You Must Remember This

by Marilyn Pappano

  He glanced at Jack Stryker, then at the long table of cops before shaking his head. “Thanks, but not tonight.”

  “Haven’t seen you around the department lately, though I hear you met Juliet there for lunch today.”

  Martin let that slide. “Anything new on the Stuart case?”

  “Dean Springer has gone to ground, and he might never come back up. We reinterviewed everyone in town who knew him, and we still can’t connect him to anyone with reason to want Olivia dead. Of course, part of the problem is we can’t find anyone with reason to want her dead. And it’s easy for someone like Springer to hide. He’s one of those forgettable sorts. Hell, he lived here for twenty years, and only a few people knew him.”

  Martin was one of those forgettable sorts, too. He’d been missing for more than ten months, and no one had missed him yet.

  “Sure you won’t join us?”

  “Thanks, but Juliet’s waiting.” He pulled some money from his pocket as the waitress brought his order. He was across the bar and on his way out when he met a crowd coming in. One of them bumped into him, then released the woman with him and stuck out his arm to block Martin’s way.

  “Hey, why don’t you watch where you’re going?” the man demanded, his tone belligerent, his manner blustery, posturing for his girlfriend.

  Martin switched the paper bag to his left hand, then tilted the cowboy’s hat back so they could see eye to eye. “Jimmy Ray,” he said softly. “Haven’t we danced this dance before?”

  The cowboy’s eyes widened, and he swallowed hard. “Man, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean— I didn’t know—”

  “That’s right. You didn’t know. That’s why you need to be nice to everybody, because you never know.” He leaned closer to emphasize the last words. “The next time you bump into somebody, you handle it right. You say, ‘Excuse me. I didn’t mean to do that.’ Try it now.”

  “Ex-excuse me. I didn’t mean to—to…” Jimmy Ray’s Adam’s apple bulged as he swallowed again.

  “Close enough. Nice seeing you again.” He stepped around the cowboy and left the bar. A glance down the street showed the lights were still on in Brown’s office. A closer glance showed just the front end of Juliet’s car on the next street over. It wasn’t attention grabbing, since there were other cars parked nearby. Of course, Maxwell Brown hadn’t seen any of those other cars parked outside his house a short while ago.

  He returned down the side street and through the alley, tapping on the window so she could unlock the door. He handed her a burger, Coke and napkins and unwrapped his own burger before speaking. “I ran into a friend of yours at the Saloon.”

  “Really? Who?”

  “Jimmy Ray.”

  “Jimmy— Oh, the cowboy.”

  “You say that as if it’s something special,” he teased. He could afford to tease because, in fact, she’d said it as if the other man was totally inconsequential. “Of course, being Texas born and bred, I imagine cowboys do carry some significance for you.”

  “Not in the least, though if you put on a pair of boots and a Stetson, I imagine it might raise my temperature a degree or two.”

  “I could do more than that, darlin’. In my apartment this evening you were steaming.”

  She blushed in the dim light and picked for a moment at her hamburger before asking, “You don’t think anyone could see…do you?”

  The window was set high enough that his hand underneath her skirt had been hidden from view. But anyone with any imagination whatsoever would have known what he’d been doing to her, where he’d been touching her, what she’d been feeling. The look on her face, the taut line of her body and the arch of her back had all but shouted pure sexual delight.

  “No,” he said quietly. “I’m sure no one saw a thing.”

  For the next hour, they talked, sat in silence and listened to music. Martin was about to suggest that they call it a night and head home when finally something happened. The lights went off in Maxwell Brown’s office, and a moment later he came out of the building and climbed into his car. If he turned toward home, they would let him go, Martin decided. If he didn’t, they would follow.

  When Brown turned the other way, Martin opened the door. “Let me drive, Juliet.” They switched places, then he pulled to the corner. As soon as the Lexus was out of sight, he turned.

