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  "She seems to think so. Flipped when she thought I thought she was crazy. Which, she might be. That's why Ash needs to look her over and check to make sure she's not high or some shit like that. But, if she's not any of that..."

  "Then where the hell did she lose a year to?"

  "Exactly," I said, snapping closed the file in my hand.

  "This better not be some bullshit excuse to get me down here so you can keep up your incessant flirting with me," Ashley declared, walking through the doors, her wavy hair flying behind her. "Because as I have told you at least a dozen times before, I like eating pussy as much as you like eating pussy. Which, if your reputation is anything to go by, is a lot," she declared, dropping a heavy bag down on the reception desk.

  "You know, I wouldn't exactly be adverse to you know... watching," I offered, making her roll her eyes. "No. I was serious when I said I have a girl who needs to be looked over. She's claiming her last memory is from over a year ago. Told me that when she woke up, everything hurt. So she needs..."

  "To be checked for injuries and have a rape kit done," Ashley filled in.

  "Exactly. And run her blood to make sure she's not high or some shit. She doesn't seem it but longtime junkies can hide it well when they need to."

  "Alright. Anything else?" she asked, moving to take her bag, which was gone, because Tig had picked it up for her. See? Softy.

  "Nah. I just need to know every little bit of what you find so I know what I am getting into if I am getting into it."

  "Alright. This shouldn't be longer than an hour or so," she said, falling into step with Tig who led her over toward the exam room.

  I went back to my office, firing up my laptop while calling my brother. While I was the one with actual real life experience working as a professional private investigator, Barrett was a whiz with computers and fancied himself a PI too, opening his own one-man shop and slowly building a client list, despite getting his ass handed to him at least three times since he started. But, he was learning and I couldn't protect him forever.

  Besides, I had to keep shit amicable seeing as he was a good resource for me.

  "I don't want a lecture. She wanted to come to me instead of you. She said you were rude and overbearing in the interview," he answered.

  "I'm not talking about the chick with the cheating husband."

  "You don't know that he's cheating. She is just curious what he is doing..."

  "What he's doing is lying to her while he goes off and fucks a woman half her age with plastic tits and ass-fat-injected lips. That's what he's doing. She wanted to hear otherwise and I don't lie to my clients. But, by all means, enjoy her and her very deep pockets while you can. That wasn't why I was calling."

  "Alright, what's up then?"

  Barrett was a good five years younger than me and softer because his generation as a whole was just softer, used to their video games and cell phones and computers and never learning how to fall out of a tree or walk off a over-the-handlebars crash off your bike so the chicks wouldn't think you were a pussy for crying over losing half your body's blood. But he was also softer because he didn't jump right into the military out of high school like I did. And he didn't spend a nice chunk of his twenties in extensive, ass-breaking training and then in all the hellholes of the Earth doing dirty missions that blacken the soul before finally getting out and starting his own gig.

  But, without all that down and dirty shit, he had a lot more time to work on his computer skills.

  Which was why I needed him.

  "Can you run a name for me and see what you find? I maybe have a new client and I want to know all her dirty secrets before I decide to take her on. And I want everything. If you can hack medical or psych files, I want those the most."

  "This will cost," he said, making me smile as I rubbed a hand down my face. He made it clear when I was barely on my feet opening the agency that he was not giving me any handouts, that he didn't work for free. Not even for family.

  "It always does."

  "Alright, what's the name?"

  "Riya Sweeney."

  "Nice," he said and I could hear him writing. He only ever used pen and paper and the careful fuck wrote in Polish code too. Knowing everything there was to know about computers, he knew how easily they were hacked. And while someone might be able to, after a long and tedious process, be able to break his code, it was much more difficult than hacking into a computer system. "That should be easy. Not like that Jane Smith you sent me once. Jane Smith. Who the hell names their kids something like that nowadays?"

  "I need this as fast as possible. I'll pay double if you drop whatever else you're working on to get me a file by tomorrow."

