Remember Me

by Sharon Sala

  But his angry expression seemed to have no impact on her. In fact, when the social worker sat down, the little girl took her thumb from her mouth and moved toward him, dragging her blanket behind her. To his discomfort, she walked all the way across the room, stopping only inches from where he sat. Her wide-eyed stare discomfited him, and for the first time in his life, Pharaoh Carn didn’t know quite how to react.

  “Get lost, kid.”

  She barely blinked.

  He had no way of knowing that her father’s hair had been black like his, and that her mother’s skin had been as smooth and brown as his own. All he saw was a little kid who should have been afraid, but wasn’t.

  “Francesca, come here, please,” the social worker said, but the little girl didn’t move.

  Pharaoh saw the woman stand, and he could tell by the set of her mouth that the kid was going to catch hell. In that moment, something gave way inside him that he hadn’t known was there.

  “It’s all right,” he mumbled. “She ain’t botherin’ me.”

  The woman hesitated, then shrugged and sat back down, keeping a close eye on the pair, nonetheless.

  “So, how old are you, kid?”

  The little girl held up four fingers.

  He nodded, then leaned back, thinking to himself that, for a kid, she was pretty cute. And her eyes—they cut right through his armor to the boy beneath.

  They stared at one another. Finally Pharaoh tried another approach, searching for something else that might elicit a verbal response.

  “So, your name is Francesca, is it?”

  Clutching the teddy bear a little tighter, she considered the question and then nodded.

  “My daddy calls me Frankie,” she finally said. And then her lips trembled, and the tears that had been threatening suddenly spilled. “My mommy and daddy went away. They went to heaven without me.”

  Pharaoh flushed. Damn, this was too intense. What was he supposed to do now? He looked up, certain that someone was going to blame him for her tears, but no one seemed to be paying them any attention. To his dismay, the flow increased. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, as he lowered his voice.

  “Look, kid, don’t cry, okay? I ain’t got no daddy either. That’s why I’m here. That’s why we’re all here.”

  She absorbed his words. “Are you sad, too?” she finally asked.

  Pharaoh straightened abruptly. “Hell no,” he muttered, then flushed again as he realized he shouldn’t have cursed in front of the kid. “But that’s because I’m grown-up. When you grow up, you won’t cry, either.”

  Then, because he didn’t want someone to accuse him of making her cry, he took the end of her blanket and gave it a swipe across her cheeks.

  “Here,” he said, pinching the end of her nose with a piece of the blanket. “Blow.”

  Pharaoh woke with a start, then glanced toward the clock. It was just after four in the morning, and he needed to pee. He considered ringing for the nurse, but shoved the thought aside. He was home. Surely he could manage that much on his own.

  With a groan, he sat up, gingerly inching his way to the side of the bed. Everything about him hurt, but the deepest pain of all was in his heart. There was an emptiness inside him that time couldn’t heal. Francesca was missing. They hadn’t found her body in the rubble of his home, so he wouldn’t let himself think that she’d died. But the hospitals were full of people who’d been injured, some still unidentified.

  Gritting his teeth against the bone-jarring pain, he stood, slowly making his way into the bathroom. A few minutes later, he came out, glanced at the bed and the jumble of sheets, and walked to the window instead.

  The security lights were bright against the darkness. In the circle of illumination, he could see movement beneath the shrubs. Probably an armadillo. He made a mental note to mention it to the gardener tomorrow. Then he amended the thought. It was already tomorrow.

  He laid the flat of his hand against the cold windowpane.

  “Be alive, Francesca…and be ready, because I’m coming for you.”

  Six

  It was just after two in the morning when Clay suddenly awoke. The house was dark, the bedroom silent, but his instincts told him something was wrong.

  Frankie!

  He bolted from bed, pulling on his jeans as he ran across the hall. The door to her room was open, her bed empty. Panic hit his heart first as he relived every horror from two years ago. He pivoted sharply, then started up the hall toward the front of the house. Almost immediately he saw flickering lights on the living-room wall and frowned. Had he left the television on?

