Forget Me Not

by Fern Michaels

  Metcalf clenched his teeth. He hated this little toad of a man. “Yes, sir, that is correct. Henderson called me and said it was dry. Everything is gone. However, we know where the Brighton woman went. Blevins and Davis are on the way to Freehold as we speak. In fact, they should have gotten there well over an hour ago.”

  Metcalf’s superior spoke. “Call them off.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because earlier this evening, some clown ran a DMV check on the fingerprints found in the house in Palm Royal. The guy’s name is Lionel Atmore. He fancies himself as a part-time detective and computer hacker. And he sometimes works as a security guard at a local Walmart. He did it on the request of someone named Bud Longhurst, who lives directly behind the Brighton house in Palm Royal. We picked Atmore up and sweated him till we got what we wanted. He said this Bud person was doing it for Luke Kingston, Jr., who, by the way, is with the Brighton woman in Freehold. They now know that the people living in the house in Palm Royal were not the girl’s parents.

  “Assistant Director Brewster is spot-on. This is a real cluster fuck. The woman somehow found the safe and cleaned it out. That’s the only reason she would drive that big SUV from Florida to New Jersey. She had a first-class return ticket to fly home. And even if she didn’t, as the founder and CEO of IBL, the cost of an airplane ticket is nothing to her. Hell, she could have chartered a Learjet on her own. Are you following me here? We need to fall back and regroup. Call them off. Now.”

  While the other three men watched, Metcalf pulled out his cell phone and fired off a text message, telling Blevins and Davis to abort their mission. Metcalf longed for one of his Tums, but he’d left them in his car.

  “It’s logical, then, to assume that since she found the safe and figured out how to open it, she took everything, then did the same thing when she returned to New Jersey. The young lady is not stupid, gentlemen. Plus, she now knows that the ringers in the house were not her parents,” Metcalf’s superior said.

  “It might interest you to know that the Brighton woman called the Red Bank, New Jersey, field office earlier this evening and literally demanded that someone go to her farmhouse and talk to her,” said Brewster. “She threatened to go to the New York Times with her story if they refused. I do not know if she was bluffing or not, but as the CEO of IBL, there is no chance the Times would not jump at the chance to interview her about anything she wanted to talk about. Can you imagine the headline in the Times? FBI REFUSES TO INVESTIGATE POSSIBLE TERRORIST ACTIVITY. WORLD-FAMOUS HEART SURGEON GOES MISSING: DAUGHTER ALLEGES CIA CONNECTION.”

  Brewster went on. “Two of our best agents, Agents Gerrison and Restin, met and talked with her and her two friends, Angela Powell and Luke Kingston. She told them about the safes and offered to show them the contents later. But she flat-out refused to tell them where she stashed the contents of both safes. She said she wanted to talk to her lawyer, and the Kingston guy indicated that they’d sent letters to other lawyers outlining everything. My agents have spent the last few hours trying to figure a way out of this so you crackers at the CIA don’t give the FBI a black eye or a bad name. Since this is your puppy, we’re signing off right now.”

  “Hold on, Brewster. You can’t do that. Where’s your spirit of interagency cooperation?” Julian Metcalf demanded. “The CIA has saved your sorry asses more than once. Turnabout is fair play.”

  Brewster grimaced. “Where are the real Helene and Fritz Brighton? Do they know about the deaths of the imposters? Do they have any idea their daughter is now involved in any of this?”

  Julian Metcalf chewed on the inside of his lip. “They’re safe. They’re half a world away, but like everyone else in the world, they have Internet access, and they use that to stay in touch with this world. They found out earlier today about the auto crash and the two deaths. And the answer is yes, they know that their daughter has become involved. Fritz told me that his wife collapsed when they heard the news. They want out from under.”

  “Like I said, a real cluster fuck,” Brewster intoned.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lucy stirred and moved slightly, stretching her neck one way, then the other. She was definitely going to have to stand under a hot shower to work the kinks out. She looked down at her ankle and was stunned to see that it was its normal size. And there was no pain to be felt. “Thank you, God,” she whispered.

