Yesterday Lost Read online

  YESTERDAY LOST by Lorena McCourtney

  Copyright 2015 by Lorena McCourtney

  Cover by Travis Miles, Probook Covers

  Print version titled “Forgotten” earlier published by Palisades, a division of Multnomah Publishers, Inc., copyright by Lorena McCourtney

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, posted on any website, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, scanning, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the author, except for brief quotations in reviews or articles.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  YESTERDAY LOST

  by

  Lorena McCourtney

  Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God.

  Luke 12:6

  Chapter One

  She slashed words across the paper, writing so fast that her injured hand cramped. This time, she willed fiercely, this time keep the momentum going, this time keep the information flowing.

  Rain is falling outside my window. I hear waves crashing on the beach. I had meat loaf and strawberry Jell-O for lunch. And tea, unsweetened. I don’t like sweet tea. I’m in the Benton Beach Community Hospital. A telephone is ringing down the hall. My doctor’s name is Dr. Emily Fischer, and my name is—

  Her hand halted in mid-sentence, stopped by the power outage in the brain behind it, helpless as a rocket with a missing guidance system. Her little game to trick her subconscious into revealing its secrets had failed again. In savage frustration she crumpled the useless paper and hurled it across the room.

  Dr. Fischer ducked the flying missile as she stepped through the door. “That was a rather powerful throw,” she observed, not unkindly, as she retrieved the crumpled ball. “Perhaps in your other life you were a pitcher for the Yankees.”

  “Or maybe I was a pauper or a princess or a preacher. Who knows?” The useless anger collapsed, but despair seeped into her voice even as she managed a smile and massaged her cramped hand. Silently she added, no, not a princess. If she were a princess, surely someone from the royal court would be looking for her. And, apparently, no one was.

  The absence of a past created a lonely present.

  But the local police chief and a friendly, gray-haired woman from the Benton Beach Weekly had come to look her over and record her vital statistics. Age, between twenty-one and twenty-six; height, five feet ten inches; weight (after a guesstimate to subtract the weight of the cast), one-hundred twenty-four pounds; hair, blond; eyes, blue; skin, fair; no identifying scars or tattoos. The police chief had later reported that she didn’t match the description of anyone on his missing-person or wanted-criminal reports.

  “It will all come back to you eventually.” Dr. Fischer, smelling faintly of antiseptic and a fresh, apple-blossom shampoo, squeezed her wrist reassuringly while automatically checking her pulse. “Be patient.”

  “But when? When? It’s been over a week now, and it’s like standing on the edge of a bottomless pit when I try to look farther back than that.” She hesitated. “Except . . .”

  Dr. Fischer’s kind, blue-gray gaze sharpened. “Except what?”

  “Except that I keep having this nagging feeling that I’ve lost something really important, something I must remember, something I have to do—” She broke off as she realized the absurdity of that statement. Yes, she’d lost something. She’d lost her entire past life, all of her yesterdays.

  Dr. Fischer didn’t pass off the nagging feeling as ridiculous, however. “I’m no psychologist, but that could be significant,” she said thoughtfully. She leaned forward, a lock of silvering blond hair falling across her cheek. “It could indicate an emotional component to your memory loss, perhaps something your mind doesn’t want to accept or acknowledge, and these injuries became a convenient excuse to tuck it away.”

  “Which means I may be a mental case as well as a physical wreck.”

  “No, you are not a mental case! You’re bright, intelligent, and personable. You have no hallucinations, no paranoia, no irrational or inappropriate behavior—” Dr. Fischer’s tone was almost fierce until, in the easy camaraderie that had grown up between them, she added teasingly, “Until you start throwing things, of course.”

  She smiled guilty acknowledgment. “What does everyone call me, since I don’t have a name?”

  “Nothing very original, I’m afraid. Usually ‘the Jane Doe in 112.’ Is there something you’d like to be called?”

