Deceptions of the Heart

by Denise Moncrief

  “Why?” I asked, despite my better judgment. “What do you expect to find there?”

  “Birth announcements. Death announcements. Marriage announcements. Property transfers. I don’t know. Any trace of Claire’s mother. If we can find someone who knew her, then maybe we can find someone who’ll tell us about her life before she moved to Virginia. If she had a daughter out there, surely someone will know about that.”

  “Adoption records are sealed,” I said with no energy for the discussion. “I hired a lawyer to try to get them opened for me. The judge said I didn’t have a valid reason. Of course, that was before I knew my heart…” I stopped before I completed the thought, my skin prickling with excitement.

  Anson nudged me. “Jen? How did you know that? Did you just—”

  “Yes. That’s from Jennifer’s memory. And I just realized something else.” I sat forward, bracing myself for the unknown. “At the house, I reminded you that Marnie poured red wine all over my wedding gown.” Scenes from the past started popping into my consciousness with fresh intensity. “The vision of my mother…I bet that’s Jennifer’s memory…my memory…mine. I’m remembering things that belong to me, not to Rhonda. That’s good, right?”

  He must have sensed the depth of my agitation, because concern darkened his eyes. He pulled me to him. “Calm down. You don’t need any more excitement. Your cheeks are flushed.”

  “No doubt,” I agreed and did as he suggested. But it wasn’t long until I sat up again. “Maybe my memory will come back now.” I sat with my legs criss-crossed. This time he joined me, leaning against my shoulder.

  “Do you really want your memory back?”

  My joy did a nosedive. “I’m not sure.” I leaned my head against his cheek. “I like the way things are now. I’m not sure I want the past dragged into the open any more than it already has been.”

  “Me either,” he agreed without any sign of resentment. He clicked the television off with the remote. “When was the last time you ate? You didn’t touch the omelet I made for you.”

  “I’m sorry. It looked good. Really, it did. I guess I was a little distracted.” My stomach rumbled. “Let’s get something to eat.”

  “Good idea. I’m starved.” He rose from the bed.

  He looked so good to me. Not slick like Whitaker or rugged like Sairs. But attractive in a masculine way that appealed to me. Anson was solid and real. More than just a handsome face. The urge to be with him again settled into every fiber of my body.

  “Anson?”

  He turned toward me, a towel dangling in his hand. I must have stopped him on the way to the shower. My eyes must have told him what was on my mind. The towel dropped. He looked at my discarded nightie on the floor and grinned. “Guess you won’t need that this time.”

  I grinned back. “I didn’t need it last time.”

  He threw the covers back and pounced on the bed next to me. I giggled like a girl and fell back. He stretched out beside me, not yet touching me, surveying me from head to toe. A bright fire lit his eyes and I knew with a woman’s instinct when he held me this time, there would be no gentle restraint. His mouth found the curve of my neck. His arms drew me to him in an embrace almost too fiercely alive to endure. The man made me feel young and exciting. He pulled something bold and sweet and beautiful out of me. In return, I gave him everything I had. After I absorbed every ounce of our mutual pleasure until neither of us had any strength to continue, he lay next to me, spent and oozing happy vibes.

  He turned and brushed my cheek, suddenly as sweetly tender as he had been fiercely passionate only moments before. “We should have done this a long time ago.”

  The phone rang, shattering the tender moment. My eyes locked with Anson’s. The joy dropped from his face.

  “Who knows we’re here?” I asked.

  “I didn’t even tell Marnie where we were going.” He slid from the bed and crossed the room in three strides. My body tingled with fear in extreme counterpoint to the sensations I’d just enjoyed. He reached for the phone.

  “Anson, stop. It doesn’t feel right. Just like the call at the house. Don’t answer it.”

  He pulled back from the ringing beast. We stared at it as it continued its insistent summons. “Get your clothes on. Grab your things. We’re getting out of here.”

