Read Online Forget Me Not: A Novel (Crossroads Crisis Center) by Vicki Hinze - Free Book Online Page B

question to ask someone who has swiss cheese for memory.”
    Be patient with him
.
    I’m trying. Could You make him a little less suspicious of me?
    No answer.
    She squeezed her eyes closed and sighed. “I’m sorry. That was rude, Mr. Brandt, and I shouldn’t have said it.” She wished she could have said she shouldn’t have even thought it, but she was a mere mortal, and that would be asking too much.
    “I don’t want an apology.” He frowned. “I want an answer to my question.”
    Her resentment returned with a vengeance. She worked to leash it before she said or did something else she would have to apologize for—in her current state, she doubted she could do it twice. The words hung up in her throat. She had to force them out.
    “I would if I could, but I can’t tell you why I didn’t go to the police because I don’t know why. That’s the truth. When Clyde Parker told me where I was, it scared me. It-it shook me down to my shoes.” That worried her more than she let him or anyone else see.
    “Then I found that business card for Crossroads in my pants pocket and saw ‘Susan’ written on it. That’s when I remembered the abductor calling me ‘Susan.’ I thought maybe someone here would know me.”
    “You’re sure you have no idea why being in Seagrove Village frightens you?”
    “Swiss cheese, remember?” She tapped her temple. “I don’t know a better way to describe it. Some memories are there, and some just are not. Why I’m afraid of this place is not. So, no,” she said, feeling foolish, “I don’t know why.”
    “He’s not trying to be a jerk,” Peggy whispered from behind her hand. “He was married to Susan.”
    Well, that handy bit of information explained a lot. He hadn’t looked at her like a husband or brother because he wasn’t her husband or brother. Yet with her looking so much like his dead wife, this interview had to be tough on him too.
    When she’d come into the conference room, she believed she was
this
Susan—the one who belonged here. But after meeting Ben, she knew for fact she didn’t belong, and she certainly wasn’t the Susan who had been married to him. She might not know who she was, but she could never be married to a man who had practiced being hard and bitter and angry long enough to perfect it.
    I don’t belong here
.
    Where did she belong? Did she have a family? Was she married?
    Am I married?
Instinctively she looked to her left hand. No ring. No telltale white band of skin. But that wasn’t proof of anything—there were a thousand reasons people didn’t wear wedding bands anymore—but disappointment pressed down on her. Seeing a ring or even a thin strip of white skin would have made her feel less isolated and alone. Not knowing herself felt awful. No one else knowing her felt even worse. What kind of woman was she? Wasn’t she worth
somebody
at least knowing?
    She had to stop this. Right now. Looking at herself through such a jaundiced eye was self-defeating and destructive. Of course she was worth knowing. She was a child of God. He knew her and she knew Him. She couldn’t be so awful that the entire human race had shunned her.
    She wasn’t Benjamin Brandt’s Susan, but she could still be
a
Susan.
    She could be
someone’s
wife or mother or sister.
    Or not.
    But she was definitely someone’s daughter.
    But whose?
    Not a hint
. She shivered.
Who wants me dead? Why?
She shifted on her seat.
What is my life? Where do I belong? What’s my place in the world?
Lost and lacking answers, she rubbed her cross.
    Dr. Harper covered her free hand on the tabletop. “Are you all right, Susan?”
    She was anything but all right. “I’m fine, thank you.” Swallowing hard, she looked back to Ben’s computer image. “Mr. Brandt.” She freed her hand and placed it in her lap. “I’m sure, being involved here, you see strange things all the time. From the way my insides are shaking, I’d be surprised if I’ve ever experienced anything