Round Four #3
“Ma’am.” Billy is an impatient man. Intolerant.
He tilts his head back, thunking it against the window until secondhand pain shoots through my skull and takes my breath away.
He stares up at the ceiling, considering his options.
Counting to a hundred, maybe. Then he brings his focus down again and pastes on a saccharine smile.
“Please forgive me for my insensitivity, ma’am.
Doctor Darling grew up in a home bursting with opinionated women who taught him how to behave in public.
I grew up eating bugs and living wild with nature, since my folks didn’t much care to be involved.
I never went to finishing school, where they taught us bedside manner.
” His fake smile turns sour. “I promise to try to be more considerate as we move forward.”
“He’s bitter and mean,” Ollie quips. “Some would even say he’s emotionally unavailable and an asshole who lacks healthy regulation.”
“You,” Billy grits. “You say that.” But he draws a long breath and drags his palm across his face.
“Fine. Let’s rewind and figure this mess out.
” He drops his hand again and exhales. “We don’t know your name, your last known address, or where you were going.
But we do know you were walking north, about three miles outside Plainview, when you were struck by a moving vehicle.
Driver claims you came out of nowhere. She reckons you must’ve been walking on the shoulder, partially hidden by the trees, because she didn’t see you until you were already laid out on her hood. ”
I hear the thud in the back of my brain, the moment my skull made contact with an old woman’s steel car. Or maybe I hear nothing at all but a fabrication my mind creates to fill the gaps where those memories should be.
Trembling, my nose and lips wrinkle in response to the pain pounding in the back of my head. “Okay.”
“We’ve conducted tests—in the field, at the station, and here at the hospital—to ensure the woman who hit you was not impacted by drugs or alcohol at the time of the collision.
Each of these tests returned categorical negatives, Miss D—” He stops, swallowing his words and licking his lips.
Then with an exhale, he corrects course.
“Ma’am. At this point, we consider the accident exactly that.
An accident. We can find no malicious intent, no negligence applicable to the woman’s driving, and—”
“I’m not looking to press charges or anything.” I wipe the cold, moist spot beneath my nose and dig my hand under the blankets once more. “She… B-Barbara… I’m not mad at her.”
“I think it’s safe to assume she’s more concerned with figuring out who she is,” Ollie inserts. “Have you recovered her purse yet? Found ID or—”
“We’ve been at it since we left the hospital last night,” Ramone explains.
“Had an entire crew scouring the roadside till we discovered a shoe matching the one you came in with. We gave it to the dog, hoping he could work with that and find more. But there’s just…
” He shrugs. “There’s nothing out there. ”
“How is that possible?” Ollie twists on the bed, swinging his gaze to Billy. “How far along the road did you search? Barbara hit her pretty damn hard, so the purse could’ve flown an easy fifty feet—”
“We worked an entire half mile in both directions. We were thorough. And ignoring the fact that her belongings should have been right there where the EMTs scooped her up, we worked three miles back the way she came, since maybe—despite the snow—she got hot and peeled her sweater off. Her coat. A hat. Whatever.” Billy shakes his head, his eyes coming to mine.
“There’s nothing out there, ma’am. It’s like you never existed except right there where Barbara knocked you out of your shoe. ”
“No purse?” I rasp. “No wallet?” I stare down at the crisscross pattern of my top blanket. The crisp white material with an inch-thick line of baby blue stretching from one end to the other. “No phone?”
“No jewelry?” Ollie presses. “No tattoos. She’s got nothing at all?”
“We’re gonna run some prints.” Ramone reaches around and tugs a phone from his back pocket. “Try our luck. We’ve got facial recognition software these days that might ping something. If you’d let me take a photo, ma’am, I could bring that back to the station and—”
“It’s okay.” I stare straight at the phone, determined not to blink when the flash goes off. Before he can place the device away, I clear my throat. “C-can I see?”
His brows shoot high in surprise. “Hmm?”
I release a shuddering, aching breath and bring my focus back to Ollie.
“I don’t remember what I look like.” I drag my hand out from beneath the blankets and finger a length of unfamiliar, raven-black hair.
“I haven’t been to the bathroom, and there are no mirrors in here.
It’s unnerving to realize I know your faces now—” I look from one to the next, “—all of them. But I don’t know my own. ”
“Sure.” Ramone nibbles on the inside of his cheek and extends his hand, turning the phone and showing me… a stranger. A woman with a long scrape from her chin to her temple on the left side.
Carefully, I probe the rough skin with a brush of my fingers, then I draw them around and touch the bridge of my nose, tracing the straight line I see in the picture. I feel the swell of my lips, pulling the bottom forward to reveal straight white teeth.
