Lexie was busy tapping Lisa’s details into the computer.
‘Are you sure your name is Lisa Brogan? We have a Mrs Linda Brogan registered at your old address.’
Lisa stiffened. Just her luck to pick the one doctor Linda had registered with. So much for patient confidentiality—the entire waiting room was party to their conversation. She cleared her throat. ‘No. No, that’s not me.’
Lexie frowned. ‘That’s strange.’ She moved the mouse and clicked. ‘Next of kin Daniel Kelly Brogan?’
Dan’s middle name was Kelly? Just the sound of his name made tears sting her eyes. She blinked rapidly, acutely aware that every person in the waiting room was listening in on her conversation with Lexie. ‘No, that isn’t me.’
Lexie glanced at her registration form just as the door opened. ‘No, I suppose not. Your next of kin is Sherry Ann Jackson.’
Lisa glanced distractedly at the door and froze.
Her mother stood in the doorway, a deep frown etched between her brows.
Lisa was shocked by the change in her. Jill’s blonde hair was heavily streaked with grey and in need of a cut, and there were new lines around her blue-grey eyes and bracketing her mouth. She looked thin and brittle and indescribably sad.
Lisa stared wordlessly at her mother’s beloved face and fought the urge to fling herself into those comforting arms. Jill was staring at Lisa like she had grown horns.
‘You can see the doctor now,’ Lexie said. ‘By the way, it’s a locum. Dr Peachgrove is away today.’
Lisa fled in the direction of the consulting room.
Jill Jackson stared after the black-haired woman. She had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach, like her intestines were tying themselves in knots, but then she’d felt that way a lot since Lisa’s accident. Jill still thought of it as her accident. She couldn’t bring herself to call it her death. Something about the woman and the way she had looked at Jill had made the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. The family liked to tease Jill about her ‘feelings’; they called her a witch and had gone through a period of buying her brooms and even a cat named Salem for her birthday. But Jill had learnt that ignoring her gut instinct, premonitions or whatever you wanted to call it, was a big mistake, and right now her instinct was screaming that the lovely, black-haired woman with the imploring eyes held some special meaning for her.
Jill had been a medical receptionist long enough to know the importance of maintaining patient confidentiality, which was more than could be said for Lexie Bartlett, who had called her for help when her colleague went off sick that morning. Jill had been only too happy to oblige on her day off; she hated her days off and weekends now because it gave her too much time to think.
‘Who was that?’ she asked Lexie quietly as she stowed her handbag beneath the reception desk.
‘Lisa Brogan,’ Lexie replied at the top of her voice. ‘It’s really weird. She says she’s a new patient, but I have a Mrs Linda Brogan registered at her old address. But she’s given a different next of kin and date of birth.’
Lexie peered at the green neon type on her computer screen. ‘I hate it when things like this happen. It gets messy.’
Jill barely heard her. She was busy looking at Lisa Brogan’s date of birth. It was the same as her Lisa’s. She shook her head in confusion.
‘Guess what?’ Lexie cried in surprise, her attention still firmly fixed on the computer screen. ‘Her next of kin is Sherry Ann Jackson. That wouldn’t be your Sherry, would it?’
Jill was so shaken she had to go home early. She was lying on the bed she shared with Brian when he finally came home from the garden centre later that night. The curtains were drawn and dinner was unprepared.
Brian paused in the darkened doorway to the bedroom he had shared with his wife for over thirty years. ‘Jill?’ he asked uncertainly, dreading what he would see in her face if he approached the bed. She had only just returned to work and begun to cope with performing the simple task of preparing their evening meal in recent weeks.
His shoulders slumped with relief when Jill spoke. ‘Something strange happened today.’
Brian approached the bed. ‘Did it? What?’ he asked tentatively.
