The Sweet Caress by Roberta Latow Read Free Book Online

answer it we’ll have the sheriff in.’
    Once Bridget was seated, Luke turned his attention to her. ‘Sheriff, I know you well enough to believe that you will doall you can to help this lady and do your job at the same time. I am going to be candid with you both. It is obvious to me that you, Jessica, have an acute intelligence that allows you to understand the extraordinary predicament you are in and deal with it by deciding that you will not allow it to overwhelm you. That’s admirable and no doubt the best way to deal with loss of memory, something we still know little about. It is possible to lose one’s memory from a blow to the head, a psychological trauma, a brain virus or disease, but after a preliminary examination, my guess is that your loss of memory has been most likely caused by psychological trauma.’
    ‘Can you elaborate on that?’ said Jessica. She noticed a smile come into his eyes. She realised that she had not fooled Dr Luke Greenfield in the least. The smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
    The smile that had so briefly appeared had been because he had baited a trap for Jessica and she had risen to it beautifully. He had suggested three possibilities for her loss of memory, and she had followed his lead and homed in on psychological trauma. Most people would have shown at least some concern about the chances of having contracted some sort of virus, but Jessica seemed not the least bothered about the possibility, which told Luke she knew more about her loss of memory than she was telling.
    He answered her with, ‘Something so profoundly disturbing happened to you that your mind shut down on the past.’
    ‘And what can she do to bring it back?’ asked the sheriff.
    ‘Can it come back?’ asked Jessica.
    ‘I can’t tell you for sure it will. It is, after all, up to you, Jessica. When you are ready to let go of the trauma, when you’ve found happiness and security and feel well enough to face the past, maybe then snippets might slowly begin to re-emerge and you might begin to build on remembering. Unless, of course, when they do appear your fear is so greatthat you block them even further from your mind.’
    Turning to face Bridget, he said, ‘In answer to your question, what should Jessica do to bring back her memory, I think she should make an attempt to create as normal a life for herself as is possible under the circumstances while you try your policeman’s best to discover who Jessica is. I have no doubt that in time, if you don’t unravel the mystery of Jessica Johnson, she will do it for us.’
    Jessica rose from her chair and offered her hand to the doctor.
    ‘I would like to book you in for a brain scan,’ said Luke as he shook her hand, ‘just to confirm your brain is as healthy as I believe it to be. The hospital will call you with an appointment.’
    His diagnosis gave Jessica a get-out: she could bring back the past and crawl out of her lie when and if she chose to. It was a get-out that she knew she would never use. She had no desire to resurrect her sometimes dark and dangerous past. It was not a matter of guilt or shame, she felt none of those things for the life she had led. She had enjoyed the thrill of living on a knife edge. Only the realisation that she might be made to die for it had given her the strength to call an end to the erotic madness that had taken over her life.
    More than ever she wanted to keep her past private, known only to her.
    To any observer, the life Jessica was living would have seemed quite bizarre. She resided in one of the most handsome and historic houses in Newbampton and had a staff to maintain it, with all bills paid by the bank from the Rose Cottage trust. Yet she had no clothes but the ones she had been wearing on her arrival and strangers whom she had never met left her hand-me-down garments in the sheriff’s office, and gave her odd jobs to help sustain her. After five weeks in Newbampton, most everyone in town knew herby sight