by Sosie Frost
I looked away. “Yeah. Not sure how much longer we’ll be neighbors.”
“Oh?” Rory pouted. “You want to move?”
“I’ll have to once the memories are back.”
“Why?”
“Well…I’ll have an ID again,” I said. “I’ll find a job and start my life. I can’t live on charity forever.”
“Charity? What’s the charity have to do with this?”
“Family First is paying for that apartment.”
“What?” She laughed. “No…that apartment is paid for. The charity only helps with your incidentals as far as I know. I can check with the accountants if you want.”
I stared at her. It was the first time the present made less sense than the past.
“It’s paid for?” My voice hushed. “By who?”
“Well…your police officer friend.” She winked. “Though I think he might be a bit more now.”
My heart crashed against my chest. “Shepard?”
“He came to the foundation months ago. Said he wanted to keep it on the DL because it’d be a conflict of interest with your case, but he wanted to make sure you and the baby were comfortable. He’s paid the lease for the last six months.” Rory paused. “Evie? Are you okay?”
No.
I wasn’t.
Shepard was paying for my apartment?
He had been paying for it for months?
What should have been a beautiful and thoughtful gift sent a shiver crawling over my spine.
….And not the good kind he usually gave me.
The gift wasn’t just incredibly kind—it was way beyond any charity a stranger should have given me, especially one who didn’t tell me about his generosity.
Shepard had offered his help for weeks before I finally surrendered and let him close.
And so much had happened.
I’d fallen for him. Wanted him. Slept with him.
Given up my past—my everything—to be with him.
Something wasn’t right—and it wasn’t just the secret, Christmas time thong vandalism charge that lingered in my past. Shepard should have told me from the beginning about the apartment.
Unless he didn’t want me to find out.
Unless he never expected that I’d find out.
Unless he wasn’t a helpful stranger helping a mother in need.
Did Shepard Novak know who I was?
My heart crashed to a halt, and I regretted that Rory specialized in my head and not cardiology.
“Evie?” Rory waited, patiently. “Are you—”
“I’m sorry.” I bolted to my feet. “I shouldn’t waste your time with this. I’ll call you if something changes.”
“Good,” she said. “But promise me you’ll take this slow.”
Slow?
Nothing about this was slow.
Suddenly everything in my life was racing towards some invisible finish line, and I ran to avoid the speeding ice cream trucks.
The criminal charge. My name. Darnell. The lease.
I was onto something big.
And now the only question remained…
Why hadn’t Shepard figured any of this out before me?
He was the detective. He had the intel. He could have researched the truck driver’s claim. Pressured him. Found out more. Instead my file had sat empty on his desk for months, like I was the only one trying to fill it.
He said the answers were locked away in my head.
I could say the same about him.
My phone buzzed the instant I left the office. I tucked Clue into her stroller and read Shepard’s text.
Good news from the doctor? Any memories back?
What once sounded like hopeful support now turned my stomach.
Was he asking to check up on me? Or did he want to know if I’d remembered anything else?
I stared at the phone, wracked with trembles so severe even my stomach quivered. My headache pulsed harder, and I ducked into a nearby coffee shop just to avoid the crowds and noise.
I couldn’t go home yet.
If it was even my home now that I knew Shepard had paid for it.
What did he expect in return?
This didn’t make sense. Shepard wasn’t blackmailing me with kindness. He was the type of man who saved ducklings. Chased down purse thieves. Protected pregnant women struck by ice cream trucks.
Coordinated with the driver to change the location of the accident?
Offered his help within the first week of setting up the apartment.
Returned time and time again to bring me any sort of comfort. The foods we ate, the movies we watched, the places we visited, all of it was selflessly given to me just so I’d have a sense of normalcy.
And everything he did, everything he gave, was exactly what I had needed.
What I liked.
But he had known all of my preferences even before I discovered what were my favorites.
Hell, I still tasted the pad thai from yesterday.
“I forgot,” he said. “You don’t like peanut sauces.”
“I’ve never had this before.”
“Sure you have. That’s not the best quality, but I know we’ve tried it.”
A coincidence. It had to be a coincidence. I couldn’t distrust a man just for being super compatible with me…
But what if it wasn’t compatibility?
What if he knew me?
Really knew me?
What if he had known the entire time who I was, where I was from, what my name was…
Who my baby’s father was?
How to make me fall in love with him?
My phone buzzed again. I clutched it tight while ordering my coffee.
I should get out of here by five—hell of a day. Remind me to tell you about the drunk with the turtle…really should have checked if he was a snapper before sticking anything near that mouth.
Anything for my smile. Usually I loved fun police stories that didn’t end with high speed chases or gunfights.
Like the time a high school senior got hauled into a police department for cross-dressing a Santa Clause on a Christmas display, and the rookie cop who took on her case happened to cut her a break.
A handsome, blue-eyed rookie cop.
