Forget to Remember, page 14
“Rigo.”
Rigo turned as Carol came racing up behind him. She ran into his arms and clung to him. They hugged for a few seconds, panting, and then spoke simultaneously. “Are you all right?”
They both laughed laughs of relief. They separated and Rigo saw a dark splotch on Carol’s arm. “You’re bleeding.”
***
Carol was dizzy, not from her wound, but from all the things that had happened in the last few hours. Thinking back, as she and Rigo approached the house, the horn activated by the panic button shut itself off. They heard Ernie and Tina calling for them and saw the two fearfully searching the yard and garage with a flashlight.
Tina said, “Oh, thank God,” when she saw them, but followed that exclamation with a concerned, “You’re hurt,” as she saw Rigo holding a reddening handkerchief against Carol’s arm to stop the bleeding.
In rapid succession, sheriff’s deputies, paramedics, and an ambulance arrived. Although she protested her wound wasn’t that serious, Carol was taken to Torrance Hospital where she had spent several days after Rigo found her in the Dumpster. Rigo followed in his car. While she was being treated in the emergency room, sheriff’s deputies questioned both of them.
Her flesh wound was cleaned, sewed up, and bandaged. She talked the doctor out of giving her a tetanus shot by pointing out she had received one when she was found. She was released within a couple of hours because of the efficiency of the hospital staff. Rigo drove her home. Now, feeling better and resting on the couch, she noted it was after two in the morning. They should all be in bed.
In addition to Rigo, Ernie and Tina were still up, looking much relieved. Rigo repeated something for their benefit he had said to the sheriff’s deputy.
“This isn’t a random act. The man was lying in wait for her. He must have been there when I came home. He even followed her into the garage but left when he realized he might get trapped in there. I’ll bet this is the same man who left her in the Dumpster. He probably thought she was dead, but, somehow found out she’s still alive.”
That sounded reasonable to Carol, but who would want her dead? How did he know where she was staying? One thing she was sure of: the man wasn’t big enough to be Beard. She was thankful for Rigo’s help. “Rigo scared him away by yelling.”
Rigo eschewed the role of hero. “Carol was fantastic. She not only managed to press the panic button on the car remote, she also kept closing the garage door in spite of the danger to herself.”
“I was going to open it and run out if he came around to my side of the car.”
Carol felt frustrated, not being able to remember what had happened to her before she was found in the Dumpster. Who was this man, and how were they connected? What had she done to deserve having him trying to kill her?
The other thing bothering her was the expense of the emergency room. She told Ernie and Tina she had some money—not mentioning how she obtained it—and offered to pay. They declined, saying she paid them by helping with their financial analysis and getting Rigo involved with their business.
Then she remembered the problem she had encountered getting admitted to the emergency room because she didn’t have a Social Security number. She wasn’t willing to use the fake one Paul had obtained for her. When she said she was the amnesiac they had treated before, they let her in. However, she couldn’t continue to live like this. She had to get answers.
CHAPTER 23
The next morning Carol slept in. When she awoke, the first thing she noticed was the bandage on her arm. A nurse at the hospital had told her how to change it. She would do that after she got something to eat. Her wound didn’t hurt, but she was hungry. She was halfway down the stairs when she heard the Ramirez phone ring.
She knew Tina and Ernie had left for their office some time ago, in spite of being awake much of the night. Rigo was still sleeping off the effects of working the Sunday night shift at the restaurant and chasing the attacker. Carol’s arm began to throb as she sped up and went into the kitchen to answer the phone. She picked up the receiver and said hello.
“Hello, Carol? It’s Frances.”
It didn’t sound like Frances. She was almost whispering. “Hi. Do you have a cold?”
“No. Listen; Victoria Brody is here.”
“Who? Oh, the woman who might be my mother. She’s at your house?”
“Yes. She showed up on my doorstep this morning. She drove all the way from Fresno. Farmers must get up in the middle of the night. She found my address through the Internet. Nobody’s safe anymore. Anyway, she wants to meet you.”
Carol repressed a desire to say that since Frances used the Internet to find people, she should expect others to do the same. “Let me see if I can get myself to your house. Tina’s car is probably here. I’ll call and ask her if I can use it.”
“You know you don’t have to do this. I can get rid of her.”
“I want to meet her. I’ll call you back in a minute.”
Carol hung up the phone. Excitement was growing inside her. She had to meet this woman who might be her mother.
“Did I hear the phone ring?”
Carol jumped, and then turned to face a bedraggled Rigo who had obviously just gotten out of bed.
“How would you like to take a little drive this morning?
***
“That pickup truck must belong to Victoria.”
Carol looked at the older model Ford parked in front of Frances’ house. It could use a wash, but maybe the dirt was what held it together. Rigo parked behind it, and they walked up the short driveway to the house.
Frances opened the door in response to their ring with a little smile on her face. She hugged them both. “Carol, what happened to your arm?”
“Oh, I got shot, but I’m okay. We’ll explain later. Where’s Victoria?”
