Unforgettable (18 page)

Lucky bobbed to the surface just as Greg charged up to the side of the pool. He hauled her out with a quick hoist of his upper body, before the damn shark turned on her. Nomo helped with her air tank while Greg waited, to
rn
between throttling her and hugging her. Water ran down her body, pooling around her feet. With her hair slicked back, she was all eyes and a smile that could melt the polar cap.

Everyone was talking to Lucky, offering congratulations and telling her how brave and smart she was. But she wasn’t paying attention to anyone, not even to Dodger licking her hand. Her eyes were on Greg, her smile for him alone. She looked so pleased with herself, glowing with a childlike enthusiasm Greg had lost so long ago that he wondered if he’d ever had it.

“It worked! He’s swimming.” Lucky threw her arms around him, her face alight with excitement.

In an instant, his shirt was sopping wet. He, Greg Alan Braxton, who was deservedly called a coldhearted bastard, suddenly experienced a secret thrill that penetrated the barrier of his self-control and centered deep in his chest.

He hugged her back, allowing himself to let go of his anger and share her triumph—because she was so thrilled to share it with him.

“I want to open the gate and let Rudy go,” Lucky said.

“We better study him for a few days. See how he does.”

“We can’t do that.”

He was still holding her, his face so close to hers that he could see the individual clusters of eyelashes that had been drawn into spikes by the wate
r. He had a good mind to kiss
her, right then and there, but they were surrounded by people
.

“I promised Rudy that if he would just swim, we’d open the gate so he could get back to his mother.”

Man, oh, man, she was a world-class loony tune. Sharks, particularly tiger sharks, didn’t have family ties. But now was not the time for another lecture on projecting. There must be some part of Lucky’s psyche that was reacting to that traumatic incident with her mother, her only memory from the past.

“Okay,” Greg relented. “Let’s get you out of those swim fins first.”

He knelt down and pulled at the snug-fitting slipper foot, while Lucky put her hand on his shoulder for balance and chatted a hundred miles an hour to the group, telling them how anxious Rudy was to find his mother again. He couldn’t afford to get sentimental about Lucky, Greg reminded himself. She was a psychological basket case beyond his help.

As the fin slipped off, he saw the soles of her feet. There
were clusters of scars—old
from the looks of them—small
circles the size of an eraser’s tip. How had he missed them that night in the tent? Come to think of it, he’d never looked
at the bottom of her feet.

Mommy burr me.

Bu
rn
me.

Christ! Her mother must have taken cigarettes to the bottom of her feet. A muscle quivered in his jaw and Greg stared down
at her toes, not trusting himself to look up, willing his usual self-control to reassert itself. He couldn’t begin to fathom what
she must have suffered. Obviously, she’d been abused, tortured.

Had she ever known love?

He’d been “lucky,” he decided. Cody had loved him, adored him, actually. No matter how cruel Aunt Sis had been, they’d
had each other. Tormented by conflicting emotions, he told himself he hated Cody. But he didn’t. When he’d needed love the most, as a child, Cody had been there.

They’d had each other. Greg’s sixth sense kicked in, telling him Lucky hadn’t been so fortunate. No one had been there for her.

C
ody stood by Nomo, watching as his brother pulled off Lucky’s swim fins. He’d never thought he would live to see the day his brother would be at some woman’s feet. He certainly had a strange look on his face, Cody thought, noticing Greg staring at Lucky’s toes. Friggin’ weird.

Suddenly, Greg looked up and his gaze met Cody’s, disconcerting him so much that Cody almost turned away. Then he realized his brother looked utterly lost, naked anguish etching the harsh planes of his face, revealing all he must have suffered during the last two years.

Transfixed, Cody stared at his brother, recognizing that intimate look. So achingly familiar. Straight from the past, communicating their special bond. And something deeper. The ache in his chest grew more intense with each heavy beat of his heart.

He exhaled a measured breath, not daring to believe that Greg was mouthing the words
I owe you one.

Cody didn’t dare approach Greg, thinking he might have misinterpreted something. Still, he detected a chink in the emotional armor that Greg had so carefully worn since Jessica’s death. Why? Cody wondered. What had happened?

