Mistrusting a Memory
by Lubrican
Chapters : 1-2 | 3-4 | 5-6 | 7-8 | 9-33 & Epilogue Available On
PLEASE NOTE: This is a preview of this novel. It is available for purchase in its entirety via
Chapter Seven
Bob had just left the briefing room, coming on shift. He
hadn't even buckled his seat belt when the radio squawked to life,
telling him of a multiple injury accident, with an explosion
involved. Paramedics and the fire department were already on
the scene. Three patrols were being dispatched, and all three
were still in the parking lot, after the briefing in the squad room.
Three engines roared, and three sirens began to wail, as tires
screeched.
It was impossible to get close to the location of the
accident. He had to leave his car a full block from the
scene. Traffic was hopelessly snarled and would stay that way
for hours. When he rounded the corner, it looked like a war
zone. Crushed cars and glass littered the street.
Dazed people were standing around, bleeding. One car, on its
roof, had burned completely. The front of the store near the
car was blackened and the windows were all missing.
They couldn't get tow trucks into the mix. It was the worst
kind of accident, at the worst kind of place, at the worst time of
day. Ambulances had backed down alleys, to pick up the
wounded. Troopers were present, but there was little they
could do.
The story came out slowly.
The blue car, now a black, stinking hulk, had been
‘made' by the highway patrol as a stolen vehicle,
and a chase had ensued. When the driver sought to lose the
chasing vehicles in the city, rush hour had foiled that plan.
There was every indication that the driver had tried to force his way
past a line of cars, intent on leaving destruction in his path that
would stop the pursuit.
There had been an explosion, and one bystander was in critical
condition, with second degree burns. The seriously injured
had been taken first and were already at the hospital. The
injured were being treated on the scene. All that was left
was sorting out what had happened.
The driver of the stolen car was now classified as a "crispy
critter." He'd never steal another car. The car
he'd been driving was the one that had exploded. Being half
on the sidewalk, it had taken out two storefronts, driving broken glass
inwards. It was a miracle that only one woman had been hurt
seriously. She had been blown through a window, and her pants
leg was on fire, when shocked store employees came rushing from the
back to find her, amid the ruins of the store.
The cops ignored the car, and the body in it. It had burned
so hot that the glass cover of a street light above it had sagged
downwards, half melted. The body was so badly burned that it
might be impossible to identify without the use of DNA. They
had the living to deal with. First were the
witnesses. Once they were identified and told to stand by,
the next order of business was unsnarling the traffic jam.
That was given to the pursuing highway patrolmen, who called in air
support to tell them how to route traffic away from the scene.
Bob, and his two other traffic partners, began to take the reams of
notes that would be required to write this up. He already
knew that this, alone, would take the entire shift and extend into
overtime, if the city could afford it. He called in an update.
He walked into what was left of the boutique that had faced the car
when it exploded. He located the place where the victim had
been, based on a pool of blood on the floor. Everything
smelled of smoke and burnt hair or flesh. The two employees,
who had been in the back when the car exploded, were sitting, still
shaken by their ordeal. All one had to do was look around to
see that, had they been out front, they'd have both been cut to ribbons
by flying glass. All the displays were hung with clothing
that was torn, some shredded, and all of it with sparkling glass
particles dusting it. He kicked a pile of bloody cloth to one
side and something gleamed on the floor. He bent to pick it
up.
He stared. "LJG" in flowing script, told him whose lighter
this was.
He turned to the employees.
"Were there any customers in here at all, when it exploded?"
"No," said the woman, looking shaken. "We don't get many in
here at that time of day."
"The victim..." He pointed at the blood on the
floor. "She was outside?"
"She must have been," said the man. "We would have heard her
come in. I think she got blown through the window.
If you look, you can see where her body pushed everything aside."
Bob COULD see that, now that he looked for it. There was a
clear path from the window to where the blood was.
"She was alive?" he asked.
