Read the First Two Chapters of We Forget Nothing!

To celebrate the upcoming release of FBI S.W.O.R.D. book 4, Beneath Hemlock Skies, I’m sharing the first two chapters of We Forget Nothing (book 2) on the blog today.

I’ve previously shared the first chapter of book 1 for readers curious about the series and wanting to get a feel for it. If you’ve already read The Fifth Victim and are continuing on, I hope you enjoy this look into book 2.

Note: There are some spoilers if you haven’t read book 1 yet.

We Forget Nothing

D.D. Black

Chapter 1

Evergreen Memory Care

Seattle, Washington

For the first few months, Lydia didn’t notice anything strange about Augustus Cunningham. Maybe he made an odd comment here or there, sure. But odd comments were a dime a dozen at Evergreen Memory Care.

On the morning everything changed, she was serving breakfast as usual. 

Breakfast was one of the toughest shifts. The state surveyors were big on facilities like Evergreen offering choices to their patients. It was part of the requirement for individualized care plans and patient dignity and all that.

At every meal there were choices, but at breakfast the choices were far more complex. Cereal, or bacon and eggs? What kind of bread for your toast? What kind of jam? Tea or coffee with your juice? And the cereal, coffee, tea, and juice options were endless.

Add in the fact that she was dealing with memory care patients, and taking an order could take forever. Of course, Lydia knew better than to call them “patients” in front of management. At Evergreen Memory Care, we treat residents like they’re our guests. At least that’s what it said on the brochure.

“Good morning, Sister Ella,” Lydia said, “would you like eggs or oatmeal for breakfast this morning?”

“What is it my child?” Sister Ella asked. She was eighty-odd years old and permanently bent forward by osteoporosis. Sister Ella did everything together with the two women who shared her table, Sister Ruth and Sister Veronica.

It was possible to get by without knowing about a resident’s past, but Lydia was curious by nature and dipped into the charts when she had a spare moment. She also asked a lot of questions. She’d seen pictures of these three in their younger years standing in front of large hydraulic ferry ramps wearing orange safety vests over the same simple brown habits they wore to this day. The nuns were from the Franciscan order that had run the ferry terminal on Shaw Island since the 1970s. Now they were too old to work and had no novice nuns to replace them—or take care of them.

Lydia examined Ella’s ears; she wasn’t wearing her hearing aids. The morning medpass had been heavy, and somewhere in the revolving door of nursing staff, Ella’s hearing aids had been forgotten. Again.

Lydia crouched down, placed her hand on Sister Ella’s arm, then spoke clearly, trying not to sound exasperated or impatient. “Would you like eggs or oatmeal this morning?”

Sister Ella patted Lydia on the hand and smiled, then turned to Sister Ruth, who sat to her right. “I deeply apologize for being late for the ferry. Please forgive me. Somehow I’ve missed morning prayers and breakfast.” 

The plates landed on the table with a clunk, clunk, clunk.

Lydia’s coworker Debbie had dollupped oatmeal topped with slivered almonds into three small bowls that each sat on a plate next to an underripe banana. “You know this is all they ever end up eating,” Debbie snapped. “We have another sixty-some people to feed this morning, right? Put a fire under it.”

Debbie took a full glass of milk from the table where residents who were unable to feed themselves sat waiting for a caregiver. She poured it over the three oatmeals.

Lydia peeled and sliced the banana for Sister Veronica. She was the most confused of the three and Lydia didn’t want to find her choking if she tried to eat the whole banana, peel and all, as she had last week.

Lydia left the dining room to serve Geraldine, who preferred to take breakfast in her room. Every morning the same sweet, nearly toothless smile would greet her. 

“Ah Lydia,” Geraldine sang as she walked in, “she was the most glorious creature under the sun…” Geraldine was one of the few residents who remembered Lydia’s name, and she loved to sing a song about it. 

Glancing past Geraldine at her own reflection in the armoire mirror, Lydia admired her bright red, shoulder length hair, which she’d dyed the night before. Not that anyone here would notice.

