Sudden Recall

by Jean Barrett

  “But you do know where they were taking me after we left here,” Shane insisted. “You were driving. They had to have given you directions. We went to Charleston. Where in Charleston, Roy? Give me a name, an address.”

  The caretaker hesitated. Shane’s fingers began to tighten again on his scrawny neck.

  “Some woman’s apartment,” Roy babbled. “Krause, I think her name was. That’s right. One of ’em said to the other that you needed to see Harriet Krause, and maybe then you’d talk.”

  Harriet Krause. Hearing the name shocked Eden. She remembered it, knew who the woman was. But this wasn’t the moment for dealing with that recognition.

  “The address, Roy,” Shane reminded him.

  “Bahama Street—301 Bahama Street.”

  Shane looked questioningly over his shoulder at Eden. She nodded, indicating to him that she knew the street and how to find it. His gaze rested on her face for a few seconds, and then he turned back to the caretaker.

  “I’m going to let you go now, Roy, but you’re gonna be real good. You’re not going to tell anyone we were here, because if you do…”

  “DO YOU THINK your threat was enough to keep him quiet?” Eden asked Shane when they were back inside the Toyota and on their way to Charleston.

  “Who knows? He’s certainly not going to open his mouth to the cops, but if he was lying about not having anything more to do with that pair who hired him…”

  “Then, even at the risk of you looking him up again and using him as—a punching bag, was it?—he could contact them about us. Providing, I suppose, they made it worth his while.”

  “Yeah, we already know Roy can be bought. We’ll just have to hope he was telling the truth.”

  There was something Shane needed to ask Eden. Something he had been wondering about ever since the caretaker had given them the address and he had turned his head and saw the startled look on her face. But he waited until they were a safe distance away from the motel to frame his question.

  “This woman, Harriet Krause. You recognized the name when you heard it, didn’t you? Or was it the address?”

  “Was I that transparent? It was so unexpected I suppose I was. No, it wasn’t the address. It was her name.”

  “You know her?”

  “There was a Harriet Krause who was a lab technician at the sperm bank I used. That is, if she’s still there. She worked in the clinic where Nathanial was conceived.” Her eyes left the road just long enough to seek his own gaze. To communicate to him the intensity of the emotions she must have been experiencing ever since the caretaker’s revelation. “Do you see what that means, Shane?”

  Shane was afraid that he did. The photograph he had been carrying, the brutal interrogation that had cost him his memory, the intention to confront him with this Harriet Krause—they were all a connection that could no longer be denied. “Yeah, I do. I’m involved somehow with your son.”

  Just how serious his involvement was scared the hell out of him. Could he have been responsible for the disappearance of Nathanial? Known where he was all these years? Was he even now concealing him?

  Eden gave voice to his fears. “That’s why those men grabbed and questioned you, isn’t it, Shane? God knows why, but it’s Nathanial they want. And they’re convinced you know where he is.”

  There was an edge of accusation in her tone. He didn’t blame her. Maybe it was all true. Maybe he was no better than Roy, a part of some rotten scheme for a mercenary purpose. Which didn’t make the urge he was feeling in this moment in any way reasonable. But it was there. Strongly there.

  He wanted to ask her to stop the car so that he could take her in his arms, comfort her in her distress. Hell, face it. He wanted to do a lot more than that. He wanted his mouth on hers, his tongue caressing her trembling lip, his nostrils inhaling her warm, womanly fragrance. Wanted to fill his hands with her breasts. Not to mention a few other things he wanted to do with her.

  Was I that transparent? That’s what she’d asked him. Was she? Or was it that he was just able to read her so accurately, sense her moods? As if she actually was his wife, he thought, glancing at the wedding band on her finger. And that feeling made no sense when he hadn’t known her two days ago, when their relationship could be measured in mere hours.

  Physical or emotional, whatever the explanation for his longing, his timing was all wrong. He suppressed his urge by turning to a practical matter.

  “This is Monday, Eden. A workday. It’s not very likely we’ll find this woman at home.”

