Everything’s a jumble. Why can’t I remember? You’re acting like I should know you. But I don’t!” Panic clawed at her.
His warm hands gripped hers and she flinched. He turned them over to look at her palms. “What happened?”
She stared at the cuts. “I don’t know. Why don’t I know?”
“It’s okay. Shh...” He pulled her to him and for some reason she let him. She needed to believe him. To believe that he wouldn’t hurt her, and he was there to help her. “You’ve had a really traumatic experience,” he said. “Give it some time and it’ll all come back to you. But for now, let’s continue on to the hospital.”
She had no words or energy left to argue. The pain was constant, and she just wanted it to go away. If Toby was out to harm her, he could have just done it. Instead, he was loading her into the front passenger seat this time. Probably so he could catch her if she tried to nose-dive out the door again.
Once she had her seat belt on, he rounded the front of the vehicle and climbed behind the wheel. “You ready?”
“I’m ready.” Ready for what, she wasn’t exactly sure, but Toby seemed to know what he was doing. And for now, that was going to have to be enough.
The remainder of the drive to the hospital didn’t take long and was, thankfully, uneventful. When Toby pulled into the parking lot, Robin was asleep, her head propped against the window. “Robin?”
She didn’t move.
“Robin, can you walk?”
She groaned and pulled away from him.
Toby rubbed his eyes, then the back of his neck. Just as he’d decided to simply carry her inside, his phone rang. Ben. “Yes?”
“Are you all right?” his friend asked.
“I’m at the hospital. I’ve got Robin with me.”
“They know she’s alive.”
“What? How?”
“The same way I know. The broken bathroom window. It’s obvious she got out.”
“It could have been anyone in that bathroom.” Toby sighed. “But they’re going to rightly assume it was her since no one else was there at the lab.” He paused. “At least I don’t think so. There were two guys in the woods where we were hiding. They were talking about making sure she was dead. I’m not sure if they were actually in the lab when it exploded, but I got the impression that they weren’t.”
“Got it.”
“And, Ben?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t remember seeing any other cars in the parking lot except Robin’s, but that doesn’t mean someone didn’t park elsewhere and walk over. You’ll need to scour the security footage from different areas on campus.”
“Okay. Local police are already here. They’ve requested FBI presence and resources, so they made it easy for us.”
“Meaning you’re already looking into it.”
“We have a team of local and federal agencies questioning people who were on campus at the time and near the lab. So far, no one’s come up with anything useful.”
“Okay. Let me think.” Toby drummed the steering wheel for a moment. “First and foremost, Robin’s got a head wound that needs to be checked out.”
“Anything else besides the head wound?”
“Some superficial wounds to her hands. What worries me the most is the confusion and memory loss.” He paused. “She doesn’t know me.”
“Oh no. That doesn’t sound good.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Okay, get her checked out but don’t linger. They’re probably going to be checking the hospitals. I’m going to be gathering information on this end and see if I can figure out who’s behind the blast. You just keep her safe.”
“Got it. Bye.” He gave her a gentle shake and frowned when she only blinked and closed her eyes again. He gave up and went around to the passenger side, hefted her slight form in his arms and carried her into the emergency department. With one eye behind him and one in front, he caught the attention of the triage nurse. “Got an emergency here.”
She took one look at them and reacted. No doubt Robin’s bloody head was quite the attention-catcher. Within seconds, the nurse had them back in a room and was examining Robin. “She’ll need a CT scan and a number of other tests. You’ll have to wait here.”
He caught her arm and pulled her to the side. “She needs police protection. She wound up like this because someone tried to kill her tonight. I don’t want to leave her.”
She held his gaze for a few moments, then nodded. “Are you a cop?”
“Not exactly. I’m working with the FBI. I can give you a contact number if you need proof, but I can’t leave this woman.”
“No ID?”
“No. Not for this assignment.”
“I see.”
He had a feeling she did. After several agonizing seconds of her scrutiny, she shot him one more look and nodded. “You can go.”
“Thanks.”
For the next six hours, Toby stayed with Robin, never leaving her side and monitoring those who entered her room with ID checks. The kind nurse who’d shown him grace by letting him stay with Robin stepped into the room.
“How’s she doing?” she asked. “Has she regained consciousness yet? Is she talking and making sense?”
“She’s in and out of consciousness and not making much sense when she talks.” He paused. “She grew up in foster homes and is talking about one of the families she lived with when she was around ten years old, I think. She doesn’t know who I am though.”
“Did she know who you were before the knock on the head?”
He shot her a tight smile. “Yes. I’m very concerned.”
The nurse nodded. “You’re not the only one. We’d like to keep her overnight for observation,” she said. “The doctor’s not comfortable releasing her yet. The fact that she’s still not remembering anything that happened has him wanting to take extreme cautions and the neurologist concurs.”
Toby blew out a breath. “Of course.” He rubbed his chin. “What about helping her remember?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, telling her things that she doesn’t remember right now in an attempt to jar her memories loose.”
“The doctor said good memories would be fine. Anything that might upset her or be a shock
