Memories After Midnight

by Linda Randall Wisdom

  “Or he’s found a way to keep me out of his hair.” He nodded toward an elaborate cat bed set in a corner of the room. “Does Clarence really sleep in that thing?”

  Alex shook her head. “I don’t know.” She picked up on his intent to apologize. “It was a natural question. Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer. But maybe I’ll find some answers in here.” She held up the papers.

  “I meant what I said at the station,” he said quietly. “I’m not going to leave you alone, Alex.”

  She managed a faint smile. “Admit it, Dylan. You just want to tweak Detective Whitmire by catching the men.”

  “Well, that, too,” he admitted. “It’s been said that if we don’t have anything solid within forty-eight hours, there’s a good chance we won’t be able to solve the crime. But I’m stubborn. Sierra Vista isn’t that large of a town. Those guys can’t hide out forever.”

  “So along with your hunch one of my clients is involved is the idea the thugs don’t live locally?” she asked.

  He nodded. “When you think about it, it makes more sense if they’re not familiar with the area. They would have made sure to break into the right condo and the mugging would have been a lot cleaner. I’d say this was cheap hired help.”

  “And you know this because?”

  “I busted my share of B and E guys when I worked patrol.” He looked around the small room. It looked as bland as the others. Nothing to indicate what type of person worked here. He sensed she spent a lot of time in this room, so why not put more color here? He remembered how she’d always kept a small jade statue on her desk at home when they were together. Even that was gone. While he was curious about its absence, he remained quiet on the subject. Instead, he studied Alex.

  Her formerly neat ponytail was now loose, leaving stray tendrils brushing her cheeks and forehead. The excitement from the chase had added much-needed color to her cheeks. He had to admit she still looked as if a truck had run over her, but with the cuts and bruises she appeared more, well, human.

  Alex looked up. “I need to read this in peace and I can’t concentrate if you’re standing there,” she told him.

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Am I bothering you, counselor?” An old memory slipped in as he recalled a time when he wouldn’t have hesitated in walking over and pulling her out of her chair with the intent of luring her to bed. He used to say there was nothing sexier than discovering what color underwear his favorite lawyer was wearing. They had laughed often and loved passionately. While together, they had planned for a future where they would grow old together. Now those memories were nothing more than that—memories. Memories she didn’t even have.

  Maybe that was part of the problem right now. He remembered more than she did.

  Alex looked up. Her smile slipped as she caught his expression.

  He knew just by the shift in her expression that her thoughts were following his. The temperature in the room shot up, intensifying the tension between them. As he watched her, her tongue swiped across her lower lip. Dylan watched the action with the rapt attention of a tiger focused on its prey.

  It was as if the air stilled around them with the unnatural calm felt before an earthquake struck.

  Did the earth move for you, too? suddenly raced through his mind.

  “I need to get back to my reading.” Alex’s voice sounded husky to his ears. The glazed look in her eyes told him she felt the same wave of emotion floating between them as he did.

  “I won’t disturb you. I’m just here looking after my charge.” He kept his tone casual. He doubted now was the time to follow up on the electricity between them. He scanned the room again. “You’re not too much on decorating, are you? Too bad you didn’t go into our coffee room. About a year ago somebody put up a drawing of Will Zane. More like a true-life sketch. He sort of looks like a vulture,” Dylan said.

  Alex looked off into the distance. Her throat muscles worked furiously as she tried to hold back her laughter.

  Dylan studied the torture on her face at her attempt not to break down. “Addison, who drew the sketch, did put him in a nice suit, though,” he added, curious to see what would happen next.

  It proved to be successful, as Alex covered her mouth with her hands. In the end, she couldn’t hold it back. Her shoulders started shaking and she finally bent over at the waist as she laughed with a full-bodied sound Dylan knew he’d never heard before. He had no idea she had such a rich laugh. He just stood there and enjoyed the show.

  “I guess Will has never seen it,” she said once she regained her voice. She used the tips of her fingers to wipe her eyes.

  “I doubt it. So you find that amusing, do you?” He was pleased by her reaction. And more than a little surprised she was acting this way. He knew from past experience that Alex normally didn’t allow herself to let out a good belly laugh. He also remembered that when he used to make fun of Will Zane, she’d argued that Dylan sounded jealous of the man. He knew he had no reason to be jealous of Zane, but it wasn’t worth arguing with her. He wondered what other behavioral changes he would discover in Alex and if they would remain when she regained her memory.

  “Most of the time some members of my profession are portrayed in a bad light, but vultures work nicely, too,” she said, then noticed his expression. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh like that,” he admitted. He regretted his words the minute they left his mouth because her smile disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

  “I had no idea I didn’t have a sense of humor,” she said quietly.

  “You just turned more serious, is all.” He mentally kicked himself for opening a door better left closed. “I’m sorry, Alex. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  She sighed. “You didn’t. You know, when I first walked into this place I felt as if I were walking into a stranger’s home. And then to see the house today….” Her voice trailed off. “Nothing was the same. I feel like a stranger in my own world. I recognize some people, but I have no idea what I might have said to them a week ago. Or what I did last month.” She suddenly made a small sound of horror. “I don’t even want to think I could have a boyfriend who might be away on a business trip.”

