Remember Me

by Sharon Sala

  Dawson’s mind was racing. LeGrand was aggressive. Most times it took several interviews with a spouse before they would get this defensive. Adrenaline surged. He was certain they were on the right track with this man.

  “You have quite a temper, LeGrand.”

  Clay’s voice was suddenly thick with tears. “I have quite a wife. I want her back.”

  At that moment, a crack began to form in Avery Dawson’s opinion. There was always the possibility that the man was telling the truth. But damn it, the story was too pat. LeGrand had to know something he wasn’t telling. No woman just up and disappeared without someone seeing something. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. The man was either one hell of an actor, or…he could be telling the truth.

  The moment he accepted that fact, the thought crossed Dawson’s mind that it was time to think about retiring. There’d been a time in his life when he had not been so jaded about the crimes he investigated. He had to admit that when he’d arrived on the scene, his first instinct had been to suspect the husband. Even after an hour of questioning, his opinion hadn’t changed—until now. He’d been looking for reasons to blame LeGrand, rather than looking for clues. Disgusted with himself, and for the job that had hardened him to this degree, Dawson flipped his notebook shut and slipped his pen in his pocket.

  “I suppose that’s all for now,” he said. “We’ll be in touch.”

  Clay threw up his hands in disgust and then reached for the phone and phone book.

  “What are you doing?” Dawson asked.

  “I’m going to hire a private investigator. I want my wife back.”

  “If she’s been kidnapped, as you seem to believe, you should wait until someone asks for ransom. Getting private security involved in this could screw everything up for your wife.”

  Clay snorted beneath his breath. “There’s not going to be a request for ransom.”

  Dawson eyes widened. Why would the man know that, unless…

  “How do you know that?” he asked.

  Clay leaned forward. “You still don’t get it, do you? My take-home pay is less than two thousand dollars a month. My wife works part-time at the library. My parents aren’t wealthy, and Frankie is an orphan. We don’t even own this house. What are they going to ask for? The keys to my eight-year-old truck?”

  A flush spread up Dawson’s neck. The man was making him feel like a fool. He didn’t like the feeling.

  “I don’t suppose you have any life insurance on your wife?”

  At that moment Clay could willingly have decked him. He gritted his teeth, making himself focus on the question instead of the man who’d asked it.

  “Actually, the only life insurance in this family is on me. If I die, Frankie would get a half-million dollars. If she dies, I get a broken heart. Now, if you people are through, I’ve got some calls to make.”

  Without waiting for permission, Clay grabbed the phone and stalked out of the room. A couple of the uniformed officers standing nearby gave Dawson a curious look. Dawson glared back.

  “Has my partner come back?” he snapped.

  One of them shook his head. “No, sir. Someone said Ramsey’s still canvasing the neighborhood.”

  Dawson stalked toward the front door. This whole investigation left a bad taste in his mouth. He was tired of this day and of everyone in it.

  As he opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch, a gust of wind blew rain against his pant legs. He was also damned tired of this rain. He stepped back, huddling beneath the small roof as he scanned the block for his partner’s car. Finally he saw it at the end of the street. A few minutes later, he saw Ramsey coming out of the house at the end of the block. Dawson waved at him, indicating he was ready to go. Moments later, Ramsey pulled up in front of the house, and Avery Dawson bolted off the porch and into the rain.

  “Damnation,” Dawson grumbled as he tumbled into the seat, slamming the door shut behind him.

  Paul Ramsey grinned. “You won’t melt. You’re too damned old and tough.”

  Dawson leaned back in the seat and sighed. “Yeah, I think you might be right.”

  Ramsey frowned as he pulled away from the curb. “Defeat? At this time of the day? Hell, pardner, we’ve only been on the job a little over ten hours. The day’s still young.”

  Dawson sighed. “Maybe so, but I’m not.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I walked into that investigation with prejudice. I’m not proud of that,” Dawson said.

  “So you think the husband is telling the truth?”

  Dawson shrugged. “Maybe…maybe not. Did you get anything?”

  “The woman at the end of the block said that, as she was coming home from shopping, a black car with dark windows nearly sideswiped her at the stop sign. She said she thought it had just pulled away from the curb across the street, but she couldn’t be sure.”

  “I don’t suppose she got a tag number?”

  Ramsey shook his head.

  Dawson sighed. “And why doesn’t that surprise me?”

  “So what’s on the agenda?” Ramsey asked.

  Dawson sighed again. “Verifying LeGrand’s statements and praying for leads…and while we’re at it, praying that this damned rain lets up. I’m sick and tired of going home with wet feet.”

  Clay sat in a corner of the living room, staring out the window into the dark. The house was quiet now. The police had been gone for hours, as had his mother and father, who had arrived soon after the police had left. Their confusion had only added to his panic. Frankie had been his anchor, and her disappearance left him feeling disconnected from reality.

  He flinched as wind splattered rain against the windows. It was getting colder by the hour. They were even predicting the possibility of snow.

