“You get to choose, you know. You get to choose who you want to be. If you remember who you were, and you don’t like her, you can let her go, choose to be… who you’ve become, instead.”
She pivoted to face him. “Who have I become?” she asked.
He looked away.
She took a long stride that brought her right up to him, touched his face, turning it to hers. “You’re an objective third party. Tell me, who do you see when you look at me?”
His eyes moved over every part of her face, and she saw a thousand words in them, she thought. He was going to start telling her who she was, and she was going to like what she heard. But then just as suddenly, he lowered his head, looked at the ground. “I barely know you. I’m just the wedding planner.”
Why did she want to slap him for that? She almost did. Her arm twitched with the impulse. She made a fist, but forced it to stay by her side. “You’re right,” she said. “What do I care what the wedding planner thinks of me?” She started back toward the house.
"What about Peter?" he asked suddenly. "Do you care what he thinks of you?"
She stopped walking, but didn't turn this time. "I must have once. I was engaged to him before the bombing." And that was why she should marry him tomorrow. He and her mother were only two things she knew for sure she must have cared about once. Two scraps of the identity she had lost. She couldn't let go—they were all she had.
Again, she started walking toward the house. Again, he stopped her, with a hand on her shoulder, this time. She turned toward him there in the darkness. The breeze came between them, lifting her hair. He said, "Don't give up on yourself, Kira. You're in there. You're still in there. And I think you're close to finding you again."
She stared at him, wondering how he would know anyway. And why had he, only seconds ago, refused to give an opinion at all, and then suddenly blurted that pile of platitudes?
She searched his face for something, having no idea what it was, then spun and hurried back to the house, grateful that he didn't follow her. She kept running, all the way through the garden door in the back, and past the kitchen, to the back stairs and up the first flight.
Stop!
“Why are you torturing me?” she asked the voice in her head. But there was no reply. She had stopped on the landing.
To her right was the hallway that led to her bedroom. The safe haven of her soft mattress and the warm fluffy comforter she could pull right up over her head.
To her left, there was another flight of stairs. They led up to the attic, and the trunks that held her past.
She'd glimpsed them once while exploring the place in search of anything that would trigger a memory. But her mother had caught her and sent her back downstairs, telling her the attic was strictly off-limits. "Just for now.” And sure, she could’ve gone back. But the voice in her head was right. She was a coward. She was afraid of what she might find.
And yet, it was the eve of her wedding. Shouldn’t she at least try to find out who she really was before she decided whether or not to go through with it?
"I must have my own things, somewhere," she'd whispered to her mother, when she'd first come home from the hospital. It had not been lost on her that everything in the bedroom her mother had ready for her was new. Brand-new. The clothes still had tags on them. Even the underwear.
"Yes, you're right. Your things are packed away in the attic."
"Then shouldn't I see them?"
Her mother had met her eyes, her own filled with worry. "When you start to remember the past, you can go through them. Until then—well, the doctors think your mind isn't ready yet. You don't want to do anything to force it. It could cause a setback that would make things even worse than they already are."
She shivered a little at the memory. At the time, she’d believed her mother was right. It was better not to remember. It was easier. So she’d backed down, accepted that not knowing was for the best.
Can you even imagine believing that pile of horse dung? That not knowing was better? Are you over that yet, Kira? Cause I want my freaking life back.
She nodded. “I don’t know if I want it back. But I think I need to at least know about it. Marshall was right. I get to choose.”
So she turned left instead of right and she moved up the second flight of stairs to the door at the top, opened it and walked into the darkness, one arm reaching out in front of her, searching for a light, and finally finding one. She flicked the switch, but only dim light appeared from a single, dust-coated bulb in the ceiling. The trunks stood in the middle of the vast space, two of them, and she moved closer to them. It felt as if she stood at the threshold of a doorway that led both to the past and to the future. And for sure, led out of this safe, warm in-between place, this luxurious, lazy nowhere land, where she’d been biding her time, not even fully alive.
Drawing a breath, she knelt, put her hands on one trunk’s dusty lid and pushed, but the lid didn't give. The trunks were locked. Her mother had the keys. She ought to wait until morning, ask her for them. She would open them.
"To hell with that," she muttered, and then almost wondered who had spoken. But she didn't wonder long. There was a hammer on the windowsill, coated in grime. A screwdriver lay beside it. She pushed cobwebs out of her face as she strode across the attic to get the tools. Then she turned to the two giant trunks that were the most recent additions to the collection of forgotten relics that filled the place.
The trunks were not old ones, like some of the others. They were new, modern junk in designer colors. She didn't feel any compunction about ruining them. She bent to the hasp of the first one, positioned the screwdriver, lifted the hammer, and wondered what secrets she was about to set free.
Her stomach was tied up in knots. Her heart beat rapid-fire, and she held her breath as she brought the hammer down. The hasp snapped. Placing both hands on the lid, Kira lifted it open.
Six months. It had been six months since she'd come out of that coma. A month before that, she had been some other person, the Kira from before. A stranger. The woman who might somehow be locked away in these trunks like everything she'd ever owned.
