Almost Remembered

by Marilyn Tracy

  The sun momentarily blinded her as she scrambled beneath the portal of the clinic’s entrance and slithered to the low steps. She fell to one knee, cracking it hard against the concrete stairs, and with a grunting, pleading inhalation of frigid air, she clawed her way to a crouched run.

  She lurched around the back of the clinic, to the far side of the barn, knives of pain digging into her left side, her thoughts on Billy’s still form, on his father, waving his hands to ward off the slashing hooves of the young horse. To save his son. At the very real possibility of the loss of his own life.

  Chas.

  A thousand images of him threatened to undermine her focus on reaching the back doors of that barn. The way his eyes crinkled at the edges, the laugh lines around his mouth. The length of his fingers. The way his heart thudded against his broad chest. The delicacy of his touch against her sensitive skin.

  “No!” she gasped out, rolling through the slats of the corral, then skidding around the distant corner of the barn, lunging to the doors.

  Someone—Dorchester or his doppelgänger—had shoved a two-by-four through the doubled handles, securing the door as firmly as if with a doubled chain and locks.

  Her hands were frozen and had no grip at first, but she tore at the four-foot length of board and finally yanked it free, spinning it away from her with a yell of primal rage, wrenching open the door, terrified of what she would find.

  Petrified.

  Chas spilled out of the door and staggered against her, knocking her flat to the ground. He tripped over her, falling himself, which saved both their lives, for the horse, seeing the smallest chance of escape, leaped toward the door with a scream of rage and panic, a living, breathing instrument of pure destruction.

  Even as Chas landed upon her, knocking the wind from her lungs, she saw the horse’s underbelly sailing over them, saw the powerful weapons of his shod hooves, felt the heat of his frenzied leap.

  “Billy!” Jason called from inside the barn.

  She had a moment to ponder the mystery of being able to discern the differences between the boys. Why now, when all was in chaos, could she distinguish the nearly identical children?

  Chas groaned and rolled off her with an oath and, without bothering to push to his feet, clawed through the ice to the barn to reach his son.

  “No, no, no...” she heard him repeating, his voice anguished, the denial a prayer against the worst fate could deal.

  She couldn’t move. Gripped in the fever of fear, of disbelief, she didn’t want to raise her head and see what he might discover. She couldn’t bear that tragedy, couldn’t bear watching it happen to him.

  “Please, please, please...” she mouthed, seeking help from that which she’d denied so many years before. All she could do was to utter the single word, a host of need and want inherent in the one desperate cry.

  Her heart broke and a sob escaped her when she heard Chas’s great raspy voice tear on a sob.

  “Billy...Billy... Oh, dear God, Billy...”

  She forced herself to move. No matter how much she would have preferred to disappear, to melt into the icy ground, she had to move now. Chas’s entire world was shattering before his eyes. In his helpless hands.

  She had to stretch out a hand to try to retrieve him from that dark precipice of undying agony.

  So much was clear to her now. So much, and too late, now that total disaster had struck.

  She clambered through the thick snow and crawled to Chas’s side.

  He was sprawled on the barn floor, legs akimbo, holding his limp son in his big arms, rocking forward, his mouth open, a silent sobbing racking him, his forehead bleeding, his eyes not on his still son but on the ceiling of the barn.

  Allison froze beside him, feeling every nuance of his grief, his pain, his total and complete loss.

  And in that moment of absolute empathy, realized that she loved him. Too late she understood that all perfect days have perfectly opposite sides. Too late she knew that words left unspoken, hearts left unburdened, often remain silent, burdened.

  In a blinding, painful clarity, she understood that if she’d said the words to him before, he would have had some measure of hope to cling to, something to hold himself together. But she hadn’t said them.

  And now, confronted with the depth of his pain, the still body of his son in his arms, she couldn’t. Much as she ached to give them to him.

  All she could do was to crawl forward one more step and wrap her arms around his shaking, trembling shoulders and hold him fiercely, her heart as broken as his.

