You Must Remember This

by Marilyn Pappano

  “Around seven? Is that okay?”

  “That’ll be fine.” She scrawled her address on a piece of notepaper and laid it on the corner of the desk closest to him. He took it with a nod, then left the office, closing the door quietly behind him.

  His fingers still wrapped tightly around the doorknob, Martin drew a deep breath. He hated this feeling, this tightness in his chest, as if he’d just faced some danger and survived. He hated asking for favors, hated pleading, hated like hell feeling helpless and incapable.

  Especially in front of a woman like Juliet Crandall.

  When Terry Sanchez had quit, she’d told him to ask the new computer whiz for help, and he had fully intended to do so…until he’d seen her. It had been a Monday, her first day on the job, and he’d caught a glimpse of her over at the police department. She was pretty, quiet, apparently interested in little besides her machines, and she scared the hell out of him. It had taken him two weeks to find the courage to approach her.

  It had been a long time since he’d been seriously attracted to a woman. At least ten months, he knew. Even longer, he suspected. He’d had a few dates since the accident, but nothing special. Just pleasant evenings with nice women. There had been no electricity, no heat, no potential.

  Just seeing Juliet Crandall made him so hot he could melt ice.

  She lived in a neat little house with a picket fence less than three blocks from his own place. The house was green, the fence white, the yard big enough for kids. She didn’t have any, though. She didn’t have a husband, either, or, as far as he could tell, anyone special in her life. The male population both in Dallas and Grand Springs must be stupid or blind or both.

  Forcing his fingers to unclench, he walked away from her office and out into the warm April sunshine. He wondered if he preferred summer or winter. Would he rather be sweating somewhere under a blazing sun or racing down a mountainside on skis? He’d gone to Squaw Creek Lodge a couple of times over the winter with the intention of renting a pair of skis and taking the lift up the mountain, but fear had kept him from actually doing it. Fear that he would get to the top and be unable to ski down? Or fear that he would be able to? He hadn’t known.

  He wondered a lot about the fear. What had frightened him before the accident? Had he been a coward, or had he taken chances? Had fear been an occasional thing, or had he lived with it? He wanted to believe the former. He suspected the latter.

  He suspected a lot of things. He suspected that the truth was out there somewhere, if he could just find the smallest clue. He suspected that he might not like what he learned. He suspected that he might not like who he’d been.

  But he had to know. No matter what it cost.

  He walked down the hill, taking the turns that led to his place, a garage apartment that Stone Richardson, the detective who’d tried to identify him last June, had found for him. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was cheap, and, under the circumstances, cheap was important. He’d worked off and on during the last ten months, though mostly at odd jobs, so his income was pretty meager. Added to the money found in his pocket after the accident, it had stretched, but just barely.

  Five hundred dollars and change. That was all he’d had on him when he wandered into the Vanderbilt Memorial emergency room. No wallet, no car keys, no jewelry beyond an inexpensive wristwatch. Just five hundred dollars and clothing that could have been bought in any of a hundred thousand places in the country.

  His wallet and the car keys, the police theorized, had been left in the car following the accident. Unfortunately, when the mud slides had been cleared away and the roads had opened again, no car had been found. Maybe, with the keys in it, someone had taken it. Or maybe there had never been a car. Maybe something else entirely had happened, and his scrambled brain had substituted an accident for it.

  He climbed the wooden steps to the second-floor landing and unlocked the door. Sometimes he hated coming home because it wasn’t really home. Sometimes he hated leaving it, because at least it was safe. Inside these four walls he didn’t have to be Martin Smith. He didn’t have to be anybody at all, and he didn’t have to pretend that he was coping with being nobody. He could be as angry, bitter and afraid as he wanted—as long as he got it under control before leaving again. Control was important. He remembered that, although he didn’t remember why it was, or what would happen if he lost it.

