Forget Me Not

by Fern Michaels

  “I gave him my phone number, and he gave me his.”

  “No kidding?” Lucy said in pretended amazement.

  “Yeah, no kidding,” Angie drawled. “Listen, girlfriend, don’t for one minute think you are fooling me. You sent me down there just so I could meet him. The good news is, it worked. Okay, let’s get that foot dressed so we can . . . what, Lucy?”

  “Check out that damn closet, that’s what. I need to make decisions here, get some kind of game plan in place. You have to have a game plan if you’re going to accomplish anything significant.”

  Angie nodded as she got to work. She half listened as Lucy picked up the phone on the little table next to her chair to check her messages. When she felt Lucy go still, she looked up, concern etched on her face. “What?”

  “What’s your feeling about moving to Freehold?”

  “Like pack up and move all our stuff, that kind of move? Why not?”

  Why not indeed. “Months and months ago, I took a virtual tour of a horse farm down there in Freehold. You know how much I’ve been wanting to get away from this . . . this house. I just didn’t know where I wanted to go, and one day, on the Internet, I saw this advertisement about a farm in Freehold. I called a broker, and he told me that when the owner’s estate was settled, it would go up for sale. What I really liked about it was, there is a four-bedroom bunkhouse, a log cabin of sorts, that would make a perfect studio for us. The farmhouse is all wood and cozy, with big, old fieldstone fireplaces. I gave him the go-ahead to make an offer if and when it went on sale, and the estate accepted my offer. We can move the first of the year. Actually, he said I could be in before Christmas if I went through with the deal. What do you think, Angie? Now that you’re IBL’s director of graphic arts, I have to consult with you.”

  “Where does Toby live?”

  Lucy started to laugh and couldn’t stop. She continued to giggle as she gasped out that Toby lived in Hazlet, which was just a hop, skip, and a jump from where they would be living. “Actually, Angie, Toby will be closer to us in Freehold than he is here.”

  “Then let’s do it! Call your guy back, and I’m all for being in before Christmas. Oh, we can put up a real tree and the whole nine yards! Outstanding, Lucy!” Angie said, giving Lucy a high five.

  Lucy’s fingers moved at the speed of light. Her voice was just as fast and as breathless. “We have a deal, and I’d also like to be in before Christmas.”

  The two young women looked at one another and burst out laughing at the same time. Then they hugged each other.

  “All we have to pack up is the stuff from the studio and my clothes from this room. I don’t want anything from this house. I can call a moving company, and they can pack up everything. That’s probably the better way to go. Then we drive down there and move in. See how simple that is?” Lucy said nervously.

  “What about this place?”

  “I can answer that better after we check out the master bedroom. If we find what I think we’re going to find, then, no, I am not going to put it on the market. Besides, the housing market is so dismal, I wouldn’t get half of what it’s worth. I’ll just pay the taxes and insurance and close it up the way I did the one in Florida.”

  Angie stared at her friend for a full minute.

  “It’s okay, Angie, and yeah, I am scared. That’s another reason I want to get out of here. Yes, yes, I read your mind. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know I’m edgy about all of this. Before, when I didn’t know anything and was too stupid to be afraid, was one thing, but now . . . someone, somewhere is going to want all . . . all that money and those fraudulent passports and identities. And the guns. The guns are what scare me. What were my parents into?”

  Angie held out her hand to pull Lucy from the chair she was sitting on. “Let’s do it, Lucy. Better to know, then go to plan A, B, or C.”

  “You’re right. We need to know. If things go . . . you know, south . . . do you think anyone will believe I didn’t know about all of this?”

  Of course they’ll know. What’s wrong with you, Lucy? “Of course not.”

  “Liar!”

  Lucy didn’t pause at the door that led to her parents’ room. She grabbed the doorknob and thrust the door open. She walked as fast as she could across the room to the huge walk-in closet.

  “This room is as big as my whole apartment was,” Angie said in a squeaky voice.

