Chapter 1:
There was a weak groan from behind her.
Dr. Amanda Greene turned away from the stove where she was pulling out a pan of lasagna and put down the potholder, crossing the kitchen to help the stumbling girl coming down the kitchen steps. "Hello," she said gently.
The girl dragged herself across the kitchen and sat down gingerly on the edge of a kitchen chair, wincing. "Owww," she moaned again.
Amanda fetched a pillow and held it out. "Stand up, dear," she said, and slid the pillow onto the chair seat. The girl sat down again with a sigh, somewhat more comfortably.
She returned to the pan, neatly cutting the lasagna into squares, then leaving it aside to cool as she checked on the garlic bread. Nodding approvingly, she closed the oven door and turned to the girl. "How do you feel?"
The girl considered. "Sore all over," she said. "What happened?"
Amanda raised an eyebrow. "I believe that was my line," she said. At the girl's puzzled look, she sat down at the table. "I found you outside by the boat landing a week ago," she said. "You were pretty badly hurt. Almost drowned in the river, I think."
The girl still looked blank. Amanda sighed. "Look," she said kindly, "I didn't take you to a hospital because I thought maybe you were running from an abusive husband. You had a lot of welts and bruises on your thighs, and I remember seeing the same marks on a woman I saw once when I was interning at the local hospital. So I didn't take you there. If you want to remain anonymous, that's fine, but I can't keep calling you 'hey you' until you leave. What's your name?"
The girl's forehead wrinkled. "I can't remember," she said finally, awkwardly.
Amanda sighed again. "Stay here," she said. She ran up the stairs to her bedroom, grabbed her black case with all her medical supplies in it, and returned to the kitchen. Amanda shone a light into her eyes, checked her ears, throat, and temperature, then went around behind the girl and parted the locks of black hair there. Four stitches closed a nasty gash on the girl's scalp. She checked for swelling, anything abnormal, then allowed the hair to fall back into place and packed up her stuff. Then she resumed her seat as the girl waited for her diagnosis.
Amanda pursed her lips. "I was expecting this, although I hoped it wouldn't happen," she said. "You have amnesia from a nasty blow to the back of your head. There was a nasty bleeding gash on the back of your head, and a hairline skull fracture. The fracture will heal; but I had to close the gash with sutures. I had to cut your hair," she said apologetically. "You had lovely long black hair. I'm sorry I had to cut it, but it was easier to take care of you with short hair."
The girl reached up and touched the ends gingerly. Amanda reflected that her body might still remember, even if her mind didn't; the girl's hand felt for a moment at the empty space where the ends would have been before reaching up to touch the ends that now hung just under her ears. "How long have I been here?" the girl asked.
"A couple of weeks," Amanda said. "Let's see…I found you on Christmas Eve, and it's now January sixth." She got up, reached into a large basket on the kitchen table, and came up with a small package wrapped in red and white paper. "Merry belated Christmas," she said. The girl looked at it, bemused, then took it and opened it. Amanda watched how she unwrapped it; instead of just ripping into it, she found the edges of the tape holding the paper wrapping and unwrapped it that way. She filed that thought away as a possible clue; this girl was neat. Then the paper was crumpled and tossed carelessly on the table, and Amanda revised her estimation; she might be neat, but not obsessively so.
The girl looked at the contents of the package. "A book?" she said.
"A book of names," she said. "I thought maybe you might have amnesia, and I figured if you did, because of the location of the fracture, it would be the short-term kind. In other words, it would affect your short-term memory. You're lucky; if the impact had been any further toward the right, it would have affected your motor skills and learning ability."
"Meaning…" the girl prodded.
"Meaning you would have forgotten how to read, write, speak, everything. You'd be a baby."
"A tabula rasa," the girl nodded. "A clean slate."
Amanda perked up. "You must have some higher learning background," she said. "How do you know Latin?"
The girl frowned, thought, then shook her head. "I don't know," she sighed. "I can't remember."
Amanda got up and took the bread out of the oven. "Let's start with something simple," she said. "You obviously still remember something. Look through the names in that book and see if any of them feel familiar to you when you say them." She put the bread down on the table. "And oh, I forgot something. When I picked you up off the riverbank you said the name 'Logan' several times. And when I was washing all the mud off you, I found a little tattoo on your hip with the same name. Can you remember anything about that name, or the person connected to that name?"
"Logan," the girl said thoughtfully, slowly, tasting the name as it rolled off her tongue. She froze. For a moment there was a feeling of happiness, but it was gone almost as fast as she'd recognized it. She shook her head. "There was something, but I can't place it," she said.
Amanda smiled gently. "Well, don't rush it," she said. "It'll come back to you. In the meantime, put that book aside and come eat."
The girl ate fast, almost inhaling her food. Amanda dumped seconds on her plate before she could resist. "Eat," she said when the girl hesitated. "You look like you haven't eaten in weeks, which is fairly accurate seeing as how you've been unconscious or fevered for most of the time you've been here."
