What She Forgot

by Amanda Stevens

  He shook his head, as if to clear away the sudden image of Andrea in black satin. Andrea in his bed.

  The image wouldn’t fade. Troy wondered if he’d had more to drink than he realized. If his control had been weakened by the whiskey.

  Or by the woman.

  Lifting his glass, he took another drink, studying her over the rim. He couldn’t figure out how she’d found his apartment, but at the moment, the effort to ask her was just too great. He was tired of asking Andrea questions. Tired of never getting the answers he needed. With Andrea, he felt as if he were always walking a tightrope in fog. He couldn’t see where he was going, and one false step could be his downfall.

  “I guess you know about the will,” she said finally, when the silence had stretched on for too long.

  “I’m conducting a murder investigation. It’s my business to know.”

  She nodded. Her gaze dropped to the drink in his hand, and for a moment, she seemed fascinated by the swirling amber liquid inside. Then she said softly, “I didn’t kill Richard.”

  “I never said you did.”

  “But you must be thinking it. All that money—” She broke off and walked to the open balcony doors to stare into the darkness. “I didn’t kill him. I couldn’t have. I’m not that kind of person…am I?” She turned to face him then, and her eyes looked haunted, desperate. Troy thought he saw a glimmer of fear in those crystalline depths. Or was that wishful thinking on his part? He’d never been able to tell with Andrea.

  He set his drink aside and slowly crossed the room toward her. But he didn’t dare touch her. “Why did you come here tonight?”

  She wrapped her arms around herself. “I don’t know. I needed to see you.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re the only person I can talk to.” She took a deep, shaky breath. “There’re so many things I don’t know about myself. I don’t know who I really am, or what I might have done in my past. I have these horrible nightmares. I see blood all over my hands. Oh, God—” She broke off and closed her eyes, as if overcome with emotion. A tear trickled down her cheek, and it was all Troy could do not to reach for her and wipe it away.

  She opened her eyes and gazed up at him, her lashes starred with tears. “I know I don’t have any right to ask you this, but…will you hold me? Just for a little while. I’m so scared, Troy.”

  The last was said on a whisper, and Troy felt something slipping away inside him, the last vestiges of his control. He wondered why he didn’t feel more concerned. Why he wasn’t trying to fight his feelings for her. Maybe it was too late for that anyway. Maybe it had been too late the moment he’d first laid eyes on her.

  He took her hand and pulled her into his arms.

  But if he’d meant to comfort her, that notion fled the moment he touched her. He tunneled his fingers into her hair and tilted her head back, so that for a split second, they were gazing deeply into one another’s eyes.

  And then he kissed her.

  Andrea’s lips trembled beneath his, then opened like a flower, inviting him to taste the sweetness inside. Troy groaned, wishing he’d never met this woman. Wishing he’d known her all his life. He was a cop, she was a suspect and they were both headed for trouble. But nothing could stop the heat between them. Not his job. Not her past. Not even the uncertainty of their future.

  She pressed her body close to his, and passion exploded between them. Troy didn’t think he could ever get enough of her. She was like no woman he’d ever known, and the desire roaring through him was like nothing he’d ever experienced. He wanted her. All of her. Now. And forever.

  Her fingers were busy with the buttons on his shirt. Impatient, Troy ripped them loose, tossed the shirt aside, then reached for her once more. They kissed, again and again, breaking apart only when he found her zipper and lowered it. Her dress slipped to the floor. She was wearing stockings with black lace tops, and Troy’s heart threatened to beat its way out of his chest.

  A little voice in the back of his mind whispered to him this might be a planned seduction. Andrea might have come here to lure him more deeply into her web.

  He ignored that voice.

  He ignored his conscience and good sense.

  He let her perfume, something dark and sultry, wrap around him like a silken scarf, drawing him more and more deeply into the fantasy. Slowly, their gazes clinging, he knelt and lowered her stockings from her sleek legs. She trembled when his fingers skimmed her thighs, touched her softly. Her head fell back, and she whispered his name on a sigh.

