STOLEN MEMORY

by Virginia Kantra

  A great wave of pity and reluctance moved through Laura. She bit her lip. "Palmer has it."

  "And?"

  Damn the man's persistence. "All right," she admitted. "According to the log, the only people to access the lab that night were you and my father. That doesn't prove you were the only people there."

  "No, but it's a damn good clue."

  "Anyone inside the lab could have opened the door to admit someone else."

  "So you think I opened the door to your father's killer? Or did he open the door himself?"

  "We don't know yet that he was killed."

  "We don't know that he wasn't."

  She rubbed her forehead, as if that could force some new idea into her tired brain. "He could have slipped and fallen making his escape."

  "But then the rubies would have been found on his body."

  She glared at him. Was he trying to be charged with her father's murder? "Maybe he had an accomplice. Once he was inside the lab, he could have let someone else in. Or you could have."

  Simon's eyebrows raised. "So the accomplice killed him, took the stones and disposed of his body." It wasn't a terrible idea.

  "I don't know," Laura said. "I'm waiting on the autopsy results. But it's one explanation."

  A slight smile touched his lips. His eyes were dark and unreadable. "Why are you so determined to prove I'm innocent?"

  Her heart filled. The words trembled behind her stubbornly set mouth. Because I care about you, you stupid moron.

  She angled her jaw. "Why are you so determined to prove you're guilty?"

  His smile broadened. "Good question. All right, Detective. Let's see if we can't form a hypothesis that satisfies us both." He paced the kitchen. "Let's start with the one obvious fact we've overlooked. Your father was the security guard that night. Maybe he interrupted the robbery. Maybe whoever attacked me murdered him."

  Hope and fear lodged together in Laura's chest, making it hard to breathe. She wanted to believe her father was innocent. In her heart of hearts, she did believe it. But … satisfied? Dear God, no. Because if Simon's theory was right, he was in even more danger. If his theory was right, her father's killer was still out there. And an attacker who killed once would be more likely to kill again.

  "In that case, there should have been signs of a struggle."

  "Maybe your father apprehended him outside the lab. Or down at the dock."

  It was possible. Even plausible, Laura thought with rising hope.

  "So do we have a motive for this mystery attacker?"

  Simon sat on the edge of the kitchen table. "Half a million dollars in cultured gemstones seems sufficient motive. Not to mention notebooks, papers, whatever else I kept in the safe."

  Laura frowned. "Somebody still had to let the thief in."

  "Not necessarily. Was your father's passcard recovered with his body?"

  She didn't know. She hadn't asked. Her failure shook her. "I… His personal effects should be returned to me tomorrow. I can ask."

  Simon's eyes were sharp and cool. "Ask when the cards were used, too."

  "The chief might not tell me. Would it make a difference?"

  "It might."

  She shook her head. "Maybe it's a good thing I'm off the case. Maybe I am too close to see clearly."

  "And maybe you're the only one close enough to see at all. You'll figure it out," he said.

  She didn't deserve his confidence. She was terrified of making another mistake.

  "I'm not sure I want to."

  "You said you wanted the truth," he reminded her gently. He brushed his fingers down her cheek. She fought the temptation to close her eyes and lean into his touch. "Whatever it is, you'll handle it."

  "Yeah." She sighed and pulled away. "I'm good at handling things."

  Simon's hand dropped. "You are." Annoyance edged his voice. "It would, however, be helpful if you occasionally realized you don't need to handle everything alone."

  Startled, she met his eyes. Beneath the simmering temper was real hurt. She hadn't wanted to hurt him. She hadn't realized she could.

  She depended on her fellow cops for backup, just as they depended on her. But nobody at work expected her to holler for help in a situation she had under control. Nobody in her life wanted to hear about her problems. Or share them. Simon's insistence on doing both made her feel odd. Special.

  Threatened.

  "If this is about last night," she said carefully, "I was only doing my job."

  "I'm not stopping you from doing your job. But I'd like to help you get through the rest of it."

  "Why?" she asked baldly.

