Free Her Forgotten Betrayal by Anna DeStefano

explained instead, reminding herself firmly that he was just being neighborly. “We research various technologies, mostly top-secret stuff for the government. Maybe there’s some explanation there of who might want to hurt me.”
    “You mean so they can get you out of the way to steal something?”
    “Or I pissed someone off. A rival, maybe. But the authorities don’t think so. They can’t find evidence of any threats against me. I was mostly a loner, I’m told. There wasn’t much to my world but my work, and most of that was done in an isolated office building where I spent the majority of my time. The doctors won’t allow the authorities to share with me too many details of my life or my shooting. They don’t want to overstress my recovery. So I need to remember on my own.”
    She stopped short of telling him about the Marshals Service keeping tabs on her. Her story already sounded ridiculous enough.
    “I keep dreaming about that night. I know there’s something, someone, I should be remembering. But my recall shuts down when I wake up. I’m trying to take things slow up here. You know, while I exhaust myself cleaning everything in sight, until I’m so tired I think every bump in the night is an evil man out to get me.” She sighed. “If I can’t calm down and remember more, I might never know who’s responsible for this.”
    “For hurting you?” Cole took her injured hand from where she was petting Esme, his thumb soothing as it brushed her palm.
    “For destroying my life. Even though I wonder how much I could have liked that world and my job, if it’s this easy to banish them from my mind.”
    She’d talked to countless doctors and government officials at the hospital, in interviews and consultations that had produced nothing of value and had left her shaking and drained. Petrified. But talking with Cole about what had happened, about her confusion and fear, felt safe. Cathartic. She could breathe easier than she’d been able to since waking in the hospital.
    She’d managed to wrap her fingers around his, holding on so tightly her bandaged thumb throbbed.
    “I try all day,” she told him, “every day, to remember who and what I am. Nothing happens until I’m asleep, and none of that makes sense once it’s over.” She let go and wiped at the corners of her eyes. “This entire situation is turning me into a stark raving lunatic. I can’t even make coffee without freaking myself out over nothing, because I clumsily grabbed a knife instead of a spoon.”
    Cole seemed poised to say something—most likely that he had somewhere else to be besides listening to her ramble on. Instead, he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and reached down for the drawer that lay turned on its side on the floor.
    “I wouldn’t exactly call this nothing.” He fingered inside the drawer, in the slot where the spoons were stored, then tipped it her way. Light glinted off something wedged in the front corner of the divider.
    She started. “Is that…?”
    “A knife blade, broken off and jammed into the wrong slot in a place you were guaranteed to come into contact with.”
    “But I made chocolate earlier, when I first woke up. That wasn’t there.”
    “It’s wedged in pretty good, where you’d eventually brush against it, even if you were being careful. It was only a matter of time before you were cut.”
    She found herself wishing the last few seconds would rewind, so she could return to feeling silly about overreacting. Panic choked her with the thought that somehow the faceless man from her dream might actually have set a trap designed to hurt her in a very personal way.
    “I love my grandmother’s kitchen,” she said, feeling violated. “Every time I’m in this room I try to remember being here as a little girl, cooking and eating with her. Tonight especially, when I came downstairs earlier, I had my hands all over this drawer, searching for my favorite spoon. That blade couldn’t have been there