  Once the road left town, it wound through valleys and over passes. Eventually, it reached the interstate, and from there it was easy going to anyplace in the country. Brown didn’t go that far, though. Only a couple of miles out of town, he turned into a broad driveway, slowed at the security gate, then went inside. Martin drove past, pulled to the side of the road and cut the engine and the lights. “Wait here—”

  “No way. I’m going with you.”

  “You’re not dressed for a nighttime walk through the woods.” Her skirt was full and would snag on bushes, and her shoes, while sensible flats, weren’t designed with hiking in mind.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “That dress will reflect every bit of light in the sky.”

  She reached in back and came up with a black trench coat. Her smile was smug. “I like to be prepared. I don’t trust Colorado weather.”

  He wanted to argue with her, but he didn’t have time. If there was anything to see inside the fenced-in compound, he needed to get close enough. “You do what I say without question. Stay behind me. And if I tell you to run, you run like hell and don’t look back. Understand?”

  Her only response was to shrug into the coat, then climb out of the car. With the coat covering her to the ankles and its hood drawn tight around her face, she was less visible than he was, making him wish once more for a knitted black cap to cover his blond hair.

  What little light the moon gave disappeared as they moved deeper into the woods. They followed the concertina-topped fence, keeping to the shelter of the trees, around to the back of the compound. There, a drainage ditch that ran the length of the fence provided them cover. Martin found a good vantage point and eased onto his stomach, his feet braced on chunks of granite in the bottom. With a rustle of nylon, Juliet joined him.

  The back of the warehouse was brightly lit, and there was a good deal of activity going on. Three tractor-trailers marked Grand Springs Trucking were backed up to the loading dock, and another three sat off to one side, motors running, awaiting their turns. On the dock Brown stood out in his suit. Everyone around him wore jeans or work clothes.

  “How’s your neck?”

  Juliet’s whisper tickled his ear, but he didn’t twitch. “Itchy as hell,” he whispered back.

  “It’s not really unusual for deliveries to come in at night, is it?”

  “I don’t know. But do you think Brown comes out to personally oversee the unloading of every nighttime shipment?”

  “Probably not.” She wriggled around, then came up with a small rock that had been somewhere underneath her. She was about to toss it aside when Martin grabbed both it and her hand. With a weak smile, she gave him the rock, which he laid silently in front of them.

  As he watched the men work, he made up a mental wish list: electronic equipment for listening in on Brown’s conversation, binoculars for closer examination of the crates being unloaded, and a gun, a nice little SIG-Sauer. He felt damn near naked without the comfortingly familiar press of the pistol in the small of his back.

  He became still, his thoughts distracting him from the activity at the loading dock. He’d carried a gun. His subconscious must have been aware of that—after all, guns were the weapon of choice for killing, and he knew he’d killed—but it was still a disconcerting idea. A lot of people carried guns. Cops. Burglars. Thieves. Rapists. Murderers. Drug dealers.

  Maybe his business in Grand Springs had had something to do with Maxwell Brown. Maybe he’d been looking for work. Maybe he’d been checking out the competition.

  “Martin.”

  Maybe he had come here to make a deal…or a hit or—

  “Martin!
” Juliet whispered his name and tugged his jacket even as she slid further down into the ditch. A big, burly guy was coming their way, and he didn’t look particularly friendly.

  Snapping out of whatever bleak possibilities he’d been contemplating, Martin moved quickly, silently, to the bottom of the ditch, pulling her with him. For a long time they lay motionless, listening as the footsteps came closer. Just when it seemed as if the man must be walking right up to the fence, a truck door opened, then closed. A moment later the engine rumbled to life, the gears ground and the truck pulled away.

  With her face pressed against Martin’s thigh, Juliet let her breath out in a whoosh. She was scared to death—and exhilarated beyond belief. Never in her life had she done anything the least bit daring or dangerous. It was fun. It was exciting. It turned her on.

  He wriggled free of her and worked his way back up the sloping side of the ditch. She followed, but this time there was no sign of Maxwell Brown. Men continued to unload the trucks, but Brown and the person who appeared to be his right-hand man had disappeared.