Frances obviously had a lot of questions, but she suppressed them and led the pair through the kitchen to the back room. A woman in jeans and a flannel shirt was just rising from a sofa. Her hair was short and the color of iron. She wore glasses over a tanned face. She wasn’t as tall as Carol and quite a bit bulkier. She stuck out a calloused hand and smiled a wide-mouthed smile.
“Carol, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Carol shook Victoria’s hand. Her grip was as strong as that of a man trying to make an impression. Rigo gave his first name and also shook her hand. They had agreed he wouldn’t give his last name at the moment, although she could find it out simply by reading the newspaper accounts of how Carol had been discovered.
Carol felt awkward, especially after Frances asked whether they wanted iced tea or coffee to drink and went into the kitchen, followed by Rigo. She sat on the sofa, some distance from Victoria, who exuded what Carol suspected was a farm odor, and noticed she was already drinking coffee.
“I understand you have a farm.”
“Yeah, my brother and I own a pretty good spread together. It’s a lot of work, but it keeps body and soul together.” Victoria laughed a distinctive, cackling laugh.
“Why did you decide to look for your daughter?”
“Well, it’s like this. Pete—that’s my brother—never married. I never married. It’s just the two of us living there. We aren’t getting any younger. We began wondering who’s going to take over the place when we go.”
“You’re still young yet.”
“Yeah, but you gotta think about the future. Besides, whoever takes over has gotta learn the ropes. That’ll take a while.”
“I see. Have you had any luck finding the adoptive parents?”
“When I had my baby, I was young and scared. My boyfriend had taken off, probably back to Mexico. I didn’t have any money; I couldn’t keep her. I agreed to the adoption with the condition that I wouldn’t know who the parents were or try to look for them—or her. I was good with that then. Now that I want to find them, the doors are closed to me. That’s why I went to this DNA stuff.”
Carol wanted to keep her at arm’s length. “Other than the DNA match, do you have any reason to believe I’m your daughter?”
The question seemed to take Victoria by surprise. She looked at Carol for a few seconds before replying. “Well, I guess I don’t have an answer for that. As I said, I haven’t seen her since just after she was born. But whether you’re my daughter or not, you could be. I mean, you’re about the right age, and you might have got your coloring from your dad. I have a proposition for you. Come and live with me and Pete. Learn about the farm. We’ll write you into our wills. That way you won’t have to sponge off people. You’re a little thin, but you’ll flesh out. Farm life will make a woman out of you.”
“I can’t legally work until I find out who I am.”
“No, no, it wouldn’t be like that. You’d be family. We share everything. Pete loves girls. He’d have made a good father. We had a girl living with us—not a relative. Pretty little thing. We gave her room and board and paid her as well. Pete doted on her. It was a fantastic deal for her. Then she ran off in the middle of the night. Just up and disappeared. Pete was heartbroken. Strangest thing. I assume you wouldn’t do that.”
Living with them wouldn’t help her find her identity. She doubted she could be named in anybody’s will. Carol looked at the woman, knowing that even though there was a slim possibility they might be related, she had to stay out of her clutches. And Pete’s. She wouldn’t be subservient to anyone. There was a name for what her status would be. It was called slavery.
***
“Let’s review. You were a majorette in your former life. You’re good at math; perhaps you were a teacher. You’ve probably spent time in the United Kingdom, based on some of your knowledge and mannerisms. You’ve apparently done some modeling, at least under an assumed name, and you have a gift for attracting men.” Frances glanced at Rigo as she said this. His expression gave away his feelings for Carol. She hoped he didn’t play poker.
When she and Rigo had returned to the family room with drinks, the faces of Carol and Victoria had told her all she needed to know. They weren’t exactly hitting it off. It would have been better if they hadn’t met unless the full genome DNA test proved to be a match. When Frances found out what Victoria had proposed to Carol, she backed Carol one hundred percent and made sure Victoria was driving back to Fresno within half an hour. Frances had formed a negative impression of her when she showed up, unannounced. Hopefully, they were rid of her.
Carol looked as pretty as ever, except for the bandage on her arm. However, once Frances got over her shock at the story of how she had received the wound she realized it wasn’t that bad. Frances sipped her iced tea and contemplated the bandage. “Somebody wants you dead, which, I suspect, is the reason you were found in a Dumpster. This is beginning to look more like a murder mystery than a search for identity—although the would-be murderer was unsuccessful, thank goodness. I don’t know how I can help with that unless he left some DNA…”
Rigo shook his head. “He took the gun with him, and all he touched were bushes. I couldn’t identify the car well enough to help, and no suspicious characters were found in the area. It looks like he made a clean getaway.”
“Unfortunately, Carol, what we know about you isn’t enough to distinguish you from thousands of other young women. Your haplogroup, or clan, indicates your ancestry in your mother’s line is European, but that’s just a tad better than saying you belong to the human race.”
“So, if I have Japanese ancestry, it must be through my father.”
“Chances are. Which is why I was willing to consider Victoria might be your mother and your coloring might be from Hispanic genes by way of your father. Well, of course, she still might be your mother.”
“I hope not.”
Frances laughed. “Your case isn’t sufficiently unusual yet to receive wide press coverage or to get you on Good Morning, America. Perhaps if you still don’t know who you are five years from now…”
“Oh, God, that would be worse than knowing Victoria is my mother.” Carol had a horrified expression.
