Deceptions of the Heart

by Denise Moncrief

  “So…what do you want from me? Why am I here?” I asked with lips that refused to still their rebellious trembling.

  His eyes focused somewhere over my shoulder. “It seemed impossible our lives would cross again after all those years. But then to find out you needed a heart transplant…”

  “Why didn’t you come looking for us?”

  He turned as if noticing me for the first time. “I hired private investigators. They found where your mother was buried, but they couldn’t find you. Adoption records are sealed, you know.”

  I had a hard time believing he recognized me from a picture. Why had he considered me as a patient? I tilted my head, waited at least thirty seconds, and attempted to gouge his conscience. “Why did you find me a heart outside the list?”

  “Because you’re my daughter,” he replied as if I was a ninny.

  “Why would you do that for me and then bring me here? Like I’m your prisoner.”

  He puffed his cheeks out. “I had to get you away from Alex Prentiss.” So many emotions reeled across his countenance. Love. Hate. Fear. Passion. Regret. Anger. Pride. And something far more sinister—something shaky and not quite moored to sanity. He moved closer to me. “The man is dangerous and unstable.”

  “And you’re not?” I laughed, a dry, derisive cackle smacking of disrespect. He growled as if I’d wounded him. We both knew he didn’t intend to let me leave.

  “Why am I still here? Let me go.” I demanded, as if I was the one in control of the situation even though he was the one with all the physical power.

  “I can’t let you leave,” he muttered as if his mind was elsewhere. “I have to make sure you’re safe.”

  I suddenly understood the sinister, mad-doctor gleam in his eyes. His reasons had nothing to do with my safety despite his assertions otherwise. “I want to go back to my husband.”

  “You’re safer with me. I’m your father.”

  “My father? Where’ve you been all my life? Your paternal rights are nonexistent. I think my mother made sure of that. She must have had her reasons.”

  He frowned. “That wasn’t my choice.”

  “Mine either.” I crossed my arms. A sharp pain erupted in my left shoulder. “I don’t think I’m safe with you. I saw what you did to Kristen.”

  “She wouldn’t tell me where Alex was,” he said as if his actions were reasonable.

  “So you beat her? Is that what a reasonable man would do…under the circumstances?” I leaned my head to one side, my hair bouncing around my ear, longer now that I hadn’t had time for a proper haircut. “Is that how you treated my mother when she wouldn’t do what you wanted her to do? Is that why she left you? Is that how you handle women? How you handled Kristen?”

  “You don’t understand. That woman—”

  “She didn’t deserve what you did to her any more than my mother did.” I hammered on the weakness of his character as if I held a large mallet in my hands.

  A pulse beat in his temple. “It’s not like that.”

  “Then how is it?” I asked, a sneer in my voice.

  “It just got out of hand with the Prentiss woman. I didn’t mean to hurt her. She’s just weak and—”

  “Like my mother? Was my mother weak? Was she easily controlled? Or was she rebellious? Did you have to beat her to keep her in line?”

  “Shut up,” he roared and raised a fist. “I’m trying to explain.”

  “Are you going to hit me, too? Are you going to hit your daughter? The one you broke the rules for?”

  He rotated on his heel, fire shooting from his eyes—eyes that looked a lot like mine. He danced with rage and banged his fists on the table next to me. “You don’t understand. I had to get you away from him. If he’d kill his wife…” He shook his head as if the thought ran away from him.

  I bit into him, my eyes narrowed, my heart thumping to a wild, unknown beat. “How do you know that Alex killed his wife?”