  ****

  My breath came in little spurts as we tossed our stuff into the trunk. Inside the car, I shivered from a slight chill, my fear growing. “Who wants to find us? Nobody is trying to kill me anymore, right? Sudha is dead. Jackson’s in jail. Right?” He remained silent. “Right, Anson?” My voice rose in pitch with each word.

  He looked over his shoulder as he backed out of the parking space. “Why are we hiding?”

  “I don’t know. Why are we?”

  He concentrated on driving in the torrential downpour, peered into the rearview mirror. “I don’t know either. We never discussed the why. We left town and didn’t look back.”

  “Maybe we’re overreacting,” I suggested with more calm than I felt and jacked up the heat in the car.

  “No. We’re not. Somebody is following us.”

  “What?” A solid sheet of water obscured the back windshield. “Anson, I think you’re imagining things. I don’t see anything.” But even as my words evaporated into the air, the vehicle jolted from a hard bump. The Jag skidded from the impact. “What was that?” I asked through stiff lips, denying the squeal that threatened to erupt from my mouth.

  “My imagination,” he replied with grim humor. Pulling out of the skid and pressing the accelerator nearly to the floor, he increased the RPMs until the car shuddered. He steered sharp to the right. The slip and slide of the tires didn’t quite connect with pavement. Fishtailing and finally regaining control, he barreled down a two-lane country road.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” I asked, not bothering to hide my panic.

  He didn’t answer, his absorption riveted on driving the car. I looked toward the rear. Our chaser’s engine was no less powerful than ours. The car attached itself to our bumper. The driver, shrouded by the cover of heavy rainfall, put something to his ear. An obnoxious cell phone ringtone reverberated throughout the interior of the car. My eyes focused on where the phone perched in the cup holder. “You want me to answer that?”

  “It’s your phone.”

  “No. It’s not.”

  He grabbed a quick glance at me and just as quickly returned his attention to the road. “It’s not mine. My phone is in my pocket.” The ringing stopped. Moments later, it started again. He risked one more look my way. “Answer it.” I reached for the detestable thing and drew back. “Go ahead. Find out what he wants from us.”

  “Hello.” My voice shook.

  “Hello, Jennifer.” The hoarse voice on the other end of the airwaves was almost unidentifiable, masked by distortion. A shudder of suspicion coursed through me.

  “What do you want?” I barked.

  “Run, Jennifer. Run as fast as you can. I’ll catch you. You can’t hide from me.” The click of dismissal resounded in my ear. My mind reverted to the night Jackson tried to get me to kill myself. The unknown caller repeated his words almost word for word. But Jackson was still locked up in jail. The voice sounded so much like his the caller could be…his brother.

  “What? Jennifer! What did he say?”

  Anson tried to catch my eye, but the rain-slicked road demanded his undivided attention. Even as I struggled to clear the clog in my throat, the chase car bumped us again. Within seconds of impact, Anson let up on the accelerator. He peered into the rearview mirror.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled in his ear.

  “He stopped.”

  I placed my trembling hand on his upper arm without looking at him, my other hand pressing my heart back into my chest. He breathed heavily, the rasp of each breath crackling and popping. Rain splattered the roof of the car. Our tires squealed on the wet pavement as he applied the brakes.

  “What was t
hat all about?” he gasped, pulled to the shoulder, and killed the engine. His eyes revealed the depth of his fear. His face was ashen—a pale shade of gray I’d never seen on a live face. “Tell me about the call.”

  “He told me to run as fast as I can. He said he’d catch me.” I paused to catch my breath. “That’s what Jackson said at the beach. Only I know it wasn’t Jackson this time.”

  He stared at the phone as if it was a vile thing. He held out his palm. I relinquished the phone without an argument and he tossed it out the window into the rain. As it hit the pavement with a crack, I came to life again. “What’d you do that for? Can’t the cops trace calls like that?”

  “I don’t think we can count on the cops.”

  “Anson, that’s just…nuts. Of course we can go to the cops.”