  “Any men’s clothing in your closet? Men’s toiletries in your bathroom cabinet? Men calling and leaving a message on your answering machine?”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t someone in my life.” She picked up the sheaf of papers and made sure they were in a neat pile. “I didn’t look through my PDA or any of my papers to see if a man’s name was mentioned.”

  “Janet would have known if there was someone in your life,” he reminded her.

  “Yes, that’s true. I didn’t think about that.”

  “You’re trying too hard again,” Dylan chided her. “You can’t push it, Alex. You have to let the injury heal on its own. How do you know you won’t make matters worse if you keep on pushing?”

  “I keep on pushing because I feel like someone is after me,” Alex argued. “What if it’s true and not just your gut instinct and my own paranoia? There’s no guarantee my memory will ever be totally restored, Dylan. And you shouldn’t feel you have to protect me for the rest of my life if that happens. I know it’s only been a couple of days, but you would think by now I would be able to remember something, no matter how little.” She suddenly snapped her mouth shut as if something had occurred to her.

  “What, Alex?” Dylan didn’t miss the fleeting look of panic on her face or how quickly she masked it. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Just a bit of a headache,” she said quickly.

  He knew a lie the minute he heard one. “You took two aspirin when we stopped to get something to drink.”

  “Considering what we just went through, I think I’m allowed to still have a headache,” she snapped, slapping the desktop so hard her notebook computer seemed to tip slightly from side to side and the pile of papers slid off onto the floor, landing by her feet.


  “Okay.” He held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Okay.” He used the same placating tone he used with surly prisoners. The trouble was, Alex recognized it for what it was and she did not appreciate it.

  Her glare cut through him like a white-hot laser. “Do not patronize me,” she said between clenched teeth.

  “I’m not patronizing you, Alex.” He worked swiftly to pull himself out of the hole he’d dug for himself. “I understand you’ve been through a lot.” He stepped forward with the intention of picking up the papers for her, but she stopped him with a fierce look that warned of painful retribution if he got any closer. He quickly stepped backward. “I’m sorry.”

  “For the hundredth time…” She stopped speaking and stared at him with a glazed look in her eyes.

  Dylan felt something cold deep within him. He relaxed a little when she shook her head and seemed to come out of her self-imposed trance.

  “What happened?” he asked, using caution instead of his usual forge-ahead personality.

  “Nothing. At least nothing happened now. You know, this should have been a quiet day,” Alex murmured. “I’ve read these papers, I realize no one seems odd and can assure you everything is fine from this end.” She bent at the waist and reached down to gather up the papers. “We are no further along than we were when we started.”

  “You haven’t read all your notes yet, have you?” he asked. “You never know what you might find.”

  Alex carefully put the papers back in order. Dylan didn’t doubt they wouldn’t end up in alphabetical order. She paused in her task and stared off into space.

  “Are you sure you didn’t remember something important?”

  “I don’t know. For a second I felt as if a memory was trying to wiggle its way through, but I don’t know if it was wishful thinking or something solid.” She offered him a brief smile. “Since it disappeared so quickly, I think it was more wishful thinking.”

  “You’re not doing anything wrong, Al,” he said quietly, feeling for her.

  “I’ve lost a portion of the past couple of years.” She sounded more frustrated than amused. “I ask for answers, but no one will give them to me.”

  Dylan thought of the war they had waged the past couple of years and was silently grateful she wasn’t remembering them. “Who knows, maybe you’re better off not remembering everything. What if there are regrets mixed in there, too?”

  “Then I’ll deal with it. It’s not better for me when I feel as if there’s something important hovering on the edge of my memory, but it disappears before I have a chance to catch it.” She brushed a stray lock of hair from her face, then tucked it behind her ear.

  “The brain is a tricky part of the body,” he said, fearing he sounded like a medical textbook for dummies.

  Alex rolled her eyes. “That sounds like something a doctor would say.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest.

  “Nope. I still can’t stand the sight of blood. Trouble is, a doctor isn’t here to remind you what you should and shouldn’t do. All considering, I think you’re handling this whole situation pretty well,” he said. “If it had been me who woke up with a Swiss-cheese memory, I’d probably be punching holes in the walls.”

  She smiled briefly. “How flattering. You’d wake up thinking we were still married and you’d want to damage a wall.”

  Dylan’s gaze drifted in her direction. Alex’s body was so still in her chair she could have been a statue. He knew even if she sat that quietly, her brain was still moving at warp speed. He guessed she was busy looking at her problem from all angles until the right solution presented itself to her.

  He wondered what would happen once she recovered her memory. Would it give them the answers they needed to explain the reason behind the attack on her? Or would they end up with even more questions that could have them searching in an entirely different direction?

  He realized he was seeing the beginnings of a whole new Alex. He realized she was a softer, more approachable woman than the one he’d known.

  God help him, if he wasn’t careful he could fall for her all over again. But what would happen if—when—she woke up one day and remembered everything?

