What She Forgot

by Tammy Falkner

  My heart leaped a little in my chest as I pulled the stacks toward me. I started to rifle through them, then separate them into piles. I made three piles. I slid the smallest stack toward him. “You told me not to lie to you.”

  His brow furrowed. “I did.” He nodded, but I could tell that he didn’t know where I was going to go with this.

  I shoved the small stack one inch further toward him. “This stack was me.” Heat crept up my cheeks, but I wasn’t sure why. He stared at me. Hard. So hard that I immediately became uncomfortable. I gathered my hair up in my hands and lifted it off my neck.

  Clark reached into his desk drawer, retrieved a pencil, and handed it to me. I rolled my hair into a ball and secured it with the pencil. Then I realized what he’d done. He’d anticipated my need for something to hold my hair. And I suddenly found it hard to breathe.

  “You?” he asked.

  I ignored the itchy feeling that had everything to do with the pencil and almost nothing to do with the papers in front of me, and I pulled the papers back toward me. I lifted the first one. “I left him tied up on the steps of the courthouse.” I lifted the second one. “I had him meet me for a date, and then the cops showed up.” I shrugged. “I called them, but still.” I lifted the third one. “I found him and made sure the cops knew where he was.” I tapped the last one. “And this one, I tied him to a post in the subway.” I rushed to add, “I made sure they were all safe! I promise. I stayed until someone picked them up.”

  “And the security footage?” He rubbed his forehead.

  “I wiped it all,” I said.

  “How did you do that?”

  “I may have hacked a few accounts.” I winced, because his face was suddenly stormy. “But I haven’t done it since you told me not to! As soon as you told me that my actions could get you in trouble, I stopped.”

  “These were all you?” he asked, tapping the small stack again.

  “All of them.”

  “Are there more?”

  I shook my head and avoided his gaze.

  He motioned toward the other two stacks. “And these?”

  I shook my head again. “Those weren’t me. But I can look at them and I might be able to find a pattern or two.”

  “You didn’t…” He stopped and took in a breath with his eyes closed. Then he forged on. “You didn’t kill anyone?”

  “No.”

  He showed me one of the files. “This is the guy they call Danny the Dick. He was shot right in the center of his forehead.”

  I looked at the picture. “That’s not right in the center. It’s a few millimeters off.”

  He looked at it again. “Is it?”

  “Yes.” I said nothing else.

  “It looks pretty precise.”

  “If I had done it, it would be perfect. And it’s not.” I shrugged. “And I would have used a .40. They’re more precise.”

  “You can tell that’s not a 40-caliber bullet? From the picture?”

  I nodded. “I can. That’s a sloppy shot. And I’m never sloppy. Not when I shoot.”

  He flipped the page. “You ever chop anybody’s dick off?”

  “No. Never.” I could say that honestly. I’d been tempted a few times, though.

  He went on to another. But he didn’t ask me any questions about the other ones. He was obviously thinking.

  “Thank you for telling me,” he finally said. “The one you left on the courthouse steps. How did you find him?”

  “Oh, he found me, actually.”

  His brows drew together. “How?”

  “I stopped at the bookstore, and he was there. I recognized him from one of your files, so I followed him home. That’s all.”

  “And you put yourself in danger?”

  I shook my head. “I was never in danger.”

  “How did you get him in the car to take him to the courthouse?”

  “I tazed him. Tied him up. And then I put him in the car. It wasn’t that hard. He folded up quite nicely in my trunk.” I scratched the end of my nose, because it was suddenly itching.

  “So you dumped him in the trunk.”

  “Well, folded him up in there. He was very comfortable.”

  “Then you drove to the courthouse in the middle of the night and tied him to the post.” He reached into his desk for a piece of gum. I knew he used to smoke, and he only reached for gum when he was stressed. “And then, after you knew he’d been safely found, you went home and wiped all the footage from the security cameras in front of the courthouse.”

  “And the ones from the shop around the corner, and the deli, and the pawn shop.”

  His brows would have hit his hairline if he’d had a hairline. “You wiped all those?”

  “Just a few hours of their recorded time. They probably didn’t even notice.”

  “And you did this because you read my files and figured out where they were.”

  “Yes.” I ran my sweaty palms down my pencil skirt.

  “And before you started working here, did you ever do this kind of thing?”

  I scratched my head. “I used to do volunteer work at the women’s shelter. And sometimes I helped moms find their kids’ dads who had done bad things.”

  “And what did you do to them?”

  “Well, I notified the cops about some of their whereabouts.” I cleared my throat. “And a few of them…” I held my finger and thumb about an inch apart. “Just a tiny few I helped to see the errors of their ways.”

  “Which involved…?”

  “Talking. That’s all.”

  “Talking about what?”

  “Well,” I said, “some people are very simple. If you find out what they love most in the world, and then threaten it, they will change their ways.”

  “How long has it been since you volunteered at the shelter?”

  I shrugged. “A couple of years.”

  “And you haven’t done this since?”

  “Well, not until I saw your files. But then you told me to come to you instead, so that’s what I’m doing now. I’ve found four more.” I jerked my thumb toward the office area where I’d been working. “I was going to bring them to you later today.”

