28 Days: a romantic suspense

by Lexi Buchanan

  Tamsyn stopped her mid swipe as she grabbed her arm and slowly turned her. “Look at me, Saige.”

  Saige gulped. “I have everything under control...then something happens and I feel like I’m about to lose it again.”

  “I can’t begin to understand what it’s like to suddenly have that slapped in your face...your memories.” Tamsyn stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Saige. “I’m here for you if you ever need to talk, cry on a shoulder…or eat a full tub of ice cream.”

  Saige tried to smile but it came out more of a wince. “I don’t have memories.”

  Tamsyn stepped away. “What do you mean?” She frowned.

  “I don’t remember anything.”

  “That’s probably for the best.” Tamsyn wet some paper towels. “Here, you need to sort your face out, even if you’re going to clock out now.”

  “I’m not leaving mid-shift.”

  She could have said more, but she didn’t. She didn’t want to get into it with anyone…she hadn’t for years. Her family tried to get her to talk about her memories—her lack of memories. They’d filled in details, trying to lodge something loose in her memory. She was so sick of talking about it that she got used to changing the subject, and her family eventually got the hint.

  “Are you sure you’re okay to go back to work? You still look pretty shaken.”

  She felt shaken and her nerves made her nauseated. Her hands trembled as she raised them to her face. Maybe Tamsyn was right…maybe she needed to clock out early. “I’m going home.”

  “Let me see if Lou will let us both leave.”

  “She won’t. I’ll be fine, Tamsyn. I just need away from here for now.”

  Tamsyn didn’t look convinced.

  “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I just need my own space.”

  “Okay.” Her roommate watched her closely for a few minutes and then nodded slightly before finally leaving the room.

  Saige sighed in relief when her friend left her alone to collect her thoughts. Her first thought was to call her father because she knew that as soon as he saw the news, he’d be worried about her.

  The image on the screen of the man would forever be engrained on her brain. As far as she was aware, she’d gone eight years without knowing what he looked like. She’d been afraid that once she saw him the horror of her time with him would suddenly hit her, so she’d never gone looking. Now though, nothing was there. Her memory was just as blank as it had been for the past eight years...and that scared her.

  As Saige had looked closely, there had been something familiar about the man, but as soon as she tried to remember what teased her memory, her head throbbed.

  She couldn’t stay at work; she had to get back to her apartment. She needed to be surrounded by her things, feel the comfort that they brought.

  * * *

  3:00pm

  * * *

  Saige closed the door behind her and pressed her back against it as she tried to draw energy into her body. She had none. She was exhausted and had only worked a half-shift. Moving slowly toward the table by the door, she placed her purse down and sighed with relief. She was home.

  She took a few steps farther into her living room and dropped into the oversized chair—her comfy chair that everyone else hated. The battered brown leather didn’t match anything in the elegant apartment, but for some reason, she had insisted that it went with her when she moved. The chair had always been in the boathouse, so she guessed it held happy memories that she wished she could remember.

  And that was the biggest problem. She didn’t remember anything. Not the attack. Not the rescue. Not the years just prior to her attack. Memories erased from her life as easily as her attacker had tried to erase her.

  Sometimes she would try to remember, but all it did was leave her with a terrible headache. The doctors had told her not to push it. Months would go by before it started again—wondering what she wanted to remember—so she’d try to regain her memories, only to be left with the usual headache. It was an unhappy cycle.

  Her father thought it was a godsend that she couldn’t remember what had happened while she’d been held against her will, but what they couldn’t understand was that she had nearly two and a half years stolen from her mind. Those years were just gone.

  The summer before she was taken—gone.

  The days of being tortured—gone.

  Two years afterwards—gone.

  Her father had once said that for the two years after, it had been like she hadn’t existed. She’d been in a private hospital. Withdrawn. Mute. Completely pulled inward with no contact from anyone other than her immediate family and the medical staff.

  It sounded like a lonely existence and sometimes she was glad she couldn’t remember any of it. Other times, she felt like she’d go insane because she couldn’t.

  One question she constantly asked herself was, what happened to her afterward? Why couldn’t she remember anything after she’d been found? It didn’t make any sense. Why couldn’t she remember the hospital when she’d been there for such a long time? All she did remember was the last two weeks before her father had taken her home. Even now the smell of antiseptic made her physically sick.

  Saige kept so much locked away inside her where no one could see. She was tired of being her. Tired of being afraid, and tired of not remembering.

  Seeing Quinten Peterson on the television today had really thrown her for a loop. There was something about him that teased at her memory. He’d been familiar, but not in a frightening way. She’d always expected him to be terrifying to her when, or if, she ever saw him, but that reaction hadn’t come.

  Instead she felt a hint of affection. Perhaps after all these years she could finally admit to herself that she was crazy, because why the hell else would she have felt affection for someone who’d tortured her for days and then left her for dead?