  The apartment was gloomy, and turning on the lights didn’t help. It was one room with a kitchen in this corner, a bathroom in that corner, a closet over there and living quarters in the middle. The furniture had come with it—a bed and night stand, a sofa and chair, a table and four ladderback chairs. Everything was ragged and worn, but still functional.

  Like him.

  He wasn’t a particularly neat housekeeper. The floor needed sweeping, and the rag rugs needed washing. There was dust on the tables and the lamp shades, and sections of newspapers were scattered everywhere. Ignoring the dirty dishes in the sink and the dirty laundry in the corner, he went to the bathroom and stripped out of his clothes.

  Normally he tried to avoid the mirror hanging above the sink. He’d learned the art of focusing his attention so narrowly that he saw only parts—jaw, chin, cheeks—when he shaved, of combing his hair without seeing the face it framed. On occasion, though, he was drawn to the mirror. He could sit for hours staring at the total stranger whose face he wore, desperately seeking some connection, some tiny distant hint of recognition that never came. When he’d seen enough, it usually took far less time to get so drunk that he couldn’t see, period.

  This afternoon he stared, cataloging features that he knew by heart and yet didn’t know at all. Blond hair in need of a trim, blue eyes, crooked nose. High cheekbones, thin lips, square jaw.

  His gaze slid lower. There was a scar on his upper right chest—round, raised, the edges uneven. A gunshot wound, Dr. Howell had said. The long, straight, clean scar underneath it was from the incision made to remove the bullet. There were a matching set on his back and other smaller scars on his chest and back, plus one on his arm from something jagged—maybe a broken bottle or a dull knife that had torn instead of cut.

  God help him, what kind of person had he been?

  Violent.

  Criminal.

  Dangerous.

  Had he been a dangerous man? He didn’t want to believe it, but sometimes he did. Sometimes he dreamed that he had been exactly the sort of person who could threaten, intimidate and hurt—maybe kill—someone else. Sometimes the dreams were so vivid, so intense, that they terrified him, and he spent the rest of the night pacing the room to avoid falling asleep again.

  That was the first thing he had to tell Juliet Crandall this evening. She hadn’t wanted to help him in the first place. Warning her what kind of man he might be was only fair.

  He’d never felt compelled to warn Terry Sanchez. But he had never seen Terry outside the library, and all he’d wanted was her assistance. He wanted a lot more from Juliet.

  A hell of a lot more. But he couldn’t have it. He might have a wife and kids somewhere. There might be warrants for his arrest. Whoever had tried to kill him before might try again. Before he could have any kind of future, he had to find out about his past. He had to find out whether he deserved a future or whether everyone would have been better off if one of those bullets had killed him.

  Maybe, once he knew the truth, then he could want someone. Maybe then he could have someone.

  Scowling, he turned the shower to hot and stepped into the tub. It wasn’t yet four o’clock. He would be ready to go to Juliet’s house three hours early. Or maybe he would never be ready to go to Juliet’s house.

  He bathed quickly, grateful when he got out that the mirror had fogged over. He dressed, combed his hair straight back, then stretched out on the couch to watch the clock. He didn’t turn on the television in the corner or pick up the morning paper his landlady had brought over when she’d finished with it. He just lay there, wishing, wondering, regretti
ng.

  The minutes crawled, but finally the bedside clock read six-forty-five. He left the apartment, slipped through the gate in the back fence and made his way to the block where Juliet lived. Her car, a sensible gray sedan, was parked in the driveway, and the front door was open. He raised his hand to knock on the screen door, then stilled.

  He could see a corner of the living room, an equal wedge of another room and down the wide hall to the kitchen. As he watched, Juliet turned the corner at the far end and started toward him. She was wearing a dress, a garden-party sort of dress of soft, flowing fabric, subdued flowers, ribbon trim and a row of little white buttons that ran from the modest V-neck all the way to the ankle. They were already fastened from the waist down, as if she had simply undone enough buttons to step inside the garment, and she was buttoning the rest now, her steps slow and leisurely, her head bent.

