Rain Dance. Rebecca Daniels

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      “No, I don’t,” he said after a moment, his gaze slowly moving to Marcy’s. “I picked her up out on the highway. She was wandering around out there all by herself.”

      “In this storm?” Marcy’s brow furrowed. “Poor thing. Where was this?”

      “Out on Route 16,” Joe said, remembering the fear he had seen in her eyes. “About twenty miles south of the Hollister place.”

      “The Hollister place!” Marcy gasped, her eyes wide with surprise now. “Way up there? What would she be doing wandering around there?”

      “Your guess is as good as mine,” he said with a tired sigh. The fatigue of a too long day with too little sleep had suddenly begun to take hold. “There was no car, no sign of an accident.”

      Marcy’s frown deepened. “You suspect foul play?”

      Joe shrugged. “At this point I’m looking at everything.” He slowly stood up, tossing the empty cup into the sand of the ashtray beside the chair. He turned and looked at the closed doors of the examination rooms. “She was unconscious when I brought her in, I’m hoping when she wakes up…” He stopped and glanced back to Marcy. “Well, I’d like to question her when she wakes up.”

      “Cruz say what he thought was wrong with her?”

      Joe thought of that curtain being closed in his face, and scowled. “Cruz didn’t say anything.”

      Marcy smiled. “Yes, well, I know how that go— Oh, wait—here he is.”

      Joe had to stop himself from running across the corridor to meet the doctor at the door.

      “Is she okay, Doc?” he asked, surprised by the sound of alarm in his own voice. “Is she awake?”

      “She’s awake,” Cruz said, spotting his wife and steering Joe back into the direction of the waiting area. “But she’s very weak.” He slipped an arm around Marcy’s waist, giving her a kiss on the cheek. Reluctantly, he turned back to Joe, swiping an arm across his forehead. “And she’s exhausted.”

      “But can I talk to her?” Joe asked eagerly.

      Cruz turned and looked at him. “I don’t think it’s going to do much good.”

      Joe felt something go dead in him. “Why, what’s the matter?”

      “She doesn’t remember.”

      “What do you mean she doesn’t remember?”

      “She doesn’t remember,” Cruz said again. “She doesn’t remember anything.” He glanced down at Marcy, then back to Joe. “What we have here is a case of amnesia.”

      Chapter 2

      “Good morning, Miss Rain.”

      The voice came from out of the darkness, sounding bright and sunny and safe. It reached down into the shadows like a hand extending out to her and she felt herself struggling, felt herself reaching. She wanted that hand, wanted up and out of the gloom.

      “Rise and shine, it’s not raining this morning. Maybe we should call you Sunshine now.”

      Suddenly her head was filled with sound and shafts of light pierced the layers of her eyelids, obliterating the darkness and sending the nightmare to the back of her brain. Thank God, it had been a dream. It all had been just a terrible dream.

      “Come on now, sleepyhead, open up those eyes. Breakfast is being served. We’ve got to get you fed and down to the lab for a whole pack of tests the doctor has planned for you. Come on now, wake up. I know you wouldn’t want to miss any of the fun.”

      Noise and light assaulted her, making her forget about panic and fear. She welcomed the chaos, welcomed the voice that coaxed her awake. She wanted to open her eyes and have her world made right again.

      “What do we have here? Ah yes, oatmeal—nice and lumpy—our kitchen’s specialty. Come on now, Miss Rain. Let me see those eyes open.”

      The light was blinding at first, painful and unyielding against eyes accustomed only to darkness. Still, it felt warm and comforting against her skin. There was a moment when it seemed that her eyes had forgotten how to function, when she could make out nothing of what she saw and the world was reduced to indistinguishable, unrecognizable blurred images. However, slowly those blurry, distorted images came into focus and she found herself looking into a face that looked as kind and as friendly as its voice sounded.

      “Atta girl. Let’s see those…” The voice drifted off as she leaned in for a closer look. “Looks like there might be some blue in there. Open them up darlin’. Let’s get a good look at those baby blues.”

      Her throat felt raw and coarse and she thought of how small and lost her screams had sounded in the desert.

      And then she remembered. She may be waking up, but the nightmare wasn’t over—and for a moment, panic put a stranglehold on her throat.

      “Wh-where am I?”

      “You’re in Mesa County General Hospital. Do you remember talking to the doctor last night?”

      Jumbled, confused images of people and faces flashed suddenly into her brain and she remembered waking up to noise and confusion. How frightening it had been to wake up and find herself being poked and prodded by strangers, but at least she’d been out of the desert, at least she hadn’t been alone.

      “He asked questions,” she croaked, lifting a hand to her throat. The words hurt. “He gave me a shot.”

      “Something to help you rest,” the woman said. “But there’s no time to sleep now. Let’s get some food in you and get you down to the lab or Dr. Martinez is going to have my head on a platter.”

      “I—I don’t remember.”

      “You don’t remember? You mean, talking to the doctor?”

      She shook her head, pain radiating as dread rose up from her belly like a wave on the shore. “You—you don’t understand. I don’t remember anything.”

      “When you’re ready you will,” the woman said breezily, maneuvering the control switch along the bed frame and raising the back of the bed. “And these tests may help.”

      “Tests?” It was only then that she realized the woman was wearing a nurse’s uniform. “They’ll help me remember?”

      “Well, not the tests themselves,” the nurse qualified. “But they’ll help the doctor know just what’s going on inside that pretty head of yours.”

      “I—I don’t remember how…” she stammered, wincing as her hand brushed the hair along the back of her head. “I don’t know how that bump on my head happened, either.”

      “Try not to think about all that too much right now,” the nurse advised. “It’s not going to help if you’re upset.” She propped the pillows. “Now come on, Rain. Eat your breakfast.”

      She СКАЧАТЬ