Unforgettable (Untouchables)

by Cindy Skaggs

  “How so?”

  “Say I forget about the cat. So I forget how—” She cut off abruptly.

  “What?” Now he sounded annoyed.

  “Ugh,” she growled and pushed away from him. She moved to the opposite end of the sofa. “Say what happened worried me.” Worried? Hell, what happened to the cat terrified her. “If I forgot the cat, I might forget to be concerned for my safety. I’d make a mistake and get myself killed. If I was afraid, which I’m obviously not.”

  “Obviously.”

  Even if the cat was the trigger that sent her to the protection of Blake’s arms. “I wouldn’t use Time Line Therapy on myself. The only way to control a situation is to know everything you can.” Her entire life had been built around the very idea.

  Blake kept at it. “Can you think of any circumstance that would make you want to forget?”

  “You don’t even believe, so why are you asking?”

  “Because I watched you do it. Take a boy and make him forget. Would you ever use that against yourself?”

  To do so was a violation. Her mind was hers to protect and control. She shook her head. “Honestly, when I studied Time Line Therapy, I considered going to a good hypnotherapist and eliminating the pain of my mother’s death. Just the pain. If I could forget it.” She leaned her head against the sofa back and fought the memories even now, so many years later. “But forgetting the pain would mean forgetting her, or some part of her.” She squeezed her eyes closed. “And if I did, I might forget her warnings. They kept me safe. I wouldn’t risk it.” Ever.

  The situation hurt. It brought too many memories of her mother, an event that had decimated her. He followed her across the couch, pulled her back onto his lap. “The answer is here. I feel it in my gut.”

  “So now your gut has a mind.” But the nervousness pulsing through her veins agreed. There was something here, something dark that she didn’t want to consider.

  He ran his hand through her curls. “Can you think of any scenario where you might change your mind?”

  Vicki leaned up. “No.” Panic set her pulse racing. “Good or bad, my memories are mine. I won’t let anyone inside my head.”

  “Aside from the other day, had you been in Déjà Vu before?”

  “No.” She lifted a brow. “What are you getting at?”

  “The kid said he’d seen you here before, which was why he came looking for you tonight.”

  She froze, tension oozing out of her pores like sweat. Pain spiked her temporal lobe. Dear God, what had she done? Memory stampeded her mind in flashes of light, more like faded pictures, flipped through her mind. She grabbed her head like she was unscrewing the lid. “That’s it. The migraine. The dead hypnotist. Manny. Shit, my head feels ready to explode.” Vicki leaned forward and nearly toppled to the floor.

  Blake grabbed her by the waist and hauled her back.

  She tapped his hands. “Let me go. Let me go.” She wanted to run, from the pain and the potential of what she might have done. The violation was beyond what she thought herself capable of. Were there no limits to her manipulations? Her memories were inviolate, but she had altered them. Now she couldn’t trust herself, couldn’t trust the memories.

  When he released her, she jumped up and disappeared into the bedroom. She took a moment as she dug through the pockets of her jacket to refocus. There was no doubt in her mind what she had done. Now the question was: How deep was the danger she’d walked into? Because only something extreme would send her to a hypnotherapist. Moments later she was back, carrying a crumpled bit of newspaper. She thrust it into his hands, remembering the words as he read.

  Dead hypnotist.

  “A dead hypnotist is too coincidental.”

  The answer was trapped in her brain the whole time. “Blake?”

  He looked up. A crease marked his forehead.

  Stabbing pain nearly sent her to her knees, but she couldn’t back down. Not now. “What can you find out about her?”

  He reached for his burner phone. “You think…”

  She nodded. “If I wanted to forget something, I’d leave town. Find someone qualified who knew nothing about me. And I’d cut any links.”

  “Could you even do that?”

  “You saw me do it with Aaron.”

  “Shit. I need to call Logan. See what the police know.” He dialed, spoke in low tones, but even that spiked the pain in her head. When he finished, he pulled her back to the couch. “I’m having a hard time believing this.” She stiffened, but he held her tight. “Run it through for me. What are you thinking?”

