The Other Amanda

Cover Page

Excerpt

About The Author

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Copyright

Jonathan squeezed her hand

“You’re safe here. The police will find the person who attacked you.”

Panic screamed through her aching body. She knew she could trust him, but not all those other people—the police, the family. She couldn’t fit them into the puzzle that was her life, no matter how hard she tried.

An awakening instinct warned her to hide her fear. Maybe the emptiness inside her would fill up with all the pieces she needed. Until then she was alone.

She balled both her hands into fists. She had to try to explain.

“I’m afraid because…because I can’t remember anything. About myself. About my past.”

She unfurled one fist, her fingers desperately searching out his as she willed him to understand.

“The only memory I have is you.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lynn Leslie is the pen name of the dynamic writing team of sisters-in-law Sherrill “Lynn” Bodine and Elaine “Leslie” Sima. Both women have been writing for most of their lives and are avid researchers, a skill that is evident in all their novels.

Both women love to travel and are involved in various social-service groups in their communities. They also love to spend time with their families, who reside in the Chicago area.

The Other Amanda

Lynn Leslie

To Dr. Marc Simeon Karlan.

Thank you for your expertise—

you gave us exactly what we needed!

With special thanks to Dr. Steven E. Rolhke and to Sue and Norm Westerhold for all those great weekends in northern Wisconsin.

PROLOGUE

ACROSS THE PARK the moon, like a giant red beach ball just above Lake Michigan, beckoned her into the night. Surely it would be cooler by the water. Here, under the Majestic Hotel marquee, the combination of good old Windy City summer humidity and hot lights made her skin feel clammy.

She flicked open her compact to examine her carefully made-up face. Blush highlighted her cheekbones, accentuating the hollows in her face. Her lips were pale and glossy but her eyes looked tired. And frightened. She stretched her lids so her mascaraed lashes nearly brushed her brows and smiled experimentally.

There, that looked better. No one but she would notice the tiny glimmer of anxiety that lingered.

Somehow, some way, she had to change her life.

Holding that thought, she dropped the compact back into her evening bag, waved at the doorman and started across the street toward the lake.

The park grass felt like a slippery cushion under her feet. She slowed her pace to avoid catching her heels. She couldn’t be late for this appointment, but she didn’t want to arrive with a run in her stockings or grass stains on her dress.

When she was halfway through the park, she noticed that the moon had risen high over the lake and dimmed to a pale glow. It seemed as if all the lights in the world had gone out. Where a moment before she had seen park benches and a children’s playground to her left, everything now lay in shadow.

Suddenly, out of the darkness something hurled itself against her legs. A scream tore from her throat, and she swayed for balance before she realized it was a small white poodle dragging a leash.

Relief flooded through her. Abnormal relief. Overwhelming relief. She leaned over to pet the furry animal licking her leg, laughing nervously at the absurdity of her fears.

“Hi there, guy. Where’s your owner?”

“Ralphie! Ralphie, stop jumping on the pretty lady!” An elderly woman, her face flushed, rushed up to grab the leash with trembling fingers. “I’m so sorry. The naughty boy got away from me again,” she gasped.

“That’s all right. No harm done.” She straightened while watching the woman struggle to catch her breath. “Are you all right? Can I help you?”

“No, no. I’m fine now.” The woman held up her hand, with Ralphie’s leash wound tight around her palm. “I have him and I’m taking him straight home.”

“Okay. Have a nice evening.” She smiled and stepped back, anxious now to reach her destination.

“You, too. Be careful in the park, dear. It’s getting dark.”

She nodded and walked backward for several yards, watching the woman to make sure she would be all right. Ralphie and his owner disappeared behind some bushes. Beyond the darkness, lights flickered on through the trees like fireflies. Part of her wanted to follow the old woman and her dog out of the park, back toward those lights, but she knew she couldn’t.

