by Kelly Oram
“Why? What are you going to write?”
“I could add a million things to this list, but for now I’d settle even one positive personality trait. You’re always so pessimistic.”
I snorted. “Pessimistic is not a positive trait.”
“Just give me your pen before I have to add stubborn.”
I smirked as I held out the pen. “That one’s already on there.”
“It’s worth repeating.”
Ryan snatched the pen and immediately started writing. When I tried to look, he turned away from me, shielding his answers. Deciding to let him have his fun, I left him to his task and went to sit on the edge of the fountain. At the bottom of the pool resting beneath the water was a mountain of coins. I was curious. Why would people throw money into a fountain? “What’s with all the loose change in the water?” I asked Major Wilks, who was finally feeling better and had come over to join me.
Major Wilks gave me a puzzled frown. “Amnesia,” I reminded him, feeling like a freak.
Comprehension struck and his frown morphed into a sympathetic smile. “It’s just a tradition. You’re supposed to make a wish, and when you throw your money into the fountain your wish will come true.”
It was a happy sentiment, but it made my heart sink. “If only things were that simple.”
“Nothing’s ever simple, Angel.” When I looked up, Major Wilks fished a coin from his pocket and placed it in my hand. “But even the most complicated things have a way of working themselves out—one way or another.”
My eyes drifted back to Ryan, who was still busily scribbling away, and I wondered if the major was right. Maybe I couldn’t have my memories back, but there were still plenty of things I could have. That would have to be enough. Closing my eyes, I wished for a miracle and flicked the dime into the fountain. It felt like a fool’s hope, but it was still hope, and I would hold to it.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
I whirled around to see a man shaking his head, staring at me with a stunned expression. Carter, the tabloid journalist turned serious reporter, looked to be in his forties and fit the picture I’d had in my mind perfectly. He was very average looking, with a few wrinkles in his skin and a hairline that was threatening to recede. He wasn’t overweight, but I doubted he could go very far on a treadmill.
The only really notable thing about him was the intelligence in his eyes. Teddy had that same look about him, and so did Blake. He was a bright man, this reporter who was supposed to be my friend. I hoped he could really be trusted. He met my gaze with an amused smile. “It’s been a while, Jamielynn.” His eyes scanned me from head to toe, stopping on the bruises ringing my neck. “You look like crap.”
The response caught me off guard. I should have been offended, but for some reason the insult made me smile. “Yeah, well, I’m on the run after almost being murdered by three psychotic superthugs yesterday. What’s your excuse, old man?”
Carter blinked and then slapped his thigh as he burst into laughter. “It’s good to see you alive, Jamie.” He shocked me by pulling me in for a hug. Looking to Major Wilks or Ryan for help, I gave the stranger an awkward pat and pulled away from him. He looked me over again, as if he still couldn’t believe his eyes. “Where the hell have you been? Not even a phone call?”
Before I could reply, Ryan jumped up from his bench and joined us. He slipped my notebook back in my purse and hugged me tightly to his side. “She has amnesia. She doesn’t remember anything before the explosion. She didn’t know who she was until we found her yesterday.” He sounded almost proud of the fact, or maybe excited, which was slightly disturbing. But I guess it must have been a relief to him considering the alternatives—that I was either dead, or alive, and had just never bothered to contact him.
Carter threw me a startled look. “Amnesia?”
I shrugged.
He digested this, then nodded. “Huh. Interesting.” With one last disbelieving shake of his head, he glanced curiously at Major Wilks and asked, “So what brings the three of you to my doorstep?”
Getting right to the point. I liked that, and returned the favor. “We’ve got a plan to find Donovan, and we need your help.”
Carter sighed. “Of course you do. What else is new?”
He wasn’t thrilled at the idea of helping me, but then Ryan said the magic words. “We need you to break a story.”
Carter stiffened as he bounced his eyes back and forth between Ryan and me. He tried to stifle both shock and eagerness, but there was no hiding the hungry gleam in his eyes. I wasn’t really surprised. He was a reporter, after all. “Well.” He glanced at his watch while a giant, smarmy smile bloomed across his face. “What do you say we talk over lunch?” He winked at me and added, “I owe you a Coney dog.”
