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“Well?”
“Yeah, what’s the word, Cruel Eyes? That’s totally your new nickname, by the way.”
Chuck was laughing at his own joke, but Greg didn’t think it was funny. Mean and cruel. He’d never had those words associated with him before. He’d spent his life making people comfortable with him, getting them to open up to him. He’d been a support and comfort to people for years when he’d been a psychologist.
Only he wasn’t a psychologist anymore. Now he was a cynic. A cruel one, apparently.
“I don’t know.”
“What? I thought you were an expert in this stuff,” the sheriff complained.
Chuck snorted. “Come on. You know she’s lying. You said it.”
“No, I only think she’s lying. And that’s based on the statistical improbability of her condition. However, physically she showed no signs of it.”
Chuck let out a whistle. “But that’s almost impossible to do, isn’t it?”
“It is. Unless she’s a sociopath or so completely delusional she doesn’t believe she’s lying. Which is, statistically speaking, also unlikely.”
“Buddy, I don’t care about the damn statistics. Does this girl not know her name or what?”
Greg turned and looked through the window again. She was still sitting the same way. Only, if anything, she looked even more defeated. Because when she’d asked him to help her, he’d gotten up and left her instead.
He didn’t help people anymore. Except the need, the physical need, to spend more time with this woman, to dig deeper into her brain, was almost as strong as the pull of the casinos not fifteen minutes down the road.
In fact it was stronger.
Did she know her name? Could she have done something no one else had succeeded in doing before? Fabrication was easy. Controlling a physiological response to it was not.
“What’s your gut say?”
Greg turned to the sheriff, struggling a little to take his eyes from the woman on the other side of the window. It wasn’t conceivable. It wasn’t likely. But he couldn’t ignore the evidence because he didn’t like it. Because it didn’t fit with what he expected.
Instinct, intuition. Greg hated these words. While psychology was a difficult science it was still a science. Greg relied on it and the body’s physical response to stimulus. Based on the data, he could only come to one conclusion.
“She could be telling the truth.”
CHAPTER TWO
“TELL ME AGAIN WHY WE did this.”
Greg and Chuck sat outside the treatment room in the only hospital in Brigantine. A small facility, it mostly responded to severe sunburns, stomach irritations from too much cotton candy and the unexpected illness or accident that happened while families were on vacation. Brain trauma was no doubt outside their specialty but Greg thought their mystery woman should at least be looked at by a physician. Just because she was speaking with ease and moving without restriction didn’t mean there couldn’t be the possibility of some type of brain event. He’d volunteered to take her and the sheriff gratefully allowed it.
The truth was the small-town sheriff had no idea what to do with the woman. Especially given no crime had been reported that he knew of. Even though they couldn’t charge her with anything, she did volunteer to have her fingerprints taken, if only for the hope of identification. If she was a teacher she would be in the system.
Or if she was a criminal.
She also agreed to let them cut a small piece of her bloodstained dress. That way she could leave wearing it, and if the police needed to they could get a blood type and DNA from the cloth. Greg thought a lawyer might object, but she had willingly agreed to whatever the sheriff wanted.
As if it didn’t occur to her that she might be guilty of anything.
“It’s a Sunday. We’ve got nothing else to do,” Greg said in response to Chuck’s question.
“Dude, speak for yourself. I could be working. Programming my next app. Making my next million.”
“The world does not need another ‘Shoot the Squirrel’ update.”
“That’s the point of apps. You don’t need them. In my next version I was thinking of making the squirrels rabid. So if you don’t shoot them in time, they attack with foam coming out of their mouths.”
“Awesome. Please let me pay ninety-nine cents for foam-mouthed squirrels.”
“Don’t hate the programmer, hate the game.”
“It’s the nice thing to do,” Greg said trying to convince himself there was nothing more going on between him and this woman than a chivalrous act. It wasn’t as if he was trying to save her or anything. Just maybe...help her. A little. Which he didn’t really do anymore, but he was making an exception for her.
