Unforeseen Danger

by Michelle Perry

He turned at the sound of his mother’s voice. She hurried toward him with his stepfather, Zeke, in tow.

  “Hey, guys.” Jake gave them a tired smile. His mother took one look at him and wrapped him in her arms. He allowed her to hold him for a moment, comforted by the familiar scent of her.

  “Well, how is she today?” Catherine Simms asked, unable to repress the frown that appeared whenever she spoke of her daughter-in-law.

  Jake told them about her amnesia, trying to relay everything Luke had said about her condition.

  “Are you sure that this isn’t just one of her games, dear? Maybe this is Nikki’s way of postponing the divorce. No judge would grant a divorce in this situation.”

  “No, Mom,” Jake replied, recalling her wild panic attack. “I’ve never seen anyone as terrified or lost in my life as Nikki was when she woke up.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to hear that.” Catherine crossed her arms over her chest. “As you know, Nikki and I haven’t always been able to see eye-to-eye, but I don’t want to see her hurt.”

  Zeke patted her shoulder and asked, “Nicole remembers nothing? Nothing at all?”

  Jake shook his head at the kindly judge who had been his stepfather for the last ten years.

  “I cannot imagine how frightened she must be,” Catherine murmured, and then exhaled softly as she met Jake’s gaze. “Can we see her?”

  “She’s gone for tests.” Before he could get the words out, the elevator doors slid open and they rolled Nikki back into her room.

  “Guess she’s through.” Jake forced a smile and waited on the nurses to leave before he opened the door for his mother.

  They walked in and Nikki stared at them, a tentative smile on her face. It hurt Jake to see her looking so vulnerable.

  “Nikki, this is my mother, Catherine, and my step-dad, Zeke,” Jake said awkwardly, introducing her to the people who had been her in-laws for the past two years.

  “Hello,” Nikki said timidly and Jake could tell that they were taken aback by her demeanor. Deliberately, Catherine crossed the room, sat on the edge of Nikki’s bed, and took her hand. Jake knew that she was searching for some sign of deception, some hint of dislike. The pre-Nikki, as Jake had begun to think of her, would’ve shrunk from contact with someone she disliked. This post-Nikki never blinked, gazing innocently at Catherine with her sea-green eyes. She even looked grateful for the contact.

  “You poor thing!” Catherine murmured as she stroked a lank lock of Nikki’s dark hair from her forehead. “Are you in much pain?”

  “No,” she whispered, and tears welled up in her eyes. “I’m just so…scared.”

  Jake could see from his mother’s face that she was genuinely affected by Nikki’s plight.

  “Don’t be afraid. Jake, Zeke and I will take care of you,” Catherine said. She shot Jake a guilty glance and he had to turn away. He wanted to help Nikki, but Luke had said it could be anywhere from days to decades. He couldn’t afford to promise her that.

  Nikki stunned him by throwing herself in Catherine’s arms and pressing her face to Catherine’s breast like a child. Catherine froze for a moment, and then awkwardly patted Nikki’s head. She was a good mother and Jake could almost hear the wheels grinding as her maternal instinct kicked into high gear.

  “Where are Sara and Doug?” Zeke whispered to Jake, as Catherine soothed Nikki.

  “On a trip.” Jake rolled his eyes and Zeke nodded. They all knew too well where Sara and Doug’s priorities lay. The two men sat quietly as Catherine mothered Nikki, even coaxing a laugh from her.

  “Son, turn on the weather channel,” Zeke quipped in a hushed voice, “I want to see if hell has officially frozen over.”

  His comment surprised Jake, who had to bite the inside of his jaw to keep from laughing aloud.

  Jake felt more and more like he was trapped in some strange dream. Just last week, he had to drag Nikki, kicking and screaming, from the table before she and Catherine came to blows at dinner. Family gatherings, never pleasant in the first place, had been upgraded to nightmarish in the wake of their marital troubles.

  Now Catherine and Nikki were acting like old friends. Jake knew he’d never been prouder of his mother than he was right now. She turned to him and gave him a reassuring smile.

  “Honey, Zeke has to get to the office. Would you like me to stay now, so you can go home or would you rather I come back this afternoon?”