. . . . .
A Coney dog is apparently a large all-beef hot dog topped with chili, onions, and mustard. I was skeptical at first because it looked like the kind of nasty food Teddy always tried to feed me, but I was pleasantly surprised with how delicious it was. I’m not sure what the difference is between a Coney dog and a regular hot dog, but there definitely is one. Maybe New York has a few perks.
As I packed in two Coney dogs, Major Wilks hashed out all the details with Carter, and then the three of us were escorted to a small studio in Carter’s building where Carter would sit with us for an interview. Major Wilks and Carter were given chairs to sit in, but they’d found a small sofa for Ryan and me. They were really milking this relationship thing.
“Just to be clear,” Major Wilks warned Carter in a whisper as we were all outfitted with microphones and seated in front of the camera, “this is about Miss Baker and her abduction. Nothing else.”
Carter rolled his eyes. “As if I’d break that story. I’ve been keeping that secret a lot longer than you have, Major. A little trust would be nice.”
Major Wilks scowled but sat down, apparently trusting Carter enough to go ahead with this crazy scheme. I must have been the one who looked like I still needed convincing, because Ryan sighed and put his arm around me. “It’ll be okay, Jamie. I promise. Carter’s pushy and insensitive, but you can trust him with the important stuff.”
Carter scoffed, and Ryan answered him with a smirk. I couldn’t decide if Ryan actually liked Carter or not. I was leaning toward not, but he trusted the guy or he wouldn’t have brought me here. “He’s going to annoy you,” Ryan added in a whisper. “He always does. Try not to fry him.”
I’d already gathered that much. “No promises.”
Ryan laughed. “At least use your low setting.”
I frowned at him. “Killjoy.”
Carter cleared his throat, shooting both Ryan and me a look so dry I was sure he’d overheard us. I didn’t feel bad about that, and neither did Ryan, because he grinned at Carter. “I think we’re ready.”
Carter shook his head. “I know this is asking a lot of you two, but try to keep things professional. This is national news, and it’s live.”
“Live?” I screeched. My heart leapt into my throat. “No one ever said it was going to be live. I have parents out there somewhere. I haven’t contacted them yet. They can’t find out I’m alive on the news!”
Ryan patted my hand. “Jamie, it’s okay. I spoke to your parents this morning while you were sleeping off your concussion.”
I blinked at him. “You called my parents?”
Ryan chuckled. “I call them all the time. Your family is my family, babe. Of course I called to let them know I found you. And don’t worry. I explained all about your amnesia. They know you’re having a hard time right now. They understand why you haven’t called. They also know it wasn’t safe for you to go home, and that you’re helping us try to find Donovan.”
“And the ACEs contacted them the moment we left for New York to explain our plan,” Major Wilks added. “They have all the details.”
“Fifteen seconds!” someone called out from a sound booth.
My pulse skyrocketed and the lights fl
ickered. Major Wilks, Ryan, and Carter all glanced sharply at me. “You okay?” Ryan whispered.
I took a deep breath. “I’m fine. Let’s just get this over with.”
No sooner did I say that then the guy behind the camera said, “We’re live in five, four, three…”
The cameraman counted off the last two numbers silently with his fingers and then pointed at Carter. Carter put on his best reporter face and looked into the camera. “Good morning. I’m David Carter, reporting live from CNN studios in New York City, bringing you an exclusive interview today with kidnap victim Jamielynn Baker and her fiancé, Ryan Miller. Joining them is Major Kenneth Wilks of the U.S. Northern Command.”
If not for that statement about Ryan, I would have laughed at his reporter voice. Instead, I scoffed. “He’s not my fiancé.”
Ryan sighed, and Carter cleared his throat. “My apologies, Jamie.” He turned back to the camera. “Ryan is Jamie’s former fiancé. Jamie is suffering from a case of total amnesia.” He looked at me again. “I assume the lack of memory is the reason for the breakup?”