  “I’d like to see them.” He shoved the two stacks that weren’t mine toward me. “I’d like for you to look at these and find anything that can help me figure out who did it. Can you do that?”

  “Sure.” I took the files and stood up. “Is that all you needed?”

  “Yes. I just want you to work on that.” He nodded toward the stacks.

  “Okay.” I turned to leave but then turned back. “Are you mad at me?”

  “Do I look mad?” He shuffled some more papers around.

  “You know I can’t tell.”

  Finally, he smiled. It didn’t look like a real smile, but it was close. When he smiled for real, like when he’d asked me to dinner at the mall, the scar beneath his eye folded a little at the edge. This time, there was no fold, so I felt like the smile was more for my benefit than actual joy. “I’m not mad.” He held up one finger. “A little stupefied. But not mad.”

  I smiled at him. “You stupefy me too,” I said. And he did. I couldn’t tell up from down some of the time.

  This time, the skin under his eye folded a little, and I felt the grin on my own face tip a little more upward.

  “Get to work,” he said. “And close my door on the way out. I need to make some calls.”

  “Okay.” I pulled his door shut.

  I’d told him nothing but the truth. And he didn’t appear to be angry. I looked down at the files. There was a vigilante killer out there, and it wasn’t me. I’d stopped doing that.

  Chapter 23

  Clark

  I’d heard it said once that it’s intoxicating when people unapologetically show you who they are. And fuck if that wasn’t the God’s honest truth. Now that I knew a little bit about Shelly, I Iiked the hell out of her.

  Only I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to like her or not.r />
  One thing that I was almost sure of: Shelly was a benevolent soul. She’d been painted as a narcissistic psychopath of a woman with a penchant for murdering people, but I was pretty sure that Shelly wasn’t a killer. Well, aside from that one time with her father that no one knew about. And I doubted anyone ever would know the truth of what happened in that situation, aside from Shelly and her father. Even Lynn didn’t know what really happened, and something told me it was probably better that way.

  Now, I didn’t doubt that Shelly was willing to do some shady things at times, but she did them when they were necessary and when they would fix situations for people she loved or cared about.

  And that brain of hers. It worked in a way I couldn’t begin to understand, but I really, really wanted to. I wanted to know how she thought and why she thought and what made her think one way instead of another. But I had a feeling, again, that it was something I couldn’t even try to understand. Shelly herself didn’t understand it.

  She was unapologetically who she was.

  Who was she?

  She was smart. She was a fucking genius. She could create formulas and scenarios in her head and work out problems unlike anyone I’d ever known.

  She was loyal. She loved Lynn and Lynn’s child with all her heart, and I’d bet she’d even go to bat for Mason if the situation called for it, although she’d give him shit over it at the same time.

  She was funny. She had a biting wit and an understated humor that amused the hell out of me.

  Shelly could kick ass. She’d taken that thief down in the mall all by herself, without hesitation. And I’d seen the video of her fight with Megan. She was a small, sturdy package that could kick some serious ass.

  She was fucking beautiful. She took my breath away, whether she was in her fancy clothes or her teeny tiny shorts. Sometimes when she looked at me from across the room, I could feel myself react. To begin with, I’d thought it was annoyance. But now, now it was so much more.

  She was—most important of all—loveable.

  MeeMaw had said that Shelly had never had anyone truly love her, and I believed that, now that I’d spent some time with her. Shelly lapped up praise like a cat laps at cream. Tiny pieces of affection were her catnip. She craved them—no. She needed them. There was a big difference.

  Shelly had spent her life taking care of Lynn and her friends. But who was she now that Lynn was settled? Was she still just another person who looked like Lynn? Or was she so much more? I believed she was so much more, even more than I had ever realized. And I wanted to know exactly who she was.

  I had a feeling that everyone who had ever met Shelly had wanted her to change. They’d probably wanted her to be more understanding, but they also weren’t aware that she had a difficult time understanding how people felt in different situations. She didn’t lack empathy. She was full of it. She just needed to understand why she was supposed to have it in different scenarios.

  She had done some shady things in the past, but I had a feeling that any time that she did, there was a damn good reason for it.

  I sat in my office and made a few calls, talked with my former boss about some open cases, and then I realized how late it was getting. I glanced down at my watch. Shit. I was going to be late.

  “Hey, Shelly,” I said as I walked out to where she was working.

  She didn’t glance up from the computer or the stacks of paper in front of her.

  “Shelly,” I said a little more loudly.

  “Hm?” she said absently. She still didn’t look up.

  “I just remembered that I have to go home early tonight. Are you ready to go?”

  She finally looked up. Then she looked down at her watch. “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” She blew an errant lock of hair from her eyes.

  “I forgot that I need to be home early.”

  She shook her head, like she was trying to focus on me, when she really wanted to go back to what she was doing.

  “MeeMaw is cooking,” I said.

  “MeeMaw’s fine. I just checked on her a few minutes ago.”

  I shrugged into my jacket. But then I stopped. “Wait. How did you check on MeeMaw?”

