Buried Memories

Was Louie the one who’d killed her mother? Any number of men could have done it. But from everything she remembered, he seemed the most likely. He had the worst temper. And it wasn’t just that. He seemed to radiate evil.

She shuddered again and reached for the remote. An evening of brainless television held a lot of appeal, the opportunity to lose herself in someone else’s life for a short time. She let her head fall against the padded back of the couch and closed her eyes.

She’d spent the last two decades trying to forget.

Now they needed her to remember.

* * *

Tyler emerged from the bathroom, hair still damp but free of drywall dust. He’d hoped the days would be a little longer. It was Friday, and all week, Andy had been ready to call it quits by seven o’clock. Tonight it had been even earlier. Nine years Tyler’s senior, maybe Andy was slowing down. Or maybe he’d been thinking about Joan’s cooking and couldn’t hold out any longer.

Tyler drew in a slow, fragrant breath. The scent of baking roast beef that had plagued him since he stepped onto the front porch wrapped around him again, and his stomach growled. When he entered the kitchen, Andy was already there, helping Joan cut up salad ingredients.

She smiled over one shoulder. “Dinner will be ready in twenty minutes. You guys messed me up coming home early.”

The doorbell rang, cutting off his response. Leaving them to their meal preparation, he made his way to the front door. When he swung it open, Nicki stood on the porch, Callie next to her. A smile spread across her face and lit her eyes, sending an odd warmth straight to his core.

“I was walking Callie and saw you guys were home.” She shifted her weight and cocked her head to the side. “You said you like to stay busy. How would you like to do a few projects for me?”

“Sure. What do you have in mind?”

“Several things. When you get a chance, stop by and I’ll show you what I’m looking for.”

He stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind him. “I’ve got almost twenty minutes till dinner. And if I’m a few minutes late, I’m sure Joan and Andy will save me some.”

Nicki walked several feet down the driveway, then cut across the yard and into the woods. She glanced back at him, grinning. “Shortcut.”

“Yeah, I found this one myself.” It was the same route he’d taken Monday morning after seeing her to her door.

When they reached her yard, she pulled a set of keys from her pocket. “I used to not worry about locking up if I was just stepping outside for a few minutes. Now if the house is out of sight at all, you can be sure it’s locked.”

“That’s a good idea.”

He followed her into the house. Before Monday night, he’d made an assumption based on the simple block exterior. But on the inside, the place looked like something out of one of Joan’s home decor magazines. A leather sectional sofa wrapped around an oak-and-glass table set on a wrought iron base. A marble-type floor tile in varying shades of brown and beige met three walls the color of Dijon mustard, the fourth a deep burnt orange. Two curio cabinets held a variety of figurines, and a floor lamp with amber globes bathed everything in a warm glow.

“This looks great.” Whatever projects she had in mind, they probably didn’t include this room.

“Thanks. The prior owners made some updates but never finished. I like the floor tile, but they’d painted all the walls a boring off-white.” She grinned over at him. “I had to jazz it up a bit.”

“That picture is perfect.” He tilted his head toward the seascape hanging over the sofa. It was a sunset scene, depicted in colors that complemented her decor.

“Thanks. I had Meagan Kingston, a local artist, do it for me. It was my birthday present to myself.”

“Happy belated birthday. And what about the stained glass wall hangings?”

“Those are mine.”

“I thought so. I saw your supplies when I was checking the window locks.”

“That’s my hobby. Or maybe it’s more than that, since I sell them. I’ve got them downtown at the Cedar Keyhole Artist Co-op and Darci’s Collectibles and Gifts.”

She led him into the kitchen. “The prior owners stripped and refinished the cabinets and replaced the appliances. I had the granite countertops put in. But I’ve got to get rid of that light fixture.”

“Yeah, it looks sort of industrial. Do you have something picked out?”

“Not yet.” She walked from the room and headed down the hall. “I plan to make one trip and do it all at once.” She stopped at the open door to the bathroom. “Pedestal sinks look great, but they’re not very practical. I’d like to replace it with a vanity and a cultured marble top. Are you up to it?”

“Sure.” He was more than up to it. The broken arm had mended, and the burns were as good as they were going to get. All that was left of the smoke inhalation was some shortness of breath if he overexerted. Most of the damage to his body had healed. The effects on his mind, not so much. Splints and bandages couldn’t blot out the images.

Or justify his returning home when his men hadn’t.

He shook off the thoughts and followed her into the bedroom across the hall.

“This is technically the guest room, but it’s where I sleep. So I’d like to get some more space in the closet.”

“Closet organizers?”

“Yep.” She opened the louvered doors. “On this side, I’d like the top shelf raised to make room for double rods. I’ll keep a single rod on this side. In the center, I’d like a small set of drawers with a shoe cubby above. Twenty or thirty slots, if possible.”

He eyed her with raised brows. “You got enough shoes?”

“You don’t know the half of it.” She grinned up at him.

Warmth filled his chest, and he grew serious. “It’s good to see you again, Nicki.”

“Yeah, same here. I’ve missed you.”

He held her gaze for several moments. The years melted away, and they were once again connected by that invisible bond that tied his heart to hers. Distance hadn’t severed it and neither had time. Did she feel it?