  He hesitated.

  Her heart pounded. What did she expect him to say? Because, my darling Laura, I love you truly, madly, deeply and I want to be there for you always. Yeah, like that would ever happen.

  "You helped me," he said finally. "I owe you."

  Fair enough, she thought, squashing her disappointment. "You don't owe me anything. I helped you because I wanted to."

  "Then let me do the same."

  She turned her mug in her hands. "I don't even know where to begin," she confessed. "My father and I weren't … close. I don't know what he would have wanted. I don't even know if he had a lawyer. It was different when…"

  When Tommy died.

  The memory of her young husband's flag-draped coffin shivered through her, haunting as the bright notes of the trumpet over his grave. Maybe he hadn't been the great love of her life. Maybe she hadn't been his. But he'd been willing to marry her, and that counted for something. It counted for a lot, actually.

  "Different when it was your husband," Simon said, his eyes watchful.

  She nodded, embarrassed by her show of emotion and grateful for his understanding. "Tommy was navy. The navy takes care of its own."

  "So do I," Simon said.

  She gaped at him.

  "He did work for me," Simon said blandly. "Your father."

  Heat washed over her. "Oh."

  Right. Of course. He didn't mean… He didn't want…

  Simon pulled a slim, silver electronic notebook with a matching stylus from his pocket. "The autopsy's tomorrow, you said. When will they release the body?"

  "Tuesday, probably." She watched him jot on the tiny screen, feeling as though she'd landed on the wrong side of an interview.

  "Church?" Simon asked.

  Laura summoned her thoughts to respond. "I don't think so. My father wasn't a churchgoing man. Not since…" Unexpectedly her throat closed. Jeez, she was weepy. She took a gulp of coffee, annoyed with herself. "Not since my mother died. I could check and see if he was registered anywhere in the diocese."

  "Later." He made another note. "Unless you have another preference, I thought we'd let Carolyn investigate funeral homes. Of course, the final decision will be yours."

  "Wait a minute." Amused, astounded, she looked down at his elegant gadget and then up into his eyes. "Are you making notes for my father's funeral on your PDA?"

  He met her gaze evenly. A muscle twitched in his jaw. "Yes. Any objections?"

  "No, it's very…" Logical. Methodical. Typical. She smiled. "Very practical," she said.

  His expression remained blank, a smooth shield against criticism. "I am practical."

  Okay, she'd pushed the wrong button somewhere. "Is that a problem for you?"

  Just for a moment, his eyes communicated for him. She saw his uncertainty, his longing, his need. But she didn't know what caused them.

  "Not really," he returned coolly. "Is it a problem for you?"

  It had obviously been a problem for somebody. Laura tried to imagine Simon as a thoughtful, solitary boy growing up with a profligate father and a succession of stepmothers. Had they taught him to hide his feelings?

  Or, compared to the emotionally extravagant adults in his life, had he sometimes felt he didn't have any?

  Impulsively she reached out and covered his hand with hers. "Nope. I'm not what you'd call touchy-feely, either."


  He turned his hand over and threaded his fingers with hers. "Maybe we could work on that. We could be good for each other."

  He was wrong, but she left her hand in his anyway, because it felt so good. "I doubt it. If you hadn't gotten conked on the head, you wouldn't give me the time of day."

  "And you wouldn't speak to me except to write me a traffic ticket."

  "See? We're relationship challenged. It's like the blind leading the blind. The lame supporting the lame. The romantically impaired giving advice to the emotionally stunted."

  His eyebrows arched. She couldn't tell if he was offended or amused. "Which one am I?"

  "Take your pick."

  He considered. "What if I don't like your choices?"

  She shrugged. "Then you make changes, I guess. It's not too late for you."

  His eyes were steady on her face. "Not too late for either of us."

  Her throat felt tight. "It is for me. I won't ever… I can't ever…"

  Her voice shook with unshed tears. Damn it.

  "He loved you, you know," Simon volunteered unexpectedly.

  "What?"

  "Your father. He loved you."