  Including the fact that they’d pretty much grown to despise each other.

  He couldn’t afford to get his heart stomped on again. He’d picked up the pieces and gone on with his life. He knew everyone thought he was a player. That he dated lots of women. He dated, sure, but not all that many. He wasn’t about to fall into the dark hole he had with Alex.

  Better to remain alone than go through that pain again.

  “Do you have it?” he asked, not bothering with a greeting.

  “I really think we gotta get out of here, boss,” the caller said.

  His patience with these men was waning quickly. “That is not what I asked you, Leonard.”

  “She saw us. She knows what we look like.” The man’s voice carried the same icy lack of emotion that his employer’s did, even if there was a hint of urgency coloring his words.

  “Tell me you have retrieved my property.” He leaned forward in his chair. The long silence from the other end was his answer.

  “We haven’t been able to get into her condo after you gave us her address. There’re all sorts of maintenance crews around there, plus a cop hanging around her place,” the man explained. “But nothing matters except us getting out of here as soon as possible. She saw us, boss! I didn’t think she got a look at us that night, but she must have.”

  His mind worked swiftly. “When did this happen?”

  “Late this morning. We was—were—getting something to eat. She saw us and must have told the cop with her. He tried chasing us but we got away,” he said proudly.

  “So he knows what kind of car you drive?” He closed his eyes, imagining a painful punishment for his incompetent employees. The men may have performed flawlessly in the past, but they had let him down this time. He didn’t appreciate any mistakes.

  “It won’t do him any good. We went by a shopping center and swapped license plates with a car like ours.”

  “You fools!” he exploded. “Get rid of it immediately. But drive to another town and do it there. Do not waste any time and get it done tonight. Find a large shopping mall and do it there. Make sure you wipe the car down entirely. Inside and out. Have it washed before you abandon it. Even better if you could find a deep lake to drive it into.” If I am lucky, you’ll go with the car.

  “Tonight?” he protested.

  “You heard me. Get rid of it right away,” he ordered. “So far the police haven’t shown up here, so he must not have seen your license plate, but we can’t afford to take any chances. I refuse to be taken down because you couldn’t handle one simple task.”

  “You know what we’ll have to do to get another car.”

  “Knowing your skills I am certain you can find something else. And if you do happen to be arrested, just make sure my name does not come into any of this. The consequences of such an action would be very high.” He disconnected the call.

  Chapter 7

  Alex wondered what had happened in the last few minutes to change Dylan’s attitude toward her. Before she could ask him if something was wrong, he murmured he had calls to make and turned away. She nodded and watched him leave the room before she returned to her reading. The papers felt cool to the touch under her fingertips. She wondered if one of the pages would hold the answers she needed. She put the pages she had already read to one side.

  “I have very boring clients who live very self-involved, boring lives and apparently have a boring, self-involved attorney,” she murmured. “All these people worry about are their investments, their collections of rare porcelain or paintings or ancient pottery or—” she wrinkled her nose “—Victorian erotica. Okay, not all of them are boring.” She set the papers down and looked off into the distance, tapping her fingers on the desk’s surface. “I’m not even sure what I’m looking for. I should have read more detective
novels. Or maybe I have read some and just don’t remember them.” She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the desk as she rubbed her temples with her fingertips. “Maybe I’m going crazy and imagined that man was the one who attacked me. Maybe he didn’t look at me as if he recognized me. Maybe it was someone I met in the past two years. Or maybe it was the sun shining on the window. Maybe, maybe, maybe!” In her agitation she rubbed the delicate skin of her temples so hard the skin reddened. The longer she thought about it, the more uncertain she felt about what she thought she’d seen. She lifted her head when she heard a faint voice coming from the other room.

  She cocked her head to one side to hear better as bits and pieces of a conversation drifted back to her. When she heard her name spoken, she quickly rose from her chair and crept toward the door.

  “No, it wasn’t her imagination,” she heard Dylan argue. “Well, of course she still doesn’t remember anything, but I told you that. The guy recognized her, he panicked and he took off. You want to tell me why an innocent guy would take off?” He paused, obviously listening.

  Alex silently eased her way out of her office and down the hallway. When she looked around the corner she saw Dylan in the living room, walking back and forth behind the couch. The dark expression on his face boded ill for whomever he was talking to. She’d bet good money it was Detective Alan Whitmire.

  “You and I both know that unless they’re incredibly stupid they probably stole a car instead of renting one that could lead back to them,” he said. He waited as if listening to the person on the other end. “You think what? Give me a break! You talked to her more than once. You know as well as I do that Alex doesn’t have one hysterical bone in her body. Whatever those bastards want they haven’t gotten yet and who knows what they’ll try next.” He remained silent for a moment. “Fine. I’m going to do what I can here to find the mystery object and you do whatever you have to do.” He slapped his phone shut. “Idiot,” he muttered, stalking into the kitchen with Clarence trotting after him. Alex heard the click of a cabinet door opening, then the rustle of a bag being opened. She guessed he’d found the bag of cat treats.