One Forgotten Night Page 3

  “Nope.”

  “Then fine,” Nina said, hoping she sounded confident. “I’ve got nothing to hide.” Have I? She ignored the frightened inner voice. “I’ll cooperate with you. I just wish I knew whether I’m a suspect, a victim or an innocent bystander.”

  He stood. “Believe me, lady,” he said, “I wish I knew the same thing.”

  Chapter 2

  Nina left the hospital half an hour later. She had written down the doctors’ phone numbers and assured Dr. Tooley that she’d call him to make an appointment for counseling. If necessary, she had added silently. Somehow she didn’t think that the answer to her problems lay in therapy. Detective work sounded like a more promising avenue—even if it meant being dogged by Mike Novalis.

  He guided her to a dust-covered midnight blue car with one slightly crumpled fender. The floor in back was littered with fast-food burger wrappers and soda cans. “At least we know you’re not a vegetarian,” Nina said dryly.

  He looked sheepish. “That junk’s too easy,” he said. “I keep telling myself to start eating better. How about you—do you like to cook?”

  Nina looked at him exasperatedly. “Read my lips—I don’t know. Do I have to get it tattooed on my forehead?” Even as she spoke, though, some part of her was taking stock of his remark. It sounded as though he lived alone. So what? she asked herself. You’re in trouble, this is serious. Stop thinking of this guy as a man! But when his shoulder brushed hers and her senses leapt into startled life, she knew it wouldn’t be easy.

  They drove through the streets of Center City Philadelphia. “There’s a great Italian restaurant on the next corner, I think,” Mike said as they approached Washington Square. “What’s it called? La Something?”

  “La Buca,” Nina replied without thinking. “Great seafood.”

  He shot her a swift glance. “Ever eat there?”

  “I—I don’t know,” she faltered. “I guess I must have. I mean, I know about the restaurant...but I can’t remember being inside it.”

  He was silent.

  “You don’t believe me, do you?” she accused him. “You’re trying to trick me, to prove I haven’t really lost my memory.”

  He kept his eyes on the street ahead. “Look, Nina, if you want to think I’m trying to trick you, I can’t do anything about it. But maybe I’m trying to help you figure out what you know and what you don’t know. Didn’t the docs say you’d have to keep questioning everything, probing the limits of your memory loss?”

  “You’re right. Sorry. But I still feel as if you’re suspicious of me.”

  “I am.” He turned his indigo gaze on her briefly. “Nothing’s settled. But will you please try to relax? I’m not out to get you just because I’m a cop, you know.”

  There was a hint of bitterness in his voice. He’s right, Nina tried to convince herself. I have nothing to be afraid of, nothing to hide. Do I? She felt the fear stirring again. Her life was a mass of unanswered questions. She hoped she could find the answers. But what if she found them—and couldn’t live with them?

  She glanced sidelong at Mike Novalis. His hands rested easily on the wheel; they were tanned and capable looking, with a few small scars—hands that had known hard use. She wondered how long he had been a cop. I’d better try to get along with him. Apart from a couple of doctors, he’s the only person I know. That thought was almost unbearably depressing. Surely she had friends, people who cared about her. Her memory just had to come back soon. She stared out the window, willing the streets and storefronts to burst into vivid familiarity. But the hoped-for memories failed to materialize; the picture remained stubbornly out of focus.

  Mike pulled up to the curb near an intersection a few blocks from the Delaware River. Decades ago this must have been a busy, important part of town, but now it was shabby and rundown. Tall brick warehouses, some with cracked and broken windows, rose on either side. Lank grass and weeds sprouted in vacant lots. The street was potholed. Traffic was light. The few pedestrians, shabby men who looked as though they had nothing to do, stared at their car with mild curiosity.

  “Why are we stopping here?” she asked, twisting in her seat to look around.

  “Does any of this look familiar?”

  She shook her head.

  “Are you sure, Nina?” His voice was steady, unthreatening. “You were here last night.”

  “You mean...this is where—?”

  “Yes. This is where you were shot. We found you right over there.”

