Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 4) (5 page)

“It was a complicated
situation,” David said.

“Really?” my mother
scoffed. “It sounds simple to me. You lost my daughter on vacation,
and then went three weeks without telling anyone about it.”

He was so calm, it made
me shiver. “I’ve told you, Celeste,” he said. “I’ve told
the police, I’ve told reporters. She was supposed to go out on a
boat with Lily.” His voice was maddeningly slow and patient, as if
he were speaking to a child.

My mother didn’t even
try to hide her irritation. “Who’s this Lily person, again?”

“We work together.
She and her husband Porter have been friends of ours for three
years.”

“And the girls were
going out in a boat alone? That makes no sense. Karina has never
liked the water. She wouldn’t have agreed to go unless she was
pressured into it.”

“David says I was
working on that,” I said.

His name still felt
like a language I could hardly speak. When we’d first walked into
the place that was supposed to be my home, I’d asked to sleep in
the guest room for a few days. He’d given in so easily that it
worried me. He was acting as much like a stranger as I was.

“Working on it how?”
my mother asked.

“She was learning to
swim at one of the gyms in town,” David said.

“Well, I thought you
went down to a resort,” she said, sweeping back a long strand of
silver hair. “With restaurants and a spa.”

“We did,” he said.
“The Copper River is nearby. It was a very calm stretch of water.
Karina was supposed to meet Lily at the dock after lunch.”

My mother snorted. “And
she never showed up? We’re talking about Mexico here. You didn’t
think she could have been kidnapped?”

My head volleyed back
and forth between them as I listened, feeling like a bystander in my
own life.

“There was security
everywhere,” David said. “The entire resort was very
well-guarded.”

“Including this dock
you’ve mentioned?”

He rubbed his lips
together. “I don’t know about that.”

“Apparently.”

David sighed. “You
know, we’re all upset about what happened, but it wasn’t Lily’s
fault.”

My mother braced her
hands on her narrow hips. “I’m not saying it’s her fault, I’m
saying it’s amazing that no one saw my daughter. At lunch one
second, vanished the next. Kind of incredible.”

“Strange things
happen,” he said.

“Not to my daughter,
they don’t,” she said. “She doesn’t just disappear and
abandon her marriage.” Three blue veins stood out on her forehead.
“Think about it, David. Did you really think she’d just run off
and thrown away her career? You know how hard she’s worked.”

“I admit that part of
it doesn’t make sense. But Karina’s very beautiful, and I thought
she might have lost her head over somebody. I was very hurt.”

“You were hurt over
nothing, and from what I’ve heard on the news, she could have died
out there alone.”

He gave her an
unruffled smile. “Well, she’s home now and that’s the most
important thing. I hate to cut this short, but we have an appointment
with a neurologist and we need to get going. You’re welcome to
come, but we really do need to leave.”

“Of course I’m
coming,” my mother said, her eyes like blue flames.

“Fine,” David said. “I’ll
drive.”

We were at the hospital
for five hours.

I sat in waiting rooms,
lay inside huge machines, and waited in doctor’s offices flipping
through three-month old magazines. David and my mother stayed by my
side, barely speaking to each other.

Thank God they couldn’t
read my mind.

They had no idea what I
was thinking, and I wasn’t going to tell them. I could hardly admit
it to myself. They’d known me for years, but the only person I
wanted to see was a man I’d known less than a month.

How could I explain it?
Would anyone but Drex ever understand who I was and how I felt?

“Do you remember
leaving the restaurant where you had lunch?” the neurologist asked.
He was just one in a series of white-coated figures reading my
history, examining me, and consulting with other doctors.

“If I could remember
that, I wouldn’t be here,” I said, an edge of frustration in my
voice.

“I understand, Mrs.
Blair. Some people do remember a few details.”

Mrs. Blair. The words
struck me as false and hollow.
Mrs.
Cougan
, I thought. And failing that, my alleged maiden
name, Wexler, would do just fine.

“Was she hurt?” my
mother asked. “Can you see anything from her tests?”

