Help Me Remember (Rose Canyon, #1)(14)

My head falls forward as I sob, feeling the guilt and weight crush me.

Then Spencer is pulling me into his arms, and I sink into his hold. “I can’t remember anything. How can I see him this way and not remember? How can I be so weak and do this?”

“Brie . . . you are not weak!”

“No, I’m failing him. Him,” I yell. “Isaac, who has never let me down. He is probably why I’m alive and yet, I don’t know anything. I don’t know what happened to him. I’m the only one who can make this right and I can’t!”

“You can’t blame yourself.”

I push back, no longer feeling worthy of his comfort. “Who then? Who do I blame?”

“The person responsible. That’s who.”

“If I could remember who that was, then I’d do that, but I can’t! For all we know, I did that! What if I hurt Isaac?”

Spencer sighs. “We both know that’s not true.”

“Do we? How? Because I don’t know anything about the last three years. Not who I am. What I do. Where I live. For all we know, I’m a serial killer or I hired someone. I could’ve staged it. I feel like I’m going crazy, Spencer!”

His hands take my face. “I know exactly who you are, Brielle Davis. You are smart and sweet. You are a horrific dancer who thinks she’s the next big star. You sing in the car because you can’t stop yourself. You love kids and want to keep all of them from ever being in a bad situation. There is no chance in hell you hurt Isaac. None.”

When he pulls me back against him, I don’t fight it. I’m far too busy sobbing and trying not to drown in my emotions. My heart breaks as I let it out. The anger and frustration. The rage that someone took my brother, and the crippling fear that I could have died right along with him. Addison is without her husband and they have a baby with blonde hair and— I lift my head, and tears blur the view into Spencer’s green eyes.

“What?” he asks quickly. “What’s wrong?”

“Elodie,” I whisper. “She has blonde hair?”

Spencer wipes the tear off my cheek. “She does.”

“She has blonde hair. I know this. I just knew it. Like, it wasn’t a question. I remembered her hair, and . . . she was a chubby baby. I remember holding her, but . . .”

“But what?”

“That’s all. I just knew that.”

Spencer’s eyes grow intense. “That’s another thing, which is one more than you had five minutes ago, Brie. I know it doesn’t seem like a lot, but these little pieces will start to make sense.”

Time isn’t something I’m willing to spend on this, but maybe there’s another option. Maybe Spencer can help me move time. I have to help find who killed my brother. I have to get justice for Isaac and find answers for all of us. “Are you working right now?”

“What?”

“On a story. Are you currently writing or investigating something?” Sad part is that I don’t know if it’s even what he does anymore.

“Not right now. I haven’t taken an assignment in a few . . . in a while.”

Perfect. I shift forward, my hands resting on his chest as my own heart beats rapidly. “I need you to help me.”

“Help you?”

I nod. “What would you do if you wanted to know something?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I need help. I can’t drive, I would have to get a taxi, but that would leave me wandering around aimlessly while I tried to figure out how to remember my life.”

“No, that’s not an option.”

“Then you have to help me. You’re one of the country’s top investigative reporters, right? You can probably catch this person before I even need my memory back. Please, you have to. I don’t want to do this alone, but you know I will. I’ll go back in time, and . . . I don’t know where to start, but I’ll pick somewhere because I can’t just sit around and do nothing.”

His face scrunches, eyes narrowing a little in thought. “You can’t be roaming around Oregon either.”

“Then you do it with me. Treat me like a news story. Where do we even begin?”

“This is crazy.”

Maybe it is, but it’s what I need.

After a small stretch of silence, Spencer sighs. “I would go back to the beginning, back to the very last thing I could remember, and work my way forward from there.”

“The beginning for me is a few months after graduating grad school. If I want to start to make sense of all of this, I need to start there.”

“Brie . . .” Spencer’s voice is strong with warning.

“If you don’t help me, I’ll do it on my own. You know I will.”

His deep sigh leaves his lungs, and he refuses to meet my eyes. “Holden was clear that you need to let this happen naturally.”

“I am, but that doesn’t mean I should sit around and hope that maybe the memory will come back. You are the best investigative reporter in the world. You have been involved with unearthing the truth on mysteries that no one else could. This isn’t that grand, but it’s that important.”

His gaze drops. “I want you to remember your life, Brielle.”

I move my hand to his cheek, resting it softly there. “Then help me.”