Long-Lost Wife?

by Barbara Faith

“Someone struck him, probably the man who tried to drown you.”

  “But who?” The color that had come back to her face faded. “Why...why would anybody hurt Rob? Why would anybody want to kill me?”

  He sat beside her on the bed and took her hand. “I don’t know. Do you?”

  She stared at him. “No!” she cried, and tried to stifle the sobs that rose in her throat. “I don’t remember, Luis. I don’t even remember who I am.”

  He saw the fear and the desperation in her eyes, and though he longed to comfort her, he knew that he couldn’t, not yet. Whoever had tried to kill Annabel was still out there somewhere. He had to find him, because until he did, Annabel’s life was in danger.

  He picked up the phone and asked for Ambrosia. When she answered he said, “Please come to Mrs. Alarcon’s room. I’ll wait until you get here.”

  She came almost immediately. “I want you to stay with Annabel,” he said. “No matter what happens, I don’t want you to leave the room.”

  “I won’t, Mr. Alarcon.”

  And to Annabel he said, “Rest now, Annabel. Ambrosia will be here with you and I’ll be back later.”

  “Take care of Rob,” she whispered.

  “I will.” He kissed her forehead. “It’s going to be all right. We’re going to find out who it is and stop him. I promise you.”

  He didn’t want to leave. She looked so pale, so small. So frightened. But he had to, he had to find the man who had done this to his Annabel.

  Ambrosia sat in one of the chairs by the doors leading out to the balcony. “You sleep now, missus,” she said. “I be here.”

  Annabel closed her eyes. She could feel the pill beginning to take hold and tried very hard to give in to it. But every time she did, every time she reached that fine edge of sleep, she remembered the hands on her shoulders, the water closing over her head, and jerked awake with a cry.

  And she remembered, too, that in the final moment when she knew she was going to die, she had called out to Alejandro. Alejandro had been dead for almost three hundred years, drowned as she was drowning. Yet she had called out to him. But why? Dear Lord, she had lost her memory; was she losing her mind, too?

  When Ambrosia saw that she could not sleep, she moved her chair closer to the bed and began to sing a lullaby in a soft-as-velvet voice. Soothing words. Quieting words. Annabel reached for Ambrosia’s hand. And slept at last.

  Luis took three of his men with him and directed the others to search the rest of the island. Though San Sebastián was small in area, ten miles long and five miles wide, there were many places to look—jungle-like greenery, fertile lowlands, rugged, heavily wooded areas, sea caves and inlets.

  And there wasn’t only his island to worry about. Less than half a mile beyond San Sebastián lay three small, uninhabited islands. What if somebody was on one of them? Whoever it was could have come here in the dark of the night and slipped in to shore without notice. But who? In the name of God, who could it have been?

  He posted four of the men along this exposed section of the beach and gave orders that they were to patrol it night and day. The men who had searched the other side of the island reported to him that they had seen no sign of anyone. He hadn’t expected that they would, because that was the rocky part of San Sebastián. With its high cliff and the rocks below, he doubted anyone would have attempted an approach from there.

  He decided not to post guards on the cliff because he could better use them in other parts of the island. It was far more likely that someone would approach by way of the beach, hide in the heavy foliage or in one of the underwater caves at low tide.

  While his men continued searching, he went back to the house to check on Annabel. Ambrosia reported that she had had difficulty falling asleep, but that once she did, the pill had taken over and she had been sleeping most of the afternoon.

  He went to see Rob. The dog was awake, his wounds had been bound, and Meadowlark reported that he’d eaten half a dish of his food.

  By the time Luis returned to his men they had completed searching the whole island.

  “There be no trace of nobody, boss,” Samuel reported.

  “I want men posted all around the house,” Luis said. “Moses, I want you and Samuel inside the house. You take the day shift, Samuel will cover at night. I want everyone armed. Tell the men who don’t have weapons to come up to the house. I’ll issue guns and ammo.”

  “This be serious, boss?” Moses asked with a worried look.