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘A woman came to Dr Peachgrove’s practice today. I’ve never seen her before. She was a complete stranger.’ She paused and rolled her head on the pillow towards her husband. ‘Her name was Lisa and she looked nothing like our Lisa, but when she looked at me…’ Jill swallowed around the lump in her throat. ‘The first time she looked at me, Brian—’
Her breath hitched in her chest and she had to take a deep breath before she could continue. ‘She looked at me just the way Lisa would when she was frightened or her endometriosis had finally got the better of her. I swear to God, Brian!’ Jill pressed a hand across her mouth to hold in a sob. ‘She looked at me with Lisa’s eyes and the same expression! I know you all think I’m just being maudlin and you make fun of me when I get these funny feelings, but…’
Brian lowered himself carefully to the side of the bed, so shaken by Jill’s revelation he couldn’t trust his legs to support him. ‘What did she look like?’ he asked.
Jill looked up at him in surprise.
‘What did she look like?’ he repeated.
‘She…she had black hair and blue eyes and she was very pretty…like Sherry.’ She paused. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Did she limp?’
Jill frowned in confusion. ‘I…I’m not sure. I think she had an elastic bandage on one leg. Brian? Do you know this woman?’
‘I think so,’ he replied, and told her the story about the seedlings and all the other times the woman called Lisa Brogan had come to see him for help with plants.
Jill pulled herself upright and hugged a pillow to her chest, listening intently as he spoke. When he had finished, she reached out and switched on the lamp on the bedside table. They blinked at each other in the light.
‘Brian, what’s going on?’ Jill whispered, her blue-grey eyes huge in her gaunt face.
He shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t know, love. But I’ve had exactly the same feeling whenever I see her. She reminds me so much of our Lisa—’ His voice broke.
Jill stroked his arm comfortingly. She astonished Brian by suddenly saying firmly, ‘We need to get to the bottom of this.’
He stared at her in bewilderment. ‘How?’
‘Well for a start we need to speak to Sherry, because guess what? She’s listed as Lisa Brogan’s next of kin.’
27
Dan let the dishes pile up in the sink and his dirty clothes clog the laundry basket.
He couldn’t believe Lisa had actually gone and left him. Although, if he were honest, he knew she didn’t have much choice after he’d given her the ultimatum about Linda’s wedding ring. He’d deliberately tried to drive her away, never thinking she’d actually go. She’d said she loved him, for crissakes!
The birthday present and card she’d left had nearly been his undoing. What woman in her right mind walks out on a guy but gives him a present for his birthday? When Dan opened the gift, the grief and pain he experienced were so bad that he felt like his chest would crack open.
Lisa had bought him a tie for his collection. It was decorated with the donkey character from Shrek which he’d mentioned to her an eternity ago. ‘Ah Lisa…’ he murmured, stroking the donkey’s toothy face.
Dan kept trying to convince himself that he was better off without her, but by the beginning of the third day he was frantic with worry. Where had she gone? Was she taking care of herself? Was her leg giving her any problems? He worried about her sleepwalking and hurting herself. He wondered how she was surviving financially. Dan couldn’t stop thinking about her and it was driving him crazy.
He drove past the Jackson house so many times he was surprised one of the family didn’t notice and call the police, but there was no sign of Lisa. He berated himself for imagining the Jacksons would take in the woman who had crashed her
car into their daughter’s and killed her. But somehow that argument had worn mighty thin.
Lisa didn’t keep an appointment she had with Craig Fergusson. Dan was so distraught that he poured out Lisa’s story and told Craig that Lisa had left and he didn’t know where she’d gone.
Craig was alarmed, both by Dan’s story and Lisa’s disappearance. ‘You have to find her! She’s in no state to be on her own.’
‘I don’t know where to look,’ Dan replied bleakly.
Craig wracked his brains. ‘Didn’t you say Lisa Jackson’s sister was a police officer?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why don’t you give her a call?’ he suggested. ‘Lisa may have tried to contact her and, even if she hasn’t, it might be prudent to let the Jackson family know.’
Dan felt uncomfortable with the suggestion. It made Lisa sound like a mad axe murderer, but eventually desperation drove him to look up Sherry Jackson’s number in the phonebook and call her.
‘When did you last see her?’ she asked after a prolonged silence.
‘Ten days ago.’
There was another silence.
‘You’d better come over.’