  Then he saw her on the sofa, wrapped in her favorite blanket and crying quietly in the dark. The remote hung loosely from her fingers as she sat, mesmerized by the images on the screen.

  He took a deep breath, willing his panic to subside. All he could think was, thank God, thank God. Silently, he moved toward her, stopping behind where she sat, then leaning down to press his cheek against the back of her hair.

  “Francesca, what are you doing awake?”

  She jumped and looked up, relaxing only after she saw it was Clay.

  “You startled me,” she said, and then added, “I couldn’t sleep.”

  He cupped her cheek, wiping away tears with the ball of his thumb, then kissed the side of her face.

  “Are you all right?”

  For days, he’d been so cold—so distant. His unexpected sympathy was her undoing. Her words were a jumble of tears and disjointed sentences as she nodded, then pointed the remote at the screen.

  “Movie…so sad…loves her so much.”

  Clay glanced at the empty video box on the table, then hid a smile. It was one of his mother’s movies, and, as he remembered, pretty damned sad at that.

  “But it ends good,” he offered.

  Slightly mollified by his remark, she sniffed. “It does?”

  He looked down at those dark, tear-stained eyes and wanted to kiss her. As much as he wanted to give in to the urge, he stood fast. He’d been behaving like a fool ever since she’d come home. She would probably slap him.

  “Yes, it does.”

  She sniffled, then wiped her face with the end of her blanket.

  “Promise?”

  “I promise,” he said softly; then he eyed the empty end of the sofa she was sitting on. “Want some company?”

  Frankie’s heart stopped. Could this be an offering of peace? “Yes, please.”

  He circled the sofa, but instead of settling beside her, he scooped her up, blanket and all, and sat her in his lap.

  Frankie held her breath, waiting to see what came next.

  “Comfortable?” he asked softly, settling her firmly into the crook of his arm and rewrapping the blanket across her legs.

  Frankie’s heart was pounding. “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Warm enough?”

  Words left her. She nodded.

  “Where’s the remote?”

  She handed it to him, watching as his thumb centered on the volume and upped it a notch.

  “Can you hear that okay?” he asked.

  Over the thunder of my heart? “It’s fine.”

  “Okay, then.”

  Once again she managed to became lost in the heroine’s confusion. It wasn’t until the last scene was playing that she let out a sigh of relief. She looked up at Clay, her eyes bright, her heart lighter.

  “I love happy-ever-after endings, don’t you?”

  He smiled and nodded, but his belly was in a knot. After everything he’d put her through, she was still the gentle, forgiving woman that he’d fallen in love with and married. Why hadn’t he seen that before? Why, when she’d virtually returned from the dead, had he seen nothing but negatives? He should have been down on his knees thanking God, not looking for lies.

  “Frankie, I am so sorry.”

  She stilled. The moment she’d been praying for was finally here, and she was afraid to move for fear she would wake up and find herself
dreaming. She bit her lip, then tentatively reached for him, cupping the side of his face. His eyes closed as he turned toward her touch, then he kissed the palm of her hand.

  “I don’t do drugs,” she said, her voice shaking.

  He leaned forward until their foreheads were touching. “I know, baby, I know.”

  “I don’t know how the needle marks got on my arms, but I didn’t—”

  “Hush,” Clay begged, and pulled her into an embrace.

  Frankie shuddered. Of all the emotions she was feeling right now, the most overpowering was that of being safe.

  “I’m not lying to you. I want to remember.”

  “I know,” Clay said. “And you will…when it’s time.”

  She sighed. “I don’t know where I was, but I came back to you, didn’t I?”

  Clay’s conscience pricked. Why hadn’t that been enough?

  “Yes, Francesca, and I will be forever grateful that you did.”

  A long silence ensued before Frankie spoke again. This time, it was for him that she worried.

