REMEMBER ME (Secrets of Spirit Creek Book 1)

by Linda Style

  The last thing she wanted to do was meet this Zack person. He could’ve been in court or he could’ve testified as Linc’s friend for all she knew. Because she’d been a minor, the judge had only allowed the pertinent parties in the courtroom when she’d testified. Gordon had been her voice on almost everything and had protected her as much as he could. Even though she’d been seventeen and in college, her parents had insisted on keeping her as removed from the trial as possible. And she’d been grateful. Still, she didn’t want to take the chance that she might screw things up for Linc. She couldn’t be sure of her own reaction. “I’ll just stay in the car while you talk to him,” she said.

  She watched his brow lift in surprise. “You don’t have to do that. I don’t mind you hearing whatever he has to say.”

  “He might not want to talk as openly with someone else there.”

  “Good point.”

  “I think we’re getting close. Can you check the directions?”

  He held up the printout. “Get off on Camelback Road, then take a right to 22nd Street and go north.”

  Camelback came up quickly. She exited, then said, “Tell me when to turn next.”

  They found the place without any scenic detours. It was ten minutes to six when she pulled up about five feet from the man’s driveway and stopped. “Let’s hope he didn’t come home early,” she said.

  “Let’s hope.” He raised crossed fingers.

  “Pull up closer,” Linc said, glancing around and rubbing his hands together. “Otherwise he might go inside before I have a chance to stop him.”

  “Why don’t you get out of the car and wait. He’ll probably ask you to go inside to talk.”

  “I don’t want to do that. His kid might be there. I can’t talk freely about…about anything if a kid, or maybe his wife, is there.” He thought for a minute. “But I will get out and wait.”

