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Jana Peters reached a hand out to stop her. “Please tell me what hospital I’m in. I need to call my friend Holly to come pick me up.”
“You’re at Scripps, Mercy.”
“In Litton?
“No, I’ve never heard of Litton before, you’re in Manahawkin.”
After the women left, Jana Peters got up to use the bathroom, as she wondered where the hell Manahawkin was. After washing and drying her hands she went back into her private room and started searching for her purse. If she could find her ID, then they’d believe her. She found a purse, next to her bed, inside a wicker basket. But it wasn’t her purse, she’d never seen it before. Clearly, they put her in the wrong person’s room.
She cleared her throat, pushing away her reluctance about going through someone else’s purse. If she could prove that they’d made some kind of a mix-up, then it
would be justified.
She picked up the purse and sighed. It was buttery soft. She held it to her nose and breathed in the sent. Real leather. She’d always dreamed of having a real leather purse. She turned it around, and her heart thudded.
Oh my God. I’m holding a Badgley Mischka purse in my hands. I’ve been switched with a rich person. She gaped at the purse, turning it around and looking at all sides. It was fantastic, and easily cost thousands. Listening for sounds of other people, she herd none. She pulled opened the other woman’s purse and looked inside.
Inside, she opened the wallet, and gasped. There was that same picture again. A picture of her. She peered at the name. Mona Lisa Van Dyke, 51 Reed Channel Road, New Jersey.
New Jersey?
Still staring in disbelief at her face on someone else’s driver’s license, she sat back on the bed. It was all too weird. That was definitely her—down to the scar across her right eyebrow, the one her dear daddy had given her as a going-away present, the last time she’d performed in front of an audience.
Her mind reeled as another memory flashed. She’d been on a stage recently. That’s right. The talent show. She was back at the nightclub in Misty Falls, singing Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend. For the first time in her life, she’d been able to perform without any stage freight. Just the opposite, she’d been killing it. The audience has loved her. Did she win?
She tried to remember the performance. She was dancing her way through the floor. There’d been a man in the audience. She’d been drawn to him. Those eyes, the way he looked at her.
Then another memory flashed. That same man not at a table while she stood above him, but in a bedroom, below her, between her legs, bringing her to ecstasy. No. That can’t be right. I remember him from the show – that’s all. She closed her eyes and tried to return to that moment. She was leaning towards him, poking him playfully in the chest. He was smiling at her. And then she was off, singing for the others in the audience—killing it, winning the prize.
Another memory flashed hard against her brain. Her breath quickened at the vision of Harold yelling at her, calling her those horrible names. She remembered being frozen to the spot—so afraid, she couldn’t move, she couldn’t run. He was going to get her, kill her for sure this time, and she had no way of stopping him.
Jana Peters closed her eyes tight, trying to force away the memory. But instead, more memories flooded back in a rush. The handsome man pounded on Harold. Then he was dragging her out of the bar, into this car. Harold was shooting at them, at her. But he missed—and the man took her to his cabin—no, not a cabin—a chalet. And he had friends, no, not friends—employees—people who did things for him—because he was rich.
Jana Peters touched her throat with her hand as she tried to still her beating heart. It was all too much. She’d been rescued by a knight in shining armor, a rich knight in shining armor. Now she was in New Jersey – another state. He’d taken her away from where Harold couldn’t touch her. She was safe. She lay back in the bed and tried to take it all in. Somehow, she’d lucked out. She’d better forget all about Jana Peters, because at the moment, being Mona Lisa Van Dyke had a lot more appeal.
She tried again to remember everything about being with that man. Damn, why couldn’t she remember his name? Then she remembered the chart. She got up carefully, not wanting to set off any alarms, and walked to the foot of the bed. She lifted the chart and read another section. Responsible party: Merrick Flynn, fiancé.
She gasped. Fiancé? They were engaged already? But it had only been a few days. How was that possible?
She tried to remember their first kiss, or when he had proposed, but she was drawing a blank. But, even as those other memories alluded her, a powerful memory returned. Merrick Flynn, lifting her naked, wet body out of a bathtub, laying her on a giant bed, and parting her legs with his lips.
She groaned as more memories returned. She didn’t need to see it in her mind because she could feel it in her body. His lips, his fingers. And then he was inside her, filling her, stretching her, loving her so deeply he had to be real. Moisture flooded between her legs, and her sex convulsed with need. Her hand moved from her neck to her hospital gown and her fingers slipped inside and batted a hardening nipple, as her mouth fell open. Her breath quickened as she remembered every sensation, every moment of bliss. At the sound of approaching voices, she pulled her tongue back in her mouth and put her arms up above the sheet.
The phlebotomist returned with a nurse. The nurse picked up the chart from the end of the bed and examined it.
“What’s your name, ma’am?”
Jana Peters didn’t hesitate. Memorization was one of her skills. “Mona Lisa Van Dyke,” she said.
“And your address?”
“51 Reed Channel Road, Atlantic City, New Jersey.”
“And your date of birth?”
“Nine twenty-nine eighty-seven.”
The senior nurse scowled at the dumbfounded phlebotomist, who shrugged her shoulders and shot Jana a hostile glare before taking her leave.
