Deceptions of the Heart

by Denise Moncrief

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Well, I know you’re in California. My Caller ID says so,” she retorted with an ah-ha snap. “Why are you there? And where is Daddy? Is he with you?”

  “Marnie, shut up.”

  “What?” she sputtered.

  “I said shut up. Listen to me. I don’t have much time. Someone could be watching me—”

  “I can’t believe—”

  “Shut up and listen!” I screamed into the grimy mouthpiece.

  She grumbled on the other end of the line. I gulped some smoggy California air. A noxious combination of diesel fuel, barbecue, used vegetable oil, and cat urine wafted past my nose. I wiped the burn from my eyes. “I have a question for you and I want a straight answer. I don’t have time for games. My life and your father’s life depend on the truth—”

  “Are you serious?”

  “The newspaper articles that you sent me. Where did you get them?” I asked. She was speechless for the first time in our limited association. “Marnie, answer me. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.” She huffed her annoyance so I hit her where it hurt. “If you won’t tell Daddy the truth, then I will,” I quoted her note.

  “I don’t know who sent them. They just came in the mail. There was no return address.” Her words crawled as if poured from a bottle of molasses.

  “There are no dates on any of them so…I don’t know how old they are. Crane looks younger. A lot younger than he does now. So I’m confused. Am I his wife or his daughter?”

  “Well, it’s obvious you’re his missing wife.” She chomped at me long distance with what I could only imagine were sharp, bared, ugly teeth.

  “Really? Because Kristen told me I was his daughter.”

  “No, you are his wife.” She sucked in a deep breath. “Have you told Daddy about this?”

  I was tired of deception. I was tired of lies. I was tired of innuendo. I was tired of speculation. I wanted answers. “I did.”

  “What did he say?” she asked, her voice soft and low.

  “He said we’d deal with it, but he wouldn’t discuss it further. So you never told him any of this?” I asked, holding my breath.

  “No. Of course not. I wanted you to do the right thing.”

  The rancid air I inhaled left a twangy flavor. I rubbed my tongue between my lips, trying to rid my mouth of the nasty aftertaste. “Even if that made me a bigamist or a con artist or the conniving manipulator you’ve always accused me of being? Even if it broke Anson’s heart? Are you sure telling him was the right thing?”

  “You told him. Tell me, was it the right thing?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m confused about everything. Nothing I’ve thought was true has turned out to be true. Nothing I thought was false has turned out to be a lie. Everything’s backward and upside down. I can’t sort this out. And I’m tired. So tired.” The decision floated on the wings of my consciousness only moments before it flew out of my mouth. “He’s better off without me.”

  “Are you leaving him, Jennifer? There in California? You can’t do this to him.”

  “Why? Haven’t I done enough? I know you don’t believe me, but I love him. I can’t involve him in this anymore. So when he calls you, because I know he will, tell him I said that.”

  “Don’t put this on me.”

  “I have no choice.” I slammed the phone onto the hook before I changed my mind and went back to Anson.

  “Well, that was touching,” Alex said from behind my back.

  I swiveled on one foot, the loose gravel gouging into my heel. I winced from the pain. His face contorted with some emotion that went beyond anger or hatred. Before a scream could exit my mouth, a gun pressed into my flesh.

  “You just couldn’t leave it alone, could you?”

  Alex, the man that Rhonda loved, grabbed my hair, shoving his fingers all the way to the roots, dragging me toward his parked car, the gun still jammed into my side. “Get in,” he demanded and released me as he tugged open the driver’s side door. When I didn’t move fast enough, his fingers curled into my hair once again. I slid behind the steering wheel, trying to minimize the damage. He released my hair, and then slammed the door, almost snagging my hand in the frame.

  He hadn’t demoralized me yet. There was still fight in me. My fingers wrapped around the handle. He raced around the car before I could push the door all the way open. Reaching over me, he yanked it shut, refusing my escape.

  “Why are you doing this? I told you I wouldn’t tell anyone.” I sucked in a cluster of ragged breaths.

