Secret Memories Page 4

  Angela was quickly reminded of his secretary.

  Frank locked eyes with Angela. “She was looking for the person who killed her parents. I agreed to help her.”

  “What did you find?” Angela replied.

  “Dead ends,” Frank replied. “The cops from her parents’ investigation knew nothing. Her parents’ friends and co-workers didn’t know anything either. The attack was completely random, and I told Iris that. But she begged me to keep digging though it wasn’t getting anywhere. That’s when Iris called me, said that she was being followed by someone. That they wanted to meet with her.”

  “Who are they?” Angela asked, intrigued by the story. “What did they want from her?”

  Frank took a breath. “If I knew the answers to either one of those questions, I would’ve reached out to the cops a long time ago.”

  “You didn’t tell her to meet them, did you?” Angela asked with a brow raised.

  “You think I’m an amateur?” Frank retorted.

  Angela didn’t reply.

  Frank gave her the evil eye and then continued. “I warned her against going, but the quickest way to get someone to do something is to tell them not to do it.”

  “What happened?” Angela replied.

  “I followed her to the meeting place: a multi-story car garage. The person was a no-show,” Frank said, disappointed. “Iris told me what happened that night. I comforted her.”

  Angela gave a deadpan look.

  Frank glared back. “Not in that way. It was the shoulder-to-cry-on sappy stuff girls love.”

  “How does this tie into Rosemary?”

  “That’s when things got interesting,” Frank said. “Rosemary visited me a few days later, claiming to be Iris’s mother. I could’ve called out her lie at that moment but wanted to see where this yarn would lead. So I listened to her sob story, and it was good. Really good. I almost believed her if it weren’t for what I already knew. Rosemary wanted me to find Iris and send her pictures as proof. She offered me a lot of money.”

  “And you took it?” Angela asked.

  “You would, too.” Frank said with offense.

  Angela scoffed and shook her head. “Not if I had knowledge that she was a fraud.”

  Frank glared and took a sip from his drink. “I did as the woman asked and went to the hotel where Iris was staying at. She’d been living there since she ran away from her adoptive parents. Anyway, I didn’t want to give the impostor Iris’s real address, so I waited until Iris left. I thought she was going on a milk run or something, but I followed her to the old tenements on Granger Road. Why she was there, I have no clue. I snapped a few pictures and was going to confront her when one of my other clients called. Business is business, so I took it and headed back to the office.”

  “You left Iris alone?” Angela asked.

  The question seemed to anger Frank. “She’s not my only client. I can’t watch her twenty-four seven.”

  Angela’s anger flared. “I found her body in that tenement!”

  The words seemed to hit Frank. He fell silent and looked into the bottom of his glass. “She’s not my responsibility.”

  “You knew Iris was being followed,” Angela said directly. “You knew Rosemary was lying about her identity. And then Iris goes to some secluded place, probably to reschedule her meeting with her parents’ killer, and you leave her there. She’s a kid.”

  Frank squeezed his glass until his knuckles went white. He set his jaw. After a moment, the red in his face faded and he set the glass down on the desk again. “Finished, Ms. Rhymer?”

  Angela nodded, realizing that she had probably overstepped her bounds. “When did you give Rosemary the photograph?”

  “That night. Two nights ago,” Frank admitted. “She took it, saying that she’ll do the rest herself.”

  “She told me that you wouldn’t go after Iris, which was why she wanted to hire me,” Angela replied.

  “Surprise. The woman is a twisted liar,” Frank said flatly. He downed the rest of the drink. By the way he scrunched his face, it went down like fire. “You’re a P.I.?”

  Angela nodded slowly.

  Frank smirked to himself and placed the glass beside him.

  Angela crossed her arms and cocked a brow. “You don’t believe me?”

  “Let just say most people’s profession aren’t…” He gestured to her body. “You know? All I’m saying is that you’re too beautiful to be in the gutter with the rest of us.”

  “Thanks…” Angela said, unsure how she felt about the compliment.

  Frank changed the subject. “You think the woman killed Iris?”