  “I was there,” he admitted, his breath wheezing between gasping intakes of air. “Was it fate that I just happened to be in the right place at the right time? I don’t know.” He chuckled. “He argued with his brother. She was watching them. Her mouth hung open like she couldn’t believe what they were saying. I couldn’t hear any of it until I came closer. Then all of a sudden, the color drained from her face.” He paced, strutting like the very important man he believed himself to be. “That’s when she ran for her car…I saw Alex kill her. Banged her head on the steering wheel until she didn’t flinch anymore. He was surprised to find someone watching him. He started to run, but I grabbed him. I couldn’t let him get away. You see, I needed his wife’s organs. I had so many patients that needed a new heart, and there was a fresh one right in front of me, ready for harvest.” He looked at his hands, turned them over and over, studying first the palms and then the backs. “I couldn’t believe my luck…to find a perfect match for you so soon after that idiot Whitaker referred you to me…”

  I backed as far away from the man as I could get, pressing so hard into the chair the rungs dug into my back. The truth pummeled my overtaxed psyche.

  He was still talking as if conversing through a heavy fog. “We had a deal. I kept his secret and he kept mine.” He knelt beside me. “You see now? I couldn’t acknowledge you as my daughter because the whole world would know what I’d done. I couldn’t lose my license.”

  Horror must have covered my face. His face flushed with growing excitement. “I did it for you. Can’t you see?” He pleaded with me. Looking for affirmation. Looking for gratitude. For justification. For something I couldn’t give him. He placed one hand on my forearm. “But I told you this…when you came here two years ago.” I shook my head hard, back and forth, desperately trying to refuse his awful sentiment, to refuse the horrible memory. “I had to protect you from Alex. You wanted to ask him about his wife, but I couldn’t let you. As long as he thought you couldn’t remember anything, you were safe. But you had to confront him. I told you to stay away from him.” He rose from the ground. “He never had enough. He always wanted more...”

  “You didn’t do this for me.” My words barely made it past my numb lips.

  “Yes, I did. I saved your life. I saved it.”

  “You helped Alex Prentiss cover up his wife’s murder. You’re just another murderer,” I spat the words.

  He jabbed his finger into his chest. “I saved your life. I did it. You owe me.”

  My repulsion for this man, my father, was so acrid it left a foul taste on my tongue. A searing pain gnawed at my side. I clawed at the hurt and gasped for breath.

  Across the room, the sun reflected off the black glint of a gun. “Crane, this is the police. Put your hands in the air.”

  The doctor’s face melted into a puddle of confusion. “What’s going on, officer? What’s the problem?”

  A familiar voice rushed me from behind. “Jennifer?”

  “Anson,” I gasped for one more breath, the oxygen searing my lungs.

  “Jennifer, what’s wrong?” Crane asked.

  Rhonda’s life flashed before my eyes. A dark-haired woman, pale, with no smile in her eyes, pushing me in the swing. Forgetting my lines in the third grade play. Discovering my birth certificate. Questioning my adoption. Locking braces with some guy in the sixth grade. Meeting Alex for the first time on the common at Cal-Berkeley. Jackson’s first scrape with the law and Alex bailing him out. My wedding gown. Losing the battle to have my adoption records unsealed. The birth of Ally, her tiny hand pressed in mine. My jealousy when Alex graduated from law school. Putting sheets on my bed, April 24, 2006.

  Jackson’s middle-of-the-night intrusion into the peaceful order of my world. Waiting up for Alex to return, hoping I hadn’t heard what I thought I heard, hoping it was a nightmare. Alex begging me not to go to the cops, threatening to leave the country and take my girls with him. Finding the deed in his name after he blackmailed Jackson out of his share of the family business. The smell of another woman on Alex’s cl
othing. Jackson confronting me, sure I would go to the police and tell them about his crimes. Alex interrupting us. Alex and Jackson arguing. The defeat on Alex’s face the moment he realized I would betray them. Racing for the car, almost making an escape. My head meeting the steering wheel with a hard smack. Crane appearing out of nowhere, demanding to know what was going on.

  My mind stopped when Alex…

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The trickle of running water dribbled into my consciousness. Antiseptic smell. Dull humming in the background. Scratchy sheets. Hard mattress. Numerous explanations flew through my mind, none of them stopping long enough to develop into a viable answer. My eyesight adjusted to the dim light until I focused on the connecting bath—the source of the noise that woke me. I released the breath I was holding. When Anson came out of the bathroom, I would ask him every one of my fuzzy questions.

