Chapter 1
She sat on the damp sand, staring at the ocean. The gentle waves relaxed her mind. A dream played in her mind of a man walking with her along the water's edge, holding her hand. It felt like a memory, but she couldn't get her mind to see the man. Every time she tried to focus, the pain would go through her head. She cried as the pain caused spots to appear before her eyes. The boardwalk and shops looked vaguely familiar, but she didn't know why.
"Oh, there you are, Stephanie, you scared us. Come with me," the kind woman said, holding out her hand to the woman on the beach.
"Was someone looking for me?" Stephanie asked, hoping someone knew who she was and where she belonged. Even though she didn't remember anything, Stephanie knew she didn't belong here. If she could get home, maybe the memories would return.
"I'm sorry, dear. Nobody arrived for you today. My name is Louise," she reminded Stephanie again.
Louise wondered who this woman was and if anyone was looking for her. She found Stephanie on the beach, bloody, beaten and naked two years ago. The damage to her head left her with amnesia. It took nearly a year to discover her name was Stephanie. Louise thought Stephanie was regaining her memory, but it seemed she only remembered her name.
"Where am I?" Stephanie asked Louise.
"Honolulu, Hawaii in a long-term care facility," Louise replied for the thousandth time. Louise was careful not to say too much to Stephanie. It was important for the memories to return on their own. Stephanie was a beautiful woman. She had gorgeous long, curly hair and blue eyes. Her eyes were mesmerizing. Louise imagined a man looking into Stephanie's beautiful eyes and getting lost in the depths.
"Oh. I forgot," Stephanie replied. She couldn't remember from day to day. The woman must get upset having to remind her constantly.
Stephanie's eyes were expressive. Everything she thought got illuminated in her eyes and on her face. She was like an open book. What you see is what you get. Louise couldn't wait to see the sparks between Stephanie and the man she cried for in the night. She felt the key to unlocking Stephanie's mind rested with Ranger.
Honolulu's care facility only had thirty beds. At the moment, only twenty-five got used. Louise and her husband, Barry, owned the facility where Stephanie resided. The government gave them grants to house men and women without insurance. Stephanie was one of the four patients the facility housed pro bono.
The Rangeman Trenton office had been mourning for the past two years. They lost their light. Stephanie disappeared without a trace and assumed to be dead. Hector missed the woman who wasn't shy to meet him. Stephanie didn't care that he had one teardrop tattoo, indicating he killed a man. She was upset when he got his second tattoo.
Hector eliminated Eddie Abruzzi as a threat to Stephanie. The authorities ruled Abruzzi's death as a suicide, but Hector suspected Stephanie knew he was responsible. He kept scrubbing the internet, hoping someone would say they found his best friend.
None of the hospitals in the nearby states found a Jane Doe fitting Stephanie's description. Hector wasn't going to give up hope. He knew she was still alive. It was a matter of finding her location. Ranger, Ram, Manny and Hal were running down every lead to find Stephanie. Hector couldn't understand why Ranger didn't tell Stephanie that he was irrevocably in love with her. He knew Stephanie was in love with Ranger. She confessed to Hector a few weeks before she disappeared.
It took time to go through all the states and hospitals. Some hospitals had immaculate records while others, not so much. After two years, Hector barely made a dent in the mid-western states. Every day that passed without locating Stephanie got Ranger losing hope of finding the woman. The needle in the haystack approach wasn't effective in finding his friend. Hector knew Stephanie wasn't in any of the major hospitals in the continental US.
"Boss?" Hector asked as he knocked on the door.
"Enter," Ranger barked.
"You should take a vacation. Take Julie to Hawaii. She'll like the ocean," Hector stated. He gave Ranger two airline tickets. Ranger flies from Newark to Florida, where he'd collect Julie. They fly to Hawaii from there. Hector didn't spend much of his money on frivolous things, but he wanted to do this for the man who saved his life.
"Thank you, Hector," Ranger said as his lip curled into a small smile.
"I'll keep looking for Stephanie," Hector volunteered.
"No. It's time to stop. My heart can't take the disappointment of not finding Babe," Ranger said, feeling defeated.
"You have two weeks to get the company settled before you leave," Hector said, pointing to the tickets.
Ranger waved the envelope. "Maybe this is the key to finding Babe." Hector smiled and left the boss to figure out the next steps. Ranger was surprised when Hector gave him airline tickets to go on vacation. He opened the packet and discovered Hector rented a two-bedroom suite in Honolulu, down the beach from Honolulu's long-term care facility.
Joseph Morelli smiled at the woman lying next to him in bed. Her brown, curly hair splayed across her pillow. "Morning, Joe," she greeted.
"Good morning, sweetheart," Joe groaned before rolling her beneath him. "We have exactly thirty minutes before Joey wakes up."
He made love to his wife. Carol threw on a shirt and panties to grab their son, Joey, from his crib. Joe climbed from bed to take a shower. He thought about Stephanie as he stroked himself, spraying the shower wall as he released. Sex with Carol was okay, but she wasn't responsive like Stephanie. Carol made him do all the work, and it became more of a chore than sexual gratification.
Joe waited one year for Cupcake to return to Trenton. When she didn't, and the family declared her dead, he started dating Carol, a nurse at St Frances. She slightly resembled Stephanie. Her hair was curly, not as tightly curled as Cupcake's hair, but enough to fool himself. Carol's blue eyes weren't as dark or expressive either. He couldn't have the woman he wanted, so he settled for Carol.
