If Alex hadn’t decided to confess, would her plan have worked? When Jocelyn cut her hair, she mentioned that her dad suspected Alex of being a drug dealer, so Hope called in a detailed tip to the police, claiming to be a ripped-off customer. By the time Alex confronted her at the Stansfields’, she had already hidden the necklace on his boat. She was hiding at that vacant rental house until the cops got around to doing their jobs—but then Alex decided to turn himself in and made the mistake of telling Steve Thompson.

Melissa took a sip of coffee from a mug that read i told my therapist about you, which struck Hope as both slightly unprofessional and completely hilarious. “And have you been looking at photographs of Wichita—your childhood home, the group home, your former schools, the places we discussed?”

Hope nodded dutifully. “Yeah, and I definitely think it’s helping. It seems like every day I remember a little bit more. All those years, I assumed the amnesia was from my head injury, but maybe it was trauma after all. Maybe I just needed to know that I wasn’t a killer to allow my mind to go back to my past.”

“And what about the Locke family? Do you remember them at all?”

Hope had trained herself over the years not to think too much about Hitch or the wife and daughter he left behind. “Not in the least,” she said.

Sometimes she did wonder what would have become of Alex and her if not for the car accident. By the time they were settled down in Canada and he came clean with the truth—if he had come clean—she would have needed him or loved him enough to have forgiven him. It might have all worked out. She might be running Reel Deal Fishing with him. They could have been happy together.

So maybe someday, she would tell all of it to Lindsay, when the time was right, when she was sure Lindsay would understand.

Or maybe not. Lindsay said so many times she wished she didn’t know the truth about Scott. Lindsay trusted Hope. She never doubted her, not even once. And why would Hope want to take that away from her?

Melissa glanced down at her watch. “Our time is up, but see you again Monday?”

“Definitely.”

“And keep up the good work. I can see how committed you are to this process.”

Maybe she had chosen the right therapist after all.

Acknowledgments

“Where do you get your ideas?” It’s the question authors are asked more than any other. For me, the response is different for every book, and for Find Me, I have two different answers, each of which dates back more than a decade.