"So how's your grandad Jake? I haven't seen Pop in a while." Royce asked. They were standing just outside the closed door of Emily's room. Dr. Malcolm had spoken to them briefly before sending the Sheriff and Jake into the hallway so she could perform her exam. Jake had seemed uneasy with this arrangement and Royce was afraid he would protest but after checking to make sure the girl was alright one last time he had followed Royce quietly into the hallway. His large muscular frame was as taut as piano wire, his anxiety evident in every joint.

"He's good. As stubborn as ever." Jake answered a small smile playing at the corner of his lips at the mention of the old man.

Jacob Merrill, Pops to the local residents, owned the largest ranch in Hart's Ridge. The land had been passed down through his family for generations, each family making it more profitable than the next. By the time Pops's dad had died he had found himself in possession of hundreds of acres of some of the best farming and ranching land the community had to offer and Pops wasted no time in making the most of it. On any given day you could see trucks loaded down with produce making their weekly trek from the ranch to the surrounding farmers' markets or the farm hands that worked for Pops out tending to the large herds of cattle that grazed in the valleys and nearby creek beds.

Royce had known him for years but as is often the case in small towns they had more in common than just their birthplace. They were both members of the widower's club. Pop's wife Christina had passed from a stroke a few years after Royce had lost Molly. He had been living alone ever since. Until Jake had shown up that is.

There had been some rumors circulating around town for a while now but no one knew for sure what had brought Jake back to Hart's Ridge. That was one mystery Royce thought it might be time to get to the bottom of.

"As long as we have a few minutes, I'd like to ask you some questions. That is if you have a bit?" Royce continued.

"Sure."

"Well, Bobby gave me the gist of it but I'd like to hear how you two happened across each other," Royce said gesturing toward Emily's hospital room, "in your own words."

"Oh yeah of course," Jake replied before launching into the story. He explained how he had been running late and took the obscure little dirt road instead of his usual route in hopes of making up a few minutes. It didn't take him long to relay the details right up until the moment he called Bobby. Royce remained stone-faced listening intently as he finished.

"So you say she was worried about someone finding her?"

"Yeah. Only there was more than one I think. She said we needed to go before they got back."

"But she didn't say who they were?"

"No. She didn't say much at all. She was out by the time I got to the end of the road. I had to wake her up to get her out of the truck here."

"And you say you found her on County Rd. 5?"

"Yeah. That's right. She was just coming out of the woods into the field when I saw her. Are there even any houses out there?"

"I'm not sure," Royce said, feeling a little guilty about lying. He knew for a fact that there was an abandoned house a little less than a mile from the field Jake had described. Royce and his late wife Molly had kept a casual friendship with the young couple who had once lived there. The Morris's or the Morrison's. Something like that. Royce had never been good with names. Molly had always kept up with that type of thing.

They had eventually moved back east to be with family , selling the house to a local rancher who already owned the surrounding property. A few hundred acres of land that were now used for farming and hunting. With the season not yet in full swing, Royce thought the chances that anyone had been back to such a remote location, on private property no less, were pretty slim. If the house were still standing it would make a perfect hideout.

That had been his first thought at least when Bobby had called him this morning. He just had a hunch. He had immediately told Bobby to call Agent Simmons and fill him in on what they knew. "Let him know I'm going to the hospital to talk to the girl. I may have an idea of where she came from and we're going to need some muscle out there in case our kidnappers are still nearby."

Royce was already on the move as they spoke quickly, rattling off the location of the house he climbed into his SUV and backed out of the garage into the pouring rain. By the time he made the first curve blue lights flashing he was already slipping the phone back into the cup holder. Even now he was waiting on a call from Bobby to update him on what they had found.

He was still caught up in his thoughts when the door behind Jake opened with a small creak and Dr. Malcom sailed gracefully into the corridor. "Jake if you wouldn't mind could you go check on Emily while I speak to the good doctor here?"

"Yeah that's fine," he said, already moving in the direction of Emily's room.

"Oh, hey Jake. One last question before you go."

Jake turned back but said nothing, running a large hand through his dark almost shoulder-length hair.

"Have you two ever met before today?"

"No," Jake answered, fidgeting a little. "I had seen her around when we were kids but we didn't know each other. Anyway, that was years ago."

"Alright then. Go on. I'll be right in."

He turned, slipping quietly into the room. The officer and the doctor stood together watching intently until the door closed. "So what's the situation there?" Dr. Malcolm asked, turning to Royce , her dark brown eyes alight with curiosity. "I'm not sure just yet," Royce replied, but I intend to find out. How's our young patient?"

"Well," she said, slipping into a professional tone with ease, "she has a fractured leg, a sprained wrist, and an assortment of abrasions and contusions. She's also severely malnourished, dehydrated, and twenty pounds underweight. Another week maybe two and you would have been having this conversation with the pathologist in our morgue."

