Lost Identity

by Leona Karr

  As Janelle closed the door behind them, Trish felt as if she’d run a gauntlet, and for a moment, she just stood there, trying to catch her breath.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Janelle apologized. “It’s just that everyone was ready to go a memorial service, and now here you are, in living color.” She searched Trish’s face. “Are you all right?”

  “I guess that depends upon your definition of all right,” Trish answered dryly. How could she explain how totally inadequate she felt to someone as competent as Janelle?

  “Does anything seem familiar?” Janelle prodded. “Any of the people? This office? The view?”

  Trish walked over to a polished executive desk and let her fingers touch the smooth surface. I’ve spent hours at this desk and I don’t remember even one of them. Slowly, she sat down in a swivel chair behind the desk, and with a detached sense of a visitor, surveyed the neat placement of everything on it. Instead of touching anything she just folded her sweaty hands on the desk. There was one photograph in a leather frame. Recognizing herself, she stared at a slender, older man standing beside her.

  “My father?” she asked, and Janelle nodded.

  She could hear voices in the outer office, and echoing noises from the street below. Looking around the spacious office, she studied the expensive furnishings which she must have chosen. A conversational grouping of a white leather sofa and two chairs were set around a coffee table holding a fresh bouquet of flowers and a silver tea set.

  How many cups of tea have I poured sitting there? she wondered.

  Janelle had remained silent, waiting for Trish to say something. Both of them jumped when there was a buzz on the intercom. Trish automatically reached for a button, and then froze as a spurt of joy flooded through her. It was a small thing, but she’d remembered. Instinctively she’d responded correctly to the signal. It was the only thing that had happened since her arrival at the office that made her feel she might belong here.

  “Yes, Agnes,” she answered, remembering that Janelle had addressed the secretary by that name.

  “I know that you didn’t wish to be disturbed,” the woman apologized, “but there’s a policeman here who insists on seeing you, Ms. Radcliffe.”

  Janelle moved quickly to the door. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “No,” Trish said quickly. “I’ll see him.”

  Janelle looked as if she were going to argue, and then shrugged. “Okay. If you’re sure you feel up to it.”

  Lieutenant O’Donnel was a heavyset man in his early forties. He had receding gray hair, a round face, and glasses, which were perched rather clumsily on his generous nose. There was nothing intimidating about him, and Trish found herself relaxing the minute he introduced himself and held out a soft thick hand for a shake.

  “Well, now, it’s more than a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Radcliffe. We don’t have many missing person cases that end so happily. I just need to ask you a few questions to close up the file.”

  “Why don’t we sit over here?” Trish motioned toward the sofa and chairs, and then gave Janelle a questioning look. “You don’t need to stay unless you want to.”

  “Why don’t I just leave the door to my office open in case you need me? My office adjoins yours on one side and Perry’s on the other. It’s a time-saver not to have to go out into the hall to talk with one another,” she explained. “Curtis chose an office at the other end of the hall.” She winked at Trish. “He likes his privacy.” Then she gave the detective a pointed smile. “I’m sure the lieutenant won’t keep you very long your first day back.”

  “Not long at all.” He nodded readily.

  Janelle left and the policeman settled down in one of the leather chairs. “Nice,” he said patting the soft arms. “Must have cost a pretty penny.”

  Trish gave him a noncommittal smile as sat down on the sofa. She also knew he was just trying to set her at ease, but she also knew that his report was going to take her back over the same bewildering circumstances that still had no answers.

  He began with routine questions, making sure that the report the hospital had given him was correct. He accepted her state of amnesia as justification for leaving a lot of the form blank. He seemed to just want to get her case off the active list, and she didn’t even realize how subtly his questioning began to change. Suddenly they weren’t talking about her anymore, but about Perry Reynolds.

  She stiffened as he chewed thoughtfully on the end of his pen for a moment. “Let’s see, the two of you disappeared at the same time. During the storm, was it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “No, of course not. Sorry about that. We do know he was your partner in this company. I suspect you saw a lot of each other—but, of course, you don’t remember that.”

  The way he said it, the smile on his round face didn’t reach his eyes. He doesn’t believe me. The shock left her momentarily speechless.

  “I have a missing person’s report on Perry Reynolds filed by his wife.” He pulled out another paper from his briefcase. “She says here that she’s sure he was meeting you on the day he disappeared—the day that both of you disappeared,” he corrected himself. “It’s kinda puzzling, isn’t it? You show up nearly drowned on a beach, and he doesn’t show up at all.” He peered at her, over his glasses, waiting for her response.

  She knew then that he wasn’t there to fill out a missing person’s report. Lieutenant O’Donnel might not even be with that department. His next words verified her suspicions.

  “We’re looking into Perry Reynolds’s disappearance very closely. I don’t think Mrs. Reynolds believes her husband is really missing at all. She’s making noises like she thinks he’s just pulling a disappearing act on her.” He peered over the glasses set crookedly on his nose. “What do you think, Ms. Radcliffe?”

  He tried to pose it as a friendly question, but Trish knew that it was a baited hook. Her temper flared. “Mrs. Reynolds has already made her suspicions known to me. I didn’t have any answers for her, and I don’t have any for you.” She was pleased with the strong fiber of her reply.