Sighing, she turned around slowly. She had to get this over with before she could take the woman’s advice. She crossed a reservoir of darkness between the town lights behind her and the moon-painted lake before her. The sudden and complete silence made her feel very isolated. She might be the only person in the world.

Alone, in a dark, silent universe. Funny, how often she felt this way.

A rustle off to her left, like something or someone brushing against one of the low bushes shattered the quiet. Probably a raccoon, or maybe another dog, she reasoned. Yet a tingle of fear made her quicken her pace in spite of the treacherous grass.

A second sound rippled around her. Louder. Closer.

She froze in a puddle of shadow, knowing any movement would betray her presence. Then terror struck her like an icy fist to her chest. Someone was here in the darkness with her. She could feel someone watching her. There was nowhere to hide.

She whipped around in a panic, hurling herself back toward the street, back toward the lights, the old woman and the poodle. Her feet slid on the grass, her legs twisting under her as she fell to the ground. Clawing at the soaked earth, she tried to get away.

There was no sound, no warning. Pain exploded through her body, and she screamed when merciless feet kicked her onto her back and more monstrous pain pierced through her like a million knives stabbing at her flesh.

She threw her arms up over her face, trying to protect herself. She tasted blood in her mouth, smelled it on her hands before they fell useless to her side. Something inside her mind began to shut down as a dense black cloud swallowed her:

Without warning, a light filled what remained of her consciousness. Through the skin of her eyelids, she could feel its brightness, sense its warmth.

Irresistible.

She forced her eyes open. An angel looked at her.

So this was how it felt to die.

CHAPTER ONE

DR. JONATHAN TAYLOR stepped out of Memorial Hospital into the sweltering summer night, the smell of acid from the steel mills in Gary assaulting his nostrils. In the distance he heard the whine of an ambulance racing toward the ER. Another siren, farther away, joined in. He was glad to be going home. Summer nights like this, when oppressive heat stacked pollution over the city, always drove people a little nuts. But none of it would be his problem until tomorrow. Grateful, he turned toward the staff parking lot.

“Wait, Jonathan! There’s one coming in for us.”

Damn!

“Bonnie, the skin graft on that five-year-old finished me. You didn’t catch me.” Only musclenumbing exhaustion would have driven him to snap at his scrub nurse. What in hell was wrong with him tonight? He sucked in hot, acid-tinged air. “Masters can take it.”

An ambulance screeched to a halt inches from him. The back doors flew open and two paramedics jumped out. He took a step back, clearing the way into the hospital, but then curiosity took over. He leaned forward.

Even with the ambu bag forcing air into her lungs, the woman on the gurney looked dusky from lack of oxygen. Coughing, spitting blood, she fought to move her head free of the restraining straps.

Deep inside him, something snapped. A sudden surge of adrenaline shot through his system. He was needed. He swung around, gave Bonnie a nod and shouted at the paramedic, “What have we got?”

“Mugging victim. Police found her in the park.”

The trauma team swarmed toward the gurney, rushing the victim to the room set aside for lifethreatening cases. Jonathan followed instinctively. The body on the gurney was starting to thrash violently as the victim struggled for breath.

“Get me the tracheotomy tray!” the resident on duty shouted over his shoulder.

The woman’s dusky color changed to chalky white. She was choking on her own blood, fighting to breathe. Beneath her eyes, her face had caved in, cutting off her windpipe.

“She doesn’t need a trach.” Jonathan pushed through the trauma team. “Look at her irises.”

The victim’s irises were shrinking to pinpoints, her skin bleached out entirely. Jonathan knew he had to act. Inserting two fingers between her bloody lips, he pushed her palette up and forward.

Her thrashing and gasping stopped. The victim took in a sigh of air and opened her eyes. Her unfocused gaze searched, then locked onto his.

“You’re safe now. I promise. I’m going to help you.” Her eyes blinked, then refocused. “Stay with me.” His harsh demand couldn’t stop her blue eyes from closing again. He’d lost her to oblivion; probably just as well, from the look of her. Someone had beaten this woman to a bloody mess. How she’d endured this much he’d never understand. She was a survivor!

