Quickly he gave orders, instructing the deputy to contact the state boys and set a guard on the scene until they could get somebody out here. He listened to the ranger in the background telling him of the outrageous behavior of the intruder who had ignored her demands to leave with only half a mind as he worried and wondered about Hart.
He turned back to Joey, telling him to get someone out to drive her car into town, than lifted her in his arms once again to place her in the passenger seat of his own official car so he could take her home.
“She’s got some questions to answer,” the deputy said.
“If you ask me she’s just an idiot,” the ranger said, “you know that’s Hart Benson, don’t you, and people say she’s losing her mind or having a nervous breakdown or something.”
“I know,” Alistair said. Apparently word of his marriage had not traveled far beyond Mountainside or the ranger was fairly secluded at her job in the park. But, of course, everybody had news, mostly incorrect, about what had happened to Hart. “The idiot is my wife,” he said and drove away quietly, not turning on his lights or siren. This was an emergency only in his own eyes.
They had traveled several miles in silence when she managed to stir, shifting her position so that she could look at him. “Where are you taking me?”
Her skin color glowed faintly green. “Home,” he said, “Unless you feel like you need to go to the hospital.”
She shook her head. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“Thanks, sheriff, always appreciate a compliment.”
He didn’t apologize for indicating that she looked sick.
“You can’t arrest me,” she said, trying to sound playful. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Not illegal anyway,” he agreed grimly. “At least not as far as I know.”
She seemed to take that in for several miles before responding. “What did I do to make you so mad at me?”
“Don’t play games with me, Hart.”
“I’m not playing games. I don’t remember.”
“Tell that to somebody who believes it. And then explain to me why you called that skeleton Stacia?”
Suddenly she was visibly shivering as though freezing and, realizing she was acting like a person in shock, he pulled to the side of the road. Ignoring his logical brain that warned him against this action, he pulled her into his arms, murmuring soothingly, “It’s all right, Hart. It’s all right. You’re safe and I’m here.” He held her while her vibrating body slowly became calm.
“Sorry,” she finally gasped. “Don’t know what’s wrong with me?”
He patted her back, than touched his lips against silken hair, all his submerged instincts back in place. “You were really shocked when you saw that skeleton, Hart?”
He felt her try to nod her head. “For just a minute, I saw a girl lying there dead. Not a skeleton, but a flesh and blood girl, someone I knew. I called her Stacia and it hurt so much to see her like that.”
She pulled away to look up at him with those beseeching blue eyes. “And then I was standing in the lake and didn’t know how I got there or who Stacia was. That’s the truth, Sheriff. Honest.”
He knew her well enough to feel she believed what she was saying, no matter how unlikely her story seemed. For the first time he felt a slight twinge of doubt in his conviction that she was fooling everyone.
Maybe Hart really was suffering some kind of breakdown and truly couldn’t remember what had happened between them.
Hart insisted he go to her apartment rather than to Tommy’s house, feeling she couldn’t face her family right now. He protested, but finally took her there, then saw her into the building, making sure she locked the door after she was safely inside.
She’d assured him she’d go to her brother’s house after she’d had a chance to regain her composure and he told her he’d see that her car was left parked outside the antique shop door.
She’d been having such a good day, she thought mournfully. Her job was going well, she had a car and an apartment of her own, she was beginning to feel almost like the twenty six year old young woman they’d told her she was.
And now this. An innocent little drive through the state park and she was wondering again about her own sanity. Her behavior at the lake, the things she’d thought she’d seen could not be real. No wonder her marriage had broken if this was the way she’d acted when she was married to Alistair Redhawk.
He’d probably thought she was out of her mind. She sat in the big chair in her own living room and tried to figure things out, but when that turned out to be more a matter of going in mental circles, she began to clean instead, dusting the furniture, sweeping the floor, neither of which needed dusting or sweeping, and then she decided to make nut bread from the ingredients she’d stored in her cabinets and refrigerator. Banana nut bread, that sounded even better.
Surprisingly she didn’t need to look up a recipe in her new cookbook. She knew how to make banana nut bread, though she didn’t remember how she knew.
Once the bananas were smashed into a pulp and added to the egg, flour, butter, sugar and sour milk mixture, plus a pinch of baking soda, she put the mixture into a loaf pan and placed it in the oven to bake.
It was Stacia’s mother’s recipe. Mrs. Larkin had taught her and her sister how to bake starting when they were just little primary school girls.
Stacia? But she didn’t know who Stacia was and certainly didn’t know her mother. The illusory scene out at the lake flooded her mind again and once more she relived the moment when she’d seen the body of a girl sprawled on the sand.
And then it had turned into a skeleton, just broken bones and an old building, both worn away from water and time.
Shaken and ill, she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. If she kept them shut tightly, then surely no undesired images would come to mind.
She began over again. Her name was Hart Benson, the first name had been chosen as a variation on her grandmother’s family name, Hartley. She was twenty six years old and had a master’s degree in American literature, though her self-proclaimed favorite book was by an English writer.
