String of Tears, page 2
His lips crooked upward. “My name is Hurricane.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “That’s not a name. That’s more like a nickname.”
“In my case, it’s also my legal first name,” he stated, with a half smile. “My parents were both climatologists. Apparently my arrival in this world was very much like a hurricane and occurred during a hurricane, so they thought it an appropriate moniker.”
“That must have been hell going through school,” she stated bluntly.
“It had a certain cachet to it. Some kids thought it really cool, and others pretty much just pitied me.”
“Who has time for pity?” She waved her hand. She took a step forward and dropped the dirty hospital gown onto the bed. “But more to the point, what are you doing here?”
“Somebody sent me.”
At that, she stilled and then turned and looked at him directly. A name slid through her mind. Going on instincts, she asked, “Stefan?” Hurricane’s eyebrows shot up, and he slowly nodded. Relief washed through her. Thank God.
“How did you know he’d sent me?” Hurricane asked curiously.
“I didn’t. But he collects people, strange people.” What a weird thing to say. Yet it felt right. Memories stirred within those feelings, with shadows of conversations coming to the forefront.
“So, would that be me, or is it you?” he asked, matching her bluntness.
She stared at him for a moment and then smiled. “I would think that both of us are strange to the rest of the ‘normal’ world.”
At that, he burst out laughing.
She asked shrewdly, “Did you ever have the feeling that nobody understood who you were and that people looked at you sideways and avoided you?”
“All the time,” he confirmed, nodding. “You?”
“Sure. We’re in that weird world, where we try to fit in and where we try to appear normal, but we aren’t. So we can’t fit in, and sometimes we just don’t want that either.”
“Agreed,” he murmured. “Are you ready to go?” He looked at her attire, and a tiny smile played at the corner of his lips.
“I know, but this is all that the Lost and Found had to offer.” She looked down at the leggings that crept up her ankles and the sweatshirt that slid down her hips. “But I’m covered at least, so I really don’t care.”
“What happened to your clothes?” he asked curiously.
She stared at him and then answered honestly. “I have no idea. Apparently when I arrived, I didn’t have any on.” At that, his gaze narrowed, and something cold crept onto his features. She shrugged. “Now don’t ask any more questions because I don’t have any answers myself.”
“Oh, I’ll be asking lots of questions,” he countered cheerfully. “Let’s hope at some point in time in the next twenty-four hours that you’ll have some answers.”
“Oh, I have to follow that time frame? Why?”
He replied, “I don’t know yet, but it has to do with the energy flowing through this town.”
She sucked in a breath. “Something is almost familiar about that statement.”
He looked at her curiously. “You really don’t remember anything, do you?”
“No,” she murmured, “and, if you keep commenting about that, it’ll just make me angry. And I’m already irritable, in case you didn’t notice.”
“Why is that?” he asked casually.
“Because obviously I want to know what’s going on, and obviously I need to know,” she declared, trying to still the angry passion rising in her voice. “To not know anything beyond my first name is just … almost poisonous.”
“It’s hurtful,” Hurricane confirmed. “It’s frustrating, and it allows you to slide back into victim mode a little too easily. So I can understand.”
“I am not a victim,” she replied, her tone sharp.
“Glad to hear that,” he murmured, but his gaze intensified, as he stared at her.
She groaned. “I don’t suppose you’re here to take me home, are you?”
“Are you ready to go home?”
“I am very much ready to go home.” She brushed past him into the hallway. She stilled as the onslaught from the hospital hit her. Energy slammed into her—both alive and dead. She immediately shut down everything inside her.
He murmured, “That’s interesting.”
She hesitated, then turned and looked at him. “What?”
“You didn’t do that before.”
She nodded. “You’re right, and again I don’t have an answer as to why I didn’t.”
“You didn’t because you didn’t notice that you needed to,” he offered, his voice soft and gentle. “For whatever reason, that room was a haven for you.”
She looked back at the room and then the hallway that she was only one step into and admitted, “A part of me wants to run right back inside again.”
“Why is that?”
“Because, as much as I hate to admit it, you’re right. That room is a safe place—a haven, as you called it—and now that I’m out of it, I’m no longer safe.”
*
Hurricane followed Jewel, who chose to leave her safe hospital room. He was intrigued, as she walked as if she were a model, having absolutely zero care about the mismatched and ill-fitting clothes she wore, making them look like they were designer’s editions and were fully intended to be exactly as they were. It took a lot of self-confidence to pull off something like that. He was quite delighted to see that aspect of her personality. What was coming up ahead could be pretty tough, depending on what she’d already been through. She would need every ounce of confidence she could muster.
That self-confidence was also likely how she’d ended up in this predicament too. But Hurricane may be jumping the gun on that. When they stepped outside of the hospital, she took several slow deep breaths, her eyes closing, her arms opening wide. He watched in surprise.
She looked over at him and shrugged. “Qigong.”
He grinned at her. “That should help.”
