“The Carvy house is just ahead,” Rubin announced, looking at her through the rearview mirror again.
Rain leaned forward, glancing out the front window. The homes had become mansions, but catching sight of a large Tudor-style home peeking out from atop a tree-lined drive had something flashing in her memory. She didn’t need the FBI agent to tell her which house belonged to Logan Carvy. She already knew which one it was. She had been there before, had driven up that drive, had been inside that house.
“Rain,” Joe asked, reaching for her from the front seat. “What is it? What’s the matter?”
Staring at the house, she pointed. “That’s it. That’s the one right there.” She shifted her gaze, looking at him. “I’ve been here before. I—I remember.”
“She’s right,” Rubin affirmed.
Joe’s gaze bounced to the agent, then back to her. Finding her hand, he squeezed it tight. “Are you okay? Do you want to stop for a while?”
But she couldn’t answer, couldn’t speak. She could only sit there and shake her head. Something was happening. She knew it, could feel it.
She sank back against the seat, closing her eyes to the disjointed images that flashed through her mind. It was almost there, she could almost touch it, almost remember.
“Rain, look at me,” Joe demanded. “Open your eyes. Rain, please.”
“Joe,” she groaned, watching the pictures in her brain. What was it she was seeing? Who were those people? Where was that place? She opened her eyes, turning to him. “Joe. I’ve been here before. I know it…I remember.”
“Pull the car over,” he ordered Rubin.
Her heart was pounding by the time Agent Rubin brought the car to a stop at the curb.
Joe was out of the car and by her side before she had a chance to open her eyes.
“Rain, talk to me,” he pleaded, taking her hand. “Are you all right?”
She opened her eyes, gazing up at him. It had been so close, so close she’d almost been able to touch it. Except her fingers had only been able to brush the surface; she hadn’t been able to grasp hold, hadn’t been able to pull it back.
“I’m okay,” she assured him. His face was streaked with worry and she felt her heart pound even harder. “I thought for a moment…” She stopped and shook her head. How could she explain to him what she didn’t understand herself? “I’m fine now. Just let me catch my breath.”
“Rubin, turn the car around. We’ll reschedule for later—”
“No,” she insisted, shaking her head. She turned to him, slipping her palm along his cheek. He was such a good man, was capable of such warmth, such caring. This was as difficult for him as it was for her, and the last thing she wanted was to prolong the agony for either of them. “We’ve come this far.”
“But if it’s this hard on you—”
“It’s just nerves,” she lied. She dropped her hand and sat up. “And I’m feeling much better now.”
He looked less than convinced, but as though sensing her determination, he slid out of the car and into the front seat again.
They were all quiet as Rubin drove the standard-issue government sedan through the open iron gates of the Carvy home and up the shady drive. When he brought the car to a stop in the center of the circular drive, she opened the door and stepped out onto the drive on her own.
There was something happening inside her. She knew it just as she knew the sun would set in the west and rise tomorrow in the east. She couldn’t explain it, didn’t even want to talk about it, but she knew Logan Carvy held the key to everything.
She wanted to meet the man, wanted to see the person who was her husband—not because he had identified her as his wife, not because she thought she loved him and not even because it was the right thing to do.
For weeks she had been living on the edge of a black hole not knowing where she had come from or where she was going and too frightened to think about either. But she wasn’t afraid anymore. From the moment she had walked out of the desert and into Joe Mountain’s arms, her entire life rotated around Logan. He had been there from the beginning—first in her dreams and now in her reality. Logan had bridged the gap between the past and the present, had remained the only constant in a life of chaos and question. It was as if she had died and had been reborn and somehow it all revolved around Logan.
She looked up at the house Logan Carvy called home, the house she could almost remember, the house he had shared with his wife. No, she wasn’t afraid, she was determined. She wanted this to happen, insisted that it happen. She’d had her fill of questions with no answers, had enough of being afraid and not knowing why. This was the day of reckoning, the day all her questions were answered and all the dark spots in her life thrown into the light.
“Ready?” Joe asked, walking around the car to her.
She looked up, feeling more certain, more confident than she had in her life. “Let’s do it.”
Something changed the moment she walked through Logan Carvy’s house. It was as if she had transformed before his eyes. She didn’t have to say anything, didn’t have to tell him or even open her mouth—it was written all over her face. He had been walking beside her when she’d stepped inside the house, when the past ascended from the ashes like a phoenix rising and hit her right between the eyes.
A housemaid was escorting them through the foyer and into the living room, but he was barely aware of it. His entire focus was on Rain and what was happening to her.
Since his midnight call to Neal Rubin, his apprehension about this morning had grown. He wasn’t sure if he felt vindicated or just more disturbed when he learned Logan Carvy had succeeded in raising the suspicions of the FBI, as well. According to Rubin, they had questioned Carvy’s delay in reporting his wife’s kidnapping and had found that suspicious from the beginning. Of course, they both had to admit that there was no hard evidence to show that Carvy was anything other than what he appeared, but as seasoned lawmen, they’d both learned to rely on their instincts and instincts were telling them Carvy was hiding something.
