ONE
Who am I?
She bent over the bathroom sink in her hospital room, cupped her hands and splashed some cold water on her face. As though that would suddenly make her remember who she was. She studied herself in the mirror and didnât recognize the person looking back at her. That revelation only intensified the panic sheâd been struggling with ever since she woke up from a coma yesterday. Her fingers clenched the countertop.
Earlier, the nurse had brought her a few toiletries since she didnât have any. After brushing her hair and putting it into a ponytail, she stared at the red gash, recently healed, above her eyebrow. She closed her eyes and tried to recall how it had happened. The screech of tires echoed through her mind. The sensation of gripping a steering wheel made her hands ache. She looked down at them, her knuckles white.
A car wreck?
A sound coming from the other room invaded the quiet. The sudden intrusion kicked up her heartbeat. She moved toward the door, putting her hand around the knob. But when two deep male voices drifted to her, she stopped and pressed her ear against the wood to listen.
âWhere is she?â
âWho?â
âThe patient who belongs in this room.â
âI donât know. Iâm here to clean her room. She wasnât in here when I arrived.â
The sound of the two men talking about her sent her pulse racing even more. Why? It seemed innocent enough. But she couldnât calm the pounding against her chest. Her breathing shortened. One of the voices was familiar. But how could that be? The only interactions sheâd had since sheâd regained consciousness were with women. She eased the door open an inch and had a pencil-narrow view into the room.
âI can come back another time. Youâll have to ask the nurse where the patient is.â The guy who was there to clean her room shifted back and forth while holding a plastic bag in one hand and a dry mop in the other.
The other man, just out of sight to the left, said, âI will.â That was the voice sheâd heard somewhere before this. She wished she could see him.
Instead, she examined the features of the custodian with a beard and dark-slashing eyebrows over a piercing gray gaze. Although he was a complete stranger there was something about his frosty eyes that scared her. She eased the door shut and leaned against it.
Fear from somewhere deep inside her swelled to the surface. She couldnât get a decent breath. She tried to search her mind for any clue to who she was, to the man with the familiar-sounding voice. A voice with a rough edge to it.
But what bothered her the most were the custodianâs gray eyes. Why? Did she know him? Someone from her past? Then why couldnât she muster the strength to go out there and demand to know who she was?
Of course that conundrum led to lots of other baffling questions.
Like...how did she end up in the hospital?
And were the police interested in her? The nurse last night had told her they would be glad she had awakened, that they needed to talk to her. Why? She knew nothing. At all. Her mind was a blank.
A suffocating pressure in her chest made it difficult to breathe. A sense of danger pressed in on her. According to Nurse Gail, the police had found her in the Lost Woods several weeks ago. Sheâd been hurt and disoriented. After she was brought here to the hospital sheâd slipped into a coma from a head injury. No one knew how sheâd received that wound.