“Get a chin strap.”

Bonnie handed it to him, as always, knowing what he needed without instruction.

Finished, he moved back to make room for the neuro team. Carl Johnson looked at him for confirmation.

“It’s a craniofacial separation. God knows what else you’ll find. I want to go in to reconstruct as soon as she’s stable. Before the swelling prohibits.”

Johnson nodded. “I’ll let you know.”

There were no cops in sight, and the ambulance had left on another run, so Jonathan headed to the locker room. He shed his faded jeans and red polo shirt for green scrubs, all the time wondering about the woman. He shook his head, brushing away the cruelty he’d seen. His adrenaline had kick-started him. All he needed now was to splash cold water on his face and down one cup of the bitter black muck the hospital called coffee to keep himself going. It was going to be a long night.

“Jonathan, I think you’d better see this.”

He hadn’t heard Bonnie come in. Something in her pale face made him grab the chart, but instead of looking at it, he stared at her. Bonnie was an old pro. Why was she so upset? She’d seen worse.

“What’s going on? Dr. Johnson done?”

“Not yet.” She put her hand out as if she might touch him, then stopped. “The victim is Randall Chambers’s niece, Amanda Braithwaite. The police are in ER with her identification.”

He heard her words. They crashed like clanging cymbals through his brain but their meaning wouldn’t sink in. Because he’d been in the operating room for eight hours. Because he was hungry. Because he was impatient to do his job while he could make a difference. Because he didn’t want to believe them.

“What?” He stared at the clipboard with the ER admittance chart a black blur. That woman with every facial bone pulled away from her skull so it hung like a bloody mask couldn’t be his Amanda.

“It’s Amanda Braithwaite,” Bonnie repeated. “The police found her Medic Alert bracelet, her driver’s license and…”

“All right! All right! I get the picture,” he snarled, not wanting to understand, not wanting to believe.

Bonnie looked confused at his abrupt response, but she was smart enough to remain silent while he came to terms with his disbelief and anger. “Have you called her uncle?”

“No luck so far. Mr. Chambers is at that hospital administrators’ conference in Dallas. We called his service and left a message. His wife wasn’t home. We left a message for her to call the hospital immediately.”

Amanda. Beautiful Amanda. Wild Amanda. Cruel Amanda.

He shut off that train of thought, knowing he was going to have to stop thinking of her as Amanda and start treating her as if she were any other patient. Otherwise he’d be useless to her.

“Where is she now?”

“Dr. Johnson ordered a CT scan and an MRI. They’re finishing up now.”

“Blood work done? Cross-matched?”

“Done. We have her records in the hospital computer. A positive. Penicillin allergy. Everything checks out.”

The half-formed idea that someone had made a crazy mistake died a quick death. He relaxed his iron grip on the chart, took a deep breath, then thrust it back at Bonnie.

“Notify security that I need to get into Randall’s office.”

“What for?” She recoiled at his glare and clasped the clipboard to her chest like a shield. “Okay, Jonathan. Sorry I asked. You go up there, and I’ll have security meet you.”

Too impatient to wait for an elevator to the administration wing, Jonathan took the steps two at a time. The stairwell smelled of fresh paint, far removed from the life-and-death struggles going on below.

Amanda…

Light spilled into the hallway, where a security guard stood in the doorway of Randall Chambers’s office. Jonathan nodded to him before pulling the door shut.

He scanned the bookshelves until he found the oval silver frame. Sunlight streaked an eighteen-year-old Amanda’s blond hair, and her blue eyes flashed in her tanned face as she smiled for the camera, one arm draped around her uncle Randall’s shoulders.

Hers was a smile that wasn’t easily forgotten. Jonathan hadn’t seen it in the flesh for ten years. Not since the night he’d walked into his parents’ lake house and found her in bed with someone else.

