Forget Me Not (4 page)
Within minutes I was parked back in front of the house. This time the ghost of the young woman was there to meet us. She sat on the porch and waited for our approach.
As I walked up, the real estate agent began her spiel. “It's a small house. Only a little over nine hundred square feet, has three bedrooms, one bathroom and an attached one-car garage.”
We walked through the empty rooms, and I made listening noises when in fact I was focused more on the ghost than the house. The agent's cell phone rang and Melanie waved me towards the back bedroom. I hesitated and glanced back at the realtor. She flipped open her phone and held up one finger to me as she turned slightly away to speak.
This was my chance. I continued down the hall and slipped into the bedroom. The ghost was in the closet. Not by the closet but actually kneeling inside. I shimmied in next to her and shivered. I could see my own breath hanging in the air. The floorboards in this section of the closet were lighter in colour than the surrounding floor. I pried on first one plank, then another. The third one popped up. I glanced over my shoulder. The low murmur of the real estate agent's voice assured me she was still busy. Tucked under the board was a small stack of letters.
I heard the tap of heels approaching, so I snatched up the packet and tucked them into my purse.
“The closets are a bit small,” the agent commiserated when she noticed where I was.
“It's attractive and well built, though. Could I please get all the particulars?”
“Of course.” She pulled a flyer out of the folder and handed it to me. Together we walked back towards the front. I continued my tour of the tiny kitchen overlooking the back patio and yard dominated by a huge apple tree.
I didn't know what it was about the house, but it drew me in and captivated me. Just for a second I imagined doing dishes at the window and watching a puppy chase a butterfly. The residence was too small for a large family but would do nicely for me and the baby.
Whoa. Where did that thought come from?
The real estate agent looked pointedly at her watch. “Would you like to see some comparable properties?”
I chewed my lip and tried to look indecisive. “I'd like to think about this one before I see any others. But thank you for your time.”
She sighed, and I could tell she thought another sale had slipped through her fingers. But she dutifully locked the front door and waved cheerily to me as she got into her little red sports car.
I waited until she was out of sight before I pulled the string-tied package out of my purse. The ghostly woman was now sitting in the passenger seat, her eyes filled with unshed tears.
At that moment, a dark shadow fell over the papers. I shrieked and jumped while the letters slid out of my lap onto the floorboard. The man who called himself Aaron stood beside the car. My heart beat wildly. How had he known I was here? Was he following me? Despite my trepidation, my traitorous body reacted to his presence. My nipples tightened and a warm rush of desire settled between my thighs. I mentally chastised myself. I knew nothing about this man except that he was sexy as hell.
In order to calm my raging hormones, I forced myself to sort through the story he had told me. What if he had changed it all around and he was the stalker pretending to be my husband? It's a horrible feeling not to be able to trust your own memory for answers. As if in tune with my thoughts, Melanie began weeping and wailing. I resisted the urge to put my hands over my ears.
Instead, I twisted the key in the ignition and, without even acknowledging the man, I pulled away from the kerb. I needed to go somewhere to look at these letters without worrying about the ghost or my supposed husband looking over my shoulder.
I drove around until I was sure no one was following me. Then, as if guided by an unseen hand, I found myself back outside the burger joint. The crowd had dispersed as it was after breakfast and not quite time for lunch. I asked for a booth in the back. Although I wasn't hungry, I ordered a loaded hamburger and a diet cola to negate the calories.
The packet of letters looked so normal, but I had the feeling that somewhere in the stack was a bombshell. Pulling my emotional armour up, I drew the packet of letters towards me. Then my courage failed. It would be so easy to just throw them away, take the next train back to San Diego and get on with my life. But in the end I slid the letter out of the first envelope and read it. To my relief it was just the typical chatter of one friend, a woman named Starla, to Melanie. I skimmed it quickly and moved on to another. When I came across the fourth one, I paused. The envelope was addressed to Melanie, but the handwriting was familiar. If I wasn't mistaken, the letter was from me.
