by Nancy Bush
“Yep?” an older male voice answered as an apparently usual form of greeting.
“Is this Bay Marina in Nehalem?”
“Sure is.”
“Is Ryan Mayfield working today?”
“No sirree. Should be here tomorrow, though.”
“Okay, thanks.” Damn. He clicked off before the man could ask who wanted to know. Now, what?
He wondered if he should track the kid down at his home. He could call Stone back and ask for an address, but sensed the detective had given him about as much help as he could without risking the sheriff deeming his actions total insubordination. Instead he called Griff. No answer. The call went straight to voice mail. Sam left a quick message: “Hey. This is Sam. Give me a call.”
He was passing Salchuk when he decided to try the Spindrift again. It was still early enough for breakfast and he still hankered for the huevos rancheros he’d seen on their menu yesterday. Sam’s appetite had come back with a vengeance, and he’d almost stayed and breakfasted with his father, but he’d been too antsy.
There was a parking spot right in front of the restaurant, which he zipped into. Inside, he was shown to a seat in one of the booths and ordered the huevos and a cup of black coffee as soon as the waitress appeared. His mind was circling back to the circumstances of his brother’s death and, of course to Jules. Always Jules.
When his breakfast arrived, it smelled and looked delicious, both refried and black beans circled two eggs smothered in melted cheddar and simmering in red ranchero sauce. He tucked into the flour tortilla, forking up the beans, eggs, and sauce, feeling better than he had since he’d learned about Joe. The deep heaviness from the loss was still inside him, but he was better than yesterday.
One step at a time, he told himself, already thinking about his next move as he drained his coffee. He couldn’t sit still too long, had to keep on track and find out what the hell had happened to Joe. Suicide? No way. But what about murder? If Joe had planned on torching the boat himself, to end it all, why take Jules? It just didn’t make sense and it pissed him off big-time that the sheriff would even entertain such a notion.
He paid for the breakfast, dropping a healthy tip on the young girl who’d served him—a different waitress from yesterday’s, this one a little nicer—telling her it was the best meal he’d had in a long, long time.
“Thank you!” she said with a bright smile. “I’ll tell the cook.”
As he drove back toward Highway 101, summer sun glinting off the hood of his truck, he took a quick turn to circle by his brother’s office. He needed to do a more thorough search of Jules’s house and find the extra keys. Meanwhile, there had to be a way into the office. If he could just keep Officer Bolles off his back and maybe get some cooperation, then—
Sam looked over at the small house Joe had rented and immediately screeched to a stop. A cold frisson slid down his spine and pooled in the small of his back. The front door of Joe’s office was thrown wide open. Through the door Sam could see papers strewn across the floor, drawers tossed on the floor, a lamp overturned.
Someone was there.
Heart pounding, he jumped out of the truck, left it running, and ran pell-mell toward the office door. One step inside and his worst fears were confirmed. The place had been completely trashed. Every drawer in the desk and credenza had been yanked open, most of the contents spilled on the floor, cushions of a small couch dumped and slashed, stuffing visible, plaques and pictures ripped from the walls and smashed on the floor.
What the hell?
On full alert, he did a quick run-through of the three rooms, a back break room with a counter, microwave, and minifridge, the bathroom, and the main office. No one. He took a deep breath. Mentally cursed the intruder, felt his anger mount. Whoever’d been there was gone. He waited for his racing pulse to slow down. He’d had a moment where he’d automatically reached for his gun, which he no longer carried, his hand swiping dead air near the hip where his holster had held his Glock.
Back in the main office he righted a chair and looked at the drawers and papers scattered every which way on the floor. Someone had tossed the place but good. Obviously searching for something. Something important. Something to do with the reason Joe was killed. Telling himself to remain calm, to survey the damage as a cop, not Joe’s brother, he let his eyes travel over the space without moving for several minutes, taking everything in, but understanding little. Eventually, he headed back down the short hall.
