CHAPTER 1
Three months later
“This is a big mistake, Eve. Big! You can’t leave yet; you’re not ready.” Anna Maria, in a bathrobe, fuzzy slippers, and no makeup, was chasing Eve down the driveway of her home.
“Watch me.” Eve wasn’t going to get into it with Anna again. Not now. It was morning, barely light, the street lamps still offering some bit of illumination as dawn crept down the manicured street of this suburb tucked between Marietta and Atlanta. Time to leave.
Holding a cigarette in one hand and a cup of sloshing coffee in the other, Anna somehow managed to keep up with her sister-in-law. “You’re not through with physical therapy, you can’t remember jack-shit about the night you were attacked, and for God’s sake, there’s a rumor, probably a good one, that Cole Dennis is going to be released. Did you hear me? The man you think tried to kill you is going to walk!”
At the mention of Cole’s name, Eve’s heart clutched. Just as it always did. And she ignored it. Just like she always did.
“We’ve had this argument a kazillion times. I need to get home.” Lugging a cat carrier, Eve made her way to her Camry as Samson, her long-haired stray, howled from within. “No matter what you think, you’re not dying,” she assured the unhappy animal as she scrounged in her purse for her keys with her free hand. The carrier bobbed wildly, and Samson, freaked out of his mind, hissed loudly. She placed the plastic crate on the driveway near the back tire of her car as she kept searching for the damned keys.
“Eve—”
“Don’t start.” Glancing up at her sister-in-law, Eve shook her head, short strands of hair brushing the back of her neck. “You know I have to leave.” She managed to slide her key ring from a side pocket, but as she did, her cell phone, tangled in the keys, popped out of the purse and dropped onto the concrete, landing with a sickening smack. “Oh great!” Just what she needed; another reason for Anna, supposedly a devout Roman Catholic but as superstitious as anyone Eve had ever met, to find an excuse for Eve to linger. It amazed Eve how Anna was forever seeing “curses,” “signs,” or “omens” in everyday life—so much so that Samson, being a black cat, was nearly banished from Anna and Kyle’s home.
“I saw that!” Anna announced. “God is trying to tell you something.”
“Yeah, like I need a new cell-phone carrier,” Eve muttered through clenched teeth.
“Not funny, Eve.”
“You’re wrong. It was really funny.” She managed a smile and looked up at her sister-in-law as dark clouds, heavy with the promise of rain, moved slowly across a low Georgia sky. Only the slightest breath of wind rattled the spreading branches of a magnolia tree growing close to the drive, but it was enough to cool the sweat that was already sprouting on Eve’s neck and spine. Picking up the phone, she saw that the screen was still illuminated. Hitting the speakerphone button, she heard the familiar hum of a dial tone. “Still working. Guess I won’t have to switch networks.” She tucked the phone more securely into a pocket of her purse, unlocked the door, and slid the cat carrier onto the backseat.
“For the record, I’m against this,” Anna said, her arms crossed beneath her large breasts.
“For the record, I know.”
“You could at least wait until Kyle gets home. He just ran out for milk and cigarettes. He’ll be back any minute.”
All the more reason to leave. Eve and her oldest brother had never gotten along. Having her camp out at his house while recovering from a gunshot wound and trauma-induced amnesia hadn’t improved their relationship.
“You’re not talking me out of this, so don’t even try. Nita says I’m eighty-five percent of normal, whatever that is.”
“Nita’s an idiot.” Anna Maria took a long drag on her cigarette and shot smoke out of the side of her mouth.
“Nita’s a board-certified physical therapist.”
“What does your shrink say?”
Eve paused. “Low blow, Anna.” She’d quit going to the psychiatrist after just three sessions. She hadn’t “clicked” with him and knew enough about psychiatry to realize a patient had to trust in her doctor completely. She didn’t. Dr. Calvin Byrd was too guarded, too quiet, too studious. The way he’d leaned back in his chair, pen in hand, as she’d confided in him had given her a bad feeling. She’d felt as if he were more interested in judging her than healing or helping her. So she’d quit the sessions. She’d been around enough shrinks in her lifetime to know the good from the bad. Wasn’t her own father proof enough of that? Not to mention that she herself had been working on her PhD in psychology before her life had been shattered at that cabin in the woods. Bottom line: no doctor should make a patient nervous.
“He might be able to help you with your memory,” Anna argued.
“I told you, I don’t like him. End of story.”
“He’s well respected. One of the best psychiatrists in Atlanta.”
“I know.” Eve had seen all the degrees, awards, and letters of commendation so proudly displayed in Dr. Byrd’s office. “It’s personal—just a gut feeling.” She was already walking back to the house, to the breezeway, where her luggage was stacked. Eve passed by her brother’s work van—a dirty paneled truck with the predictable words WASH ME scribbled into the dust on the back windows. Obviously he’d taken his Porsche for his morning run to the store. “Look, Anna, I’m not arguing about this anymore. You can either help me load up the car or stand there and rant and rave to no good end. So what’s it going to be?”
“This is nuts, Eve.”
Eve smiled gently. “Oh, come on. Things aren’t that bad.”
“Not that bad? For the love of God! When did you become such a Pollyanna? You were shot. Shot! The bullet hit your shoulder and ricocheted to your temple, and your brain was bruised. Bruised. You didn’t end up dead or paralyzed or God only knows what else, but pul-eeze don’t tell me things aren’t bad. I know better.” Anna took a long drag on her cigarette and glared at her sister-in-law over the glowing tip. “You were almost killed. By that son of a bitch you thought you might marry! C’mon, Eve. Things are definitely ‘that bad’ and probably a helluva lot worse. The problem is, you just can’t remember.”
Done with arguing, Eve picked up a duffel bag and her computer case, then started hauling them back to the Camry, where Samson was crying loud enough to wake the dead. Yes, she had big holes in her memory. But her amnesia wasn’t complete. She did recall bits from that night. Painful little shards that cut through her brain. She remembered being late. She remembered seeing Roy lying on the floor, bleeding out, barely hanging on to life. She remembered the bloody number 212 scrawled on the wall. She remembered reaching for her cell phone, hesitating, her fingers shaking too badly to dial, dropping the damned thing, seeing NO SERVICE in bold letters against a glowing LCD. She remembered seeing the gun leveled through the window before it went off. And she remembered blood. Everywhere. Splattered on the wall, pooling on the floor, making the touch pad of her cell phone sticky, oozing from Roy’s neck and forehead…
She closed her eyes for a second and drew a long breath. Guilt, ever lurking, loomed again. Deep, dark and deadly. It ate at her at night. Cut through her dreams. If only she’d been at the cabin earlier as she’d promised, if only she hadn’t hesitated or dropped her phone before dialing 911, her friend Roy might still be alive…. Shaking inside, she opened her eyes to the somber morning. The clouds overhead seemed even more ominous.
“The doctors think my memory will return,” Eve said as she reached her car and tossed the duffel onto the floor of the backseat. She slid her computer next to the cat carrier. She noticed Samson, pupils dilated, glaring through