Chapter 4

FOUR

Gulf Shores, Alabama

Monday, September 16

10:30 a.m.

"What can you tell me about the man who attacked you this morning?" The detective—Moore, did she say?—wasn't anything like what Elyse had imagined. There was a femininity in the woman's face more suited for toll booths or Greenpeace. Not hot beats and domestic violence calls. Pretty in an overstated way. Most likely hadn't grown into her looks and confidence until her twenties. Detective Moore was the kind of woman who could convince you to join a multi-level marketing scheme with perfect white teeth, trendy curled blonde hair, and those three magic words: work from home. But there was also a weariness. Like she'd been fighting an uphill battle and whatever was at the top had gained the upper hand.

"Not much, to be honest." Elyse's head pounded. The physician she'd seen in urgent care had given her the all-clear to leave. Right up until she'd opened her big, fat mouth and blurted she'd been attacked. Exhaustion ate away at her insides and had started wearing her patience thin. Had she been a victim of an assault? She only had shards of memory, and even then, Elyse couldn't tell if they were really there or if her brain was trying to come up with a reason for her injuries.

She'd heard of an instance in which a woman had been absolutely convinced the man she'd picked out of a lineup had raped her. How could she not? He'd been within inches of her face during the attack. She'd made herself memorize his face despite the terror and pain and desperation tearing through her during the incident. Every one of his features had been etched into her brain. She saw him when she closed her eyes, when she tried to make love with her boyfriend, even during EMDR sessions with her therapist. Picking him out of a police lineup had been easy, and her testimony had sentenced her attacker to life in prison without parole. Only to be proven wrong a couple years later with advancements in forensics. His DNA wasn't a match for the DNA collected from her the night of the attack. Her brain had lied to her. Convinced her of his guilt. And she'd sent an innocent man to prison.

Was this one of those instances? Was her brain trying to supply her with a narrative for the trauma she'd suffered? Or had it really happened? "Detective, I know you're required to follow up with a claim like mine, and I don't blame the nurses for calling you, but I'm not even sure an attack happened. I can't…remember."

Detective Moore raised her pen from the small, rectangular notebook that seemed to be glued to her hand since the moment she'd walked in. "You don't remember?"

Wesley sucked in air between his teeth. Overly loud in the semi-private area sectioned off with a thin curtain from the rest of the emergency room. "My wife was just diagnosed with a concussion in the urgent care. We were told temporary memory loss is common."

The nurses had coordinated their efforts to keep them from leaving. More paperwork. Additional questions. All to give Detective Moore time to arrive and test Elyse's hypothesis. She couldn't blame them. If one of her patients had made a claim like hers, she would've called the police, too. Only she was the one who'd been admitted to the emergency room. Her clothes had been taken as evidence. Every injury, every scrape had been catalogued and photographed. The rape kit had come back negative. Thank goodness. Her fingernails still stung from the wooden scraper jabbed beneath them to collect possible DNA from her attacker. This was all very Special Victims Unit.

"I remember being surprised. Scared." The words slipped free without her permission. Which was alarming in and of itself. She usually didn't have this lack of…control. Pain bulged behind her right eye as she tried to match the sensations to an actual memory. Something solid and real. Why couldn't she remember anything from this morning? "But from what the doctor could tell of my injuries, she thinks I might've fallen and landed on my shoulder. Who wouldn't feel surprised or scared during something like that?"

A weak smile Elyse assumed was meant to be sympathetic tugged at the detective's mouth, but only managed to age her another five years. "Mrs. Portman, are you on any medications or have you drunk any alcohol in the past twelve hours?"

"I used a nasal sedative on the drive down from Clarksburg to avoid the car sickness, but we got here three days ago. It shouldn't be affecting me now. I don't take any medications, and I don't drink," Elyse said.

"Have you experienced any memory loss before today?" Detective Moore was trying to construct a story. Testing plot lines then killing those precious little darlings if they didn't fit. Elyse had always been interested in law enforcement, but she'd never expected to have an up close and personal look at it. Not like this. "Even minor details?"

"Well, everyone forgets small things, don't they?" she said. "I had to buy one of those AirTag devices so I could find my keys every morning before work. Otherwise, I would spend twenty minutes searching the house and getting frustrated before my day even started, but I haven't forgotten entire hours, if that's what you're asking."

"Have there been any recent incidents in which you didn't feel safe?" Detective Moore's gaze diverted to Wesley—for just a moment—but that moment meant everything. "Felt as if you were being followed, watched even? Any recent confrontations or arguments?"

Wesley seemed to stop breathing. "Are you implying I had something to do with this, Detective? That's absurd! I would never hurt my wife."

"Mr. Portman, perhaps you could give me a few minutes to talk with Elyse alone." From the look frozen on Detective Moore's face, her request wasn't a suggestion. More like an order. One that would have severe consequences if Wesley didn't oblige.