Ranger looked like a lost man, so Joe knew Ranger didn't know where Stephanie was hiding. Joe talked to Helen Plum every few weeks. She seemed too happy that Stephanie was gone. It's as though she shed a heavy burden. After the last conversation with Helen, he wondered if the woman loved her youngest daughter. He didn't have the best role model in a father, but he couldn't imagine treating his son how she did Stephanie.
"Did you even love Stephanie?" Joe asked during their bi-weekly meeting. He was having second thoughts about talking to Helen regularly.
"Of course I did. How dare you ask me that question," Helen admonished.
Joe sighed and stated, "It seems you're happier since you declared her dead."
Helen gasped. She couldn't believe Joseph would say such things. What would the neighbours think? "I buried an empty coffin, Joseph. Her death was because of those thugs at Rangeman. I know she's dead," she explained. Joe felt Helen gave up on her daughter too soon. For all he knew, Stephanie could have run away.
Shaking his head, Joe said how he felt. "I may have given up on finding her and accepted that she's dead, but I know Ranger believes she's alive. You and my mom kept pushing us together when you should have let us work out our issues. I loved Stephanie, but I was never going to marry her. She was reckless and impulsive. Her lack of thought got her into more trouble than she was worth. Living with the constant fear of losing her was killing me. Thank you for the coffee, Helen. I won't be stopping by anymore."
Helen watched Joe leave her house. She couldn't understand what she had done wrong. Even dead, Stephanie was ruining everything. Joseph married Carol Soprani a few months after they started dating. He didn't want to wait to start a family. She wished Joey Jr was her grandson.
Stephanie took a nap after lunch. She dreamed that someone grabbed her and locked her inside a coffin. No matter how hard Stephanie shoved the lid, it wouldn't open. Feeling around the cramped space, she felt the scratchy fabric around her. It took a few more minutes to realize she was naked. Her tracker watch, hairpins, jewelry and clothing, were gone. Ranger would never find her. He would get led to where her things got trashed.
The coffin got opened on a boat far away from the coast. Stephanie had no idea how long she'd been gone. She panicked when the man roughly removed her from the box. He cuffed her hands behind her back and attached shackles on her ankles. The chains were too heavy for her to defend herself. She fought back the screams as he punched and kicked every inch of her body. He used a billy stick to hit her in the head. Everything went black.
She woke up screaming from the nightmare. Something about the dream made her feel it was a memory. Louise ran into her room and hugged her. "Shh, it was just a dream, Stephanie," she consoled.
"I don't think it was a dream," Stephanie cried. "It felt like a memory. I could feel my bones breaking." Stephanie told Louise about the dream. Everything Stephanie said explained the injuries she sustained. The incident was so horrific that Stephanie's brain closed off the memories to protect her or someone she loved. Louise assumed it was the latter. When Stephanie healed from her injuries, she became the protector of the other residents. She was a loving and caring woman. Ranger was lucky to be loved by her.
"I should enter your old gunshot injuries into the system. Maybe we can find your loved ones," Louise suggested again.
"No! Please don't," Stephanie begged. Stephanie's body shook from fear. "If my nightmare is real, then it would bring the bad person here to finish the job."
"Okay," Louise replied. Stephanie relaxed after Louise agreed to keep her old injuries from the system. When Louise found her nearly dead, Barry and the doctor concentrated on getting her healthy and healed. Given the state she was in, Barry thought Stephanie should have a say in her medical reporting. The woman survived a horrible beating, and he didn't want to attract the evil man to their facility. They had other patients to protect.
Louise looked for Stephanie when dinner was ready. Stephanie wasn't in her room. She searched along the beach, but Stephanie wasn't seeking solace from the waves. "Check the exercise room," Barry suggested. "She's been spending four hours a day working out with Michelle."
Stephanie and Michelle were in the boxing ring. Michelle taught Stephanie self-defence and kickboxing. She knew Stephanie had the nightmare again because every time Stephanie relived what Michelle thought was a memory, she'd come to the gym. Michelle patiently taught the attractive woman how to defend herself. She made more progress in the past six months. Unfortunately, it coincided with the frequency of her dreams.
The scars from multiple surgeries were starting to fade on Stephanie's arms, legs and torso. She absentmindedly rubbed the discoloured skin from the hot poker Abruzzi pressed against her arm. A memory briefly popped into her mind before it disappeared. Her head felt ready to explode. Flickers of the past caused her too much pain. She walked towards the ocean after eating dinner and sat on the wet sand. Unlike the other times, she told Louise where she was going.
Michelle watched from a distance, keeping her friend in sight. "She has no clue how truly amazing she is," Michelle said when Louise joined her on the beach.
"I'm concerned her memory won't come back," Louise confessed.
"I disagree. All the memories are there but blocked from surfacing. It's a coping mechanism. When Stephanie is ready, the memories will return," Michelle explained.
"How is her short-term memory?" Louise asked. "Earlier today, Stephanie couldn't remember where she was or my name."
"Stephanie endured a traumatic event that nearly ended her life. From the head injury, it will take time for the neurological pathways to reconnect. She remembered my name," Michelle replied. "I hope she remembers everything soon. Her friends and family must be worried."
"Do you think Ranger is responsible for the injuries or the man she loves? I'm partial to thinking Stephanie loves the man," Louise wondered.
"I agree with you. Ranger is the man she loves," Michelle replied.