  “If I wanted to forget something—” She rubbed her temple. “The migraines. They’d be my defense mechanism. I’d plant the suggestion. If I started to remember, it would trigger a migraine. Nothing gets past a migraine.”

  “Start from the beginning.”

  “Aaron came to me as a client a few weeks ago. He wanted to quit smoking. Something about him gave me the willies, but I agreed. I saw him three times before today. The first time, he set the appointment, the second for his actual session. He hadn’t been smoking long. It wasn’t difficult. The third time, he was pounding on my door the day my house was broken into.”

  “You didn’t think to mention it?”

  She rose, fluttering her hands. “Why? He was just some dumb kid trying to quit smoking. He wasn’t the one tearing my place apart. Sure, he was mad, but if he’d been honest from the beginning, told me about the marijuana, I could have prevented the problem, but people are seldom honest.”

  “Says the woman who doesn’t give an honest answer any day of the week.”

  “I don’t lie.”

  “You don’t tell the full truth.”

  She paced away from him. “Does anyone?”

  “Finish the story.”

  “Based on what you just told me, if I wanted to forget a piece of information, I’d plant a suggestion on how to handle anything related to it. The migraines were my defense. If I encountered a trigger, I’d get a migraine. Nothing gets through the pain, so I’d never piece it together. Not on accident.”

  “Okay, what does the kid have to do with it?”

  “If Aaron saw me here, then I probably saw him. And for some reason, I chose to forget when or why I came here. I can’t even remember driving past your club before the other day. Did you see me?”

  “No. The day you crashed my meeting was the first time since college.”

  There were a lot of what-ifs and maybes, but this scenario sounded like her. “Just brainstorming here, but based on the article Manny sent me, I went to the hypnotist.” She grabbed the article from Blake. “August Trimbath. Knowing me, I wouldn’t have given her information about what I was burying. They tortured her, and she didn’t know enough to save her life.” Another life she’d unknowingly risked. Bile climbed her throat. “Whoever killed her is looking for the information I forgot.”

  “The only way to protect you is to uncover whatever you’ve buried.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe what I’m saying. This is science-fiction territory. Who are they? And what do they want?”

  “Hell if I know. They are the people Trenton works for. Again, just a guess.”

  “Darlin’, you’re not making any sense.”

  Oh, but it made perfect sense. “Remember what you said about Manny’s little visits. You said it sounded like something I’d plan?”

  He nodded.

  “I think I did plan it. Whatever I wanted to forget, I buried it deep. I made it unreachable, but I planted a fail-safe. A trigger to release the memory. Manny was the fail-safe. He sent me to your club.”

  “Does it have something to do with my undercover work?”

  “Who knows?” She stretched her neck in an attempt to ease tension. “This is insane. I’m trying to figure out a plan that came from my own head, and nothing’s triggering the memories.”

  “Back up. Why wouldn’t the trigger work?”

  She grabbed her scotch, spun the glass, and w
atched the amber liquid swirl. “The morning was crazy. I can see Uncle Manny, and I remember thinking there was something I should remember, but couldn’t. An itching started in my brain, like a memory fighting its way to the surface. If I had to guess what stopped the recall, I’d say too much happened at once. The FBI tail, the Justice Department summons, the damage to my house. The trigger failed because there was too much stimulus. And then the migraine took me out for two days.”

  “Okay.” He pulled the glass from her hands and yanked her into his lap. She struggled until he began to rub from the back of her head to the tip of her skull. She moaned and leaned into his touch. “How bad is it?” he asked.

  “Manageable.”

  “Truth.”

  “I’d love to crawl in a cave and sleep for a week, but we don’t have time.”

  “If forcing the memory is triggering a migraine, quit trying to remember directly. Let’s go at it from a new direction.” He massaged down her neck and into the tight knots at her shoulder. “Given how you feel about letting someone screw with your brain, what would it take to get you there?”

  “Good question.” She arched into his touch, and for several minutes, there was no sound in the little room. “Family. That’s it.” She shot off his lap like she’d been electrocuted. “The only thing important enough to risk it for is family. Oh, God, Sofia. Call Logan back.”

