LITMIR.BIZ

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need your help to get me out of here.”

      “Why, yes, I had a pretty good night myself, and thank you for asking.”

      She sank back, her long hair slinking over her shoulder. “Sorry. I don’t make a good patient.”

      “I never would have guessed.”

      “I’m starving.”

      “Didn’t they feed you?”

      “I didn’t like the food here.”

      “That explains why you’re still hungry. Or maybe just hangry.”

      “I’m bored and aggravated—and hungry and angry. Will you help me?”

      Letting out a tired sigh, Ryder sat down in the high-backed recliner across from the bed. “What exactly do you want me to do? Smuggle in some real food?”

      “Bust me out of here,” she said on a quiet note that kind of tugged at his heartstrings. “I could use a good hamburger.”

      Even with a huge bandage on her head, the woman showed a strength that seemed to buzz with electricity. That or he’d had one too many cups of coffee this morning. Ryder had never met anyone quite like Emma Langston. Here she sat with a busted head and wearing a faded hospital gown, but she had more gumption and grit than most of the notorious criminals he came up against on a daily basis. And she sure looked a whole lot prettier than them, too.

      But he could not indulge in all that gumption and grit and prettiness. This job demanded all of his attention. He had to get to the bottom of why she was here so he could get on with his own investigation.

      “I’m pretty sure your doctor and my chief would both frown on that,” he replied, referring to her earlier question.

      “And I’m pretty sure you’re the kind who doesn’t worry about being frowned upon.”

      “You know me so well already?”

      “I know your kind.”

      Glancing around, he took in that assumption and said, “So did you remember anything else?”

      “I didn’t sleep, so I had time to think about things.”

      That wasn’t exactly a good answer. “And?”

      “And I need to be out there, not lying here.”

      “You do know you have a head injury even if your head is too hard to get that, right? What does your doctor say?”

      “He’s done a set of questions and because I can’t answer all of them, he wants me to rest. But I can’t rest.”

      “What did you remember, Emma? And don’t try to con me.”

      Emma worried with her covers, her fingers curling into the soft white fleece of the warm blanket. How much could she trust him? How much did he know already? What if he was part of this? What if he knew more than he was letting on?

      Testing him, she asked, “How far did you get with my background check?”

      His eyebrows winged up in surprise. “Far enough. Since you either can’t or won’t share what you remember, I’ll tell you what I know.”

      She didn’t move. Couldn’t move. Fighting with her brain all night had brought her nothing but a bad case of anxiety. Even her dreams made no sense.

      “You were born in Galveston. You attended school there and in Houston—several different schools—but you were a straight-A student. Graduated with honors and a little scholarship money and went to the University of Texas. Studied criminology. Worked as a police officer for two years and then ventured out on your own to become a private investigator.”

      He named her address, and a vague memory came alive inside her brain. A memory of almost being at peace with herself.

      Almost.

      “I was a police officer?” Emma squinted, tried to find the shattered pieces of her memory. Faces and arguments, shame and danger. She didn’t want to remember.

      Those scattered memories, just as the doctor had said. But the doctor had also told her that happened in about a third of amnesia patients. Emma thought these little islands of floating memories made it much worse. They offered glimmers of hope but made her head feel like a jigsaw puzzle.

      Ryder continued, his gaze studying her with a new shine. “Thirty-one years old and single.”

      He said that in a way that suggested he approved. But again, Emma felt something like a dull knife stabbing at her heart. “Guess I don’t have much of a love life.”

      His eyes held hers a little too long on that last note. “Tried any dating sites?”

      “Wow, Detective, you sound as if you’re casing me for a date or something. Do you hang out on match-up sites a lot?”

      “If I did,” he said with a slow drawl that feathered its way down her spine, “I’m guessing I wouldn’t find any information on one Emma Langston there.”

      “You’d be right on that, but what would it matter? Seems you know more about me than I know myself. Like I said, I don’t date very much.”

      “And you remembered that, at least.”

      “I’m remembering odd things,” she admitted. “Any deep, dark secrets in my background check?”

      “I did find one thing interesting,” he said, his voice calm and controlled and clear. But he hesitated.

      “What?” she asked, her heart pumping. “I can handle it. Just tell me.”

      “Emma, you were a foster child. You went through the system from the time you were five and lived in several different homes around the Houston area.”

      Emma grabbed the blanket covering her, her fingers digging into the lightweight fabric. Her heart went cold, vague memories echoing through the pain in her head. “I... I don’t...remember. Why can’t I remember?”

      “Hopefully it will come to you,” he said, his tone soft and low. “You also have a gap in your background. Almost a whole year between high school and college. But you would have just aged out so maybe you took off and stayed low until you decided to work your way through college.”

      Emma stared him down, her mind like a massive cobweb. She didn’t remember very much, but that missing year seemed to jump right out at her, like a bad clown trying to scare her. Shivers made goose bumps on her arms.

      “Any record of what happened to my parents? How did I wind up in the system?”

      “I haven’t found anything on that yet,” he admitted. “But I found something in your wallet. A picture of a couple and an address on the back. But no names. Maybe they were your birth parents.”

      He pulled out a photo encased in clear plastic and handed it to her. “Do you recognize them?”

      Emma stared at the couple, the term birth parents chilling her like ice water. The woman had a classic bob haircut, grayish and simple. The man wore glasses and had a nice smile. Something tugged at Emma when she recognized her own handwriting in the hastily jotted address. A push and pull that she didn’t want to explore. She took in breaths, a sense of foreboding making it hard to find air.

      “Did you contact these people based on that address?” she asked Ryder.

      “Not yet.” He watched her staring at the photo. “But I have someone down south who does the same kind of work you do. He’s waiting for us to give him the go-ahead to question them.”

      “Don’t,” she said. “Not yet. I can’t remember these people so...let’s see if I can figure it all out before we approach them.”

      “Are you afraid?”

      Her pulse bumped into an erratic beat. “I

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