In the kitchen, cabinet doors were thrown open and everything was tossed in a pile on the floor; paper plates, plasticware, coffee bags slit and spilled, a couple of apples, and a small container of half-and-half made up most of the mess. He took a few steps and stood in the doorway of the bathroom, where toilet paper, cleansers, soap, and various and sundry medicine cabinet supplies—Band-Aids, throat lozenges, aspirin, and mouthwash—had been thrown about the small room.
Disgusted and seeing nothing that would explain why the place had been ransacked, he returned to the main room—Joe’s office, he thought with a pang. Pushing thoughts of his brother aside, he bent down to the papers, examining them without touching them. He shifted a few with the toe of his sneaker. They were mostly skinny manuals, financial circulars, and a scratch pad with a number of doodles. “SKY HARBOR” was spelled out in all caps, and below it the letters “CF.” Sam committed both to memory and realized the writing looked like the same on the missing Cardaman note. “Sky Harbor” sounded familiar, but it wasn’t anywhere he knew on the Oregon coast. He picked up a pencil from one of the open drawers and, using the eraser, leaned down to push other pages aside. There appeared to be no work files among the papers. Nothing to do with Joe’s business beyond general information pertaining to financial companies.
“CF” . . . Could that refer to the Cardaman file? Like the note had?
He thought about it awhile, thought it might be right. It seemed Joe had written the note, left it at his house, but who had taken it? And why?
Joe’s work files were on the missing computer, he concluded, or uploaded to a secure site. There might be paper files somewhere, but there were no file drawers in the office. He saw Wi-Fi paraphernalia tucked on a shelf to one side of the desk, and a desk phone, but there was no computer of any kind. So where the hell was it? Back at the house? He hadn’t noticed it. On the boat with Joe when it burned and sank? Or had it already been stolen by whoever was behind the mess in this office? Sam spied a power cord for charging a laptop, but said laptop was no longer on the desk. Had the intruder stolen it along with a desktop, or had it still been in Joe’s possession, tucked away somewhere, when he’d gotten on the boat? He sure hoped it was the latter.
He’d just straightened when he heard an approaching engine and shortly thereafter, a step on the outside porch.
He waited and froze in place when the muzzle of a Glock edged around the doorframe, followed quickly by Officer Bolles. The gun was aimed straight at Sam’s midsection.
“Whoa, now,” Sam said.
“Hands up,” Bolles growled, and Sam immediately complied. “Put that down,” the cop snapped, and Sam realized Bolles meant the pencil he was still holding.
Sam had been a cop long enough to recognize that Bolles was so nervous he might make a serious mistake. “All right.” Sam lowered his right arm and eased the pencil to the desk where it rolled toward Bolles before falling off the edge and bouncing onto the floor.
“Careful, there,” Bolles warned.
Sam put both arms up again, palms out. He wasn’t going to give this bohunk cop any reason to shoot first and answer questions later, which he sensed was a real possibility.
“What’re you looking for, Mr. Ford?” Bolles demanded.
“I’m not sure, but I didn’t break in. The door was open and I could see papers on the floor. Looked like the place had been burgled.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Everything was hunky-dory this morning,” he said.
“What time was that?” Sam questioned.
“Earlier.”
“You said you were going to keep an eye on my brother’s office, yet . . .” He looked over the mess on the floor.
Bolles’s face suffused with color. Sam worried for a second that he’d pushed the man too far. “Okay, smart guy. I think we’d better go down to the station and see the chief.”
The chief? The police department in Salchuk couldn’t be more than five people. “I look forward to meeting him or her,” Sam said.
“Him,” Bolles hissed.
“All right.”
“You head back out that door and I’ll follow behind you.”
Sam did as he was told, but his temper was rising. He told himself to let the situation just play out. Not give Bolles any reason to do something stupid. But as the officer marched him outside, he couldn’t resist saying, “You know, your sorry ass is gonna be in a sling when it comes out that you let someone break into my brother’s office.”
