“Hmm, well...hard to say. It could be hours or it could be months. Every head trauma case is as unique as its victim, I’m afraid. We just don’t have reliable models for this sort of thing.”
“Months? Jesus. You’re telling me I might be in for months of not knowing anything?” My trembling increases, and ice-cold panic grips my chest again.
“Cash,” Flint growls. “I’m telling you, she’s had a fucking ’nough.”
The sharpness of his tone has me looking up at him. There’s enough steel in the gaze he’s leveled on Cash to filet a barracuda.
Cash nods and pats my leg. “Fine. Let’s get you cleaned up in a bath and some food in you. Maybe it’ll help jog your memory.”
“A bath and food?” I can’t hide my skepticism. That seems way too easy.
“Sometimes, believe it or not, that’s all it takes. A normal routine helps get the brain working properly,” he says. “I’ve heard of cases where elderly patients only needed to smell a cup of coffee or hear a favorite song to recall plenty about their lives.”
Whatever. I’m willing to try anything, I guess.
I glance up at Flint again. I’m not sure why I feel like I want his approval.
His bright eyes soften as he looks down at me and nods.
Cash stands, unhooks the stethoscope from around his neck, and stuffs it in his bag. Then, with a parting smile for me, and a nod at Flint, he says, “I’ll meet you in the kitchen after you get your wife settled in the bathroom.”
My entire body freezes over.
What did he just say? Wife!
2
What Friends Are For (Flint)
I’m so fucking pissed I want to wring Cash’s neck, and barrel toward the kitchen with half a mind of doing just that.
I should’ve known he’d screw me over. The smart-ass grin on his face when I come striding in doesn’t soften the urge in my fists.
“What the fuck was that?” I ask, keeping my voice low. “Wife? Why the hell would you lie?”
Leaning against the counter smugly with a coffee mug in hand, Cash takes a long, loud slurp before answering. “She has amnesia. She’s scared half out of her wits. If she believes you’re her husband, her anxiety level won’t be quite as high, and she’ll feel safer staying here. We should try to keep her comfortable if we want a swift recovery.”
I’m so frustrated I can barely think.
It’s even worse that he’s throwing his smarmy MD logic in my face.
“Comfortable?” I shake my head. “Goddammit, for the last time, she’s not staying here.”
“Oh, yes, she is.” Cash lifts another cup off the standing rack on the counter and holds it up. “You agreed to that last night, my man. Remember?”
Snarling, I nod, urging him to hurry it up and pour me a cup of Kona coffee.
“One night, you said,” I tell him. “One damn night. That’s all I agreed to.”
He eyeballs me, amused.
I rip the cup of coffee he holds out to me from his hand.
“One. Frigging. Night.” I emphasize each word.
“She has to stay here, Flint, especially with this amnesia state. She’s a sitting duck who doesn’t know what happened. I’ve seen amnesia cases before. It’s just like I said—the memory might return in a few hours, or a few months. There’s no real medical consensus why. A sharp blow to the head can often cause this kind of self-resolving forgetfulness.”
I’ll self-resolve you, asshole, I think to myself.
But Cash isn’t done. I’m not that lucky. He takes another slurp off his coffee and holds up a finger, the only warning I get before he goes into professor-mode.
“Listen, bucko, even in famous cases of transient global amnesia, about eighty percent of patients simply...”
I grind my teeth together as he starts rattling off statistics. He’s done his homework, sure, I’ll give him that, even if this is far from his specialty.
He’s a fine doctor. A damn good one.
I’ve personally seen him work miracles, saving the lives of men who never would’ve made it home without him during our time in the service together. I’ve watched him shed tears over the guys he hadn’t been able to save because they were too far gone before he got to them.
Yes, he’s cocky. Yes, he has a really fucked up sense of humor. Yes, he’s a royal pain in my ass so often it’s a wonder why we’re friends.
But one thing Cash Ivers isn’t is a quack.
In my mind, if he’d gotten to the men who didn’t make it sooner, they would’ve lived. He would’ve made them. And that woman in Bali, if we’d just been a few minutes sooner...
Valerie’s amnesia crap, though? I shake my head.
He’s a field surgeon turned general practitioner. Not a neurologist.
His lecture finally tapers off, and he takes another swig of coffee. “She can’t go home, Flint. Her condition aside, you know the risk. We don’t know if her troubles have legs to follow.”
“Then take her to your house,” I snap.
“I can’t. You know I live in a condo, and with my nosy neighbors—”
“And I have a son to look after,” I remind him.
“Right. A plucky little boy who isn’t here right now. He’s with his grandmother.”
“Who’ll be bringing him home in two days,” I snarl back. “This isn’t gonna work.”
My mother took Bryce on their annual week-long trip to Aulani, the big resort on the other side of the island. Having turned twelve earlier this year, I thought Bryce might buck going this year, but he hadn’t.
Instead, as soon as she’d arrived, he’d rattled on about how they were going to ace the scavenger hunt in record time this year. He’s a good kid at heart. He doesn’t need to come home and find a strange woman living here who thinks she’s my goddamn wife.
My gaze flicks to Cash, still mighty pissed at him for that little joke.
“We might not need more than two days.” Cash sets his cup on the counter. “They tried killing her, Flint. I saw it.” He opens the fridge and takes out an egg carton. “And I saw Cornaro men scouring the shore for her body this morning.”
The muscles in my neck tense when he mentions that name.
Bad fuckin’ news.
Hornet sting to the eyeball kind of bad.
The Cornaro Outfit has been a leader in high crimes and smuggling ops across the Pacific for decades. Now led by Joel Cornaro, the syndicate has taken over legitimate businesses on all eight major islands, especially anything that makes it easier for them to haul illicit cargo around the South Pacific.
Every asshole who wants to do dirty deals halfway across the world can depend on them to play mule.
Everything from guns to drugs to human trafficking, Cornaro gets it done.
“I know you want to catch the bastard as bad as I do,” Cash says, still pulling more stuff from the fridge.
“That was a long time ago, Cash. We’re not SEALs anymore and we both retired from the security racket,” I tell him. “Don’t tell me you’ve lost your memory, too? It’s not our job to go gallivanting around for the government, taking out the trash.”