  O’Donnel sighed as he replaced the papers. “I reckon we’ve got a puzzle here, with some of the pieces missing.” As he stood up, he thanked her for her time. “Maybe we can have another chat sometime—when you begin to remember things—if you do.”

  Janelle came through the door so quickly that Trish suspected she’d been listening all the time.

  “I don’t see how badgering Ms. Radcliffe is going to help anything,” she snapped. “You have the hospital reports. Isn’t the verification from professionals good enough for you boys? Or don’t you understand exactly what amnesia is?”

  “Yep, I know. Loss of memory. Sometimes it comes and goes. Kinda convenient like.” He gave them a nod of his round head. “Good day, ladies,” he said, and left through the door that Janelle was holding open for him.

  Curtis was in the outer office as the policeman took his leave. He shot a look at the retreating policeman and then came quickly into Trish’s office.

  “What in the hell did he want?” Curtis demanded.

  Trish was too sick at heart to answer, but Janelle said curtly, “Lieutenant O’Donnel doesn’t believe she has amnesia. He thinks she knows where Perry is hiding out.”

  “Is that true, Trish?” Curtis asked with questioning eyes.

  “What in the hell do you think?” Trish snapped.

  Curtis and Janelle exchanged glances as if to say, “The old Patricia is back!”

  Trish was tempted to walk out of the office right then and there. Only one thing stopped her. Running away was only a solution if you had some place to run to.

  Chapter Ten

  Curtis walked quickly over to Trish and put his hands on her shoulders. “Honey, the police put blinders on when they’re under pressure to solve a case. Don’t give their stupidity another thought. Just take your time. Everything will work out. You wait and see.”

  As he smiled at her, she searched his face. Loo
king into his hazel eyes and following the lines of his jaw and dark hair, there was nothing in her memory to verify that they had ever been friends—let alone lovers. She mentally stiffened. This stranger was the man she was going to marry.

  She resisted the urge to turn her back on all of them, and admit total defeat. How could she even begin to cope when there were so many unanswered questions? She walked over to the window, staring out at the infinity of tall buildings hemming in the New York skyline.

  According to Janelle, Trish had lived all of her life in the city, except for the years she was away at boarding school in upstate New York. This was her home territory. She should have felt comfortable with the cacophony of street noises. Instead, she longed for a quiet beach where the seagulls’ wings and the lapping and sucking of the relentless surf were the only sounds to break the hushed silence.

  She could hear Curtis and Janelle talking quietly behind her, but with a demanding tumult in her own mind, she didn’t even try to overhear what they were saying.

  She was startled when Curtis touched her arm. “Honey, Janelle and I agree, you should get out of here. There’s no reason to put you under this kind of torture. We can keep things under control until you’re ready to take up the reins again.”

  “It’s too soon for you to be loaded down with business problems, especially with all this other pressure that Darlene and the police are putting on you,” Janelle agreed.

  “We only want what’s best for you, Patricia,” Curtis told her in his people-management voice.

  Patricia. Why did she keep feeling that they were talking about someone else when they used that name? Sighing, she lifted her head and replied, “Yes, I think it would be better to save all of this for another day.” When I feel more like Patricia Radcliffe.

  “There’s a nice little French restaurant that is a favorite of yours for lunch.” He hesitated as if unsure how to proceed, and searched her face warily. “If you’re agreeable, we could go there and maybe talk?”

  Her first impulse was to refuse, but she knew that sooner or later the history between them would have to be faced. She’d rather hear the scenario about their relationship from Curtis than secondhand from someone else.

  “All right,” she agreed. An expression of obvious relief crossed his face, and she realized then how difficult this must be for him. Not only had she broken off plans to marry him, but now she didn’t even remember him in the vaguest way. His ego must really be taking a beating, she thought. There was every indication that Curtis Mandel was a man used to getting his way, and for a moment that realization gave her a strange sense of uneasiness.

  Janelle beamed. “I think that’s a great idea.”

  “I have a few things to collect from my office, and I’ll have to call the restaurant for reservations,” said Curtis. “Why don’t you come along with me, and see if anything there seems the least bit familiar to you?” The way he asked her gave the impression that she’d spent a good deal of time with him in his office.

  “All right,” she said, steeling herself for another emotional drain.

  As they walked down the hall to his office several people smiled and nodded knowingly as if the two of them being together was a familiar sight. Trish’s spirits sank even lower when she saw a picture of herself and Curtis in a gold frame on his desk. They were in evening dress, apparently dancing in a ballroom with a background of glittering decorations behind them.

  Following her studied gaze, he said, “That was taken at the Waldorf Astoria, during the company’s annual Christmas bash. Perry believed in doing things with expensive finesse. Your ideas were a little less flamboyant. Maybe it’s a good thing you don’t remember all the arguments you two had about that party every year.”

  “Was he a hard man to work with?”

  “Sometimes,” Curtis said shortly and then seemed to catch himself talking negatively about his other boss. “Perry was right on top of things, though. He liked to spend money, but he knew how to make it—for all of us.”