  "Right." She swallowed hard. "That's why he didn't talk to me for ten years."

  "That's why he kept a picture of you in his bedroom. He was trying to hold on to the little girl he loved. He didn't know how to say it, he didn't know how to show it, but he loved you, Laura."

  Terrific, she thought. This was a hell of a time to discover she made a habit of falling for men who couldn't express their feelings.

  Still, it comforted her to think maybe her father had thought of her sometimes with affection, had remembered her sometimes with love.

  She cleared her throat; squeezed Simon's hand. "Thanks."

  "It's nothing," he said gruffly. He looked down at the PDA. "Now, about the newspaper announcement…"

  Okay, so it wasn't a declaration of love, Laura thought. But it was help, and she was grateful.

  Thirty minutes later, Simon flipped the cover shut on his electronic notebook.

  "That's it. E.C.I.P. should have most of the information in your father's personnel file. Have you spoken with your brother yet?"

  Laura shifted uncomfortably on her chair. "I was waiting until after the autopsy."

  "Why?"

  "The M.E. hasn't made an official identification of the body."

  "Do you really think that's someone else in the morgue?" Simon asked.

  "Not exactly," she muttered.

  "Then why the delay? Exactly."

  She scowled. "My brother's not answering his phone."

  "You've tried to call?"

  Will you call your brother? he'd asked as they left her father's apartment.

  I don't need you to tell me how to do my job.

  She flushed. "Yes. He hasn't returned any of my messages."

  "Have you tried calling him at work?"

  She didn't know where he worked or what he did, really. Something administrative. Their father had gotten him the job the Chicago way—through connections. Paul complained sometimes about the dreary routine, the dead end pay, the superior macho attitudes of some of his co-workers. But despite Laura's urging, he had never moved on.

  "Then maybe he was busy," Simon said.

  "Uh-huh. And maybe he has caller ID and he's avoiding me."

  "Then he won't recognize this number," Simon pointed out logically.

  She took a sip of cold coffee, the taste bitter in her mouth. Stalling. "Even if Paul picks up, there's no guarantee he'll want to talk to me."

  "You can still talk to him. You need to tell him about your father."

  She hunched her shoulders. "Yeah, 'Hi, Paul, Daddy's dead' is a hell of an icebreaker."

  But she could not ignore her duty. Picking up the wall phone, she punched in her brother's number from memory.

  He answered on the fourth ring, his voice gravelly with sleep or smoke. "'Lo?"

  "Paul?" Her voice sounded shaky. Uncertain. She took another deep breath and tried again. "It's Laura."

  "Where are you calling from?"

  Her heart sank. He was avoiding her. Or were grief and fatigue on top of her usual cop's paranoia making her imagine things? She was very aware of Simon, still sitting at the table, watching her. "I'm at a friend's."

  "What do you want?"

  "I have bad news."

  "That used to be my line," Paul observed. "Are you in trouble?"

  Laura's heart quailed. How many times had she asked him that question, with just that inflection of exasperated concern in her voice? After their mother's death, her brother's rebellious streak coupled with the hard-line discipline at home had pushed him to make bad friends and bad choices. Their house had reverberated with the rumbles of failing grades and detentions, street fights and school suspensions. Laura had learned to dread the notes from teachers, the middle-of-the-night phone calls, the constant battles with their father, afraid that each new transgression would be the one that drove her brother from the house.

  But in the end, it had been Laura who left and Paul who stayed. What would their father's death mean to him?

  She turned to face the wall. Lowered her voice. "There's been an accident."

  "What do you mean, an accident? Are you hurt?"

  Simon's chair scraped back from the kitchen table. She heard him cross the table, felt him stand behind her. "I'm fine. But the police recovered a body from the lake last night. Here in Eden."

  "So?"

  Laura forced herself to continue. "Dad came up here about a week ago. On the Lumen Corp job."

  "Dad's on vacation," Paul said.

  She closed her eyes. "No. No, he's not."

  "You are freaking kidding me."