“Well, honey, there’s a problem,” Geraldine said, “I can’t seem to find my purse. Now, I don’t want you to think I’m trying to cadge a free meal, if you’ll just give me a chance to look around a bit—”

“Don’t you worry about it, Geraldine, breakfast is on the house.” Lydia spoke in her buddy-buddy tone. Letting residents think they were getting a free meal was a small pleasure, and those were highly valued commodities in a place like this.

“Really?”

“Yep. No charge, sweetie. Don’t you worry about it.” From experience, Lydia knew that there was a fifty-fifty chance Geraldine would remember that she didn’t have to pay for lunch, but by tomorrow’s breakfast she would once again be looking for her purse. Memory worked in mysterious ways.

Lydia took Geraldine’s order, brought her breakfast, then returned to the dining area.

And so it went: Francine sat rocking back and forth silently, eventually eating whatever was put in front of her. Mary angrily demanded to know what all these people were doing in her grandmother’s house. Lloyd, enjoying his breakfast, confided in Lydia, as he did every day, that this would be his last morning here as his son would be taking him home this afternoon.

He’d told Lydia that nearly every day for two years, undeterred by the death of his son eight months ago. Lydia would go along with his delusion, smile, and wish him a pleasant trip just as she always had. If her little lie offered him a moment of joy, it was worth any time she would spend in purgatory cleansing herself of it.

Augustus—who preferred to be called Gus—had been at Evergreen for nearly a year and preferred to sit at a table alone by the window. 

Always alone. 

Always by the window. 

He didn’t look up when she slid the breakfast tray in front of him. Dry toast, an empty bowl, a glass of milk. He placed the toast in the bowl and poured the milk over it, then began mashing. 

Lydia hadn’t heard of milktoast before Gus came to live at Evergreen. And, despite his memory issues, remembering to demand milktoast every morning was not something he ever forgot. 

He took one bite, then looked up at Lydia.

She watched as his expression changed to a look she read as frustration.

“Everything okay, Gus?” Lydia asked, crouching next to him to inspect his meal. “Is something wrong with your breakfast? We have raisin toast today. If you would like that instead, I will get you some.”

His stare lingered and he flared his nostrils. His upper lip lifted briefly in a snarl, revealing several yellowed teeth. Soggy white toast clumps filled in gaps where his gums had receded. His look turned ominous as his eyes darkened and his pupils grew large and glossy.

Lydia’s instincts to bolt kicked in a moment too late.

As she tried to stand, he grabbed her by the hair, then pulled her closer, his grip firmer than she’d thought him capable of.

“What a nuisance!” he hissed viciously, the deep wrinkles on his weathered face growing stiff. 

Despite the pain in her scalp, her ears perked at the voice. The phrase. Both were familiar, but from where?

She grabbed Gus’s hand, then pried gently, trying not to hurt him, slowly kneeling next to him to prevent him from ripping the hair from her scalp. “Gus, everything’s okay. It’s Lydia. You’re here at Evergreen Memory Care in Seattle. Everything’s okay. Now eat your milktoast before it gets too…” She trailed off. She was going to say cold, then she was going to say mushy. But the breakfast he ate was already cold and always mushy. “Please eat your milktoast, Gus.” She pushed the bowl towards him. “Look at your milktoast here, just the way you like it,” she continued, keeping her voice calm and sweet.

Finally, Gus turned his attention to the bowl and loosened his grip on her hair. Lydia used his moment of distraction to rip her hair from his hand, then rapidly stumbled backwards in an awkward crabwalk to get away.

Lydia had been working at Evergreen Memory Care in Seattle for five years, which made her a seasoned veteran by staffing standards. Six months was average turnover for anything below management, and management wasn’t a great deal better.

She’d seen a lot and heard even more. She’d dealt with plenty of combative patients, but she’d never seen anything like the look Gus gave her today. His sharp gaze felt like it could have pierced her skull. It had certainly pierced her soul. 

And the way he’d said nuisance was eerily familiar. 