Getting slowly to her feet, she went to the bedroom, coming back with the worn, rather small, brownish book, reading the title aloud as though it offered some reassurance, “Take Three Tenses: A Fugue in Time.”
She couldn’t recall the details of her own life, but she remembered the story she’d read more than once. It was two love stories, one centered in the past and another in the present, World War II in London. It was also the story of a family that had lived in the same house through a period of one hundred years.
The story slipped back and forth in time between the different generations. Was that what was happening to her? Was she slipping in time? It would be easier for her to believe that she was suffering from some malady of the brain.
A knock from downstairs startled her so that she dropped the old book. “I’m coming,” she called, picking up the book before heading downstairs, peering through the thick glass of the door to see that the sheriff stood outside.
She didn’t want to open the door to let him in, but somehow the silence and the sun glinting through the windows to turn both dust and cobwebs golden seemed to cast a spell so that she moved automatically, unlocking the door and staring wordlessly up at the tall man who stood there.
“You all right?” he asked.
She nodded. Of course she wasn’t, but she didn’t know him well enough to tell him the way she actually felt. He wasn’t her friend, she reminded herself, he was enraged about something she’d done to him and she had no idea what it had been.
“Need company?” he asked, surprising her. She’d expected him to complain that she hadn’t gone to her brother’s house yet.
Again she nodded without having any intention of doing so.
“This old building can get creepy even at this time of day. It must have been years since it was a real live business
and I’m sure the ghosts have gathered in the meantime.”
She lifted a startled gaze to his face and was relieved to see a trace of a smile on his face.
“Just kidding,” he said, lifting his hands in a gesture of surrender.
“Sometimes I wonder,” she tried to play up to his teasing, but not with any particular success. She drew in a deep breath. “I’m baking banana bread,” she said. “It should be done about now. Come up and have some with iced tea.”
He seemed to hesitate as though surprised at the invitation, than without protest, followed her through the store and up to the apartment.
The scent of the fruit bread lingered pleasantly in the air as they entered and she was glad to be able to busy herself with taking it out of the oven and fixing the tea while he settled himself at the little kitchen table. She didn’t know why she’d invited him up except that right now she couldn’t seem to bear her own company.
Anyway, she told herself, it was time they had a little talk so that she could better understand her own past with this man.
Chapter Six
She gave him a slice of banana bread hot from the oven and generously studded with pecans, just the way he liked it, and a tall glass of iced tea. Similarly provided, she sat down across the table from him, sipping at her tea while he sampled the bread.
“You made some of this last Christmas,” he said, “also apricot bread. Can’t decide which is my favorite.”
Blue eyes met his, stirring his senses in an uncomfortable way. He had to admit that her company was risky, at least to him. He never wanted to chance being hurt again the way Hart had hurt him.
“Were we married then?”
It was almost funny, but he decided to play along. “We were just getting acquainted. You hadn’t been back in town long.”
“When did we get married?”
She seemed perfectly sincere.
“February. On Valentine’s day.”
“We were getting acquainted at Christmas and married at Valentine’s? That’s rather fast.”
“I fell hard.” He drank some tea, willing his heart to be stone-cold unresponsive, reminding himself of what she’d done and said. “Thought you had too.”
“And we lived together here in this apartment?”
He shook his head. “At my house, the one my folks gave me out in the country. You said you loved it there.”
“What happened?”
What kind of game was she playing? Maybe she just wanted to see him wriggle like a worm on a hook. Well, he wouldn’t.
He kept his voice cold and without emotion though he seethed inside. “You came home one day and said you were very sorry but you loved another man, that he was first in your life and always would be.”
“After I married you?”
“We’d been living out at the farm in a fool’s paradise for nearly two months. As you can imagine, it came as quite a shock to me.”
She nodded slightly. “It isn’t how I think of myself,” she said and might have been talking about a friend whose behavior had proved disappointing.
Delicious as the mouthful of her freshly baked bread had tasted a moment before, it now was sawdust and ashes. He washed it down with iced tea and got to his feet.
“I’d better be going. I parked your car outside.” He reached into his pocket and brought out her keys, handing them to her.
“But wait,” she said and for an instant his heart jolted almost as though she would say something that explained everything and would make it all right again.
Instead she said, “What about the dead girl?”
“We don’t know the skeleton was of a girl, though it was small for a man, more like that of a young woman or even an older child. Anyway we’ve called in the OSBI . . .
She frowned.
“Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. They’ll send out a forensic specialist and hopefully we’ll get some explanations.”
She seemed to move away, almost as though she were entranced. “They killed her and left her, so that when the water was released it poured over and covered her body.”
This was so wild he couldn’t help staring. “Hart, that lake was built in the forties. The skeleton would have surely dissolved in the water over the years. It has to be more recent.”
She shook her head. “She was waiting there for me. She wanted me to find her.”
Now he was getting scared. This wasn’t the level-headed rather serious young woman he knew. “Hart!” he said firmly.
