by Bex Dane
"Huh." This whole story is not adding up. I didn't do drugs, and I wasn't on any island.
"What the hell were you doing there?" He goes into accusation mode like I'm a murder suspect.
My mouth opens but nothing comes out. I shouldn't have to defend myself right now. I need answers from him. "What were you doing on the island?" I don't even know what he's talking about, but I'm gonna fake it till I make it.
"Did Giselle bring you there or did you go yourself?" He fires off another accusatory question.
"I don't know."
"You're lying."
Gah! I don't know anyone named Giselle. I've never met Arthur Morganna. I can't process this all right now. My hands fly up to my hair. "This is all so weird. I can't handle it."
A woman wearing a doctor's coat walks in looking concerned at first as she sees us having a heated argument. Then she smiles at me nicely. "I'm Dr. Darby. I specialize in opiate and narcotic addiction. I'm glad to see you awake and alert. They gave you an anti-overdose medication in the helicopter, and it probably saved your life." There was a helicopter too? I don't remember that either. Dr. Darby has a calm demeanor and seems very professional. I'm glad she's here. Finally someone I can trust.
"What kind of overdose?" I ask.
"We detected trace levels of heroin in your system."
"Heroin? I swear I don't do drugs. I don't even drink."
"It's possible then that it was against your will," Dr. Darby says quietly.
"Oh." I turn my questioning gaze toward Mace. "Who would do that to me?"
He holds up his hands. "Hey, now. No. It wasn't me. There were lots of people who saw me carry you out. I can't believe you're not being straightforward on this. It's too important to mess up."
I shake my head and stare at Dr. Darby, pleading with her to believe me and help me. "I'm being honest. I don't know Arthur Morganna or this Giselle person he's asking me about."
Mace huffs and shakes his head. "There was nobody else there. You had to have gone there with them. Even if they kidnapped you and drugged you, you should remember something."
Dr. Darby looks from Mace to me, assessing the situation with a calmness that seems beyond her years. "Do you remember anything about being kidnapped or drugged?"
I could lie, but I don't have the energy right now. "No. Nothing." There's a white space in my brain where I feel like I should have something, but it's empty.
"Do you know what day it is?" She starts scribbling notes on her clipboard.
What day is it? I don't know. "October something?" This is so frustrating.
"It's November fifteenth." Dr. Darby finishes her notes and places a comforting hand on my arm. "I'll call our brain injury specialist in to talk to you. He might order an MRI and some other tests, but it sounds like you're experiencing some memory loss induced by the drugs. It's not that uncommon."
Memory loss? "Like amnesia?"
"It appears so right now. We'll know more after your tests and meetings with the specialist."
I try again to access the part of my brain where yesterday should be, and it's just not there. It's scary, but it's an empty void. My body shows signs that match what Mace and Dr. Darby are saying. Could it be true? "If I did lose my memory, do you think it's permanent?" I whisper.
Mace has grown extremely quiet over in his corner. His foot is tapping, and his head is down again, staring at the floor. All the turbulence that was coming off him has shrunk away.
"I'm not sure, but there are some very talented doctors at this hospital that will help you. You're not alone. I'll go order the tests and check in on you later. You're doing fairly well otherwise, so that's good news, but please rest for at least a week until the drugs are out of your system."
I glare up at Dr. Darby. "If you knew me, you'd understand there is zero chance I'll rest for a week. That's not who I am."
She turns to Mace. "Even though she has no history of drug use, she still has a high risk of seeking out drugs and repeating the behavior so watch over her twenty-four-seven. Especially if the memories come back, she shouldn't be alone."
His head pops up. "I wasn't… I'm not…" Mace stutters and holds up his palms like he's warding off an evil spirit.
Dr. Darby's mouth curls up into a polite smile, but I can see in her eyes, she's not impressed with Mace at all. Neither am I right now. He's acting like a jerk, making a difficult situation even harder. "Do you have someone else you can call to stay with you?"
