Free DIAGNOSIS: ATTRACTION by REBECCA YORK Page A

covers and began flipping through the channels.
    It didn’t take long to find what he was looking for. The afternoon news was on several of the local channels. When he stopped at one, a reporter was standing in front of the house where they had recently escaped from Polly’s killer.
    “Polly Kramer, a local woman who worked as a nurse at Memorial Hospital, was found dead in her laundry room. Responding to a 9-1-1 call, police arrived to find the victim alone in the house. Wanted for questioning are Matthew Delano and a woman known only as Jane Doe, who was admitted to the hospital with amnesia. Ms. Kramer volunteered to take the discharged patient home while she tried to regain her memory. Apparently the Good Samaritan gesture led to her death.”
    Elizabeth stared at the television screen in shocked silence.
    Matt pulled her close. “It’s not your fault.”
    “Of course it is. She’d be alive if she hadn’t volunteered to help me out.”
    “Don’t blame yourself. You had no idea what was going to happen.”
    “But I knew I was in some kind of danger.”
    He rocked her as she shivered in his arms. “If you want to assign blame, think about how they knew where to find you. It wasn’t through Polly, and it wasn’t through me. It must have come from one of the other nurses.”
    “But why?”
    “Maybe she thought she was being helpful.”
    Elizabeth wanted to believe she wasn’t to blame, but she couldn’t stop her physical reaction. “We have to find out what’s going on. We have to turn him over to the police.”
    “But why didn’t you go to the police in the first place?”
    I wish I knew for sure. Maybe I didn’t have enough on him . She dragged in a breath and let it out. What if we just turned ourselves in?
    Not a good idea. If they take us into custody, we can’t figure out what’s going on.
    * * *
    N OT TOO FAR AWAY , in the home of Derek Lang, Gary Southwell and his boss were watching the same newscast.
    Lang was sitting in a comfortable chair in his TV room. Southwell was standing a few feet away, shifting his weight from foot to foot and keeping his hands at his sides—away from his battered face.
    “Tell me again how she got away?” Lang asked.
    Gary cleared his throat, hoping his nerves didn’t show. “I had a gun on her. Then she threw herself to the ground, and a guy jumped me from behind.”
    “Curious that she knew to get out of the line of fire.”
    Gary had thought about that. “He must have given her some kind of signal.”
    “Which would mean they had something prearranged.”
    Gary nodded.
    “And you weren’t aware of him in back of you?”
    “No, sir. I had killed the old lady, and I didn’t expect anyone else besides Forester.”
    He could see Lang thinking about the answer. He was wondering if Gary had made a mistake, or were they dealing with someone very clever? There was no use trying to persuade him either way. He’d make up his own mind.
    “The police still don’t know who she is, or they’re not saying, which gives us an advantage,” Lang mused.
    “And I think she still doesn’t know, either. At least I got that impression from talking to her.”
    “Why?”
    “The look in her eyes,” Gary answered promptly.
    “Okay.”
    With any other employer, Gary might have asked a question like, “What’s our next move?” but he kept silent because he knew Lang would give him further orders when he had a plan in place.
    He watched his boss thinking about his options before he said, “Stake out her house. If she figures out who she is, she’ll go back there.”
    “Yes, sir,” Gary answered, relieved to have a new assignment, one he wasn’t going to screw up.
    “And another thing. The cops are looking for the doctor who treated her, the one on shift the morning she was released. Unless we have contradictory information, we have to assume that he’s the guy who came up behind you. And we have to assume the two of them are together. Keep a man on his place,