Forget Me Not (29 page)

Helen?
he wondered, his heart beating faster at the possibility. At the same time, he didn't want her stopping by. He'd put them both through the wringer by leaving, and one parting, filled with misunderstandings, was enough.

A peek through the eyehole revealed a beautiful, dark-haired woman. A friend of Master Chief's, maybe? Gabe cautiously opened the door.

It took him a moment to recognize her. Dancer-slim, the woman wore her long black hair in a ponytail. She was dressed in a vivid orange leotard, and a matching tie-dye skirt. He blinked at the canary brightness of her. No, she was definitely not a friend of Master Chief's. He'd never go for such a colorful woman. She was Leila Eser, Helen's best friend and proprietress of a ballet studio.

"Hi," he said, curious to know why she was here. Had Helen sent her?

The woman ran her dark, exotically tilted eyes over his rumpled shirt. He hadn't shaved that morning. "Do you remember me?" she asked, one elegant eyebrow rising over the other.

"Leila Eser," he said. "You're Helen's friend."

"That's right." Her gaze went beyond him, into the house.

"Would you like to come in?" Gabe asked, since she seemed to expect it. As she swept into the austerely furnished living room, he couldn't help but notice how out of place she looked, like a colorful canary in a drab, wooden cage.

She seemed to have similar thoughts. With an ill-at-ease expression on her face, she darted a look about the place.

"Can I offer you some coffee?" he asked, tamping down his curiosity long enough to be civil.

"Please," she said, and he moved toward the wall of custom cabinets to pour her a mug of Starbucks. Master Chief was particular about his coffee. "Black is fine," she added, before he could ask.

Accepting the mug from him, she took a hesitant sip. Her eyebrows rose in approval of the brew, and then she fixed her dark-as-night eyes on him, and he knew he was in trouble.

"Helen doesn't know I'm here," she began, giving him an uncomfortably direct look.

"How'd you know where to find me?" he cut in.

"I know Sebastian," she retorted coolly.

She knew Master Chief? By his first name? Thrown off balance by her answer, he resolved to shut up and listen.

She moved gracefully around the clunky furniture and chose a perch on Master Chief's favorite armchair. Gabe followed suit, sitting across from her on the couch.

"Let me be frank by telling you straight off that I never liked you."

Her candid admission struck him dumb. He blinked in surprise, harboring no such feelings for her. In fact, he'd always admired Leila for her unswerving devotion to his wife.

"Helen tells me you've changed," Leila continued, assessing him through the steam of her coffee.

"I hope so," he said fervently.

"Then why are you hurting her?" the woman demanded. "I've never seen her this unhappy."

Oh, hell.
Gabe rubbed his stubbled jaw with agitation. "I'm not doing this to hurt her," he said through his teeth.

She gave him a look that was nearly sympathetic. "Then you need to keep your appointments with the doctor," she advised. "You're sending the wrong message by not going."

A bitter smile seized his lips. Apparently, he hadn't convinced Helen that his precautions were necessary. She still thought he was making up threats; that he was paranoid. "Tell her I'll go to my appointment today," he said. Anything to make Helen happy.

Leila was putting down her coffee cup when the glass door beside them slid open. Master Chief froze at the threshold, his lean, muscled body rimmed with sunshine, water still glinting on his tanned skin. He wore a pair of tiny swim trunks, a towel around his neck, and a look of utter stupefaction.

Gabe had
never
seen that look on Master Chiefs face before. The man steppe -into the house and softly slid the door shut. Not a word had come from him yet. He put out a hand as if to keep Leila Eser from flying off her perch. "Don't move," he said, corroborating Gabe's guess.

His eyes, darker than Leila's, but every bit as mysterious, never left her. He tugged the towel off his shoulders and wrapped it hurriedly around his waist, his movements uncharacteristically clumsy.

Leila ignored the man's orders and rose to her feet. She approached Sebastian with feline grace and handed him her mug. As he reached out and took it, the towel at his hips slipped to the floor.

Leila whirled, perfuming the air with some exotic scent. She walked straight to the door, ponytail twitching enticingly. "Have a good morning, gentlemen. I'll see myself out."

Master Chief exploded into action, but it was already too late. The door had shut behind her. He reached for the doorknob.