  Her father had kept her locked away from the awful truths. He’d kept her away from the trial and from seeing him. She hadn’t testified at the trial, as she was in the hospital recovering from all the injuries she’d suffered. Later, she remained in a private hospital for close to two years. Eventually, she started to speak again, and had relied heavily on her father, who’d been there every step of the way. He’d been the one to take her home from that dreadful place.

  Saige shuddered and hoped like hell that she’d never have to step foot inside the walls of that hospital again. Every time she thought about that place, chills of fear raced down her spine. She often asked herself what had happened to her while she’d been a patient—she would probably never know.

  Forgoing dinner, Saige struggled to get herself up from the chair and slowly dragged her feet to her bedroom.

  She stripped out of her work uniform and climbed under the covers—wanting to hide from the unknown that haunted her. Just for a little while.

  * * *

  3:15pm

  * * *

  For eight years he’d waited for the execution warrant to be signed by the governor, and now that it had been, Quinten felt nothing but fear...and anger.

  He’d constantly asked himself, why him? He’d never gotten an answer. All those years ago, he went after the woman he loved. He didn’t regret finding her. Even knowing how he ended up, he would do it again as long as it meant that Saige lived. Despite the odds against him, he’d managed to save her.

  Even now, as they led him in shackles to one of the death watch cells, he could still see the blood covering her—his beautiful girl. Just her smile had been enough to bring him to his knees.

  “Steady now,” one of the guards said.

  He blinked a few times and realized his body had tensed, and that his fists clenched together in front of him.

  Four heavily armed guards flanked him while the warden led the way. The death squad. He didn’t know any of these guards, but he’d certainly get to know them now that he was under twenty-four seven observation. That was, until they transferred him to the execu
tion chamber, adjacent to his new home.

  Quinten briefly closed his eyes and tried not to think about the end. He’d prayed since his incarceration that he’d be freed. He hadn’t done anything wrong, and wondered if he was being punished for that last night when he’d seen Saige before she’d returned to college.

  “Nearly there,” another guard grunted.

  The shackles around his ankles and wrists rattled when he slowly shuffled forward, and then he froze. His legs wouldn’t carry him further.

  He couldn’t do this.

  How the hell was he supposed to willingly walk inside that cell? He felt sick to his stomach with fear while he told himself to stay strong, not just for him but also for his brother. Quinten just wasn’t sure that he knew how to anymore.

  His legs weakened as he stared into the small space in front of him. The metal-framed bed with a thin mattress sat to one side, while the shower, stainless steel toilet, and sink had been placed to the back of the cell with a small window above.

  He really couldn’t do this.

  “C’mon, Quinten. You know you have to step forward.” The guard looked younger than him. He also looked sorry that he had to force him inside.

  Inhaling, Quinten forced his legs to move him forward. The minute he stepped inside, the door closed and locked behind him.

  “Turn around.”

  On automatic pilot, he turned and let them remove the chains while he kept his eyes closed.

  “They’re off. Move away from the door.”

  He followed their orders.

  He always did.

  He was a model prisoner.

  His eyes finally opened as he moved closer to the bed and dropped to the mattress, his legs no longer willing to hold him up.

  Quinten rested his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands.

  He stayed like that for a long time.

  * * *

  10:45pm

  * * *

  Her body hardly had any life left in it.

  She was fading fast.

  So cold.

  The pain.

  “You’re safe now. I won’t let anyone hurt you. I promise.” He caressed her face with fingers that felt like icicles. “Saige, it’s me.” He softly kissed her lips.

  His eyes so familiar...

  Shooting up in bed, Saige reached out and struggled to turn the lamp on.

  As soon as there was light in the room, she scrambled and rested against the headboard. Sweat poured off her as she wrapped her arms around her bent knees.

  She’d had dreams before, but none that she remembered once she woke.

  Trees had been behind the man who’d crouched over her. She remembered the sound of the birds chirping, and the sound of the man crying, promising to protect her. The man she’d seen had been the one who was sitting on death row.

  The dream felt real. Too real. She felt like it had been the pain that had pulled her under. No fight had been left in her and she wanted to go to sleep so that she wouldn’t hurt so much.

  Then he came.

  She’d felt his presence and knew he’d help her.

  She’d known not to fight him when he wrapped her up in something.

  Why had she felt safe with him?

  “Saige, it’s me.” His voice whispered in her dream…maybe even in her memory.

  He knew her.

  He’d expected her to know him, recognize his voice.

  Unable to hold her tears in any longer, she let them fall unchecked down her face while a feeling of overwhelming grief surrounded her.

  For the first time in eight years, she’d dreamt something that had felt real—something that she remembered the details of after waking, at least, she presumed it was the first time.

  One thing she realized was that she wanted to know about the trial. She wanted to know about the man who was going to be killed in twenty-eight days.

  The man she should have feared and hated. But that hadn’t been what she’d felt.

  In frustration, she sent the room back into darkness.

  * * *

  11:20pm

  * * *

  Alexander Peterson, known for the past six years as Alex Peters, danced around the old leather bag in front of him, wishing like hell it was Richard Lockwood.

