Blank Slate

by Olivia Saxton

  “Something tells me you don’t need me to show you what to do,” Lou said as he watched her pick up the bronze-colored Glock.

  Layla checked the barrel and the loading chamber. She slipped a clip in with ease and aimed. Her eyes zeroed in on the end of the barrel and then glanced up at the target. “Fire in the hole!” She shot off a round. The paper swung backward. One after the other until the clip was empty.

  “Let’s check your work,” Lou said as he pressed the button to bring the target back to them.

  There were multiple holes in the head and chest area of the target.

  The guy next to them let out a low whistle. “Damn, girl. That’s some good shootin’.”

  “Thanks,” Layla said without looking at him.

  “Where did you learn to do that?” Lacey asked with awe.

  “Around,” she answered nonchalantly. She still wasn’t in control, but she wasn’t panicking like she was before. Apparently, she knew what she was doing. But how?

  “You wanna try out the other?” Lou asked.

  “Sure do,” Layla answered.

  Just like the one before it, she checked the barrel and chamber. However, she had to load each bullet one by one. As she was doing that, Lou set up another target for her.

  “That thing sure is big,” Lacey commented.

  Layla aimed. It was like she had scope vision. The target seemed like it was clear as day. She fired off a shot.

  “Holy crap,” Lacey said as she put her hands over the earmuffs.

  Lacey fired again and again, unloading the roll.

  Lou brought the target back. Layla was the only one who wasn’t surprised that all her shots were in the head.

  “Hell, you can shoot better than eighty percent of the guys that come here,” Lou said.

  “Nice,” the man next to them said as he bobbed and weaved his head to get a good look at her.

  “I taught her myself,” Lou bragged with a grin.

  “Ha,” the man scoffed and went back to reloading his weapon.

  “So, you ladies want to make a purchase?” Lou asked.

  Layla felt herself being raised back to the surface. When she was in control of her body again, it was like she was refreshed. She saw her surroundings and herself with new eyes.

  “Yes,” Lacey said.

  “I . . . I have a three-year-old at home,” Layla stated calmly. But she had a new view about this whole thing. She wanted to purchase the weapons, but she had Keisha to think about. Her little girl could get a hold of it thinking it was a toy.

  “I have loads of customers who are parents. They lock their guns up or put them somewhere that a child can’t reach it.”

  Layla thought about it. Perhaps she could lock one of the pieces in her vanity dresser in the bedroom. One of the drawers had a lock on it. She licked her lips.

  “Or you can keep them here. We have lockers for people who are members. The locker room has cameras, and the locks we give out are very secure. Someone will need a blow torch to get through our locks,” Lou said.

  “How much is a membership?” Lacey asked.

  “Two ninety-nine per year. That includes use of the locker rooms and firing range. You can practice at the range all you want. Plus, you get ten-percent discounts on the newest items we get in,” Lou explained.

  “Hmm. How much is the firing range without a membership?” Layla asked.

  “It’s twenty dollars a visit. If you plan to come in a lot, the membership is cheaper,” Lou said.

  “I want a membership. Judging from my performance today, I need the practice,” Lacey said.

  “I want a membership, too. I can keep one gun here and another under lock and key at home,” Layla said before she could stop herself. But she didn’t take it back. All she had to do was take precautions.

  It took forty-five minutes, but they purchased the guns, filed for permits, and signed up for memberships.

  When they walked out of the florescent light of the gun store, the sun almost blinded them.

  Lacey put on her Gucci sunglasses immediately and looked at her ladies’ Rolex. “It’s almost noon. You want to get a bite to eat?”

  “Not really,” Layla said as she looked down at her clothes. She was wearing brown slacks and a short-sleeved baby-doll shirt. The clothes just didn’t feel like her style anymore. “I’m going shopping. I think I’m going to get a whole new wardrobe. I can drop you off at home if–”

  Lacey whipped her glasses off. “Wait a minute. If you think you’re getting a new wardrobe without me, you’re crazy,” she said seriously as she pointed the glasses at her.

  “You can come. I just thought you were hungry and wanted to go home to eat.”

  “I’d rather go shopping than eat,” she stressed. “I’m not crazy.”

  Layla laughed. “Let’s go.”

  They started walking to the parking lot.

  “What kind of clothes are you thinking about getting?” Layla asked.

  “Anything that doesn’t make me look like a suburban wife and mom. I mean, I know that’s what I am, but I’m tired of looking like it.”

  “All right,” Lacey cheered. “Do you want the good stuff? We can go to my haunts to start.”

  She thought for a moment. What the hell? She could afford it. “Sure. I’ve been storing away nuts like a squirrel for ages. Matter of fact, Damien gave me a gold card last year, and I’ve never even used it. It has a fifty-thousand-dollar limit on it.”

  “Shiiit!” Lacey stretched out loudly. “Girl, I don’t know what has gotten into you, but I like it.”

  ****

  Layla was in the kitchen cooking dinner. She had put away her new clothes and ordered some new furnishing for the house while she was with Lacey. She stirred the spaghetti sauce as Damien walked into the kitchen.

  “Mmm, mmm, your homemade sauce always smells good.”