  The rush of water ceased, the door swished open, and Anson emerged. A strong jolt of déjà vu struck me hard in the chest. His face was grim until our eyes met. “Well, hey there,” he smiled down at me, his expression tentative and full of restrained hope.

  “What happened?” I asked, all my fears hollering like coyote calls on a midnight wind.

  “The stress got to you.” His brief explanation told me nothing. Patently unsatisfying. He stood over me, uncertainty clouding his features.

  I skipped his reference to the stress. “How long have I been here?”

  He looked at his watch. “About three days…give or take a few hours.” He gazed at me as if waiting for something. His anxious expectation made my lower eyelid twitch.

  “That long? Wow!”

  I pushed my hair out of my eyes and twisted a tendril around my fingers with my free hand—the other attached to a rolling IV stand via a plastic tube of dripping solution. My hair snagged my undivided attention. It was much longer than I remembered. Surely, I’d been out longer than three days.

  “Am I going to be all right?” There was always that question.

  How fragile is the heart I received from a complete stranger?

  “You’ll recover. You’ll probably have to stay here a few more days before they’ll release you. Then after a few weeks we can go home.”

  “Weeks? Why can’t we go straight home from the hospital?” I sounded bad-tempered, but I didn’t care. I hated hospitals.

  “Your doctor probably won’t clear you for air travel for a while,” he explained with utmost patience.

  Anson enjoyed dropping the incomprehensible on me one bit at a time. “Air travel? Where are we?” I asked, biting my tongue to keep from nailing him about his frustrating idiosyncrasies.

  “San Francisco. Oakland, actually.”

  “What? How…” I closed my eyes and opened them. “I thought we agreed I’d never come out here again. Why are we here?”

  “You don’t remember why we came out here?” There was a strange gleam in his eyes, as if there was something important he wasn’t telling me.

  “No. Did I come out here—”

  “Alone? No. I came with you.”

  “So, then, I didn’t—”

  “Break your promise? No. Not this time.” He smothered a smile. His strange behavior baffled me.

  I shifted and tugged the blanket around my shoulders. He helped me adjust it without a word, fluffing my pillow for me. “How long have we been away from—”

  “Home? About a week,” he answered with his usual calm, even voice.

  “Home,” I murmured.

  Anson pulled a chair close to my uncomfortable bed. It screeched across the floor and jumped on every one of my frazzled nerves. My skin prickled with activity. His hand reached out for mine. I grabbed it. He smiled as if he knew why I was acting this way. Strange behavior for him. And for me.

  “Um…look, I need to tell you something.” My hand remained in his. His grip was strong and solid, and I needed his strength and stability. For some reason, my entire body trembled with anticipation. An unexpected reaction to his touch.

  “Okay.” His eyes brimmed with moisture.

  “Something happened at the party—”

  “The party?” he asked.

  “Maybe Marnie’s already said something, but I want you to know the truth. It wasn’t what it looked like.”

  He continued holding my hand. A surprise. Maybe she hadn’t said anything yet.

  “Go ahead,” he said, rolling his other hand, urging me to continue.

  I drew in a deep breath to steady my nerves. “I know I’ve never given you much reason to believe anything I say, but I’m tired of all the pretending.” I cleared my throat. He didn’t bail me out. Or jump for joy. “I came on to Price at the party and Marnie saw us.”

  He leaned back in his chair, letting go of my hand. I was so sure he’d react strongly, vehemently, violently, negatively, something else besides calmly. “And?”

  “I threw myself at him. He pushed me away. That’s when Marnie came into my office…”

  His jaw set. Pain etched acidic tracks across his features, forming jagged little crevices of weariness around his mouth. “Why are you telling me this now?”

  “Because I was sure Marnie couldn’t wait to tell you and it’s not what it looked like. I did it for a reason.”

