Forget to Remember Read online

  “Look, I really appreciate what you’re doing for me, but do they really know about me or were you just making that up?”

  “No, no.” He stopped, realizing how badly she must have wanted to get away from the shelter, in spite of her hesitation. “Everything’s cool. I talked to them. They’re good people. You can stay on the computer until they get here.” He hoped his mother would talk to his father before they got home, so Carol wouldn’t come as a complete shock to him.

  Carol sighed. “I don’t think anybody’s looking for me.”

  Rigo wanted to give her a hug, but he didn’t dare. “I care about you, and my parents will, too.”

  “Thank you. I don’t think I want them to first set eyes on me while I’m using your computer in their house. It will look as if I’ve moved in for good. This is too discouraging, anyway.”

  “All right, you can read a book in the living room. They have a big library.”

  Rigo didn’t want to leave. He still had the feeling, however irrational, if she were left alone, she might evaporate like the morning dew. She must have sensed this, because after he showed her the books in the living room, she gave him a smile and told him to go. She would be fine.

  He drove to the restaurant with mixed feelings he couldn’t put into words.

  ***

  “Have some more food. Chicken, beans?” Tina Ramirez waved her hand at several platters sitting on the antique dining room table with high-backed chairs. A matching sideboard dominated one wall.

  “No thanks. It’s all delicious, but I’m absolutely stuffed.” Carol placed her hands on her belly to indicate how full she was. She had been very careful of her table manners, not wanting to spill something in such an elegant setting.

  “But you’re so thin. You need to gain weight.”

  “If you don’t eat, you’ll waste away to a spot of grease.”

  Ernie Ramirez had a wide grin, much like that of his son. He was tall and thin, but not as tall as Rigo. Tina was elegant; there was no other word to describe her. Of the three, only Ernie had a Spanish accent.

  Carol wanted to express her gratitude. “I’m so appreciative you two are allowing me to stay in your beautiful home. I don’t know what would have happened to me, otherwise.”

  Ernie’s eyes twinkled. “You can thank Rigo. It was his idea. He has an eye for—”

  “We’re glad to do it.” Tina frowned at Ernie. “Rigo is a sensitive young man.”

  “I know. I was fortunate he was the person who found me—in more ways than one. Of course, this is temporary. I’m hoping to discover my identity soon.”

  “Don’t worry about having a place to stay.” Ernie gave an expansive gesture. “You can stay as long as you like. Tina was upset when our last daughter got married and left. You can replace her.”

  “It’s true. I don’t like to see them leave the nest. Only Rigo is left now. He went away and then came back after he got his master’s degree. I’m sure he’ll be leaving when he gets a real job.”

  “If he gets a real job.” Ernie frowned. “What can he do with a master’s degree in psychology or whatever they call the program? He can’t be a therapist unless he puts in several thousand hours of internship. He did a few hundred when he was in school, but he hasn’t done any since.”

  “He’ll do something. We invited him to join the business, but he says he doesn’t want charity. He should have gotten an MBA.”

  Carol suspected this discussion was ongoing. Ernie and Tina were much more informal than their dining room had led her to believe. She started to relax. “I don’t want to freeload. I’d like to help around the house.”

  “Do you know how to make tamales?” Ernie smacked his lips.

  “I think I can cook, but I don’t know about Mexican food. I can learn, however. Maybe I can make dinner, so it will be ready when you get home.”

  “We eat lots of things besides Mexican. Ernie’s a joker.” Tina looked at Carol’s ill-fitting top. “We have to get you some clothes. Tomorrow’s Saturday. You and I are going shopping.”

  “I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

  “It’s okay. We’ll use Ernie’s credit card.”

  “Mine? You’re the one who’s rich.”

  Carol tried to say again they didn’t have to buy her clothes, but then they quit kidding and told her they were glad to do it.

  “I’ll pay you back.” Tears came to her eyes. “I…I wonder if my parents are as nice as you two. I hope they are. If it weren’t for you and Rigo, I’d be sleeping at the mission and wondering what I was going to do next.”

