Forget to Remember (7 page)

Carol was taken aback by this statement. It
sounded racist to her. It didn’t seem to bother Rigo who responded
in turn. “You’re about to be knocked off your pedestal,
g
ringo
. The Asians are taking over the hill. Soon you’ll
know what it’s like to be part of a minority.”

“
Es verdad
. Most of my clients are
Asian. They have all the money.” Adam faked glumness but then
brightened as he spoke to Carol. “I’d be happy to look after your
investment needs.”

“I don’t have any money.”

“You and Rigo are singing the same song. A
temporary situation, I assume, at least in your case. Beautiful
women don’t have trouble attracting money. I’m not so sure about
Rigo.”

First Rigo and now Adam. If enough men
implied she was beautiful, she might start believing it.

***

Carol declined offers from both Rigo and
Adam to drive her home. It almost seemed as if they were competing
for her attention. She suspected competition formed a significant
part of their relationship.

She made it up the hill, puffing slightly
less than she had several days before when she had started walking,
and strolled the long driveway that went between two other houses,
to where the Ramirez house was set near the edge of the cliff.
Ernie and Tina weren’t home yet. She knew this because a FedEx
package was sitting at the front door. They had given her a key.
She unlocked the door and carried the flat cardboard container
inside.

Only then did she glance at the address on
the package. She did a double take. Her eyes weren’t playing tricks
on her. The package was indeed addressed to Carol Golden. How could
that be? She looked for the address of the shipper. It was Paul
Vigiano’s law firm.

Recovering from her initial shock, she
wondered what Paul, as he wanted to be called, was sending her. She
tore off a cardboard strip and flipped up the flap to get to the
contents. There were several computer-printed pages and an
envelope. She glanced at the first page; it was a letter from Paul.
Without reading it, she looked at the second page and realized it
was an airline E-ticket. The passenger’s name was…Cynthia Sakai.
Was this some kind of a joke?

She quickly tore open the envelope. The
first thing she saw was a considerable quantity of
bills—twenty-dollar bills. There was also a small plastic card. She
pulled out the card. It was a driver’s license from the state of
North Carolina. Her picture was on it—one of the pictures Rigo had
taken of her, except her scars had been erased. The name on the
license was Cynthia Sakai, and the address was Chapel Hill.

Carol went back to the letter. Below the
usual addresses, dates, and such at the top of a business letter it
read:

Dear Carol,

I talked to Elizabeth Horton about you and
she wants to meet you as soon as possible. The enclosed ticket will
allow you to fly to Raleigh-Durham using the name Cynthia Sakai.
After all, this may be your name! The driver’s license will serve
as your identification. It is a legitimate North Carolina license
and nobody will question it. It isn’t the license Cynthia had when
she disappeared, but that disappeared with her.

I have made reservations for you at a local
hotel. All your expenses will be paid while you’re here. To cover
any incidental expenses you might have I’m enclosing $500.

It’s in the best interests of all of us
(you, Mrs. Horton and myself) that we establish whether or not you
are actually Cynthia Sakai without delay.

Please feel free to call me if you have any
questions. I look forward to seeing you on Monday evening. Somebody
will meet you at the airport.

Yours sincerely,

Paul Vigiano

Attorney at Law

Carol looked at the driver’s license again.
It said she had been born on August 10, 1984, which would make her
twenty-five years old. That was all right with her. It sounded like
a good age. Could she really do this? By using a fake driver’s
license, she’d be breaking the law.

She felt guilty. She’d probably always been
a law-abiding citizen. Her fingerprints weren’t on file. But almost
anything she did broke the law. Just by living she was probably
breaking the law because she didn’t have the documentation the law
required. When she looked at the problem like that, it didn’t
really matter what she did. A growing excitement and anticipation
inside told her she was no longer worried about the law.

She heard a noise at the front door. Tina
and Ernie were home. She stuffed everything back into the cardboard
container and ran up the stairs with it. She placed it in the
drawer of the dresser in her room, underneath the underwear Tina
had bought for her. She wasn’t sure why she was doing this. She
only knew she wasn’t ready to discuss it with them.

