His look softened. "What I'm hoping is that you will remember it. Because it may be all I have left to bring you back to me."

"It will," she vowed, at the same time wondering how she could be certain of anything.

Noel grabbed a handful of clothing from her luggage and vanished into the bathroom. Getting dressed made her feel a little less vulnerable. But not much.

She wasn't sure what she'd expected when she emerged. But it wasn't Jason sitting in an easy chair with a tape recorder on the table.

"What's that for?" she asked.

"Both our lives may depend on your being able to act like you're still under control. After I remove the implant , the tape may be the only way we'll have of remembering what you're supposed to believe with it in your head."

Noel shuddered but sat down at the table.

For the next forty-five minutes, Jason prodded her memory, and Noel did her best to cooperate, battling confusion as scenes clashed with each other. She sat with her hands clenching painfully in her lap, as if that could hold her together. Sometimes pictures and feelings popped into her head. Sometimes she had to ignore the throbbing in her brain and dig for answers. Always, she watched Jason's face for clues to what was true and what was false. Unfortunately, he held his reactions under iron contml, and she learned nothing.

Finally Jason sighed. "I've been stalling for the last fifbeen minutes."

"Because every decision we make is dangerous. What if I'm wrong about this, and I screw up your mind? Per " That's a chance I'm prepared to take, because I can't stay like this. So, please, let's get on with it. "

He stood up and got a small leather case out of his duffel bag. When he opened it, she saw the contents went beyond a mere first-aid kit.

"I can handle a bunch of emergencies," he said. "But I don't have any topical anesthetic."

Her eyes flicked to the bed. "

" I guess I ought to lie down: '

Hefore she could turn away, he folded her into his arms, simply holding her for several moments and then covering her mouth with his in a kiss that was equal parts desperation and passion. She clung to him, kissing him back with all the love she felt, wishing that he never had to let go.

When he started to ease away, she murmured a protest Tenderly he kissed her closed eyelids, her eyebrows, her cheeks. She looked down so that he wouldn't see the moisture in her eyes, and his lips moved against her hair. "Noel, sweetheart, try to remember that I love you " She felt her heart turn over. He'd kissed her, held her even said those words before. But hearing him say them now meant everything to her. She was so choked with emotion that her reply was a ghost of a whisper. "Oh, Jason, there's not a chance that I'll forget."

She knew he had heard by the way he caressed her. She leaned against him, absorbing his strength-his essence. But finally she knew it was time.

Trying to move briskly, Noel turned to the bed, removed the pillows, straightened the covers and spread a clean towel on the quilt before lying down. She cradled her head on her hands and closed her eyes. When she felt his fingers brush aside her hair, she tensed.

She smelled the stringent odor of antiseptic and braced herself for the pain.

"Are you ready? I'm going to do it now." "

" I'm ready. "

The pain she felt was more than a physical sensation. It was like a needle jabbing and tearing at the essence of her being. Of Noel Zacharias. Noel Emery.

Memories flashed and collided. Overlapping and blurring, new ones replacing old, like slides shoved haphazardly into a projector. Good and bad. Sweet and painful.

A sob welled in her throat as she looked down into her mother's grave.

Then she smiled as she spied Jason lying naked on a wide bed. At the cabin in the woods. He smiled back and held out his arms.

He vanished, replaced by the killer in Mr. Dubinski's grocery store. No. It was the other man. The one she'd worked for. The one who'd thrown her to the sofa in his office and- Turning, she tried to run and became tangled in the light streaming through the stained-glass window over the door at 43 Light Street Her fingernails dug into the skin of her forearms, but she didn't feel that pain. She was somewhere else. Other places. Other times. Swamped by a rising tide of overlapping feelings, sensations. . memories. They came faster, sharper. Until there was nothing left but pure emotions. Need. Desire. Fear. Love. Hate. A terrible sense of loss.

From somewhere far away, Jason called to her, but it was too late.

She was being ripped in two-torn to pieoes by a shatqring explosion. She screamed as the universe turned to

Chapter Ten.

The scalpel dropped to the floor with a clatter that barely registered above the screams that filled the bedroom.

"Noel. Oh, God, Noel. What have I done to you?"

Jason grasped Noel's should en turning her over so he could see her face.

For a qmoment she stared at him in terror, then her gaze went hazy and unfocused as if she wasn't seeing him at all.

At the same time, she started beating with her fists at his shoulders and

trying to tear herself from his grasp."No. Get away from me. I won't let you do it: The words were blurred,indistinct. But he heard.

"Noel. It's Jason. I won't hurt you," he said over and over, fighting the sick feeling that taking out the chip had been the wont thing he could do to her.

The small fists continued to pound. Her breath came in frantic puffs."Gilmore." The name tore from her throat.Jason felt his insides twist, and his hands tightened convulsively on her shoulders. Sir Douglas had told him that name. Had told him what he thoughta man nameqlGilmore had done to Noel. When she'd been living alone in Baltimore.