“It should.” She looked down at her discolored arms. “I should have been doing it for the last day apparently.”
“Yet do you remember?”
“No. Only when I stepped outside and felt the fresh air and smelled Mother Nature, it was a reflex,” she replied. She stopped, tilted her head, then frowned at him. “I think I used to do this outside every morning.”
He nodded. “That would make sense too. Of course, energy systems always prefer to be outside in the fresh air, when you’re working them.”
“Do you know Qigong?” she asked.
“Tai Chi. I’ve certainly seen and understood some of the Qigong movements,” he replied. “That doesn’t mean that I can do it better.”
She took another slow deep breath, and he could almost visibly see the energy and stress start to dissipate from her tense shoulders.
“Feel better?” he asked.
“I do,” she murmured. “Now where to?” she asked, looking at him specifically.
He smiled. “I have a Jeep Cherokee in the parking lot.”
“Of course you have a Jeep in the parking lot,” she noted in a dry tone, repeating his words sarcastically.
He raised an eyebrow. “What’s wrong with a Jeep?”
“Nothing at all.” She chuckled. “You definitely look like a Jeep kind of guy.”
He wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he said nothing, just pointed out the Jeep a couple vehicles ahead of them in the parking lot. A few moments later, he stated, “I need your address.”
“No, you don’t.” When he stopped and stared, she shook her head. “You already have it.”
“You’re right. I do,” he confirmed. “What made you so sure?”
“Stefan.”
He nodded. “What is your relationship?” He reached for the fob in his hand and unlocked the Jeep, then opened the passenger side for her. She stared at him for a moment and then accepted his assistance into the front passenger seat. Closing the door quietly, he walked around and hopped into the driver’s seat, turned on the engine, and looked at her. “You didn’t answer.”
“No, I didn’t.” She shrugged. “We’re both energy workers … and obviously you are too.”
He gave a clipped nod in response. “At least we got that out of the way. It makes life a little easier.”
“Sometimes, not always. I don’t do very much with it, never have,” she admitted. “I just try to infuse my art pieces with love and positive energy for the people buying them.” She gave him a flat stare. “Some of the stuff that I’ve heard Stefan can do is pretty out there.”
Hurricane chuckled. “Yeah, it sure is. I just came from a case where what one woman could do was very out there.”
“Tell me about her,” Jewel said.
He looked at her, hesitated, then shrugged. “I’m not sure that’s my story to tell.”
At the silence that followed, he glanced over at her. “Sorry.”
“No, that’s fine,” she replied, her voice soft. “It’s nice to know that you will keep a confidence, if needed.”
“It’s part of my job.”
“Maybe so, but I think there’s a whole lot more to it.”
“I’m glad you remember that much of your life.”
“I wish I remembered what happened to me.”
He nodded, as he pulled away from the hospital parking lot and out onto the main road. He watched the scenery flash by and yet kept half an eye on her the whole time. She appeared to be completely unaffected by any of the surroundings. She stared straight ahead, looking calm and relaxed, until his gaze landed on her hands and saw how her fingers were clenched tightly to the point that her nails were digging into her palms. He reached over with his right hand and gently covered her hands. “Easy,” he muttered. “I don’t know what we’ll find at your house, but I won’t walk away until I know you’re safe.”
Her laugh was bitter, harsh. “That could be, but, if I don’t know what happened in the first place, how will I know what’s coming my way?”
“You have zero memories of the event?”
“Zero,” she confirmed.
“How about on an energy level?”
She looked at him, frowning. “Remember when I told you that I infuse my pieces with joy and love? How is it even possible for that to put me in this position?”
“Stefan mentioned something about you repairing a necklace.”
Her hand immediately went to her neck. His gaze went back to the traffic, and he quickly changed lanes and put on a signal to take the left-hand turn at the next intersection. “You don’t remember a necklace?”
“The necklace is important,” she noted, “but I don’t know why. I don’t know where it came from or what it is, … but I feel like it was around my neck and should be there.”
Hurricane added, “According to Stefan, you were given a piece to repair, and you felt like every pearl in the necklace was a soul.”
She gave a harsh laugh. “Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously. Feel free to contact Stefan yourself.”
“I will because I have absolutely no memory of that.”
Under his breath he couldn’t help swearing. He glanced at her but saw absolutely no guile in her face. “That complicates things.”
“You think?” she quipped, staring at him, her gaze huge wells of pain.
“You don’t remember the necklace, and you don’t remember what you told him?”
“No, I don’t know who gave me the necklace or anything about it. I do know that it is important.” She reached for possibly her phone, only to realize she didn’t have one. “I need a phone and fast.”
He pulled a spare that he kept for emergencies from his pocket and handed it to her.
“I can’t use your phone,” she said. “I need one of my own.”
“It’s a spare, something I would call a burner phone. Something I can throw away, if I needed to hide my tracks.”
She snatched it from his hand, and her fingers immediately brought up the keypad to make a call, dialing Stefan’s number, without even stopping to think about it. Instinctively she put it on speakerphone.