  “Let’s go,” Martin mouthed, and gestured for her to lead. She picked her way carefully over the rocks until they reached the woods. Once the darkness swallowed them, she loosened the hood, unbuttoned the coat, then turned, stopping so abruptly that Martin ran into her. Before he could react, she kissed him long and hard, thrusting her tongue into his mouth while her hands roamed restlessly, greedily, over his body.

  Once the shock passed, he grabbed her hands, then pushed her back. “Juliet!” he whispered.

  “That was fun. It was neat.”

  “It was dangerous, not fun.”

  “Fun. Exciting. Arousing.” She tried to free her hands but couldn’t, so she satisfied herself with rubbing sensuously against him. “I want to make love to you. Now. Right now.”

  “Here? In the forest? On the ground? Right next to Brown’s place? I don’t think so.”

  “I need you.” She got one hand loose and slid it down the front of his body, over hard belly and soft denim to the beginnings of an impressive erection. “Now, Martin, please.”

  Choking back a laugh, he trapped her hand again. “Not here. At home, darlin’.”

  “Oh, please… Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  “You’re the only adventure I can handle, Juliet. At home. Come on.” Still holding her hands, he pulled her behind him through the woods, and she followed docilely.

  It was no surprise that he’d been shocked. Heavens, she had shocked herself. She had never behaved so brazenly in her life, but then, she’d never done anything so risky in her life. No wonder people liked to live dangerously. It was a potent feeling—a rush of power, of fear, of being incredibly alive.

  They reached her car and drove home in silence. She stripped off the trench coat and returned it to the back seat. When they pulled into the driveway, she held out her hand for the keys, walked up the sidewalk and let herself into the house, all without saying a word.

  The screen door banged behind her. She didn’t stop, didn’t turn on any lights, but walked down the hall and into her bedroom. She was standing beside the bed, a condom in hand, when Martin walked in. He came straight to her, sliding his hands under her skirt, kissing her as if his survival depended on it. She fumbled with his zipper as he carefully, deliberately ripped her lace panties. She wrapped her fingers around him, and he groaned. She freed him from his jeans, rolled the condom into place, and he cupped his hands to her bottom, lifting her, bringing her down hard so that she gloved him.

  It was fast, greedy, raw need. He offered no tenderness, but she wanted none. Rough, hard, deep, purely physical, he drove into her and she rode him, giving, demanding. Her release hit her first, her body clenching around his, giving his the last push before he exploded, too.

  Moments passed—hours—then he slowly lifted her away, letting her slide down his body until her feet reached the floor. He brushed her hair back and gave her a faint, sexy smile. “You could kill a man before his time.”

  She smiled, too. Her breasts were soft and achy. The heat was still building, cooled for only an instant by their play. Her muscles were trembling, her nerves quivering, her heart thudding. “You’re amazing.”

  “Amazing, huh. I don’t have a past, I may not have much of a future, I can’t remember my own name, but I can make you weak.”

  “Amazing.” Her gaze locked with his, she began unbuttoning her dress. When she reached the buttons below her waist, she pulled the straps off her shoulders and let the dress fall to the floor.

  Still looking at her, he raised his hand to her breast and flicked his fingertips across her nipple. “You’re greedy.”

  “I never was before.” She had enjoyed sex and had always had a healthy regard for it, but she hadn’t indulged often, and she hadn’t really missed it when it was absent from her life. Of course, she’d never been in love before.

  Now, that was a scary thought. Granted, love never came with guarantees, but she had even fewer than usual. All she could say for certain was that Martin would never deliberately hurt her. But so much was beyond his control. Someday he would remember, and when he did…

  She wouldn’t think about it. Not when he was standing in front of her, fully clothed, fully aroused and effortlessly arousing her while she was naked. Not when he was looking at her as if he could never get enough of her, as if he would never stop wanting her, as if… As if he might love her, too.