  “Yes, Moses, ifs serious. Twice now somebody has tried to kill Mrs. Alarcon. I want the bastard caught.”

  Moses and Samuel and the men standing nearby nodded. “We catch him,” one man said.

  “When we do, he goin’ to be shark bait,” another one said.

  Luis shook his head. “I want him alive. I want to know what he’s after, why he tried to kill my wife.”

  His wife. The words, though they should not have, sounded strange to his ears. Annabel de Alarcon, a mystery woman. His woman.

  She was up, sitting at the table near the open doors of her bedroom, when he went in.

  “How’s Rob?” she asked quickly. “Is he—”

  “He’s going to be all right,” Luis said.

  “Thank God.”

  “I’ll bring him in later if you like.”

  “I like.” A faint smile curved her lips, but faded when she asked, “It was the same man, wasn’t it? I mean, whoever tried to drown me hurt Rob.”

  “Yes, probably.”

  “But you know everybody on the island. Why would any of them want to kill me?”

  “It wasn’t my island people, Annabel. It was somebody else.” She started to say something then, but before she could, he turned to Ambrosia and said, “I’ll be here with Mrs. Alarcon now, Ambrosia. Thank you for staying with her, Ambrosia.”

  “No need to thank me, Mr. Alarcon.” She patted Annabel’s hand. “You want anything, you be calling me. Yes?”

  “Yes, Ambrosia. And thank you.”

  When they were alone Luis took the chair across from Annabel. “I know how difficult this is for you,” he said. “I know how frightened you are. But you’re safe now. I’ve posted guards on the beach and around the house and I have men inside. Believe me, Annabel, nobody is going to get close to you again.”

  “But, why...” She shook her head. “I don’t understand it, Luis. Why would somebody want to kill me?”

  “I don’t know, Annabel.” He took her hand. “But maybe you do.”

  “Me, but I—”

  “Somewhere back in your memory you know. Something terrible happened to you on the boat, something so terrible you don’t want to remember.”

  “But I do want to remember,” she insisted. “The boat exploded. There was gasoline vapor in the engine and it blew up. I had a concussion...that’s why I can’t remember.”

  Luis shook his head. “I think it’s something else. I think the memory of whatever it was that happened on the boat that day traumatized you so badly you’ve blocked it out.” He tightened his hand around hers. “But it’s there and you’ve got to find it. You’ve got to try to remember.”

  “I want to,” she said. “I’m trying to. But I can’t. I can’t.”

  She pulled her hand away and, standing, went out the open doors onto her balcony. Luis followed her. He knew she was upset, that she didn’t want to talk about it, but she had to. Her life might depend on it.

  “You read the story in the Herald,” he said. “You know what the authorities think happened that day.” He stood behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders. “Was there something else, Annabel? Something you dreamed that was different from the story in the paper?”

  “Yes, but... but that was only a dream.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Shots,” she whispered. “There were shots.”

  “What?” He turned her so that she faced him. “What did you say?”

  “In my dreams there were shots. Popping noises. Like firecrack
ers or a car backfiring.”

  “Go on. What else?”

  “I...I don’t know.”

  He tightened his grip on her shoulders. “Think!” he ordered. “What else?”

  She swayed, but he held her. “What else?” he insisted.

  “I remembered...when I saw their pictures, it was as though I could see them...Louise and Albert. And Mark. We were sitting in the bow of the boat. There was music from down below in the cabin. Fats Waller playing ‘Muskrat Ramble.’ We were laughing and then it...it...”

  She shook her head as though unable to go on; tears were streaming down her face.

  “Tell me,” Luis insisted. “Tell me, Annabel.”

  “It happened. The shots. Crack! Crack! Crack! And then—and then they screamed. They all screamed....”

  She sagged in his arms. He picked her up and carried her back into the bedroom, where he laid her on the chaise. She was as pale as death, trembling uncontrollably. He knew he’d been a brute to question her this way, but he’d had to. If what Annabel remembered was real, then somebody on the boat had killed the Croydens and Zachary Flynn. Only Annabel had somehow managed to escape.

