Identity Crisis

by Grace Marshall

  He disconnected and tried to breathe around the tightness in his chest. He wished to God he had ignored Don and marched right out into the rain after her. How could he have let this happen? Hadn’t he loved her almost from the beginning? He just didn’t want it to be her; he just didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. And now, there was no one in the world he wanted to love but her, now there was no one else he wanted to give that satisfaction to. He couldn’t lose her. He couldn’t! He’d waited his whole life for Kendra Davis and he would do whatever he had to do to have her safe and sound and back in his arms.

  He hadn’t expected her or he wouldn’t have lingered. But when the key turned in the lock, when he knew the inevitable was about to happen, everything in him went calm. It was fate, wasn’t it? Fate had delivered her into his hands early, a reward for all of his patience, for all of his hard work.

  She wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at her cell phone. He was slightly out of her line of sight, still sitting in front of her laptop where he had been gorging on everything he could possibly discover about Kendra Davis – not the reinvented one, not the one pretending to be someone else, but the real one, the genuine article, the woman beneath all those layers, and oh, how he had longed to know her, to uncover her, to lay her bare to her very core.

  And this, this was that magical moment, that split second in time before the world changed forever. This was the tipping point. She still didn’t know he was there. She still thought she was alone and safe, and because of that, she was still so completely, so exquisitely at her ease that he wished he could freeze-frame the moment, he wished he could somehow capture it for posterity, so that he could bring it back and relive it time and time again long after he was finished with her.

  But of course it couldn’t last; the second would pass, and soon enough she would know. He watched with his heart in his throat, he waited for that instant when she knew. And when it happened it was a subtle thing, so minute at first that he almost didn’t catch it, so miniscule the change that he sat frozen on the edge of the seat, not even daring to breathe, sat until his eyes burned from not blinking. And then he saw it; her agile fingers on the BlackBerry faltered. Her shoulders tensed. She sniffed and caught her breath. Her eyelids fluttered and her lovely full lips parted in a little gasp of surprise, as though she had just remembered something – something terrible.

  For a second, the world shattered around her into a million shards of disbelief and horror. For a second, her mind rebelled, denied that this could be happening, denied that he could actually be sitting here in her home, in her space, that he could actually be – real. For a second, her body threatened to rebel as well, to allow itself to be overwhelmed by fear, to pass out on the floor, there at his mercy, to vomit the fear that raged through every cell of her body, to completely shut down. For a split second, she tried to wake up, certain it was a dream. But it wasn’t. It was the nightmare she would have to deal with. And that all of this could happen in her head in less than the time it took to draw a startled breath would have astounded her in different circumstances.

  She had but a second before she lost control. She knew he’d take from her as much as he could. She knew what she did in that second she had left could keep her alive.

  He’s here.

  With the last shred of calm she could manage, she sent the text, took a deep breath, then turned and grabbed for the door. But she had locked it behind her, a habit her mother had hammered into her head from the time she was little, and he was on her before she could get it open. His breath too hot, exactly as she remembered, his scent both acrid and sweet, cloyingly sweet, exactly like before, his grip harsh, deliberately cruel, the horrid tattoo on his biceps swelling as he pulled her to him. As he tackled her from behind and pinned her arms to her side, she fought back the urge to gag at the scent of him. It hadn’t been a bad scent when she first met him, it had meant nothing, but it soon came to mean fear and threat and despair. And worse than anything, it came to symbolize loss of control. Think, Kendra, think! she yelled inside herself. She had to stay focused. That was all she had; the only control left to her was not to panic, not to let him choose what went on inside her head. She relaxed in his arms and, with a hot palm, he smoothed her wet hair away from her ear and stroked her neck. She could feel the heat of him, too humid, too close.

  ‘Not Bird Woman any more, I see.’ He curled his fingers in her hair so tightly that it almost hurt. ‘And now, you’re not Tess Delaney any more either, are you? I heard the news. Tess is rid of that horrible email stalker. I was so relieved when I heard. I knew with him out of the way, I’d have my Kendra Davis back and all to myself very shortly.’