  “It was terrible for you, wasn’t it?”

  His arms tightened around her as he remembered the endless days and nights of torture, imagining her in every terrible situation—at times believing her dead. He nodded.

  “I’m sorry this happened to us.” She sighed, her voice full of regret. “We were so happy.”

  Clay looked up. “And we will be again. It just takes time to get past the shock.” He tried to smile. “Sometime after the first year had passed, I guess I gave up hope. In my heart, I believed you were dead. It was the only reason I could think of for why you would stay away.”

  Frankie wanted to cry all over again, only this time for her and Clay, not for the movie. “I can understand that, but I obviously didn’t give up on myself or on us. I came back to you, Clay. All I ask is that you bear with me a while. Help me find out what happened—and make sure it never happens again.”

  Clay’s smile disappeared. “Was that a warning, or were you being prophetic?”

  “Neither,” she said shortly. “Just facing a fact. I know I would never willingly leave you…so in my mind, there’s only one other reason for it happening.”

  “What?”

  “Somebody took me.” She shuddered. “What frightens me is that if it happened once, it could happen again.”

  Given everything they knew so far, she could be right. Danger could be anywhere, but they wouldn’t know what to look out for until she could remember where she’d been.

  “Come to bed,” he said. “There’s time enough to worry about all this later.”

  Frankie hesitated, almost afraid to ask as Clay helped her up from the sofa. “With you?”

  Clay tunneled his fingers through her hair and drew her close to his chest. “Yes, baby, with me—if you’re willing to sleep with a reformed jerk.”

  She wrapped her arms around his waist. For the first time since she’d regained consciousness in the hospital, she was beginning to believe everything would be all right.

  “I suppose I could set aside my prejudices for the night,” she said.

  He grinned. “Come on. It’s late, and you need to rest. Just because you’re out of the hospital, that doesn’t mean you can run roughshod over doctor’s orders.”

  “I was sitting down,” she protested as he led her into their room.

  “And now you’re going to lie down,” he said, straightening the covers as she crawled into bed.

  Moments later, he was lying beside her. An uneasy silence ensued.

  The sound of her breathing tugged at his heart. He hadn’t known how precious that small sound was until he’d lost it. Even though the bed was king-size, the surface seemed to have shrunk. For some reason, he felt hesitant to trespass into her space without her consent. It took a while for him to realize that the time she’d been lost had been longer than the time they’d been married. It seemed foolish, but he almost felt as if he was sleeping with a stranger.

  And then her voice broke the silence, and the moment he heard it, everything fell into place.

  “Clay?”

  “What, honey?”

  “Will you hold me?” she asked.

  Once again, he was struck with remorse that his own wife felt obligated to ask for what should have been an understood right.

  “It would be my pleasure,” he said softly, and opened his arms.

  Moments later, Frankie’s head was pillowed on his shoulder and one arm was across his chest. Soon the even rise and fall of her breathing told him that she’d fallen asleep. But sleep wouldn’t come for Clay. He kept thinking of what she’d said about being afraid it would happen again. What if she was right? What if she was in danger? Here they were, going about their lives as if nothing had happened. What was it the detective had said about the woman the cabby had picked up at the bus station? Oh yes, she’d come running out of the terminal as if she was being chased. His heart skipped a beat.

  At the time, the scenario had seemed so farfetched that he’d been inclined to ignore it. But what other explanation could there be? Her disappearance had been baffling. Her return was just the same. The fact that she’d been injured before she’d had time to explain could be nothing more than an unfortunate stroke of fate.

  With a reluctant sigh, he reached down and pulled the covers up over her shoulders, then closed his eyes and tightened his hold. Outside, the air was cold, the wind sharp. A new day was about to dawn.

  Pharaoh Carn sat before the window overlooking the back of his estate, sipping a cup of coffee and contemplating the dawning day. A rabbit’s-foot key ring dangled from the ends of his fingers as he gazed across the grounds.

