Prologue

 

 

Sixteen years before

Boston, MA

 

Becca stared through the window of the hospital room at the woman who’d been her rock all of her life and couldn’t quite get her brain to comprehend what was happening. “I don’t understand.”

Her father’s hands were shaking slightly as he put them on her shoulders. “I’m sure you understand far better than anyone else your age could. Sweetie, your mom is sick. Have you noticed how she’s been forgetting things? Right before you went to camp there was that day when she couldn’t find her keys. She was panicked, remember? You found them in the freezer. Disturbance in cognitive ability is one of the signs of the disease your mom has.”

Her mom had laughed it off. She’d also laughed off the incident when she’d completely forgotten where the library was. She’d winked Becca’s way and said she needed more caffeine.

Now that she looked back, she could see a hundred small signs.

She hadn’t read anything about degenerative mental diseases. She’d spent her summer studying emerging viruses with students five years older than she was. Most of them completely ignored her. Some of the girls were nice though. None of them could really be considered friends.

She wanted her mother’s arms around her. How could this be happening? Tears threatened.

Her father looked down at her and he stopped. “Becca, I’m sorry. I’m not handling this well.” He seemed to get choked up for a moment. “I…I don’t know if I should be honest with you or protect you for as long as I can.”

At least he was feeling something. “Is that why you didn’t tell me?”

A woman with dark hair walked up, her eyes wide. Melissa. She’d been with the department for as long as Becca could remember. Melissa babysat when her parents would go out on dates. Her mom would get all dressed up and she would be smiling and happy and her father would promise he wouldn’t even look at his phone. Melissa would watch Disney movies with her and tell her to not do her homework for five freaking minutes.

“You told her here?” Melissa hissed the question. “We talked about this, Leland.”

Her father flushed and moved them toward the on-call room. “She came on her own. I didn’t expect her home until tomorrow. She was supposed to go to her grandmother’s for the night but she showed up here.”

“I took the subway.” She hadn’t wanted to go to her grandmother’s. She’d been away all summer and she’d wanted to see her mom. It had been easy to change her flight to an earlier one because she’d had cash and a sob story and sounded far older than her years. She’d discovered as long as she talked the talk, most people were ready to believe she was at least sixteen. So much of life, she’d learned, was about walking in like she owned the place.

Her mother had taught her that. Her college professor momma had told her nothing could hold her back.

If you get to the end of the road, my love, build a new one. It will be hard and many people will try to block you, but you build it so the women who come after you have an easier time. I built part of that road and it will be your time to add to it soon. If we all do it, if we’re brave enough, we can build one to take us all the way home.

How could she be in a hospital bed?

Melissa frowned at her dad. “Still, you don’t tell her like that.” She looked back to Becca. “First off, what you did was insanely dangerous. I know you’re crazy smart for your age, but you can’t do that. Anything could have happened to you.”

It seemed like something horrible had happened and it had nothing to do with the fact that she’d managed to navigate the public transit system. It was easy. There was a map and everything. All she’d had to do was buy a ticket and she’d gotten home. When she’d realized no one was there, she’d walked to the hospital her dad worked at. It was only four blocks away and after having spent an entire summer locked in a classroom, it had felt good to be in the sunshine for a while.

Now she wished she was still outside, still in that moment before she realized how everything was crashing around her.

Her father had practically gone white. “God, I hadn’t even thought about that.”

“She’s not an adult, Leland,” Melissa said, though not unkindly. “I know it’s easy to forget because of how smart she is, but to the world outside she’s a kid, and that big brain of hers won’t protect her. And you can’t protect her from this, but you could have eased the blow.”

She tapped on the on-call room door before entering and leaving them out in the hallway. The door closed behind her and she was alone with her father again.

Her dad looked hollow. “I didn’t mean to tell you like this. I wanted you to have fun this summer.”

He knew her well. Most parents wouldn’t think sending her to a university summer camp to learn about emerging viruses would be fun, but her dad got her. So did her mom. They supported her. They gave her what she needed. “How long have you known?”

His steel gray eyes met hers and she could see the guilt there. “Five years. When she first started to show cognitive decline, I ran a DNA test. She tested positive for the markers and we knew her diagnosis. Melissa has been helping us out at home.”

