by Julie Miller
“You really can’t remember who you are?” Tika finally asked.
She shook her head. “I’m hoping you can help me with that.”
“I have no idea,” Tika said.
She tried not to let the disappointment swamp her. She needed to think. “But our visit here didn’t surprise you,” she said.
Tika shook her head. “My ex-husband was waiting for me as I left the day care this morning after dropping off my son. I was on my way to work but after we talked, I decided to come home. I wasn’t up to facing the office. He told me about your visit to his house yesterday.”
“What did he tell you?”
Tika hesitated. Then she shrugged. “He said that he’d catered a wedding reception for an old acquaintance from Moldaire College. That he hadn’t wanted to but he owed the man and this would pay the debt.”
“Owed?” Cal asked.
Tika shook her head. “I don’t know the details. I don’t want to know. There were things about my ex-husband that I discovered after we were married that didn’t make me happy. That’s one of the reasons we’re no longer married.”
“He said the man had showed him a picture of his fiancée and when you came to his door, he knew that you were the same woman. He also knew that something had gone wrong. The man had come with some friends to pick up the food. They made one trip out to their car but there was more stuff. He was waiting for them to come back for the second load. They didn’t. Finally, he went outside to see what was going on. They were very agitated. They didn’t realize that Pietro speaks Russian. They were talking about how the woman had disappeared. About that time a couple cops drove in and the men got the hell out of there, without ever getting the rest of the food.”
“Pietro asked me about the roast pork and rosemary potatoes.”
“Yeah,” Tika said. “That’s what they left behind. When you said it was good, he knew you were lying.”
“Can you tell me the names of the men?” Cal asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know their names. I don’t want to know their names. He referred to the man who had contacted him as Golya. I don’t know if that’s a first or last name.”
Cal showed no reaction to the name. She understood. There was no reason for Tika to know that it meant something to them. “Did he contact Golya and tell him that we’d been at his house?” she asked.
Tika shook her head. “No. That’s why he decided he needed to disappear for a few days. He said that if Golya found out that the missing woman had been at his house and that he’d simply let her go, he would be very angry. Maybe angry enough to kill him.”
“Why did he let me go?”
“I got the impression that he thinks Golya is crazy. Like really crazy as in mentally ill. He did say the man is a mean son of a bitch and he didn’t want any part of sending you back to him. I really do think my ex is trying to be a better person.”
“How would Golya have found out Stormy was there?” Cal asked.
Tika pointed her finger in their general direction. “Even without his help, Pietro was confident Golya would find her. And then he assumed that she would probably tell Golya about the visit, not realizing the jeopardy it would put Pietro in. Unfortunately, he didn’t think about this until he’d let her drive away.”
“So he was simply going to hide forever?” Cal asked, shaking his head.
“Not forever. He seemed to think that Golya was headed back to Russia very soon, maybe within days.”
“Why did he think that?” she asked.
“Something Golya said about his bride learning to love Russia when it was her new home.”
She looked at Cal. If she hadn’t managed to get away, would they have somehow managed to get her out of the United States and into Russia?
“We really need to know more about Golya,” Cal said. “Surely you can contact your ex-husband. He would have given you some way to do that in the event something happened to your son.”
Tika shook her head. “There was no need. I have sole custody of my son. I am his mother. Pietro is not his father. Another reason why our marriage didn’t work. My son does not understand the particulars yet. He is too small. The truth is known by just a few people. But if something happens to my son, I would call his real father, not Pietro.”
“Given that, it seems odd to me that he came here this morning,” she said. “Why tell you all this?”
Tika shrugged. “I don’t think he has anybody else. And to tell you the truth, I think he just wanted somebody to know in case he did suddenly turn up dead. I wish he wouldn’t have. I’d rather not know.” Tika stood up and looked at her watch. “When I saw the two of you on the porch, I wasn’t going to answer the door. I don’t want any of this ugliness touching me. But then I figured that you’d probably just come back and Jacob might be here then.”
Tika walked over and opened the front door. “I’ve told you everything I know. Now I’m asking you nicely. Please just leave my house and forget that we ever had this conversation because that’s what I’m going to do.”
She stood up. “I know you said that you couldn’t get a message to Pietro. But if you could,” she added, “you can assure him that I won’t say anything about seeing him to the men who hired him to do the catering. It’s not my intent to put anyone else in danger.”
Tika shrugged. “I got the impression from Pietro that these are not nice people. You should probably be worried about yourself.”
* * *
SHE AND CAL were back in the car before Cal spoke again. “It’s starting to make some sense,” he said.
“How’s that?” she asked, shaking her head.
“Most of the time, kidnappers never intend to return the victim. They keep the person until they are no longer valuable to them and then dispose of them. For that reason, they rarely care if their victim can describe them. But in your case, it was different. The person who interacted with you, the Ghost, was careful that you couldn’t identify him.”