I gave him a flat look. “You assume correctly.”
“And it’s just a temporary pause in the engagement,” Ryan chimed in. “Not a breakup.”
I rolled my eyes, and Carter, thankfully, moved the conversation along. “Jamie was abducted from her college dormitory six months ago and disappeared without a trace until yesterday evening, when she showed up in Las Vegas where she was brutally attacked by three unidentified men. Those men are now in police custody, and no further details have been released. Is that correct?”
Major Wilks decided to answer that one with a stiff nod and a very threatening “That’s correct.” The answer was a warning.
Carter masked an annoyed expression and turned his attention back to me. I resisted a sigh. I wasn’t looking forward to Q&A time. “So Jamie, the whole world wants to know: What happened to you? Where have you been for the last six months?”
“Both excellent questions. I wish I had answers for you.”
Carter frowned. “You don’t remember anything?”
“I don’t remember anything.”
He tried again. “What were you doing in Las Vegas?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did you get there?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did you escape your captors?”
Okay, the man was a moron. I gave him a look that told him exactly how incompetent I thought he was. “Uh, I didn’t escape them. Remember? They were in the process of trying to kill me, when a bunch of soldiers showed up with guns and knocked them out. I got a nasty concussion in the attack. Hence, the amnesia, genius.”
Carter wasn’t fazed by my snark at all. “I assumed you’d escaped wherever you were being held for the last six months and were attacked because those men found you and were trying to bring you back. Is that not what happened?”
I shrugged. “We can go with that. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it makes me sound cool, so sure. Why not?”
Carter frowned again. “So you really have no idea at all where you’ve been, how you ended up in Las Vegas, or why you were attacked?”
“Didn’t we just go over this?”
“You must have at least known your attackers,” Carter said.
“Why would I know my attackers?”
“You’ve been held hostage for six months. Didn’t they at least look familiar?”
This interview was completely pointless, and Ryan was right: This guy was getting on my nerves. “Are you listening to me at all? I just said I don’t remember anything. No, my attackers didn’t look familiar. No one looks familiar. He doesn’t even look familiar.” I pointed at Ryan. “If he didn’t have a bunch of pictures of the two of us together on his phone, I wouldn’t even believe that we used to know each other.”
As much as I was trying to keep control, I was getting pissed off and a blast of energy shot out of me, making the power blitz. The cameraman flinched back and tapped his equipment. Carter shot him a worried glance. “Are we good?”
The guy gave a thumbs-up. “We’re still rolling.”
While Carter apologized to the world that we were experiencing some technical difficulties, Ryan slipped his hand into mine. “Hey, Jamie, try to relax. You’re doing great.”
“Relax?” I asked. “This guy’s an idiot.” Carter’s head snapped to me, so I repeated myself. “You’re an idiot. Quit asking me questions you know I can’t answer. Do you understand how amnesia works? It’s memory loss. It means I don’t remember anything. That’s not going to change, no matter how many asinine questions you ask me. Stop making me repeat myself.”
That finally cracked Carter’s professional façade. A flash of annoyance crossed his face so fast I was probably the only one to notice it. There was some sick satisfaction in knowing that I was annoying Carter as much as he was annoying me.
“Very well,” he said through gritted teeth. “Why don’t you just tell me what you do know?”
I groaned. “I already told you everything I know. I know I was missing for six months. I know some guys tried to kill me yesterday, and I know this guy”—I pointed to Ryan again—“thinks I’m going to marry him and is annoyingly persistent about it.”
“She means amazingly persistent,” Ryan said. “And romantic.”
I rolled my eyes again. “That’s everything I know in the entire world. If you want any more answers, you’ll have to ask them.”
This time I pointed at both Ryan and Major Wilks. To my relief, Carter nodded and focused his attention on the major. Then began a long string of questions I didn’t care about, and watered-down vague answers.
