by Regan Black
He grimaced. “We’ll see. Our first stop should be the police station and a chat with Detective Werner. Even before your apartment, but especially before the museum, for any reason. He has someone from the department tailing you. Us.”
“What?” The idea was a shock, and her stomach threatened to rebel. “Since when? Do they think I’m a suspect?”
“Easy,” he said, carrying their plates to the sink. “No sense being aggravated after the fact. Grant told me about the person assigned to us last night when I gave him an update. Before your nightmare started,” he added. “Have you remembered enough to be confident that you’re innocent?”
“Yes and no.” She shook her head and peered into her coffee, unable to meet his gaze. “There are bits and pieces that must be from that night. I don’t think I killed her—not directly, at least—but I don’t remember much about who did.”
He brought over the coffeepot and filled her cup. “It will all come back.”
After the nightmares last night and the flickers of memories today, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, even though it was absolutely necessary. “If we go to the police station, they’ll expect answers. I really don’t have any.”
“Yet.” He loaded the dishwasher and dug out the salt to scour the cast-iron skillet. “You’ve done a fine job of talking all around the actual nightmare. Go ahead and tell me what you can and we can make a better plan.”
“Okay.” She took a breath and wrapped both hands around the warm coffee mug. “I remember going home from work to change clothes. I called a car service and went to meet Noelle at the hospital near the Penn campus as she was getting off work.” Her right hand flexed and fisted as she recalled the feel of her purse strap in her hand. “We were going out for girls’ night.”
“Were you meeting anyone else? More girlfriends?”
“No,” Lissa replied, her mind pushing more disjointed details to the front. “I got there without any trouble. It was like the stars were aligned because her shift had gone well and she was ready to go. We were headed for the parking garage when a man caught up with us. Closer to the hospital than the garage, I think.”
“Take it easy.”
She couldn’t do that. Noelle needed her to bring the killer to justice. Lissa pressed fingertips to her temples. “He was rude to her. To us.” She shuddered at the rush of images, the horrible threats, the sharp bursts of pain. How much was real and how much stemmed from her vivid imagination? “He had two friends with him.”
“How often did you go out on girls’ nights?”
“About once a month. We spoke all the time, every day, by text, phone, whatever was easiest. We’ve been that way since college. Official girls’ night was once a month, and we had movie nights at my place as needed.”
“What were her favorite movies?”
“Noelle was a B-movie horror-genre junkie,” she replied. “The wackier the better for her.” Lissa laughed a little at the bittersweet memory.
“And you like superheroes,” Carson said with a wide smile. “You were an eclectic pair.”
“True,” Lissa allowed. “But we were sisters at heart. It sounds sappy, but it’s the best description. We were both only children eager for an unbreakable sibling connection.” She treasured the kind sympathy in his eyes, appreciated the way he encouraged her to honor Noelle’s memory. “She was a good person. And so are you for letting me ramble on.”
“Would you be more comfortable talking to the detective at the club, or even here instead of at the police station?”
“I’m willing to speak with the detective anywhere, but I’d really like to do it in my own clothes, if you don’t mind. Although your sisters have excellent taste, I feel like I’ve intruded enough on you and them.” And she was fortunate the sizes had been close enough to fit well.
“It’s not a big deal at all. I’ll change and be ready in five minutes. Unless you want me to shave?”
“Scruffy is fine with me.”
A grin flashed across his face and launched a flock of butterflies in her belly before he turned and loped back upstairs.
She couldn’t wait to get back to her own space, to wear her clothes and sleep in her queen-size bed. While she didn’t yet trust all of the images in her head about Noelle or the trouble they’d met, she trusted herself again. It was a tremendous comfort to be out of that fog of anonymity. Identity and memory were two things among a growing list that she would never take for granted again.
* * *
Carson finished his second cup of coffee and sent text messages about their plan to both Grant and Detective Werner while Lissa called ahead to the museum and arranged for someone to escort her from the employee entrance to her work space down in the first sublevel.
He wasn’t exactly unfamiliar with the museum, inside or out. Everyone within the PFD received extensive training on the landmark building, which seemed to have specific circumstance notes and exemptions for fire safety layered into every square inch. He and Sarah had answered more than one call here, but that was an entirely different experience than walking in as Lissa’s guest today.
Following Lissa into the rear entrance, he mentally ticked through the understated security measures, but the guard’s boisterous greeting startled him. Lissa made introductions, and after the guard gave her a temporary ID card, Carson trailed after the two of them. The two behaved as if they’d been friends from birth and separated for years rather than a couple of days. She soothed her friend’s worry after the news report as the three of them headed for the lower level where Lissa worked. As they walked along, Carson noticed she used first names with everyone they met along the way and he recognized sincere, friendly affection aimed toward her in return. Everyone they met was relieved to see her, making sure she was okay, and it was clear no one here believed she could have been involved with anything illegal. It seemed the only child who’d grown up without roots had firmly planted herself here.
