My eyes ached from the desire to bawl like a baby. I resisted the urge, refusing to melt down again. A full moon hung in the night sky outside the bedroom window, peeking through the sheers. I pushed the elegant drapes aside and placed my hand on the window pane. Chill spring air permeated the glass and traveled down my humerus bone, settling in my elbow. I rubbed the throbbing pain, but it didn’t go away. It matched the dull throb in my head.
With nothing else to do but wait and worry, I succumbed to exhaustion and dropped onto the thick comforter. Too tired to slip under the covers, I rolled and pushed my face into the pillow. My lungs cried for oxygen. When the suffocation became too painful to endure, I shifted, sucked in a lungful of air, and closed my eyes once again in another useless attempt to get some sleep.
A creak and a clatter broke through my drowsy drifting. The dual terrors of the nightmare and Jackson’s attack on the verandah had heightened my sensitivity to things that go bump in the night. My gaze gravitated toward the closet. The dark corners of the room wobbled. My bedside light was off, but I was sure I’d left it on. I reached for the switch and stopped mid-air. Heavy breathing and muffled footsteps cut through the intense quiet. After a few anxious moments, I dragged myself to the edge of the king-sized, pillow-top mattress. My hand sunk in luxury as I tried to gain traction without making a sound. I slipped one foot and then the other over the side. I stopped. Listened. Whoever was sneaking through my bedroom had moved on to my bathroom.
My feet hit the hardwood floor with a dull thud. I stopped again, cringing at my clumsiness. No movement from the bathroom. I slipped across the room and peeked inside. A woman in a brilliantly colored tunic knelt on the floor, poking through the items under the sink. I recognized the familiar form and pulled the baggie of pills from my pants pocket.
“Is this what you’re looking for, Sudha?” A gasp escaped her, then she bounced to an upright position. I smirked. “What made you think I’d leave the pills where you could find them?”
“Foolish woman,” she seethed. Her low opinion of Jennifer cascaded over me like a waterfall. “Give them to me.” She held out her hand, much as I did when I demanded them of her.
“Why am I foolish? You’re the one scrounging around my house looking for evidence.”
“Let me have them or I will—”
“I don’t think so.” I shook my head. She lunged toward the baggie in my hand. I closed my fingers around it. “Uh-uh,” I said as I backed away from her. “These are mine.”
She lowered her eyelids, moving toward me with malicious intent imprinted on her face.
“Why’d you do it, Sudha? Was it to keep me sedated so I wouldn’t ask too many questions? Was it to keep me delusional? Or maybe you were just trying to kill me.”
“Believe what you want.” Sudha pulled a gun from her pocket.
Until that moment I had mastered my fear, but with the weapon aimed at my face, I froze in terror. “What do you want from me?” I whispered.
“From you? Nothing. There’s nothing you can give me.” She smiled like a caged jackal, baring her teeth. “You don’t appreciate what you have. You take your life for granted. If I had what you have—”
“Oh, please! This is about what I have and what you haven’t? Don’t we pay you enough? You live in our house, eat our food, drive our cars. What more do you want?”
She backed away from my question as if it was a cobra. Mania glittered in her dark eyes. Her hatred prickled over my skin. “I want your husband.”
Hysteria overwhelmed me and I laughed. Of all the things she wanted from me, she coveted what wasn’t mine. “That’s what you want? My husband? Are you serious?”
She moved a step closer. I swore I could smell the gun. “Am I not good enough for him?”
“If I’m not good enough for him, what makes you think you are?” I asked.
She slid back the action. It made a strange clicking as it moved across the barrel and set the firing pin. “You…you are a wicked woman. You do not deserve him.”
“I’m wicked? You’re the one holding the gun.”
“Move,” she ordered.
I stalled. “Move? Where?”
“Back up slowly.” The gun brushed the shirt that covered the flesh and bone protecting my vulnerable heart.