“You know,” Nomo said, breaking into his thoughts, “there is a shark hovering along the shore. Divers got a look at it yesterday. It’s a tiger shark and it doesn’t have a clasper.”

“Really?” Cody was no expert on marine life, but he knew enough about sharks to know that a clasper was a penis, so this shark was a female.

Arm around Lucky in an uncharacteristically protective manner, Greg guided her to the lever that lifted the gate separating the pool from the bay. Lucky tugged on the lever and it made a creaking sound.

Rudy made a beeline for the opening while the group chanted, “Go, Rudy! Go! You’re outta here!
A-a-aloha!! A-a-aloha!”

Rudy shot through the channel into the bay, a blur of tiger stripes in a wash of clear aquamarine.

“Aloha,
Rudy!
Aloha!”
yelled the group.
"Aloha!”

“Look,” someone shouted, “there’s a shark waiting for Rudy.”

“Lalani kalalea,”
Nomo said, using the Hawaiian term for dorsal fins that islanders shouted when sighting a dangerous shark.

Sure enough, an enormous dorsal fin knifed through the waves and hovered around Rudy. Circling. Circling. Circling. Ugly, aggressive behavior that usually preceded a kill.

Then both fins disappeared in a swirl of foam-capped waves. The wind-ruffled water shimmered in the late-aftemoon sunshine, whitecaps studding the waves. But there was no sign of the sharks.

Silence fell over the crowd, and Cody moved forward so he could see Greg. He still had his arm around Lucky, but disappointment etched his face. His expression charged with tenderness, Greg pulled Lucky closer, whispering something to her.

“Looks like Rudy’s lunch,” Nomo told Cody.

“Really?” Cody kept his eyes on his brother, still feeling the afterglow of those special words:
I owe you one.

“Look! There they are!” screamed one of the volunteers, pointing toward the lava rock breakwater protecting the bay from the open ocean.

“Well, I’ll be jiggered,” Nomo said. “Rudy is swimming off with that shark.”

17

“
L
ook at this! Unfuckingbelievable!” The Orchid King’s partner waved a fax at him. “What does she think she’s doing?” They were sitting in the office they’d recently set up in the Chinatown warehouse. The Orchid King took the fax and read the
Maui Tattler
article.

“Pele’s Ghost Frees Brother,” he read the headline out loud. Silently, he scanned the rest of the article, conscious of his partner’s questioning gaze. “I find this shark stuff amusing, don’t you?”

“Fuck, no!” His partner vaulted to his feet. “If you think that’s funny, you have a really sick sense of humor.”

“I merely find it amusing that so many people believe those myths.” He rocked back in his chair, confident he was concealing his true feelings from the one person who knew him best. “Pele was the goddess of fire and volcanoes. Now I ask you, does it make sense that her brother was a shark?”

His partner glared at him. “You’re missing the point. What kind of genius are you? Mensa should revoke your membership. How can you believe what they printed in that rag? Can you
see her, of all people, jumping in with a shark and reattaching its
fins…
risking her life?”

“She’s a different person now that she’s living with Braxton,” the king informed him.

“Sure. Fucking him every which way to hell.”

The king almost flinched at the raw anger in his partner’s voice. What did he expect? He controlled his anger while his partner vented his.

“
Want to know something funny?
”
His partner did not sound the least bit amused. “The Braxton brothers had a big-time fight when Greg Braxton found out his little brother was fucking his wife.”

“That so?” the king asked. “Think history will repeat itself?”

“Shit, yes. You know what she’s like.”

Trouble was, the king didn’t know exactly what she was like. He thought he had known, but he’d been wrong. She’d turned on them after they’d helped her.

“Read this.” His partner handed him the transcripts of the session with the hypnotist.

It took the king a few minutes to read the information. “So it would seem that she doesn’t know who she is and doesn’t remember anything about her past.”

“Convenient, wouldn’t you say?”

Skepticism etched his partner’s voice as well as his face, but the king didn’t share the man’s feelings. He kept seeing a small child at the mercy of an abusive mother. It explained a lot about her personality and made him sad.