  Lucy looked over at the other recliner and saw Luke sprawled half on the chair and half on the floor. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. He certainly was good-looking, not that looks counted, because he was also a kind, warm, gentle person, and without a doubt, she felt . . . what? That she wanted him in her life, and not on a temporary basis. What would it be like to kiss him? To feel him take her in his arms and make the world go away? Damn nice, she was sure of it.

  She realized she needed to tell him how she felt, to tell him how thankful she was that he had taken the time to come here and help her and Angie. Wiggling and squirming, Lucy got up and tested her weight by planting her injured foot on the floor. She winced, but it was okay. She moved gingerly then over to the chair where Luke was sprawled. She dropped down to her knees and brushed the dark curls from his forehead. “I know you can’t hear me, but I just wanted to say thank you again and to tell you that I . . . that I . . .”

  “Love me?” Luke whispered, his eyes popping open.

  “I’ve never been in love before, so I’m . . . I’m . . . Yes, I think so. Isn’t the guy supposed to tell the girl first?”

  Luke smiled. “I did, but you were sleeping and couldn’t hear me. I’m kind of gutless that way. I was afraid you’d tell me to pack up and hit the road.”

  “Is that what you thought?”

  “Uh-huh. So it’s okay to stay?”

  “As long as you want,” Lucy whispered.

  Luke moved.

  Lucy moved.

  Just when their lips met, Angie barreled into the family room, then barreled back out. “Guess no one cares that the coffee is ready,” she muttered, a devilish smile on her face. Her clenched fist shot high in the air. She offered up a little prayer that Lucy would find the happiness she so rightly deserved.

  Back in the family room, Lucy nuzzled her nose against Luke’s cheek. “Hmm, that was sweet.”

  Sweet? “Well, I was just warming up,” Luke said, his voice charged with emotion. Damn, I can barely get my tongue to work.

  “What happens when you get to the warming-up stage?” Lucy asked, rubbing noses. She loved the way his breathing changed. Or is it my breathing?

  “Well, then I work on the next stage. That’s the simmering stage, and from there, I go on to the sizzling stage,” Luke said in a strangled voice he didn’t recognize as his own.

  “And then . . . ?”

  “What? You want a picture?”

  “Uh-huh,” Lucy drawled as her tongue found its way into his ear.

  “Stop that!”

  “Why?” Lucy teased.

  “Because I’m not like a fine-tuned motor on a car. Well, I am, but I can’t go from sweet to simmer to sizzle in a nanosecond. I need to . . . ah, work at it. There’s a protocol.... Will you stop that! Oh, myyyyy God!”

  “My fine-tuned engine is revving at the speed of light. What are you going to do about it?” Lucy hissed into Luke’s wet ear.

  Luke was a hair away from showing the fine-tuned engine that was revving at the speed of light and leaning over him what he was going to do when Angie bellowed from the kitchen, “Phone’s ringing. Must be those agents! I’ll get it! I’ll get it!”

  As he rose from his chair, Luke snarled, “Oh shit!”

  Lucy growled, “Oh crap!” She followed that statement up with, “And you haven’t even kissed me yet!”

  Angie whirled around to see Lucy and Luke standing in the doorway. They both looked guilty as sin, in her opinion. Both of them glared at her. Flustered at the expressions on their faces, all she could say was, “Agent Gerrison would like to speak with you, Luc
y.”

  Lucy made her way across the kitchen and mouthed the words, “Your timing sucks, Angie!”

  “So . . . how did you sleep, Luke?”

  “Like a log, except when you and I were checking out the LED light I saw outside last night while Lucy was sleeping. Whoever was out there came pretty close to the house and then left rather abruptly.”

  “That’s sweet. What I mean is that you slept so well. You know, a new house and all. And you were sleeping in a chair. I’m glad. What I mean is, I’m glad you slept well considering the circumstances. I think I’ll just . . . What I’m going to do is . . . head on upstairs and take a shower. I’m sure you won’t miss me. Coffee’s ready.”

