You Must Remember This

“But they disturb you.”

He scowled, wishing he’d let her believe, like everyone else, that he was an insomniac. Since it was too late for that, he chose instead to turn the conversation in a direction that was sure to make her forget his sleep problems. “Not as much as you do.”

She stared at him, her face turning as red as the cloth on the table. “I didn’t…” She fidgeted, then straightened and sat primly. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“No, Juliet, I’m sure you don’t,” he agreed quietly, then lightened up. “When you were in school, did the kids tease you about your name?”

Her look was wary, her tone cautious. “Of course. How could they resist?”

“‘What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!’”

“My mother was a fan of Shakespeare. What can I say?”

“There are worse things in the world to be named after.”

“Like a soap opera hunk?”

He nodded.

“I did some reading about amnesia last night.”

“You keep medical books around the house?”

“On the Internet.”

He’d left last night so she could go to bed. If he’d known she was going to stay up late, he would have hung around until she’d shoved him out the door. He would have delayed going home and to bed himself, would have delayed the nightmares. “Learn anything interesting?”

“Lots, but nothing that might help.”

“I don’t think I was computer-friendly. All this online stuff seems like a whole new world to me.”

“It’s the way everything is done now. It can offer some pretty vast possibilities.”

“It can also isolate you. It offers so many possibilities that you lose the need for real people in your life.”

“But if you don’t have real people in your life, it’s a decent substitute.”

He wondered about that. Maybe standing on the sidelines watching life go by via a computer monitor was okay for her, but he suspected it would make him just that much hungrier for human contact.

He was already pretty damn hungry for contact with her.

Finishing with her meal, she tucked the computer newsletter in her bag, picked up her tab and got to her feet. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

“I’m heading that way. Mind if I walk with you?”

Her only response was a shake of her head.

The weather was springtime warm, which didn’t mean they were safe from a cold snap or even snow. After all, it was only late April. They could easily wake up any time in the next month and find themselves snowed in.

He knew where he hoped he would be in the event of such luck.

The block-long walk passed quickly. Too soon they were inside the police department, and Juliet was looking eager to gain the privacy of her office. He tried to think of something to say—some excuse to see her again, some courage to ask for another evening of her time—but the words didn’t come. With a faint smile and a murmured “See you around,” she went down the hall to her office. A moment later he saw her through the window, taking a seat at her desk, turning her attention immediately to the computer there.

“Look, Jack, a Peeping Tom right here in the department.”

He glanced over his shoulder to find Stone Richardson and Jack Stryker, another detective who was working the Olivia Stuart homicide, standing behind him.

“What’s so interesting?” Stryker looked, then shrugged. “Oh. The new records supervisor.” He said it as if Juliet were of no more interest than the grandmotherly administrative assistant sitting outside the chief’s office, as if she weren’t the prettiest woman to set foot in Grand Springs in a long time.

Come to think of it, Stone didn’t seem particularly impressed, either. Granted, both men had gotten married in the last year—Jack to Josie Reynolds, the town treasurer, and Stone to Jessica Hanson, the bookkeeper at the ski lodge—but did that mean they’d lost their ability to recognize beauty when they saw it?

To each his own, so the saying went, and apparently it was true. After all, while Martin liked what he knew of Josie and Jessica, he personally didn’t find either particularly attractive. It was clear, though, that their husbands thought differently.

“You looking for us?”

The two detectives were so far from the reason for Martin’s presence in the department that, for a moment, Stone’s question didn’t register. Finally, though, he offered a noncommittal shrug. “Any news?”

“On Olivia’s case?” The cop shook his head. “Still no sign of Springer.”

Dean Springer had lived in Grand Springs without attracting anyone’s attention for years. He’d been a nobody, a loner who kept a low profile and minded his own business. Somehow his business had come to include the mayor’s death. The woman who had actually carried out the murder had identified Springer as the man who’d hired her, but there was no question that he’d merely been the go-between. He was neither smart enough nor prosperous enough to arrange a murder-for-hire, and there was the little matter of lack of motive. No, he’d been working for someone else. If the police ever located him, maybe they would find out who.

What if it was Martin?

“Juliet sent out another broadcast on you today.”

Still troubled by his doubts, he gave Stone little attention. “Yeah, she told me. I’d better get going.” He had a job this afternoon, and for the next few days, over at Grace Tabernacle on Aspen Street. Reverend Murphy had hired him to help with a renovation project too small to hire out to professionals. Considering his luck with construction in the past, he hoped the preacher was more experienced with such work.

He wasn’t, he announced when Martin met him on the front steps of the church. “But I’m a great believer in miracles.”

“As long as you’re praying for one, ask for one for me,” Martin said dryly. He didn’t think he’d been a church-going man before the accident, and he hadn’t converted to one after, but he was sure he believed in God, both before and after. Sometimes in his dreams, he prayed—frantic, panicked pleas—and sometimes he could manage no more than the deity’s name—Oh God, oh God, oh God.

“I’ve been praying for you from the beginning,” the reverend said as he opened the door and led the way inside.

The glass doors led into a short, broad hallway. Straight ahead, up three steps and through another set of doors, was the sanctuary with pews on either side and a burgundy carpeted aisle down the center. The door on the left led to a kitchen, and a hallway at the back of the sanctuary led to Sunday school rooms and bathrooms. Martin knew all that even though he’d taken no more than five steps through the front door.

Reverend Murphy stopped at the second double doors and looked back. “Although the Lord would like to see you in one of his houses on Sundays, he’s not going to smite you for coming Wednesday afternoon instead.”

“I’ve been here before.”

“When? I don’t recall—” The reverend turned back from the doors and approached him. “You mean before the accident. What do you remember?”

The harder he tried, the less there was to remember. The déjà vu faded, taking with it the faint images of the rooms behind the closed doors. “Nothing,” he said flatly, disappointment almost too strong to bear. “I don’t remember anything.”

* * *

When she left the police department after putting in an extra hour, Juliet had nothing more on her mind than going home, putting on her nightgown and vegging out in front of the computer. When she saw Martin leaning against the fender of her little silver car, everything fled her mind, including all words more intelligent or complicated than “Hi.”

“Hey.” He straightened and shoved his hands in his hip pockets. “Working late?”