Forget to Remember (11 page)

She found the small office building on a
side street, just off one of the main Chapel Hill thoroughfares.
She parked in the lot in front of the new-looking brick building. A
newscaster she had been listening to on the radio gave the time as
five fourteen. She was early. Well, better to be early than
late.

Paul’s office was on the first floor. She
found his name on the door, opened it, and entered a small waiting
room furnished with chairs and magazines. On the other side of a
Plexiglas barrier she saw Rose standing beside what must be her
desk, dressed in a business skirt and white blouse. She looked up
at Carol and surprise registered on her face.

Her voice carried through a speaking hole in
the Plexiglas. “Carol…are you here to see Mr. Vigiano?”

“He said to meet him here at five
thirty.”

“You’re not on his appointment schedule.
He’s on the phone right now. I’ll give him a note saying you’re
here. Then I have to leave. I have a class on Friday evenings. I
try to get out of here right at five. I’m late.”

Rose scribbled a note on a message pad,
opened a door behind her desk, disappeared for a few seconds, and
then came back out and closed the door behind her. While the door
was open, Carol heard Paul’s voice droning, sounding like a
lawyer.

Rose picked up her purse from her desk and
came through a doorway that separated the waiting area from her
office. “He knows you’re here. I understand you’re not Cynthia
Sakai. I’m sorry. That means you’re still in limbo.”

Carol smiled. “I’ll find out who I am.
Thanks for your help.”

“You’re welcome. Gotta run. Bye.”

Rose disappeared through the doorway to the
corridor of the building. Carol found she was too nervous to sit
down. What did it mean that she wasn’t on Paul’s appointment
schedule? She paced the floor and picked up magazines at random.
There were the usual family magazines and a copy of
Sports
Illustrated
. She also saw
The American Lawyer
.
Appropriate for a law office. She thumbed through its pages, not
looking for anything in particular.

“I see you made it.”

Carol looked up and saw Paul coming out of
his inside office. He strode over to the door separating the
waiting room from the office area and held it open for her.

“How did you get here?”

As she went through the doorway past him,
she noted he was wearing a blue shirt today with a snazzy tie. His
belt contained some sort of blue, semi-precious stone that matched
the shirt in what looked like a silver mounting. He smelled
pleasantly of aftershave. The aroma jogged something in her memory,
but she couldn’t place it. She decided he was better looking than
she’d given him credit for.

“I drove. I got a rental car.”

Paul’s eyebrows lifted, but he didn’t say
anything. He took her elbow and ushered her into his office. His
wooden desk was larger than Rose’s. An expensive-looking pen and
pencil set were stuck in holders on a black and gold base and sat
on top, as did a large protective pad. Otherwise, the desktop was
empty. The main desk had a side piece projecting from it at a right
angle. A laptop computer sat on this. Shelves containing law books
lined one wall. There was a two-person sofa against another
wall.

Paul motioned toward a padded chair in front
of the desk. “Sit down.”

Carol didn’t want to sit. She wanted to take
the goodies and run, but she realized it wasn’t going to be that
easy. She sat on the comfortable chair and watched Paul watch her
cross her legs. Maybe she shouldn’t have worn a skirt.

Paul went around to the other side of the
desk, but he didn’t sit down. He stood, looking her up and down.
Carol felt exposed and uncomfortable as she waited for him to
speak. He finished his appraisal.

“You look very nice today.”

“Thank you. So do you.”

He laughed self-consciously, apparently not
having expected a return compliment. “Thanks. I didn’t know whether
you’d come.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know. I thought you might call and
say you needed a ride or something.”

Carol realized Paul was as nervous as she
was. Why was that? He was in control of the situation. “I got the
car so I wouldn’t be a burden to anybody.”

“Commendable. Well, on to business.” He took
a key case out of his pocket and unlocked a four-drawer file
cabinet that stood against the wall behind the desk. He opened one
of the drawers and withdrew a legal-sized file folder. He placed
this on the desktop and opened it.