Why her?
Annoyed with himself, Greg stood. “She’s lost, helpless. You’re never going to get anywhere with women if you don’t recognize that when the needy, helpless ones come along, you have to step up your game.”
“Hey, I get everywhere with women. I have no problem with you stepping up and playing knight to this damsel in distress. If you think she’s really in distress.”
“She might be,” Greg said ambiguously.
“See, that’s my point. You are never on the fence. Why are you now?”
“Because hysterical amnesia is really hard to accept, but her body wasn’t conveying the tells normally associated with someone lying.”
“Do you hear yourself? You sound like a politician.”
Exactly. He wasn’t willing to commit to an answer. He didn’t want to say she was telling the truth only to look ridiculous for having bought into such an incredulous story. However, he couldn’t say she was lying when he didn’t see any evidence of it.
He suddenly had a new appreciation for politicians. Saying something without saying anything wasn’t easy.
Chuck was staring at him. Greg could feel it, but he didn’t want to acknowledge it. His roommate’s hazel eyes were like beacons of suspicion.
“You’ve got the hots for her.”
Greg closed his eyes. “Why does it always come down to sex with you?”
“Because I’m a man. Hey, I get it. She’s smokin’. Or would be if she wasn’t rocking the Carrie look, but seriously, man, do you really want to go there with a babe who has issues like she does?”
“You are ridiculous,” Greg stated unequivocally. “I refuse to comment further.”
It was at that point that she—because they had no other name for her—emerged from a hallway and walked over to them. She gave a little wave as if she appreciated that they’d waited for her. As if they were her friends. Which, considering that the number of people she knew in the world had been reduced to the officer who found her, the sheriff who questioned her and them, wasn’t all that wrong.
Greg met her halfway. “Well?”
“They took a CAT scan but didn’t find any evidence of a bleed. No bumps, either,” she said pointing to her temple. “And they gave me a concussion test, you know, look up, look down, that kind of thing. The doctor seemed to think I was fine physically. I didn’t know which day of the week it was, but I know who is president. Which is weird.”
Greg nodded. So it was back to hysterical amnesia, most likely brought on by an event. Given that she was rocking the “Carrie look,” as Chuck had previously pointed out, the odds were it had been a fairly traumatic event.
“Did he have any suggestions?”
“There is a specialist at Thomas Jefferson he wants me to see. He said he would call and see if he could get me an appointment tomorrow. It’s a hospital in Philadelphia....”
Her voice trailed off and Greg could see the panic start to take over as the ramifications of what she was saying sunk in. She had no car, no money, no identification. She had no way of getting herself to Philadelphia without hitchhiking.
She didn’t even have a change of clothes. Or a way to clean the ones she had.
“We’ll take you.” The words were out of his mouth even as her breaths grew faster and shorter.
She looked at him. “Why would you do that? You don’t know me.”
“I can’t wait to hear this,” Chuck said coming up behind him.
“Being a good citizen isn’t enough?”
Her suspicion was evident. What was less obvious was the bone-deep fear she was trying to keep at bay, but Greg could see it. “I think I should go back to the police. If they find something out about me...”
“Listen, the sheriff doesn’t have any place to hold you unless it’s in a cell. They already took your prints to run them through the database. If anything hits they will let me know. You trusted us enough to get in a car with us to take you to the hospital. If we were going to hurt you we could have done it then. You need a free place to stay, a shower, a change of clothes and a meal.”
“And you’re going to give me all that? For no reason?”
“Not for no reason. I can’t fully establish if you’re lying or not. If you are, then you’re doing so because you committed a crime and you should be watched by someone. If you’re not, then you’re a fascinating case I would like to explore some more.”
“I’ll bet.” Chuck snorted.
Greg slapped him upside the head.
She looked between the two men. “You’re asking me to trust you when you don’t trust I’m telling the truth. That doesn’t make sense. To go back to your place with you...”
“Both of us,” Chuck interrupted. “We live together.”