  "Can do," he said, because I knew none of his cases were of the pressing kind. "Oh, well that explains it," he said a second later, humor clear in his tone.

  "What explains what?"

  "Riya Sweeney might just be the prettiest woman I've seen in years."

  "And that explains what?"

  "Your interest in her secrets."

  I paused at that. "I don't fuck my clients, Barrett." I was telling him shit he already knew. True, I liked a good time and I had been known to allow women to show that to me, but I was a professional. I had no interest in having my work reputation sullied because a nice body in a tight dress came into my office and I wanted on.

  "No. But I believe you have waited until you've closed the case and then took them to bed."

  "Yeah, well," I said, smiling, "they aren't clients after the case is closed."

  Barrett snorted and I could picture him shaking his head at me, as he usually did. "Alright. I'll get to work. I will drop off the file as soon as I have it."

  "Barrett," I called before he could end the call.

  "Yeah?"

  "I want it in fucking English this time, okay? I don't have hours to spend using the damn key you supply me with to decipher the files this time."

  "Fine," he said, clearly annoyed at having to shake up his usual methods.

  "Thanks, Bar."

  "Yep," he said, mind already elsewhere.

  I hung up and rubbed my hands over my eyes. It was going to be a long ass day.

  "Here, honey," Marg said, dropping my third cup of black coffee on my desk. "You got the Helsburg file?"

  "Yeah, Marg. Thanks for getting it out of storage for me."

  "That girl, you're taking her case?"

  "Pending her physical. Ashley should be able to tell me if she's nuts too."

  "I hope you can help her," she said, walking toward the door. "She looked so lost."

  If her story was true, she would.

  Anyone would feel lost if they were missing an entire year of their life.

  And as I tried to focus on the Helsburg file, I tried like fuck to stifle the thought that I really hoped she wasn't crazy.

  Because that shit was not like me.

  THREE

  Riya- 2 hours

  "Hey, I'm Ashley," the woman who stepped into the room said, giving me a small, encouraging smile.

  "Riya," I said with a nod, self-consciously shifting in the stiff hospital gown, feeling more naked than I ever had before in my life despite it.

  "Riya," she said, setting a bag down and reaching inside to spread items onto a tray she pulled out of a corner. "I know this is really awkward. But this isn't going to be painful, maybe a little uncomfortable at parts, but it's really important for us to get every bit of data we can since you don't remember what happened to you."

  I swallowed hard as she reached into the cabinet for a box of gloves then turned away from me to wash before slipping them on and scooting toward me on the stool, dragging the tray with her.

  "I understand." And I did. This needed to be done. I needed to strip down and be poked and prodded to see what I had or had not been through.

  "We'll start small. Can I have your hand?" she asked, reaching for a small wooden stick with a tapered edge as I placed my hand in one of hers. "Just fingernail
scrapings so we can see where you've been hopefully," she offered, scraping under each nail and putting the samples into tiny little paper envelopes. "Alright. I am not going to do your pulse or any of that. But I am going to check your body over," she said, scooting back and I knew the intention was for me to stand, so I did.

  I took a deep breath and reached behind my back for the tie and undid it so the gown slid down, the cool air of the room making my bare skin goosebump from head to toe.

  Ashley's brows drew together as she stood and moved closer to me, taking my arm and turning it around twice, then doing the same with the other. "Hm, okay. No bruising," she said, moving around my back and I had to shut my eyes and swallow hard against the embarrassment of having every bare inch of my body examined. "Sawyer mentioned you saying you were sore," she said, moving in front of me again and handing my gown back to me, which I happily slipped inside quickly. I knew the worst wasn't over, but I was glad for a small barrier.

  "Yeah, I'm sore."

  "Where?"

  "Everywhere. Literally. I feel like all my muscles hurt. You know like... after you workout really hard and can't move the next day? That's how I feel."