CHAPTER 9

The alarm went off at five a.m. It startled
Carol, even though she’d been in and out of sleep for a couple of
hours, waiting for the buzz. She reached under the pillow, where
she’d placed the clock to muffle the sound, and throttled it.

She jumped out of bed and turned on the
light, listening for any other noise in the house. She didn’t think
the alarm had awakened anybody. Ernie and Tina arose about six on a
work day, and Rigo, who had worked the Sunday evening shift last
night, would sleep for several more hours.

She quickly dressed, including putting on
the sweater she would need against the morning chill. She picked up
the small suitcase she had found in the garage and went downstairs,
barefoot. She used the downstairs bathroom, gulped a glass of
water, and grabbed a muffin before she walked out the front door
and quietly closed it behind her.

It was still dark outside, but streetlights
lit her way, and she had sidewalks to walk on here in Rancho Palos
Verdes, unlike a couple of the four cities that made up the Palos
Verdes Peninsula. She had a short walk to the bus stop on Hawthorne
Boulevard, mostly downhill. The suitcase couldn’t weigh much more
than ten pounds. It contained her clothes, a comb, a toothbrush,
and a few makeup essentials—in other words, all her
possessions.

She had checked out the Los Angeles
metropolitan bus system on the Internet. She could get to LAX with
just one transfer. She had broken one of her twenty dollar bills at
a bank in the shopping center on Hawthorne, so she had the correct
change. Even if Ernie and Tina got up before the bus came, they
probably wouldn’t realize she was gone. If for some reason they
became aware of her departure, they would think she was out for an
early morning walk. She had taken such walks on Saturday and Sunday
to condition them. They wouldn’t send out a search party this
early.

There was already some commuter traffic on
Hawthorne, heading down the hill to offices and stores and
factories that could be anywhere from a few miles to an arduous
drive away. The residents of Palos Verdes worked everywhere, and
the earlier they got started in the morning the easier their
commute became.

She crossed Hawthorne with the light and sat
down on the sheltered bench provided for bus passengers, feeling
she was starting to live her life again.

***

Rigo had a job interview at ten, so he’d set
his alarm for seven forty-five. On the way to the shower, he
noticed Carol’s door was closed. This was unusual; she usually left
it open except when she was asleep. She hadn’t slept this late
since she’d arrived.

He showered, shaved, and got dressed, then
went downstairs to eat breakfast. His parents had gone to work.
Rigo counted cereal bowls and determined Carol hadn’t eaten
breakfast. May she was out walking, but she was usually back by
now. He called his mother’s cell phone, ostensibly to tell her good
morning and let her wish him a successful interview, but he also
asked, casually, whether she’d seen Carol. She hadn’t.

Back upstairs, Rigo hesitated, not wanting
to make a tsunami out of a ripple, but then the thought came to him
she might have suffered a relapse because of her head injuries. He
knocked on her door. No answer. He called her name. He opened the
door slowly. The drapes were still closed, but he could see the bed
was empty.

He switched on the light and saw a piece of
paper lying on the bed. He picked it up and read, “Rigo, Tina and
Ernie, Thanks so much for everything you’ve done for me. It’s time
I struck out on my own. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.
Carol”

Rigo’s heart sank. His worst fears were
being realized. Where was she going? She was acting crazy. Why
didn’t she talk to them? Was she taking the train to North
Carolina? Where would she get the money? When he’d calmed down a
little, he remembered he’d written down the telephone number of the
attorney, Paul Vigiano. If Carol was headed east, he might
know.

He called Vigiano’s number. A woman’s voice
answered, “Law offices.”

“May I speak to Paul Vigiano, please?”

“Mr. Vigiano is in court today. Who’s
calling?”

“Rigo Ramirez. I’m a…friend of Carol
Golden.”

“Let me have your number, and I’ll have Mr.
Vigiano call you.”

“Maybe you can help me.” How could he phrase
this without sounding stupid? “Do you know whether Carol—Ms.
Golden—is…going to North Carolina to speak to Mr. Vigiano?”

