Memory Lapse: A Slater Vance Novel (24 page)

Janet jerked awake and
realized her light was still on and her book had slid off her chest. Where was
her child? She knew she had one. Why couldn’t she remember? Her arms ached with
the need to hold her – she knew it was a little girl. She could almost smell
her special scent. Why couldn’t she bring her face to mind? It was so
frustrating. What kind of mother was she? Why wasn’t she in the car with her?
Why wasn’t her husband looking for her? Maybe he was; she’d obviously been on
the run. Did he have her child? God, she hoped not. She hoped he wasn’t abusive
towards her.

Not able to fall asleep,
Janet rose and padded through the darkened house into the now-empty den and
quietly clicked on the television, turning the volume low. She pulled a wrap
off the back of the couch and threw it over herself as she curled up. An old
black-and-white movie came on, and she leaned her head on one hand as stared
unseeingly at the flat screen, which seemed to take up most of the wall. Her
stomach muscles clenched so tightly, she struggled to breathe. She didn’t know
what to do. Knowing her little girl was out there somewhere and she couldn’t
even remember her face was so frustrating and painful. All her vague memories
brought only fear. What kind of life had she had? Feeling all at once
overwhelmed, she couldn’t staunch the tears which slid down her cheeks.

“Janet?” She jumped at
Slater’s voice in the doorway.

Turning her head in his
direction, she saw he was dressed in only his pajama bottoms. From the light of
the television, she could make out the dark matting of hair which covered his
chest.

Clearing her throat to
hide her emotions, she said, “Sorry, did I wake you? I’ll turn the TV off.”

“No, you didn’t wake me.
You don’t have to turn it off. We’re just being overly cautious right now,
that’s all.” Moving into the room to stand in front of the couch, he said
softly, “What’s wrong?”

Giving him a watery
smile, she raised a hand to wipe the tears from her cheeks and said, “I had a
bad dream, that’s all.”

Sitting beside her, he
asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Laying her head back on
her hand, she said wearily, “I dreamt about my daughter.”

“You remember her?”

“I can’t see her face. I
only know how she felt in my arms and how she smelled. What do you think
happened to her, Slate? Why can’t I remember? What kind of mother does it make
me when I can’t even remember my own daughter? How can I protect her if I can’t
even remember her?” her voice broke on a sob.

Slater hesitated,
thinking briefly of Celia McCloud before sliding over to pull her against his
bare chest. Her shoulders shook with desperation. He wrapped his arms tight
around her, and rubbed a hand up and down her arm in comfort. He rested his
cheek against the top of her silky dark head and murmured words of
encouragement and sympathy. If this kept up, he was going to give his brother a
run for his money.

They sat huddled together
for several moments. Eventually, her sobs ceased and she pulled away from him.

“I’m sorry for the tears.
Everything is just becoming… well, too much. I think something bad happened.
Something really bad.
I had a… vision of a man. I was
holding him as I sat on the kitchen floor and he’d been shot, in the head, I
think. I could see the darkness of the blood, but not his face. I think… I
think he killed himself. When you were telling me about your friend earlier, I
got the feeling I knew how that loss felt. So now I’m even more afraid. What
kind of life did I lead?” As tears began to slide down her face, again she
said, “I think it would have been better had I actually been Honey Luscious.”

Slater gathered her once
more and held her while she cried, not knowing what else to do.

The automatic setting on
the television had already turned it off and grey light was beginning to filter
through the windows when Slater slowly woke. He and Janet were still on the
couch and she was nuzzled up against his chest for warmth. He reached over and
grabbed the wrap that had slipped down to cover her with. Moving carefully, he
eased his stiff muscles to a better angle. Drawing in a deep breath, he laid
his cheek once more against her hair. He could smell the fragrance of her
shampoo. Comfortingly, he gently rubbed his face in the silkiness.

He understood the loss of
a child better than anyone. After today, once he had the bank issue resolved,
and once he and Bennie had his office set back up, he was going to dedicate
himself to finding her child… and her life. He couldn’t imagine this existence.
He felt her stir and he tightened the arm wrapped around her reflexively.
Suddenly he stilled.
No, no, no!
He
was not getting involved with this woman. He’d learned his lesson with Celia
McCloud. No more vulnerable women. Moving carefully, he slowly slid her off his
chest and onto the couch and walked away.

Chapter 18

Janet eased her cramped
muscles into a sitting position. She wondered why Slater hadn’t woken her to go
to bed. She could still smell his
body wash
on her
skin. It’d been nice having his arms wrapped around her, protecting her,
soothing her. She was drawn to the strength he exuded – she needed it. She felt
a catch in her heart at the folly of her thoughts. She didn’t need to be
sitting here having mushy thoughts about a man when her daughter was out there
somewhere. What was she doing? With a shake of her head, she rose, folded the
wrap back over the couch’s back, and went to her room to get ready for work.

Slater showered, wrapped
his ribs, which were actually feeling better, and got dressed. He immediately
went to his office and printed off the pictures for the bank job, as well as
the pictures from his phone. He put them all in an envelope, along with an
invoice, and headed out. He wanted to arrive at the bank the minute it opened.

He sat across from the
bank, as he had for the few days, until he saw Nash Burkes enter,
then
he moved to the bank’s entrance. Nash Burkes went to his
glass-encased office and unlocked his door with Slater on his heels. He turned
in surprise to see him; first at this time of morning, and second at his office
in the bank.

“Uh,
Mr. Vance.
Uh, good morning.
Please come in and have a seat,” he said,
nervously looking around.

“Burkes.”

Slater sat in one of the
two chairs facing Nash
Burkes’s
desk. He ran an eye
over the
office,
taking in the numerous awards and
charity events Nash Burkes was involved in. What a waste. He waited until the
other man sat down before leaning forward and sliding the manila envelope
towards him.