Her husband wanted to argue. To assure the officer he'd never hurt Elyse or anyone else. But he wasn't the kind of man that enjoyed conflict if he could avoid it. If anything, that particular habit was a sticking point in their marriage. He tended to shut down, stonewall her and Ava whenever things got too heated. For years, she'd taken his silent treatment as unemotional and harsh, but she'd been wrong. There was a fiercely protective side underneath that shell of his. Sometimes a little too protective. Defeat took hold as he turned his attention back to Elyse. "I'll be right on the other side of the curtain if you need me."

Sweat glazed her palms. Elyse knew the intimate partner violence statistics. She was trained to spot the signs in the office and to automatically suspect a significant other if one of her patients arrived with bruises, broken bones, or injuries the patient didn't want to explain. This wasn't one of those cases. Sure, she and Wesley argued. That was what married couples did. At least, the healthy ones. They fought about the finances and their kids and whether or not they needed a new car. Husbands who attacked their wives didn't go out of their way to bring them to urgent care. "Detective, before you go any further, I need to make one thing clear. My husband and I are happily married. We love each other, and there has never been a moment in my life he's made me feel unsafe or at risk of harm."

Pressure built as Detective Moore let the silence sit between them, as though Elyse would suddenly change her statement and fill the discomfort with an entire explanation for her injuries. Police liked to do that. Lawyers, too. The tactic played on human nature and the constant need for stimulation, but she'd learned enough about Leigh's job over the course of their friendship to know what to look out for.

A sinking sensation pinned her to the bed. Leigh. They'd had a call planned for today, just as they did every Monday morning, and Elyse had missed it. It was nearly impossible to meet in person, what with Leigh's job at the FBI and Elyse's full-time schedule in the OB/GYN office. Not to mention Leigh's move to Quantico a few months ago after she'd been invited to join the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit. In addition to the power struggle between Elyse and her daughter and trying to make time for herself and for her marriage. Hers and Leigh's friendship was comprised of text messages, phone calls, binge-watching trashy TV, and back-and-forth voicemails. Well, apart from Leigh's past visits to Dr. Wilson. The cancer had returned unexpectedly, resulting in Leigh needing a full hysterectomy. In a strange way, it was the diagnosis that had brought them together. Made them friends. Elyse wasn't sure if she was supposed to be grateful for something like that.

She would have to lie to Leigh about why she'd missed their call. Leigh had been through enough the past couple of months with the surgery and everything that'd happened back in New Hampshire. Elyse didn't need to add to her plate. Then again, she had lost her phone this morning. That could work. A truth within the lie.

"You and your husband own the beach house you're staying in, correct?" Detective Moore was determined, Elyse would give her that.

The question had taken a sharp turn away from suspecting her husband of assaulting her. It took a second for Elyse to get her head back in the game. "Yes. Four years now. But what does that have to do with?—"

"How are your relationships with your neighbors? Any problems?" the detective asked. Her pen was at the ready. Like a puma ready to attack a deer.

"Not that I'm aware of." She ran through a mental list of her neighbors on either side. The Westmonts were older, retired from somewhere up north. They spent their days on the beach with a stack of books between them, thickening their leathery skin and whitening their already fine hair for hours. One day Elyse expected to hear about all the skin cancer spots they'd had cut off. As for the other neighbor… Elyse's stomach tightened. She didn't know much about him. Single, maybe. Not a conversationalist. Actually, she wasn't even sure if she knew his name or if they'd had a conversation. "We don't visit much. When we're not staying in the house, we rent it out to other tourists."

She hated this feeling. Of disappointing Detective Moore—of disappointing anyone. An old habit from her childhood. Disappointment from the people in her life meant she hadn't tried hard enough. That she wasn't good enough. Elyse pressed her thumbnail into her first finger to counter the unhelpful thoughts. A distraction. It usually worked like a charm. If she didn't give them the attention they craved, they would go away. Except, something had crusted on her finger. Reddish-brown. Like blood.

She wasn't bleeding anymore. The nurse who'd stitched her had checked for other injuries. Where had it come from?

"Mrs. Portman, in cases like this, it's usually beneficial to file an official police report. That way I can continue my investigation into your attack. I'll be interviewing your neighbors, searching around your property for clues as to where the incident occurred."

Attack? Right. The attack. Elyse ran her fingers against her gown to dislodge the crust. "Thank you. I appreciate it. Am I cleared to go home now?"

Detective Moore nodded, that half smile at the ready again. "I'll let the nurse know you're free to leave. She'll have your discharge paperwork shortly. If you remember anything"—she pulled a business card from her pocket, handing it over—"please don't hesitate to call."

"I'll do that," she said. Because it seemed like the right thing to say.

The detective swatted the hanging sheet providing Elyse with a minuscule amount of privacy from the rest of the emergency room, revealing her husband. Head cocked back watching the ten o'clock morning news.

She caught a glimpse of the ticker across the bottom. Search for missing Gulf Shores teen continues . A headache chose that moment to spawn from behind her right eye, knocking her attention back to her husband.

And she froze.

Because behind his right ear was a scratch. Still bleeding.