A Season To Believe. Elane Osborn

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СКАЧАТЬ in the desperate hope that someone, the right someone, would read the story, see her picture and somehow recognize her, then give her a past, a family, somewhere to belong.

      And when these people showed up—the ones Jane came to think of as “searchers”—she drew upon the lighthearted moments Manny and Matt provided, to help her smile while she covered her near baldness with a wig that matched the color of the missing person du jour, managed to hold hope in her heart as she prepared to enter the room where this newest searcher waited, and told herself that surely, this time, someone would find something familiar in the features the plastic surgeon had pieced together for her.

      Considering that the lower half of her face had been smashed in, her nose broken and her jaw shattered, the plastic surgeon called in to make the emergency repairs hadn’t done a bad job. Her nose was slightly crooked, her left cheekbone was not quite as prominent as the right and her jaw seemed a little too narrow. The tiny scar at the corner of her mouth and the larger one on her forehead were still noticeable, but the doctors had used the tiniest of stitches, and promised that over time they would fade to a pale white.

      So, as faces went, hers didn’t seem to vary too far from the norm. In fact, it was quite generic. And perhaps this was the problem, for each time she’d met with a searcher, it seemed she had lacked that special, unique or quirky thing that would tell them that Jane was their missing wife-girlfriend-sister-daughter.

      And now Matt wanted her to go through all of that all over again. She’d seen the speculative glint in his eyes when he first asked her about the memory, or flashback, or moment of insanity that had gripped her on the department store floor. The very thought that she might have begun to remember filled her with fear, excitement, dread, hope and utter confusion, an impossible mixture of emotions that now led her to glare at the man who had pushed her into the corner of her mind where this cauldron boiled.

      “What difference is it to you, if, indeed, I have finally remembered some little nugget?” She didn’t give Matt a chance to respond before she went on. “The past is the past. No one claimed me, so whoever I was, I didn’t matter to anyone. For all I know, Wilcox is right. Perhaps I did try to kill myself.”

      Matt leaned forward, looked hard into her eyes. “Forget Wilcox. First off, no one who had a death wish would have worked as hard on their recovery as you did. Secondly, toxicology tests revealed barbiturates in your system, which I believe indicates that someone had drugged you before placing you in that stolen car rigged to explode and sending it off that cliff. Whoever this was went to a lot of trouble not only to kill you, but to see to it that your body burned beyond recognition. I would say that whoever you were, you mattered very much to someone.”

      For a moment, Jane could only stare at the very serious expression in Matt’s eyes, her mind playing his words back. This was his idea of being important to someone? The idea was so absurd that she laughed out loud.

      The look on Matt’s face made her laugh harder. She held her stomach as she rocked back and forth, then pulled herself up straight and sobered, only to collapse again, this time burying her face in her hands as her mind reverberated with the ridiculousness of Matt’s statement.

      A hand closed over one of Jane’s wrists. Matt’s hand, warm and strong. How many times had she fantasized back in the hospital about his touch—before she’d learned that it was typical, almost redundantly so, for victims of violent crimes to fantasize about their rescuers?

      The mirth died on Jane’s lips. She looked into Matt’s eyes as she lifted her free hand to brush away a laugh-tear and took a deep breath. “Just what part of your statement,” she asked, “is supposed to encourage me to care about my past?”

      Matt grimaced. “Good point. How about this. The idea that you might have begun to remember your past matters because it’s my job, my life’s work, to go after the bad guys and put them away. Recently Jack and I have had some success in that area, but none of those can make up for certain personal failures.”

      Matt’s features tightened. “I wanted to find who shot Manny. As soon as I was released from the hospital, I double-checked the extensive police investigation. The only evidence is the bullet that killed him, and it doesn’t match any weapon in the system. I couldn’t even get justice in my own case. The man who almost took my life, who did rob me of a career I loved, died when my cousin Jack shot the guy before he could finish me off. I don’t equate death with justice, so that brings me to the matter of Jane Doe Number Thirteen.”

      Matt stared hard into Jane’s eyes. “Hers is a case every bit as baffling and frustrating as the question of who killed Manny. Both continue to eat at me. Manny is gone, leaving no clues at the scene of the crime or in his past cases to point to someone who might have wanted him dead. You, however, are alive. And maybe, just maybe, your past is ready to speak to you. If so, I want to listen. I want a chance to find the answers to this puzzle, to get justice for at least one of the cases that means something—”

      Matt broke off. His fierce expression reflected pain and bitterness. Jane blinked, stunned into silence at the sudden change in the man she had thought she knew so well.

      But then, how well could she have known him? He’d been in her life a mere eight weeks before he and Manny were sent undercover. She could see now that she’d been a child at the time, at least figuratively. Without her memory, she’d had no experiences to draw on, to teach her how to behave.

      And that is how Matt had seen her. After the doctors and nurses had finished poking and prodding her, he and Manny had appeared at her bedside. When she realized how disappointed the two detectives were to learn that she couldn’t answer any of their long list of questions, she’d begun to cry. The only sound in that sterile hospital room had been her sobs, until Matt whispered, “Hush, now. It’s okay,” as he gently traced a cloth down the path of her tears.

      She’d pulled herself together with a shuddering sigh, opened her eyes to see that Matt had twisted his slightly damp handkerchief around his hand and pulled the ends into two rabbit ears. The makeshift puppet bobbed and weaved as a high-pitched voice, unmistakably Matt’s in origin, scolded Manny for browbeating the subject of their investigation and making her cry.

      In moments she was laughing. After that, each visit from these two had made her feel stronger, even the times when they’d tried to coax her memory to life. As they included her in their teasing banter, she’d begun to feel less lost, less lonely, and discovered that although she might not have a memory, she wasn’t without intelligence and wit.

      So, did that mean, she found herself asking as she studied the serious lines etched into Matt’s features, that all those jokes had been an act on Matt’s part? Or had the loss of his partner and his own brush with death woken the grim expression she’d glimpsed when he first walked into the security office a mere hour ago—the one that tightened his features now?

      Or was it something about her today, that had brought out an aspect of Matt’s personality he’d previously kept hidden? Last year he would have used silly humor to coerce her into exploring the brief memory that had assaulted her. Had he dropped his mask of joviality because he recognized that now, after taking charge of her life, her education, her career, she was no longer a lost waif in need of coddling?

      She would like to think so, but it really didn’t matter. She recognized a challenge when she saw one.

      “All right, Matt,” Jane said softly. “You win.”

      “Win what?”

      Gone were the tight, fan-shaped lines that had bracketed Matt’s sharply narrowed eyes only moments before. Gone also were the deep vertical grooves that had been etched on either side СКАЧАТЬ