Her lips firmed and she shook her head. “I forgot my name. It doesn’t make me an idiot. Going to your home is different than getting in a car when the sheriff knew I was with you.”
“I’ll call the sheriff again. Do you have any choice?”
“Maybe you could drive me around. Back along the highway to Atlantic City. Maybe I’ll see something or remember something.”
“I’m not going to Atlantic City,” Greg told her. He’d pushed it enough as it was. Not that he was fighting any serious urge to gamble. She had become enough of a distraction to take his mind off that. But he was definitely feeling on edge. With her, with the situation. Even with what he was offering.
He could tell himself she was just a lost person he was trying to help out. A nice gesture. Something anyone might do for a fellow human being in need.
It was a lie. He wanted to know if she was telling the truth. He wanted to know where the blood came from. He wanted to know what type of horrible event might have overcome her to the point of erasing her mind. Her memories.
If that was the case, he wanted to cure her and he hadn’t cured anyone in a really long time. Intellectually, he told himself he should resist the temptation. He didn’t cure people anymore. Instinctively, he couldn’t help himself.
“Do either of you know a woman you could call?”
Chuck snorted. “Babe, there are plenty of women I could call. Like on a dime. Drop of a hat. I hit some digits and bam, next thing you know my doorbell is ringing.”
She looked at him skeptically, and then turned to Greg. “Someone you know well. Someone I could ask about what kind of people you are. I have nothing to go on but my gut here. So if I could talk to another woman, have her tell me what kind of men you are, then it would ease my mind.”
Chuck was shaking his head but Greg nodded. He took out his cell and went to his favorites page. Mark’s wife, JoJo, was his first choice. While Mark might be a thorn in his side, his wife had become one of Greg’s favorite people. He hit her number and waited.
“Yo, what’s up?” she answered.
“You in the middle of something?”
“No, Mark and Sophie and I were about to put on a movie and gorge ourselves on popcorn. Why?”
“Who is that?”
Greg could hear Mark asking in the background.
“Tell him it’s your lover,” Greg said wanting to do anything that might push Mark’s buttons.
“You want to get shot? You do remember he’s former CIA.”
Greg knew. It was a risk he was willing to take. “Tell him anyway.”
“I will not. I like you too much,” she teased.
“Listen, I have someone here. A woman. She’s in trouble and I’ve offered to help her out. But she obviously doesn’t know me or trust me. She would like to talk to someone I know.”
“Oh, this sounds promising. Put her on.”
Greg handed over his cell phone. “Her name is JoJo. She and her husband are people I’ve worked with.”
She took the phone and said hello. “Mostly I want to know if I can trust him and his friend Chuck.”
It sounded to him as if JoJo was doing a lot of explaining. He could hear her talking on the other end of the phone but couldn’t distinguish exactly what she was saying. Greg figured it would be a yes-or-no answer, but apparently JoJo felt she had to say more.
“And his friend Chuck?”
Greg watched her frown and could only imagine JoJo’s take on Chuck. They had a met a few times through different events at Ben’s house. No doubt Chuck would have introduced himself by hitting on JoJo before realizing she was married. Hopefully, JoJo would have seen through it and concluded that Chuck was all talk and a decent guy at heart.
Which was mostly true.
Finally, she said thank-you and handed the phone back to him.
“Did you tell her what a knight in shining armor I am?” Greg asked JoJo.
He was teasing but there was a pause for a second and then he heard a small hiccup. JoJo had turned into such a sap since she and Mark had married. “Yeah. I did. Because you are. You try not to be, I know. But I’ll never forget what you did for me. So yeah, I told her she could trust you.”
What he did for her? A few conversations. A few walks in the park. It wasn’t as if he’d given her therapy to help her overcome the tragic death of her sister and her subsequent split with her family. He didn’t do therapy anymore. All he’d really done was listen.
Not long after that though, she was ready to move on in her life with Mark. Who, beyond all reason, made her ridiculously happy. Go figure. Sometimes there was no accounting for taste.