  ‘I’m not your Kendra Davis,’ she half whispered, managing to sound much calmer than she really felt.

  ‘Oh, I think you are. There’s no one here but you and me, darling, and I’m much stronger than you.’ As if to demonstrate, he bent her arm up behind her back until the joint of her shoulder popped and she sucked a sharp breath of pain, but held very still. ‘And if you don’t do exactly what I say, I also have a very sharp knife, and it doesn’t matter to me, Kendra, it doesn’t matter to me how I have to carve you up to make you behave yourself, to make you sorry for leaving me like you did, you’ll still be beautiful to me, and I’ll still want you, no matter if a few … parts are missing and I’ve left my mark so neither you or anyone else will ever again doubt that you belong to me.’

  He leveled a wet, breathy kiss at her ear and she dug her nails into her hands and forced herself to breathe deeply. None of that had happened yet, none of those things he threatened. Garrett knew she was here. Garrett knew where she was, and she was as sure as she was of her own breath that he’d find her.

  ‘I like your place,’ he said, tightening his grip around her waist. ‘Though I find it a bit claustrophobic. But then I suppose you don’t spend much time here, do you? Out at all the clubs, are you? Being someone different every night? Hmmm?’ The hand twisted her hair tightened but she refused to flinch.

  ‘I’m more of a homebody these days,’ she managed, uttering a gasp as his grip tightened and her scalp prickled with pain.

  ‘I don’t believe that for a minute, Kendra Davis. You could never be satisfied in one space in one body or fucking just one person for very long, not someone like you.’ He nodded to the door. ‘I saw the Mustang. Not a car a homebody would drive, would you say?’

  ‘It was a gift,’ she replied. ‘That’s all, it was a gift.’

  He chuckled and his breath felt like it would scorch the skin off the side of her face. ‘But a gift from someone who knew your tastes, Kendra. Don’t deny it.’ He pushed in closer to her, so close that she could barely breathe in his smothering embrace, so close that she could feel his hard-on raking against the wet back of her denim skirt. She could feel the tight shifting and rocking of his hips rucking it up a little at a time. ‘Take me for a ride in it, Kendra. Come on, give me a peek at that wild woman who drove me insane with lust back in Santa Monica. I can force the issue, you know?’ He released her hair and reached into his pocket. She heard a crisp mechanical click, then felt the cold, sharp edge of a blade against her throat. ‘Don’t make me start with the knife just yet, sweetheart.’ He kissed her ear and nibbled at the lobe. ‘I believe in foreplay. Lots and lots of foreplay, and I think our courtship should begin with a ride in a very sexy car. Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen? Isn’t that romantic, Kendra? You and me in the Mustang out on the open road, anticipating all the fun we’ll have when the drive ends.’ He pressed the knife just hard enough for the blade to sting. ‘Now, where are the fucking keys?’

  ‘They’re in my bag,’ she managed, pressing back as tightly against his chest as she could to avoid the bite of the blade.

  ‘Good girl.’ He relaxed the tension on the knife just a little. ‘Get them, and let’s go.’

  With hands made awkward by fear, she fumbled in the bag where she’d hung it on the peg next to the door and found
the keys, wishing like hell there was something in there, anything she could use for a weapon. There might be a nail file somewhere in the bottom or an ink pen, but she’d never get the chance to use either of them at the moment. Think, Kendra, think!

  ‘That’s a girl,’ he said again as she slowly, carefully pulled the keys from her bag and held them up for him to see. He took them from her hand and pocketed them. ‘And now there’s only one more thing we need to take care of and then you can take me for a ride.’ He reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out the BlackBerry, and her heart sank as he tossed it onto the sofa. ‘You won’t be needing this anymore, darling. I’m the only one you have to speak to now, and I’ll never be more than a blade’s edge away.’

