Free Masquerade by Janet Dailey Page B

cup of coffee?" She walked over to the tray and picked up the coffee server.  
    "Please."
    Remy filled both cups with steaming coffee, then reached for the creamer. "Heavy on the cream and light on the sugar, right?"
    "Right," he said. "You're starting to remember things."
    "I hope so," she said, feigning a nonchalance she didn't feel.
    "What happened, Remy? What caused this amnesia? I never really got the story straight. Was there an accident, or what?"
    "According to the police inspector, I was seen arguing or. . . struggling with a man." She sipped at her coffee, remembering the bruised and swollen soreness of her lips. "He struck me and I fell backward, hitting my head against a tree trunk. It knocked me out. When I regained consciousness in the hospital, I had a dozen stitches in my scalp, a concussion, and—amnesia. I had no idea who I was, where I lived, or what I did, and I didn't have any identification on me."
    "This man who hit you—did they catch him?"
    "No. He ran off and disappeared into the crowd. The police couldn't get much of a description of him, and of course I wasn't able to remember any of it. I still don't know if he was somebody I knew, somebody I recently met, or a total stranger." She stopped. "Do you know anything about that night, Gabe? Why was I at the Espace Masséna? What was I doing? Where was I going?"
    "We were all at a party that night... at a hotel not far from the square," he replied hesitantly, as if uncertain how to answer her questions. "You, me, Marc and Aunt Christina, Lance and his wife, Julie, Diana and Kathy and their husbands—" He caught her blank look at the last two names and paused to explain, "Diana and Kathy are Marc's daughters, both younger than Lance." A rueful smile tugged at his mouth. "They're our cousins, but—to be truthful—they're both kind of shallow and vain, more concerned with being seen with the 'right' people, wearing clothes by the currently 'in' designers, and sending their children to the 'right' schools than they are with anything else. . . . Anyway, they were there that night too. But the last time I remember seeing you, we were all at the party. Then you were gone. I assumed you'd gone back to the yacht. I wasn't surprised. After all, one Carnival party is pretty much the same as another. And when you weren't on board the next morning, no one thought anything of it. You had planned to leave that day, and we thought you had. I never guessed—none of us did—that something had happened to you. We wouldn't have left if we had."  
    "I know."
    She heard the key turn in the lock and turned with a slightly guilty start as Cole walked in. He stopped, his gray eyes locking on her, but she had difficulty meeting them, no longer certain she could trust him, yet bothered by the feeling that her doubt was somehow a betrayal.
    "Were you able to round up the crew?" Gabe asked.
    "They're on their way to the airport now to file a flight plan and obtain all the necessary clearances. We should be able to take off as soon as we get there."
    "Give me twenty minutes," she said, and she walked quickly from the room.
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    From the porthole window of the corporate jet, Remy watched the golden light of a slowly setting sun spread its color over the beaches and buildings of Nice. As the jet climbed over the tinted waters of the bay, the grand hotels along the Promenade des Anglais—those towers of luxurious elegance —diminished in size, the famed Castle Hill landmark, with its sparkling waterfall, visible from almost anywhere in the old section, was reduced to a vague knoll of ground, and the backcloth of verdant hills and distant mountains that ringed the city rose to dominance. Then the plane made its banking turn on its prescribed departure pattern, and Remy leaned back in her seat and tipped her head against the headrest.
    They were going home. She was going home— home to New Orleans, to