Oh, God, it was true.

Her nails raked his arms. The pain was his punishment , but it was nothing compared to what she had endq As gently as he could, he forced her to stay with him on the mattress.

"You're not going to-no-"

Again he said his name. And hers, wondering if there was any way to getthrough to her. "Sweetheart, I'm trying to help you: 'The change was abrupt. Suddenly she went slack ex apt for her ragged breathing. Her eyes blinked, looking up at him in confusion. When she began

to cry softly, the sound cut all the way to his soul. He stroked her cheqk.She looked as if she was struggling very hard to get control of herself.Gradually the tears stopped, and her breathing slowed. He handed her atissue, and she wiped lqer eyes.

"Do you know where we are? " "In.. . England: ' "I1o you remember what happened this morning?"

"The.. . chip. You told me about the chip."

"I took it out." q. "hank God." t Whq he had restitched the incision, hepicked up a qrquare of gauze from the table. "Here's what I took out qqqfyou: It was a wafer-thin piece of silicon about one -inch wide and ahalf-inch long.

Noel raised her head to stare at it, as if she couldn' the something so smalland insignificant looking d have done so much damage. qq'How do you feel? "if;qpq. No. Half-full. Like half of me's gone," she in a small voice."The best part." q'No. The best part of you is all there. "

She looked as if she didn't believe him. "Don't give me easy reassurances."

"Sweetheart, I'm so sorry."

"Don't call me that. You don't have to pretend anymore"

"Noel-"

"I remember our talk this morning. And what happened last night." A flushspread across her cheeks. "You tried to tell me the chip was controlling mymemories and my emotions. But I didn't believe you. I've been reliving amarriage that didn't happen."

Jason felt as if the words had flayed his flesh. He wanted to grab her, holdher, tell her the feelings they had for each other went a lot further thanthe cursed implant But he couldn't bear the look of pain and humiliation inher eyes, so he took a long time carefully wrapping the device he'd removedfrom her scalp. Then he carried the scalpel into the bathroom and began towash it.

When he came back, Noel's eyelids were closed. He stood looking at her,taking in tlxe dark lashes lying softly against her cheeks. The bloodlesspallor of her skin. The vulnerable curve of her lips. Last night those lipshad eagerly sought his. Now she probably wished he'd vanish with thememories.

At first he assumed she was simply shutting him outrunning away in the only way she could. Then he saw from the even rise and fall of her chest that she was asleep.

He hoped she'd feel better when she woke-physically and mentally. There was no reason to think she'd feel any differently about him.

NOEL WAS DRIFTM" dqing. Warm, lazy dreams.

About the cabin beside the lake. Jason had caught a striped bass for dinner,

and she had picked a bowl of wild blueberries.

Only somehow the fish and blueberries had disappeared , and they were sitting in front of bowls of pea soup. But neither one of them was hungry.

Her eyes blinked open.

Her husband was sitting in a chair beside the bed, watching her. She started to hold out her arms. Then reality returned with a sharp stab, and her hands dropped back to her sides. Jason Zacharias wasn't her husbaqd. She should have listened when he tried to tell her that.

"How do you feel?" g f "

"Morh ied. Fri htened. Con used. Hungry.

That s probably a good sign. I can make you some tea. And there are biscuits. "

Jason had the electric kettle on the bureau quickly boiling. As Noel watched him empty a packet of sugar and a small container of milk into her cup, she wonq how he knew what she liked in her tea. Then she decided that he'd probably been briefed on that, along qvith everything else.

He waited while she sat up and took the cup.

"I need to find out what you remember. ,.

The words called up pictures and sensations-swirling m her head. Some of them were real and some were false. q gripped the saucer as she recalled how she'd practiqy qgged Jason to make love to her. When she'd qought he was her husband. He wasn't. He was little q tlqan a stranger, and all the warm loving emotions 'd felt for him had come from a chip in her head. qhe chip was gone. Yet wisps of love still clung to her 1qe ground mist before the sun could burn it off.

Being married to Jason had seemed so right. So real. Even though she understood that was all an illusion, it still felt as if she were married to this man. No, it was worse than that. She still wanted to be married to him, Noel stroked her hand across the covers, smoothing out the wrinkles and wishing it were that easy to brush away her emotional confusion-and her embarrassment at being so dependent on a man she hardly knew.

"Can you tell me when you first saw me in England ? "

The businesslike tone of his voice was a relief-at least he was trying to make this easier for her. "You rescued me from one of Montgomery's men."

"What happened after that?"

Noel told him about coming to the cottage. And finding the passport. Wtien she got to that part, she stopped, going numb all over as she raised her hand toward the back of her head and then stopped abruptly before she reached the new wound. "It hurt: '

He leaned toward her. "Your wound?"

"No. Inside my head. Just as I was climbing out the window, I-I was paralyzed by a terrible pain, like lava rushing through my brain cells."

Jason swore.

"That must have been when your friend Sir Douglas switched on the memory generator."