"Lavene, Joyce & Jim - Mask of the Stranger" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lavene Joyce)

The doctors had told her it would happen, told her to be patient but it had been two months since the small plane she'd been in had crashed on its way from Orlando to Chicago.

The same doctors had cut her hair because of her head injury, assuring her that it would be better for her to recall who she was that way. After all, the picture on her driver's license had short hair. Shorter, in fact, than they'd cut hers. It was apparently a fashion she'd favored at some time.

She wondered, coldly impersonal, what had made her grow it longer. What had that Kelsey of three months ago been like? What had happened to her that had made her change?

It had been two months of knowing who she was only because others told her. Two months of waking up every morning to a stranger's face that she tried daily to reconcile to her own.

Kelsey freed her chin length hair from the headband so that it swung like a curtain around her face. She brushed it quickly, dispassionately, without focusing on her mirror again.

She'd grown to be afraid of that face. Fear and emptiness lurked in those eyes; madness on that path.

The only thing she could do was get on with her life. Her work. She could still remember that aspect. It was the only place she really felt safe. The only place she wasn't scared and uncertain.

Putting on her jacket and gloves, she slid her glasses into an outside pocket. Her driver's license portrayed her in heavy-rimmed glasses, saying that she couldn't drive without them. The doctor couldn't explain it as yet but her head injury seemed to have corrected her vision. Her glasses made it impossible for her to see.

Just one more puzzle piece to her old self. She carried the glasses in her pocket in case her vision suddenly went bad again. Or she was stopped for a safety check as she had been the week before on the way to the lab.

It was strange. Eerie. She could feel that braid down her back but couldn't recall ever having worn glasses. She'd tried them on several times, looking in the mirror but the reflection was the same. A stranger staring back at her.

Kelsey checked the street one last time before she left her apartment. He wasn't there. He wouldn't be so careless as to be seen in the daylight. The street was busy with late morning car and pedestrian traffic.

It would take an extra few minutes to make it in to work, she mused, finding herself more reluctant to leave her apartment every day. She was terrified that one morning they would find her huddled in the corner, not able to do anything but stare at the window. She was more afraid of that than she was of the stalker.

He had become so much a part of her life. He was a stranger, lurking outside. Like the stranger that lived inside of her.

One hour, one minute at a time, she told herself, carefully unlocking the door. She rearmed the security system that would tell her if anyone had been there all day. She closed the door, locked it tightly, and was gone.

Her drive to work was always the single most thought provoking time of her day. In her car, she felt safe. He might be able to see her in the car but he couldn't touch her.

She couldn't remember even the smallest part of her past personal life before two months ago, but she knew how to drive. She knew how to dress herself, how to eat, but couldn't remember her name and age. Every aspect of her work as a botanist was clear in her mind but not a friend or a lover. Not even parents.

If it hadn't been for Dr. Abrahms who got her the job at Barton's, she wouldn't have known anything about her previous existence. He had worked with her in Orlando and had recommended her for the position at the lab in Chicago. He knew her well enough to assure the hospital staff after the crash that she had no living relatives. She had been in Orlando only a short time.

His description of her life had painted a bleak, lonely picture of her past that sometimes made Kelsey cringe when she thought of it. She'd left no friends or family behind. Not even any close co-workers.

What sort of person was she that she attracted neither friends nor any close associate? Had her life always been that way? Hadn't there ever been anyone who cared if she lived or died?

According to her driver's license, she was nearly thirty-two years old. It seemed like a very long time to be alone and it didn't feel right. Like the glasses. The loneliness just didn't fit her.

Yet, she couldn't deny it. When the hospital had put out her name and face to cities across the country, no one had reported her missing. No one had called, wondering what had happened to her. Only the key ring Dr. Abrahms had given her, with the name and address of Barton's Institute, had brought him to her.

Still, she wasn't satisfied with those answers to her questions. The questions themselves were frustrating circles. Her mind moved around them, constantly supplying possibilities and conclusions like they were part of an experiment in her lab.

She couldn't actually remember the crash that had nearly killed her but it haunted her like a bad dream.

Like the stalker.

Suppose, she theorized, that the stalker was a part of her past life. A past she couldn't remember. It would have to be someone with a grudge against her, her brain categorized. He wasn't lurking out there waiting to congratulate her on her recent discoveries!