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

<< Previous Chapter

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this preview and would like to read the rest of Mistrusting a Memory,
click the Smashwords logo below to purchase it as an ebook for just $3.25.