She knelt and pawed aside the bubble wrap that was lovingly layered over her possessions. And then she sat very still, just staring. She blinked, looked up, then left and right for another trunk. She’d clearly opened the wrong one.
But something turned her head back again, drew her eyes to the contents of this one.
Her hand trembled as she reached out and trailed her fingers over glossy black metal. It was cold, hard, and unbelievably smooth. She closed her hand around the white grips and picked up a gun. The handle was pearl, she thought at first, but then decided it was white onyx. An oxymoron.
Kind of like the notion of the woman she believed herself to be, walking around with a .44 Magnum, and just as fast she wondered how the hell she knew it even was a .44 Magnum.
But as she cradled the gun in her hand, lifting it, closing one eye, the other gazing down the barrel to the site on the end, the one inside her almost purred. There you are, baby. It’s been a long time.
Chapter 4
In the morning, Kira's bedroom looked like an explosion at a punk and goth shop. She'd dragged both trunks down from the attic, using a folded blanket as a cushion to muffle the noise. Then she'd gone through them in the privacy of her bedroom, item by item.
There were clothes, lots of clothes, but none that looked anything like the ones her mother had stocked in her closet. Nearly everything was dark, a dozen shades of black and burgundy and olive drab. There were short skirts and tight pants and tank tops. There were cargo pants in six different styles. There were boots, tall black ones with chunky heels that looked as if they’d come straight out of a video game. In fact, every piece would’ve looked right at home in Lara Croft’s closet. There were belts and straps that made her wonder if she’d been into some freaky bondage thing in addition to tomb raiding. Then she finally figured that they were holsters for
her guns.
Yes. Guns. Plural. In addition to the cannon sized handgun she’d recognized as a .44 Magnum, there was a cute little Glock 43, a nickel-plated snub-nosed .38 revolver by Smith & Wesson, and a little .22 with a completely illegal forty-round clip. There were boxes of ammunition, a dismantled rifle in a case, and a collection of knives so razor sharp they made her blood run cold. Weapons and ammunition, belts and holsters had been the sum total of the contents of the first trunk.
The second one had most of its space taken up by all the clothes and boots. But tucked beneath those items she found a framed photograph.
The photo stunned her the way an electric shock would. It wasn’t the way she looked in the photo that was so surprising. She’d already seen this version of herself in the mirror downstairs. She’d already heard her alter ego, ordering her around inside her own head.
What stunned her was that she wasn’t alone in the photo. And more than ever, it made her want to remember.
Kira moved slowly to the full-length mirror and stood there, looking from the photo to her own reflection and back again. The girl in the glass wore a loose-fitting, white nightgown, and her skin was pale. She could’ve been an anemic angel. The Kira in the photo was dressed in skintight black, and her skin was almost bronze from the sun.
The one in the mirror had long, straight hair, a pretty brown color. The one in the photo had short hair, darkest auburn with streaks of crimson shot through it. It curved around her face to her chin, and her bangs were the perfect length to enhance the exotic tilt of her wide-set eyes.
The girl in the photo wore makeup, heavy on the eyeliner. Dark on the lips. And it looked good. She looked good. She looked confident, sure of herself, powerful, and strong.
And the man standing beside her, with his arm around her shoulders and his head tipped to rest against hers, wasn't the man she was going to marry in the morning.
He was her wedding planner. And the background that spread out behind them was one that was familiar to her—it was a bustling village market in Africa.
Marshall, her wedding planner, had been in Africa, too.
"Darling," her mother called, her voice a songbird's trill as she tapped rapidly but softly on her bedroom door. "Are you up? Best get in the shower, dear, you have a hair appointment in an hour."
Kira opened the bedroom door and stepped out into the hall, quickly pulling the door closed behind her.
Her mother greeted her with a warm hug. "Are you excited about your big day?"
“I am,” she replied. It wasn’t entirely a lie. She was excited, all right. She felt so close… just right on the brink of remembering. The lost part of herself was awake and alive inside her mind, talking to her, even guiding her toward the truth. But she hadn’t yet become her. She still felt like a separate being.
And yet now, for the first time, Kira was eager to know everything about her. She wasn’t afraid anymore.
But no, she was not excited about the wedding. God, the wedding. What the hell was she going to do about that?
She returned her mother's hug, then held her hand as they walked down the stairs together.
"I hope you're not too nervous to eat breakfast."
Kira smiled. "Actually, I'm famished." And eager, God she was eager to explore and question and try to find her past. Her identity. Her true self.
And to find the answers to some serious questions about Marshall Waters. She’d known him. They’d been together, even while she was on her engagement trip with Peter, apparently. Had she truly cheated on her new fiancé with her wedding planner?
Poor Peter.
"I'm so glad," her mother was saying as they moved down the stairs together. "I had Cook make your favorite. French toast with real maple syrup."
Kira smiled. "Was it always my favorite?" she asked.
"Since you were four. Maybe longer, but you were four when you informed your father and me." She closed her eyes briefly. "God, I wish he was still here with us, to see you married."
Kira nodded, wishing she could remember her father. The man deserved his daughter to mourn him, and yet she hadn't. Couldn't.