  Angela shrugged. “Could be, but the hand prints on the neck were big. The woman is involved in some way. I’m going to visit the police sketch artist today. At least they’ll be looking out for her.”

  “It seems like Rosemary wanted you to find the body,” Frank said, thinking.

  Angela nodded, her mouth making a line on her face and her eyes distant.

  “Why?” Frank asked.

  Angela’s heart rate spiked. The idea of talking about her past made her palms sweaty, but if it meant getting more information out of Frank, then she’d have to overcome her timidity. She’d shared at the small group, this should be easy. Nevertheless, she struggled. Angela pulled out her phone and showed Frank the picture of Iris’s scarred back.

  He looked at it, and a heavy frown sunk his face. He must’ve felt the same disgust Angela did.

  “She showed me this.” Frank said, looking ill. “Right where you are standing.”

  “I have the same one,” Angela said, feeling a wave of unexplainable shame.

  Frank’s mouth fell open. He looked at her with a newfound respect. “Are you saying…”

  “Same killer? I think so.” Angela said.

  Frank stared at her like it was the first time he ever saw her. “May I see it?”

  Angela shook her head. Disrobing in front of Frank Frankford was not on her to-do list. “Did Iris ever tell what you happened the night her parents died?”

  Frank inhaled deeply. He glanced at the bottle of scotch on the table, tempted by the amber elixir. “She told me what she wanted to.”

  “How did it happen?” Angela asked bravely.

  “It was a normal night in their farmhouse just outside of Chattanooga. A couple of masked strangers showed up. They said they were on the run from the cops and just needed their car. That was a lie. They bagged Iris’s head, offed the parents and her brother, carved their mark, and left. Iris was gagged and bound to the chair a full day before a FedEx driver noticed the ajar front door and the flickering light in the living room.”

  “She had to have given you more details than that,” Angela goaded.

  Frank frowned heavily. “That’s what she told me. I pressed for more, but if you saw how much it hurt her to relive that experience, you’d let sleeping dogs lie, too.” Frank used his thumb to rub the crust from his eyes. He blinked several times afterward. “What about your parents’ murders? Any parallels?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t remember.” Angela headed for the door.

  Frank stayed on the lip of the desk. “Stay and have a drink with me.”

  Angela grabbed the doorknob and turned back to him. “Goodbye, Investigator. I hope everything works out for you.”

  Frankford didn’t reply to that. Angela headed out the door. Candy, painting the toes on her other foot now, waved her goodbye and went immediately back to the task at hand.

  Angela stepped out into the brisk air. She headed to the police station with what little information she had on fake Rosemary. The officer accepted the falsified information but was at a loss as to what to do with it. It was not like they could use it to find the impersonator. They seated Angela in a little room and waited for the sketch artist to arrive. He was late, of course, but Angela didn’t mind. She enjoyed the quiet. It helped her think about her next course of action: finding whoever was in contact with Iris. Perhaps
it was not the killer. After all, Iris was a woman of the night. Or was she? Maybe Frank wasn’t telling her everything. Thinking of him made Angela shake her head. He had a larger web presence than Angela. It only took one quick web search for a P.I. in Knoxville and his name was on the top three links. Angela never paid much attention to those things, but to say that she wasn’t a little jealous would be a lie.

  The sketch artist entered into the room, got out his pencil, and asked if Angela was ready to get started.

  They spent the next hour getting the curvature of the woman’s nose and the space between her eyes as precise as they could get it. All the while, Angela’s mind raced. What if Iris was only a dead end? What if Angela was looking for answers in the wrong places?

  She drove home and packed a small suitcase. When she had her gun and necessities packed away, she drove to her office. The door was locked and lights were cut out. Everything was good and should stay that way while she was gone.

  She returned to the parking lot and headed toward the car. She took a moment to look up at the dark steel sky. The cold air slashed at her face and cut through her gloves. At least her coat was heavy-duty enough to keep her torso from getting cold. The weather would only get worse, she knew.

  Angela fished her key out of her pocket and stuck it into her Charger’s door. As she turned it, snow crunched behind her. It was a footstep. A chill crawled up her skin. The light pitter-patter grew closer. All of those years of critical listening in piano class paid off. The footsteps were three yards away.