He wasn’t sure why he took comfort in that awareness, since he was only a temporary fixture in her life. Once she was out of this trouble, they’d go their separate ways, and it wasn’t likely their paths would cross again. It was common sense, yet it left him feeling hollowed out. What was his problem? More than a little aggravated, he blamed his swinging reactions on a lack of sleep.
There was a wholesome energy to Lissa, grounded with an unmistakable integrity in her dark eyes. As she flipped on the light in her office, her enthusiasm for her work played across her face, turning a beautiful woman irresistible as she gave him a brief explanation of what she did for the museum while she retrieved her spare key to the apartment.
“So you’re the CSI of old documents?” he asked, putting her explanation into the most familiar context he could come up with.
“Yes!” Her beaming smile wobbled and faded. “That must bore you to tears.” She stuffed the key and both hands into the pockets of her denim jacket.
That nervous tell she had left him searching for a way to make her laugh. “Not at all.” And he meant it. “That’s actually pretty cool.”
“I think so. My parents were all for it, until they realized I didn’t want to graduate and go back to traipsing around the world from dig to dig, doing what I do here for them.”
“The support dried up?” She was hardly the first kid to take a detour from a parental plan.
“Not intentionally. I make it sound terrible, and it isn’t.” She sighed as they walked back to the elevator. “I know they love me. That’s always been a constant. They definitely appreciate my skills and what I do. They just don’t understand how the wanderlust from both sides of the genetic code skipped me so completely.”
Carson smiled, pushing the call button. “We always think of the apple falling close to the tree and forget how many roll away.”
“Roll away and become new orchards.” She wrinkled her nos
e. “Sorry if that pushes the metaphor too far. Eighteen years of playing in the oldest dirt of the world’s most remote locales was long enough.”
“It’s fine.” He enjoyed traveling, but he had a hard time imagining her background. The elevator car arrived and they stepped in. She pushed the button to return to the ground floor. “I bet you’re ready to get back to your apartment,” he said.
“Yes, please.” Her head bobbed and her eyes sparkled. “Your sisters are probably ready to know they won’t be sharing their clothes anymore.”
“Isn’t that accepted practice with females?”
She elbowed him. “It can be, but it’s polite to ask rather than assume. Noelle and I—” Her mouth closed, lips clamped together to hold back the words and emotions.
“You can talk about her. You should,” he added.
“Is this official advice?”
“Advice can be both helpful and official,” he said, holding the door so she could exit the elevator first. They left the cool, dry climate-controlled air of the museum and entered the warmth of the midspring morning, giving the city its first hint of the summer to come.
She climbed into his truck and buckled up. When he had done the same and started the engine, she shifted to face him. “Okay. I’ll talk about her. Noelle and I used to share clothing and lament the differences in our shoe sizes. She was an amazing friend and an excellent nurse. I can’t think of any reason anyone would hassle her. I have to remember it all and fast.”
“You’ll get there, I believe it more with every hour. But why are you in a rush?”
“If the case goes cold and the killer gets away because I can’t remember the details, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Pushing yourself isn’t the answer.” He pulled out of the parking area and, now that he knew what he was looking for, he saw the unmarked car fall in behind them. “Your body is still healing.”
“The detective will want answers. I want answers.”
“They’ll come,” he said. “You know who you are. Just yesterday you weren’t convinced even that would happen. Between what you have recalled and what the police have found, they will find justice for Noelle.”
A few minutes later, Carson pulled to a stop on her street once more. He pointed out their understated police escort to Lissa. “Do you want me to say something to him?”
“No.” She’d left her sable hair loose this morning, and it rippled like silk as she shook her head. “Won’t the detective call him off? They must have better things to do than keep an eye on me.”
Carson wanted to reassure her and yet he couldn’t lie. “Hard to tell how long he’ll be around. It probably depends on what they uncover and when, regarding Noelle’s case.”
“Right.” Her mouth firmed into a determined line. She pushed open the truck door and hopped out. “I am ready to be back in my place again,” she said when he joined her on the sidewalk. “Probably as ready as you are to be rid of me.”
He didn’t know what to say, so he let her lead the way up the short walk to the front of the house. Her building had once been a stately single-family home perched at the top of a gentle slope. Now it was subdivided, and the landlord must have made bank for the location on the large corner lot with the shade and shelter of mature trees and even three off-street parking spaces. Down the rest of the block in one direction he saw the more common row houses marching along. In the opposite direction around the corner were more homes like this one, most of them clearly subdivided.
“Tidy place,” he said, following her up the narrow sidewalk and steps to the front porch.
“The porch is considered a community area.” She paused at the porch rail and looked up at him, trouble brewing in her gaze. “How is it I couldn’t remember any of this yesterday? I mean, seriously, that old spring rocker was my contribution.”
“The brain is a strange place.” He shrugged a shoulder and walked over to the chair. “It’s in great condition.”