  “No. You won’t tell anyone.” He shoved my head forward. The impact blinded me.

  A dim memory amplified my horror—visions of slamming into a steering wheel. Rhonda’s heart dragged her past out of the far reaches of my subconscious and I faced what she refused to face—the vision so much clearer than the muggy night sky above me.

  “Stop,” I begged. “You know I won’t tell.” Those words fell from Jennifer’s lips, repeating Rhonda’s pleas of three years ago. But Rhonda fell silent and the scene faded to black. A blank canvas.

  I shook my head to bring some image, any image back to my consciousness. My eyes opened. Was I Jennifer or Rhonda? Alex was talking, but I couldn’t hear him.

  “No, don’t,” I begged. I reached for the door handle, but he thrust the gun in my face. I looked along the polished barrel into his glazed eyes.

  “Drive,” he commanded and shoved the key into the ignition with his other hand.

  I didn’t want to remember what Rhonda remembered any longer. I was Jennifer because I wanted to be. I obeyed Alex because I had no choice.

  ****

  Alex paced like a caged animal, his steps ringing on the concrete floor of the warehouse. He mumbled to himself. He turned hollow, bloodshot eyes toward me and I cringed despite my resolve to remain calm and present him with a stoic front. It did no good to pull on the duct tape that strapped me to the chair arms, but I squirmed anyway. The hard seat bruised my tailbone. My feet stung from a thousand tiny cuts and abrasions and I swore at myself for leaving my shoes behind.

  I gritted my teeth and counted to five before I confronted him. “Why haven’t you murdered me yet?”

  He swung around, agitation in his spastic movements. “Because you might still be useful.”

  I laughed at his villainous cliché. “Really?”

  “I should kill you and be done with it,” he said, grinding his threat into my face.

  I scrunched my nose at his foul breath. “Why don’t you?” I asked, as if his logic was senseless when in fact it made horrifying sense.

  “I should. Right now. You know too much.”

  “That sounds like a trite line from a lame movie. Besides, I thought we covered this when you crept into my hospital room. I wasn’t going to tell anyone about Jackson and what you covered up for him.” I strained against my bindings to get a little closer to him. “I know you never talked to Anson. He didn’t tell you Jackson threatened me on my back porch. He didn’t even know you were in my room. I bet Jackson told you he was in my house, didn’t he? Did he tell you he had his arm around my neck, that he almost choked me to death? Did he tell you he tried to freak me out? Tried to get me to kill myself? Did he? I bet he did. You’ve seen him. You’ve talked to him.”

  He rolled his eyes as if my rant was irrelevant. “What if he did? We’re brothers.”

  “He’d roll on you in a heartbeat—”

  He laughed, a strange choking chortle that made my ears throb. “Nah, I can trust him. He’s kept our secrets for years. It’s you I can’t trust. You were asking too many questions and getting too close to the truth.”

  “Who’s going to believe I have Rhonda’s memory? No court of law would even allow that kind of testimony.”

  He laughed. “What would you know about it?”

  Jennifer wouldn’t know anything, but Rhonda might. But, of course, Rhonda had to drop out of law school. She resented
that.

  “You know it’s true,” I said. “What’d you do this for? This only gets you in deeper—”

  “Deeper than what?” he asked, leaning in to me, one hand on each of the chair arms. “Now who’s spouting trite lines from lame movies?”

  I held my position, refusing to back away from his overt power tactics. “If you talked to the police…told them you were covering for your brother, surely they would cut you some slack.”

  “You…” He backed up and pointed his nasty finger at me. “You watch too much TV.”

  I laughed at him. “I don’t watch TV.”

  “Well, your idea might work if that was all I’d done.” His sarcasm undercut his sincerity. “Some things can’t be overlooked.”

  “What have you done?”

  He waved the gun at me with reckless abandon. “Don’t pretend you don’t know.”

  My heart pounded faster and faster. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

  Maybe I do know. Maybe that is what I don’t want to remember. Maybe there is a whole list of things I don’t want to remember.

