“‘Generic category.”’ Nervously, the woman pushed back a strand of hair. “That’s how you used to talk, using those formal words, and I couldn’t figure it out!”
“Excuse me?”
“I mean, someone I know talked that way.” The woman took a deep breath, as if fighting the urge to say more.
Hugh hoped she wasn’t unbalanced. Perhaps Andrew had been right to be wary of a new patient who turned up without an appointment.
“Your daughter does have an infection.” Briskly, he reached for his pad. “I’m going to prescribe an antibiotic and a decongestant. Make sure she takes all the antibiotics, and have her rechecked in two weeks. You can take her to her regular pediatrician if you prefer.”
Meg bit her lip as she took the slip from his hand. Perhaps money was a problem, Hugh thought.
“If you can’t afford to fill the prescription, I have some samples in my desk,” he said.
Quickly, she shook her head. “I pay my bills.”
“I’m sorry.” He hadn’t meant to offend her pride. And, instinctively, he knew she had a lot of it.
In fact, he felt as if he knew many things about her. That she laughed infectiously. That she was an easy touch for a friend in trouble, but tough as nails toward anyone who tried to rip her off.
He must be imagining things.
“You really don’t recognize me, do you?” Meg asked.
“Not offhand,” Hugh said. “Have we met?”
“I don’t know.” She hesitated, shifting from foot to foot as if unsure whether to ask him another question or bolt from the room.
“Did someone refer you to me?” he asked.
“No. Yes.” She gave an apologetic shrug that was inexplicably familiar. “My brother Tim saw your picture in the newspaper. He’s a truck driver and he stops in L.A. sometimes.”
Hugh and Andrew had been photographed at a recent medical conference. That didn’t explain why this woman would come to see him.
He glanced at the chart. “You live in Mercy Canyon. Where’s that?”
“San Diego County,” she said. “It’s amazing. You look exactly like him. You talk like him, too.”
An uncomfortable suspicion sprang up inside Hugh. “Like who?”
Although the recent photo caption didn’t mention his earlier disappearance, the newspapers had written it up at the time. The unfortunate result had been several attempts to defraud him.
One man claimed he was owed a large gambling debt, and a couple contended they were due hundreds of dollars in back rent. None of them could produce witnesses or signed documents, and the threat of a police investigation had put an end to their claims.
Now this woman contended she had known someone exactly like him. Maybe she’d stumbled across the information on the Internet and decided to try to squeeze out some money.
Yet she didn’t strike Hugh as the manipulative type. Perhaps someone else had put her up to it.
Meg swallowed hard and picked up her daughter. “You can’t have forgotten Dana. You delivered her yourself.”
“I haven’t delivered babies since my internship.” Hugh kept his tone level.
“The paramedics said you were as good as a doctor, and I couldn’t figure it out because you didn’t even have a high school education. You worked at a cafe, like me.” Now that she’d started talking, the words spilled out. “Then you vanished with my car. You left us at a gas station. Doesn’t this ring a bell?”
“Mrs. Avery, you’re clearly distressed,” Hugh said gently. “But I’ve never seen you before.”
“The longer I talk to you, the more sure I am that you’re my husband!”
“Your husband?”
She shifted her daughter against her shoulder. “It’s so hard…you have to remember, Joe. Wait! I can prove it.”
She set the little girl on a chair and fumbled in her purse. From the doorway, Andrew peered in and frowned. “What’s going on?”
“He’s my husband!” Meg said. “I’ve been looking everywhere for him.”
“You believe my brother is your husband?” Andrew lifted a skeptical eyebrow.
Hugh felt awkward for the woman. She spoke so sincerely and so urgently. And the little girl did resemble him, especially those unusual green eyes.
“Look!” Meg Avery thrust a photograph into his hand.
It was a candid shot of her and a man, both beaming at the camera. The man was the spitting image of Hugh.
“He does resemble me.” He passed the picture to Andrew.
His brother glanced at it. “Photographs can be altered. Besides, you can’t tell me you married a man without knowing who he was.”
“I did know, or I thought I did,” Meg said. “Joe was from Tennessee. Right after he got to California, he fell off a pier in Oceanside and nearly drowned, and he lost his memory. He had ID but…” She stopped in confusion.
“What?” Hugh asked.
“Well…” She spoke hesitantly. “After he vanished, I remembered little things. Like that the picture on his driver’s license was a poor resemblance. And it had his height wrong, too.”
Andrew regarded the woman scornfully. “Let me see if I get this right. You think my brother—a respected pediatrician—stole someone’s ID, married you and then fled? Oh, sure. It happens all the time.”
“Wait a minute,” Hugh said. “Neither of us knows what I did while I had amnesia. I was missing for quite a while.”
“When?” Meg asked.
“I turned up two years ago.”
“That’s when Joe left me!” she said. “I can show you the police report.”
Her story wasn’t as far-fetched as it might seem, Hugh had to admit. He’d disappeared at sea in the accident that killed his friend Rick. Could he have washed up and been mistaken for another accident victim?
On the other hand, if someone had invented this tale, he or she had cleverly woven in the well-publicized details. And chosen a child the right age to fit the timing.
“You’re saying that this is my daughter?” Now Hugh understood why the little girl had called him Daddy. If she’d been deliberately lied to as part of a scheme, it had been a cruel thing to do.
“She is yours,” Meg said. “Can’t you see she’s got your eyes?”
“How do we even know she belongs to you?” Andrew said. “You could have borrowed her to pull a scam.”
Hugh wanted to kick his brother. Whatever Andrew’s opinion of the woman, he shouldn’t speak so harshly in front of the little girl. “The whole question can be resolved by a DNA test,” he said quietly.
This was the point at which he expected Meg to feign outrage. With her unruly hair and flashing amber eyes, she could make a great show of being offended.
Of course, she’d never really had a chance of conning him. A doctor wouldn’t buy a story like hers without proof, but this woman and whoever had encouraged her might be too unsophisticated to realize that.
She visibly fought to subdue the anger smoldering in her gaze.