Unchained Memory (The Interstellar Rescue Series Book 1)

by Donna S. Frelick

  I sat up and stared at him. “What do you mean? Brainwashing?”

  “Well, yes, in a word. Drugs, electroshock, psychomanipulative techniques. There are any number of means to the end. No doubt a more advanced culture would have a few I’m not aware of.” His jaw tightened as his gaze fixed on the fire.

  I started to shake again, though the room was thoroughly warm now. “My memories of the time I spent there . . . I was empty, blank, unable to feel anything until Dozen . . . I thought it was drugs. Are you saying they did something to my mind?”

  Ethan sat up, set down his mug and grasped my trembling hands in his. “Whatever it was had no lasting effect, Asia. Your mind is whole and strong and fully intact now.”

  I searched his eyes. “How do I know that? Just this morning something else came back—a memory of being examined when I was first taken. That’s why I jumped when you touched me. How do I know there’s not more—worse—still in there?”

  “There may be pockets of memory still protected by your healthy mind, Asia. That does happen.” Ethan had slipped into professional mode. I should have been annoyed, but I found myself clinging to that reassurance instead. “Once you feel completely safe, you’ll release them, and I’ll be here to help you through it. I have a feeling you’ve already acknowledged the worst of it. The narrative stream is complete. The only gaps are the actual abduction and return and your recovery from the shoulder injury, perhaps because you were unconscious during those times.”

  I wanted to believe him, God knows I did. But the sense of violation that had begun with the knowledge that I had been taken was now complete with the knowledge that they had rearranged my mind. To make me forget. As if that was even possible.

  The tears pooled in my eyes and began to roll down my face. “Why would they do that to me? Who were they that they could do that?” Even as I spoke I knew: I hadn’t been the only one. I’d simply been one of an uncounted number of those taken and somehow returned.

  Ethan gathered me in and wrapped his arms around me. I pressed my face to his warm chest and gave in to what was left of my grief for the life I had lost, for all the lives lost.

  “They can’t have been human to hurt you like they did.” His hand stroked my hair. “My Asia, my sweet, beautiful Asia.” His voice became a magical murmur, a soft, warm salve for my aching heart.

  And I know, if I were taken again today, I would cling to that one moment so strongly they could never take it from my mind—that memory of Ethan holding me in the firelight as afternoon turned to darkest night and whispering my name so it sounded like love.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The next day dawned freshly scrubbed from the overnight rainstorm, the sun and a brisk morning breeze drying up the droplets shaking loose from the trees and the eaves. The high-ceilinged great room, with its many windows, was cold and drafty when Ethan woke up and rolled awkwardly out of bed. Squinting against the diamond-hard light, he stumbled toward the bathroom. Along the way he offered up a curse for the pain in his leg that had kept him up half the night and another for the lingering soreness along his ribs that hit him when he lurched and caught himself against the doorjamb.

  After he’d finished at the toilet and the sink, he studied his haggard reflection in the mirror for a long minute. The Vicodin he’d prescribed for himself back in Marlinton sat on the bathroom counter, the bottle still fat with pills. He’d been sparing with them, doling them out only when he really needed them. He licked his lips. His leg throbbed. He turned and went back to the living room.

  Ethan built up the fires in the fireplace and the woodstove before he slipped back under the covers with Asia. It was already past nine, but given the night he’d had, it seemed like a good morning to lie in.

  Asia gathered him in against her warm body and rubbed her hands along his arms. “You’ve got goose bumps.”

  “Cold out there,” he confirmed, pulling her close, loving the way she felt against him.

  “You had a rough night last night. Your leg or your ribs?”

  “Both.”

  She ran a soft hand down the side of his face. “I’m sorry, baby. Did you take a pill?”

  “Should have. Too late now.”

  She put an elbow under her head to consider him. “Do something for me, Ethan.”

  He looked at her and smiled, curious. “Anything.”

  “Tell me about the accident.”

  He went cold and boneless inside. “Why the hell would you want to hear about that?”

