The Memory of You (Sanctuary Sound #1)(101)
Love, Ryan
He scribbled Dr. Saxe’s phone number and address beneath the note, set the envelope on the counter where she would see it, then shut the lights off and locked the door behind him on his way out.
He kicked some acorns around the sidewalk as he wandered back to his mom’s, wishing he had persuaded Steffi to meet Dr. Saxe without using that file. Now he’d have to live with the fact that he’d likely destroyed their last chance at a happy ending. That would be easier to accept if he knew Steffi would get better.
“Want to tell me what happened last night?” Claire asked while fixing herself a bowl of oatmeal. “I heard you throw up twice. You look like you didn’t sleep a wink. I’m worried.”
Steffi hadn’t been able to breathe all night, which meant she couldn’t form a coherent response this morning. Now it seemed as if her legs were filled with cement as she dragged herself to the coffee maker.
Claire sat at the breakfast bar while Steffi poured herself a cup of coffee. “Obviously, the demo date with Ryan didn’t go well.”
“Don’t say his name.” Steffi blew into her coffee. She couldn’t close her eyes without thinking of him pleading with her, arms open, eyes full of sorrow and certainty. Images she’d rather forget, along with the dark trepidation about her “fragmented” memory.
“Oh boy, this sounds bad.” Claire added more almonds to her cereal. “Will you have to see him today, or did you finish the Quinn project?”
Work. Her one salvation—a way of putting this all out of her mind.
“I’ll send JT to paint the trim. Then it’s done.” Thank God she’d hired a small crew the other week. “I’ll manage Hightop today with Rick so it doesn’t fall off schedule.”
“Okay, but won’t Molly be disappointed not to see you at the end of her project?” Claire spooned an extra lump of brown sugar into her bowl and stirred.
Reconnecting with Molly had been one of the most wonderful things the past seven weeks had provided. Now they’d live through another rift. This one, however, was all on Ryan. “I’ll call and explain that I’ve got to keep other projects moving.”
Claire gave her the side-eye while she ate.
“What?” she barked, refusing to defend yet another decision.
Claire swallowed her oatmeal before speaking. “I can’t imagine what Ryan did to make you this angry.”
“He betrayed me, that’s what!” Steffi clamped her mouth closed, wishing she hadn’t said anything.
“He cheated?” Claire’s expression melted into a scowl. “Good Lord, what’s wrong with the world when even Ryan Quinn two-times?”
“He didn’t cheat. He invaded my privacy. Said . . . things I wish he hadn’t. Things I don’t want to know. Things that can’t be right.” Coffee sloshed over the side of her cup, so she set it down and wrung her hands together to stop them from shaking. She couldn’t wrap her head around what he’d said. Could her mind really block that trauma out even after hearing it laid out with such certainty?
Claire set down her spoon. “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but you’re literally shaking. Talk to me, Steffi. You can’t work in this condition.”
Steffi’s breaths came up short, just like they had every time she thought about what he’d done. About what he must’ve read in that report. About what her own brain would not let her see.
She remembered a gun. Fuzzy snippets. Flash images of the hospital and cops. Someone handed her water when she spoke to an officer, but she recalled nothing of what was said. She’d called her work friend Jenny to take her home from the hospital. The two weeks following the incident, she’d been on bed rest, cocooned in a dark room for the concussion. Her whole body had ached from the inside out, but time had passed in a blur of sleep and confusion. In the absence of actual memories, her imagination now conjured the worst possible scenarios.
It must’ve been beyond gruesome for her to bury it so deeply that she couldn’t recall it even now. Why would Ryan want her to remember something so awful? “He got his hands on the police report—my report, from last spring.”
“Was he assigned the case?” Claire frowned. “Wouldn’t he have to recuse himself?”
“There is no case because there aren’t any arrests.” That had bothered her enough when she’d thought it was a mugging. Two rapists getting off scot-free? She ground her teeth and twisted her fingers so tight they turned white. “He had a theory so he somehow got hold of the file.”
He’d never been one to break the rules before. She could report him if she wanted to spite him.
Claire shifted on her stool to face Steffi. “A theory about who did it?”
“No . . . about what happened.”
“I don’t understand.” Claire frowned.
Ryan’s desolate words seeped into her mind, saturating her with sorrow. She hesitated, afraid that saying them would make them more true—not that “more true” was a thing. Truth was truth, and until she read that file, she wouldn’t know all of it.
“He thought—thinks—that . . . that I . . . I was ra—” Steffi’s mouth filled with a bitter tang. She clutched the table as if to stop her body from slipping away from her.