“Bathroom?”
She nodded, closing her eyes against the heat in her cheeks.
“I was also part time medic,” Jack told her, carefully lifting her against him.
“Explains the towels thing…very improv…I hope my guts didn’t make too big a mess…”
“Your guts mostly stayed where they belong,” Jack assured her. “Shit…I think I owe Chet a new belt…”
“Oh…probably in the hospital,” she said, holding onto the counter and standing up, carefully bracing her feet. “Out.”
“Emily…”
“Out…before I embarrass myself more…please…I’m good…”
“Yeah…I’ve heard that…” Jack closed the door and went to stare out the window, the waning sunlight sparkling off the Sound. He heard the water start in the sink seconds before something solid hit the tiles. “Emily?”
“It’s okay…just a shampoo bottle…” she answered quickly, dragging in long drafts of air. Her head was on the counter, her body bent in half when he pulled the door open. “Can’t a girl have a little tiny bit of dignity…”
Jack’s mind and body were in conflict, their kiss very fresh in his mind when he took in the long expanse of now bare legs, feet parted for balance. A damp cloth lay on the counter and her harem pants were now floating in the large sink, the water slowly turning pink as the blood was drawn out. She had the top on and a pair of trunk type girl panties edged in pink lace.
He reached over and turned the faucet off, grateful the bathroom was large and her good side was facing him. He stepped in, carefully lifting her and carrying her to the bed, quickly tossing the quilt over her.
“Stay,” he ordered, trying to glare when she only offered up a puppy sized bark. He returned with the glass of water, setting it on the nightstand before sinking into the chair.
“Thank you…”
“Should I ask about pajamas?”
“Do adults wear pajamas these days?” She opened one eye and looked at him. “You do?”
“Bottoms…I hate answering the door naked…gives the wrong impression,” Jack tossed out lightly.
“I can see how that would happen,” Emily closed her eyes again. “I don’t do pajamas. I think I might have made a good nudist…”
“I don’t think I have a safe reply to that one,” Jack returned honestly.
“Jack…it’s really nice that you…”
“Emily…”
“I’m not looking ‘cause I’m talking,” she said firmly. “You can’t sleep in the chair. It’ll wrinkle you and you’ll be really grouchy in the morning. The sofa isn’t long enough for you…it’s barely long enough for me.”
“Leaving you to your own devices will have me awake the whole damn night,” he informed her.
“I can tell you…” Her words were slowing and it was taking everything in her to keep talking. “Very soon…you’ll be arguing with yourself…”
“Go to sleep, Emily…I need the rest.”
Jack couldn’t stop the smile when she just grinned. He pulled his phone from his pocket, tossing her little purse to the nightstand in the process. His fingers moved over the keys, tapping out a message.
Chapter Four
“Chloe, it’s Jack Garrett. Give me a call when you have some time.”
Thirty minutes later, Jack got up and left the bedroom, satisfied that the medication had pulled her into sleep. He opened the phone and went onto the patio, talking quietly.
“Hi, Red…you got some time?”
“Jack…how’s Emily? I heard from Anya…” Chloe Oliver kicked back in her chair, watching her husband and a few of his designers working out some problems on the back deck.
“Stubborn. That’s one tough lady,” he said admirably, his head shaking. “Ian stitched her up…she escaped…”
“Escaped?” Chloe gurgled with laughter. “I know…shouldn’t laugh…how are you holding up?”
“You’re enjoying this…logically, I know it’s not my fault…” He paused, thinking about the woman in the other room. “She was planning to invite me out on a date,” he said with a shake of his head.
“I know. And we have idiots in our lives…coincidence can be a pain.”
“You got time to talk?” He asked seriously.
“I do…Simon is hashing out some design changes to the resort with his people on the back deck. I’m guessing you’re calling about Emily…” Chloe closed her eyes, pulling all her information together in her mind.
“Ian made a strange comment that…yeah…raised a few questions.”
