Karen Barrett - Hers To Remember

“Sam! I could hear you yelling three corridors away. What the hell is going on?”

Sam turned to his brother. “Amy’s missing. We have to find her.”

“What do you mean ‘missing’?”

Sam grimaced. Casey was using his cool-cop voice. The one he usually saved for panicky mothers who’d temporarily misplaced their children in department stores.

“I mean, Officer Delaney,” he returned, as composed as he could manage under the circumstances, “that Amy is not in her room, and no one seems to know where she’s gone.”

Casey moved off down the hall to her room, Sam and the two nurses following quickly behind. “Have you checked the closet?”

“The closet? Why would she be in the closet?” Sam didn’t need the look on Casey’s face to realize the stupidity of his question. “Her clothes!”

Inside the closet, they found the gown she’d had on and nothing else.

Stunned, Sam stared at the nearly empty closet. “She ran.” He looked at his brother. “Why? Why would she run away?”

Casey put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I don’t know, but we’ll find her. She can’t have gone far. I didn’t bring her purse to the hospital with me, so she had no money.”

Sam only half listened. His poor Amy. For the last three years they’d been so close. It had only been the last year that she’d had the confidence to be on her own for more than a few hours. She must have been terribly frightened and confused to have left like this. Why? It hurt to think she might be afraid of him.

Had he done something to scare her? Or had something else caused her to run?

“Sam, are you all right?”

He nodded to his brother, a lie. “I have to find her. If she fainted…” He couldn’t complete the thought. “I’ll check the stairs.”

“Good,” Casey said. “I’ll talk to the staff, maybe some of the patients, see if they saw anything.”

Sam ran down the hall to the nearest stairwell, thoughts of how frightened she must have been racing through his mind. She’d woken to a place she didn’t recognize, to people she didn’t recognize. All she could remember was running before the accident. Running from what? he asked himself as he went down the stairs two at a time.

The relief of not finding her lying at the bottom lasted seconds. He still hadn’t found her. She was in no shape to be traipsing around the city. He went through the exit door.

Outside, he stopped long enough to breathe in the fog-cooled air. He had to calm down. He had to think. She didn’t remember him. She didn’t remember her own name. Did that mean she wouldn’t remember the city either?

If it did, how would she get around? Where would she go? Deciding she might try to get a ride from someone, Sam headed for the parking lot. He talked to several of the visitors who were coming and going, but no one had seen her.

“There you are, Sam.” Casey strode up to him. “Any sign?”

Sam shook his head. “You find out anything?”

“A candy striper remembered seeing a blond woman dressed in jeans and a purple sweater with a bandage on her forehead, but she didn’t see where she went.”

“Damn it! She’s too confused to be on her own.” He looked into the distance, up the road and down. “I’m going this way.” He moved off at a quick pace.

“Wait, Sam…”

He turned back to his brother. “What?”

“When I called the precinct for help looking for Amy, I asked one of the guys to check on Adrienne Winston.”

Sam scowled. “What are you saying?”

Casey looked at Sam, compassion in his eyes. “I think it’s possible she might be the link to Amy’s past that’s been missing the past three years.”

Once she’d had a chance to rest for a while, Adrienne found she didn’t have the energy to get up again. The soda had helped some, her head didn’t ache so much, but the rest of her felt more exhausted than she could ever remember feeling.

She looked out the window. If someone had followed her, they’d probably be here soon. She really should go. A quarter lay on the table in front of her. Enough for a phone call. But who would she call? The buck she’d have left after she made the call wouldn’t be enough for a taxi. And she still didn’t remember the name of the hotel she’d checked into.

Why was that? She rubbed her forehead between her eyebrows, where the pain had decided to settle. She couldn’t remember talking to a clerk or being in a hotel room. Had she checked in at all? It hurt so much to think, she leaned her arms on the table, and laid her head down and closed her eyes.

“Amy?”

Startled, Adrienne lifted her head to see the big blond man from the hospital slide onto the seat across from her. She started to slide out the other way, but he caught her wrist. “Don’t run, please.”

She glared at his hand on her wrist, trying to work up some righteous anger, but he really wasn’t hurting her. She looked up at his face, expecting anger or menace or some other sign that would show this man wasn’t as caring as he pretended. All she saw was hurt.

His expression didn’t convince her. Vaughn could conjure up any emotional expression he needed on a moment’s notice. This man could be no different. “Let go of me, please.” She kept her tone even, not wanting to let on just how frightened she was.

His gaze searched her face. For what, she hadn’t a clue. “Will you promise not to run?” he asked.

She looked him straight in the eye. “I promise nothing.”

He winced, as if she’d dealt him a blow. Then he let her go.

Her wrist tingled where he’d held it. The sensation puzzled her. It felt almost pleasant. She leaned back against the bench, not sure she could have run if she wanted to. “What do you want from me?”

“Right now, I just want to take you back to the hospital. You took a pretty good knock.”

The jackhammers going off in her head agreed with him. “What do you care?” She hurt too much to be polite.

“Amy…”

“Why do you keep calling me that?”

He didn’t react to the snap in her voice. He smiled gently instead, as if trying to allay her fears. “Because it’s your name, sunshine.”

“No, it’s not,” she said firmly. “My name is Adrienne Winston. You know it, and I know it. And if Vaughn thinks he’s going to get away with making me look crazy, he’d better think again.”

“Vaughn? Who’s Vaughn?”

Adrienne almost laughed. The look on his face shone innocent as a child’s. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he had nothing to do with Vaughn. A sudden pain shot through her head. She groaned.

Sam moved around the table to kneel by her side. “Amy! Please let me take you back to the hospital.”

“No!” She put her hands against his shoulders and tried to shove him away. He didn’t move. A wave of dizziness went through her. She looked into eyes that mirrored her fear.

“Please, honey,” he begged. “We have to take care of you. We have to take care of the baby.”

The baby, she thought. I have to take care of the baby. If Vaughn finds out…She looked at Sam. For a moment he didn’t seem like a stranger. He seemed like someone she’d known for a long time. An instant later, the feeling was gone. But not the fear.

For now, he was all she had.

She reached out to him. “Please, please help me.” Then she felt herself falling forward into his arms.

ADRIENNE WOKE to find herself once again in bed. She still wore the purple sweater, but the jeans had been removed and her bare legs covered with a pink thermal blanket. The blond man sat by her side. Sam.

Who was he? Why was he always there?

She looked down at her hand, held gently by his. The big, tan hand warmed hers, made her feel connected to him. Why, when he was a stranger? How could she feel so close to someone she’d seen for the first time mere hours before?