“I think you’ll find that everything’s here.
Passport, driver’s license, ATM card, papers to sign for the bank
account, and a deposit slip for five thousands dollars. Oh, and
here’s the cell phone you wanted.”

Paul opened his middle desk drawer, pulled
out a phone, and flipped it to her. Surprised, Carol reached for
it, fumbled it, and almost dropped it. She finally grabbed it and
slipped it into her purse. She stood up.

“What do I need to sign?”

Paul placed the bank forms so she could lean
over the desk and sign them. “By the way, your middle initial is P.
Use it in your signature.”

“What does the P stand for?”

“Nothing. I used P because my name starts
with P.”

“So I guess my middle name is Paul.”

She meant it to be a joke, but nobody
laughed. Carol signed the forms and glanced up at Paul to see if
there were any more. She realized he was staring at her cleavage,
which her fashionable v-neck top accentuated. Since she was bent
over, he had a straight shot. She straightened abruptly.

“I’d like to look over the passport and
driver’s license.”

She picked up the documents from the desk
and sat back down in the chair. The passport looked familiar. She
had obviously used one before. Of course. If she’d been to England
she would have had to have one.

Paul came around the desk and stood behind
her chair. Was he going to look down her cleavage again? He placed
his hands on her shoulders and started to massage them. It felt
good and she relaxed her guard momentarily. Then his fingers
started to slide—down into her cleavage.

Carol stiffened. She was suddenly terrified.
How had she let this happen? What could she do? In the next few
seconds his fingers made their way inside her bra and reached her
nipples. She was shaking. He was going to rape her right here. She
had an urge to grab his hands, but she knew, intuitively, that
wouldn’t do any good.

All at once, completely unexpectedly, she
became very calm. From somewhere the thought appeared in her head
that she knew exactly what to do. She could even hurt him if she
had to. She didn’t think that would be necessary, however.

As he continued to fondle her breasts, she
heard his breathing accelerate behind her. Carol dropped the
passport and grabbed the arms of the chair. She gave a strong pull
on the wooden arms while at the same time dropping her body down
and out of Paul’s grasp. She slid off the seat of the chair and
landed on the carpet on her butt.

She quickly stood up and whirled around,
facing Paul across the chair. He had a surprised look on his face.
She wanted to keep her advantage. “Wait. Don’t move. We need to
talk about this.”

Paul placed his hands on the chair back,
which was obviously not where he wanted them to be right now, and
watched her, as if he were expecting her to pull something else.
“Do you know what risks I took to get those documents? I had to
invent a Social Security number for you to open your bank account.
I could be thrown in jail. Who would you use for a sugar daddy
then?”

He was almost pleading. That was better.
“Mrs. Horton tells me you’re married.” Carol tucked her breasts
back into her bra and discovered her nipples were hard, perhaps
because she was gratified to know Paul desired her. She was also
curious about her own sexuality.

“Married, yes, but in name only. We’re
separated. I haven’t seen my wife for a month.”

That squared with what Mrs. Horton had said.
At least she wouldn’t have a guilty conscience. “All right, we’ll
do it…but not here. This is too…sordid.”

“We can go to the inn.”

“No, I’ve been there all week and have
gotten to know some of the staff. I don’t want to get a reputation
as a slut. Take me to dinner, just as if you really liked me. Give
me the full treatment, wine and everything. I’m sure you can find a
way to charge it to the Sakai estate. Then we’ll go to your place.
I just have to get back to the inn by midnight. I’m Cinderella.”
Carol found herself chuckling.

Paul managed a smile. “I
do
really
like you. You’re beautiful...you’re feisty...”

“I like the feisty part. All right, let’s
go. I’ll follow you in my car.”

CHAPTER 14

It was surprising to Carol how much of the
earth was uninhabited—at least by human beings. As the plane flew
over the multi-colored rock formations and gorges of the Grand
Canyon, she wondered why, in spite of all these open spaces, some
people were intent on blaming others for all the real and imagined
problems of the world, such as global warming.

