More Than Memories by Kristen James Read Free Book Online Page A

linger.
    “We’ll figure this out, okay?” Alicia said,
stepping back. Molly nodded before they started for the car.
    As they walked to Alicia’s Mazda, Molly realized
she did plan on staying at least until she discovered a few answers, maybe
longer.
    The sky outside only held a few white clouds and a
lot of people were taking advantage of the sunshine and rise in temperature.
They drove through town on the main road and turned right near the other end,
toward the edge of town.
    “Here’s your old house.”
    Molly felt dismayed as she saw the baby blue house
with white trim. The place looked so welcoming with the wide porch, the padded
wicker chairs, and flower pots.
    “It’s quaint. A cute, country kind of quaint.”
    “You say that like it’s weird,” Alicia said.
    “Oh, no.” Molly corrected. “I wasn’t expecting it
to look like this, though. It’s so different from the house in California. Did
the house look so warm when my parents and I lived there?”
    “You helped a lot. You planted the flower beds
because you loved growing things.”
    Molly turned to look at Alicia now. “I did? I
didn’t know that.”
    Next they drove thirty miles to the city and to a
mall where Alicia said they spent a lot of time at during high school. Inside,
Alicia took her to their favorite clothing store.
    “This is so cute!” Molly looked through a rack of
shirts.
    “You used to have more of a country style,” Alicia
told her. “More casual, too.”
    “I wonder what happened to my clothes. I only had
a few outfits when I first, well, you know.” Why hadn’t she ever wondered about
that before?
    “Weird.”
    “Hey, I like this.” Molly pulled a baby blue shirt
from the rack and found a pair of jeans and a few other things she liked.
    “That looks more like you. You came back to town
dressed like your mother.”
    Molly glanced up to see her expression, then they
broke into giggles.“Feel like a movie after
this?” Molly asked.
     
     
    Trent drummed his fingers on his desk while
waiting for Molly’s friend to pick up the phone. He almost hung up as the fifth
ring started, realizing he wasn’t going to get an answering machine.
    “Hello?” The voice sounded groggy.
    “Oh, I woke you, I’m sorry.”
    “Well, who is this?”
    “I’m Detective Trent Williams calling from Ridge
City, Oregon. Molly Anderson gave me your number. Is this Karen?”
    “Oh, yes. She called and told me about you, but I
didn’t expect you to call me.”
    He felt bad, realizing she must either work nights
or be on her day off, but he’d already ruined her sleep. “I wanted to ask you
about when you first met Molly.”
    “Okay…Her parents brought her to the hospital on
my shift, baffled by her behavior.”
    “Was she scared?” Trent heard the rus hed sound of h is voice.
    “No.” Karen paused, and Trent wondered if she
believed him about who he was. She finally continued,
“S he didn’t know where she was, or who was with her. They told her, she
seemed to understand, and then she’d forget again. At the end of the day, the
doctor believed she had PTA.”
    Lost, Trent said, “That’s not Parent Teacher
Association?”
    She laughed quickly but returned
right to business. “Post Traumatic Amnesia.”
    “Okay, got that.” He jotted down the official name
of Molly’s condition and added, “I knew her before, but she didn’t recognize me
when she saw me.”
    “Well, we were wrong.”
    “Wrong?” Trent didn’t understand how it could be
anything else. Would Molly lie to him? He couldn’t believe that, wouldn’t
believe it.
    “You see, PTA traps someone in the present, unable
to make short term memories. They live minute to minute, after a brain injury,
and it usually doesn’t last over a month.”
    “I’ve never heard of that,” he admitted, while
thinking Molly didn’t have that problem. Trent hoped Karen could give him
information on how to jump start Molly’s memory, if that’s what she needed to
move