Chapter 2

TWO

Gulf Shores, Alabama

Monday, September 16

9:30 a.m.

"What's the last thing you remember?"

Elyse didn't have a ready answer for that. She should've expected the question considering the bump to her head. That was all it was. A bump. But the brightness from the penlight gouged through to the back of her brain as the physician checked for dilation in her eyes. Her brain automatically wanted to fill in the blanks of this morning. Only there was nothing to fill in. One image flittered into awareness. "Getting dressed. To go for a run."

"And before that?" The doctor slid back on her rolling stool, taking the assault on Elyse's vision with her. Just one part of the neurological exam Elyse had been put through in the past few minutes. The physician had already checked her balance, vision, hearing, and coordination.

"Reading in the living room." She couldn't sleep in that damn house. Not with the sway of the pylons and the grittiness of the sand clinging to her every second of the day. The sheets felt like sandpaper. "I'm usually up before anyone else."

"Are you having any trouble recalling a word or names in the last few hours?" The physician wasn't much older than Elyse, perhaps five or six years, but those precious years hadn't been kind. Strings of gray interrupted brittle, bleached hair. One side was slightly shorter than the other, fragile strands broken from lack of care or overuse of hair barrettes. Wrinkles that shouldn't have started making an appearance for another few years framed thin, dry lips. Worse, the woman just looked tired. Overworked and underpaid. Despite the fact this was just an urgent care clinic within South Baldwin Regional Medical Center, the staff here still dealt with broken bones, severe cuts, concussions, and first symptoms of something larger, and all Elyse wanted to do right then was take over her own examination and send this doctor to take a nap in one of the back rooms. The physician made some notes on the computer shoved off to one side of the room.

"No. My cognitive functions are fine. Just a slight headache." Everything would work out for the best. Repeating her inner motto always helped in a crisis. However, a few minutes ago, every word had been punctuated with the sting of a needle and thread as the nurse prodded and stitched the laceration over her eyebrow.

"Good," the doctor said. "That's good."

Wesley carved another path of concern—back and forth, back and forth—across the private room. It was nothing. A couple of scrapes and some bruises. She wasn't dying, for crying out loud. "Wesley, you're running on empty. Why don't you get something from the vending machine in the lobby? Watching you is making me dizzy."

"I'm not hungry." Her husband brought himself to a halt. Dark eyes hyper-focused on her, and right then she was thrown back into a doctor's office not too different from this one. One they'd both left heartbroken and changed forever. "Is she going to be okay?"

His worry scraped her nerves raw. It was uncomfortable and all too familiar. This visit wouldn't be like the last time. This was nothing more than a fall. There was no reason to panic.

"You're experiencing dizziness now?" The physician locked wide eyes on Elyse. "Do you feel as though you're going to throw up or pass out?"

Both, but she wasn't going to tell this woman that. Her husband was the one who was about to lose it. Elyse worked very well under pressure. She had to as a physician's assistant for Dr. Wilson. Growing a human came with risks. She knew that better than most, and she had to be prepared for all kinds of situations for the women who came into their office. Just in case. A silly fall during her run wasn't going to shake her. "No. I'm fine."

It'd been a fall, right? That was what made the most sense considering her injuries. The scrape on the side of her hand had stopped bleeding, but she was starting to feel the one over her eyebrow. It pulsed in time with her heart rate as adrenaline drained from her body. Sand grated between her toes and filled her running shoes. She was dressed in the shorts she preferred to work out in, even wore her sports bra and racing T-shirt she'd earned during her last half-marathon.

Except she'd never fallen on her route before. And her palms weren't scuffed up. Like she hadn't even bothered to throw her hands out to stop herself from hitting the ground face first. Or maybe she had, and she'd misjudged the angle, landing on the side of her hand instead. The physician had examined the rest of her with ease of a thin, gaping gown instead of her clothing. Her back hurt, but there wasn't anything more than a bit of soreness. She didn't usually run with headphones, but shouldn't she have come home with her phone? Had she set it down and forgotten where she'd put it in the wake of Wesley's panic to get her to the hospital? Maybe her cognitive functions had taken a hit. Accidents like this were one of the reasons she'd started banking her blood. Well, hers, Ava's, and Wesley's. There was no telling what kind of emergency would strike without warning. It just made sense.

The physician logged out of the software used to keep track of patient notes, medications, and appointments before shoving to stand. "Well, based on my exam, you've definitely sustained a concussion. Nothing severe, but you're going to want to rest as much as possible over the next few days. No running or reading, try not to watch TV if you can help it. Anything that requires a lot of concentration can make your symptoms worse. Tylenol for the headaches, all right? Go ahead and get dressed. I'll bring back a handout with my instructions in a few minutes."

Lie. One of the many nurses and physicians told their patients. A few minutes most likely meant twenty to thirty, but nobody wanted to hear that. Just the same way most people didn't give a hostess their name or bother to wait around for a table in a favored restaurant on a busy weeknight. Given the choice, Elyse would leave now. If it weren't for the fact she couldn't actually remember falling during her run.

