Her Secret Past

by Amanda Stevens

  “She was,” Amy agreed. “I wish I could remember her.”

  Jasmine glanced at her with an expression that almost looked like sympathy in her eyes. “If I couldn’t remember Mama, I don’t know what I’d do.”

  “What was she like?” Amy asked softly.

  “Kind. Gentle. She used to come into our rooms before bedtime and brush our hair, sometimes for hours, it seemed, while she’d tell us stories about this house, about growing up here. It was like a ritual every night. She brushed our hair on the night she died, I remember.”

  Amy’s eyes filled with sudden tears. Something flickered between her and her sister, whether a shared memory or shared genes, she wasn’t sure. But the connection was there, no matter how much Jasmine might wish to deny it.

  “You never got over her death.” She frowned up at the portrait. “For the longest time, you wouldn’t believe she’d killed herself.”

  Amy glanced at her sister. “What did I think happened to her?”

  “I…don’t know for sure.” For the first time, Amy sensed an uncertainty in Jasmine. It made her seem very young and very vulnerable. “I remember after Daddy told us what happened, you became so hysterical, he had to get a doctor out here to sedate you. You kept insisting you heard Mama scream that night.”

  Shock shimmered through Amy. The vision appeared to her again. A hand reaching out of the darkness. A body falling into the water. She said hoarsely, “Did I hear her?”

  “You couldn’t have. You were asleep in your room. Daddy kept telling you that the scream you’d heard was a peacock. It was only after you found out Mama was dead that you became convinced you’d heard her.”

  Amy remembered the peacock’s scream the other night and how frightened she’d been of it. It had sounded like a woman.

  Beside her, Jasmine said, “The pendant was never found, you know.”

  “What?”

  “Mama’s emerald. It was Daddy’s engagement present to her. She never took it off, but when they found her body, the necklace was missing.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “The police said it probably came off her neck in the water and is still lying somewhere on the bottom of the river to this day. I used to think that if I could dive down there and find that necklace, somehow I’d be able to bring Mama back. Pretty lame, huh?”

  “No. I can see how you might think that. You were so young when Mama died.”

  Something flickered in Jasmine’s eyes. She scowled slightly, as if displeased by what Amy had said. “That necklace was worth a fortune. Nowadays, I think if I could find it, I’d be able to do something else with it.”

  “Like what?”

  Jasmine looked as if she wanted to say more, then thought better of it. She shrugged. “What difference does it make? No one’s ever going to find Mama’s necklace. Not after all these years.” She stared up at the portrait, fingering her own neck.

  “Tell me about this house,” Amy said. “It was Mama’s, too, wasn’t it?”

  Jasmine glanced at her warily. “You’ve been doing some checking, I see.”

  “It’s not a secret, is it? Darnell Henry mentioned it when he came to see me in Houston. He said Amberly had been in the Witherspoon family for years. I guess Mama and Corliss were raised here. Just like you and me.”

  Jasmine shrugged. “So what? There’s nothing special about this place. Antebellum homes are a dime a dozen in the South. If you really want to know about Amberly, you should ask Lottie. She can go on forever about the French-empire antiques and the Eli Terry clocks and the Zuber wallpaper, not to mention our status in the National Register. She gets off on that kind of stuff. You’d think this place was the White House or something. I don’t know why she even cares. It’s not like she’s ever going to own it,” she added a bit maliciously. “Although she’d sure like to. But where would someone like her come up with that kind of money?”

  I’ve been putting away a little something for years, Lottie had said last night. Enough to buy this house? Or had she come into money some other way? “Is Amberly for sale?” Amy asked, trying to keep her voice neutral.

  Jasmine slanted her a glance. “I’m sure Darnell told you about Mama’s will. Now that you’re back, I can’t get rid of this place without your permission.”

  “Do you really want to get rid of Amberly? I can’t believe this place means nothing to you.” Amy made a sweeping gesture with her hand. “There’s so much history here.”

