Within minutes, the others walked into the cottage, laughing at something that Beth had told them about one of Taylor’s childhood antics. Going into the living room, they sat down on the couch and chairs to wait for Aiden to begin. He was in the dining room, looking over the collection of items on the buffet, waiting to be cataloged by Taylor. Taylor had just sat down, but then quickly jumped back to her feet and moved in Aiden’s direction.
“Oh my, gosh, Dad, you aren’t going to believe what we found. Well, Barney found it. I still can’t believe it made through it the storm in one piece. Now where did it go? I know it was here this morning when we left; I was looking at it just seconds before we walked out the door.” A bit frantically, Taylor started moving things around, trying to find her own special treasure. After looking over everything, she glanced over at Megan with tears shining in her eyes, looking for assurance.
“You mean the box Barney found?”
Before Taylor could answer her, they all heard the puppy whine from under the dining room table. Pulling up the table cloth, Megan found the culprit looking back at her, a wooden object peeking out from under his chin. He must have stolen Taylor’s wooden box right off the table as soon as he had gotten inside the cottage. For some reason, he thought the box was his and he did not look happy when Megan held out her hand and told him to bring it to her. Barney was obedient to her and with his ears dragging dejectedly, he put the box in her hand with a final whine.
“Good boy, Barney. Here you go, Taylor.”
Taylor took it from Megan and looking at it fondly, ran her fingers over the engraved frog on the lid. She then turned and walked over to kneel in front of her father. Taking hold of his hand, she put the box in it.
“Dad, do you remember making this for me? I kept it for years, letting it hold only my most precious momentums. I can remember how excited I was when you gave it to me. I knew that you must have spent hours making it and the engraving of the frog prince was how I knew you had made it just for me.”
Tom looked down at the box Taylor was putting in his hands. He rubbed his fingers over the engraved frog. As he stared at the frog, his hands began to shake and his vision clouded over. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his sight, but when he focused, it wasn’t the hands of his nineteen-year-old daughter that he saw. Instead, he saw the hands of a child holding on to part of the box while his hands held the other. Shaking his head to clear the sight, Tom found himself getting dizzy and his vision clouded over completely. Vaguely, he could hear Taylor calling to him before everything went blank.
Chapter Fifteen
Aiden was the first one to see Tom start to fade and moving quickly behind him, eased him back against the cushions of the sofa. Taylor jumped to her feet and ran to get the water Aiden requested and the rest looked anxiously on and waited. Within moments, Tom was struggling to sit upright and was shaking his head to gain his bearings.
“Easy does it. Just take a couple of deep breaths and stay calm. You passed out on us for a couple of seconds there, Tom. You okay now?” Aiden put a restraining hand on the man’s shoulder as he voiced his concern while reassuring Tom.
“I spent hours making that little box for Taylor. I think I threw away enough wood to have made a chest in my attempts to get it just right for her.”
Everyone looked at Tom in astonishment. He sounded as if he remembered putting the work into the box’s creation. Opening his eyes fully, he looked into his daughter’s eyes and smiled sadly.
“I’ve missed so much. Taylor you’ve grown up to be a beautiful woman. You have a lot of your mother’s looks, but I see my mother’s eyes.”
Realizing that her father was okay, Taylor gave him a relieved hug. Beth looked over at him, puzzled.
“Tom are you saying you remember what Gina looks like, or are you going by the pictures Aiden has been showing you?”
“Mom, how could I ever forget those blue eyes of yours, is a mystery. Yes, I can remember Gina, and Taylor as a child and you and….”
“Oh, thank God!” Beth wiped the tears from those blue eyes and looked back at her son, smiling with joy.
Everyone started talking at once, questions where being thrown at Tom from all directions, each person wanting to find out what he remembered. Finally, Aiden got everyone to calm down and give the man some breathing space.
“Tom, just take your time. Don’t try to force any memories, let them come to you at your own pace. I know from experience with amnesia cases that the mind is only going to let so much come through at a time; your sub-conscience is going to try and protect you as much as it can. It’s been doing that for a long time.”
Tom took a deep breath and nodded to show he understood. Looking around at the faces anxiously watching him, he smiled and started to speak, his voice a bit shaky with emotion.
“I think it was seeing Taylor’s hands on that box, along with mine, that triggered my memory. It was like replaying the same moment that I had first given it to her, all over again. Like I said, I had spent hours on it trying to get it carved just right. The absolute joy on her face when I handed it to her was one of those perfect moments that will stay with you forever. No matter how deeply buried in my mind, it was not something I could forget when it was put right back in front of me.”
Aiden walked around to sit with Megan on the loveseat while Tom, Taylor, and Beth slowly started to go over the past as Tom remembered little snippets of their life together. Little things: like teaching Taylor to ride her bike, or helping his mother in her garden popped into his head. Items were coming back to him at random, in no chronological order. Megan and Aiden were silent letting the family have their time together. But as his memories began to return faster and closer to the time when Tom disappeared, Aiden called a stop to the conversations.
