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If she was Hector’s lover, which he had his suspicions about, then it was doubtful the man was living here with her. A man living in this house would feel like an alien creature on foreign soil. Not uncomfortable, necessarily, just out of his element.
“Can I get you something to drink? Despite not remembering, I was able to figure out where all my glasses and plates were. It’s the craziest thing, but I considered where I might want things in certain cabinets and that’s where I found them.”
“So you and your old self think alike.”
“I guess. I don’t remember this room, but I like it. It makes me feel...”
“Protected?”
“I was going to say snug. Why do you think I crave protection?”
“You knew Hector D’Amato and many people believed he was a dangerous guy.”
She closed her eyes as if struggling again to find some wisp of a memory. “I guess I did. I mean I had to. I worked for him. I hope I didn’t know he was into anything illegal. I don’t feel like that would be something I could turn my back on.”
Greg followed her through a dining room and into a large spacious kitchen. For a ranch house it was surprisingly large and spread out. The kitchen resembled the other room in that it was filled with colorful vases on top of all the cabinetry. The ceramic floor tile had pink and purple hues. Pretty. That’s the word that struck him. Everything in her home was pretty without feeling like he was standing in a bad version of a doll house.
“I have iced tea.”
“Sure.”
Greg sat down at a white circular table surrounded by what looked like antique wrought iron chairs. Liza put a glass filled with tea and ice and a slice of lemon in front of him. The perfect hostess. The lemon slice was even balanced on the rim of the glass.
She poured her own glass and sat down across from him. She was wearing denim capris and a blue T-shirt that made her look accessible in spite of her beauty. He hadn’t really let himself think about her in those terms, but in the afternoon sunlight with her hair falling down her back and her figure in clothes that actually fit her, she was stunning.
Do not get sucked in by this woman.
The order came from the practical side of his brain. He was fairly certain he had the wherewithal to make sure that side stayed in control. Fairly certain.
“So, no dog?”
She appeared confused for a moment, but then must have remembered their conversation earlier that morning. She shook her head. “Nope. I found a picture, though. In my bedroom, on my dressing table, there were several pictures. One was my arm around an old black Lab. I’m wondering...maybe he died. I felt sad looking at the picture. Then I felt this horrible guilt that I couldn’t remember his name.”
“You need to give yourself a break. You have to stop thinking every time you turn a corner that it’s all going to come rushing back.”
“That’s exactly what I think! I can’t stay like this. Not in this vacuum.”
Greg frowned and thought about what he had come to tell her. It wasn’t good news and might unsettle her more, but he was coming to the realization that he needed to make a decision. He either needed to believe her and treat her accordingly or concede that she was lying.
As a former psychologist, he used to always believe in people, always gave them the benefit of the doubt. He thought he had crushed that side of himself. Buried it under his cynicism. But now he knew it still lingered. Buried, but not dead.
Greg wanted to believe her.
“You said you have more information.”
He nodded and took a sip of his tea to postpone the inevitable. “What did they tell you at the police station?”
“You know what they told me.”
“Humor me.”
“My name is Eliza Dunning. I work as an accountant for The Grande. I knew Hector D’Amato, possibly intimately...”
He noticed the smallest shiver, as if she’d suddenly felt a chill.
“I know that he was shot and killed late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, I guess. That I was there for some reason.”
Greg nodded. It could be they hadn’t put all the pieces together. Eventually they would. They would learn what Mark had already told him. In the context of the case, he wasn’t sure if the information helped or hurt. He imagined each side could use it either way.
“They didn’t mention your father?”
“No.”
He could see her face go white. “Family! I didn’t think. I should call my family. I must have someone. Maybe a brother or sister. My parents...”
“Your parents are dead.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I read the article that reported their deaths.”
Greg watched her reaction and felt like a man kicking a puppy. A helpless puppy who was expecting a pat on the head instead of pain. He wondered why the police hadn’t told her who her parents were. They had to know; the name and the connection to D’Amato was too obvious. Maybe they thought it worked against their scorned-lover theory.
