Memories In The Dark

by Dawn Tamayo

  MEMORIES IN

  THE DARK

  BY

  Dawn Tamayo

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  COPYRIGHT © 2017 by Dawn Tamayo

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in reviews.

  Cover original photograph © Dawn Tamayo

  Cover artwork by Lynn Selwyn-Reeves

  Cover © Dawn Tamayo

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  To my wonderful family and friends – thank you for your continued support and encouragement, it means so much to me. To all my readers – thank you for choosing my book, and I hope you enjoy your read.

  Visit www.facebook.com/dawn.tamayo71 for more information on other books by Dawn Tamayo, or follow Dawn on twitter – sunrise71x

  Other books available by Dawn Tamayo:

  UNDER THE MAJESTIC SKY

  WHERE THE HEART LIES

  THE MIAMI MILLIONAIRE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sergeant Romero Sanchez held the steering wheel with one hand as he used the other to run his fingers through his short jet-black hair whilst driving along the brightly lit road. He was pleased his shift was nearly over, it was late and he was tired. Normally he wouldn’t be scheduled to work tonight, but at the last minute he had been called in to cover the area whilst most of the other police officers from his station on the Costa Blanca had been sent to back up the Narcotics unit on a large drugs operation further along the Spanish Coast.

  Normally Romero didn’t patrol this stretch of the coastline. He liked his little area of the Costa Blanca; patrolling the smaller coastal villages just outside Benidorm and back up to Alicante, leaving the policing of the party-towns like Benidorm to his colleagues. And gladly so by the sounds of the usual nightly stories they brought back to the police station with them; drunks, pick-pockets, stabbings, the lot! What was it about big towns? As soon as people filled themselves with as much alcohol as they could and the clock struck one, then perfectly normal decent human beings by day seemed to turn into drunken louts by night!

  Even so, tonight he had to drive into the party town of Benidorm to drop off some paperwork at the end of his shift. Thankfully it hadn’t been a very eventful night, nothing much had happened apart from a few drunk holiday makers making a nuisance of themselves as they came out of the clubs and pubs, a few minor disturbances further down the coast, and a woman shouting for her lost dog in one of the pueblos. So a quiet night and not much to report. Romero preferred it that way. Long gone were his days with the Anti-drugs and Organised Crime Enforcement Unit, ADOCU - he had spent most of his late twenties and early thirties working with them. Romero had seen too much action during his time there to ever want to repeat that again. He was no old man, but when he hit thirty three he decided enough was enough. No more narcotics busts and stake-outs for him, a quieter life keeping the riffraff out of the streets of his little villages was just what he wanted. So for the past year Romero had been doing exactly that.

  Sergeant Romero Sanchez pulled up his patrol car by Poniente Beach, turned off the engine, and stepped out. He took a few minutes to sort out some papers on the bonnet of his car under the street light, and then folded his notebook away, shuffling the papers neatly into place and zipping up his folder. He moved away from the front of his car and placed the notebook and folder inside through the open window. Romero took one more look around taking in the fresh night air. He couldn’t really call it morning yet being just three a.m. - in Spain it wasn’t morning until the sun came up, and even then some of the holiday makers still hadn’t gone to bed.

  Romero liked the sound of the sea at night; the waves crashed against each other, uninterrupted by swimmers, and the bright silver moon was mirrored in the sparkling dark sea. He watched as the odd boat went past and wondered how his colleagues further along the coast were getting on. He took another breath of the salty fresh air and climbed back into his car, deciding to stop for a coffee at his friend’s bar a few minutes up the road before going back into the police station. He smiled to himself at the thought that not all of Benidorm was bright lights and thumping music, there were still some beautiful places to go.

  “Hola amigo.” Romero called as he approached the bar and saw his friend Juan standing behind the large heavy wooden counter, clearing away the last of the things, and no doubt wanting to close-up for the night. He smiled warmly, always glad to see Juan - they had been friends since they were children.

  “Coffee?” Juan asked smiling, happy to see his friend in good spirits.

  Nodding Romero took a seat at the bar and shook Juan’s hand warmly.

  “How are Cathy and the children?” He asked, accepting the coffee Juan gave him. Romero shook a sachet of sugar, opened it up and emptied it into the coffee - it was no good without sugar, he liked it strong and sweet.

  “Good thanks. Her parents are coming over from England tomorrow.” Juan said, “No doubt they will ask me again why I still have my bar here and haven’t moved to the centre of the bright lights!” He said shaking his head.

  Romero laughed as he took a sip of his coffee. He knew Juan and his English wife preferred the quiet life, but her parents still hoped he would move his bar into the more touristy and commercialised area of Benidorm thinking it would earn them more money that way. Romero could understand why Juan didn’t want to go further into Benidorm, he had the perfect life right where he was now. Yes, he might earn more money if he was there, but some things were more important than money as far as Romero was concerned.

