For Want of a Memory Page 18

  He pushed those thoughts away, reminding himself not to rock the boat, and stood up. He reached for the flash drive that had the file on it.

  "Did you back it up on the hard drive?" she asked, leaning past him.

  He couldn't resist. He looked down. There it was. A perfect breast, smooth and round, with a bright red nipple on the tip.

  "Kris?" She leaned back and the breast disappeared.

  "Uh ... I guess not," he said.

  "Well back it up!" she ordered him. "I can read what you've done so far while you're at work."

  He plugged the flash drive back in and copied the file to her hard drive. He made a special effort not to look at her. The tingle in his groin suggested that would be a bad idea right now.

  She walked him to the door, still smelling wonderful.

  "Thanks," he said.

  "For what?"

  "For letting me hang out here ... for helping me ... for everything."

  "You're welcome," she said, smiling widely.

  He opened the door and stopped. He felt the icy cold coming through the glass in the storm door and couldn't help looking at the front of the gown. Two little bumps appeared, as if by magic. She hugged herself.

  "Did you mean what you said?" he asked.

  "About what?"

  "That you didn't say I couldn't slap you on the ass again," he said. His eyebrows went up as he realized that might not have made any sense.

  "Maybe," she said, pushing him out the door.

  * * *

  Lola Henderson, bitch extraordinaire, was still a very unhappy woman. She hadn't heard from her boyfriend for three whole weeks. It was as if he'd disappeared off the face of the Earth. She'd been to his apartment a dozen times, but her insistent knocks brought no response. Calls to his phone only got her the same information over and over, that the subscriber's phone was off. She'd left half a dozen messages.

  She was at his apartment door again, trying to figure out some way to defeat the lock. She'd seen people fiddle with locks on TV and it looked easy, but nothing she did made any difference.

  She remembered his car suddenly, and took the elevator to the parking garage. She went to his assigned space. The car still wasn't there. She checked the other spaces to see if he'd parked somewhere else, but it wasn't in the garage at all.

  She was trying to believe she hadn't been dumped. At the same time, she was angry that she had been dumped. Why else wouldn't he call? She'd been so close to getting a key to his place. She'd already planned on what she'd bring first, moving in little by little, and staying the night until she just stopped going back to her own apartment altogether and could give up the lease on it. She'd already planned on how she'd get him to write the book that would make him rich ... make them both rich. It would be about her, of course, and after it hit the best seller list she'd go on camera with him during interviews. Producers would see her. She'd be offered roles in movies. She'd become a star.

  But not if her asshole boyfriend wouldn't call her or answer his fucking door!

  She went back up to his door and beat on it until heads started poking out of the other doors along the hallway. Some told her to knock it off. One mentioned calling the police.

  The police!

  Of course!

  She'd forgotten all about making a missing person's report. She'd go do that and the police would find him for her. Then she'd grab him by the balls and never let go.

  * * *

  The desk sergeant eyed Lola appreciatively. She was a brassy blond, tall and leggy. She had tits that would make a great pillow for falling asleep on after he fucked her blind.

  "I want to report a missing person," she said.

  "How long has this person been missing?" he asked politely.

  "About three weeks," she said.

  "About?"

  "I don't know exactly," she said. "He hasn't called me in three weeks."

  The desk sergeant pulled out a form and clicked his pen, ready to write.

  "Name?"

  "Lola Henderson," she said.

  "Not yours ... his."

  "Oh. Kris Farmingham."

  "Relationship?"

  "Of course we're in a relationship," she said.

  The desk sergeant wanted to groan. He'd have to fuck her mute too. He decided she was a natural blonde.

  "What relationship is he to you?"

  "He's my boyfriend," she said.

  The desk sergeant clicked his pen again and put it back in his pocket.

  "Your boyfriend hasn't called you in three weeks ... and you think he's missing."

  "Well of course he's missing," said Lola, beginning to get upset. "He wouldn't go that long without talking to me."

  "Did the two of you have a little spat, maybe?" suggested the desk sergeant, hoping she would answer in the affirmative, so he could offer to give her a shoulder to cry on.

  "Of course not," she said. "We're in love!"

  "I'm sure you are," said the desk sergeant, beginning to lose interest. "Have you talked to his employer?"

  Lola blinked. "Well no. I never thought of that."

  "Why don't you go talk to his boss first," said the desk sergeant. "I'm sure he's just been too busy to call you. Maybe he's been working overtime, to get money to buy you flowers and candy."

  Chapter Fifteen

  Kris was thinking while he ate breakfast at The Early Girl. That he could think at all was interesting, because the place was packed and noisy.