A sudden realization of how young he had been, Amanda even younger, took him aback. Arrogant and wild, they’d shared a summer romance full of great sex and lots of laughs. He hadn’t even known he was halfway in love with her until that night. Then he’d been too hurt, his ego too bruised to deal with the consequences. He’d just walked away.

It had taken him a while to get over her, with the help of a luscious nursing student he vaguely remembered. He hadn’t thought about Amanda in years. But now he needed those memories, this picture, as old as it was, to do what had to be done.

The door slammed against the wall. Startled, Jonathan looked up to find Carl Johnson looming in the entryway.

“Bonnie told me you were up here. The patient’s being prepped for surgery. I found a subdural hematoma. She should make a full recovery—maybe some temporary memory loss—if no complications set in. As soon as I’m done, if she’s stable, you can work your magic.”

“ER trauma team find anything?” Jonathan asked matter-of-factly. He kept his hands busy slipping the picture from its frame.

“Deep bruising at the throat and sprained wrists. She must have tried to fight the guy off.”

“Was she raped?” The thought made him freeze.

“Nope. All her serious injuries are cranial. Some psycho. Maybe he was interrupted before he could finish.”

“Let’s go.”

Jonathan’s confidence built with every step he took toward the OR. Amanda wouldn’t suffer for what she’d gone through tonight, he’d see to that. He was the best at what he did.

Johnson glanced at the picture he held. “Heard she was Randall Chambers’s niece. That her? She was a babe.”

“This is at least ten years old, but it’s the best I’ve got unless Randall or his wife shows up.” Jonathan’s answer was clipped. He could hear stress edging every word.

So could Dr. Johnson, whose eyes narrowed with speculation. “She’s lucky to be alive after a beating like that. I’ve never seen a worse craniofacial separation. You’ve got a night of it, buddy. Are you up for it? You were in the OR with the McKay burn for eight hours.”

Some of Jonathan’s youthful arrogance had never faded. It was part of what made him such an excellent plastic surgeon. “Don’t worry. You do your job and I’ll do mine. I’ll give Amanda back her face.”

SHE DRIFTED IN an endless black void. Cool, caressing darkness. She felt safe and comforted.

Safe.

The angel had said she was safe with him.

Suddenly vibrations of sound disturbed her sea of quiet and she stirred. He had asked her to stay with him. Had he come for her at last?

Another echo of sound reverberated through her. This time, an awareness, a feeling, ebbed to life at her center. She felt a pinpoint of heat in all her cold emptiness.

The sound gradually formed a pattern that beckoned her. It was his voice. She struggled toward it, but the pattern tightened into a knot of pain—pain pulsing through the darkness, engulfing her. She found she couldn’t fight any longer. It was too excruciating to continue toward him. She had to escape from the pain. She turned to the darkness, and it took her, obliterating the sounds, a peaceful world where she could drift in oblivion.

She felt safe again.

THE VOICES RETURNED. This time she couldn’t keep them at a distance.

A sob cut through her silent black world. Then a cry, as if someone were in pain, the rough edge of a strong voice—his voice. This time with his voice came comprehension.

“Dr. Johnson explained to you that Amanda is out of danger, barring any unforeseen complications. This semicoma is to be expected. It’s aiding in her recov ery. I feel safe in saying she’ll wake up in the next few days.”

She trusted his voice. His strong, deep, comforting voice. He had helped her breathe, promised her she’d be safe. She sighed, a deep shuddering sigh of relief. If he said she would recover, recover she would.

“Do you have any questions?”

She clung to the sound of his voice. But to hold on to it she had to allow the other voices, the intruders, into her world.

“The poor dear. How she would hate all these awful bandages,” a woman’s voice complained.

“I still can’t believe there’s no brain damage after she had that seizure.” A man, insistent and concerned.

“Are you certain she’s all right, Jonathan?” A soft, breathy whisper.

She fought against their doubts, fought to control the fears their words stirred inside her, where heat moved in slow circles, warming her.

