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She’d definitely seen his face at some point. And heard a helicopter.
    “Do you remember now?” he prompted.
    He seemed anxious for reassurance, but before she could piece together the separate images floating around in her brain, a shorter, stouter man appeared in the doorway wearing a police uniform.
    “Look at this. She’s up!” he bellowed, removing a cowboy hat as he entered the room.
    A cowboy-hat-wearing cop wasn’t something she’d expect to see in California, but it wasn’t so unusual here. She might’ve smiled, except the muscle that flexed in Cain’s jaw told Sheridan he wasn’t pleased about the interruption. Dropping her hand, he stepped away.
    In the few seconds it took her new visitor to reach her bedside, Sheridan realized she knew this man, too. She’d gone to high school with him, the same as Cain. Unlike Cain, however, he’d lost a lot of hair and gained a lot of weight.
    “Ned?” she said uncertainly.
    “Hey.” Holding his hat in one beefy hand, he rested the other on her bedrail and smiled, revealing the gap he’d always had between his teeth. His twin sister hadone just like it—for being fraternal twins, they looked surprisingly similar—unless she’d had it fixed since Sheridan had seen her last. “How ya feelin’ little lady?”
    She glanced at Cain, but he wasn’t watching them. He’d taken up his post along the wall and was once again staring pensively out the window. She could see his profile, the long sweep of his dark lashes, his bold, prominent chin, straight nose and well-shaped lips—
    “Sheridan?”
    She dragged her attention away from Cain. “Yes?”
    “How are you feeling?”
    “Better. I think. What’s wrong with me?”
    “Not much now. Doc says you’re healing nicely. The swelling in your brain has gone down. You had some internal injuries, but that’s all going to be fine, too.”
    “How long have I been in the hospital?”
    “A week.”
    That sounded like an eternity. “Where’re my parents?”
    “I don’t know. We’ve tried to reach them, but the phone at their place in Wyoming—it is Wyoming, isn’t it?”
    She managed a careful nod.
    “No one answers.”
    Why not? she wondered. They were always there, as reliable as rain.
    And then it occurred to her. They were on a two-week cruise to Alaska. They wanted to get some traveling in before her younger sister had her baby, which was due… She’d lost track of time; she didn’t know when. “They’re on vacation,” she said.
    “That explains it.”
    A man’s hand, holding a piece of wood, flashedthrough Sheridan’s mind. But that had to be part of a dream…. “What happened to me?”
    “Someone attacked you. That’s why I’m here. I’m Whiterock’s chief of police.”
    Attacked her?
    The figure with the club reappeared in her mind. Evidently he wasn’t a figment of her imagination. She’d been attacked before, years ago, but the situation had been different back then. How was it that this kind of violence had visited her again?
    Maybe this time she’d see justice done. “Do you know who did it?” she asked.
    Ned’s lips formed a hard, flat line. “Not exactly. But we have our suspicions.”
    That was no solace. They didn’t know, which meant more of what she’d experienced twelve years ago—more wondering, more waiting, more fruitless hoping. “Who do you suspect?” she asked, but Cain interrupted.
    “The wrong man. He’s wasting his time, that’s all he’s doing.”
    “We’ll soon find out, won’t we?” Ned said. “Surely she saw more this time.”
    They were relying on her? A strange panic set in because Sheridan couldn’t identify the man who’d attacked her. She couldn’t recall anything about the incident. At least nothing clear or sequential. Nothing that made sense or hinted at reasons and names. Just those bizarre, upsetting images. “I don’t think so,” she said helplessly.
    “Tell me everything you remember since you first drove into town,