  “Yeah. Bad history. Look at everything that’s happened here. Mama and Daddy both died here, and you—” Jasmine broke off and shrugged again. “I’d have to be out of my mind to want to stay here.”

  At first, Amy thought Jasmine was being superstitious, but then she realized what her sister was really saying. Amberly held too many unhappy memories for her. For Jasmine, this house represented sorrow and loneliness.

  “Leaving Amberly won’t get rid of those memories,” Amy said quietly.

  “It worked for you, didn’t it?”

  Amy sighed. “You may not believe this, but I wish I’d never left here. I wish I’d never left…you.”

  She expected a smart retort, some quick sarcasm that would put her back in her place, but instead, Jasmine seemed on the verge of tears. She glanced away. “Then why did you leave me?” she blurted.

  “I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

  Jasmine said angrily, “After Mama died, you took care of me. You were everything to me, and then you disappeared that night, just like Mama. You left me here with them.”

  “I’m sorry,” Amy said helplessly. “I know what it’s like to feel alone. I know what it’s like to feel betrayed.”

  “You don’t know anything.” Jasmine glared at Amy, her eyes glinting with the same old resentment. The same old defiance. She lifted her chin. “You should never have come back here.”

  “Why not?”

  Jasmine gave a bitter laugh. “Because I don’t need you anymore, that’s why.”

  * * *

  “I’D LIKE TO HELP YOU, Con. I really would,” Mena told him. “But I don’t know what I can tell you. I don’t remember seeing Amber the night she disappeared.”

  Con studied the woman before him. She was dressed in a soft blue blouse and black skirt that rose to mid thigh when she crossed her dark-stockinged legs. He’d never seen her dressed like that before. It made him a little uneasy. He wondered if he’d made a mistake in coming here. They shared a past after all, he and Mena. And not a very pleasant one at that.

  Still, she’d seemed the logical person to question. He barely knew Lottie, and he’d never trusted Fay, though he couldn’t say why exactly. Call it instinct.

  “You didn’t hear the argument she and her father had that night?”

  Mena smiled sadly. “No, but I probably wouldn’t have thought anything about it if I had. They were always fighting, especially after he and Mama were married. Amber never approved of her, you know.” Resentment flared in her eyes before she quickly glanced down at her desk. Con remembered how he’d always thought of Mena as shy and conservative, compared to Fay, but there was another side of her, a darker side that he suspected few people besides him even knew about.

  Still waters run deep, his mother used to say about her.

  “Did your mother and Amber ever have words?”

  A frown flickered across her brow. “Why are you asking all these questions, Con?”

  “I’m just trying to figure out what happened that summer—that’s all.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “Aren’t you curious?”

  She looked as if she wanted to say more, then bit her lip. “You have to understand, that was a difficult time for all of us. Like I said, Amber resented Mama for marrying Emmett, and she and Fay never got along, even before we moved into the house. I guess everything just got worse that summer.”

  “How?”

  Mena’s eyes looked very blue in the sunlight streaming in fro
m her office window. They reminded Con of a pool he’d seen in the jungle once. Clear and blue, with dangerous depths. “Amber started having nightmares about her mother’s death. She started making accusations and innuendos that broke Mama’s heart and very nearly destroyed her marriage.”

  “What kind of accusations?”

  Mena hesitated, as if it were a subject she didn’t much care to talk about. “She accused us of stealing things from the house, a set of antique silver combs, a music box….” She shrugged. “She even hinted that she thought Mama had something to do with Miranda’s death.”

  Con stared at her in surprise. “But I’d always thought her death was a suicide.”

  “Oh, it was. Everyone knew Miranda had been having…mental problems for years. She was very depressed. Amber seemed to think Emmett’s friendship with Mama drove Miranda to kill herself.”

  Friendship? Con had always heard the two of them were having an affair, but he knew better than anyone how destructive false rumors could be. “What about Jasmine?” he asked. “How did all that tension affect her?”

