You Must Remember This

by Marilyn Pappano

  Unless his attacker was someone he couldn’t defend himself against—a woman, perhaps, a friend or an authority figure. Or unless he believed he deserved the attack. Which brought her back to her original question: what had he done?

  Knowing that he could offer no more information than her wild imagination, she pressed on. “You said scars. What about the others?”

  “What does it matter?”

  “The more identifying information we can provide, the better the chances of getting a match.”

  “Assuming that there was someone who cared enough to file a missing persons report.”

  “You don’t think there was?”

  His fingers knotted, and his eyes turned the bleak blue of a sunless wintry day. “I don’t know.”

  Under the best of circumstances, it was a vaguely dissatisfying answer. When it applied to every area of your own life, when it answered even the simplest, most basic questions—What is your name? How old are you? Where do you live?—it must be frustrating as hell.

  “You weren’t wearing a wedding ring?”

  “No. No tan line, either.”

  “Which proves nothing. There has to be someone—a wife, a girlfriend, friends, neighbors, co-workers. You can’t have lived so isolated that no one’s noticed you’re gone.”

  “I don’t know.” Rising from his chair, he paced to the other side of the table. He was restless, edgy, and he made her feel edgy. She fiddled with her pen as she watched him.

  “What about the other scars?”

  For a long moment, he looked at her, then answered in a rush. “I’ve been shot twice—once in the back, left side, down low, and once in the chest, upper right side. There are two entry wounds, plus two surgical scars where the bullets were removed. Based on the way scars mature, the doctor says one is a couple of years old, the other probably a couple of years older than that.”

  “And the scar on your arm?”

  “It’s older. I’ve had it since I was a kid.”

  “The doctor told you that?”

  “No. I just know….” Frustrated, he gestured toward the computer. “What can you do with that?”

  She could do anything, go anywhere, be anyone. His interest, of course, was much narrower. What could she do for him? It was her turn to parrot his answer. “I don’t know. I need a name, a town, something to go on.”

  “If I had a town, I’d be there, and if I had a name, I wouldn’t need—”

  You. She smiled faintly. She knew that, of course. If she didn’t have something tangible to offer, he would have no interest in her. Too bad that she had nothing to offer—just lots of questions and no answers. “You said you’ve had this feeling of familiarity about the town. What about the people?”

  He shook his head.

  “No one seems familiar? No one brings a particular response?”

  He stood at the window, back straight, very still, and stared out. The sun’s last rays shining through the partially opened blinds cast a pattern across his face, with a shadow across his mouth and another over his eyes. At last, he answered, his voice so grim that she didn’t want to see his eyes. “Olivia Stuart.”

  Juliet drew her feet onto her chair seat and wrapped her arms around her knees to contain a shiver. For such a short time in town, she’d learned a lot. Olivia Stuart had been widely admired in Grand Springs, hailed as the town’s best mayor ever. Her death last June, presumably from a heart attack, had stunned everyone. The news that the heart attack had been drug-induced had sent shock waves through the town. Last October the police had arrested one of her murderers—a professional killer by the name of Joanna Jackson—and were still looking for another of those involved, Dean Springer. Springer had hired Joanna, but to this day, no one knew whom he was working for. No one knew why his mysterious boss had wanted Olivia Stuart dead.

  Maybe Martin Smith knew.

  As if he knew the direction her thoughts were traveling, he smiled mockingly. “I was questioned and cleared. At the time the mayor was given the fatal injection, I was somewhere out on the highway. A couple of Grand Springs’s respectable citizens can vouch for that.”

  But that only meant that he hadn’t been the one to actually give the injection. Could he be the one who had ordered it? Could he have held a grudge against the mayor with lethal consequences? Juliet didn’t ask the questions aloud, but Martin had already asked them and failed to come up with answers.

  “Could you have known Olivia?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Could you be a relative?”

  “No.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “She had a son and a daughter. I’ve met both of them, and they don’t have a clue who I might be.”

  It shouldn’t take you long to hit a dead end, he’d said this afternoon, and he had been right. She was running out of questions, and they had learned nothing. “What kind of response does she bring?”

  He shrugged but continued to stare out. “That night in the ER, I heard that she’d had a heart attack, and…I was sorry. I didn’t have any idea who she was, but…it mattered. It was as if her death—or her life—was important to me in some way.”

  “Maybe you’d done business with her. Maybe you were on your way here to meet with her.”

  “Stone checked her appointment book. Everyone listed in it is present and accounted for.”

  “Maybe your business with her was personal.”

  He shook his head. “She was very organized. She kept track of her personal business as well as her professional matters.”

  “It’s human nature to feel some measure of sadness when you hear someone has died. Maybe that’s all it was. You were just being human.”

  With another shake of his head, he closed the blinds, then faced her. “I don’t think I’m a very empathetic person.”

  “What do you think you are?”

  He rested his hands on the back of the chair across from her, and his fingers automatically tightened. “I don’t know, but I think…” He took a deep breath as if it were the only way to force the words out. “I think I’m afraid to find out.”

  Chapter Two

  “Do you want something to drink?”