“He never hurt me. Just kept me drugged up and then got me dressed in that awful wedding dress. I don’t understand why G would think that I would be any happier being his bride in Russia than in the United States.”
“Tika said that Pietro thought he was mentally ill. Maybe he was confident that he could win you over. Maybe he thought you’d fall in love with Russia. Maybe he was going to keep putting pills in your coffee so that you were a little doped up for the next twenty years.”
“But why?”
“That’s easy,” Cal said. “You’re very beautiful. To a man like him, having you as his wife would be a great accomplishment.”
She looked at her still-bruised wrists. “He would have had to tie me to the bed for the next twenty years.”
“There are other forms of coercion that make a person stay in a bad marriage,” he said, his tone gentle.
She didn’t need him to spell it out. What would have happened if she’d gotten pregnant? Even if she despised the father, she would never have left her child behind.
“We need to go to Moldaire. I know it’s dangerous but time is running out.”
“If indeed there is something significant about Saturday,” he countered.
“There is,” she said. “I know it.”
He put the car in gear. “We can be there in forty-five minutes. We may want to make a stop on the way.”
“Where?”
“When G and Bad Knee were at the house, I could smell cigar smoke on them. I asked if they had any matches. They tossed me a half-used book. It was from someplace called Raftors. I did a quick search this morning. It’s a lingerie shop.”
“Lingerie? Is that code for something?”
He shook his head. “Appears legit. At least the front of the house. Not sure what goes on in the back rooms.”
&nb
sp; “Why didn’t you say anything before this?” she asked.
“I thought you might get a little freaked out thinking about G buying lingerie.”
“It makes me sick,” she admitted. “Because it was probably going to be presented to me on my wedding night. But it’s a clue. I’m glad you told me.”
“I’m not sure there’s much to be gained by going there.”
“Maybe not, but it’s on our way. We shouldn’t ignore it.”
“Okay,” he said and started driving.
They were fifteen minutes from the college and passing a small private airstrip when a memory so strong, so poignant, had her clenching her stomach.
“What’s wrong?” Cal asked immediately.
“Mia. Mia died in a plane crash.”
“Okay.” His voice was steady, which was good because she felt about ready to spiral right out of her body.
“Tell me about it,” he said. He kept driving but she could tell that he reduced his speed, as if he was getting ready to pull over or stop suddenly if necessary.
“Her best friend’s dad was a pilot. She frequently flew with them. They were going to their cabin at the lake one summer evening when their plane crashed. Mia, her best friend, both the parents. Everyone died upon impact.”
He was silent for a few minutes.
She could feel herself get more in control.
“What was her friend’s name?” he asked.
“Misty. It was always Misty and Mia. M&M, like the candy.”
“What was Misty’s last name?”
“Wagner. Misty Wagner.” She shook her head. “How can I remember her best friend’s name and I can’t remember Mia’s?”
He shrugged. “Easy. You probably heard your parents say a hundred times things like make sure it’s okay with the Wagners or the Wagners will drop Mia off later. They probably never referred to Mia by her last name.”
It made sense. Suddenly something else was making a lot of sense. “It was a plane crash. Four people died. It had to have made the papers. There has to be some record. If I can find that, I can find Mia’s last name. I can find myself.”
He nodded. “It’s a possibility.”
She hadn’t surprised him and she realized that he’d been going down that path from the minute she’d said that her sister had died in a plane crash.
“Where did the crash occur?” he asked.
She thought. “I don’t know. I’m not sure it’s something that I’ve forgotten. It’s possible that I never knew. At seven, it probably didn’t matter to me. And my parents never talked about it.”
“Where was the lake house?”
She shook her head. “On a lake?” she said, throwing both hands up in the air. It was so frustrating.
He smiled. “We can find it.” He held out his phone.
“I hope so. I know the month and year of the crash and I’m pretty sure that Mr. Wagner was a big shot in business. He ran some company.”
“What was his first name?”
“Steve. I think. Look, I know it’s not much but I think the crash got lots of press. I can remember my mother, years later, talking about what vultures some reporters could be. I guess a few camped out in our front yard, wanting a quote.”
She opened the browser on the phone and searched. Nothing. Damn it. She’d been so sure.
After ten minutes, he said, “If it happened twenty-five years ago, then perhaps the news coverage was never in digital form. We may need to dig deeper, to actually look for a hard copy of an article. We should probably try the library in Kansas City.”
She nodded. “It’s worth a try. But not the public library. Let’s go to the library at Moldaire College. The college is at the center of all of this. I know it. It’s time to figure this out.”
But before they got to the campus, Cal followed the directions on his GPS to Raftors. The lingerie shop was in a strip mall, on the very edge of the Moldaire campus. There were fast-food restaurants on both sides, with a vacuum cleaner repair store at one end and a cash store at the other end of the retail cluster.
