. “But it’s true that MacGregor had been gone for several hours, right? You didn’t really know where he was.”

      “He left me with a rifle. Not a move I’d expect if he were just going to kill me.”

      They didn’t respond.

      Jillian added, “He damned well didn’t shoot his own pet!”

      Calmly Pescoli said, “He’s done

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