Without a Past Read Online Free Page B

reverie.
    The road curved tightly to the right in preparation for a downward switchback. From this point, one could take in the whole town—from the copper-shingled steeple of the Catholic church to the rounded dome of the courthouse with its distinctive bell tower. Businesses lined both sides of Main Street for four blocks, giving way to a natural gap where two seasonal tributaries drained into Gold Creek. Several gas stations, motels and a couple of fast-food shops were grouped at a fork in the road where travelers could choose to go downhill into the Central Valley or uphill toward Yosemite National Park.
    â€œGold Creek’s a nice little town,” Harley said.
    â€œIt’s a good place to raise a family, but the young people don’t stay. My girls left home as soon as they could. Jennywent to college. Andi went to junior college, then joined the marines. And Kristin went off to Europe to be a nanny.”
    Harley had only met the elusive Kristin once. Sam had mentioned that she lived in Oregon. Harley had gotten the feeling she was slightly estranged from her sisters and aunt.
    â€œI miss those girls,” Ida Jane said with a heavy sigh.
    A shiver of disquiet passed through him. Miss? Or missed?
    â€œAndi’s going to be at the old bordello when we get there, isn’t she?”
    Ida looked as puzzled by his question as Harley felt. One of the problems with amnesia, Harley decided, was not being able to decipher social nuances. Was Ida Jane’s apparent forgetfulness something he should mention to her nieces?
    He’d found it odd that Ida Jane had suddenly moved up the date of her return to the bordello from next Sunday to today. Jenny hadn’t seemed overly perturbed by her aunt’s change of plan, but Harley doubted Andi would be quite as calm.
    Andi’s fiery temperament was just one of the things he liked about her. Which, he thought again, was why he’d jumped at the chance to play taxi driver.
    Â 
    A NDI STOWED the last of the boxes in the basement storage room then brushed off her hands and looked around. She’d forgotten about the spacious area. As children, Andi and her sisters had avoided the cellar because of the threat of spiders, but now she evaluated it through the eyes of a businesswoman.
    â€œIf we made that window into an egress…” She peered out the cloudy glass. By investing a few bucks, she could probably rent out the space for seven hundred dollars a month. Maybe more.
    A few bucks. A hurdle taller than the surrounding mountain peaks, she thought grimly. She’d invested nearly all the money she’d saved while in the military, but no amount of venture capital seemed enough to stem the steady drain on their resources. Sooner or later, she’d have to admit that the old bordello was a losing proposition.
    So why am I fighting so hard to save it? She didn’t know the answer.
    She was about to head back upstairs, when the phone at her waist rang. Jenny again, no doubt.
    â€œWhat now?”
    â€œAndi? Why are you always so grumpy?”
    Wrong sister. This was Kristin. “I thought you were Jenny. Again. I’m busy getting ready for Ida Jane. A week ahead of schedule.”
    Instead of walking up the open wooden steps, Andi sat down, plopping her elbows on her knees. She wanted to whine to somebody. Why not Kristin?
    â€œI just heard,” Kris said. “Why the change? Can you believe Jenny sent our eighty-two-year-old aunt off with a stranger?”
    Andi smiled to herself. Kristin’s take on any given subject was usually a hundred and eighty degrees opposite of Andi’s. Always had been.
    â€œHarley Forester isn’t exactly a stranger. He’s been working at the Rocking M for three months.”
    â€œAm I supposed to find comfort in that?” Kristin asked facetiously. “The man is an amnesiac. What if he suddenly remembers he’s a serial killer?”
    Andi chuckled. She couldn’t