They started eating, only to be interrupted by a clatter of toenails as a small, furry dog raced around the corner from the hall and stopped before Amanda's chair, yapping hysterically. The girl laughed and snapped her fingers, and Buster went over and sniffed her fingers. The girl lifted him into her lap, laughed as he nibbled her fingers, and kissed his head. "I always wanted a dog at home," she said absently. "But the rules said we couldn't have one."
She suddenly realized what she'd said, and she looked at Amanda disbelievingly. "Did I just say that?" she said.
"Yes you did," Amanda said. "Don't try to force yourself to remember, it seems to be coming back naturally."
The little dog yelped, and the girl laughed as he twisted around in her arms to glare at the plate. "May I?" she asked Amanda.
Amanda snapped her fingers. "Buster! Come here." The girl put the little dog down and watched as he ran over to Amanda, who obligingly gave him a tiny bit off her plate. His tail wagged happily as he licked it off her fingers.
She got up, picked up her plate, and dropped it in the sink along with the pan she'd cooked in. The girl finished eating and brought her plate to the sink, but as she picked up the dish sponge, Amanda swatted at her hand playfully. "I am not going to have my guest doing dishes," she said firmly. "If you want to do something, take Buster out for me. He's probably got to go." The little dog heard the word 'out' and was already running in circles around the back door. "His leash is over there," Amanda pointed to a hook beside the door where a red nylon leash hung, "and you can use my jacket right there next to it. My boots are right under the jacket. They're going to be a little big for you, but at least you'll have dry feet." She waved a hand at the girl. "Go on, now. He's waiting."
She thought about her guest as she finished the dishes. The girl was neat, but not obsessively; smart, certainly. There was some indication of higher learning there, and she didn't speak like someone who had little education. In fact, now that she thought about it, the girl talked much like Amanda's boyfriend did.
He was due back in a few more days; Amanda hoped he wouldn't be upset about the waif she'd taken in. Bruce Garrett could be a bit possessive of the things he thought of as his; and this house (which belonged to his parents and had been used exclusively as a vacation cottage) definitely qualified as his. It was a habit of his that irritated her; but she supposed that if you worked in as competitive a field as physics, you were bound to be a little possessive about your research.
He was out of town right now, attending a biogenetics conference in San Francisco. It wasn't exactly his field; but as he had taken credit for a paper she'd published six months earlier, he was obliged to go. Amanda hoped he would be asked a question he couldn't answer. Maybe then he'd stop taking credit for her discoveries.
She sighed as she rinsed a plate. It was her own fault her paper was pirated; when Bruce had first proposed a working partnership with him at his labs in Snow Valley, she'd jumped at the chance. After all, he had a state-of-the-art laboratory with all the most modern equipment; a far cry from the warehouse laboratory she had been working in. But she had rapidly found out that with Bruce, a 'working partnership' meant 'you do the work, I'll take the credit', and she had lately been wondering if access to the most up-to-date laboratory was worth the pirating of her work.
Bruce had come back from the last conference hopping mad; apparently he'd made the same offer to another doctor at the conference, and he'd been turned down. Amanda had silently cheered Dr. Lee; the woman was obviously smarter than she was.
She frowned as she dried her hands and hung up her dishtowel. Her guest had been out there for an awfully long time. She peered out the window, trying to see through the gathering darkness outside, but couldn't catch a glimpse of the girl. Slightly concerned, she went down the front hall to the hall closet and got another coat. Slipping her feet into her sneakers, she went out the door and closed it behind her.
The cold December air was bracing, a refreshing change from the warm air of the kitchen. Amanda took several deep breaths, coughing a little as her lungs expelled the warm kitchen air and filled with cold outside air. Then she saw the girl standing a short way down the lawn, looking at the dark water.
"Is this where you found me?" she asked as Amanda came up behind her.
"Yes," Amanda said. The girl looked up, at the gray sky and the dim misty shape of the city through the falling snow. They couldn't see much.
Buster yapped, and the girl looked down. "Oh, dear, Buster, I'm sorry," she said, picking up the snowy dog and ruffling his fur. "Come on, let's get you inside." With Amanda following, they returned to the house.
"Stay there," Amanda said when they came in. "Let me get a towel to wipe him off before he tracks snow all over the house." The girl obediently kept a tight hold on the leash as she stepped out of the boots and took off the coat. Then she knelt and held Buster still as Amanda dried the little dog off.
He ran off down the hall, yelping, and Amanda stood. "You look cold," she said. "You're welcome to take a shower upstairs in the bathroom, just be careful, the shampoo might sting the stitches a bit. There should be a robe behind the door. If you could put it on and come back to the room you woke up in, I could take a look at the wounds you have and bandage them again."