  The young woman on the hospital bed closed her eyes and mentally tiptoed backward. She wobbled on the edge of the dark hole within her mind, desperately reaching for something, then opened her eyes in defeat. Her gaze flicked to the window. “Robin. I’d like to be called Robin.”

  Dr. Fischer’s gaze followed the young woman’s to the red-breasted bird perched on a branch of the gnarled pine outside the window. “Robin it is then,” she agreed briskly. “So, Robin, how’s the headache today?”

  “Much better.” The newly named Robin cautiously fingered the crescent of staples curving from her left temple to the back of her head, winced, and explored another zigzag of staples on the opposite side. They used staples along with stitches these days, Dr. Fischer had said. “Now my scalp just feels tight and itchy.”

  “That’s normal.”

  “But I’m not normal! I didn’t know what day or year it was when I woke up here, and I got the president wrong. But I knew from the very first minute, from the very scent, that I was in a hospital. How? I can read and write. I know about tea and telephones, all the everyday clutter of life. But I don’t know anything about me.”

  “Memory is a complicated thing,” Dr. Fischer said noncommittally. She smoothed the crumpled paper. “You know you don’t like sweet tea.”

  “Not until I tasted it yesterday. When I also discovered I’m not fond of the broccoli they seem to have in oversupply here.” She wrinkled her nose, then leaned back against the raised hospital bed and smiled guiltily. “I’m sorry. I sound like a spoiled brat, don’t I? I should be grateful I have anything, even broccoli, to eat. It’s just so frustrating and frightening.” She pleated the sheet over the lumpy outline of the cast that immobilized her left leg from foot to thigh. “I’ve forgotten everything important. And I also feel forgotten.”

  The doctor’s warm hug was motherly. “I know.”

  For a moment, Robin clung to her, feeling like a lost child, helpless and vulnerable. She battled a gathering of tears before forcing herself to pull away and ask, “Do my tests show anything?

  Over the last few days she had been examined, x-rayed, scanned, and imaged with every diagnostic tool the limited facilities of this small hospital on the southern Oregon coast had to offer.

  Dr. Fischer flipped through the papers on her clipboard. “We don’t have the equipment for the most sophisticated tests, but we’ve covered the basics. Your concussion was severe, but there’s no blood in your cerebrospinal fluid, and your slight cerebral edema – that’s brain swelling – is gone. The leg is broken, of course, but the bone didn’t puncture the skin, which is a blessing, as is the fact that little water got in your lungs. The good Lord must have been looking out for you.”

  No, if the Lord were good and looking out for her, she wouldn’t be here injured and forgotten, Robin thought with resentment.

  “I know the injury to the tendon on your right hand makes using the hand awkward, but it will heal. As will your numerous bruises, cu
ts, and black eye.” Dr. Fischer flipped the clipboard to align the pages and glanced up. “Which at this point is an interesting abstract of pea green and sulfur yellow. What I’m saying is that basically you’re young and healthy and will heal quickly.”

  “Healing is more than mending physically.”

  “A philosopher as well as a potential pitcher.” Dr. Fischer smiled and exaggerated a wise nod. “But perhaps, when the psychologist in the county mental health department returns from vacation, she can offer some insight into your problems.”

  Robin absentmindedly fingered the line of staples on her head again, her almost hairless head smooth against her palm.

  Dr. Fischer noticed the gesture and smiled. “Sorry about the haircut. I wasn’t concerned about giving you something stylish before I patched you up. Your hair was so long and tangled and matted with blood and seawater that I had to get rid of it in a hurry.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I don’t have any debutante balls or elegant cocktail parties planned.”

  A secretary from the front office stepped through the door and handed the doctor a slip of paper. She read the message and then looked up at Robin. “But you do have a visitor coming tomorrow.”

  Robin leaned forward. “A visitor? Someone who knows me?”

  “Maybe. Police Chief Derrickson got a call from a man down in San Francisco. Someone sent him a copy of our local newspaper with the photo and article about you in it. He thinks you may be his missing wife.”

