Unforgettable by Meryl Sawyer Read Free Book Online Page A

Undoubtedly, Cody had taken heat for months when one of Tony’s cars had been stolen and not recovered.
    “Cody, my man, you swim through political crap like a shark. Tell Traylor you won’t arrest her until you’ve checked those hills to see if she was living there. Anyway, I doubt Dr. Hamalae will release Lucky for a few days. By then I’ll have gone to San Francisco to certify Dodger and be back.”
    “Stay out of this,” Cody warned. “I smell trouble—big trouble. Lucky isn’t a dog left to die in a swamp. She’s more like one of the alligators that were ready to eat Dodger.”
    Greg had to bite the inside of his lip to keep from whacking his brother. He resented Cody keeping track of what he did. Okay, so Dodger had been among a pack of dogs dumped in the Everglades when he washed out on the Florida racetrack circuit. Greg had been in Miami at the time, concluding a deal to buy a German shepherd to train for S and R, when he’d heard about the one dog who’d survived the ordeal in the swamp. He couldn’t resist going to see Dodger. The dog’s eyes had gotten to him, so loving and trustful despite the cruelty he had endured.
    “She didn’t steal the car,” Greg said. It was a gut reaction like taking Dodger home.
     
     
    L ucky peered into the mirror in the small bathroom attached to her hospital room. Ugly. Hard as nails. The cheap blonde with tumbleweed hair glared defiantly back at her. “I don’t know you.”
    The lips moved, but that didn’t make the face staring at her any more familiar. She edged closer, aware of Dodger at her side, and inspected the horrid reflection carefully. Couldn’t be me! Surely you would recognize your own face, wouldn’t you?
    She gripped the rim of the sink with both hands to steady her shaking body. Was it possible she had stolen that car?
    When she heard the charge, she’d been so certain that she couldn’t have done it. Now, looking in the mirror, she wondered.
    This strange woman might have done anything.
    “Oh, God, please tell me it isn’t true.”
    But God didn’t answer. Instead the stranger in the mirror stared back at her, daring her to prove she wasn’t a thief. It was possible, she supposed, quaking. She was living a nightmare. Anything was possible.
    Dodger licked her hand and she slowly sank to her knees, her sore body protesting every inch of the way. On eye level with Dodger now, she petted him and gazed into his soulful eyes. She had the uncanny feeling that the dog understood her pain.
    Never forget. I love you.
    The haunting words came from the dark void where her memory should have been. It was a comforting thought; someone cared. Surely someone would show up and straighten out this mess. Suddenly, she had the unsettling feeling that her mother was searching for her.
    “Mom,” she whispered, “I’m here in Hawaii. Please come get me before they throw me in jail.”
    Dodger responded with a sympathetic swipe of his tongue on her cheek, and she couldn’t help smiling. She was a grown woman. Thirty-something, judging by what she’d seen in the mirror. Why was she crying for her mother?
    “When things get rough, there’s nobody like your mother, is there?” she asked Dodger as she slowly rose. But her mother wasn’t here, and she had the disturbing suspicion she might never see her again.
    She was alone.
    The reflection in the mirror mocked her. She leaned nearer, more than a little afraid of the stranger, taking a closer look. The eyes seemed … right. Deep green with minute stitches of gold. The nose was canted just slightly to the left, yet it, too, seemed to go with the eyes. Her lips were familiar as well, full and soft and ready to smile.
    “So what’s wrong, Dodger?”
    As the dog wagged his tail it dawned on her why the face in the mirror was throwing her—totally throwing her. It was the god-awful hair. A cheap frizzy permanent had kinked the shoulder-length hair so much that she doubted a comb could get through it. The