Page 4 of Special Agent Joseph

The innate need for him to get his health back drove him and wouldn’t let up. He wished he knew more about what his life had been like before the accident. So far, other than Tom, he’d had no visitors, no one to answer his many questions.

“Tom, I need you fill me in on some things. You gotta understand, I have no memories of my past at all. I need to know about Agent Joseph Marcus. The truth from your perspective. Since you don’t like me, I know you won’t sugar-coat the details.”

Tom gave him a hard look and finally capitulated. “Yeah, okay. I can try. Though I don’t know a lot. You’re pretty much a closed book, Joseph.”

“It’s Joe.”Now where did that automatic response come from?

“Okay. Now see, that’s one of the things you used to be belligerent over. You insisted we all call you Joseph. And you weren’t nice about it neither. Said your old man was Joe, and you hated his guts until you laughed over his cancer-ridden corpse. Put the rest of us off if you want to know the truth.”

“Jesus, sorry, Tom. Don’t remember.” Joe didn’t like what he heard, didn’t feel inside like the kind of man who thought that way. In fact, Tom’s description shocked him. But still, he needed to know this stuff. “Tell me more.”

“Hell, man, you didn’t share much with us lowlifes. Well other than to insist we respect your superior undercover position, you refused to talk about your personal life. Christ, we only just found out that you live in a fucking palace and not in dumps like the rest of us fibbies can afford.”

“A what now? A palace? Explain.”

Tom turned away.

“Please,” Joe urged.

Uncomfortable, Tom raised his eyebrows with obvious disbelief. “You really don’t know?”

“I really don’t know.”

“Okay, you asked for it. Recently, we found out that you live in MacDonald’s Highland.” Elaborating, he continued, “It’s like a rich man’s residential playground with homes that are huge… know what I mean?”

“Nope. Don’t recall any of this.”

“There’s a casita, a pool with a built in hot tub, and multiple garages behind your house and a large circular driveway in front.It’s like a god-damn movie star’s or billionaire’s home. What I wanna know is where’d you get the money for a place like that?”

Joe stared at Tom, his mind going in circles and finding nothing. Emptiness. Confusion. Finally, he admitted, “I have no idea. How come you just found out I live there?”

“You’d put the wrong address in your personnel file. After the first week you didn’t call in, they sent me there to find out what happened to you, or if you had any animals left alone. I went to the address you’d given us and realized you couldn’t be living there because there was no such place on that street.”

“Then how did you find the right house? Wait. Do I have any animals?”

“I never ran into any four legged ones… unless you mean the cute little housekeeper you have living in the small guest house behind the mansion. Guess someone’s gotta keep the place up.” Sarcasm obvious, Tom gave him a sideways look, a sneer covering his face. “She filed a missing person’s report on you, and I followed it up.”

Feeling under fire, Joe flipped back the covers of his bed and sat to the side, his flannel pajama bottoms barely covering the healing scars on his legs.

He stared at the man in the chair, the uncomfortable person who he sensed couldn’t wait to get away from him fast enough. How he knew Tom felt that way confused him, but he’d bet money on it being true. He also knew without a doubt that this agent in his cheap dark suit, crinkled white shirt, and crooked tie was a good man… honest and trustworthy.

Whatever he’d done to piss him off, Joe didn’t know. Yet one thing that stood out… it made him feel bad.

Chapter Three

By the time Tom Kramer left, Joe’s head throbbed with a number of questions. Lacking answers is what drove him crazy. The emptiness of his past made him feel sick to his very soul. Recollections of what Tom said spun in his overactive mind, keeping him awake, making the headaches worse.

Finally, some days later, his doctor came to see him, and in a firm voice, he growled. “Stop this nonsense, Joe. You need to relax. Let the memories come to you when they’re ready… and it will happen, trust me. Wracking your brain, pushing for responses, and straining your body to the point of exhaustion isn’t helping.”

Joe groused. “You gotta understand, Doc, I want my life back. It’s driving me nuts not being able to remember anything.”

“Give it time, Joe. Give it time. The more you pressure yourself, the harder it’ll be and will only make your recovery take longer. I wish you’d let me prescribe something to help calm you down.”

“No. I hate pills.”

“You do? How do you know?”

“I just do.”

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