Left for Dead Read Online Free PDF Page A

ass?” Sherita chuckled. “It’s a family name. Sherita is my favorite aunt.”
    “Sorry,” she murmured, gazing at the bedsheets again.
    “Did you have a favorite aunt when you were a kid?” Sherita asked.
    “Dig, dig, dig.” Jane Doe gave her a shrewd look. “You don’t give up, do you?”
    “Nope.” Sherita nursed the Tootsie Pop for a moment.
    “Well, thanks for not giving up on me,” she whispered.
    Sherita glanced down at the book again. “‘Alfreda…Alice…Alina…Alison?’”
    Jane Doe kept shaking her head. She didn’t think this would work.
    Last night, she’d dreamt she was playing on the beach with a handsome, sporty-looking man and an eleven-year-old boy. They both had wavy golden-colored hair and the same guileless smile. She was with her husband and son. The three of them were laughing and playing tag with the waves along the shore. But then she remembered she had to have her portrait painted by some artist, and he wanted her there on time. He was very strict about that. She watched her husband and son stroll along the water’s edge without her. They didn’t seem to realize she’d stayed behind. She tried to call to them, but couldn’t remember their names. She felt a pain in her chest—as if something had speared her heart.
    She’d told the doctors that she had a husband—and a son, who was about eleven years old. But even as she’d described the man and boy in her dream, she’d had a feeling they were lost to her. Where were they? Why hadn’t they come for her? Didn’t they miss her? She felt so alone.
    She’d also told the doctors about the artist in her dream. She didn’t remember his face. She hadn’t really seen him. But in the dream, she knew he was waiting for her.
    “‘Alma…Aloha…Althea…’” Sherita continued, her eyes on the book.
    “I have a name you might help me with,” Jane Doe interrupted. “It’s Rembrandt. Who is he?”
    Glancing up from the book, Sherita worked on her Tootsie Pop for a moment. “He’s an artist, Dutch, I think,” she answered steadily. “It’s also a brand of toothpaste.”
    “And it’s what they call this man who tried to kill me,” Jane Doe said.
    Earlier, she’d heard a couple of doctors talking outside her door when they’d thought she was asleep. One of them wanted to show her a newspaper. He figured if she read about what had happened to her, it would trigger her memory. His colleague argued that it was a terrible idea, and reading about “Rembrandt” might only traumatize her further. She kept hearing that name, whispered about.
    “Do they think he’ll come after me?” she asked.
    “You don’t have to worry about that,” Sherita assured her. “You have a couple cops on babysitting duty, just outside the door, honey. Nobody’s getting past them.”
    Jane Doe sighed, and tugged at the bedsheets a little. “I bet they’re hoping Rembrandt tries to pay me a visit,” she muttered. “That way, they’ll catch him. Am I right?”
    Frowning, Sherita pitched her Tootsie Pop in the wastebasket. She picked up the book again. “I don’t know what the cops are thinking, honey.”
    “I hope they don’t kill him,” Jane Doe said.
    “Even after everything he did to you?” Sherita asked.
    “Oh, I’m not being nice,” she replied. She shrugged helplessly, and her voice cracked as she spoke. “What if he dies without telling anyone? Don’t you see? Right now, he’s the only person in the world who knows me.”
     
    “This clown offered me three hundred bucks.”
    “Three hundred—just for taking her picture?”
    Sherita nodded. She picked the lettuce off her prewrapped turkey and Swiss on rye. “Those reporters are all dying to get a look at her. Might as well be Madonna in that private room.” She ripped open a small bag of barbecue potato chips.
    Sherita never ate anything that was actually cooked in the hospital cafeteria. She bought only prepackaged stuff that came from an outside vendor.