Burying Water (Burying Water #1)(18)

I’m expecting a “thanks but no thanks.” So when she tucks her textbook back into her bag and looks up at me, her full lips stretched wide, her eyes dancing with nervous excitement, and says, “I’d really like that,” it takes me a moment to answer.

“Okay. Let me just get my keys and—”

Heavy footsteps behind me cut my words off. “Viktor is outside, waiting for you,” Miller’s sudden gruff voice calls out from behind me.

Her back stiffens. “Viktor’s here?” Immediately she’s unfolding her legs and sliding pretty feet into her heels, her wide-eyed gaze passing by me to search the hall through the windows. Reaching up, she yanks the elastic out of her ponytail, letting her hair fall down over her shoulders and back. It looks silky soft. I want to reach out and touch it.

Because that would go over well.

“I’m sorry if Jesse was bothering you,” Miller mutters, and I roll my eyes.

“He wasn’t, at all. Thank you, Mr. Miller.” Standing, she pulls her jacket on and begins smoothing her pants and adjusting her clothes. It’s becoming glaringly obvious to me that her appearance is very important around her husband. “Where is he?”

“Out front, talking to Tabbs.”

She rushes past me, her eyes sliding over mine for the briefest of seconds before she drops her gaze, heading toward the door. No “’bye,” no “thanks for the offer.” I watch her go, and see her feet falter just as her hand touches the handle. But then she lifts her head high, pushes through the door, and is gone.

I feel my body slump with disappointment.

“I don’t care if you can turn a Pinto engine into a flying spacecraft. I don’t pay you to stand around here and chat with pretty wives.”

“I was just telling her that we need to order a part for her car,” I retort, annoyed by his insinuation. I’m not after anyone’s wife.

I’m after the girl who kissed me on the side of the road one rainy night.

His chubby finger pokes the air. “I like you, Welles. But don’t grow an attitude problem.”

Great. It’s like I’m working for my father.

“Now, get back to that Enclave before I dock your pay. And stay the hell away from Alexandria Petrova.”

I toss him the keys and don’t bother to hide my dry tone when I say, “It’s done.”

His frown eases. “Already?” Shaking his head as he walks back to his office, I hear a mutter of, “Damn fast, kid.”

Alexandria.

Knowing her name makes me smile.

EIGHT

Jane Doe

now

“She sleeps like the dead.”

I crack an eyelid at the unfamiliar voice. A thin woman with short, dove-gray hair occupies the bed next to me, a square piece of fabric in hand, a glower pulling her brow down as she threads a needle through the material. There’s no one else in the room, so I assume she’s talking to herself. I really don’t care, though.

Because I finally have a roommate.

When they moved me from critical care to this ward, Dr. Alwood warned me I’d probably have to share the room. She made it sound like that would be a bad thing. I guess for most people, it might be. They’d rather have privacy while they visit with friends and family.

But for me, I’m desperate for the company. For human interaction.

I’m sick of being alone.

I’ve been here for three months. Three months. No one besides the nurses, Dr. Alwood, and occasionally Sheriff Welles comes by. Peace is a myth when I’m lying in bed all day and night¸ drowning my time with sitcoms, thinking about everything . . . and nothing. Because to think about something, you need to know something, and most days I feel like I know nothing at all.

Sure, I know how to tie shoes and how to get the television remote to work. I know how to feed myself and how to read. The hospital psychologist, Dr. Weimer, explained that there are different types of memory, and my “semantic memory”—how to do things—remains intact. It’s my “episodic” memory—events of my life—that is impaired. If by “episodic” she means my entire life, then I guess she’s right.

“What time is it?” I stretch my arms, reveling in the freedom from the uncomfortable plaster cast they removed two weeks ago.

“Did you forget how to tell time?” The woman jabs one long, wiry finger toward the clock up on the wall that reads nine thirty. There’s nothing playful in her tone.

“Right, sorry.” I know that clock is there. I’ve spent ample time staring at it. I don’t know why I asked. To keep the conversation going, perhaps.

The door pushes open and Amber walks through with a tray of small paper cups. “Hey, Jane.”

I return her warm smile, even though that name grates on my nerves. At first it was just another part of my reality, the fact that I arrived at the hospital half-dead and without identification. But somewhere along the line, it ceased to be simply a label.

I now answer to it without hesitation.

Amber rounds my neighbor’s bed. “How are you doing, Ginny?”

“I’d be better if your mother would hurry up with this surgery so I can get outta here. I don’t know what’s taking so damn long,” the woman mutters, her eyes never leaving her quilt work.

The first time I heard Amber call Dr. Alwood “Mom,” I was sure I misheard. Even though I had picked up on the similarity in their features the first day that I met them, I was too distracted to make the connection. It wasn’t until weeks later that I learned Amber was Dr. Alwood and Sheriff Welles’s second child, a twin sister to the son who stormed into my room that day.