“Tom, I want you to step away from your family for a few minutes. We’re going to take a pad of paper and start writing down anything that comes to you regarding Jamison Imports, your partner Malcolm Fields, and the role your wife was playing with the bonded warehouse. Between Megan and myself, we will get all you can remember down on paper and then go back over what you remember and what we know. Beth, Taylor, I know you want to be with him, but these memories may be painful. Tom may try to suppress them again if he thinks you might be hurt by hearing them. I promise you, we will all have time together once this business is taken care of.”
“Of course, you’re absolutely correct, Aiden. Taylor and I can find plenty to do downstairs. This needs to be taken care of as quickly as possible. I don’t mind telling you that the faster we can put the people who attacked Tom behind bars, the happier I’ll be. I’m sorry to be so crass, Taylor; I realize your mother is involved, but what was done to my son is unimaginable and I won’t rest until those behind it get their payback.”
Beth stood up and straightened the hem of her blouse with a determined tug. There would be no peace for this woman until justice was served for the assault on her son. With an apologetic look at her granddaughter, she headed towards the door. Taylor surprised her yet again by jumping up and, after giving her father a quick hug, moved swiftly to Beth’s side, muttering under her breath something about evil souls and getting what they deserved.
It was eerily quiet when the door closed behind the two, as if their fury had sucked the air right out of the room. After a few seconds, Tom broke the silence.
“Wow. Mom always did have a temper, especially when it came to someone being violated. I’m glad to see that my daughter takes after her grandmother more than her mother. Thanks for stepping in, Aiden. You’re right, there are memories that are coming back that I do not want my daughter to hear about. Not yet, anyways. Okay, where do you want to start?”
“Let’s work it slowly. Start with what you can remember about the smuggling system Malcolm had created within the company. Don’t worry if things don’t come to you in order, we’ll sort everything out when you’re done. If you need to stop or take a break, just let me know. I’m going to rec
ord all of this as well so we will be able to use it as your statement. Megan can act as our witness that you were not forced in anyway.”
Tom closed his eyes for a few minutes, going over his thoughts, putting them into some order, before he opened them and looked at the two sitting across from him waiting to do what they could to help him through this.
“I think that it was Gina who inadvertently brought to my attention that things were off. She had been spending more money than our budget allowed. She always hated that … being on a budget. But I had learned early in our marriage that my wife loved beautiful things and didn’t care what the cost was; she had to have it. I can remember her spending the entire household budget on one dress, but didn’t have five dollars to pick up formula for Taylor. After that, I put her on a budget and had the housekeeper take care of the household expenses out of a petty cash fund I set up. Gina was furious. I know you’re wondering why this has anything to do with the smuggling. By the time I was growing suspicious, we were in separate bedrooms and I was pretty sure that my wife was having an affair with my business partner; well, I didn’t visit all that often, if you get my drift. Anyways, there was one afternoon when I got home to an empty house. I went to her bedroom to see if she was there, but she wasn’t. That’s when I saw the small arrangement of Chinese snuff bottles on her desk. These weren’t the knock off bottles that you might find in a small store on Worth Avenue. These were original seventeenth-century bottles that should have been in a museum, or at the least a private collection. I picked them up to verify, I dealt with this type of item every day with the decorators and collectors who use our company for bringing in this type of fine art. I was positive these were authentic. I had a very firm handle on what was imported into the US by not only us, but by our competitors. It is a very tight community working out of the Port of Miami, and we all kept each other informed of rare items such as these entering into customs. I decided not to say anything yet; I would go back and check the manifests on the shipments that were going directly to the bonded warehouse to be stored while they waited to clear customs.”
Tom paused and took a swallow of his bottle of water Taylor had brought him earlier. Megan could hear the disgust in his voice as he remembered his wife’s betrayal.
“Malcolm Fields was a partner in the company with about twenty shares. Gina had ten shares, and my mom had ten shares, I held the controlling portion with sixty. But even so, I had let Malcolm handle most of the activity with the bonded warehouse section of the company. The majority of the work came from the import business, so I was happy to let him take over the other end of the business. In hindsight, I should have known better. Gina had introduced us and right away he had started singing the praises of providing a bonded warehouse for our clients. On the surface, it made perfect sense and to be honest, I had a small daughter that I wanted to spend as much time with as I could. So I let things get away from me. When I tried to question Malcolm about the type of shipments and cargo that were coming in, he stonewalled me. Always too busy to answer me directly or completely. When I went back to double check on the bottles on Gina’s desk, they had disappeared. There wasn’t much I could do without any proof, so I started to pay more attention to the gossip within the art community. The general scuttlebutt was that there was a new source for small antiquities and rare coins. Items that could easily be added to the crate after it had cleared customs on the Chinese side and be removed while in a bonded warehouse on the US side before it had to go through customs.” Tom took a swallow of water and continued.
“I knew in my heart what was going on in my own company, but I didn’t know what to do next. So I contacted an old friend, who was a mentor to me when I was just starting in the industry and he put me in contact with Aiden. Things began to move quickly at that point. We needed to get solid evidence that these artifacts and rare coins were indeed coming out of my warehouses.”