  Just as he said it, a silver Jaguar pulled in front of them and turned into the drive.

  ~~~

  Linc scrambled to get out and dropped one of the crutches on the ground in the process. Planting his feet, he reached down, and in his peripheral vision saw a guy in a suit rushing over.

  “Having trouble there, buddy?” The guy bent to get the crutch and help Linc up. As they both straightened, the man’s eyes rounded. His mouth dropped open, but nothing came out.

  “Hey, Zack,” Linc said as if he’d just seen him yesterday. He hoped to hell he had the right guy.

  “Linc—oh, man,” he sputtered, and fumbled with the crutch, handing it to Linc. “I…I was going to call, or…try to get in touch. But I’ve been out of town and—”

  “No big deal, Zack. I just wanted to talk. Catch up.” He leaned against the car so he didn’t have to depend on the crutches.

  Zack looked down at Linc’s leg. “I heard you had some problems. I’m really sorry about that.”

  Somehow the man who was supposed to be his friend didn’t seem all that sorry. He didn’t seem all that happy to see Linc, either. “Yeah, I’ve had a few setbacks. But I want to forget all that and get on with my life.”

  The man’s lips thinned. “That’s gotta be hard.” He reached into his pocket. “Do you need some money? I might have a few bu—”

  “No. I’m okay.” A brush-off if Linc ever saw one. “I didn’t come for a handout. I came because I wanted to talk. If now’s not good, maybe we can set up another time.”

  “Yeah,” Crane said absently. “Some other time would be better.”

  “If you could just answer a couple of questions for me.”

  Crane glanced around as if to make sure no one was looking. “What is it you want to know?”

  “I talked to Wilinski.”

  A muscle twitched beside Crane’s eye. “What for? You know what a jerk he is.”

  Linc kept studying his supposed friend. His hands shook, and every time Linc caught his gaze, he looked away. He was nervous as hell. “Don’t you think enough years have gone by that we should forget all that past stuff?”

  “Not enough for me.” Zack kept glancing at his house, as if he expected someone to come out.

  “Okay, well, then maybe you can tell me why you never once came to see me.” He didn’t remember Zack and yet he couldn’t keep the bitterness from his words.

  Crane straightened, brushed the lapels on his suit jacket. Shoulders squared, he leaned closer and said through his teeth, “I don’t have time to play whatever game it is you want to play.”

  Linc’s nerves coiled. A visceral wave of anger swamped him. It took all Linc’s willpower not to punch the guy in his smug face. An image of a man on the stand in a courtroom flashed like a movie in his head. Zack. Grinding his teeth, Linc realized the awful truth. “I want to know why, Zack. Why did you testify that you weren’t with me that night?”

  Zack blinked. He narrowed his gaze, eyes darting from left to right, as if looking for an escape. “I’m sorry about what happened, Linc. But I had to protect myself. It had nothing to do with you.”

  “Nothing to do with me!” he spat back. “Protect yourself? From what?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  Red, green and white lights suddenly flashed. A sharp pain stabbed near Linc’s temple. Disjointed images, sirens howling, people shouting, strobes almost blinding him. Uniforms, handcuffs, cold concrete mashing his face. Knees in his groin, his back. More voices, more shouting, screaming, sirens piercing his eardrums.

  He brought his hands to his temples, bent over and yelled, “Stop! Please stop!” Just as suddenly, everything blurred and he fell to his knees. Like a faraway echo in his head, he heard Zack saying, “I don’t know what you want from me, but if you come back or bother me or my family, you’ll regret it.”

  A car door slammed. Then another. Tires screeched. Then Tori’s voice. “Linc. Linc. What’s wrong? Linc.”

  He felt a hand on his head, gentle arms around him, holding him tight. Tori.

  “It’s okay,” she said softly. “It’s okay.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  TORI GLANCED OVER at Linc, who sat staring out the car window. He’d been deep in thought the whole way to the airport. And silent. They’d stayed overnight at her parents’ place, going directly to bed almost as soon as they got there. When they awoke, she didn’t ask him to explain what had happened, figuring he would tell her when he wanted to tell her, or not. The meeting hadn’t been good; that was easy to decipher.

  But whatever had happened with Zack Crane, she was pretty sure it was significant. “Our flight leaves in forty-five minutes,” she said. “So, we’re cutting it real close.”

  “We’ll make it,” he said. “If we don’t, no big deal.”

  “Is that why we’re going? Because it’s no big deal?” He might not admit it, but it was a very big deal. He wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t.

  He turned. “Okay, it is, but not for the reasons you might think.”

  “And what do I think?”

  “All I want from him is a little history. Something that might give me a past, whatever that might be. If he can do that, it might jog a memory or two. I’m not expecting some big emotional reunion from a jerk who ran out on his family. A jerk who probably won’t even recognize his own son. If he can tell me something, that’s great. If not, no big deal.”