Of course, all this only made this morning’s meeting all the more impossible for him. Leaving Rain with a husband she didn’t remember was difficult enough. Leaving her with a man who couldn’t be trusted was damn near impossible. His reservation had him leaving for Nevada tonight, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get on that plane—at least until he figured out just what Logan Carvy was hiding.
Her hand on his arm scattered his troubled thoughts and brought him to an abrupt halt.
“I need to sit down,” she mumbled in a whisper.
She looked deathly white and her half-closed eyes looked glassy and unable to focus.
“Right, right,” he said, banking down the panic he felt. Rushing, he all but carried her around a gaudy, high-backed embroidered sofa that stood facing away from the living room entrance. Settling her on an unyielding cushion, he knelt in front of her.
“I think maybe we should call a doctor,” he said, glancing up at Agent Rubin.
“No!” she insisted, blindly clutching at him.
“Rain, you’re sick,” he said turning back to her. “You need help—”
“It’s…it’s coming back,” she whispered. “Joe, it’s coming back.”
“Gentlemen.”
Joe glanced up and peered over the back of the sofa as Logan Carvy walked into the room.
“Agent Rubin,” he said with a curt nod. “Sheriff…Mountain, was it? Have you brought my wife?”
“Mr. Carvy,” Neal Rubin began, pulling a cell phone from his pocket. “I’m afraid the lady isn’t feeling well—”
“What do you mean she’s not feeling well?” Carvy demanded, moving forward. “Rachel, are you sick?”
“Logan.”
In a startling moment, Rain was suddenly on her feet and facing the man who was her husband.
“Darling, it’s me,” Carvy said, walking around the sofa. “It’s Logan, your husband.”
“You’re not my h
usband,” Rain announced, bringing Carvy to a dead stop.
She wasn’t pale any longer and her eyes were wide and clear with confidence—and knowledge.
“He’s not my husband,” she repeated, turning to Joe.
“Rachel darling, what are you saying?” Carvy insisted with a nervous laugh, looking to Agent Rubin and then to Joe. “Gentlemen, I understand what you mean. It’s obvious my wife is very ill.”
“I am not your wife,” Rain announced in a steady voice, taking several challenging steps toward Carvy. “But I know who you are and I know what you’ve done.” She didn’t stop until she was practically nose to nose with the man. “You see, Logan, I remember. I remember everything.”
Chapter 15
“Carly.”
She folded the old football jersey she used as a nightshirt and nodded. “That’s right. Carly Davis of Lake Tahoe, California, teacher at Vina Danks Junior High at your service.”
She packed the shirt into the suitcase and reached for her hairbrush and makeup bag. The name sounded right to her, comfortable and familiar like an old friend too long absent.
“That’s a lot to remember and is going to take some getting used to.” Joe leaned back in the chair and watched as she gathered up the rest of her possessions and slipped them into the suitcase. He was in his sheriff’s uniform again, but his necktie hung loose and the top button on his shirt fell open. “Is it feeling right to you yet?”
She stopped and thought for a moment. It was all she could do to keep her composure, to keep herself from stalking over to him and demanding to know what he thought he was doing. How could he just sit there chatting with her after what had happened?
“Yeah, it is,” she said turning to him. “But not as right as Rain.”
He looked at her and she looked at him, but neither one of them laughed at the bad pun.
“What time is your flight to Denver?”
“Eleven-forty-five.” She glanced down at her wrist watch. Was he anxious to get rid of her? “I’ve got about an hour yet.”
“Christian and Robyn know you’re coming?”
She had to smile, remembering their voices on the phone. “Yes, and I’ve talked to their grandparents. I’ve told them what happened and they want to wait until I get there to say anything to the children.”
“They’ll need you now.”
“We’ll need each other to get through this,” she sighed. “What about you? When are you heading back?”
“I’m taking a red-eye out tonight. Ryan’s putting together a team right now but I want to be there in the morning when they start the search.”
She squeezed her eyes tight, the nightmare alive in her memory now. “You’ll let me know, when you find…when you find the body?”
“Of course,” he assured her quietly. “Were you able to get any rest last night?”
“My adrenaline level was a little high—and of course Marcy and I were on the phone for almost two hours, but yeah, I slept.” She closed her suitcase, wanting to talk about something else, wanting to get her mind off the desert and a scene so horrible she didn’t want to remember. “How about you? How late did you stay at the FBI headquarters?”
“It was late,” he confessed. “Carvy had to be booked and fingerprinted, and he couldn’t be interviewed until after his lawyer got there.”
Rain stopped as she zipped her suitcase closed. Why hadn’t he come to her room last night? Why had he let her spend the night alone?
“It’s still so hard to believe,” she said, walking to the window and gazing out. “Did all that happen just yesterday?”
“What a difference a day makes,” Joe said, rising to his feet.
She turned around, staring at him from across the room. “There isn’t any chance…I mean, a judge wouldn’t let him out on bail or anything like that?”
“Don’t worry. Logan Carvy isn’t going anywhere for a very long time.”
