Page 71 of Find Me

At least she wasn’t a total liar. Hope really did suffer from amnesia: actual, blackout, zero-memory amnesia from the moment she ate those stupid mushrooms with TC until she woke up the next morning.

Her wrist. That was how all of this started—when Lindsay’s father took them to the shooting range last winter. The doctors in Hopewell naturally assumed that the lingering weakness in her left wrist was from the injuries sustained in the accident, but Hope had one of her mother’s many arm-yanks to thank for that. The gun Jimmy handed to her atthe range was only a nine-millimeter. He said he picked it because her hands were too small for most of the other options.

So, what are the bigger guns that might not be right for me?It was an innocent enough question—the idle curiosity of a gun novice—but Hope’s interest had been anything but casual. As he rattled off a quick list of larger weapons, it was the .357 that leaped out at her. Then she pulled the trigger of the much-smaller weapon. After all that free physical therapy no one had ever offered her until Hopewell, she thought her wrist strength was almost normal, but nope. Then how in fuck’s sake, she wondered, had she managed fifteen years before, wasted on a bucket of vodka Red Bulls with some mushrooms on top, to not only fire a .357 but land a clean shot into Hitch’s stomach? She obviously hadn’t, and yet Alex had sworn it was so.

She’d googled him over the years, more so in the beginning, but the name was too common to be of much use. But after that trip to the shooting range, Hope had treated it like a full-time job. It was an article that popped up in January from theEast Hampton Starthat alerted her to his job at the fishing guide operation.

Before she had decided what to do with that information, the pieces began to fall into place by themselves. Lindsay said she was going to check out a summer rental. They’d make a weekend out of it, and Hope floated the idea of a fishing trip for a little adventure.

As they approached the docks, Hope had tried to anticipate Alex’s reaction. Would he hug her, thrilled to discover she was still alive? Ask what she’d been up to all these years? Pull her aside and beg for forgiveness for lying to her about the shooting? But he did nothing. Hesaidnothing. He treated her like a complete stranger. So she moved to East Hampton, intent on proving that he was the one who killed Hitch, blamed her for it, and then left her for dead at the side of the road.

Melissa was asking if she had any memories yet of the night Hitch died.

She shook her head. “Still a total blank.”Pretty close to the truth.

“What about Alex?”

“When I look at a picture of him, I think I sort of remember being with him, but, again, maybe it’s just because I’ve gotten used to the idea by now.” Not at all true.

She remembered so much about Alex. The way he smiled at her when he tore her ticket to seePirates of the Caribbeanat the Old Town movie theater and then found her during the previews to bring her a pack of Twizzlers because the red matched her lipstick. Lying next to him for hours on the merry-go-round at College Hill Park, dreaming of ways for two poor kids—one in a group home, one without papers—to get rich. And she remembered the look in his eyes as he begged her to leave Wichita with him. She was dead set against it until Alex told the lie that spiraled into all the lies that would follow—that she had shot that man at the house.

“Why?” she had asked. “Why would I do something like that?”

Much of what Alex told her back then lined up with what she now believed was the truth. He recognized Hitch in the family photographs as the man who had tried to rape Emilia when they were kids. When Hitch stepped out of the car with a gun, Alex charged at him, and the two struggled for control of the weapon. But in the version Alex spun to convince her to leave with him, she was the one who grabbed the gun after it slid across the driveway pavement. She killed Hitch with one shot.

And Hope believed every word of it. Of course she believed him. If you just found out that the man you thought you loved was a child molester, you might shoot him too.

Before she agreed to leave with Alex, she pressed him to explain exactly what Hitch had done to his sister. “He spent months telling her how special she was,” he said. “That she was too good for any boys her own age. He practiced his Spanish with her and gave her a copy of his favorite book. That’s what’s so sick about it. When he finally decided to rape her, he made her feel as if she’d agreed to it.”

His words forced her to replay the entire relationship with Hitch in her head. For Hope—for Tara—it was true, romantic love. Hitch told hershewas special. That her “life adversity” had matured her. That she understood him better than his wife ever had, and that all Melanie cared about was her father’s company anyway. He always said she was too good for Alex, and that once his marriage was over, he’d give her the life she deserved. He even gave her a key to the house. And a copy ofThe Scarlet Letter,his favorite book.