  Jake was a little caught off-guard by the pleading look Nikki shot him over Catherine’s shoulder. He could read the look in her eyes.

  She wanted him to stay.

  For whatever reason, he could tell that the thought of his leaving terrified her. The fear on her face tugged at him. “We’re okay right now, Mom,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll call you after while.”

  Catherine hugged them both goodbye and promised Nikki that she’d be back later. Jake walked them out, chuckling incredulously as the door closed behind him.

  “I keep expecting someone to walk up, and say, ‘Smile—’”

  “Or the guy from the Twilight Zone,” Zeke interjected with a smile.

  Catherine glared at them. “That child in there needs a mother. Apparently her own is too busy for her. Even knowing some of the things that Nikki has done, I could no more walk away from her now than I could if you were in that situation.” She shook her head, and then leaned to kiss Jake’s cheek. “Call me if you need anything. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

  Nikki was sitting up in the bed when Jake came back in. She stared wistfully at the door and said, “I like your mother. Were we close?”

  “Hardly,” Jake snorted, before he could stop himself.

  Nikki frowned. “Why not?”

  “Let’s just say that both of you are very strong, very opinionated women and leave it at that,” Jake said. “Sometimes, that equals a hard time for a mother and daughter-in-law.”

  “Maybe it’s time to change that.” Nikki’s voice held a hint of her old stubbornness and Jake didn’t know whether to be relieved or dismayed. He cracked his knuckles. There had been a time when he’d have given anything for a truce between Nikki and his mother, but it was more than a little unnerving at the moment. He was just sorry that it had come too late.

  Luke Carver stuck his head in the door. Jake’s relief at seeing him turned to concern when he saw Officers Green and Janney behind him.

  “Keep it brief,” Luke warned and Green nodded. To Jake and Nikki he said, “I’ll talk to you guys after they’re through.”

  “Mrs. Hawthorne,” he began. “We’re with the Whitwell Police Department. I’m Officer Green and this is Officer Janney. We need to ask you a few questions.” He gave Jake a pointed look and said, “Privately, please.”

  Jake started to step outside when Nikki called, “Jake, wait!”

  She stared at the officers and said, “I want my husband to stay.”

  Jake could hear the plea in her voice and returned to her bedside, even though the trust on her face was a little frightening. Janney looked at Green, who merely shrugged.

  “Okay,” he said. “Is it true, Mrs. Hawthorne, that you don’t remember anything at all that occurred prior to the accident?”

  “Not yet.” She looked small and scared. Jake slipped his hand in hers and she clenched it tight.

  “You don’t know where you were going, who you were meeting?”

  Nikki shook her head. “No, I don’t remember anything.”

  “So you have no idea who the passenger in the pick-up was?”

  Chapter 2

  Jake sucked in a breath and released her hand. He stared down at her with shocked, accusing blue eyes. Nikki glanced back at Officer Green, who jotted something in his notebook.

  “Mr. Hawthorne,” he said. “Do you have any idea who the passenger might be?”

  “No.” Jake’s voice was tight. “I take it this person is dead?”

  “Yes, burned beyond recognition. The ME’s got the body right now. We hope to have the medical rep
ort in a couple of days.”

  Tears stung her eyes. Someone was dead. Someone she knew. She wished she could remember.

  “Are you sure you don’t know where Mrs. Hawthorne was going that morning?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Who does she know in Powell’s Crossroads or Palmer?”

  Jake threw up his hands. “I don’t know. Nikki knows lots of people.”

  Nikki could feel Jake’s frustration. It rolled off him in waves as he paced. Apparently, Officer Green felt it, too. The heavy-set man scratched his beard and asked, “So what kind of marriage do the two of you have, Mr. Hawthorne? Are you a jealous man?”

  Jake whirled. “Excuse me?”

  Officer Green turned his gaze back to her, ignoring Jake. “Mrs. Hawthorne, I don’t have the report back on the truck yet, but there is no indication you applied any brakes going down that mountain. I don’t think you had any.”

  “Are you implying I did this?” Jake demanded.