  The temperatures outside were still sub-zero, which brought about an interesting phenomenon. Most folks just wanted to stay in bed, where it was warm and cozy, on mornings like this. If they had to get up for some reason, a lot of them opted to just get dressed and then go to a warm, good-smelling place, where the food was prepared for them. It might have seemed odd to Kris that so many people would rather brave the cold, than fix something at home in weather like this, except that wasn't what he was thinking about.

  What he was thinking about was what he'd written while he'd been the "midnight DJ" the night before. It was easy to think about, both because it was fresh in his mind and because the woman who seemed to be responsible for all the steamy scenes in the book he was writing was within thirty feet of him. Lou Anne was waiting tables, and ignoring him. She was involved in an intricate dance that carried her all over the diner, balancing plates on her arms, with only one hand free because the other held a coffee pot.

  One of the scenes he'd written was directly related to Lou Anne. Sir Roger Quigley, while seated in a chair on the deck of "The Ugly Mermaid," had casually slapped the ass of a passing matron, one of his current bevy of captured women. The women were all put to work, scrubbing the decks or doing other "household chores" on the ship. The matron had turned on him in a rage, driven beyond her fear of the pirates who had captured her, and had attacked him. The scene had degenerated, in his opinion, into a situation where, while he'd subdued her, Sir Quigley had exposed her breasts. Holding her down, he had attacked her nipples with his lips, while she struggled and screamed and the interested crew looked on. Quigley hadn't done anything else but suck at her breasts, until she wore herself out, resisting. Then he had tried to kiss her lips, while she turned her head this way and that, avoiding him. In the end, though, she had fallen prey to his charms and ended up kissing him back. He had then let her up and she had meekly accompanied him to his cabin, where he thoroughly ravished her, to her eventual delight.

  Kris had thought the whole thing was patently ridiculous as he wrote it. It seemed so laughable that he'd stopped writing at least four or five times, trying to figure out how in the world to add a little realism to the scene. The impossible scenario was supposed to encourage the woman's daughter, who'd watched her mother's forced submission, to seek Sir Quigley out voluntarily, lest she be embarrassed in public as well. Each time he had added to the goofy scene, it had seemed less believable. Especially because the crew of "The Ugly Mermaid" seemed more like that of the Pirates of Penzance than real pi
rates. It confused him that he could remember the musical, but not where or when he'd seen it.

  He was still thinking about it as someone sat down across from him in his booth. He looked up from his plate to see Mitch Connel settling into the seat.

  "Morning," he said, automatically.

  "No place else to sit," commented Mitch.

  Kris wondered if that meant the lawman didn't want to sit with a suspect, or if it was merely an apology for forcing his presence on a lone diner. He decided to take the middle road.

  "You're welcome any time," he said.

  "Well thanks," said Mitch, his eyebrows rising. "A lot of people don't have that kind of attitude toward me."

  "Don't know why," said Kris. "You're just doing the job they hired you to do."

  "Yeah, well, they all seem to want me to enforce the law on everybody else ... but not them." He grinned. "So, how have things been going? I hear you got a job."

  "I did," said Kris. The fact that the man knew about that probably meant he knew what that job was too, so he didn't bother to elaborate. "It gives me time to write, in between duties."

  "So, what are you writing?" asked Mitch.

  "Be right with you," said Lou Anne as she breezed by. Mitch just waved at her.

  "It's a romance novel ... sort of," said Kris.

  "Sort of?"

  "It's ridiculous and stupid and completely impossible," said Kris. "But it's what I'm writing."

  "So write something else," suggested Mitch.

  "I wish I could remember what I usually write about," sighed Kris.

  "What if you usually write romance novels with completely impossible plots?"

  "That can't be," said Kris. "If I had been doing this for a living, I would have put myself out of my misery long ago."

  "It can't be that bad," said Mitch.

  So Kris told him about the plot of the book and the latest scene in it. By the time he was finished, Mitch was smiling widely.

  "Hell, I'll buy a copy of that one myself!" he exclaimed.

  "You've got to be kidding," said Kris.

  "Sounds kind of titillating to me," said Mitch, shrugging his shoulders. "It's every man's dream, to have access to all those women and to be able to control them and get whatever he wants, whenever he wants it."

  "That's what makes it so stupid," said Kris. "Nothing like this could happen in real life."

  "That's why they call it fiction," said Mitch, grinning again.

  They were interrupted briefly by Lou Anne, who set down a coffee cup, filled it, and took Mitch's order before moving on. She didn't write anything down, only repeating it to Mitch, who nodded his head. She yelled something to Hank that was obviously some kind of code for what Mitch had ordered and got a grunt in reply.

  "I don't know how the ladies will feel about your book, though," said Mitch, sipping his coffee. "I can't think of any women I know who would be into being subdued, in public, and then being led to slaughter like a lamb."

  "I guess I'll find out tonight," said Kris. "Lou Anne will tell me if I'm off base with it."

