Forget Me Not Read online

  Now what was she supposed to do? Where were her parents’ medical files on their patients? Where were their banking records, their brokerage accounts? What was she going to tell a lawyer? “Hey, guess what, my parents died, and I can’t find their paperwork?” Were her parents paranoid? Did they hide stuff? And if so, why? “I guess I never really knew my parents,” she murmured as she walked back to her folks’ bedroom. She looked around again. Where was her mother’s jewelry box, her perfume? All women, even young girls, had a jewelry box, even if it was nothing more than a cigar box. Where was the box her father kept his cuff links in, the dish where he put his change when he emptied out his pockets? She remembered seeing those things when her parents lived in the New Jersey house. The tops of the dressers were bare. The drawers didn’t give up anything but sleepwear and underwear and socks and, in her mother’s drawer, hosiery.

  Next came the his-and-her bathroom, two of everything, even two bidets. Lucy’s eyebrows rose at the sight. Her father’s shaving kit and toothbrush were neatly placed on his sink. Her mother’s sink held a little more—a blow-dryer, curling iron—but they were set into a niche in the ceramic wall. Night cream, day cream, a toothbrush, a comb, and a brush. In the shower she found ordinary shampoo and conditioner, Dove soap. A back scrubber that looked like it had never been used hung from the showerhead. Anyone’s bathroom in the good old US of A. Just like her own back in New Jersey.

  Then something came like a bolt out of the blue. A safe! There must be a safe somewhere in the house. But where? Lucy looked at her watch. It was almost three o’clock, and her stomach was rumbling. She tried to remember when she’d eaten last, and the best she could come up with was early yesterday morning.

  Back in the kitchen Lucy fixed herself a dryas-dirt cheese sandwich. She finished off the rest of the coffee and promised herself that she’d go out to dinner at the first restaurant she could find when the rain finally stopped. If it stopped. As she sipped and chewed, she asked herself, knowing what she knew about her parents, where they would install a safe. Did her father install it himself? Unlikely, since he never used his hands for anything except his miracle surgeries. Her mother? Ridiculous. Maybe the house came with a safe. Highly unlikely. She’d have to search the rooms again. Wall safe? Floor safe? She just didn’t know. And there was no one to ask. Still, she couldn’t put the house up for sale if there was any possibility there was a safe for the new owners to find.

  She remembered a mystery novel she’d read not too long ago, where one of the characters wanted to hide something. In plain sight was what the character had decided, and in the book it worked for him. Maybe her parents had read the same book. Or else they were smarter than the character. Plain sight? Lucy walked over to the door and looked out at the driving rain. “I just want to go home,” she murmured over and over. “I hate this house, just the way I hate that big house back in New Jersey.”

  She made a mental note to think about going to a shrink to find out why she couldn’t cry, why she didn’t feel anything, and why she hated both of the houses her parents had lived in. Why? Why? Why?

  Her shoulders stiff, her face set in grim determination, Lucy started again on the ground floor, this time to search for a safe. She knocked on walls, looked for recessed buttons that would possibly open a cleverly disguised safe. She got down on her hands and knees to inspect any irregularity in the floorboards but found nothing. She even checked the fieldstones in the fireplace. She went so far as to poke through the artificial ash on the floor of the firebox. She found nothing.

  Tomorrow she would tackle the upstairs, because at that moment she was tired, and she was hungry. She raced upstairs, removed her shorts, and pulled on a pair of jeans. Even though it was still raining, she got into her rental car and made it as far as a Burger King, where she ordered two grilled veggie sandwiches, a milk shake, and a large french fries. She devoured it all in the parking lot, then headed back to Palm Royal. On the ride back, she came to the conclusion that her parents must have had a safe-deposit box somewhere in town, at one of the many banks. There were no safe-deposit keys on either her mother’s or her father’s key rings. She groaned when she thought about looking under all the different drawers in the house. In a movie she’d seen once, someone had duct taped a key to the bottom of a drawer. Checking each drawer and recessed cabinet could take her hours and hours, if not all day. Her departure time was going to have to be extended to possibly ten days rather than a week. She groaned again as she swerved into the driveway.