###

That night, alone in her little studio apartment, Lydia rubbed at her sore scalp and scanned her laptop screen. She spent many hours a week in the online forums, chat rooms, and Facebook groups dedicated to true crime mysteries. 

In fact, she was a self-professed true crime junkie. She was obsessed with cold cases, the search for justice, and the enigmatic killers who’d never been caught. The cases were like little puzzles in her head and she loved moving the pieces around. She’d never thought she would actually solve anything, but today everything on the screen was lining up.

The Interstate Reaper had killed five women between 1979 and 1989, up and down Interstate 5, from Northern California all the way up to close to the Canadian border in Bellingham, Washington.

And they were all redheads.

Gus Cunningham was ninety years old, with a gaunt frame and thin white hair. He didn’t look like he could do much more than pull a woman’s hair now. His age was spot on, and what she knew of his background lined up as well. Gus had worked as a manager for a chain of diners that had expanded from Northern California up I-5 in the seventies and eighties.

But it wasn’t just that. 

One of the only pieces of evidence in the case, which was one of the coldest in the history of serial killers, was a recording of a man in a little campground in Yreka, California. It had been caught by accident by a local film crew shooting a promotional video for California’s tourism bureau. The film crew had discovered the audio a week later, and only thought anything of it because a woman’s strangled corpse had been found only a hundred yards from where they’d been filming.

Now, Lydia clicked over to the page where all the evidence in the case was pored over by true crime fanatics like her. Pictures of the victims, timelines of the killings, a list of suspects, all of whom had been dismissed decades earlier for their solid alibis or lack of evidence.

She found the audio and clicked Play.

It was scratchy and far away, but had been amplified with modern technology. The voice sounded younger, but it definitely could have been Gus Cunningham. 

“What a nuisance!”

###

“So, Mr. Cunningham,” she began the next morning as she slid his toast and milk in front of him, careful to keep out of arm’s reach, “I hear you used to be Regional Manager for the Sunny Skillet Diner chain. That must have been interesting work, huh?”

She hoped he was in one of his lucid states, but it appeared that he wasn’t. He set the toast in the bowl and poured the milk over it, then began his mashing ritual.

“That job must have taken you from California all the way through Oregon and into Washington,” she continued, making sure to keep a solid object like a chair between them. Although he didn’t appear as sinister as he had the day before, she didn’t want to take any chances. “Quite a lot of time on Interstate 5. A lot of miles, right?” 

He said nothing.

“Mr. Cunningham, you know I’ve eaten at those diners my whole life. Best chicken and waffles I’ve ever had.” He took a pitiful spoonful into his mouth and looked out the window as he processed the mush before swallowing.

“Mr. Cunningham, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten about Sunny Skillet Diner. You worked there for over thirty years.” She was trying to sound friendly. “Have you forgotten? Why, there’s likely no one alive who’s more responsible for my appreciation of southern comfort food. I always wanted red hair just like the little girl in the commercial. Mine’s from a bottle, dyed you know. Do you like it?” 

Gus didn’t respond.

Lydia thought about how memories of people suffering with dementia can sometimes be triggered by songs from their past. “You remember that commercial, don’t you? With the little girl? Nothing gives you that feeling of a nice sunny day like a Sunny Skillet Diner meal. You could never forget that song.”

At this, Gus threw his spoon into the bowl. Milk and soggy mash slopped over the side and the bowl rattled to a stop. He looked up, twisting his neck. His eyes moved from her face to her hair slowly, then back to her face until his eyes were locked on hers.

“Forget?” He paused, his yellow teeth breaking into a wicked smile. “We forget nothing, you little nuisance.”

Chapter 2

“Either of you know anything about salmon fishing?” Claire asked.

She stood in the lobby of the FBI headquarters in Seattle, waiting in line at the little coffee stand for her first caffeinated beverage of the morning. To her left stood Jack Russo, and to her right, Fitz Pembroke, III. They had been arguing back and forth about who would handle the rest of the paperwork from the case of the Luminist Killer, whom they had brought down about six weeks earlier.