  While he dialed, she paced, muttering under her breath. “We need to find Manny.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Turns out, finding a seventy-four-year-old hit man in a city of half a million wasn’t as easy as Vicki had thought. Had he even remained in the area? There had been no contact. It had been nearly two weeks, and she was no closer to finding her great-uncle than she was to remembering what she’d worked so hard to forget. The memories were unreachable.

  What was so important she’d go to a hypnotist in the first place? What was at risk? Who was she running from or protecting her family from?

  Sofia and Eli were on lockdown. Logan wouldn’t risk them, which helped her sleep at night. They were the last of her family, and she’d do anything to protect them. Unfortunately, Blake had the same caveman tendencies as Logan, and insisted Vicki stay out of sight until they knew where the threat was coming from. The investigation of the hypnotist’s death was cold, and authorities had no known suspects. Her near-abduction by Trenton became Blake’s excuse for acting like an overbearing jerk and keeping her inside the walls of his domain.

  She took to isolation like a wise guy took to the Ice Capades.

  The longer she pondered the situation, the more questions she had. If Manny was her fail-safe, he knew a detail that might trigger a memory. He’d tried. Twice. If she couldn’t find him, she needed to make it possible for him to find her, and being out in the open wasn’t easy while living with Blake.

  Anytime she stepped out of the apartment, Eddie was sewn to her hip. When she went to the grocery store, Eddie drove. When she went to the public restroom, Eddie waited outside the door. Today, they were in Déjà Vu’s basement—not a torture chamber, but a home gym—and Eddie followed her down. He was retraining her in the Krav Maga moves he’d taught her years ago. This time around, he approached training like a dictator. He ordered her around the mat. Hit here. Kick there. He’d come at her from every direction until she wanted to fall to the mat in a ball.

  Whatever restraint he’d shown the boss’s daughter when training her years ago was long gone. Her father and brother were dead, and Eddie elected himself her protector. She’d know how to defend herself or die trying.

  It was a trade-off. The training was killer, but this time around, Eddie talked to her like an adult, so when she asked about his family, he didn’t brush her off. He admitted he was married to his job, but she thought he’d never married because he didn’t want to bring a woman into his dangerous lifestyle. The mob wasn’t something you walked away from. Ever. So Eddie lived a solitary life, which she understood. After the torturous years Sofia spent in the family—because Vicki hadn’t protected her—Vicki had sworn she’d never marry. She’d never draw someone into her life. She’d never have a child to endanger. It was difficult enough protecting Sofia and Eli.

  The last few weeks had been a nice break from reality. Sofia and Eli were protected, so she didn’t need to worry, but the nothingness of her day-to-day routine at the club was driving her to distraction. The nights were stellar, and not just the sex, although it was still off the charts, but the conversation and the company made it that much better.

  She and Blake talked for hours about every subject, finding more in common and plenty to disagree about. Memories of what they’d had as twentysomethings paled in comparison to the depth of the connection that grew stronger with each passing day. They worked together, something she’d never done before, and she found it mentally stimulating and emotionally stable, but as much as she enjoyed him, she had a business to run, clients to help, and she could only reschedule so many times. At the moment, he was out of the club on business, which gave her the perfect opportunity to get outside. When she finished her workout, she grabbed a bottle of water and drank half of it down.

  “You’re getting better,” Eddie said, “but you let yourself get rusty.”

  Vicki nodded in agreement. “I got busy.”

  “You got complacent.” Eddie wiped his sweaty face on a white towel. “You thought you were safe so far from home.”

  “Not gonna argue.” Not when she needed him to agree to her plan. Asking permission felt wrong on too many levels, but there was more than one way to get what she wanted. She walked to the door, and then looked back like she’d just had an idea. “Hey, Eddie, if you have some time this morning, will you go back to my house with me?”

  He wrapped the towel around his thick neck like a scarf. “Now, Miss Vicki—”

  “Don’t ‘Miss Vicki’ me. When have you known me to sit still for two weeks?”