  Two yards.

  Angela clenched the stun gun clipped to her belt.

  One.

  Swiftly and giving the stalker no warning, Angela twisted around, pressed the stun gun’s button, and hovered its crackling metal forks an inch from the man’s Adam’s apple.

  Frank Frankford raised his hands up in a nonthreatening manner. He was wearing an olive-green winter jacket with padded shoulders that were a light brown.

  “Easy,” he said, wide eyes on the stun gun.

  Angela glanced around the lot and kept the stun gun where it was. “Why are you following me?”

  Frank bounced his eyes between the stun gun and Angela. “Put that thing away and I’ll tell you.”

  Hesitant, Angela lowered the stun gun and glanced around the lot. One of the lawyers that worked in the same office gave her a wave on his way inside. Angela felt her tension lessen. “Well?”

  Frank breathed in from his nose and hid his bare hands in his coat pockets. “I thought about you said.”

  What part? Angela was tempted to ask but didn’t. She wanted to hear what Frank had to say before making any accusations.

  Frank fidgeted a little. A look of guilt flashed over his face. The cocksureness to it back at the office was now cold, red from the breeze and defenseless. “Iris trusted me. She told me things you wouldn’t just tell anyone. She showed me things I never asked to see. I…” Frank set his jaw for a moment and looked off at the snowy mountain range in the distance. “I failed her. I saw the money the older woman was offering, and I thought I could take it and still get the girl.”

  Angela didn’t know what to say to that. Maybe she judged him wrongly. Maybe this was just a ploy to get her sympathy. “Why are you telling me this?”

  Frank shrugged and chuckled nervously. “I don’t know. I feel…” he struggled for the word.

  Angela helped out. “Guilty?”

  “Yeah, sure, something like that,” Frank replied. “Iris was a good girl caught up in a tough spot. It wasn’t fair of me to leave her out to dry. If I’d kept a better eye on her, things might have turned out differently.”

  “Well, thanks for confiding in me,” Angela replied, still unsure why he approached her. Weirder still, none of the vehicles had moved since she pulled into the office parking, so Frank must’ve been waiting here for who knows how long.

  “Are you okay to drive? Do you want me to get you a cab?” Angela said, feeling anxious to get out of the cold and hit the road.

  “Very funny,” Frank said, eyes red-rimmed from his confession but a small grin on his face. “If there’s one thing I can handle, it’s a drink.”

  “Frank,” Angela said directly. “Tell me why you’re here.”

  He glanced at the suitcase. “You’re leaving town.”

  “Very astute.” Angela gave him the evil eye.

  “Comes with the territory,” Frank replied.

  “I’m not going to ask again--

  Frank planted his feet. “I want to find Iris’s killer.”

  His comment took Angela off guard.

  “I owe her that much. And you… you may know something.”

  “I know as much as you,” Angela replied. “Perhaps less.”

  “So then where are you going?” Frank asked.

  “To my parents’ cabin,” Angela admitted. “I haven’t been there in a long time. Maybe I missed something, or maybe I’ll remember something.”

  Frank looked at her with reverence. “Let me come with you.”

  Angela laughed but quickly realized that Frank was dead serious. “Don’t you have a practice to run?”

  “It’s almost New Year’s. I could use a vacation,” Frank’s joking ended. “In all seriousness, I failed to help Iris in life, the least I can do is give her memory some closure. What do you say? Partners?”

  They had only just met, and Angela was suspicious of him. Nevertheless, his conviction seemed real enough, but so was Rosemary’s. What was the old saying? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. It would be risky bringing him along. Perhaps even flat-out stupid. But having someone watch her back could be useful. However, would a drunk like Frank Frankford be the best candidate for keeping her safe? Probably not. She looked at him a long while. He’d been very open with her, an uncommon trait for a P.I. Also, to follow her here was suspicious. She didn’t trust him. Some crazy thought paired him with Rosemary. Either way, she wouldn’t anything if he was far away. Angela let out an exasperated sigh. “Are you going to sober up?”

  “I’ve already started,” Frank said with a smile.

  “Do you have your own vehicle?” Angela asked.

