Page 6 of Fatal Vision
“No worries. Take your time.” Alicia, ever the patient coach, crouched beside her again. “Relax, take a deep breath, and clear your mind. The more relaxed you are, the easier it will be.”
The only easy day was yesterday.
Once again Colton’s voice was inside her head, the SEAL refrain hitting the heart of the truth. She’d had so much energy yesterday. Moving her leg had been a breeze.
Flipping her eyes open, she bitch-slapped the defeat and realized Colton was standing at the end of her carpeted runway. “Come on, sugar. You can do it.”
“Colton?” she blinked and he disappeared.
A heavy sigh rushed through her lips and she wanted to sink down right there on the floor. Her brain had been hallucinating off and on since she’d opened her eyes six weeks ago. At first, she’d blamed it on her blurry vision, but as her eyesight cleared, she continued to see him.
Alicia’s gaze went to the spot where Shelby was staring. “Pretend he’s there, Shelby. Pretend he’s holding your favorite dessert in his hands. All you have to do is reach him.”
Alicia knew about Shelby’s hallucinations. She was one of the few, in fact, who didn’t freak out about them.
Not like Shelby’s parents. Even though the doctors had explained multiple times to her mom and dad about how the brain injury had caused minor damage and many of its effects would fade over time, Jack and Martha feared the worst—their precious, former-Miss-Oklahoma daughter had lost her marbles.
Maybe I have. Any woman who would want Colton Bells back in her life had to be a few fries short of a Happy Meal.
I never claimed to be smart when it came to Colton.
Taking Alicia’s advice, Shelby imagined her ex-husband standing at the end of the walkway, all smirks and smartass comments. He didn’t need to hold a treat for her—although she could really use one of those monster yogurts from the yogurt bar up the street, covered in nuts, fudge, and gummy bears…
Back on track!Reining in her thoughts, she geared up for another try. Colton’s simple presence would be enough of a carrot, if only he was there.
“There’s my girl!”
Her father’s booming voice carried across the room, and Shelby had to force herself not to cringe. Once again, she was the center of attention.
That’s what happened when your father was a former pro-football player-turned-TV evangelist who regularly got millions of hits on his YouTube Channel and had more Instagram followers than Rihanna.
“Hi, Daddy,” Shelby said as her father stopped at her side. Another man was with him—tall, model-handsome, and dressed in a sharp suit.
Her dad—known to everyone as Reverend Jack—kissed her cheek. “Honey, you remember Theo Ingram, right?”
“He’s my boss, Dad. Of course I remember him.”
Her father looked like he’d won the lottery, just because, yes, she remembered someone from before the brain injury. The memories of her life that she’d lost mostly centered around the day of the accident, but making her parents understand that hadn’t worked so far.
Sure, she still had moments when the right words wouldn’t come or she’d blank a name or face for a few seconds, but honestly, didn’t everyone? Simple slips couldn’t all be blamed on the bullet that had nicked her skull or the fact that when she’d fallen, she’d smacked her head on a concrete step.
Her parents’ concern was justified; they’d been through a terrible scare. Every success—no matter how small—was a huge win in their eyes.
Yet, dammit if she wasn’t sick and tired of everyone acting like she was five years old.
Alicia stepped back, one hand discreetly checking her hair as Theo shook Shelby’s hand. Shelby wasn’t sure if Alicia’s smile was for her father or Theo. Probably both. Powerful men tended to bring out the feminine side in women of all ages.
Shelby looked at Theo and nodded. “Checking up on me, sir?”
His million-dollar smile made him even more attractive as he politely kept his eyes behind the dark frames of his glasses off her walker and on her face. “It’s good to see you’re up and about. Reverend Jack says you’re doing better every day. Everyone at the office is asking about you, so I thought I’d stop by so I can give them a report.”
Underneath the charm and megawatt smiles, Shelby knew the real reason Theo had stopped by. He wanted to check her memory of that day. He wasn’t the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Tulsa office because he was a nice guy. He was the ASAC because he got the job done.
After the fiasco with 12 September—a terrorist group she and Colton had taken on to rescue a friend of theirs—she’d been shipped back to Oklahoma. Since her superiors in Washington were a bit upset with her after Colton had ruined the FBI part of the mission to capture the leader, Iman Quan, she’d been lucky to land in Theo’s group.
With her skills at reading people, she’d been a huge asset at interrogations. She was a natural when it came to the science of people, reading micro expressions to figure out who was lying and why.
Then something had changed after she’d uncovered a connection between several veterans who’d been assassinated in close succession. Theo had assigned her to a small, mostly-unknown hidey-hole of agents working very specific, sensitive cases involving military veterans.