  “You’re right. I think we’d better start by checking with the clinic to learn if she’s there. We’ll need a phone directory for the number. Look for a quick stop.”

  They found one shortly after crossing the bridge to the mainland. Purse hanging from her shoulder, Eden went into the building while Shane filled the car with gas. She was back within minutes bearing a plastic sack in one hand and waving her cell phone in the other.

  “I called while I was inside,” she reported. “We’re in luck. Not only does Harriet Krause still work there, they told me she went home early to nurse a cold. Oh, and I paid for the gas when I bought these.”

  “What is it?” he wondered, eyeing the sack.

  “Lunch.”

  It was long past midday, and they hadn’t eaten since their early breakfast at the houseboat. Shane welcomed the contents of the sack. They munched on fruit and cheese-filled crackers as they sped toward Charleston.

  Eden was silent at the wheel. A worried kind of silence. They were nearing the city when she spoke.

  “About those men. If they’re still in the area and desperate to get their hands on you again…”

  “Yeah, it could mean trouble.”

  “It isn’t just the risk of them hunting for you, bad as that is. It’s not understanding why they want you and how Nathanial may figure into it. What’s it all about, Shane?” she pleaded.

  He wished he had answers for her. He didn’t. “Let’s hope Harriet Krause can explain everything for us.”

  And revive his memory in the bargain, Shane thought. Because, although the woman’s name meant something to Eden, it meant absolutely nothing to him.

  IT WAS MIDAFTERNOON when they parked in front of 301 Bahama Street. The address was located in the historic area three blocks in from the harbor front. Harriet Krause’s vintage building was similar to Eden’s. Only, in this case, it was a double house. Like Eden’s, it had been converted into apartments. The mailboxes out front informed them that Harriet Krause’s apartment was on the second floor.

  There was an outside stairway at the back of a deep piazza. Shane, leading the way, hesitated at its foot. He was suddenly reluctant to see this woman, fearing what she had to say. By now, he wasn’t just wondering, he was convinced that he was implicated in some way with Nathanial. Or, anyway, the boy Eden believed was her son. How?

  Would Harriet Krause tell him? Would she ask him what he had done with the boy in the photograph? Demand to know where he had hidden him? Accuse him of holding the child against his will? Maybe for ransom? That’s what Shane didn’t want to hear. That’s what he didn’t want to learn about himself.

  “What is it?” Eden asked him.

  “Nothing,” he said, steeling himself to face the truth, no matter how bad it was. Alert for action should Harriet Krause not be alone in her apartment, he climbed the stairs ahead of Eden.

  There were two apartments off the landing at the top. Cards beside the doors identified the occupants. Harriet Krause’s was on the left. Eden knocked, and they waited. There was a peephole. Shane sensed a moment later that they were being checked through it. The door was unlocked then, drawn back a few inches on a security chain.

  “Yes?” A woman’s hoarse voice spoke cautiously through the crack.

  Shane let Eden do the talking.

  “Ms. Krause, I’m Eden Hawke. Do you remember me? I was one of the clinic’s clients about six years back.”

  There was a lengthy pause befo
re she replied. Shane had the impression it was an unwilling reply. “I remember. What do you want?”

  “Could we talk to you for a few minutes? Please, it’s very important.”

  Harriet hesitated again before asking suspiciously, “How did you know I was here?”

  “I called the clinic. They told me you’d come home with a cold.”

  “Then you should know I’m not in any state to have visitors. Come back when I’m feeling better.”

  We should have expected this, Shane thought. If she’s involved with those two gorillas, she would refuse to see us. But Eden wasn’t prepared to back off.

  “We could do that,” she said, “except this really can’t wait. It’s about my son, Ms. Krause, so I think, if you won’t talk to us, I should go down to the clinic and tell them what I’ve recently learned. I think your employers might be interested in hearing it.”

  Shane already admired Eden on a number of levels. But here was a new one. They had no actual knowledge of Harriet Krause being in any way connected with Nathanial beyond his conception, which made Eden’s subtle threat a bold gamble. Damn, if it didn’t work.

