style="font-size:15px;"> “Oh well, I guess that beats a vet.”
Matt smiled as he turned onto Calhoun Street. “Roper Hospital is just ahead, final opportunity to change your mind.”
“No thanks.”
“So what am I supposed to call you?”
“Call me whatever you want. ‘Hey you’ is fine. It doesn’t matter. It isn’t as if we’re about to engage in a meaningful, interpersonal relationship.”
Her choice of language was telling. She was definitely educated. “‘Hey you?’ If you won’t tell me your name, perhaps you’d like to share what you do for a living.”
When he didn’t get a response, he glanced over to find her slumped in the seat, unconscious.
“Freaking hell.”
THE FIRST THING she noticed when she opened her eyes was the smell. A sickly mixture of alcohol, fruity air freshener and formaldehyde. The second thing was the temperature. It was freezing cold. As soon as she opened her eyes, she squeezed them shut again. A large, round reflective light hung from the ceiling just above her bed.
Her entire left side as well as her hand throbbed so she used the tips of her right fingers to explore the bed. Only it wasn’t a bed, it was a cold metal slab. Her fingers grazed her hip under a light cloth and she realized she was naked. No wonder she was so cold.
Turning her head to one side, she peeked through her lashes. Satisfied that she was safe from the harshness of the bright light, she looked around and discovered she wasn’t alone. Nor was she the only one wearing nothing but a sheet. She was, however, the only one not sporting a toe tag. She was in a morgue.
Completely creeped out, she pressed the sheet to her chest and had started to sit up when she felt hands close on her shoulders. At the unexpected contact, she shrieked.
“Calm down, Hey You,” Matt said from behind her.
“Geez, you scared me senseless.” Tilting her head back, she saw Matt wasn’t alone. He was standing next to a small woman wearing surgical scrubs, a badge with her name and photo on it clipped to the shirt.
“I’m Dr. Revell,” she said. “Lie still, I don’t want you to pull those sutures. It took me the better part of an hour to stitch up your wounds.”
“Wounds? Plural?” Her eyes darted between Matt and the doctor.
“It took thirty stitches to close the cut on your hand and another half dozen after I dug the bullet out.”
Matt shrugged apologetically. “Guess I missed it. It was a small-caliber slug that entered near your armpit and lodged just under the skin.”
“Technically, I’m required by law to report all gunshots to the authorities,” Kendall said.
Her whole body tensed. Reaching up with her good hand, she was so terrified and confused that she grabbed a fistful of the hem of the doctor’s scrub top. “Please don’t do that.”
“Then give me a good reason why I should risk my medical license.”
Her head was spinning with images that wouldn’t stop long enough for her to actually collate the fractured memories. She had no idea why, just that she couldn’t let Matt or Dr. Revell call the authorities. “Reporting it won’t do any good. I don’t remember being shot.” In unison, Matt and Dr. Revell gave her a yeah-right kind of sneer. “I’m telling the truth. I don’t remember any of it.”
“Then I guess you can’t explain this, either,” Matt said, holding up a strip of something textured, twisted and gunmetal gray.
“What is it?”
“Duct tape.”
She pressed her fingers to her temple. “No, I can’t explain it. Where did it come from?”
“It was wrapped around your rib cage. Or at least it was once,” Matt explained. “I’m guessing the salt water got to whatever you had taped to yourself beneath your dress. And you don’t remember that part, either?”
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
“Then we’ll start with what you do know,” Matt said, his tone forceful, demanding and definitely intimidating as he came around so she didn’t have to look at him upside down. “What’s your name?”
She lowered her gaze, fixing it on the triangle shape formed by her feet beneath the sheet. “I can’t help you with that, either.”
“What?” Matt practically barked.
She started to shake and tears welled in her eyes. In a voice that managed to be vulnerable and agitated at the same time, she said, “I don’t know how I ended up in the ocean wearing that gown. I have no idea how I cut my hand. Until a few minutes ago, I didn’t even know I’d been shot. I have no clue who I am.” She wiped at the tears as they tumbled down her cheeks
Matt asked, “What exactly is the last thing you remember?”
“Waking up on the beach and seeing your face.”
Chapter Two
She cried tears of frustration with a healthy dose of fear. The frustration stemmed from the obvious—why couldn’t she remember her own name? The fear was a little less pellucid. For some God-only-knew reason, she kept hearing a woman’s voice in her head saying, ‘Trust no one.’ She didn’t recognize the voice nor did her mind’s eye bring forth an image.
She was shaking, trying hard to remember something, hell, anything: an address, her name, her favorite color. Anything.
“I’m going to give you an injection,” Dr. Revell said, holding a syringe and squirting a quick stream of colorless liquid out of the hollow needle. “It will calm you down,” she explained.
“Dr. Revell, I—”
“Call me Kendall,” she insisted as she brought the needle closer. “This may hurt, I’m a little bit out of practice,” the woman said with a kind smile.
She felt a pinch, then almost instantly her nerves calmed. “Why would someone shoot me?” She heard her own words slur slightly. She tried to lift her wounded hand but it felt like it weighed about three hundred pounds, so she gave up. “Or cut me?” Next she tried to sit but couldn’t manage it. “I need to leave,” she said.
“Why?” Matt asked.
Slowly, she shook her head. “I don’t know why, just that I can’t go to the authorities.”
Reaching into his back pocket, Matt flipped open a soggy wallet. “Too late,” he said. “I’m with the FBI.”
She felt a wave of terror crash down on her. “Am I a criminal or a fugitive?”
“Let’s roll your fingerprints and see,” he said almost conversationally.
Kendall then inked each of her fingers onto
