She shakes her head. “No.”
“What’s the earliest memory you can remember?”
“Waking up in bed.” She licks chapped lips. “Sick. I was sick.”
Newsome frowns. “Was it your head?”
“Mm-hmm. It was split open.” Her hand goes to her scalp, where a long, crooked scar treks behind her ear. She traces it like a lifeline. “I get really bad headaches, go dizzy sometimes.”
“I see.” Newsome plugs something into the electronic pad she holds. “Who took care of you?”
“My husband. Roy.” She tilts her head, wondering. The doctor looks unhappy. “Is that not right?” A sudden suspicion rushes her. She’d call it intuition if she weren’t so loopy. “Am I not ... Jenny?”
“No. You’re not.”
An electric sizzle screams in her head, and Sal leans forward. She rests a hand on the doctor’s arm, resisting the urge to dig her nails in. “Tell me,” she breathes, her chest so tight it hurts. She can’t take it, but she can take it.
She has to.
The story tumbles out, a slow trickle of information given cautiously to her. Plane crash. Trauma. Memory loss. Missing. High-profile case. Sal Kincaid.
She is Sal Kincaid.
Sal sits there in disbelief. She’s dizzy, like a top whirling into space.
“How do you know?” Her voice is barely a whisper.
“You were identified by the tattoo on your palm. Dental records confirmed it.”
“We can’t just hand you out to anyone,” the nurse jokes.
Drifting from the doctor’s words, Sal stares down at her open hand, at the tattoo etched across her palm. Fine, minimalist print that says: “All the Roads.” Roy told her it was the name of a poem she had loved in college. She closes her eyes. Was that a lie too? Was Roy even her husband? Who the hell was she? She rubs at her brow, frustrated.
The doctor’s calm voice interrupts her thoughts. “Miss Kincaid, do you understand everything I just said?”
Miss Kincaid. Her new name startles her. Shaking herself out of her daze, she looks up and nods. She closes her palm and makes a fist. Who would she swing it at? She doesn’t know. “Yes ... I ... why don’t I remember?”
“We’re working to understand that. We plan to run scans and order a panel of tests. MRI, STD, pregnancy,” she rattles off, and Sal wants to tell her there’s no need, that Roy would barely touch her in that way, but Newsome continues. “Right now, the important thing is that you rest.”
Sal wants to laugh. Rest. How can she rest when her mind’s reeling from everything she’s just been told? She always knew her memory was fucked, but she didn’t know her entire life was a lie.
There’s a rustling as Dr. Newsome stands. She says, “There’s someone who can explain your past better than we can, but first, we have to ask if you want to see him.”
She bristles with fear. Oh God, not Roy. Anyone but him. “Who is it?”
“The man who brought you here.”
Instantly, Sal’s mind lights on the man from the beach. The man who said he’d help her. Those words had felled Sal. Had given her hope when she had none. And now ...
“He’s here?”
“Him and another man. They’ve been here since they brought you in.”
The nurse, with her cotton-candy-colored hair, bustles to Sal’s bedside. “They say they’re family.”
“Are they?”
Dr. Newsome nods. “It appears so.”