  “Okay. That’s pretty cut and dried.” Except for the anger, the barely contained emotion. He cared what happened with his father more than he probably knew. He was wound so tight, he could spin off into space if he didn’t reign himself in. Oh, he cared all right.

  On the plane, they were lucky to get seated in the bulkhead for more legroom. He’d left his crutches behind and was using the cane, even though she could tell he still had some pain.

  It seemed as if they’d barely settled and then they were ready to land at LAX. It took almost as long to get the car and get on the road as it did to fly there. As soon as they were out of the rental car lot, Tori pulled the PT Cruiser convertible to the curb.


  “I like this car,” Linc said, checking out the interior.

  “It was the only car available in our price range. But it is kind of cute.” She turned. “It’s too early to get a room, so maybe we should find a place for breakfast and lay out a plan while we eat.”

  “We need to find a bank.”

  “Right. You keep saying that and I keep forgetting. Aside from your need to pay your own way, wouldn’t it be easier if we just figure that out later? I promise to keep a running total.”

  He gave her a strange look. “I’m a pain in the ass sometimes, aren’t I?”

  She snorted. “Sometimes?”

  They both laughed, breaking the tension that had been hanging between them.

  “Okay, you said you’ve been to L.A. before, so you pick a good place to eat.”

  She pointed across the street. “How about Denny’s? There’s one right over there.”

  “Not very creative.”

  “It’s too early to be creative. Especially when I haven’t had my quota of caffeine.”

  After maneuvering through the tangle of streets around the rental area to get to Denny’s, Tori couldn’t wait to get out of the car. They’d been on the go since they left Spirit Creek and she hadn’t had time to get any exercise. “We need to pick a hotel with a workout room,” she said.

  “One with a pool, too,” Linc added. “I can’t lay off the therapy for too long or I’ll stiffen up and lose everything I’ve done.”

  Inside the restaurant, while waiting for their breakfasts, they got out their respective maps to compare directions.

  “Here’s where we are,” Tori said, pointing to the airport.

  “And this is where we want to go.” Linc indicated a general area around Long Beach. “I called last night and asked for him just to make sure he was there. The woman who answered said she was his wife.”

  “You know there could be more than one person with that name.”

  “I know. I called a couple days ago and said I was a census taker and asked his date of birth. It was the same.”

  The waiter brought their food, pancakes for Linc and a veggie omelet for Tori, and Tori dug right in. In the middle of a mouthful, she realized Linc was watching her. “What?”

  “I owe you an explanation for last night.”

  She swallowed, then took a sip of coffee. “You don’t owe me anything.”

  “Yes, I do. You’ve helped me from day one, and never asked for anything in return. I owe you more than an explanation.”

  “Well, just wait. I may come to you for help someday.”

  “Zack testified he wasn’t with me that night.”

  She frowned. “What? Why?”

  “I don’t know, but when I started talking to him, I remembered him on the witness stand saying he wasn’t with me.”

  Tori’s mouth dropped open. “You remember the trial?”

  He shook his head. “No, just that one thing. Looking at him, I felt this rage…this anger…coursing through me, and then I remembered.”

  Tori’s heart raced as she asked, “What does it mean?”

  “It means if he was my alibi and he said he wasn’t with me, it probably blew everything. But why would I say I was with him if I wasn’t? Or was I with him and he lied and said I wasn’t? Either way, it’s not good.”

  Tori pushed her hash browns around on the plate. “Do you think that would have made a difference in the jury’s decision?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Of course it would. Otherwise they’d simply have a ‘he said, she said’ situation.”

  Not something Tori wanted to hear, but it did mean she might not be totally responsible for his incarceration. As if that made any difference whatsoever. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Besides that, Zack was angry, as if I’d done something to him. I have no idea what that’s about.”

  “So, what can you do? Are you going to pursue it?”

  “Damned right I am.” He looked at her, his eyes unfathomable. “There’s something else.”

  Oh, God. Her throat went dry. She swallowed. Moistened her lips. She’d tried to keep her face hidden, but maybe Zack had seen her. She took another bite of her omelet, saw her hand trembling and quickly put the fork down. She waited for him to speak, but he seemed reluctant.

  “When Zack was talking…I had these flashes. Flashes of memory, I guess. Mostly about the arrest. At least I think that’s what it was. And they just kept coming, but disjointed and crazy and…I felt like my head was about to explode. All these visions and—” he shook his head “—nothing made sense.” He lifted his hands, palms up. “It was too confusing to try to figure out. Not right now anyway. I wrote it all down for my next appointment with Dr. Lawton. But I feel badly that I didn’t thank you for being there.”

