Have You Seen Me?(21)

“See you Tuesday at the studio,” I tell her, opening the door. “And thanks again for the goodies.”

“You’re welcome. Feel better.”

As soon as I ease the door shut, it seems as if this weird tension has been siphoned from the space along with her.

“Feel better?” Hugh says when I join him at the island. He’s unloading his purchases onto the counter.

“Yes, much,” I say, sliding onto one of the barstools.

“Glad to hear that, of course, but what I meant was why was Sasha saying that? You didn’t tell her what happened, did you?”

“God, no. But I had to explain being out of touch for a couple of days, so I said I’d been sick. Have you met her someplace?”

“No—at least not that I have any memory of. It almost seemed she was trying to be provocative.”

“Yeah, well, I’m beginning to sense that’s her MO.”

I notice his attention suddenly snagged by the bouquet on the table.

“What was she doing here, anyway?” he asks. “I thought you were going to take it easy today.”

“She was desperate to review some research with me before next week and basically invited herself over.”

“That’s annoying.” He glances down at the food on the counter. “I’m going to set all this up, but give me a minute to change, will you?”

“Sure. What can I do?”

“Nothing, just relax.”

But as soon as he heads down the hall to the bedroom, I call the front desk at WorkSpace. Carson’s shift must be ending around now, and I’m relieved when he picks up. I identify myself and ask if he remembers talking to me on Tuesday about my lost phone.

“Yes, did you find it?” he says.

“Unfortunately, not. Can I ask you a couple of questions, though? I was ill at the time and kind of discombobulated when we spoke.”

“I figured. You sounded pretty frazzled.”

Because I was beginning to separate from who I was?

“By any chance, do you remember the time of the call?”

“Uh, it must have been after lunch. Maybe around three, three-thirty?”

“And did I say where I was calling from?”

“No, but it sounded like you were on the street. You said you’d lost your phone somewhere and borrowed a stranger’s to make the call.”

“Right, right, a passerby was nice enough to loan me theirs,” I say, winging it. “I wish I had the number so I could send a thank-you text.”

“Unfortunately, I can’t help you with that. It would be tough to go back through caller ID.”

Damn it, I think. “Understood.”

“Anything else I can be of assistance with?”

He sounds eager to be done, but I can’t let him go yet.

“Nothing specific, no. I . . . I just hope I wasn’t a bother. I didn’t go on and on about what was wrong, did I?”

“No, you were fine. And no worries, we’ve all been there. Did you figure out the deal with the doctor?”

My heart jerks.

“Doctor? I told you I needed one?”

“It sounded like you had an appointment with someone, but you weren’t sure of the exact time—I guess because you’d lost your phone. You were hoping Nicole would know, but she wasn’t here. I think you mentioned a Dr. Early or something.”

“Right, right,” I say.

Okay, I’ve got another piece of the puzzle. It seems as if I was especially eager, maybe even desperate, to meet with Erling, but due to whatever mental distress I was experiencing, I must have lost track of when my next appointment was, even though Dr. Erling said she talked to me at nine that day. As I’m processing this detail, Carson is interrupted by someone with a question, and I realize I need to let him go. I thank him for his help and sign off.

Just as I set the phone down, Hugh saunters back into the great room, dressed in jeans and his heather green V-neck sweater. After shoving up the sleeves, he pops the plastic lid off the rotisserie chicken, whose juicy, herby scent, usually so inviting, turns my stomach.

“Something up?” he asks, grabbing a pair of poultry scissors.

“Sort of. That was Carson, one of the managers at WorkSpace, and he’s just filled me in about one detail from Tuesday.”

“Really?”

“I apparently called the front desk that afternoon, sounding frazzled. I told him I’d lost my phone and had borrowed one from a stranger. I must have used it to look up the main number at WorkSpace before calling there.”

“Wow,” Hugh says, pausing. “What about your purse? Was that missing then, too?”

“Doesn’t sound like it.”

“So you may have ended up separated from your purse and phone at two different times.”

“Right. And there’s something else.”

Hugh’s started to carve the chicken, but he pauses again, the scissors in midair. “Tell me.”

“According to Carson, I was trying to contact Nicole to see if I’d mentioned the time of my appointment with Erling.”

“So you were already having memory issues?”

“Or I was just really desperate to see her and didn’t have my phone to double-check my schedule.”