One Forgotten Night Read online

  Mike looked at her, his blue eyes dancing with amusement.

  “I’ve decided I’m not a vegetarian,” she told him firmly, and then added, “Well, if I was, I’ve changed.” She wondered uneasily just how many other things would change before she got her life back.

  * * *

  Mike studied Nina during the meal. She had a way of looking at everything around her with a slight, puzzled frown; she seemed nervous and ill at ease. That didn’t mean anything. It was probably exactly the way an amnesiac would feel. But so would someone with something to hide.

  He remembered her white, bloodstained face against the dark pavement. Now he felt himself being drawn to the living reality of her: her animated expressions, the shifting amber glints that warmed her green eyes, the irony that could edge her voice—even the way her long, deft fingers plucked at the edges of the paper place mat, absently ripping off strips and rolling them into tiny balls.

  He’d known plenty of women in his thirty-five years. And he had always known exactly what he wanted from them, exactly how much they could give him. He’d had his share of relationships, pleasant ones for the most part, with carefully limited expectations and demands. He’d steered clear of women who wanted more than he was willing to give easily. Dating and relationships became a game, a highly enjoyable one, played by a set of well-rehearsed, unspoken rules. Until he’d met the woman who had made him break his rules. She’d made him believe in trust and sacrifice. In the possibility of love. Well, he knew better now. All the trust, all the love, had been blown away when she pulled the trigger. But it hadn’t been Mike who died....

  He tore his thoughts away from that dark path and looked again at Nina. It had been a long time since Karen. A long time since he’d felt desire. But he was feeling it now, desire so strong that it hurt. And just as with Karen, he knew it was dangerous. Too damned dangerous.

  * * *

  Nina felt the pull of his eyes on her. Finally she looked up to meet them. She wished she could name their vivid color. Aquamarine? No, they were a deeper blue. Lapis lazuli? No, they were clearer, more brilliant. Sapphire? Maybe, but the sparkle of a stone was a lifeless thing compared with the changing lights in Mike Novalis’s eyes. In the few hours she had known him, those eyes had glimmered with humor, comforted her with their steady gaze—and chilled her with their cool, remote assessment. She wondered what else they could do. What did they look like when they were hot with passion? Did he close them when he kissed? She closed her own eyes briefly to drive away the unwanted images.

  “Tell me about me,” she said abruptly. “I know you’ve checked up on me. Tell me what you know about my life. It can’t do any harm. If I’m lying about the amnesia—” here she looked up, and his heart gave a strange little lurch when he saw the hint of scorn and hurt on her face “—I already know it all, anyway. And if I’m not lying, I need to know. You can help me.”

  He nodded. Her request made sense. “Fair enough. Here’s what we know. It’s not much. First of all, you’ve never made the net.” Seeing her quizzical expression, he shook his head slightly and gave her a crooked half smile. “Sorry. Cop talk. It just means you haven’t been arrested for anything.”

  That’s some consolation. Whatever mess I’m in now, at least I’m not a career criminal. “What else?”

  “Somebody at the station talked to your landlord. You’ve lived in that apartment for just over four years. You listed a couple of college professors as references when you moved in. The building is run by a management company—they don’t know anything about your personal life. You’re not married.”

  He hesitated, and his voice was stiff and awkward when he continued. “I don’t know whether or not you’re involved with anyone. A boyfriend.”

  Nina nodded. “I guess I’ll find out,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t reveal the aching emptiness she suddenly felt. It wasn’t the thought of being alone. She could deal with that. Aloneness was a known factor. What hurt was the uncertainty, the strangeness of not knowing even the most intimate thing about her own life.

  “Right,” Mike said. “We’ll find out.” Nina pretended not to notice the change in pronoun.

  “I can tell you another thing,” Mike said. “That key in your coat pocket—to the building where you work. We checked it out. You work for an import company with offices there.” There was a pause, then Mike dropped words into the silence like stones. “Zakroff and Duchesne.” He looked at her with narrowed eyes, as if waiting.

  Some indefinable emotion shivered along Nina’s spine. She almost recognized those names, as though they had meant something once, a long time ago.... Suddenly Mike saw her face go pale. She squeezed her eyes shut and clutched at her forehead.