The door came open again and a bleary-eyed intern stumbled out, pulling on his shirt. “But my pager didn’t go off.”

Melissa wasn’t taking no for an answer. “You’re needed in the ER. Better run, buddy.” She reached out and took Becca’s hand. “Come in here. We don’t need an audience.”

The door closed and the three of them were alone.

His eyes were steady as he looked down at her. “I didn’t want to interrupt your studies. Neither did your mother. Rebecca, this shouldn’t derail you. God, how can it not derail you? It’s derailing me. I love your mom. I love you, baby. I don’t know how to say it. I want to tell you that she’s sick and she’s going to get better.”

“But you can’t. She’s got Alzheimer’s. She’s young for it.” She might not have spent much time studying neurological conditions, but she knew this one. She knew the name of the disease that would kill her mother.

“It’s early onset,” Melissa agreed. “Only about five percent of patients get it this early. Your mom asked me to get some books for you to read. And there are a couple of classes you can take.”

She would feel better with a book in her hand. Things might make sense if she could understand what was happening in her mom’s head.

Becca went back over the last few years. How could she have missed it? Melissa would come over and stay the night sometimes when her father was on call. She would explain that she didn’t have anything better to do, and wasn’t it fun to have girl time?

She’d been making sure her mom didn’t hurt herself.

“Why is she in the hospital?” It was obvious they’d done a lot to keep this quiet.

“She took a hard fall down the stairs,” her father explained. “I think she forgot what she was doing and missed a step. They have to replace her hip. The disease has progressed to the dementia stage. It’s not bad yet, but I don’t know what to do. She’ll have to be in assisted living while she’s recovering.”

Bile threatened to boil over, the taste sickening in her throat. “You want to put her in a nursing home? I’ll take care of her. I’ll come home and do it. I’ve had enough training. What I don’t know, I can learn.”

She was a prodigy, after all. Oh, her father didn’t use that word around her. He claimed it wasn’t technically what she was. A genius-level IQ didn’t necessarily mean a prodigy. A prodigy was one who excelled in a certain area. Medicine wasn’t normally one of those areas, but she knew she could do it. She could certainly take care of her mother.

Her father once told her she was like a superhero, that she could be Super Doc if she tried hard enough. Saving lives in a single bound. She had no idea what a single bound had to do with anything, but her dad had been so happy as he’d said it, she’d pretended to understand his aged pop culture references.

He shook his head. “Absolutely not. You’re scheduled for a second summer session. You’ll be studying neurology. I thought that was apropos, and perhaps maybe it will help you understand what your mother is going through. You leave in two days.”

“No.” She couldn’t leave.

His jaw clenched. “I’m going to bring your mother home as soon as I can, but you shouldn’t see her like that.”

“She’s my mom. I love her. I should see her every way I can.” She stood up to him. They rarely fought, almost never because her father was a softy, but this was one fight she couldn’t lose. “I’ll take the classes here, but I’m staying home. I can help.”

Melissa was suddenly beside her. “And I’m taking a sabbatical.”

“We talked about this,” her dad began.

“Yes, we did. Sonja and I talked about this,” she admitted. “She doesn’t want me to give up my life, but taking care of people is my life. Now I have the chance to take care of one of the finest women I’ve ever met. Do you know the strength she’s given me? She got me through my divorce. She helped me walk away from an abusive bastard and find my strength. Now I’m going to give some of it back to her.”

Tears rolled down Becca’s cheeks and she took Melissa’s hand. “Me, too. If you send me away, I’ll come back and I’ll be by my mom’s side. I can do everything I need to do from home. You said I could be anything I wanted to be. I want to be a doctor. I want to help people. I’m going to start with my mother because you always said the best medicine is love.”

Her dad lost it. His clipboard dropped and he hit his knees, no longer able to control his grief.

Becca moved in, wrapping her arms around him, and oddly found comfort in knowing she could help.

 

 

Thirty minutes later, Melissa guided her to the door of her mom’s room. “You sure you don’t want me to go in with you?”

“I think Dad needs you more.” He was currently in the bathroom washing his face and trying to look professional. “Convince him to bring someone else in. He’s too emotional to be on call right now.”

Melissa nodded. “I will. I’ll order dinner for the two of you and I’ll stay here and watch your mom. Pizza okay?”