“No, we can’t,”
the doctor said, “but these things are often brought on by an
injury. Still, they’re very rare. This is only the second case I’ve
seen, and I’ve been practicing…”

I watched his mouth
move but tuned him out. When could I be by myself to think about
Drex? When could I imagine his arms around me, making me feel whole
again?

“There are some
positive signs,” the doctor droned on. “Her short-term memory
shows minimal signs of damage. With time and occupational therapy, we
could see improvement of her long-term memory, as well.”

I glanced up to find
David staring me from across the room. He looked puzzled, and at the
same time, bored. I smiled and looked back at the doctor.

Keep
talking
, I thought. As long as I was here, I didn’t have
to be alone with my husband. Too soon, though, we’d be home again,
and there would be no avoiding him.

Somehow, I would have
to get used to it.

This was my life now, and the
complete stranger sitting in the black plastic chair was the biggest
part of it.

Later that night, after
my mother had gone home and I’d eaten a slice of takeout pizza I
could hardly swallow, David sat beside me on the sofa.

I put down the doctor’s
pamphlet about occupational therapy and looked at him. He wore a
starched striped shirt and corduroy pants that looked a size too big.

“I suppose we have to
talk about this sometime,” he said. Though his lips smiled, his
eyes didn’t.

“Okay,” I said,
apprehension filling my chest. “Talk about what?”

“The man you were
with while you were missing. What was his name?” His tone was so
flat, he could have been asking about the weather.

“Drex Cougan. What
about him?” My hands trembled in my lap. It was amazing that David
couldn’t hear my heart pounding.

“All I know is what I
heard on the news. He saw you walking somewhere and offered you a
ride.”

I swallowed hard. “Who
said that?”

“I don’t know. An
anonymous source, I guess. He’s not giving interviews.”

He
.
Just to hear him refer to Drex threatened to break what was left of
my decimated heart. “Oh.”

I did not want to talk
to him. It was all I could do not to get up and leave the room, lock
myself in a bathroom, and cover my ears.

But I was a wife now.

Even if I had no
memory, David had every right to ask me what the hell I’d been
doing with the hot CEO who kept showing up in news reports.

“Well, that’s
pretty much what happened,” I said. “He saw me in Chimayo.”

“Is it true you
were…half dressed?”

There was a quiet
undercurrent of judgment in his words. I knew what he was thinking.
How would he explain it to his fellow professors? How had such a
principled man ended up with such an embarrassment for a wife?

“Yes,” I said, my
face burning with shame.

“So…after he picked
you up, where did you sleep?”

Anger rose in my
throat. “Before he picked me up, I slept on a park bench. Just in
case you’re interested.”

“That’s another
issue.”

“Is it? We’re
talking about where I spent the last three weeks. It wasn’t all
penthouses and champagne.”

He shrugged. “But it
sounds like a lot of it was. He’s got quite a bit of money, from
what I saw.”

“Does it matter?
Would it have been better if I’d slept on the truck driver’s
couch?”

“The truck driver who
claims you hit him? You haven’t really told me what happened.”

I folded my arms.
“There’s plenty of time for that, isn’t there? I’ve been back
twenty-four hours.”

“But you stayed with
another man for three weeks.”

I narrowed my eyes. My
living room was starting to feel a lot like a police station. “Yes,”
I said, “because I had nowhere else to go. Which reminds me,
shouldn’t we also talk about why you didn’t look for me?”

David looked at me
steadily. “I’m sorry about that, Karina. I was angry. I really
believed you were having an affair with another man. As it turns out,
that was pretty close to the truth.”

“The truth?” I
said. “I met Drex after I lost my memory. I told you that on the
plane.”

“So nothing that
happened is your fault.”

“Is that what you’re
trying to do?” I asked, my voice cracking. “Blame me?”

His expression didn’t
change. “Of course not.”

“Good. Now, I’m
still waiting to hear why you thought I was having an affair.”

“I’d rather talk
about it later,” he said.

“No,” I said.
“Let’s talk now.”

David hesitated, his
mouth flattening. “Okay, if you really want to know. Lily suspected
it.”