  “Thanks,” she said with a small smile. “I did the laundry today. I placed the loose change in your office as usual.”

  “Thanks, hon,” he said and kissed her cheeks.

  “I also placed that set of keys with the pool ball on it in there, too.”

  “Crap,” he said with startled shock. “I didn’t realize that I misplaced them.” It seemed like he was talking to himself more than her.

  She found his reaction strange and out of character. “I’ve never seen them before. What do they go to?”

  “Oh, they’re to my locker at the hospital. I would have been wondering where they were the next time I went there. Thanks for putting them in my office,” he said with a slight stutter.

  Is he lying to me?

  “They looked like two different sets of keys,” she commented.

  “One set is to my hospital locker, and the others are keys to my desk at the medical office,” he answered. “When will dinner be ready?”

  “Another fifteen minutes. The pasta just started boiling,” she answered as her stomach knotted up.

  “Okay, hon,” he said quickly and left the kitchen.

  For some reason, she thought those keys meant more to him than he let on.

  Chapter 18

  Alec had gone to bed early, but he was just staring at the ceiling. Lucky was lying on the floor next to the open doorway. His cell phone rang. The phone said it was almost ten o’clock, and it was his parents.

  “Hello,” he answered.

  “Hi, honey. How are you?” she asked in a voice a little higher than her normal one.

  Uh oh.

  That was the voice his mother used when she was about to tell him something he wasn’t going to like. “I was okay,” he replied as he swung his legs out of bed and placed his feet on the floor.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means, what’s wrong, Mom?” He cut on the lamp.

  Lucky slowly stood and then leaned down into a stretch.

  “Well, that depends on how you see it. I’ve been thinking for three days whether I should say something or not.”

&n
bsp; “Is it Dad?”

  “No, he’s fine. Your father is staying out late playing poker with his old buddies from the station.”

  “Is it—?”

  “Everyone is fine. I just . . . got some news. I ran into . . . someone.”

  “Am I going to need a drink for this?”

  “Yes,” she answered bluntly.

  Damn. Alec stood, letting the sheet fall off his naked body. Lucky nosed over and started smelling his junk.

  “Hey, get out of here,” Alec hissed and pushed the dog’s head away from his package.

  “What?”

  “I was talking to the dog, Mom,” he said as he started walking out of the bedroom.

  “Oh. Well, over the weekend your father and I went to Disney World. You know, how we get those vouchers and stuff, right?”

  “Yeah, Mom,” he replied as he walked through the living room. Lucky followed.

  “Well, the day that we got there, your father was checking us in. I wandered around the lobby. Then I saw someone—”

  He entered the kitchen and pulled an orange plastic cup out of the cabinet. “Go ahead, I’m listening.”

  “Alec, it was Lana Murphy,” she blurted out.

  He dropped the cup in the sink. “What did you say?”

  “I saw Lana. I know she’s alive. And I know you know it, too.”

  There was no way his mother could know that without talking to her. “What did you say, Mom?”

  “I said I know Lana–”

  “I got that part, Mom. I want to know what you said to her. It’s obvious you had a conversation with her, else you wouldn’t know that I knew she was alive.” He got the cup out of the sink and placed it on the counter. He put his mother on speaker. She had been right; he needed a drink.

  “Well, you father came along and saw her, too. We had an awkward introduction to her daughter, husband, and Layla Miles.”

  Oh, good Lord. Alec reached for the bottle of rum and quickly twisted off the cap. “Go on.”

  “You see, I mentioned to her that she looked like someone we knew. Well, I came out and called her Lana.”

  Alec rolled his eyes as the bureau’s psychiatrist’s words played in his mind. “What did she say?”

  “She said I mistook her for someone else.”

  “Oh,” he said with a small amount of relief.

  “Then I kept going on and on about how much she sounded like Lana.”

  Of course you did, Mom. Alec filled the cup halfway with rum. “What was she doing in Orlando anyway?” he asked exasperatedly.

  “I don’t know, son. I assume they were enjoying a family weekend. Anyway, Hershel got us out of the predicament, and we went to the restaurant in the hotel. I mentioned that we should at least call you to let you know that . . . there was someone who looked a lot like Lana walking around Orlando.”

  Alec picked up the Coke bottle on the counter. He poured a small amount of Coke in his cup. He needed his drink to be strong. “What did Dad say?”

  “He pretty much forbade me not to do it. He claimed it was a coincidence. Like everyone has a double. So I dropped it.”

  “Really?” he asked with surprise. His mother was like a dog with a bone. She should have been in law enforcement considering the way she couldn’t let go of things.

  “Yeah. I tried not to think about it anymore. Then . . .”

  Oh, good Lord, here it comes. He grabbed the container of doggy treats and opened it. Taking a treat he had broken in half earlier, he tossed it at Lucky.

  The dog caught it.

  “Then?” he urged as he grabbed his cup.

  “Then she had the front desk call me at two a.m., begging to meet me.”

  “Are you serious?” he shouted. “She called you?”

  “Yeah. Trust me, I was just as surprised as you are now. I . . . I agreed to meet her in the lobby . . . that night.”

