Forget Me Not

by Fern Michaels

  “And the guns!” Lucy asked.

  “They were locked up, too. For all we know, your parents . . . the people living in the house had permits to keep them. Maybe they belong to someone else, and they were just storing them,” Gerrison said.

  Luke thought that neither man believed a word they were saying.

  “I might buy that if it was just the one house. But two houses with identical safes that were custom made, both opening with the same combination, kind of knocks your opinion out the window, wouldn’t you say? Not to mention that the contents in both safes were almost identical,” Luke all but snarled.

  “Why did someone break into Lucy’s house a little while ago, and why did your agents in Florida try to get a search warrant for Lucy’s house there?” Angie blustered, her eyes wild. “We’re not stupid here, so don’t go thinking we are.”

  “I don’t think either Agent Restin or myself indicated in any way that we thought any of you are stupid. What you’re telling us is bizarre. Neither of us said we don’t believe you. There’s nothing we can do tonight. We’re going to go back to the office, and we’ll be back first thing in the morning, and you can take us to where you’ve secured all the things you told us about. Will that work for you?” Gerrison asked.

  “I’m not sure. I think I am going to want to talk to my attorney before I turn anything over to you. I think I speak for Angie and Luke, too. None of us are anxious to have this melodrama continue with us as the bad guys.”

  “Understandable,” Agent Restin said. “Let’s agree to talk tomorrow morning at eleven. That way, Agent Gerrison and I can work through the night, trying to pin down some of this. Are the three of you okay with that?”

  Angie and Lucy looked over at Luke, who nodded slightly to show he agreed.

  “Then we’ll say good night, and we’ll be back in the morning.”

  “I’ll show you out,” Luke said as he reached for the agents’ down jackets, which were hanging next to his own on the clothes rack by the back door.

  “Drive carefully,” Luke said in his most neutral voice. The moment the two agents were outside the door, he slammed it shut and ran back to the kitchen.

  “It’s snowing like hell out there. Cross your fingers those guys make it safely back to their office. All things considered, they took it better than I expected. Let’s face it, it is a bizarre story. My gut says they believed every word we said. Now, Lucy, was that a threat about calling your lawyer or not?”

  “I’m smart enough to know you never agree or sign anything without your lawyer okaying it. And how are we going to get him here tomorrow by eleven o’clock? Especially if the weather is bad. The flip side to that is, what if he says, ‘Do not take the agents to the storage unit, and do not turn anything over’? Then what do we do? We’re back to square one. And worse yet, we’re swinging in the wind. My house has been violated. Sooner or later, they’re going to find us. Whoever they are.”

  “I think this calls for a drink,” Angie said. “I know you bought wine, Luke. Where did you put it?”

  “In the cabinet on your right.”

  “And tomorrow is another day,” Lucy said wearily.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Luke swept Lucy up in his arms and carried her into the family room, where the fire was blazing and the room was cozy warm. He was amazed at how light she felt in his arms, how right she felt, like she belonged there. He hated to settle her in the recliner. His heart was beating trip-hammer fast. He was in love. There was no doubt about it.

  “My first day in my new house, and I haven’t had time to enjoy it,” Lucy grumbled, just to have something to say because she wasn’t quite understanding what she was feeling where Luke Kingston was concerned. Was it possible she was falling in love? She’d never been in love. Yes, she’d had so-so relationships, but nothing that even came close to what she was feeling at that moment.

  “I meant to ask you, Lucy,” Luke said gruffly. “How is it this place is furnished so nicely and you got to move in so quickly?”

  Lucy was glad of the reprieve. “When I first took the virtual tour months ago and expressed interest, the Realtor said the estate of the man who lived here wanted to sell it, so they renovated it and furnished it, thinking that would help sell it quickly. Then, when the lawyers did the title search, they came across some irregularities, and they had to take it off the market. Since I was the first one to make an offer back then, they contacted me when all the legalities were settled. I paid extra for the furnishings, and I’m paying rent for this first month, but the house won’t be officially mine for thirty days. It was win-win for me and the estate. They wanted a quick sale, and I wanted out of that house in Edison. The main thing that caught my eye about this farm was the bunkhouse. It just seemed so perfect for a studio.”