I stumbled backward out of the bathroom…and bumped into Anson. His sudden appearance startled Sudha enough she lowered the weapon. He lunged for the gun. They struggled, both of them with their hands on the grip. His covering hers. A victorious gleam erupted in her eyes as she caught me staring at her in stunned immobility, the gun pointed in my direction with unerring aim. Anson swatted her outstretched hand. The shot rang past my ear...
****
“Jennifer?” Muted urging wiggled into my consciousness. “Jennifer, wake up.”
“Who’s Jennifer?” My question echoed in my head, foreign and distant—the ringing in my ears intense.
“You’re all right,” a man told me. “Sudha left.”
“Sudha?” My eyes fluttered and focused. For a moment, I panicked. Then I remembered. “Are you all right?” I asked as I tried to rise from my prone position on the floor.
Anson pushed me back, lowering my head onto his lap. “Lie still a minute longer.”
The aftereffects of fear wobbled across his features. I touched his face. To my surprise, it didn’t melt beneath my fingertips as my fuzzy mind expected it to. My arm dropped across my abdomen. He placed one strong hand over mine.
“I’m so glad you’re all right,” I murmured.
I witnessed his attitude toward me change in his eyes. Was the shift my imagination? Had all his anger evaporated and been replaced with concern? “And I’m glad you’re all right. Now try to sit up…slowly.”
I tried, but the room spun. He slipped his arm behind my back and kept me upright. My mind cleared in rapid spurts. Numerous images clanged against each other in my suddenly alert mind. I shook my head in order to sort them into their proper sequence. Me with the pills. Sudha with the gun. Anson fighting for my life. “She wanted the pills.”
His nose scrunched. “What pills?”
“The one’s she gave me.” The limp baggie was still clamped in my hand. I dangled it in front of him.
“I thought you flushed them.”
He reached for the pills, but I yanked them back. Like a security blanket. “Flushed them? I did. But…” I found my balance and turned to look at him. “But I kept two of them for insurance.”
“You never cease to amaze me, Jennifer.” The compliment was real. “How did you know that she’d—”
“Be back for them? I didn’t. I guess keeping them was—”
“Gut instinct.” He scratched his head and laughed.
“What?” I asked in bewilderment. “What’s so funny about almost dying?”
“Nothing. That’s not why I’m laughing.”
I waited for him to explain. His grin widened. “We’re finishing each other’s sentences.”
That’s a funny thing to think about in the middle of a crisis. I appreciated the sentiment, however ill-timed. “Haven’t we ever—”
“Finished each other’s thoughts? Not that I can remember.”
I smiled. “Me either. But then, my memory is…limited.”
I placed both hands on the floor and pushed up. He steadied me with a firm grip on my elbow. My back ratcheted into an upright position. We stood, studying each other. Silent communication passed between us. The night could have ended badly for one or both of us, but we were both alive.
“You’ve been attacked twice tonight,” he said as if from a distance.
I nodded. The ringing, throbbing static in my ears intensified with each miniscule movement of my head. I pressed my palms over my ears, indulging in a moment’s relief, but the scratchy white noise returned within seconds.
“That’s not good,” he told me.
His understatement wiggled through the distortion. The floor spun and swayed beneath my fee
t, causing my stomach to drop as if I’d just experienced lift on a roller coaster. My head spun as if no longer connected to my body. I placed one hand on each side, but my head continued its crazy dancing. “Give me a second. Vertigo.”
“Take your time.” He wrapped an arm around my waist. “You know, I think something’s going on—”
“Beneath the surface,” I said, finishing his sentence and giggling because of his earlier amusement. The curtains obscuring the corners of my shrouded mind drifted apart. Clarity prevailed for a one brief, illuminating moment. “Something’s really, really…wrong.” All vestiges of my mirth disappeared.
“And I’m at a loss to understand it,” he said with a tight, wary voice.
The mist covered my understanding once again. “I wish I knew what’s going on. I feel as if I’m swimming in a whirlpool right now. Nothing about my life makes sense. It just keeps swirling and swirling.” My hand moved in circles. I followed the motion with my eyes and his face blurred.