Anything would taste like cardboard. “Sure. Pepperoni and mushrooms, please. And thank you. Thanks for helping me convince him to let me stay.”

“We’ll get through this.” Her voice had broken but she cleared her throat. “Don’t stay too long. She’s on a lot of pain meds.”

Becca opened the door and her mother looked up, a smile plastered on her face.

“Hello,” she said. “You’re young to be a nurse. Are you lost, honey?”

“Mom?”

A cloud crossed her mother’s pretty face. “I have a daughter. Her name is Becca but she’s only three. Are you lost? We can call someone to help find your mother.”

It was already starting. She wanted to run, but she couldn’t. This was her mom. She’d never run from anything in her life. It was time to pay her back.

“I came to sit with you for a while.” She wasn’t sure how to handle the situation. Should she remind her mother that she was Sonja Walsh? Should she go along with her mom’s memory lapses?

She would start reading tonight. For now, she would simply sit.

“That’s lovely,” her mom said with a whisper of a smile. “I’m feeling lonely. I seem to have broken something. The doctors are nice though. I miss my daughter.”

Becca reached for her hand, emotion choking her. “She misses you, too.”

“I want her to be happy.” Her mother was staring as though she could see something Becca couldn’t, but her hand clutched hers. “I want her to be so happy. I want her to choose to be happy.”

“She will,” Becca promised.

She held on to her mother as she shifted and started talking about a dance she was going to with a boy named Leland. She was excited about it because he was awfully handsome.

Becca sat and listened as her mother’s life played out in bits and pieces in her fragmented brain.

But she would never forget the promise she’d made. Never forget what she owed her mother.

A happy life.

 

* * * *

 

Fourteen years later

London, England

 

The dark-haired man stared down at him. “Owen? Owen, do you remember anything?”

He remembered that his whole body ached. His head was foggy with the drugs they’d given him. Good drugs. He knew that much. The drugs held back the agony of having his skin flayed open. They’d bandaged him up and his skin was healing, but it still felt like he’d been set on fire from the inside. “I don’t…where am I?”

He wasn’t going to ask the real question. Who am I? He was fairly certain that he didn’t want to know. Anyone who felt this much pain had to be cursed.

He couldn’t remember anything. He knew he was in a hospital, knew that the woman who’d come in wearing a white coat had been a doctor, was certain the thing in his arm was an IV.

Why couldn’t he remember his bloody name? He was supposed to have a name, right? The black-haired man had said a word. Owen. Was that a name?

“We’ve taken you back to London,” the black-haired man said. He had some kind of an accent. It was heavy, though his English was perfect. Yes, the man was speaking English, but his accent was Russian.

Panic welled because a lot of things were coming back to him. He could describe the world around him, understood what to call the body parts that ached despite the drugs, but his name, who he was, eluded him.

“Am I from London?” The man had used the word back. Did that mean he lived here?

A deep frown creased the man’s face. “You’re originally from Edinburgh, but you’ve lived in London for years. You work for a company called McKay-Taggart and Knight.”

“He doesn’t remember?” a new voice asked.

“Ian, I think it would be best if you give his team time to figure out what’s going on with him.”

He turned and two large blond men were standing close to the door. One was slightly smaller than the other, but they were both extremely large and muscular. Military men. Or something like it.

The black-haired man put his body between the hospital bed and the men in the doorway. “Now is not the time. Theo, I know what he did to you…”

“But he doesn’t, does he?” The one named Ian came stalking in and Owen suddenly wasn’t so sure his pain was over for the day.

Pure instinct made him force his body up. Where was his gun? He carried a gun.

There was no gun here. Why did he carry a gun?

“Nick, I’m not going to murder him,” Ian said.

“No, he’s going to walk away now.” Theo put a hand on Ian’s arm. “She dosed him with the new drug, Ian. He’s not the same person he was before. I know you’re angry. I am, too. He betrayed me and Erin.”

“Dr. McDonald was holding his mother and his sister,” Nick said and Owen could hear the anger in the Russian’s voice.

Were they talking about him? He tried to get up, but his limbs wouldn’t move. What was wrong with his legs? They wouldn’t move at all.

“And he worked at a place where we fucking specialize in saving people.” The words spat out of the big guy’s mouth with the force of a machine gun. “It never occurred to him to mention that he was in trouble? His first reaction was to sentence my brother and Erin to hell?”