“What’d he say?”
“First off…I didn’t want a hassle with finding her next of kin, so I registered as Emily Garrett. Ian made the comment that, doing that was a good idea, but that someone could still recognize her,” he listened to the long sigh from the other end. “What’s going on, Chloe?”
“Why did you call me?”
“Please,” came the sarcastic response. “You’re partners with Anya on the shop. If there’s anything off color with Emily, you have all the information, probably down to her DNA strand.”
“I’m flattered,” she chuckled.
“Talk to me, Red.”
“This is the proverbial long story, Jack…and it goes back and forth…”
“I got time and a really high comprehension level. I got her to take one of the pain pills and she’s finally sleeping.”
“Okay…kick back and I’ll tell you what I know…”
“Generally what you know would rival any national security agency and put them to shame,” he complimented, pulling one of the patio chairs into a position where he could see Emily sleeping in the fading sunlight.
“I’m sure I should be blushing….what can I say? I got sources and an insatiable curiosity where friends are concerned,” she admitted with a chuckle. “Okay…a month and a half ago…yeah, it’s the middle of August now…Emily wandered into the hiring line at the resort. I don’t think you’ve met them yet, but Abby runs the HR department there and Cassidy, the security people. They both have incredible instincts. All Emily said was she needed a job and would do anything. Abby knew there was more, she said she could see it and feel it. Emily had a large backpack with her and a car. Nothing else. Abby stuck her in the cantina and got with Cass…they pulled everything they had access to and started putting pieces together.”
“What aren’t you telling me, Chloe?”
“Emily doesn’t remember anything about her past. Nothing. She knew her name only because she had a wallet full of identification, credit cards and passport. She had a huge stash of cash and easily ten pounds of jewelry,” Chloe told him quietly, recalling her talks with Abby and Cassidy.
“Huh…that explains the look that comes into her eyes when I asked about her previous career…”
“She knows the facts…because I gave her a copy of her resume. Anyway…Abby and Cassidy did all the checks, security, yada yada…and called me. Nothing illegal in the background. Nothing even remotely off. They knew Anya and I were looking for someone for the shop. They didn’t let on to Emily what they knew, but put all the print outs they had in an envelope, sealed it, and sent her to me.”
“Chloe...she has to know she can’t recall her life…”
“Patience with the story teller….okay…so she hops in her little car…”
“Let me guess…a red sports job?” Jack had wondered about the car that never moved from behind the building. “I peeked under the tarp.”
“A magnificent cherry red Ferrari,” Chloe corrected him with shock in her voice. “Philistine…anyway…we hired her and we started talking…and I started digging.”
“This is getting too…weird, Chloe…her apartment is practically empty…”
“Oh, trust me…it gets better…she has a large yellow sealed envelope with your name on it,” Chloe told him.
“My…me? She doesn’t…didn’t…” his feet hit the concrete, face pulled into a tight frown.
“J
onathon Garrett, Northstar Shipping. I can even tell you what’s inside,” Chloe said easily.
“Thought you said it was sealed?” Came his immediate question.
“Please…” Chloe rolled her eyes. “Anyway…back to the beginning…she started working at the shop and living upstairs. We talked…Anya talked to her…and I dug…okay…sequence here is…a pain…I spoke with her previous employer and several of her friends. About four months ago, a guy named Alexander Demming began pursuing Emily. Depending on who you talk to, some say she worked to avoid him…she didn’t like him…the other side is, they say he was generous and attentive and persistent, he showered her with gifts…which translates into stalker to me, but hey…what do I know…one of the reasons Emily didn’t push back as strongly as she probably wanted to, was because he came with a recommendation…from her parents.”
“I checked her driver’s license, Chloe, she’s thirty-three years old,” Jack said dryly.