  “Louise and Albert and Mark were sitting in the bow,” he said in a low voice. “Were you with them?”

  “Yes. I... I think I was sitting between Louise and Mark. Albert was standing, telling a joke. He...”

  “Go on,” he said gently. “Where was Zachary Flynn?”

  She looked puzzled. “I...I suppose he was handling the boat.”

  “You don’t remember seeing him?”

  She shook her head. “It’s strange, but no. I remember someone, a man, but I don’t remember who it was.”

  “There wasn’t anybody else on board? Flynn didn’t have somebody helping him?”

  “I... I don’t think so.”

  “Do you have any recollection of how you got off the boat and into the rubber raft?”

  “No. I...I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right. You’ve done very well remembering.”

  “Remembering?” Annabel shook her head. “What if it’s not a memory, Luis? What if, after all, everything is only a dream?”

  “I don’t think it is. I think your subconscious is trying to tell you what happened.” He let go of her hand. “We’ll work it out, Annabel. I’ll help you remember.”

  He stood and, changing the subject, said, “Do you want to have dinner on your balcony or on the terrace?” He smiled. “Either way we’ll eat together.”

  “Here,” she said. “On the balcony.”

  “In half an hour? I’d like to clean up first.” He started toward the door, then stopped. “From now on there’ll be no separate bedrooms. I’m going to sleep in here with you because I want to be able to reach out my hand and know that you’re safe.”

  “And I don’t have anything to say about it?” she asked, getting angry.

  He was glad for the anger, glad that two bright spots had appeared in her cheeks.

  “No,” he said. “You really don’t. But as far as our making love, yes, you have everything to say about that. Whether we do or not will be your decision. That’s my promise and I’ll keep it.” He grinned. “I’ll even wear my robe.”

  She frowned at the closed door when he left. Robe indeed. What she needed was a wall of Jericho kind of separation like the one Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert used in It Happened One Night.

  It Happened One Night. How strange that she could remember a movie that had been made more than fifty years ago but she couldn’t remember her own name.

  “Loco, ” she said aloud, wondering how she knew that meant crazy. Wondering if she was.

  They had dinner together on the balcony of her room and afterward, while Luis sipped a brandy and she had another cup of tea, they watched the moon come up over the water.

  “Ambrosia sang to me today,” Annabel said. “A song about palm trees blowing in the breeze and the moon shining overhead.”

  He smiled. “Ambrosia has been crazy about you since the first day I brought you to the island almost eight years ago. She lost a daughter who would have been about your age when you first came here and I think she transferred all of her maternal feelings to you.”

  He took a sip of his drink and looked out at the fading night. “You were so young, Annabel, so different from other young women your age, more like the young Spanish women I’d known when I was growing up in Spain. There, a young woman of a good family is carefully guarded until the day of her wedding. Today in America it isn’t like that. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but I knew that when I married I did not want my wife to have experienced other lovers.”

  “But you had, of course,” she said with a lift of her eyebrow.

  “Of course. But it’s different with a man.”

  She gave what sounded like an unladylike snort, but before she could say anything he went on. “There was an innocence about you that enchanted me, Annabel. I knew from the first moment I saw you that I would make you mine.”

  “Where?” she asked. “I mean, where did we meet?”

  “I told you. We met at a Mardi Gras ball in New Orleans. You were wearing a long, pale blue dress. Someone introduced us and I asked you to dance. We danced until your date cut in. I let him have you for a minute, then I cut in again.” He laughed. “I cut in on every man who asked you to dance that night, and there were a lot of them.

  “I called you the next day,” he went on. “Actually, I called you every day for two weeks before you said you’d go out with me. And when you went back to Miami I followed you there. We were married two months from the night we met.”

  “That was awfully fast.”

  “Yes, it was. But I knew, I knew right away that you were the girl for me.”