He grabbed my chin and searched my eyes. My vision refocused. “Maybe we should go talk to Brandon…when your head clears up. You’re…goofy.”
“Brandon?” My throat tightened. I was afraid of introducing a new character into this tragedy.
“We need help. He has a lot of resources at his disposal and he’s the only one we can trust with your personal history.”
“Brandon Sairs,” I muttered and looked up at Anson. He didn’t correct me. “I talked to him the other day. I think…um…he’s mad at me.” I waited, but Anson didn’t take the bait. “I told him I didn’t remember him.”
“No more than you remember me?”
“No.” My reply was emphatic and a bit caustic. Defiant and defensive. My mood took a serious nosedive—all the frivolity knocked clean out of me from the dark scowl on Anson’s face.
“Then how did you know Price?”
“He made his presence known.” I blinked at Anson. He crossed his arms. I licked my dry lips. “He busted in here the other day without calling first. I don’t like him. He’s a jerk and full of himself. Why would Jennifer get involved with a man like that?” I added, thinking aloud. “Okay, so he’s a really good-looking jerk, but looks aren’t everything.” Skepticism flitted across Anson’s face. “I know very well what you’re thinking, but it’s true. I don’t know what Jennifer did before she fainted the other night, but I’m getting a good idea of the kind of person she is…or was…and I don’t like her. And I don’t like what she did to you. And I’m pretty certain I wouldn’t like what she did to Brandon Sairs either…if I could remember what that was.”
“You’re a piece of work, Jennifer,” Anson said with a growl. “What’s up with this recently acquired habit—”
“Of referring to myself in third person?” I closed my eyes, rubbed my forehead with the palms of my hands, and emitted a sigh of supreme weariness. “I told you, I don’t know who I am.”
“Well, it’s obvious something is going on with you. So start at the beginning.”
Chapter Twelve
Brandon Sairs leaned back in his plain, cloth-covered task chair. He carried himself with authority and deliberate forethought—the kind of man one didn’t trifle with. Medals for meritorious conduct and plaques for outstanding public service hung on the wall behind him.
The earlier hurt I witnessed at the bistro still glimmered in his eyes. He tugged at his left ear as if deep in thought, his eyelids slitted over his hazel eyes. “So where are the pills?” he asked.
I looked at Anson. He blinked and nodded his encouragement. “I still have them,” I said.
The silence that followed was thick with antagonism. Most of it came from Sairs but some came from Anson. To my surprise, they hurled their ill will at each other instead of me.
“So? Can I see them?” Sairs asked.
“What for?” I was unwilling to release the only tangible proof I had that someone was playing games with my mind.
Sairs swiveled in his chair and pulled a notepad out of his credenza. He jotted down the names of all three drugs in big bold letters. “How can I know what she was giving you without having them tested? Are you trying to hide something?”
“I don’t want to give them to you because I can tell you don’t believe me.” My lower lip poked out against my will.
“Why should I believe you?” he asked with a sardonic edge. He tapped his pen on the notepad. My eyes followed the up and down bouncing. Anson leaned over and grabbed the pen. Sairs puffed up at the affront, but said nothing.
“If I hadn’t pushed Jennifer out of the way, she’d be in the hospital…or worse.” Anson spoke slowly and precisely. Sairs was about to get his doubt thrown back in his face. “She’s not making this up. Sudha tried to kill her tonight. She’s been trying to kill—”
“Why would Sudha try to kill her?” Sairs turned his eyes on me and I cringed under the intensity of his awful gaze. He retrieved another pen from his lap drawer, scrawled Sudha and pills on the paper, and underlined the words twice.
“Why would anyone try to kill me? Are you serious? There are plenty of people who hate my guts…including you. For all I know, you’re plotting your revenge against me as well.
“That’s ridiculous!” His sheepish face betrayed him.