“I can’t say that I do,” Fitz said, “but I know that late April is not the ideal salmon fishing season in this region.” Ranger, their Golden Retriever, left Fitz’s side and nudged his ear against Claire’s leg, then sat and looked up at her.

Out of the four of them, Ranger looked like the one most likely to know something about fish. The green nylon tactical vest he wore made him look like he could be carrying fishing tackle. Put a salmon in his mouth and he’d make the front page of Northwest Sportsman. 

“Fitz, how do you know that random detail?” Claire asked. She reached down and scratched Ranger behind the ears. “I mean, I asked both of you, but I was really asking Jack.”

Jack had grown up on a ranch and seemed like the kind of guy who’d also know how to fish. Fitz, on the other hand, was the type to be found at home with his face either in a book or a pint of lager.

“The salmon fishing season in Washington is one of a million pieces of fairly useless information I have at the ready.” Fitz smiled. “Useless to me, that is, as I am not someone who has ever—or will ever—stand on the beach casting a line and waiting hopefully. But it might just be useful to a case, or to you. Isn’t that why you brought me onto the team?” 

Claire sighed.

Jack came up alongside Fitz and patted him on the shoulder. “Do all Brits like to hear themselves talk as much as you do?” 

“Not at all,” Fitz said. “My countrymen are known for being stoic and emotionally withdrawn. In a good way. Please don’t take my personal failings as representative of the great United Kingdom.”

“Bob’s my uncle,” Jack said.

“Meh,”  Fitz responded.

They reached the front of the line and Claire ordered her cappuccino. Jack ordered a black coffee, and Fitz, after considering his options for well over a minute—even though he’d had plenty of time to decide what to order while standing in line—ordered a can of Coke.

Claire wasn’t surprised, but Jack’s eyes widened. “I can’t believe you’re drinking Coke at eight in the morning.”

“Back in the UK,” Fitz replied, “it’s well after noon.”

Claire frowned. “You haven’t lived in the UK in ten years.” 

“You can take the bloke out of England—” Fitz began.

“Oh right, Fitzie,” Claire interrupted. “I forgot you were banned from the country permanently.”

“Banned? Not at all,” Fitz said. “Highly discouraged from returning by multiple government agencies? Possibly.”

“Wait, really?” Jack asked. “I mean I knew you screwed up over there, but—”

“Not really,” Claire said. “Just a running joke we share.”

“Yeah,” Fitz said, clearing his throat dramatically. “A joke. To be sure.”

Claire saw Jack’s confusion. “Fitz’s family is placed throughout the top echelon of both business and politics over there. He jokes that if he ever tries to return home they’ll stop him at the airport and send him on the first flight out of England to a lovely town by the name of Anywhere Else, to avoid embarrassment.”

“Not just embarrassment,” Fitz said. “Utter scandal.”

The barista handed Fitz the can of Coke. Standing out against Fitz’s brown corduroy sports coat, the same one he always wore, the bright red can struck Claire’s senses in the otherwise drab lobby setting. 

She rubbed at her ribs, which had healed well from her recent fight, but still stung from time to time. She knew enough to know that the pain was related to the emotional trauma of her previous case, but that didn’t make it go away.

For the last six weeks, her task force had been looking into various cold cases from the FBI’s past. Although she had been ready to take on any new cases that arose, she knew that solving a major case from the past would bring her team the departmental recognition she wanted. And she didn’t want it for selfish reasons. Ever since the formation of Task Force S.W.O.R.D., she’d been battling to get the money and resources she needed to do it right.

“Why’d you want to know about fishing?” Jack asked as they ambled across the lobby.

“Benny,” Claire said, her heart tugging a little. “We play this fish game online. And since he’s on his computer so much, I want to get him outside for the real thing. My ex-husband always said he’d take him fishing, but well…” 

“One of his many failings,” Fitz said, nodding in understanding.

“Let’s not badmouth my husband,” Claire said.

