Liz Johnson - Stolen Memories

How could she not even know her own features? How could they be so foreign when they were literally at the tip of her nose?

With a finger she traced the short hair in the photograph then touched the real hair at her temple. The nurse said they’d cut off a lot of it that first night. But Julie didn’t have anything to compare it to.

The disposable cell phone that Zach had left with her let out a low hum as it scooted across the table at her bedside. Setting the paper down, she scooped it up. “Hello?”

“Hey, it’s Zach.”

“Hi.” She twisted to catch a glimpse of the clock on the adjacent wall. It was after eleven. “Are you still on duty?”

“No. Why?”

“Oh. It’s just kind of late—”

He sucked in a sharp bite of air. “Did I wake you? I’m sorry.”

“No. Not at all. I was just— I’m just looking at the article in the paper. Again.” Oh, why did she add that? She sounded like she was so interested in herself that she couldn’t stop reading about the woman without her memory.

“It’s a good article.” He paused for a long time, but she could tell he wanted to say more. Finally he filled it in. “It’s a pretty picture.”

Where her self-berating had just been, warmth filled her chest at his compliment. And with it a bit of trepidation. She wasn’t used to being complimented like that. At least she didn’t think she was.

He cleared his throat, effectively turning the conversation to less awkward ground and relieving her of the pressure of finding an appropriate response. Thank goodness.

“I was actually calling to let you know that we’ve gotten a couple tips from the hotline.”

“Already? Did you find out who I am?” The smile that tugged on her mouth refused to go away, growing as fast as the hope blooming in her heart.

“Not yet. But there are a few that we’re going to follow up on and see if anything pans out.”

Like a leaking balloon, hope escaped, leaving a weight heavy on her shoulders.

“Thanks for letting me know.”

“We’ll figure out who you are. I promise.”

His words were kind, but were they really in his control? She replayed them as she hung up the phone and leaned back against her pillows with closed eyes. She needed help beyond this world. God was going to have to heal her brain and restore her memories, or she might always be Julie Thomas—not who she really was.

A squeaking wheel jerked her out of her reverie, and she glanced up just as a large blond man in a maintenance uniform rushed across her room. He’d left his mop and yellow bucket sitting by the door, which he’d closed behind him.

She tried to wave him off. “I don’t need anything.”

But he ignored her, and before she could make sense of his presence, he reached her bedside, pressed his meaty hands to her throat and squeezed.

THREE

Julie tried to scream, but no breath could pass through her constricted airway. The pressure on her throat made her eyes water and her chest burn. Darkness clouded the corners of her vision, but she fought the temptation to succumb to its sweet release.

And she fought the man standing next to her bed, the man who was causing her agony.

All she could see were his broad shoulders and beefy arms, his face just out of her line of sight, but she clawed at him, digging her nails into every bit of flesh she could find. As she raked her fingers down his arm, he growled and yanked his hand away from her throat before hitting the elastic bandage covering the brace around her arm with his fist.

Every point from her wrist to her elbow screamed at the abuse, but she pushed it from her mind, gasping for oxygen before he pressed against her air pipe again.

He leaned in closer, but she could still only see his blond hair, wrinkled forehead and squinty eyes, the lines at the corners taut with the effort it took to keep her from flying out of the bed. She kicked and pushed and tried to scream, but again, there was no sound.

Grasping for the nurse’s call button near her waist, her fingers caught only the very edge before her attacker shoved it to the floor, the plastic landing with a sharp report on the tile floor.

She needed a weapon. Something. Anything to make him back off long enough for her to catch a breath and call for help.

And still the darkness called, willing her to just close her eyes and drift off to sleep, whispering that this fight wasn’t one she could win.

But she had something to live for. She did.

She just didn’t know what it was.

With jerking motions, she patted her chest and stomach, hoping to find a scalpel or a pair of scissors or a syringe. Her search came up empty, and she flailed her arms until her uninjured hand connected with the side table holding the dinner tray she’d picked at all evening. The metal lid clanged as it bounced off the wall and reverberated when it reached the floor. If she could just get a hold of the edge of the tray, maybe she could hit him in the side of the head. But her fingers couldn’t find a purchase on the rounded edge, and it, too, slipped from her grasp, clattering to the floor.

As the suffocating pressure below her chin increased, she swiped her hand over the table one more time. And then she found just what she needed.

A fork.

Clutching the handle in her fist, she swung it at his arm with as much force as she could muster. When the tines broke skin, she pressed it farther into his arm before yanking it back and stabbing him again.

“Ow!” he screamed, as if she wielded a dagger.

She plunged it into his arm, and his fingers loosened. Gulping air, she jabbed at him over and over, puncturing skin and pulling out every time.

She wasn’t seriously injuring him, but it couldn’t feel much better than a bee sting.

Finally he let go altogether, and she had the freedom to let loose the blood-curdling yell that had been trapped. It filled the room, went right through the door, flooded the hallway and was promptly followed by a ruckus outside her room that would have brought her out of a coma.

She knew Brad, her night nurse, was on his way just by the rhythm of his feet on the floor by the nurses’ station. And his steps were not alone. But her attacker vanished. He kicked the mop bucket by the door and it sloshed water, which fell onto the floor with a clap, a sweet pine scent filling the room. The chatter of a handful of high-pitched voices demanding to know what had happened reached her long before she could make out their forms.

“Who was that coming out of your room?”

“What happened?”

As Brad reached her bedside, she held a shaking hand out to him, needing the stability and support that she’d come to expect from the only other man in her life for the moment, but Brad didn’t reach out to her. Instead he picked up the end of her IV tube, which had pulled free during the struggle, and looked at the mess. Leaking saline had left a trail from her stomach down the side of the bed and halfway across the floor.

Where was Zach? He’d know what to do. He’d know how to make her trembling stop.

“What happened?” Brad asked again, his words nearly drowned out by the pounding of her heart in her ears.

“Call security.” Her words came out on a wheeze, and she sucked in air as fast as she could. “That man attacked me. Tried to—” She pointed at her throat. “Tried to strangle me.”

Brad’s eyes grew wide, if a little doubtful. “Are you sure?”

Hadn’t he seen the man running down the hall? She nodded, pushing herself up on her elbow and ignoring the pain that sliced down her arm.

He snatched up the phone and punched in a few numbers before telling the person on the other end to send up security and have them check the back stairwell and exits for a man with blond hair in a blue maintenance uniform. Two female nurses hovering in the doorway followed suit, hurrying in the direction of the attacker’s hasty exit.