Dan felt hopeful for the first time in days and he made the short journey to Sherry’s Torbay home in record time. However, the first thing the tall cop said when she opened the door to him was, ‘I don’t know where Lisa is, Brogan.’
Dan felt like he’d been kicked in the guts. He stood on the doorstep for several moments, staring blankly at the spot where Sherry had been before he realized she’d gone inside, leaving the door open behind her. Dan found his way into a modern, welcoming kitchen painted lemon-yellow with handcrafted cabinets in a mellow golden wood.
Sherry was perched on one of the chairs at the bleached-pine kitchen table, with her long legs stretched out before her and her hands clasped loosely between her knees. When Dan came into the room, she waved him towards one of the chairs.
Somehow she managed to make the masculine pose look elegant. Even dressed in black sweatpants and a hooded zip-up top, Sherry Jackson looked great. Like a lot of people before him, Dan wondered why a woman with the body and face of a model would choose to be a cop. Sherry looked like she belonged on the cover of Vogue or Sports Illustrated.
‘I’ve had a couple of calls from her,’ Sherry began, taking in the stubble on his jaw and the dark shadows beneath his eyes.
Dan’s senses went on full alert. ‘She left her cellphone behind. Did your phone store the number she called from?’
The disparaging arch of her brow told him he’d just asked a really stupid question. ‘So you do know where she is?’
‘No, I don’t know where she is,’ Sherry lied. ‘She’s my sister, not a criminal, and she’ll tell me where she is when she’s good and ready.’
Dan felt the same rage he had upon discovering Jack fighting with Lisa. He’d wanted to rip his balls out through his throat. He’d compared it with the night when he saw Jack fondling Linda by the pool, when he had felt mainly revulsion and disgust before he walked away. But even a firing squad couldn’t have made Dan walk away from Jack and Lisa when he saw them together at his house.
Sherry straightened imperceptibly on her chair, her gaze sharpening.
Dan relaxed the ferocious glare he had been directing at her. He was ashamed to realize that Sherry had been preparing to defend herself. Considering the woman stood at least six feet in her bare feet and had the toned body of a top athlete, Dan was fairly sure Sherry Jackson would give a damned good account of herself in any fight. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said roughly. ‘I’m not going to lose it.’
‘That’s good,’ she replied calmly. ‘Because I’m really not in the mood to arrest you.’
Dan gave the ghost of a smile.
‘What did Lisa say when she called you?’ he asked. ‘Did she sound alright?’
‘No, she sounded like shit.’
He scowled at her.
Sherry shrugged. ‘What did you expect? Admit it; you’d be gutted if I said she sounded like she was having a great time. But she sounded as miserable as you look.’
The expression on Dan’s face made Sherry feel sorry for him. She unbent enough to tell him that Lisa had found somewhere to stay and a job.
‘A job?’ He was astonished. ‘Lisa’s got a job?’
‘How else do you think she’s going to support herself?’ she inquired sarcastically.
‘I would have given her money! She didn’t need to find a job.’
‘Oh, get over yourself!’ Sherry snapped. ‘It’s exactly what Lisa needed to do. She needs to get out from under your wing and stand on her own two feet.’
He glared at her. ‘Is that so?’
‘Yes.’ She glared right back. ‘ That is so.’
‘Who’s she living with?’
‘An old lady is all she said.’
‘An old lady? What old lady?’
‘Are you deaf, Brogan? I…don’t…know.’
Hitting a dead end, Dan set off down the highway that led to his other concern. ‘Why do you say she’s your sister? You know she isn’t. She’s Linda Brogan. My wife.’
Sherry looked amused.
‘Tell me, Daniel,’ she said, sounding so much like Lisa that Dan tensed. ‘Does she seem anything like your esteemed wife? Try and be honest when you answer.’
He clamped his lips together and refused to answer.
Sherry laughed mirthlessly.
Climbing to her feet, she went over to a long door that concealed the pantry and tugged at it. The door stuck on the linoleum at the bottom edge. When she closed it again Dan saw a scuff mark marred the surface of the black-and-white chequered floor.
‘See how this door sticks?’