  “Sweet! Sweet! Don’t you girls know any other word?”

  Angie turned, flipped Luke the bird, and said, “Sweet is a girlie word. It means a whole host of things to us. We’re girls, and we’re sweet. I rest my case. Just out of curiosity, why is your ear so red?”

  “Just you never mind why my ear is so red,” Luke said, blushing like a schoolgirl.

  “A man with a secret!” Angie wiggled her eyebrows, then giggled. “Oh, how sweet it is!”

  Luke massaged his ear, a wicked grin on his face, as he walked over to the coffeepot. Any hopes of picking up where he’d left off in the family room were dashed when Lucy slammed the phone down and whirled around.

  “Why is your face so red, Luke?”

  “I’ve . . . ah . . . been rubbing it. Guess I ground my face into the material on the chair I was sleeping in. What did Gerrison say?”

  Lucy poured herself a cup of coffee. “You’re not going to believe this, but he said the assistant director of the FBI got orders from the director himself, who told him to order his men to stand down. What does that mean, stand down?”

  “It means cease and desist. I take that to mean the FBI is not interested in you, the two safes, or the contents of those two safes. I guess that means you can do whatever you want with them. Meaning the contents. Hell, Lucy, I don’t know. I’m as new at this as you are. Did he say anything else?”

  “Oh, yeah. He said someone named Julian Metcalf would be coming here to see me. Today, weather permitting. Just so you don’t think I’m anyone’s pushover, I told Agent Gerrison to tell Mr. Metcalf to call to make an appointment, and if I was available, I would see him. If not, oh, well! He didn’t like that, and I hung up.”

  Luke huffed and puffed. “Well, I could have told him you’re no pushover.” He burst out laughing at the expression on Lucy’s face. “By the way, how’s your foot?”

  “Actually, Luke, my foot is feeling much better. Thank you for asking, and thank you for being honest about recognizing that I’m not a pushover. Angie makes good coffee, doesn’t she?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t had any yet.”

  “Well, there’s the pot, and there are the cups hanging off those little pegs. See, I’m no pushover. Get your own coffee.”

  Luke turned and grinned from ear to ear. “It’s still snowing out there.”

  “I see that. I estimate maybe eight inches or so by the time it stops. I really liked nibbling on your ear. I got all tingly and . . . Oh, it was so sweet. I never had anyone stick their tongue in my ear. Tell me, how does it feel?”

  Luke stopped in the middle of the kitchen and stared down at Lucy, who was looking up at him with adoring eyes. “Why don’t I just let you feel it for yourself.”

  “Feel what? What happened?” Angie said from the doorway.

  “The cold weather,” Luke said, blushing all over again.

  Lucy’s dancing devil proceeded to do his jig on Lucy’s shoulder. “Actually, Angie, I was just telling Luke no one has ever stuck his tongue in my ear, and I asked him how it felt. And the reason I asked him that was that before you interrupted us, I was experimenting with his ear. Your timing just out and out sucks.”

  “I’m going to take a shower,” Luke said, beelining for the doorway that would lead him up the back staircase to the second floor.

  “Do you want me to go out and play in the snow so you two can get it on or something?” Angie asked as she did her best not to laugh out loud. “How about from now on I wear a whistle around my neck and blow it before I enter a room? Will that work for you guys?”

  “God, no. I was just teasing. He’s sweet, isn’t he?”

  “Downright delectable,” Angie replied, laughing. “Tell me. What did Agent Gerrison have to say?”

  “On orders from the director via the assistant director of the FBI, Gerrison and his partner, Restin, have been ordered to stand down. That means—”

  “I know what stand down means, Lucy. Did he say why?”

  “Nope. But someone named Julian Metcalf is going to be paying us a visit, depending on the weather. I told him to relay the message to Mr. Metcalf to call and make an appointment. What do you make of this, Angie? What’s for breakfast?”