  Romero finished off his coffee and headed back to his car by the promenade. Just as he reached for the door handle he paused for a moment, something caught his eye. ‘Probably just another drunk holidaymaker no doubt’ Romero thought, they were ten a penny around there. He sighed as he stood still watching. It was a shame to see someone in such a state - she was so drunk that she couldn’t even walk straight and her body swayed from side to side. And what a body that was! He watched as her tiny gold dress stuck to her curvy shapes barely reaching her slender mid-thighs, clinging to the swell of her hips and breasts like a second skin. Her hair hung around her shoulders messily, falling over her face as she stumbled along. He watched as she tried to pull her hair away from her face but not really succeeding. Romero looked hard trying to get a clear view of the woman’s face, but he was too far away. He could tell by her actions that she was confused, disorientated - she turned her head from left to right to see where she was and clasped at her hair as it got in her way. He tutted to himself, he could never understand why someone would be stupid enough to get in such a state and put themselves in obvious danger; walking around with barely nothing on, seriously drunk, and in no fit state to look after herself. He knew he should just drive away and ignore her, his shift was over and it wasn’t any of his business if she wanted to stumble around like a drunken lush. But something inside him couldn’t let him do that. Maybe it was the policeman in him, maybe something else. But whatever it was made him pull away from his car and walk towards her.

  Romero looked at the woman’s curvy legs. Following them down to her feet he noticed she didn’t have any shoes on and swore under his breath, this was getting worse by the minute!

  “Señorita!” He called out to her as he walked towards her. Then something inside him, instinct perhaps, made him s
peed up just as he saw her body begin to slump. He broke into a run and Romero’s arms grabbed the woman just before she reached the ground. He held her limp body against him and lowered her down gently swearing to himself - he knew he should have just gotten into his car, and then this wouldn’t have been his problem. He only hoped she wasn’t going to be sick on him too, there was no way he wanted to clean that out of his uniform. Romero pushed the mass of tangled hair away from her face and was instantly struck by her beauty. For a moment she took his breath away - her dark long eyelashes lay closed against her pale skin and her lips were full and rounded. Romero realised she was wet, all of her was soaking wet. Gently removing one hand from beneath her head he wondered what the sticky substance in the palm of his hand was, then he realised - blood! He was sure he had caught her before she hit the ground, he knew he had! Moving her hair further away from her face he found the source, a large wound by her right temple. It looked bad. Romero reached into his pocket pulling out a handkerchief and pressed it hard to her head. He reached around his waist for his police radio, but then he changed his mind; an ambulance at this time of night would take ages to get there, they were probably already queued up for other casualties in Benidorm centre as it was, so Romero pulled out his keys instead. Scooping the beautiful woman up into his arms he held her tightly against him and started to head off towards his car. But years of police training made him stop. He looked intently at the beach and promenade around them to see if he could find her handbag, he was going to need some form of identification for when they got to the hospital, but he couldn’t see anything - no bag and no shoes. He frowned thinking how strange that was, no woman he knew would be without her handbag even if she had managed to lose her shoes somewhere along the way through the night. He stopped as he saw her fresh footprints leading from the beach a few meters away from where he found her. Romero stared at the beautiful woman lying unconscious in his arms wondering why she had been on the beach at that time of the morning, with no bag or shoes, soaking wet, and with a head wound. Quickly as he could with the woman in his arms he walked back to his patrol car. He needed to get her to the hospital and quickly.

  ***

  “Helen….. Helen, open your eyes. Can you hear me?”

  She could hear a voice but it was too far away. Her eyes felt heavy, so heavy. All she wanted was whoever it was to go away. She just wanted to be left alone to sleep. She was tired, so very tired.

  “Helen, come on wake up. We need you to wake up.” The voice persisted.

  She felt her body rush upwards as if she was being dragged up through deep murky water to the top. She gasped a deep breath and opened her eyes, but the bright lights hurt her, burning her, and she squinted against the white beams of light trying to cover her eyes with her hands.

  “No, no. Let us check you, we need to examine you.” The voice came again.

  For a moment she fought against the light and the hands which tried to move hers away, but then she stopped realising she wasn’t going to win and she didn’t have the energy to put up more of a struggle. Slowly she looked around the room confused. Numbness gave way to the feeling of panic as she saw the doctor and nurses in their white coats standing around her. Why were they there? Who were they and why did they want to examine her? And where the hell was she? Then Helen felt a stab of pain followed by a heavy throbbing sensation in her temple and she groaned aloud.

  “Yes, yes. You have a bad cut but don’t worry we stitched that up whilst you were asleep. Can you keep your head still and follow the light with your eyes?” The doctor said as she watched his little white light move from side to side. She tried to remember how she had come to be there, but she couldn’t. It hurt her just to try!

  “Where am I?” She asked as she took deep breaths trying to keep calm.