“They’re all he has,” Nick replied. “Had. Could you please remember that he’s suffered for what he did?”

What had he done? God, he didn’t understand a damn thing. “What are you talking about? I don’t understand. I don’t know who you are or why I’m here. If you’re going to kill me, get it the hell over with.”

There was a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. That anger had been focused on him. White-hot rage had come off the big guy in waves. The Russian had been trying to protect him. Were they friends? The man he thought was called Nick acted like they were supposed to know each other.

Someone had taken his mother and sister? His head ached as he tried to remember. A mother and a sister? He should know them. Their faces should be right there, but his mind was a blank slate.

Pain flared through his brain.

“Let it go.” Theo stood in front of him. “You’re trying to remember, and it won’t work. All you’ll do is give yourself a massive headache.”

“And the fucker deserves one,” Ian said.

Theo turned on the man named Ian. “Brother, I understand that you’re angry, but walk out right now because I’m not going to let you beat the shit out of a man who has no idea who he is or what he’s done.”

Ian’s eyes narrowed. “You’re a better man than me.”

“Everyone knows that,” Theo said, but there was a chuckle to his tone. He sobered quickly. “I know where he is. I’ve been there, and I assure you there is no revenge like what he’s going through. If I could have spared him this, I would have.”

“And I might have pushed the plunger.” Ian turned on his heels. “I’m going to go find Charlie. I suppose you’re going to make me keep him around.”

“Where else are we supposed to send him?” Nick asked. “He’s got nothing.”

“I have a mother and a sister.” They’d said so. Nick had said they were all he had in the world. Where were they? Were they coming to get him? He couldn’t remember his mother’s face or her name, but a mum took care of her children. A sister would show him kindness. If they were here, maybe they would help him remember what had gone so wrong with his life. “Where are they?”

The room seemed to go completely still, as if the air itself wasn’t moving.

“You said I had a mother and a sister.” He looked to the friendliest guy in the room. The big Russian had a grim look on his face. “Are they here?”

He hesitated. “Owen, I…”

Ian’s jaw squared as though he’d made a decision and he took over. “Your name is Owen Shaw. You work for me and a man named Damon Knight. You are former SAS and for the last several years have served as an operative on many intelligence missions. Nikolai Markovic was your partner. We’ve been working on a case where we were attempting to track down a rogue doctor. Her name was Hope McDonald and she was performing memory experiments on men she then turned into her own personal army. A few days ago, your mother and sister were kidnapped by the doctor in an attempt to get you to turn over my brother, Theo.”

His head hurt worse than ever. “Why would she want him?”

“He was her favorite subject,” Ian continued in his matter-of-fact way. Owen found he preferred it to Nick’s sympathetic hesitancy. “You turned over my brother and his fiancée, a woman named Erin Argent.”

“I betrayed my team?” Even in the fog of pain and panic he was in, he knew that wasn’t a good thing.

“You did,” Ian explained without an ounce of emotion.

“He had his reasons,” Theo argued.

“And Dr. McDonald killed your relatives anyway. She murdered them and dosed you with the same memory-wipe drugs she used on my brother. You had an allergic reaction and the doctors weren’t sure you would pull through. It’ll be a miracle if you come out of this only losing your memory.” Ian’s eyes softened marginally. “I’m sorry. Everyone will say I’m an ass but there’s no other way to tell you. She very likely killed them before she even figured out that you refused to turn over my nephew.”

There had been a kid involved? He felt his head shaking. None of this made a lick of sense. “Why should I believe you? You might have been the person who did this to me. Why can’t I feel my bloody legs?”

“I’ll update Damon,” Ian said with a sigh. “You’re right. He’s a moron, not evil, and I’m still too pissed to make decisions. I’ll let them know you’ll be coming back to The Garden. Keep me updated.”

Theo looked down at him. “I know how scared you are and how angry and confused. I’ll explain everything and Nick here can tell you about your life before today.”

Nick sank down into the chair beside his bed. “I’m your friend, Owen. I’m here for you.”

Theo started to talk, but the words didn’t make sense. Owen closed his eyes and let the desolation wash over him.

He had no family, no home, no past.

No matter what they said, he was alone.