“I’m sorry. Information about Mr. Vigiano’s
clients is confidential, Mr. Ramirez. I’ll give Mr. Vigiano your
message, however.”

Rigo wanted to shout at her, but that
wouldn’t do any good. He hung up the phone. What was the name of
the woman who might be Carol’s grandmother? He couldn’t remember.
He had time for one more phone call. He called Frances Moran and
got her answering machine. He left a brief message and then headed
off for his interview, trying to compose himself. Carol would be
all right. She was smart and could take care of herself. He hoped
that was true.

***

Carol had no memories of ever flying First
Class, although she was positive she had flown before. Perhaps a
lot. Paul was spending a ton of money to get her to North Carolina.
The seats were roomy, and the flight attendants fed them, something
they no longer did in Economy. On the first leg, to Washington
Dulles Airport, they even gave her champagne. It felt funny to be
drinking so early in the morning.

Her seatmate on the United Airlines
wide-body was a prosperous looking businessman. They exchanged
hellos when she squeezed past him to get to the window seat. She
wouldn’t have minded chatting with him, but he read a newspaper
before the plane took off. As soon as permission to use electronic
devices was given after they cleared the coastline, he buried
himself in his laptop computer and never came up for air.

Carol amused herself by reading the
in-flight magazine, doing the crossword and a couple of Sudoku
puzzles, all of which she found quite easy. She had a storehouse of
knowledge. It just didn’t happen to be knowledge about herself.
When she became bored with the puzzles, she watched the landscape
below whenever it wasn’t covered with clouds, wondering whether she
had a connection to any of the deserts, mountains, plains, and
forested areas they flew over.

As the small plane she had transferred to at
Dulles landed at the Raleigh-Durham Airport, flying in over trees
and water, she began to feel nervous. She could see a highway that
was probably Interstate 40. She had studied maps of the area
online. When the plane taxied up to the gate and the door opened,
she followed the other passengers into the terminal.

She stopped in a restroom to attempt to make
herself look presentable. She peered in a mirror and fluffed her
short hair with her fingers so that it covered her bald spots. She
had gotten it trimmed yesterday and was no longer wearing the
beret. The marks on her face were going away. She looked pretty
good, if she did say so herself.

She hadn’t checked her small suitcase, so
she looked for whoever was meeting her near the baggage carousel. A
middle-aged woman stood there with a sign that read “Cynthia
Sakai.” She almost walked right by, but she suddenly realized
she
was Cynthia Sakai. She had better get used to traveling
under an assumed name. Just like a spy. She had a memory of reading
spy stories. Now she was living like one.

She stopped and said hello to the woman. The
woman’s eyes flashed recognition, and she smiled. “Hi, Cynthia, I’m
Rose Guthrie. Let me carry your bag.”

Carol smiled. She was certain she had never
been used to this kind of treatment. “It’s light. I think I can
handle it. Please call me Carol.”

Rose, who was wearing slacks and a light
jacket, led the way out of the building and across several lanes of
traffic to the parking structure. They chatted about how Carol’s
flight had been (fine) and the weather (warm). The lights of a
late-model car flashed in response to Rose’s remote. Carol put her
suitcase in the trunk, and they exited the parking structure and
the airport, heading west on I-40.

Carol saw this ride as a chance to get some
information. “Rose, do you work for Mr. Vigiano?”

“Yes, I’m a paralegal. I do all his grunt
work.” She laughed. She had a ready laugh. “I’m the one who
answered the phone when you talked to Mr. Vigiano.”

“Now I remember your voice. How long have
you worked for him?”

“Almost ten years. Almost forever. No, he’s
a good boss, and it’s a good job.”

“You must be familiar with the Sakai
estate.”

“Oh yes. I prepare all the legal forms that
have to be filled out for any probate. Of course, Paul approves
them before they’re filed, but he trusts me. It was a tragedy,
their plane crashing like that. They were prominent people here in
Chapel Hill. There was a big story about them in the
newspaper.”