  “How about French toast and bacon? I guess it means you’re in the clear as far as the FBI is concerned. But whom does Mr. Metcalf represent? And who was it who broke into your house in Edison? Were they FBI? Stands to reason they were since the two guys Luke had visit him said they were with the FBI. Now, suddenly, all of them are standing down. Doesn’t make sense to me unless whoever this Metcalf guy represents supersedes the FBI. I don’t know how any of that works, you know, the chain of command from all those alphabet agencies.”

  “Let’s think about it a minute. There’s Homeland Security. There’s the CIA, and there’s the NSA. If we put them all in a bag and shake it up, I think they’ll come out the same. And yet one of them enlisted the aid of the FBI. What’s up with that?”

  “Maybe when it looked like you weren’t going to kick up a fuss, they thought it would work. I would imagine that after you called the FBI, they had to fall back and regroup. First, you’re in Florida for the funeral. Then you get hit by lightning. Enter more people on your side, then I come along, Luke comes along, and then suddenly we’re all back here and finding the exact same thing you found in Florida. Too many people are now involved. We know of six agents. The two in Florida who went to see Luke. The two who broke into your house, even though we aren’t really sure which agency they belong to. Then the two who came here last night. Although to be perfectly clear on this, we do not know for sure that the two who broke into your house yesterday were FBI. Still, four agents on a case like this is a bit much. Six agents would be more than a bit much, wouldn’t you say? And they didn’t sweat us, either. That in itself is suspicious. It is to me, at least. If you believe what you read, the FBI can take you in and hold you for seventy-two hours without giving you a lawyer. They didn’t do that to us. Why?”

  “I don’t know why for sure, but I doubt very much that even the FBI would detain the CEO of a publicly traded company unless they were prepared to file serious criminal charges, like for insider trading or stock manipulation. And yes, I agree, it is a bit much. I suppose we can speculate till the end of time, and we won’t be any closer to an answer until someone gives us one. In the meantime, we just have to wait it out.”

  “I’m not good at waiting, Lucy. I think I’m worse at it than you are.”

  Lucy shrugged. “What I want to know . . . no, what I need to know is who the hell I had cremated down in Florida. Those people must have families. I can’t keep their remains. I would never throw them away, but I need to know who they are. I keep asking myself over and over why I did that. Why was I in such a hurry to turn my parents—because at that time I thought they were my parents—into ashes? No one ever told . . . I didn’t know. . . . I just wish I hadn’t done that.” Tears rolled down Lucy’s cheeks. Angie reached for a paper towel and handed it over.

  “Don’t take it so hard, Lucy. You did what you felt was right at the time. There was no way for you to know. Like you said, your parents never told you what their intentions were, and there was no will to be found at the time. No one is ever going to blame you for this.”

  “I ju
st want this to be over so I can get on with my life. I want to start the new year fresh by creating Dizzie for IBL. That’s my life, and I don’t want to screw all of that up. And now Luke is in the picture. I have to start thinking about that. Right now I should be happier than a pig in a mud slide. But I’m not, because all of this is hanging over my head.”

  Angie ran out of words. She patted her friend on the shoulder to let Lucy know she was there for her no matter what, and she knew that Lucy understood. And with Luke in the picture, they had it covered. If ever there was a trifecta, this was it.

  “Who in the damn hell is Julian Metcalf?” Lucy snarled.

  Julian Metcalf hated it when he could smell his own sweat. The temperature in the room was a chilling sixty-eight degrees, and he was still sweating. And he really hated rubbing his hands over a day’s stubble on his cheeks. He looked up at Clarence Carpenter and winced at what he was seeing in his superior’s eyes. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing, Chuck,” he said, using the man’s nickname, something he did only when they were together in a private room or on the golf course. “That weasel chickened out!” he said, referring to Assistant Director Nolan Brewster of the FBI.

  “On orders from the director himself. If you remember correctly, time was of the essence, and you agreed with me, Julian. Besides, Nolan Brewster owed me, and I wanted to collect. I didn’t think the director himself would intercede. Who the hell knew the assets were going to get killed? We all did what we did on the fly. Now we have to fix it. So much for interagency cooperation.”