Last Summer(72)

Of course, she has to consider the other reason she slept with Nathan.

She fell in love.

Behind her on the marble counter sits the thumb drive. That drive has the answers, perhaps the key to everything. Yet every time she reaches for it, she hesitates. Damien’s words come back, haunting her: Are you sure you want to remember?

No, she’s not.

There’s a reason she made herself forget. Because . . .

No memories, no emotions.

A coward’s way out.

Stop being one, Ella reprimands herself. She needs to deal with this now, or else she’ll never fix what’s broken between her and Damien.

Ella pours her coffee in the sink, leaving a brown spiderweb stain on the porcelain, and grabs the thumb drive. In her office, she boots up her laptop and plugs in the drive. Two thousand eighty-two items display in the window that pops open. Folders, files, transcribed recordings, and photos. Forgotten moments, even days, from the seven months prior to her accident if she’s counting her and Damien’s time in the Maldives.

She picks through the files, opening random documents. Notes from her first interview with Nathan reveal they covered the same topics, proving Nathan hadn’t lied to her. Surprisingly, there’s a fully drafted article, similar in style and direction to the one she started the other day in Alaska. That’s comforting, and a huge help considering her deadline. But the photo she opens next is not.

Nathan stands shirtless, waist deep in water, his bare back to the camera. Her cheeks heat. She quickly closes the file and opens the next.

Nathan sits cross-legged on the ground, the front of him cast in the glow of firelight. His expression is reflective. From the look of this photo alone, Nathan hasn’t changed much between interviews. He still broods. Self-disgust still simmers just below his surface. Guilt has him living a solitary existence.

Ella risks clicking open several more photos, none of which are incriminating or make her too uneasy about her relationship with Nathan. Though she’s overcome with the same feelings she had while looking at the photos of her pregnant self after her accident. The pictures don’t feel like they belong to her.

Ella clicks through the files on Amira Silvers, the celebrity she interviewed last August. She doesn’t remember the interview, but Amira was the one who referred Ella to Dr. Irwin Whitely. Again, another draft article that wasn’t forwarded to Rebecca, along with eight recordings. Notes suggest Rebecca killed the article. The magazine didn’t have the space that month. But before the cancellation, the interview had been conducted over the course of three hours in a single day. Eight recordings tell her there were plenty of stops and starts during their discussion. What did they talk about off the record?

Ella closes out the Silvers folder and opens the Irwin Whitely folder, also on this thumb drive. It is extensive. She opens the first document and starts reading. Several hours into her search she comes across a brief mention of a code to unblock memories, a trace that the mind follows to retrieve a specific memory or idea, even a miniscule fact that’s been stored.

Ella pushes back from her desk with a whoop of relief. There it is. Now all she has to do is find the file with her code.

Several hours later, when Ella is deep into her notes, her phone vibrates on her desk. Ella jerks, startled. Davie’s face glows on the screen. She snatches up her phone.

“The opening is in an hour. Are you coming or not?” Davie asks after Ella apologizes for not getting back to her earlier.

Ella looks at the time. Six o’clock p.m. She hasn’t showered, and her stomach has decided it’s no longer feeling sorry for itself. It growls. She glances back at the laptop. There are plenty more files to pick through, at least two months’ worth, and she still has an article to finish tonight. But she also needs some air.

“I’ll be a little late, but yes, I’ll be there.”

“Fantastic. See you then.”





CHAPTER 31

Located directly on the Embarcadero Promenade and under the Bay Bridge, the Pier 24 Photography gallery has beautiful views of the bay. But viewing photographs is not Ella’s idea of a great evening out, especially in her current frame of mind. She finds the showing, a retrospective of California architecture, from the adobe shacks built by the missionaries to the Spanish Colonial Revival bungalows and Eichler tract homes of suburbia, seriously boring. And two champagnes and a handful of passed hors d’oeuvres later, Ella is ready to leave. She sets down her glass and looks for the ladies’ room. After a quick pee and fresh lipstick application, she’s going to call an Uber. But she spots Davie waving at her, the gorgeous photographer, her client, at her side.

Davie weaves through the crowd, making her way over to Ella. Davie looks stunning, as always, in a shimmering navy-blue tunic and gold lamé Roman sandals. Ella feels like a fraud in her jade-green wrap and nude heels. But she’s smart enough to blame that feeling on her current mood. She’s depressed and rejected. Guilty on all counts.

She should have stayed home. Nathan’s article is due to Rebecca tomorrow. She’d promised her it would be first thing, but as long as she sends it by midnight, she’s still within her deadline. Though it’s probably a good thing she isn’t working on it right now. Exhausted and snippy, who knows what she’d write?

Stifling a yawn behind a hand, Ella quickly pastes on a smile and takes the hand the photographer, Flynn Hershberger, offers. His jet-black, glossy curls meet at the top of his black mock turtleneck and Ella can’t help smirking. He looks like a young Steve Jobs. Flynn envelops Ella’s hand with both of his. “Our exquisite friend Davie tells me you write for Luxe Avenue.” His eyes flash. “I can’t wait to read what you think of my work.”