She turned, and he followed her into the hall. When she reached the large room at the end, she made a wide sweep of her arm. “As you can see, this is my work area.”

He walked to a table where a partially completed stained glass scene lay. Peaks and valleys rose and fell, outlined in what looked like copper. Some kind of flowering trees occupied the foreground.

“The room has a his and a hers closet.” Her words drew his attention, and she swung open one of the doors. “I’ll leave the smaller one as it is, with the rods and all, because if I ever have company, this is where they’ll sleep.” She motioned toward the daybed against the far wall, then turned back to the closet.

“I want to have several shelves installed on all three sides here. Right now, I’m storing a lot of stuff in bins, and it’ll make my life a lot easier to have everything more accessible.”

“Let me know what you want, and I’ll build it.”

“Awesome.” She pulled a pushpin from the corner of the bulletin board and handed him a sheet of paper. “Here’s my wish list. Do you think you’re up to it?”

“And then some.” The work she’d laid out would keep him occupied for quite a few evenings. And it would give him somewhere pleasant to focus his mind, far away from the horrors of war.

“Are you out for good now?” She walked from the room and headed down the hall.

He followed her into the living room, shaking his head at her uncanny way of reading his thoughts. “I’m out for good.”

“They can’t call you back?”

“Nope.” They’d retired him. And he was still trying to find his purpose.

She leaned back against the entertainment center. “I thought your first months or years out, they can always recall you.”

“Not always.”

His clipped answers weren’t what she was looking for, and he knew it. But he didn’t want to talk about it.

The progression from enlisted to retired didn’t happen overnight. Those things never did. They reassigned him to a warrior transition unit for a year. The cast eventually came off his arm, but the skin graft procedures seemed to go on and on. Finally the doctors decided he was as good as he was going to get, and the medical board made their determination. He could no longer do the job. And that was that.

He shifted his gaze to the window overlooking her front yard. Drapes in earth tone patterns hung on each side, connected by a matching valance. Lacy sheers occupied the space between, partially obscuring whatever lay in the lengthening afternoon shadows. Another task he would add to his to-do list—installing some blinds behind the sheers. The bedrooms had them, but the living, dining and kitchen areas didn’t.

“How should I go about getting the materials you need?”

Her words pulled his attention from the window, but movement in his peripheral vision snapped it back. For a brief moment, a vague shape hovered at the left portion of the sheers, then disappeared. He tensed and raised a hand. What had he seen?

“Stay here.”

He made a dash for the door, jerked it open and pulled it shut behind him. As he rounded the corner of the house, a figure melted into the woods lining the back of Nicki’s property. Tyler pounded through the grass and ran into the tree line a few moments later. Seeing no one, he stopped to listen.

A rain-scented gust whipped the trees around, the steady shhh drowning out the rustle of the intruder’s movements. He turned slowly, all senses on alert. Some distance to his right, the snap of twigs underlay the steadier sounds of nature. He moved in that direction, his own footsteps little more than a whisper. His pulse picked up as he closed in on his prey.

Soon a voice drifted to him, soft and distinctly feminine. Then another, this one male. Both young. And a flash of clothing. Moments later, two figures came into view, and he shook his head. He’d followed a couple of teenagers on an early evening hike. And the intruder had gotten away.

As he approached, the guy took her hand, pulled her to a stop and drew her into his arms. Fifteen years ago, that had been him and Nicki. The hanging-out, walking-through-the-woods part, anyway. The other had been only in his dreams.

He cleared his throat, and they both started.

“Did you see anyone pass by in the last few minutes?”

They shook their heads. There was no sense continuing his search. Nicki’s Peeping Tom was long gone. And she was probably inside wondering if he’d lost his mind. He hadn’t taken the time to explain.

When he got back, though, Nicki wasn’t in her house. She was standing at the edge of the sidewalk, face angled downward. She looked up as he approached.

“You were supposed to stay inside.” His tone was stern.

“I did, for a minute, anyway. What’s going on?”

Judging from the furrows in her brow and the concern in her eyes, he could have asked her the same thing. He cast a glance down. A wicked-looking knife lay in the flower bed, partially obscured by the daylilies planted there.

“Where did that come from?”

“It’s my chef’s knife. It’s been missing since my house was broken into. I thought I’d misplaced it.”

He frowned. “Someone was at your window. By the time I got around the side of the house, he was disappearing into the woods. I took off after him, but I didn’t get a good look at him.”

“Find anything?”

“’Fraid not. I ended up following a rabbit trail.” At the question in her eyes, he continued. “I heard something, which led me to a couple of teenagers.” He glanced back down at the knife. “We need to call the police and have that fingerprinted.”

Another gust swept through, the rain even closer, and Nicki moved toward the front door. “The intruder must have taken the knife, then dropped it the night he broke in. I’ve been in and out this way with Callie, but I wasn’t paying any attention to the flower bed at the time. So I didn’t notice it.”

He nodded. That was one explanation. Except he didn’t buy it. His own interpretation was much more sinister. He stepped onto the porch and opened the door for her, then followed her inside. “Maybe you’re right and he dropped it the night he broke in, or...”

“Or what?”

He turned her to face him and took her hands. He would do everything he could to protect her. But she needed to be armed with the facts.

“Maybe he took it with him the night he broke in, then brought it back tonight, fully intending to use it.”