  ‘Detectives in Santa Monica say that though the dead man they found in Edge’s burnt-out house could have been someone else, it was assumed to be him. Apparently the body was so badly burnt that 100 per cent identification was impossible without DNA testing.’ Wade turned off his BlackBerry. His half of the conversation had had everyone’s full attention, and now he filled them in on the rest. ‘They had no real reason to doubt. Besides, after the body was discovered, there was no sign of the man again. After all, he was dead.’ Wade turned his attention to the big screen of the computer and pulled up a satellite map of the Northwestern US. ‘There was no reason to suspect anything, no reason not to think Edge was dead. Fredrick Parks, that’s the man’s real name, and he’s from North Dakota. But look at this.’ He zoomed in on the map. ‘Two weeks after Edge’s supposed death, a liquor store was robbed in Priest Falls, Idaho. Look at the CCTV footage.’

  Carla wondered how anyone could get hold of this kind of information. She wasn’t sure whether to respect Wade Crittenden or fear him. She was certainly glad he was on her side.

  Garrett, who was struggling through construction on

  I-5, had Kendra’s BlackBerry on, listening.

  ‘Sure as hell looks like him,’ Harris said.

  ‘But he’s dead,’ Wade said, ‘so no one cares. No one bothers to check. Then –’ a few more key strokes ‘– a couple comes home to Kalispell, Montana after spending the winter in Florida to discover their house on Flathead Lake has been squatted in all winter. Another couple who had rented out the cabin up the lake gave Edge’s description. They said he told them he was renting the place for the winter. Since they weren’t residents, they had no reason to doubt his story.

  ‘About that same time, a couple from Yakima, Washington came back early from spending the winter in Australia to find their Jeep Cherokee missing. It turned up two months later in a deserted parking garage of a high-rise in Seattle. Again, very grainy CCTV footage shows a man that looks like Edge. The trail goes on, with every incident just far enough apart, time wise and distance wise, so that no one ever quite connects the dots.

  ‘And then, two days ago, a dental hygienist in Nevada comes back from a holiday in Europe to find her Ford Focus stolen. And this was the footage at an all-night supermarket maybe an hour after the incident in the woods behind Ellis’s house.’

  ‘Same man,’ Ellis said.

  ‘He tried to walk out without paying, not sneaky or anything, the clerk said, but just like his mind was on something else. When the clerk confronted him he paid and made light of it, no problems. But the clerk called it in because he was suspicious. Said the man’s jeans were wet up to his thighs and he looked like he’d been rolling in pine needles.’

  ‘OK, I just got through the last of the construction,’ Garrett’s voice came over the speaker phone. ‘I’ll be at Kendra’s in – Hold on. I’m getting a text. It’s from Kendra!’

  Everyone gathered around Wade’s desk, where the speakers were rigged up.

  ‘What does it say?’ Dee asked, pressing in close.

  The sound that came from Garrett’s end of the phone was a desperate animal cry. ‘He’s here. That’s all it says. He’s here.’ He cut the connection and all hell broke loose in Wade’s boudoir.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Edge held her close to him in the elevator all the way down to the parking garage. The knife was under a jacket he had folded over his arm, and he knew exactly how to ease the point in close and threatening between her ribs. Kendra breathed from her diaphragm like Dee had taught her, like singers were supposed to do. That assured her enough oxygen and kept the knife from piercing her skin. He gave her no room, not an inch, and she yielded, yielded for her own protection. But only physically. Inside she held her ground, inside she’d drawn the line in the sand. She wouldn’t allow him the space inside her head. Not this time.

  In the parking garage, she walked to the Mustang, with him holding her close to his side like he was the most caring, most tender of lovers. He nodded to the driver’s side. ‘You drive, darling. I want to sit next to you, bask in your brightness, savor the moment.’

  He stood over her while she buckled in, then he brushed the hair away from her forehead and settled a kiss just above the bridge of her nose. She forced herself not to stiffen. ‘Don’t think you can escape before I get around the car and into my seat.’ He breathed the words against her throat. ‘I’m as good with a knife from a distance as I am up close and personal. My aim won’t be fatal, but I promise it’ll be painful, debilitating, and marring. And if I decide I’m bored with the knife, there’s always this little baby to make things more interesting …’ He leaned forward and slipped a gun from the waistband of his trousers, just enough for her to get a good view of it. ‘And yes, I’m as good with it as I am with the knife. You’re mine, Kendra. Best get used to it now, and things will go easier.’