When Stefan’s voice filled the front of the cab, she said, “Stefan, it’s Jewel.”
“Oh, thank God. How are you?”
“Empty,” she murmured.
Shocked silence filled the other end. “In what way?” Stefan asked, caution in his tone.
“I don’t know anything about the necklace, but my hand keeps going to my neck, and I know it’s important. I know that … it was around my neck and should still be there.”
“Interesting.”
“Hurricane just told me something about souls in the pearls?”
Hurricane noted her anxious tone. He felt her tension take over the vehicle.
“And you don’t remember anything about it?” Stefan asked.
“No, I don’t remember anything about the necklace nor about what happened to me.”
“Okay, don’t panic. Obviously we need to figure this out. So you didn’t have the necklace when you were found?”
“I had nothing on me, not a mark, not a stitch of clothing, let alone a piece of jewelry,” she stated, her free hand going to her ear, frowning, as she realized no earrings were there either.
Hurricane kept an eye on the traffic, while trying to keep an eye on her to see her reactions. Once he took the next corner, he cut several more corners and then pulled up in front of a small bungalow.
He shut off the engine and said, “Stefan, we just arrived at her house.”
“Call me back when you’ve been through the house,” Stefan ordered. “Let me know how it feels.” And, with that, he hung up.
Hurricane looked over at her. “You ready?”
She stared down at the phone, looked over at the house, and then he realized. “You don’t recognize the house, do you?”
She stared at it. “Is that my address?”
“It is.”
“Then it must be my house.” She opened the vehicle door, hopped out, and determinedly walked up to the front door.
Not at all sure what was going on, he raced behind her. When they got to the front door, she stopped, looked down at her bare hands. “I don’t have a key.”
He reached forward and turned the handle. The door opened. As she stepped inside, she gave a soundless whistle. He stepped in behind her and looked around. “Barely any furniture.”
“What there is, isn’t really of value,” she noted. “Am I broke?” Her tone was now curious, analytical, than horrified. She walked through the room swiftly, headed straight to her bedroom. The bedroom closet held a few women’s clothes, mostly outerwear, and not really a substantial amount, with little personality reflected in this apparel. Nothing revealed a whole lot about who she was or what she did for a living.
Waiting, he couldn’t quite decipher the look on her face. “What’s the matter?”
“What’s the matter?” she asked, her voice rising. “Are you sure this is my house?”
“It’s registered to your name.”
She stared at him blankly.
“You don’t remember it?”
She shook her head. “No, but it’s more than that. This is not where I worked. I suspect this was a house but not my home.”
“It’s got furniture and coats, jackets.”
She nodded slowly, looking at him. “I don’t know what to say.” She threw out her arms wide, as she spun around, looking at everything there. “Except to say that this is not where I was recently.”
“So where was that?”
She turned back, and that same flat look came into her eyes. She shrugged. “I have no idea.”
He let out his breath slowly. “Okay. So, why would you have left this place? Is there anything you feel?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t know.”
He took a stab in the dark. “Were you hiding from somebody?”
She gave him an odd look. “If I don’t remember living here, how do you think I’ll remember whether I was hiding from somebody?”
“I really don’t have a clue. It’s your place. You may have a feeling or an intuitive sense.”
“Maybe I do.” Only her face twisted in confusion, and then she shrugged. “Something is here, but I don’t know what.”
“Okay, we’ll just give it time,” he said. “But, if this is not your home, then you aren’t staying here.”
“And yet it is my home.” Then she stopped, shook her head, and stated, “No, this is my house. But it’s not my home.”
“And, of course, you made a fine distinction that I apparently missed.”
She walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and he peered in behind her.
“Absolutely no food here.”
“Exactly. So I wasn’t living here. So where was I living, and why was I not here?”
Chapter 3
Jewel studied the interior of a kitchen cupboard. The basics were here to put on coffee. As she did that, she asked him, “Why would I have left coffee behind?”
He laughed. “Maybe you made a vow to get off caffeine.”
“Nope, I would not have done without it,” she noted, with a crooked grin. “I do love herbal teas, but I love my coffee too.”
“That’s good to know,” he stated. “So, let’s have a coffee, sit down, and relax. Do you think any paperwork is here?”
“No, I don’t,” she replied.
He pulled out his phone and dialed Stefan. “The house is in her name, but she wasn’t living here.”
An odd exclamation came from Stefan on the other side. “I suppose she has no idea where she was living either.”
“Nope, she doesn’t.” Hurricane stared at her.
She raised her hands. “You don’t believe me?”
“Oh, I believe that you weren’t living here,” he agreed. “Did the hospital tell you where you were found?”
She stared at him blankly. “Delivered naked and unconscious to the front of the hospital, from what I heard from one nurse. I was just dropped off at the hospital without a mark on me, only to have massive bruising that showed up after a few days.”
He nodded at that.
“What we need to do is find out just what the circumstances were, whether you were taken to the hospital or found along a highway.”
