Beautiful Stranger. Kerry Connor

where they were. Within driving distance of Thornwood, but that covered a lot of ground.

      With a tight nod, she ducked her head and stepped into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

      The room was small but clean. Setting the towel on the countertop next to the sink, she found herself facing her reflection in the mirror. She couldn’t help but stare. It had been four months since she’d looked at herself. Her face was a little thinner, but not too much so. Her hair hung limply to her shoulders. There were dark shadows beneath her eyes.

      It was the eyes themselves she couldn’t ignore. Her face was frozen in a familiar mask, cool, refined, revealing nothing. That detachment didn’t reach her eyes. There was a vulnerability there she wasn’t used to seeing, along with something just as foreign.

      Fear.

      Suddenly, staring into her own eyes and the undeniable proof they offered of her ordeal, something inside her cracked. All the emotions she’d suppressed, all the anger she’d squelched, all the fear she’d held at bay, came rushing to the surface. A sob tore itself from her throat. She slapped the palm of her hand over her mouth to cover the sound of it and all the ones that followed, the wrenching cries that seemed to rip themselves painfully from someplace deep inside. Her other hand fumbled to turn on the faucet, then gripped the edge of the sink as she did her best to stay on her feet. She couldn’t fall apart completely. There was no time. She might be away from Thornwood, but she wasn’t clear yet.

      Never show weakness.

      Her father’s words, the mantra she’d taken as her own, echoed in the back of her mind.

      Gradually, with practiced efficiency, she pulled herself together, regaining that touted Preston reserve. She inhaled slowly and deeply, remembering her breathing exercises, until the face that stared back at her was tranquil once more, the eyes revealing nothing.

      On the other side of the door was a man who momentarily held her fate in his hands. She didn’t like the feeling. More important, she wasn’t about to cede control that easily. She hadn’t gone through all this just to wind up back at Thornwood.

      And the man outside or anyone else who tried to stop her would find out just how hard she was willing to fight to prevent that from happening.

      Chapter Three

      Josh quickly ducked into his bedroom and retrieved a sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants with a drawstring waist. They’d obviously be big on her, but they were all he had that might come close to fitting. He took them back to the bathroom. “I’m setting the clothes out here,” he called.

      He heard the water running, but she didn’t say anything. Figuring she’d already done more talking than she’d wanted for the moment, he left the clothes in front of the door and moved away.

      He’d offered her food, but that would mean going into the kitchen down the hall, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to be that far away. He still wouldn’t put it past her to try to run. He didn’t know where she was going to go when it didn’t look like she had any money or ID on her, but obviously she hadn’t planned to let that stop her. He doubted it would now.

      Instead, he stepped into the living room where he’d be able to hear the bathroom door open when she came out. He didn’t bother sitting, knowing there was no point. He wouldn’t be able to remain still. He had too much angry energy pounding through his system, too many questions demanding answers.

      The memory of the marks on her arms, the knowledge that someone had hurt her, burned through him. Fury roiled in his gut as he thought of what she’d been subjected to. Anyone who would hurt a woman was bad enough, but hurting a seemingly helpless patient who’d been entrusted to their care was unspeakable.

      Her story seemed so implausible. How could no one have noticed her injuries? Or had they really not cared? And the idea that she’d simply endured it for three months to preserve her ability to escape…That seemed to indicate either incredible strength or extreme deviousness.

      Or desperation, he allowed.

      He didn’t know how much of her story to believe. The conspiracy theory she’d spun was either too far-fetched to be true, or too far-fetched not to be. But he couldn’t deny the evidence of her mistreatment.

      The phone rang, breaking into his thoughts. Somehow he knew who it was before he checked the caller ID and saw the number on the screen. After all, he’d predicted it to Claire not long before.

      Thornwood.

      He hesitated before answering it. He didn’t know if he was ready to admit that she was with him, or to commit to lying and saying she wasn’t. It would be better if he decided what he was going to do before making either move, but he was nowhere near that point.

      The phone rang again. He could just let it go unanswered.

      A third ring. The need for an explanation of Claire’s story and her injuries overrode his caution. He picked it up.

      As expected, it was Aaron. “Josh, I’m sorry to bother you, but I’ve been trying to reach you for a while now.”

      He realized he’d never bothered to turn his cell phone back on when he left Thornwood, then he’d forgotten it in the car after finding Claire. “Oh?”

      “We have a bit of a situation here. One of our patients is missing. It appears she attacked an orderly and took off. There’s no sign of her on the premises, and as near as we can tell, only three vehicles left the grounds between the time she was last seen and when the front gate was alerted to search all departing vehicles. We’ve already checked with the other two, and the drivers said they didn’t see anyone and their trucks were empty. We were wondering if she somehow managed to get into your car and escape when you left.”

      Josh zeroed in on the most relevant part of the statement. Claire had attacked an orderly? He felt a moment’s pause before remembering what she’d told him. Maybe the orderly had had it coming.

      He knew he had to make his choice, to either conceal Claire’s whereabouts until he figured out how best to help her, or to reveal her presence.

      In the end his desire for answers was too great. “She’s here.”

      He heard Aaron exhale sharply. “That’s what we figured. A van has already been dispatched to retrieve her. You’re at home, right? They should be there shortly. Do you think you can handle her until they get there? She may be dangerous. The orderly is in pretty rough shape.”

      “Maybe he deserved to be.”

      “I’m sorry?”

      “I said maybe he deserved to be. And by the way, you can tell the van to turn back. She’s not going anywhere until I get an explanation for why she has bruises in varying stages of healing all over her arms, injuries she said an orderly caused.”

      From his silence, Josh knew he’d caught Aaron completely off guard. After a long moment, Aaron said, “They’re probably self-inflicted.”

      “Unless her hands somehow swelled to twice their normal size, she didn’t leave those bruises on her arms.”

      “Then maybe she convinced someone else to do it to make her more sympathetic when she made her escape.”

      “That would require some planning. Is there a reason why she would need to escape so badly she’d make such plans ahead of time?”

      “She’s a patient in a mental health facility, Josh. Sometimes they don’t want to be here.”

      “Aaron, I saw this woman when I first arrived at Thornwood this afternoon. She looked completely unaware of her surroundings, like she could barely lift her head. According to her, she’s been faking her drugged state for months. Yet no one on the staff noticed or thought it was strange that a supposedly catatonic patient had bruises all over her?”

      “Obviously there was some kind of oversight—”

      “Obviously,”