House Of Secrets. Tracy Montoya
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did know him. Obviously, Joe wasn’t going home any time soon—he’d barely even blinked in response to Louis’s rant.
Perhaps sending Louis away was her best option, to keep the poor man from getting too upset. “Louis, do you think your mother might want her newspaper?” she asked gently.
“I know Joe. I know Joe. Joe’s newspaper,” he chanted in response.
“Maybe you can go give it to her, and then come back after dinner and have some juice with me.”
Louis grew quiet, though he continued to rock on his heels, then nodded.
“Come have some juice later, all right, Louis? After Joe goes home? You know I’m always happy to see you.” Jasmine was always diligent about not letting Louis stay at her house for more than half an hour, but Emma would have gladly welcomed him for longer visits. Through some miracle and despite his disability, he played the piano with a virtuoso’s touch, and she loved to hear him practice Mozart on the small antique upright in her sitting room. He’d been in a car accident as a child that had left him in his current mental state, but somehow the talent that was to be his had been left intact.
“Okay,” Louis said, staring at something on the ground only he could see.
“Great, I’ll see you later tonight.” She gave him an encouraging pat toward his house.
Louis dropped his newspaper and clutched at the buttons on his shirt. “Come to Joe’s house tonight,” he muttered as he shuffled home. “Play in the tower with Joe and Daniel.” And then he hopped up the steps to his house and disappeared inside with a slam of the screen door.
“Joe’s house?” Emma scooped the newspaper Louis had left behind off the ground and folded it carefully until it was the size of a small notebook. She turned to face the man leaning against the car behind her. The “tower” Louis had referred to was most likely the turret on the east side of her house, which left her with only one question: “Who’s Daniel?”
“No clue.” He shrugged, though she saw something flicker in his eyes. Obviously Louis’s words weren’t as meaningless to him as he’d have her think. “You were really good with him, you know?” he said.
It was her turn to shrug. “He’s sweet. I’ve never seen him yell like that. Does he know you from somewhere?”
He shook his head, his brow furrowing as the familiar confused look replaced the cocky one. “I don’t know.”
“Do you know anyone in this area?”
Pause. “I’m not sure.”
“Did you grow up here?” she persisted.
His mouth flattened, and he flipped a palm into the air. “I don’t remember.”
“You don’t—”
Joe abruptly spun on his heel and walked a couple of paces away from her, his broad shoulders heaving as he inhaled deeply. A moment later, he turned back, his hands shoved into the pockets of his black, flat-front trousers. “I know I might have alarmed you coming here, and I’m only telling you this because I can’t promise I won’t do it again,” he began. “But something—” He took a deep breath, and then dove right in. “I don’t remember the first ten years of my life. Not school, not my parents, not anything.” He clenched his teeth and worked his jaw for a moment. “Something happened… It’s gone. It’s all gone.”
He leaned against the side of his car, crossing his arms as he stared blankly at her house. “All I know is that the minute I landed in this godforsaken city, something kept calling to me, bringing me to this house. And I wish for the life of me I knew what it was so I could go back to blocking it out.”
He pushed himself off the car in an explosive movement. “It’s right here,” he said, tapping his right temple with his fingers, “and I can’t see it. I can’t remember, but it’s right on the edge of my brain. That man—” he gestured in the direction of Louis’s house “—he knew me. I can feel it. But I have no idea who he is or whether I’ve seen him before.”
Emma rolled the newspaper in her hands, feeling an almost irresistible urge to touch him, to comfort him somehow. But he was a stranger, and though her gut told her she wasn’t in any danger, she didn’t want to invite trouble. In the awkward silence that followed, she unfurled the newspaper, which was dated a couple days ago, and glanced at the front page. To her surprise, the bottom right photo was a clear shot of Joe’s face scowling back at her, with a caption identifying him as one José Javier Lopez, a private detective who was receiving the National Association of Private Investigator’s P.I. of the Year award for his work on several cases about which she didn’t have time to read right now. Emma rolled the paper back up again, figuring now wasn’t the time to bring up his fifteen minutes of fame in L.A. “Do you have any family?” she asked. “Someone who can help you put together the pieces?”
“There’s no one,” he said abruptly in a tone that told her he wasn’t going to discuss that topic any further.
Darn it. First, she’d nearly gotten herself violently assaulted last night, and now she was standing here, in front of a total stranger who had been making unscheduled appearances in her front yard for the past two days, and instead of calling the police, all she wanted to do was help him. But before she could do or say anything more, Joe reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a business card, which he held out for her to take.
“I’m sorry,” he said gruffly. “I didn’t mean to scare you any more than I already have. My name is Joe Lopez, and I’m a private investigator. I work mostly missing persons cases up in the Salinas Valley.”
“Emma Jensen Reese,” she responded automatically as she took the card from him. Like the newspaper caption, the card also identified him as José Javier Lopez, but he obviously preferred the more Anglicized “Joe.” “Mr. Lopez—” she began, and then stopped.
He was standing at the top of the stairs directly in front of her door—her unlocked door—and he’d gotten there so quickly and quietly she hadn’t even noticed. Before Emma could ask him what he was doing, Joe pushed the heavy wood and beveled glass door inward, stepping inside without so much as a “May I?”
She really was going to have to do something about these annual cravings for adventure before they got her killed.
THE DOOR SWUNG SHUT behind him with an audible click, bringing Joe back to reality. Somehow, he’d ended up inside Emma Jensen Reese’s house, and Emma Jensen Reese was apparently still outside. And for all he knew, he’d teleported there, because he definitely couldn’t remember letting himself in. One thing he did know—Emma Jensen Reese was probably calling the police at that very moment.
Knowing he should go back outside, Joe backed up until his body bumped gently against the door—but as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t make himself leave. His eyes took in the muted burgundies and golds of the antique runners lining the hardwood hallway stretching out in front of him, the fluffy white furniture and the rich red walls, the rows of gold-framed photos and artwork. He noted with passing interest that his homeboy Diego Rivera’s art was prominently displayed in more than one frame. It was a pretty house, an obviously much-loved house. It definitely wasn’t a house that should make his hands feel clammy or his body want to lose its lunch.
But it did.
He focused on the rounded shapes and brilliant colors of Rivera’s “Flower Carrier,” knowing somehow that by doing so he was trying to avoid looking at the staircase.
Staircase. Now why would an innocuous little staircase frighten a big bad P.I. from San Francisco? Just to prove his masculinity—to himself if not to anyone else—Joe turned his head and scowled at the staircase. It was just your basic grand Victorian stairway—wide, wooden, flanked by two ornately carved newel posts.
And somehow, he knew that just behind it lay the doorway to a room he didn’t want to see.
And then the world tilted