  His night had been restless, his sleep disturbed more than once. Every time he closed his eyes, his mind went into replay mode. The rolling floor—the fear on Francesca’s face—falling backward down the stairs.

  After that, his memory faded. The rest was just bits and pieces: a man’s face leaning over him; being loaded onto a helicopter; and then his days in the hospital. The endless hours of strangers’ faces, and the poking and prodding and pain, all in the name of medicine. And in the background of it all, the knowledge that for the second time in his life, he’d lost his luck.

  He palmed the rabbit’s foot, knowing that this would not be enough mojo to offset the loss of Francesca, but at the moment, it was all he had. He put down his cup and then stood, before slowly making his way toward the fireplace and the brown leather sofa nearby. With a groan, he sank into its depths, stretching out on the four-cushion length and closing his eyes.

  He needed to rest. He couldn’t seem to concentrate for more than minutes at a time. The organization he had created demanded an authority figure in constant attendance. His weakness was dangerous. In his world, only the strong survived, and money and power were the ultimate goals. Strength equaled power. Power equaled control. And to continue to reign over the world he had created, he had to stay in control. But the silence of the room was seductive. Before he knew it, he had fallen asleep, once again slipping into the past through his dreams.

  Albuquerque, New Mexico

  Ten-year-old Frankie Romano giggled at the boy outside the schoolroom window. For the past six years, Pharaoh Carn had been the single most important person in her life. For a child stunned by the tragedy of her parents’ deaths and starved for the affection she’d been used to, his attention had been her salvation.

  Although he no longer resided at the home, Pharaoh Carn was now an employee there. A year ago, the courts had declared him an adult, and he’d moved out and into an apartment nearby.

  On the surface, he appeared no different than any other teenager of his era. But looks were deceiving. Pharaoh had a taste for luxuries, but without the education or patience it took to acquire them, he had turned to a life of crime. It was easy, it was fast and it presented a challenge that he couldn’t resist. He wanted everything—and he wanted it now.

  By the age of sixteen, Pharao
h had involved himself with a local gang. It hadn’t been easy. His time was restricted more than the normal teenager’s, but he quickly learned how to bypass the system in which he was caught.

  The past three years with the gang had been his only on-the-job training. Heisting cars had become a cinch, and he’d long since graduated from breaking and entering to armed robberies. Although he had yet to kill, he’d used a gun more than once in the act. Now that he was on his own, he drove a nice car, bought fancy clothes and sported a two-carat diamond stud in one ear. His good looks, dark eyes and thick, curly hair were a draw for the young women. He took from them what he wanted and tossed them aside like empty beer cans when he was through.

  But with Pharaoh’s exit from the orphanage had come a hitch in his plans for the future. He was young and strong and greedy. He wanted it all, and he wanted it now. But the flaw was having to leave Francesca behind.

  Superstitious to a fault, he firmly believed that Francesca Romano was his luck—that, with her, would come his full power. But she was only ten. It would be years before she could join him. Yet when that day came, Pharaoh firmly believed that, with her at his side, he would come into his own.

  So he had taken a job as a groundskeeper at Kitteridge House. If he couldn’t take her with him, the least he could do was protect his future.

  Over the years, he’d become her confidant, her protector and, at times, a substitute father figure. The little girl had brought out the only good there would ever be in Pharaoh Carn. From the day of her arrival, the people at the home had begun looking at him in a different light. It was as if they were seeing him anew through Francesca’s eyes. Everyone knew that children couldn’t be fooled, and it was obvious that Frankie Romano saw something in him that the others did not. Her dependence upon him and the adoration she gave him elevated him to something important—even something special. With her in his life, he could do no wrong. So when he saw her in the classroom with her chin in her hands, gazing longingly out the window toward the playground swings, he couldn’t help but make himself known.

  He watched her focus shift as he walked into her line of vision. When her expression changed and she began to smile, he felt lighter than air.