Rory nodded. “Best to have you thoroughly checked out here in Dublin.”
I groaned. That meant more fecking scans to sit through.
“Until you’re cleared medically, you’re on paid administrative leave.” He folded his hands on the desk, signaling our conversation was at an end. “Go home and get some rest, Siren.”
No one knew it, save Hughes and me, but he was the one who’d given me my code name. It was after he and I’d spent the day out on the water. We were headed back in, and he ran aground on a shallow reef at the same time I happened to be humming.
“You’ll lead a sailor to his death, sweet Siren,” he’d said that day.
I looked up at him with wide eyes.
“What?”
“A memory.”
“Of?”
“That day in Waterford.”
“I see,” he said, steepling his fingers in front of his mouth. “Do you also remember we weren’t together much longer than that?”
“Don’t be a feckin’ eejit,” I muttered. “Of course I do. It’s just that I remembered how I came to be called Siren.”
“A story best kept—”
“You don’t need to tell me,” I snapped, walking over to his office door.
“I’ll expect regular reports.”
“When will I be able to return to duty?”
“There is much it will depend upon.”
“Understood.”
I’d come straight to McKee Barracks from the airport and was anxious to get home, shower, and sleep.
I couldn’t help but wonder if Smoke had yet seen the footage of me arriving at IMI headquarters. While the location was secret to most of the world, Smoke had been there, as had Rile. It wouldn’t take someone like Decker Ashford long to hack into our security feeds.
That in itself was another memory—or two. I could remember both things in detail. Smoke being in a meeting at the barracks, as well as what I’d read in the dossier on Deck.
My house was a fifteen-minute drive from the office, located in the village of Drumcondra. It was rather big for just one person, with three bedrooms and two baths, but I liked having the extra space. I used one of the bedrooms as a workout room and the other a guest room, even though I almost never had guests.
It also had a converted attic space the agent had suggested I could one day use as a fourth bedroom. Fat chance of me ever needing that. Although it did add to the overall value of the place. The housing estate it was in was very modern looking and quite new, having only been built five years prior.
While it was convenient to public transportation, it would’ve taken me almost an hour of travel time, so I’d opted for a car service.
When the driver pulled up in front, it occurred to me that I’d also just remembered everything about my house. I shook my head as I unlocked the front door and went inside. I had no idea how long it had been since I was last here, and that had nothing to do with my amnesia. It felt as though it had been months, and it very likely could’ve been.
I flopped down on the oversized sofa that took up half the living room, too tired to make the trek to my bedroom on the second level.
I closed my eyes and thought about how much warmer than mine Smoke’s house had felt the first time I walked inside. It wasn’t about temperature. It just felt more like a home. That, of course, reminded me of Ms. Wynona saying he loved the ranch with all his heart, yet when he was there, it didn’t feel like home to him.
I couldn’t deny my sadness when a tear leaked from my eye and ran down my cheek. I missed Smoke. I hated that I missed him, but I did. But did I miss the real Smoke? No. The conversation I’d overheard between Decker and him proved the man who had cared for me, made love to me, was a lie. He was pretending to be someone he wasn’t just to…what? Why had he sneaked me away from the hospital in the middle of the night, flown me to the States, and sat with me at the hospital? Was it out of some sort of misplaced sense of responsibility for me?
Or was it that when I woke, I begged him to hold me? I thought about the chaste kiss he gave me when he left that first night. Why hadn’t he said something then?
Jaysus! I’d made such a fool of myself. Even all alone, I could hardly stand the shame and embarrassment of it.
19
Smoke
“I’ve been anticipating hearing from you,” said Hughes when I called the next morning. “Either you or Rile.”
“Have you seen her?”
“So much for pleasantries, then. Yes, Smoke, I have seen her.”
“How is she?”
“I could give you the same perfunctory response Siren gave me. Her left arm has ninety-five percent mobility, and she has no idea how to quantify her amnesia. Or did she say memory? Either way.”
It was a struggle not to ask what that meant. Her memory—at least of me—had to have returned, or she wouldn’t have staged her dramatic departure.
“Is she…” I couldn’t finish. “Thanks, Hughes.” I hung up before he could say another word. The man was Siren’s boss. Sure, I knew he’d fucked her, but that had been over for years.
When I walked inside the house, Ms. Wynona was waiting for me, wringing a handkerchief.
“Siren is back in Ireland,” I told her. I walked down the hallway, went into my bedroom, and closed the door. I knew right away I couldn’t stay here. I grabbed a bag, threw some clothes in it, and stalked back to the kitchen.
“I’m leaving.”
“I hope you’re going to get her,” I heard Ms. Wynona say before I slammed the front door behind me.
“Hey, Decker,” I said, walking into the barn, where he was messing with something on his computer. “I hate to do this, but—”
“Go do what you gotta do. Zeke, the boys, and I will finish things up here.”
“I
