Chapter 3

Reba leaned against the edge of the opened door and cocked her head to the side while looking Eliza up and down. “What happened to you last night?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“You disappeared from the club,” Reba replied.  “At first, I thought you’d taken off with that yummy fella you were dancing with,  but he was looking for you too.”

Eliza’s brows furrowed in thought. “What yummy fella?”

The redhead’s blue eyes went wide with surprise as she stepped away from the door to allow Eliza to enter her studio apartment.  Taking a fistful of her thick coppery shoulder length locks, she twisted her hair into a bun and secured it with a hair tie as she asked, “Are you serious?”

Following her friend into the oversized room, Eliza closed the door behind her as she said, “Promise you won’t make fun if I tell you something?”

Reba gave a wary eye as she replied, “When do I make fun?”

Eliza gave a small grunt, “When don’t you?”

“You’re too sensitive,” Reba said as she dropped onto the well-worn sofa that was shoved against the wall beneath the one and only window the room possessed.  “You need to lighten up.  I don’t pick, I just lighten moods with a bit of teasing when they’re dark.  Which yours seem to be more often than not lately.”

After a brief silence, Eliza nodded and said, “I can’t argue that.  I don’t know what my problem is.  It’s just that sometimes I feel like I don’t belong in this body.”

“That’s crazy,” Reba scowled. “You have a great body.  I’d take your body over mine any day.”

That wasn’t the first time she’d made that type of remark to Eliza. With rich, dark, wavy hair that flowed over her shoulders, Eliza possessed a lean hourglass, five-feet-six-inch physique, Reba was more robust.  The fact that her height was lucky to reach five-feet-two-inches with shoes on only proved to enhance her fluffy appearance.  Bright red curls that were thick like a lion’s mane completed Reba’s disappointment in her lack of good fortune in the looks department.

Although Eliza didn’t believe Reba to be as unattractive as the woman herself did, more than once, she’d witnessed her friend being ignored in group conversations the seemed to consist of very tall people and could understand how she might wish for a bit more height. As for her hair. Well, Eliza thought that it was the prettiest thing about the young woman. Although, she was sure she’d never convince Reba of that fact.

“At first, I thought it was just the fact that I miss Dr. Rosenthal. Not just the job I had with him, but him.  He was such a nice man.  He was good to the animals as well as people,” Eliza said, “but, it’s been months since his death and the feeling inside of me is getting worse instead of better.”

“I didn’t realize you were so attached to the old guy,” Reba said with empathy.  “Maybe you should see a grief counselor or join a group or something.”

“I have a serious problem,” Eliza blurted out.  “I woke up this morning in a field on the edge of my farm.  I was stark naked.  I still haven’t found my clothes and I have no idea how I got there.”

“Say what?” Reba exclaimed.

“I don’t remember much about the club either,” she continued.  “You said that I was dancing with someone. I don’t remember.”

Reba sucked in air.

“You hooked up with him within the first ten minutes of getting there,” Reba announced. “You danced with no one else.  How can you not remember him?”

Tears silently trickled down Eliza’s  cheeks. “What’s happening to me?”

Reba’s face showed her rage.

“It was that bastard bartender! It had to be,” she hissed.  “I saw him eyeing you.  He must have slipped something into your drink. That hottie you were with seemed stuck on you from the get-go, so how that bartender thought he’d wrestle you away is beyond me.”  Taking a deep breath, she continued with, “I told you not to order mixed drinks.  Beer!  Just drink beer from the bottle and watch them remove the cap before you ingest it. Then, never ever set it down. You hold it close to your chest with your thumb over the opening.”

Feeling a little more at ease with this explanation, Eliza wiped the moistness from her cheeks with the back of her hand.

“I had to return home naked and dirty in front of my parents this morning,” she groaned.

Reba gave a slight chuckle, “I’ll bet Viviane loved that.  It’ll keep her going for days.”

“I don’t remember the guy,” Eliza thoughtfully mused. “Well, maybe a little.  I remember dancing with someone, but he’s faceless.  The last thing I can clearly remember is dancing with this guy and being so hot that I couldn’t breathe so I slipped outside to cool down. After that, nothing.”

“And you woke up with no clothes?” Reba asked, even though she knew the answer.

“Naked as the day I was born,” she replied.  “I thought maybe someone slipped me the date rape pill and then abducted and raped me, but why would they take me all the way to a remote part of my farm and then leave me there?  Why not just drag me into the alley behind the club? Besides, no one knew me last night. They’d have no idea where I lived.”

“Did you check your wallet?” Reba asked.  “If you took a cab all the way home, you should be pretty low on cash.”

Encouraged by the suggestion, Eliza grabbed her wallet from her purse as she said, “I didn’t think to check my money.” A smile formed on her perfectly shaped lips as she inspected the scant contents of her wallet.  “At least that explains how I got home.”

“Okay, so you got too hot and in your bartender induced stupor, took a cab home,” Reba began.  “Now all we have to do is to figure out why you were naked and what happened to your clothes.”

Feeling a bit foolish, Eliza admitted, “I never checked my room for the clothes.”

“Seriously?” Reba said with angst.

“When I was younger, I used to sleepwalk,” Eliza continued.  “Maybe I went home and then sleepwalked.  I woke up in the same place that I used to wake up when I was younger, except that I was naked.”

“Well, when you were younger, you didn’t have asshole bartenders drugging you,” Reba growled.

“You have no idea how much better I feel,” Eliza said with relief.

“I was thinking of going back there tonight, but maybe we should give that place a wide berth,” her friend mused.

“Tell me about the guy I was dancing with,” Eliza enthusiastically said as she positioned herself on the opposite end of the sofa as if preparing to hear a good story.  “It sucks that I don’t remember him.  I could shoot that bartender.”

“We should report him,” Reba snipped.

“We have no proof,” Eliza warned.  “Just tell me about the guy. Maybe my memory will come back.”