“It appears she recalls nothing about the past,” the king said. “We won’t have to worry about her exposing us, will we?”

“No.” His partner plopped down into his chair. “We’re safe, and she’s stuck there—”

“Unless
Missing!
turns up someone from her past.”

The king had always known she was hiding something, lying to them about her past. But he
hadn’t challenged her or encour
a
ged his partner to question her. He had been too obsessed with her to want to know the truth.

“I say we play the ace,” his partner said.

“We’re not showing our hand yet. Why should we risk
everything? Let her go on
Missing!
See if anyone comes forward to identify her.”

“Then we play the ace, right?”

The king laughed, the first genuine belly laugh he’d had since she’d double-crossed him. “Yes, then we play the ace
…
and, remember, the joker’s wild.”

“
A
re you comfortable?” Dr. Carlton Summerville asked Lucky.

“Yes, thank you.” She swirled the sugarcane swizzle stick through her iced tea and gazed out at the pristine beach with the rows of cabana-chaises facing the water. She’d reluctantly come to the doctor’s luxurious suite. “Could we start? Tell me what I can do to help anyone else who has Hoyt-Mellenberger syndrome.”

She sounded snippy, but the doctor ignored it. “I’ve been over your records, and I’ve seen what the other doctors have concluded. I still want to make my own evaluation.”

“I don’t want to be hypnotized. You can use Dr. Forenski’s report.” She had no intention of repeating that harrowing experience.

“I haven’t been able to get her report yet. Could you fill me in on the details?”

Lucky told him about the session with the hypnotherapist. She kept assuring herself that she wasn’t bothered by what she’d learned. The incident in the closet had happened so long ago, in a life she could no longer remember, that it wasn’t true. Sometimes late at night, she’d awaken, near tears.

Never forget. I love you.
Where was that person, she wondered. It wasn’t her mother. The hypnosis session had proven that much. She wished she could remember the person who’d
uttered those comforting words. Too often the raw, aching need to love and to be loved overwhelmed her.

“Knowing your mother abused you is upsetting, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she conceded, shifting her attention from the dapper doctor in his suit and conservative tie to the beach, where a windsurfer was skimming across the waves with awesome agility. She did not want to talk about this.

“Posthypnotic suggestions don’t last forever,” he explained. “That’s why hypnotists can’t cure chronic overeaters or smokers.”

Lucky shrugged it off, truly not knowing if she awoke at night solely because of her troubled past. More likely it was the present. Who could sleep soundly with a man like Greg Braxton down the hall, the door to his room open? The thought of being in his arms was almost too tempting to resist.

“I’m doing just fine,” she insisted, tamping down a spurt of anger. Why couldn’t she keep her mind off Greg? “Now, tell me what you want to know.”

He pulled out a large ringed notebook from a briefcase that looked so shiny, it was difficult to believe it had ever been used. Everything about the man, from his glossy black shoes to his maroon handkerchief nattily tucked into his suit pocket, looked brand-new.

Lucky listened with as much patience as she could muster, verifying that she had her sense of smell, didn’t recognize her face in the mirror, couldn’t give her name, and a variety of other facts that now bored her.

Dr. Summerville put the notebook away and took out a stack of photographs. “I want you to tell me who these people are. If you don’t know a name but the face looks familiar, say so.” He hesitated. “Do you know what a placebo is?”

Placebo? Placebo. She could almost feel her brain searching through the maze that was her mind, scrambling for the answer. It suddenly popped out. “It’s a fake pill that you give to someone. If it works, it’s all in their mind.”

He smiled broadly. “
Exactly. You must have had an excellent
education. Most people wouldn’t know that word unless they’d been to college.”

College. The thought pleased her immensely. Lucky knew Greg had a doctorate, and she wanted to have something in common with him. Too often she floundered, embarrassed, feeling like a mental bantamweight.

“Some of these photos are like placebos. They’re pictures of people you couldn’t possibly know. We do this to make the test scientifically valid.” He spread a series of photographs across the coffee table. “Take your time. Study them carefully. Do you know any of these people?”

