Conquer the Memories

value.”

A flush of nausea heated Sonia’s face as rough fingers tried to burrow into the pockets of her jeans. She carried no purse; there had been no need to bring one. In the first pocket, all the blond found was a quarter, and for one insane instant Sonia felt the hysterical urge to laugh. Never go anywhere without a coin to make a phone call in an emergency, her mother had told her a thousand times. Sonia wasn’t aware she’d never broken the habit.

The blond kept glancing at Craig as he checked the other three pockets. “Man, look at him go,” he chortled to the others. God, stay still, she wanted to beg Craig; stay still, they just want money. But her husband hadn’t stopped struggling from the instant he’d seen the blond grab her.

One rough hand dug into her waist; the other again wrenched her arm behind her until tears blinded her eyes. Nausea clogged her throat; the terror was so acute she was losing her breath, sobbing without even being aware of it. So dark, so black a night, and the smile on the stringy blond’s face…He wanted to hurt…someone. He was angry they didn’t have more money, and he was crazy and he was loaded to the gills.

His free hand crept over her stomach. “Hey, man, she keep anything worth hiding in her blouse?”

He was talking to Craig.

“Don’t,” Sonia whispered desperately. “Please. Please…”

The next second took years. That filthy hand deliberately crawled slowly up from her waist. She saw Craig’s eyes just those few yards distant from her, insane with rage, brilliant with fury…No! her mind screamed to him. No, Craig, don’t! Don’t…but before the hand could touch her breast, Craig had broken free from the others and launched himself at the blond.

“Get him!”

A keening moan escaped from Sonia’s throat. In a tangle of limbs and fists, Craig was buried beneath the other three. The blond laughed, and Sonia felt terror for herself shoved aside in her brain, an insidious horror taking its place. They were going to kill Craig. She could already see the wet, shiny red liquid on his face. Blood. If some instinct of self-preservation had kept her still before, that instinct died, replaced by another. Desperately, she began to kick the blond; her nails became deadly claws; her teeth snapped at the arm of her tormentor like the fangs of a wounded animal. He grunted, his arms loosening long enough for her to jerk free.

For an instant. She didn’t make it to Craig’s side. Her face connected with the damp, hard earth, the breath knocked out of her, as the blond tackled her and tossed her hard and flat on the ground. Then he flipped her on her back. Her scarf had disappeared; her opal must have glinted in the moonlight, because she felt the chain being ripped off, slicing a quick, sharp pain at her neck.

“Hell. Split,” the leader ordered. “They haven’t got a damn thing worth all this hassle anyway.”

Like creatures of the night, they took off at a dead run, silent, part of the shadows, and then gone, disappearing as if they had never been. Only one sound pierced the lonely night, the choking whimpers that came out of Sonia’s throat, sobs very close to hysteria.

Soaked from the dew-drenched grass, she was freezing, shaking like a mad thing. Sharp, darting pains shot up the arm the blond mugger had wrenched so badly. She had to move, had to get to Craig, yet nausea still gripped her, and she felt a terrible need to curl up in a ball, to hide. Human beings-they were actually human beings, she thought dazedly. She knew violence only as a statistic in the newspapers-it had never touched her life before.

Tears streaming from her eyes, Sonia jerked herself up to a sitting position. A razor-sharp pain promptly sliced through the back of her head, and an unexpected dizziness overwhelmed her with potent waves of nausea. Her shoulder…She saw Craig lying not five feet from her and forgot her own pain. He was still. There was blood on his face and his legs were sprawled and his skin looked ghost-gray in the moonlight. Damn her tears! She couldn’t see through the blur…

Stumbling to her feet, she staggered over to her husband and knelt down, roughly brushing her eyes with the sleeve of her blouse, refusing to let any more tears fall. They didn’t. She no longer had time for them.

She put her ear to Craig’s chest and her hand on the pulse in his wrist at the same time. That terrible knot loosened its hold on her heart. He was alive. But he was so terrifyingly still…His heartbeat seemed shallow, unsteady. Gently probing with her fingers, Sonia found a swelling mound at the back of his head. The blood on his face was from his nose-had they broken it? He made a low, guttural sound when her fingers gently tested his ribs, then a small spot beneath them. The bastards! The total bastards…

“Craig?”

But his eyelids didn’t even flutter. Frantically, she glanced around. Neither blankets nor bandages miraculously appeared. There was no one, not a hint of sound indicating another person might be near. Well, she was not going to leave him. Nothing could make her leave him; she couldn’t leave him…any more than she could continue to let him lie there motionless on the damp, wet grass, unconscious.

“Craig?” Gentle fingers smoothed the hair back from his forehead, gentle, calm fingers. Reassuring. “You’re going to be fine. I won’t be gone a minute. Just long enough to get help. You’ll be fine, darling…”

She touched him one more time before she forced herself to stand up. A thousand years ago she’d learned first-aid skills. Too long. Were the feet supposed to be raised for shock? For concussion? Could she do him harm if she tried to drag him? Dammit, she couldn’t possibly leave him like this.

Her heart pounding in her chest, she took off at a dead run, stumbling over the invisible rises and falls in the dark night-shrouded grass. The peaceful park had become a hell for her, with trees looming like menacing ghosts, the silence and darkness ominous and terrifying. Across open lawn, under trees, over paved walkways, she dashed-all of it seemed endless. Unconsciously, she held her hurt arm as she raced, and she kept the pace until her side ached so badly she could hardly breathe. At last she reached the long boulevard that led to Chicago’s business loop. A single car passed and then another. If they saw her, they didn’t slow down.

Finally, on the other side of the street, she saw a yellow taxi let someone out, and she fled across the shiny black asphalt, mindless of any other traffic that could have been coming. Gasping, she raced in front of the cab before the driver could take off again.

“You’ve got to help me-”

The tall black cab driver seemed startled, and for an instant Sonia realized how odd she must look-filthy and grass-stained and wild-eyed and running out from the middle of nowhere.

“Help me. You’ve got to help me. My husband is hurt-he’s lying out there-” She motioned frantically to the dark shadows of the park.

“Look, lady-”

“For God’s sake-”

Wary black eyes pierced hers. “Like, take it easy, okay? You want me to call a cop, is that it?”

“An ambulance. No…” She ran a frantic hand through her hair. “I want an ambulance, but I need a blanket now. Or a jacket or sweater. Anything. Couldn’t you come? You’re big enough…The thing is, I can’t move him. He’s lying in the grass…”

She could read forget it in his eyes. The man was street-smart, not necessarily unkind. How did he know she wasn’t trying to lead him to some setup where he might get mugged? She could read his mind in that instant, and couldn’t blame him.

She couldn’t blame him, but frustration bubbled over like an insane rage she couldn’t control. She slammed her fist on the roof of his cab when she felt the next round of hysterical tears starting. “Yes, you are! You are going to help me!” Both hands fumbled at the handle and wrenched the door open before he could anticipate her move. “You’re going to help me. You are. You are…”

Chapter 3

A carpenter was hammering. No, not a carpenter. His apprentice. Drive and miss. Drive and miss.

Craig dug his elbow into the chair arm just so. With the side of his head supported by the heel of his hand, the hammering pain lessened. When he first woke up, the pressure inside his skull had made him almost violently ill. He