  The squall of a siren suddenly broke into his thoughts, and he pushed himself up from the chair in which he’d been sitting and strode to the door. A fresh gust of wind blew rain in his face as he stood in the opening, staring into the night. Beneath the streetlights, raindrops glittered like crystal tears, puddling, then flowing swiftly into the gutters. He stepped onto the porch, peering into the shadows as if Frankie might miraculously appear. Except for the rain, the silence was devastating.

  He started to shake. This couldn’t be real. There had to be some stupid answer to this horrible situation that he hadn’t remembered. What if she was lost? What if she was out there—somewhere—trying to find her way home?

  He stepped off the porch and into the rain, drawn by the need to find the woman he loved. He’d promised to love her and keep her, in sickness and in health. He’d promised to protect her. A sob crept up the back of his throat. Sweet Jesus. How could he protect her when he didn’t even know where she was?

  The cold wind blew more rain against his face, stinging his skin and blurring his vision as he walked into the middle of the street. His heart was hammering against his chest; his belly was in knots. It hurt to breathe. It even hurt to think past her name.

  Rain plastered his hair to his head like a black skullcap. His clothes were soaked to his skin. He stopped in the middle of the street, staring to his left, then his right. There was nothing between him and oblivion but the goddamn rain. Pain boiled from his belly upward as he threw back his head and screamed out her name.

  “Francesca!”

  Then he held his breath, praying for the sound of her voice. It never came.

  Two

  Denver, Colorado: Two years later

  The October rain hammered on the top of Clay LeGrand’s hard hat as he tossed his tool belt in the front seat of his truck.

  “That’s it for the day, men. Pack it in. We can’t do anything further until this rain lets up.”

  The men grumbled as they headed for their trucks, but they knew their boss was right. Working in weather like this upped the risk of on-the-job accidents, and none of them wanted to be on the downside of a hospital bed.

  Clay glanced back at the building site one last time, then got
in his truck. Being the boss was a lot different than being foreman. Different set of headaches. Different set of rules. But buying out his dad had also been the saving of his sanity.

  He started the engine and then backed up, pausing one last time to give the work site a final once-over. Everything seemed to be in place. With a sigh, he put the truck in gear and drove out of the area toward the nearby freeway.

  The last twenty-four months had been months of rehabilitation, both for him and the company. But, during that time, he’d also been hounded by the police, vilified by the press and pretty much branded a killer by society in general, even though there had been no proof to back up the facts.

  A woman had gone missing, and someone had to be blamed. The husband—in this case, Clay—was the obvious choice. The fact that the light had gone out in his world didn’t seem to matter to anyone except him, and, of course, his parents. Public opinion had branded him a man who’d gotten away with murder. He’d become bitter and, for the most part, hardened to it all. Only now and then did something happen that got under his skin, and when it did, he was always surprised by the onset of fresh grief. As hard as he had tried to get on with his life, until he had some sort of closure, it would never happen.

  Now that his mind was forced to consider something other than work, he dreaded going home. Truth was, it wasn’t much of a home anymore, just the place where he slept. His parents had been trying to get him to move for months now, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. That little frame house was the last place he’d been happy. It was the last place he’d seen Francesca. He wasn’t at the point in his life of being able to give up the connection.

  In the last two years, he’d spent more hours viewing unidentified bodies in morgues across the country than he cared to remember. After the third time he’d been called to make an identification, something inside him had died. He continued to make the journeys when the calls came in, but with less and less vigor. It was almost as if Francesca LeGrand had never existed. And except for a small album of wedding pictures and the hole her absence had left in Clay’s heart, even he would have believed it was so.

  Up ahead, a fire truck sped through an intersection, sirens going full blast. Clay watched until it was nothing but a streak of color disappearing through the gray downpour. He frowned. It seemed odd to think of things burning in this deluge, but he knew stranger things had happened. Like people disappearing without a trace.

  A short while later, he turned down his street. The moment his gaze fell on the small frame house, his belly started to knot. It was always the same. And it didn’t help that last week, which would have been their third wedding anniversary, had been marked by a local television station as the two-year anniversary of Francesca LeGrand’s disappearance. Some small-minded producer who seemed better suited to tabloid journalism than responsible reporting had seen fit to dredge up the old story, along with an update on Clay LeGrand’s life. The impression that young and handsome Clay LeGrand was happy and prospering with his up-and-coming company, while his wife’s disappearance had gone unpunished, had been impossible to miss. They still blamed him. So what else was new?

  He pulled into the driveway of his house and parked. For a while, he just sat, listening to the rain hammering against the roof. Maybe they were right. She’d been his wife. He hadn’t been able to protect her. If someone had to take the blame, it might as well be him.

  “Hell,” he muttered, and got out on the run.

  By the time he got to the porch, he was soaked. He unlocked the door, still dreading that first moment of entry.

  The house.

  It was always so damned silent.

  And then he was inside, turning on lights, as well as the television, adding a pretense of normalcy to his existence. He tossed his keys on the hall table and then looked around on the floor for the mail that was usually there, compliments of the mail slot in the front door.

