The Truth About Comfort Cove

Ramsey saw her into his car like she was an invalid. She felt sick. Not physically, but she felt the way she did after having had the flu. Completely out of sync and weak.

“I thought we’d drive out to the ocean. Sit for a while.”

He was pulling out of the station.

“I’m not going to hold you to your promise to see me through this, Ramsey. From what Dr. Zimmerman just said, it could be a long haul.”

“You got someone else in mind to fill my shoes?”

She looked over at him. He was giving her his “don’t mess with me” stare. “No.”

“Then how about you let me do it?”

“Okay. And I’d like to drive out to the ocean. Thank you.” They turned into the street, and then around a corner.

Everything looked exactly the same to her as it had that morning. She saw it all as Lucy Hayes would. Not as Claire Sanderson would.

“Ramsey?”

“Yeah?”

“Could we please drive by Rose Sanderson’s house?”

Maybe she’d see that as Claire Sanderson would.

He glanced her way, but didn’t hesitate when he said, “Of course.”

Ramsey wasn’t big on emotion. His job required compartmentalizing—putting things, emotional things, in boxes and keeping them there. He couldn’t get shook up over every dead body. Every loss. Or weep over the injustices.

But he couldn’t get his heart away from Lucy Hayes. He ached for her. All over. She sat beside him, straight and determined, and he could sense how close she was to falling apart.

He didn’t know how she was coping well enough to look out the window. To talk rationally. If he’d just found out that he wasn’t Ramsey Miller…

And not only had she just found out that her whole life was a lie, she also had to somehow accept the fact that she was a woman she’d just spent months looking for.

Most of the ramifications of the news hadn’t hit her yet. Dr. Zimmerman had had a talk with him while Lucy had used the restroom before they left the station house. He’d added the doctor’s number to his speed dial in case there was a problem.

But as long as Lucy could deal with the shock herself, the better off she was.

“You want to stop and get that prescription filled?” he asked. Dr. Zimmerman had advised her to take sleeping pills for the next couple of nights.

“No. I’m not going to risk…” She stopped and he glanced over to see her wide-eyed, lost look.

“What?”

“I’m not Sandy’s daughter.”

It was starting already. “Not biologically.”

“I don’t have her propensity to addiction.”

A good thing. He waited a minute, and then asked, “Do you want me to stop for the prescription, then?”

Tapping her thumb against the door jamb, Lucy said, “No.” And added, “I don’t want to take them, Ramsey. I don’t like that foggy feeling in my head. And I especially don’t want it right now. This is hard enough, finding any sort of clarity, without making the struggle worse.”

He wasn’t sure, but it seemed to him that what was happening was that Lucy was already starting to sort through what she thought about herself, and what she knew, deep down, was herself.

And somehow, no matter what her name was, she’d come out the other side of this ordeal a whole person.