She followed the girl up the stairs, carrying her medical bag. The girl headed for the bathroom; she went to the bedroom. As she heard the water start to run, she unpacked the supplies she'd need, then headed to her room and grabbed one of her flannel nightgowns. It was too big for the smaller, younger woman, but at least she'd have something warm to sleep in. It was too bad, she reflected, that she'd thrown away the girl's clothes; maybe the sight of them would have jogged something in the girl's memory. Or not; Amanda reflected that they had been so badly shredded and stained that they were little more than rags.
She looked up as the water stopped running; it had been a short, quick shower. The girl came walking back in, carrying the clothes she had worn into the bathroom and wearing Amanda's bathrobe. Amanda took the clothes from her and put them in the laundry hamper in the corner; then patted the bed. The girl sat down.
"Lie down, dear," she said. The girl hesitated, clenching her thighs together. Amanda sighed. "There's not a lot about you I haven't seen," she said gently. "I'm a doctor; there's not a lot about the human body I haven't seen. And dear, whoever hurt you isn't here. I certainly won't hurt you. And I need to check on your wounds." The girl lay down, slowly, and opened the robe.
Amanda checked the cuts on her legs. The scabs had begun to fall away, leaving new skin on them. She would have some scars on her legs, but thankfully none of them would be big. She examined everything else before she took a deep breath and gently opened the girl's knees.
The girl took a deep breath and went white. Amanda didn't blame her. When she had first brought the girl in and had taken a real good look at her, she had been a mess there. She looked like someone had taken sandpaper and rubbed the skin off her between her legs. The girl had cried in pain at the lightest touch, and Amanda had slipped a pillow between her legs as she slept.
"I don't even want to know what I looked like when you found me," the girl said quietly, watching as Amanda slathered salve on the skin of her thighs. "Do you have any idea what could have caused those kinds of injuries?"
Amanda finished wrapping bandages around the girl's thighs before she answered. "I served my internship in a small hospital in Brooklyn. While I was there I had as a patient a woman who'd been abused by her husband. She had a lot of the same injuries you had." She was quiet for a moment. "I hope whoever this man is, this 'Logan' isn't the one who did this to you," she said. The girl looked at the tattoo on her hip, and then back up at Amanda. "Why?"
"Because you really love him," she said. "While you were unconscious you had nightmares. You kept calling for 'Logan'. I hope you find him," she said as she packed up her bag. "Now come on, slip this on and come downstairs," she said, handing her the flannel nightgown. "I'll turn on the TV and we can see if any of it seems familiar."
She turned on the TV and the girl settled in to watch, but nothing seemed to be jogging her memory. Amanda switched off the TV and turned on the radio. "See if any of this sounds familiar," she said. "Music can sometimes trigger powerful memories."
The first station she turned on was classical. The girl shook her head from the couch where she was reading the name book. "Definitely not," she said. Opera, gospel, and country soon went the same way. The next station was one that played soft rock, and the girl's ears pricked up as she heard the voice. "What's this?"
"Fields of Gold," Amanda said. "From Sting. One of the few songs of his I like."
"The voice is right," the girl said, listening intently for a few minutes. "But the kind of song is wrong." Amanda clicked the stereo button.
The next station was playing classic rock, and the girl sat up excitedly. "That's Ac/Dc," she said excitedly. "I think a friend of mine really liked this song."
Sure enough, when the song ended and the announcer came on, he said the song was from the group Ac/Dc. The girl sat back, smiling. "This is it," she said. "This is what I usually listen to." She closed her eyes as the next song started; 'Start Me Up' by the Rolling Stones, and sat up stiffly, eyes wide, as a snatch of memory came back.
Amanda saw the look and leaned forward. "What is it? Do you remember anything?"
The girl frowned. "I don't know," she said. "I think I remember a table, and a lot of people in costumes watching…I don't know," she wailed suddenly, slamming the book down on the table. "I can't stand not knowing!"
Amanda got up off her couch and went to her desk, pulling a blank notebook form the drawer. "Here," she said, handing it to the girl. "Write down what you remember. Keep a sort of a diary; later you can look at it and it might jog more memories."
She opened it and took the pen Amanda handed her. "I like classic rock," she said. "And I remember being at a costume party with lots of other people. I seem to have an attraction to someone named 'Logan'," and as she wrote there was that indefinable feeling again, gone in a flash. She set the notebook aside, and picked up the book again. Amanda picked up her book, a romance novel, and began to immerse herself in the story again when she was startled by the girl's sudden movement. "What?" she said.
"Julie," the girl said excitedly. "It feels familiar, somehow. It's not quite right…I feel like there's still something missing…but it's familiar. Julie…" she said again, rolling the name off her tongue.
"Okay," Amanda said, elated. "Let's call you Julie until we know something else, okay?"
"Okay," the girl said, picking up the notebook and scribbling the name in it. "Julie it is."