I pushed my coffee away, refusing even a taste. Nothing about the mocha would settle my stomach. The single knot in my gut started to unravel, and I didn’t like where the tendrils led.
Pizza tonight? Shepard’s text buzzed in my hand. Or skip the bread and hack open a pineapple?
Pizza.
What were the chances that Shepard would have ordered the exact pizza I loved the most? A Hawaiian with double pineapple and red onion? Not exactly a common order.
And while the brick-oven restaurant had tasted divine, I knew I’d had better pizza before. From another place in the city. Hell, Shepard and I had ordered from three different places just to check. None of them were right—and now I knew why.
We weren’t looking in the right place.
I checked the browser on my phone, skimming the map for pizza places near where my accident had been—not Evie Street, but further away…
Clarissa Street.
One locally owned pizza place popped up on the map. Oil and Basil Pizzeria. It didn’t sound familiar, but what did? My head pounded, and the screen blurred. Wasn’t sure if it was tears or pain, but I pushed the call button.
“Oil and Basil.” A gruff voice answered. “What do you want?”
God, if I only knew. What I wanted didn’t come with a free order of breadsticks.
“I’m hoping you can give me some information,” I said.
“No delivery charge if the food costs more than twenty bucks. Special today is a ham and bacon calzone.”
“No. I’m just wondering…have you worked there long?”
“Yeah. I own the place. What do you want?”
My voice trembled, but I leaned forward, gripping my coffee. “Do you remember common orders?”
; “Who wants to know?”
Wasn’t that the question of the hour?
“Every Friday night, someone would have place an order for a pizza—Hawaiian, double pineapple, and—”
“Red onion.”
“Yes!”
“What about it?”
“Where did you deliver the pizzas?”
“Look, lady, what’s this about?”
I might have confessed and told him about the amnesia, but Shepard was right. The last thing I needed was anyone else knowing I was without a memory.
No telling who would have taken advantage of me.
Especially those who pretended to help.
“I’m looking for my sister. Evie.” It was easy to bluff. “She used to order pizza from you, and I don’t know where she’s gone.”
Honest enough. The pizza guy quieted. Damn it. I should have gone down there in person and slipped him some money. No way he’d give up his client for anything less than a pepperoni pizza.
“I think she’s in trouble,” I said. Again, not a lie. “Please. I’m just looking for her last apartment. I need a street.”
“Yeah. She’s got two places.”
“Two?” My stomach turned.
“I haven’t heard from her for six months.”
“I know. I’ll take any information you can give me.”
He sighed. The phone muffled, and he shouted to someone else in the kitchen. “Hey, Ty. Where’d that double Hawaiian pizza always go Friday night? Yeah, the knocked-up girl with the nice rack.”
Always eager for a compliment. I held my breath.
He shouted again and cleared his throat. “Bethany Street. She had an apartment.”
“That’s great.” That must have the apartment where I lived while pregnant. “What about the other location?”
“We don’t deliver there anymore. Too risky for our drivers.”
That sounded about right. “Where was it?”
“South Chester Street. Off Center Avenue.” He huffed. “Be glad your sister got out of there. That place has been hell for about a year.”
A year.
Clue was six months old. I had been pregnant when Granna was arrested.
I dropped the phone.
Christ, my head hurt.
“You have no idea what you did.” I tossed my clothes into a bag and rushed to the bathroom for my toothbrush and makeup. “The neighborhood is going to implode. I have to go back.”
“Where?” He stood in my way. “To your Granna’s?”
“Yes.”
“But you’re pregnant! What are you thinking? That neighborhood isn’t safe!”
“It’s perfectly safe—thanks to Granna.” I didn’t bother asking him to move. He read it in my expression. “Despite anything you guys ever did for it.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Not fair? You know what isn’t fair? The kids on that street. No homes. No school. No food in their bellies or place to sleep. Granna took them in. She kept them safe…especially when the police wouldn’t. Those kids have no one now. I have to go help.”
“We’re working on the case—”
“She doesn’t have the money for a lawyer, and the police know that. You think they care about some old lady who fed and clothed a bunch of gangbangers they’ve been trying to arrest?”
“Evie—”
“She is the reason that neighborhood—my home—hasn’t destroyed itself. Because it didn’t matter the colors, who your family was, or what you had to do to survive. Everyone was safe there.” I couldn’t even look at him. “And now she’s gone.”
“And you want to go there?”
“Someone has to keep the peace.”
“It’s not going to be you.”
“And it won’t be you either!”
He exhaled, staring at the floor. Couldn’t meet my eye. “We’ll find a way to fix it.”
“Fix what? There’s nothing left now. It’s over.”
“I’m going to make this right.”
“You can’t. You never could.” The tears stung my eyes. “We’re done.”
“What?”
“You made your choice.” I picked up my bag, slinging it over my shoulder. “I’m making mine.”
“Evie—”
The neighborhood collapsed after that.
