Forget Me Not

by Fern Michaels

  Fifteen minutes later, Angie Powell was behind the wheel of the Range Rover and, with Buddy’s help, Lucy was settled in the passenger seat. There were more kisses, more hugs, and then Angie backed the Rover out of the garage. The garage door slid down.

  “You ready, Lucy?”

  “Hit it, Angie, and let’s get out of here.”

  “You don’t have to tell me twice. You want a sing-along?”

  “No, but I do want to talk to you. I can read minds now, so be careful what you think about.”

  “Holy shit!”

  Chapter Eight

  Luke Kingston parked his utility truck in the lot of the Kingston and Kingston construction company. He looked up to see that the sunny sky of a few hours ago had disappeared and turned overcast and gloomy. Unpredictable Florida weather for this time of year. In other words, it sucked. He wondered if the weather was any better in Miami, but didn’t care enough to check it out.

  Luke banged through the door the way he always did. “A bull in a china shop” was the way his father described all of Luke Jr.’s entrances. As always, the staff looked up and grinned. There was Debbie, who was in charge of mortgages; Stephanie, who was in charge of finances; Allison, who showed the properties and drafted contracts; and the office manager, named Tillie. All of them were young, late twenties and early thirties, and Luke, unlike his father, was able to relate to them. It was not lost on him that there were no other males in the office. There were days when the four of them were like hissing felines. When those days occurred, Luke made himself scarce.

  “Good afternoon, ladies!” Luke said cheerfully.

  “Tell me one thing that’s good about it, Luke,” Tillie snapped. “Look at the sky! I was supposed to go to a garden cocktail party at five.”

  “Boo hoo! I need all the paperwork on the Brighton house. Chop-chop, ladies. I don’t have all day. How old is this coffee?” Luke yelled from the kitchen.

  “Fifteen minutes old. It’s safe to drink, and it’s hazelnut, your favorite,” Debbie called out.

  “Oooh, I’m excited, Luke. Does that mean the house is going up for sale?” Allison said as she calculated her commission on the sale. If she sold it for the full amount, she’d be able to pay off her Boston Whaler.

  “At some point. We have to wade through probate. The new owner, or I should say heir to the estate, says she wants to take a wrecking ball to it or else burn it down.”

  Allison, a stunning blonde with pearly white teeth, put her hands on her hips, a frown digging in over her eyebrows. “That gorgeous house! Why? She can’t do that, can she?”

  “Not on my watch. I have to get all these papers to her before she leaves in the morning. She lives in New Jersey. She’s the one who got hit by a lightning bolt. It was in the papers.”

  “Yes, I read about that but didn’t tie the house and her together. I’d say that’s enough reason to want to put some distance between her and the house. By the way, Luke, there is an association meeting tonight at eight at the clubhouse. Should I pencil you and your dad in or not?”

  God, how he hated those boring meetings. “Pops is iffy, but I’ll be there. Where are those papers?” he bellowed.

  “Right here, Mr. Kingston,” Stephanie said, handing him a thick, stapled, bound batch of papers. You want a folder with that or an envelope?”

  “That would be really nice, Stephanie, since I am going to be dropping these off for Miss Brighton to peruse. She knows nothing about how our association works. You know how those Yankees are. They always want to do things their way.”

  The four women laughed.

  “Guess she told you a thing or two to get you so riled up, eh?” Tillie said. “Those Yankees will tell you right where it’s at, and if you miss it, woe to you.”

  Luke rubbed at the stubble on his chin as he made his way to his office. “She was feisty, but I’m putting that down to the pain she was suffering because of the lightning strike. You all know women can’t resist me!” He slammed the door to his office, then flopped down on his swivel chair. “Feisty, my ass,” he muttered under his breath. “And what’s up with that mind-reading act?”