I have no visible moles, but a smattering of freckles high on my cheeks. My chin is round… in fact, my entire face is round.
“You’re not a smoker,” Ollie volunteers, offering a sweet, comforting smile. “Your fingertips are not discolored. Your teeth are clean.”
I slide my tongue along the front, repulsed by the furry sensation that says otherwise. “They don’t feel clean.”
“I’ll find you a toothbrush soon,” he chuckles.
“I scoured your entire body last night. I had to,” he explains, like he can hear the racing reaction of my pulse, even without the machine announcing it to the room.
“It’s my job. No track marks. No scarring.
No overt signs of abuse, self-inflicted or otherwise.
I see nothing but an ordinary, healthy existence, besides the fact that you’re grossly underfed.
But even that doesn’t appear to have been a long-term thing, since your bones are still strong.
Not a single fracture, despite Barbara’s best efforts.
Blood type: O negative. You lost a little last night because of a nasty laceration and a romantic interlude with a sharp shard of glass, but you didn’t lose enough to warrant a transfusion.
And your lab results came back pretty decent. ”
Piqued, Billy shifts subtly in my periphery. “Decent?”
“Could do with a little more iron, but I’ve treated folks with lower counts.
White blood cells are within range. Cholesterol, glucose, and liver function are fine.
Coag is normal. C-reactive proteins show inflammation, but you have a TBI that explains that.
Calcium is good. Heart is good, assuming we get your stress levels under control.
” He slides his thumb along the back of my hand and up to massage my wrist. “It’s my professional medical opinion that you’ve lived a reasonably healthy lifestyle up to this point, and you suffer no chronic medical conditions.
For reasons we may never know, you decided to take a stroll during a snowstorm in too few clothes, and, unlucky for you, you stepped in front of an old woman’s car. ”
“Maybe getting hit was lucky.” Ramone locks his phone and drops it, and his hands, into his pockets.
“Three more miles in the cold, alone, in the dark… if you got too tired to walk and decided to sit down for a minute, you might’ve frozen to death, and since no one is out there scouring the roads in this weather, chances are you wouldn’t have been found again until the spring. ”
“Lucky…” I reach up with my free hand and probe the aching spot at the back of my head. “Glass half full, I guess.”
“We’ll run prints and facial and see what we see.
” Billy pushes off the windowsill, the blinds noisily clattering and banging against the glass like gunshots in my brain.
“We’ll search missing persons reports and figure out who’s looking for her.
Could be a manic episode or something?” He’s speaking to Ollie, not me.
Talking about me like I’m not even here. “Medical opinion?”
“Mania?” Ollie drops his eyes to mine, considering just long enough to make my stomach cramp. “Not sure I’m qualified to make that call.” But then he looks at Billy again. “I suppose it’s not out of the realm of possibility, but it certainly wasn’t my first thought.”
“You think I’m crazy?” Tears swell in my eyes, spilling onto my cheeks and dribbling down to splash onto my racing chest. I don’t remember my name, and I have no clue where I came from, but I know what manic means. “I was hit by a car. I wasn’t—”
Ollie draws his hand back and twines his fingers with mine.
“I don’t think anything, except that this whole situation sucks, and it’s completely unfair that you’re hurt and alone and scared.
The detectives will figure this out—that’s their job—and mine is to make sure you’re healthy and well enough to make the trip home again.
Do you want me to bring you something to help you sleep now?
” He ignores Billy and Ramone as they meet up at the end of my bed.
As they murmur their secrets and cast side-eyes my way, like I’m nothing more than an animal locked in a cage, then as they nod their agreement and head out of the room.
No goodbye.
No explanation.
No nothing.
“Hey?” Ollie forces himself into my line of sight. “My shift ended a couple of hours ago, and if I don’t head home soon and sleep, I won’t be able to come back tonight.”
Panic scorches through my chest. “Y-you’re leaving?”
“The law says I have to.” He grins, like this is all a damn joke to him.
“I’ll be back at six, though, so why don’t you let me medicate the hell out of you and send you to sleep?
You need to rest, to give your brain a chance to heal.
You won’t regain your memories if you stay locked in survival mode, and your heart especially needs a chance to slow down.
I could get you something that’ll knock you out for several hours. You won’t even notice I’m not here.”
“No. I…” I choke on my words. On the pain in my throat. “I don’t—”
“Choosing rest is better than crashing and shutting down. You need to—”
“Ollie.”
“Sleep,” he croons, reaching across with his free hand and tucking loose locks of hair behind my ear. “You’re safe. I’ll be back on shift at six; I promise to check on you first.”