  This time she heard a different voice answer her, it came from somewhere behind the doctor and nurses, but she couldn’t see who it belonged to, “You are in hospital. Don’t worry, just try to relax.” Whoever it was spoke in English, but he had a heavy Spanish accent. It was a deep and warm voice, with a smoothness which calmed her, and she held onto that sound as she tried to do exactly what he said.

  “Helen?” The doctor asked, “What is your surname?”

  She looked at the doctor like he was asking some sort of marine scientist’s question.

  “Helen?” The doctor looked at her getting a little frustrated.

  She frantically searched her mind, but nothing would come out of the thick muggy darkness. “I don’t know!” She said in horror, she couldn’t for the life of her remember her own name.

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” The doctor asked, concern edged on his face.

  “I mean I don’t know!” She said firmly. “I don’t remember what my name is. I don’t know when I was born, where I live, or where I am. Where am I?”

  “In the hospital.” The doctor repeated.

  “Yes I get that, but in the hospital where? Which hospital?”

  The deep voice came again from behind the white coats, “Clinica Benidorm. You are in Benidorm in Spain.”

  The doctor looked across at the nurse and then briefly to whoever was behind him, the owner of the deep smooth voice. He walked over to some papers at the side of the room and started to write something down.

  Helen looked around the room, from the doctor to the nurse, and then to the policeman standing at the back. It dawned on her, this was who the smooth deep voice belonged to, and then she wondered why there was a policeman in the room at all. Was she in some kind of trouble? She hoped not! Helen looked at the policeman as he stood leaning up against the wall with his arms folded across his broad chest. She wondered if she should be worried or scared to see a policeman standing there right now, but she wasn’t. There was something vaguely familiar about him but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. She looked at him, taking in his broad frame and his jet black short wavy hair. He was taller than the doctor but only a few inches taller than herself she thought. He was holding his hat in one of his hands and she couldn’t help but notice his cleanly cut fingernails. Helen pulled her eyes away from them and back up to his face, staring into his dark brown eyes, almost black as he looked at her intently.

  “Your name is Helen isn’t it?” The policeman stepped forward pointing to a tiny gold ankle chain laying gently against her skin with the name Helen delicately entwined through it.

  She looked down at her leg as if seeing it for the first time and ran the chain through her fingers. “I don’t know, I suppose it must be.”

  “Okay Helen,” the doctor interrupted, “we had better run some tests on you, then we will know better what is going on.” He turned to the nurse and spoke in Spanish reeling off a long list of tests he wanted done.

  Romero watched as the woman on the hospital bed tried to make sense of her surroundings. He knew when someone was putting it on, too many people had faked amnesia with him to try and get out of trouble, but they never got away with it. Right now he was convinced that this mysterious woman really didn’t know who or where she was. She was the real deal.

  Romero had watched her from behind the doctor as he went about doing his medical checks; the nurses had tried to clean her up a little when she was unconscious but her hair was still dirty with matted blood, and her body in that tiny gold dress of hers was caked with dried sand and mud. Now that she had seen him standing there, he noticed she kept looking at him. He didn’t know what was going through her head, but he could see she was thinking something about him, more questions no doubt.

  Finally Romero was pleased to hear the doctor order his list of tests to be carried out, and he readied himself to leave the room when he saw the nurse prepare the syringes and drip; he wanted to give Helen some privacy, and besides he wanted to speak to the doctor in private to see what he really thought about her condition.

  Helen watched as the nurse moved a silver trolley around and started to prepare an IV drip. Out the corner of her eye sh
e saw the policeman move away, following the doctor out of the room.

  “Wait!” She called after him.

  The policeman stopped in his tracks and turned back to Helen.

  “I know I don’t remember anything, but I know I don’t like this.” She said nodding to the impending blood test and IV drip waiting to be inserted into her arm. “I’m scared. Would you stay here for a moment?”

  The Spanish policeman didn’t say a word, he just looked at the door where the doctor had exited, and then back to Helen.

  “Please don’t leave me.” She said pleadingly to the only person who seemed not to scare the living daylights out of her right now.

  Romero looked at his watch, it was half past four in the morning and he could feel his bed calling him. But there was something about the woman on the hospital bed which pulled at him to stay. He knew he had done his duty as a policeman, and now Helen was safely in the hospital he had no reason to be there. But her pleading words made his feet refuse to move from the spot. Romero put his hands on his hips and dropped his head taking a deep breath; he wondered why he was doing this as he turned to the other nurse and asked her to tell the doctor he would come and find him in a few minutes to complete some more paperwork.

  Now it was just the two of them and the nurse in the room, Romero moved to stand closer to Helen.

  “Do I know you?” Helen asked as she tried to keep her mind off what the nurse was doing to her arm with the needle. “You seem familiar to me. You’re the only thing that is.”

  “I was the one who found you and brought you into the hospital.” Romero said smoothly trying to keep her calm and avoid looking at the needle at the same time. He didn’t like needles too much, not if he could help it.