  Relief and guilt and a river of shame flooded through her. He was thinking of her. Thanking her. And she was copping out, trying not to take all of the blame. “Don’t. Please. I don’t want thanks.”

  He took her hand across the table, his touch gentle and caring as he eased into an utterly disarming smile. Her defenses melted away and it was impossible not to smile back.

  “I know I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again. I think you’re amazing, and I hope someday you’ll tell me what you do want and I’ll fight armies to get it for you.”

  She couldn’t tell whether he was joking or serious, or both. But she had to laugh at his over-the-top offer. All she could say was, “To see that, I’ll definitely have to think of something.”

  “Good, because I mean it.”

  She lowered her eyes. “Thanks, I know you do.” And she was a liar and a fraud.

  “So—” he sat back in his chair “—I should stop making you uncomfortable and talk about something else.” He took a swig of coffee. “How about seeing Disneyland while we’re here?”

  She pulled back. “Disneyland?”

  “Yeah. I’ve never been. At least not that I remember.”

  “Disneyland?” she said again, the idea both silly and intriguing.

  “Have you ever been there?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Well, there you go. Do you want to do it before or after we find my old man?”

  He was making light of the situation for her, she knew. But the idea sounded like fun. Especially with him. “What about your leg? Won’t it be too much?”

  “If it is, I’m sure they rent those scooters for the handicapped. So, which is it, before or after?”

  Remembering the incident with his supposed friend Zack and how he’d felt afterward, she said, “First. Let’s do it first. Right after breakfast.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  THREE HOURS, three roller-coaster rides, one Indiana Jones Adventure and one Pirates of the Caribbean voyage later, they got the only room left at the Disneyland Hotel. Linc showered and changed, and fifteen minutes later was ready to head out to do what they came to California to do.

  Waiting for Tori to finish in the bathroom, he went outside and stood on the balcony, where he had a bird’s-eye view of the theme park. Their passes were good until midnight, so they’d decided to finish the day off with more rides when they returned.

  “Hey, Tori,” he said, stepping back inside. “I feel like a kid again.”

  “You are a kid,” she said raising her voice to be heard, even though she’d opened the door a crack to let out the steam.

  “At heart maybe. But I’m all grown-up in the important ways.” He eyed the two queen beds and wondered if he’d ever get a chance to show her how grown-up he was.

  He heard the door open, and when she stepped out of the bathroom, all the air left his lungs. “Wow. You look beautiful.” Her hair was loose around her shoulders and he thought she’d put on a little makeup but couldn’t tell just what. Mascara maybe, since her eyelashes seemed so long and dark and made her eyes look more golden.

  “Thank you,” she said simply.

  His pulse raced. A
young girl’s face flashed in his head. He blinked. More images flashed, the same face over and over, as if his brain was on rewind. He blinked again and it stopped.

  “Linc?”

  He shook his head. Tori stood in front of him, waving a hand. She looked stunning in a simple pair of jeans and a tea-colored V-neck shirt with a short jacket over it. And he realized then that she wasn’t wearing her glasses.

  Before she looked away, he thought he saw her blush. He walked over and touched the silver chain at her neck that matched the dangly earrings. “The stone is almost the same color as your eyes.”

  She moistened her lips, then edged back. “It’s marra mamba Tiger’s Eye.” Turning, she went to the closet and took out a pair of brown pumps. “My parents bought the set for my birthday a few years ago. The Tiger’s Eye is the planetary birth stone for Gemini.”

  “Pretty.” And he didn’t mean the jewelry. “Are you into all that astrology stuff?”

  She started searching for something in her purse. “No, but Serena is. And we should go before it gets too late. We don’t want to be interrupting anyone’s dinner.”

  “Good thought.” He wanted to ask more about her parents. She talked about them occasionally, but never in depth. She didn’t seem to see them too much, though her mother called all the time. Maybe that’s how people with money lived. Distantly. If he had a family, he’d never do that.

  “I think I’m remembering,” he said. Talking about it might help. “When I was waiting for you, I had some flashbacks. It was still all jumbled, but I think I remembered you. Without your glasses.”

  She stopped abruptly, looked at him.

  “Did you wear glasses in school?”

  She hesitated, then said quickly, “I didn’t.” She went back to searching through her purse. “I usually wore contacts.”

  He went over and placed his hands on her shoulders, made her turn to look at him. Then he said, “I’m glad I’m remembering you before anything else.”

  She pulled away and headed for the door. Dammit, he’d made her uncomfortable again, but he couldn’t help himself.

  At the door, she said, “Maybe you’ll remember even more when you see your father.”