Stolen Memories

by Liz Johnson

  “It looks like he got a hold of her arm and pulled her against the door, which is when she hit her head. But she’s alert and physically in pretty good shape.”

  “I’m almost home. I’ll be there in three minutes.” Two if he floored it through the next light.

  A hubbub on the other end of the line sent his blood pressure rising.

  “Samantha, what’s going on?”

  “Oh, Keaton just got home. I’ll see you in a sec.” She hung up without any other warning, and he could do nothing but pray the last four blocks home.

  It seemed like an eternity before he pulled into the driveway beside Keaton’s old truck. He was out of the car before it was all the way in Park, running for the front door, down the hall and to Julie’s side.

  Falling to his knees before her, he placed one hand on her knee, needing to know that she wasn’t going to disappear before his eyes. With his other hand he cupped her cheek. “I’ll take you to the hospital right now if you need.”

  She blinked tired eyes, touching the back of his hand with tentative fingers. “I don’t want to go back there.”

  He didn’t blame her. He wouldn’t want to go, either. Especially knowing that she’d been attacked there once already.

  His lips flattened into a hard line, but he nodded. “How’s your head? Samantha said you got another knock on it.”

  She managed to brush her short bangs out of the way, revealing an already purple bruise. Then she lifted one corner of her mouth. “Well, another bump on the head didn’t shake my memories loose like I was hoping it would.”

  His chuckle caught him by surprise, almost as much as hers did.

  “You think you’re pretty funny, huh?”

  She nodded, her lips quivering with humor and fading adrenaline. “Kind of.”

  He couldn’t tear his gaze away from her mouth, pink and perfect. He’d never wanted to kiss a woman as much as he did in that moment.

  For a second it didn’t matter that she didn’t know her past. For a second it didn’t faze him that she wasn’t going to be around after her memory returned and that he had no business being attracted to her.

  For one brief second it didn’t even register that she wasn’t his.

  His fingers curled into her hair, and he leaned in. Her eyes grew wide, her mouth falling open just a breath.

  So much grace in one woman. Whatever she’d been like before the attack in Webster Park, he didn’t care. In this moment she was exactly the kind of woman he’d been waiting to meet.

  A moment away from sealing the kiss, his brother clapped him on the shoulder. “The uniforms are ready to talk with Julie.”

  Zach jerked back, nearly falling onto his backside. He’d completely ignored the presence of not only his brother but also his sister, who stood on the opposite side of the room. Her arms crossed, she shot him a knowing smirk.

  That could have gone better.

  That was also the understatement of the century.

  In a perfect world, he’d have been able to kiss Julie soundly without interruption from his family. He’d have been able to hold her close as his heart thundered in his chest.

  And he wouldn’t have to keep himself from jumping into a real relationship with her just because he had to give her back to wherever she belonged.

  Wherever that was.

  And whenever that moment came, it would be too soon.

  A very young woman in a blue uniform entered the kitchen, keeping her distance and eyeing them both with a curious glance. Zach didn’t know her, so she’d probably joined the department after he’d transferred to Homicide.

  Giving Julie’s knee one more squeeze, he rose to his feet and introduced himself. “Detective Jones. Homicide.”

  Her eyes grew large, and she shook his hand. “Georgia Singletary. We were called in about an attempted home invasion.”

  He pointed her to Julie, introduced them and then stepped back, never letting her out of his sight. Taking several deep breaths, he tried to even his restless heartbeat and calm the screaming in his mind. He should have been with her.

  He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  *

  By the time Officer Singletary had completed the interview, the crime scene team had checked for evidence and the house had cleared out, Julie was ready to crawl into bed and forget that the world existed. Just for eight blissful hours, maybe no one would hunt her, she wouldn’t hold locked memories of a missing child and Zach would have kissed her.

  But wishing didn’t make it so. Especially not that last wish.

  She was still just a stray, still just someone he had helped because of his kind spirit.

  That hadn’t been an almost kiss.

  A tiny voice in the back of her mind told her that wasn’t quite true.

  All right, maybe it was almost a kiss. But it was most likely pity-induced. Any real feelings growing between them were entirely one-sided. Her-sided.

  There was no sense in wishing her reality away. All she really had was the man standing before her. And maybe a memory that would help locate baby Kay. If she could just find that memory.

  Zach held up the half-empty tea kettle that had still been on the burner. “How about a cup of tea while I clean up this glass?”

  She’d left her mug…somewhere. But where? She spun in a slow circle, trying to retrace her steps before the broken window, but the entire night was about as clear as a Midwest blizzard.

  “What do you need?” he asked, guiding her back to her seat.

  “I’m okay.” Just as the words escaped, her toe caught on the back of her heel. She stumbled into him. His arms wrapped around her back, nearly lifting her onto the bench by the table. And completely stealing her breath.

  What was it about this guy? Why did he make her feel like she’d never met an attractive man before?

  She needed to put some space between them.

  Scooting back, she wrapped her arms around her stomach. “I’m good. Just looking for my mug.”

  “I’ll get it for you.” He strolled around the pile of glass in the middle of the floor, filled up the kettle and set it to warming on the burner’s low flame.