  Maybe he stifled a groan or a board creaked or his skin was sizzling from the sudden influx of heat. Whatever the cause, abruptly she raised her head and stared at him through the screen. He felt dim-witted, thick-tongued and embarrassed, as if he’d been caught spying. He wanted to turn and walk away, to pretend that he’d seen nothing. Truth was, he hadn’t seen anything. Just a narrow strip of pale skin that dipped between her breasts to her waist. Just her fingers working the small buttons. Just enough to know that he wanted more.

  She turned her back. When she faced him again, the last button was securely fastened and her face was tinged pink. She held the screen door open a few inches. “Hello.”

  He took hold of the handle, but didn’t pull, didn’t step inside. Instead, in a masterpiece of clumsiness, he blurted out, “Before we start, I think you should know that someone tried to kill me.”

  “Today?”

  “No. Several years ago.” When she looked puzzled, he explained, “I don’t know who I am—who I used to be—but apparently it was someone with enemies. Someone who did something worth killing over.”

  For a long time, she simply looked at him. Then abruptly she shrugged, making her hair sway. “Or maybe you were the victim of some crazy with a gun. Lord knows, there are enough of them around. Come on in.”

  He went inside, then flipped the hook on the jamb into the eye on the door. By the time he turned, she was already in the room on the right.

  It had once been a formal dining room and still held dining room furniture. The pieces were old and oak—an oval table big enough to seat six, four chairs that matched, two office chairs on wheels and a china cabinet. The oak was heirloom quality, suited to a country house with a family to fill the chairs. Here it did duty as a desk, supporting her computer and printer. The shelves of the china hutch held books, flash-drives and printer cartridges. Packages of paper were visible in the cabinet underneath before she shoved the door shut as she passed.

  She sat in a bright blue chair in front of the computer but made no effort to turn it on. We’ll talk, she had said, and that was apparently all she intended to do. Doing it here, he assumed, instead of the living room where they would have been more comfortable was her way of keeping it strictly business.

  “I’ve been thinking about this all afternoon, and I’m not really sure I can help you.”

  He didn’t want to hear that, pretended he didn’t hear it as he circled the room. There were blinds on the windows, no curtains and nothing on the walls but a corkboard directly behind her. From across the room, he couldn’t make out any of the notes thumbtacked to the board. When he pulled out the chair beside her, he still couldn’t read them. Her writing was atrocious.

  “Exactly what was Terry doing?”

  “We went through old newspapers and school yearbooks, checked town records, looking for something I might remember.”

  “You think you’re from here.”

  “I know I’ve been here. From the start, I’ve had this feeling…” He wasn’t one to talk much about feelings, or if he did, he disguised them with other words. Instincts. Intuition. Intuition told him he’d been in Grand Springs long enough to gain a familiarity with the place. Too often he knew what was around a corner he’d never turned. He’d known in September about the eighty-foot-tall pine that would be decorated for Christmas in December. There were places—the high school gymnasium, a restaurant downtown, a clothing store—where he knew he’d been at some time in the forgotten past.

  “But if you had lived here or spent any length of time here, don’t you think someone would recognize you?”

  He scowled at the logic of her argument. “Maybe it was a long time ago. Maybe I’ve changed. Maybe I’m not that noticeable.”

  Juliet had to bite her tongue to stop from snorting scornfully at that last comment. Not noticeable? In what galaxy? She’d seen his effect on the females in the library, from giggly teenagers to white-haired grandmothers. There was no way he could have spent any time here and the women of Grand Springs not notice him. “When you appeared in Grand Springs, you didn’t remember anything?”

  “I remembered who was president of the United States. I knew that I’ve always liked Italian food. I knew I spoke fluent Spanish. I remembered plenty of things. Just nothing important, like who I am or where I’m from.” He slumped in the chair, his feet stretched out so that they nearly touched hers. She swiveled her chair a few inches to the right.