  Martin nodded as Juliet got to her feet. They’d been at it more than an hour—lots of questions, lots of the same depressing answers. I don’t know. I don’t remember. Why did she bother asking? Why did he bother repeating? Why didn’t they just accept that, for all practical purposes, his life before last June no longer existed? At least not in a place where he could get to it.

  After a moment alone in the quiet office, he left his chair and stepped into the hallway. The living room was dark, but he could make out overstuffed furniture in dark stripes, the kind made for stretching out on, and a television, silent in the corner. There were two doors between him and the kitchen, one probably a closet, the other open to reveal a bathroom. A third opening on the opposite side was another hallway, one that presumably led to the bedrooms. That was where he’d first seen her this evening, buttoning her dress, unknowingly teasing him, tantalizing him, turning him on.

  He remembered sex—not with any particular person, not at any particular time, but he remembered the need, the raw, aching hunger, the torment in a slow, leisurely seduction and the pleasure in a quick, hard completion. He remembered the sense of power at what he could make a woman feel and the very real vulnerability at what she could do to him.

  Sweet hell, what Juliet could do to him, if only he could remember. If only he knew his past.

  He walked the length of the hallway, not allowing himself even the quickest of glances down the shorter hall to the bedrooms. She stood at the counter, her back to him, filling glasses with pop and arranging cookies on a plate, and he took advantage of her lack of awareness to study her. Her feet were bare—had he always found that erotic or was this a post-concussion fetish?—and her skirt swirled around her ankles as she moved. The dress was loose and full from the waist down. It clung like a sec
ond skin from there up, snug enough that he could tell by the uninterrupted smoothness that she wasn’t wearing a bra. He knew she wasn’t wearing one, because he’d seen that pale delicate skin, so soft and inviting that his fingers ached to touch it.

  She was humming softly to herself, with her head bent so her hair fell forward, revealing her neck. It was long, pale, probably soft, definitely erotic. All he would have to do was walk across the room, brush a few strands of hair aside, touch his mouth to her skin, and he would be so damned hot that he just might burst into flames.

  He was moving toward her, closing the distance between them, only a few feet away, when she turned from the counter and saw him. Startled, she dropped the glasses she held. Pop, ice and bits of glass went everywhere, splashing her skirt and his jeans, as color flooded her face. “Oh, my God, I didn’t know— Don’t you make noise when you walk?”

  Though he hadn’t meant to frighten her, he felt guilty, anyway. He should have spoken from the doorway, should have let her know that she was no longer alone, but he’d seen her, and everything else—except wanting her—had fled his mind. “Sorry,” he said stiffly. “I’ll clean that—”

  “I will.” She snatched up a towel from the counter and crouched, careful to tuck her skirt tightly around her legs. He found a broom and dustpan in the corner and, while she mopped up soda, swept the broken glass into a pile. When he knelt to scoop it into the pan, he found himself closer to her than he’d ever been, closer than he should ever be. Close enough to see that her eyes were just a shade more blue than hazel. Close enough to touch her. Close enough to hurt her.

  Startled by the thought, he moved back, swept the glass into the pan and got to his feet, quickly putting the length of the room between them. Why the hell would he hurt her? Was that what he did? Hurt vulnerable, helpless women? Maybe even kill them?

  Like Olivia Stuart?

  The thought had occurred to Juliet earlier that maybe he had given the order for Olivia’s murder. She hadn’t asked, but he knew she had wondered. He wondered, too. Had he been coming to Grand Springs to harm the mayor? To help her? Or was his response to the news of her death nothing more than human nature, as Juliet had suggested? Damn it, he didn’t know.

  But, as he’d told her, he didn’t think he was a very empathetic person. He thought he might be a coldhearted bastard. Maybe a cold-blooded killer.

  She stood up, wet a handful of paper towels, then crouched to give the floor a thorough swipe. “Sorry about the mess. I’m used to being alone, and you do move quietly. I was just surprised.”

  “It was my fault.” He didn’t look at her, but he could see her peripherally—a swirl of soft colors, blond hair, bare feet. What was wrong with all the people she’d known that she was used to being alone? Why weren’t there men lined up at her door? Why wasn’t she spending her evenings with a husband and family instead of a computer? Instead of with him?

  “Just give me a second and I’ll have everything—”

  “Don’t bother. I should go.” He looked at her finally and saw disappointment flare in her eyes before her face flushed and she turned away to needlessly rearrange the few items on the counter. Disappointment. She didn’t want him to leave. Was she crazy or just lonely?

  He knew loneliness intimately—the empty, aching need to share at least some small part of your life with someone special. He’d made friends here, but even with them, he still felt the need. He still wondered if there was someone out there somewhere who was lonely for him. Was there someone special, someone he’d loved, someone whose life was incomplete without him?

  He didn’t think so. Maybe it was sentimental bull, but he believed that if there had been someone special, some part of him would know. Maybe not his mind, but his heart. His soul. But his heart was too empty. He was too alone. Too attracted to Juliet.

  Juliet, who was avoiding facing him, who was embarrassed, who was lonely.

