What She Forgot

by Amanda Stevens

  But before she could get out of bed, light flooded her room, the door opened and a middle-aged nurse with a kindly face bustled into the room. “What’s the matter, hon?”

  She looked at the nurse blankly. “Wh-what?”

  The nurse nodded toward the bed. “You pressed the call button several times. Do you need something? Are you in pain?”

  She uncurled her fist and found the call button inside. She hadn’t even been aware of holding it, much less pressing it to summon help. “I think someone was in here.”

  The nurse took her by the shoulders and pressed her gently back against the pillow. “You probably had a nightmare. God knows, this weather is enough to give anyone the heebie-jeebies.”

  It wasn’t a nightmare. She was sure of it. Someone had been in here with her. Someone—or something—evil.

  “Someone was here,” she said again.

  “No one was here,” the nurse soothed. “I’ve been at the desk all night. I would have seen if anyone had come into your room.”

  What about the scent? she wanted to ask. But the fragrance, so tantalizingly familiar, had already faded away. She put her hands to her face. “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I remember?” she whispered.

  “You will,” the nurse assured her. “The doctor said your tests so far all appear normal. More than likely, your memory loss is only temporary. In a few days, everything will start to come back to you.”

  No! She didn’t want everything to come back to her. What if they took her away again? What if they locked her in that dark room again?

  But even as those thoughts flitted through her mind, a flash of memory caught her by surprise. A man’s voice screaming Andrea!

  Her heart started to pound again. “Andrea,” she murmured. “My name is Andrea.”

  The nurse brightened. “There, you see? You’re starting to remember already. What you need now is rest.” She straightened the covers with an economy of motion. “Do you want me to bring you something to help you sleep?”

  No drugs! The idea filled her with terror.

  The nurse patted her arm. “Very well, then. Do you need anything else before I go?”

  I need to know why I’m so afraid! I need to know who wants me dead!

  She needed to know about the dark room.

  But she said nothing.

  “Get some sleep now,” the nurse said, turning toward the door. “Everything will seem better in the morning.”

  But Andrea didn’t think so. She didn’t think daylight would bring an end to her terror.

  CHAPTER TWO

  When she awakened again, sunlight streamed in through the hospital window. She closed her eyes and lay there, hovering pleasantly between sleep and wakefulness. She’d been dreaming about Mayela. The two of them were walking in the park, laughing and talking and having a wonderful time. She always had a wonderful time with Mayela—

  Who is Mayela? a voice in the back of her mind asked.

  And with that question, the terror of last night returned. She sat up in bed and gazed around frantically. Where was she?

  The hospital. She dimly remembered being brought to the emergency room. She’d talked to a police officer, hadn’t she?

  Her hand flew to her mouth. Oh, God, what had she told him? What if he found out about the dark room? About all the blood? What if he sent her back? What if—?

  You didn’t tell him anything, the little voice assured her. Because you don’t remember anything.

  There was safety in not remembering.

  She did a quick survey of the room. A window, one door that led to the hallway, another door that led to the bathroom and a sink with a mirror.

  Andrea got up and padded over to the window. The parking lot was far below. No one could have gotten into her room through the window. She crossed to the door and peeked out. The elevators were at the end of the hallway, near the nurses’ station. No one could have come that way without being seen. The nurse had been right. The intruder last night had been nothing more than a product of Andrea’s imagination. But somehow that thought did not make her feel any better. Far from it.

  She let the door close and moved to the sink to examine her reflection in the mirror. Blond hair, blue eyes, oval face, full lips, high cheekbones. A model’s face, she thought without pride, for the face in the mirror belonged to a stranger. Was she a model? A wife? A mother? Was that who Mayela was? Her child?

  But surely she would be able to remember her own child. What kind of mother would forget her child?

  And her husband? She searched her mind frantically for an image, then lifted her left hand to stare dispassionately at the impressive glitter of diamonds in the mirror. If she had a husband and a child out there somewhere, why did she feel so lost? So lonely? Why did she feel as if she didn’t belong anywhere?

