Beautiful Stranger. Kerry Connor

what all the mental patients say. But I’m not.”

      “All right,” he said, privately reserving judgment. “I’m Josh, by the way. Josh Bennett. And you are?” he prodded when she said nothing.

      She stared at him for a long moment, her eyes considering. He didn’t know what she saw, but he suspected he hadn’t been examined this thoroughly on his last credit check.

      “Claire,” she said finally.

      She didn’t elaborate further. He figured it wasn’t worth pushing the point. “Okay, Claire. Why don’t you tell me why you were at Thornwood?”

      She sighed, the sound so full of weariness it tugged at something inside him. “I don’t know. Four months ago I woke up there with no idea how I’d gotten there. This Dr. Emmons told me I’d suffered a mental breakdown. He didn’t get into specifics, saying there was time for that later, and when I demanded answers, he just gave me this patronizing look, like I was a misbehaving child.” She arched a brow, her expression turning wry. “Or a crazy person, I suppose. He just said they would take good care of me.” She practically snorted at that. “The next thing I knew, they were sticking a needle in my arm and I was knocked out.”

      “What about the next time you saw him? Did he tell you more then?”

      “I never saw him again. I was in and out of consciousness for the first month—out of it, mostly. Anytime anyone noticed that I was aware again, they’d bring out the needles. It didn’t take me long to figure out if I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in a drug-induced haze, I couldn’t let them know when the drugs wore off.”

      “So when I saw you sitting on the veranda this afternoon, you were pretending, with the drooling and all?”

      She hesitated before answering, as if not sure how much to admit. “I have been for the past few months. Not all the time. They were still drugging me, of course, though I think they were lowering the dosage. Or maybe I was getting used to the drugs. Either way, I gradually started to be more aware. I just never let them see when I wasn’t out of it anymore.”

      “And no one on staff noticed that you were pretending for, what, three months?”

      In spite of his best efforts, he couldn’t quite keep the disbelief out of his voice. It was clear she hadn’t failed to notice.

      “As long as I wasn’t causing trouble, no one paid too much attention to me. I was never examined by a doctor while I was conscious, and it was obvious the nurses and orderlies were only there to cash a check. They did what was necessary to provide a basic level of care, but otherwise none of them gave me a second glance. I was basically invisible.”

      He couldn’t help frowning. The image she painted wasn’t the same Thornwood he’d heard wonderful things about, or the one he’d visited that afternoon. The place seemed a marvel of efficiency.

      But that feeling he’d had when he was there, that something was somehow off about the place, nagged at him in a way that couldn’t be attributed to a forbidding exterior. It wouldn’t be the first case of something being too perfect to be believed, or at the very least, not all it seemed.

      “Even so, you wouldn’t have been admitted for no reason.”

      “But maybe for the right price.”

      “What are you saying? That they were paid to admit you?”

      “And keep me there. Think about it. Why else would they fail to explain exactly why I’d been brought there? Why keep me drugged for months rather than offer any kind of therapy or professional treatment?”

      “But who would do that? And why?”

      She paused, her gaze sharpening. “Can I trust you to keep this conversation between the two of us?”

      “You mean doctor/patient privilege? I’m not your doctor.”

      “Nor do I want you to be. I just want to know you won’t repeat what I’m going to tell you.”

      He wondered who exactly she expected him to talk to, and why discretion was such an issue. Was she going to spin a story too easily proven false if he shared it with anyone else?

      Still, he wanted to know what she was going to say. Confidentiality didn’t seem too much to ask for, if he could help it. He just hoped she didn’t force him to make a liar of himself. “All right.”

      She took a deep breath, as though gathering strength. “My name is Claire Preston. My family owns Preston Aeronautics and Defense. You may not have heard of it, but we’re a private defense contractor that provides services to the government and the armed forces. It’s a multi-billion-dollar corporation. Tomorrow is my thirty-fifth birthday. At that time I’m supposed to take control of the company. Only it appears that someone wanted to ensure that didn’t happen. That’s why I needed to get out of Thornwood now, before it’s too late to do something about it. I’m just hoping it’s not too late already.”

      The words came out in a rush, then stopped abruptly as though she figured she’d said too much. Once she stopped, she simply lifted her chin and stood there, watching him.

      Josh could only stare back at her. He had no idea how he was supposed to respond to a story that outlandish. Bribery? Billion-dollar corporations? A conspiracy hatched by an unknown “someone” against her? It was the stuff of paranoid delusions, created by an unstable mind.

      Yet the eyes that met his were clear and focused. She’d related her story calmly and concisely, her voice unwavering. Whatever the veracity of her tale, there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that she believed it to be true.

      But then, he’d spoken the truth to Aaron that afternoon—he wasn’t a psychiatrist. All he had were his instincts to tell him whether or not to believe her, instincts he was no longer certain he could trust.

      He could either believe she was the victim of a conspiracy or simply a mental patient who belonged in the institution to which she’d been committed.

      And Josh had the sad feeling that in this case the more likely answer was the correct one.

      

      HE DIDN’T BELIEVE HER.

      His expression hadn’t changed. He had that patient, pleasant look on his face that revealed nothing of his thoughts. She could tell all the same.

      Claire swallowed a groan of frustration and forced herself to take the deep breath he’d suggested earlier. She couldn’t afford to lose her composure. Her only hope of getting this man on her side was to come across as sane and rational as she knew she was.

      If only she hadn’t fallen asleep and lost her grip, tumbling back against the side of the trunk when he’d come to a stop. But it had been a long drive, and once the initial adrenaline rush of her escape had worn off, she’d felt the damned fatigue dragging at her. Even now, it pulled at her. Her body trembled, from exhaustion, tension and perhaps the lack of drugs her body was used to receiving by now.

      Her stomach twisted with anxiety. Every moment she stood here was another moment she was wasting not getting away. She had to agree with him—it wouldn’t take the people at Thornwood long to discover that she was missing. Even now they could be on their way, ready to reclaim her, while she was making the mistake of confiding in this man.

      She’d probably said too much. But after four months of speaking to no one, having to keep all this bottled up inside, her story seemed to come out on its own, a raging torrent that couldn’t be stopped.

      For all the good it had done her.

      “You think I sound paranoid,” she said knowingly. “And maybe I do. But like they say, it’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you.”

      From the impassive look on his face, he wasn’t ready to concede even that point to her.

      She saw in his eyes that there was another option. That she really was mentally unbalanced, making up stories of persecution that