Her mother led her into the cozy breakfast nook, which was a sunny, glass-enclosed enclave off the dining room. The table was set, the sun streaming in through the windows. Like magic, Anita, appeared with a silver coffeepot and a covered tray. She set the tray down, poured the coffee for them. It must have been nice, being raised in the lap of luxury, Kira thought. Yet another thing she didn’t remember. "Thanks, Anita," Kira said when her cup was full.
Anita nodded, saying nothing, but her eyes lingered on Kira's for a long moment before she hurried back to the kitchen.
Kira took a piece of French toast, set it on her plate. "Mom?"
"Yes?"
"Do you like Peter?"
Her mother blinked and frowned at her. "Well, of course I like him. Oh, I'll admit when you first introduced him, I had my doubts. But your father assured me you knew exactly what you were doing." She sighed, pressing a hand to her heart as she lifted her gaze to the photo of her and her late husband, Danny Shanahan, smiling, arm in arm. There were photos of her father in every room of the house. He was bigger than life in every way. She must have adored him.
"So, Dad approved of him?"
"He seemed to."
Kira nodded slowly, wondering how best to approach the new thought on her mind, and finally settling for the inane, "How do we know Marshall?"
Her mother lifted her brows. "He's your wedding planner, dear. Are you sure you're all right?"
"I'm fine. What I mean is, do we know him outside his job? Was he ever—a family friend or anything like that?"
"What a strange question." Her mother shrugged. "No, dear. We don't know him outside his job." Then she tipped her head. "Has he done something inappropriate, Kira?"
"Of course not."
Her mother studied her. But then the bustle of footsteps through the house drew their attention away, and they both turned to see Peter Nelson himself hurrying into the room. He wore a big smile—even white teeth in a tanned face, and beach-blond hair.
"Peter!" Kira’s mother jumped to her feet and moved to block his view of Kira. "You're not supposed to see the bride before the wedding!"
"Come on, now, Abby, that's nothing but superstition," Peter said with a smile. "I promise, no disaster will result if I give my bride a gift before the ceremony."
"It's all right, Mom," Kira said, rising from her chair. "Hello, Peter." She watched him, searching his face. He was handsome. Polite. Good to her. Kind and sweet and exceedingly patient.
Hell, why was she having such misgivings about this marriage?
Maybe because you don't love him, have you thought of that?
She shrugged off that rationale. She didn't feel strong emotions for anyone or for anything. It was part of her condition. She had reassured herself all along that if she’d loved him once, it would come back when her memory did.
But what if I never loved him at all?
He clasped her elbows and kissed her cheek. "Morning, love. How are you feeling?"
"Wonderful. Join us for some french toast?"
"No time. So much to do. But I wanted to give you this." He brought a teddy bear from behind his back.
It was pink and wore a bridal gown and veil. Custom-made for her, obviously. What were soon to be her initials were embroidered within a red, heart-shaped outline on the front of the satin dress. "It's incredible."
"Look around her neck. Under the dress," he said.
Frowning, she ran a finger under the dress's neckline and pulled out a long strand of perfect pearls. "God, Peter, these must have cost a fortune."
"Nothing's too good for you. I hope you'll wear them today. They can be your ‘something new’."
"I will. Thank you, Peter."
"You're welcome." Again, he leaned in, kissing her lips this time, lightly and gently. It was a press of flesh to flesh, as impersonal as a handshake. In contrast, th
e memory of kissing Marshall came rushing back to her with all the heat and turmoil of the original. And this passionless peck paled by comparison.
Peter turned and hurried away, apparently having noticed nothing at all lacking in the kiss.
Kira sank into her chair, placing the pearl-laden teddy bear in an empty one nearby. "That was sweet of him," she said.
"It was amazing." Her mother dabbed at the corner of one eye with her napkin.
Kira sighed and dug into her french toast, eating quickly, because she was eager to get to her hair appointment. She finished up, said good-bye to her mother, and dashed up to her room to get ready.
First, she made room in her closets and drawers for all the clothes she’d found in the trunks. She left the weapons where they were, and then dragged both trunks to the far side of her bed, out of view from the bedroom door, and draped a spare blanket over them as an added precaution.
And then she took that framed photo of her and Marshall, and gazed at it for a long moment. It did something to her, seeing the affection them. It stirred things up inside her, heated her blood, quickened her heart and left this odd sense of emptiness in her belly—a longing. Nothing about Peter had even a shadow of that effect on her.
She snapped a pic of the photo with her cell, then slid the framed image underneath her pillow and made up the bed, so Anita wouldn’t come in to do it and find the photo.
Wait, Anita. Anita said she’d overseen the packing up of her things. So she had to know what was in these trunks. She had to know about the weapons and the photo!
Why hadn’t she said anything? Or told Mother?
That mystery would have to wait. She had precious little time to hit the shower and make it to her hair appointment. And suddenly, she was looking forward to that.
Two hours later, the stylist, Nadine, said, "You're sure this is what you wanted? To look like you did in this picture?"
Kira nodded. "Yes, I'm sure, for the tenth time, I'm sure. The hair. The makeup all of it. Can I see? Did you do it?"
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