  Angie had made a nest of pillows by the fireplace. She looked over at Lucy and Luke and decided that three was a crowd. “If you guys don’t mind, I think I’m going to go up to bed.”

  Lucy and Luke nodded as Angie got up and headed for the second floor.

  “I’ve been thinking about something, Lucy. I know we touched on this earlier, but I think we should talk about it some more. I know you and Angie both think that your parents were spies. And you know what? Maybe they were, but for the good guys. For the United States. Right now I refuse to believe that the parents who produced you could ever do anything wrong. That didn’t come out quite right, but you know what I mean. Any mother who gives her daughter her own baby tooth had to have loved you deeply. You told me about that memory of your father playing train with you. That’s love. Why would they go off the rails and turn into spies? You said everything changed when you were ten. That was when they sent you off to boarding school. Maybe that’s when your parents were approached to . . . to spy by our own government.”

  “God, Luke, you have no idea how badly I want to believe that.”

  “I want you to believe it, because I believe it. The thing is, which agency would they spy for? Homeland Security didn’t exist back then. That leaves the CIA in Langley, Virginia. The CIA is foreign. The FBI is domestic. And yet all contact seems to be coming from the FBI. That’s what isn’t making sense to me. You know what else, Lucy? It didn’t make sense to Gerrison and Restin, either. I could tell.”

  Lucy nodded in agreement just as Luke’s cell phone rang.

  “Bud! Talk to me.”

  “The new locks are on. I even put a new security panel on the garage door. The guy I told you about, Lionel Atmore, spent three hours dusting the whole house for prints. I was there the whole time, so don’t worry about his being alone in the house. I don’t know where he got it, but he had something called a mobile print reader, and it takes a digital thumbprint. First, though, he had to lift the prints and do some stuff to them. He said cops use it at homicide scenes. He got Lucy’s print, Angie’s print, your print, along with four other prints. I didn’t add my and Adel’s prints, but if you do, that means he recovered nine sets of prints total. Two of which are the Brightons’ or belong to the people posing as the Brightons. He has some kind of in with someone who works for the DMV. We have four sets of prints with names. I’m going to upload them and send them off to you.”

  “Who do the prints belong to, Bud?”

  “I don’t know who they are, Luke. They’re just names to me. All I know is they are registered with the Department of Motor Vehicles. Is there anything else you need me to do? Adel wants to know how Lucy is. What’s going on, son?”

  Luke gave him the short version but managed to cover everything. Bud was speechless. “I’ll call you tomorrow, after we speak with the agents again. Lucy can’t decide if she wants to call her lawyer or not. Listen, Bud, thanks for everything. Give my love to Adel.”

  Luke looked over at Lucy, who was sound asleep in the chair. How beautiful she looked, how peaceful in sleep. He hoped she wasn’t dreaming about this mess. He got up and added some logs to the fire. He stared into the flames for a long time as his though
ts ricocheted all over the place. He let loose with a mighty sigh and walked out to the kitchen, where he finished off the pie, which was still sitting on the counter. Then he popped a Bud Light and sat down at the table.

  Luke looked at the kitchen clock. It was almost midnight. He called his foreman, knowing full well that Jim Denver never went to bed before one in the morning.

  “Jim, listen, I want you to do something for me. Pull the blueprints for the studio we built for that wannabe Jackson Pollock artist in Boca. I want you to file for all the building permits, hire a new crew, and have them build that exact structure behind my house in Palm Royal. No, I’m not planning on becoming an artist,” he snapped before he severed the connection.

  Was he jumping the gun? Putting the cart before the horse? What if Lucy didn’t want to marry him and live in Florida during the winter months? He told himself that if he could make the move painless, she would agree if she loved him. Then, when they went back north during the summer months, he could build something there. Win-win! He didn’t want to think about the possibility that Lucy might say no to a marriage proposal.

  God, I haven’t even kissed her yet. They need to lock me up and throw away the key.

