One Forgotten Night Read online

  Do I have a lover? She thought of Detective Lieutenant Novalis waiting outside, and of how eagerly she had responded to the nearness of him, and her breath caught in her throat. “Be careful,” she whispered to the image in the mirror. She put the gown and robe back on. She noticed that her toenails were painted a deep, lustrous burgundy—a splash of color in the sterile little room. Those red toenails cheered her a little. The doctor and the detective were talking when she stepped out of the bathroom. They looked up hopefully. “Anything?” the doctor asked. “Sometimes the mirror jolts the memory....”

  “Nothing. Sorry.”

  “Amnesiacs often suffer loss of short-term memory, or they lose knowledge about their own lives,” the doctor said. “Many times it’s only temporary. Let’s see how well oriented you are otherwise. Do you know what year it is?”

  Nina named the year, the month, the day. She knew without thinking about it that the city outside the window was Philadelphia. She allowed herself to feel just a little encouraged. The doctor asked, “Can you name the president?”

  Nina did so unhesitatingly. Then she added glumly, “But I can’t remember whether I voted for him or not.”

  * * *

  Several hours passed. Dr. Perrone called in a neurologist and a psychologist. They established that Nina seemed to have lost all memory of her personal life and the events leading up to the shooting. Yet her intelligence and her ability to make decisions were unimpaired. There was no medical reason why she shouldn’t leave the hospital. On the other hand, she carried an insurance card and could stay in the hospital for a few days if she wanted to do so.

  “Let me get this straight,” she asked Dr. Anderson, the neurologist. “If I stay here, do I have a better chance of getting my memory back? Is there anything you can do for me?”

  Dr. Anderson shook her head regretfully. “There’s no treatment for amnesia—only the passage of time. I can’t make any promises, but we do know that most cases of amnesia clear up eventually. Sometimes the memory comes back suddenly, often within a very few days. Sometimes it comes back slowly, in bits and pieces, over a long period of time. But sometimes, Nina, it doesn’t come back—at least not all of it. I have no way of telling what will happen in your case. If you feel comfortable going home, you can certainly do so. It might even jog your memory.”

  The psychologist, Dr. Tooley, chimed in. “This must be very frightening for you. It might be better for you to spend a few days here until you’re over the shock.”

  “No,” Nina said decisively. “I’m going home. Right now there’s only one thing I want—I want to find out who I am. I can’t do that sitting here.”

  She glanced at Detective Lieutenant Novalis and thought she saw a fleeting look of approval on his face. He had been in and out of the room during the doctors’ examinations, and for the past half hour or so he had been sitting quietly, fidgeting a bit but making a visible effort to control his impatience. Nina wondered why he was still there. She had amnesia, after all; she couldn’t tell him anything about the shooting he was supposed to be investigating.

  Nina raised a hand to her bandage and shuddered. She had escaped death by an inch. It was disturbing to think that her life, only a few hours long as measured by her memory, began with an act of violence.

  “Do I really need this thing?” she asked, pointing to the bandage.

  Dr. Perrone smiled. “I guess it is a little conspicuous. I’ll replace it with a smaller one, all right?”

  “Please. I have enough problems without looking like the Mummy.”

  When the doctors withdrew for a conference, Nina took her clothes and bag into the bathroom to get dressed. It would feel good to get out of the hospital robe; her clothes were unfamiliar, but at least they were hers.

  At the time of the accident she had been wearing a plain but expensive black brassiere, nearly new, and matching lacy panties. Nina almost laughed. So she had been wearing good underwear, after all. She had also been wearing a black turtleneck sweater, a pair of jeans with a narrow leather belt and dark gray walking boots. Everything was stylish and of good quality without being flashy. So far, so good, Nina said to herself as she laced her boots.

  But as she straightened up, she met the shadowed eyes of the stranger in the mirror, and her composure cracked. When talking to the doctors she had felt strong and capable, ready to tackle the problem of her lost memories, certain that they would return. Now that certainty was gone. Nina felt only emptiness and a desolate sense of loss. Suppose her memory never came back? What was she going to do? She huddled on the toilet seat and cried for five minutes. The tears dried to sniffles, and she blew her nose forlornly on a strip of toilet paper.

