Cassie Miles - The Girl Who Couldn't Forget

“Impressive,” he murmured.

“The cameras might seem excessive,” Brooke said, “but I work from home, and I have a lot of very expensive electronic equipment to protect.”

“No need to explain. I like all this tech stuff.”

“And yet you carry a spiral notebook.”

Not exactly a subtle put-down. His attempt to bond with her by pretending they shared an interest in electronics had fallen flat. She wasn’t buying it. He stifled an urge to explain his lousy relationship with computers. Giving her too much information gave her an edge, and he needed to stay in charge. An uncomfortable silence filled the entryway.

“Wow,” Franny said. “There’s some real chemistry between you two. I mean, it’s combustible. And that’s my cue to leave you alone. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.”

He watched her scamper up the stairs to the second floor. “I understand that she’s marching to her own drummer, but I don’t know this tune.”

“Franny has decided that you and I are some kind of match, and we should start dating. I told her it wasn’t acceptable, not according to the rules.”

“And I’ll bet she doesn’t care.”

“Not a whit.”

He followed Brooke as she bypassed the pristine living room, decorated in earthy Southwestern colors, and went down a corridor to the kitchen. The sleek black cabinets and polished marble countertops were clean and organized. Brooke had her life choreographed down to the smallest detail. “I have a question that isn’t written down in my spiral notebook,” he said. “You and Franny are very different in habit and temperament. How do you put up with her when she stays with you?”

“We have an agreement,” she said. “No cats are allowed in the house. And her clutter is confined to the upstairs guest bedroom and attached bathroom.”

“Does she follow those rules?”

“Not always, but I can’t blame her for living her life the way she wants. Like the clown at the end of the circus procession, it’s my job to follow the Franny parade and sweep up the mess after she rides past on a bejeweled elephant.”

Her comparison surprised him. In no way did he think of Brooke as a clown. Playing the fool might hint at low self-esteem issues, but he was more interested in her willingness to set aside her own requirements for neatness when it came to someone she loved. She liked order but wasn’t rigid about it.

She took two blue glasses from the shelf above the sink and filled them with purified water from a pitcher in the fridge. “What’s first on your list?”

He made a point of consulting his notebook. “When we talked on the phone, you mentioned that your car alarm went off while it was parked in the garage. Now that I’ve seen your security precautions, I’m even more curious about how that could happen.”

“I don’t know.” She stood behind the center island and slid the glass toward him. “I checked at the time. Nothing had fallen and bumped the SUV. All locks were secure.”

“Did your cameras pick up any sign of an intruder?”

She shook her head. “The only explanation I’ve been able to come up with is a glitch of some sort. I’m not an expert in car mechanics.”

When he’d talked to the other women, they had all reported similar issues that amounted to minor annoyances. One of them thought a man had been following her. Another reported personal items that had gone missing from her house, but she wasn’t sure if she’d just misplaced them. The one who had left Denver and moved to Las Vegas mentioned that she was contacted three times by a documentary filmmaker.

He glanced at his list. “Have you had other threats?”

“Not recently. People have always wanted to get close to us, and they act like we’re some kind of notorious celebrities.” Anger wove through her voice. “In the early days after we escaped, there was a great deal of unwanted attention. For some reason, folks thought it was all right to call or write letters or walk up to us on the street as though we were old friends. Not exactly threatening, but I considered their behavior to be intrusive. I hated it.”

“Gimbel said he put you in touch with a lawyer.”

“Tom Lancaster,” she said. “It was handy to have his card to warn people away. And he was useful in other practical ways. He set up a fund for us to handle various donations. There was enough money to fund private school for Franny and the twins.”

“What about you? You didn’t return to high school.”

“There was no way I’d go back and be gawked at. I got my GED and enrolled in community college. Layla did the same, and she continued to law school. She recently graduated and has been studying for the bar exam.”

According to Gimbel, Brooke breezed through college, earning scholarships and completing her course work for a business degree before she was twenty. After an internship with an IT firm, she set up a home-based business doing medical and legal transcriptions. “You and Layla have much in common. Both intelligent. Both ambitious and successful.”

She pushed a wing of black hair away from her face and gave him a smile. “You’re a profiler, aren’t you?”

“Not yet. But I’ve had psychological training.”

“Well, you hit the jackpot with this case. Me and my friends are every shade of crazy.”

Though he didn’t approve of labels, he appreciated her relaxed attitude. Yesterday she’d been as prickly as a cactus. “Do you know how to reach Layla?”

“I tried. Yesterday Franny and I stopped by her apartment, and I tried to contact her on a computer link. I tried the link again, about three hours ago. No Layla.”

“Would you give it another try?”

“Sure, come with me to my office.” She gave him a more genuine smile, and her dimples appeared. “I’ll send out the bat signal.”

Sloan followed her down a corridor into a large room with a wall of file cabinets and three distinct workstations, each equipped with computers and ergonomic chairs. A wide window, covered with wrought iron grillwork, showed a shaded, verdant backyard with two peach trees and a vegetable garden.

He went to the window. “You grow your own food.”

“Gimbel accused me of planting a garden so I wouldn’t ever have to leave my house.” She slid into place behind a computer. “He might be right. I love being able to step outside and pick a salad. My tomatoes this year have been brilliant.”

He stood behind her so he could see the screen as her slender fingers danced across the keyboard, clicking icons and tapping in passcodes. “I’m not very computer savvy,” he said.

“I guessed.”

“Tell me what you’re doing.”

“This program activates a camera that provides a live feed from a one-room mountain cabin that Layla and I share. We’re both reclusive. Sometimes we need a hideout where we can be completely alone.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Layla uses the cabin when she’s studying. After a big work project, I like to go there to decompress.”

“But you don’t want to be completely out of touch,” he said. “That’s why you set up this system. What did you call it? The bat signal?”

“It’s a safety concern,” she said, “only to be used in urgent circumstances. Though I’m not sure this investigation rises to the level of emergency, I’ll feel better after we’ve checked in with her.”

When she tapped the final key, a picture appeared on the screen. He saw a wood-paneled room with a desk, a fireplace and a bed. The only light came from a window.

“There she is,” Brooke said as she pointed to the bed.

He needed confirmation on where Layla had been and if she’d been threatened. “Can you talk to her through the live feed?”