Jeff heard Tate move and held up his hand. If Toni was going to remember, it would be on her own. Without prompting or being pushed into it. Kind of like the way Tate wasn’t handing over information she wouldn’t otherwise know—information he’d gotten from the police.
Nothing good could come of forcing her mind to recall what she’d forgotten. Like some kind of shock tactic. He’d been doing research, mostly while she rested, and there was little data on amnesia. But what was known was that the mind had to heal itself. In time, it either would all return, it would partially come back, or not at all. There was nothing any of them could do except ensure there wouldn’t be permanent damage by pushing her too far too fast.
Now that he knew she’d been here and she was remembering something, he would see to it that nothing would interrupt that.
He knew what Tate was doing. Jeff had seen it plain on his face. The private investigator wanted answers, probably so he could give the information to the cops—or whoever had since hired him. Of course he’d turned this into a case he could get paid for. Jeff should’ve figured that would happen.
Maybe he was just being overly cynical, but this was Toni they were dealing with. As the one who’d found her, he felt a responsibility for her wellbeing.
In a life characterized by honor that had grown stale in recent months, this was a chance to do the right thing again.
Tate whispered, “She was here.”
Jeff ignored that completely obvious statement and continued to wait for Toni. After a few minutes, he shifted close to her. It almost felt like it was just the two of them in the room—maybe in the whole world. “Toni.” He spoke gently and tried not to surprise her. She needed to be coaxed.
Her dark lashes fanned against the top of her cheeks. He thought the way she would fit under his shoulder might be just about perfect—like the rest of her.
He touched her shoulder.
She blinked and opened her eyes, then gave a tiny shake of her head. He saw the disappointment wash over her. “It’s gone. It was just a flash, and now it’s gone.”
“It’s okay.” He heard Tate shift behind him and looked back to get a read on where the guy was at.
After a quick assessment, he figured Tate felt the need to push this and see where it went.
He put his hand out as a signal to Tate that he needed to keep quiet. “It’s not something you can force. If your mind wants to remember, it will. Forcing it can do permanent damage.”
Toni sighed and started to wander around the room.
While she did that, Tate shifted closer to him. “I’m not trying to give her brain damage, bro. I’m just trying to find out what happened to a missing woman.”
“The only one I care about is this—” He pointed at Toni. “—missing woman.”
“And if she did something to Kristine Simmons?”
Jeff shrugged. “We don’t know that.” Yet. “Different bridge to cross. This one is about getting her to remember.”
“She said blood.”
As if that was definitive. “Could’ve been hers, or someone else’s. Doesn’t mean anything happened to Kristine. She probably shacked up with a boyfriend for the weekend and didn’t tell anyone.”
“The husband reports her missing, and he has no idea she’s seeing someone else?”
Jeff shrugged. “We have too many questions and not enough answers. There’s no point surmising what happened.” Except that it was precisely what he’d just done a second ago. “It’s up to Toni, or the police, to discover what happened.”
If a woman was dead, where was her body?
If Toni was responsible, who was that man at the lake trying to kill her?
“Did you get an ID back on that license plate?”
“No.” And Tate sounded particularly disappointed about that. “I should be able to get something first thing in the morning.”
Until then, they still had no idea who’d tried to hurt Toni. Who’d chased him through the woods and shot him.
Jeff scratched at his jaw.
“Jeff!”
He strode to where she was, tucked in the back corner of lockers. Facing the front of one, her fingers tracing the face of a locker where it had been dented.
“Do the police know about this?”
“They went through the whole place,” Tate said. “I can’t imagine they’d have missed it, but I’ll double check.” He pulled out his phone and stepped away.
Jeff said, “Did you find this, or did you remember it?”
She frowned, her face paler than before in a way that worried him. The fear had overwhelmed her again. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
“Hey.” He touched her shoulder again, even though he knew there was literally nothing that would make her feel better right now. There were no words he could say to help her.
“I don’t want him to turn me over to the police.”
“That’s not going to happen.” Never mind that the cops didn’t need to waste their time asking questions she had no answers to. What was the point interrogating someone with amnesia? “If you remember something, tell me. We’ll deal with whatever happens. You don’t need to worry about Tate because you’ve got me.” He kept his voice low enough Tate wouldn’t hear over his own conversation.
“I remembered the blood.” Her voice quavered as she spoke. “Being here seems familiar, and I know where everything is.”
“You work out here?”
“It’s like I remember the place as empty, not full of customers working out.”
“Maybe you come at odd hours, so you can be here when there aren’t many others.”
She worked her mouth around. “I’m not sure.”
Toni moved away, leaving him standing there feeling bereft.
“Come and look at this.”
He followed her around another corner where the lockers right angled. At the end was a door marked, STORAGE, which she opened. “Why is it instinctive to come in here?”
Inside were rows of shelves stocked with cleaning products, toilet paper, and paper towels. “Maybe you hid in here?”