The earth had been warming and cooling for
billions of years before the first ape-like creature stood on her
hind legs and decided this was a more efficient way of walking. If
the doom-sayers really believed what they were screeching, they
could make a positive contribution to the solution of the problem.
They could rid the world of their polluting presence.

Carol must have laughed out loud because her
seat-mate glanced sideways at her from the Sue Grafton mystery she
was reading. Where had those thoughts come from? She must have been
an interesting person in her other life. Or at least feisty. Paul
had called her feisty.

Ah yes, Paul. Why had she slept with him? In
retrospect, she admitted she’d enjoyed it. She definitely hadn’t
been a virgin. She knew about birth control and STDs and how to
prevent them. She knew how to do a provocative striptease, which
had left Paul bug-eyed. She knew about the mechanics of sex. Then
she had gone into Cinderella mode and disappeared, leaving him
wanting more.

Yes, she was experienced. Once she had
gained the upper hand and made up her mind to go for it, she hadn’t
hesitated. It may have been partly the feeling she owed Paul
something because of all he’d done for her, but she had to admit to
herself she just plain liked sex. Yes, she must have been an
interesting person.

Her thoughts turned to Rigo. She had called
him and told him her arrival time at LAX, hoping he would meet her.
He had volunteered to do so. Rigo liked her. Maybe his feelings
were stronger than that. She liked him, too. She knew she would
have gladly jumped into bed with him after he saved her life.
However, as long as they lived in the same house, especially with
his parents, that was too much like incest.

She had to be careful she didn’t use Rigo as
a gofer and not give him anything in return. She would be his
friend. Maybe she could do something for him, too, perhaps help him
get a job. She wasn’t quite sure how she could do that, but she
would work on it.

***

Rigo gazed out the sliding glass door and
windows, that covered the dining room wall, at the mountains still
reflecting the setting sun while the flatlands below became
sprinkled with some of the millions of lights that shone at night.
The view made him glad to be alive as it always did, but today he
had a special reason for exuberance. Carol had come back safe and
sound.

Even after he had found out where she was he
worried about her. He had dreams at night in which he searched for
her and couldn’t find her. He knew they were a manifestation of his
fear that she would disappear and he’d never see her again.
Frances, the people finder who was sitting across the table from
him, wouldn’t be able to find her, either, because Carol wouldn’t
leave a trace, not even some of her DNA.

Although he barely admitted it to himself,
Rigo had been relieved when he heard Carol wasn’t Cynthia Sakai. As
Cynthia, she would have moved to North Carolina and lived the life
of a princess. Rigo didn’t see any room for himself in that
scenario. It would be as bad as if she
had
disappeared.

Carol told him that while he was working the
brunch shift at the restaurant, she had slept in and then taken a
long walk to, as she phrased it, clear her head. She hadn’t told
him much about what happened in North Carolina on their ride home
from the airport yesterday. She said she would tell him when she
had her thoughts collected. Whether she had to collect her thoughts
or clear her head, he wanted to be a part of her life.

Ernie and Tina had invited Frances over for
Sunday dinner to celebrate Carol’s return and develop a further
plan to find her identity, since she wasn’t an heiress. Rigo was
glad he had the evening off.

They were eating when Frances asked Rigo how
his job hunt was going. This was beginning to be a sore point with
him. He tried to sound confident and competent. “I’m still waiting
to hear feedback from one interview. I have a couple of others
scheduled. I’m looking into getting the training I need to fulfill
the state requirements to be a licensed counselor, but that would
take a while. The state has a long list of requirements.” He
stopped talking, realizing how puny that answer was.

Ernie said, “We offered to bring him into
the business. We figured with his psychology, he might be good in
sales. I remember when he was in high school, the tennis teams
would hold car washes to help pay for their uniforms and
everything. Rigo would stand in the street with a big sign and a
corny costume and bring the customers in by the dozens.”

Tina smirked at her husband from the other
end of the table. “What I remember is it was the members of the
girls’
team in their bikinis that brought the customers
in—including you. But we do think Rigo could help us. He’s got a
good mind and he can learn the business.”