Morning sucked. Hard. It was bright and loud and shiny. And bright. Really bright. So bright it felt like the sun was standing over my bed drilling into my temple with a sharpened ray of light. I sat up and immediately wished I hadn’t. I dry-heaved a couple of times, but my stomach was empty. Thank God. The inside of my mouth already tasted like I’d been making out with Rixton—which is to say a horse’s ass.
A few minutes of sitting up did wonders for my sour disposition, and I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. I hadn’t noticed, but I wore the same clothes from yesterday. Jeans encased my legs, and Cole’s oversized shirt hung off one shoulder. His scent wafted around me as I moved, and I shucked it over my head to escape the reminders of last night.
The thought of food set my stomach roaring as I made my way to the bathroom. I was too woozy to go through the motions of showering. Instead I sprayed dry shampoo into my hair, fluffed it, then peeled off my clothes and bathed my face and upper body in the sink. I changed into clean underthings, pulled on fresh jeans, then tugged a long-sleeved T-shirt over my head. I transferred the contents of my pockets into my new pants. Feeling refreshed, I went in search of Dad.
I found him sitting in his recliner with the tablet I’d bought him last Christmas balanced on his lap and a special on the unexpectedly vicious nature of hippos playing on the TV in the background.
“I like reading on this thing. The large font—it is called a font, right?—is easy on old eyes.” He tapped a few buttons. “But I miss the smell of newsprint.” He rubbed his fingers together. “The way it blackens your fingertips.”
Nostalgia was one of Dad’s favorite stalling tactics, and I wasn’t falling for his tricks. “How do you know Cole?”
“Straight to it,” he grumped. “Your mind has always been a steel trap. Made fibbing to you nearly impossible when you were little.” He waved me into the living room. “Sit down or else you can’t jump up and yell at me properly when what I have to say lights a fire under you.”
“Okay, I’ll play along.” I sat in my favorite spot and curled my legs under me to prove I was too mature to hop up and down and scream at my own father in a tantrum. “Lay it on me.”
“I know you know where I ended up that night.” He must have meant on my birthday. “I didn’t mean . . . I didn’t want—I don’t want—you to worry about your old man.” He set the tablet aside. “I was flipping channels on the TV at Harry’s when the show I was watching cut to a breaking-news segment.”
Yep. He meant my birthday. I linked my hands in my lap and waited.
“I caught a glimpse of the woman you helped retrieve from the swamp.” His chest expanded on a deep inhale. “I saw her arms, the bands.” He gusted out a sigh. “What are the odds of her being found in the same swamp with the same markings? It has to mean something.” He dragged his gaze to mine. “You had to come from somewhere. Babies aren’t found under cabbage leaves, and young women aren’t discovered under a film of duckweed either.”
“You saw her arms on TV.” I pressed a hand to my lower stomach. “I’d hoped with the darkness and the distance . . . ”
How many others recalled the early photos of me exposed the same way? How many of them would make the same leap as Dad? We had identical markings. I had seen them for myself. What did they mean? Where did we get them? Unless . . . was Maggie right? Had we been born this way?
“I saw the logo for the security company,” Dad continued, “and I googled them. Did I say that right?” I nodded that he had. “I called the number listed on their website and asked to speak to the man in charge. That man was Cole.” He flicked his wrist. “He and I met and came to an agreement.”
“Wait a minute.” I stopped him right there. “You’re the one who hired White Horse to watch Jane Doe?”
That explained not only the top dog’s appearance on my doorstep but also his willingness to play chauffeur. Not to mention Dad’s noticeable absence. He had been hiding from me.
“What was I supposed to do?” He set his shoulders back, ready to stand in the face of my anger. “It was all over your face what she meant to you.” He plucked at a loose string coiled on his armrest. “You were too young to remember the worst of the media frenzy when you were found.” I didn’t correct him. He believed I had been spared by virtue of my age, but eleven was plenty old enough to recall the height of Wild Child Mania. “I knew that if I’d seen her arms that others would have too, and I wasn’t as careful of you at first as I should have been. There are pictures documenting your markings. I trusted those doctors to keep them confidential. I was a fool for believing the diplomas on their walls made them good and honest men.”