  Luke leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He hadn’t been lying when he said women couldn’t resist him. For some damn reason, every woman he met wanted to walk him to the altar. It wasn’t that he was opposed to marriage—he wasn’t. He did want to get married, but so far, the right girl hadn’t found him. On more than one occasion, his mother had told him not to fret, the right woman would find him. Then she’d laugh and tell him to stand still. He thought about Lucy Brighton’s green eyes and how they seemed to see right through him. Not to mention reading his mind. Was she pulling his leg, teasing him, or could she really read his thoughts? He cringed at the possibility. That would certainly be a game changer if he had romantic intentions, which, somewhere deep inside, he knew that he did. It was those green eyes.

  Luke clicked on his computer. He was by no means a wizard when it came to computers, but he could navigate the Internet and do e-mails. He was pretty good with Google, almost as good as his father was. He snorted at that thought as he bellowed for more coffee.

  Luke typed in Lucy Brighton’s name and was stunned when he saw how much information there was on the green-eyed beauty. He started to read, his eyes almost popping out of his head. IBL! Everyone knew about IBL and the skyrocketing success of the fledgling company run by a lone young woman. Lucy Brighton was the lone young woman. For crying out loud, he’d bought a thousand shares when the IPO came out. His father, at his and his sister’s urging, had bought another thousand. Then, that first year, he and his father had bought an additional three thousand shares for Marie’s kids.

  Here he was, busting his chops building one-of-a-kind houses, and there she was, drawing pictures of a dog, a cat, and a parrot, and she was making tons more money than he was. Unbelievable! Luke was so engrossed in what he was seeing and reading that he didn’t even notice Tillie set his coffee cup down.

  Within sixty seconds the office staff was buzzing like a beehive. The boss was smitten. He was checking up on Lucy Brighton.

  “Good thing you have great vision,” Allison said to Tillie, who grinned from ear to ear.

  Oblivious to the office gossip, Luke was trying to comprehend what he was reading. Lucy Brighton was financially loaded. What would she want with a nail-banging carpenter like him? She’d never consider him a good catch, a term his mother used to use when she referred to her only son. But was he a good catch for someone like Lucy Brighton? Assuming he was even remotely interested in being caught. A soft groan escaped Luke’s lips. No sense in lying to himself. He did want to get caught, and if it was someone like Lucy Brighton, all the better.

  Satisfied that the rearview and side mirrors were to her liking, Angie Powell looked over to see that her passenger and best friend in the whole world was buckled in properly and that her own seat belt was attached securely. Satisfied that everything was copacetic, she hit the gas and was stunned at the pickup on the Rover. This is like being king of the road, she thought.

  Lucy laughed. “How does it feel to be king of the road?”

  “Oh, my God! You really can read my mind! You weren’t kidding, were you?”

  “Apparently, it works only when you’re close to me, like you are right now. I thought, when I couldn’t remember my name, that it was bad, but this is so much worse. I don’t want this . . . this . . . mind-reading ability. This is a curse!” Lucy said vehemently.

  “Wow! Maybe you could turn it somehow to your advantage, you know, get a bead on things. Like when you negotiate contracts and such with the companies you deal with. I’d say that was a definite advantage.”

  “Angie! That would be dirty pool. I would never do something like that. I’m just hoping this mind-reading thing is as short term as my memory loss turned out to be. My brain just short-circuited. It’s bound to change, like when I couldn’t remember things. God, I hope I don’t have to live like this for the
rest of my life. It’s a curse. It really is.”

  “Okay, now that that’s out of the way, tell me everything that has happened since you got to Florida, and don’t forget the part about that good-looking guy Adel was talking about. I want to hear all the details, every last one of them. Oh, oh, it’s starting to rain. I thought you said we would have a clear day to drive.”

  “That’s what the weatherman was saying this morning. It’s rained practically the whole time I’ve been conscious in this state. Those weather people down here aren’t like the ones up north, where they get it right 90 percent of the time. Here it’s a crapshoot. Okay, here goes. Just listen and don’t interrupt me.”

  “Okay. Does this vehicle have cruise control?”

  “I don’t know, Angie. I only drove it once. Just drive and listen. God, I have to tell someone about all this craziness before I lose my mind. What’s left of it, that is.”

