Don't Forget Me

by Stacy Claflin

  Alex traced her cheek with his fingertip and gazed into her eyes. “Any chance you have a few minutes before you need to leave?”

  Zoey glanced away. “Not really. Sorry.” She wasn’t, though. It was a relief to put off the inevitable conversation. Maybe she could manage to wait until the following weekend. Or better yet, until he was done with the academy. But Macy was right. She’d be showing before then.

  He brushed his lips across hers. “Maybe I could go with you?”

  Her heart fluttered. She hated to say no to him. “Genevieve and I were going to talk. You know, woman to woman.”

  “Oh.” Disappointment washed over his face. “What about dinner? I could take you out somewhere. Your choice. Just the two of us, or with Ari.”

  Guilt stung. He just wanted to spend time with her. And if it weren’t for her secret, she would want the same.

  She swallowed. “That sounds really nice. I’ll check with my parents and see if they have plans for her tonight.”

  He kissed her, deepening the kiss for a moment. “I’ll head home and get some rest first. I didn’t sleep in as long as I’d hoped.”

  “Sorry, Dad!” Ari’s voice had a song to it as she bounced over. She threw her arms around Zoey. “Are we going to the park now, Mom?”

  “Yep. Genevieve says Tinsley can’t wait to see you.”

  Zoey’s phone played a jingle in her purse. She pulled it out to see a text.

  Genevieve: I’m sorry. Tinsley’s really tired. Reschedule?

  Zoey’s heart sank. She’d really been looking forward to the playdate. Or had she been more excited about avoiding her inevitable talk with Alex?

  Zoey: No problem. Tomorrow? Same time?

  Genevieve: Perfect! Thx!

  Ariana moved between Zoey and Alex. “What’s going on?”

  Zoey put her hand on Ari’s shoulder. “Sorry, sweetie. They need to reschedule for tomorrow.”

  Ariana sighed dramatically. “Oh, man! I really wanted to see her. Well, I guess that gives me more time to work on my project today. I have to work on a couple of the graphs and do some more painting.”

  “Ari, can you come here?” Alyssa called from the kitchen.

  “Coming, Grandma!” Ariana raced over.

  Alex took Zoey’s hand. “Are you okay? You seem… I don’t know. Not quite yourself.”

  She shrugged. “I’m getting by.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Getting by?”

  “Yeah. Some days are harder than others. You know how it is.” She hoped he’d think she was referring to the abduction.

  “Unfortunately.” He laced his fingers through hers and led her down the stairs.

  Zoey’s stomach twisted, churned acid, and lurched. They were going to talk. Today. She was going to have to tell him the truth.

  No more putting it off.

  How would he react? Would he be disgusted by her? Could he accept her decision to have the baby? Would he be angry that she’d kept it from him?

  Tears stung her eyes. She couldn’t handle losing him again. What if he wanted to look into other pregnancy options? Or adoption? Would she change her mind to keep the only person she’d ever truly been in love with?

  Time seemed to move in slow motion as they made their way down the stairs and outside.

  Neither spoke as they crossed the yard and sat on a bench Chad had recently built underneath a large Japanese maple tree.

  Alex put his hands on her shoulders and massaged, not saying a word.

  Zoey’s mind raced. Her heart thundered so loudly, she was sure Alex could hear it. She could hardly hear anything else over the noise.

  He continued rubbing her shoulders for a few minutes before wrapping an arm around her. “Are you sure everything’s okay? You haven’t seemed yourself in a while.”

  “I’m dealing with an abduction!” Zoey snapped. “Sorry.”

  Alex kissed her temple. “You can talk to me, you know. I’ve been through that, too. It messes with the mind big time. But you’re one of the strongest people I know, Zo. If anyone can put that behind them, it’s you.”

  Tears threatened again. She swallowed. “It’s more than that.”

  “More?” He tilted his head, and his eyes filled with concern. “What do you mean?”

  This was it. The moment of truth. She would soon find out if she and Alex would remain engaged. If they would live the rest of their lives together.

  “Zo?” He pulled some hair away from her face and held her gaze.

  Her heart really was going to explode out of her chest.

  “You can tell me anything.”

  Zoey’s lips trembled. She looked down at her lap and sucked in a deep breath. There was no point in trying to put it off any longer. She looked up and met his gaze. “Alex, he raped me.”

  Shock

  Alex stared at Zoey, trying to take in what she’d just said. He had to have misheard her. He had to have. It couldn’t be true. It felt like a punch in the gut.

  But the tears shining in her eyes and the fearful expression told him he hadn’t heard wrong.

  He finally found his voice. “He raped you?”

  She nodded and wiped her eyes.

  Alex’s mind raced with more questions than he could spit out. He settled on one. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  Zoey buried her face against his chest and mumbled something he couldn’t understand.

  He clung to her. “Are you okay? Did you at least tell the doctors when you were in the hospital?”

  She nodded. “They know. I’m going to have to testify about it when he goes to trial.”

  He kissed the top of her head. Again and again. A range of emotions swirled around—everything from heartbreak to anger. “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry. I should’ve been there to protect you!”