  “All right,” Harriet said. “But there is something I need to ask you before you come in. Are either of you wearing a fragrance, a strong aftershave or perfume? I have trouble tolerating them in a closed room, and feeling as I do, anything like that would be particularly bad.”

  Shane shook his head.

  “Me neither,” Eden assured her. “I do sometimes wear perfume, but not today.”

  Satisfied, Harriet nodded. “Hang on, then.”

  She closed the door in order to remove the chain. Eden and Shane exchanged glances that said: Looks as if Harriet Krause has a reason to be worried, and not just because of strong fragrances, either.

  If she was hiding something, though, her face didn’t show it when she opened the door fully this time and admitted them into her small, rather dim apartment. It was a long face framed in thinning, untidy hair and with a pink nose that was presumably the result of her cold. She was wrapped in a floor-length, terry-cloth robe.

  A pair of narrowed eyes rested on Shane. Does she know about me? he asked himself. Or is she just wondering who I am and what I’ve got to do with any of this? Eden enlightened her with no more than a brief introduction.

  Harriet nodded. “You’d better sit down,” she said, indicating a pair of easy chairs. She settled on a flowered sofa facing them. There was a box of tissues on one of the cushions. She reached for a tissue and dabbed at her nose. “Now, what’s this all about?”

  This was Eden’s turf, so Shane let her handle this one.

  Eden leaned earnestly forward in her chair. “You’re aware from the investigation at the time, Ms. Krause, that my son vanished three years ago. You probably also know that in all this time I was never able to discover what happened to him. But last Saturday night…”

  Shane listened silently while Eden went on to concisely relate everything that had happened since he had turned up on her piazza. He also watched Harriet. There was no emotion on her face, but she had several tissues in her lap now. Her nervous fingers were busy shredding them one by one.

  “I don’t see what any of this has got to do with me,” she said, when Eden had finished explaining why they were there.

  “Those men were bringing Shane to your apartment, Ms. Krause. They must have had a reason for that.”

  “I don’t know them. I can’t imagine why they might have been bringing this man to me.”

  “It looks like we’re wasting our time here, then,” Eden said to Shane. “I guess we’d better do what we should have done all along and take this to the police.”

  Harriet sent a look of appeal in Shane’s direction. He answered it with a smile and a little shrug.

  “I should warn you, though,” Eden said, “that the caretaker at the motel is prepared to name you if it comes to a police investigation.”

  Harriet was more than uneasy now. She was plainly scared. “Wait,” she said, as Eden started to get to her feet.

  “Yes?” Eden asked, her tone as casual as it had been with her lie about the caretaker.

  “It’s true that I don’t know these men, I swear. But if I help you by telling you what I do know, then you have to promise me—”

  Shane decided it was time for him to speak up. “No promises,” he said sharply. “Let’s hear what you have to say, and then we’ll decide what comes next.”

  Harriet looked undecided. She also looked miserable, probably more from their presence in her apartment than her cold. Shane watched her glance down and discover that the shredded tissues in her lap were useless. Taking a fresh one from the box at her side, she blew her nose.

  “It’s either tell us,” Shane pressed her, “or tell the police.”

  Harriet made up her mind. “All right,” she agreed. Tossing the crumpled tissue into a paper bag at her feet, she cleared her throat. “There are four apartments at this address. Two up and two down.”

  And what’s that got to do with anything? Shane wondered.

  “There used to be a fifth apartment,” Harriet continued. “Out back in this little building that was a kitchen in the slave days. It’s not occupied now. Well, it’s not much of an apartment, but it was all Lissie and her boyfriend could afford when they lived there.”

  “Lissie?” Eden asked, looking as puzzled now as Shane was.

  Harriet nodded. “Lissie Reardon.”

  Reardon. The name surfaced in Shane’s mind with the speed and brilliance of a strobe light.

  Chapter Seven

  Shane tried to hang on to it. But before he could make any sense of it, the memory was gone, sinking back into the maddening blackness of his subconscious.

