“You want toast? Pretty sure I can’t screw that up.” She moved to get the bread as he got up.
“I’ll do the toast. You better concentrate on those.” He pointed to the eggs that were hardening fast.
She stirred them and took them off the heat. “I’ll throw some cheese on ’em. Then we won’t be able to tell if they are over or undercooked.”
He gobbled up the eggs but was no doubt just been being polite. They were edible at least, but mediocre at best. Just when she thought he was going to avoid talking about the night before, he spoke.
“About last night…,” he started.
“Don’t say you’re sorry,” she said. “I’msorry. You’ve been very clear about wanting to wait until I get my memories back, and I feel like I took advantage of you.”
“Well, I don’t feel particularly used.” He laughed. “And I can’t let you take all the responsibility. I’m a big boy and could have said no if I wanted to.”
She gave him a sideways glance and lifted one eyebrow.
“Okay, fine. You made it damn near impossible to turn you down, but still. I share the blame.”
“We don’t have to look at it as a bad thing. I’m not sorry it happened at all. I can’t wait to get my memories back so I can prove to you that I’d still want a relationship. Would a relationship be so bad?” As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them.
His smile fell, and he went silent. There was definitely something he wasn’t telling her, but until he came clean or she remembered, there was no way of knowing what.
“I’m sorry. That obviously makes you uncomfortable. I won’t bring it up again.” She stood, her cheeks reddening and her eyes filling. How stupid to be so forward. He clearly had something against commitment, and here she was throwing herself at him and then more or less telling him she wanted a relationship. If she weren’t careful, she’d make the whole situation unbearable for both of them, and then she’d have nowhere safe to stay.
“Hannah,” he said.
“No, it’s all right.” She waved her hand in dismissal of the topic. “You have plans today?” she asked, changing the subject before she could really embarrass herself. Crying the morning after sex was probably the kind of thing that made Jake cringe.
It seemed like he wanted to say more, but since he didn’t feel the same way, and couldn’t tell her anything she wanted to hear, he let her get away with dropping it.
Putting his fork on his empty plate, he stood. “I’m heading out in a bit to go play racquetball with my brother. Will you be okay here without a car?”
“Of course. Since I’m just about caught up with school, I’m going to set aside some time to search for that missing down payment money. Check my phone history and maybe call my bank, see if they’ll buy my story, and tell me if I have any other accounts.”
“As much as it sucks for you, I would hope they wouldn’t tell you anything over the phone. That’d be pretty shitty security. We can go in on Monday with the doctor’s note and your photo ID. That would be more believable.”
“Yeah, sure. That’s a good idea. If I don’t find anything over the weekend, I’ll do that.” She didn’t need him to come with her, and he was probably only offering to be polite anyway.
She picked up her plate and glass and walked them to the sink. He brought his dishes in and then excused himself to go get ready to leave. Great, now she’d gone and made things awkward.Smooth, Hannah. Real smooth.
After he left, she relaxed a little and settled in to find her money. Her first idea was to go through all her old emails and see if she could find any correspondence with the bank or anyone else about the money. She’d just opened her email when her phone rang. It was her father.
“Hey, Dad,” she answered.
“Hannah. Thank God you answered. I have some information that you might want to pass on to the detectives.”
Oh yeah. She’d been so busy trying to seduce her gracious host and embarrass herself in every way possible that she’d forgotten someone had tried to kill her.
“What happened?”
“The attorney that handles your trust fund—his name is Mike—got a courtesy call from his friend, Colton, who is also an attorney. Colton told Mike that some young man had been to his office asking about the different ways someone might have a claim to another person’s trust fund.”
“So, itisabout the money.”
“Potentially. It’s an angle to pursue for sure. Colton told Mike that the man appeared out of it, like he was drunk or on drugs or something. He talked in hypotheticals and rambled and stammered on about how he needed the money and he must have some rights to the cash, blah, blah, blah. Colton told him that if the person was still living and he didn’t have a power of attorney to act on their behalf, he would have no claim.”
“You think Colton put the idea of killing me into this person’s head?”
“That’s whatColtonthinks. While the man never said his own name, hedidmention the name Hannah. And even though he never used your last name, Colton put two and two together after seeing the story on the news about your accident. Obviously, Colton had no idea what would happen, and he feels horrible if he’s responsible in any way. It may be nothing, but he wanted us to have the information.”