Royce shook his head in disbelief. "It's fortunate Jake was in the right place this morning then."

The doctor nodded but Royce didn't miss the quick glance she threw at the closed door beside her or the small worry line that appeared in the center of her forehead for just a split second.

"These aren't the only issues by a long shot though." She continued. "What concerns me right now is that she doesn't seem to be able to remember anything."

"I'm afraid I don't follow." The sheriff said.

"She understands that she's been missing but she has no recollection of where she was or who she was with. Her last concrete memory before being rescued was of dress shopping with her mother for a charity event they were attending at the mayor's mansion."

Royce's mouth dropped open. "That was over a year ago," he hissed.

Dr. Malcolm nodded. "A little less than that actually. My husband and I attended that particular get-together. Either way, the fact remains every memory since that time is inaccessible to her. A whole portion of her life that's just missing."

"Will she get her memory back?" Royce asked, his mind already whirling with the possible implications of this new piece of information. It would definitely make finding the perpetrators more difficult if the only witness couldn't ID them.

"It's hard to say." She answered. "Emily has been heavily medicated. We'll have to wait for the tox screen to be able to determine exactly what she was given. The memory loss could be caused by whatever turns up in her bloodstream. We won't know for a while."

"Ok. So say you don't find anything in her bloodwork to explain it. What then?"

"In that case, we would run some tests to rule out possible head injuries but if all is clear we have to consider that it may be a coping mechanism related to the trauma she experienced. It's rare but it does happen. If that's true then it's just a waiting game."

"There's nothing you can do to treat her?"

"No. She would have to see a psychologist or someone of the like to help her work through it. Even then there are no guarantees. But like I said we'll know more when the toxicology report comes back."

"She said some things before she got here that suggested she might know who she was running from or at the very least how many people were involved. How is it possible that she could recall certain details then but not now?"

"The human mind is a funny thing, sheriff. When or even if the memories start to come back they can do it all at once or in flashes. Bits of memory that she may not be able to connect to anything. It wouldn't be unheard of for someone in Emily's situation to recall things in a moment of stress without realizing it. Things that just bubble to the surface so to speak. The memories are in there. They just have to be unlocked."

Royce sighed in resignation frustrated with this particular turn of events.

"You said this was often the result of some type of trauma. This trauma you're speaking of is just from the kidnapping itself?"

"If you're asking if she was sexually assaulted sheriff I would have to say no. That doesn't appear to be the case."

Thank God for small favors Royce thought to himself. At least the poor girl was spared that. To Dr. Malcolm, he just nodded. "If you wouldn't mind putting a rush on that tox screen for me I'd be mighty grateful."

"I'm already a step ahead of you." She said, flashing him a brilliant smile. "I asked the lab to give her sample top priority. They're aware its evidence in an active police investigation."

"Thank you for that."

"It's my pleasure," she answered. "I want the monsters that did this off the streets as badly as you do. I have no interest in seeing another woman in my exam room in this condition."

"I understand. We'll do our best."

"I know you will Sheriff," she said gently patting his arm as she turned to leave. Royce watched until she rounded the corner at the end of the hall before starting back toward Emily's room stopping short at the door. Royce had a perfect view of Jake and Emily through the thin pane of glass just above the door handle.

She appeared to be asleep huddled under the thin white hospital blanket. The oversized leather jacket she had been wearing, Royce supposed it was Jake's, peeked out from under the top of the sheet. Jake sat in the chair beside the bed, his long legs bouncing as he fidgeted nervously fussing over the girl as anxiously as a first-time mother. He adjusted blankets and constantly checked the monitors as if he were afraid she would quit breathing at any moment.

Royce thought back to Dr. Malcolm asking again what the situation was there. Truthfully he wondered himself. They seemed close but Royce knew that could just be the situation. No one had shown this girl any kindness in quite a while so was it any wonder she was clinging to him the way she did? Still, though it was something to look into. Search parties, local police, and the FBI had been looking for her. Local news stations had run her disappearance as their featured story almost every night since she went missing. The fact that Jake had come across her with no witnesses in a field that had been searched several times already was sure to raise a few eyebrows.

Turning the handle Royce gently pushed the door open. Jake looked away from the monitors, his dark green eyes alive with the tension he felt as he met the older man's gaze. "How's she doing?" Royce asked quietly, but before Jake could respond, the phone in the Sheriff's pocket began to buzz. Pulling it out he saw Bobby's name on the screen.

"One second Jake. I need to take this," he said, already stepping back out into the hall and pulling the door shut behind him.

"Hey, Bobby. Tell me you have some news for me."

"Oh, I have news alright. You're gonna want to get out here boss. We found a body."