  She opened a tab on her laptop and showed me the screen. “Your home security system. I checked in on her an hour ago. She was cooking.” She smiled. “And she was singing a rather bawdy song as she danced around the kitchen.” Her brow furrowed with confusion again. “But she was fine.”

  “Did I give you the password to my security system?” I asked, knowing good and well that I did not.

  “Well, no, but I didn’t think you’d mind.” She looked everywhere but at me.

  “How did you get it?” Dumb question, I knew.

  She heaved out a sigh. “Really?” She raised her eyebrows at me.

  I growled low in my throat. “Shelly, you can’t just hack into accounts.”

  She rolled her eyes, and on anyone else, it wouldn’t have been quite so adorable. “I didn’t hack. I guessed.” She tilted her head and smirked at me. “Your email was easy, and your password was Channing. You could have made it a little more difficult.”

  “Shelly,” I began, but I had no idea what else to say.

  “I just wanted to check on her,” she said quietly.

  “You could have just asked me for the information.”

  She looked at me like I had grown two heads. “That would be a waste of your time and mine, particularly since it was so easy.” She stared at me. “Are you annoyed?”

  Actually, I wasn’t. I was enthralled.

  “MeeMaw was fine?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Cooking. Dancing. Singing. Happy.” Her cheeks grew rosy. “I might have watched her for a few minutes. She just looked so content.”

  “Thank you for checking on her.”

  She smiled. “You’re welcome.”

  “Are you ready to go?”

  “Sure,” she said, as she closed her laptop and stuck her loose papers in a folder. She picked it all up to take it with her. “I can work on this when we get home. I think I am on to something.”

  “With the vigilante murders?”

  “Yes.”

  Now I was curious. “What have you found?”

  “Well, I made a spreadsheet so I could add the data from all the police reports and see if there were any commonalities.”

  “Like what?”

  “Time of day. Part of the city.” She shrugged. “Arresting officers. Judges in the original trials, if there were any. Things like that.”

  “You went that deep?”

  “Deeper,” she said, as she closed the office door behind her and walked toward the elevator. “I see patterns most people could never find. Motives.”

  “And did you find any patterns?”

  She nodded. “A few.”

  I smiled. “You care to share them with me?”

  “Not yet. I want to work on it some more.”

  “But you think you might have some ideas.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Please tell me that you didn’t hack into the court system to get copies of the police reports.”

  Shelly glared at me. “Public records.”

  “Okay.” It might have been dumb of me, or naïve, but I believed her.

  We got in the car and she was quiet on the drive home. “You okay?” I asked as I pulled into the driveway. There were already three cars there, but they weren’t blocking my spot. Good friends always left you your favorite spot.

  “Who’s here?” she asked.

  “Some friends of mine.” I opened my door. “Come on. I want you to meet them.”

  She didn’t get out. “Who are they?”

  “Some people I have worked with for a very long time. One I grew up with.”

  “And why are they here?”

  “For poker.”

  “Poker?” she parroted.

  “Yes. It’s poker night. Although I’m pretty sure they just show up so MeeM
aw will feed them.”

  “That’s why she was cooking so much?”

  “Yes.” I stared at her. “Do you want to get out now?”

  “Not really,” she said. “Maybe I should stay at my apartment.”

  “Not a chance in hell,” I said. “Get out. Come on. I need you.”

  “For what?”

  “If I don’t bring you home with me, MeeMaw will probably send me back out to find you. And I hate to waste my time. MeeMaw really likes you, so come on. And Channing Tatum would be devastated if you didn’t come in.”

  She grinned, finally. “Well, when you put it that way.” She got out of the car and walked with me to the side door, which opened into the kitchen. The faces of three of my best friends in the world stared at us as we came in the back door.

  Shelly leaned close to whisper, “You didn’t warn them about me.”

  All the warning in the world wouldn’t have been enough.

  Shelly bent down to pet Channing, who ran circles around her legs.

  “Close your mouth, Three, I can see your chili,” I told my best friend. He snapped his mouth shut and resumed chewing.

  “Three?” Shelly whispered again.

  I pointed to them each in turn. “Shelly, this is Three. This is D’Shaun. And this is Eli.” I pointed toward Shelly. “Everybody, this is Shelly.” I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her close to me. She only flinched for a second, and then she went soft.

  MeeMaw, though, did not go soft. She stared at me. Hard. Until I thought I might need to go back out the door. I let Shelly go and she stepped away from me.

  “Why do they call you Three?” Shelly asked my friend.

  “I’m a third,” he said around another mouthful of chili. “My dad was the junior, my granddad was the senior. And I’m the third. Three.”

  “Clever,” Shelly said.

  “I’ll tell my mother you said so.” He grinned at her.

  “Once a month, it’s my turn to host poker night,” I explained.

  Shelly took in the spread of food that lined the counter. “And MeeMaw does all the work?”

  MeeMaw finally laughed. “You tell him, Shelly.” But secretly, MeeMaw loved every minute of it. I knew she did. She loved having a house full of boys, just like when I was younger. Suddenly, Three’s phone started to ring and everyone at the table groaned.