“You did the best you could.” More than anyone else would have done in his shoes.
“Are you very mad at me?” He stared at my toes, as though that was as high up as he dared look.
“For blowing your retirement fund on Jane? Yes.” I stood and crossed to him, kneeling on the floor and encircling his waist with my arms. He leaned forward into the hug. “For protecting me like you always have? No. I didn’t buy you all those Father of the Year shirts for nothing. You earned them.”
He dropped a kiss on the top of my head then pulled back when I winced. “How’s your noggin?”
“Sore.” I sank into lotus position on the rug. “It feels like a mule kicked me in the temple.”
“I called the shift office.” He peered down at me, stern Dad Face in the on position. “I explained what happened and faxed over the note and contact information for the doctor who saw you last night. You’re on sick leave for forty-eight hours. You’ve got time built up if you need more after that.”
Seeing as how my head felt like a rung bell, I didn’t fight him over a mini-vacation.
“How are Cole and Thom?” A vague memory tickled the back of my mind. “I heard them talking. At the clinic, maybe? That must mean they’re okay.”
“They’re both fine.” He smoothed his hand over his shirtfront.
“Are you sure you’re not holding back?” I scrunched up my face. “You’re worrying your middle button. That’s your tell. What haven’t you told me?”
He scraped his nail across the plastic disc. “I also retained Cole’s services on your behalf.”
“On my . . . Dad. You hired a bodyguard for me?” My soul shriveled at the thought even while I relaxed a fraction. This I could process. This I could handle. A decent guy defending me out of the goodness of his heart? Now that had been odd. Muscle paid to protect me, well, that fit my worldview just fine. “That explains a lot actually.”
The persistence. The protective streak. The violence on my behalf. Acceding to my requests. No wonder Cole had played so well with me. He had been paid to keep an eye on me, and what better way than to cart me around and pretend curiosity in my pursuits?
I was such an idiot for not piecing it together sooner. Even Maggie had befriended me because of my reputation. She’d wanted to be a lion tamer that year and figured I was good practice. Though my lack of body hair, claws and fangs had initially disappointed her, my willingness to jump through hula hoops in her backyard while she cracked the frayed end of a jump rope at my feet redeemed me in her eyes. She’d charged kids a dollar each to watch the show, and we’d used the money to eat froyo until we got so sick we barfed until our toes curled in the bathroom at Hannigan’s.
Huh. On second thought, maybe that was why the old coot hated me so much.
“I fired him.” Dad jutted out his chin. “His second night on the job, and you land in a clinic with a head injury.” He crossed his arms. “He can keep the contract on Jane Doe until other arrangements can be made, but he is not to interfere with you.”
As much as my pride stung, I rallied a defense for White Horse. “You can’t blame Thom, who was the driver and yet has managed to escape your ire, or Cole for a deer jumping in front of the SUV. We live out in the country. Wildlife takes out vehicles all the time.”
He muttered something under his breath that I let pass in the interest of allowing him to vent.
The house phone ringing cut his tirade short, and he scowled at the receiver cradled on the wall in the kitchen. Cell coverage tended to be spotty out this way, so we kept a land-line phone for emergencies. Usually the only calls that came through were telemarketers or the job. I stood and followed him. I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, and I wasn’t in the mood to cook. “Cereal and milk it is.”
“Luce.”
“Hmm?” I got down my favorite bowl. “Is that work?”
“It’s Justin Sheridan.” His forehead puckered. “Do you feel up to talking to him?”
“Sure.” I accepted the handset and reached for a box of sugary flakes. “Hey, Justin. What’s up?”
“I wanted to thank you for filing the missing person report last night.” He sounded raw. “I wasn’t ready to face up to it, and I would have cost us time.”