  When he walked out of the room and down the hall, the temperature seemed to drop. Maybe it was the wind blowing through the broken windows. More likely it was the flashes of a black glove reaching through those frames that her mind had no trouble conjuring.

  With every blink the image reappeared.

  And with it the coiling tightness in her stomach and the band around her lungs.

  Her arm twitched, and those brutish fingers were around her elbow again. He smelled of fresh leather and something woodsy—outdoorsy—and his sneer had curdled her blood. His teeth were yellow, the front one chipped at the corner.

  “Zach.”

  “Be right there.” A door squeaked, and he appeared with a broom and dustpan in hand. “What is it?”

  “He had a chipped tooth.”

  He looked toward the door, his frown growing pronounced. “What about the guy at the hospital? Did he have a chipped tooth, too?”

  Biting into her lip, she stared at the ceiling until the images from that night formed. “I don’t know. I never really saw his mouth. I do know he had blond hair, but he came at me at such an awkward angle that I didn’t get a good look at his face.”

  He squatted down to sweep the larger shards of glass into the dustpan. His gaze turned serious, very focused on his work. “Frank Adams didn’t have blond hair or a chipped tooth.” Zach brushed some glass into the pan.

  “He wasn’t smiling in his mug shot, so I haven’t seen his teeth.” Julie paused for a long moment sorting every piece of evidence into place in her mind. “I suppose it could have been him tonight, but I don’t think it was.”

  “If it’s not Frank, who’s after you?” His mumbled words as he reached for a large piece of glass were clearly not meant for her, but they sure posed an interesting question.

  “Could he be working with
someone else?”

  “Ow!” Zach jerked his hand to his chest, cradling it in the other.

  “Did you cut yourself?”

  He held out his hand, a jagged red stripe growing between his thumb and forefinger.

  She fell to the floor in front of him, pressing her fingers against the wound and calling for Keaton. When he appeared, she asked, “Do you have a first-aid kit?”

  “Sure.” He disappeared down the hall, and she called after him.

  “Can you bring me a clean towel, too?”

  Eye to eye with Zach and unable to tear her gaze away, she swallowed the urge to babble.

  “I’ll be fine. Really,” he said.

  “I know you will be, but let me take a look at it anyway.”

  Something not far from humor glinted in Zach’s eye as Keaton returned with a towel and the box, which bore a large red cross. She took the towel and wrapped it firmly around Zach’s hand. Then she dug gauze and antibiotic ointment from the kit.

  With quick and proficient movements, she cleaned the cut, washing away drying blood and revealing a long but shallow wound. “Oh, this looks good. It’s not going to need stitches.”

  As she slathered ointment on it, the weight of Zach’s gaze on top of her bent head seemed to increase. It sent a shiver crawling down her spine, and she fought the urge to look up until she’d finished wrapping his wound.

  Finally done, she narrowed her eyes and glanced into his face. “What?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “Know what?”

  He lifted his shoulder. “That I don’t need stitches. How to clean it and wrap it like that.”

  Her eyes shot toward Keaton, hoping he’d have the answer to his brother’s question, but he was too busy watching their exchange with barely concealed amusement.

  Meeting Zach’s gaze again, she shook her head. “I have no idea.”

  A chuckle burst out, and he covered his mouth with his uninjured hand as though he didn’t know where it had come from and wanted to stop another from escaping. It didn’t help. His laughter grew despite his fingers pressed to his lips, shoulders shaking and eyes watering.

  And she didn’t really have a choice. It was contagious, so she joined him.

  Giggles swept over her like a spring rain, cool and cleansing.

  Soon she couldn’t catch her breath, the guffaws rolling in wave after wave. Zach’s deeper chuckles added a harmony and rhythm to her higher-pitched melody.

  Sinking to the floor, they leaned against each other until the tension of the evening, the stress of the day, the strain of the week fell away.

  They were shoulder to shoulder and panting by the time she realized that Keaton had left them to their insanity, the door to the top-floor apartment squeaking loud enough to fill the entire house.

  “I think I needed that,” he said.

  She smiled up at him, resting an ear against his shoulder. “Me, too.” The effort required to hold her head upright squirmed just beyond her grasp, so she stayed snuggled into his side. Laughing with him was almost as nice as being held in his arms.

  Almost.

  After a long moment where the only noise was Samantha’s hair dryer somewhere else in the house, she risked asking the question that kept bouncing through her mind. “What are we going to do?”

  His shoulder stiffened, but he didn’t pull away. “I’m going to patch up the broken windows.”

  “And after that?”

  He let out a slow sigh. “We’re going to find your memories. There’s a mom out there somewhere who’s missing her child, and you’re the only one with any answers. And until we find them and the man coming after you, we have to keep you safe.”

  “How?”

  He shook his head slowly, his gaze wandering down the hall. “We start with making sure you’re never alone, and that we have a uniform watching the house at all times.”

  She just had to stay safe until her memories came back. If she couldn’t get the memories out, then she was useless. And she wasn’t about to be a worthless part of the search. She just had to find a familiar place that jogged her memory even more than Mickey’s had.