  For eight years, his hate for the Lockwood family had grown and fueled his anger at the lies they’d told. And just like when his brother had been arrested and subsequently charged with the murder of those college girls, and the attempted murder of her, he felt helpless.

  He loved his brother and knew he was innocent. Even when the evidence piled up and eventually incriminated him, Alex had never given up hope that one day Quinten would be acquitted.

  Alex had hoped that she’d come forward and tell the world that it was all lies...except she hadn’t. She’d been hidden away by her family and he’d had no idea where to even start looking.

  Quinten had needed her, he’d needed her, but Alex had given up searching because their mother had lost all hope. Just before she died, their mother begged him to get his life together instead of festering on the hate and betrayal he’d felt at his brother’s incarceration. He’d kept his promise, becoming a firefighter, but he’d still let the hate and betrayal fester. He’d just learned to hide it from her and his friends.

  His brother’s defense attorney had filed so many appeals and motions to try and get another trial, but he’d hit a brick wall with all of them.

  Time now slipped through his fingers.

  Twenty-eight days.

  Just hearing those words made him want to hurl.

  In eight years, they hadn’t been able to get a retrial.

  In eight years, they hadn’t found new evidence to implicate someone else or tampering with evidence in his brother’s case.

  So what the fuck could he do in twenty-eight days?

  Alex wanted to go and beg Lockwood to help free his brother, but he knew that the man wouldn’t. No matter what Richard Lockwood had said to his face, he’d had no intention of helping Quinten. His wife had been another matter altogether. Christina Lockwood had lied to him. The only woman he’d ever let close, and she’d taken his heart and crushed it.

  He first met her when Richard Lockwood had employed him and Quinten to create one of their masterpiece carvings for the wooden banister in the foyer of their home. At first, Christina flirted with them both when Richard wasn’t around, which they ignored.

  A few weeks later, he found her upset when he went looking for a bottle of water. He saw a different side of her then, and over the course of the following weeks things had gotten out of hand, but neither could stay away from the other...and then she crushed him. Just as Saige did to his brother. If Saige hadn’t been her stepdaughter, he’d have said it was a case of like mother, like daughter, because Saige had crushed his brother’s heart.

  Alex remembered the first time they met Saige Lockwood. It had been the day before she turned twenty-one. She suddenly appeared on the stairs in front of them on her way down to breakfast. His tongue had gotten stuck to the roof of his mouth, and as she passed them by, he noticed a similar stunned expression on his brother’s face. Quinten had been in a bad marriage back then, but Alex watched as his brother fell for her. He didn’t blame him. Saige was beautiful, and they later discovered that she was just as beautiful on the inside as well.

  She had a head full of sun-kissed blonde hair that nearly touched her bottom. Her blue eyes had been like looking into the ocean on a sunny day. He hadn’t been as taken with her as much as Quinten. His obsession had been directed elsewhere, but from that day forward, his brother looked for her every time they were at her house.

  Alex shook his head, wanting to forget all about her. She betrayed his brother and him in the end by lying about the man who took her. What he’d never been able to understand was why? Why would she lie and let the real man walk free? For years, he’d wanted answers, and still did.

  Saige refused to see him when sh
e’d first been taken to the hospital, before he even knew that his brother had been arrested for her abduction. Then when he discovered the lies she told, he felt nothing but betrayal.

  His gut burned. He wanted justice, just like she should.

  He wanted his brother to be set free, and allowed to live his life.

  It killed him knowing that in twenty-eight days his little brother would no longer be on this earth. He would never see him again. Even though he was behind bars, he at least lived and breathed. But in less than a month, his brother would be put to death for something he didn’t do.

  “Fuck,” he roared, and punched the bag blindly. He just missed knocking his lieutenant down.

  Alex stood gasping for breath while he tried to hold himself together. He ripped the gloves from his hands and bent at the waist; he gripped his thighs, dropping his head as he fought back tears.

  At thirty-seven, he was man enough to apologize to his superior, but he was afraid if he opened his mouth he’d break down and cry like a baby.

  His heart was breaking and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Everything was out of his control and he wanted to scream at the whole world.

  “Let’s go to my office.”

  He nodded.

  Straightening, he noticed that two of the guys on his shift stood behind him.

  They held his gaze and patted him on the back as he moved past them.

  Closing the door behind him, his lieutenant indicated for him to sit in the chair opposite.

  He needed to pace, to run even, but instead he dropped his weary ass into the seat offered.

  “I’m not going to ask,” his lieutenant wasted no time in starting the conversation. “The reason for that is that I know...Alexander Peterson.”

  Alex’s mouth fell open in shock as he stared at his boss.

  “There isn’t much I don’t know about everyone under my command.” His lieutenant held up his hand when Alex went to speak. “I’ve known since the minute you stepped foot inside this station. I never judge anyone by his family. Mine weren’t the best. I know from experience and we’ll leave it at that. I should have told you, but I figured if you ever felt the need, then you’d come to me.”