  Zoey sat back and stared at him with a tear-streaked face. “There’s more.”

  Alex reached for her hand but missed. His own hands were shaking out of control. His entire body was cold. Rage was building inside. He wanted to find a way into the county jail and beat the life out of that man. Even if it meant Alex would spend the rest of his days behind bars.

  “Alex?”

  He turned back to Zoey.

  “There’s something else I need to tell you.”

  “Okay.” He took a deep breath. “What is it?”

  Silence rested between them for a few minutes before she spoke. Tears spilled onto her face. “I’m pregnant.”

  He just stared at her. He tried to process the news. “You’re…” He couldn’t bring himself to say it. “And it’s his?”

  Zoey blinked, spilling more tears. Then she nodded. “I wish with everything in me that it wasn’t. All I’ve wanted was to have more children with you. I hate him for stealing that from us! I hate him!”

  Alex clenched his fists. “And I hate him for what he did to you! If I could get my hands on him…” He imagined himself torturing Dave slowly until he begged for death. Then denying him.

  “Alex?”

  He pushed the image from his mind and focused on his beautiful, hurting fiancée. “We’ll get through this together. I’m not letting you deal with this alone for a moment longer. I only wish I’d insisted on finding out what was bothering you. I just chalked it up to dealing with the abduction.”

  Zoey frowned. “I doubt I would’ve told you before. I’ve been trying to ignore it, but it isn’t something that can be ignored.” She rubbed her belly.

  He reached for her. “May I?”

  She nodded.

  Alex couldn’t hide his surprise at how round her stomach was.

  “I’m definitely growing faster this time around.”

  “When was the last time you saw a doctor?”

  “At the hospital.”

  He gave her a double-take. “That long? We need to get you in. Make sure you’re doing okay.”

  “I am. Just tired. I’ve been taking all the supplements I’m supposed to and eating as best I can—when I
can.”

  “I can’t believe you’ve been dealing with all this on your own, Zo.” He pulled her close and held onto her, trying to calm the storm raging inside of him. “No more of that, okay? We’re a team. I’m here for you. There’s nothing you have to face alone anymore. Not this, not anything.”

  She clung to him, shaking. “You don’t hate me?”

  “Hate you?” Alex exclaimed. “How could I ever hate you?”

  Zoey mumbled something, but he couldn’t understand with her face pressed against his chest.

  “One thing you need to understand,” he said. “I could never hate you. Not ever. I’m the luckiest man on earth to be marrying you.”

  She pulled back and wiped her eyes. “Even with this? I’m damaged goods. I’m carrying another man’s baby.”

  “It’s not your fault—and no, you’re not damaged goods. Don’t say it, don’t think it, and don’t believe it. It’s not true. We’ll work through all of this.”

  “How?”

  If his mind spun any faster, he’d fall off the bench. “I don’t know yet. We’ve already been through so much. We’ll figure this out, too. You’re not going to get rid of me that easily.”

  She threw her arms around him and sobbed. He rubbed her back and kissed the top of her head. Tears of his own threatened, and a lump in his throat was growing by the moment. It was all so much to take in, but more than anything, he wanted to take care of Zoey.

  He couldn’t think about what Dave had done to her. Not yet. She’d kept this to herself the entire time since it had happened, and that had to have been a horrible burden on top of everything she was going through with the pregnancy.

  Zoey pulled away again and wiped away tears. “What are we going to do?”

  “I’m going to take care of you. What do you need? Rest? Food? Something else?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

  Alex studied her. She looked beyond exhausted. More than him, actually. Dark circles under her eyes. Pale. Stress lines around her eyes. She looked like she was carrying an impossible weight.

  He took her hand in his. “How about this? I take you home, then you get into your most comfortable clothes and pick out a movie while I run to the store for some lunch and ridiculous amounts of ice cream and pickles.”

  “Are you for real?”

  Alex leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Of course. What else do you need? Those pregnancy vitamins? Something else I haven’t thought of?”

  He strained to think of other things she’d needed when pregnant with Ariana, but it was hard to remember. It felt like a lifetime ago—he’d only been fourteen and fifteen during her pregnancy, and besides that, her parents had been taking care of her then.

  “You mean prenatal vitamins. Yeah, I’m taking those. Other supplements, too. I think I just need rest and you. You don’t have to go to the store.”

  Alex kissed her again. “Do you have ice cream, pickles, and food for lunch?”

  “I have plenty of food, but no ice cream or pickles.”

  “Then I’m going to the store. Let’s go inside and let Ari know you aren’t feeling good, then we’ll get you home.”

  “I can drive. My car’s over there.”

  “You can leave it here. I’ll bring you back here later to get it.”

  She sniffled and wiped her eyes. “It’s okay. I’ll drive myself, Alex. I’m not helpless.”

  “Believe me, I know that.” He gave her another kiss. “I just want to take away as much of that burden you’ve been carrying by yourself all this time.”

  Cases

  Nick flipped through the pages in the old case file and moved over to the computer screen. He hated being at work on the weekend, but the kids had been happy enough to go to his parents’ house for a few hours. Hopefully, that was all it would be. He didn’t want to be working into the night.

