The limousine pulled away from the hotel for the second time. Victoria sat very still in her seat. She watched as the scruffy little French man attempted to make himself less of a mess by adjusting the hem of his appallingly coloured T-shirt.
“Merci,” he said through panted breaths.
Victoria stared at him, wondering what to make of him.
“Qui êtes-vous?” she asked.
“My name is Samuel Durand,” he replied in thickly accented English. “I cannot believe that I saw you on the television beside Clémence and now I am talking to you.”
“Clémence?” Victoria asked. She had no idea who or what he was referring to and was becoming a little uncomfortable with the situation.
“Clémence Dubois,” Samuel answered. He held up the photo of Holly Carter.
“That is not Clémence Dubois,” Victoria said coldly.
He looked at the photo. “To us, she is. That’s the name that was given to her. She was a, what do you say? A Jane Doe?”
Victoria stared at Samuel in confusion.
“Jane Doe,” he repeated. “For someone with no name?”
She reached out her hand and took the photograph from his. She lowered it into her lap delicately and stared down at the image, afraid of the terrible reality it posed. This woman was both Holly and a stranger all at once. The confusion and the warring emotions knotted her stomach.
“Was?” she asked. “You said, ‘She was.’” A shudder struck her.
“Is, is,” he corrected quickly.
Victoria sagged against the leather of the car seat in relief. She looked down at the photo, scarcely believing what she was seeing.
“I’m a freelance journalist,” Samuel explained. “My friend works at the hospital and told me a story of an American with no memory. They called her Clémence. I went to interview her. She was brought to the hospital just under a year ago, it was six months later when I met her. She was in an accident. Her head…”
Victoria looked up to see Samuel touching the palm of his hand to the back of his head. She understood that his language skills were preventing him from explaining the details. She nodded for him to continue.
“The authorities tried to locate her family. The American embassy was involved, but nothing happened. I told Clémence that I would try to help her, but I could find nothing.” He gestured to Victoria. “And then, when I had almost given up, I saw you on the news. Some old footage showed Clémence with you—”
“Holly,” Victoria interrupted in a whisper. “Her name is Holly.”
“Holly.” He wrapped his mouth around the new name and smiled. “Holly?”
“Holly Carter.”
“Holly Carter,” he repeated. “Do you wish to see her now?”
Victoria felt icy cold shock pour down the back of her starched collar. It was incomprehensible that Holly was somehow still in France, a year after she had abandoned her job and walked away.
“We can go to the hospital now? I know her doctor will be very pleased to see you,” Samuel pressed.
“S-she…” Victoria stuttered uncharacteristically. “She’s still in the hospital, now?”
“Oui.” Samuel nodded.
Victoria felt her mouth drop open. Her gaze fell back to the photo. She distantly heard Samuel call up to the driver and provide him with the hospital’s address.
“Madame Hastings?” The driver requested her approval for the change of destination.
“Oui,” she said softly. She didn’t look up from the photo.
She felt the long vehicle lurch gently as it performed a U-turn. Her stomach did the same. The anger she had been holding onto crumbled. Guilt washed over her like a tidal wave, and she struggled to breath.
When Holly had vanished twelve months before, Victoria had felt betrayal that quickly turned to fury. The disappearing act of her second assistant had left her understaffed and embarrassed. While she wasn’t one to listen to gossip, she could hear the whispers during the catwalks and galas. She’d arrived with an attentive second assistant and left alone and humiliated.
Of course, she’d had assistants walk out on her before. She wasn’t exactly an easy person to work for. Countless names and faces blurred into one large disappointment, the people who couldn’t take the pressure, not ready for the greatness they could aspire to if they managed to survive a paltry two years of service.
Some handed in a letter of resignation, some ran crying from the building. Occasionally some vanished without a trace, only for a request for a reference to appear from a new prospective employer a few weeks later.
Holly’s disappearing act had taken Victoria by surprise. The girl had always been diligent and professional. Until the moment she vanished without a trace. Victoria had assumed that she’d pushed Holly too far during the previous year’s Fashion Week, suspected that the girl had finally snapped and left.
As the weeks and months passed, she was surprised to not hear anything. Not even a request for a reference. She supposed the girl had wisely set herself up in another state, or another country, to avoid Victoria’s wrath.
But Victoria prided herself on her professional ethics. Had a letter requesting a reference arrived on her desk, she would have provided a glowing recommendation. Holly Carter may have left her in the middle of the most important event and in the most crucial week in the fashion calendar, but she was still the best assistant that Victoria had ever had. Not that Holly knew that, of course. She’d never actually said the words. Much less hinted at them.
Now it was clear why no one had heard from Holly in the twelve months that had passed. Something terrible had happened. Maybe even the very night when Victoria was packing her own suitcase to fly back to New York, cursing Holly’s very existence as she did.
A head injury. Memory loss. Stuck in a hospital in a foreign country.
She quickly put the photograph on the seat between herself and Samuel. Turning, she looked out of the window and attempted to calm her breathing. She needed to compose herself, she wasn’t about to lose control in front of some dishevelled journalist.
She could hear Samuel speaking on his mobile phone. Her French was not entirely fluent and his animated speech was difficult to keep up with, but she could ascertain that he was speaking with someone at the hospital. When he referred to Victoria as Holly’s friend, she bit back a laugh.
The truth was, she was most likely the very last person in the world Holly would want to see.