  Troy stood, then lifted her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom. Moonlight silvered her hair as she lay atop the sheets, watching him undress. Then she held out her arms for him, and he moved over her, staring down at her for a long, breathless moment.

  “Is this wrong?” she whispered, her eyes glowing with subtle mystery. Troy thought he could easily drown in those eyes. He could easily lose himself in her essence.

  “It’s the only thing in this whole damn mess that seems right,” he muttered. And then he lowered his head and kissed her. Kissed her until nothing else mattered except the way she came to him so eagerly. The way she clung to him so desperately.

  The way she shuddered in ecstasy when he took her.

  * * *

  ANDREA SIGHED. Curled on her side, her head resting on Troy’s chest, she could hear the deep, even rhythm of his heart as it slowed back to normal. He had one arm around her, and his other arm was sprawled across the bed. His eyes were closed, and he looked replete. Satisfied. But not quite as relaxed as he might have been, Andrea thought. He still had doubts about her. Even after what they’d shared. Even after she’d given everything to him. He still had doubts.

  What else could she do to convince him of her innocence?

  Try the truth, the little voice in the back of her mind suggested.

  She sighed again, and Troy stirred. His arm tightened around her. “What are you thinking?”

  “I was just thinking that…I’ve never felt this way before. I don’t know how I know that, but…” She turned to rest her chin lightly on his chest, gazing up at him. “I do know it.”

  Troy smiled, but his eyes were shadowed. “Why is it I want to believe you so badly?”

  “You do?”

  The shadow in his eyes deepened. “You do realize what I’ve done, don’t you? What we’ve done?”

  She lifted her head to stare down at him. “What do you mean?”

  He sat up in bed, shifting ever so slightly away from her. Andrea felt chilled by his action.

  “When you came here tonight…when I let you stay. I compromised the investigation, Andrea. My entire career could be on the line because of what we’ve done.”

  Andrea drew the sheet around her, bereft. “Are you sorry we made love?”

  His eyes softened a little. He reached for her hand. “No. I’m not sorry. I’ve never felt this way, either. What happened between us was…incredible. But I have to know…I have to make sure you’re being completely honest with me.”

  “I am.” But she couldn’t quite meet his eyes.

  He took her chin, gently forcing her to look at him. “You told my mother that you remembered you were named after your grandmother, but you didn’t tell me. You told my sister about the aunt who raised you, but you didn’t tell me. I can’t help wondering what else you might have remembered that you haven’t told me.”

  After everything they’d shared tonight, the closeness they’d experienced, Andrea wanted more than anything to open up to him, to tell him about the dreams and the memories she’d been having. She wanted to tell him about Richard, how she had known, somehow, that he was dead before Troy had come to the house that day.

  And she might have been able to tell him once, but not now. Not after the reading of Richard’s will. Ten million dollars was a lot of money. A fortune. People had killed for a lot less. Andrea had to be the police’s chief suspect. Troy’s chief suspect.

  If he found out she’d
been withholding the truth from him, he’d have no reason to believe her about anything. It wouldn’t matter that she knew in her heart she was innocent, because everything else, even her own memories, pointed to her guilt. And even though Troy might have compromised the investigation tonight, he was still a cop. He’d still have to do the right thing. If he thought her guilty of murder, he’d have to arrest her. Take her away, and there would be no one to protect Mayela.

  “I’ve laid everything on the line for you, Andrea. All I’m asking is that you do the same,” he said softly.

  Andrea had never seen eyes so dark and deep. So very compelling. But God help her, she still couldn’t tell him. Not even after tonight.

  Not even knowing what it would cost her when he found out the truth.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The phone awakened Troy the next morning. He woke up groggy, his head filled with cobwebs, his memories of last evening hazy. He’d dreamed about Andrea, about the two of them in his bed—

  The phone screamed again, peeling away the last layers of sleep. As he reached to answer it, Troy’s memory sharpened and he realized it hadn’t been a dream after all. Andrea really had been there. They’d made love.