  “What happened the night of the accident?” She knew there’d been a wreck, that he’d suffered a head injury and now had amnesia, but the rumor mill was short on details, and details were desperately needed if she was going to help him.

  “The first thing I remember is waking up with a hell of a headache. I guess I lost control of the car in the storm and hit the guardrail.”

  The storm. That was how the town referred to that weekend last June. Rains had saturated the area, and the downpour that Friday evening had been more than the ground could bear. There had been massive mud slides, closing the highways and causing a blackout that lasted into Sunday.

  “Besides banging your head, were you hurt?”

  He shook his head. “I left the car and started walking. The town was completely dark, so when I saw lights, I headed for them. It was the hospital. They examined me, gave me a name—”

  “After the soap opera hunk,” she said, and he scowled again. Which offended him more—the soap opera part or the hunk part?

  “And called the police. They were busy with the blackout and the mayor’s murder, but eventually they got around to me. They took my fingerprints and sent them to the FBI and the state. They didn’t know who I was, either.”

  “So we know you’re not a cop, you were never in the military, and you’re not a crook.”

  “At least, not one who’s been caught.”

  She ignored his mutterings and went on. “Before the accident, were you coming to Grand Springs or going away from it?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Which direction was your car facing when you regained consciousness?”

  “I don’t remember. I’d hit my head. I was disoriented.”

  “What happened to the car?”

  He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Once things settled down and the roads were reopened, Stone Richardson took me out to find it. We couldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I didn’t remember where I left it, but wherever that was, it was no longer there. We drove all the way to the interstate and found nothing.”

  “So someone stole it.”

  “Or it got swept away by the mud slides.”

  “Is that possible?”

  His look was dry, his voice even drier. “Have you ever seen a few tons of mud and rock come rushing down a mountainside?”

  “I’m from Dallas. We don’t have mountainsides. We don’t even have many hillsides.”

  “A mud slide can uproot trees, tear down guardrails and destroy chunks of roadway. It can move a building off its foundation and carry it away, breaking it into splinters along the way. It can destroy a town, kill anyone in its way,
and, yes, it can wash away a car.”

  “Didn’t anyone search for the car?” It seemed a simple enough task to her: find the places where the mud had rushed over the highway, follow it down the mountainside and find the car. If it wasn’t immediately visible, search any places where the mud was deep enough to cover it. Easy.

  “When you moved here, you drove into town from the interstate, didn’t you? You saw the drop-offs in some places along the highway, didn’t you?”

  She nodded. In a few places, the shoulder wasn’t more than a few feet wide, and nothing more than a steel guardrail separated a car on the highway from a two-thousand-foot fall. Other drops were less dramatic, but there were plenty where a search would be difficult at best. “Do you think your car went over one of those drop-offs?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “So Stone took your fingerprints and checked missing persons reports and got nothing. Has he done that recently?”

  “Why would he?”

  “Maybe, when he checked, your family or friends or employer hadn’t yet realized that you were missing. Maybe you were on vacation and not expected back for several weeks. Maybe they filed a report a few days or weeks later.” Picking up a pen, she made a note on the pad next to the computer. Tomorrow she would be at the police department. She would talk to Stone about trying again. “Do you have any scars, tattoos or distinguishing marks?”

  He mumbled his answer as if he preferred not to acknowledge their existence. “Scars.”

  Her gaze followed his right hand to his left arm, where he rubbed the thickened skin. She made a note of its location and length even as she wondered what he had done to earn such an injury.

  “It’s a defensive wound.”

  Given a little time, she could have figured that out. The scar ran four inches along the inside of his arm, as if he had raised his arm to ward off an attacker. But who had attacked him and why? Had he been an innocent victim or an equally guilty transgressor?

  She would like to believe “innocent victim,” but it was hard to cast him as either innocent or a victim. On the other hand, it was easy to see him as aggressive, strong, take-charge, bold. It was easy to imagine him meeting an attacker head-on, giving as good as he got.