  "Okay," she said, jotting down a quick note. She reached out as I sat down and touched my head, pushing her fingers in. I imagined she was looking for some sign that I had been hit in the head or something. But my head was the only part of me that didn't hurt. She reached back toward the tray. "Alright, I am going to take a little blood," she told me, reaching for a swab and wiping the inside of my elbow to clean it before reaching for a syringe and quickly pushing it into the vein, giving me no warning, no time to get anxious over the idea.

  I looked down, watching my blood flow into the glass in a detached sort of wonder.

  "One more vial," she said as she took the first one out and capped it.

  "Okay."

  "Alright," she said a minute later, capping it and turning to me with a somewhat guarded expression. "So, because you don't know what happened to you. Sawyer and I feel it would be best if we did..."

  "A rape kit," I said, swallowing, feeling my stomach clench hard. "I want it done too. It's, ah, better to know," I said, meaning it. Nothing was worse than not knowing.

  "Alright, so I need you to lie back, pull your knees up, then let your legs fall open, feet touching each other," she said as she reached for the items she needed. "Would you feel more comfortable for me to talk you through this or just get it over with?"

  "Just get it over with," I said, closing my eyes tight and trying to pretend I was somewhere, anywhere else than in some exam room in a private investigator's office getting a rape exam done by a nice nurse I would never see again.

  "Okay. Riya. Hey," she said, her voice low and soothing. "Riya," she said again, pressing my legs closed. "We're all done. I'm sorry. I know that was unpleasant, but it's all over."

  I took a breath and sat up, letting my legs drop down over the side of the table, gripping the edge so hard that my hands turned white. "Was I raped?"

  Ashley tossed her gloves away, turning back to me and shaking her head. "No, Riya. From what I can tell, there hasn't been any sexual activity, either consensual or otherwise."

  Somehow, those words, those perfect, wonderful words, were my breaking point.

  I brought my hands up, burying my face in them as I let out the tears that I had been holding in since I woke up that morning.

  And once I opened up those floodgates, there was no closing them back up. My body folded half over, my chest shaking hard as I tried to keep the sobbing inside even as the tears fell, making me let out a strange, hiccuping, choking noise.

  "Riya, hey," Ashley said, moving to sit beside me on the edge of the table, her hand landing on my knee. "I know this situation is crazy, but I'm confident that if Sawyer takes your case, he will figure it all out and get you some answers. It's not as hopeless as it feels right now. And once we get the blood tests back, we might even have more to go on. Try to look on the bright side here. You're sore, but not hurt. You weren't assaulted. Everything is going to be alright."

  I sniffled loudly, swiping hard at my cheeks. I wasn't entirely convinced that everything would be okay. But that being said, I didn't need to have a complete breakdown in front of a stranger either.

  I was a realist. Things were not okay. And, chances were, they would not be okay for a good, long time. I would need to harden the hell up.

  "Okay. That's enough of that," I said at my own expense, getting off the table and reaching for my pile of clothes. "Sorry about that."

  "Honey, I think I would be rocking in a corner if I lost a year of my life. You are holding it together remarkably well. Alright," she said, putting all her samples into a bag then tossing half of the equipment used. "I am going to go get this all analyzed so I can report back to Sawyer so we can get some answers for you."

  "Thank you," I said, meaning it. If she could tell me something, anything, I owed her big time.

  "Best of luck, Riya," she said, going into the hall, leaving me alone to quickly redress.

  I went out to the hall as well, looking around a little helplessly. I didn't know what to do or where to go.

  "Mr. Anderson is in a meeting right now, but he will get in touch with you."

  That was a dismissal if I had ever heard one.

  And that was all fine and dandy, but he didn't even have a way of getting in touch with me. But I nodded to Marg and gave her a grateful smile and headed outside. I couldn't stand inside the reception area like a little lost puppy.