“By the way, the testing service still hasn’t received the DNA sample from the grandmother in North Carolina, Elizabeth Horton.”
Carol shrugged. “What does it matter? I’m not Cynthia. I think I’d like to explore my UK connection. I don’t want to sit around and wait to see if Victoria is my mother. I’m afraid if I stay with Rigo and his family, I’ll be a target for the gunman. I’m scared to go for a walk. Maybe I need to take another trip.”
Frances watched Rigo frown. She could think of reasons why Carol shouldn’t go, including an obvious one. “You need a passport.”
“I’ll…I’ll take care of that. And I’ve got a little money.”
Frances wondered about those things, but she wasn’t going to ask. “If you’re set on going, you should make the trip as productive as possible. Maybe you were going to school there, or even teaching.”
“It must be next to impossible to find out if someone attended a university unless you have a name. I tried it for Duke and didn’t get anywhere.”
“True, but there are a few things we can do. For example, if you were a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, it would be easy to find out. The names and backgrounds of Rhodes Scholars are public knowledge. I’m sure I can find pictures, too. I’ll check on that.”
Carol looked incredulous. “Don’t you have to be extremely smart and versatile to be a Rhodes Scholar?”
Rigo grinned. “Well?”
“You don’t think that I—”
“That description would appear to fit you to a T,” Frances said. “Sure, it’s a long shot, but we’ve got to try everything. Where do you think you’ll start looking?”
“London. I promised Mrs. Horton that if I went to the UK, I’d look for signs of her granddaughter. She was last seen in London. In doing so, maybe that’ll give me ideas for my own situation. I seem to have a map of the London tube etched on my brain. I must have hung out there for some time.”
***
Actually, Carol and Mrs. Horton had promised Paul she would look for Cynthia, to help extract the money and documents from him, but she didn’t want to talk about Paul in front of Rigo. She still remembered the night she spent with Paul, and the intense feelings it brought back were not ones she wanted Rigo to know about. Perhaps she would have the same feelings with Rigo, someday—assuming they ever did anything together other than act like brother and sister.
***
Rigo drove home from Orange County by a different route than he’d driven there. He took the 405 all the way to the 710, aka the Long Beach Freeway, before heading south to Pacific Coast Highway. Going to Frances’ house he had taken PCH to 7th Street, well past the Long Beach traffic circle, and gotten on the 405 from there. That seemed like a shorter route to Carol who was learning her way around, although staying on the freeway longer was probably faster, at least before the afternoon traffic got too heavy.
The Long Beach traffic circle, or roundabout as it would be called in the UK, was the only traffic circle Carol had seen in California except for a small one in Palos Verdes. They were as scarce as hen’s teeth (which of her relatives had used that expression?) here. She had a feel for roundabouts, although the mantra that repeated in her head was “keep to the left and look to the right,” because the British drove on the left and traffic on the roundabout coming around from the right had the right of way. More proof she’d spent time in the UK.
Rigo wasn’t happy about Carol’s decision to go to the UK. His unhappiness showed in his moodiness before he actually said anything. She kept silent, waiting for him to say what he was thinking, which he soon did.
“I don’t like the idea of you going to the UK alone.”
She didn’t want to argue, so she tried to keep it light. “I’ve obviously been there before, and apparently I made it back to the States. It was here I got into trouble.”
“That was different. What if they find out you have a fake passport?”
How did he know she had a fake passport? It wasn’t that hard to guess. “I might get deported to the U.S. where I’m already a non-person. At least I can’t get deported from here—I don’t think. Where would they send me—to Antarctica?”
“I’m going with you.”
Carol paused before she answered him. She didn’t want what she had to say to sound like a put-down. “Rigo, I really appreciate all you’ve done for me. Without you and your parents, I don’t know where I’d be—probably on Fifth Street in downtown L.A., trading cigarettes for food.” She had almost said “trading sex for food,” but that came too close to the truth.
“You have your own life to live. Helping your parents could be the start of a career in computers for you. You can’t go chasing all over the world with me. It’s noble of you to volunteer, but there’s really nothing in it for you. I have to keep trying to find out who I am, but I also have to face the fact that it may never happen.”
Rigo was silent. Had she hurt him? She had implied they didn’t have a future together. It was certain they didn’t as long as she was a nobody, because nobodies couldn’t get married. Once she had an identity, she’d see the world in a completely different light. Who knew what would happen between them then?
CHAPTER 24
Carol knew she was in England when a breathtaking view of Windsor Castle suddenly materialized outside her window as the plane descended into Heathrow Airport. She had a feeling of excitement, like a child who’s seeing new and interesting things. Except she was sure she’d seen these things before, such as the clusters of row houses separated by expanses of green, built on a slightly smaller scale than they would be in the U.S.
She had spent the past few days making airline reservations and learning all she could about London with the help of a Frommer’s travel guide, maps, and the Internet. Or relearning, because that’s what it felt like. Still, as the plane touched down, she had a moment of panic, wondering why she was doing it. She pushed it aside and concentrated on entering the country without incident.