  “You know all my secrets.” There was no trace of resentment in her tone. It was just a statement of fact. “Don’t you think it’s about time I knew a few of yours?”

  He reached out, touched her cheek, tried hard to find his voice around the lump that had formed in his throat. “I wasn’t trying to keep things from you.”

  “I know. Still.”

  “You’re right. It’s just . . .” His heart began a slow, reluctant thudding in his chest. He didn’t want to do this.

  “Ethan.” She stroked his arm. “You’ve helped me so much. Let me help you just a little. Please.”

  She deserved this promised honesty from him. It wasn’t so much about allowing her to help him, though God knows he could use the help. It was that she’d had enough people in her life hiding things from her. He was tired of being one of them.

  Ethan took a deep breath, rolled to his back, stared at the ceiling. “We’d been arguing in the car. I was working, we had a fundraising event to go to, and Elizabeth was mad because we were going to be late.”

  When he paused, she prompted him. “Who was driving?”

  “She was.” He paused again, ordering his thoughts. “It had been raining. The streets were wet.” But that wasn’t important, was it? Only one thing was really important. “She was going way too fast when we came up on the light. I watched it turn yellow, then red. She didn’t try to stop, didn’t even hit the brakes. She deliberately ran the light.” He heard Asia gasp, but he kept his eyes focused on the ceiling overhead, seeing that red light through the rain-spattered windshield.

  “When I realized we were going to run the light I looked to my right. I saw”—Death—“a truck bearing down on us. It hit us broadside. The car rolled twice and landed on the driver’s side. Liz died at the scene. They had to cut me out of the car. It took them over two hours.”

  “Oh, Ethan.” Her eyes fixed on him, wide with sympathy and shared pain. “You were conscious the whole time?”

  He tried to breathe against the memory of constricting, excruciating pain, the cold rain dripping from the twisted metal, mixing with the blood and the tears on his face, the smell of gasoline and fear and death.

  “Yes.”

  Her hand was on his chest now, soothing him. “God, it must have been awful.”

  “I had nightmares for a while,” he admitted. “Went through therapy. The whole deal.”

  She smiled a little. “Seems we have a lot in common.”

  “More than you know.” He turned his head to look at her. “This isn’t easy for me to talk about. Hell, I try not to even think about it. It wasn’t a burden I wanted you to have to carry, too.”

  Asia rose up on her elbow to stare down into his eyes. “Ethan, if you give me your heart, you give me everything in it. If it’s heavy, I’ll carry it gladly. Haven’t you already shown me you’d do the same for me?”

  His hand shook as he reached up to touch her hair.

  She leaned down and kissed him, long and slow and deep. When she ended it, she snuggled in close to him, laid her head in the crook of his shoulder and wrapped an arm across his chest.

  “You must have been so unhappy. For so long.”

  “What?”

  “You and Elizabeth. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you.”

  Ethan sighed. He really didn’t want to talk about this, but he knew he had to. It was the last of the poison in the wound. If he didn’t drain it, the wound would never heal properly. He’d given th
at same advice to his patients a hundred times. Time he followed a little of it himself.

  “We never had a mature relationship, a full relationship, in the first place.” He’d only recently begun to understand that. “We didn’t value the same things, we didn’t want the same things. And it got worse once I left the Institute. I’m not sure . . .” The words that came to mind were ugly, hurtful, but he knew the truth of them. “I don’t know how much longer our marriage would have lasted anyway. But then Liz started having trouble sleeping. She had nightmares, bad ones. She started seeing a therapist from Arthur’s office, but it didn’t help. She tried meds. Things got worse. She wouldn’t let me help.”

  “It must have hurt that she shut you out.”

  The memory of that hurt still burned in his chest. He’d tried so hard to reach her, right up until the moment when it might have made a difference.

  “She said something that afternoon in the car—something about how all our talk would never stop someone who was determined to—” He hesitated, fearing this last confession. “It triggered all my alarms, but I didn’t act on it. It was almost like I was daring her to do something. How screwed up was that?”