  That was what I felt like, though, as I sat down on the giant steps leading up to the building. Because, the fact of the matter was, losing a year of your life meant you lost a lot of things. Like, I imagined, my apartment and every single thing inside it, my car that was two payments shy of being paid off, my purse and all my IDs which meant all the access I had to things such as my bank account and credit cards to get temporary lodging.

  I had nowhere to go.

  That was a truly terrifying thought.

  My family, small as it was, was gone. I had made a couple friends over the years, but no one that I felt close enough to to show up at their doorsteps and beg for a place to stay until I got things sorted out. I didn't even have a phone to try to call people or figure out what could be done.

  For someone who had always had her life pretty under control, it was completely and overwhelmingly unsettling to not know where I was going to sleep that night. Or how I was going to get food. Or get my life back on track.

  "Brock, I swear to fuck, only you would find yourself bare-assed naked on some woman's back..." Sawyer's voice trailed off as he moved down the steps. When I turned my head up to look at him, his brows drew together. "I gotta go, man. I don't know, make a maple leaf skirt and call a cab. Not my problem you pissed off your fuck buddy. Oh, shit," he said, smiling a little wickedly and, even from several feet below him, I could hear a woman shrieking through the phone. "Good luck with that, man," he said, hanging up and tucking the phone into his pocket. When I didn't say anything, because, well, what was there to say, he exhaled hard. "Come on, babe."

  My brows knitted when he turned and continued down the steps, like he expected me to follow. "Ah... sorry, what?"

  "I said come on," he said with a shrug, turning back to me, the sun making him squint those gorgeous green eyes of his. "I need to eat. You look like you need to too. So let's eat."

  And then I said a handful of words that, in my previous life, were so out of the realm of possible words to string together that I felt mortification well up inside me at having to say them. "I don't have any money."

  "Like I'd let you pay if you did. Come on, I don't have all day," he said, turning and starting to run across the street.

  And, well, with nothing else to do and no other way to get food, I stood, walked to the end of the sidewalk, waited for traffic to clear, and followed him. On my achy legs, it took me half a block to catch up to him even though he was keepin
g a somewhat leisurely pace.

  We stopped outside a building I was familiar with, one that had been a landmark to the area for as long as I could remember. It was a hideous chrome thing with big windows beside each booth and little music boxes that no longer worked. It was situated a few doors down from Chaz's bar and had the distinction of being the only twenty-four hour eatery in the area. So when the bar let out, the place would fill, and the people too drunk to drive had a place to sober up before they drove home.

  I had eaten there at least two dozen times over the years.

  But it wasn't the diner I knew and loved anymore.

  "What?" I asked, shaking my head at the sign that declared it was some kind of breakfast and brunch place.

  Sawyer turned back, looking at the sign I was staring at like it was suddenly written in Sanskrit.

  "Owner died. The place went into the hands of the family. The family had a chain of these places and decided to turn it over," he explained.

  "That's just... that's sacrilege," I insisted, shaking my head. "This was a landmark."

  "Yeah, well, people suck," he said, opening the door for me and I reluctantly walked inside. "But we still need to eat and this place is the closest so we have to get our French toast on."

  We were led over to a booth that overlooked the street, full of small businesses. Three of them were unfamiliar to me. But that wasn't that strange. This part of town was always known for a high turnover rate of the storefronts. There were only ever a couple staples that never changed over the years: a second hand store, an antique shop, a music shop, a new age store, and a couple eateries that had been there since I knew the place.

  That didn't bother me.

  But the changing of the diner, yeah, that made the whole 'losing a year' thing even harder to deny.

  "This feels so wrong," I said as I picked up my menu and looked over the items. No more grilled cheese sandwiches with a side of fries and perfect diner coleslaw with a pickle. That was what I always got. It was always perfect.

  But the longer I sat, the more my stomach twisted and grumbled, so I pushed aside my feelings of disorientation, picked out a breakfast combo that had French toast, eggs, hash browns, and bacon, ordered a coffee and water, and handed my menu to the waitress.