Silent Night Threat. Michelle Karl

see it, and for some reason that had hurt almost as much as the small diamond ring that her father had yanked out of her hand and practically thrown at him when Chris refused to take it from Natasha’s open palm. Go, the man had said. She’s done with you. Don’t bother our family with your filth again. She’s too good for you, and you know it. Come here again, and I’ll have you arrested.

      Chris had looked past the man’s shoulder, his eyes pleading, his heart aching with painful disbelief. Natasha had wrapped her arms around her middle, protective and closed off to him. She’d understood his unspoken question, but had only narrowed her eyes and shaken her head.

      That simple gesture had said it all. And when she’d opened her mouth as if to speak to him, to explain, he didn’t want to hear it. He’d turned around and left—the city, the state, the entire South—to try to banish the pain of her rejection. What had ever made him think that someone like Natasha could truly love him? She’d been a rich, spoiled girl with a daddy who handed everything to her on a silver platter—including his prejudiced beliefs. Chris should’ve known that they’d surface in her eventually. He should’ve known she wouldn’t think he was good enough for her. Just because his family lived in low-income housing. Just because they relied on food stamps and welfare. He couldn’t afford to get arrested, for Natasha’s father to follow through on his threat. His family couldn’t afford it; they needed Chris’s meager paycheck to get by. No, he couldn’t buy Natasha pretty things, but even with helping his family out, he’d worked odd jobs and saved for more than a year to buy her a diamond ring, like she deserved.

      Sure, they were young, but he’d thought their love was stronger than that.

      If she hated him so much, if she’d thought she was so much better than him, why had she even given him the time of day in the first place?

      “Sir? Can you hear me?” The authoritative voice of a police officer cut through the painful memories. Chris had worked hard to turn his family’s situation around. They still struggled, but since joining the FBI, he’d been able to move his parents to a decent home that they could finally call their own. He’d bought a used car for his little brother last month, so he could have an easier time making ends meet and staying out of jail. Money and status weren’t what mattered for his family, and they never had been. He couldn’t say the same of the Starks. The arrest of Natasha’s uncle a few months ago—the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon—had made that clearer than ever.

      Maybe it was a blessing that Natasha hadn’t recognized him right away.

      “There are two of us in the cab,” Chris called back to the officer. “An agent of the FBI and a woman who’s seriously injured and needs immediate medical assistance.”

      “Emergency services are on their way,” the officer said. “Hold tight.”

      That was exactly what Chris planned to do—despite how much it hurt.

      * * *

      Natasha balked at the doctor as he delivered the news. Even his cheerful, Christmas-light-patterned bow tie didn’t help ease the shock. Psychogenic and retrograde amnesia, he told her.

      Amnesia, really? She felt much better with the pain medication in her system, and the doctors had even confirmed that despite the bumps and cuts on her head, she hadn’t physically sustained anything more than a mild concussion, whiplash and various cuts and bruises. She could hardly take it all in as the doctor suggested that whatever had happened to her before Special Agent Barton found her had been severe and shocking. Her initial head trauma had likely caused the retrograde amnesia, but more disturbing was the suggestion that her autobiographical memory loss had been caused by intense psychological stress.

      “We can definitely confirm that you are Natasha Stark,” said the doctor. Dr. Olsen, she read off his name tag. “We’ve printed out this info sheet for you with your name, address and medical history. I recommend you keep this with you on your person for the time being, in case any additional medical issues arise. That said, you’re probably going to want to head over to Titusville as soon as possible so they can have a look at you.”

      Natasha blinked at the sheet a nurse handed her. This was her, her identity, all on an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven-inch piece of paper. The name and address evoked a strong feeling of home, but she couldn’t picture it. She closed her eyes, trying to remember. It didn’t work.

      “When will I get my memories back?” She attempted to hide the hitch in her voice. “And why would I go to Titusville? I see that I live there, but what do you mean? Who wants to look at me?”

      Dr. Olsen looked over his shoulder at someone in the back of the room, then back at her. “Agent Barton says you work at NASA. That, I’m happy to say, is absolutely true. You were due to report at Kennedy Space Center yesterday for one of your scheduled checkups.”

      “You said as much to me yourself when I found you.” Chris emerged from behind the doctor, a limp magazine in his hand. “Only you never arrived for the physical. And since NASA is a government agency, we were called when you didn’t report as scheduled.”

      Dr. Olsen chuckled and smiled at Natasha. She liked him; he seemed kind. “Three weeks ago, Ms. Stark, you were looking at this planet from space. You just returned from a six-month mission in low-Earth orbit on the Orion, testing that new Deep Space Module everyone’s been talking about. Well, everyone in the scientific community, that is. Based on the success of your mission, looks like NASA’s really pulled ahead with their plans to launch the first manned mission to Mars.”

      “How do you know that?” Chris asked. “That can’t be in her medical records.”

      Dr. Olsen smiled sheepishly. “No, but I do have a niece in her daughter’s class at school. Hayley must be happy to have you back, Ms. Stark.”

      “Daughter?” She had a daughter! Why couldn’t she remember her own child? She felt even more desperate to get her memories back. The face of a girl with curly chestnut locks and expressive eyes materialized in her mind like a developing Polaroid—young, preteen, with an affinity for sparkly pink lip gloss and purple chokers.

      “Daughter?” Chris echoed. “How old is she?”

      “How old is Hayley?” Dr. Olsen tapped a pen against his clipboard. “My niece is in sixth grade, so that’d put the students around eleven or twelve years old, I’d think.”

      “Twelve years old,” Chris murmured. “I see.”

      Natasha’s mental image solidified, carrying a wave of emotions, smells and sensations. The comfort of a soft, fragile baby as it lay in her arms. The stern face of an older man—her father?—as he entered the room. This caused a sudden rush of fear that shifted the scene into a new memory of standing in the middle of a department store, arms laden with a heavy basket of shampoo, a pair of child’s sneakers and laundry soap, as her head whipped from one side to the other, searching. “Hayley, honey?” she’d called, heart beating faster with each passing second. “Sweetheart, where are you? Hayley?” Relief had flooded her veins as a cherub-cheeked toddler burst out from under a clothing rack, shouting, “Surprise, Mommy!” with arms stretched over her head in a V—and immediately, the memory shifted again and Hayley stood in the same pose, arms lifted, standing on a three-tiered podium. A gold medal gleamed around her neck, and she waved at Natasha in the crowd. She recalled feeling a swell of pride as her daughter won first place in a Florida Gold Coast special event for swimmers aged twelve and under.

      Natasha exhaled slowly, concentrating on the memories of her daughter and trying to burn them into her brain. “Yes, that’s correct,” she said. “She turned twelve a few months ago.”

      Chris cleared his throat. “Does Natasha have an emergency contact listed in her file? Husband? He might be able to bring her daughter over and help jog some more memories.”

      Dr. Olsen scanned the chart. “There are two emergency contacts here. One is listed as a parent, not a spouse. The other is her NASA physician.”

      In a flash Natasha knew that was correct—and