"Sebastian!" Gabe called him back. "You don't want to go outside like that." It was all he could do not to break into great gales of laughter.

Sebastian looked down at himself. He'd be the laughingstock of the neighborhood venturing forth this way. He hit the door hard with the heel of his hand. "How do you know her?" he demanded, turning flashing dark eyes at Gabe.

Gabe had never been more entertained in his life. "She's a friend of my wife's." He was getting cramps in his cheeks from trying not to smile.

Master Chief strode back into the living room and snatched up his towel. "What's her name?" he asked, fastening it around his hips.

"You don't even know her name?" The grin that threatened to split Gabe's face got the better of him. "She knows yours."

"Just tell me her name, sir!" Sebastian snarled.

This was priceless. Master Chief was crazy in love with Leila Eser.

Gabe told him her name, first and last, and watched his senior enlisted officer whisper it like an incantation—not once, not twice, but three times.

"Where does she live? What does she do?" demanded the man. His black eyes gleamed like hot burning coals.

Gabe had always sensed that Master Chief had this kind of intensity in him. Yet up until this moment, the man had been control personified. He never raised his voice above a murmur. He could think calmly in the deadliest of situations. It was clear, however, that he'd gone completely ape-shit over Leila Eser.

"Wait a minute," said Gabe, holding up his hands in a time-out gesture. "My turn. How come Leila knows your name and you don't even know hers?"

"I know her," Master Chief insisted. He seethed with energy, prowling about his home like a big, black cat.

"What, like in the biblical sense?"

Master Chief didn't comment. "I've been looking for her," he admitted, running a palm over the seat she'd been sitting in.

"Let me guess. You had some sort of rendezvous with her and she took off after that?" He had to bite the insides of his cheeks to keep from howling.

Master Chief took scathing notice of Gabe's amusement "You think this is funny?" he asked with dangerous calm.

Gabe had to turn around to hide the tears in his eyes. "Funny? Hell, no." It was hilarious. They were perfect for each other, intense and fearless. Yet at the same time they were nothing alike. Master Chief preferred muted colors and drove broken-down classics, never having the time to restore them properly. If Leila Eser owned a car, Gabe would bet his savings that it was new, fast, and cherry red.

"You know where she works?" Master Chief asked with determination.

"Sure. If you drive me to my appointment today, I'll show you her studio," Gabe bargained. "You can visit her while I chat with my psychologist." Recalling Dr. Terrien's opinion of him, some of Gabe's good humor fled. But he would go to his appointment today because Helen wanted him to.

First things first, however. This morning he was planning to pick up the phone and chat with Ernest Forrester, a man whose investigations might shed some light on Gabe's situation. Forrester had been out of town for the past two days and was due back in the office this morning.

Gabe glanced at his watch. It was nearing 8 a.m.

"Call," said Sebastian, guessing Gabe's intent. They'd discussed their next move over coffee.

The subject of Leila Eser was put on hold for the moment.

Gabe lifted the phone and tapped out the number he'd memorized. On the other end, the phone rang and rang. Just as he was about to end the call, a woman answered. "Hannah Geary," she said, sounding stressed.

"Geary, this is Lieutenant Renault, U.S. Navy. Is Ernest Forrester in the office yet?"

A lengthy pause answered his request. "Lieutenant, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news," the woman said in a strangled voice, "but Ernie was killed in a car accident while he was out of town. It was a hit-and-run. No one's been charged yet."

The woman's distress was the first thing that penetrated Gabe's consciousness. Then the actual finality of Forrester's life. Then the implication of a hit-and-run. Gabe sucked in a breath. Was it possible Forrester's death—if it had been intentional—had something to do with Gabe's own situation?

"I'm sorry," he said, meaning it. It was hard to wrap his mind around the sudden tragedy. Christ, he'd spoken to Forrester just last Saturday! "Did you work closely with him?"

"We were very close," she admitted, her voice cracking. "I know about your case," she added.

She did? "Do you think Ernie's work might have had something to do with the accident?" he gently probed.

She lowered her voice to a conspiring whisper. "Let me put it this way. No sooner did we hear about his death than a bunch of suits came in and emptied out his files. They even pulled the hard drive from his computer."

That did sound suspicious.