  “Jeep Wrangler with off-road tires.”

  “Huh,” Angela said unenthusiastically. She headed for her car and unlocked the door.

  Frank stood there, looking to-and-fro like a lost animal. Angela climbed into her driver’s seat. Before she closed the door, she gave him a look. “Try to keep up.”

  She slammed the door and turned the ignition. The engine cackled and roared to life. She drove out the lot, watching Frank Frankford scramble to his Jeep.

  Chapter Four

  Cabin

  The road to Ashton, Tennessee, looked like wavy black snakes on the snowy landscape. Knoxville was a memory now. They were moving east, closer to the border of North Carolina, and higher into the mountain. The sky was a sheet of cold iron. Singular flakes twirled in the air with seemingly no rhyme or reason and grew denser the farther Angela’s Charger climbed the mountain. Her car was a beast that was loud, angry, and drank gas like water. That said, it didn’t like the cold. Some winter days, it would take Angela two or three turns of the ignition to get it started. She flooded it a few times when she first got it, but had since learned some basic mechanic skills to keep herself from getting shafted by a shifty auto dealer. By the amount of money they charged her, Angela trusted mechanics less than lawyers, and she knew a lot of sketchy lawyers. Despite the cold, age, and rusty bumps, the 1970 Dodge Charger conquered the mountain with a loud rumble.

  Angela squeezed the rigid steering wheel with her gloved hands, looking for some sort of warmth in her heatless vehicle. Teeth lightly chattering, she batted her fierce, dark brown eyes at the rearview mirror. Frank’s black Jeep trailed behind. It was big with all-terrain tires and floodlights. It was the type of vehicle that didn’t belong in the Knoxville crowd. It was made for the wild, and fit the Appalachian Mountains like a glove.

&nbs
p; Most people in these parts kept to themselves and didn’t cause trouble, but the ones that did, did it big. In the P.I. business, Angela had to travel out of the city on many occasions. The roads were pretty, but the trailer parks weren’t. Most locals owned firearms and shot them regularly, so it wasn’t weird to hear the pop of a 9mm or the blast of a shotgun through the snowcapped trees. If you wanted to drop off the radar, there were worse options. Angela had gotten shot at a handful times when she showed up unannounced. Nevertheless, she’d gotten away unscathed and was usually able to talk some reason into the generally unreasonable people. It usually took a lot of patience to get them to back down and listen to Angela’s side of things.

  As the Charger ascended the winding road, Angela’s heart rate quickened. She had only gone inside of her parents’ cabin once since the murder, and that was to collect her things.

  Technically speaking, she owned the place. Her father had used the money he made from his crime novels to pay it off fully, and the deed was passed to Angela without any other heir. Shiffrin gave Angela the deed and the Charger on her eighteenth birthday. She recalled driving up to the cabin that year during the springtime. Weeds had sprouted up around the base of the building. Fat-bodied bees buzzed around wild flowers while wasps made huge nests under the wings of the A-frame roof. Angela didn’t even get out of her car. It was too painful. She had thought about selling it, but like the Charger and her jacket, getting rid of it felt like she was betraying her parents’ memory in some odd way.

  They were getting closer now. The small town of Ashton had roughly seven thousand people spread out through the area. Roughly a tenth of that lived in the “town” part. The rest was scattered throughout the Smokies. During the winters, the roads became treacherous and those living on the high road tended to be locked in by sheets of black ice.

  Angela rounded the bend. To one side of her was dense woods growing up the side of a mountain; to the other side was a steep drop-off into jagged treetops. The road up ahead branched into the cabin’s driveway. Angela slowed down and put on her turn signal. She waited for Frank to catch up before making her way down the gravel path. Trees bordered the cabin. The season had left them standing with dark bark, skeletal branches, and a gloomy sense of loss. The cabin was square in shape and much larger than she remembered. It had a log exterior and a smoke stack with two vents. Frost clung to the lower corners of its dark windows. The once-perfect cabin was now a hollow shell. When she blinked, she saw her parents’ bodies through the window. She felt the cold point of the knife separating her skin. Shaking involuntary, the vision ended.