  “Nina! Nina, are you okay? What is it?”

  Comforted by the genuine concern in his voice, she opened her eyes and drew a shaky breath. “I’m okay. I just...I had a sort of mental flash when you said those names. It was, well, a sort of vision. I saw two men. One was blond, handsome, the other had darker hair, but he was bald on top. They were in some kind of tiny room, and...the room looked like it was moving.“ She went on eagerly, “It’s got to be a memory, right? Maybe it’s them—Zakroff and whoever. Maybe it’s the start of my memories coming back!”

  Mike looked into her glowing face and couldn’t help feeling some of her excitement, despite his suspicions. She could be telling the truth. Or is she setting me up to play the fool? “I hope you’re right,” he said, and he meant it.

  He took a bite of his grilled chicken sandwich and asked pleasantly, “The name Zakroff and Duchesne doesn’t mean anything to you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then how about this? Emeralds.”

  She looked up sharply. “What about them?”

  Mike knew he had gotten to her somehow. He saw it in the sudden tension of her shoulders and in her expression, at once eager and curiously guarded. The mention of emeralds had touched a nerve. She looked almost...afraid. Not much of a breakthrough, but it was something. He said calmly, as if it meant nothing out of the ordinary, “Zakroff and Duchesne are gem importers. Right now they’re specializing in emeralds.”

  Nina had put down her cheeseburger, and now she began turning her water glass between her fingers, frowning down at the flashing, swirling chips of ice. She had felt something, a jolt of tension, when he mentioned emeralds. It wasn’t startlingly clear, like the visual flash in which she’d seen the two men; it was just a vague feeling of deep unease. Frustrated, she felt the impression fading away.

  The ice sparkled in Nina’s glass. She was sure that she’d seen something just like it before, a cascade of bits of ice that threw off dazzling flashes of light...but the background should be black velvet, not the dull red paper of a disposable place mat. And the ice should be green. Emeralds again. Suddenly she remembered waking up in the hospital, noticing the nurse’s engagement ring. There was an elusive thread here, linking her to her former self, if only she could follow it.

  “What do I do at Zakroff and Duchesne?” she asked.

  Mike looked at her. Her face was averted; she was gazing down at her glass. Was she really struggling to overcome an amnesiac block, or was she planning her next move, deciding what to say to him? Manipulating him?

  He wondered how she’d respond if he told her that her employers were being investigated by federal agents. Idiot! he snarled inwardly. That’s the last thing she should know—with or without amnesia. What was it about this woman that threw his judgment out of whack? He realized that she was still waiting for an answer.

  “I don’t know what you do,” he said flatly. “You were at work yesterday—that’s all I can tell you. Are you finished? The forensics team ought to be through at your place by now.”

  Nina reached for her bag, intending to pay for her lunch, but he drew out his wallet impatiently. “It’s on the department,” he said. “Let’s get going.”

  * * *

  Back at Nina’s building, Mike st
epped aside politely this time to let her precede him up the stairs. Nothing had changed in the apartment. The forensics officers had finished their job; one of them had stayed behind to report to Novalis.

  “Miss Dennison’s prints were all over the place, as you’d expect,” he said. “But we lifted a few others. We’ll check them out and let you know if we get a match.”

  “Yeah.” Mike wasn’t going to hold his breath. Whoever had tossed Nina’s apartment had probably worn gloves.

  “Lieutenant, there’s something else you ought to see,” the policeman said quietly.

  He led Mike to a desk in the corner of the living room. Like everything else in Nina’s apartment, the desk bore signs of either remarkably bad housekeeping or a determined and destructive search. The policeman pointed to a half-opened drawer. “We found it just like that.”

  Across the room, Nina watched Mike and the uniformed policeman bend to look into the drawer. The officer handed Mike a pen, which he used to pull the drawer all the way open.

  A moment passed, and then Mike said softly, “Nina, would you come here, please?”

  She crossed the room slowly, almost reluctantly. Something told her she wasn’t going to like what she was about to see. The look on Mike’s face when he turned to her was coolly speculative. “Can you tell me anything about this?” he asked.