Lily
.
Her name seemed to be coming up way too often. “I told her
something?”

“No, not exactly.”

“Then what? Exactly?”

“It was the way you
were acting,” he said. “You were quiet, out a lot by yourself.
Lily was concerned for our marriage.”

In other words, she was
a gossip and a meddler. “But she never said anything to me?”

“She didn’t know
how.”

“So, she’s your
friend,” I said with a short laugh. “Not my friend.”

He blew out a sigh. It
was the closest to an emotion I’d seen in almost two days. “Listen,
Karina. She had good reason to believe something was going on.”

Why was I arguing with
this stranger? Did any of it really matter?

The truth was, I didn’t
care about anything but the man I’d left behind and would probably
never see again. I could try to keep up on his life from afar,
reading the news and scouring the internet, but it would never be
like it was before. Before I was Karina Blair.

“You said we were
happy,” I said. “Clearly we weren’t.”

He raised a finger to
correct me. “I said we loved each other. We were having challenges,
like any couple.”

Could he ever say
anything straight out? Drex wouldn’t be ducking questions and
dancing around the truth. Would I be forced to have conversations
like this for the rest of my life?

“If Lily’s going to
accuse me of something, I want to know why,” I said. “Where’s
the evidence for this alleged affair?”

David put a slender
hand on my shoulder. “As you said, you just got home yesterday. We
should discuss this another time. But I’ll say this – you’ve
never had trouble attracting men. When you’re wearing a bikini at a
resort, you have even less trouble.”

I slid away from him
and his hand dropped. “So, I just picked somebody up at our hotel?
Is that what you’re saying?”

“No. But there was
some question as to whether…”

As
to whether
. Jesus Christ. When would he get to the point?
“Yeah?”

“Your lover met you
down there and you went off together.”

“My lover?” I
scoffed, rolling my eyes. “I’m hearing a lot of suspicion but not
a bit of proof.”

He gave me a regretful
smile. “Suspicion isn’t nothing, Karina. Sometimes you have to
pay attention to your gut.”

Damn right. And my gut
was telling me I hated the life I’d lived as Mrs. Blair,
buttoned-up faculty wife and lawyer. My closet was filled with wool
blazers and black pants and calf-length pencil skirts, and I wasn’t
even thirty yet. There wasn’t a trace of anything fun or
interesting in the house. No life, no sign I’d ever dreamed of
more.

“So who is he?” I
asked. “This man you think I walked into the desert with.”

“Who knows?” David
said, shrugging. “You work with a lot of handsome young lawyers and
they all adore you.”

He rubbed a hand over
his beard, his eyes taking on a pensive look. “You were barely
twenty-two years old when we met. It wouldn’t surprise me if…you’ve
changed. I’m not your professor anymore, I’m just a husband who’s
a lot older than you are. And now you don’t recognize me anymore.”
He paused. “You know, this isn’t easy for me, either.”

David shook his head
slowly. Pity rushed through me, and I was glad.

For the first time in
two days, I actually felt something for him.

When I met Scott for a
business lunch five days after Jane left, he stood up from his chair
and clapped me hard on the back.

“I saw a picture of
you and my daughter having dinner at Nobu,” he said. “It looked
like old times. Should I be getting my hopes up?”

Jesus. The guy would
never give up. I should have brought my old disorderly conduct and
illegal gambling rap sheets with me to get him off my back. “Brooke
and I are friends, Scott,” I said, taking a seat. “That’s all.”

I was supposed to be
selling myself out and acting elusive. Even Scott couldn’t know
what Brooke was up to, because he might lose his shit if he thought
I’d manipulated her. I’d never had trouble telling people what
they wanted to hear if it benefited me, but this was different.

It felt wrong. Like
cheating on the only woman I’d ever cared about.

It had been almost a
week and I still couldn’t get Jane out of my head for three
seconds. All night, every night, I thought about fucking her until
she climaxed in my arms.

Unfortunately, when I
thought about fucking her, I thought about her husband fucking her,
too.