Rebecca Zanetti - Forgotten Sins

If he had brothers, shouldn’t they be looking for him? The name Jory caused something to hurt in his solar plexus. A weight squeezed his lungs.

The lights of the hospital soon came into view, and he scouted the parking lot for the best space in case he needed to make a quick exit. Finding one close to the curb, he parked and jumped out, striding toward the staff door as if he had every right to do so. It was too early to search Josie’s house, so he’d make good use of his time before heading to discover her secrets, and maybe some of his own.

A nurse in green scrubs slid her card through the slider, and he opened the door for her, returning her smile as she walked inside and hurried to a large lounge set to the right.

Two steps inside and the scent of bleach slammed into him. Sparks flashed behind his eyes. He staggered against the wall as memories cut deep. A dim picture of him sitting on a gurney in a dingy hospital room with a man digging something out of his leg. Crumbling concrete made up the walls. Pain had exploded along his shin. A bullet. The man had been digging out a bullet.

Almost in slow motion, the guy rose, smiling. “Got it.”

The man had gray eyes. The exact color of Shane’s eyes.

The strangled gasp Shane made as he returned to the present echoed around the empty room. Jesus Christ. Leaning down, he rubbed a scar along his left leg. Nausea swirled in his gut. His hands shook. Finally, more memories were flooding back. Relief and fear slammed through him. He’d been shot, and his brother had helped him. The first look at his family made his mind spin. But now wasn’t the time.

Damn it. He had a job to do.

The first few steps were more like stumbles, and then he found his stride. Focus. Forget the past images and focus. The voice in his head wasn’t his, yet he trusted it implicitly. He continued down the hallway, pausing in front of a room that housed several dictating machines along with computers.

Dodging inside, he sat and let his fingers fly across the keyboard. Interesting. He knew how to type and rather quickly. He didn’t know the name of the computer program, but he knew how to use it. Several codes led him to a screen that listed all new admittances. Two pages into the database, and Shane found his man.

The world centered again. He felt nothing. Odd and creepy talent, that.

Quiet reigned along the corridor as he strode out of the computer room, peering inside supply closets until he found a light blue hospital gown and some bandages. Concentrating, he forced the millions of sounds that whirled in his head into a blur of white noise that wouldn’t disturb him. Grabbing what he needed, he hurried out of the staff area and past the emergency room, riding the elevator up to the correct floor. Disembarking, he found a restroom and hustled inside to change into the gown.

The cool breeze filtered across his butt when he stepped outside. Shane fought a growl.

An empty room contained a half-filled IV of saline, and he grabbed the piping, taping the cord to his wrist. Then he walked the hall. Room 700 soon came into view. The cop dozing outside the door may have been on the lookout for a guy in scrubs. Or a doctor’s uniform.

But not a patient.

Not a bruised, lurching, wounded patient in battered slippers tugging his IV cart behind him. As Shane limped by, the cop looked up, giving him a nod. Shane grimaced and kept walking. He lapped the entire floor, and this time when he drew near, the cop’s chin rested on his chest, his snores echoing across the hall.

Shane slid inside the room. The door clicked shut behind him. The patient lay in a neat hospital bed, much cleaner than the one that recently flared through Shane’s memory.

He ditched the IV cart and stalked toward the bed, flipping over the guy’s chart. His name was Ray. Shane’s kick to the gut had broken five ribs; one rib had pierced a lung. Ouch. Shane scratched his head. He could decipher doctor’s notes. But something told him he wasn’t a doctor.

Ray filled out the bed at probably six foot, two-fifty. Matted black hair pressed to his head. Dark circles slashed under his eyes. Surgery had probably been a bitch. Shane pressed his hand over the patient’s mouth. Ray started, his eyes flying open. He struggled, then stilled.

Shane smiled. “Sorry about the ribs.”

No response.

“So. You understand I could kill you in seconds?”

A nod.

“Good.” Shane removed his hand. “Why?”

Ray’s forehead wrinkled. “Why what?” He whispered, a good sign.

“Why did you try to kill me?”

Ray shrugged. “The job paid good. We were supposed to knock you both out and start the house on fire. I got alimony to pay—”

“I don’t care.” Shane eyed the slow breathing. The guy was drugged. “Were you watching me from a blue van the other day?”

