I twist my hands on the table. After looking at my Facebook page last weekend, I can’t stop thinking about the people from my old life, but no one more than Colton. It feels like if I just try hard enough, I could dig him out of my memories, and if I could do that, maybe I’d understand why this happened. What set him off? Had he ever hurt me before that night? “I don’t know.”
The detective drops his gaze to my wringing hands. “Are you scared of your fiancé, Ellie?”
“Yes.”
Mom reaches out and squeezes my leg, and I bite my bottom lip, trying to figure out how to explain this to a man who no doubt takes his memories for granted like everybody else.
“It’s okay to be afraid,” he says. “Tell me more about what you’re feeling.”
“I’m lucky to be alive. My child wasn’t so lucky. I don’t have any memory of the years I lived in Jackson Harbor or of the people I knew there.” Except Levi Jackson. I think I remember making love with Levi. I study the detective’s kind face for a beat. I should tell him everything I know, but I don’t want to share something I don’t understand. “I do know I was with Colton, that I was pregnant, and that Colton and I were supposed to be married.”
“Tell me about that night if you can,” he says. “The night you were hurt.”
I laugh, a dry, hollow sound. “What do you want to know? Two broken ribs, head trauma, bruises everywhere.”
The detective nods. “I have your medical report from the hospital. What about what you remember?”
“Nothing,” I whisper. “The doctor said even if the other memories come back, I may never remember the event itself.”
“Yes, the doctor told me that too,” he says.
Mom frowns. “So why are you asking?”
“Just doing my job, ma’am.” He shifts his attention back to me. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
I take a deep breath. “I had a job working for an art dealer in Chicago. We were researching some lost art for a client.”
Mom grins proudly. “My baby girl got an art degree from Loyola. She’s a very talented artist but she never believed it—went into sales instead. I can’t blame her for choosing glitz and glamor over the starving artist life.”
“I didn’t see it that way,” I say softly. My cheeks heat. I don’t like talking about the truth—that I wasn’t good enough to create art of my own. “Curating private collections was a better fit for me.”
“Yes, and you already knew what it was like to live without money.” She waves a hand around the dining room, and I try to take it in with fresh eyes. Sun-bleached wallpaper, the same pink carpet that was here when I was in grade school, now several shades lighter. Mom raised us alone, and the only reason she was able to keep this house was through the magic of bankruptcy court. We could barely make ends meet, let alone remodel. Not much has changed.
“When was that?” Detective Huxley asks. “Your last memory?”
“Three years ago.” I grimace. “My boss and I were at dinner talking about this collection, and . . .” And he was getting me drunk on wine and high on flattery while trying to convince me I should sell the paintings in my studio—replicas of priceless missing art. I meet the detective’s eyes and feel my cheeks heat. I wonder if I agreed. I painted those as a challenge to myself, and I think we were both surprised by what I managed to pull off.
“And . . .?” The detective’s voice is gentle and coaxing, and I realize I need to say more.
“We drank a lot that night, and when I woke up at the hospital, I thought maybe one of us had gotten behind the wheel and we’d been in an accident. But then the nurses told me that three years had passed, that I was suffering from retrograde amnesia.”
“Have you been in touch with anyone from Jackson Harbor since leaving the hospital?”
“She wants nothing to do with that life,” Mom says.
I bite my lip and look at my mom, then back to my hands. I don’t have a tan line from the engagement band that sits in my jewelry box. I hadn’t been engaged long enough. But would I have put it on at all if I hadn’t planned to wear it forever?
“Ellie?” the detective prompts.
“I saw Levi Jackson a couple of days ago,” I admit.
“He came to the door,” Mom said. “He and the sister. I sent them both away.” She reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “We’re starting fresh.”
“I saw him after that.” I lift my gaze to the detective’s and avoid my mother’s. “He was at Brew Cats, and I talked to him.”
“What?” She drops my hand. “You didn’t tell me? Why didn’t you just turn around? Run away, protect yourself?” Her voice is shrill, and I lean away instinctively.
“I didn’t want to run.”
Blotchy red patches bloom brighter on her face. “After all I’ve done to try to protect you from that life?”
I lift my chin and meet her eyes. “You can’t protect me from my own life. I wanted to talk to him.”
She looks out the window, and I wait, but she doesn’t turn back to me. I’ve hurt her.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I thought I was okay with pretending those years never happened, but I’m not anymore. I want to understand.”
“Sonia,” the detective says calmly, “would you mind getting me a cup of coffee and letting me chat with Ellie privately for a moment?”
“Fine.” She pushes away from the table. “Black?”
Huxley nods, then watches her leave the room before turning back to me. “You saw Levi? Do you remember him?”
“Not exactly.” I look down at the recorder and wonder just how much I’m willing to admit on the record.
“Tell me what you do remember,” he says.
I sigh heavily and shrug. “It’s more like a feeling. Like he is—was important to me. And I had some flashes of memories. I think that’s what they were. But they were . . . intimate.”
Huxley nods, as if this doesn’t surprise him. Or maybe he’s just been trained to have a great poker face. “The two of you were involved briefly. Have you seen or spoken with anyone else?”
I shake my head. “I’ve been too afraid to go back.”
Mom returns with a cup of coffee, obviously opting for pouring from this morning’s pot rather than making a new one and missing more of this conversation. “Here you go.” She sets it down in front of him. “I’m sorry if I seem irrational. But I already lost my grandchild. I can’t stomach the idea of losing my daughter too.”
“It’s okay, Mom. I’m here, and I’m safe.”
“May I stay?” she asks Huxley, but the challenge in her tone suggests she will regardless of what the detective says.
Huxley looks at me, and I nod. “Sure.”
He takes a sip of his coffee. “Tell me about Nelson McKinley.”
I frown, recognizing the last name but not the first. McKinley? Is he related to Colton somehow? I want to pull my notebook from my purse and add this name to the list, but I suppress the urge. I can do it later.
“Are you even listening to her?” my mother says. “She doesn’t remember the last three years. She knows nothing about that man.”
I frown at her. “What do you know about him?”
She avoids my gaze. “Not much.”
With a sigh, the detective puts his mug down. “I’m sorry. I just have to ask the questions. Tell me what you think about the Nelson McKinley situation.”
I shake my head. “I’ve never even heard his name before.”
Detective Huxley sits back in his chair, and when he studies me now, there’s less sympathy in his eyes and more skepticism. “Both amnesia and no access to current events?”
I look to my mother. She’s avoiding my gaze. “What does he mean, Mom?”
“Nelson is Colton’s father,” she says.
“Nelson McKinley’s been missing since late August. We suspected foul play, and we questioned your fiancé regarding the case. Unfortunately, he’s missing, so we can’t continue our interviews.”
I turn to my mom again, but her gaze is zeroed in on her hands. She knew this, and she didn’t tell me? “I thought they were after Colton because of what happened to me.”
“Well, that should be enough. Obviously he hurt you,” she says. “Why else would he be running from the cops like he is?”
“Running from the cops?” The detective arches a brow and gives my mother a pointed look. “Ms. Courdrey, do you have a reason to believe your daughter’s fiancé is on the run, or is that just conjecture?”