  As he swigged his beer, Luke’s mind raced. Where was all of this going? What would be the outcome? There were so many what-ifs, he was getting dizzy. Then again, maybe the wine he’d had before, together with the beer, was giving him a buzz.

  Luke realized he wasn’t the least bit sleepy, so he made his way back to the family room, where he checked on Lucy, then poked at the fire. Well, that took all of three minutes, he said to himself. Maybe I should walk around and check out this old farmhouse.

  At first glance, he’d realized they just didn’t build houses like this anymore. This place had character, and its flaws just made it perfect in his eyes. He eyed the open beams with the wooden pegs used for nails. He came to the conclusion that a tornado couldn’t destroy the place. Everything was solid. He loved it and applauded Lucy’s good taste in buying it.

  As he walked around, Luke turned off the lights one by one. The fire in the room gave off plenty of light, as did the television, which was set on mute. He was in the kitchen. He could see the swirling snow underneath the light fixture. He turned it off, and the kitchen went totally black. That was when he saw through the kitchen window the pinpoint of light off in the distance. The farmhouse was much too far from the highway for a car light to shine this way. He hadn’t seen any lights on the barn at the back of the house. No, this pinprick of light was on the road that led to the house. He quickly checked the stout Dutch door, which Lucy had said she loved the moment she saw it. Iron hardware, top-of-the-line security locks. No one was getting in through this door. He ran back to the front door and checked it. Just as stout, the same iron hardware and security locks. No one was getting in this door, either. He ran back to the kitchen to check the door that led into the garage. The previous owner obviously believed in safety and security. Always a big feature when one was trying to sell a house. He sighed so loudly, he scared himself.

  Luke inched closer to the door leading to the laundry room, which gave him a partial view out the kitchen window. By stretching his neck almost off his shoulders, he was able to see that the pinprick of light he’d seen earlier was now more like a large dot of light. Someone must be slogging through the snow on foot. Did one light mean one person? Well, if it was an LED light, then yeah, that would be enough light for a small army. His stomach crunched into a knot.

  Luke thought about the weapons they’d hidden in the storage unit. They should have kept one, just in case. Yeah, right, he told himself. If the girls had done that, I probably would shoot myself in the foot. Nonetheless, he needed a weapon. What was available? A butcher knife? The poker from the fireplace. One good swing could do some serious harm. A knife, now, that was iffy. He’d have to be in just the right position to make that work. The only experience he had with a knife the size of the one on the kitchen counter was last year, when he’d carved the turkey at Thanksgiving.

  Luke debated then. Should he go upstairs and wake Angie? It wasn’t that he was a coward, because he wasn’t. He knew he’d die trying to protect the two women, but he didn’t want them to be asleep and not know what was going on. He’d let Lucy sleep, but Angie needed to be aware of what was going on. He checked the dot of light, and it seemed that it was in the same position as it had been in a few minutes ago.

  Luke sprinted down the hall and up the staircase. He poked his head in every room until he spotted Angie under a mound of covers. He ran over and shook her shoulder. “Shhh, it’s just me, Luke. Someone is outside with a flashlight. Lucy’s sleeping,” he hissed in Angie’s ear.

  Startled, Angie gasped. She had been about to scream until she heard Luke’s voice. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, wide awake already. Dim light from the bathroom night-light filtered into the bedroom. Luke blinked as he considered Angie’s getup. She was wearing flannel pajamas and heavy socks. He watched as she pawed around the bed for her fuzzy robe. She slid her feet into slippers that looked like snow boots. “What? Didn’t you ever see pajamas before?”

  “That’s a lot of clothes to be wearing to bed with all those covers you have piled on the bed. Don’t you sweat?”

  “No, I don’t sweat, and I like to be warm. What? You think Lucy doesn’t go to sleep wearing the same thing? You think she wears chiffon and lace? It’s cold out. It’s snowing. It’s probably thirty degrees outside and sixty in this bedroom. Why are we having this conversation, Luke? Furthermore, I wouldn’t need all these clothes if there was a man in my bed to keep me warm. I see you have the poker. Where’s my weapon?”

  “You get the butcher knife. I checked the house from top to bottom. Trust me, no one is getting in here. This is . . . this is just in case.”