  “Don’t you care about Kristen and your girls? We could just forget about this and you could go home to them. Put me on a plane. To anywhere. I’ll leave California and never come back. You’ll never see me again.” I offered him the option even though I knew he’d refuse. “I won’t cause you any trouble.”

  “If you didn’t intend to cause me trouble, what are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Don’t you know? You followed me here. You were the one playing mind games with me, weren’t you?”

  He circled me. Round and round. Restless and wild. “What were you doing at my house?”

  “What do you think? If you were there, you know the police came. Don’t you even care what that was all about?” I asked.

  His laughter rang throughout the warehouse. “Kristen called the cops. She said she would if you ever came back.”

  I bit my lower lip, struggling to remain calm. “Kristen didn’t call the police. Anson did.”

  He ceased his circling, coming to an abrupt halt in front of me. “Why?”

  I gouged into what little conscience he had left. “You really want to know? You really care about them that much?”

  The gun was in my face again. “Tell me.”

  For a horrible moment, I lost my nerve. My parched mouth demanded relief. My body craved release from the stress of enduring two psychological traumas—Jennifer’s current abduction and Rhonda’s previous betrayal. “Crane beat her up. We found her like that.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Dr. Crane, the respected cardiologist, assaulted your wife. What are you going to do about it?” I waited for him to react, but he didn’t. “Why are you still messing with me when your wife is in trouble? That maniac could come back.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “You know what he wanted from her?” I asked, pushing more of his buttons.

  “Stop lying to me.”

  “He wanted to know where you were. He wants to find you. Why, Alex? What is between you and Crane? Is there something I need to know? Is Jackson involved in this somehow? You blackmailed him, didn’t you? Jackson thought it was me—Jennifer—that was blackmailing him. But it was you, wasn’t it? And then Crane…”

  He backed away from me, unadulterated terror on his face. “Crane? What does he want with me?”

  “When we were in his office, the two of you set me up. I thought your conversation sounded off…as if you’d rehearsed it.” My accusations jumped at him between raspy breaths. “When he realized I wasn’t going to let it alone, he decided to send you after me, didn’t he? But you didn’t cooperate. You had your own agenda.” I’d lost faith in my power to speculate—to discern the truth from lies. Anson and I had surmised Crane looked for Alex in order to get to me. “When he couldn’t find you he took his frustrations out on your wife.”

  “He beat Kristen?” I nodded. “What about the girls?” The first spark of humanity flickered across his face.

  “Don’t you know?”

  He pulled his fist back, his intent clear. “Tell me.”

  My head still ached from when he smacked my head on the steering wheel. “He took them.”

  Fear. Anger. Disgust. Pain. A million emotions rolled across his haggard features—contours and ridges that Rhonda wouldn’t recognize. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket, glowering at me while he dialed. “Yeah, Crane. Alex Prentiss. I have what you want. I’ll trade her for my daughters.”

  As he held the phone to his ear, the exultation melted from his face.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The pungent aroma of motor oil and gasoline filled my sinuses. I tried to move, but something hard pushed the middle of my back, putting pressure on my spine. I kicked my legs, but the cramped space limited the slightest movement. Tears streamed down my cheeks, but I couldn’t rub the stain away. Tape bound my wrists. The car jerked and bounced. My head bumped something metal. A pain shot through my temple. A scream rose up my throat, but stopped at the oily rag stuffed in my mouth. My stomach threatened to heave what little remained there.

  When was the last time I ate? Hours or days?

  The car screeched to a halt. Feet crunched on gravel. The trunk lid swung up and bright sunlight startled me. I squinted and tried to focus after being in the blinding darkness. Alex yanked my arm. I bumped over the lip of the trunk and slid on my butt to the ground.

  When my eyes adjusted to the blaring light of day, Crane peered down at me. I twisted in my bindings. The gag in my mouth muffled my grunts of distress.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Here’s your daughter.” Alex yanked the gun from his jacket pocket and waved the weapon at Crane. “Now where are my girls?”

  Crane turned and nodded to Alex. “Call your wife. They should be home by now.”