  “Never.”

  “Exactly.” She led the way through the narrow hall to the back steps leading up to the apartment. “I need to get my life in order. Clean my house, get more clothes.” There was no way they’d let her stay at her house in the current situation. “I can’t put everything on hold indefinitely.”

  Eddie punched in the code to the apartment door. He held it open as she passed. “Blake’s got his hands full today.”

  “Which is why I’m asking you. I don’t want either of you to worry. If you come, I’m safe, and he can do what he needs to do.”

  “No.”

  Men. She stormed into the bedroom, Eddie on her heels. “I don’t need your permission. I asked as a courtesy.”

  “Miss Vicki—”

  She held up a hand. The way he said it, a fake courtesy while he ordered her around? Nope.

  “What? You prefer Victoria now?”

  Heat rose on her face. Only Blake called her by her full name. It seemed intimate somehow. She glanced around, finally realizing she and Eddie were fighting five feet from the bed where she and Blake slept. The covers were a mess and still smelled like sex. The flush spread down her chest. Good Lord, what Eddie must think. She walked to the bed and yanked the covers straight, making the bed as she fumed. “I cannot stay cooped up another day. I’ll go insane. I’ll make your life miserable. Either come with me or I’ll find a way to go without you.”

  He stalked to the door, his face in a deep frown. “You weren’t this much trouble when your parents were alive.”

  “I wasn’t this free,” she admitted.

  “Are you trying to insinuate that your lack of freedom was my fault?”

  Insinuate? Eddie was a simple man, but his vocabulary had gotten less simple lately. She paused, gave him a hard look. He’d changed, and it wasn’t just working with the Feds. Improved vocabulary, better interpersonal communication, a general openness he’d never exhibited before. Now that she thought about it, he nearly always had a book with him. “Have you been taking classes?”

&nb
sp; His face flushed like a teenage boy. “If you promise not to run off while I’m in the shower, I’ll take you.”

  She fluffed the pillows and placed them at the head of the bed. She’d have to remember his personal trigger. “If I was going to sneak off, I wouldn’t have told you anything about my plan to go to the house today.”

  “Which isn’t what I asked. Promise you won’t sneak off on your own.”

  Times like this, it sucked being with someone who knew you so well. “Fine, I avoided the promise out of habit, mostly. I promise not to run off without you.”

  Eddie pulled a cell phone from the pocket of his sweatpants. “Texting Blake. Letting him know the plan.”

  Her stomach dropped. “So not a great idea.”

  “Going without backup is a bad idea. Taking off where no one knows where you are is a bad idea. Walking into room full of drug dealers is a supremely bad idea.”

  A wave of nerves washed over her. If Blake said no, then Eddie wouldn’t let her leave the building. “He’ll just worry needlessly.”

  “Not negotiable.” Eddie hit send and dropped the phone in his pocket. “He holds my life in his hands right now.”

  Well. Humph. When he added the guilt factor. “Fine. But we’re stopping for coffee. And a bagel. And—”

  Eddie lifted a hand like a traffic cop. “Be ready in thirty minutes.”

  …

  They met in an abandoned lumberyard in the warehouse district as the weak winter sun started to rise. Blake’s black boots scuffed the debris that settled like neglect on the hard and dusty floor. Gangbangers had tagged the walls, and a string of homeless cots lined a room on the protected side of the frigid building. A mouse scurried past, reminding him of undercover operations when he’d gotten the shit jobs chasing street-level dealers in places much like this. Today he wasn’t buying or selling. He was meeting Agent Stiles and going over plans for Patrick Sullivan, who had finally agreed to meet with Blake.

  In an hour and a half, he would sit face-to-face with the man he hated above all others. Anticipation rode his skin and seeped into his bones. He climbed a short set of metal stairs to what had once been the office. The glass panes were long broken, but the raised platform and wide expanse of windows meant they’d know if anyone entered the building. The team didn’t want to risk blowing his cover. No one had gotten this close to Sully before, and the task force was practically salivating at the opportunity.