more time. “Height, weight, coloring—?” Dark eyebrows rose high on an even higher forehead, waiting. Moderately hopeful.
There was no point in pretending. “I wouldn’t know them if they were part of that crowd,” Luc admitted honestly, gesturing toward the people who had gathered behind the sawhorses that defined the crime scene, separating it from the rest of the alley.
Why was the man going over the same thing again? Luc needed a doctor, not a badgering police detective who looked as if he was ten years past weary. “We’ve been through all that,” Alison pointed out.
The protectiveness welled up within her. It would have been funny if she’d stopped to analyze it. She was slight, almost petite in comparison to Luc, yet she felt as if he needed her to run interference. At least until he was himself again. Whoever that was.
“He told you, Detective, he can’t remember anything that happened. Why do you keep asking him the same questions?”
The slight shrug wasn’t a hundred percent convincing. “All I’m saying is that it seems awfully convenient, this loss of memory.” His eyes met Luc’s. Something within him relented. He could feel the girl’s eyes boring into him. She seemed convinced enough for both of them, he thought. “Hey, listen, I’m just trying to do my job here. You don’t push, you don’t get answers, right?”
“Sometimes you don’t get answers even when you do push,” she replied quietly. But he was right, she supposed. The man had probably seen it all. Certainly far more than she ever had. That made everyone suspect in his eyes. Even her. She shrugged. “Sorry, it’s just that he needs to see a doctor.”
Donnelley looked at Luc’s face. His pallor was almost ghostly. No point in beating a dead horse, at least for now.
“Okay, you can go,” he told Luc. His voice was almost casual as he asked what sounded like an afterthought, “Where can we reach you, in case there’s something else?”
Luc slipped his hands into his pockets. If there’d been money there originally, there was none now. His pockets were empty. All he had, as far as he knew, were the clothes on his back.
“I don’t know.”
Luc frowned. He was getting very sick of the sound of that. Perforce, it was his reply to almost everything. Because he didn’t know. Didn’t know his name, didn’t know where he’d been or where he was going. Didn’t even know how old he was or if there was someone waiting for him. Someone getting increasingly worried as the minutes slipped away.
Frustration ate away at him, filling up all the empty spaces.
The detective paused, considering. And then he reached back into his pocket for his notepad. Writing something down quickly, he tore off the page and held the single sheet out to Luc.
“Here’s the address of a shelter in the area.” Donnelley tried to distance himself from what he was saying. There was a hot meal waiting for him at the end of his shift. A hot meal and a good woman in a tidy, three-bedroom house he’d almost paid off. He wouldn’t have liked to be in this kid’s place now. “Cleaner than most. They can fix you up with a meal and a cot. Maybe it’ll come back to you by morning.” The note in his voice said he had his doubts.
Luc took the page. Standing on her toes, Alison managed to look over his shoulder at the address. It was an area she tried to avoid when she drove the cab. Her eyes met the detective’s. “Not the best address.”
Donnelley laughed shortly, avoiding Luc’s eyes. “As a rule, rich people don’t generally need shelters in their neighborhoods.”
Right now, he didn’t have the luxury of being choosy. Folding the sheet, Luc tucked it into his shirt pocket. “Thanks.”
Alison was getting antsy. “And you have my number.” It wasn’t a question.
Donnelley held up his notepad. He’d written the information down on top of the page. “Right here.”
She began to back away. Being the center of attention had never sat well with her, and the crowd kept growing rather than diminishing. “Then we can go?”
The detective gestured toward the taxicab. “Already said you could. Feel free.”
Free was the last thing she felt, but it was all she needed to hear. “Let’s go,” she tossed over her shoulder at Luc.
For a second, he’d thought she was going to leave him behind. Apparently she thought of them as being in this together. He found that oddly comforting, considering that they apparently hadn’t known each other before the fateful cab ride.
He followed behind her. But when he started to open the passenger door in the front, she looked at him in surprise. “What are you doing?”
He stopped. It seemed pretty clear to him. “Getting in.”
Her eyes indicated the back seat. “Why aren’t you getting in the back?” After all, that was where fares were supposed to ride. In the back. Away from her.
He hesitated, then decided to put the matter to her. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather sit up front with you. I feel too isolated sitting back there.” He’d sat there earlier, waiting for the police to arrive and there had been this pervading feeling of being cut off. He couldn’t successfully deal with that right now.
Alison caught her bottom lip between her teeth. She didn’t know if it was a line, or if he was being serious. She supposed it wouldn’t do any harm. He looked far too unsteady to try anything in his present condition. And these were unusual circumstances.
“Okay,” she murmured, getting in on her side. “You can ride up front.”
Luc stared at the seat belt a full moment, as if analyzing it, before he slid the metal tongue into the groove. “Where are we going?”
Picking her way through the alley, she turned the car to the south and prayed for no traffic. “To get you checked out.”
That was going to cost. “I don’t have any money,” he pointed out needlessly.
She flipped her blinker on, easing into the turn lane. “Don’t worry, I know the doctor there.”
The doctor she knew turned out to be an intern. And her brother. Alison knew for a fact that Jimmy, three and a half years her senior, was on call in the emergency room at University Medical Center. With any luck, Luc could be quickly walked through this ordeal.
And then what?
The question drummed through her head as she brought the taxi to a halt in the tiny lot.
And then, she told herself, she’d take it one step at a time. Who knew? Maybe he’d get his memory back by the time they walked out through the doors again.
She was on nodding terms with half the staff on duty during the early-afternoon shift. It was something she was counting on.
“We’re here,” she announced needlessly to Luc.
Getting out, trying not to move quicker than his head, Luc looked around. “Shouldn’t we be going through the front?”
This was
