She didn’t remember?
“I don’t know. Whoever you were supposed to be meeting. Dan thought it sounded like a guy. Weird name though.”
“Kristy, I don’t…”
“What? Are you okay?”
Natalie cleared her throat. “I’m not sure.”
All annoyance fled her friend’s voice. “Hey, what’s going on? Do you want me to come over?”
“I, uh… I remember leaving work last night.”
“You left late. You told Dan you were following up on a lead for the coyote story.”
“Right.” Where had she been? Pushing down a swell of panic, Natalie walked to the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee, drinking it black. It burned her mouth, but she swallowed anyway, desperate for the jolt of caffeine. “I remember coming home. Mr. Sanchez was here. He made me a pan of enchiladas.” She opened the fridge. The metal pan was there, missing two enchiladas from her dinner last night.
“You have the best neighbors. Loud and Louder never make me anything.” Kristy lived next to the most vocal married couple in history. Natalie would think her friend was exaggerating except she’d tried to watch a movie at Kristy’s one time and they’d actually given up after round three was louder than both rounds one and two.
“Okay, enchiladas here,” she muttered to herself. “Think, Nat. Where did you go?”
“Do you really not remember what you did last night? Because that’s not good.”
“You’re telling me. It looks like I went out, but…”
She looked around, taking in the evidence she could see. Dress thrown on the chair. Shoes kicked off. Purse thrown on the table with her phone not plugged into the charger for the night. If she didn’t know better, she’d say she’d gone out with friends to a club or a bar, drank too much, and came home to crash. But if she’d gone out drinking, Kristy would have been there.
“Kristy…” She took another drink of the scalding coffee. “I don’t remember what I did last night. Like, no memory. At all.”
“You didn’t meet anyone, did you?”
She laughed a little. “No evidence of amorous encounters. Sorry.”
“I can always hope.”
As soon as she said it, her stomach dropped. Could there have been?
Kristy said, “Oh shit.” The thought must have hit her at the same time.
“Are you thinking—”
“Natalie, you are one of the most level-headed people I know. This is not like you at all. You have never blacked out. Ever. Even in college. Someone might have drugged you. You need to go to the hospital right now. I’m coming to pick you up.”
Her heart began to pound. “I’ll get dressed.”
“Don’t shower. Don’t do anything else. Just throw on some loose clothes and meet me at the door. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“’Kay.” Natalie set down the coffee, willing herself not to puke. This wasn’t happening. This didn’t happen to her. It happened to the people she wrote about. “Kristy, drive fast.”
“I’m right around the corner.”
“And you are in fantastic health, Ms. Ellis.” The doctor seemed a little too cheerful for someone who was doing a drug screen on a panicked thirty-one-year-old woman. “All the tests came back negative. There are no drugs in your system. In fact, everything appears to be in good working order, though you are a little anemic, but that’s relatively common. Do you not eat a lot of red meat? There are other sources of iron or supplements if you—”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Kristy interrupted the doctor. “So you’re saying there are no drugs. At all? She just lost hours of her life for no reason at all?”
Natalie tried to calm her friend. “Kristy—”
“No! That’s ridiculous.” The doctor gave her friend a condescending look. “Look at him. He thinks you drank too much, can’t you tell?”
“I probably did drink some. I told you I was going out. Maybe I tried something new and it just hit me harder than normal.” Natalie had been at the emergency room for hours at that point. She just wanted to go home and take a shower.
“I know it seems very serious, but you would be surprised by how common sudden memory loss can be,” Dr. Sun said. “Often stress combined with a poor diet can trigger it.”
Kristy frowned. “What about a stroke? Could she have had a stroke?”
“Kristy!”
Dr. Sun held up a hand. “We did screen for that. There would be evidence in her blood work.”
“A tumor? Does she have a tumor?”
“Oh my gosh.” She rubbed her face with both hands, wishing she was at home with her laptop.
“Again, there is no evidence of that, though if your friend would like more extensive MRI work done, that is an option. However, since this has not happened before, and there may have been alcohol involved…”
“Seriously, Kristy, just let it go. Dr. Sun—” She held out a hand and shook the doctor’s quickly. “Thank you. Unless there’s anything else, I’ll get dressed.”
“No problem at all. Now,” He turned serious. “If this happens again, please see your regular physician. While a one-time occurrence is probably no more than your body telling you to take a break, repeated loss of memory—”
“I got it.” She began to gather up her clothes. “It’s probably a massive malignant brain tumor. Or brain-eating aliens. One of the two.”