  “The first thing they’ll do is try to find out more about us.” Anticipation glowed on his face as if he fully expected me to grasp what his cryptic comment meant. “They’ll call the Norfolk Sheriff’s Office—”

  “And the call will be turned over to—”

  “Brandon Sairs—”

  “Because he’s working a case that involves us,” I said, finishing the thought. Anson started laughing. “What are you laughing about?” He appeared to be losing his grip on sanity at the precise moment I needed him to be the one in control.

  “We’re finishing each other’s sentences again,” he said and smiled at me.

  “Well, I guess you’ll just have to get used to that.”

  He restarted the engine. “I already have.”

  ****

  The rolling hills of Kentucky flew past us in a steady blur. Bypassing the more populated cities, we stuck to the back roads. We ditched the Jag in a small town in West Virginia, trading it for a beat-up Ford Taurus. The used car salesman didn’t ask questions.

  Traveling the middle of rural America, I wrapped my mouth around a huge hamburger, devouring it with unladylike gnawing and smacking.

  “A little hungry?” Anson asked with a smirk.

  With my mouth full, I muttered a retort that must have sounded indecipherable to him. Since our run-in with the stalker last night, I had managed to down an order of pancakes from McDonald’s, a bag of Hidden Valley Ranch Ruffles, and a large Dr. Pepper float from a drugstore in some little town two hours back.

  “If you don’t slow down, you’ll make yourself sick,” he warned.

  “Stop,” I sputtered.

  As he pulled onto the shoulder of the road, I grabbed the handle and wrenched open the door before Anson could fully brake to a stop. I rolled out of the car and onto the side of the road, retching everything. I stood on shaky legs and looked around. We had stopped on the edge of a town. I returned to the passenger seat and swiped at my crusty mouth. He handed me a napkin left over from breakfast.

  “Told you so.”

  “Told you so,” I mocked his tone. I downed a gulp of diet soda to wash the nasty slime out of my mouth. “You’re supposed to be sympathetic, not smirky.”

  “Slow down on the food,” he said again. I snarled at him. “Man, you’re a grouch in the morning,” he said, inches from my face.

  “You need a toothbrush.”

  He held his hand over his mouth and exhaled, confirming my analysis with a grimace. “How do you put up with me?”

  “When did you develop a sense of humor?”

  Nothing like a bloodcurdling adventure to bond two people. Especially two people falling over the precipice into an old-fashioned bout of complete and total mutual infatuation laced with a good amount of healthy lust.

  I smiled at my thoughts.

  “I’ve always had a sense of humor.” He steered the car onto the roadway.

  “No. You’ve always been Mr. Serious.” I picked up the burger, bringing it to my lips again—my hunger renewed due to my empty stomach.

  He looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “And how long have you known me?” Merriment twinkled in his eyes.

  The question brought our witty banter to a screeching halt. I dropped what was left of the burger onto the waxy paper in my lap, rubbed my hands together, managed to smear the grease instead of remove it, and then looked outside my window.

  “Broke the mood, didn’t I?” he asked with a sheepish grin.

  “It’s always in the background.”

  Anson stopped at the only light in town. The Ford sputtered and coughed, but when the light turned green, the car cooperated and moved us safely away from civilization.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “You said it was your fault I lost my job.” He nodded. “What did I do? What happened? How did you…” I couldn’t finish. I didn’t know the right questions to ask.

  “You were Claire’s nurse when she was in the hospital,” he said, as if that should explain everything.

  “So…if someone mixed up her meds—on purpose or otherwise—I would be the first person the cops would question. So then what happened?”

  “I’m a chemist. I manufacture drugs. I’m involved with new research and study drug interactions. I know what their side effects are and how much a person can take before they start to react. She developed new symptoms—got worse instead of better. I thought you screwed up her meds.”

  “Was there an investigation?” I asked.

  “No. The hospital administrator fired you on my say so. You see, the hospital can’t afford to make me mad.” This confirmed my assumptions regarding his power in the local community.

  “Didn’t you suspect her doctor?”

  “No. That never crossed my mind,” he admitted. “And suspecting Sudha was never on my radar.”