  But where was she now? He gazed at the empty side of the bed as he brought the receiver to his ear. “Hello?”

  “Troy, it’s Leanne.”

  “Leanne. Don’t tell me you’re already at the station.” He propped himself on his elbows and squinted at the clock. It was only a little after five. Where the hell was Andrea?

  “Don’t tell me you’re still lollygagging in bed while I’m down here working my butt off,” Leanne snapped. “I’ve got some information for you.”

  “About the Malone case? What’d you find out?”

  “I think you better get down here and see for yourself.”

  “I’ll be there in twenty.” Troy hung up and headed for the shower, but then detoured into the living room and kitchen, looking for Andrea. The path of clothing they’d left from the living room to the bedroom was gone. Even Troy’s clothes had been picked up, and he found everything folded neatly on a chair.

  Andrea had run out on him.

  * * *

  “WHAT’VE YOU GOT, LEANNE?”

  She looked up and smiled smugly as Troy approached her desk. “I hardly know where to begin.”

  “That sounds promising.” He pulled up a chair and sat down.

  Leanne retrieved a folder from her desk and opened it, thumbing through the pages until she found the one she wanted. “Let’s start with the mother-in-law. Dorian Andropoulos, formerly Dorian Kouriakis. She’s Greek American, born in the Bronx, but she moved to Athens several years ago. Worked for the American embassy for a while, then married a shipping tycoon named Dimitri Andropoulos, an Onassis type, who even had a daughter named Christina.”

  “Wait a minute,” Troy said. “You mean he had a daughter named Christina? Dorian wasn’t her mother?”

  “Stepmother. Christina was twelve years old when Dorian and Dimitri married. He died in some sort of freak boating accident two years later. The daughter inherited the fortune, but Dorian controlled the money until Christina turned twenty-one. Dorian moved back to the States almost immediately, and Christina was shipped off to boarding school in Switzerland until she was eighteen, at which time she met and married Richard Malone.”

  She handed the folder to Troy, and he glanced through the contents with interest.

  “Another little tidbit you might find interesting,” Leanne said. “While Christina was in boarding school, Dorian managed to go through quite a bit of her stepdaughter’s inheritance. She’d already hooked herself a rich fiancé by the time Christina found out about the money. Only problem was, the rich fiancé married the daughter, and Dorian was left out in the cold.”

  “Dorian was engaged to Richard Malone before he married Christina?”

  “Bet that didn’t sit too well with Dorian.” Leanne grinned. She swiveled her chair and picked up another file. “Next on your list was Robert Malone. The brother.”

  “I can hardly wait to hear this,” Troy said, amazed at the amount of information Leanne had managed to dig up. It would have taken him weeks to assemble this much data.

  “Likes to gamble,” Leanne said. “Vegas, the Bahamas, and now the new casinos over in Mississippi and Louisiana. Rumor has it, he’s in pretty heavy with some loan sharks.”

  “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” Troy said, but it would explain why Robert might be feeling a little desperate, now that he’d been cut out of his brother’s will.

  Another thought occurred to Troy. If Dorian Andropoulos had been Christina Malone’s stepmother, that meant Robert Malone was Mayela’s next of kin. In a court battle for custody of the heiress, a blood relative might be given special consideration. Troy wondered if this possibility had occurred to Robert Malone, as well. Somehow he thought it probably had.

  “Paul Bellamy,” Leanne said. “Partner and CFO of Malone International. One of the employees over there leaked some information to a reporter friend of mine at the Herald, who was kind enough to pass the info along to me. It seems Richard started an in-house investigation a few months ago. He suspected someone close to the top at M.I. was embezzling pretty heavily from the coffers.”

  “Paul Bellamy?”

  “The employee didn’t name names, but as chief financial officer, he’d certainly have control of the purse strings.”

  And with Richard out of the way, Paul Bellamy would have a chance to cover his tracks before the feds moved in. Interesting. It appeared more than one person had a motive for wanting Richard Malone dead.