  Tina reached over and patted her shoulder. Carol blew her nose into a paper napkin and tried to recover her composure. “Now I’ll clear the table and wash the dishes.”

  “Ernie will show you how to run the dishwasher. He’s the expert.”

  “Rigo’s the expert.” Ernie made a face. “But now we hope, after all the money we spent on his education, he’ll become expert in something other than washing dishes.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Rigo navigated into Orange County using a combination of Pacific Coast Highway, other surface streets, and the 405 freeway. Today was Sunday, a week since he found Carol during the brunch shift. He was working the evening shift today instead of brunch, so they could take this excursion.

  Carol followed their progress on AAA maps, insisting she wanted to be able to find her way around as soon as possible. “I’m starting from scratch here. My mind is blank. I’ve got a lot to learn in a short time. However, I think part of my problem with the local geography is that I’ve never lived here.”

  Her mind wasn’t really blank. She had a well-developed sense of style, judging from the clothes she picked out with Tina’s help yesterday. Even Rigo, a mere man as his sisters liked to say, could see that. She knew how to use a computer, and she made them a delicious omelet for breakfast. She remembered a lot of things. What she had forgotten was information that identified her as a person. Unfortunately, as Rigo was coming to realize, without this information, she wouldn’t be treated like a real person.

  “I’m sorry I don’t have a GPS on this old car. My parents have them on theirs.”

  “It’s better that I learn my way around without a GPS. All a GPS tells you is to turn right or turn left. You don’t get a feel for where you are in relation to other places. Besides, I hate that snotty voice that says ‘recalculating’ whenever you have the nerve to do something other than exactly what it demands.”

  Rigo laughed. She had obviously used a GPS before. He exited the 405 and headed a short distance into a housing tract. Northwestern Orange County was mostly flat, with wide main streets heading north-south and east-west, making it easy to navigate. The oranges and cows had been gone for almost fifty years. He pulled up in front of a one-story house that had been there for a while. A lone palm tree grew in the front yard, and a car almost as old as Rigo’s sat in the driveway.

  “This is where Frances lives.”

  They walked up the short driveway, and Rigo rang the doorbell. The woman who answered was small, with curly hair, rimless glasses, and inquisitive eyes. She gave Rigo a hug and then turned to Carol and shook her hand.

  “Come in, come in.” She stepped back into the small living room and looked Carol up and down. “You don’t fit the picture of a lost soul, especially with your new clothes. From what I heard, your wounds seem to be healing nicely, too.”

  Rigo had mentally noted the same thing about her wounds earlier that morning. In addition, her short skirt and v-neck T-shirt-like top weren’t that much different than many young women wore, but Carol wore them better. The beret she wore to cover her bald spots looked sporty. Makeup almost covered the marks on her face.

  Carol smiled at the compliment. “Tina bought them for me. She and Ernie have been so wonderful—and Rigo, too.”

  “Yes, I can see why Rigo would take an interest in you.” Frances gave Rigo an amused look. “Not trying to belittle what you did for Carol.” Back at her. “I’ve known Rigo since he was a pup, so I’m allowed to kid him. I’ve been friends with his parents forever. Come into the back room. It’s more comfortable. I’ll get us some iced tea.”

  The back room had sofas you could sink into and a large coffee table to work on. Frances’ laptop computer sat there. She brought in a pitcher of iced tea and glasses.

  Carol was obviously fascinated with her. “I understand you’re a forensic genealogist. I’ve never heard of that before—as far as I can remember.” She made a face when she said “remember.”

  “It’s a fancy way of saying I help find who was who, and who did what and when.”

  “That’s exactly the kind of help I need. But I’m afraid I can’t pay you for your time. As you know, I don’t have any money.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m intrigued by the challenge. Rigo, thanks for e-mailing me the photos of Carol this morning. You’re a good photographer. I’ve already started putting them on Web sites for missing and unidentified persons.”

  “We looked at a bunch of those yesterday.”