  He swallowed hard. Knowing he shouldn’t, he said, “If it wouldn’t be any trouble…”

  She flashed a relieved smile. “No, not at all.”

  He stayed on his side of the room while she took two more glasses from the cabinet, stretching high to reach, pulling taut fabric even tighter. Stifling a groan, he turned his attention to the back door. It stood open, the screen door unlatched, giving him a glimpse of a night-dark yard with shadows and gloom for cover.

  “You need a light in the backyard,” he commented. “Either a floodlight or a motion sensor. And you should keep the screen door latched. Better yet, you should replace both your screen doors with storm doors, the kind with a keyed lock. You need a dead bolt on the door, too—at least a one-inch—and…”

  The wary look she gave him made him stop. “This isn’t Dallas.”

  “No, it’s Grand Springs. In the ten months I’ve been here, the mayor has been murdered, her daughter and granddaughter were kidnapped, the bank was robbed, and someone tried to kill a couple of cops and the town treasurer. Don’t confuse small with safe. Keep your doors locked.” Though his advice might be coming a little late. She had already let him in, and that just might be the worst mistake she could make.

  She offered him a glass. He had to cross the room to take it from her. “Maybe you worked in the home security business.”

  “Maybe I worked in the home invasion business.”

  “If you were a criminal, you must have been very, very good to reach your age without getting caught. By the way, what age have they settled on for you?”

  “Late thirties, maybe forty.” Forty hard years, judging by the lines on his face and the damage done to his body, and he could account for only ten months. The knowledge made him feel less than whole.

  After latching the screen and locking the door, he followed her down the hall. He expected her to turn into the semi-businesslike dining room. Instead, she went into the living room, switching on lights before settling on a crimson-and-green love seat. She put the plate of cookies on the table between the love seat and sofa, then gestured for him to sit. He wanted to choose the armchair across the room, beneath a hanging lamp, but he obeyed her and sat on the couch instead.

  Munching on a cookie, he gave the rest of the room a look. It was homier than the dining room, with pictures on the walls, and books, plants and collectibles scattered around. It was a comfortable room, the sort of place—maybe minus the family photos—he imagined he might have had in another place in another life.

  “These are good. Did you bake them?”

  “I bought them at the bakery near the college. They were out of their wonderful little fried pies—”

  “With cherries, apples and apricots.”

  “You’ve been there?”

  He shook his head. He just knew. Sick of things he should remember but couldn’t and things he knew that he shouldn’t, he changed the subject. “Why did you come here?”

  The question made her uncomfortable. She was fine asking hard questions of him, but the simplest question about her turned her face pink and made her gaze shift to the family portrait on the opposite wall. “I wanted a change.”

  “Are your parents still in Dallas?”

  “No. My father died five years ago. My mother died two years later.”

  “No brothers or sisters?”

  “No. A lot of aunts, uncles and cousins, but none I was particularly close to.”

  “Why Grand Springs?”

  “The job came open, and I liked the idea of living in the mountains.”

  “Wait until you’ve spent your first winter here, then see if you like it. Do you ski?”

  “No.”

  “Hike?”

  “No.”

  “Camp? Fish? Take long bike rides?”

  “No.”

  “Then what do you do?”

  “I work, and I spend time online.”

  He glanced across the hall at the computer. There were few, if any, people in her life, but she had her computer. Cold company, but better than what he had. Nothing kept
him company but loneliness, frustration and fear. Fear of who he had been, of who he was, of who he might never be. Fear of knowing and of never knowing.

  Grimly he forced his attention back to her. “What do you do online?”

  “Talk to friends. Read the paper. Check movie reviews and weather forecasts. Order books.” She shrugged. “Everything.”

  “Have you ever met these friends before? In person? Face-to-face?”

  Discomfort edged into her expression. “I don’t do well face-to-face.”

  Maybe she was more comfortable hiding behind a computer screen. The men among those online friends didn’t know what they were missing. Even if she had described herself as five-five, blond and blue, it would say nothing about the stubborn line of her jaw or the way she turned that delicate pink when embarrassed. It didn’t give a hint of the shape of her mouth or the silkiness of her hair or the fragile air that surrounded her. “Five-five, blond and blue” could be a man’s worst nightmare…or his sweetest dream.

  “So you get on the computer and talk to people you’ve never met. How do you know they are what they say they are? How do you know they’re not scam artists, stalkers, rapists or killers?”

  “How do we know that about anyone?”

  How did she know it about him? Point taken.

  “These people don’t know me, either. They only know what I choose to tell them.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather talk to a flesh-and-blood person? Someone you could see, hear, touch?”

  Again she looked uncomfortable. “I’m talking to you.”

  He was definitely flesh and blood—very hard flesh, if she came near him, and very hot blood. His smile was thin and unamused. Here he was, warning her about the men online, but he was a bigger threat than any of them. He knew how she looked, moved, sounded. He knew where she lived. He knew he wanted her.

  His muscles tensing, he forced his thoughts to a safer path. “Your boyfriend must have been sorry to see you leave.” Yeah, that was good. Juliet with another man, a man who was special to her, getting intimate, making love—that was a definite turnoff.