  He didn’t shake her free or lean into her. She knew he was totally unaware of her, as indifferent to her as to the icy air.

  Yesterday had perfect, a day out of time, a miracle.

  . Today the sun shone brightly and Chas was rocking the still form of his son in his arms, utter despair impaling his soul.

  The triplets edged forward, tears running down their faces.

  “Is he okay?”

  “Doc?”

  “Is he d-dead?”

  Chapter 12

  Allison looked down at Billy, willing him to move, projecting every desire she’d ever had into the need to have him just lift a single finger. All the dreams she’d had in the past fifteen years were focused in this one wish, this one prayer.

  For Chas.

  “Doofus. He’s not dead! Lookit, his finger’s moving.”

  “Yeah! See? He’s moving!”

  Chas’s head snapped down, his eyes suddenly ablaze with raw hope, with a longing so intense that Allison felt burned by the latent heat radiating from him.

  “D-daddy?”

  A huge, monumental sob burst from Chas’s lungs, and he pitched over his son, as if pulled there. He ran a terribly shaking hand over the boy’s face, skimming unbroken skin, touching yet not, seeking injury but not pressing, only reassuring himself that his son was alive.

  “Billy...oh, thank God, Billy...”

  Allison had let go of Chas the moment Jason had said Billy was moving, and now she allowed relief and exhaustion to carry her to the rock-hard floor of the barn. She sat down stiffly, not feeling the cold concrete, unaware of her bruised back and bleeding fingers, but all too aware of the myriad emotions roiling inside her. Her hands dropped between her legs, and her head lolled forward.

  The shepherd cross whined a little and nestled against her, lending her warmth, some measure of comfort. Numbly Allison put her arms around the dog and leaned her cheek against the dog’s soft head.

  All these years, she’d carried a notion that she’d lived through the worst of pains, the hardest of agonies. She’d blamed herself, blamed Chas. She’d drawn that pain deep inside her, blocking any pathway to love, to light.

  Watching Chas as he’d held his still son in his arms, she’d realized that her pain, the agony that had always seized her, was no greater nor any less than any other human being’s.

  But now she saw clearly that there were worse things than suffering pain herself; there was watching a person she cared about tormented by extreme agony and being utterly helpless to remove it.

  She felt she grew up in those few seconds between her nephew’s excited revelation and the moment when Billy opened his eyes and looked up to meet his father’s tear-filled gaze.

  And in that startling epiphany, she understood that life wasn’t about the pivotal, stressful moments, the times one easily remembered; it was about the times one forgot, the easy, comfortable moments that slipped unheralded and unnoticed, not the first step, or the first tooth, not even the Christmas days given out of season, but the moments of having a child sitting in a lap, giggling over a book, the laughter on a beloved aunt’s gaunt face. Life wasn’t about deadlines and panic, but about a sister’s hug, a nephew’s embrace, a lover’s antics. It was about a hurt shepherd cross offering comfort. And it was about understanding a gift and taking it with love.

  But most of all, life wasn’t about something that happened fifteen years ago; it was about
a living boy in a loving man’s arms.

  “Th-there was a man in here, Dad,” Billy said. “He was messing with Chico. I yelled.”

  Allison’s skin prickled as Billy’s words impinged on her consciousness. Fear for Billy, empathy for Chas had driven the significance of the deadly two-by-four wedged in the barn doors from her mind.

  She raised her head to look at Chas and saw his jaw clench and a muscle in his cheek twitch, a kinetic energy working through him, an anger a thousand times stronger than any she’d felt in the past.

  Someone—they both knew who, whoever the mysterious who might prove to be—had nearly murdered Billy. Chas’s only son. And perhaps, in some small measure, by strange transference, the child she’d never had.

  On Chas’s chiseled face, she could read a determination to enact vengeance. The urge for reprisal, for retaliation, for complete and utter eradication, carved itself onto his features, lending them a hard, severe look, an expression that sat ill on his broad face, but a look that brooked no argument.