“Yeah. We were supposed to watch you—well, until the order came in to kill you.”

“Who hired you?”

“Denny hired me.” Ray’s blue eyes hardened. “He’s the guy you stabbed to death.”

“I didn’t stab him. I sliced his jugular.” A significant difference. The fact that dumbass Ray didn’t know that showed he was just hired muscle. A moron. Certainly not trained well enough to go up against a killer. Shane might have no clue as to his identity, but something told him his enemies knew exactly who he was. Shouldn’t they have sent someone better? “Who hired Denny?”

“No fucking clue, man. Paid ten large for each of us.”

Ten grand. Josie’s life was worth less than ten grand to this asshole. Something must’ve shown on his face because Ray shrank back, jaw quivering. Shane pierced him with a glare. “You’re going to give me more than that, Ray. Because I really want to kill you right now—with a lot of pain.”

Fear widened Ray’s eyes. “Okay, I mean, okay. Denny said we had to make sure everyone in the house died, and that the whole thing burned to the ground.”

So they couldn’t be identified? Who wanted him wiped from the earth? Shane frowned. “What’s Denny’s last name?”

“Clinton. Denny Clinton. He freelances for area bookies and anyone who needs, well…”

Needs someone dead. Not much of a lead, though the fact that Denny was local created possibilities. Somebody might’ve followed Shane to Snowville and then hired local muscle. Denny could’ve been working for anybody. “I’m not going to kill you today, Ray.” Though every instinct Shane had whispered that was a mistake.

But until he could figure out his past, he wasn’t going to do something so permanent as murder when there was a choice. Something told him once he remembered his life, he’d change that theory. Maybe he’d even hunt down good old Ray.

However, even now with his brain a blank slate, there was no question Shane would kill for Josie. He leaned forward, crowding the bed with his bulk. “But if you come near my wife again, if I even seen you in the same vicinity…”

Ray lifted bruised hands, palms out. “I get it, man. I get it.”

Josie forced a polite smile on her face, letting the soft jasmine smell of her office soothe her. She’d spent the night at Tom’s, and he’d driven her to work in the morning after she’d once again refused his offer of fleeing town. No way was she abandoning this life she’d built the last two years.

Plus, she needed to figure out the discrepancy in her accounts. Numbers and order made sense. When Shane had left, her job had given her a reason to get out of bed—and there was nothing she liked more than solving a good puzzle. There was no doubt she’d been distracted the last few months since she’d sent the divorce papers to Shane. If she’d made a mistake with the math, she didn’t know what she’d do.

She walked her client, the CEO of Trenton Industries, to the door of her office, shaking his hand again. The company built USB flash drives and was wildly successful at it.

Eighty-year-old Joe Trenton patted her on the shoulder. “Golf awaits me, my dear. Excellent job on the audit.”

Yeah, she’d spent hours working on his books. Josie’s professional smile relaxed into a natural grin. “Good luck today, Mr. Trenton.”

“The magic is all in the swing, Josie. All in the swing.” The man nearly skipped down the hallway toward the elevator.

To have that much energy so late in life would be a true blessing. She kept her smile in place until the elevator door closed to whisk the elderly technology genius away.

Eyeing the clock, she flipped open the file for Larson Corporation, a fancy name for a local convenience store. Her fingers danced over the calculator, and she frowned. The receipts were exactly thirteen thousand dollars off. Now that was an unlucky number.

She added again.

Yep. It looked like the store made thirteen thousand more dollars than the payables showed… but there wasn’t any leftover cash. So was the mistake with the receipts, or was there money missing?

Her calendar dinged from her computer.

Time to go. She grabbed the blue file off her desk and hustled to her boss’s corner office for their regular Monday morning meeting. Eli Johnston was waiting for her behind his massive cherry wood desk, his circa 1980 tie already askew. He gestured her to the one empty seat.

She sat and her heart sank at the large man filling the other seat. It figured her main competition for the promotion would be there. Just what she needed. “Hello, Daniel.”

Daniel Mission nodded, shoving his designer glasses up his nose. As always, he appeared in control and unruffled, his Armani suit tailored perfectly to his hard body. A body earned playing basketball and working out in the building’s gym.