  Nina stared at the bleak street and tried to imagine it late at night. The streetlights were far apart; the block must be dark and more than a little forbidding. What could she have been doing in this lonely place at two in the morning? Had she really been involved in some shady activity, something that made someone want to kill her? She shivered and touched the Band-Aid on her forehead. “Nothing. I don’t remember anything,” she said miserably.

  Mike looked at her and felt a pang of compassion. Her face was drawn and she was huddled in her seat. He wanted to draw her into his arms and comfort her, to smooth the worried lines from her face with his fingertips. And his lips. A dangerous and unprofessional idea, he chided himself, even if she’s completely innocent. And that’s a damned big if.

  She glanced up and he saw the look in her eyes, candid and sad, and his hands tightened on the wheel. If she was acting, she deserved an Oscar. “It’s okay,” he said, starting up the car. “I just thought it was worth a try. Don’t worry about it. Hey, do something for me. Look in your coat pockets.”

  She shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her coat. She liked the coat: it was an olive green gabardine trench coat, long and full. It was dirty in back where she’d fallen—looking around at the dingy street, she could understand why. Otherwise it was spotless and new looking.

  Her fingers encountered paper in one of the pockets. It was a sales slip from Bloomingdale’s, dated yesterday, for the purchase of one coat, evidently the one she was wearing. She had paid by credit card. Her eyes widened when she saw how much it had cost. It seemed that she possessed either a comfortable income or extravagant shopping habits.

  “There’s something else in here,” she said, feeling around at the bottom of the deep pocket. The object proved to be a plastic cardkey bearing the address of an office building in Center City. Nina’s name and photograph were imprinted on the key. She showed it to Mike.

  “It’s the key to the place where you work,” he told her.

  “You knew it was there.”

  “Sure I did. I went through your things while you were unconscious.”

  Aware that he was watching her closely, Nina fought down her anger. She had bigger things than her privacy to worry about. He’d only been doing what any cop would have done. And maybe he really could help her. God knew she needed it.

  He said, “We could go check out your job, or we could go to your apartment. What’s it going to be?”

  Nina took a deep breath. She wanted to know about her work, but she also felt nervous. Was she ready to face co-workers? They would be strangers to her now. Would they be avidly curious about her plight, or sympathetic, or incredulous? She thought tiredly of all the explanations she’d have to make, all the questions she’d have to answer. Anyway, she was much more curious about her home. There, if anywhere, she would find clues to the kind of person she was.

  She glanced at Mike. “Home, please,” she said.

  Whistling softly between his teeth, he drove south along the waterfront, leaving the drab warehouse district behind. Soon they were passing through the cobblestoned streets of Society Hill, a riverfront neighborhood of gentrified town houses and chic apartment buildings, trendy restaurants and stylish boutiques. Mellow red brick glowed in the sun; the yellow-green leaves of ginkgo trees fluttered in the mild September breeze; bronze and gold chrysanthemums blazed in stone pots. Camera-laden tourists wandered about, gawking at the old buildings and historic landmarks: Independence Hall was less than a dozen blocks away.


  “Jumpers,” Mike said with a grin, nodding at one determined band of sidewalk strollers who were hopping in front of a tall, narrow colonial brick house. They were trying to see into the first-floor rooms, which were several steps above street level.

  Nina laughed. “It’d be hard to have much privacy if you lived in one of those houses.” A thought struck her. “I don’t, do I? Where do I live?”

  Now it was his turn to laugh. “Look at your driver’s license. That’s what I did. Never mind, we’re almost there.”

  He found a space in front of a handsome building that had been created by knocking together two of the narrow old houses. There were four mailboxes and an intercom speaker next to the front door. A narrow driveway led into a tiny paved courtyard with four parking spaces. Three were empty; a shiny cocoa brown BMW was parked in the fourth.

  “I live here?“ Nina said, impressed. Rents and real-estate costs in this part of town were notoriously high.

  “Yeah, this is a classy case.”