  Carol cut in. “Nobody except us seems to be looking for me. Maybe I’m an orphan. Maybe I don’t have any family.”

  Frances nodded. “If so, that will add some complexity. Certainly your attacker isn’t looking for you. He probably thinks you’re dead. If he’s seen the news reports to the contrary, he hopes you won’t regain your memory. I understand the police have checked your fingerprints with national databases and haven’t come up with anything. I guess you’re a law-abiding citizen.”

  “That’s a relief. Although, if I were a felon, at least I’d know who I am.”

  Frances turned on a tape recorder. “Do you mind if I record our conversation? I want a friend of mine to listen to it w
ho’s an expert on accents. Although you don’t seem to have much of one. Also, write something for me.” Frances produced a piece of paper and a pen. “Write ‘Carol Golden’ and then write the sentence, ‘The quick young fox jumps over the lazy brown dog’ and anything else that comes into your head.”

  “I know.” Carol smiled as she began writing. “You have a friend who’s a handwriting expert.”

  “Yes. Now I’d like you to take a DNA test. It’s easy to do; you just scrape the inside of your cheek with what looks like a miniature toothbrush. I’ve got a kit with me for just such an occasion. Although, we don’t come across an amnesiac every day. I’ll go get it.”

  When she went out of the room, Carol turned to Rigo. “Don’t these tests cost money?”

  “Shhh. My parents will pay for it.”

  “Your parents are paying for everything.”

  “They’ve got plenty of money.”

  “But I don’t want to be a charity case.”

  Rigo put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. You’ll get a chance to pay them back.”

  Frances returned with the DNA kit and showed Carol how to scrape the inside of her cheek. She had to do it twice more, three hours apart. Frances explained what would happen to it. “We’ll test your mitochondrial DNA, or mt-DNA as it’s called. This is DNA that exists outside the cell nucleus. The beauty of it is a mother passes it intact to all her children.”

  “So I have the same mt-DNA as my mother.”

  “And your mother’s mother, and her mother, back for thousands of years. It will show what group, called a haplogroup, you belong to, which will allow us to trace your female ancestors’ path out of Africa.”

  “At the moment I’d just like to trace my mother or grandmother.”

  “Your DNA will be placed on a database using a code to identify it. When it matches the DNA of someone else, we’ll contact that person. It could be a man. If you have any brothers or sisters they have the same mt-DNA you have.”

  Rigo had taken a class in genetics. “Couldn’t there be thousands of people who have the same mt-DNA as Carol?”

  “Yes, that’s possible, depending on what group you’re in. We can’t prove somebody is your sibling or in your direct ancestral line with it. We’ll use it in conjunction with any other information we have about Carol.”

  Carol looked thoughtful. “What if we find somebody who might be my father? Is there a DNA test we can do?”

  “We’ll also test your autosomal, or non-sex-linked DNA. Using statistical analysis, we can determine probable relationships. You and each of your parents or full brothers and sisters share about half of your DNA, including identical segments of what are called markers. Grandparents, half siblings, aunts, or uncles share roughly a quarter of your DNA. You share a percentage of your DNA with your cousins, depending on whether they’re first, second, third—”

  “Let’s say we find somebody we think is about a second cousin through statistical analysis, but we don’t know exactly how we’re related. What do we do then?”

  “We start with whatever clues we have about you and look for your common ancestor. Genealogical information is widely available online as more and more people get interested in their past. We can also look up records of births, deaths, marriages, and other vital statistics that are kept in dusty old rooms in dusty old buildings if we have to. You haven’t lived until you’ve tried to read handwritten two hundred-year-old record books—or perhaps thousand-year-old record books.”

  Carol laughed. “We need to know where to look in order to do that.”

  “Right. Let’s keep the horse before the cart. We need to find people who recognize you, or identify relationships based on where you might have lived, gone to school, worked. What are your family names? That’s why a presence on the Internet is important. It’s fun to find one’s great grandparents, but in your case, we’re just trying to find your parents.”