I shake my head, but it hurts, so I stop. "Listen. I really don't need a babysitter. I feel fine, and I will never do heroin. Trust me." If she knew me, she'd know how true that statement is. "I'd prefer to be alone while I wait for my memory to return."
"It's not a good idea for you to be alone. The memories could be quite traumatic. If you don't have someone, we can look into getting a nurse to stay with you." She gives Mace a castigating side-eye for not stepping up and offering to stay with me.
It's fine with me. The last thing I want is Mace Twist with me twenty-four-seven while I struggle to understand all that's happened.
Mace stands up and steps closer with his stern brow and hard eyes staring down at me. "You need to call someone to come look after you."
Our gazes meet close up for the first time. His eyes are a marbled cloud of sky blue, gray, and dark blue, really stunning against his darker skin. He's also inhumanly tall, and his head almost reaches the ceiling of the room. It all overwhelms me, and I blurt out the truth.
"I don't have anyone. All right?"
He freezes and narrows his brow so tight, deep furrows form on his forehead. He's scrutinizing me. The heat of his stare makes me uncomfortable, but I meet his gaze and hold it.
I shouldn't have said that. I revealed a weakness to him, and he'll use it against me the first chance he gets. I'm not on my game right now.
Mace and I continue our staring competition as Dr. Darby folds her clipboard under her arm and repeats a lot of the information she already said as if I may have forgotten it.
I haven't. In fact, my mind is already looking for the gaps. It's November and I don't remember anything since October. An entire month is lost deep in my brain. Sometime during that month, I got tied up in a convoluted mess with the Twist brothers.
After Dr. Darby leaves, I plop back with my head on the stiff hospital pillow and growl in frustration. "This sucks!"
"It's not so bad, Loralei. You're still alive. Thanks to me, I might add, and I didn't hear you offer any gratitude."
"You have no idea what this means for me. I could lose the most important part of my life. My job." I was so close to breaking my top case.
"What do you do?" The hard wrinkles are back on his brow.
"I'm a cop! I can't have heroin in my system. Doesn't matter how it got there. I could get fired."
His jaw tightens, and he runs a hand through his hair quickly, twice. "You're a cop?" Apparently, I've blown his mind. Is it so hard to believe I'm in law enforcement? I'm weak right now, but I'm a formidable cop when I'm at my best.
"Do you have a problem with that?" He's a bounty hunter. He works with cops all the time. If he's following the law, he shouldn't have any issues with my job.
His gaze darts to the curtain at the exit, then back to his chair, and to me again. Without a word or a look back, he starts to walk out of the room.
"Are you leaving?" If he leaves, I'm stuck in this situation all alone. I don't have my purse, my clothes, no ID or cash. I'd rather have my worst enemy here than be alone right now.
"I don't know," he says quietly as he passes through the curtain door.
Unfortunately, I know from painful experience Mace is the kind of guy who would walk out on a girl in dire straits like me. That's what he does. He walks in, makes a mess, and leaves others behind to deal with the cleanup.
Well, guess what I do? I take care of things myself. If I need something, I go get it. I don't sit helpless and dependent on men like Mace. I've been alone since I was eig
hteen, and this is just another stumbling block. I'll figure out a way forward.
First though, I need this headache to go away, so I close my eyes and try to forget Mace was ever here. Within a minute, I give up on that. There's no denying he was here. He filled the room, he rattled me with his intensity and good looks, and I will never ever forget the sight of Mace's backside walking out on me today.
Chapter 3 Negotiations
Mace
"She could lose her job, she can't remember getting kidnapped, she has no one to come pick her up, the doctor said she has a high risk of seeking out heroin again…" Cutter listens quietly on the phone as I'm sitting in my truck in the hospital parking lot.
"And?" Cutter has no sympathy for Loralei after the pain she's caused us, but he didn't see the lost-child look in the eyes of a woman who is usually well put together and confident. He also didn't see how beautiful she is now.
"I'm feeling obligated to help her," I admit.