  Lucy turned on the light switch. The massive walk-in closet came to life. “It’s just their winter clothes. They left them behind because they moved to Florida and wouldn’t need them. And they would be here if they came back to visit in the wintertime, which they never did, of course. Do me a favor and bring in the footstool so I can sit on it.”

  Lucy couldn’t ever remember being so jittery. Even her voice sounded strange to her ears. “Angie, push the clothes along the rod. See if the outfits number seven. Do my mother’s first, then my father’s. Is there an umbrella there somewhere? I seem to vaguely remember an umbrella.”

  Angie followed instructions. “Nope, it’s just a jumble of clothes. Winter boots, heavy coats, and no umbrella. Are we relieved or not?”

  “Do you remember where I left my purse?”

  “On the kitchen counter, I think. Why?”

  “Because the wires from the umbrella are in there. The umbrella in the Florida house. Can you fetch it, Angie?”

  Angie literally flew out of the room and down the steps. She was back within minutes, a tangle of wires in her hands. Lucy didn’t know whose hands were shaking more, hers or Angie’s.

  The moment she untangled the wires in her hand, Lucy looked up at Angie, her eyes full of concern and fear.

  “Just do it, Lucy, and put us both out of our misery. We have to know one way or the other.”

  “Get behind me. The floor slides all the way to the end. Okay, here goes!”

  Lucy jammed her finger against the button that would have opened a normal umbrella. She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until she heard and saw the floor start to move away from the wall. “I knew it! Oh, God, Angie, what does this mean?”

  “I don’t have a clue, Lucy. I honestly don’t. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this. It looks like it belongs in a bank or some outer-space place. Would you look at that!” she said, awe ringing in her voice.

  “Yeah, I know. That’s the first thing I thought of when I saw the one in Florida. This looks to be an exact duplicate.”

  “Do you think the combination is the same?”

  “Let’s see,” Lucy said, sliding off the footstool, careful to stretch out her bad foot. “Oh, God, this can’t be good.” She pressed in the digits of the code she’d used in Florida, then waited. When she heard the audible click of the gears engaging, she said, “You’re closer, Angie. See if you can open any of the compartment doors.”

  Angie clenched her teeth. “Lucy, are you sure you want to do this? All you have to do is close this thing up, and we can pretend it isn’t here. Once you open the doors, it’s a whole other ball game. I’ll do it if you want me to. I’m just saying . . .”

  “I have to know. Not knowing, suspecting, worrying, that’s worse. Just open the damn doors, okay?”

  Angie had to use both hands but was finally able to open what she called Door Number One. “I guess you want what’s in here, right?”

  “That would definitely help, Angie.”

  Angie withdrew a thick bundle of papers and handed them to Lucy.

  “Legal papers. Just like in the other safe in Florida. Okay, open the next one.”

  “Cigar box, credit cards, different driver’s licenses and passports, and a whole lot of money. A whole lot of money. More money than I’ve ever seen in my whole life,” Angie said in awe.

  “Same as Door Number Two in Florida. Open Number Three and there will be guns in there. I’m almost sure of it.”

  “And you’re right, Lucy. With what you said you have out in the car plus these, you have a good arsenal here.
I’m not touching those guns. Do you hear me? I’m not touching them.”

  “I heard you. Okay, put everything back, and let’s close this up and decide what we’re going to do.”

  Angie couldn’t comply fast enough. She was breathing hard and hugging her knees when the floor slid closed. She put her head between her knees to ward off the dizziness she was feeling.

  “This is spy stuff, Lucy. Nothing else makes sense. This is getaway loot. You always read about stuff like this or see it in James Bond movies. The good guys, and I stress, the good guys, always have to have a safe haven in case their cover is blown. You know, time to fall back and regroup before they go on their next mission. That’s the only thing that makes sense to me, unless you can come up with something different.”

  “Yeah, well, does that mean my parents were the good guys or the bad guys?”

  At the torment she was seeing in Lucy’s eyes, Angie said, “Look, Lucy, your parents were respected doctors. Whatever this . . . ,” she said, waving her arms at the floor, “is about, I’m not thinking they did bad things. Just the opposite. I don’t have a criminal mind, so just because all this stuff is here doesn’t mean they were directly involved. Maybe this house and the one in Florida were, like I said, safe houses, and your parents, for whatever reason, helped other people. Always the good guys, okay? I refuse to think otherwise until you can prove they were not.”