  She helped him undress, then drew him down on the bed, pushing him onto his back, shifting to sit astride him. It was an intimate position, their bodies snugly joined, and yet she was able to look at him, to appreciate everything about him. He was so incredibly handsome, his body nothing less than beautiful despite the scars. Handsome, sexy, charming, powerful, intense—he was exactly the sort of man who never paid attention to her, who never looked twice at her.

  But he was doing a whole lot more than looking, she marveled as he moved deeper inside her. It was incredible. If, by some chance, fate gave them that future he wasn’t sure he had, if they grew old and gray together, she would always be amazed.

  Their lovemaking was as slow and lazy as the first had been quick and frantic. They played with each other, spent long minutes doing nothing but stroking, touching, kissing. The fever built so slowly, so gradually, that the release that followed was little more than a warm, shivery, pleasure-filled moment. Once, then again, then he pulled her into his arms, cradling her against his slick skin.

  “So,” he murmured after a sleepy, soothing kiss. “You’re not a virgin anymore.”

  “Excuse me?”

  His chuckle tickled her ear. “We’re in bed naked. We just had sex once and made love twice. I don’t think you have to be quite so polite.”

  The fact that he recognized the difference between the acts pleased her inordinately, but she remained focused on the conversation. “I haven’t been a virgin since—well, a long time.” Since she’d met a fellow computer geek her sophomore year in college and let him coax her away from the machine long enough for a vaguely disappointing introduction to the physical side of life. Over the next four years, the sex had gotten better, of course, but it had never been a major part of their relationship. It had become a non-existent part once Jerry met Veronica, with her big hair, drop-dead-gorgeous body, big baby blues and IQ equal to her bust size.

  “You successfully completed your first surveillance tonight.”

  “How successful could it be? We didn’t learn anything.”

  He patted her reassuringly. “We’re alive, babe, and that counts as successful in anyone’s book.”

  Long after his breathing slowed and evened out, she lay awake, her mind too active to sleep. Finally she got up, dressed in a faded old T-shirt and let Hunter in from the yard. He sniffed her hand, accepted a cookie, then trotted off to the bedroom. She headed for the dining room.

  Her computer had never been so neglected. Before meeting Martin, if she was home and awake, she wa
s staring into a monitor. Since meeting him, she’d spent precious few hours online. She was behind in her mail, she hadn’t caught up on any of the online discussions that she subscribed to, and she hadn’t read the Washington Post or the New York Times in days. No, instead of living vicariously through the computer, since meeting Martin, she’d been really living. It was so much more fun.

  She read and answered her E-mail, browsed through a few news stories, checked the weather maps, then called up a search engine. She typed in Maxwell Brown and methodically worked her way through the entries that popped up, usually able to tell from the opening lines whether it might be their Maxwell Brown and ignoring the news articles she’s read earlier at the library. As she tried Hal Stuart’s name, Hunter wandered in, circled the room twice, then curled up directly behind her chair. In less than two minutes, he was snoring.

  A search for drugs yielded millions of hits, drug smuggling a few million less. Even narrowing the search to drug smuggling in Colorado showed more hits than she could ever comb through. Swallowing a yawn, she paged back to the screen that displayed the first ten hits on drug smuggling, then drew her feet into the chair and rested her chin on her knees.

  Personally, she never would have suspected Maxwell Brown of any wrongdoing, but then, she wasn’t a suspicious person by nature. She could look at his incredible house and all his holdings and see nothing more than a very smart—and lucky—businessman. But Martin saw more, and she trusted his instincts.

  So how did they prove that Brown was up to no good? And how did they prove that Hal Stuart was or was not involved? And what would it mean regarding Olivia Stuart’s murder? Would it prove that Martin had nothing to do with it?

  So many questions, so few answers. If they were cops, if this were an official investigation, it would be much easier. They would have access to bank and tax records. They could find out exactly how much money Maxwell Brown made legally and whether it was enough to support his life-style. If it was obvious that his outgo substantially exceeded his legitimate income, that would be enough to justify a closer look into all of his business enterprises.