She would have felt much better, more assured if he would just walk across the room and put his arms around her, but he didn’t.
This was the first time they’d been alone since…since what? Her revelation? Her rebirth? Since her past came out of the darkness and smacked her right between the eyes?
To say she’d been on an emotional roller coaster would be the understatement of all time. She’d not only been put through the wringer, she’d been to hell and back again as well.
She rejoiced in recovering her past, rejoiced in knowing once and for all who she was, but the discovery had come with a price. She’d awakened to disturbing memories and a loss she’d never truly recover from.
Rachel Carvy—wife of Logan, mother of Christian and Robyn…and sister to Carly Davis. Rachel Logan had never been kidnapped, she’d been hunted, the prey of a deadly predator who wanted her at all costs.
Rachel hadn’t known who Logan Carvy was when she’d married him. Widowed and struggling to raise her two children on her own, Rachel had thought she’d finally met the man of her dreams when she’d met Logan, thought he would give her and her children the kind of stable, loving home they needed.
It wasn’t until after the wedding that Rachel had discovered her new husband’s seedy underside, his violent temper, his questionable business practices and his connection to organized crime. It had taken her nearly five years to work up the courage to walk out on the abusive relationship, but when she had, she’d run to her sister for help.
But Carvy wasn’t about to sit by and watch his wife walk out on him. Determined to get her back, he had dispensed two goons to find her and bring her back.
Rain closed her eyes, remembering the night she’d opened her front door to find a terrified Rachel standing there. Having sent her children to their paternal grandparents in Denver for safekeeping, Rachel had pleaded for her help, but Rain hadn’t gotten the chance to help her sister. Carvy’s henchmen had found them, chasing them down, threatening them with guns and taking them both captive.
It had been a brave and foolish thing Rachel had done, trying to divert their attention by making a run for it and she had paid dearly for her act. It had been a black night, dark clouds having covered the moon and heavy winds whipping through the desert canyons. The spot they had chosen to stop at had seemed so cold and forbidding.
The men must have known what would happen to them if they were to have touched the wife of Logan Carvy, which was why they had gone after Rain. She could still smell the vile breath of the drunken bastards who had tried to touch her, still see the cruel intent in their eyes.
Unable to sit by and watch her sister be assaulted, Rachel had started out across the desert in an effort to divert their attention, in an effort to save her sister and unfortunately it had worked. Rain would have greatly preferred the loathsome attack to what resulted from Rachel’s noble gesture.
When Rachel took off, the men had jumped into the car and taken off after her. Whether it had been their intent to hit Rachel, or just give her a scare, would never to clear. But intentional or not, they struck her with the hood of the car, killing her instantly.
They must have panicked then, having lost all amorous intentions. The last thing Rain remembered before the blinding pain at the back of her head had been screaming Logan’s name. Logan Carvy had been responsible for this. He had killed Rachel just as surely as if he’d been sitting behind the wheel of that car and run her down himself. He’d taken her sister’s life and left her in the desert for dead—and now it was time he paid.
“I’ll have to come back for their trial, no doubt?”
Joe nodded. “No doubt, but that won’t be for months now.”
“Well, I guess that’s it,” she said, looking around the room. “I think I’ve got everything.”
“I’ll take you to the airport.”
“That’s not necessary,” she insisted. “I can get a cab.”
“Don’t be silly,” he said, waving off her suggestion. “I’ll get your bag.”
“No, really,” she insisted, as h
e grabbed the bag off the bed and started for the door. “I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”
“No trouble,” he said, opening the door and holding it for her.
She started through the door, then came to an abrupt halt. “No, I take that back.”
He hesitated for a moment, confused. “What?”
“I take that back,” she said again, her hands going stubbornly to her hips.
“You take what back?”
“I want to make some trouble.”
He stepped back inside the room, letting the door swing closed behind him. “Rain—er, Carly, what are you talking about?”
“You,” she said, pointing an accusing finger. “I can’t believe you. You make me so mad.”
“Mad? What did I do?”
“You were going to do it, weren’t you? You were going to stand right there and do it.”
“Do what? Rain—I mean—” He set the suitcase down. “Damn it, Rain, Carly, whatever the hell your name is. I don’t know what you’re talking about. What did I do?”
“Do?” she said, her voice almost a shriek. “You didn’t do anything, that’s just it. You were going to stand there and let me walk out of your life and do nothing to stop me!”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“Oh, yes, you were,” she insisted. “I’m all packed, my plane takes off in less than an hour and there you are, carrying my suitcase to the car.” She stalked up to him. “What’s the matter with you? Don’t you care about me at all?”
“Rain—”
“After all, I know now that I’m not married, I don’t have anyone special in my life, there’s no reason in the world we shouldn’t be able to keep seeing one another and yet you’re going to just let me go.”
“Carly, stop.”
“You haven’t so much as touched me since you learned the truth, Joe. What’s the matter? What are you afraid of?”
“Afraid?” He pushed past her, pacing across the room and back again. “Did it ever occur to you that you may need some time to get your life together, to see how you feel, to see what you want?”
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