  The house was just as silent as it had been that morning, after the funeral service. She should have left the TV on or the stereo unit. She shivered. Now she knew what it felt like to be in a mausoleum. She walked through the rooms, turning on lights, the different TVs, as well as the Bose system for sound. It hit her then, right between the eyes. There wasn’t even one picture of her anywhere in the whole house. Parents always displayed pictures of their children, usually candid shots taken here and there. Back in New Jersey, when she was growing up, there had been a few. One of her on her first pony ride, another with her father, sitting side by side on a bench in some park. They had been on the piano, in shiny silver frames. Where were they? Hadn’t her parents cared enough about her to put those same pictures on the piano in the living room in this house? The thought that they hadn’t hurt her heart.

  Lucy flopped down on the sofa, which felt stiff and unyielding, as if no one had ever sat on it or broken it in, and drew her legs up to her chin. She stared at the television screen, listening to Charlie Sheen bantering with his costar, but she didn’t really hear the words. Her thoughts took her back in time to a fond, treasured memory of her father as he played with her on the floor in her room before bedtime. She was around five, and he was giving her a ride on his back as he made whistling sounds like he was a train engine. She remembered how she’d laughed and giggled and how her father had kissed her on the cheek and had told her she was his fairy princess. Her mother had stood in the doorway, a huge smile on her face. And then the hateful words every child detested hearing. “Time for bed.” Her father had read her a story, kissed her good night. Then her mother had read her a story, and she had hugged her and kissed her and wished her sweet dreams. She smelled so good; her perfume was light and pleasant. She didn’t know what the scent was at the time but later on realized it was lily of the valley.

  At some point in time over the years, her mother must have changed her scent to one Lucy didn’t really like—it was musky and heavy, like a winter scent. Even now, when the lily of the valley flowers bloomed back home in the flower beds, they reminded her of that particular night and her smiling mother when she hugged her good night. It seemed like a hundred years ago, but the memory was still fresh and had never been forgotten. The big question now was, why did she have just that one treasured memory? Did she just forget the others? Because surely there had been others. And had she kept this one because it was so special? She’d never found the answer, even though she’d asked herself the same question hundreds of times over the years. She didn’t have an answer now, either.

  Lucy yawned. Time to go to bed. But first she decided to make a list of things she had to do in the morning, after she continued her search to find a safe, if there was one. An hour later she looked at the list in dismay. So many phone calls to make. So much to do. Well, she’d just have to tackle it the best way she could and hope for the best. She wanted to berate her parents for putting her through this. She wanted to wail and screech and pound her fists on something. Dammit, why hadn’t they trusted her, their own daughter, to tell her what to do in case anything ever happened to them?

  Why? Why? Why?

  Chapter Three

  Lucy woke to monsoon rain pelting the bedroom windows. She groaned. What happened to sunny Florida? She looked toward the nightstand and squinted at the portable clock she’d brought with her. Seven ten. She lay quietly, listening to the driving rain and staring through the windows at the gloomy day outside. Should I g
o back to sleep? Will I even sleep if I try? Probably not.

  So she swung her legs over the side of the bed and headed for the shower. But first she looked in the mirror. Who was this person staring back at her? She shook her head and turned on the shower.

  Fifteen minutes later, she was downstairs, scooping coffee into the pot. While she waited for the coffee to drip into the pot, she munched on doughnuts she’d picked up on her way home from Burger King the night before. Less than fresh now, but she didn’t care. She just wanted something in her stomach before she got on with her search for a safe. She turned on the counter television just to have sound. She half listened to the global doom and gloom, which seemed to match the day. Didn’t those made-up mannequins who spewed the news ever have anything good to report? Something warm and fuzzy, feel-good news? She couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard anything that brought a smile to her face.