  The doctors’ questions had seemed endless. They proved that she could remember things like the dates of World War I—but not her own birthday. Enough questions. Now it was time for some answers.

  She grabbed her bag and burrowed in it for a wallet. Her Pennsylvania driver’s license said she was born on February 17. That makes me an Aquarius. Wait a minute—how do I know that? Do I believe in astrology? The wallet also held nearly eighty dollars in cash, and several credit cards. So I’m not going to starve. Not immediately, at any rate.

  The shoulder bag contained a zippered red nylon pouch. That’s got to be makeup. Nina’s spirits rose a little. She washed her tear-streaked face, rinsed out her mouth and put on some blush and lipstick. Ruffling her hair with her fingers, she took stock of herself in the mirror. Superficial though the changes may have been, they made her feel better. Now she was a person instead of a patient. And if she fluffed her bangs just right, she couldn’t even see the little Band-Aid at her temple that covered the place where she’d been shot.

  * * *

  Mike Novalis smothered a yawn as he waited for Nina Dennison to come out of the bathroom. He wasn’t sure why he had stayed. She wasn’t going to give him a statement about the shooting, that much was clear. He just hated loose ends.

  Earlier he had phoned Simms at the district offices and told him to run checks on the ID in the Dennison woman’s purse and coat. Now he was waiting for Simms to call him back. Maybe Nina Dennison was nothing more than the unlucky recipient of a stray bullet. As for what she had been doing when that bullet caught her—well, it looked as if he’d never know. Forget it, he told himself. If she says she doesn’t remember anything, there’s nothing you can do. He’d take Simms’s call, close the file and go home. And then he’d catch up on some sleep.

  But he felt an insistent tug of curiosity. Everything about this woman was a puzzle. She’d looked so fragile and helpless lying there in the street—and then, less than half-conscious, she’d made a joke. In the past few hours she’d proved that she was no delicate china doll. She had intelligence, strength, flashes of temper. He liked that.

  He also liked the way she looked, Mike admitted to himself: her green-gold eyes, her full lower lip and that tantalizing glimpse he’d had through her hospital gown of long slim legs and the creamy curve of a hip. She had felt good leaning against him. At six foot one, he felt out of sync with petite women, but Nina’s head had nestled into exactly the right spot on his shoulder. Oh, yeah, it would be all too easy to get turned on by this one. When she had gasped, her warm breath against the base of his throat had started his pulse pounding there. It had taken all his willpower not to wrap his arms around her and pull her closer.

  Mike rubbed his hand wearily across his face. He knew he shouldn’t be letting his thoughts wander like this. But it wasn’t often that he came across a woman like Nina Dennison. Too bad that when he did, it was in the line of duty. No one knew better than Mike that that put her off—limits. And someone tried to kill her, he reminded himself. For all you know, she’s mixed up in a drug deal gone bad—or something worse.

  The beeper in his pocket signaled him to call Simms. He went down the hall to a bank of pay phones.

  “That you, Lieutenant?”

  “Yeah, Simms, what’ve you got?”

&
nbsp; “The Dennison woman lives alone, as far as her landlord knows, so it probably wasn’t a husband who shot her. And she looks clean, doesn’t have a rap sheet.”

  “That doesn’t mean she’s clean, Simms,” Mike said. “It just means she’s never been caught.”

  “Uh, right, Lieutenant. Sorry.”

  “Just something to keep in mind. But you’re right, there’s no evidence of anything hinky.” Just a hunch, and no one’s gonna trust my hunches. He sighed. “There’s no reason to think she’s anything but a random target, someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Except for one thing, Lieutenant. Check this out. I talked to the doorman at that address you gave me, the office building. Dennison works there, all right. She works for Zakroff and Duchesne. You know,” Simms prompted when Mike didn’t respond. “The gem dealers.”