He’d been right.
It wasn’t a safe place for a pregnant woman. Or a mother. Or a sister, brother, friend, family. Without Granna, the block destroyed itself.
My home wasn’t a home, but it was all I had. All any of those people had.
And when she left?
When she was taken?
That betrayal was unforgivable.
I thought I knew misery, but nothing was ever as terrible as the news that came after. When Granna had died. When the very people who were supposed to protect the community arrested the one person who had kept the peace. She worried herself into a heart attack, and that was it.
Gone forever.
And with her…any trust I had for him.
I rubbed my temples. The answers were there. Buried and painful.
Nothing I ever wanted to experience again.
Maybe I had wished so hard for the pain to stop…it had come true?
I picked up my phone, staring at the name buzzing on the screen.
I answered the text as the tears burned in my eyes. Going home. You know where that is. Meet me there.
I didn’t bother reading the response. I shoved the phone in my pocket and pitched the untouched coffee. Clue grumbled from the stroller, but she was waking up.
Good. She’d be awake in time to see the truth. And I prayed that the answer wouldn’t destroy us both.
The only bus route through Center Avenue stayed on the main street and didn’t deviate onto the more dangerous blocks—the ones with graffiti on the boarded windows, rusted fences with sprouting grass peeking from the sidewalks, and cars with tinted windshields waiting in the street.
I tried to get off the bus. The driver took one look at me and the stroller and extended an arm.
“Miss, you sure you know where you’re going?”
I recognized this street. Didn’t like it, but I knew where I was. “Yeah. I can handle myself.”
He didn’t believe me, but he opened the door. Clue and I hit the road, and the bus pulled away.
At least it was still daylight.
Every instinct in my body tensed, but I could stay safe during the day. Most everyone kept to themselves anyway. No need to start any problems.
Only one way to solve them here.
The sidewalks crumbled just off the major street, and the alleys and roads had been ground into a series of potholes. The whole neighborhood was bordered by apartments built in the late sixties—buildings that were rotten by the seventies, ugly by the eighties, destroyed in the nineties, and lost now.
But families lived here. Kids played in the street, moms walked with strollers in the sunshine, and the poverty united everyone…provided they played by the rules. Reds on one side…Blue on the other.
Instinct guided me. I let myself wander. My feet chose the path, skipping loose stones and crossing the street to avoid sketchy looking buildings with open doors and debris spilling onto the porch.
I wasn’t scared—but I didn’t let my guard down. No need to judge the people I’d left behind, even if I knew getting away from this place and the danger was the greatest thing that could have happened to me.
And it was all Granna had ever wanted.
A busted up pickup truck sat on the corner, the driver’s door wide open. No one waited near it, but the two teenagers—hardly old enough to drive, scoped out the interior, cracking jokes and whistling as they spotted the keys tucked into the ignition.
Fools.
I marched over to them, parking my stroller in their path before they made a very unwise decision.
“Get away from the truck,” I said. “Don’t you have any sense in your head?”
&nbs
p; One of the teens grinned at me. “Easy, momma. We got this.”
I pointed to the obvious set-up. “This is a bait car. There’s someone undercover probably sitting right down there…” I studied the neighborhood. A dark Ford parked two blocks down, in clear view of the truck. I pointed. “There. The cops are waiting for you to take it so they can bust you. Get your asses home before they decide to frisk you.”
The kids swore, threatening a variety of ends to the police who happened to be watching—but they scampered away, protecting their five hundred dollar shoes before the Department of Corrections confiscated them.
Or some desperate punk jumped them from the shadows for a chance to sell them.
I’d seen it before.
Those weren’t the memories I wanted back.
Granna’s house had once been the very center of the neighborhood, the division between two sets of gangs, and the only safe place in the middle of a forgotten warzone.
But now?
The house was destroyed. Boarded windows. Rotten stairs. The front door was just gone. I didn’t risk going inside. Not with the needles visible from the street.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.
Granna’s home once had flowers outside. Pretty little bushes and delightful pansies and herbs and ferns that shielded the rickety house from most of the ugliness in the neighborhood.
Her living room was a warm and loving place. Soft furniture. Cozy blankets. Books…so many books. She loved hardbacks, and the kids in the community used to buy her dozens at a time. Or steal them. But she didn’t question it. Not when she could use them to teach the forgotten little boys and girls how to read, write, and do math problems that weren’t just converting grams to dollars.
“You’re no more special than anyone in this place,” Granna said. “Everyone here comes from the same dirt and misery. Don’t let that be your excuse. Make sure that’s your reason to keep fighting.”
“I’m coming back to visit.” I pushed my bookbag over my shoulder. “The college is just across town.”
“Don’t you dare.”
“Come on, Granna. You’re family.”
I ducked before the old woman slapped my head. “You get out there. Make your own damn family. I don’t want to hear from you until that handsome boy tells you he loves you.”