They looked for her.
All of them tried—every man who had a contact they could pull tried to find her. Hospitals, morgues, organizations, and even walk-in clinics were called and given the same questions. None had seen the blonde, blue-eyed woman they asked about—Penny was a ghost all over again.
“Still nothing,” Naz said when he stepped out onto the rear veranda of Luca’s parents’ home. In the wicker rocking chair, Cross finally glanced away from the cigar he had been working on lighting while Luca was lost in his thoughts and the oncoming night. “A new day is coming—let it be a restart.”
Luca didn’t even look the man’s way when he muttered, “A restart to what?”
Because for him, life looked a little too dark now. How was he supposed to restart anything when he had barely even been able to begin in the first place?
He’d not been really living until he found Penny again ... and now he didn’t have her at all.
“Dad,” Naz murmured, making Luca realize he still wasn’t alone despite how he kept falling back into his thoughts. “Leave it alone. I think you’ve done enough.”
Cross sighed, shaking his head and repeating, “Let it be a restart.”
22.
Penny
“THEY certainly make doing our job ... difficult.”
“Quite aware,” came the murmur of another voice. “But as they have reminded this hospital time and time again, they also have a job to do.”
“They could make a better effort not to impede ours. And how many times are you going to tell them she’s non-responsive? Cop after cop can come into this room and ask her questions, but clearly she isn’t answering them, Carter.”
“They think she’s ... someone.”
“Someone?”
“Someone,” the male voice responded quieter like maybe he was worried someone else might overhear.
Penny wanted to blink, especially when the bright white circle moved beyond the vision of her one eye and then the other, but she couldn’t. In fact, she quickly realized she couldn’t do anything. And while her hearing seemed to be taking in the strange, unknown voices around her, the fuzzy darkness allowed her no sight other than whatever that light was.
Hey, she wanted to say, help me.
“You’re seeing this, right?” the woman asked.
“I am.”
“Do you think—”
“Reflexes, maybe. It’s been a month. While her reconstructed valves in her heart have taken well, and the ventilator has allowed her body to rest after the trauma of the heart surgeries... this coma wasn’t induced, Trin. Studies have shown time and time again that some activity is just ... activity. Nerves that are awake, or brain waves running on autopilot. Like an electronic—”
“Dr. Morrisey, I know how this works.”
Well, then.
But at least Penny had figured out part of the mystery.
Heart surgery.
Surgery.
On her heart.
And not one—but surgeries.
She was in a hospital. One with a name she didn’t know being treated by doctors and nurses that didn’t know her ... if their earlier discussion meant what she thought it did. The news also explained the constant beep-beep-beep in the background coming from various corners of a room she couldn’t properly see.
“Her lips are quite dry—would you grab a cup and one of the stick sponges for me?”
“You’re going to moisten her—”
“Why wouldn’t I?” the man asked. “She’s a patient—I’m already here.”
While Penny was interested in trying to decipher the dynamic between the doctor and the nurse, she was also starting to see shapes. And color. Not clearly—the edges were still quite fuzzy, she wasn’t able to blink, but things were ... better.
The shadowy figure that moved away from the bed was a giant, pale green blob while the white one leaning in closer to Penny murmured, “I’ve tapped your lids open for the moment. If you are capable of hearing me at the moment because your pupils are reacting beyond the usual dilation, then you should know you’ve been in the hospital for a month. And you will be here for months more yet. The tube in your throat supplying the air to your lungs will be removed this week—should you wake up sooner, try to remember its there. It makes our job far easier when we aren’t trying to fight with a patient attempting to rip it out.”
Huh.
The doctor continued on, saying, “That bullet you took to your heart did some serious damage, and it is only because we have the best heart surgeon in the country that you are alive. Because you certainly were not when you first arrived, Miss Doe.”
Miss Doe—
Oh.
Right.
Penny wasn’t surprised that her identity was unknown—which probably explained talk of the officers who were making the job of her doctors and nurses more difficult than it needed to be.
The white blob of the doctor had started to clear in Penny’s vision, but not enough that she was capable of discerning the features of his face beyond a smile that curved his fuzzy mouth. For some reason, that smile felt kind.
Something she should trust.
“What were you doing there anyway, hmm?” he asked. “Why were you on the other side of a cemetery where a murder had just happened only a hundred yards away?”
A hum followed the question.
And then, softer, he asked, “Or was it all coincidence?”
She didn’t think he expected an answer. Not that she could give him one. A click, and the squeak of shoes had the doctor moving away from Penny. She realized then that she was starting to feel something, too. The graze of soft, careful fingers on her face as a sticky sound pulled away from her skin.
Then, the room was dark again.
And the nurse was back. “Your water and stick sponge.”
“Thanks.”
“Have you told them, yet?”
“Told them what?” the doctor asked.
“The cops,” the woman replied. “They asked to be notified if there was any change in her appearance. Not that I expect men to notice when it’s only a month’s worth of growth, but her roots ... they’re a different color. It’s not black, but it might not be what it was supposed to be, either. A black, chemical dye can sometimes affect the color of the first few inches of new growth. Especially if the hair was quite light, to begin with.”
Silence answered the nurse.
But then, the doctor replied, “They’ll notice eventually. I doubt her natural hair color is in any way related to the fact she was shot in the heart at a close range.”
The beeps became louder soon after, and Penny drifted away from the voices. Toward the rhythmic pump of her heartbeats. A steady sound, but different, she knew.
It sounded different.
But hell ... at least it was beating.
“I’VE BEEN TOLD YOU’VE made remarkable progress in the last month, Miss Doe. Brain function is returning, and you’re even showing some communication at times. So, today we’re going to try answering a few questions, and then maybe I can finally put together the pieces of this puzzle you seem to be. Blink once for yes, and twice for no. Do you understand?”