  Wife? Robin sank back against the raised hospital bed, shocked. She lifted her left hand and spread her fingers wonderingly. Did the rough scratches conceal a pale line where a wedding band had once been? The possibility wasn’t illogical, of course.

  Yet somehow it had simply never occurred to her that she might be someone’s wife.

  Chapter Two

  He was in the hallway. She could hear the two sets of footsteps approaching, and a lower, male voice alternating with Dr. Fischer’s higher-pitched, more rapid words. The doctor sounded nervous, Robin thought. But not half as nervous as she was. She rubbed her damp palms against the sheet. Was she about to meet her husband?

  He paused in the doorway, a head taller than petite Dr. Fischer. Dark hair glittering with raindrops, unsmiling mouth, clenched fists, intense eyes that bored into Robin’s like dark lasers. Had she done something terrible to him? Something beyond simply disappearing?

  “This is our patient, known as Robin. Robin, this is Stanton Riker.” Dr. Fischer hovered protectively by the hospital bed, one hand on Robin’s shoulder.

  Stanton Riker was, in an austere way, good looking. Mid-thirties, dressed in an impeccable dark suit that murmured money and conservative good taste. He did not rush to embrace Robin in instant recognition. She self-consciously rubbed the back side of her ear, looking for a wisp of hair that wasn’t there, as his gaze probed her. She couldn’t remember having long hair, but now she was uncomfortably aware of having almost no hair. Was this a man she loved, a man to whom she had promised her life?

  “She was found on the beach nearby?” His gaze remained on Robin, but he turned his head to direct the question to Dr. Fischer. It appeared he assumed Robin’s loss of memory meant other mental deficiencies as well.

  The doctor hesitated before answering, as if she found this assumption of mental deficiency arrogant and insensitive. “Yes, nine days ago, on a secluded beach where transients often camp out. Two of them found her, badly injured and unconscious. Since regaining consciousness here in the hospital, she has no memory of who she is or how she came to be on the beach. She had no identification, and no car was found on the highway nearby.”

  Robin knew Dr. Fischer didn’t intend it that way, but the story came out sounding vaguely unsavory. Transients. No identification. No car. Not a muscle moved in Stanton Riker’s coldly handsome face, yet Robin sensed his distaste.

  “Drugs?” he asked.

  “No trace of drugs or alcohol,” Dr. Fischer said emphatically.

  “Can she speak, so I can hear her voice?”

  “Of course I can speak!” Robin snapped. “I’ve lost my memory, not my brain or vocal cords.”

  His eyes flared briefly, as if a dumb animal had just spoken to him. He offered no apology, but he did then address Robin directly. “Am I at all familiar to you?”

  “No. Am I at all familiar to you?”

  His answer was black-ice smooth, emotionless. “Your facial structure is similar to my wife’s, but the bruises and shaven head make identification problematic. Your voice doesn’t sound like Tricia’s, but I haven’t spoken to her in over a year. I’m a corporate attorney with a large chemical firm, and she disappeared while I was away on business. The disappearance has created awkward complications.”

  Robin and Dr. Fischer exchanged surreptitious glances. The “complications” sounded more important to Stanton Riker than the missing wife herself. Robin jerked when he reached for her hand, then reluctantly let him lift and inspect it. His hand was cool, smooth and dry. Hers trembled, like a moth in a spiderweb.

  “You have Tricia’s hands,” he said thoughtfully. “Long, slender fingers, elegantly shaped nails.”

  The hands were less than elegant now, scratched and battered, nails clipped with more efficiency than style. She snatched her hand back and clenched both hands into fists, burying the nails against her palms. She didn’t want to be—

  “But you aren’t Tricia.” He spoke decisively, no reasons cited, case simply closed. Robin’s hands opened limply with relief. He turned to Dr. Fischer, thanked her for her time and assistance, and departed without looking back.