“What are you talking about?” I cut a glance at Dad. “I didn’t file any paperwork yesterday. I was off.” The first half of his comment caught up to me. “Who’s missing?”
“Are you okay, Luce?” A note of doubt plucked my ears. “You don’t remember?”
Ice spread in a sheet down my spine, and I shivered where I rested my hip against the counter. The pain in my head worsened, and I hissed as my brain throbbed. “I was in an accident. I have a concussion.” The chattering of my teeth drew Dad’s attention. “It’s all hazy after . . . ”
“Oh God, Luce,” he breathed. “Why didn’t you mention it sooner? Are you all right? Do you need anything?”
“Answers.” I gritted my teeth and accepted Dad’s help sitting at the table. “What happened?”
“Maggie didn’t come home last night.”
The phone slid from my numb fingers and clattered across the floor. Needlelike pain jabbed my scalp as a haze blurred my eyes. Faint echoes—memories?—swirled up from my core, hit the roof of my skull and shattered open.
Mountainous rocks jutted from the barren earth, the peaks capped in ice and dusted with snow. A silken caress down my spine had me searching the open skies for the male responsible. I tipped back my head, a grin on my lips, and locked gazes with eyes the perfect crimson of a ruby’s heart.
Hot tears filled my eyes, and a blink sent them rolling down my cheeks. I clawed at my hairline as a wave of dizziness crashed over me, the strange landscape blurring, and my head dropped like a stone. My forehead bounced off the wood, and the lights went out.
“Ms. Boudreau.” A frigid disc touched the skin over my chest, and my eyelids fluttered as an affable voice nudged me toward consciousness. “Ms. Boudreau, can you hear me?”
“No.” Throat dry, I coughed when I tried to swallow. “Hospitals.”
“This isn’t a hospital.” The words swept déjà vu over me. “This is a private clinic. I’m Dr. Leon Norwood. We met last night after the accident. Can you open your eyes?”
I cracked them open to find a middle-aged man with thinning hair hovering in front of me with a pen light aimed at my forehead. The second our gazes met, he jabbed me in the eye with the beam. An ice pick to the temple would have hurt less.
“Your concussion appears to be more serious than originally suspected.” He thumbed my bottom eyelid and pulled it down. “I could diagnose the full extent of your injury if you would allow a few minor tests.”
“No,” Dad answered for me, “she doesn’t want them.”
MRIs, X-rays, ultrasounds. Been there, done that. Got the IV tracks in my arm to prove it.
“Your father tells me you’ve got a case of retrograde amnesia.” He explained before I could ask. “It means you’ve forgotten a block of time prior to your accident. From what Mr. Boudreau explained, it sounds like you’re missing three to four hours.”
I swallowed to wet my throat. “Will they come back?”
“Long-term memories tend to return in bits and pieces as people heal from head injuries. It’s perfectly normal for glimpses to return out of sequence, so don’t panic if what you recall doesn’t fit the version of events you’ve been told. It will take time for your brain to sort out the puzzle of what happened. Don’t try to force it. Let it occur naturally.”
“Will those glimpses include . . . other things?” The bite of frigid wind still chapped my cheeks. “Scenes that don’t . . . ” I made a vague gesture. “Can the memories reorder themselves into something new?”
“It’s possible you might interpret them that way.” He reached for a pen. “Are you experiencing fractured memories?”
“No” seemed like the best answer to the curiosity sparking in his eyes. “I need Cole.” I bit the inside of my cheek. “What I meant is that I need to talk to Cole.”
Dad glowered at me, not pleased by the slip-up.
“I was with him last night. That I do remember.” I swatted the hovering doctor away and pushed upright. “He might have the answers I need.”
“Dr. Norwood just said not to force the memories.” Dad gripped my shoulder to steady me, his fingers light and not in contact with the metal under my skin. “You need to rest.”
“I’m not forcing the memories.” I rubbed the heel of my palm into my eye. “I’m acquiring new ones. He can tell me what happened. Then I can let it go.”