"Yes," said the woman. "The paramedics said she
was. There was so much blood...she was on fire. I
put it out, but she wasn't moving."
Bob frowned. What were the chances? The poor woman
was raped and then, in an unbelievable coincidence, was in the wrong
place, at the wrong time...AGAIN!
He wanted to leave...to go to her...but he couldn't. In fact,
it was seven more hours before they began to wrap things up.
It had been a brutal seven hours, with nothing to eat. A
store owner had brought them bottles of water, but that was
all. His uniform was a mess and he smelled like
smoke. He'd had to help remove the remains from the vehicle,
before it was turned over and hauled to impound. The body had
come out in two pieces. The big one was, as usual, in the
fetal position, as the heat of the inferno had caused muscles to
tighten and draw the body into a ball. The other piece was
one leg, with sharp bone protruding from the burnt flesh that was left,
like a tight paper wrapping. The coroner had suggested that
there had been a compound fracture during the accident, and the
explosion or flames had separated the two pieces.
"I hope the bastard was unconscious when it blew," said the
coroner. "That's a nasty way to die, when you know what's
happening to you."
"Yeah," said Bob, trying to find something to clean his hands
on. He had bits of burnt flesh clinging to them.
He had four more hours of paperwork to get through, before he could go
home and clean up. He was able to call the hospital, to get
an update on the injured. The unidentified woman was still
unconscious, and still critical. A few had been treated and
released, but the others were still there. Most had
been injured by flying glass, which didn't show up on x-rays, and had
to be dug out piece by piece, as each shard was found.
Bob dozed in the chair beside the bed that held Lacey
Fetterman. He had been allowed into her room only because he
was a police officer. He didn't know why, but he had decided
to identify her by her empty car, at the scene, instead of by personal
knowledge of who she was. He had seen the car instantly, when
he came out of the boutique and looked around. Her purse was
in the car. He'd taken her driver's license and used it to
identify her at the hospital. She had obviously gotten out of
her car, which was damaged, and gone to the car thief's
vehicle. When it had exploded, she had been thrown through
the window. Her lighter was still in his pocket. He
hadn't turned it in to the evidence room. He didn't know why
he'd decided not to do that either.
Even though he was in street clothes, he was there, officially, to
interview her, as soon as she woke up...if she woke
up. She was a mess. Her beautiful long
hair had been mostly burned off. Her swollen face, swathed in
bandages, was red from the heat of the explosion. He'd been
told that she had second degree burns on one leg that were
worse. She had a concussion and cuts all over her body, but
no broken bones. They weren't sure, yet, if she was in a coma
or just unconscious. The doctor said it would be hard to
tell, until some time had passed. Her brain was
swollen. The swelling would go down...or
not. Time would tell. That, and the fact
that she'd lost a lot of blood, would keep her in the ICU for the
moment.
He had stood, looking at her, willing her eyelids to move, so he could
see her hazel eyes staring into his. She was a patchwork of
bandages. He was able to see her hands, which looked almost
normal. He had an errant feeling of relief. At
least she could still grip a racquet. Otherwise, she just
looked like she was resting. The sheet rose and fell slowly,
over her breasts.
Then, fatigue claimed him, and he sat down, to lean his head back
against the wall. He dozed, unaware of the times that nurses
came in to check on the patient, and record vital signs, and wait.
A nurse finally woke him, around eleven.
"You may as well go home," she said. "Sleep in a bed, not
here."
He wanted to stay. He'd already been told to take the next
day off. They'd convert his overtime into comp time, if he
did, but he didn't care about that. He was worried about
his... What was she? She wasn't his
girlfriend. That wasn't the kind of relationship they
had. But somehow he couldn't just think of her as his friend,
either. It was more than that. They had gone way
past the detective/victim relationship. She was his partner,
at least in racquetball. He already had plans to suggest that
they team up for the city championships in doubles play. He
hadn't done it yet, but he intended to.