  Angie listened as Lucy droned on and on about her parents’ house, the strange assortment of clothing, the funeral service, the cremation, and how she almost forgot to pick up her parents from the funeral home.

  “They’re in the cargo hold! You put your parents back there with all those boxes! We’re driving with two dead people! Oh, my God!”

  “They’re in an urn and wrapped in bubble wrap,” Lucy said through tight lips.

  “They’re still there. Here in the car. With us,” Angie gasped.

  “I know. It creeps me out, too. That shouldn’t be, you know. If anything, it should be a comfort knowing I have my parents with me. At first I put them in that . . . that . . . coffin-like safe. Then I took them out. The reason I took them out was that I made a promise to myself that I was never going back to that house, so I couldn’t leave them in the safe for all eternity. My God, Angie, what if I had left them in the safe and the new owners found them? Think about that! That’s the reason they’re with us in the car. I have them wedged in good and tight.”

  Angie clenched her teeth. “You know what, Lucy? Hearing you say that doesn’t make me feel one bit better. We are still transporting two dead bodies to New Jersey.”

  “Not bodies, Angie. Ashes. In urns. In bubble wrap. They cannot spill out. The urns are sealed. Look, I don’t like it any better than you do, but think about it. Did I really have a choice? I have to . . . find . . . you know, a final resting place for them. How else can I get them from point A to point B unless I transport them myself, which I am doing with your help?”

  “Couldn’t you have packed them in a wooden box and sent them by FedEx? You have an account with them.”

  “We need to move on here, Angie.”

  “Yes, we do, and I would like to hear about that coffin-like safe. You were kidding, right?”

  “I wish I was, but I’m not. Wait till you hear this. It’s going to blow your mind.”

  Angie sniffed. “My mind is already blown, but go ahead.”

  Lucy took a deep breath and explained about the walk-in closet, the arrangement of the clothes, and, finally, finding the safe.

  “Were your parents paranoid or what?”

  “You know what, Angie? I’m not even sure those people were my parents. There, I finally said it out loud. This is all way too weird for me. But I haven’t even told you the best part. The part you aren’t going to believe, because I’m still having trouble believing it myself.”

  “Hit me, girlfriend.”

  “What would be your guess as to what would have been in that safe, Angie?”

  “You’re asking me something like that! I have no clue. Jewelry? Money? That’s what people usually keep in home safes.”

  “Stretch your mind further. Think unbelievable,” Lucy said tightly.

  “Okay, birth certificates for other children you never knew about. They hid a winning lottery ticket for three hundred million and were keeping it safe until they could figure out the best way to beat the taxes. Just tell me already!”

  “Guns! Ammunition! False identities, passports, credit cards, and driver’s licenses with their pictures on some of them. Money, somewhere between three hundred thousand and half a million dollars. And, of course, all the other paperwork, titles to the cars, insurance policies, the deed to the house, and a will they made out when I was ten years old and sent off to boarding school. Insurance policies for twenty million dollars. Now you can say something.”

  Angie took a deep breath. “I would if I could think of something to say. Unfortunately, I can’t right this second. I do have a stupid question, however.”

  “What?” Lucy almost screeched.

  “Would I be wrong in assuming all those things you just mentioned are in the back of this vehicle, along with Mom and Dad?”

  “You would not be wrong at all. For God’s sake, Angie, I couldn’t leave that . . . that stuff there. I wish you could see that safe. I think it’s safe to say I was in shock for a good ten minutes when I found it. There were three separate compartments.”

  “How’d you get it open? Did they leave you a combination?”

  “No. That safe was never meant to be found. You know how people always say when you want to hide something, hide it in the open. That’s what my parents did. The clothing, the shoes, that’s what gave me the combination, and, of course, the umbrella had this very James Bond gizmo on it that opened the safe. I threw the umbrella away, but I have all the wiring. I’m thinking, Angie, that there is a safe back in Edison, in the big house, just like the one in Florida.