“Your father was Arthur Dunning and your mother was Louisa. They were shot and killed when you were eight years old. You were their only child.”
Shot and killed in their home. At the dinner table. When the police arrived they found Liza huddled under the table in a state of shock—and she had no memory of what had happened.
“Why?”
“Your father was in the mafia.”
“My father.” She gulped.
“I’m sorry.”
She stood then and walked over to the sink, poured her untouched tea down the drain and then held on to the counter as if it was her only support. “I don’t know how to process this.”
“I wish I could sugarcoat it but I can’t.”
“In the pictures...” Liza left the room and Greg got up to follow her. Off the living room was a hallway that led to two bedrooms and what looked to be a home office. The largest bedroom was in the back of the house. Greg hesitated before stepping over the threshold. A man didn’t just walk into the bedroom of a woman if he wasn’t sleeping with her.
But she was right there near her low dresser holding a picture in her hand. She showed it to him, and in essence invited him inside her room, inside her space.
“I figured they were my parents. But the photo did look dated and I didn’t have anything more recent.” He could see that her blond hair came from her mother. But she had her father’s eyes.
She picked up another picture. “Who is the woman? Is this my grandmother?”
Greg looked at the older dark haired woman with the big smile and her arms wrapped around what looked to be a ten-or eleven-year-old Liza. “No. I’m guessing it was Hector’s grandmother, on his father’s side. That’s who you lived with after the shooting. Hector D’Amato was your legal guardian and he took you to the woman who raised him, his grandmother.”
She made an awful face. “And I was having sex with him? The man who was my guardian?”
“That’s speculation, not fact. It could be the reason you had a personal relationship with him was because he was your guardian. It’s not common knowledge. Obviously the police weren’t aware of it or they would have said something. My friend had to dig deep to find the connection. The woman who raised you, Maria Angelucci, had divorced and remarried. The fact that D’Amato hadn’t made it public knowledge that he was your guardian was maybe his way of keeping you safe. You obviously must have been close for people to think you were his mistress.”
She set the picture down. “Is that the worst of it?”
“No.”
She closed her eyes. “Tell me.”
“Maybe you should come back to the living room and we can sit down...”
“Tell me. Now.”
Greg shoved his hands in his pockets. “At seventeen something happened to you. You spent almost a month in the hospital. After that you spent another six months at a private mental-health facility about an hour outside the city.”
Her head dropped and he waited to see what her reaction would be. After a moment she lifted her head. “You’re saying I’m crazy?”
“I’m—I used to be—a psychologist. I don’t say anybody is crazy. I’m saying you were ill.”
Her expression changed and she looked at him with near desperation. “Then you believe me now, right? I mean I’m obviously not the most stable person. Of course something happened and—pop—there I went again. So I’m weak or weak-minded, but I’m not a liar. Tell me you believe that I’m not a liar.”
This was it, he figured. It was time now to make that decision. Believe her and treat her accordingly or don’t believe her and cut his ties.
He hoped like hell he was making the right call because he could already feel himself slipping. He was becoming invested in her. In her life, her condition. Too late now.
“I believe you.”
He could see the relief overcome her. She took a few steps back and plopped down on the bed. “Okay. Okay. You believe me and I’m not crazy. Then I need you to believe this, too...I know I can’t remember what happened but I don’t feel like the kind of person who could kill someone. I mean, I had to be there, right? I knew him, he was shot, I was covered in blood. I had to be there, but I don’t think I did it. Would you believe that, too?”
“I think it’s more important that your lawyer believes that.”
“No. It isn’t. I need you to believe me.”
Her urgency made Greg uncomfortable. He didn’t want to be needed by anyone. That wasn’t his role anymore. But he could see he was basically offering his support like food to a starving animal. Of course she would take it, of course she would hold on to him. The weight of the responsibility made his own breathing tight.