"I'd really like to stay," he said, softly, even though she couldn't
hear him.
The nurse looked at him oddly, but nodded and left.
When she still hadn't wakened, by ten the next morning, he gave
up. Her vitals were good. They now thought she was
in a coma, but didn't know how deep it was. The swelling was
a little less than it had been the day before.
When no one was watching, he took her hand.
"Don't leave me, Lacey," he said urgently. "You haven't had
the lasagna at Santini's yet."
Then he went home and got some real sleep.
He went back in uniform the following day, two hours before his shift
started. They were supposed to be playing racquetball right
now.
The news was good. She had begun moving, and seemed to be
responding to pain. Now they were keeping her unconscious
with drugs, to allow her to heal more, and to keep her brain
inactive. No next of kin had stepped forward to order
anything different, so the doctors were having it their way, while they
could.
She looked better. There was more color in her face, and not
just the bruising. She was breathing a little more rapidly
too. Everyone said it was a good sign.
There was more paperwork to do. The incident had
been picked up by the local news networks, of course, and they had
hundreds of questions that the captain came to Bob to get
answered. Lacey was still "unidentified" officially, because
there was no one to agree to the release of her identify, and medical
records were private. Bob simply reported that she was still
unconscious, but appeared to be getting better.
"I'll keep in touch with the hospital," offered Bob.
"You can, if you want, but I think we have this pretty well wrapped
up," said the captain. "The perp is deceased, as they
say." He grinned. "There's nobody to
prosecute. Did you see the autopsy report yet?"
Bob shook his head.
"Yeah, the perp's lungs were charred. He was alive when it
went up. Doesn't pay to steal a car these days, huh?"
Bob winced.
"Anyway," said the captain, "it's all up to the insurance companies
now."
"Somebody ought to at least tell her what happened to her," said Bob.
"Yeah," said the captain, indifferently. "Stay in touch, if
you want."
Bob sat, staring at the report that was finished and ready to go into
the official record. He was nervous. He felt like
he was hiding something. Nobody had noticed that the victim
in the explosion was the same victim that was in a cold rape
case. If they did, and found out that Bob knew her...or
should know her...and that he hadn't said anything about that...well,
there would be questions. With a streak of mercenary anger,
Bob knew how he'd answer those questions. He'd been pulled
off her case—reassigned—she was no longer a concern
of his, except for in reference to the accident. He HAD
identified her, after all.
He hadn't done anything wrong. The lighter wasn't really
evidence. It was a personal belonging of a victim.
He'd get it back to her. It just wouldn't be through the
paperwork involved in releasing found property.
Still, something seemed off-kilter, somehow. His radar was
flickering. The perp had sideswiped Lacey's car, in the
incident. Why had she gone to check on the man who had hit
her? That had to have been what happened. Her
position, at the moment of ignition, had been right by the driver's
side of the car. Her purse had still been in her
car. Why did she have the lighter in her hand? It
had to have been in her hand. He'd seen the clothing they'd
cut off her and the pockets were intact.
He felt his pocket, where the lighter lay. He'd never seen
her smoke...never smelled smoke on her breath. Of course he'd
never been that close to her face, either, really.
He closed the file and stood up. Time to get out on the road.
He was walking by the detective's squad room, when Don Simpson called
his name. He stopped, to see Don walking toward him,
smiling. Don looked around, to see if anyone was listening,
then moved Bob to one side of the hall.
"Remember your rapist?" he said, his voice low and
conspiratorial. "The one you got transferred over?"
"Like I'd forget," said Bob.
"Sorry," said Don. "Anyway, you know he hit again, four more
times after that. I told you about some of them."
"Yeah," said Bob.
"Well that crispy critter you cleaned up, the other day?
Guess why the state boys were chasing him."
Bob stared, saying nothing.
"There was a rape, two towns over. Same MO, except this time
the rapist stole the victim's car. We think it was the same
guy!"