“Randall, I explained to you that the subdural hematoma was successfully evacuated by Dr. Johnson. Posttraumatic seizures are common. They can occur up to two years after surgery. We’re treating her with carbamazine for seizure prophylaxis.”

“Oh, my God! She just moved her hand. I swear I saw the fingers move on her right hand!”

“It was an involuntary reflex, Margaret. Perfectly normal. When I remove most of the bandages tomorrow, you’ll be able to see the progress she’s made in the last week.”

“The poor dear looks…so…awful.” The cry gurgled into a deep sob. “I know she would so hate to…to be hideously scarred.”

“Mother, you’ll make yourself sick with all this crying. You heard Jonathan. She will recover. He is the best reconstructive surgeon in the city. Margaret, I think perhaps Mother should return home. All this is too much for her heart.”

“Randall’s right, Mother Chambers! I’ll take you back up to The Lodge tomorrow. Randall will call you when Amanda wakes up.”

The voices went silent. She began to fade into the depths of her black world. Some new instinct made her struggle, no longer content to welcome the emptiness. Searching through the darkness, fighting against oblivion, she sought one special voice.

And then, miraculously, he was there.

“Amanda, it’s Jonathan Taylor, your doctor. I know you can hear me. You’re safe and you’re recovering. You’ll still be a beautiful woman. Amanda, remember, I’m the best….”

She wanted to answer him, to tell him she understood. She tried to open her eyes, to let him see her comprehension, but the darkness rushed back, drowning her in cool oblivion.

THERE WAS A BRIGHT, blinding light. The darkness vanished, and with it her endless drifting. She opened her eyes. Where was she?

She found she couldn’t move; she was alone, flat on her back, covered by a white sheet, surrounded by white: walls, ceiling, everything—white. She was in a whole new world. Heaven?

Where was her angel?

He would guide her through this new world. He would be her lifeline, her anchor in this unknown.

She drifted off into darkness once more, but this time it felt different.

When she opened her eyes again she realized she was lying in a hospital bed. Why? How had she gotten here? She couldn’t remember. And she couldn’t move, she was anchored to the bed in such a way that she couldn’t even shift her head.

Why was she here? She lay there, flexing her fingers to prove to herself that she was alive, frustrated and fighting her stubborn memory.

She drew in a deep breath, trying to take stock of herself. She couldn’t move, couldn’t really see much, but she could feel. Something hard and cold pressed against her face. When she tried to lift one hand to explore it, she realized her left wrist was strapped down with a tube leading out of her arm. Her eyes followed the tube up to an IV bag hung on an aluminum stand. Cautiously she shifted her gaze to the right.

“Goodness, you’re awake!”

The voice startled her. It belonged to a woman with a pale face dressed in a uniform jacket covered with butterflies. Her mind searched for a moment. Monarchs.

The nurse smiled. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Where is my angel?”

The smile disappeared. The nurse took her wrist and checked her over as if she were a specimen.

“Jonathan.” Her voice was a soft whisper that sounded hollow to her. Strange. Not like Jonathan’s voice.

“You mean you want to see Dr. Taylor?”

Instinctively she moved her head on the pillow, and that small effort caused an explosion behind her eyes.

“Don’t try to move.” The nurse’s face started to fade. “Stay awake and I’ll get the doctors for you.”

The pain in her head began to settle. She was afraid to close her eyes, afraid the darkness would engulf her again. She was alone and afraid. If he didn’t come soon, the whiteness might swallow her up and she’d disappear forever.

“Amanda. Amanda, can you hear me?”

She must have closed her eyes after all, for she found she had to open them to see him. The brightness dissolved in his dark hair, making it easier to see. His eyes were a mixture of blue and green and gold, just as she remembered. He was here at last. She wasn’t alone.

She sighed. “I thought you were an angel.”

The nurse laughed. “That’s a new one.”

He leaned over her so she wouldn’t have to strain to see him. “How do you feel?”