  Then Mike got it. “Son of a—”

  “Lieutenant,” Simms interrupted excitedly. “The chief wants to talk to you right away.”

  The gravelly voice of Morris Hecht, chief of detectives, came over the line. “Simms says your victim’s got amnesia,“ he said, his voice heavy with irony.

  “That’s what the doctors tell me.”

  “Do you believe in coincidence, Novalis? I don’t,” Hecht continued without giving Mike time to reply. “When we’ve got an undercover investigation by the Justice Department, the Treasury Department, Interpol and probably the goddamned Boy Scouts of America for all I know, and then there’s a shooting, and the victim just happens to work for the company that’s being investigated, well, then I don’t believe in coincidence at all. The feds’re probably gonna take this over.”

  Novalis grunted. He shared his chief’s ire toward federal agents who were overeager to muscle in on anything remotely connected with their investigations. To make matters worse, the feds often seemed to relish keeping the local law enforcement out of the picture and in the dark.

  “One good thing,” Hecht continued, “is the feds are stretched pretty thin on this right now. I’ll turn in a report, but it’ll probably be two, maybe three, days before they do anything. So until then you stay on this woman’s case, Novalis. Find out if she’s connected. But don’t get in the way of the boys from the Bureau.”

  “I got it. I’ll keep in touch.”

  “And, Novalis—” Hecht’s voice was grim. “Don’t screw up on this one. You can’t afford it. Anything goes wrong, and you go down.”

  Mike was silent. He knew Hecht was right. What was there to say?

  “Amnesia.” Hecht snorted dismissively. “That only happens in the goddamned movies.” He hung up.

  Novalis saw the neurologist hurrying down the corridor and stepped into her path. “Dr. Anderson, I need to talk to you. Can you confirm that the Dennison woman really has amnesia?”

  “You want to know if she’s faking it?” The doctor’s voice was impartial, but her eyes glinted with faint disdain behind her glasses. Novalis didn’t let it bother him. He was used to asking questions that made people uncomfortable.

  “Yeah, that’s what I want to know.”

  “Well, I suppose you have to consider the possibility. In my professional opinion, Nina Dennison’s amnesia is genuine. Her reactions have been normal for this type of trauma, and cases like hers are not really uncommon. But there’s no way to prove it, if that’s what you’re after. A clever person can fake amnesia.”

  “Thanks, Doctor. You’ve been a big help.”

  Mike Novalis was thoughtful as he walked back to Nina’s room. His cold eyes and the set of his jaw startled an impressionable young nurse’s aide, who scuttled out of his way. Mike didn’t even see her. And by the time he reached Nina’s room, his expression was one of polite neutrality. You don’t know anything yet, he cautioned himself. Wait and see.

  * * *

  When Nina came out of the bathroom, she found Mike Novalis alone in the room. If he had heard her crying he gave no sign. Instead he looked her over appraisingly. “Very nice,” he remarked.

  Nina felt oddly self-conscious. She plucked at the sleeve of her sweater and said, “At least I like my clothes.”

  “Yeah, they’re nice, too.”

  Before Nina could respond, an attendant came in with a tray of breakfast for her, and she realized that she didn’t even know what time it was. There was a wristwatch on the table by the bed: a sleek stainless steel model. She picked it up. The crystal was smashed and the minute hand was bent. The hands were stopped at 1:39. “It was like that when they brought you in,” Novalis said. “You must have broken it when you fell.”

  He sat next to her on the bed. “The call came in at a quarter to two this morning. You were in the hospital by ten after, and you were out cold for about five hours.” He glanced at his own watch. “It’s going on 9:30 now.”

  “Thanks.” She nodded at him, grateful for some facts with which she could anchor herself. Apparently he realized how disoriented she was feeling. Maybe he was not as insensitive as he had seemed.

  “You still don’t remember anything about the shooting?” he asked. “Nothing leading up to it? Like what you were doing in a deserted part of town in the small hours of the morning?”