  It was missing.

  Frowning, he turned to see it stacked in a neat pile on the end of the couch, then shrugged. Even though he had a cleaning service, Betty LeGrand often felt the need to oversee their work.

  After giving the stack of letters a quick glance, he headed for the kitchen. A hot cup of coffee sounded good, and it would take some of the chill from his bones.

  As he began to fill the carafe with water, he noticed a dirty plate and fork in the sink and grinned to himself. His mother had eaten that last piece of cherry pie. Damn. He’d been thinking about that off and on all afternoon.

  Then he shrugged off the thought and finished making the coffee. A piece of pie was the least of his troubles. With the coffee in progress, he headed for the bedroom. Maybe a hot shower and some dry clothes would change his attitude. The television was blaring as he walked back through the living room. He picked up the remote just as the broadcast of the local news began.

  “Repercussions from the earthquake that struck southern California at noon yesterday are still being felt. Transportation is difficult, both in and out of the state. Some airlines have resumed service, but travel into the area is being discouraged at this time. At this hour, the death count is rising, with many still unaccounted for.”

  Clay frowned, then hit the down arrow on the remote. When an old rerun of I Love Lucy appeared on the screen, he upped the volume and tossed the remote on a nearby chair as he headed for his room.

  In the act of unbuttoning his shirt, he noticed mud on his boots and paused, hoping he hadn’t left a trail of it behind him. The floors were clean. Just to make sure they stayed that way, he leaned against the wall and took off the boots, first one, then the other, carrying them with him as he entered the bedroom.

  He automatically glanced toward the bed, and he frowned as he noticed the jumble of covers. He could have sworn he’d made it before he left. But as he continued to look, the covers suddenly moved, revealing a dark head and a long, slender arm. He took a sudden step back. His belly lurched, and he closed his eyes.

  “Sweet Jesus…I don’t need this.” He took a deep breath.

  He looked again, certain the ghost he’d just seen would be gone. He was wrong. It—she—was still there.

  Completely shaken by the image of Francesca asleep in his bed, he let the boots he’d been holding slip from his fingers to hit the floor with a thump.

  At the sound, the ghost rolled over slowly, opening her dark eyes and smiling at him with that sleep-sexy grin he knew so well.

  “Hi, honey,” Frankie said, and then glanced toward the window. “My goodness, is it still raining?”

  Staggering backward, he grabbed at a wall for support. He’d known for months that he was operating on guts alone, but he’d never thought he would lose his sanity. Not this completely.

  “Francesca?”

  His soft whisper barely stirred the air. He couldn’t bring himself to say her name again for fear she would disappear. Then something clicked, and his heart started pounding. What if she was real? As soon as he thought it, he discarded the notion. It was impossible.

  He watched her roll over to the side of the bed, then sit up. As she did, she turned pale, reaching toward the side of her head and frowning.

  “Oooh, that hurts,” she said.

  “Frankie?”

  She shook her head, as if trying to clear her thoughts.

  “Clay, sweetheart, you’re soaked. Why don’t you get a hot shower while I start dinner?”

  Clay walked across the room like a man in a trance. When she stood, he felt an overwhelming urge to turn and run. And then she suddenly swayed on her feet and sat back down on the bed with a thump.

  “I don’t feel so good,” she said. “My head is swimming.”

  But Clay wasn’t listening. He was in shock. Tentatively, he reached forward, expecting to feel nothing but air. Instead, his fingers curled around her wrist, absorbing the warmth of her skin.

  “Sweet Jesus,” he whispered again, and grabbed her by the shoulders.

  “Frankie…Frankie…my
God, you’re real.”

  She frowned. “Have you been drinking?”

  He couldn’t answer. Instead, he slid onto the bed beside her and pulled her close, rocking her in his arms where they sat.

  And then reality hit, and as suddenly as he’d held her, he thrust her away. His voice was low and shaking as he focused on her face.

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  She stared. “You have been drinking.”

  Clay stood abruptly. “I want answers, Francesca.”

  Frankie frowned. “Answers to what?”

  He stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. “For starters, answers as to where you’ve been for the past two years.”

  Something skittered through her mind. Something dark—something frightening. But it was gone before it became solid thought. Before she could answer, Clay suddenly grabbed her arms. Pain shot up her elbows as he yanked her close. She gasped. Stunned by his behavior, she missed the shock spreading across his face.

  Clay felt numb. The needle tracks on her arms were impossible to miss.

  “Drugs? You’ve been doing drugs?”

  She looked at him as if he’d gone mad. “What are you talking about?”

  “This!” he yelled, and turned her arms so that her hands were palms up.

  She looked down, frowning at the faint bruises still evident on her skin. Again something pulled at her memory, and again it was gone before she could focus. She rubbed her fingers across the tracks, stunned by their presence. When she looked up, there were tears in her eyes.

  “I don’t do drugs. You know I don’t,” she muttered, and then closed her eyes as the room began to spin.

  “Then explain these,” he growled, yanking both arms toward the bedside lamp.