Scene of the Crime: Deadman's Bluff by Carla Cassidy Read Free Book Online

tumbling back.”
    “I hope so. It’s terrible not knowing anything about yourself. I don’t know where I live or how old I am. I have no idea what I do for a living or how I got here. I mean, did I take a bus? Did I drive here? And if I did then where is my car?” The questions bubbled out of her.
    “I know you didn’t take a bus here. There’s no service here in town. And by the end of the evening I should be able to answer most of those questions. I’ve got a lot of resources at the FBI to use to get us information about you now that we know your name.”
    She gave him a rueful smile. “Most people don’t want the FBI anywhere near their personal lives.”
    “True,” he agreed. “But most people know about their own lives.”
    Once again she directed her gaze out the window. She looked fragile, as if she was just now fully embracing the amnesia she’d been afraid to speak of.
    She hadn’t spoken of the questions he knew must be screaming in her mind...who had tried to kill her and why? Had somebody driven her to town and dumped her at the sand dunes? Was that why they hadn’t found a vehicle? He frowned. That didn’t make sense considering there had been two women before her, two victims who had been local.
    Once again Seth fought the need to reach out and touch her, to take the darkness from her eyes and watch them fill with the light of laughter.
    Instead he focused on all the things he intended to do, all the people he needed to contact when they got back to Linda’s place.
    With the information he could gain, it would be time to get to work. He’d spent the past twenty-four hours with Tamara hoping she’d speak, hoping she’d be able to give them a starting place.
    Now he had one, and he needed to get together with Atkins and discuss their plan of action for finding this killer and taking him off the streets. What he didn’t need to think about was how silky Tamara’s dark hair looked, how her full breasts pressed against her T-shirt and how long it had been since he’d been with a woman.
    Just his luck, that the one woman who sparked his interest, who stirred a physical response just by her nearness was a victim in a heinous crime. Getting involved with a victim was kind of like trying to find love on a reality show...rarely successful.
    Whatever he and Tamara might share now had nothing to do with real life. Any feelings that might arise between them would be based on too many other emotions...need, fear and, for him, the desire to do his job.
    He’d seen other agents get embroiled on a personal level with victims and witnesses and it never worked out. Besides, he reminded himself, he wasn’t looking for anything romantic in his life.
    Linda’s dismal marriage to her husband and her subsequent contentious divorce had been enough for Seth to reconfirm his commitment to remaining a lone wolf.
    It was just after ten when they returned to Linda’s and Seth immediately got on his cell phone to begin the process of tapping into the resources he had at his fingertips.
    He sat at the kitchen table with his laptop and phone and Tamara slid onto the sofa. The open floor plan of the house allowed him to watch her as he made his calls.
    It must be terrifying to not know anything about yourself, to not have memories or images of any past, of any part of your life to identify what kind of a person you were, where you fit in the world.
    It took him almost an hour to put into motion the people and programs that would give him all the information they needed about Tamara Jennings.
    When he’d made all his calls and set up a meeting with Sheriff Atkins for later in the day, he got up from the table and went to join Tamara on the sofa.
    He sat several inches away from her, but could still smell the clean, fresh scent of her. “Are you doing okay?” He seemed to be asking her that a lot.
    “As well as can be expected, I suppose, considering I just learned my name, I’m in a town I don’t know and you dug