"You sure about this?" asked Bob, as alarm bells went off in his brain.
"All I've got is the preliminary statement," said Don. "We
formed a serial rapist task force, or I'd never have even heard about
it. The MO is identical, right down to the gas leak complaint
scam. The knife, the threats, all of it, right down the
line. She called the cops and they put out an APB on her
car. That's why the troopers started chasing the guy in the
first place!"
"Did they lose contact?" asked Bob. His stomach hurt.
"Only at the off ramp, and the accident happened right there.
The burned car was the rape victim's. I'm telling you, it's
over! Poof! No more serial rapist!
They're already talking about closing all the cases."
"Does the media know about this?" asked Bob.
"No, we're keeping it quiet. I shouldn't even be telling you
all this. They just want it to fade away. We'll do
some work to tie him positively to the other cases if we can, and tell
the victims of course, but later, when we have all our ducks in a
row. They won't be convinced he's really gone,
otherwise. We have to be able to convince them that their
attacker is really dead, or those cases will stay open
forever! Isn't it great!?" he said excitedly.
"Yeah...great," said Bob. "If there's anything I can do..."
"I doubt it," said Don. "Like I said, they want to keep this
really quiet. Mum's the word...right?"
"Sure," said Bob. "Thanks."
"No problem, buddy," said the beaming detective. "I had to
tell you. I knew you'd want to celebrate."
"Just out of curiosity," said Bob, "who was he?"
"Don't know yet," said Simpson. "Unless somebody reports him
missing or steps forward to ID him, we may never know. We got
nothing to compare his DNA to, unless we develop a suspect, and
Dillworth probably won't even let us do that. He wants this
to go away.
Celebrate. It's an interesting word. The dictionary
gives three definitions for it:
1. To observe or commemorate (an occasion or event), as with
gifts or festivities.
2. To perform (a religious ceremony or ritual [as
in mass]).
3. To praise or gratefully acknowledge.
The synonyms are many: extol, applaud , laud, glorify, hail,
consecrate, exalt, honor, idolize, recognize, acclaim, praise.
For Bob, celebration was hard in coming. His experience told
him too much. No coincidence could explain how Lacey Jean
Griggs, AKA Lacey Jean Fetterman, could be kneeling beside the gasoline
soaked car that contained her rapist, holding a lighter that had not
been used to ignite that gasoline.
There was plenty of coincidence. That the perp was there, at
that time and place, was coincidence. That Lacey was there,
at that time and place, was probably coincidence, too. She
wasn't following him. He'd run into her instead.
She could not have known her rapist would be there. Maybe it
was even coincidence that she had the lighter in her hand.
But there was no way that if she lit that lighter...it was by
coincidence.
He went to the impound lot, where everyone ignored him. The
traffic guys spent hours at the impound lot. He located her
car and found both the pack—Virginia Slims
again—and the loose cigarette, lying on the floor board of
the passenger side of the car. It had not been lit.
The pack was in the console.
He replayed it in his mind. She had been sitting in
traffic. She only smoked when she was nervous, or upset, or
maybe bored. She had been getting ready to smoke, stuck in
traffic, when everything had happened. She had gone to
help. She had recognized her attacker...and killed instead.
For the first time in his career, Bob Duncan had no idea of what he
should do.
He spent the rest of his shift distracted. Lacey Fetterman
had become a major distraction in his life. His mind warred
between making his suspicions official, or deciding that everything he
was thinking was purely circumstantial and wouldn't prove
anything. All he'd do, by bringing it up, was ruin a woman
already in the midst of trying to pick up the pieces of her destroyed
life. But he was a cop. He was sworn to uphold the
law...to protect the innocent. Who was innocent here?
He realized he was blocking traffic. The light had turned
green, but no one behind him was willing to honk at a police
car. Angrily he pulled forward. He was between
calls, and had nothing to do.
The radio squawked to life.
