Page 40 of Help Me Remember

“Sounded right. Not sure if that was some part of my brain remembering or if I just liked the name. I’ve had it for a week now, and it works, so I figure I should stick with it.”

Patterson raised a brow at Eric. “And you didn’t think it was a good idea to take him to a hospital to get checked out?”

Eric shrugged. “You and I both know you can’t force someone to take medical treatment if they don’t want it.”

“Sure you can. We’ve done it.”

“You can only force treatment if someone is a clear and present danger to themselves and others. Considering he was lucid, if a bit confused, and not a threat, I didn’t see the point,” Eric said, his tone growing frosty. “Though perhaps you do things differently here, I wouldn’t know.”

The apparent animosity in Eric brought a slight raise of the woman’s brow, but the man’s lips only thinned as he leaned back in his seat. I wouldn’t swear on my life, but I was pretty sure Eric had just put a mark against him in the man’s mental calculations.

“No, he’s well within his rights,” Officer Fitz added slowly. “And you said your boss agreed he was of sound mind, so there’s no point in questioning his fitness. And I think Officer Patterson and I can agree that…Dylan is managing to keep his senses about him.”

“I appreciate that,” I said with a flash of a smile that only she returned.

“So there’s nothing in there then?” she asked and looked at my forehead.

“Nothing I can make sense of,” I told her with a shrug. “Just a bunch of confusing pieces.”

“Pieces still work, don’t they?”

For a moment, I heard the ghost of someone’s voice echoing in the back of my head. Dylan, sometimes you have to work with just bits and pieces. That’s what this shit is all about, getting it all together and making it work. Now fucking work with me.

I shook my head, pushing against my brow as I felt a dull throb. “If it was a giant puzzle, sure. But this is like someone took a five-thousand-piece puzzle, threw it in a woodchipper, and told me to make sense of it.”

Fitz clicked her tongue. “I’ll be real with you, my friend, I don’t envy that.”

“And I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy,” I said, suddenly tired.

“Not that you know any enemies you might have,” Patterson said. I imagined it was supposed to come off as wry and sarcastic, but it made me briefly look askance at him all the same.

Fitz cleared her throat. “My partner’s terrible sense of humor aside, we should probably deal with the actual problem you two are having. Namely, the men trying to kill you.”

I could practically see the way Eric lit up at her words, which even to my ears sounded like support for his tale. “All I know is that they speak Russian really well, dress in suits I wish I could insult by calling cheap, and are way too liberal about using guns on people instead of talking.”

Fitz hummed thoughtfully, tapping the edge of her keyboard. “We have had some growing reports in the last few years of Russian Mafia moving into the city…”

“Those were overblown,” Patterson told her with a frown.

“You and I heard two different conclusions then.”

“Or you weren’t paying attention to the follow-up reports. There’s no reason we have to worry about anything other than Los Muertos in this city.”

I had to admit, Officer Patterson sounded sure of his information, almost insistent. Officer Fitz, however, still seemed to have her doubts, but she didn’t strike me as the type to disagree openly with her partner while there were civilians in hearing range.

“Well, we could probably deal with two birds at a time,” she said, pushing her keyboard away. “I’ll submit this, and we’ll send someone back to your apartment to see if anyone is lingering there. In the meantime, we can have you stay here while we sort things out.”

“You said two birds,” Eric said, cocking his head. “That kinda seems like two stones for one bird.”

“Two stones, two birds,” she said, eyeing me. “You let us get a picture of you, and we might be able to feed it into a few databases. There’s no guarantee, of course. Facial recognition software is still trying to catch up, but it’s worth a shot.”

I had suspected trouble could come from going to the cops, and this was the one thing I hadn’t anticipated happening. It was only in retrospect I probably should have realized it was a possibility, considering the mystery of who I was would be sure to poke at more than just me. It also left me feeling a little uneasy that they were already starting to pick at the plot holes of Eric’s story and were setting themselves up to find out more about me than I was ready for.

“Sure,” I said, trying to keep the unease from my voice. I didn’t know if Fitz was already suspicious. While I believed her partner was, I didn’t want to give them any more reason to be. “I guess we can do that.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” she said brightly, pulling out an object from her pocket and flipping it open to reveal a pocket watch. “I’ll just need a few minutes.”

“Fine,” Eric grumbled but eyed the watch. “That’s…pretty. You afford that on a cop’s salary?”

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