LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER TWO

      I tried to compose myself as I waited in Dr. Royce’s office for Greg Eastman to come in. Dr. Royce had wanted to wait with me, to stand by me during the meeting and give me moral support. Or maybe artificial respiration if I passed out! But I’d been adamant about wanting my very protective doctor to leave me on my own. I think my assertiveness surprised him. It surprised me even more. I didn’t really understand my sudden spurt of boldness, writing it off as partly desperation, partly the need to begin to stand on my own two feet.

      My two feet, however, weren’t holding me up all that well. They felt like a cross between rubber and marshmallows. I sat down in the armchair. I folded one hand over the other. I crossed my bare legs at the ankles. I took deep breaths. Nothing helped. My heart was racing. My palms were sweaty. I was a nervous wreck.

      I kept thinking, you should be happy. This is what I’d dreamed about for months. Finally, someone’s come for me—someone who knows me, someone who’s bringing me the greatest gift possible: myself. Not that it couldn’t be some terrible mistake. This private investigator might come in, see me, and realize I wasn’t Deborah Steele, after all. Suddenly I was fervently praying that wouldn’t happen. In those last waiting moments, I found myself longing to be Deborah Steele. For if I wasn’t Deborah, I was once again…nobody. I didn’t truly exist. Even the idea of being married to a man whose mind must be steeped in horror fiction didn’t prevent me from my longing to be Deborah. I focused on what Dr. Royce had told me—the whirlwind courtship and marriage on a tropical island, the romance of it all. Oh, if I could be Deborah, the girl of this man’s dreams…

      I couldn’t keep my anxiety or my anticipation at bay for more than a few moments. This meeting with Greg Eastman could hold the key to unlocking my past. And my future. Whatever had gone on before, whatever lay ahead, had to be better than the awful blankness, the loneliness that consumed me almost every waking moment here in the hospital. At least, that’s what I told myself at the time.

      When he stepped into the office after what felt like an eternity but was probably no more than ten minutes, I popped up like a puppet whose strings had been abruptly tugged hard.

      Greg Eastman smiled. “Please. Sit down.”

      Self-consciously, I followed his request. My boldness having deserted me altogether, I could manage little more than a quick glance at the private investigator. It was long enough, though, to know that he looked utterly unfamiliar to me. I felt incredibly disappointed as I stared down at my hands.

      When I think back on that first meeting with Greg, it was his smile that I remember most. Sympathetic, charming, coaxing at turns. His grab bag of smiles didn’t quite put me at ease—that would have been impossible—but they did give me some comfort. I think I must have been expecting some hard-boiled shamus right out of a detective novel. Greg was nothing like that. He was clean-cut and attractive, with close-cropped sandy blond hair, regular features, and that engaging smile.

      His next words broke the awkward and extended silence. “This must be quite a shock for you, Deborah.”

      The name rolled so easily and naturally off his lips that my head jerked up.

      “Am I…her?” My mouth was dry. The words came out like a harsh croak.

      “After they made you, they threw away the mold.” Immediately after uttering the glib remark, he looked contrite. “Sorry. It’s just that I’m so incredibly relieved to see you. Dr. Royce has explained everything to me, Deborah. The assault, the injuries you suffered, the memory loss that resulted. But it’s going to be all right. Now, you can begin to really heal. I’ve come to take you home, Deborah.”

      Home. I had promised myself I wouldn’t break down, but it was all too much. Home.

      My sudden burst of tears filled Greg with alarm. He didn’t seem to know what to do, what to say. After a few attempts to calm me with words and pats on my shoulder, he finally just kept handing me tissues until I got my bearings again.

      “I’m sorry,” I mumbled, horribly embarrassed.

      “Don’t be. It’s probably the best thing for you.”

      The best thing for me. No. The best thing for me would be to remember being Deborah.

      “Did the headshrinker fill you in?” Greg asked. He gave me a quirky smile in response to my blank look. “Sorry. The psychiatrist.”

      I repeated by rote what Dr. Royce had told me. “He said that you knew me from Sinclair. In the Catskill Mountains three hours north of here. You have a getaway cottage there. You’re a friend of Nicholas Steele’s. You’ve known him for five years. You’re tennis partners.”

      I continued in a monotone. “Nicholas was married for two years and then two and a half months ago his wife, Deborah, disappeared. You saw my photo in the newspaper clipping and recognized me as Deborah Steele.” I might have been giving a canned speech at a conference. Nothing that I said had any foundation in reality for me. I felt like I was talking about someone else altogether. Deborah and Nicholas. They were both no more than phantom beings. I felt no connection to either of them.

      Greg leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, palms capturing his square chin. He seemed unfazed by my mechanical presentation.

      “You must have been mugged the first day you got to the city,” he said. “I checked out the area where they found you. At night, it’s a pretty desolate spot, but there are a few designers who have lofts in that neighborhood. You always had a thing for searching out new fashion designers. The best-dressed woman with the most original wardrobe in Sinclair. Not that Sinclair’s exactly a fashion mecca, but we do have our country-club set.” He winked, clearly expecting to garner a little laugh or a smile from me at the very least.

      But my mouth was stuck in a tight line. To make matters worse, I became horribly self-conscious about the drab cotton print sundress that hung loosely on my narrow frame. My meager wardrobe, culled from the hospital’s thrift shop with a few hand-me-downs from a couple of nurses tossed in, was about as far from designer wear as one could get. I was certainly not the fashion plate of the New York General.

      Greg leaned a little closer. I squirmed under his scrutiny, thinking he, too, was none too impressed with my attire, nor with my whole appearance. But how I looked and what I was wearing turned out not to be what was on his mind. “I know all this must be hard for you, but it’s hard for me, too, Deborah. You really don’t remember anything? Anything at all?”

      Slowly, I shook my head. “This feels very unreal. I don’t even know whether to believe any of it. I keep thinking…you must have made a mistake.”

      “No mistake,” he said confidently. And then he added, “Maybe this will help.” He withdrew a photo from a manila envelope and extended it toward me. As much as I wanted to look, I felt frozen to the spot. I couldn’t even reach out my hand to take the photo from him.

      Eventually he laid it in my lap, facing me.

      Still, it took several long moments for me to manage to lower my eyes to it.

      It was an eight-by-ten glossy of a blond-haired woman in a bikini, smiling provocatively into the camera as she posed on the bow of a sailing sloop. What emerged most from the shot was the vibrancy of her coloring—the healthy, glowing golden sweep of hair, the

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