Remember Me by Sharon Sala Read Free Book Online Page A

refused. He was afraid. Afraid that if he left her, even for a minute, she would disappear again. So he slept in fits and snatches in a chair by her bed, and during the times that he was awake, he hadn’t been able to take his eyes from her face.
    She looked the same—and yet there were differences that ate at him. Her hair was shorter than it had been. He tried to picture her going about her life without him. Shopping for clothes and food. Getting haircuts and watching movies that made her cry. It seemed obscene that she had remained the same while he’d died inside.
    But there were other differences besides the obvious. Her face was slimmer, her skin paler. There was a set to her mouth that hadn’t been there before, as well as faint frown lines between her eyebrows. She had the look of a woman who had suffered.
    And besides the mystery of the money, there was now the tattoo.
    They hadn’t found it until yesterday morning, when the nurses were changing the linens on Frankie’s bed. As they’d rolled her onto her side to remove the dirty sheets, her hair had fallen forward around her face, revealing a small, gold-colored tattoo just below the hairline at the back of her neck.
    â€œWell, now,” one of the nurses said. “Would you look at that.”
    At their bidding, Clay had stepped forward, but when he saw the strange mark, his heart skipped a beat. He traced the shape with his fingers, trying to imagine her choosing to have this done, but the image wouldn’t come. Frankie was deathly afraid of needles.
    â€œIt’s sort of like a cross, but it’s not,” the nurse said. “I’ve seen them before but I forget what they’re called.”
    â€œIt’s an ankh,” Clay muttered. “An Egyptian symbol for eternity…I think.”
    The nurse gave him a curious glance but held her tongue. The whole floor was well aware of this couple’s history. After all, this man’s face had been on local television almost as often as the quarterback of the city’s beloved football team, the Denver Broncos.
    She smiled at Clay, then gave the sheets on Frankie’s bed one last pat. “There you go. She’s all fixed up. I’ll be back later to change her IV.”
    Clay hated the pity he was getting almost as much as he’d resented the anonymous judgment of being a suspected murderer. He was glad when the nurses left. And while the discovery of the tattoo was strange, it offered no answers to the mystery of where she’d been. All he could do was wait for her to wake up. Hopefully, the rest could come later.
    Â 
    After thirty-three hours of steady rainfall, the Denver skies finally cleared. The streets glistened with a just-washed look as the last remnants of runoff flowed through the gutters. The early-morning air was sharp with the scents of autumn. Leaves had turned weeks ago, and the snowcaps on the Rockies were constant reminders of the coming winter.
    She awoke to find Clay asleep in a chair beside her bed. She frowned, vaguely remembering a dream about palm trees that didn’t make sense, then winced as the glare of new sun hit her eyes.
    â€œOoh,” she moaned.
    Within her next breath, Clay was awake.
    â€œFrancesca?”
    She swallowed. Her tongue felt thick. “What happened?”
    â€œYou’re in a hospital,” he said. “Lie still. I’m going to get a nurse.”
    â€œWait.”
    He was already gone. She sighed, then glanced around the room, trying to piece together the bits of her memory. It had been raining, and she’d been waiting for Clay to come home. She’d fallen asleep and…
    At that point, everything stopped. She started over, replaying the memory a bit farther back.
    She’d been out in the rain. But where, and why? She closed her eyes, willing her mind to go blank. Suddenly she saw herself running from a building. She could remember the water splashing up the backs