  Nina winced inwardly at the reminder that she was a “case.” She pictured Novalis shoving a manila folder with her name scrawled across it into a bulging drawer in a dented old green police department filing cabinet. For a brief instant she had felt almost like any ordinary woman out for a drive with a man, a woman who could joke and laugh and enjoy the autumn sunshine. But didn’t even know who she was. And Mike Novalis wasn’t here to take her on a pleasure drive. He was on a case. Hers.

  They walked up the worn white marble steps and scanned the mailboxes. Dennison, Apt. 4, said a discreet printed card on one. “There’s a set of keys in your bag,” Mike said helpfully.

  Nina bristled a little. She was getting tired of the way he was always one step ahead of her, and she hated the fact that he knew more than she did about her own life. But she was secretly glad to have him with her now. It felt strange to be entering a home she didn’t even remember, but it would have been much stranger, and maybe a little frightening, to be doing it alone.

  “The outside pocket,” he prompted.

  She shot a peevish glance at him. “I’m getting to it.” The keys, when she finally dug them out of the bag, dangled from an enameled metal BMW emblem.

  He whistled. “Maybe that brown number in the lot is yours. Nice wheels.”

  “Wow. Do you think it might be?”

  “We’ll check it out later. Let’s go on in.”

  He took the keys from her hand, unlocked the door and stepped through first. Suppressing a sigh at his rudeness, Nina followed him into a spotless, rather austere hall. The walls were white, the carpet was beige and doors on either side bore plain brass numerals: 1 and 2. A flight of stairs led to the second floor. Mike walked ahead of her. He acts as if he has more right to be here than I have, Nina grumbled to herself.

  When they reached apartment 4, Mike motioned for her to stand back while he opened her door. But when he started to walk in ahead of her, Nina crowded impatiently forward to push past him. All at once he whirled, pulling her hard against him with an arm that felt like iron. He clapped the other hand firmly over her mouth.

  “Quiet,” he whispered in her ear. “Do exactly what I say. Don’t make any noise. Do you understand?”

  Nina’s heart thundered in her ears, and her legs shook with shock and indignation. But she looked up and saw reassurance in Mike’s eyes, and she knew that nothing was going to hurt her. She nodded, and he took his hand away from her mouth. “Good girl,” he whispered. “Now go downstairs and wait for me by the front door. Don’t come up until I call you. If you hear yelling or shots, run outside and call the cops. Got that?”

  Nina nodded again, dry-throated with fear, and he squeezed her shoulder and gave her a gentle shove. She looked back from the top of the stairs. As Mike eased her door open, he reached inside his jacket and withdraw a small but wicked-looking gun. She hurried downstairs.

  In the hushed hallway Nina could hear nothing. The whole surreal episode had taken only a few seconds. She strained her ears. What was going on up there? What was happening to Mike?

  She tiptoed back up the stairs and peered around the corner of the stairwell. Mike was coming out of her apartment. “I thought I told you to wait downstairs.” He wasn’t whispering any more, and the gun was no longer visible.

  “I did. And then I didn’t hear anything, and I thought—”

  “No, you didn’t think. Next time just do what I say, okay?” But his smile took the sting out of the words. She knew he was right; he was the expert here, and she should have followed his instructions. From now on she’d gladly let him precede her through every doorway.

  “Okay. Sorry. But what’s going on? Is somebody in there?”

  “No. But either someone has been here before us...or you’re one hell of a housekeeper.”

  This can’t be home. Nina stood in the doorway of her apartment, gazing at a complete and total mess. Pictures hung crookedly on the off-white walls. In front of a wall of oak bookshelves, books and cassettes lay in heaps on the sand-colored carpeting. Stuffing dribbled from shredded sofa cushions. Plants lay limply in little piles of dirt next to their overturned pots. Stepping gingerly through the debris, Nina looked into a bedroom. The bed was unmade—literally. Dove gray sheets and a matching comforter were strewn across the floor, and feathers from dismembered pillows were everywhere. Drawers gaped open, disgorging tangles of clothing. Back in the living room, Nina saw a small but streamlined yellow-tiled kitchen through an archway. Here, too, drawers and cupboards were open. Canisters of flour and pasta had been emptied onto the counter, and cereal boxes spilled their contents across the surface of a butcher-block table.

