Free Mind Games by M.J. Labeff Page A

panic rising in her chest. If she and the girl had been friends, she wouldn’t hurt her. Would she?
    Sparrow stared into the pitiful girl’s eyes and searched for answers. The girl twisted something from around her wrist and dangled it in front of Sparrow. She lurched back in her seat away from the girl’s outstretched arm and dangling shiny trinkets. It was a charm bracelet. A tear fell from the girl’s eye, and she faded into thin air.
     
    *               *               *
     
    Derrick arrived at Sparrow’s around seven o’clock that evening, surprised to see open boxes carelessly scattered across the floor, a high school yearbook open on top of the glass coffee table. A varsity jacket was thrown across one of the dining room chairs. A tight expression creased her eyes and wrinkled her nose. Whatever she was looking for must have been important.
    “I know the place is a mess. I’m looking for…” Her voice trailed off. “Never mind. We should go.”
    He didn’t argue with her rush to get him out of her house. He was anxious to find the girl who had nearly taken away his chances at fatherhood. The girl didn’t mean to hurt him. She was an addict, who probably would have done anything for a quick fix, but now she was hurt. That fall she’d taken from the back of the Mobile Health Clinic RV had him concerned. He felt responsible for what had happened to her after he’d slammed on the brakes.
    “Do you want some help finding whatever it is you’ve lost?” he asked, admiring her backside. She bent over and reached into a large box.
    “No, no. Just give me a sec.”
    The jeans she wore hugged her rear, jolting his libido. He looked away. His groin didn’t need any further aggravation. He remembered the steamy kiss they’d shared earlier. Her body had molded against his in all the right places. He wanted to pick her up and pin her against the wall and kiss her again.
    She pulled her hands from the box and walked over to him, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’m sorry. Let me wash my hands and we’ll go.”
    “No problem. You’re helping me.”
    He smiled and followed her toward the kitchen. She’d scattered photos across the dining room table. There were several pictures of her and Dana. The smiling couple sent a twinge of jealousy through him.
    “Are you planning to do something with these?” he asked, noticing the question sounded more like, I hope you’ll be getting rid of them. It wasn’t like him to get insecure about another man, especially a dead man. Dana wasn’t a threat to him. But he didn’t know if she’d been in love with him, and that bothered Derrick.
    “I’m trying to find a photo of me and an old friend. She’s been on my mind lately and, well, this is going to sound really strange, but I can’t remember her name.”
    “So you’re thinking about someone you don’t remember? You’re right, that is”—he paused, thinking about the last couple of traumas she’d suffered—“odd.”
    She tossed the dishtowel she’d been drying her hands with onto the counter. “I know. It’s weird. I was teaching yoga, and I had this vision. I was running on the beach with this girl. We were laughing and writing our names in the sand with broken tree limbs. The shore swept up and washed our names away. I could see mine, but I never caught a glimpse of hers.”
    “Something in your memory will shake loose. Do you think it could be some sort of daydream induced by the deep relaxation brought on by the yoga, or does it feel like part of your past?”
    “Parts of it are very real to me, yet I don’t know who she is. We had to have been friends, because we looked like we were having fun. I can’t figure out why I’d be daydreaming about myself when I was young.”
    “Sounds like a suppressed memory to me. Did something happen when you were at the beach with her?”
    He noticed her face paled. She pulled her lips together and then pushed them into a