"I want you to know I intend to pick up where my partner left off," she added with feisty determination.

That didn't make Gabe feel any better. If Forrester had been eliminated for getting too close to the weapons-nabber, Gabe didn't want the same thing happening to his partner. She sounded all of twenty-something. "Look, I think you should let it go and lay low for a while."

His advice prompted a bristling silence, but Gabe wasn't about to recall it. Ernie Forrester was dead. The timing was too suspicious given the man's determination to unravel the mystery behind Gabe's disappearance.

Jesus, this whole affair would be over if he could just remember!

"If you need any help," he continued, "or if something else comes up, I want you to call me." He relayed Sebastian's home number. "You might want to call from a neutral location," he added.

"Got it."
I'm not an idiot,
her tone implied.

Admiring her tenacity, Gabe hung up and lifted his gaze to Master Chief's frown. "Forrester's been killed in a hit-and-run," he said grimly. "That was his partner, some kid who smells a rat and wants to go after it. I hope she's smart enough to leave well enough alone."

"Worry about yourself," Sebastian advised.

"Why worry? I've got the Sandman covering my six."

Sandman was Sebastian's code name, for the simple reason that he put tangos fast asleep—permanently.

"What time is your appointment?" the master chief asked,, switching subjects.

"Four o'clock." Gabe dragged a hand over his jaw. Should he talk to his psychologist? Forrester had warned him against it, and now Forrester was dead.

Did the affable Dr. Terrien have Gabe's best interest at heart? Or was he a conveyor of information, a hound sent to sniff out what the patient remembered?

He pictured the doctor reporting his most intimate thoughts to a third party. Nah, Terrien didn't have the look of a conscienceless traitor. Besides, it was chiefly due to him that Helen had given him a second chance.

Shrugging inwardly, Gabe consigned himself to another counseling session. After all, he hadn't recovered all of his memories yet And his personal life was in shambles.

Sebastian pushed open the glass door of Expressions: A Dance Studio, and promptly set off an electronic chime that played a refrain from
The Nutcracker.

To his relief, the first room was empty of people, giving him a moment to steady his erratically beating heart and wipe the sweat from his palms. The room was painted turquoise and decorated in dancewear, leaping, prancing, and pirouetting along the walls. Each leotard was a shade of neon green, ultraviolet, or canary yellow. Feeling dazed, Sebastian took it all in, in a slow turn.

The first thing he heard when the chime stopped ringing was her husky voice counting out steps over piano music. He whirled toward it and found himself peering down a hallway toward a partially opened door.

"And one, and two, and three and turn! And one, and two, and three and bend! Now stop. Shoulders back. Eyes here. Curtsy. Where are your smiles? Much better!"

A smattering of applause followed these instructions. Leila's voice melded into the sea of excited chatter. The door flew open and out poured a wave of little girls, eyes bright with accomplishment, cheeks pink from exertion.

Tiny legs in leotards, ballet slippers, and tutus. To Sebastian, they looked like fairies, an entirely unfamiliar species, whimsical and otherworldly. As they skipped out of the studio, one of them raised her gray-green eyes at him and offered him the sweetest smile he'd ever seen.

He was still reeling from that smile when he glanced up and found Leila poised at the door, eyes flashing, mouth pursed in disapproval that he should dare interrupt her afternoon routine.

"I don't have time to talk," she informed him. "I have a group of teenagers coming in at four-thirty." She spun on her toes and disappeared behind the door.

Sebastian went after her. He hadn't expected this to be easy.

He found her sweeping the hardwood floor with a soft-bristled broom. She wore a form-fitting leotard with a gossamer skirt around her hips that did nothing to conceal the slender length of her thighs. He wanted to throw a towel over her.

"Why did you come here?" she demanded, seeing him at the door. She swept the length of the room, pushing the broom as she went.

He walked directly into her path. "You used me," he growled, not letting her get by him.

"I have work to do. Kindly step aside."

He snatched the broom from her grasp, instead. "I'll do the work," he said. "You can do the explaining." He stalked away from her, pushing the broom as he went. "For three months I have looked for you," he berated. "You left without explanation. Without even telling me your name!" He pivoted expertly and bore down on her again, not a speck of dirt lost in the process.