“Why me?” he asked gruffly. It was more a question for the universe than for her.
Still, she answered. “Because right now you’re the only person in the world who knows me. Who really knows me. Which I guess makes you my friend and I would really like to have a friend right now who believes what I’m saying. I didn’t kill another person. I couldn’t have. Okay?”
Friend. There was that word he liked to avoid. With everyone but Chuck. Because friends needed each other for things and he really didn’t want to be needed.
Then he opened his mouth and the word okay slipped out. Shit.
“Okay,” she repeated. He watched her take slow deep breaths and figured it was probably a technique some therapist had given her to use when she was a teenager. Greg had asked Mark if he knew what her condition was, but Mark had only been able to learn about the hospital stay, not about her particular diagnosis. The information he ferreted out about her stay at the mental-health facility was a total violation of her private health information, but Greg had implicitly given Mark permission to bend the rules.
Still, a month-long stay in a hospital before moving on to treatment? It suggested that there was a physical component to her condition in addition to the mental component. Maybe she’d been recovering from something she had done to herself?
A failed suicide attempt might put someone in the hospital for a period of time. Greg considered himself something of an expert in suicide. It was why he wasn’t a psychologist anymore.
“Why was D’Amato my legal guardian? What was the connection between him and my father?”
“He worked for your father. There were a few articles on Dunning where D’Amato’s face could be seen in the background of a picture. Maybe he was a bodyguard. Maybe he was his second-in-command. They must have been close for your father to trust him with his only daughter.”
She nodded. He didn’t need to expand on that. Now that she understood her father was part of the mafia, it was a good bet that Hector was involved, as well. Which meant she was working for a man she knew to be a criminal.
She was working for the man who had a hand in raising her.
“Is that everything?”
She was waiting for the next blow. “If it matters, I don’t think you have a weak mind.”
She gave a brief laugh. “I can’t remember anything right now and you just told me I spent six months in a mental-health facility.”
“When you were a teenager.”
“What difference does it make? I’m not right.”
He sat on the bed next to her and took her hand. He figured it was what a friend would do and she had officially declared him to be her only friend so he figured he was on the hook. He forced himself to breathe through the constriction in his own chest.
“You were sick then—you’re sick now. It’s not about right and wrong. Trust me, Liza. I know.”
She looked at him and smiled, and then she squeezed his hand. “Thank you.”
He thought she was stunning before, but now she nearly took his breath away.
Warning! Danger! Getting sucked in...commencing now!
Then his mind went to a completely different kind of sucking and he had to shake his head. Had he seriously been thinking about kissing her?
“You called me by my name. It sounded good. It sounded familiar.”
“Liza, what you’re experiencing is hysterical amnesia brought on by what had to be a traumatic event. Maybe not even so unusual considering your history. With some time and rest and being around familiar surroundings the most likely thing is that you will regain your memory.”
Her smile faded. “Yes, but when I do, am I going to find out I was working for a criminal and I was somehow connected to his murder?”
Since the answer was yes, Greg didn’t have much else to offer her. Or maybe he did. Maybe sitting there on the bed, holding her hand, was all she really needed. That’s when he realized what he’d done. He’d officially let himself be needed.
The worst part about that was despite the tightness in his chest, it felt really good.
CHAPTER SIX
ELAINE POUNDED ON THE LOFT door harder than necessary, impatient for it to open. She winced when Chuck opened the door instead of Greg.
He obviously saw her wince and made a face in return to let her know he wasn’t any more pleased to see her. The childish nature of these gestures was not lost on her. Elaine often felt like the teenage version of herself when she was around Chuck.
Why couldn’t she be normal around him for once? Every time she saw him since it had happened, she felt awkward and uncomfortable in her own skin. He would immediately pick up on her vibe and be just as awkward, which invariably led to them slinging insults at each other. Which would lead anyone who spent any time around them to assume that they hated each other.
Only she didn’t hate him. It had just taken her a while to figure that out.
