“Why did you hide in the desert? Why didn’t you go up to the highway and wave down a car?”
“Why would I do that?” Her eyes widened. “All I knew was that someone was out to kill me, had probably forced me off the road. I didn’t know who. I didn’t know why. Those two men could’ve swung back around, and I wouldn’t have even recognized them as my attackers.”
“Okay, I get that you’d think that at the beginning of your...ordeal, but what about later? You had to figure they’d be long gone.” He drilled his forefinger into his thigh. “And why not involve the police? Why didn’t you want to go to a hospital? Get treatment? Report the accident? Tell the police about these two men?”
She hunched her shoulders. “I was afraid.”
“Afraid of the police?”
“Afraid of not knowing.” She tapped her head. “Do you know how it feels to have nothing up here? Of course you don’t. The thought of people, strangers, coming at me and telling me who I am and where I should be...fills me with terror.”
“You think your assailants would hear about the accident and the woman with amnesia and make a move?” He scratched his chin. He could understand that, but it sounded more like a movie plot.
“Can you picture it? One of them could come to the police or the hospital and tell the authorities I was his wife. That we had an argument. That he didn’t know where I’d gone.” She splayed her arms to her sides. “What could I say?”
She made more sense than he’d expected—not that he would’ve handled the situation in the same way. He tugged on his earlobe. “What about your memory loss? Where’d you get the name Jane?”
“Where do you think?” She stretched out her legs and kicked them up on top of the coffee table. “All I could think of while I waited in the desert was that I was a Jane Doe—no identity, no possessions, no memories. So, when you asked me for a name, that’s the first one that came to mind.”
“Don’t you want to discover who you are? Isn’t it more dangerous not knowing?”
“I didn’t think so at first, but I realize it now.”
He jerked his thumb toward the window. “You’re not going to find out working at Rosita’s Café in a town where nobody knows you.”
Her gaze dropped to her wiggling toes, and she glanced up at him through her lashes. “You know me. You’re the only one who does.”
“Jane, or whatever—” he clasped his hand on the back of his too-tense neck “—I don’t know you. You must have family somewhere, a mother, a father, a husband...people who are worried about you.”
“You think so?” She chewed on her bottom lip and examined the ring finger of her left hand, devoid of a ring or a tan line. “I don’t feel married.”
Rob snapped his fingers. “What about the tattoo on your back? Rosalinda? You didn’t know it was there, did you?”
“Of course not.”
“Where did you come up with that story about the dead girlfriend?”
“My imagination.” She scooped her tawny hair back from her face. “Where else?”
“I’m just wondering if any of those names and stories you came up with have some kernel of truth to them—something coming up from your subconscious.”
“I can’t tell you. The only thing that resonated with me was when I told you I was an art teacher, but you already blew that theory out of the water when you told me my fingerprints aren’t on file. Teachers are printed, right?”
“What about the fluent Spanish?” He shook his head. “My mother would be mortified that some gringa speaks Spanish better than I do.”
“Gringa.” She pulled her knees to her chest again. “Why does that man, that drug dealer, want me dead? Maybe I’m a mule, a courier, a drug dealer myself.”
Rob staggered up from the couch, not wanting to think about that possibility, even though it had been at the edges of his mind ever since he saw her search history at the library. “We need a pen and paper to start writing all this down—the car, the men, the knife, the tattoo, the name. All of it.”
“Does that mean you believe me?” She twisted her hair into a ponytail with one hand. “I need you to believe me, Rob. I need help.”
He ducked into the office and grabbed a legal pad from a desk drawer and a pen from the holder. Returning to the living room, he drummed the pen against the pad. “I suppose someone could make up a story this crazy to infiltrate the Border Patrol or to kill me, but there would be easier ways to do that—and I’ve seen that gash on your head. That head injury must’ve stolen your memories.”
Rob perched on the arm of the couch, ankle crossed at his knee, pad of paper on his thigh. He wrote Jane? at the top of the page and started a bulleted list of everything she could remember.
He enlarged the dark circle next to the Rosalinda tattoo on the list. “This is the most distinct thing about you. We should take a stab at it.”
“Not literally.” Jane reached behind her and rubbed her lower back. “But that’s what I thought when I looked in the mirror and saw myself for the first time—nondistinct. At the time, it pleased me, as I figured I could blend in, but a less bland appearance might help me figure out my identity faster.”
Rob’s mouth hung open. She couldn’t possibly think she had a bland appearance. The color of her eyes, hair that couldn’t decide between blond and brown and lush lips that turned up at the corners didn’t equal mundane to him.
He muttered, “I think you lost your judgment along with your memory.”
“What?” She prodded his leg.
“Never mind.” He dropped the notepad on her lap and pushed up from the arm of the couch. “Now that we know Rosalinda is not the name of some murdered