"Unit 2-2, see the man, Museum of Natural History, request for
information and assistance."
Bob snatched at the microphone. "Control...what
man? What's the nature of the complaint?"
"Unit 2-2, be advised the man is Henry Templeton, curator, no further
info at this time."
Bob felt a surge of anger. He knew it was unjustified, but he
let it rage inside him, as he motored toward the museum. It
was probably a parking conflict, or something like that. He'd
have to determine if the conflict was on public or private
property. It was this kind of thing that made him want to
retire to a desert island in the Bahamas...somewhere there were no
roads and no cars.
No one was waiting for him in the parking lot of the museum.
Everything looked completely normal. No one was standing,
shouting at anyone else. He walked up the steps and into the
kind of silence that one rarely experiences in the middle of the
city. He approached the information kiosk, where a perky
middle aged woman looked up at him, over reading glasses.
"Can I help you?" she asked. She frowned. "Is there
a problem?"
"I'm supposed to see Henry Templeton," he said, looking around.
"Oh! Well," she said, nervously leafing through a rotary
file. "Let me just give him a call."
Ten minutes later a short, rotund man, walking like a penguin, shuffled
towards Bob, his hand outstretched.
"Thank you for coming!" he said, breathlessly. "I tried to do
all this on the phone, but no one would help me."
"What seems to be the problem?" asked Bob. He had calmed down
and his professional persona was well in place.
"Well, I'm not sure," said Templeton. "You see, we are in the
midst of a very important project, and one of our volunteers has gone
missing."
"It seems that would be a missing persons complaint," said Bob, feeling
his anger start to kindle again. "I'm in the traffic
division. I don't know why they sent me for this."
"No, we think we know where she is," said the man, "but no one will
tell us it's her, for sure. She's in the hospital, you
see. We think she might have been involved in that horrible
situation with the explosion and all that."
Bob perked up, but became wary.
"All right," he said. "But if you know where she is, what's
the problem?"
"Well, you see, she had something very important with her, when she
left the dig. She was supposed to be bringing it here, to
me. It's vital to our work. If she was in that
accident, it may still be in her car. The only piece of
information I was able to get out of the police department was that all
the cars in that accident had been towed away. But we don't
know if she was in the accident, or if she's the woman in the hospital."
"Can't you just go to the hospital and see if it's her?" asked Bob.
"I tried that. They won't let anyone see her," said Templeton.
"What is this important thing she had?" asked Bob.
"It was a flash drive with photographs of the dig on it," said
Templeton. "It's critical to our continued work."
"And what's her name?" asked Bob.
"Fetterman...Lacey Fetterman."
There had been more. Templeton explained why the photographs
were so critical, and that the site needed to be identified as a
National Historic Site, so they'd have time to properly excavate
it. The developers were trying to get a court to let them
bulldoze the whole thing. Lawsuits were being threatened, and
the owner of the property was in a tizzy. The flash drive had
the documentation that would stop everything. More pictures
could be taken, of course, and would be, but these photographs were
priceless, in that they showed what the site looked like upon its
initial discovery. Work had continued and the site had
changed. They could be accused of improper procedures, which
would halt the dig, and drag things out even more. Time was
critical.
Bob had been stunned. In all the times he had been with
Lacey, she had never said a word about volunteering at the
museum. He remembered her talking about her interest in
archeology. Apparently she had decided to explore that
interest again.
He returned to the impound lot, telling control that he was on a
property recovery mission, and not to dispatch him anywhere.
His search of the car came up empty. He went to the office,
where he was presented with the sealed container of personal property
taken from the vehicle, during processing. He found the drive
in her purse, signed for it, and returned to the museum.
Templeton almost cried when he saw the thumb-sized device. He
thanked Bob so effusively that it was embarrassing. Then,
like a true academic, he turned and waddled off, Bob forgotten.
Chapter Eight
When Bob went off shift, he returned to the hospital.