  “Then why me? Why suspect me?”

  “You acted…I don’t know. It was the way you reacted to everything. Your behavior was odd.” He rubbed his nose. “And defensive. You wouldn’t cooperate. You thought Sairs shouldn’t suspect you simply because you were involved with him.”

  “But you couldn’t prove anything?”

  “No,” he snapped.

  “Did I threaten to sue them…or you? Did I stand up for myself? Did I start a stink about it?”

  “No.” His voice rumbled with agitation. “You disappeared for weeks. I thought you ran away.”

  “I’m not a wuss.”

  He glanced at me. “I know.”

  “You called me a wuss.” The minor affront had been churning in the back of my mind ever since he said it.

  “I was kidding.”

  I wasn’t ready to quit chewing on it yet. “You didn’t sound like you were kidding.”

  He threw an annoyed scowl at me. “Can we move on?”

  But he couldn’t dissuade me from my interrogation. I wanted answers. I crossed my arms and glared at him. He sighed and obliged me. “One day—months later—you confronted me. That’s how we met.”

  “We must have surprised a lot of people when we married.”

  “Yeah.” He emitted a short laugh. “We’ve been accused of all sorts of bad behavior.”

  “Your accusations must have been the basis of Sairs’ suspicions. If the hospital didn’t instigate an investigation, how did Sairs get involved?” I stopped and then muttered, “Oh yeah, because of the autopsy.”

  “That would be my guess. But the investigation turned up no evidence you’d done anything to her. He should have dropped the whole thing. But he has this vendetta against you…or something.” He rotated his shoulder and shifted in his seat.

  “Vendetta might be a strong word. I think he’s just a guy with a strong sense of justice who got hurt by some manipulative, conniving female. He needs vindication.”

  “You know, you’re the manipulative, conniving female—”

  “I am well aware of that.” I scrunched my nose. I didn’t like being called conniving. “Jackson Prentiss called me the same thing. He hinted that I was trying to blackmail him.”

  “Blackmail him?”

  “Had I ever met him before the party?” I ask
ed despite my knowledge of Jackson’s association with Rhonda.

  “Not that I know of. That whole thing is strange. Not the conniving part, but the blackmail part. What could you possibly know about him? I mean, it would have to be something Rhonda knew, right?”

  “Or something Sudha told me.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  I remained silent.

  “We’ve got to be honest—”

  “You’re right. We have to start sometime. It’s never too late for that, is it?” I bit out my resentment at his implication that I hadn’t yet been honest.

  He grunted.

  “I’m not sure I want you to know what I think I know. It’s too dangerous. It almost got me killed. I don’t want Jackson to think I told you anything.”

  “Honey, the man is in jail. Where’s the danger?”

  “Why are we running? We asked the question, but we never answered it. I suppose we’ve been too busy.” Or too reluctant. Or too scared. “I can’t be sure. The voice was distorted, but I think it was Alex who chased us last night.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Jackson’s in jail, but Alex isn’t.”

  “Alex? You think this is about Alex?”

  “I think it’s about both of them, but I’ve missed something. Rhonda’s memory failed me somehow. Left out some vital point or fact or…piece of the puzzle.” I closed my eyes and the image of Alex in my hospital room surfaced from my memory. “Did Alex tell you about my trip to California?”

  “When would I have talked to Alex Prentiss? I’ve never met the man.”

  “He was in my hospital room when I woke up.” The thought frightened me. The man stood so close to me in that tiny room.

  “He was?”

  “You didn’t know?” I asked.

  “No.”

  My conversation with Alex replayed in my head at high speed. “Then how did he know Jackson attacked me? He implied the two of you had a conversation.”

  “No. We didn’t. Like I said, I’ve never met the man.”

  A large tree shaded the vehicle from the noonday sun. When did Anson pull the car off the road? I’d been so engrossed in our conversation, I hadn’t noticed. It was hot in the car, insufferably hot. He rolled his window down. When I pushed the button, the window on my side stuck halfway.