  But she wasn’t. She wasn’t his. She’d never be his. She said the words in her head, enunciating every one clearly over and over like a mantra, reminding herself that she was still in control. That there were things he could never ever take from her. This time she knew that. This time she was certain.

  He slid in next to her, handed her the keys, then shifted in the seat expectantly. ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’

  ‘Where shall I go?’ she asked.

  ‘To my place, sweetheart. I’ve prepared it especially for you.’

  No! she screamed inside her head. No matter what she had to do, she would never go to his place. She knew in her gut if she did, she’d never escape. She didn’t mind dying. That was inevitable, but she wasn’t about to endure the long suffering and the humiliation he had planned for her before she got there. She knew that ultimately he had been responsible for Lila’s death, and she wasn’t about to give him time to drive her to such an end. She didn’t know what she’d do, but she’d end it all before she got to his place. One way or another.

  As she pulled out of the parking garage and made her way toward the freeway, he rested a hand on her thigh and heaved a sigh as he admired the Mustang. ‘Don’t worry, Kendra, I’ll take very good care of it after you’re gone. I promise.’

  She shivered at the thought, but steeled herself. She had to concentrate. She had to find a way out of this. As she approached the entrance to the freeway, he shook his head.

  ‘Not on the freeways, darling. I hate freeways. They’re no way to put a fine car like this through its paces, and really, it would be a shame for me not to let you put this lovely vehicle to the test one last time. We’ll take the back roads.’

  Garrett recognized the stolen Ford Focus in the parking garage not far from Dee’s Audi, and his hopes soared only to crash again when he found the door to her flat unlocked. Kendra would never leave her home so vulnerable. He pushed it open quietly, hoping against hope that they were still inside. But he could tell by the feel that the flat was empty. He gave the door a hard kick with his foot and cursed out loud. Goddamn it, she’d been through enough, and he’d opened her up to all of it, all over again. He grabbed Kendra’s BlackBerry from his pocket.

  ‘Wade, they’re not here!’ he yelled into the phone as soon as he heard it connect. ‘They’re not fucking here!’

  ‘What do you mea
n they’re not there?’ Wade yelled back ‘The signal indicates they’re right there in her flat.’

  ‘Well they’re not. I don’t know what the hell’s going on and … Fuck!’ Garrett’s eye caught the bright plastic of his own BlackBerry where it lay discarded on the couch and suddenly he felt like he was being swallowed alive by the horror of what that meant. ‘The BlackBerry.’ He forced the words up through the cold fear clenching at his throat. ‘She left it. It’s on the sofa.’

  ‘What the hell do you mean she left it?’ He heard Harris’s panicked voice. ‘She wouldn’t leave it.’

  ‘Only if she were forced to,’ Wade replied.

  ‘Goddamn it!’ Garrett ran a frantic hand through his hair. ‘There has to be something else we can do, there has to be.’

  ‘We’ve got to have something we can track,’ Wade said. ‘I can extrapolate from the places where Parks has been spotted, but without some way of tracking her, I can’t narrow it down any more than that.’

  ‘Damn it! That means they could be anywhere. He could be taking her anywhere.’ Garrett could hear Harris on the speaker phone.

  Frantically he looked around the room for something, for anything, and his eyes came to rest on a photo of Kendra dressed in jeans and a black tank top standing next to a bright red Shelby Mustang. ‘Wait a minute.’ He picked up the photo and squinted at it. ‘Can you track a car by that satellite?’

  ‘Only if it has a transponder,’ Wade said.

  ‘It’s a fucking Shelby Mustang, for Chrissake!’ Garrett yelled. Over the phone, he could hear Dee and Harris practically screaming to Wade that it was a gift from Devon Barnet. He talked over them. ‘I saw Dee’s car in the parking garage, and the Ford Focus was there, but no sign of the Mustang. And Edge mentioned it in the email. Maybe he took it. It’s a lot nicer ride than a Focus. Plus, the asshole had to know what it means to her.’