Abandoned in Death (In Death, #54)(34)

“So I should start looking for a building—a house, a warehouse, garage—something secure enough he could keep prisoners. Which is what they are.”

“Owns or rents—single individual, most likely male. It’s a big area and, hell, it may not be owned or rented in his name, but it’s somewhere to look.”

“So I will.”

“Could be a workplace, if he runs it, and it has a private, secured area. It’s a big area,” she said again.

“Then I’ll get started.”

She dealt with the dishes, and it gave her time to clear her head, align her thoughts. After programming coffee, she sat at her command center to send some of those thoughts, some questions to Mira. She sent memos to Peabody, to Harvo.

Then she called up a map on her wall screen, and highlighted each point.

Elder’s apartment, her workplace, the playground. Hobe’s apartment and workplace.

He has a territory, she thought again, and her own territory fell into it. Where she once lived, where her friends now lived. Where she worked.

Did he pass by her old apartment building or walk past Cop Central? Maybe he got takeout from the same places she had once upon a time.

Or, she admitted, lived or worked just far enough away he had his own little spots.

Bits and pieces, that’s all she had. So she gathered them together and worked to make them fit.

The mother, she thought again. It was all about the mother.

The mother was the key.





BEFORE


Joe took care of her in the big old house his paternal grandparents had left him when they’d died—died together as they’d lived together for sixty-eight years. His parents had resented that, of course, though they’d had no love for the place. As they’d resented him for using the family money for his education, then settling for work in the ER instead of a more prestigious private practice.

She’d begged him not to take her to a hospital, not to call the police. He’d agreed primarily because besides dehydration, exhaustion, exposure, infected insect bites, her injuries were minor. He had the means and skills to treat her at home.

And he agreed because she’d seemed so desperate and fragile.

She didn’t remember her name, or anything else. She had no identification or belongings other than the clothes on her back.

She knew she’d walked a long way, but couldn’t tell him how long, or from what direction. When she’d hydrated, when she’d eaten the soup he heated for her, she seemed strong enough to shower—as she’d asked.

Still, he stayed right outside the bathroom door.

He put fresh sheets on the bed in the guest room, gave her one of his T-shirts to wear.

He treated the bites—the poor woman was covered with them. Treated the broken blisters on her feet. He gave her an antibiotic, and kept watch in case she had an allergic reaction.

She slept twelve hours and woke disoriented and a little feverish.

Citing a family emergency, he took off work for five days.

While she ate, slept, healed, he studied dissociative amnesia. When he thought her stable enough physically, he tried basic talk therapy, cognitive therapy, guided her through meditation techniques.

But none of his gentle prodding brought back any memory. She had no name, no past, no possessions. And seemed, as his studies had suggested was often common with her sort of memory loss, content not to remember.

“I don’t care,” she told him.

She wore one of his shirts, and they sat in the sunshine in the garden he kept thinking about hiring someone to help him deal with.

“You need to know who you are. What happened to you. Where you come from. If you have family.”

“I don’t care,” she said again. “I feel like my life started when you found me, and everything before that was dark and hard and mean. I don’t want any of it, Joe. I don’t want to know if I was a terrible person or a nice one. You said there haven’t been any reports on someone like me missing or in trouble.”

“No, but—”

“If no one cares enough to look for me, why should I care enough to look for them? You cared enough.” She smiled at him, reached for his hand. “You saved me. I was so scared, so lost, so tired, so sick. So alone. And there you were.”

“Your memory could come back, anytime.”

“I don’t care.”

She shook back her short, shaggy hair and lifted her face to the sun. “You know how this feels? It feels free. It feels new.” Tipping her head back, she closed her eyes. “It feels safe and warm. Will you let me stay?” She looked back at him. “At least for a while. I could clean. I don’t know if I can cook, but I can try. I could learn. I could weed the garden and cut the grass. I know you have to go back to work, and I feel stronger every day. I could help you take care of this beautiful old house.”

“Of course you can stay until you remember or you’re just ready to go.”

She closed her eyes again, but kept the grip on his hand.

“I don’t think I ever knew anyone like you. I don’t think I could have and ever gotten so lost. You brought me back. I don’t know from what, and I don’t care, but you brought me back. Would you name me?”

“Listen, I—”

“I’d like to use a name you give me, to think of myself as that someone.” She smiled at him now, her color healthy again, the raw, red bites fading. “A name you like, and I can try to be who she is.”