if he could find a primary crime scene or at least where you parked your car. He’s searching to find the guy I showed you, too.”
“He’s a person of interest, isn’t he?”
“I spotted him in the general vicinity where I found you. Don’t know if he was sizing up a mark, if he was watching the alley to see if anyone noticed you or if he just had nothing better to do on a Friday night. I’d sure like to talk to him.” The phone buzzed impatiently, and Keir backed toward the door. “I’ll be out in the lobby.”
Manipulating the conversation to get to the answer she needed was starting to feel like second nature to her. Had she possessed this stubborn streak before the attack? “Tell me why you called me the Terminator earlier. It didn’t sound like a compliment.”
“I’ll ask up front about getting you some clothes, too, since the CSI took your suit and shoe to the lab.”
This conversation wasn’t done. Kenna walked right up to him and fingered the lapel of his gray tweed jacket. She rubbed her thumb over the crimson smear staining the nubby material. “You’d better ask about a change of clothes for you, too. You’ve got blood on your jacket. My blood.”
“I’m coming back.” The gap—both literal and figurative—widened between them as he pulled the material from her fingers. Then he put the phone to his ear and turned away. “Hey, buddy. What’s up?”
Kenna hugged her arms around her weary body and watched the door close behind him. Keir had managed to be supportive and evasive at the same time. “Run, you clever boy.”
Clever boy. Where had that phrase come from? While she’d seen glimpses of a boyish charm, there was certainly nothing immature about Keir Watson. Not in his stature, his tone or his demeanor.
“Clever boy,” she muttered the words again, mentally chasing the blip of a memory that floated through her head. “It’s from a TV show.” She watched TV. She had a hobby. “Blue box. British accents.” One lightbulb, however dim, finally turned on inside her head. “Dr. Who.”
She seemed to be in pretty good shape, so she wasn’t a full-blown couch potato. Who did she watch it with? Family? Friends? A significant other? Why hadn’t whoever she watched that show with come to see her at the hospital? Okay, sure, there was that whole thing with the missing phone and purse and relying on the police to track down where she lived and worked—but wasn’t someone missing her? Alarmed that it was five in the morning and she hadn’t come home?
Or was someone at home the danger she needed to fear? The person who’d gotten so angry that he or she had tried to kill her? How should she handle this? What was her next step? How was she supposed to know who to trust?
“Take a breath,” she warned herself before panic reclaimed her.
Kenna hugged her arms around the thin cotton of her gown and glanced around the room, looking for answers. Looking for someone to talk to. Looking for a friend or sympathetic doctor or polite detective or anyone who could keep this helpless, lonely feeling from seeping in as surely as the air-conditioned chill that dotted her skin with goose bumps.
She had a feeling she wasn’t used to relying on others to take care of her. Kenna eyed the soiled remains from treating her injuries that the nurse had wheeled into the corner. She wasn’t used to being weak like this, forced to put her trust in people she didn’t know. Had she put her trust in the wrong person, making herself a sitting duck who’d had no clue she was about to be attacked?
Fear crawled across her skin as the knowledge she would have to trust someone to help her through this sank in. Where was home? How was she supposed to get there? What was she supposed to do with herself the next morning? And the day after that?
Her gaze drifted over to the ER room’s metal door. She’d put her trust in Keir Watson tonight. Not that he’d left her much choice. He’d allowed her a token argument, then had swept her up into his arms, bundled her into his car and driven her here. But she could have asked him to leave the treatment room at any time, and she hadn’t. She wanted him with her.
Crazy as it seemed, Kenna knew Keir better than anyone else in her life. Once she’d come to and realized her brain had turned into Swiss cheese, it felt as if her whole life had reset. There was the time before the assault where her memory was riddled with empty spaces and vague shadows, and there was the time after—when she’d stumbled into Keir Watson’s arms. He was the person she’d known the longest in the part of her life she was more certain of. And his abrupt departure to chat with his partner left her feeling about as vulnerable and confused and alone as she’d been when she first woke up with her cheek in a puddle of her own blood on the cold, gritty concrete.
A sharp rap at the exam room door rescued Kenna from the maddening examination of her thoughts. She turned as quickly as the ball bearings inside her skull would allow and smiled, eager to apologize for showing Keir Watson anything but gratitude. “You came back.”
“I haven’t been anywhere yet.”
Not Keir. Not a familiar face. Her smile quickly flatlined and she backed her hip against the examination table as an older man with neatly trimmed hair that held more salt than pepper in it dropped what looked like a carry-on bag on the chair inside the door.
“Kenna, dear. Look at you. How horrible. Does it hurt?” He swallowed her up in a hug and planted a chaste kiss on her numb lips, giving Kenna the chance to do little more than wedge her hands between them and gasp in protest. “Of course it hurts. When I heard you’d been attacked...”
Kenna straight-armed him out of her personal space, pushing the older man back to get a better look at his face, hoping for a ping of recognition as he rattled on.
“...I paged the doctor. Pulled him out of a room down the hall and explained who I was so I could get a report.” He squeezed her shoulders, threatening to hug her again. “He said you could have died.”
“I’m sorry. I...?” Once again, it was disadvantage Kenna. Something kick in. Please.
The older man’s eyebrows, as thick and wild as his hair was neatly cut, arched above his brown eyes like two fuzzy caterpillars. “You’ve forgotten me. The doctor said you had gaps in your memory—that you didn’t even remember what happened to you.” He covered her hand, capturing it against the front of the cashmere sweater he wore. “I’m your emergency contact. I’m the one who faxed your medical history to the hospital. It’s me. Hellie.”
What kind of silly name was that for a man? She tried to place the face, thinking those bushy eyebrows that so desperately needed a trim should look familiar. His skin was perfectly tanned, from too much time spent either on a golf course or in a pricey salon. And his teeth were unnaturally white. He was barely taller than she was in her bare feet, although he seemed reasonably fit for a man his age. “Hellie?” She repeated the odd name.
“Good grief, my dear, I’ve known you for fifteen years.” Known her? How well? “Here. I’ll prove it.” He reached into the pocket of his pressed khaki slacks to pull out his billfold. “Here’s my license, along with a picture of us with your mother and father.”
“No. Wait.” Kenna put a hand on his wrist to stop him. If Dr. McBride had talked to him about her condition, this man must have shown proof of a connection to