“I didn’t let them, asshole!”
“You’re the one who told me you would be patrolling, so this is your problem, Officer Bolles.”
“Just get in the goddamn car.”
He meant his patrol car, the same dark blue Ford Explorer with “Salchuk Police” swept up the side of it in white letters.
“Mind if I turn off my truck first?” Sam asked. Its engine was still rumbling away, the driver’s door wide open.
“Fine.”
He could hear Bolles holster his gun, which was comforting as he walked to his truck. No good getting into a pissing contest with Bolles, whose mental skills didn’t seem to rise above average. He was lucky the officer hadn’t decided to handcuff him. He reached into the truck, switched off the ignition, and pocketed his keys.
As he climbed into the back of Bolles’s Explorer, Bolles got behind the wheel and said, “I’ll have Cesar, our maintenance guy, come and secure this place.”
Then he drove the three blocks to the station.
Chapter Twelve
Jules lay in the hospital bed, her body stiff, her mind still on her stint hiding beneath the mattress, concealed by the bedclothes. She sensed things could have played out far differently last night. Jesus God, who was that man who had stolen into her room? What had he intended to do to her? Nothing good. Nothing good at all. She still couldn’t control the shiver beneath her skin, but it made her feel safer to hear the sounds of the day staff outside her room, telephones ringing, voices talking, elevator cars opening and closing.
The night nurse had come into her room shortly after the intruder had left, summoned by her call, but his attitude had been brusque and impatient and Jules hadn’t been able to bring herself to reveal what had happened. She’d been too freaked out, and too certain by the nurse’s attitude that he wouldn’t have believed her, would have thought she’d been dreaming, having a nightmare. Worse yet, he might have suspected her mental condition had morphed from amnesia to paranoia. She wanted to tell Sam. Only Sam. Even though she knew he already had trouble believing she was struggling with her memory. Maybe he would think she was paranoid. She had no proof that the man had come into her room.
Did this hospital have cameras in the hallways? Was that a real thing? Or was it just on television? The facility was old, but could it have been retrofitted? Was there evidence somewhere?
A man had been here last night, she was sure of it. There had been real danger in the room. Whoever had stepped inside had been looking for her. Had intended to do her harm.
The shiver became an outward shudder. She drew in a shaking breath and let it out slowly. Something bad was going on. Something she’d deliberately shut down. She had to get out of here.
That thought galvanized her and she realized with a bark of laughter that she had no clothes. The ones from two days earlier were in a bag in the closet. Wet, sandy, and cut from her body, they were in shreds. She had to tell Sam to bring her some or she would be walking bare-assed out of the hospital in her hospital gown. If she wasn’t so frightened, it might be funny.
But she was frightened—nearly scared to damned death. Deep down in the core of who she was, her innermost self. She tried to remember why she was so certain someone was after her, but immediately the oppressive gray veil came down on her. She understood, now, that it was a kind of protection, something her own mind had created.
But protecting her from what?
Carefully, she tried to pull back that gray curtain, but nothing happened. She struggled harder, but the more effort she put into it, the more it seemed to turn to iron, heavy, hard, impossible to lift.
Good.
The thought popped in from nowhere, and she knew it was her true feeling. She was scared to remember, and she was making sure she didn’t.
How’s that for crazy, huh, Jules? What you don’t know can’t hurt you, right?
Frustrated, she turned her mind to the here and now. How long would it be before Sam showed up? She felt trapped and vulnerable. He’d said he would come get her, hadn’t he? A panicked moment. What if he forgot? What it he didn’t want to get her? He didn’t believe she couldn’t remember anything. What if he just left her to figure it out on her own?
Knock, knock.
She jumped about a foot, gasping, then relaxed when she saw Dr. Lillard push open her door. “Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. “How are you doing?”
“I’m . . . fine.”
