Burying Water (Burying Water #1)(95)

“You ready? I’ll even do it for half off,” Ivy jokes, flicking the needle on and letting it buzz before shutting it off again. She dresses my shoulder with gauze—upon which, of course, Amber interjects, telling her that she’s doing it wrong.

Leading us into the front foyer, Ivy reaches over the desk to grab a sheet. “Okay, here are the instructions. Make sure you—”

“I’m sure it’s pretty straightforward.” Amber snatches it from her grasp.

Ivy’s flat stare makes me want to laugh. “You can call here if you have any questions.” She points to the card that she has stapled to the top of the bill. “And if you want me to do any more, just call ahead and ask for me specifically. I can give you an appointment.”

“You stealing my client again?” a booming voice echoes.

“Shut up, Beans. She’s new here.”

Beans? Like the vegetable? I turn to see a guy in his mid-twenties with a long goatee and a shaved head.

“Is that what you told her?” he says, his eyes on me. “I remember you.”

“No . . . Not likely.” I shake my head. There’s no way.

Is there?

“That’s what he says to all the pretty girls,” Ivy warns.

“No. I remember you. You came in a few months back—in the winter, I think—and I did your tattoo. But . . .” His head dips to the side and he frowns. “You didn’t have that scar back then.”

I glance at Amber, feeling my eyes widen. Is this really happening?

“Prove it. What’s the tattoo?” Amber tests.

“A round symbol, on your pelvis.”

“Water.” It’s barely audible as it escapes from my mouth.

“Yeah.”

My blood doesn’t know whether to drain from my face or race through my limbs, and so I end up feeling both faint and hot. If I was really here, then. . . . “Did you photocopy my license that time, too?”

His mouth curves into a frown. “Yeah. We always do.”

There’s a paper in this shop with the old me on it.

I lunge for him, grabbing on to his arm. “Can you please find it? I need that photocopy.”

“What for?”

“Just, please . . .” I beg, tears springing to my eyes.

His eyes shift to Ivy. “It’ll take me awhile.”

“If you want, I can have my dad, the sheriff, here in fifteen minutes to help you do it,” Amber says, holding up her phone. “Of course, he’ll probably close you down for the rest of the day. Maybe tomorrow, too.”

Beans doesn’t look happy, but he holds up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

I trail him as he rounds the desk and, using a key hanging from a chain affixed to his pants, he opens the filing cabinet. “Date? Name?”

“Just look for my face.”

He stares at me for a long, hard moment before simply nodding to himself. His fingers begin rifling through the pages and I’m temporarily distracted by the letters tattooed on his hand.

Beans = knuckles.

Oh my God.

It was a clue. Dr.Weimer’s exercise wasn’t pointless after all.

“Are you okay?” Ivy asks, stepping in to take my elbow as my knees wobble.

I can’t manage more than a nod in return.

It takes only five minutes to find my past, fit neatly on an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven-inch sheet of paper.

“You were here in November,” Beans says, holding up the paper in the air.

I feel Amber’s hand settle on my back as I reach for it, my own hand trembling as I look at the black-and-white face staring back at me.

“Alexandria Petrova,” I read out loud, swallowing against the rising nausea that threatens as I hear myself say it for the first time.

I know that name.

It’s there, inside my head. I can feel it—my real name—trying to break free of its shackles.

I scan the rest of the information. “I’m twenty-two. I lived in Portland. There’s an address. Right here. This is where I lived,” I choke out. I could drive there. I could go right now and find . . . what? “Why can’t I remember any of this?”

The truth is right here. Am I not supposed to have some great epiphany now? Should this not trigger something? Why is my brain still denying me?

Somewhere in my haze, I hear Amber ask, “Do you remember if she came in with anyone?” I’ve forgotten that Beans and Ivy are even in the room.

“Uh . . . yeah. That’s the license plate number, written on the bottom. I took it down because you were pretty banged up when you came in. You said he didn’t do it, but I wasn’t sure.”

My eyes snap to Beans. “He? Who was I with?”

“Uh . . . the guy driving the car.”

“Can you be a little more specific?” Amber demands, at the same time that Ivy smacks him in the arm and mutters, “Come on.” She’s obviously picked up on the fact that something here is very wrong. “What did he look like?” Amber presses.

“He looked like a guy! Hell, I don’t remember. You two left in in a black car. Old-school muscle car, you know?”

My hands go for my throat, which is starting to close up.

No, it can’t be.

“A Barracuda?” I manage to get out in a hoarse whisper.