  Eden was staring at him. She must have realized he’d just experienced another connection. Shane shook his head, indicating that the flash of memory, if it could even be called that much, had buried itself again before he could understand it.

  If Harriet Krause had noticed, she didn’t make any remark. “Lissie and I got to be close friends,” she went on. “Kind of funny since we were such opposites, but I liked her. She was this free spirit, which is why I guess she fell for an artist. Not a very good artist either, in my opinion, but Simon was sure serious about it.”

  “An artist,” Eden realized, looking suddenly tense. “Nathanial’s biological father was an artist.”

  Harriet avoided her gaze. There was a loose thread on the sleeve of her robe. She gave it her attention, plucking at it slowly, as though it were important.

  “Was he—”

  “Yes,” Harriet admitted. She sniffed and helped herself to another tissue, applying it to her raw nose. “Lissie was always complaining to me about how poor they were. Nobody was buying Simon’s paintings, and she was forever getting fired from these dead-end jobs. I asked her once if their families couldn’t help out, but she said her folks were gone and that Simon didn’t have any family either. So that’s when I told her about the sperm bank and how they paid good money to donors who qualified.”

  “And Simon did qualify,” Eden said.

  “Lissie joked about it, saying something about Simon being rich in sperm, if nothing else. I think he was unwilling at first, but she finally convinced him to apply.”

  “Red-gold hair and lavender-blue eyes,” Eden murmured, and Shane knew she was thinking of her son and that learning the identity of his father must be both exciting and troubling for her.

  “What?” Harriet asked.

  “Nathanial has red-gold hair and lavender-blue eyes.”

  Harriet nodded. “He got those from his father. Simon didn’t suffer in the looks department. Lissie went all to pieces when he died like that.”

  “A boating accident,” Eden said. “The court told my lawyer after the records were subpoenaed that he’d died in a boating accident.”

  “I guess you wouldn’t have been told that his girlfriend was in the boat with him. Lissie was badly injured.
Only, that wasn’t the worst of it.” Harriet paused to blow her nose again. “She was five months pregnant and lost the baby.”

  “And this happened while I was carrying Nathanial, right?”

  There was a horrified expression on Eden’s face. Shane could see that the same wild possibility that had just occurred to him had struck her as well. A blow that made him want to go to her and hold her. But she wouldn’t want him to do that, not when she needed to hear the rest of Harriet Krause’s story.

  “Lissie spent months recovering. I thought she’d start to feel better about everything once her injuries were healed. She didn’t. I mean, she just never seemed to get over grieving for Simon and that baby. And when they told her she could never have another…well, that made it all the worse.”

  Harriet resumed her nervous pulling at the loose thread on her robe, an occupation that permitted her to once again evade their gazes.

  “‘Simon is gone, Harry,’” she said to me. “‘I think I could accept that if I knew he was living on through a baby I couldn’t give him myself. You’ve got to tell me, Harry, whether there’s a kid of his out there somewhere. That’s all I have to know, no names or anything, just if there’s some part of him that will go on.’”

  Harriet looked up then from the thread, risked meeting their gazes. “Lissie was in a bad way,” she said. “And I just wanted to help her, you know?”

  She wants us to understand and forgive her, Shane thought. But there was no way to excuse what he realized Harriet Krause had gone and done. Eden’s tone told him that she agreed with him.

  “You told her about Nathanial.”

  “Just that there was a child, a boy. Nothing more than that.”

  “Not then maybe,” Shane said harshly. “But what about later on?”

  Harriet was silent for a moment, but she must have understood she had already gone too far to turn back. That there was no way for her to avoid the rest. “Look, it seemed to satisfy her,” she said, the cold-induced hoarseness in her voice growing more pronounced in her effort to finish the story. “Lissie got to be her old self. She got on with her life. And then, months later, I guess it was, she hooked up with some rock musician and left town. She was all excited about traveling with him around the country to his gigs. I didn’t hear from her again.”