  “Of course not, Mr. Hawthorne,” Green said smoothly. “You wouldn’t have any reason to harm your wife—” He let the statement trail off so it sounded more like a question.

  “I would never hurt Nikki.” Jake cut his gaze to her. “I would never hurt you.”

  Staring into those blue eyes, Nikki believed him. She smiled. Jake looked taken aback, then some of his fury seemed to dissipate. He stopped pacing to stand at her bedside.

  Officer Green took one more stab. “Do either of you have any life insurance policies? I’ll be able to find out, but I thought we could talk about them first.”

  Jake sighed, but did not rise to the bait. When he spoke, his voice was calm. “There’s a $250,000 policy on me, to cover my business line of credit, but I have none on Nikki.”

  Officer Green seemed to realize the interview was over. He nodded at Janney, who spoke for the first time. “We’ll be back in touch as soon as we get the forensic report or the report on the Dodge. Call us if you remember anything important. Hope you feel better soon, Mrs. Hawthorne.” He tipped his head at Nikki and they left.

  Jake raked a hand through his hair. “I can’t believe—” He trailed off, shaking his head.

  “I don’t believe,” Nikki said. Although she remembered nothing about him, her instincts told her he wasn’t capable of something like that.

  Jake shot her a grateful look. “Nik, I—”

  He fell silent when the door opened and the doctor strolled in. Nikki frowned as she tried to recall his name. He’d been in to see her three or four times, but it just slipped away. She squinted at her hospital I.D. bracelet.

  Dr. Carver.

  “Good news, guys,” he said. “EKG looks pretty decent. The swelling’s going down and I think your short-term memory will start improving soon. Any strange feelings, Nikki?”

  “Something’s wrong with my right arm,” she said. “It feels so much weaker that the other one. My right leg feels funny, too. It feels kind of touchy, like I have a sunburn.”

  Dr. Carver sat on the edge of the bed and patted her hand.

  “Unfortunately, sometimes a brain injury can trick the body into ‘forgetting’ about one side of itself, making one side suddenly weaker than the other side. Most of the time, it can be corrected with physical therapy. Any other strange feelings? Headaches, nausea?”

  “No, but my tongue feels all prickly and rough. Like sandpaper.”

  “Just try to drink as much fluid as you can,” he advised. “That should help.”

  “What about her amnesia?” Jake asked. “When will she start remembering?”

  “That’s still a little touch-and-go. The damage wasn’t as extensive as I first feared, but there may be a block of time that she never gets back.”

  “But you think she’ll get back most of it?” Jake persisted.

  “Each case is different, as I told you before, but yes, I think Nikki will eventually get most of her memory back.” He smiled at her, and Nikki smiled back.

  “Any kind of time frame on this?” Jake asked.

  Dr. Carver shook his head. “Sorry. Hard to say, but there are things we can do to help it along. We’re starting memory therapy today.”

  “When can I get out of this bed?” Nikki asked.

  “That happens today, too.”

  A knock sounded on the door and a tall woman with red-framed eyeglasses stepped inside.

  “Speak of the devil.” Dr. Carver smiled. “This is Anna. She’s going to do some memory exercises with you.”

  He excused himself, and Anna took over.

  “I’m going to hold up pictures, and you say anything that comes to mind.”

  The first was of a bird in flight. Most of her answers felt rote and unenlightening and she was getting a little frustrated when suddenly a picture of a woman taking a cake out of an oven made her sit up straight.

  “I remember standing in a kitchen with a dark-haired woman, making cookies when I was about ten. It must’ve been my mother! Does she have dark hair?” she asked Jake.

  Jake nodded, but he had a strange expression on his face. She wondered what that look meant, but didn’t want to ask in front of Anna.

  No other memory was retrieved during the session, but Anna assured Nikki that she’d done well for her first session. She then proceeded to ask Nikki a series of rapid-fire questions pertaining to the time since her admission to the hospital.

  “What’s your husband’s name?”

  “Jake Hawthorne.” She glanced at Jake’s magic marker tattoo and grinned. He smiled back.

  “What’s your full name?”

  “Martina Nicole Hawthorne.”

  “What are your parents’ names?”