  “We need to tell someone,” Lucy whispered.

  “Who?” Angie dithered.

  “We should have looked at the bundle of legal papers. I’ll bet you five dollars, there are many, many more properties just like this one. When I went through the papers from the Florida house, I saw deeds to other properties, but I just thought they were real-estate holdings, and didn’t pay attention to them. If we go to the authorities, this will go public. I don’t hold out much hope that IBL could survive that kind of scandal. Even if my parents turn out to be the good guys. If we don’t go public, that means someone associated with my parents is going to come looking for all this stuff. I might have made a wrong move by bringing all the stuff from the Florida house here. For all I know, we could be in danger, Angie. There must be some kind of network involved.”

  “If it turns out that your parents were the good guys, then we shouldn’t be in danger,” Angie whispered.

  “True. But we have to be prepared to find out that maybe they weren’t the good guys. Then we are in danger. Those people will want all this stuff. Wouldn’t it be great if we could box it all up and put it on the front porch with a sign that says COME AND GET IT?”

  “Yeah, I can see that happening. What are we going to do with all that stuff you have packed up in your father’s truck?”

  “I don’t know, Angie. What do you think we should do with it?”

  “I saw this movie once where these people hid everything in a washing machine, then just put dirty clothes on top of it and filled it with water. The stuff they were hiding was in sealed plastic bags.”

  “Did they get caught?”

  “Well, yeah, at the end of the movie. Someone turned on the washer, and it wouldn’t go through the cycle or something.”

  “Scratch the washing machine. Let’s go downstairs, build a fire, and make something to eat. I always think better when I have a full stomach. A few glasses of wine won’t hurt either one of us.”

  Lucy took the chair rail down to the first floor, while Angie bounded down the stairs and out to the kitchen. Lucy headed for the family room, where she threw some logs on the grate and pressed the gas starter. She blinked when the gas flame shot upward. The birch log caught immediately as the flames did a wild dance. She threw in some pinecones from a basket on the hearth that she had gathered weeks before. She sniffed at the aromatic scent of pine that assailed her nostrils. Satisfied with the fire, she limped out to the kitchen, where Angie stopped banging pots and uncorked a bottle of wine. She poured sparingly.

  “What’s for dinner?”

  “That’s a stupid question, Lucy. All you have is frozen food. I have some hamburgers here. We can do some baked potatoes and some frozen vegetables. Do you ever eat fresh stuff?”

  “On the day I go to the store, I do.”

  “Why don’t you hire a cook or a housekeeper or something?”

  “Now it’s my turn to say what a stupid question that is. Because . . . growing up, I had to live with that. It was a different cook every few months. I didn’t like it then, and I don’t like it now. If I can’t do it myself, then it simply doesn’t get done. I kind of like cooking and cleaning. It’s not hard to clean a bathroom and kitchen and change the sheets on my bed. Why do I need someone to do that for me?”

  “To free you up to do other things, I guess. It wasn’t a criticism. It was a suggestion.”

  “I know. I never had that . . . that family thing in my life. I’m trying to make it on my own here. Does that make sense?” Lucy asked anxiously.

  “Yes. Yes, it does. How do you want your burger?”

  “Medium rare. Wow! Listen to that wind out there. Typical Halloween weather. Halloween is tomorrow, isn’t it? I kind of lost track of time here.”

  “Day after tomorrow. Have some more wine.”

  Lucy held out her glass. “I like it when it gets dark early, don’t you? What I mean is, I like it as long as I’m inside and cozy warm. I really need to talk to a shrink, and I’m going to as soon as we get things squared away. I made that decision when I was down in Florida.”

  “Sounds like a good idea,” Angie said as she peered at her friend over the rim of her glass. Lucy noticed that Angie had yet to actually drink the wine in her glass.