With shaking hands, I drew out the missive and opened it. Before I could start reading, my food arrived. Delaying the inevitable for a few minutes longer, I took a bite of my hamburger and washed it down with a large gulp of liquid caffeine. It was now or never.
I read the letter with no memory of when it had been written nor the events that had precipitated it. The words leapt off the page. The controlling actions of Melanie's new boyfriend, a man named Thomas Bychek, weren't typical of a lover. I had been afraid for her and urged her to break it off with him. The letter was dated in July of 2001. Just months before my accident. Mr. Williams said Melanie had died in September. Had Thomas killed her?
Hoping to find further clues to his identity, I sorted through the rest of the letters. There was nothing after August. I opened the last letter in the pile. The return address was here in Napa, and the name listed was Thomas. The only enclosure was a picture. My heart stuttered as I stared at it. It was a picture of me, looking young and carefree. The man next to me was the man I'd known for the past seven years as my husband, Aaron. But as I took a closer look, I could see something wasn't right with the picture. Although the man's face was black, his neck, arms and hands were white. I ran my nail across the smooth surface of the paper, and the man's face lifted off. Underneath...
I caught my breath. Underneath was the smiling face of the man claiming to be the real Aaron. Turning the picture over, I stared at the words written on the back.
“I'm so sorry it had to end this way, Melanie. But I've moved on. Here is a picture of me and my new lover, Letitia Davies.”
While I'd been reading, a figure had appeared across the table from me. Melanie. She smiled at me.
Using the ruse of my phone, I picked it up and spoke to her. “We were friends?”
She nodded and pointed to her heart.
“You loved me?”
My eyes filled with tears. I so wanted to remember something, anything about my past. But it remained tauntingly blank.
“Did he kill you the weekend we were here?”
Melanie nodded.
I knew what I was supposed to do, what I normally did in these cases. But I couldn't bring myself to take the picture to the police. Thomas Bychek, the man I knew as Aaron Davies, was dead. He couldn't hurt anyone else ever again. To turn this evidence over to the police would open a can of worms I wasn't ready to face. With this information would come notoriety, my story and my picture in the paper. People from the past I didn't remember would give me pitying looks.
I glanced up at Melanie. There was sympathy and understanding in her eyes. She hadn't done this for herself, she'd done it for me. Just for a moment I forgot she was a ghost and went to reach across the table to touch her hand. “Thank you for giving me a piece of my past.”
Melanie looked over my shoulder and smiled brightly. In the blink of an eye she was gone. I hoped for good.
I turned back to the letter I had written. There was no return address on the envelope, nothing to tell me where I'd lived or with whom.
There was really nothing to do but to go back to my little cabin in the grapes. In the next few days I'd institute a search for Thomas Bychek and see what I could find out about him.
There was nothing but emptiness inside me. Not only was my past a blank, but the only memories I had were all a lie. The man I had come to love as a husband had done the unspeakable, he'd murdered my friend, kidnapped me and kept me as a consenting hostage for seven years. Then I had a terrible thought. What if the man really was my husband? If he were telling the truth, did I have other family members? Sisters, brothers? Thinking about it made my heart hurt and I had trouble wrapping my mind around the possibility. What if everything he'd told me wasn't a lie? I remembered the box he'd left outside my cabin and I couldn't get back to the resort fast enough.
As I unlocked the door, I paused with the uncomfortable feeling that I was being watched. But was it someone living ... or dead? Hard to tell.
To my relief, the cabin was empty, no one living or dead lurked in the shadows. Plopping down into Aaron's chair, I pulled the box towards me and slowly opened the lid. My eyes filled with tears as I flipped through picture after picture. Me as a baby, a toddler and a gap-toothed schoolgirl. Images captured by long-ago school photographers showed me playing in the high school band and graduating with honours. An obituary notice informed me of my parents’ untimely deaths, but I remembered nothing of them or their love for me. I then opened a white photo album decorated with wedding bells and curlicues. I stared at the picture of the bride and groom. It was him. So, he had been telling the truth. My hands began to shake. In my wedding finery, I looked so young and happy, but flipping through the pages brought back no memories. It was like looking at someone else's life.