"How come you're the only cop who ever checks on her?" asked the head
nurse.
"It's my case," he said brusquely. "How's she doing?"
"Better," said the nurse. "She should be awake. All
her vitals are normal. The sedative has been
stopped. The only reason she's still in ICU is that she won't
wake up."
"I'll just sit with her for a while," said Bob. He'd stayed
in uniform, since that got him almost anything he wanted, with no real
justification being required.
"Suit yourself," said the nurse.
Most of the bandages had been removed. She'd been unconscious
for a little more than ninety-six hours. The redness of her
face now looked like an irate sunburn that was coated with something
clear and greasy looking. Someone had cut the burnt ends off
her hair but, of course, it hadn't been styled. Her arms lay,
limp, at her sides. As rough as she looked, she was still
beautiful.
He picked up one limp hand and massaged it, just feeling her
fingers. He had never touched her in this way.
"Lacey." The word came out of his mouth. Just her
name. He realized his eyes were damp, and he shifted them
around the room.
He had just looked back to her face, when her eyes suddenly opened
wide. They were the hazel he'd hoped so desperately to see
again, but they were unfocused. Her hand gripped his, as she
took a deep breath.
Then all hell broke loose as she expelled that breath in a primal
scream of terror, her eyes wide and sightless. The scream was
agonized and impossibly loud. It shook him to his core and he
tried to step back, but her hand gripped his like iron.
First one and then two more nurses dashed into the room, shouting
questions—asking him what he'd done. They didn't
wait for any answers, ignoring him, while they dealt with Lacey's
terrified form, which appeared to be in the throes of a grand mal
seizure. She screamed again, and a nurse barked an
order. A syringe appeared and was thrust into the arm another
nurse was holding down, all her weight pressing it into the bed.
Lacey's eyes cleared, for an instant, and her head swiveled, stark
questions in her eyes. They slid past Bob and then came back
to lock on him. Then, as suddenly as it had all begun, her
body went limp, and her eyes closed, and she was asleep again.
The nurses were standing and panting, as a doctor entered the
room. His flow of questions was interrupted only by his
examination of the patient. He questioned Bob, based on the
comments of the nurses. Bob admitted to having held her hand
and saying her name.
The doctor stood up.
"This has been a very strange case," he said, looking at Bob.
"I don't know if you brought her out of it or not, but I doubt that
scream was because of you. She's been severely traumatized."
Bob knew that only too well, but again, he withheld
something—the information about how deep that trauma went.
"How long will that shot keep her under?" asked Bob.
"Normally, I'd say two or three hours," said the doctor.
"With her, I have no idea."
"I'll come back," said Bob.
"Do you know this woman?" asked the doctor, his eyes curious.
"I feel like I should," said Bob, smiling. "She's taken up a
lot of my time lately." He shrugged. "I just need
to talk to her."
The doctor's curiosity faded. "Come back in a couple of
hours," he said. "Hopefully, she'll be awake. You
can talk to her then...if..."
"If what?" asked Bob.
"She had some brain swelling. Sometimes that causes loss
of...cognizance."
"You mean she might not know what happened?" asked Bob, worry tingeing
his voice.
"She may not know anything at all," said the doctor, glancing at his
patient. "She may not even know she's human." He
looked grim. "Have you people had any luck finding her
family?"
"Nothing," said Bob.
He felt guilty because he hadn't even tried.
He went home and got something to eat, but stayed in uniform.
He set his alarm, and when it woke him, he went back to the hospital.
The nurse saw him and waved him over.
"She's awake, but she hasn't said anything," she said.
"What does that mean?" he asked, dread in the pit of his stomach.
"She acts like she's cognizant, but she won't answer
questions. She reached for a medicine cup, and when offered
water, she sipped it. We don't know why she's not saying
anything, unless her speech centers were affected."
"Can I see her?" he asked.
"Why not?" said the nurse.
When he walked into the room, her eyes were closed.