  “Thanks for the lesson. Statistical analysis sounds like fun. I know girls aren’t supposed to like math, but I have the feeling I’ve dabbled in it at some point.”

  Frances picked up a pad. “That’s good to know. I’ll put it on your profile. It’s time I got off my professorial stool. Tell me what else you remember.”

  “Not much of anything. I have feelings rather than memory. I have a feeling I don’t live in California. Nothing here seems to be familiar to me.”

  “Do you have any feelings for any other part of the country?”

  “Possibly the northeast.”

  “Your accent is compatible with that, although you don’t sound like a New Yorker or a Bostonian. You undoubtedly have a Social Security number, but finding it without a name or your birth date is almost impossible, especially because of privacy laws. You probably have a driver’s license—”

  “She told me she’s a good driver and keeps asking me to let her drive.”

  “I’m sure I can drive a car, but Rigo won’t let me.” Carol gave Rigo a poke, almost spilling the glass of iced tea he was holding.

  Frances said, “You can prove it in an empty parking lot early in the morning. Drivers’ licenses are issued by state. Some states have facial recognition software that can be used to match a photo with pictures on their database, but each state handles that sort of thing differently. Unless we know what state issued your license, we can’t really pursue finding it.”

  Rigo asked, “What about high school and college records?”

  “Certainly. Again, if we can pin down a location, that will help. Carol, you’re smart. You probably went to college. If we can find out your areas of expertise, that can assist us in checking college records and also possible jobs you might have had. Math might be one possibility.”

  “I don’t know whether I’m an expert at anything except getting hit on the head. Although, thankfully, my headaches are getting less frequent.”

  “What about hypnosis for bringing back memory?” Rigo had been partially hypnotized by a classmate in college, and, based on the experience he wasn’t completely convinced it was a good thing.

  “It’s a possibility. You have to be careful. There are cases on record where the person being hypnotized produced false memories.”

  Carol frowned. “Judging from the time I was probably placed in the Dumpster, the doctors think I was unconscious for about twenty-four hours. I don’t want to lose control like that again, at least not right now. Maybe later…”

  “We’ll keep that in reserve. For purposes of describing you, I need your height and weight.”

  “I looked at my hospital records. They said I was five eight and a hundred and fifteen pounds. I may have gained a couple of pounds since then.”

  “Good. You’re awfully thin. Your hair…” Carol took off her beret “…is dark brown, with bald spots.”

  “Some of my hair was shaved off because of my injuries. Those spots are temporary—I hope. But I have a permanent scar on my abdomen that isn’t new.”

  Frances noted that. “And your eyes?” Frances looked closely at her. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’d say they’re almost violet.”

  Rigo took his turn. For a moment he had the feeling her eyes were deep wells and he was in danger of falling into them. He recovered himself with a jerk. “Definitely violet.”

  “Skin color—interesting. That of a tan Caucasian. Have you been out in the sun?”

  “Not in the last few days.”

  “I suspect your ancestry is mixed.” Frances made more notes. “Here’s an idea. You’re young. Most young people today have a presence on the Internet. Social sites like Facebook. Videos on YouTube. Pretty girls are especially likely to have their pictures out there. You have the face and figure of a model. Rigo, here’s your assignment. Search the Internet for Carol’s picture. You know the likely places better than I do.”

  Rigo faked a gasp. “Find her on the Internet? Yeah, there are only a few gazillion Web sites where she could be. It will take me at least a day to scan them. Or maybe a century.”

  “My hair might have been longer in the past. I keep thinking it’s too short.”

  “Hair length is obviously not a good way of finding a match.” Colleen studied Carol’s hair. “Neither is color, because many people dye their hair, although yours doesn’t look dyed. Your high hairline is a good indicator because that doesn’t change much. Neither does the shape of the eyebrow ridge. Skin color is iffy; any Caucasian with a tan will match your color. Your eyes are distinctive. If a photo shows a girl’s eyes clearly, that will help. We can also use the shape of your face. You’re young, and I doubt that you’ve ever been fat, so your face has probably always had the same shape.”