It was exactly what he had done to Alex’s sister. He picked Hope not because she was wise beyond her years, but because she was a girl from a group home whose mother had abused her so badly that her left wrist barely worked. She was vulnerable, and he was the kind of man who could smell vulnerability—and needed it. At least Emilia Lopez had enough self-esteem to recognize she had been taken advantage of. In Hope’s case, Hitch was the one to break off their “relationship,” giving her a silver necklace from Tiffany “to remember us by.” Even after knowing what Hitch had done, she couldn’t bring herself to throw it away, hiding it in the tampon case in her purse before leaving Wichita.

Melissa was droning on about Alex. “You told me during our first session you didn’t think you’d ever be able to forgive him, even though he ultimately told the truth at the end and lost his life because of it. Do you still feel that way?”

Alex hadn’t deserved to die for what he did, but, no, Hope wasn’t ready to forgive him—not yet, at least. “It’s complicated. I know the letter was meant to give me a fresh start, but it was still self-serving. He said that after the accident, he saw headlights coming and ran for the woods—heartbroken, guilt-stricken, terrified—leaving only after I was in the ambulance?” She could recite Alex’s letter from memory—that’s how many times she had read it. “Well, there was no wallet in my purse. No identification. No money. He must have taken it, right? That doesn’t sound very heartbroken. It sounds like someone willing to sacrifice me so he can go on with his life.”

But if Alex’s letter had portrayed him more sympathetically than he deserved, it had done the same for Hope.I convinced myself you were faking... Your reaction at that house. You were so afraid. It became clear to me you were telling the truth about your amnesia.

When he showed up at the Stansfields’, Hope was anything but afraid. She had flown into a rage, unleashing fifteen years of a life spent in limbo because of him. She told him she knew he was the one who killed Hitch.You ruined my fucking life, and now I’m going to ruin yours, too.

And yet, still, he chose to cover for her in that letter. So... could Hope forgive him? Like she said, it was complicated.

If Alex hadn’t decided to confess, would her plan have worked? When Jocelyn cut her hair, she mentioned that her dad suspected Alex of being a drug dealer, so Hope called in a detailed tip to the police, claiming to be a ripped-off customer. By the time Alex confronted her at the Stansfields’, she had already hidden the necklace on his boat. She was hiding at that vacant rental house until the cops got around to doing their jobs—but then Alex decided to turn himself in and made the mistake of telling Steve Thompson.

Melissa took a sip of coffee from a mug that readi told my therapist about you,which struck Hope as both slightly unprofessional and completely hilarious. “And have you been looking at photographs of Wichita—your childhood home, the group home, your former schools, the places we discussed?”

Hope nodded dutifully. “Yeah, and I definitely think it’s helping. It seems like every day I remember a little bit more. All those years, I assumed the amnesia was from my head injury, but maybe it was trauma after all. Maybe I just needed to know that I wasn’t a killer to allow my mind to go back to my past.”

“And what about the Locke family? Do you remember them at all?”

Hope had trained herself over the years not to think too much aboutHitch or the wife and daughter he left behind. “Not in the least,” she said.

Sometimes she did wonder what would have become of Alex and her if not for the car accident. By the time they were settled down in Canada and he came clean with the truth—ifhe had come clean—she would have needed him or loved him enough to have forgiven him. It might have all worked out. She might be running Reel Deal Fishing with him. They could have been happy together.

So maybe someday, she would tell all of it to Lindsay, when the time was right, when she was sure Lindsay would understand.

Or maybe not. Lindsay said so many times she wished she didn’t know the truth about Scott. Lindsay trusted Hope. She never doubted her, not even once. And why would Hope want to take that away from her?

Melissa glanced down at her watch. “Our time is up, but see you again Monday?”

“Definitely.”

“And keep up the good work. I can see how committed you are to this process.”

Maybe she had chosen the right therapist after all.

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