  Whiny and pathetic never won an argument.

  I groaned inwardly at the use of such a weak tactic.

  He seemed puzzled and surprised by my words. Neither reaction expected. “Okay, I’m listening. What possible reason could you have to throw yourself at another man in my house?”

  I gulped down my shame. “I’m not proud of it, Anson. And it wasn’t anything romantic…or lascivious. It was more…investigatory.”

  “I’m sure you’re not proud of it. So tell me what you were…investigating…with Price Whitaker…in my house. I’m dying to hear your reason.”

  His attitude was shocking. I had to readjust my stance. Hit reset.

  “This thing has always been between us…me and you…” I waited for his encouragement. He nodded, so I continued. “I just thought…Price had an affair with Claire. I thought maybe that he killed her to cover it up. If he was prone to having affairs with married women, he might repeat the pattern.” I stopped to gather my fuzzy wits to me.

  “Maybe you should rest a bit more before we talk about this. I should call the nurse—”

  “No. I need to say this before I lose my nerve.” I bit my tongue.

  Demands don’t fall easy on his ears. They never have.

  He sighed and rubbed the back of his head. “Okay. So go ahead.”

  “I’m so ashamed of myself for doing such a stupid thing. Marnie thinks I’m a tramp and a gold-digging con artist anyway. I’m sure I played right into her misconceptions about me. It was stupid. So stupid. He wasn’t interested in me. Actually, I think he has a thing for Marnie. I really messed up. Probably messed things up between us worse than they already are. And messed things up for Marnie.”

  He leaned forward, his eyes piercing mine. “Why would you do that? What was the point of your experiment?”

  I turned my head. His doubt was so severe. “We’ve always had this thing between us—”

  “You said that already.”

  Now was the time to state my case, plainly and without varnish. We’d skirted the issue too long. “I didn’t kill Claire.”

  “I know that.”

  How can he be so sure?

  “Well, the doubt has always been there. It’s been between us. I just thought if somehow the truth came out and we could prove who killed her, then…”

  “Then what?” he asked.

  I couldn’t make my lips voice the desire of my heart. I couldn’t stand the rejection if he didn’t want what I wanted.

  He rubbed his finger across his upper lip. “You don’t remember anything since that party, do you?”

  “No.” My unease grew with each breath I took.

  The beginnings of a smile played across his lips. “Nothing?”


  “No. What are you getting at? I’ve been out for three days. How could I know what’s happened while I slept?” My impatience jumped and leapt and demanded a voice. I silenced it, using all my willpower.

  “That party was over a month ago. A lot has happened since then.”

  A month? He isn’t making sense.

  “You said I’ve only been out three days.”

  “You’ve had some problems with your long term memory over the last few weeks.”

  “I have?”

  “Uh-huh.” Some alien sentiment flashed in his eyes. “The last month has been hard. A lot has happened. There are some things I should tell you.”

  “Like what?” My head pounded from the strain of waiting for him to get to the point.

  “You didn’t kill Claire.”

  I smiled. “I know that.”

  “I didn’t kill Claire.”

  “I never thought you did.”

  I never even considered it, even though he has plenty of motive.

  “Price Whitaker surely didn’t kill Claire.”

  “How can you be so sure?” I asked, revealing all of my doubts about the doctor.

  I might have set him up, but he let himself get suckered into the compromising position.

  “Because Sudha killed her.”

  The fallout from his declaration blew like a nuclear blast scouring the surface of my psyche. “Sudha? No way.” I laughed without the slightest iota of mirth. “I told you something was off about that woman. She’s always acted courteous, but she has this deep well of…I don’t know…darkness. The looks she gives me…gave me. I told you something was wrong with her.”

  “Yes. You did. You were right. When I found out she was giving you a barbiturate and an anticonvulsant, I fired her.”

  “A barb…and an… What? I can’t take that stuff with cyclosporine. That combo could have killed me.”