  Why wasn’t her husband looking for her? Why hadn’t he come forward to claim her?

  A sudden explosion of memory caught her by surprise. A voice deep inside her mind screamed, I hate you. I want you dead.

  A red mist covered her vision.

  Andrea’s right hand curled at her side, as if gripping a knife. She lifted the imaginary blade to the mirror and struck at her reflection.

  I hate you. I want you dead. Dead! Dead! Dead!

  Gasping in horror, Andrea grabbed her right wrist with her left hand as if to physically restrain the slashing motion. What had happened to her?

  What had she done?

  * * *

  BY MIDMORNING, she had been poked, prodded, X-rayed, stuck with needles, her blood drawn, her head examined, her vital signs checked and rechecked, and all because she couldn’t seem to remember who she was.

  “Well, Andrea, I have good news and I have bad news,” Dr. Seavers announced as he strode into her hospital room later that day. “The good news is, I can’t find anything wrong with you.”

  “And the bad news?”

  “I can’t find anything wrong with you.” He pulled up a chair beside her bed and sat down. “The MRI and the CAT scan have turned up nil, and the blood work so far is clean, which is pretty much what I expected. Your memory loss appears to be psychosomatic.”

  “Meaning I can’t remember because I don’t want to.” She studied the doctor carefully.

  He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “It’s usually not quite that simple.”

  Wasn’t it? “Will I ever remember?”

  He slipped back on his glasses, gazing at her with earnest blue eyes. “There are no guarantees, of course, but I’d say the chances are excellent your memory will return.”

  “All of it?”

  “Probably not all at once. Bits and pieces will come back to you, sudden flashes maybe. Eventually you may remember everything.”

  “When?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” said another voice from the doorway. Andrea’s eyes darted to the figure standing just inside her room. He looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place him. There was something disturbing about the way his dark eyes studied her so intently. Something frightening about the way she seemed to respond to him.

  For a moment, she wondered if he might be her husband. Was that why he seemed so familiar to her? A thrill of excitement raced up her back. A memory darted through her mind.

  A man was kissing her. A man just as tall and dark and handsome as this man.

  But he wasn’t this man.

  Disappointment shot through her as she quickly tore her gaze from his.

  Dr. Seavers said, “You remember Sergeant Stoner?”

  The policeman who’d questioned her last night. I don’t like cops, she thought suddenly, though she had no idea why.

  She flashed him another glance, and he smiled at her. Andrea’s pulse fluttered in her throat. He really was quite attractive, she thought, and wondered why she hadn’t noticed last night.

  Maybe she had noticed. Maybe she’d forgotten.

  She didn’t see h
ow she could forget this man, though.

  But she’d forgotten her husband.

  I want you dead!

  She looked away, unable to hold Sergeant Stoner’s probing gaze.

  “I’m glad to see you’re looking so much better this morning.” He crossed the room to her bed.

  Dr. Seavers stood up. “I’ll stop by later, and we can talk more. I’m sure you still have a lot of questions.”

  “As do I.” Something in Sergeant Stoner’s voice made Andrea tense, and she realized that his smile had only been a ruse. He wasn’t to be trusted after all.

  “Have you remembered anything?” he asked when Dr. Seavers had left the room.

  “My name.” She was still unable to meet his gaze. “It’s Andrea.”

  “So I heard. That’s a very pretty name.” He paused, then said, “And your last name?”

  “I don’t know.” Andrea didn’t know why she felt so afraid to look at him. Guilt, maybe? Was she afraid he would see something in her eyes that even she didn’t know about?

  She wondered if she should tell him about the intruder in her room last night. But why should he believe her when Andrea wasn’t even sure herself? He might think her crazy. He might want to send her to the dark room.

  “What’s wrong? Have you remembered something else?”