  “I – I don’t remember,” she said.

  “What’s your doctor’s name?”

  Nikki stared at the ceiling. She had just talked to him minutes ago and she couldn’t remember without looking at her bracelet. This was driving her crazy. Finally, she admitted she didn’t know.

  “That’s okay, Nikki. You did great!” Anna praised her.

  After she left, Nikki’s gaze swung to Jake.

  “What do I look like?” she asked.

  ***

  Jake looked at her, stupefied. The thought of not even knowing the face in the mirror was too bizarre to contemplate. What a strange condition, where a person could remember how to ride a bike or tie their shoes, but couldn’t remember their own name or face.

  “You’re beautiful,” he replied when he found his voice. “Your eyes…your eyes are amazing. Pale green, so pretty that they’re almost spooky, and – wait a minute.” He jumped to his feet. “I’ll be right back.”

  Jake hurried down the hall to the nurses’ desk and borrowed a small makeup mirror from one of them. He returned to Nikki’s bed and held it for her. She touched her face wonderingly. Jake thought of how incredible she looked on their wedding day. Her lovely hair had been pinned up with a pearl clasp and her eyes had danced the day she married him, just two months after she predicted she would. He had looked at her in that white silk gown and his heart had ached at her beauty.

  “It’s cruel for a woman like you to have a face like that.”

  Tired and stressed, Jake didn’t realize that he’d spoken aloud until she said tightly, “And just what kind of woman am I?”

  “Nik, I’m so sorry!” he cried, horrified at himself. “I didn’t mean to say—”

  “Were we happy, once?” she asked. A tear slipped down her cheek and Jake felt his guts knot at the sight of it. He brushed it away with his thumb.

  “Yes, we were…once,” he said hoarsely, unaccustomed to this fragility.

  “What happened to us?”

  “I think that we just had different expectations of what our marriage should be like. Turns out, neither one of us got what we bargained for.”

  He knew he was being vague, but his wounds were too new and too raw for him to discuss right now, especially with the woman who had given them to him.

  Nikki mu
st have sensed his reluctance, because she didn’t press the issue.

  “Thank you for staying here today,” she said. “Everything feels so strange, but I feel safe when you’re here.”

  Jake turned away, embarrassed. If Nikki had her memory back, he would be the last person she’d want to see. It made him somehow feel deceptive that she felt safe with him.

  The nurse saved Jake from replying when she brought in Nikki’s lunch tray. He perched on the edge of her bed and awkwardly began to arrange her food.

  “Nik, I’m going outside for a minute to try your parents again, okay? I’ll be right back.”

  Jake climbed on the elevator, grateful for the excuse to get out of there for a moment. He couldn’t think around her. He could barely breathe.

  His thoughts returned to Nikki’s mystery passenger and he felt a vicious stab of satisfaction. It had to be him. Who else would she have been so desperate to meet with that morning?

  He knew Sara’s hotel room number by heart now and punched it in as soon as he reached the parking lot. He was surprised to hear her muffled hello.

  “Sara?” he said a little loudly, struggling to hear over the static.

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s Jake. I’m calling about Nikki. She’s had an accident.”

  “What? Is Nicole hurt?”

  He explained about her amnesia and what Luke Carver had said, and then asked if they could come home.

  “Oh, dear! I don’t know how we can possibly get back before Saturday.”

  Jake frowned. It was only Monday.

  “Tell Nicole that I love her and that Mother will be there as—”

  “You’re breaking up, Sara,” Jake lied, and then hung up the phone in disgust.

  No wonder Nikki was the way she was.

  According to Nikki, her parents had always been too busy to care for her, even when she was an infant. That tedious duty had fallen to a dizzying array of nannies and housekeepers, one of whom was probably the woman Nikki recalled baking cookies with. He would’ve bet his eye-teeth that Sara Davis had never taken the time to bake cookies with her young daughter.

  Unless there was a reporter around to record it for posterity.

  Nikki’s parents had always tried to make it up to her with money, lavishing her with pricey gifts to compensate for their absence. Frankly, that was why Nikki was a twenty-five-year-old brat. She had always gotten anything she wanted on a whim.