Tom suddenly stopped his narrative and looked at Aiden, complete astonishment on his face. He looked around quickly as if he had forgotten something and then back at Aiden.
“Did you bring up that bag we had retrieved from the cabin before we came here?”
“No, it’s still in the car. Hold on, Tom! I can call one of the agents down there to bring it up here. We’re trying to take things slow for now, remember?” Slowing the man down when he looked like he was going to bolt out the door, Aiden used his cellphone and sent a text message to one of the agents, requesting that he bring up the bag Tom was clearly so worked up about.
Once the agent had brought the bag to them, Tom got up and grabbed it, sorting through the items inside. Piles of notes that he had made as he had tried to find out who he was, the same notes Charlotte had seen, were placed on the coffee table in front of him. He went through each of the folders until he found a plastic bag with a few loose coins in them. Pouring the coins into his shaky hands, Tom looked them over carefully before handing them to Aiden.
“When I was found, the doctor at the hospital gave these to me, saying that they had been inside my socks when they admitted me. Neither of us knew what kind of currency they were, so I just put them aside. But now I’m sure that they are some of the Chinese coins that were being smuggled into this country. I can remember finding them in the warehouse; there were quite a few of them packed in with some spices and teas from the Caribbean. I took a few as evidence, but didn’t want to let Gina find them on me. And look at this.” He held up a tiny glass plunger, like what you would find as part of an expensive bottle of perfume. Except this was carved with exquisite detail out of ivory.
“This is the top of a snuff bottle. Again more evidence that I took to get to you, Aiden.”
“Why in the world would they be packing them into crates with spices from the Caribbean if they had already made it in from China?” Megan asked, puzzled.
The three of them looked at each other, trying to figure out why there would be a need for the items to be smuggled into crates of spices and teas when they had already safely made it into the US. Tom seemed to stall with his story and looked exhausted.
“Why don’t we take a break, get some food in us and then start again. I have a couple of questions that need answers; I think we can find them in my case notes. So why don’t we work on things from that angle for a bit?”
“Yeah, I could use a break. Megan, why don’t you let me cook up something for lunch; that will relax me.”
“Sure, Tom. I’m more than willing to turn the kitchen duties over to someone else. While you’re doing that, I’m going to take the dog for a walk. I’ll let Taylor and Beth know we’re taking a lunch break and send them up to give you a hand. Come on, Barney.” The dog looked up from his spot by the front door and wagged his tail, excited to be going outside again.
Megan waved to Robert and walked over to him. He seemed to be inspecting the ramp reconstruction.
“Everything okay, Megan?”
“Yes, we seem to be making some progress. I know Charlotte has filled you in on what we are doing, and I just wanted to thank you for being here. It’s reassuring knowing that there is someone we know and trust looking out for us as well as the agents Aiden had sent in.”
“I’m here as long as you need me to be. Besides, it is nice to be away from the groves and out on the water for a change. This makes it almost seem like a mini holiday for me. You be careful going down that ramp; it’s not finished yet. That dog of yours is anxious to get somewhere, so I’ll speak with you later.” Tipping the brim of his worn baseball cap, Robert let her pass.
When Megan and Barney returned from a short walk, she found Taylor and Beth going over some of the procedures Taylor had implemented with one of the legitimate volunteers. As soon as they finished, Taylor turned to Megan with a hesitant smile.
“How’s my dad doing, Megan? Is he handling the return of his memory without too much distress?”
“He’s holding up pretty good. We’re going to take a lunch break and thought you both might want
to come and join us. I think having your support right now would be good for him. Not all the memories are crystal clear and he is frustrated with that. We need you to convince him to not push so hard. Aiden thinks if he just lets things come easily, then it will be less pressure and the memories will be clear. Personally, I think part of his block is because he doesn’t want to confront the facts about the smuggling and the implications that it means for his business and marriage.”
“You might be right about that, but I know my son and I have to believe that he knew his marriage was on its last legs when he agreed to help the FBI. I think he might be more worried about how this is all going to affect Taylor. You, Taylor, are going to have to go up there and show your father what a strong young woman you really are and let him know that you are behind him a hundred percent.”
“That will be no problem, Nana. I want Malcolm Fields out of our life and my dad back in, where he belongs. If that means that I might lose my mother in the process … well, if I’m honest I lost her a long time ago by her choice.”
The two Jamison women looked at each other with understanding, then put aside the paperwork they had been working on and led the way back up the ramp with Megan and Barney following behind. Watching them, she could see that they were making a unified front for Tom and she smiled to herself as she thought that she would not want to be the person who tried to come between any of the Jamisons.
Walking back into the cottage, Megan found that Tom had started to prepare lunch. Robert was also helping leaving Taylor and Beth to add their helping hands; Megan went to talk with Aiden.
“Hey there. Find any earth shattering evidence that we missed the first couple of times we went over those files? I don’t know how you do it, reading and re-reading, looking for that one little detail that could make or break your case.”
SCENT OF A MYSTERY...A CITRUS BEACH MYSTERY (Citrus Beach Mysteries Book 2) Page 15