There were thirteen cars in the parking lot. Once Cal shut off the car, she sat very quietly in her seat.
Cal stared at her, concern on his handsome face. “Maybe we should just forget this. You just had that memory of Mia and you’re probably still a little shook. We’re probably not going to get anything here anyway,” Cal said.
“I’ve been here before.”
“Really?” he said. “Just when I thought you couldn’t surprise me anymore,” he said.
“I have been in this parking lot. Sitting. Waiting.”
“For who?”
She closed her eyes. “I don’t know.” She put her hand on the door. “Now I’m really glad we came. Maybe G got those matches from me.”
“I guess that’s a possibility. Do you think you might have come here with him?”
She shook her head. “I came here with someone. We were eating chicken fingers in the car.” She turned to him. “Chicken fingers. How is it that I can remember something like that and I don’t know who I was with?”
“I have no idea. Ready to go inside?”
She opened her car door in response. When she got close, she could see that Raftors was a small store, probably not bigger than twenty feet wide by thirty feet deep. When they opened the door, a bell tinkled. There was a woman behind the counter who looked up.
Even though it was spelled differently, Raftors might have gotten its name from the fact that there was merchandise all the way up to the rafters. Bras, bustiers, corsets and panties. Every color. Many materials. Even fur.
When they got to the counter, she saw that there was a glass bowl of matchbooks. She glanced at Cal. He shrugged.
The woman behind the counter was frowning at her. “I told you I’d call if Jessica came back into work. She hasn’t. That’s why I didn’t call,” the woman finished, her tone acidic.
She was so surprised that she was literally speechless. But that was okay because the woman wasn’t done.
“I run a legitimate business here. And whatever Jessica has done, she did it on her own time. Not through me and not through this store.”
She decided it was one of those times to go for broke. She looked at the woman’s name tag. “Marcy, I’m sorry to bother you. I was in an accident a few days ago. So, you have me at a slight disadvantage. You remember me but I don’t remember you. I don’t remember ever being in this store.”
Marcy rested her crossed arms on her ample stomach. “So you’ve got...brain damage?”
She hoped not. “Temporary amnesia,” she said. “Can you tell me who Jessica is?”
Marcy looked at Cal. “Who is he?”
“A friend who helped me after the accident. Jessica?”
“Jessica worked here, up until about two weeks ago. You came in here about a week ago asking for her. I told you the truth. She quit without notice and I didn’t expect to see her. She never even came in to pick up her last check. You asked me if I would call you if she came back in. I said I would.”
“Why did I want to talk to Jessica?”
The woman shook her head. “I ain’t never had a conversation like this before. You said she was your sister and that you hadn’t seen her for some time.”
“Thank you. Ah...one last question, I promise. Did I tell you my name?”
“Yeah. You said it was Jean.”
She looked at Cal to see if he had any other questions. He shook his head. She smiled at the woman. “Again, thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”
They were three feet from the door when Marcy called out, “I hope you get your memory back. That has to be really weird.”
“Really weird,” she repeated when they were back in the car. “I’ll te
ll you what’s really weird. I don’t have a sister named Jessica. I know that. Mia was my sister. My only sister. Yet, for some reason, I’m trying to find some woman, claiming that she’s my sister.” She slammed her hand against the dash. “I told that woman my name was Jean. My name isn’t Jean. That’s another lie. I know it.”
“I don’t know what I expected,” Cal said, “but it wasn’t that. I think you did the right thing by telling her the truth. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gotten anything out of her.”
“I got something but it doesn’t make any sense.”
“It will,” he said. “Let’s go to Moldaire.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The college library was one of the formidable stone buildings on the square. Now the open green space in front of it was no longer snow-covered but rather snow-spotted. In many places, patches of grass were visible. It was almost forty-five degrees outside and the remaining snow was melting fast.
There were many more students walking around with lots of the female students wearing colorful rain boots so that they could stomp through the slush.
Her tennis shoes had gotten really wet walking across campus.
“I...”
“What?” Cal asked.
She had started to tell him about the tennis shoes, about having one more memory. But he was already skittish about them being on campus. She didn’t want to give him a reason to demand that they get the heck out of there.
But this was Cal. She trusted him.
“Stormy?” he prodded.
“I...I just know we’re going to find something,” she said. She’d already told him that Moldaire felt familiar. She didn’t need to tell him about walking across the campus in tennis shoes.
He studied her. But then he focused on parking the SUV.
They walked into the library. There were two people behind the circulation desk who didn’t even look up as they passed. There was a big sign with arrows that directed library patrons to various sections.
To the right of the big sign was a bank of computers. “Let’s try the computer first, just in case,” he said.