“That doesn’t make the urge to please one’s parental units vanish, Jack,” she answered softly. “Household gossip…Emily was living on her own, working…servants hear a lot of stuff…there were a lot of discussions about Demming and Emily between her parents. They were and probably still are, quite keen on the match. Demming proposed…refused to take no for an answer and told Emily to keep the ring while she thought it over. An argument was overheard between them at a family dinner that amounted to him deciding she should quit working and concentrate on becoming a wife…to which she promptly not only refused but tossed the ring into his dinner plate.”
“Oh, I bet that went over well…”
“Yeah well…you’re still missing a few key facts…her parents and Demming both evidently have clout. Somehow they persuaded the company she worked for to fire her. I haven’t got that information on how…I’m guessing money exchanged hands. Add to that, for some reason, her apartment complex went condo and evicted several people, Emily being one of them,” her distaste was evident in her tone.
“You are not…this is crazy…”
“You don’t recognize the name yet?” Chloe asked flatly. “Let me give you a hint…Elizabeth Emily Temple, only daughter of Clarence William and Marie Catherine Temple…”
“Oh, shit…” The chair he was kicked back in came down on the concrete with a loud thunk. “Tri-Seas Shipping.”
“Bingo. So…out of a job…evicted…Emily temporarily moved home. Now, remember, all of this has a tint of speculation because it’s coming in from a lot of sources, because Emily can’t remember. So…according to Mrs. Douglas, housekeeper who enjoys a coffee at a shop near by…there appeared to be a concerted effort on the part of Demming and her parents to pressure her to accept his offer of marriage. I’m sure you’re very aware of who the vice president is of Tri-Seas…”
“Alex Demming,” was the dry answer.
“Given my personal experiences with corporations…” Chloe exhaled slowly. “It appears E. E. Temple owns a large block of stock. Which happens to be in the envelope with your name on it,” she said with dramatic flair.
Jack was silent, his gaze going to the woman sleeping peacefully twenty feet from him. “Okay…you definitely got my attention now.”
“I thought I might…preparations were going on for a wedding where the bride had yet to accept the offer, according to Mrs. Douglas. Emily was still firmly telling them all that she was not interested in getting married. She wasn’t attracted to Alex and repeatedly argued with everyone in the house about it. Mrs. Douglas tells me that a wedding planner was handling everything…a wedding dress appeared in Emily’s bedroom, along with all sorts of clothing to go with it. Again…going with a little guess work…she got fed up with it, packed a couple suitcases, a large backpack and left the house in a taxi one morning before anyone was awake. This happened four days before she appeared at the resort.”
Chloe paused and took a long drink of water.
“Mrs. Douglas tells me Emily got into a cab at six in the morning. Evidently, the house went into a panic about ten when they all realized she was gone. In the meantime…Emily was in a cab going through rush hour traffic…I can’t be sure where she was going but I think she was headed to get her car, which was in a parking lot at the airport. Her car was at the airport because she had flown out and back on the same day to a job interview, but when she arrived, Demming was there and took her back to the house. So she never retrieved her car. The cab got into an accident,” she said tonelessly. “Some fool ran a light and broad sided the cab, striking the side Emily was sitting on. When she showed up at the resort, she had a goose egg on the side of her head…Anya checked her over, she was more or less okay…”
“Except for the memory thing…”
“Yeah…little tiny tidbit…I spoke to the cab driver…”
“Damn, you get around.”
“I hate puzzles where I’m missing pieces, you know that,” Chloe reminded him easily. “The driver said she had asked to be dropped at the airport, but she didn’t have a travel…there were no tickets or anything like that in her pack. I helped her empty it when I took her to the shop and the apartment. Anyway…while the cab driver was hashing it out with the idiot driver, Emily picked up her pack and disappeared. The driver thinks she was unconscious for a bit and he phoned for an ambulance because she wasn’t responding when he tried talking to her…”
“So she woke up from the accident…in the back of a cab…no memory…and just picks up her pack and leaves the cab,” Jack recited carefully. “She has a habit of escaping…”
“Naturally, the relatives were contacted because her name was on the luggage in the trunk of the cab. There was a flourish of press…her picture was flashed everywhere for a day or two…she says she was just sitting in the park in her car. Evidently when she left the cab, she caught a bus and went to the airport, retrieved her car and drove off. I do know there’s a watch out for the car, which is why it hasn’t moved and is covered with the tarp. No one in a small tourist town like Des Moines will be looking for her.”