  Alex couldn’t juggle me and the phone and the gun. He snorted his frustration.

  Crane ignored his frenzy. “Give me my daughter and get out of here,” he ordered, the voice of authority even in the face of Alex’s mania.

  Alex stepped back, waving the gun first at Crane and then pointing it toward my head. He put his phone to his ear. “Kristen…” He shifted from one foot to the other. “You’re sure they’re all right?” Another moment of intense silence. “I’m coming home.” His voice faded as the car door groaned open.

  Tires flung gravel as he sped into the blazing sunshine. My face burned from a million tiny flecks of rock. Crane knelt beside me and unfastened the dirty rag. I gulped five or six deep intakes of fresh air while he brushed the hair from my eyes. “Did he hurt you?”

  All of the foul things I wanted to say to him stopped at my tongue. I clamped my mouth shut.

  “Do you know where you are?” he asked. I shook my head. He smiled. “Ah yes, the memory problems. You should know this house.” An abandoned house. A seedy part of town, once a working-class neighborhood, now only a haven for street people and crack addicts and human merchandise.

  He used a penknife to cut the duct tape around my wrists. “He didn’t have to do that to you.” He grabbed my elbow. I tried to rise from the ground, but my legs wouldn’t cooperate. He gently lifted me to standing. “Come inside,” he said. “Let’s get you something to drink.”

  He guided me into the house one halting step at a time. The sun glinted through the shattered windowpanes. A moldy stench permeated the air. He lowered me into a decrepit chair. It tilted to one side and I almost fell onto the floor, but he grabbed the arm and righted it just in time.

  I rubbed my abraded wrists where the duct tape tore at my skin and studied my captor. Nausea surged up my gut and lodged in my throat. My eyes blurred. Rhonda’s heart raced—its rhythm thumping along at an unnatural, jerky pace. Thoughts of escape tormented me, but my curiosity and light head bound me without chains.

  “What do you want from me?” I asked.

  “I knew who you were when I
saw your picture,” Crane said, wringing his hands over me like a mad scientist.

  “My picture?”

  “When I take a new case, I like to put a picture of the patient in the file. Helps me see the patient as human and less like just another surgery.”

  I didn’t want to listen to his pompous, overripe sentiments. There was only one thing I wanted to know. Only one thing he could give me. “So if you’re my father, who’s my mother?”

  His frenetic energy increased. He tapped one finger on a nearby table. His foot beat a steady rhythm. “You really don’t know anything, do you? But you’ve been nosing around trying to figure it all out, haven’t you?” Sincere admiration glowed on his face.

  I offered him a cold, hard stare with unblinking eyes. “I want to know what happened to my mother. Is she…was she your wife?”

  His face softened, as if he was recalling something sweetly touching on the viewing screen of his mind. Then his smile faded. “My wife ran away years ago.”

  “She ran away? Or did something happen to her?” My tone accused him of so many things.

  He laughed, a tired chuckle, full of regret. “You know about that, huh?”

  “The police think you killed her. That’s what the newspapers said. So did you? Did you kill my mother?”

  “Well, no. If I had, you wouldn’t be here. She must have been pregnant when she left.”

  “Then how do you know I’m your daughter?”

  “The picture. You look so much like her, it’s spooky. I ordered a paternity test. You gave me blood samples, remember?”

  My nurse’s training surged in my memory.

  No, I don’t remember, but if I had transplant surgery, someone took blood from me when I was put on the wait list for a heart.

  More of Jennifer was pushing through the muddle of my bifurcated personality. On the edge of uncovering my past, my abused psyche craved more information about my mother…Jennifer’s mother. The possibility that I was so close to the truth tingled through my veins.

  He smiled as if he read my mind. “I found her here. When you were two. Just a little thing. I watched you. She would swing you in that swing set in the backyard. But then she must have realized I was watching. She disappeared one night. I waited for days but she didn’t come back. I never saw her…or you again.” His disappointment seemed heavy, like so many pounds of lead weight strapped to his legs.