  “As far as I can remember, there was no umbrella in the closet. I never touched anything in their suite of rooms after they moved away. I just closed the door and never went inside. Well, I’m going inside that suite the minute I walk into that house. My parents, or whoever they were, were into something, and I don’t think it was good, either.”

  “What . . . what do you think they were into, Lucy?”

  “Think Occam’s razor.”

  “Meaning the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. Which would be . . . what?”

  “That my parents were some kind of terrorists. Spies perhaps. My father certainly had the credentials for something like that. He traveled all over the world just about every other day. Maybe he was a courier of some kind. The fact that all this stuff in the back was hidden, and hidden so well, has to mean whatever they were doing was illegal.”

  “And now you have it all.”

  “Yeah, now I have it all. I picked up one of the Glocks, and it felt like it was molded to my hand. The balance was dead-on, Angie. Remember when we decided in our junior year at college to join that gun club to learn to shoot because we thought we’d meet some good-looking guys?”

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “I remember my instructor showing me his own gun and explaining how the stock was molded to his hand and how the balance was dead-on. Only people who use guns and know how to really use them, like that instructor, would have guns like that. I wonder if my parents ever shot anyone. Like in killing them. My parents might be murderers. Think about it, Angie. If this ever got out, IBL is down the tubes. I could never survive a scandal like that. No one could if they deal with children. I’m just sick over this.”

  Angie was silent for so long, Lucy prodded her to say something.

  “A while ago you said you didn’t think those people were your parents. Why did you say that?”

  “Because I don’t want my parents to be terrorists, spies, or murderers. It’s easier to say they couldn’t possibly be my parents. I’ll never know, Angie.”

  “Why not? You could check their DNA.”

  “I had them cremated. The only way we could possibly get DNA is if some of the . . . some of the teeth survived the . . . the furnace. I checked on the Net.”

  “Their toothbrushes or their hairbrushes.”

  “Didn’t you hear me? Everything was new. Brand-new. As in never used. The whole scene was staged. For whose benefit, I have no idea. The Longhursts said they were never there. Well, hardly ever there. They never got
any mail at the house. None came while I was there, because I checked.”

  Angie waited for a break in the traffic before she moved to the center lane to get away from a slowpoke in the right-hand lane. She gave a soft tap to the horn in case the driver was elderly, and sped up. Seconds later, she was back in the right lane and cruising at a sedate seventy-five miles an hour.

  “So what are we going to do, Lucy?”

  Lucy was so grateful to hear the “we” in Angie’s statement, she wanted to hug her friend. “I don’t know, but what I do know for sure is that I am scared out of my wits.”

  “That makes two of us,” Angie said.

  “Maybe we’ll be able to decide if we find a safe in the house in Jersey. If we do, I might go to the FBI.”

  Angie pondered the statement. “I don’t think I’d be too eager to do that. Maybe between the two of us, we can figure something out. You could hire private detectives, for one thing. A reputable firm.”

  “Now, that’s a thought.”

  “This might be a stupid question, but do you think those guns you found are legal?”

  “The serial numbers were filed off. I checked. So, my answer is no.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Lucy said quietly.

  Chapter Nine

  Luke Kingston felt like a teenager getting ready to go out on a first date as he peered at himself in the mirror. Unruly dark hair properly tousled; shaved, cheeks smooth as a baby’s bottom, just a dab of aftershave. A woodsy, manly scent guaranteed to have women drop at his feet, according to his sister, Marie, who had given it to him as a gift. So far, no woman had dropped at his feet. Maybe today Lucy Brighton would be the very first. He winked at himself in the mirror, then made a growling sound deep in his throat. Like that was going to happen. Ah, those green eyes. He couldn’t get them out of his mind, or that slight smile that had tugged at the corners of Lucy Brighton’s lips.

  Luke stood back a little farther to get the full effect of his attire. White shirt, open collar, sleeves rolled up to mid-arm. His deep tan obvious. Starched and pressed khakis with a crease so sharp, he was surprised it didn’t gut his legs. Docksiders.