  Dr. Fischer dashed to the door and closed it behind him. She leaned against it, clipboard clutched to her chest. “Praise the Lord!”

  She rushed back to the bed and hugged Robin, and then they were half giggling, half crying, like two children in mischievous conspiracy. In spite of an undercurrent of disappointment that she still didn’t know who she was, the fact that she wasn’t Stanton Riker’s wife flooded Robin with giddy relief. Finally the doctor straightened and shook her head.

  “Slide a stick down that man’s back and you’d have an Armani-suited Popsicle,” she declared.

  Robin giggled, but she shivered in spite of the laughter. “Would I have had to go with him if he’d identified me as his wife?”

  Dr. Fischer blinked as if startled by the question. “No, of course not.” Then she hesitated, as if she wasn’t positive of her quick answer after all, as if there could be unknown legal complications.

  “I can’t just stay here at the hospital indefinitely. I must be running up an enormous bill.”

  “You can come home and stay with me for a while,” Dr. Fischer said.

  The offer stunned Robin. “Oh, but I couldn’t!”

  “You most certainly could,” the doctor insisted. “I’ll put you to work organizing the files in my medical library. Oh, but under the dazzle of Stanton Riker’s charismatic presence—” Dr. Fischer rolled her eyes at that facetious description of the ice-man. “I almost forgot to tell you some big news. Mrs. Sanders at the local newspaper says national news has picked up your story, and your photo is going to be in newspapers all across the country. The Internet too. Someone will surely see and recognize you soon.”

  Robin uneasily stretched the sheet over her cast. That was good news, of course, yet. . . “But what if some man comes along and says I am his wife. How do we know if he’s telling the truth?”

  “I can’t imagine why anyone would—” Dr. Fischer stopped short. “Well, that’s naïve, isn’t it? The world is full of people with thoughts more evil and devious than you and I can possibly imagine, I’m afraid.”

  Robin swallowed. “I feel like a lost puppy, waiting for my owner to come and claim me.”

  Yet even as she said that she collided with another thought that occasionally skittered through her mind. Was it possible there was a life behind her to which something inside her
did not want to return, some situation she had frantically tried to escape? Had she perhaps done something so appalling that her mind refused to acknowledge it? Yet there was also that recurring, nagging feeling that she’d forgotten something of vital importance that she must remember. Something she must do.

  All so desperately confusing.

  “We will make certain only the proper ‘owner’ claims you,” Dr. Fischer declared firmly. “He’ll have to have definite proof to show.”

  ***

  Such cautious steps did not appear necessary, however. No line formed to claim the woman in room 112. The photo and article appeared in a number of newspapers nationwide, but the coverage was not as extensive as it might have been had an earthquake not rumbled across southern California, creating an outpouring of human-interest stories to capture the media’s attention. Police Chief Derrickson’s office received a dozen or so inquiries about Robin, but only two middle-aged couples showed up to look at her. The first rejected her in less than two minutes, angry that the photo had been “deceptive.” The second couple was more tactful, but she was a disappointment to them also.

  “One lost puppy, still unclaimed,” Robin said after they were gone. She tried to keep her voice light, even amused, but she knew the attempt was hollow. She shifted in the chair near the window, rigid leg propped on a footstool. This was where she spent much of her time now, when she wasn’t practicing with crutches. The window was open on this sunny and breezy spring day, a tang of sea air mingling with the heavier hospital scents of antiseptic and soap and today’s stew.

  Dr. Fischer patted Robin’s arm sympathetically and a little helplessly. “I’m sorry. Look, I know you rejected this suggestion earlier, but letting Pastor Ross come by really might be helpful. He’s a wonderful man, so easy to talk to—”

  “No!” Robin didn’t have to seek the answer. It sprang up like an armed guard, powerful and unyielding. No entrance here! Then, feeling guilty after all the doctor’s help and personal attention, she softened the rejection fractionally. “Maybe later.”