“They don’t know where she is?”
“They have a private detective looking into it, according to Mrs. Douglas. But Emily took a lot…and I mean several hundred thousand dollars…in cash with her when she left the house and she has her salary from the shop. So she hasn’t been using either her debit or credit cards. Unless someone spots her and calls the police regarding a missing person, she lives very low key. Information I’m getting is that there is a lot of anxiety at the house at the moment because of an upcoming takeover. They don’t so much want Emily, but they want her shares.”
“I can’t…this is like something out of a bad movie…”
“Coincidence has become a word I’m wildly familiar with lately….” Chloe admitted with a long sigh.
“I’d heard stories about the missing shipping heiress, but never connected…”
“She decided she wanted to use her middle name. Some part of her knows she doesn’t want anything to do with the whole thing. Mrs. Douglas says she listened to the poor girl trying to make them listen to her…and there were several…less than positive visits between Emily and Demming. She recalled a very red hand print on Emily’s face one time…and another time Demming came in from the garden hopping on one foot…” Chloe stopped when Jack burst out laughing. “Another where Mrs. Douglas found a torn shirt in the trash that had been Emily’s. One can only speculate…”
“That must be her signature attack,” he told her, explaining about the robbery attempt that morning. Even talking he knew there was an underlying fury at the remark about the handprint.
“Hey…a girl’s gotta do…so…between me and Anya, we got her talking. We gave her the print outs of her history….it’s all we could help with. I did not tell her any of this other stuff, Jack.”
“For what it’s worth, I think it was the right call. I know she loves her job,” he said, memories of her singing and dancing in his head.
“So that’s why Ian was
concerned…”
“Yeah…a woman in a harem outfit might jog someone’s memory of the news story,” Jack said blandly.
“Thing is…according to Mrs. Douglas who has been with the family for most of Emily’s life, she’s been independent since she left high school,” Chloe said with a small frown. “And there wasn’t any animosity about it, that she saw…but on this one thing, her mother and her clashed furiously. Her mother told her it was past time where she accepted her position in life and behaved accordingly. That her father had found her a good match and she would make it work…I don’t get it…how or why they would actually believe she would just cave…giving up her own dreams and goals…for someone she didn’t even like.”
“No kidding…in this day and time…seems more than a little antiquated.”
“I had extra alarms installed and video outside. All that bling she’s got laying around…”
“It’s real?” Jack interrupted sharply.
“Real ice, my friend.”
“How…”
“Two sets of grandparents, birthdays, Christmas…same way she got the stock, I’d guess…gifts…”
“And you think she was bringing it to me…”
“She’s smart enough to do her own checking. I’m guessing they never actually asked for the stock from her…just made the royal assumption that she’d vote party lines, so to speak,” Chloe guessed thoughtfully. “But if she knew about the takeover bid, she’d check to see what was going on that it was suddenly ripe for that kind of thing. She had outstanding grades in business in school. And she would care about the employees and what’s happening to them.”
“I’m on vacation…”
“Nothing like a little adventure to liven things up, Jack.”
“Adventure? This is sounding like a damn soap opera, Chloe. And in the middle of it, sits Emily who just wants them to leave her alone. I guess I’ll be on the computer most of the evening. I’ve got to get in touch with Brad and see where we are…thanks for the help and information, Chloe.” Jack stood up, pulling his keys from his pocket.
WindSwept Narrows: #3 Emily Temple Page 4