  Nina was numb. She didn’t know what she had expected, but it certainly wasn’t this...this shambles. She had hoped that her home would tell her who she really was, that it would give her a sense of security. Instead, she had walked into something that looked like a hurricane disaster area.

  She wanted to scream, or cry. Instead she made herself take a deep breath. Mike was watching her, looking apprehensive. “I really have to get a new cleaning woman,” she said as lightly as she could manage, and he shot her a quick smile.

  “That’s the way,” he said. “I know this is rough, but you can handle it.”

  “What is this? What happened?”

  “Someone searched your place. Probably not long ago—those plants aren’t dead yet. Whoever did it was in a hurry.”

  “Burglars?”

  “I don’t know.” He combed a hand through his shaggy hair. “Might have been pros—they didn’t break your lock. Either they used a lock pick to get in, or they had a key. But pros don’t make this kind of mess just to rip off your jewelry or money or stereo equipment. And your CD player is still here. No, whoever did this was looking for something.” He let that sink in. “Any idea what?”

  “No. And before you ask, no, I don’t know who had a key to my apartment. I have amnesia, remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember.” He was silent for a moment, then said, “Look, I know you must want to start going through your stuff, but it would be better if you didn’t touch anything for a while. I need to get the fingerprint guys over here, just in case we get lucky and get some prints. How about having some lunch with me while they work? Then we’ll come back here and I’ll help you get this place in shape.”

  Nina took another look around. Her apartment, her life, her world—all turned upside down. Would they ever be right again? “Sure, let’s get some lunch,” she said dispiritedly.

  Mike made a phone call, and within minutes half a dozen businesslike men and women were in Nina’s apartment. Making no comment on the disorder, they proceeded to set up cameras and to dust for prints. Nina’s own prints were taken—”So that we can eliminate them,” as Mike soothingly explained—and she dabbed ruefully with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball at her ink-stained fingertips as they left the building. Wonder if this is the first time I’ve done this?

  * * *

  Th
ey picked the first restaurant they came to in Nina’s neighborhood. Nina didn’t think about the potential pitfalls of dining locally until they almost collided with a tanned blond woman about her own age who was on her way out. The blonde planted herself in front of them, waved a hand in front of Nina’s face and said, “Earth to Nina—wake up! Hey, how’re you doing?”

  Nina stammered, “Sorry, I didn’t see you. Uh, hi.”

  The blonde looked Mike up and down and the message in her eyes when she turned to Nina was clear: Aren’t you going to introduce me?

  Nina wasn’t ready for this. She hadn’t thought about running into someone who knew her. Should she try to explain about the amnesia, or should she bluff it?

  Mike came to her rescue. “Mike Novalis,” he said, extending his hand with that smile of his that could melt a glacier.

  “Danielle Cole,” the blonde said as they shook hands.

  Mike turned to Nina. “I think I see a table, Nina. Are you about ready?”

  “Yes,” she said gratefully. Improvising, she said, “We’ve got to eat and run, Danielle. I’ll see you later.”

  “See you Tuesday night.” As Danielle left she grinned and made an enthusiastic thumbs-up sign, rolling her eyes toward Mike.

  “Thanks,” Nina said to Mike as they sat down. “That was a pretty awkward moment.”

  “You’d probably better decide how you’re going to handle this,” he advised. “You know, what you’re going to tell people.”

  “I feel so strange. Hollow. That woman—Danielle—she could be my best friend, and I don’t even know it. And what did she mean about Tuesday night?” Nina didn’t mention the fact that Danielle had obviously thought she was on a date with Mike. And that she thought Mike was a hunk.

  “Maybe we’ll find some answers when we go through your place,” Mike told her. He nodded at another table, where four businessmen were digging into large, colorful salads. “Those things look pretty good, if you still think you’re a vegetarian.”

  “Actually...I’m kind of hungry for a cheeseburger. A big one, with fries.”