He nodded, wondering what the hell a wonky pantry door had to do with Lisa.
‘My brother Ben built this house for me and it’s about as perfect as you get, because he’s an absolute perfectionist.’ She smiled and lifted the door upwards, easing it smoothly open across the floor. ‘This one door drives him nuts. He’s always trying to get in here to fix it. Our parents and Lisa and I tease him about it all the time—it’s one of many longstanding family jokes.’ She pushed the door closed and stared at it. ‘The first time Lisa came to see me here, she helped herself to some tissues I always keep in this cupboard. If that wasn’t freaky enough, when she opened this door—’ Sherry pulled it open again ‘—she knew just how to lift it so it didn’t stick.’ She pushed it shut and looked at Dan. ‘Without me saying a word, she knew where my tissues were kept and how to open and close this door. Strangers always struggle with it, Dan.’
Dan felt a prickling begin at the back of his neck.
Sherry Jackson, like him, was a person who dealt in facts. Yet she believed that his wife Linda was her sister Lisa.
Sherry pulled a yellow envelope of photographs from one of the kitchen drawers. Flipping through the contents, she extracted a photograph which she held out to Dan.
He eyed it warily. ‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a photo of Lisa.’
Dan stared at the photograph as if Sherry were trying to lob him a hand grenade with the pin removed.
‘Don’t tell me you haven’t wondered what she used to look like,’ she taunted softly.
Dan slowly reached out and took the photo from her, and even more slowly lowered his eyes to look at it.
It was a head-and-shoulders shot of Sherry with a man and a woman. Sherry was in the middle of the trio, an arm hooked about the necks of the other two. They were all grinning at the camera and holding up cans of beer in a toast. Dan glanced fleetingly at the dark-haired man whom he didn’t recognize. His entire attention was focussed on the girl snuggled up to Sherry, laughing. She was petite, only just reaching Sherry’s shoulder, and the sleeveless white tank-top she wore displayed small breasts and fragile clavicles. Her eyes were a misty blue, her delicate chin pointed, and her short hair blonde and curly. She was cute rather than beautiful, with a ra
diant smile, but Dan noticed the shadows beneath her big eyes and the thinness of her cheeks, the telltale signs of somebody with a chronic illness suffering constant pain. And he noticed the way she smiled with her whole face—the way Lisa had smiled at him so often in the past months.
He felt like he’d been punched in the gut.
‘You OK?’ Sherry murmured, moving closer.
‘Yeah,’ Dan swallowed and swiped a hand across his face. ‘Yeah. You’ll…uh…keep me posted?’ he asked hoarsely, unable to meet her eyes.
‘When she next calls, I’ll let her know I saw you,’ she promised quietly just as there was a knock on the front door.
Taking it as his cue to leave, Dan followed her into the hallway when she went to answer it. A middle-aged couple stood on the doorstep. It was an indication of just how distracted Jill Jackson was that she stepped over the threshold without noticing Dan Brogan’s towering frame filling Sherry’s hallway.
‘Why has a woman called Lisa Brogan got you listed as her next of kin at Dr Peachgrove’s surgery?’ Jill demanded.
Dan was instantly alert. Lisa had been to see a doctor?
He studied the man and woman, guessing they had to be Sherry’s parents, and, if she were to be believed, Lisa’s mother and father. Dan felt sorry for Sherry; she looked like she was stuck between a rock and a hard place. The sensible thing was to get the hell out before the proverbial manure hit the proverbial fan.
Sherry tried not to groan. It was one thing to lie to Dan Brogan about not knowing Lisa’s whereabouts, but another thing entirely when it came to her parents. Beside her the big American tensed like a guard dog preparing to attack, while her mother bristled like a curly-haired poodle. What on earth had Lisa done now? She glanced at her normally placid father, but he was every bit as wound-up as the other two. ‘Oh shit,’ she muttered.
‘How do you know Lisa’s been to see a doctor? Is she sick?’ Dan demanded.
Jill drew back in shock. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Lisa’s husband,’ he replied brusquely.
‘No you’re not,’ Sherry shot back. ‘You’re Linda Brogan’s husband.’
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