The last item in the box was a piece of paper with a phone number. I keyed it into my cell phone and listened to it ring.
“Hello?” A man's voice greeted me.
“Aaron?”
“I'll be right there,” he replied.
Chapter Four
I was sitting on the front step when he came running up the walk.
He'd gotten there so quickly that I realised why I'd had the uncomfortable feeling of being watched all day long. “Have you been following me?”
“I lost you once, I didn't want to let you out of my sight for fear you'd disappear again.”
He shrugged when I made a face at him. I opened the door and led the way into the cabin and sank down on the couch, drained of emotion. How was I supposed to
feel
? Happy? Sad?
“Do you finally believe me?”
I opened my mouth and then closed it. I had a million questions but didn't know how to begin. Luckily, he seemed to know what to say.
“A man started stalking you in August of 2001. We didn't think it was anything more than a silly infatuation. When you went on that trip to New York without me, I was worried. Then I heard about the terrorist attack and the hospital called me. Unfortunately I was still here in California and although I got there as soon as I could, it was too late. A man claiming to be Aaron Davies showed up at the hospital and they released you to his care. He told them he was taking you to a nursing home, but he lied.”
He paused as if expecting me to say something. But I was too numb to think. When Aaron had brought me here the last weekend in September, I didn't even remember my name.
“He—” My voice caught in my throat. “We went home. Or to the house in San Francisco he told me was home. He worked with me every day and taught me to talk, walk and feed myself.” I began to shake. “After about a year, he got a job in San Diego.”
The man perched next to me. “Letty, you have to believe me. I looked everywhere for you. I had his picture from the security camera at the hospital, but without having any other clues, you were just gone.”
I remembered those first long months. All I could manage was to sit in a wheelchair. The man I called Aaron wouldn't let me watch television for fear that the images of the attack would disturb me. Or was he trying to prevent me from remembering?
Aaron's comforting voice continued. “I reported your disappearance to the police, but since you had been admitted to the hospital and released, they suspected you had just run away.”
His voice had subtly changed. He almost sounded upset with me. “Why?” I turned. Something teased at my memory but I couldn't bring it into focus.
He gave me a tiny smile. “We'd argued. You had written a book that promised to be a bestseller. But I didn't want the notoriety that it would bring.”
“A book?”
I'd written a book?
“About what?”
He gave me an odd look. “Speaking to the dead.”
“Then...” Oh my God. I was
that
Letitia Davies. I remembered clandestinely typing my name into the search engine on a computer at the library once. The name had generated a slew of hits about the reclusive author. Aaron had walked up and I had closed down the browser before he saw what I was searching for. So the spirits I saw weren't a result of the accident as I'd been led to believe. The world spun.
“Are you okay?”
I shook my head as tears threatened to overflow. “How did you find me now?”
Aaron hung his head. “It's been seven years. All the money from your book's sales, over a million dollars now, had never been touched, and the private investigators I'd hired had never found any trace of you. I finally began to accept that you were deceased. Everyone kept saying I needed to get on with my own life. I—” His voice broke and he took a deep breath to steady it. “I went to a lawyer to find out what to do to have you declared dead. When my attorney called the county clerk's office to start getting the process underway, he found out someone claiming to be you had recently requested a copy of your birth certificate. I got the address from your paperwork, but when I showed up at the address in San Diego, no one was there.”
“So how did you find me? Were you led here psychically?”
Aaron gave me a wry grin. “Oh, honey. I'm not the least bit psychic. What I did was break into your house and go through your desk. When I found your reservation, I hoped you had come looking for me.”
“Do you still love me?” I had to ask even though I was afraid of the answer.