  “She took Amber’s side, of course. She was only a child, but she followed Amber around like a shadow. She adored her. The house became sort of a war zone that summer. It was us against them, although Mama never wanted it that way.”

  “What about Emmett?”

  She glanced away, but not before Con saw a flash of anger in her eyes. “He never stood up for Mama the way he should have. She was his wife. There should have been no question of his loyalty. But if Amber hadn’t disappeared, I’m not sure how much longer the marriage would have lasted. In some ways, her leaving was a blessing—”

  Her words broke off as she gazed at the open doorway. From his vantage by the window, Con couldn’t see anything, but Mena’s face flushed a deep, dull red. She said in shock, “Amber! What are you doing here?”

  * * *

  “SORRY TO INTERRUPT, but the receptionist told me to come on back—” Amy stopped short when she saw who was in Mena’s office.

  Con stood leaning against the windowsill, his arms folded, his ankles crossed, his demeanor one of total relaxation. He wore jeans and a dark cotton shirt, unbuttoned and untucked over a white undershirt.

  Amy hadn’t seen him since he’d kissed her last night, since she’d overheard the conversation between Lottie and Fay. …Whether or not they’ve done the dirty deed is anyone’s guess.

  They both looked guilty as hell, Amy thought. At least Mena did. The blush that had bloomed when she first saw Amy in the doorway had yet to fade. What was going on here?

  Amy’s gaze almost reluctantly drifted to Con. He lifted a brow, almost as if he were daring her to think the worst of him.

  Her pulse started to hammer in her ears. “I can come back later if you’re busy—”

  “We were finished anyway.” Con straightened lazily, his gaze raking Amy, and her stomach fluttered in awareness.

  She turned to Mena. “I wanted to ask you if I could go through some old copies of the Journal.”

  Mena nodded, but she had a distracted air about her. “How far back do you want to go?”

  “Nine years, to start,” Amy said, acutely aware of Con’s gaze still on her. “But I also want to read about my mother’s suicide.”

  Mena visibly started. Her gaze flew to Con’s, as if the two of them were conspirators. What had they been talking about when she’d come in?

  He said, “She died two years before you disappeared. It was in the spring, I think, but I don’t remember the exact month.”

  “April,” Mena said softly.

  Suddenly, a line of poetry came back to Amy. “April is the cruellest month…”

  She drew a long breath. “I have a feeling that if anything can help me get my memory back, it’s my mother. I do want to remember her,” she said, glancing at Con in challenge.

  He didn’t respond, but as their gazes met, an almost electrical awareness shot through Amy. She remembered the feel of his hand against her breast last night, his lips against her mouth. The attraction between them was very potent, almost scary, and Amy wondered if it had always been that way. If her feelings for Con had had anything to do with her leaving town.

  Had she been running away from that attraction?

  “I don’t know how much was written about the suicide,” Mena was saying. “Emmett always valued his privacy.” She picked up the phone and punched a series of buttons. Amy could hear another phone buzzing somewhere in the building. After a moment, a young man appeared in Mena’s doorway. “Todd, will you take Miss Tremain down to the archives and show her around?”

  He gave Amy an appreciative once-over and a charming gap-toothed grin. “My pleasure.”

  Amy thought she heard Con mutter something as she turned and followed Todd from the office.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  AMY HAD ENVISIONED herself wading through mountains of yellowing newspapers, but to her pleasant surprise, everything had been transferred to microfiche and stored in long, narrow drawers labeled by years, months and even weeks. It took only a matter of minutes to find what she needed.

  Going about her work, she tried not to wonder why Con was in Mena’s office, or what they might be talking about. She tried to forget what she’d overheard the night before, that Mena had been in love with him all through high school, that she might still be in love with him now. … whether or not they’ve actually done the dirty deed is anyone’s guess.