The interview with Carter was not going well. Forgetting the fact that I’d lost my temper and called Carter an idiot, once the questions were directed at Major Wilks both he and Carter turned into five-year-olds, each trying to act like the bigger tough guy.
Before long, I’d zoned out completely and Ryan had given up paying attention for playing with my hand in his. I didn’t start listening again until voices were raised. “Major, give the people more credit than that,” Carter said in response to some brush-off answer Major Wilks had fed him for some question I hadn’t heard. “We know there is more to the story than you’re telling us. Kidnappings fall under the FBI’s jurisdiction. Not the military.”
Major Wilks ground his teeth so loudly I cringed. “Miss Baker’s attackers were detained, but the people who took her and held her hostage for six months are still out there. We have reason to believe they will try to take her back. She’s in protective custody.”
Sounded good to me, but Carter gave Major Wilks a flat look. “Also generally the job of the FBI, Major. What is the military’s true involvement in this case?”
I wanted to kill Carter. And from the looks of it, so did Major Wilks. We’d talked about this. Carter was supposed to focus on my tragic memory loss and love story so that the nation wouldn’t think to ask the very questions Carter was now demanding answers to.
The two of them got locked in a staredown that wouldn’t have shattered if World War III busted out in the room around us. The temperature dropped a good ten degrees. Major Wilks broke first, and as annoyed as I was with Carter for deviating from the plan, I had to hand it to the guy. He had some serious nerve going up against the major.
Major Wilks’s face turned purple, and when he spoke it was in a clipped tone. “Very well.” He grunted. “We have reason to believe that the people who abducted Miss Baker were part of a secret organization that poses a threat to national security. They are highly sophisticated, well funded, and well armed.”
Carter, for his part, looked genuinely surprised. “A terrorist group?”
Wilks’s eyes burned now. He did not like that word being thrown around. “Of sorts,” he said, glaring at Carter for all he was worth. “Miss Baker is a key witness and could be the piece to the puzzle we’ve been missing. The information she has locked aw
ay in her head could be what we need to take down the entire organization.”
Carter frowned. “But as Jamielynn so graciously pointed out earlier, she has amnesia. She says she doesn’t remember anything.”
Was he seriously calling me a liar? “I don’t remember anything,” I growled. “And I don’t appreciate your tone, jerk. You think I would make this up? I’ve been missing for six months. I’ve had my entire life stolen from me. I want to find the people that did this to me a lot more than you. If I had any information, I would tell Major Wilks everything I knew in a heartbeat.”
When I glared at Carter, ready to fry him and not just his precious camera, he gave me a subtle playful wink, as if this were all just part of the plan. My eyes narrowed, and the lights flickered again. I was so going to kill this man.
“Miss Baker doesn’t remember any of the information,” Major Wilks said, clearing his throat to regain Carter’s attention. “That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have it locked away in her head somewhere. She has quite graciously agreed to undergo some special medical testing to see if we can restore her memories.”
“Special medical testing? You don’t mean experimental? That could be dangerous.” Carter, looking surprised again, sounded legitimately concerned for me. The guy was apparently so used to shoveling bull that he’d mastered the art of acting. He deserved an Oscar. “After you’ve just been found?” he asked me. “Wouldn’t you rather go home and meet your family? Rest and recover from this traumatic experience? Maybe get to know your fiancé again?”
I took a breath. And then I took five more. He was pushing my limits. “Of course I want that,” I hissed.
“Me too,” Ryan chimed in cheerfully. “Especially that getting-to-know-her-fiancé-again part.”
Carter chuckled, but I had to take another breath. Ryan had warned me that Carter would annoy me, but he hadn’t said a word about himself driving me crazy. “I want more than anything to put all of this behind me,” I said, doing my best to ignore Ryan’s stupid, charming, beautiful smile. “But I can’t. It’s bad enough those people stole my past from me, but right now they control my future, too. They’re still after me. I’m not safe. I can’t just go home. I’ll never be able to let any of this go until we stop the people responsible for this. So yes, I’ll take all the tests I have to in order to get my memories back—experimental or otherwise.”