  “If no one is getting in here, just in case of what? The intruder is going to come down through the chimney?”

  They were at the bottom of the steps and tiptoeing out to the laundry room.

  “Take a look and tell me what you think.”

  Luke had to grab hold of the back of Angie’s robe so she could lean farther out to look through the window to where he had seen the light.

  “You’re right,” she whispered. “That’s an LED flashlight. I have one in my car in case I break down at night. The light is amazingly bright. It’s hard to tell how close or far away they are. The beam seems to be small, so they could be closer than we think. What should we do, Luke?”

  “Wait and see what they do. I debated calling the police, but I didn’t. I wasn’t being macho or anything like that. I kept thinking about Lucy saying too many people are involved in all of this. There’s no way anyone is getting into this house. That I can guarantee.”

  “From your lips to God’s ears,” Angie whispered.

  Luke could sense Angie trembling, so he brought her up to date on Bud’s endeavors. “The thing is, the names Helene and Fritz Brighton did not come up on the DMV data list. We have names. That’s all. I’ll turn them over to Gerrison and Restin when they get here in the morning, if Lucy okays it.”

  “That has to mean Lucy is right. The people living in the house weren’t her parents.”

  “Yeah. Who the hell were they? Isn’t the end of October too early to have this much snow?”

  “Yes and no. Last year we got a storm the first week in November that practically crippled the northern part of the state. Florida is looking better and better as the days go on.”

  “Tell me about it. Whoever it is out there isn’t making very good time. Or else the snow is knee deep,” Luke said.

  “So, when they get here, what? Are they going to knock on the door? Are they stupid enough to think we’ll open it at this time of night in the middle of a snowstorm? Have they seen too many of those Halloween movies? Give me a break!” Angie scoffed.

  “Well, if you really want to go for a stretch, try this on. They could bomb the house, set fire to i
t, and throw tear gas through a window.”

  “You really had to say that, didn’t you?”

  “You asked. That’s what they do in those thriller movies. The good guys always make it out safe and sound at the last second,” Luke said testily.

  “Luke, just between you and me, where do you really think Lucy’s parents are? Do you think they’re dead?”

  “If they were alive, don’t you think they would have gotten in touch with their only daughter? What kind of parents would go through all this crap and have it come down on their child’s head? Who the hell needs or wants parents like that? I don’t know, Angie. We can speculate until the cows come home, and we won’t know unless someone tells us.”

  Angie looked up in the dim light of the laundry room to see the anguish marked on Luke’s face. “I’m going to check on Lucy.”

  “Juke down and stay away from the windows.”

  “Okay.”

  Julian Metcalf looked as confident, poised, and pristine as he had earlier in the day. He bent down so the reader at the side of the door could scan his eyeball. He hated these late-night meetings. He should be sitting in his favorite reading chair with his pipe and a snifter of hundred-year-old brandy, but he was here, and he was freezing. The trip from his residence in Georgetown to here at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, following the flight back from Fort Myers had been a nightmare, what with the snow and sleet that were icing the road. He knew he would end up bunking there for the night. Just the thought irritated the hell out of him.

  It pleased him to see the three men seated at the table, waiting for him. His immediate superior, the assistant director of the FBI, and the head of the Florida office of the FBI.

  “Has the snow let up?” Metcalf’s superior asked.

  “No, and it’s getting worse. Can we get to it? It’s late.”

  A pudgy little man with owl-like eyes, who was the assistant director of the FBI, spoke. “Might I remind you, Mr. Metcalf, that you came to us to pull your chestnuts out of the fire. We cooperated all the way down the line in the spirit of interagency commitment. This has turned into a cluster fuck the likes of which I’ve never seen. Your people, Blevins and Davis, were spotted entering the Brighton house in Edison. The local police have the license-plate number on the car they were driving. There was a witness, whom the police refuse to name. They came out of the house empty-handed, so that tells me the contents of the safe you told us about at our first meeting are gone. Meaning the Brighton woman has figured it out and stashed it somewhere. Am I right so far, Mr. Metcalf?”