“Or maybe I work here.”
“You think that’s it?” He waited, letting her decide which answer felt right. He was unwilling to suggest something and have her believe it to be true when it wasn’t. The cost of influencing what she thought was simply too high. Same with doing damage to her mind, which could happen if he pushed it.
The research he’d done came back to mind.
She could remember everything, some things, or nothing at all.
Toni remembered blood in this locker room, specifically the showers. She remembered the storage room of cleaning supplies, but that could have been from cleaning up. Had she disposed of evidence after an accident, or a crime of some kind?
It had occurred to him that she might be the perpetrator. Tate may very well be correct. However, she might’ve also been a victim, running from that man at the lake. Things in life weren’t usually so black and white.
And if she remembered nothing? Maybe they would never know.
“Toni?”
She shrugged, finally acknowledging his question. “I have no idea. But I can smell blood in the showers, and everything in me wants to run as fast and as far as I can. Get out, get away. Flee.”
“Being here makes you feel scared?”
Sweat pricked on her hairline. She couldn’t seem to keep her feet still or her hands from wringing together.
“Okay.” He took one of her hands with his and led her to the hall where Tate stood talking on his phone. Too far away for Jeff to hear what he was saying.
“Is he telling the police?”
Jeff tugged her close to him so they could talk quietly. “I’m not letting the cops cart you off to an interrogation room to answer a bunch of questions you have no idea how to respond to. That would be a waste of everyone’s time.”
“We should just go. I don’t want to be here if they’re going to show up.”
Jeff glanced aside to see where Tate was, to try and get a read on things before they just took off. Tate knew how to find him. Would a man he called friend, someone he trusted to know the location of his home, betray that trust and bring the cops up to the cabin?
“If we have to go, we’ll go. No hesitation.” He squeezed her hand. “I just want to make sure it’s our only option. Yes, Tate’s wife is a police detective. But he’s someone I trust with my life every day. I’m not going to believe he’ll betray you, or me, until he proves he has.”
His life was a risk. But that didn’t mean Jeff was about to leave himself or Toni vulnerable. Despite his suspicions about Tate, he had to remember the private investigator had been a trusted friend for two years.
If they left, they would have to bug out to his secondary location. He hadn’t been there in a while, and it was tough to hike in, but it was also the most secure place he could be in the world.
Jeff wasn’t sure what would happen. Either way, they had options.
Tate came over. “I’ve advised Savannah that what I have aligns with her theory that foul play may have been involved with Kristine Simmons’s disappearance. She’s not happy that I want a day or two to look into it, but I’m hoping we won’t need more time than that.”
“Do you think she’ll show up and demand to know what you know?” The minute he asked the question, Jeff knew Toni had likely wondered the same thing.
“That’s why we settled on a day or two, but she’ll be hounding me the entire time.” He turned to Toni with a soft expression on his face. “She’s a Pitbull.”
Toni chuckled, though Jeff wasn’t sure that was a positive thing. He’d never met Savannah, but figured Toni wasn’t anything like her. “Thank you for helping. I’m sorry I can’t remember what happened to this woman.”
Jeff shook his head. “There’s no need to apologize. It’s not your fault you don’t remember.”
Toni grasped a handful of his T-shirt, as though for support. Or solidarity. It occurred to him she had taken up his vulnerable side. She’d chosen—maybe not even realizing it—to stand on his left, where he had no defense. Allowing him to use his right arm if it came down to it, and not boxed in by her on the other side.
She was power and vulnerability all wrapped up in one package. The kind of woman who needed to experience life, and the world. Not the kind who would choose an anonymous existence in the woods. With him.
Nor would he ever ask her to stay beyond getting her memory back. Right now, she needed his support and protection. Eventually she would find her wings and fly away, leaving him with his honor and his choice to safeguard people that mattered. He would always be alone because that was how things needed to be.
He didn’t want her to make the choice that was right for him. He wanted her to be able to live her life.
“I think I work here.” Toni said, “Is there a way to find out?”
Tate nodded. “We can check the office computer. See if we can get an employee roster.” But he didn’t go anywhere. He took a step toward Toni, closing her in between the two of them. An aggressive move that didn’t sit well with Jeff.
He was about to say something about it when Tate said, “Maybe you should take another look in the showers, see if you can jog anything else loose.”
Jeff started to object. “Tate—”
She let go of his T-shirt and lifted her chin. “Maybe you should back off.”
The other man ignored him. “You were here. You saw what happened.” He took a step closer, into Toni’s space. “I think you killed her. Blood everywhere, then you cleaned the whole place spotless and dumped the body where no one will find her. Because you’re the murderer.”
Toni’s whole body stiffened.
“That’s why no one is looking for you. They’re only looking for the woman you killed.”
Jeff braced. Toni’s eyes rolled back in her head, and she started to fall. He spun and caught her with his arm.
She’d passed out.