She picked up one immediately. “This is Dr. Hamalae. He treated me when I was brought to the clinic here. He’s a really nice man.”

“What about the others?”

She reached for the one of a pretty young woman with clear blue eyes and dark blond hair. “She looks very familiar, but I don't remember her name. It’s on the tip of my tongue, but—” she halted mid-sentence, realizing what she was saying. “This has happened to me before. I’m positive I know this person, but I won’t be able to tell you her name.”

“Why not?”

“It’s like my own name. It’s there, but it won’t come out no matter how hard I try.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dr. Summerville said, removing the photo. “That’s typical of Hoyt-Mellenberger.”

“It is?” For the first time, she almost liked the man. “I’m not alone?”

“No. Most Hoyt-Mellenberger victims recognize famous faces but often can’t put names with them,” he replied, and she began to feel better. There was a reason certain faces looked familiar. “That’s Diana, Princess of Wales.”

“I know her. She’s married to UpChuck—or was. British royalty, right?”

“UpChuck?” Dr. Summerville laughed. “Prince Charles? That’s a new one, but you’re correct.”

“Why would I know his nickname and not recognize her?”

“If you said UpChuck often enough, you’d know it by heart, like memorizing multiplication tables. The key is in the repetition.”

“Then why can’t I remember my name?”

It was a question that kept nagging at her, recurring with irritating frequency, leaving her frustrated. And angry. There was a wellspring of anger that seemed to build with each passing day. Lucky managed to keep it under control but it was there nevertheless, threatening to explode.

“Not remembering your name makes your case unique. I have absolutely no explanation.”

She silently blessed him for not spouting the prostitute-who-used-many-names theory, or the second favorite, the criminal with an alias for every week.

They went through the stack of photos, and Lucky recognized Greg and Nomo but failed to identify a series of famous people, including the president and Elvis.

“Why can’t I recognize their faces if I know w
ho they are when you tell me?”
she asked.

“Don't worry. It’s consistent with Hoyt-Mellenberger. You probably wouldn’t know your own mother. She would just look ‘familiar.’ ”

Lucky doubted that she wanted to know her own mother but didn’t say so.

“The brain stores information about people in two places. You’ve heard things, which are stored in one area, and you’ve read things, which are stored in a completely different place in the brain. With pictures, you’re just seeing without any verbal clues. That isn’t enough when you have HM.”

Lucky liked the doctor better by the minute. He was explaining why so much seemed familiar yet she couldn’t always identify it. And it was good to know she wasn’t alone. She didn’t want to be a freak; she wanted to be like other people.

“You’re very fortunate to have retained
any
ability at all to combine the visual image with the stored information.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t anyone tell you many Hoyt-Mellenberger patients ‘mask’? That means they can’t
ever
remember a face—just as if the people around them were wearing masks. Every time you would see me, I would have to say my name. You wouldn’t recognize me. Once I told you who I was, you’d remember all about me. But you would have lost the ability to link the visual with the stored information.”

Lucky twirled the sugarcane swizzle stick through her iced tea, thinking how very “lucky” she was. What if she couldn’t recognize Greg’s face and had to have him tell her over and over who he was? How humiliating. There were so many things she hated about her life, feeling as if she had nothing but dignity and pride to shore her up, yet she had much to be thankful for. She wanted to relearn as much as she could as quickly as possible—to make Greg proud of her. “How long will it take me to relearn the faces of the people
I
should know, like the president?”

“Learning is dependent on two factors—your intelligence and your interest.” He smiled reassuringly. “A man can often tell you the names of every player on a team, while a woman will remember exactly what dress she wore on a date a dozen years earlier.”

“You learn what’s important to you.”

“Precisely. How fast you learn it—meaning how many exposures it takes—depends on your intelligence. In your case, I would guess that you’re very intelligent. It’ll take two, maybe three exposures to a face, then it will be in your memory bank again. Your relearning time will be minimal.”

Lucky rose and strode to the balcony that overlooked the beach. “You don’t know what I would give to know my own name. I could go to jail for stealing that car if I can’t tell them who I am and why I was driving a stolen vehicle.”