  “You couldn’t know she would try to commit suicide and take you with her, no matter what she said.” Asia would stand for no argument. “Had she ever tried anything before?”

  “No, but she was volatile, she was upset, and I just made it worse. I’m supposed to defuse those kinds of situations, not set them off.”

  “Ethan, you weren’t her therapist in that car, you were her husband. You were tired and angry; she was selfish and impulsive. Things were said. Actions followed that had tragic consequences. It’s not like she planned it ahead of time. You don’t really think that, do you?”

  He thought about it. Dan Parker had asked him the same question any number of times. Ethan had denied believing that Elizabeth had planned to kill herself that day, but he’d always carried a tattered scrap of nagging doubt. Today he searched for that doubt and found it missing.

  Something eased around his heart. “No. If Liz had actually planned suicide, she would have chosen another method, I’m sure. She was vain enough that a car accident wouldn’t have been her first choice.” He’d been fighting his own battle for life in a hospital room when Elizabeth’s funeral was held, but he was told the casket was kept closed. “She was just so damn angry.”

  “That wasn’t your fault, Ethan.” Asia turned his face to hers. “You know that, right?”

  He rolled to his side and pulled her close to him. Her face, across from his on the pillow, was so full of love and concern that it left his prison walls in ruins. He took a deep, free breath.

  “I’m beginning to. You know, you make a pretty good therapist, Dr. Burdette.”

  She smiled, and his heart warmed. “Thank you, Dr. Roberts. Now, let’s see how good I am at massage therapy, shall we?” She gave him a quick kiss, then moved so she could lay her warm hands on his aching leg.

  Ethan looked up at her, the dark curls framing her beautiful face, the graceful lines of her shoulders and arms leading down to her strong hands on his body, and his heart was instantly full. There was no hope of expressing any of it in any way that made sense. So he simply closed his eyes and gave himself up to her sweet ministrations.

  It had been nearly noon before they’d left their warm bed in front of the fire. And although Asia had been quite happy with the three orgasms he’d given her in thanks for the massage she’d given him, Ethan had thought she still deserved something special. He’d proposed a trip up to Seventh Lake for lunch.

  They were lingering over coffee in front of one of the restaurant’s two fireplaces when Ethan pulled out his cell phone. “Are you okay here for a minute? I need to check in at the office.”

  “Oh, you mean there’s a world out there somewhere beyond those trees? I’d forgotten.” Asia smiled at him over her cup. “Sure, go ahead. I’ll just be napping here in front of the fire.”

  He couldn’t resist running his fingers through her hair, kissing her upturned lips before he rose to go. His life was completely turned upside down, and he’d never been happier.

  Ethan crossed the restaurant, the cell phone a warm weight in his hand. He’d just powered it up and stepped outside when the damn thing rang, startling him so that he almost dropped it. He pushed “talk” and answered, his heart hammering.

  “Jesus Christ, Ethan, where the hell have you been?”

  “Dan? I’ve been out of cell range for a few days in . . . uh . . . in West Virginia.” The lie scratched his throat. “How’d you get this number?”

  “Cindy gave it to me.” Dan’s voice was strained, angry. “What the fuck are you doing in West Virginia?”

  “I had a funeral to go to.” He worked to keep his voice matter-of-fact, though a growing sense of dread was stealing his breath. “Calm down and tell me what’s wrong.”

  “A funeral? Oh, Jesus. Not Mrs. Mickens?”

  At the mention of her name Ethan found his grief was still fresh. “Yeah. The family asked me to stay on and help out for a few days.”

  “Oh.” Dan fell quiet for a long moment. “I guess that explains some things. I’m sorry, E. I’ll miss her.”

  “Thanks, man. Me, too. Now will you tell me what’s wrong?”

  “Well, I don’t know. I get back from Florida and my voicemail is full of messages—people calling about you, wondering where you are. I couldn’t get hold of you. I got worried.”