  “I can’t believe my parents are dead. I also can’t believe they are still in the truck in the garage, wrapped up in bubble wrap. I should have brought them into the house as soon as we got here. I didn’t do that. It’s not bothering me that they’re out there in the truck. Why is that, Angie? And don’t forget, I almost forgot to pick them up from the mortuary. What does that say about me? What kind of shitty daughter am I?”

  Angie shrugged and finally took a sip of the wine in her glass.

  “That’s it? You don’t have anything to say?” Lucy all but screeched.

  Angie set her wineglass down on the table. “You are not a shitty daughter. You are a good, kind, wonderful person and the best friend in the whole world. We spent hundreds of hours talking about this when we were roommates in college. If you feel the need to place blame, then the blame goes to your parents, not you. Never you, Lucy. Some parents just don’t know how to show love. Some parents who have careers never figure out how to juggle a family and the career, and sometimes they mistakenly choose the career, thinking that once they become successful, they can go back and reclaim all they let slip away with their children. In your case, that didn’t happen, and you were forced to go on basically alone, knowing only that you had parents somewhere in the background. We both know that putting a roof over your head, feeding you, giving you money and a car, and whatever else money can buy doesn’t make up for being a good parent. You had to suck that up, so from where I’m sitting right now, you are golden, and it was your parents who were shitty. More wine?” Angie asked breathlessly.

  Lucy held out her wineglass, tears rolling down her cheeks. “What would I do without you, Angie?”

  “Ah, you’d muddle through. Listen, what do you say we dump these burgers and head out for some sushi?”

  “Oh, God, I thought you’d never ask,” Lucy said, wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her sweatshirt.

  In the blink of an eye, both young women had their jackets on and their purses on their shoulders. Angie ran into the family room to turn off the gas starter and close the glass doors of the fireplace before they made their way to the garage.

  “I’m driving. You had too much wine. Not that you could drive, anyway.” Angie tried not to look at the packed Range Rover as Lucy slid into the passenger seat of the yellow Saturn.

  Lucy caught Angie’
s furtive look. She clenched her teeth so tight, she thought her jaw would crack. “I don’t know who they are, but they aren’t my parents. I don’t know how I know this, but I’m positive that they aren’t my mother and father. We do not need to discuss this again, Angie, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Lucy managed to slide out of the bright yellow Saturn on her own. She danced around on her good foot until the garage door slid into place. “Whew, it’s windy out there! I just love this kind of weather. Did you see that harvest moon? Autumn has always been my favorite time of year. Don’t you just love the smell of burning leaves? It’s against the law, but people still do it. Dinner was good, though, and we don’t have a mess to clean up.”

  “You can stop babbling now, Lucy,” Angie said as she dumped her purse and car keys on the kitchen table. “We’re in the house, not the garage.”

  “Am I that obvious?” Lucy asked as she flopped down on a kitchen chair.

  “Yeah, you are, and don’t go reading my mind.”

  “You’re thinking how tired you are, and I’m sorry, Angie. You’ve had a full day, with all the driving and then this stress piled on top of it. Let’s lock up and go to bed.”

  “It’s only eight thirty!”

  “So? Your eyes are drooping, and so are mine. Tomorrow is another day. A full day, so let’s both get a good night’s sleep. There are no answers right now, and we both need clear heads to deal with . . . with whatever all of this is. Okay?”

  Angie brushed at her dark hair, then yanked it back and tied it in a ponytail. “Sounds good to me. I can change your dressing upstairs since I left everything up there. Another day or so, and I think you can just put a sock on your foot. Maybe even wear a slipper.”

  “I can’t wait to get back to normal,” Lucy said as she checked the back door and the door leading to the garage. “Okay, we’re good here. One more time, Angie, thank you so much for . . . for being my friend and for just being you.”

  Angie wrapped her arm around Lucy’s shoulders as they made their way to the foyer and the staircase that led to the second floor. “That’s what friends do for each other. Sometimes friendships are deeper and more meaningful than family ties. It shouldn’t be that way, but sometimes it is. Remember that old saying, ‘You can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family’?”