  His main focus for now was hunting down the parents of the twins Genevieve had found. It was like they’d vanished after the girls disappeared.

  Not that he could blame them. The media could be like vultures, never leaving their prey alone. After experiencing such a monumental loss, they probably wanted to get away where nobody could find them. Possibly even going as far as changing their identities. They wouldn’t be the first.

  He felt for them, but it made his job harder. If he couldn’t find anything, he’d have to pull in someone else from the case to help. Garcia had a way with these things. He was good at digging and reading people. That was probably how he’d picked up on something between Nick and Genevieve before anyone else.

  Nick rubbed his eyes and went over the old files again, looking for a clue to where they might’ve gone. They’d been a local family, living not too far away from the burial house at the time.

  It was too soon to say with so many victims still unidentified, but the killer had probably only taken a few of his victims from the area. There weren’t many kids reported missing, especially still unsolved, from thirty years earlier.

  They’d found a handful, but nothing to give anyone any idea that there had been a serial killer under their noses the whole time.

  That meant the killer had to have gone out of the area and brought them back to the house in order to stay off the radar.

  A chill ran down Nick’s back. That was exactly what another recent killer had done. Flynn Myer, who had abducted Ariana and very nearly killed her, had gotten his yearly victims from various areas throughout the Northwest.

  He was the same man Alex swore was still running loose and would stake his life on it, if given the chance. Nick had checked into it himself, and Myer was most certainly in the state’s most notorious prison on death row. He wasn’t running around stalking Alex.

  Nick had even looked into the convenience store where Alex had seen a guy he claimed was Flynn. But the station had burned down, and with it, any video surveillance.

  But here they were with a strikingly similar killer—someone who appeared to kill girls of about the same age for close to as many years as Myer had. It was uncertain if other details matched. At least until more victims were identified.

  Did these crimes take place randomly throughout the year, unlike Myer’s whose were all killed around Halloween? Had these victims been sexually assaulted? If so, that would also be different. Myer had been twisted in many ways, but he’d never harmed any of his victims in that way.

  Nick shook his head. Why was he thinking about Flynn Myer? The man was in prison. He dropped his victims in bodies of water. These remains were all buried. Not the same killer.

  He needed to find the twins’ parents. That was what he had to focus on doing. After all these years, they deserved closure.

  Nick shoved his thoughts aside and combed through the old files with a critical eye. Looking for something. Anything. A clue that had to have been missed along the way. Something that might stand out now in light of recent events.

  Then he saw it. Scrawled in a note near the back. The family had a vacation home not far away. Relatives near there.

  He reached for his coffee mug. Empty.

  His legs needed stretching, anyway. He’d been staring at fading ink too long.

  The only sounds outside his office were of keyboards typing. Not many were in the office at this hour. It was a critical case for sure, since they were trying to find a serial killer, but with nobody’s life on the line, it wasn’t as urgent. People could go home and sleep. At least until they discovered a missing child matching this sicko’s MO.

  Then they’d be looking at more sleepless nights. Plenty of them.

  Nick actually wouldn’t mind being on one of those cases again. He’d been too close to the victims the last two times to participate.

  “You’re still here, Captain?” Garcia asked.

  Nick filled his mug. “I’m getting close to finding the twins’ parents. I want to give them closure before the night’s over.”

  “Whatcha got? Maybe I can help.”

 
“Be my guest.” Nick filled him in, then showed him the file in his office.

  Garcia came back with his laptop and his fingers flew across the keyboard fast enough to set it on fire.

  “Yeah, right here. Looks like both parents are using their middle names as first names. It’s probably just what they needed to keep the media off their backs.”

  “You want to come with me to give them the news?”

  Garcia nodded. “Let me grab a couple things and let Mackey know where I’m going. She’s helping me look into some cold cases that could be related.”

  “Sure. Meet you at my car.” Nick closed down his computer and gathered what he needed before heading to his Mustang.

  “Don’t you ever use the cruisers?” Garcia sat and buckled in. “You could save on gas, you know.”

  “I like to feel undercover. Besides, I can write off the miles at tax time.”

  “I’d rather just save on the gas.”

  They discussed the case for most of the ninety-minute drive. Just as Nick was pulling off the freeway, both of their phones made noises.

  “What is it?” Nick asked.

  Garcia looked at his screen. “They’ve ID’d one of the recent vics. Missing girl from Boise. Reported three months ago. Dental records are a perfect match.”

  Nick squeezed the wheel. “I wonder how many of our vics are from out of the area.”

  And if there were more similarities to Myer’s MO.

  Opportunity

  Tony crouched behind a shrub as the jogger passed by, engrossed by whatever played in her earbuds. She didn’t even notice him, inches from her legs.

  Across the street in her yard, Maisie rode in her shiny new pink toy Hummer. Its engine was nearly as loud as its real counterpart.

  So far, the little girl stayed in the grass, but she kept inching closer to the sidewalk. She was eyeing the concrete like it was a prize to be had.

  Her dad was in the garage, tinkering with a motorcycle. Every so often, Maisie’s mom came to make sure he was watching their daughter. He was paying more attention to the bike.

  Patience. It would pay off sooner or later.