Julie Miller - Kansas City Countdown

“Did you remember something about the attack?” Detective Blue Eyes asked. “Is the syringe significant?”

“There was no evidence of drugs in her preliminary blood work,” the doctor offered.

Keir nodded. “But there are some drugs that leave the system quickly.”

“That’s true. And I estimate these injuries occurred eight to ten hours ago.”

“I don’t think that’s it,” Kenna interrupted. “Something was coming at my face. I could see...” A black void filled the space where the memory should be. She shook her head. A syringe? She eyed the object in the doctor’s hand and frowned. She couldn’t have been cut with a syringe. Her focus narrowed to the tiny hash marks and numbers marking the syringe—3 ml. 2.5 ml. 2 ml. 1.5... A door slammed shut in her head and she wanted to scream.

So what did that mean? She tried to recall what it was that had triggered her panicked reaction. But when she closed her eyes to concentrate, she was greeted by the frightening abyss of her amnesia. Kenna quickly opened her eyes to focus on things she could recognize and shook her head. “Sorry. I’ve still got nothing.”

“Not to worry.” The detective pulled away, retreating to the doorway where he must have been waiting, out of the doctor’s and nurse’s way. “We’ll figure it out.”

“I hope you’re right.”

He winked. “I’m always right.”

His confidence surprised her for a moment before she felt a smile softening her bruised, swollen face. His roguish charm distracted her from her fears and gave her back some of her own confidence. “Then we’d better get to it. I’ll do my best not to freak out on anyone again.”

While the nurse tucked a warm blanket around her, Dr. McBride rolled his stool back to the examination table and pointed to the items on the stainless steel tray beside him as he explained the procedure. She watched him pick up the syringe again, and her chest grew tight. Kenna breathed in deeply to dispel the uneasiness quaking inside her. Maybe she just had a thing about needles. With the nurse’s help, she turned onto her side, looking away from the doctor as he went to work. “Go ahead, Doctor.”

“I need you to relax. This is the same localized numbing agent I used on your scalp when I stitched that up. You’ll feel three little pinches before I’m done.”

Kenna nodded her understanding. If she wasn’t going to have any useful kind of flashback, why bother trying to understand? Forcing her jumbled thoughts to organize themselves was only aggravating the headache throbbing against her skull. Maybe if she stopped fighting so hard to remember and didn’t focus on anything except her present surroundings, the answers would finally come to her.

Dr. McBride seemed blessedly patient with her and competent in his treatment of her wounds. The nurse buzzed around the ER room, setting equipment and medicines on the tray beside the doctor and taking away discarded items. Detective Blue Eyes—no, wait...Keir Watson. His name fell into place and she smiled inside. Finally. A memory that seemed to stick. Detective Watson was either standing guard at the door or waiting to get the full report on her injuries from the doctor. Kenna wasn’t sure why the younger man with the take-charge voice would still be here if it wasn’t for some official reason. He’d explained more than once that they didn’t have a personal connection. Instead, he’d described them as adversaries from work.

It was a shame to have forgotten a compelling face like Keir’s. Chiseled bone structure that was perhaps a bit too sharp to be traditionally handsome was softened by a dusting of tobacco-brown beard stubble and a sexy half-grin. Those impossibly blue eyes narrowed with a question when he caught her studying him and she held his gaze until he folded his arms over his chest. The movement drew her attention lower. He’d put his jacket back on and she acknowledged another memory. Seeing how the dark gray wool hugged his shoulders and biceps, Kenna recalled Keir’s body heat, and how quickly she’d warmed up with his jacket draped over her in his car. She remembered the faint scents of something oakish and bitter that had clung to the material, too, making her think he’d enjoyed some kind of drink before they’d met.

Or met again.

Or something like that.

Oh, how she hated being at such a disadvantage. Why was Keir her enemy? She’d done something to him. Shredded a case of his in court? Just what kind of attorney was she? Not one who worked for the good guys, apparently.

Now, didn’t that conjure up all kinds of possibilities as to who might want to hurt her? A client unsatisfied with her representation? The family member of a criminal who’d been sent to prison despite her best efforts? A victim upset because she’d kept someone out of prison? Was she trying a controversial case? Had she learned a dangerous secret from one of her clients that someone else was anxious to keep silent?

She didn’t think this kind of violence could be random. Maybe the attack had nothing to do with her job. Did she have a jealous ex? A rival at work? It was impossible to evaluate her choices when she couldn’t yet recall all the details of her life.

Kenna winced as the needle pricked the skin near her temple and closed her eyes when she felt a second pinch in her hairline. She gritted her teeth when she felt the third shot sting her jaw, and her breathing grew a little more rapid. How much more would she have to endure tonight?

She’d kept herself as calm and focused as she could, under the extreme circumstances. But the emergency room at St. Luke’s Hospital in downtown Kansas City was a noisy, overwhelming place, especially for a woman who couldn’t answer many of the questions the admitting clerk, attending nurse, emergency room physician or KCPD criminologist who’d left earlier had asked her over the last several hours.

Keir Watson’s badge had gotten her through the red tape of checking in, but without an insurance card or a driver’s license, the staff couldn’t check her medical records. Dr. McBride had refused to give her anything for the pain or even antibiotics until he’d received a fax to back up her shaky assertion that she didn’t think she was allergic to any medications. She was worn out. There wasn’t any part of her that didn’t hurt. And the wound to her memory wasn’t something that Dr. McBride and his nurse could treat.

Were those tears chafing her eyelids? She wasn’t a crier, was she? She’d hate that if she was. Exhaustion and frustration were finally winning the battle against the sheer will to keep it all together.

“Need something to hold on to?”

Kenna’s eyes popped open when she felt a warm hand sliding over hers.

Keir Watson’s grasp was as sure as the hug of his arms around her body had been when he carried her to his car. It was just as warm and reassuring, too, reminding her she wasn’t alone and that someone strong and capable truly did have her back—even if it was only for tonight.

Kenna nodded her thanks and squeezed her fingers around the detective’s solid grip. “Thank you. Again.”

“Don’t worry, Counselor. I’m keeping tabs on what you owe me.”

Kenna hoped that his teasing tone was genuine, because she felt like smiling. Only, the shots had deadened the left side of her face and she couldn’t tell if she’d smiled or not. The stiffness from the swelling and the raw ache of the open wounds finally disappeared with a numbing relief.

She squeezed her eyes shut and held on while the doctor worked on the long, deep cuts. He’d already pulled her hair off her forehead and cheek and anchored it off her face with one of those caps she’d seen doctors wear into surgery. Although she couldn’t actually see what the doctor was doing, she felt the warmth of the sterile solution he squirted over her cuts and tasted miniscule grit and the coppery tang of her own blood at the corner of her lips before someone wiped it away. She felt the tugs on her skin and heard a couple of concerned sighs and quick orders to the nurse while he glued and sutured and applied tiny butterfly bandages to the wounds.