  Nina peered into the drawer. There, on top of a thoroughly ordinary litter of papers, rubber bands, pens and menus from take-out restaurants, lay a large matte black gun.

  “It’s a 9 mm semiautomatic pistol,” Mike said conversationally. “Fires eighteen rounds without reloading. Has a very sensitive trigger. It’s a real shooter’s gun. Pretty heavy-duty stuff for what you might call ‘home defense.’” He paused. “I suppose it’s no good asking you if you recognize it?”

  Nina stared, first at the gun and then at him. “Of course I don’t recognize it. It isn’t mine!”

  “How do you know it isn’t yours, if you have amnesia?” Nina thought there was a faint, sarcastic emphasis on the if.

  “I—I just know,” she insisted, knowing how lame it sounded. “I wouldn’t own such a thing!” But a tiny voice in her mind asked, Would I?

  He regarded her impassively. “We’ll look for a registration when we go through your things. In the meantime—” here he picked up the gun by sticking the pen through the trigger and passed it to the waiting officer, who had a plastic bag open and ready “—you can take this to ballistics.” The officer nodded briefly in Nina’s direction and left.

  “I just thought of something,” Nina burst out. “If that was my gun, and somebody broke in and searched through all my things, why didn’t they take it? I mean, isn’t that what crooks do? Steal guns?”

  One corner of Novalis’s mouth quirked up appreciatively, although the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Sharp thinking. I thought of that, too. Let’s just say there’s more than one possible explanation for everything that’s happened so far.”

  He glanced at the desktop. “Well, look here. Messages.”

  Nina followed his gaze and saw an answering machine. The red light was blinking in sets of five. Five messages.

  Mike’s finger jabbed the Playback button.

  “Do you mind?“ Nina exclaimed in annoyance, and punched Stop. She met his inquiring look with a glare. “They’re my messages.”

  “Fine.” He leaned against the wall, crossed his arms over his chest and settled in as though he meant to stand there forever. After a moment she realized that he was prepared to do just that, if necessary. With a sigh she punched Playback. She wasn’t looking at him, but she could feel him grinning.

  Beep. “Hello, dear,” a woman’s voice said. It was an older voice, a little tired, a little querulous. “It’s quite late. I thought you’d be home. Call me soon, darling, won’t you? I have a problem I need your help with.” Click. Nina’s heart was thudding and tears stung her eyelids. That was probably my mother. And I didn’t recognize her voice.

  Beep. “Hello, Nina. Armand here.” This was a man’s voice. It, too, sounded older, but it was full and hearty, with a touch of some European accent. “You haven’t come in to the office or called today, so I thought I’d better check. I’m sure I’ll hear from you soon. Let me know if you need anything.” Click.

  Beep. Click.

  Beep. Click.

  Beep. Click.

  Then nothing.

  “I hate hang-ups,” Mike remarked.

  Nina nodded.

  “Maybe somebody was checking to see if you were home.”

  “Maybe.” Then she looked at him, and he was startled by the anguish in her face. “I’ll bet that was my mother, Novalis. My mother. And I can’t even call her back. I don’t know her number.” She bit her lip.

  Mike didn’t mean his voice to sound so gentle when he said, “Then we’ll find it.” Without thinking he stepped forward and put a finger under her chin, tilting her face up. “We’ll find it,” he repeated, and was rewarded by a shaky smile. He held his breath, watching the topaz lights shift in her jade green eyes. Nina was unable to move, held by his light touch and his piercing look as though by a spell. She felt a flush of heat creeping up her throat. Then, as if the spell were lifted suddenly from them both, she drew away sharply and his hand dropped as though burned.

  They stood for a moment, looking anywhere but at each other, while silence hardened between them.

  “Well,” she said finally, “I guess I’ll try putting my life back together.” She walked toward the bedroom. Without looking back she added, “Feel free to look for clues or whatever it is you have to do.”

  He watched her go into the bedroom and close the door. “Don’t you worry, baby,” he said quietly. “I’m gonna do whatever I have to do.”

