Page 106 of Love What's Left
“Hmmm.”
“He saved my life.”
Amelia Webster’s loud laugh catches my attention. She approaches Mom from our direction, chatting animatedly and clearly having a great time. I look for Rob Sennett and find him leaning against the exterior wall of the house, less than six feet away from us, with a drink in his hand and his mouth turned down. He glances our way, then at his watch, before straightening and heading for Amelia. A ridiculous theory tickles the back of my mind, but not only is Rob not a woman, the investigation at the lab showed nothing of concern with any of Sydney’s co-workers.
What did he say that night on the phone? “Sometimes, blind faith is just closing your eyes and pretending you don’t see.”
36
Sydney
Janessa lowers herself gracefully into the chair next to me and crosses one leg over the other. She must be around five ten because she’s only an inch or so taller than I am without shoes, but where I become a graceless baby deer in anything but a wedge-style heel, Janessa, with her Italian model looks, pulls off stilettos even at a backyard birthday party, which means she’s currently rocking about six foot two and an absolute goddess.
“What’s wrong? And do not say, ‘nothing.’ Do I need to round up Bronwyn and have a talk with your husband?” Janessa asks.
“Gabriel is an angel. And, even if something were wrong with him, I would handle it myself.”
“Okay, then why do you look like you’re ready to wage a war?”
I glance back down at the photo on my phone, then pass it to her. “His name is Dr. Frederick Granthy.”
Janessa examines the picture.
“What do you see?”
“Hmm. An older Black man, probably in his late sixties, still in good shape, clothing well-made and likely expensive, but unimaginative. He looks a little startled. Like he didn’t know you’d be snapping the photo.”
I shake my head. “There’s something off about that picture.”
She gives a brief, involuntary laugh, then cuts herself off. “Oh. You’re serious.”
Raking her gaze over the photo again, she frowns. “I don’t really see anything odd, but if your instincts are telling you something is wrong, then I’m not telling you to ignore them.”
I accept the return of the phone. “It’s weird that I can never remember meeting the man, the same way it took me so long to remember Gabriel’s name. My therapist thinks it’s because I woke up in the hospital to him there, with some of the drugs still in my system, and because it took me so long to recognize I was no longer a prisoner, I saw him as one of my captors. Which is reasonable. I definitely thought Gabriel was holding me prisoner, at first, too. It took a while for me to figure out what was real and what wasn’t.”
“It could also be part of your recovery from your concussion or damage from Trahypnofen. After what happened to you, I read about it on the internet. There are people who go into comas and have permanent brain damage from it. It’s nasty stuff,” she says.
I nod. “Do you remember when I had that flashback with my first psychiatrist?”
“You were freaked out over her eyes and the way she spoke to you,” she says.
“I don’t kn—” I freeze when I see what I was missing in the photo. “Oh,” I breathe, my gut tightening.
Janessa clasps my hand. “Sydney?”
I look around the party, searching. “Are Amelia and Rob still here?”
“Your co-workers? They left about ten minutes ago. Rob said he couldn’t stay, and he was her ride,” Janessa says.
“Amelia left without saying goodbye? That woman has to make an announcement if she loses an eyelash, let alone arrives somewhere or leaves.”
Bronwyn, her white-blonde hair in a high ponytail, joins us and crouches beside me, her baby-blue summer party dress fluffing around her knees. “Syd? What’s wrong?”
I take the hat from my head and turn it around to face us. “Rob and Amelia gave it to me for my birthday. It’s the one I wore in the video the night I vandalized the lab.”
Bronwyn takes it into her hands. “It can’t be. That hat went missing when you did. It’s a copy, but it was thoughtful.”
“No. Someone deliberately added some wear to make it look different, but it’s the exact same hat,” I say.
