Killer Amnesia

The past six months melted away, and he was no longer standing in the freezing rain. He was suffocating in the sweltering Dallas heat. His memory had taken him to when he was working undercover in the Serpent Brotherhood, playing the same game he’d perfected in foster care. He was pretending to fit in. Pretending to be something he wasn’t. Not even Jenny had seen through his act, and they’d briefly attended grade school together.

For once Liam had been grateful the foster system had bounced him from family to family. Jenny hadn’t known he’d gone to college before joining the Dallas PD. The few people who remembered him from those days believed he was just another kid from the old neighborhood—all grown up and going nowhere.

Are you a cop? Don’t lie to me. Jenny’s words echoed in his mind. Her boyfriend, Swerve, was the lead fixer in the gang and took care of problems by making them disappear. Swerve was responsible for more than one missing person in the Dallas area. He’d gotten agitated during the exchange, and he’d accidentally pulled the trigger. The bullet had carved a path through Liam’s left shoulder, shattering his clavicle before slicing into Jenny’s neck. She’d bled out before the paramedics had arrived.

The scene was a mess, and Swerve thought he’d killed them both. The US Marshals had done the rest. They’d given Liam a new last name and tucked him away while the case wove its slow path through the court system.

A broken tree limb slammed into Liam’s shin, ripping his feet from beneath him, forcing him back to the present. He caught hold of the door handle and dragged himself upright, then wrapped his arm through the open window, bracing his body. A sharp metal edge dug painfully through his sleeve.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” Keeping her head supported with one hand, he gently touched the lump on her forehead. “Can you tell if anything is broken?”

“I d-don’t k-know. I don’t th-think so.” She frantically beat against the water swirling around her waist. “I have to get out of here.”

“Soon.” He depressed the Call button on his radio and leaned his ear to his shoulder. “Where’s that fire truck?”

A grating voice sounded from the microphone attached to Liam’s collar. “Delayed. Driver didn’t know the road was washed out.”

“Tell ’em it’s urgent.”

“Hold your horses. Not gonna change things for the victim.”

“She’s alive, Bishop.”

The momentary shock of silence was deafening. “That can’t be. I checked. I didn’t feel a pulse.”

No use arguing about the details when there was a life hanging in the balance. Who knew what other injuries she might have sustained, and she was at risk for hypothermia.

“There’s a backboard in my truck. Send it down,” Liam ordered.

“Ten-four,” came the quiet reply.

The car lurched against the tide of rainwater, and his heart slammed against his ribs.

She didn’t have time to wait for fire and rescue. “We’re getting you out of here, ma’am, but you’ll have to work with me. Can you do that?”

He risked exacerbating her injuries by moving her, but she was going to drown otherwise.

She gave a hesitant nod. The car shifted again, and she bolted upright, grasping his arm.

“Yes,” she gasped. “H-help me.”

His shoulder protested the abuse, and he grimaced.

The woman stilled. “What’s wrong? Are y-you all right?”

“It’s nothing,” he replied gruffly.

His feet sank deeper into the mud, and his gut churned. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep his footing. He didn’t know how much longer they had before the water swept away the car.

The woman took another deep, gulping breath. “I trust you.”

Her declaration knocked the breath from his lungs. The last person who’d trusted him, Jenny, had paid the ultimate price. He’d prayed to God plenty growing up, especially during the worst times, and he’d begged God to save Jenny that day.

He’d gotten the same answer he’d grown accustomed to: silence.

He didn’t resent God for ignoring his prayers, instead, he’d learned that if a man never asked for anything, he was never disappointed.

Lightning streaked across the sky. Thunder rattled the shattered windshield, and her grip on his arm tightened. His past no longer mattered. What mattered now was this woman’s safety.

“Someone f-forced me off the road,” she said. “S-someone tried to kill me.”

She found herself in a freezing nightmare of throbbing pain. Blood pounded inside her skull. Her other pains were too numerous to count, and the frigid rain had her bones aching.

The water was rising.

Her heart hammered against her ribs. She wasn’t staying in this car another minute.

“Did you hear me?” She tried to shout over the rushing water, but the words came out warbled. “About the accident?”

“I heard you,” the deputy said, a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I’ll get a description of the vehicle and the driver once you’re squared away.”

“A t-truck, I th-think.”

She attempted to reconstruct the moments before careening off the road, but the images at the edges of her vision blurred.

Someone had tried to kill her, and they’d nearly succeeded.

Her eyes must have drifted shut, because the next instant, Deputy McCourt was gently nudging her. “Stay with me.”

He was somewhere in his early thirties and handsome in an earnestly boyish kind of way. The weak beam of light from the highway above wasn’t strong enough to see his eyes, but she had a vague impression they were blue. His beard was dark, and she assumed the hair beneath his brimmed hat matched. He was tall—his shape hidden beneath his enveloping slicker.

The car shifted, and she frantically reached beneath the water to unfasten her seat belt. The mechanism released, and the sudden freedom sent pain shooting through her shoulder.

She clutched her upper arm and groaned.

“What’s wrong?” The deputy steadied her through the broken window. “What happened?”

The strap had been cutting into her collarbone, but she’d been too preoccupied by everything else to notice. “I’m f-fine. Just the seat belt.”

Her lips were going numb, making speech difficult. She pressed her palm against her throbbing head and winced.

The deputy broke the few remaining glass shards from the surrounding window frame. “You’ll have to crawl out. I’ll help you.”

“A-all right.”

As she drifted in and out of consciousness, the next few minutes passed in a blur. Strong arms lifted her from the car’s wreckage. The pain came in gasping waves. Even the slightest movement jolted her battered limbs. Once the deputy had positioned her on the backboard, she struggled feebly against his insistence on checking her for additional injuries. She was fine. She could walk. As he secured her upper body, a shaft of pure agony jerked through her.

“Sorry,” the deputy mumbled. “You have a dislocated shoulder.”