The physician closed the door behind her, sealing her and Wesley in the packed room alone. The sanitary paper beneath her crinkled with the slightest shift in her weight. Drawing her husband's attention all over again. Elyse cringed at the cold sensation working through the back of the partially exposed gown as she dismounted the exam table. No wonder the patients she saw were so bitchy by the end of their appointments. They were freezing. An ache drilled bone deep through her shoulder as she reached for her piled clothing—bra hidden on the bottom to avoid embarrassment. As though her physician would blush in the face of seeing a patient's underwear. "Have you heard from Ava?"

Wesley scrubbed a hand down his face. The same way he always did when forced to stay in one place for too long. ADHD, if she had to guess. He'd never be the one to admit it or get assessed. Instead, her husband of eighteen years would run himself into the ground by taking on too many projects and commitments, become overwhelmed, then give them all up and instantly feel better. It was a vicious cycle he couldn't seem to get himself out of. The man didn't know how to rest. The sad thing was, Elyse had noticed the same habits in their fourteen-year-old daughter. "She wasn't awake when we left this morning. I sent her a message for when she looks at her phone."

"I should've made her something to eat before you shoved me in the car." The idea of Ava going without a meal hooked into her. There was no telling how long the doctor would make them wait for the concussion treatment protocols.

"You had other things on your mind." In the same way Wesley couldn't let go of the commitments he'd made without considering himself a failure, Elyse wouldn't forgive herself if someone she cared about went hungry. Even in the face of unusual circumstances. "And she's old enough to make herself something if she gets hungry."

The silence leaked in as she dressed. Seemed to happen a lot more lately. Both she and Wesley worked full-time, and Ava attended school all day. This annual vacation was supposed to be their getaway, the one time a year they could escape from their routine lives. Something they'd all needed to reset and focus on the things that really mattered. Each other. She supposed Ava was reacting to forced family time the same way any fourteen-year-old would. Snide comments, mumbled retorts, eye rolls, and too much time on her phone. Elyse never would've attempted that at her daughter's age. Then again, Ava was an only child. She hadn't been expected to take care of younger siblings and keep the house clean while her mother and stepdad worked like Elyse had.

Elyse couldn't ignore the tension in her husband's shoulders. He was expecting the worst. Because they'd already been through it four years ago. She shoved the priority of getting dressed aside—despite the cold working up through her socks—and put herself directly in his line of vision. Sometimes it was the only way to keep his attention. "Everything is going to be okay."

"That's what we thought the last time." Catastrophizing. Wesley had never been an optimist. Not like her, and she'd been the one to go through chemo, radiation, and a thousand other cancer treatments. Deep down, Elyse knew what this was really about. Her all-star high school baseball boyfriend had been forced to quit the team after losing his parents in a car crash his senior year. He'd been eighteen at the time, perfectly capable of taking care of himself, but the loss had never gone away. In the face of her cancer diagnosis, while four months pregnant with their second daughter, he'd nearly ended up a widower and a single father with no support network.

But he hadn't.

Elyse slipped her hand along the side of his face, emphasizing every word so there might be a slight chance it would get through that pessimistic armor he insisted on wearing. A line of roughness caught against her middle finger from behind his ear. Like a scratch that hadn't healed. "Concussions are treatable. I will follow the doctor's instructions to the letter. Okay? I'm not going anywhere."

Because he couldn't deal with another loss, and she'd be damned if she'd give their family any reason to suffer more than they already had.

He tried to smile for her, but the effect fell short of his eyes. Half-hearted. Wesley laid his hand over hers and planted a kiss in her palm. "You really don't remember anything from this morning?"

Elyse finished dressing, ignoring the bite of pain in her shoulder and down her legs. She caught sight of herself in the mirror bolted against one wall. The bruising had darkened to the point she didn't recognize herself in the reflection. She didn't want to terrify Ava when they got back to the house, but no matter how many times she licked her thumb and tried to remove the bluish hue, it wouldn't come off.

A flash of another reflection lightninged across her mind. Her cupping her hands around her eyes to block the sun. As she looked into the windows of a house. A house she didn't recognize.

The headache intensified, pulling Elyse free from the memory. What on earth? Her breath sharpened as a knock rocketed her nerves higher. As though she were guilty of something. The door swung inward, and the nurse who'd stitched her head earlier handed off the physician's treatment instructions with a suggestion to call the office if symptoms grew worse. Elyse agreed. At least she thought she'd agreed as she and Wesley funneled through the door into the outer hallway.

The brain had the ability to play tricks, especially after a concussion, but this memory felt as real as the piece of paper in her hand. They followed the nurse back to the front of the office, and Elyse left her husband to figure out insurance and payment with the receptionist.

The lights were bothering her again. She shut her eyes to provide some kind of relief. And another memory took hold. A man. Angry. Coming toward her. Shouting. Then pain.

"You ready?" Wesley's voice shocked her back into the moment, but the images were still there.

Burned into her brain like a nightmare she couldn't wake from. Her insides tightened. Like her bones were too big for her body.

"I saw something. A memory, I…I think. Wesley"—Elyse latched on to his arm with everything she had—"I think I was attacked."