  “Wow, like you s-saw somebody?” Josh asked, having crawled out of his curled-up position by one of the stall doors. “What did he look like?”

  “B-black hair. Scary eyes,” Billy mumbled. He continued to stare up at his father. “He looked at me before he ran out of the barn. It was really weird, Dad. He looked mad, but not at me, you know what I mean? He looked like he was hurt or something. I dunno, like he didn’t want Chico to really kick me or anything.”

  “Did Chico kick you?” Jason asked.

  “Like, did the guy limp or have a yucky scar on his face?”

  “Are you going after him, Doc?”

  Allison had never loved her nephews as much as she did at that moment, as the normality of three prepubescent boys’ questions infused a bit of color and life into Chas’s rock-hard face.

  Or maybe it was because his son moved in his arms, total faith on his young face. Fear, yes, but faith in much greater measure, in the rightness of the world, in his father to set that world to rights.

  “Is Chico okay?” Billy asked, struggling to sit upright.

  A choked sound erupted from Chas’s throat, and he pulled his son tightly to his chest. “Damn the horse,” said the man who had devoted his life to saving animals. “You’re okay. That’s all that matters.”

  And watching them, Allison knew that he was right. That was all that mattered.

  But she also knew that if she stayed near these people she loved—and she knew now that she did love them—another would be hurt. Because of her.

  And that was something she couldn’t allow to happen.

  One of the triplets dashed to the open barn doors. “There’s footprints in the snow! Over there, in Mr. Hampton’s field. We could follow them!”

  “No!” Allison cried, lunging forward to grab at him. She collided with Chas, who had moved much more swiftly than even her quick jump forward. He pushed Billy into her arms and grabbed Jason back from the door.

  “Everybody stay here! Call Sammie Jo, tell her to get Carolyn to drive Billy to the hospital in Levelland. And call the troopers over from Lubbock.”

  With that, he burst out the door, the picture of fury, action and determination.

  “Chas, wait!”

  He slowed, but only turned halfway around. His glowering concentration nearly froze her words, her need to stop him. “You can’t go after him,” she said.

  He didn’t say anything, but resumed his stride forward.

  “Chas!”

  He held up a hand as if blocking her words.

  “Chas, damn it! You’re not armed. You’re not even dressed!”

  He whirled around at this. “I’m going to tear the bastard apart with my bare hands,” he all but yelled at her. “You think I’m just going to stand by and let him nearly kill my son and get away with it? Especially after what he’s been doing to you?”

  He whipped back toward the far circle of the corral, completely ignoring the still skittish lathered horse. He jumped on the first railing and vaulted the remaining barrier and stomped into the ice-covered Hampton field without looking back.

  Somehow Allison knew he wouldn’t give up until he found their attacker. And she found herself uttering her second heartfelt prayer of the day.

  She wanted to go with him, to follow him. This same man he tracked was also the one who had been stalking her. Billy had been harmed because of her.

  But she couldn’t leave Billy. Chas had left his son in her care. In her arms. Unconsciously she tightened her hold on the boy, looking down at his strained features. He was watching his dad crossing the ice-covered field, coatless and hunched against the cold, but somehow appearing all the more formidable because of this lack of protection.

  “What’s he going to do?” Josh asked.

  “Yeah, he doesn’t have a gun or nothing.”

  “Doc told us to call Sammie Jo.”

  “Call Uncle Pete. He was with the FBI. He’ll know what to do!”

  “Yeah!”

  The triplets dashed off, racing into the main clinic, where the dogs were still barking, except for the shepherd cross huddled against Allison.

  Hearing the dogs bark, Allison realized that only minutes had passed. When Billy’s inert form had been on the ground, it seemed lifetimes had gone by.

  “Is Dad going to be okay?” Billy asked. His man’s voice was gone now, leaving only a scared boy behind.