  “Woman,” she said. “I was a woman.”

  “A very young one.”

  That disquieted her, but she wasn’t sure why. She wasn’t even sure if the things he said about their meeting and marriage were true.

  “You said before that we were married in Miami. Was that where I was living?”

  “Yes.”

  “But what was I doing in New Orleans?”

  “You were there to visit friends.”

  “Did you meet them?”

  “It was eight years ago, Annabel. I really don’t remember.”

  There were so many questions, questions without answers. But she was tired, still suffering from the terror and reaction of this early morning. For a little while she’d been able to forget, but now that it was bedtime, everything came rushing back. And after all, she was glad Luis had insisted on staying with her.

  She went in to change into a nightgown, a long nightgown, while he went to the room he’d been using. She was in bed by the time he returned and got into bed with her. “Are you ready to sleep or would you like to read for a little while?”

  “I’m ready to sleep.”

  “Well then.” He snapped the light off. “Good night, Annabel. Sleep well.”

  “You, too.” She lay on her back and watched the shadowed motion of the overhead fan turn slowly around. She didn’t move when Luis reached to take her hand because it was comforting to have him close by. But if he tried to make love to her...

  He didn’t try. But when at last she turned onto her side, away from him, he curled his body around hers.

  “Sleep,” he said. “Go to sleep, Annabel. I’m here, querida. Nothing will harm you now.”

  She sighed, and in a little while her breathing evened and she slept. But it was a long time that night before Luis did.

  Her bottom snugged tight against him, and though at first he felt a quick surge of desire, he managed to quell it. Annabel needed him, that’s what was important now. It made him feel protective, filled with a tenderness and caring stronger than any other emotion. She made a small sound, her muscles quivered and he knew she was dreaming.

  “Sh,” he whispered. “It’s all right, mi niña, my girl. I’m here. I’m here
.”

  He patted her bottom as though she were a child, and when at last she grew quiet, he kissed the back of her neck. And held her all through the darkness of the night.

  Chapter 12

  The next few days were relatively peaceful. Rob recovered, and the next morning when he was able to get along on his own, he scratched on Annabel’s door. He was admitted by a sleepy and disgruntled Luis and an overjoyed Annabel, who—“Just this once,” she said—allowed Rob up on the bed.

  She seemed to have recovered from the latest attempt on her life, but when, two days later, Luis suggested a swim, she looked so alarmed that he didn’t press it. She’d had two close calls with water and, for the moment at least, she wanted no part of it.

  She took long walks every day, usually with Luis, but if he was busy, Samuel or Moses went with her. And Rob, of course. The dog rarely let her out of his sight, except at night, when Luis put his foot down. Rob could sleep outside Annabel’s door, but Luis was damned if he was going to share her bed with the black Lab.

  The four men who patrolled the beach reported they hadn’t seen anything, nor had they noticed any activity from the islands that faced San Sebastián. But Luis knew that whoever had made the second attempt on Annabel’s life was out there on one of those islands or hiding somewhere right here on San Sebastián. Until they caught him, Luis had no intention of letting down his guard.

  He continued to share Annabel’s bed, but though it cost him, he made no attempt to make love to her.

  As for Annabel, she told him she was quite all right now and perfectly able to sleep alone, but in fact she had become accustomed to his sleeping with her. It was very comforting to know he was there and that she had only to reach out her hand to touch him. Sometimes, when he turned away from her in his sleep, she leaned her face against his back because she liked the feel of his skin against her cheek, liked to breathe in the good male smell of him.

  There were times when she awoke in the morning with her head in that wonderful hollow between his shoulder and his chest. And though she always moved quickly away, she sometimes felt an urgent longing to be closer.

  And finally, one early morning when the first faint light of dawn crept into the room, when the air smelled sweet with the scent of gardenia and island jasmine, she did snuggle closer. Sure that he was still asleep, she could not resist the impulse to feather kisses over his shoulder and make little cat licks against his skin.