“You sure?”
“I think so. I’m ready to go home.”
“How’s your memory coming along?”
“It’s coming . . . slowly.” She didn’t want to tell him it was still practically nonexistent.
“There’s no blanket rule about when it’ll return. Just relax and take it easy. Dr. Werkel’s office will be calling you for a follow-up visit.”
She nodded, but she didn’t know how that was going to happen. She didn’t have a phone. She’d lost it in the ocean when she’d gone overboard.
She froze in shock. I remember going overboard!
“. . . your brother-in-law’s picking you up?” the doctor was asking.
She recalled the water closing over her head. The panic she’d felt. For a moment there was a rushing in her ears.
“Julia?”
She came back to the moment slowly, her heart pounding. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Your brother-in-law, Mr. Ford, is picking you up, I understand?”
Jules nodded. Sam was all she had, apparently. Her husband was gone and her brother had died young. Her mother and father were gone as well, and she had no memory of the friends Sam had spoken of who lived near her on a canal.
The doctor left her and she looked at the telephone on her night table. She should have gotten Sam’s number.
As if she’d willed it to ring, the phone suddenly jangled loudly, making her jump again. Damn. Her nerves were shot. Carefully, she picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Hey, Jules, it’s Sam. I’m tied up for a while. Have they released you yet?”
“I think it’s just a matter of paperwork,” she said, so relieved to hear his voice, she felt tears well. She wanted to blurt out about the intruder, but she was afraid he wouldn’t believe her. She said instead, “Sam . . . I don’t have any clothes.”
“Ahhh . . . yes.” That seemed to stop him for a moment. “I’ll go to your house and find some things before I come to the hospital.”
“Thank you,” she said, her throat suddenly tight.
“But it looks like it’ll be a little while. I’m currently on my way to the Salchuk Police station, waiting to talk to the chief. Joe’s office was broken into. Somebody looking for something, apparently, and I was first on the scene, so . . . ah . . . they’re making sure it wasn’t me who broke in,” he said dryly. “At least they’re letting me use my phone.”
The tone of his voice stirred something in the back of her mind, a distant memory, a feeling of déjà vu. And something stirred inside her, too . . .
stretching and waking. Memories . . . of Sam . . . She tried to reach out and grab onto them but they faded away. Her mind was fractured a bit, and she had trouble tracking what he was saying. “But you didn’t, did you? Break in?”
“Nope. Somebody did that for me. Joe’s computer wasn’t there, no desktop, but maybe he only had a laptop. That’s what he was carrying around the last time I saw him. I don’t know if it was stolen, or if it’s somewhere else. Would he have taken it on the boat?” he mused, talking more to himself than her.
The laptop . . . she could almost see it.
“I’m hoping to get out of here soon,” he added. “I’ll see you as soon as I can,” he assured her, and then he was gone.
She’d sat up to answer the phone and now she sank back against the pillows, her mind on their conversation. The movement brought a memory of sinking back against other pillows, laughter escaping from her lips as she pulled Sam’s face down to kiss her. She could recall the feel of his lips, the stubble of his beard, the caress of his hand sliding down her rib cage. This time she didn’t pull away in shock from the memory. This time she lay still and forced herself to relax, wanting more. Don’t think. Just let it come. Stop fighting.
Sam . . . she thought. Samuel Ford. Couldn’t remember his middle name. No, wait. She did remember! He didn’t possess one. That was right, wasn’t it?
Relax. Don’t try. Just ease back. Be patient.
She closed her eyes. Could recall him kissing her neck and moving lower. She was naked and she could still feel the soft, moist line his lips formed as they moved ever downward. Her stomach muscles quivering as he slid lower, his tongue exploring her navel.
I love you, she’d thought, winding her fingers through his dark hair, her back arching as he moved dangerously close to the juncture of her thighs, his tongue exploring her secret depths in a way that had her groaning aloud and clutching the bedclothes.