  “What happened?” he asked and then took a healthy swallow of his drink.

  “We talked outside the hotel. She told me that she had amnesia, and her husband told her that she was adopted, and her adopted parents died before they met each other.”

  “What?” he asked with confusion.

  “That’s what I said. Then she told me that she was seeing a therapist to help get her memories back. So far, she has remembered a few things about you. I just filled in the blank spots.”

  “She remembered me?”

  “She sure did. She told me about the necklace Bruce gave to her on your behalf. It helped.”

  Good. He hated to think he gave it up for nothing. Other than old pictures of them, it was all he had left of her. “What else did you two talk about?”

  “I told her that she needed to confront her husband because she wasn’t adopted, and her parents were still alive.”

  “Christ,” he whispered out loud without meaning to. He didn’t know how Lana was going to take that news. She had been estranged from her parents for years, plus she didn’t even know they existed.

  “She was shocked, but she took it well, kind of. At first, she was shocked. She said that what I was saying sounded like a soap opera. Then I told her her real name, which led back to her husband lying to her.”

  “What did she say about that?”

  “She didn’t know what to think really. I told her my theory was that her husband might be trying to protect her from Carter Mitchell. Something tells me if he knows she’s alive—”

  “Wait. You told her she was with Carter?”

  “I told her because she asked who was the other man she left you for.”

  “Mom, Lana has no idea who Carter really is—"

  “I know that now because that’s when everything fell apart. As soon as I revealed Carter’s name, she went wild-eyed and ran off. I called after her, but she just kept going.”

  “Oh, boy,” he groaned and took another sip of his drink.

  “Son, I’m sorry I upset her, but she said she was ready for the truth. I told her everything that I knew.”

  “I know, Mom. I know you didn’t know how she would react.”

  “Well, something else is more important now, I think. Something isn’t right about that husband of hers. He seemed nice enough when we met him, but he has fed her lies about her past. I’m not sure if she has the strength to confront him, and I’m worried that . . . he might be up to no good. What kind of man would lie to his fiancée who has amnesia?”

  Yes, what kind of man? A man who has something to hide. “I agree,” he said as he picked the phone up and walked into the living room.

  “That’s why I decided to tell you. Maybe you should check into this Damien Miles.”

  A wry smirk spread on his lips as he sat on the sofa. “And to think, I thought you would be mad forever at Lana.”

  “I thought so, too, but . . . well, I don’t want to see something bad happen to her. I never wished her harm. You know that.”

  “I know, Mom.”

  “I better go before you father gets home. Which reminds me—”

  “I won’t say a word about this.”

  “Thank you. I love you.”

  “I love you, too. Bye, Mom.” He clicked off.

  Chapter 19

  It was Thursday, late morning. Layla filled Victoria in on what had transpired since the last time she had seen her.

  “Goodness,” Victoria said. “You’ve had quite the weekend.”

  “And week. I have a whole new look,” Layla bragged.

  “I noticed the change in your makeup and clothes. What brought that on?”

  “Something strange happened to me at the gun store. It was like I faded away, and my body went into autopilot. I knew more about guns than I realized. When I left, I felt like a whole new person, but yet . . . familiar.”

  “Layla, is it possible that you are taking on the personality of your past self? It’s rare that a person changes after amnesia, but it does happen; especially in your case. You were told your likes and dislikes by your husband. Y
ou never got to develop naturally.”

  She looked at Victoria and thought for a moment. “Well, I don’t know. Then again, why would Damien not tell me what I was really like before? Why would he lie about that?”

  “I’m sure he loves you, but everyone has dislikes concerning the people they love.”

  She nodded. “Like he didn’t like my clothes and makeup.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Maybe. He did say something about my clothes yesterday. He asked me if I thought my skirt was too short. I told him no,” she said with a smirk.

  Victoria chuckled. “Did he say anything else?”

  “No. I think he dropped it because he didn’t want to argue about something so petty.”

  “The last time you were here, you talked about calling Bruce Styles to get more information about your past. Have you done that?”

  “No. I need to deal with someone who isn’t going to hem and haw on giving me answers. My nanny suggested that I hire a PI. I’m still considering that option.”

  “What will you ask him to look into first if you do hire one?”

  “Lana Murphy. I tried Googling her name myself, but nothing came up.”

  “This is the third time you have referred to Lana Murphy as a third party. Considering what Martha Peterson told you, don’t you think you are Lana Murphy?”

  Layla swallowed. “It’s just hard for me to . . . accept my name . . . isn’t my name.”

  “Have you confronted your husband about the name change?”

  “No. It’s weird. It’s like . . . there’s a part of me that wants to know, but the other part of me doesn’t, like I don’t want to know.”

  “There are going to be memories that you might not want to have back, Layla. That’s what I warned you about when we started this.”

  “I know, but I guess . . . I didn’t really take into consideration how bad or . . . abnormal it could be.”

  “Well, the pieces you have uncovered aren’t the norm for most people. FBI agents showing up out of nowhere, a possible love affair with a notorious criminal, and a separate identity can be a little off-putting.”

  Layla nodded.