  As she sipped at her coffee, she thought about her pleasant life, her successful life, back in New Jersey. She had Angie and other friends, neighbors, and a guy she saw off and on. She was close enough to New York that all she had to do was go to Metropark, hop on a train, and be in New York in forty-five minutes when she needed what she called a New York Fix. Of course, she had demons; everyone did. But her life was way too busy to worry about something over which she had no control. Then she remembered the promise she’d made to herself the day before to consult a shrink to find out why she couldn’t cry or feel anything over her parents’ deaths. And, of course, why she hated this house and the big house back home. Well, she would do that. In fact, she could search out a good qualified shrink from here and even make an appointment she would keep as soon as she returned home.

  Lucy finished her coffee, closed the doughnut bag, and let loose with a loud sigh. Time to start her search.

  By three o’clock Lucy was so frustrated that she wanted to scream. She was sitting cross-legged in the massive walk-in closet, staring at the assorted clothing hanging on the rods. Such precision, almost military looking, one inch apart for each garment hanging. She thought about her own closet, which left a lot to be desired as she just tossed and jammed things in any old which way. She did not like regimentation of any kind. She also hated rules and regulations. “Guess that makes me a free spirit,” she muttered to herself. “I just give up!” she muttered again as she untangled her legs and, in doing so, slumped sideways, her shoulder hitting the far end of the wall. “Ouch!” She maneuvered around to see what it was that was digging into her shoulder. And there it was, in plain sight, so to speak.

  Lucy looked at what she thought was a walking stick but was more like a cane, actually. But on closer inspection, it turned out to be a man’s black umbrella, which only appeared to be leaning against the wall but was actually mounted, the brackets undetectable unless you were on your knees and looking right at them. In plain sight. A man’s cane, a short man’s cane. A short man like her father. But it wasn’t a cane; it was an umbrella. She sucked in her breath again and started to press and prod and squeeze until she found the button that would normally release the umbrella. The umbrella didn’t open up. Instead, the floor right in front of her started to slide toward her mother’s section of the closet. The safe. Lucy sat down and hugged her knees.

  So, I was right, after all, she thought as she looked at the safe in the floor. This has to be the queen mother of all safes. Some engineer somewhere, she opined, must have designed this particular safe, because it looked so unusual, at least to her eyes. She’d seen safes, all kinds, in movies, on television, and she’d read about safes in novels. None were anything like this one. It was almost as long as two yardsticks end to end, or seventy-two inches long. While it looked to be a one-piece unit, it had three doors and three keypads. “And what is behind Door Number One?” Lucy said out loud. Then she went off on a rant that only frustrated her more. Right at that moment, at that precise moment in time, Lucy knew that her parents were involved in something other than being retired. Why would two retired doctors need a safe of this magnitude, hidden away like this?

  Lucy continued to hug her knees as her mind raced. Houses that didn’t look lived in. Clothes that appeared brand-new, never worn. Staged. But for whom? Certainly not for her, because she never came here. Who then? Her parents didn’t know they were going to die in such a tragic accident. Were they in hiding in plain sight? Doctors had an inside track to drugs. Were her parents involved in something like that? Where did they go when they traveled? Where did they actually live? Anyone who was reasonably intelligent would figure out sooner rather than later that this house and everything in it was for show. She was positive now that her parents had not lived in this house on a daily basis. Maybe they came and went, but they sure as hell didn’t live in it. That was one thing that she was absolutely certain of.

  Lucy continued to stare at the state-of-the-art safe in the floor. Three keypads. Three different combinations, and she had no clue what they might be. The keypads were digital.

  By four thirty, Lucy was ready to go nuclear. She’d tried every sequence of numbers she could possibly think of, house numbers, birth dates, special dates, random numbers, anything she could think of, but absolutely nothing had worked. She was angry at herself, but angrier still at her parents. What was she supposed to do if she couldn’t figure out how to open the safe? Was she supposed to walk away and forget about all of this? Whatever the hell this was? Was it possible that the first keypad had to tie into the second, then the third? More than likely. If that was the case, she might have to blow the damned thing up before she could get it open. Or, magically, come up with a safecracker out of nowhere. That, in itself, would open up a whole other can of worms.