Nash Burkes kept his eyes
on Slater as he reached for the envelope. He opened the envelope’s flap and
peeked inside without taking out its contents. The invoice was on top of the
pictures. Nash raised questioning eyes to Slater.

Coolly, Slater said
quietly, “I think our work together is done, and I’m here to collect payment…
in cash, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t understand?”

Slater casually sat back
in the chair and raised an ankle to his knee and flicked an imaginary speak
from his pants before saying, “Take a look at the last photo and then I think
you’ll understand.”

Nash Burkes flipped
through the photos in the envelope until he reached the last one. Slater
watched with immense satisfaction as the color drained from the other man’s
face.

“As I said, our work is
done here. Now, if you’ll just pay me for the work you commissioned. You can
check the invoice, it’s correct.”

“Uh, no, I’m sure it is.
If you’ll just excuse me a minute, I’ll get your money.”

Slater sat patiently
until Nash Burkes returned with his money. Counting it, he stood and pushed it
into his front pocket. He turned to leave, but paused at the door. “One last
thing, you’d better hope this bank isn’t robbed anytime soon, because if it is,
I’ll forward those pictures to your boss as well as the police. Have a good
day.”

Slater arrived at his
office shortly after Bennie. He found his usually unflappable secretary staring
in utter amazement at the chaos in the office.

Turning to stare at him,
all she could come up with was, “Damn.”

“At least the coffee pot
survived,” he said.

“Good thing, we’re going
to need it,” she replied.

Bennie called building’s
maintenance department and they agreed to send up a cleaning crew. Within
hours, the offices were reassembled and ready to have new phones and computers
installed.
God bless insurance
was
all Slater could think. He called Tiger at the house and he agreed to come
immediately and set up the computers. Slater felt he was checking off a lot of
things on his to-do list.

After Tiger left, Slater
sat at his desk and placed the picture of Anne and Sophie, and the picture of
his family at the lake house – which had somehow remained unbroken – back into
their places of honor on his desk. He glanced at them briefly before loading
the disc from his security cameras into his computer… God, he missed his flat
screen. He fast-forwarded the sequences until he saw himself locking the doors
and another man come up behind him and hit him in the back of the head. From
the office’s security cameras, through the glass doors, he couldn’t make out
any details of his attacker until he calmly unlocked the door and entered the
office. The man made no attempt to hide his identity. Slater looked at the man,
but didn’t recognize him. He was around six foot tall with short, close-cropped
red hair that was starting to whiten around the edges. The man wore sunglasses,
which was his only method of obscuring his face. The man was in jeans, a
long-sleeved black T-shirt, and combat boots. He began searching in Bennie’s
office and then moved to Slater’s. He apparently hadn’t found whatever it was
he was looking for, and began to pitch the drawers and throw things around the
office. The last thing he’d done was destroy the safe’s wall and take the safe.

Clicking back until he
had the clearest view of the man, Slater saved and printed, it as well as
forwarded a copy to Bridge’s inbox. He sat for a while, staring at the man. Who
was he?

Setting the photo aside,
he began checking his never-ending emails and found his contact at the JAG
corps, Vanessa Sanderson, had returned his email. After reading through the
usual pleasantries, Slater sat back when he read the following:
According to official records,
Nevin
Justaine
was killed in
action nine years ago in Iraq
. Well that was interesting, since his blood
was found outside his office just last week. Now he was being attacked by
ghosts, apparently. Clicking the reply button, Slater requested a photo of
Nevin
Justaine
.

In his inbox, Slater
found the
information
Bridge and Nasty
Rasty
had found on Janet Jackson. According to her W2s, in
the past year, she’d worked at several companies, usually lower-level
secretarial positions. She didn’t last very long at any of the jobs. He assumed
she moved on when she’d felt threatened of being found. He called all the
companies, but they had no valuable and/or useful information that he didn’t
already have.

At five, he powered down
his computer, shooed a very somber Bennie out of the office, secured the alarm,
and went home. He was surprised to find not only Tiger’s and Janet’s cars in
the driveway, but Tucker’s, as well. He hoped it wasn’t more bad news; he’d had
his fill.

Stepping into the house,
he was surprised to hear them gathered in the den. Stepping to the doorway, he
saw they all were sitting on the couch with the flat screen on, but muted.
Tucker saw him first and rose to meet him at the door, turning him away from
the group.

“How are you holding up, Slate?”

“I’m okay, Tuck. Any
arrangements been made yet? I’d like to send flowers.”

“Yeah, I’ll give them to
you before I go. I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine. Nothing I
could do,” he said briskly.

“There really wasn’t,”
Tucker responded gently.

Wanting to change the
subject, Slater asked, “What’s going on here?”

“Oh, you haven’t heard.
Our very own little Ms. Janet Jackson is going to be on TV tomorrow. We’ve been
waiting for you to get home so we can watch a tape of the show. Come join us.”

“On
television?
Why?”

“Harold Moss, her boss,
was really interested in her lost memory and decided to do a segment on lost
memory and interviewed Janet. It’s very exciting.”

Slater’s blood ran cold,
and quietly he said to Tucker, “I don’t think this is a good idea. If she’s
trying to hide from someone dangerous, this will lead them straight to her.”

“I hadn’t really thought
about that, but I think she volunteered.”

Slater walked into the
room and immediately saw the strained smile on Janet’s face. No matter what
she’d told
Tucker,
Janet knew this was a bad thing… a
dangerous thing. She glanced at Slater and gave him a little shake of her head.
She’d done this deliberately. She knew they would come for her. Slater moved
into the room and sat down next to her on the couch.