Dying To Remember. Sara K. Parker

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ slight furrow along Roman’s brow showed that he’d heard. Other than that, he didn’t respond.

      “All done,” the nurse said quietly, gathering the tubes and the rest of her supplies. “I’ll let the doctor know she’s awake,” she added, letting herself out of the room.

      Fear bubbled up in the wake of Roman’s silence. “They didn’t find him,” Ella surmised.

      Roman pulled over a chair and sat. He looked tired, his dark hair ruffled, the buttons on his white shirt undone at the top.

      “Maybe we should start from the beginning, Ell,” Roman finally said.

      Ella’s heart skipped a beat at the old nickname, so warm in his voice a dozen memories melted out of it.

      “That’s all I remember from the time I got back to my mom’s tonight.”

      “No, I mean—start from when you returned to Maryland. You came because of your mother’s accident, right? Did anything seem off when you arrived?”

      “I...don’t know.”

      “You don’t remember?”

      She shook her head, frustrated and considering how much to reveal to Roman. Since she was asking for his help, she figured she’d be best off with full disclosure. “Since the shooting, I’ve had trouble with my memory,” she admitted. “And my instincts.”

      “In what way?” Roman asked.

      “It’s hard to explain, but I can’t trust my own mind sometimes,” Ella said. “I get bouts of confusion, short-term memory loss, gaps in clarity. That’s why I took a taxi to see you. I haven’t been cleared to drive. The neurologist called it post-traumatic amnesia. That’s what happened at your office. We were talking and then I suddenly had no idea why I was there, why I was standing face-to-face with you after all these years.”

      “Sounds like a scary thing to go through.”

      “It’s unsettling.”

      “Is it permanent?”

      “My doctor says it should get better with time. He can’t predict how long the recovery will take, or whether I’ll ever fully recover.”

      “I’m sorry, Ell.”

      “Don’t be,” she said. “I just needed you to know.”

      “Okay, let’s explore a different question,” Roman said. “If someone wanted you dead, why try to make it look like a suicide?”

      She’d considered the question for weeks. “To keep the focus on me and far away from my killer?” she suggested. “If it’s someone I used to know, like you mentioned, maybe he’s hoping my suicide wouldn’t be questioned.”

      “Maybe,” Roman said, his dark gaze holding hers and stirring up a longing for what they used to share.

      Did he believe her? She couldn’t tell, but she had a feeling he wanted to.

      A doctor entered the room, white coat pristine, stethoscope hanging around her neck. She smiled pleasantly and held out a hand to Ella in greeting.

      “I’m Dr. Patel,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

      “Okay,” Ella responded, waiting for what she knew was to come. “Well enough to go home,” she added.

      Dr. Patel nodded, casting a patronizing look down at her. “We’ll monitor you overnight,” she said carefully. “I’ve ordered a psychiatric evaluation for first thing in the morning before we can clear you to go home.”

      “I need the police, not a psychiatrist,” Ella responded.

      “The police?” Dr. Patel asked.

      “I didn’t try to kill myself,” Ella insisted, pushing herself to a sitting position. “Someone attacked me.”

      The doctor’s mouth flattened into an expression of forced patience. “I’ll arrange for an officer to meet you here,” she said calmly. “But you understand, Ella, we can’t just send you home without taking precautions after this second suicide attempt in as many months?”

      Ella wanted to scream. Considered it. But realized that would only make her look less stable. “What I understand, Doctor, is that someone very clever has tried to kill me twice, and no one believes me.”

      The doctor’s expression was unreadable. “You were found in your vehicle, in your mother’s garage, with a rag stuffed in the muffler and a syringe in your hand,” she said gently.

      Well, that definitely didn’t make her look any less suicidal.

      “The volume of fentanyl-laced heroin you injected yourself with, plus the carbon monoxide from the car, was a potentially lethal combination,” the doctor continued, pausing as if to allow Ella time to absorb the information.

      Ella didn’t need time; she knew exactly what fentanyl was—a powerful anesthetic when used in the medical profession and an especially dangerous street drug when combined with heroin.

      “If your friend here had arrived just a few minutes later, we may not have been able to save you,” Dr. Patel added.

      “I need the police,” Ella repeated because she could tell the doctor’s opinion was set.

      “I’ll contact them,” Dr. Patel agreed, but she didn’t look happy about it. She excused herself from the room, pulling the door closed behind her.

      “Roman, someone is trying to kill me,” Ella said. “And I don’t know how to prove it.”

      “Tell me exactly what you remember,” he said.

      She started from the moment she had arrived home earlier in the night, and told every detail she could remember up until the moment she blacked out.

      When she finished, Roman looked thoughtful and a little uneasy. “You said you dropped the bottle and it shattered.”

      “Right. Did you see it?” she asked hopefully.

      He shook his head. “I didn’t, but I remember something crunching under my shoe in the kitchen. I didn’t see what it was, though. I’ll want to take a better look.”

      Hope thrummed. Maybe he’d find glass on the floor that would corroborate the story. “Does this mean you believe me?”

      Roman’s cell phone rang and he slid it out of his pocket. “I do,” he said. “But I still need facts. I still need evidence.” Then he stepped to the side to answer the phone.

      From the sounds of it, Roman was making arrangements for a team member to take his place at the hospital so he could go back to her mom’s place. Finally, someone besides Autumn in her corner. And not just anyone. Roman DeHart, cofounder and CEO of the most sought-after private security company in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area. If anyone could find proof that Ella wasn’t losing her sanity, Roman was the one.

      And СКАЧАТЬ