"You're not." Cutter doesn't even think about it. He wants nothing to do with her, and I don't blame him.
She's been raining down random acts of revenge on me and my family for six years. She's never forgiven me for using her to bring in her fallen-from-grace father. I was just doing my job, but she's never gotten over it.
Now I'm torn between helping her or bailing on this whole situation. "I'm also feeling a rope being tied round my wrists, and I'm wanting to cut and run."
"Cut and run then. She's on her own." Cutter makes it seem so simple. Why can't I just do it?
"I thought you wanted Loralei to help us with Giselle." He asked me that just a few hours ago.
"Not worth getting mixed up with her."
I grunt in agreement.
"Mace?"
"Huh?"
"Cut and run. You're not obligated."
"Mm-hmm."
"Holy shit. You want to fuck her. Don't you?"
My grunt is non-committal this time. I want to fuck her, no doubt. I want other things too that I'm not willing to think about right now. I've always been tempted to go after her again. I held back because I assumed she was happy, didn't need my shit in her life. Now I know for a fact she has no one. Why? She doesn't have one person she can call from the hospital? I'm supposed to walk away from her when she's in a tough spot?
"No, Mace. Jeez." Cutter reads my silence over the line. "She's trouble."
"I'm not afraid of her." She's all of five-foot-seven with her petite little body. She's a cop though, so she has a gun and knows how to use it, which only makes me want her more.
"Plenty of other women out there who aren't psychos trying to exact revenge on you." I can almost hear him pacing the room back at home.
"Psycho chicks are wicked hot in bed." She was a live wire the first time at eighteen. I can only imagine how she's evolved as she became a grown woman.
"No, man. Get that thought out of your head. Cut and run." Cutter is speaking reason, but I don't want to hear it right now.
"Let me talk to Mom."
There's static on the phone as Cutter finds my mom and talks to her with a hushed voice. I hear him mention Loralei losing her job and "psycho" and "what to do" but luckily he leaves out anything sounding like "bang her" or "sex."
"Mace?" My mom sounds alarmed by whatever Cutter told her. "Should I come down and help her?"
"No. She's the one who brought your old family down on us." My mom's mafia-boss uncle from New York showed up at Twist Cabins a year after I was with Loralei. He told us she said he could find my mom in California with Foster Dunham, my dad's previous name. It all worked out, but it was a tense situation with my dad prepared to defend my mom again like he had to do before they were married.
"I know who she is and what she did. It doesn't matter. She's in a bad situation. We can't abandon her. I'll bring her some clothes and things."
That's my mom. Doesn't hold a grudge and would never consider bailing on her like I'm thinking of doing.
"Please don't come down here. I'll handle it."
She sighs. "All right," she says reluctantly. "I trust you'll do the right thing, Mace. You always do in the end." God, I don't deserve that woman for a mom. She has way too much faith in me.
"Thanks, Ma. I'll call you later."
I end the call and start up my truck. I know what I need to do.
***
Later that afternoon, I drop a handful of shopping bags on Loralei's hospital bed.
She sits up and stares at the pile. "What's this?"
"Clothes, shoes. Blue stripes and headbands. All that nautical stuff you like."
"Wow. Thank you." She digs into the bags and removes the tissue paper. "These are exactly my style."
"You can't walk out of here in a gown with your ass hanging out the back." As beautiful as it may be, she needs to cover it.
"I hadn't even thought about it. Today has been so busy with tests and phone calls." She wipes her forehead and takes a deep breath. She looks calmer now, more like her normal self.
"You ready to be discharged?"
"Yes." She exaggerates the word like she's dying to get out of here.
"I'll take you home."
She pauses and tilts her head. "Why? Why did you come back? I thought you'd left."
"I almost did. Then I realized that would be a dick thing to do, so here I am."
Her wide-eyed gaze travels from me to the bags. She doesn't look excited about leaving with me, but she doesn't have a lot of options. "Huh. Well, okay. Let me get dressed and signed out."
