Jenna Night - Lost Rodeo Memories

“She’s been admitted to the hospital, so I’m going by there later this evening to check on her. Maybe she will have recovered some of her memory by then.”

“Sounds good.”

“I’ll be back over there at the crime scene in a few minutes.”

Luke disconnected and turned to Peter. “Is there anything else you can think of to tell me?”

Peter cleared his throat. “No, sir.”

The kid was still pretty pale and his hands were trembling. After ten years in the military, including several tours of combat, and his time as a deputy sheriff, it was hard for Luke to imagine how he would have reacted at the age of eighteen to having his employer attacked while he was just a short distance away.

He’d played football in high school and grew up on a ranch, so when he was eighteen he’d thought he was tough. But he wasn’t. Witnessing how inhumanely people could treat each other was shocking. You had to learn how to keep your emotional distance so you could be useful at your job. So you stopped being shocked by brutality. Or told yourself that was the case, anyway.

Luke’s brother, Jake, had warned him on one of Luke’s visits home on leave that he was getting too good at the emotional-distance thing. And after he’d moved back to Idaho to help Jake with his kids, Luke had tried to work on that. Leaving the Army after his enlistment period ended was a tough decision. But it was one he’d had to make, because he’d had no idea how long his brother would need his help.

“How are you holding up?” he asked Peter. “You’ve been a lot of help, and I appreciate it. Do you need me to have a deputy drive you home?”

“No, sir. I called a friend to come pick me up and he’s waiting in the parking lot.”

After Peter left, Luke wrapped things up with Don and went back to the crime scene to see how the investigation was going. The perpetrator hadn’t been found, but he’d left a trail through the woods that looped back to the two-lane highway winding through this part of the county. The guy could be anywhere by now.

If Melanie could eventually remember what the perpetrator looked like, there was the slim chance they could find an image of him on video. And from there, maybe link him to a vehicle license plate. A purchase made with a credit card at the fairgrounds. Something.

Confident that everything was being properly taken care of at the crime scene, Luke headed for the hospital. He arrived just as visiting hours were ending. When he stepped into Melanie’s room, he was immediately greeted by a young red-haired woman who introduced herself as Melanie’s cousin, Anna.

“How is she doing?” Luke asked Anna in a quiet voice. He could see Melanie lying in bed, a blanket pulled up nearly to her chin, looking tired and groggy.

“She has a concussion,” Anna told him. “But no fractures. And no gunshot wounds.”

“Thank You, Lord,” Luke said softly.

“Amen,” Anna agreed. “They’ve given her some painkillers and a sedative so she’ll sleep.”

“Has she regained any of her memory?”

Anna shook her head. “She still doesn’t remember anything since she left Wyoming two weeks ago.”

Melanie’s eyelids fluttered open and she called out to Luke. “Hey, deputy.”

Luke walked over to her. “How are you feeling?”

“Sleepy.” She had bandages on one side of her head, and dark circles under her eyes. “Thank you,” she mumbled, giving him a half smile. “And please thank the event security man who found me.” Her smile started to falter and tears formed in the corners of her eyes. “Something happened to me,” she said, with confusion evident in her eyes. She reached her hand up to touch the bandages on her head and gave him a pleading look. “What happened to me?”

“I’m going to do my best to find out.”

Over the intercom, a voice announced the end of visiting hours.

“I’ll talk to you again later,” Luke said to Melanie as he headed for the door. And then to Anna, he said, “Can I speak with you for a minute?”

She followed him out into the hallway, calling back to Melanie that she wasn’t actually leaving for the night just yet.

“Do you have any theories on who might have attacked her?” Luke asked. “Does she have an angry business partner? Maybe a boyfriend she broke up with?”

“She has an ex-husband, Ben,” Anna said. “But he was the one who insisted on the divorce—told her he wanted to start a new life without her—so I wouldn’t suspect him. I really can’t think of anyone.”

Luke glanced up and down the hallway, frustrated that he had no idea what the perpetrator looked like. “Do you know how long she’ll be in the hospital?”

“There’s a good chance she’ll be able to leave tomorrow morning.”

“Do the doctors have any idea how long it will take for her to regain her memory?”

“They said it could happen as early as tomorrow morning. Or it could take a few weeks.” Anna’s eyes teared up. She looked away and blinked rapidly. “Or the memories of the past two weeks might be gone forever. So she’d never be able to remember who attacked her, and that criminal would get away with it.”

Luke sighed. He could not let that happen.

* * *

“When you get home try to relax as much as you can,” the doctor said to Melanie as she tapped the information for Melanie’s prescription into an electronic tablet. “You need to heal from the emotional trauma, as well as the physical injury. So don’t try to force yourself to remember things. Otherwise you could end up right back here in the hospital again.” The doctor’s smile was kind, but she also managed to make it clear that she wasn’t kidding.

Melanie remembered waking up in the woods last night. But prior to that, she still only remembered going to bed at the hotel in Wyoming. Not trying to remember what happened during those missing two weeks was difficult. Like trying not to scratch an itch.

The doctor left and Melanie turned to Anna. “All right, cousin. Let’s roll.” Hospital protocol required Melanie to sit in a wheelchair and be pushed out to the parking lot, even though she felt like she could walk.

“I need you to take me back to the fairgrounds, to get my truck and the trailer,” Melanie said as soon as they were in Anna’s sedan.

Anna turned to her with a cheery smile. “No.” Despite the upbeat tone, Melanie could see the dark circles under her cousin’s eyes, and the paleness of her skin made the freckles scattered across her face stand out even more defiantly.

Melanie wasn’t the only one suffering in the aftermath of this bizarre attack on her. Anna had already done so much for her. And she had a husband, Tyler, serving in the military, overseas. Anna had enough weight on her shoulders. She didn’t need anything added to that.

“That deputy said your truck and trailer are securely stored at the fairgrounds,” Anna added as she turned the key and fired up the car’s engine. “The smart thing for you to do is to go back to the house and unwind. We’ll get your stuff later.”

“Fine.” Actually, going back to Anna’s restored Victorian house, where Melanie rented a couple of rooms, one to use as a bedroom and the other for an office, sounded like a good idea. Closing the shades, lying in her bed and hiding from the world sounded like a great idea. Maybe she could numb her brain with mindless TV, as well. Because, although she was trying very hard to stay upbeat around Anna, her thoughts wanted to drift to some very dark places.

Someone had tried to kill her. Apparently for money. She had come in contact with someone evil. How was it possible someone could be like that? And how safe was anyone, ever, when there were people like that in the world?