  “Do you think Darlene has a right to be suspicious?” She hated asking the question because she didn’t know what part she herself might have played in his disappearance. “Is there any validity to her accusations that he might be staging all of this?”

  Muscles tightened in Curtis’s neck cheeks. “I don’t know. I really don’t know. It’s true that you were really the only one that had his confidence. I can’t really believe he’d betray you—unless he had no other choice.”

  ANDREW HURRIED THROUGH his morning work with only part of his mind on business, and the rest on Trish. He’d called her apartment earlier and Sasha had told him that she and Janelle had gone to the office.

  Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was a little early for lunch, but the Atlantis offices were only a few blocks away, and if he could catch her at lunch, maybe she’d agreed to have a bite to eat with him so they could talk.

  As he pushed his way though the throng of people choking the sidewalks, he felt like an adolescent hurrying to see his girlfriend. This driving need to be with someone was new to him. He’d never had anyone get to him the way Trish had. His every thought, dream, and desire was centered on her. He’d spent hours trying to come to terms with a tenuous hope they could overcome all the obstacles between them.

  She had to be told about the private eye that Darlene had hired to follow her, but he had to handle it in a way that wouldn’t add to her load of insecurity. More than anything, he wanted to let her know that he was there for her, reassuring her that she wasn’t alone.

  This thought was at the front of his mind as he neared the front of her office building. Then he stopped short right in the middle of the sidewalk. His mouth suddenly went dry as he recognized the couple emerging from the front door.

  There was no mistake. Curtis waved down a cruising taxi, and put a guiding hand on Trish’s arm as he helped her into the car. Then smiling, he disappeared into the back seat with her. The taxi sped away, leaving Andrew standing alone on the sidewalk.

  He swore, turned away and headed back toward his office. He couldn’t get the picture of the fashionably dressed, well-to-do Trish and Curtis out of his mind. If there hadn’t been such pain in his chest, he would have laughed aloud. What had he been thinking? He should have known that once Patricia Radcliffe found her true self, his homeless refugee would disappear. Only a fool would have believed things would end any differently. For damn sure, he was a slow learner. Once more, he’d experienced the pain of letting his feelings get the better of his common sense.

  THE FRENCH RESTAURANT was elegant and exclusive. A soft trickling of a small fountain and lush greenery absorbed the sounds of muffled voices and the efficient service of the staff. A smiling maître d’ acknowledged them as regular customers and Trish’s stomach tightened as he led them to what he referred to as “their regular table.”

  Curtis held her chair as she sat down, and then took the chair opposite her. The table was beautifully set with fragile china and glistening silverware. Her traveling gaze flowed over Parisian prints on the wall, the wrought-iron tables and chairs and the embossed menu in her hand. Curtis had said that this was a favorite restaurant of hers. Surely, there would be a flicker of familiarity about something from her past?

  She only glanced at the menu, certain that everything was delicious and beautifully prepared, but at the moment the last thing she was interested in was culinary art.

  “You order,” she said, closing the menu.

  “All right,” he answered readily. “Would you like your usual?”

  “And what would that be?”

  He flushed. “I’m sorry. You don’t remember what your favorite is, do you? It’s sautéed grouper fillet. And you always order a glass of white wine to go with it.”

  She felt like a child who was being tutored by an adult, and she wished to heaven she’d never agreed to have lunch with him. She distanced herself from the situation, and pretended to look at an ebony statue of a nymph while he g
ave their order to the waiter.

  Last night’s dinner with Andrew seemed ages ago. She wondered if Andrew was having lunch somewhere in the city. She wasn’t sure whether he was working at home or at the office. He had dismissed her so abruptly last evening, there hadn’t been a chance to make any kind of future date. She still smarted from his curt goodbye, but maybe she should have swallowed her pride and taken his call—

  “Patricia? Patricia.”

  Curtis’s rather impatient voice broke into her reverie. For a moment the unfamiliar name didn’t capture her attention. Then she came to with a start. “Yes, Curtis?”

  “I was saying that the best way to handle all this nonsense with Darlene and the police is simply to ignore their ridiculous suspicions. You don’t have to put up with that kind of harassment.”

  “What do you think happened to Perry?” Trish asked him with a directness that surprised her. Everyone else was in a better position to figure out the truth than she was. Maybe it was time she demanded some answers of her own.

  Curtis’s brow furrowed. “I honestly don’t know. Perry seemed preoccupied that last week. I knew he had something on his mind, but I just figured that his wife and son were giving him a hard time. Gary is always needing money to get him out of one scrape or another, and Darlene had insatiable ambitions about keeping up with the upper crust.”

  “What was my relationship with him?” Trish demanded bluntly.

  “I’m not sure.” He was silent for a moment, fingering a folded napkin as if trying to decide the best way to say something.

  Trish stiffened. Was he going to talk about their broken relationship? She watched his smooth white hands and long fingers smoothing the cloth, and she felt a chill. Had she experienced those hands caressing her?

  “Are you chilly?” he asked when he saw her shiver. “They always have the air-conditioning set so high that one needs a jacket.”