  “No, nothing.” With an effort, Andrea willed herself to relax, forced her gaze to meet Sergeant Stoner’s. His eyes were a dark, impenetrable brown and fringed with long, curly lashes. He was tall and lean, but Andrea knew that beneath his suit coat, the muscles in his arms and chest would be powerful. She could almost feel them flex and bunch beneath her hands—

  She stopped her thoughts cold. Was she remembering how it felt to be in a man’s arms? Or was she experiencing wishful thinking, because of this particular man?

  Just what kind of woman are you?

  Obviously one who wasn’t to be believed, she thought, if the shadow of doubt in Sergeant Stoner’s eyes was any indication.

  “Let’s go back to last night,” he said. “What’s the first thing you remember?”

  Andrea closed her eyes, straining for recall. “The emergency room. There was so much noise. Someone screamed.”

  “Do you remember talking to me?”

  She flicked him a sidelong glance. “Vaguely.”

  “Do you remember being examined?”

  A blush of humiliation touched her cheeks. The examination had been thorough. “Yes.”

  “Dr. Seavers said he could find nothing physically wrong with you.”

  “So he told me.”

  “Your amnesia appears to be—”

  “Fake?”

  Something flashed in those brown eyes. “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you have your doubts about me, don’t you? I can tell.”

  “I’m not a doctor, I’m a cop. We tend to see things in black-and-white. We’re naturally wary of terms like ‘hysterical amnesia’ and ‘psychosomatic.’”

  Hysterical amnesia? Was she hysterical? Andrea didn’t think so. Right now, she felt amazingly calm. Completely in control. She began to relax because she knew as good a detective as Sergeant Stoner might be, he wouldn’t find out anything she didn’t want him to.

  “Do you have any idea why you might have been walking down the middle of a busy street at ten o’clock at night in a thunderstorm?” he asked suddenly.

  Andrea’s poise slipped a little. She shook her head.

  “Were you trying to get away from someone?”

  That struck a note of truth, but Andrea forced her expression to remain placid. Safety lay in keeping her mind a blank. She shook her head again.

  Sergeant Stoner took a deliberate step toward her. He towered over the side of her bed, and his dark eyes probed her face, searching for the truth. “Where did all that blood come from, Andrea?”

  “Wh-what?”

  He bent toward her, his eyes intense. Andrea found she wasn’t quite as calm as she’d thought. “You had blood all over your clothing, but it wasn’t yours. Whose blood was it?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  Sergeant Stoner stared down at her. “You have to admit, your memory loss seems just a little too convenient. You’re found wandering down a busy street in the middle of the night, covered in blood. Yet you can’t remember why you were on that street or how that blood got on your clothing. You can’t even remember your last name. Our hands are tied, Andrea. We don’t know if a crime has been committed or not. We don’t even know where to start looking. And if a crime was committed, by the time your memory returns, the trail will have undoubtedly grown cold. Do you see what I mean?”

  She saw, all right. She knew exactly what he was driving at. “Just what is it you think I’ve done?”

  “I don’t know.” He sat down in the chair next to her bed and took out a black fountain pen, twirling it between his fingers. “All I know is that you had a great deal of blood on your clothing when you were brought to this hospital. Type O-positive, the lab tells me. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “No. I don’t even know what type my own blood is.”

  “It’s A-negative, as a matter of fact.”

  “It seems you know more about me than I know about myself.” She didn’t think she was usually so flip, but Sergeant Stoner frightened her, and she had to hide behind something.

  “I doubt that,” he replied. “I doubt that very much.”

  When she didn’t answer, he tried another tack. “Would you be willing to talk to a psychiatrist?”

  An image of the dark room rose in her mind, and Andrea’s heart pounded in terror. No!

  She didn’t want to talk to a psychiatrist. That was the last thing in the world she wanted.

  She forced herself to stare at him coolly. “Will my talking to a psychiatrist alleviate your doubts about my amnesia?”