  Feeling nervous and uneasy, Amy loaded the film into the machine and began scanning through the pages. The local accounts of her disappearance were no more informative than the articles she’d read in the Jackson papers, and the headlines were virtually the same. Judge’s Daughter Still Missing. Authorities Haven’t Ruled Out Foul Play.

  There was still no mention of anyone named Nona Jessop.

  Sighing, Amy paged through a series of older issues, trying to locate an article regarding her mother’s suicide. But there was nothing to be found. Had her father somehow kept all mention of his wife’s death from the paper? Why? Because he valued his privacy, as Mena had said, or because he’d been afraid Lottie’s name might have been brought into it?

  Stymied for a moment, Amy chewed her lip, trying to decide what to do. There was one other thing she wanted to check out.

  It took a while, but when she finally found the article with Mena’s byline, the headline almost jumped out at her. Decorated War Hero Returns Home.

  The first paragraph below it read:

  After nine years of service to his country, Conner Sullivan returned to Magnolia Bend last week as quietly as he’d left. No parades, no fanfare, no hero’s welcome for a man who has been awarded the Silver Star for valor above and beyond the call of duty and a Purple Heart for wounds received in a South American skirmish few people here in Magnolia Bend even know about.

  Con was a war hero. Somehow that didn’t surprise Amy as much as it might have once. There was so much more to him than he allowed people to see. The troubled boy from the wrong side of the river, the “delinquent” who had been suspected of murder, was the same man who had gone off to defend his country “with valor above and beyond the call of duty,” the same man who had rescued a young woman from drowning with apparently no thought to his own safety, the same man who had remained steadfastly at his dying mother’s side.

  The same man who was still Amy’s husband.

  Her heart thudding, she glanced over her shoulder. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt like a guilty teenager reading something forbidden. Or as if she were intruding on Con’s privacy. If he’d wanted her to know these things about him, he would have told her.

  So how had Mena found out? Amy couldn’t help wondering if her stepsister had kept track of Con all the time he’d been away. Had she been as obsessed with Con as her mother was with Amberly?

  A shadow fell across the desk, and Amy jumped. As usual, he’d come into the room so quietly, she hadn’t heard him. Before he could see what she was read
ing, she pressed the off button and the screen in front of her went black.

  * * *

  CON WALKED AROUND the desk and gazed down at Amy. “Find what you were looking for?” She had the appearence of a woman who had been caught red-handed in a compromising situtation.

  “Not exactly.” Her smile seemed nervous. “What are you doing here?”

  “I thought you might need some help.”

  Amy said carefully, “I’m sorry I interrupted your meeting with Mena.”

  He shrugged. “No problem. We were finished.”

  She looked as if she wanted to say something else, and it hit Con with almost a physical jolt that she seemed jealous. Her cheeks were flushed, and there was a tiny little flicker in her eyes he couldn’t quite figure out.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “No, of course not.” She got up to put the microfiche away, taking care not to brush him as she walked by. Changing the subject, she said over her shoulder, “I couldn’t find anything on my mother’s suicide. I don’t know how my father managed to keep it out of the paper.”

  Con gave a bitter laugh. “Are you kidding? Judge Tremain could do whatever he wanted to around here.” Like getting an innocent man arrested for the “murder” of a daughter who was still very much alive.

  Con couldn’t help himself. He let his gaze slip over her. She was wearing jeans today, and the way they molded to her hips and thighs gave him all sorts of ideas. Ideas he had no business entertaining. Not about Amber Tremain.

  She turned to face him. “That’s exactly what Nona told me once. She said her brother was accused of assaulting a girl. Nona was convinced he was innocent, but the girl’s mother was a friend of my father’s, so he sent Nona’s brother away to a mental institution.”

  Something flared in Con’s memory. “When was this?”

  “More than ten years ago, I guess.”

  “What was the girl’s name?”

  Amy shrugged. “I don’t know. Like I told you before, I don’t even know Nona’s brother’s name. She didn’t leave behind any papers, any record of her maiden name, but there must be some way—”