I puffed the bangs out of my eyes and tucked a wayward tendril of hair behind my ear. “Okay, look. I get it. You’re angry. Yeah, maybe even anger isn’t a strong enough word to describe how you feel and maybe you don’t trust me. But you’re a cop. And Sudha tried to kill me…twice. There’s a bullet hole in my bedroom ceiling to prove it.” I leaned back in my chair and glared at him.
“You could have done that yourself,” he persisted in his cynicism.
“Oh, please,” I sputtered. “I don’t even know how to fire a gun.”
“Well, actually…she was probably using your gun,” Anson said and blinked at me.
Sairs didn’t miss the interchange, but he didn’t pounce on it either. “Why haven’t you reported the incident with the pills before now?”
Anson grunted and shifted in his seat, rubbing the back of his head vigorously. He muttered something under his breath.
Sairs wrote Jennifer’s gun on his notepad. I stared at his chicken scratch and then squinted at him. He returned my stare with an ill-tempered frown. “You didn’t report it because you didn’t believe your wife.” He directed his undisguised hostility toward Anson.
“Does it matter why we didn’t report this sooner? Tonight changed things. Sudha fired a gun at her,” Anson bellowed, his pitch rising with each layer of his argument. He’d used that belligerent, condescending tone on me. It made me cringe. “If you can’t believe her, believe me. You’ve known me a long time.”
How long has Sairs known Jennifer? Has she not lived in Virginia all her life? Where did she come from? I stopped my internal rant a moment and hit reset. I must cease referring to myself in the third person. I must become Jennifer. I must think in “I” and “me” and “my”. Sairs was talking, outlining his disbelief, but I didn’t hear any of it. My mind was busy sorting out what person I lived in. First person. Second person. Third person.
“Stop it,” I demanded, the inner conflict getting to me as much as the external tension between the three of us. My equanimity vacated the room. I leapt from my chair and headed for the door. “Let’s go. He’s too tied up in the past. He can’t get over it. We’ll have to handle this without his help.”
Anson’s face turned red. I wasn’t sure if he was angry with me or Sairs or both of us. But when he rose from his seat to follow me, I released my breath slowly, exhaling my relief. I squeezed his hand to communicate my appreciation for his tacit support. He returned the pressure, twining his fingers with mine.
“Sit down. Both of you,” Sairs demanded with an authoritative edge. We stopped, but made no move to retake our seats, standing in suspended animation.
“I said sit down,” he ordered a little louder.
Anson sat in t
he nearest chair, but I remained standing, ready to bolt if necessary. We remained tethered, our fingers laced.
Sairs turned his accusatory eyes on me. “You expect a lot of me, considering your history of—”
Anson cleared his throat. His hand tightened in mine. The room remained quiet for minutes…or hours…Who knows?
“I know I must have done something to…to hurt you.” My speculation built, one impression on another. “I suspect I must have dumped you for Anson.” When neither man disputed my contentions, my theory gained momentum. “And I get the idea I did it because Anson is wealthy.”
Anson groaned but didn’t remove his hand from mine.
Sairs snorted. “What’s the point of—”
“Shut up and listen.” My anger trumped his. “Can’t you just put our past behind you and do your job? Someone is trying to kill me. What are you going to do about it?”
Sairs pushed forward in his chair and slammed both palms on his desk. “It’s more than putting our personal history behind us. I still believe you had something to do with Claire’s death. You lied to me before. What makes you think I’ll believe you now?”
Sairs’ revelation bounced around my psyche. “Claire?”
“Yes, Claire. Don’t pretend you don’t remember Claire…Anson’s wife.”
Claire’s memory surfaced against my will. Her eyes pled with me for understanding and mercy.
Why? Why did Claire want mercy from me? What was it that she feared from me?
“Despite what your husband wants to believe, I am not convinced that you didn’t…”
“I didn’t what?” I backed away from all the potential accusations his unspoken words implied. His condemnation stung like a raw abrasion.
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