  "He's missing, Paul. He hasn't been in to work. And the body… The body that was recovered…"

  "No," Paul said more forcibly.

  "I'm sorry," Laura said helplessly.

  Sorry he was dead. Sorry she had to be the one to tell him so. Sorry for leaving home, for leaving Paul to bear the brunt of their father's strictures and displeasure alone.

  "It's not him," Paul said. "It can't be. He's on vacation."

  "The medical examiner hasn't made a formal identification of the body yet," Laura said. "But—"

  "Why don't you identify the body, if it's him?" Paul interrupted.

  Laura swallowed. "I can't."

  "Why not? You're still next of kin. Like it or not."

  "I can't." She drew in a deep breath. "Nobody could. Pauly, he's… It's been ten days."

  "Oh, Jesus." Her brother began to cry, horrible, muffled sounds made more terrible by distance.

  Laura's knuckles turned white on the receiver. "I'm sorry," she said again, over and over. "I'm so sorry."

  Simon watched and wanted to punch something.

  Unfortunately, taking a swing at the police chief's kitchen cabinets wasn't going to help Laura. She'd demonstrated an irritating tendency to fight her own battles anyway.

  She had turned her back on him. Her shoulders were braced. Her back tensed. She gripped the receiver like the handle of a club. Yet her voice was soft and controlled as she spoke to her brother, murmuring, explaining, consoling.

  Simon wanted to make things better somehow. That's what he was good at, wasn't it? Solving problems. Figuring solutions. Fixing things.

  He was uneasily aware that a woman's heart might be harder to calculate than a chemical formula or an angle of refraction. But he'd learned in the lab that most problems could be solved by patience and application.

  He was willing to use both with Laura.

  "…decide after I talk with the funeral director," she was saying. "He must have a suit in his closet. I'll see if the super will let me into his apartment."

  The building super would let her do whatever she damn well wanted. Simon would make sure of it.

  "No, you don't have to… A key?" The new note in Laura's voice plucked at Simon's attention. "Okay. Yeah. Yo
u could do that. I'll call you. Give me your number at work." She wrote something down. "No, of course I… Paul?"

  Simon waited.

  A long silence.

  Laura cradled the phone, her hand lingering on the receiver. Her shoulders slumped. But when she turned to face Simon, her face was composed. "He hung up," she explained.

  "Son of a bitch."

  Her chin stuck out. "This is a difficult time for him."

  "It's a difficult time for you, too." He didn't like the bright, blank look in her eyes. "Come here."

  She jerked back. "No, I… You have to go."

  "I'm not going anywhere," Simon said firmly, surprised to find he meant it. "Unless you're coming with me."

  It wasn't too late for him, she'd said. He could change. He had changed.

  Laura straightened her spine. "Fine," she said, clearly humoring him. "I need a ride back to my apartment."

  "I can give you a ride."

  But not, he decided, back to her apartment. She needed to get out. She needed to get away. She needed to let go. She needed room and time to grieve, to breathe, to be.

  And he needed to be the one who gave them to her.

  But he wouldn't argue with her now, he thought, observing the lines that dug around her mouth, the fatigue that lay like bruises under her eyes. She had too many decisions pressing in on her already and more than enough stress.

  Patience and application, he thought again. He wouldn't badger her.

  He'd kidnap her instead.

  * * *

  Chapter 13

  « ^ »

  Laura roused against the cream leather upholstery of Simon's Mercedes. "This isn't the way to my apartment."

  "No," he agreed.

  He should have figured she wouldn't let him get as far as the dock before she said something. Not a Stepford, his Laura. But he wished this once she'd sit back, shut up and let him take care of her.

  She leaned forward to look out the windshield as he turned right on Harbor Street

  . "Turn left up here. Left. What are you doing?"

  It didn't take a genius to see she was jittery and exhausted, subsisting on nerves and caffeine. He was no expert on women, but he understood cause and effect. He pulled to the curb in front of the Rose Farms Café.

  Laura's eyes narrowed in annoyance. "Now what?"