She looked up, the blue eyes bewildered. Obviously she had no idea what she’d just said.
“Hart, I believe I should take you to your brother’s house. You shouldn’t be alone right now.”
She opened her mouth to argue, than closed it again. She wrapped the bread in aluminum foil to take with her, put the pitcher of tea in the refrigerator and went with him, locking the door after they stepped outside. She drove her own car, but he followed her to Tommy’s house, watched while she went inside, then drove slowly back out to the lake.
Crime scene tape marked the point on the shore where they’d gone out to the now exposed ruins of the town and a deputy sat as watchman in a county car. Alistair only nodded at him, than sat in watchful silence, trying hard to make sense of something that didn’t seem to have any sense at all.
This had started out to be such a good day, Hart thought as she stepped into her brother’s home, and it had turned into a blur of awfulness. She’d heard herself back at the apartment saying those things to Sheriff Redhawk, but she didn’t know where those words or the thoughts behind them had come from.
The minute she walked in she knew she was in the middle of a noisy argument between Tommy and Nikki.
“I’m not her mother,” Nikki yelled. “I have two daughters of my own and I’m not looking for a job seeing after your crazy sister!”
The sound came from back in the kitchen, but her two little nieces were huddled in the entry hall. Christy had her hands over her ears while older sister Mandy stood listening, frightened tears sliding silently down her face.
She gave each of them a hug and whispered to them to go play in the yard. “It’ll be all right. I’ll talk to them.”
To her surprise they accepted her reassurance, escaping gladly out the front door just as their dad began to yell at his wife, “All I asked was if you’d checked when she didn’t come home on time. Is that too much when my sister has been sick and . . .”
“I’m home,” Hart called as cheerfully as though she hadn’t heard any of the quarrel. “And I’ve got good news.”
The sounds from the kitchen ceased abruptly and she went on in to find Nikki taking roast and vegetables from the slow cooker while Tommy loaded the day’s quota of dirty dishes into the dishwasher. Nikki’s rounded cheeks were flushed pink and her eyes bright with anger while Tommy cast his gaze downward, avoiding her eyes.
Hart pretended not to know she’d walked into an argument. “Sorry to be late,” she said, “but I went for a drive out by the lake and they’d just discovered a dead person there and somehow I got delayed.” She thought that would be sensational enough to derail their conversation and get their attention.
Saying it out loud, however, made the vision of the dead girl on the sands alive once again and stirred the nausea in her middle.
“Someone drowned?” Nikki jumped to the logical conclusion.
Hart shook her head. “An old body found inside a building from the Medicine Stick town.”
“Medicine Stick,” Tommy commented. “But that town’s under the lake, has been for years.”
“Since 1947,” Nikki added. “I wrote a paper on it when I was in college.”
“Drowned?” Tommy questioned.
“The sheriff was there and some other people. Nothing left but bones, but they seem to think she’d been shot.”
“Good luck to Alistair at solving that one,” Tommy said with a snort of laughter. “Everybody involved must be dead by now. Bet he wishe
s all his cases were that easy.”
“They’re bringing in the state police,” Hart added, “so I guess they’re hoping to figure out something.”
“DNA.” Tommy nodded as though he were knowledgeable about such things.
“You could have called,” Nikki went back to the original subject. “Then your brother wouldn’t have wasted his time worrying.”
Hart didn’t bother explaining that she’d been too busy flipping out over what she saw at the lake to even think about Tommy’s worries. Instead she said, “But now for the good news. I’ve rented my old apartment downtown and will be moving in tonight. So Christy can have her room back.”
They seemed more surprised at this than at the news of the murder. Nikki’s eyes widened in a look of relief while Tommy scowled at her.
Nikki recovered first. “You don’t have to do that,” she protested unconvincingly. “We’re glad to have you here.”
“You can’t do that!” Tommy bellowed. “You’re sick and besides you were scared down there. You told me so. It’s not even safe for you to be down there by yourself at night with not a soul around once things have closed down.”
It was new information that she’d been scared living alone. Maybe that was why she’d married Sheriff Redhawk, for company. No, that was hardly likely. She’d supposedly been in her right mind back then.”
“I’ll get a cat,” she said, turning around to go to the room she’d borrowed to pack what few belongings she had. She stopped at the doorway to add, “The girls ran outside as I came in. They looked as if they were upset about something so you might see if they are all right.”
Nikki muttered a smothered exclamation and rushed past Hart to head for the front door, but Tommy after a moment’s hesitation, followed her to the bedroom.
“Hart, you can’t do this. I absolutely positively refuse to let you move out and go live by yourself until I’m sure you’re better.”
She braced herself for the debate.
Alistair Redhawk sat in front of his computer screen at his rural home, munching on a turkey and bacon sandwich he’d made himself, and researched the now defunct town of Medicine Stick, Oklahoma.
Wrong Face in the Mirror: A Time Travel Romance (Medicine Stick Series) Page 4