  She pulled him a little tighter to her chest and felt something shift deep inside her, a melting of something long frozen in her heart. “He’ll be fine,” she said, petitioning all the gods not to let her be lying to this fine young boy.

  His eyes shifted from his father’s diminishing form to look up her. His dark eyes seemed troubled. “He isn’t my real dad, you know. I mean, not like a biological father.”

  Allison could only stare at him. She didn’t, couldn’t understand what he was saying to her.

  “But he loves me like I was his real son. This proves it, doesn’t it? I mean him going after the guy who let Chico out and locked us in?”

  The boy’s question demanded she speak, that she force herself to swallow her stunned confusion and reassure him. “He loves you more than anything,” she said. “He told me so.”

  Billy smiled shakily and nodded. “I guess I knew that. I mean, I do know.” Tears rose to pool in his eyes. Then spilled free with his next words, mute testimony to his fear and shock. And his extreme vulnerability.

  He released a sob and turned into her, his cold hand clutching her coat, unaware that he’d loosed another, far colder hand to clench her heart.

  “And I I-love him, too. He’s the best dad in the whole world.”

  “Yes,” she agreed slowly, not entirely sure where the words were coming from. “Yes, I think he must be.”

  The man who called himself Dorchester in New York, Michaels in Anton and Quentin in Almost exhaled a sobbing breath. His hands shook as he set the nylon bag on the dresser inside his narrow trailer. He met the tortured gaze of his reflection.

  The boy wasn’t supposed to have been in the clinic. He’d never meant to harm the child. Children were sacred. Off limits.

  His reflection didn’t look knowing, hard and sure. In the single shard of remaining mirror, this other part of himself only appeared frightened, as scared as he’d felt as a child, as he felt right now, wide-eyed and ready to be sick.

  He’d run, sealing the door behind him with the two-by-four. He’d nearly turned back to remove it. What was he doing? But he’d run anyway. Leaving the boy locked inside with the drug-maddened horse.

  He drew a deep, ragged breath.

  It was all Allison’s fault. She’d forced him to turn the horse loose. She’d forced him to hurt the boy. He, who would never hurt a child, who had devoted his entire life to the care and well-being of those who needed help.

  And children always needed the most help.

  And they were the only ones who deserved it.

  And wher
e was Allison when the boy had walked in the barn? Under the haystack, fast asleep.

  The eyes in the mirror hardened.

  Now she owed him on two accounts, first for forgetting him. Second, for forcing him to harm a child.

  Oh, how he hated her.

  And to think he’d once loved her.

  She was enough to drive a man crazy.

  He didn’t bother to collect anything beyond the items in the nylon bag and the keys to the battered pickup. The rest wouldn’t matter. They couldn’t be traced to him. And even if they were, how could Dr. Michael Dorchester, dead and cremated in New York, be associated with a crime in Almost, Texas?

  He swung out of the trailer, squinting at the sharp brightness of the day. He slid a little in his sprint to the still warm pickup truck.

  He didn’t think anyone had seen him, but he couldn’t take the risk. There was only one way he was safe, and that was to go to the farmer whose fields he’d been tilling. The old man would be his alibi. What, Quentin? Why, he was with me this morning, talking about some newfangled crop he’d heard tell of over in New Mexico, thought Jerusalem artichokes might just work round here. And the old man would laugh heartily at the notion, though if he were smart, he’d try the crop.

  While he was chatting up the farmer, he would just casually mention that he saw someone running across the field. A fellow with blond hair and glasses. A city slicker.

  Battered though the pickup was, it still turned over on the first try and lurched away from the small trailer, furrowing the clean white stretch of road.

  The man who called himself Quentin looked up at the clear blue sky, the deep, deep blue and smiled a little. In less than a half an hour, the desert sun would have baked away his tracks. And those of the pickup. There would be no evidence left at all.

  He felt so much better he began to hum as he maneuvered the road. He stopped when he realized it was a Christmas carol.

  Sane people didn’t sing Christmas carols in February.