of me yet. We’ve got a bunch of things planned for you.” She helped Rain into the wheelchair and pushed her out of the room and into the corridor where a young woman stood waiting. “This is Terri and she’s going to take you for your tests and then in to see Dr. Martinez.”
“Will he have the results then?” Rain asked, fear creeping into her voice. What if the doctor’s tests reveal that she’d never get better, what if they reveal she never would remember? “When will I know?”
The nurse bent close, covering Rain’s hand with hers. There was such kindness in her weathered face, such compassion, Rain couldn’t help herself from responding. The woman understood what she was feeling, understood just how frightened she was.
“Don’t you worry,” she assured Rain in a quiet voice. “We’re going to take good care of you, you can be sure of that. And don’t forget, there’s Sheriff Mountain…he’ll figure out what happened out there in the desert, he’ll find out where you belong and he’ll get you back there—you’ll see.”
Rain felt a lump of emotion form in her throat and she struggled to swallow. She wanted to believe the nurse, wanted to believe the nightmare could end and that she would find her life again.
“Thank you,” she whispered, feeling the sting of tears burn her eyes and her throat.
“And by the way, I’m Carrie,” the nurse called after her as Rain was wheeled down the hallway. “If anybody gives you any trouble, you just tell them they’ll have me to contend with.”
“Was she raped?”
The words slipped out of his mouth as though he were asking about the weather or the score of a ball game. Being Navajo and being a lawman, Joe Mountain had long ago learned the importance of keeping any emotion out of his voice. It never paid to let anyone know how you really felt. It may have played havoc in his private life, but professionally, it was the only way to survive.
Cruz tossed the chart on to his cluttered desktop and drew in a deep breath. Leaning back in his chair, he glanced up at Joe Mountain and shook his head. “I told you—no evidence of sexual assault. No evidence of drugs or alcohol.”
Joe made a notation in his notebook and tried to ignore the rush of relief that pulsed through his veins. Acknowledging relief would have been admitting that it mattered and it didn’t—it couldn’t. As a lawman it was his job to dig out the facts—cold, hard facts. Not react to them.
“Is there a possibility she could have been struck by lightning?”
Cruz snorted at the suggestion and shook his head again. “Lightning strike would cause severe tissue damage—point of entry, point of exit—that sort of thing and there’s not a mark on her. No burns, no trauma at least. Just a bump on the head.”
Joe made another notation in the tablet. “So that would pretty much leave out an animal attack?”
“Mountain lion, or something like that?”
“Yeah.”
“Pretty much,” Cruz said with a wry smile. “Not many declawed mountain cats out there. Unless, of course, you meet up with one of those club-carrying cats who prefer whacking their victims over the top of the head.” He breathed out a laugh. “You know, caveman style.”
Joe glanced up, shooting Cruz a dark look. “No sign of animal attack,” he said deliberately, writing as he spoke and enunciating each word carefully.
“Safe to say that,” Cruz mumbled, doing his best to look appropriately chastised. They were two men who worked in professions that saw too much human misery and adversity and the dark humor they shared from time to time was a way they helped one another cope. “And just for the record, your lady had no scratch marks on her. No scratches, no scrapes, no bruises—not even a bug bite.”
Joe walked to the chair in front of Cruz’s desk and sat down. “So you can’t come up with any explanation as to what happened to her.”
“Not really,” Cruz admitted. “The woman sustained a blow to the back of the head which rendered her unconscious. For how long, though, I don’t know and whether or not it caused the memory loss she’s experiencing, I can’t say.”
“But you could venture a guess.”
Cruz shrugged. “My guess is no—the trauma just doesn’t appear to me to be that severe.”
“Even though it rendered her unconscious?”
“People get knocked out all the time and they don’t lose their memory,” Cruz pointed out. “Amnesia is very rare.”
Joe tried hard not to let his frustration show in his tone, but it wasn’t easy. He wanted answers—needed them in order to put the pieces of the puzzle together, but they just weren’t there.
“Serious now,” Joe said, himself serious. “What do you think has caused it?”
Cruz’s expression changed, all signs of humor gone now. “It’s really hard to say,” he confessed. “But the fact that the woman has not only forgotten what happened to her, she’s forgotten everything else—her name, where she comes from—makes me think whatever it was that happened was so traumatic to her, she’s blocked everything out.”
“So you think she doesn’t want to remember?”
“Not that she doesn’t want to remember. More like she can’t bring herself to,” he explained. “I think whatever happened—whether it was actually something that happened to her or something she witnessed, something she participated in—it was so distressing, so disturbing her mind simply won’t let her remember it.” Cruz sat up, leaning his elbows on the cluttered desktop. “Now you tell me. What would you think happened to the lady?”
Joe flipped his tablet closed and tossed it down on to the desk atop the medical chart. Joe and Cruz had been friends a long time, long enough that Joe felt comfortable sharing ideas and knowing they would go no further.
“Honestly? It beats the hell out of me.” Slipping his pencil into the pocket of his shirt, he walked to a chair in front of Cruz’s desk and slowly lowered himself into it. “I’m just guessing at this point, trying not to overlook anything—no matter how off the wall it may sound.”
“Sort of going on the theory that if you don’t have anything to go on,” Cruz concluded, “then anything’s possible?”
“Something like that,” Joe admitted. “At this point I don’t know if she’s the victim or the perpetrator, if I should be checking out the missing persons lists or the wanted posters, if a crime has been committed or if an accident has happened. Maybe she just ran out of gasoline, or lost control of her car and something snapped, making her forget everything.” He rolled his shoulders back, easing hard, tense muscles. “Maybe she fell, or slid down a mountain—hell! She could’ve dropped from the sky—from a UFO for all the evidence there is,” he said, stifling a yawn and giving his scratchy eyes a rub. “There isn’t a lot out there to go on to point me in any one direction, so I’m running around in circles. When I was out there this morning—”
“This morning?” Cruz exclaimed, cutting him off. “Geez, man, it isn’t even noon yet. You’ve been out there and back already?”
“Couldn’t