  “Is there some place here that everyone knows, that everyone’s been to?”

  He squinted at her, his eyes nearly disappearing. “What makes you ask that?”

  “Just wondering what other places I should visit to see if I recognize them.”

  He glanced at the ceiling and leaned his head back. “I guess everyone’s been to the Mall of America.”

  She nodded, chewing on a fingernail.

  “Do you want to go there tomorrow?”

  “I’m supposed to see the doctor again tomorrow afternoon to check up on my wrist and my head.” She lifted her right hand, which had been in a brace until her last day in the hospital. “Maybe in the morning before I see the doctor?”

  “All right. I’ll take you then. On one condition.”

  Her stomach churned in a mix of curiosity and dread. “What’s that?”

  “You have to stay by my side…”

  The rest of his sentence, though unspoken, was louder than any of his other words.

  Because a man who would risk attacking her at the home of four cops wouldn’t let up until he got what he wanted.

  TWELVE

  Zach rapped twice on the door to Julie’s bedroom the next morning as Samantha walked by, headed for the second-floor bathroom. She quirked her eyebrow at him, her eyes teasing.

  “It’s a bit early to be bothering her, don’t you think?”

  He waved his phone in his hand. “Got to go into the station for something, so we’re going to have to change our plans.”

  “Sure.”

  His sister still treated him like he was a college kid just trying to meet a nice girl. Well, he had met a nice girl. Finally.

  She just had to go back to her own family soon.

  When Julie opened the door, the hair on the right side of her head stood straight on end. She brushed a hand over it, flattening it only for a second before it sprang back to its most vibrant life. Eyes droopy with sleep and cheeks pink, she fumbled to tie the belt around an old robe on loan from Samantha. It was about three sizes too big and pooled at her wrists, nearly hiding her hands.

  She smacked her mouth a few times, running her tongue across her teeth, and squinted up at him. “Mornin’.”

  Wow, she was cute in the morning.

  He shook the thought away. It wasn’t safe territory. Getting too attached could hurt. Every rescued puppy and wounded kitten he’d taken in had taken a tiny piece of his heart with them when he’d had to let them go.

  The only difference with Julie was that she had the potential to take his whole heart.

  “Good morning.” He smiled. “How are you feeling today?”

  Lifting her arm until her sleeve drooped to her elbow, she showed off a solid bruise just below the joint. “A few bumps and scrapes, but I don’t think the doctor will be concerned about these.”

  “He’ll probably just be concerned that you can’t seem to stay out of trouble long enough to really get better.”

  She closed one eye, the other following the lines of his face. “And whose fault—” She bit down hard, stopping her words.

  But he knew exactly what she had been thinking, and it ate at him. Of course it was his fault that she’d been alone last night. He hadn’t expected Samantha to take a shopping trip or his fruitless search for Phil to last so long. Or that Phil would show up in the drunk tank that morning with a broken hand and no desire to talk about the details of what had happened.

  A pang shot through his belly, and he pushed it down. He couldn’t do a thing about what happened to Julie the night before except go out and find the guy responsible.

  “Listen, I got a call from the station. I need to go in to take care of something.”

  From sleepy to brilliant, her eyes changed in a flash. “Do they have a lead? Do they know where Kay—” Again she cut
herself off, her brows furrowing as she pulled away.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I had a dream. I think it was about Lonnie and Kay.”

  “What happened in it?” He rested a hand around her shoulder, urging her back toward him. “What happened to Lonnie?”

  “She was scared. She was so scared.” Julie covered his hand with hers. “You have to find them. I know they’re in trouble.”

  “I’m going to try right now. But I need you to stay here. Reese and Samantha will be here all day with you. I just need you to stay put until I come back for you. Then we’ll go to the mall.”

  “All right.”

  Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he pulled her in for a quick hug, and her hands snaked around his waist, clinging to his shirt.

  He let her go before he could do something he’d regret and hustled down the stairs without looking back. One glance and he might change his mind and go back for her. But she couldn’t come with him.

  Out the door and on the road, he flipped his phone to the hands-free set and called an old friend. The phone rang five times before someone picked up. “Oasis.”

  “LeRoy Tibbets.”

  It was all the greeting that his high school friend needed. “Zach Jones. How are you? Heard you finally made detective and joined Homicide. Is that why you never come around to see me anymore?”

  Zach laughed. He’d made detective more than three years before, but every time he saw LeRoy, he got the same ribbing. “How’s the Oasis?”

  “Broke but busy. Had seventy-three guys here last night.”

  While doing a stint in prison for his own drug problem, LeRoy had found God, given up the bad habits and promised to make a difference when he was released. LeRoy’s first month on the outside, Zach had helped him start a little shelter for guys looking to get clean and sober. In just five years, three cots in a one-bedroom apartment had turned into a full-scale rehab program and homeless shelter.

  LeRoy hadn’t ever gone back to the addiction that put him behind bars, but he still had connections with those who hadn’t been as strong. He was pretty much guaranteed to know someone who knew just about anyone that Zach could be looking for.

  “Well, I assume this isn’t a strictly social call. What do you need, man?”