Forget to Remember

the driveway. Rigo hesitated and then ran after him. The man had a lead of fifty feet, and it was increasing. The problem was Rigo had taken off his shoes and was only wearing socks. He stepped on a small stone and broke stride as pain surged through his foot. By the time he recovered, the man had reached the street and was headed toward a car parked a hundred feet downhill from the driveway.
    The car’s lights flashed as the man clicked a remote. Rigo had no chance of stopping him, but he needed to get close enough to identify the car. The man climbed in, and the engine roared to life as Rigo approached. It started down the short street and made a right turn, away from Hawthorne Boulevard, the direction sheriff’s cars would probably be coming from. Somebody must have called 911 by now.
    The car was a compact, but Rigo couldn’t tell the make or read the license plate by the glow of the infrequent street lights. He couldn’t even be sure what color it was. A dark compact. There were only a few million of them in L.A. So common that he hadn’t noticed it when he passed it driving home from the restaurant.
    “Rigo.”
    Rigo turned as Carol came racing up behind him. She ran into his arms and clung to him. They hugged for a few seconds, panting, and then spoke simultaneously. “Are you all right?”
    They both laughed laughs of relief. They separated and Rigo saw a dark splotch on Carol’s arm. “You’re bleeding.”
    ***
    Carol was dizzy, not from her wound, but from all the things that had happened in the last few hours. Thinking back, as she and Rigo approached the house, the horn activated by the panic button shut itself off. They heard Ernie and Tina calling for them and saw the two fearfully searching the yard and garage with a flashlight.
    Tina said, “Oh, thank God,” when she saw them, but followed that exclamation with a concerned, “You’re hurt,” as she saw Rigo holding a reddening handkerchief against Carol’s arm to stop the bleeding.
    In rapid succession, sheriff’s deputies, paramedics, and an ambulance arrived. Although she protested her wound wasn’t that serious, Carol was taken to Torrance Hospital where she had spent several days after Rigo found her in the Dumpster. Rigo followed in his car. While she was being treated in the emergency room, sheriff’s deputies questioned both of them.
    Her flesh wound was cleaned, sewed up, and bandaged. She talked the doctor out of giving her a tetanus shot by pointing out she had received one when she was found. She was released within a couple of hours because of the efficiency of the hospital staff. Rigo drove her home. Now, feeling better and resting on the couch, she noted it was after two in the morning. They should all be in bed.
    In addition to Rigo, Ernie and Tina were still up, looking much relieved. Rigo repeated something for their benefit he had said to the sheriff’s deputy.
    “This isn’t a random act. The man was lying in wait for her. He must have been there when I came home. He even followed her into the garage but left when he realized he might get trapped in there. I’ll bet this is the same man who left her in the Dumpster. He probably thought she was dead, but, somehow found out she’s still alive.”
    That sounded reasonable to Carol, but who would want her dead? How did he know where she was staying? One thing she was sure of: the man wasn’t big enough to be Beard. She was thankful for Rigo’s help. “Rigo scared him away by yelling.”
    Rigo eschewed the role of hero. “Carol was fantastic. She not only managed to press the panic button on the car remote, she also kept closing the garage door in spite of the danger to herself.”
    “I was going to open it and run out if he came around to my side of the car.”
    Carol felt frustrated, not being able to remember what had happened to her before she was found in the Dumpster. Who was this man, and how were they connected? What had she done to deserve having him trying to kill her?
    The other thing bothering her was the expense of the emergency room. She told Ernie and Tina she had some money—not mentioning how she obtained it—and offered to pay. They declined, saying she paid them by helping with their financial analysis and getting Rigo involved with their business.
    Then she remembered the problem she had encountered getting admitted to the emergency room because she didn’t have a Social Security number. She wasn’t willing to use the fake one Paul had