  “People?” Ethan’s heart sped up. “Like who?”

  “Claussen, for one. He practically accused you of running off with a patient, of all things. I assured him that wasn’t remotely in the range of possibility. I was right, of course, wasn’t I?”

  “With a patient? You know me better than that.”

  “I know what you’ve told me about a certain former patient. And I don’t trust Arthur Claussen any further than I can throw him, you get me?”

  Dan was angling for the details, but Ethan held back. “Okay, message received. So who else is looking for me?”

  “One of the girls from Arthur’s office called. She sounded frantic. I guess he fired her ass for some reason and now she needs to talk to you. Please tell me you weren’t boinking the hired help.”

  “Jesus, Dan, you really have a low opinion of me lately. You remember the conversation we had about my former patients who didn’t respond to AL treatment? I asked Amanda to track down a few of them. Now you’re telling me she’s been fired?”

  “You think there’s a connection?”

  From the ice that was sliding down his spine at the moment, Ethan would have said yes. “I don’t know,” he said instead. When all of this was over, he would tell Dan the truth. Right now he couldn’t afford to lose another friend.

  Dan refused to let him off. “You need to let me help you, E. All this sounds like it’s adding up to trouble.”

  “I can’t, Dan. Not right now.”

  His friend sighed. “I thought that’s what you would say. By the way, Claussen and the girl weren’t the only ones calling. Just yesterday afternoon I had a visit from two guys that looked like they wanted to make me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

  Ethan’s lungs constricted around his breath. “What did they want?”

  “They were looking for one of your patients—Asia Burdette.” Dan said it like they’d been discussing the weather. “Had some wild story about how she’d last been seen with you. In West Virginia.”

  “And you believed that shit?”

  Dan dropped all pretense of calm. “I believe they’ll put a hurtin’ on you and her both when they find you, Ethan. Whatever it is you’ve got yourself into, these guys mean business.”

  “Yeah. What did you tell them?”

  “I told them to go fuck themselves, what else?”

  Ethan smiled, in spite of himself. “Thanks, Dan. For everything.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Ethan, are you sure
about this?”

  “I’ve never been surer about anything in my life.” He felt the certainty of it settle into his heart.

  “Ah, fuck. Got it that bad, huh?” Dan released a tiny sigh. “And the girl?”

  “Says it’s the real deal.”

  “Damn. Well, there’s no accounting for tastes.” Dan’s voice lifted with humor now—and affection. “Any other time I’d say I’m happy for you, man. Instead I think I should just say be careful. You’re not going to tell me what’s going on, are you.”

  “No. I wish I could.”

  “Damn it.” There was a pause. “Finish this, Ethan, whatever it is, and get your ass home.” Then the connection went silent.

  Ethan pulled up his contacts for Amanda’s home number. He waited while the phone rang, watching the cars roll by on the highway, wondering if even now the same highway was bringing a faceless enemy closer.

  At last a high-pitched feminine voice answered with a tentative “Hello?”

  “Amanda?”

  “Dr. Roberts! Thank God, it’s you! I’ve been trying to reach you at all your numbers, but all I’ve gotten is voicemail.”

  “I know, I’m sorry. I’ve been out of cell range for a week or so. What’s going on?”

  “I got fired from the Institute.” Her voice sounded reedy and thin. “Last week. Dr. Claussen didn’t give me any notice or anything, just said to pack up my stuff and leave. He was so mean about it.”

  “I’m sorry, Amanda.” Ethan genuinely regretted his part in it. “Did he say why?”

  “Well, I had been late a few times. And my supervisor really didn’t like me, but I didn’t think I was doing that badly. And then he comes out of his office and tells me himself that I’m fired. Just like that. It was like the office supe didn’t even know about it. Then he says he’s gonna be out of the office all this week and poof, he’s gone.”

  His chest tight, Ethan probed deeper. “I hope our little project didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. I don’t think anyone knew about that. I was pretty careful. I figured you wouldn’t want anyone to know about your research.”