  Lucy was back to hugging her knees, her eyes narrowed as she ran through numbers in her head. Outside, the monsoon rain continued to lash at the windows. She could hear the winds howling. She shivered and almost jumped out of her skin when the doorbell rang. She realized how vulnerable she was, all alone in this big house, even more so now that she’d actually found the safe. She got up and ran to the window but realized it overlooked the side of the yard and not the front of the house. She ran down the hall to the second empty bedroom and looked out the window. With the pouring rain, all she could see was a person—she assumed it was a man—holding an umbrella and punching the doorbell. She craned her neck to see if there was a vehicle in the driveway, but it was too gray and rainy to see anything.

  The house was locked up tight, so she wasn’t worried that anyone could break in. The doors were stout and solid mahogany. The locks and dead bolts were top of the line. She knew she was safe as long as she didn’t open the door. She’d had the good sense to park her rental car in the garage, so anyone coming to the door would assume no one was home. She clearly remembered turning out the kitchen light that morning, when she’d come upstairs to start her search. That meant the house would appear dark to anyone just looking or attempting to visit.

  “Go away, whoever you are,” Lucy whispered to herself.

  The doorbell rang one last time, a long peal that didn’t let up, as if the person was pressing the button and holding his thumb on it. And then the house went silent again.

  Lucy watched as the figure turned around, walked a few steps away, and stood staring up at the second floor. Unless the person down below had X-ray vision, Lucy knew he couldn’t see her in the darkened room. Still, she shivered. She remained where she was until she saw the lights of a vehicle spring to life. She watched until she couldn’t see the lights anymore before she left the room and barreled down the steps and into the kitchen, where she made a fresh pot of coffee and scarfed down the two remaining doughnuts from the bag on the counter. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until just that moment. If nothing else, the doughnuts took the edge off her hunger.

  Lucy carried her cup of coffee back up to the second floor, where she made her way into the walk-in closet again. She sat down, her back to the wall, and stared at the safe. She needed t
o think about the phrase “If you want to hide something, hide it in plain sight.” Well, that was how she’d found the safe, so now she had to find the combination in the same way. Think, Lucy. If this were you, where would you hide the combination? When nothing came to her, she continued to sip at her coffee as she stared at the contents of the closet. Seven! Without stopping to think, Lucy leaned forward and started pressing the number seven, hoping against hope the red armed light would turn green. It didn’t.

  Lucy squirmed farther back and stared again, going from left to right, then from right to left, the way the old-time safes used to work. Seven was the key number; she was sure of it. Four times to the right, three times to the left, then two times to the right again. She’d seen that in a movie once. She realized then that she’d watched an awful lot of movies to have retained this kind of information. She tried again and again and still again, growing more frustrated as she went along. Seven. But . . . there were sixteen pairs of shoes on her mother’s side of the closet, plus each of them had a pair of snow boots. One pair each. Could that be a two? If you added the two numbers that made up the sixteen pairs of shoes, you got seven again. She was onto something; she could feel it. Then if you took that seven and added two, it would make the last number nine, or if you subtracted it, it would make the last number five. Or possibly the last number was just a two.

  Lucy pressed the numbers at the speed of light, but nothing happened. Plain sight. Think plain sight. She’d exhausted every combination but one, so she flexed her fingers. If this didn’t work, she would simply close the safe back up and walk away. She pressed the number seven three times on the first keypad; then she pressed it three more times on the middle keypad. When she got to the third keypad, she hit the seven, then the one, then the six. She held her breath and almost fainted when the red light turned a bright emerald green. She was so shocked, she didn’t know what to do. She forgot the storm outside, forgot how hungry she was, forgot the stranger who had knocked on her door. She focused only on the three keypads and the heavy iron handles that would open the doors. She crawled on her hands and knees over to the first one and opened the door. Slick as a whistle, she thought.