  "Lulu?" Mitch looked surprised. "You let her read this stuff?"

  "She's kind of my self-appointed editor," said Kris. "Not that I mind. She's actually pretty good at it. I don't know how I can tell that, but I know she is."

  "I'd think that could be very dangerous," said Mitch. "She's a very opinionated woman and her response to things she finds objectionable is legend in this town."

  "She's the one who came up with the plot idea," said Kris. "A lot of what's happening in the book is because of her suggestions."

  "You have got to be kidding me," said Mitch, his jaw dropping. "Our Lulu?"

  "She's a very passionate woman," said Kris.

  Mitch sat back in the booth, staring at Kris. "Brother, I have just got to learn more about you. You show up out of the blue, mostly dead, with a gunshot wound. You can't remember anything and yet, within a space of weeks, you have one of the most formidable women in town eating out of your hand, and are writing what sounds like an interesting book."

  "She's not eating out of my hand," objected Kris. "She just has some ideas. We work well together, that's all."

  "Have you kissed her yet?" asked Mitch, looking interested.

  "Of course not!" exclaimed Kris. "What kind of man do you think I am?"

  "I don't know," said Mitch candidly. "That's one of the things that makes you so interesting." He grinned. "Besides, kissing a woman isn't anything close to what you described in your book. I pity the man who tries something like that with Lulu. The man who slaps her on the ass will likely lose his whole arm, but a guy might be able to get away with a little kiss."

  "She's not like that at all!" objected Kris.

  "You don't know her like I know her," said Mitch.

  "I've been spending most evenings at her place," said Kris. "She lets me use her old computer to write on. She doesn't have an unkind bone in her body. And I slapped her on the butt and still have my arm." He held out his right arm, before he realized what he'd just said. He jerked it back and looked around, as if to see who might have overheard him. Then he looked back at Mitch, who had an odd look on his face. "I shouldn't have said that," he said, his voice almost a whisper. "It just kind of happened while I was caught up in writing. You can't tell anybody I told you that."

  "What did she do?" asked Mitch, looking interested and leaning forward. "When you did that, I mean."

  "I shouldn't have said anything," insisted Kris.

  "I hear deep dark secrets every day," said Mitch, who might actually hear a deep dark secret once every other month or so, but didn't feel at all bad about massaging the truth in this case. "You could write a whole book, based on the secrets I know and have never told."

  "If I did that they wouldn't be secrets anymore," said Kris, trying to change the subject.

  "Come on," wheedled Mitch. "I won't tell anybody. And I'm not going to give you the information for that book either. It was just my way of telling you I can keep my mouth shut. I'm just interested, that's all. Lulu is a fascinating woman."

  "I thought you had a girlfriend," said Kris, still trying to avoid answering the question.

  "I do. We're in more of a habit than a relationship, though. She wants to get married and have babies and all that. I'm not quite there yet. We've broken up four or five times. I still don't understand why we get back together each time." He smiled. "There. I told you one of my secrets. Come on, I'm just curious, that's all. I've known Lulu since she got here and in all that time I've never seen her display any interest in a man at all. Sometimes I wonder how she got pregnant with Ambrose in the first place."

  "That's a horrible thing to say!" complained Kris.

  "Just my observations, that's all," said Mitch. "Come on. What did she do? Did she throw something at you?"

  "She didn't assault me, if that's what you're thinking," said Kris. "Don't think I'm going to tell you something that would get her arrested, because that's not going to happen."

  "I didn't mean it like that," insisted Mitch. "My curiosity is purely personal."

  "You thinking about switching girlfriends?" asked Kris. Mitch's description of his "relationship" suggested it wasn't purely monogamous.

  "Not for Lulu," said Mitch, leaning back. "I don't think I'm man enough for that one." He grinned. "Though I am trained in self defense, as you obviously must be if you're still walking around upright after slapping her on the ass."

  "It wasn't like that at all," said Kris. "She just told me I shouldn't have done it."

  "That's it? She just told you ... with only her voice?"

  "It was very civil," said Kris.

  Mitch was silent for a moment. It was obvious he was thinking hard.

  "Well, brother, you'd better strike fast while the iron is hot, because if all she did was talk to you, she's interested."

  "I don't think so," said Kris. "She was probably just being polite to a slightly deranged man."

  "Lulu isn'
t polite to anybody who pisses her off," said Mitch.

  They were interrupted in their discussion by the object of it, who delivered Mitch's pancakes, eggs and sausage by sliding it from the end of the table with a shove as she walked by. She had two other plates in her arms and the ubiquitous coffee pot in her other hand. The plate came to a stop dead in front of Mitch, who was staring at her. She looked over her shoulder at him as she went on to another booth and relieved herself of the other two plates. On the way back, she stopped, looking at Mitch, who was still staring at her.