My partner. I asked him to do a wider search grid around the alley where I found you, see if he could find a primary crime scene or at least where you parked your car. Hes searching to find the guy I showed you, too.
Hes a person of interest, isnt he?
I spotted him in the general vicinity where I found you. Dont know if he was sizing up a mark, if he was watching the alley to see if anyone noticed you or if he just had nothing better to do on a Friday night. Id sure like to talk to him. The phone buzzed impatiently, and Keir backed toward the door. Ill be out in the lobby.
Manipulating the conversation to get to the answer she needed was starting to feel like second nature to her. Had she possessed this stubborn streak before the attack? Tell me why you called me the Terminator earlier. It didnt sound like a compliment.
Ill ask up front about getting you some clothes, too, since the CSI took your suit and shoe to the lab.
This conversation wasnt done. Kenna walked right up to him and fingered the lapel of his gray tweed jacket. She rubbed her thumb over the crimson smear staining the nubby material. Youd better ask about a change of clothes for you, too. Youve got blood on your jacket. My blood.
Im coming back. The gapboth literal and figurativewidened between them as he pulled the material from her fingers. Then he put the phone to his ear and turned away. Hey, buddy. Whats up?
Kenna hugged her arms around her weary body and watched the door close behind him. Keir had managed to be supportive and evasive at the same time. Run, you clever boy.
Clever boy. Where had that phrase come from? While shed seen glimpses of a boyish charm, there was certainly nothing immature about Keir Watson. Not in his stature, his tone or his demeanor.
Clever boy, she muttered the words again, mentally chasing the blip of a memory that floated through her head. Its from a TV show. She watched TV. She had a hobby. Blue box. British accents. One lightbulb, however dim, finally turned on inside her head. Dr. Who.
She seemed to be in pretty good shape, so she wasnt a full-blown couch potato. Who did she watch it with? Family? Friends? A significant other? Why hadnt whoever she watched that show with come to see her at the hospital? Okay, sure, there was that whole thing with the missing phone and purse and relying on the police to track down where she lived and workedbut wasnt someone missing her? Alarmed that it was five in the morning and she hadnt come home?
Or was someone at home the danger she needed to fear? The person whod gotten so angry that he or she had tried to kill her? How should she handle this? What was her next step? How was she supposed to know who to trust?
Take a breath, she warned herself before panic reclaimed her.
Kenna hugged her arms around the thin cotton of her gown and glanced around the room, looking for answers. Looking for someone to talk to. Looking for a friend or sympathetic doctor or polite detective or anyone who could keep this helpless, lonely feeling from seeping in as surely as the air-conditioned chill that dotted her skin with goose bumps.
She had a feeling she wasnt used to relying on others to take care of her. Kenna eyed the soiled remains from treating her injuries that the nurse had wheeled into the corner. She wasnt used to being weak like this, forced to put her trust in people she didnt know. Had she put her trust in the wrong person, making herself a sitting duck whod had no clue she was about to be attacked?
Fear crawled across her skin as the knowledge she would have to trust someone to help her through this sank in. Where was home? How was she supposed to get there? What was she supposed to do with herself the next morning? And the day after that?
Her gaze drifted over to the ER rooms metal door. Shed put her trust in Keir Watson tonight. Not that hed left her much choice. Hed allowed her a token argument, then had swept her up into his arms, bundled her into his car and driven her here. But she could have asked him to leave the treatment room at any time, and she hadnt. She wanted him with her.
Crazy as it seemed, Kenna knew Keir better than anyone else in her life. Once shed come to and realized her brain had turned into Swiss cheese, it felt as if her whole life had reset. There was the time before the assault where her memory was riddled with empty spaces and vague shadows, and there was the time afterwhen shed stumbled into Keir Watsons arms. He was the person shed known the longest in the part of her life she was more certain of. And his abrupt departure to chat with his partner left her feeling about as vulnerable and confused and alone as shed been when she first woke up with her cheek in a puddle of her own blood on the cold, gritty concrete.