  He shrugged noncommittally. “Will you talk to her?”

  “Her?”

  “Someone I know. She’s very good. You’ll like her.”

  “I suppose I’ll have to take your word for that, won’t I?” Andrea said, wondering just who the woman was and what she meant to Sergeant Stoner.

  Those dark eyes studied her carefully. “You do want to remember, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “That’s a good question, Andrea. A very good question.”

  * * *

  TROY FROWNED as he stood in the hallway outside her hospital room. The interview hadn’t gone quite as he’d expected. She was too damn cool, for one thing. What had happened to the poor, helpless girl he’d seen in the ER last night? The woman he’d just spoken with seemed completely in control of her faculties, and not nearly frightened or confused enough for someone who couldn’t remember her own name.

  A chill of foreboding crept up Troy’s spine. What kind of game was she playing? And what the hell did it have to do with him?

  * * *

  WHAT DO YOU THINK you’re doing, Andrea? The woman with the haunted blue eyes stared back at her in the mirror.

  I couldn’t let him see how much he frightened me. Then he would know something was wrong.

  He already knows something is wrong, her reflection scolded. You were found wandering down a busy street with blood all over your clothing, and you don’t remember who you are or what happened to you. What is he supposed to think?

  That I’m guilty.

  Of what?

  I don’t know.

  Yes, you do. You know. You know.

  She raised her left hand and stared at the diamonds twinkling on her finger.

  I want you dead! Dead! Dead! Dead!

  * * *

  “THE LAB FOUND TRACES of a mild sedative in her bloodstream,” Tim said.

  “A sedative?” Troy frowned. “What do you make of that?”

  “Parvonal C is sometimes used in sleeping medications, completely harmless in the amount we found in Andrea’s blood. It might have contributed to her
disorientation, but it wouldn’t have caused her memory loss. Everything else appears normal. Under the circumstances, I won’t be able to keep her here much longer. We’re just too understaffed and too short on beds.”

  “Where will she go?” Troy asked, but he knew the answer as well as Tim did.

  Tim shrugged, not in indifference, but in resignation. “Judging by her clothing and jewelry, she doesn’t appear to be destitute. Maybe someone in her family will turn up to claim her. If not, there’s always the shelters.”

  Troy tried to picture Andrea in one of the homeless shelters downtown, but the image was too incongruous. She obviously didn’t belong in a shelter, but just where did she belong? So far no one had filed a missing-persons report fitting her description, and Troy was having a hard time believing that no one in her family had missed her yet. But it hadn’t even been twenty-four hours. Andrea’s husband might yet turn up to claim her.

  And what if he did claim her? What if he was the reason Andrea had been found wandering alone at night, bruised, disoriented and frightened? What then? Troy would have no recourse but to turn her over to him. If Andrea couldn’t remember what had happened, if she couldn’t file a complaint against him, there would be nothing Troy could do to help her.

  What makes you think she wants your help? Or needs it, for that matter? he asked himself as he thought about the cool, collected woman he’d spoken with earlier. It was almost as if he’d interviewed two very different people. One vulnerable and frightened, one calm and controlled.

  He wasn’t sure which one of them was the true Andrea. Or which one of them was the most dangerous.

  “I’d like Madison to talk with her,” he said. “Do you have any objections?”

  Surprise flashed in Tim’s red-rimmed eyes. “I have no objections. In fact, it’ll be nice to see your sister again.”

  * * *

  IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON and Andrea had just awakened from a troubled sleep. She’d dreamed about Mayela again. The name had been fresh on her mind when she’d opened her eyes, but when she’d tried to put a face with the name, the tenuous image vanished.

  Was Mayela even a real person or another figment of her imagination?

  A knock sounded on her door, and she called out, “Come in,” expecting to see either Dr. Seavers or one of the nurses. But the dark-haired young woman who stuck her head around the door was someone Andrea was sure she’d never seen before.