"Lacey?" he said softly.
Her eyes opened slowly, and her head turned.
"It WAS you," she said, her voice raspy and dry.
He was so shocked he couldn't react. Then his natural
instincts kicked in.
"I was worried about you," he said, reaching for her hand.
"I don't feel too good." Her voice sounded like dry leaves
rustling in a wind. "I dreamed I saw you."
"You're in the hospital," he said, helplessly. "You got hurt."
"How?" she asked.
He realized that now that she was talking, he needed to alert the
doctor. That could present...problems, though.
"Listen to me, Lacey," he said softly. "Don't tell them you
know me. You can talk about anything else you want to, but
don't let them know you know who I am."
"Why?" she asked. "I love you."
She was clearly still disoriented.
"Do you trust me?" he asked.
"Yes." Her answer was instant.
"Then please do what I ask you to," he said, softly. "Don't
tell them you know me. It's important. You have to
act like I'm a stranger."
"All right," she sighed. "Everything hurts."
"You were hurt very badly," he said.
"You made me feel better," she responded.
He realized she was thinking about the rape, not the accident.
"You were in an accident," he said. "Only talk about that,
OK?"
"OK," she said. "I'm hungry."
He used that as his excuse to go to the nurse's station,
telling Lacey he'd be right back.
"She woke up and said she's hungry, and that everything hurts," he said.
The nurse's eyes went round.
"You seem to have a tremendous effect on this woman," said the nurse.
"It's the uniform," he said, carelessly. "People talk to the
uniform."
She didn't reflect on the fact that the hospital was full of uniformed
people. Instead she hurried into Lacey's room.
The nurse adopted her normal, professional, light chattering voice,
asking questions, which, this time, Lacey answered. The
doctor arrived, nodded at Bob, and examined Lacey again. When
he was done he shook his head.
"Amazing," he said. "She seems completely lucid. I
have no idea why she wouldn't respond before now."
"You're the expert," said Bob.
Everything went on hold, as Lacey was transferred to a regular ward,
where her recovery could be completed. Bob sighed, as the
first questions asked of her were about insurance. She knew
she had it, but didn't know the details. She gave them the
phone number of her boutique and the name of an employee to ask
for. Bob felt a stab of guilt as he realized he hadn't
contacted anyone at the business, to let them know what had happened to
her.
Finally, after she was brought a tray of food, and was sitting up in
bed, they were left alone. During the whole administrative
process, no one told her why she was there, or what had been done to
her.
As soon as they were alone, she looked at him.
"What happened?"
"There was an accident," he said carefully. "Can you remember
anything about that?"
"A car accident?" she asked
"Yes."
She looked at her arms, for some reason.
"I don't remember that," she said.
"You were taking something to the museum," he prompted.
Her eyes went out of focus.
"Yes," she said. "Pictures from the dig."
"You never told me anything about the dig," he said.
She looked at him. "I was waiting. I wanted to
surprise you."
"Why?"
"I can't remember."
It went on like that. There were huge holes in her memory of
things both before and during the accident. She clearly knew
him and remembered their relationship. She knew she had a
racquetball appointment with him "tomorrow." She had lost the
five days since the accident. She remembered odd
things. While she ate, she said she wished it was food from
Santini's. Her memories of the dig were complete,
and she expressed relief that Mr. Templeton had gotten the photographs,
when Bob told her about that.
"Do you remember how we met?" he asked.
She looked confused. "At the gym," she said. "We
play racquetball."
"Before that?" he prodded, gently.
"We met at the gym, Bob," she insisted. "You challenged me to
some games."
The nurses were beginning to get curious about him staying there so
long, so he got up and told her he'd see her the next day. He
had to get some sleep and get to work. She said that was fine
and that she looked forward to seeing him again.
It had taken four hours, but when he left, Bob was convinced she didn't
remember anything at all about the rape.
She also didn't remember murdering her rapist.
END OF PREVIEW
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