  Chapter 3

  The bedroom was a mess. The first step, Nina decided, was to get her clothes up off the floor. She began folding sweaters and hanging blouses, trying not to give way to the anger and revulsion that swept over her every time she imagined some stranger handling her things, throwing them around. Gradually, though, the soft textures and muted colors of the clothes calmed her nerves. In fact, she decided, they were almost too soothing—Nina’s entire wardrobe seemed to be beige, charcoal gray or navy. Everything was elegant and very conservative. I’ve got to buy a red outfit, Nina told herself. She pictured a scarlet leather miniskirt hanging in the closet next to the camel-colored wool suit and almost giggled. Maybe just a sweater to start with. When she finished tidying up the clothes, Nina looked around the room with satisfaction: chaos was beginning to give way to order.

  Mike was moving around in the living room; Nina heard the muffled sounds of drawers opening and closing. She was sorry that she had closed the door between them with such finality. It had gained her some privacy, but now she was consumed with curiosity. What was he doing out there? She had a right to know—it was her stuff he was poking around in. Shouldn’t he be asking her questions?

  She couldn’t stay in the bedroom all afternoon. It was time to remake the bed, and she refused to use the sheets that the searchers had ripped from the mattress. She had noticed a linen closet in the bathroom.

  Nina opened the bedroom door to find Mike seated at her desk, calmly examining a stack of papers that obviously belonged in an open file drawer. She bit back an annoyed exclamation but couldn’t keep all the tension out of her voice when she asked, “Find anything incriminating?”

  He gave her a brief, dispassionate glance. “Not yet. Don’t worry—when I do, you’ll be the first to know.”

  Nina marched to the linen closet, which, she was happy to discover, held several clean sets of sheets, only slightly rumpled, as though someone had flipped hastily through them.

  Back in the bedroom—with the door open this time—she remade the bed. Not much I can do about these, she thought, stuffing the slashed pillows into a trash bag. But at least this room looks fairly normal now. The bedroom did look orderly and sedate, with its cool colors and
delicate floral prints. Just one thing still jarred—the drawer of her nightstand gaped crookedly open. No doubt the searcher had ransacked it.

  The drawer wouldn’t shut. Nina shoved it harder, but it was jammed. She scrabbled among its contents: a box of tissues, a package of throat lozenges, an emery board.... Something was stuck in the back of the drawer. It felt like a book. Nina grasped a corner and tugged, and the object that had kept the drawer from closing came free. It was a leatherbound book with the year and the word Diary stamped on the cover.

  Nina’s hands trembled with excitement. She realized that she was holding what might be her best clue to the mysteries of her past. Was this what the searcher had been looking for? She didn’t stop to think. There was no way she was going to let Mike Novalis get his hands on her diary—not until she knew exactly what it contained. Until she knew whether she had something to hide.

  Quickly she shoved the diary under the edge of the mattress, then closed the drawer. She was aching to read the diary, but she couldn’t risk letting Novalis know that she had found it. Whatever secrets it held would simply have to wait. She took a final look around the bedroom.

  “Nice job.”

  Nina whirled guiltily at the sound of Mike’s voice behind her. How much had he seen?

  She forced herself to look away from the corner of the mattress where the diary was hidden. Mike was gazing around the restored room. “Looks good,” he said. “Did you find anything interesting?”

  “No. Just my clothes and things.” She was surprised by how matter-of-fact her voice sounded.

  His gaze rested on her for a moment, and then he reached out and opened a large, carved wooden box that stood on the bureau. Inside was a clutter of jewelry. Nina examined the pieces one by one. A necklace of turquoise beads, two silver chains with charms, a dozen or so pairs of earrings, mostly silver. Several rings.

  “So the break-in wasn’t a jewel theft,” Mike said.

  “The truth is, this jewelry isn’t worth all that much,” Nina answered. “I like it—it’s beautiful, all handmade craft pieces—but there’s no gold. And look, all the stones are semiprecious, garnets and topazes and so on. No diamonds or rubies. These—” she indicated a pair of discreet pearl earrings “—are the most valuable things here, and they’re worth no more than two hundred dollars.”