As frustrated as she’d been—and still was—with Brian, she’d told herself she’d never speak badly about him outside of her closest friends or her therapist. For better or worse, he was the father of her children and deserved a modicum of respect, despite his failings.

“Ex-husband, I thought,” Fitz added.

Claire shot him a narrow-eyed look.

Obviously taking the hint, Fitz zipped his lips.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I told Benny I’d take him fishing or would find someone who was an expert. You two are the closest thing he has to uncles, God help us all.”

Fitz laughed.

“I can take him,” Jack said. “Lake fishing is really my speciality. But I’ve been meaning to go out there and toss a line for some salmon one of these days.”

“Thanks,” Claire said. “I know he’ll—”

She stopped mid sentence when she heard a woman speaking loudly by the entry gate. 

“I need to speak with someone now!” the woman was saying, her voice oscillating between agitated and frantic.

Claire studied her from across the lobby. She had bright red hair, obviously dyed, and appeared to be in her mid forties. She was short, with a medium build and a dark tattoo on her wrist that Claire couldn’t make out from across the lobby. Judging by her brightly-colored, polka-dotted scrubs, she was a nurse or CNA.

“Wait here,” Claire said to Fitz and Jack, walking over to her.

The woman was growing more and more agitated each time the security guard refused to let her through, but she didn’t strike Claire as a threat. More than anything, she appeared afraid. But people who were in danger usually called the police, or went to their local precinct. 

“Really!” the woman implored, now nearing tears. “I need to speak with someone in the FBI. It’s important.”

Claire stopped a few paces away.

“Ma’am,” the security guard said, his voice a long, uninterested drawl, “if you don’t have an appointment, you can’t just come in demanding to be heard. That’s not how this works.” 

“The Interstate Reaper,” the woman said. “I found him.”

Claire cocked her head slightly. She knew about the case. Everyone in the FBI knew about it. Damn near everyone in America had at least heard of it.

Apparently the security guard wasn’t one of them. “Now, I don’t know who that is or who you think that is, but it won’t help you get in here. You need to call ahead and make an appointment with one of our agents.”

“The Interstate Reaper…” the woman said again.

“You understand, right?” the security guard said, waving her away. “If we let everyone just show up at our doorstep, nothing would get done.” 

There were tears forming in the woman’s eyes and her cheeks had reddened. “The Interstate Reaper is living fifteen minutes from here. I’m literally his nurse.”

Claire stepped forward and put her hand on the security guard’s raised desk. “What’s your name?” she asked the woman.

The security guard threw up his hands in a way Claire felt was his best attempt at subtlety, then walked a few steps away from the desk muttering something about sticking to protocol.

“Lydia,” the woman said, wiping away tears. “Lydia Ramirez.”

Claire studied her. What had looked like polka dots from further away were actually little strawberries, some of them with a bite taken out. “I take it from your scrubs that you don’t work in law enforcement?”

She shook her head. “Memory care facility. I’m a CNA. Certified Nursing Assistant.” 

Claire nodded. “And you have some information on the Interstate Reaper case?”

“Information? No, I have the killer. I mean I work with him, or for him, or… I mean every morning I give him milktoast. Well, when I’m working, actually, but I—”

“Please,” Claire said, “let’s just slow down.”

The tears were rolling down Lydia’s cheeks now and she was taking quick, short breaths.

Claire knew about the online culture of amateur sleuths, and knew well that they were almost always delusional or misinformed. The FBI tip line got calls every week from random people who believed they’d solved this crime or that one. Usually they turned out to be from random guys living in their mom’s basement or paranoid women with twenty-seven cats and too much free time.

But something about Lydia Ramirez struck her as genuine.

Claire smiled at the security guard. “Ahmed,” she said, “it’s all right. Get Lydia’s ID and whatnot, and send her down to the Boiler Room. I think she might have something we need to hear.”

If you enjoyed this excerpt and want to keep reading, you can find We Forget Nothing on Amazon in paperback, ebook, or audiobook. I also offer signed copies on my website here.