  So much for sensitivity. He made her feel defensive without knowing why. “No,” she replied coldly. “If I knew anything I would tell you, wouldn’t I?”

  “Would you?” The blue eyes that met hers held a challenge.

  “Hey, wait a minute. What the hell are you getting at? Do you think I have something to hide?”

  “Lady, at this point I don’t think anything. All I know is someone reported hearing shots. You were found unconscious in the street. A witness saw a car driving away without its lights, but we got no description.” He raked a hand through his untidy hair and frowned. “There’re three possibilities. One, it was a random shooting, maybe a drive-by. Just bad luck for you.”

  “Thanks a lot,” she muttered.

  “Two,” he continued unperturbed, “you saw something you shouldn’t have and someone tried to kill you. He blew it—but maybe he’ll try again. Three, you were involved in something, I don’t know what, and it almost got you killed. I don’t know which of those is the right one, but I’m going to find out.”

  “Oh, are you?” Nina was seething. “I’m sitting here with no memory, no life, and you think I’m a...a criminal?”

  “Like I said, Miss Dennison, I don’t think anything. Yet. Make that four possibilities.” He turned to face her. “Four, this whole amnesia thing is an act.” Seeing her eyes flash ominously, he raised both hands, palms out. “Hold on. I’m just thinking out loud here. I can’t overlook anything.”

  She turned her shoulder to him and regarded the breakfast tray with disfavor. Eggs, sausage, buttered toast, orange juice. She drank the juice and set the glass down with a thump.

  After a moment Novalis said, “What’s the matter? Aren’t you hungry?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business,” Nina told him, “but I happen to be wondering if I’m a vegetarian.”

  He hooted with laughter and she glared at him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You say some funny things, that’s all.”

  “I’m so glad you’re amused, Detective Lieutenant Novalis. This whole situation must be just a riot to you.”

  “Look, I really am sorry if I upset you. I don’t think the situation you’re in is funny at all, and I’m going to do my best to help you, if I can. And by the way, you might as well call me Mike. We’re going to be seeing a lot of each other.”

  “We are?” The prospect was unsettling. The bed moved under her when he shifted his weight slightly; the tang of leather and his musky scent teased her nostrils. Once again Nina was disturbingly aware of his nearness and his overwhelming maleness. Not that Novalis looked like a movie star or a male model—far from it. He was much more real, and a whole lot more sensual. His shirt looked as if he’d grabbed it out of a laundry hamper. His eyes were bloodshot. Deep lines bracketed his mouth. But unde
r the dark beard stubble the chiseled planes of his face were strong and rugged. His thick, dark hair was messy; Nina had noticed that he had a habit of running his hands through it. Yet despite the evident weariness in his face and his raffish, unkempt look, Detective Lieutenant Novalis was one very handsome man. Which, Nina told herself sternly, could only complicate the mess she was in. The last thing she needed right now was to be attracted to this man. Any man. She was going to have her hands full just finding out what kind of person she was.

  He turned a little, and looked directly at her, and then he smiled. Nina was shaken by the wave of heat that flickered through her. She froze, determined not to react to him. I cannot let myself trust this man, she told herself fiercely. He thinks I’m lying. Then another thought came, one she had been fighting to hold at bay: Oh, God, what if I really did do something wrong? He’ll find out. She forced herself to look away, trying to appear calm.

  “Oh, sure, we’re going to be spending a lot of time together,” Mike was saying. “Think about it for a minute. You may have lost your memory, but you’re still right in the middle of a police investigation. A while ago you told the docs that the only thing you want is to get your memory back. Fine. I understand that. But you’ve got another problem. Memory or no memory, someone tried to kill you. Don’t you want to know why? And don’t you want to keep him from having another shot at you?”

  “Of course I do!”

  “That’s where I come in. I have to investigate you and everything about you. And, hey, you might be glad to have a detective around. You’re trying to find out about your life, right? Well, that’s what we’re good at—finding things out. So what d’you say? How about cooperating with me?”

  “Do I have a choice?”