“Why the hell would you spend four hundred dollars on a coat?” I snatch it back again. “That was dumb.”
“And these boots?” She takes just one out, dangling the brown suede by the tag on the back. “They were on sale for seven hundred.”
“Are you insane?” I snatch a shirt—Walmart brand—before she can take it, and I cling to the fluffy socks. “You can buy boots for sixty dollars, Eliza, and they do the damn job.”
“Yeah, but I have oodles of money, and plenty of time to spend it, and since I work so hardnotgetting my face smashed in every single day, I’d say I earned my sexy seven-hundred-dollar boots.” She spins back to her closet and tugs out a duffel bag with leather tassels and a gold zipper—cost six hundred bucks, probably—then she tosses it onto her massive, unmade bed, and places the boots inside. Whipping the coat from my grip, she carefully rolls it into a smaller size. “Don’t give her those sweatpants.”
“They’re ratty and old. You can do without them.”
“Exactly. They’re ratty and old.” She snatches them up and yeets them back into her closet. But then she selects a brand-new pair still with the tags on and tosses them at my chest. “Don’t talk to me about my shopping habits. It’s none of your business.”
I spy the price tag attached—ninety-nine dollars—and shaking my head, I walk back to the bed and slide them into the bag. “It’s been a week, Lize. She isn’t remembering.”
“You sound emotionally invested.” She closes her drawers and rotates, casting her judgy little-sister eyes on me. “You’re her doctor, Ollie. You treat ‘em, you send ‘em home. It’s a catch-and-release system you’re supposed to abide by.”
“Can’t catch and release someone who has no clue where her home is. Can’t send her anywhere if she has no ID, no money, and no fucking cluewhich way she should turn when she walks out the hospital doors. She doesn’t even have a pair of shoes.”
One shoe. She hasoneshoe. And the clothes she arrived in are currently bundled into evidence bags and sitting at the state lab.
“What’s she saying?” Eliza strides into her ensuite bathroom and rummages around in a drawer, before turning around and coming back with a toothbrush and toothpaste pack I know for a damn fact she stole from the dentist’s office. “A week of rest. A week of healing. And she still can’t remember anything?”
“Those toothbrush packs are for children, Eliza.”
She looks down at her thievery, smiling, before she tosses it into the bag. “I pay out the wazoo to see that man, so the least he can do is toss me a Dora the Explorer toothbrush every now and then.” She whips the zipper closed and folds her arms. “If he has a problem with our current arrangement, he can say so to my face.”
“Sure. Because threatening to beat everyone up is how you encourage honest communication.”
She chokes out a silly giggle and plops onto the end of her bed. “I threaten no one. If people are afraid because their instincts tell them to be, the way the antelope knows to be afraid of the lion, then that’s human nature doing what it’s supposed to. Protect them, feed me. Pretty sure Mufasa mentioned something about that in the movie.”
“You’re special.” I drag my hand down my face, scratching the stubble I really need to shave. “And I don’t mean that in a good way.”
“Shut the hell up. And stop avoiding my question.”
“What question?”
“Jane! A whole week and nothing? Not even her own name? Her address? Nothing?”
“Not even her name. Not her address.” I drop my hand and release a noisy sigh. “She sleeps like shit every single night, barely more than an hour at a time. I’ve had her hooked up to a monitor, just to see what’s going on with her brain while she’s down.”
“And?”
“It’s like a car crash.” I firm my lips. “No pun intended. Her brain’s on fire. Her dreams are chaotic. Her sleep is fitful at best, and because she’s not resting properly, her days are basically torture. She’s sensitive to light and noise, and every time she sneezes, I’m worried she’s gonna stroke out. She’s a ball of anxiety, lying in her bed all day long and staring at the door.”
“But she trustsyou.”
“She panics whenever anyone else walks in, male or female.”
Her eyes flicker with smug playfulness. “Mmhm. But not you. She likes you.”
“She’s used to me because I hang around and force the friendship. Being alone sends her nuts, but being with anyone else is just as bad. I sent Henry down to collect her for another CT yesterday. I swear, I heard her screaming from the other side of the hospital. It curdled my stomach, Lize. She was terrified.”
“You’re not this dense, are you?” She raises a single, challenging brow. “A woman has lost her memories, but not her instincts. It doesn’t take an Einstein Academy kid to figure this out, Ollie.”
“I mean… sure. We can assume. But we don’tknow. We need to figure out who she is and how to get her home, but I’m kinda scared that if we do, we’re only sending her back to a place she already escaped once. I try not to bring this stuff home. I go to work, do my time, and leave it all behind until the next day. But she’s got me worrying about her even when I’m off shift. She’s got me ransacking my sister’s closet and talking about a patient’s private business when we both know I shouldn’t… and don’t.”
“That’s because you insist on being the savior,” she counters with a smile. “It’s okay to admit it. You want to fix this for her, just like you want to fix everything for Alana. And Billy.”
I scowl. “Don’t talk about him.”
