“Anything else?” Seeley asked.
McCoy flipped through his notes. “The cook, Pete Humble, mentioned that Lucy tried to leave with a sleazy driver—his words, not mine—who offered to give her a ride. Zoe stepped in before Lucy could go.”
“Any chance the cook remembers which direction the sleazy driver was headed?”
McCoy smiled. “Said he was pretty sure he got on 45 North.”
“So was Lucy just catching a ride to anywhere, or did she mean to go that way?”
“I’ll go back and talk with the cook and waitress again, see if I can get anything else.”
Seeley let the silence hang between them as a few things crystalized.
First, since Lucy didn’t remember who she was, then they couldn’t pursue her as they had known her. They couldn’t expect her to react the way she normally did. She was a stranger now.
Second, they needed more information on Zoe Johnson. Why was she helping Lucy? What was in it for her?
He turned his attention back to McCoy. “I also need you to get me everything you can on Zoe Johnson.”
McCoy nodded.
Seeley yanked a peppermint from his pocket and unwrapped the plastic. He turned and started toward the exit, leaving McCoy at his back. “Everything you can find, ASAP,” Seeley said, popping the hard candy into his mouth and leaving Zoe’s motel apartment.
ZOE PAUSED TO survey the area. The trees were still covered in the dark of night, the air cold, nocturnal creatures scurrying across their land. Her mind was spinning, and she needed a moment to focus.
It had been a couple of hours since they’d slipped out her bathroom window. The first had passed in a flash of adrenaline and running for what felt like their lives. Once they were sure they weren’t being followed and slowed their pace, Zoe’s rationality had kicked in.
She’d crawled out a tiny window, away from the FBI, with a girl who had no memory but claimed to know the men after her were “bad guys.” Doubt started to creep in, her own panic that maybe she was on the wrong side. Could it be possible that Lucy was the “bad guy” and Zoe had just placed herself in danger? Again, she’d broken rules that she’d put in place for a reason. Don’t trust anyone—even some sappy, scared puppy. Yet here she was, wandering through the darkness, heading toward she-wasn’t-sure-what with she-wasn’t-sure-who. It suddenly all felt like a terrible mistake.
“Why is the FBI after you?” Zoe asked.
Lucy was walking a couple of feet ahead and turned to see that Zoe had stopped. She followed suit and turned to look at her. “They’re bad guys.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Lucy thought for a moment. “I don’t remember.”
Zoe exhaled in disbelief. “Then how do you know they’re bad?”
Lucy shook her head. “I don’t—”
“Remember,” Zoe finished for her. Frustration boiled in her chest. She let her head fall back as she closed her eyes. “What am I doing?” she said under her breath.
“Helping me, because you said you would.”
Zoe looked back to Lucy, a question forming in her brain. She almost felt nervous asking it. “Earlier, how did you know the FBI was going to knock on my door?”
“I heard them,” Lucy said.
“Before they were there?”
“Yes. I heard their footsteps outside on the pavement.”
“And just now, you heard me talking to myself?”
Lucy nodded. “I hear all kinds of things.”
An impossible idea was starting to take form in Zoe’s mind. “Like what?”
Lucy paused a moment as if searching with her ears. “The stream that runs through these woods is east of us. It’s filled with frogs this time of night. Something big is moving north, not human big but large enough to crack a branch, and there’s a fox digging under a log a few yards away, probably found a mouse.”
“How do you know it’s a fox?”
“I can smell it.”
Zoe stared at the girl, trying to get her mind to rationalize what her imagination was drawing up. “Where were you before the forest?”
“I told you I don’t remember,” Lucy said.
“Who is Olivia?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why are those men chasing you?” Zoe could feel heat rising up her back as her voice rose in volume.
“I don’t remember,” Lucy answered, her voice sounding smaller.
“Who are you?” Zoe snapped.
“I don’t know!” Lucy replied in kind.
“Think, Lucy.”
“Why are you yelling at me?”
“Because I need you to remember!”
“I don’t, I can’t!” Lucy tucked her head between balled fists and shook it back and forth. “I can’t, I can’t.” She hit the sides of her skull with her fists and sniffed as emotions gripped her voice. “I don’t remember.”
Sympathy washed over Zoe, and the anger that had been rising up her spine crumbled to guilt. She moved toward Lucy and placed her hand on the girl’s shoulder. Lucy raised her head, and in the moonlight Zoe could see the lines that tears left on her cheeks.
“I’m sorry I can’t remember,” Lucy whispered. She held Zoe’s eyes tightly, and Zoe’s guilt expanded. Lucy’s body may have been fully grown, but her mind and soul were still fully innocent. As if she only knew black and white and no shades of gray. Zoe might as well have yelled at a little girl.
“Don’t be sorry,” Zoe said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled. I’m just trying to understand what is going on here. How do you know the people after you are bad? Can you tell me that?”
Lucy sniffed and wiped the back of her hand across her nose. “I can feel it.”
“Like you can hear things?” Zoe asked.
“Like I know now that you are very afraid.”
Zoe dropped her hand from Lucy’s shoulder and swallowed. Too many fictional plots and irrational ideas crashed around inside her brain. She cleared her throat and shook the make-believe free. She wouldn’t jump to conclusions.
“Maybe there are answers in Corpus Christi,” she said.
The girl’s face lit up. “Yes, I need to go there.”
“We need to get there,” Zoe corrected.
Lucy smiled. “You won’t leave me?”
The question knocked free blocked memories of the brother Zoe had abandoned. She’d followed the rules set by authority, because that’s what she’d been taught to do. She’d feared the consequences of not doing what she was told. So she’d left him, and everything had changed. Maybe if she’d stayed she could have saved him.
She wouldn’t do that again. This time she would break the rules. Even the ones she’d set for herself.
“I was never going to leave you,” Zoe said.
Lucy’s smile grew. She reached forward and tucked her fingers into Zoe’s. Zoe felt the warmth of the girl’s palm heat her own hand and then her heart. It had been so long since someone had needed her like this. It brought both joy and pain, because last time she had failed.
“We have to be smart, and careful,” Zoe said.