“You’ve never let go of a thing in your life.” He sighed. “Whoever said daughters are a father’s delight must have meant a father’s demise.”
“You know you love me.” I curved my hand over his weathered one. “I’m not actually trying to kill you.”
“That’s what scares me.” He removed his hand and let me test my steadiness. “Think how much faster it would go if you put any effort into it.”
I chuckled, and it made my head ache worse, but the pain was minor when it eased the worry pinching Dad’s face.
“I can’t rest while Maggie’s out there alone.” Guilt at having forgotten her even for a moment pressed on my chest until my lungs burned as if a lace of ice fringed them. “She’s my best friend.”
“Did you hear me speak? No. You didn’t.” He huffed in a resigned way. “What’s the point? Might as well be talking to a fencepost.”
Dad took my elbow in a light grip. I slid off the table and checked to make sure I could stand on my own before stepping out of his reach. He didn’t take offense. He understood. And he kept close enough to catch me should my stubbornness send me crashing face-first onto the tile.
We passed through the empty waiting room, and I sneezed so hard I lost my balance. The musty air tickled the back of my throat, the scent reminding me of rooms closed up for too long between uses. What sort of doctor practiced out of a clinic like this one? Casting stones was out considering my hang-ups with hospitals and lack of trust in doctors in general. For Cole to trust him, Dr. Norwood must have had as much reason to hide from the medical community as I did. There was an odd comfort in that, a shared secret almost.
Outside the sun glared bright overhead, and sweat pearled on my forehead. It must be nice to wear tank tops or short-sleeved shirts in public. Guarding my privacy almost suffocated me in the Deep South humidity.
“Heard you wanted to talk to me,” a deep voice rumbled from my left.
“Cole?” I spun to find him leaned against the siding not a foot away from me. “How did you know?”
“Dr. Norwood texted me.” He straightened to his full height. “So here I am.”
“Texts might travel at the speed of light, but men don’t.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “What are you doing here?”
He nodded a reluctant greeting to my dad before focusing on me. “Would you believe I was in the neighborhood?”
“No.” I took a stab in the dark. “Let me guess. You were still playing bodyguard, despite Dad firing you, and followed us out here. A less charitable woman might call that stalking. Oh, wait. I already have. Repeatedly.”
Teasing him came harder today than it had yesterday. Knowing where we stood, knowing what motivated him, had given me perspective. And if my chest ached a little, well, it was only what I deserved for forgetting. I ought to thank Cole for the reminder.
“I called him,” Dad admitted. “I’d never even seen this clinic before last night, and I wasn’t exactly here to absorb the décor. I wanted the same doctor to take a look at you, but I got here, and it was so dilapidated, I decided to verify the address.” He poked his finger through a hole in the siding. “How is this place not condemned?”
“It’s camouflage.” The examination room had been spotless, the equipment well maintained, the man soft-spoken but capable. “His patients must have their reasons for avoiding the hospital.” I took Cole’s measure. “What’s your excuse?”
The edge of his lips curved. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”
“I didn’t invite you here to flirt with my daughter.” Dad angled himself between us. “Actually, I didn’t invite you at all. You gave me the confirmation I needed over the phone. Why are you here?”
“I wanted to check on Luce.” His gaze found me over Dad’s shoulder.
“I fired you.” Dad made a slashing motion with his hand. “She’s no longer your concern.”
“Can we go somewhere and get some breakfast?” I appealed to the nurturer in Dad. “My stomach would settle faster if it had some food in it.” I rested my head on his shoulder. “Besides, I wanted to talk to him anyway. His nosiness saved us the hassle of hunting him down.”
“You’re a terror.” He tweaked my nose. “I suppose you might as well be a terror full of maple syrup.”
Grinning up at him, I caught the peculiar expression tightening Cole’s face before he smoothed it away. There and gone so fast, if I had to name it, I would have called it envy.