  “That brings me to the last name on your list. Andrea Malone.” Leanne opened the folder and glanced up. “Boy, Stoner. You sure know how to pick ‘em, don’t you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She pushed the file across the desk toward him. “See for yourself.”

  Troy opened the folder and stared down at a photocopied newspaper picture of a handcuffed woman flanked by two police officers. The caption read Evans Charged In Husband’s Brutal Slaying.

  The woman in the picture looked exactly like Andrea.

  Troy’s heart banged against his chest. Sweat trickled down his back, and for a moment, he thought he might actually be sick. Then he glanced at the date of the newspaper article. It was twenty years old. The woman in the photo looked to be in her late twenties, the same age as Andrea now. There was no way that woman could be her.

  He glanced up, wondering if Leanne had noticed his strong reaction. If she did, she let it pass. “That’s Andrea’s mother. Julia Evans.”

  “What happened?”

  “She went nuts one night and stabbed her husband twenty-seven times. According to the police report, Andrea was in the house at the time. They found her locked in a closet in some sort of trance. She wouldn’t talk for days, and when she finally did, she acted as if she didn’t remember anything about the murder. But the cops on the scene suspected she’d witnessed it. The closet was right off the room where her father was killed, and it had one of those old-fashioned locks, the ones with the big keys. They figured she could have seen the whole thing through the keyhole. Can you imagine what something like that would do to a seven-year-old kid?”

  Troy could imagine, all right. When that kid grew up, she would have horrible nightmares and visions of blood. She would become adept at blocking memories that were too painful to recall.

  As a man, Troy’s heart went out to her. As a cop, he had to ask himself what else she might do.

  “What happened to the mother?” he asked.

  “She’s been a resident at Oak Haven Hospital, twenty miles north of Houston, for the last twenty years. In case you hadn’t figured it out,” Leanne said, “Oak Haven is a mental institution for the criminally insane.”

  * * *

  ANDREA HADN’T SEEN her mother since that awful night twenty years ago when Andrea’s whole world had been shattered into a millio
n pieces. Pieces that wouldn’t be put back together for years and years to come.

  But last night, after she and Troy had made love, after she’d given him her heart and her soul, she’d remembered. She’d fallen asleep in his arms and dreamed about the keyhole, the one Mayela had told her about. But in her dream, Andrea was the little girl who had been locked away in the dark room. She was the one kneeling at the door, looking through the keyhole, seeing all the blood. She was the one who heard her father’s tortured pleas, her mother’s demented laughter and her own terrified screams.

  Andrea was the one who had looked through that keyhole and now she remembered.

  Her mother had killed her father. Stabbed him so many times Andrea had lost count as she’d watched through the keyhole, screaming for her mother to stop, screaming for her father to get up, screaming because she’d been so bad that day, her mother had locked her in the closet and Andrea was powerless to help her father. He’d lain so still and lifeless, his clothes covered in blood.

  “I hate you! I want you dead! Dead! Dead! Dead!” her mother had screamed.

  Andrea had screamed, too. “You killed my daddy! You killed my daddy!”

  Her father had been the only person in the world who had ever loved her. He never locked her in the dark room. He never told her she was bad.

  When he died, Andrea had been all alone.

  She closed her eyes briefly as the years of loneliness swept over her now. Tears stung behind her lids, and all she could think as she stood in the hallway at Oak Haven Hospital and gazed at her mother through the thick glass panel in the door was Why? Why did you do it?

  Memories, long suppressed, rushed through Andrea. For twenty years, she had blocked the image of her mother’s face. She wouldn’t even let herself remember her father. All she knew was what her aunt had told her. Something terrible had happened to Andrea’s parents. Her aunt hadn’t wanted to be burdened with an orphaned niece, and so she had looked at Andrea accusingly whenever she’d spoken vaguely of the tragedy. Because of that, Andrea had assumed that whatever had happened to her parents was her fault. The feeling of guilt had been overwhelming at times.