***
As she climbs into my old beat-up Chevy, her eyes scan over the cracked dashboard and mess of necklaces hanging from the rearview mirror. She frowns like she's just climbed into a porta-potty.
She grew up the daughter of a famous celebrity. He was all about self-actualization and living your best life. She's looking down on me and my beater truck. "It's not a Maserati, but it has character."
She peers over at me with wide eyes. "What? Oh no. It's not your truck. Just got a lot on my mind."
I start up the truck and head in the direction of her place in Sausalito. I shouldn't ask but my curiosity keeps eating at me. "Like what?" She was so animated and feisty at the hospital. Now she's subdued. It's more than just the drugs wearing off. Something else is wrong with her.
"I talked to my supervisor. She put me on unpaid leave pending investigation." She looks down, obviously ashamed to tell me this, which she doesn't need to be.
"That seems harsh. It wasn't your fault."
"She kept saying they need to verify my story, as if she thinks I did drugs intentionally. She wouldn't even talk about Arthur's case."
"You didn't have anything to do with that."
"It doesn't matter. She doesn't trust me and she's not giving me any breaks. I thought I had earned some respect from her with all the hard work I've been doing. I could even understand paid leave, but unpaid leave is a slap in the face."
"Not cool. See, that's why I could never be a cop. They're so worried about covering their own asses, they won't stand up for you when something like this happens."
She nods. "At least I didn't get fired. I'm just sad about my cases. One in particular I was obsessed with. My first undercover assignment. It was gonna make my career. I knew it, and now it's up in smoke."
I'm curious, but I don't want to get involved in her cases. I'm just bringing her home, dropping her off, and making my getaway.
When we pull up in the drive of her place, there's a man peeking inside her front window.
Slamming the truck into park, I jump out and pounce on him from behind. He hits the bushes and groans.
"Mace! Stop!"
I push the guy's face into the geraniums. "He was breaking into your house."
"No. He wasn't. He was probably just looking for me. He's my ex."
I let the guy up, and he grimaces as he wipes the dirt off his slacks and dress shirt. He's a ruffled up pretty boy.
"Who the hell are you?" h
e asks me.
I don't answer him and look back at Loralei.
"You could've asked me before you tackled me." He has a derpy voice too.
"It looked shifty." I shrug.
We follow Loralei inside, and he walks straight to the kitchen sink, urgently scrubbing the tiny specks on his stupid shirt. What a douche nozzle. He didn't even try to fight back. She dated this guy?
The place is decorated like the inside of a ship. Portholes, anchor pillows, lots of rattan and navy stripes, potted palms. Neat and tidy like her clothes.
Her ex comes out of the kitchen with a big wet stain on his shirt. He's tall and skinny. Dweeb factor ten. He's the guy that sits at the front of the class nodding and smiling and taking detailed notes just to impress the teacher, but he's really dumb and fails the class anyway.
"Mace, this is Griffin." Loralei motions between us with an awkward smile.
I tilt my chin, but I don't give a shit what his name is. I'm already turning around and heading for the door.
"Mace! Wait!" She shuffles up behind me. "I wanted to thank you."
"No problem." I take the stairs of her porch two at a time. I'm almost free. I can feel the ropes around my wrists going slack as the fresh air hits my face.
"I was hoping you'd stay for a minute."
"Nope." I keep walking to my truck, forcing her to run to keep up with me.
"I need to ask you something."
This feels like a trap. Anything this girl wants to ask me is laced with arsenic, and I'd be stupid to fall for it. "Ask Griffin. I'm out of here."
"Griffin can't help me. I need you."
The desperation in her voice slows me down. I need to stop falling for it, but it's compelling. I can't seem to say no to this girl when she begs. "What do you need me for?"
When I stop to look at her, I'm struck again by how pretty she is. Even with no makeup and her hair a mess, she's stunning.
"Can you help me remember?" She looks down like she's suddenly shy. "I hate having to ask you this, but I need my memories back. I want to know who did this so I can clear my name, and I want to keep working my active case. It could be related."