“I restored it,” she said, with an exasperated huff. “I put my sweat and elbow grease into it. Noelle and I found it when we were out junking one weekend. Sandpaper and a little TLC followed by primer and a gallon of paint. How could I forget I did that?”
He took a closer look at the chair. She’d chosen a soft, sky blue color and painted a daisy chain along the back. “Did you paint this freehand?”
“Yes.”
“Wow. Nice work.” He caught her blushing at his praise. “Why go to all that trouble and leave it in a common space where you can’t use it as often?”
“Two reasons.” She pulled the house key from her pocket and toyed with it. “First, sharing is caring,” she quipped. “I like seeing my neighbors enjoy the chair, too.”
“And second?”
She grinned and spun the key around her index finger. “I have a second one upstairs.”
That grin on her face was as lovely as a clear sunrise on the Schuylkill River after a grueling night shift. And the admission shifted something inside him. They weren’t precisely friends, but he thought they might get there with time. “We’d better get moving if we’re going to meet the detective at the station.”
She opened the door and explained the house had been divided into three apartments, one per floor. The landlord reserved the basement for maintenance and storage. Carson had pitched in with his friends on projects that both created apartments and restored homes to the original single-family state. Subdividing projects weren’t always as well done as this one seemed to be. Although the stairwell to her apartment was narrow and steep, it was sturdy. “I’d like to know who built this,” he murmured to himself.
She stopped short at the landing and turned. A step above him now, she was at eye level when she shot him a hard glare. “You’re not thinking of breaking up your house?”
“Not a chance.” He’d put in too many long hours on it to chop it up, even if he could double his income by way of the rentals.
Sunlight streamed through the window at the top of the stairs as they turned in to the small sitting room of her apartment. She’d dealt well with the challenges of the pitched roofline and arranged her furniture so guests wouldn’t bash into the low angled ceiling. “Nice space,” he said and went straight for the restored chair near the window that overlooked the front yard. “You were right about this.” He rocked back a little, testing the coiled springs. “Comfy.”
“Isn’t it? I know the apartment is miniscule, but it was exactly what I needed and the price was right.”
“Always a plus.” From here he could see straight into her galley kitchen and the doors for both bath and bedroom. “My friend Daniel Jennings would love to get a look at this place if you wouldn’t mind giving him a tour.”
“Why’s that?”
“He’s a firefighter, and he runs a construction team when he’s not on shift for PFD,” Carson explained. “He loves to see projects like this done right.”
“That’s fine with me. I could probably convince my neighbors to open up, as well. I lucked out in that department,” she added. “There’s an awesome retired couple on the ground floor. Both teachers. They do a ton of traveling to keep up with the grandkids. The guy who lives on the second floor is in his thirties and is a game design and development professor. He and his partner are huge supporters of the museum.”
Carson had never known that much about his neighbors. “Dan would really appreciate it.”
“Um. Do you mind if I, ah, just duck aside for a few minutes?” She gestured to the cracked bedroom door. “Help yourself to whatever you like. I’ll be quick if you want to touch base with Detective Werner and let him know when to expect us.”
“I can do that.” Pulling out his cell phone, he left an updated message with the detective. Sunday morning might not be ideal for another interview, but Carson knew from Grant’s reaction
that the cops were eager for a solid lead on Noelle’s killer. When bodies were found in such public locations, the media scrutiny magnified the typically high-pressure task of finding a killer.
Personally, he wanted to take a swing at the man who’d blacked Lissa’s eye. Carson knew there were all kinds of nasty people in the world—hell, in the city—but he held a special loathing for bullies who hit women. He’d seen enough on his calls to recognize the pattern of a fist in the bruising.
The pipes rattled a little, and he assumed she’d turned on the water in the bathroom. He wandered over to the kitchen and opened the fridge, hoping for a bottle of water. Finding several, he helped himself as he looked around the space. It gave him a good sense of her, and fit the woman he was coming to know, both before and after her memory returned.
She was resourceful. This place was within an easy walk or bike ride to the museum. Taking the third floor made an expensive neighborhood more attainable. The quirky, clever decor she’d used only underscored her ingenuity and emphasized her determination to make her own way. Whatever hang-ups she’d carried as a kid or the distractions her parents had, she’d turned into a capable woman.
He jumped at the sound of a buzzer. He crossed through the sitting room and pushed the call button on the panel near the landing. “Yeah?”
“It’s Werner.” The detective’s rough, impatient voice clashed with the serenity of Lissa’s home.
What the hell? They’d planned to meet him at the station. “I’ll be right down,” Carson said. He gave a shout to Lissa to let her know the new plan before he went downstairs to let the detective inside. There was probably a way to unlock the door with the keypad, but going down in person bought her a few more moments to brace for the interview.
Werner was pacing from the porch rail to the door, clearly eager to get inside and speak with Melissa. “Has she told you what she remembers?” he asked as soon as he crossed the threshold.
“Yes.” Carson purposely kept his reply vague.
“Can she give an ID?” Werner forced Carson back another step. “Have you made a sketch?”