The drive to the local Waffle Iron took ten minutes. We met in the parking lot and entered in a cluster like old friends. The waitress showed us to our table, and Cole slid in beside me before Dad could wedge himself between us. I smothered a laugh that earned me side-eye from Dad. It was probably a good thing they’d broken off their arrangements. Cole enjoyed needling his employer way too much for any kind of working relationship to survive between them long-term.
After we’d placed our drink orders and been handed menus, I twisted in the booth to better see the man beside me. “So, here we go. I don’t remember last night. Words I never thought I would say to a guy’s face.” Dad’s scowl cut deeper while Cole managed to look amused. “Or ever. I don’t drink and date. Or really drink. Or actually date.”
Dad nodded with satisfaction that I had given the correct answers.
Leaning closer to Cole, I begged, “Feel free to stop me from rambling at any point.”
He picked up the laminated menu and started scanning. “What do you want to know?”
“I remember visiting Jane Doe, but the rest is hazy.” I selected a straw and started picking off its wrapper. “Though I did wake up with a killer Thai craving.”
“We stopped for takeout at a Thai place in town. That’s when Justin Sheridan called.” He outlined the rest of the evening, and I tucked away every scrap of information. He gritted his teeth through the retelling of the accident and ended on a wholly unexpected note. “Since you were incapacitated, I took the liberty of reporting your friend as missing on your behalf.”
“That was you?” The straw rolled from my fingers. “I figured her parents must have gone down to the station after Justin told them she was missing.”
“I owed you.” Cole had faced down cops and paperwork—two of his least favorite things—for my friend. For me. He shrugged like his thoughtfulness didn’t matter, when it meant more than I could put into words. “I should have taken better care of you in the first place.”
“Now you sound like Dad.” I accepted my drink straight from the waitress and speared it with my straw. “Mother Nature was at fault. Not you.”
The rest of our breakfast passed without a hiccup, and Cole paid the bill, much to my father’s protests. I hadn’t lied about the food. It did settle my stomach. It centered my thoughts too. I had all the pieces, or most of them, and they were sliding around in my head searching for interlocking corners. We left at the same time and stopped outside the restaurant to make our awkward goodbyes.
“I need to swing by the station.” I had expected pushback from Dad, but Cole beat him across the finish line with a resounding no. “I want an update on Maggie’s case.” Chances were good Rixton and I had been passed over for that assignment due to our friendship with her. That left few choices, none of which satisfied me. I wanted a hand in her case, conflict of interest or not. “I need to follow up with Robert Martin too.”
“You’re on sick leave,” Dad reminded me.
“Then I’ll go off sick leave.” I already had my phone in my hand. “Let me check in with my partner first.”
Briiiiiiing.
Chills blasted down my spine, and I shivered. I really wished Cole would change his ringtone. But if I asked him to outright, the first question that popped out of his mouth would be why? And the only answer I would give him was just because. I wasn’t about to expose even more of my soft underbelly to him. I shifted away to give him privacy to answer his phone and bumped into Dad, whose face had gone bone-white and whose eyes carried a darkness I glimpsed only one night out of the year.
“What’s wrong?” I gripped his elbow and guided him onto a bench. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Maybe I have.” He blinked at Cole a few more times, shook his head, then scrubbed his face with his hands. “I didn’t sleep much last night. I’m due for a nap.”
“Okay.” I waved goodbye to Cole, who didn’t look pleased about me slipping away while he was otherwise occupied, and walked with Dad to his truck. “Let’s do that.”
Dad really must have been knocked for a loop. Otherwise he never would have fallen for my dutiful daughter act. His parental instincts always told him when I was faking. He remained distant on the drive home and went up to his room when we got there. I waited a half hour, until I could hear his snores from out in the hall, then palmed my keys off the kitchen counter where Dad must have left them after Portia swung by this morning.
“Sorry, Dad.” I trailed my fingers across the back of his recliner on my way to the door. “But Maggie is my friend.”
And I had too few of those to give up on even one.