“Charlie,” he rasped. “What the hell are you doing?”
He tried to bat my hands away but he was still in enough respiratory distress to make it a poor attempt. I twisted his wrist into another lock, one I could maintain using only two fingers and my thumb. With my free hand I reached for him, let him feel my nails curve against the most sensitive area of his skin.
He froze. I could almost see the beads of sweat pop out among the water on his forehead.
“What am I doing?” I echoed tightly. “What do you bloody well think? I’m doing the same to you as you were going to do to me.”
I watched his eyes as I said it and watched the flare in them, the way his pupils dilated. It might be lust rather than love, but I told myself at this stage I’d settle for what I could get.
I tightened my grip, relentless. He might have forgotten the last four years we had together but I had not. Every place I’d ever touched him, every time I’d sent him up in flames for me, I could recall in clear and utter detail.
And now I used that knowledge coldly, ruthlessly, to drive any jealous thoughts of Parker, disdain for me or disgust with himself, right out of his head. By the time I released the lock on his wrist he could do nothing but hold onto me.
But in the morning, he was gone.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“All I could think about was getting out of there.”
The man in the hospital bed had his eyes fixed on mine but I knew he didn’t see me. His voice was raspy from the screaming and the acid-etch of concrete dust in his throat.
“How much can you remember?” I asked, but he let his head drop and I realised I should have reworded the question. How much are you willing to remember?
“I mean, it would help if we could start with who you are?” I said, trying to give out an encouraging vibe, “You weren’t carrying any identification when you were found.”
He frowned for a moment and then said, “My name is Santiago Rojas. I came here from São Paulo in Brazil, I think ten years ago. This much I know. I remember my past, my family back home, my work there, but here?” He gave me a hesitant smile and gestured toward his head. “I am struggling to recall anything about the last few years, never mind last week, or yesterday.”
“Don’t try to force it. It will come back to you in its own time,” I said but I looked at the dressings around the surgical repairs to his skull and could not prevent the voice in the back of my mind from adding, if it’s going to come back at all…
He nodded and used his unbroken arm to push himself uneasily straighter against the thin hospital pillow. There was only one to cushion him against the angled metal bedframe, but the way the casualties had been coming in steadily from all over the city, he was lucky even to have a bed.
“Can you perhaps tell me,” Rojas asked, “was I found at my place of work? I know I have a store in the tourist district — I sell jewellery and deal in precious stones.”
His voice carried a hint of something, as if he was trying to remind himself as much as inform me. And suddenly it was fiercely important to me that he did remember. For those close to him, if not for himself.
Don’t project, I told myself. It’s not the same.
Something about Rojas told me he would have been a good salesman of jewellery. Standard-issue hospital gowns are a great social leveller but he had well-looked after skin and expressive eyes. The fingernails that weren’t torn were well manicured and polished smooth.
And more than that, he was aware of what he did with his hands, even the one in the cast. Each little gesture was imbibed with forethought and meaning, maybe even that certain sensuality that women seem to require when buying precious gems. I’d watched enough of them do so to have formed a theory. It was as if they needed to feel precious themselves, to feel worthy. Rojas’s manner, his eyes and his hands, would have given that to them.
I explained what had happened to the street of boutique stores where he had his business, about the stone façades and the devastation. I didn’t set out to give him nightmares by describing exactly how he’d been buried after the collapse of the storefronts, but when he pressed me I wasn’t going to lie to him.
Rojas looked down at his hands as if amazed to find them still attached to his body.
“Holy Mother of God,” he said, genuine awe in his voice. “I asked the wrong question. It should not have been ‘where’ did you find me, but ‘how’?”
“For that you have to thank a very talented search and rescue dog called Lemon,” I said. “And Hope, who is Lemon’s very persistent handler. She’s the one who made them keep looking for you.”
“Hope,” he repeated softly. “What a beautiful name for a woman with such dedication.”
For a moment I thought he’d got the wrong person. It seemed a strange description of the skinny girl with the quick fingers and the dog who was, it seemed, trained for far more than just searching.
“She’s a constant source of wonder,” I agreed.
“It is my hope,” he said with a smile, “that I am able to meet with her? To express my thanks.”
“I’m sure she’ll appreciate that, although it was a team effort.” And I told him about Wilson and California Ken, who were both volunteers from police forces on different sides of the world. I told him about Joe Marcus keeping him safe, about Dr Bertrand keeping him alive, and Riley airlifting him to hospital to ensure he had the best chance of remaining so. But that meeting any of them in person might be tricky. “There is still a lot to do out there — still a lot of missing people to be found.”
He looked momentarily shocked. “I would not expect her to interrupt her work, of course,” he said quickly. “Perhaps there is some small way I can repay her…?”
He let his voice trail off suggestively. I gave him a bland stare. “Hope works for an organisation called Rescue & Recovery International,” I said. “They are supported by grants and donations. I’m sure they’d welcome any amount you’d care to give them, however modest.”
In fact, I’d no idea what R&R’s policy was on people who wanted to pay them for their efforts, but I hardly thought they’d be turning money away.
Not if the rumours were correct…
I thought of Mrs Hamilton’s concerns about R&R, and remembered again the way Hope’s nimble fingers had dipped into the police commander’s pocket so smoothly he never felt a thing. But I also remembered the way she’d put the wallet back among the dead woman’s possessions, all without knowing I’d clocked what she was doing.
How did that square with the rumours?
“Do you know if I was alone?” Rojas asked now, a little diffident. He gestured to his head. “I do not even know if I have staff who work for me, or if they were working yesterday.”
It was two days ago now, but I didn’t think I ought to tell him that. One of many things I didn’t ought to tell him, no doubt.
I hesitated. “If there was anyone else alive in the store with you when the earthquake hit,” I said, “then it seems they didn’t survive. They sent in the dog again after you were brought out and she didn’t indicate anyone else. I’m sorry.”
“But if they were dead, perhaps, and hidden from—”
“Lemon can tell the difference,” I said. “Trust me. I’ve watched her work. She found you even though there was a couple who were buried very close by who did not survive.”
He frowned. “A couple…?” he repeated slowly. “A couple. Yes! I remember a couple. They came in to buy an engagement ring. A beautiful three-carat marquise-cut ruby. It had, I think, pave set diamonds in a rose and white gold setting. She was so happy—”