Stranger in the Mirror [Shades of Heaven] (Soul Change Novel)

by Tina Wainscott

  Her stomach churned at the thought. As he turned toward the steel door, he stopped suddenly. With the door open, he could hear anything downstairs. He walked to the tiny door he’d installed high up in the roof, climbing a stepstool to open it. Usually a heavenly spot of sunlight shone in for a while in the morning. It was nighttime now, no sun.

  Sometimes he’d remark that someone was parked outside and go down to answer the door. Once she’d screamed her head off, testing the soundproofing. When he returned, he said nothing about her screams, so she knew it worked.

  This time he said, “What the hell is he doing here?” The edge in his voice indicated the visitor was not welcome.

  “Who is it?” she asked as she always did.

  Usually he told her. This time he didn’t. He walked out of the room, bolting the steel door behind him. She knew how long it took him to walk down and answer the door: a minimum of ten minutes, sometimes as long as an hour. When Lyle had stopped by, she’d twenty-five minutes. Long enough to try something.

  Last time it took her fifteen minutes. She would have to be quicker this time. With her hands and weight, she scooted the bed closer to the tiny door, mentally counting out the seconds. With her large belly, it was dangerous to get to her feet on the uneven support of the bed, but she managed it with the help of a nearby wall. She opened the door and jumped, getting a glimpse of the street out front.

  A jolt of hope shot through her at the sight of Jesse’s truck parked by the road. She had to force herself to get the bed back before Carl might return. She was trembling as she maneuvered the bed back to its original spot, marked on the floor with a pencil.

  As soon as she reached the mark, the door was unbolted, and Carl stepped inside. Her heart hammered, more from seeing Jesse’s truck than getting the bed back in place in the nick of time.

  She swallowed hard, trying to regain her composure. “Who was it?”

  “Just someone looking for an address.”

  It was frightening how well Carl concealed the truth, both in his words and expression. If she hadn’t seen Jesse’s truck, she would have believed him. When Carl locked the door behind him, she knew he was concerned. He went to the window and checked through the door again.

  “They’re gone.” He knelt down beside her, grasping her arm. “Don’t worry, Helen. I won’t let anyone hurt you. I’ll kill them first.”

  “I don’t want you to kill anyone for me,” she said, trying to reason with an unreasonable man. “Killing is bad.”

  The baby kicked her rib, causing her to flinch. Eli sat low inside her, pressing down on her pelvis. She could see Jesse’s face light up in her mind, amazed every time the baby moved or kicked. Now she was able to put her hand on her belly, but she never indicated any movement to Carl. The last thing she wanted was his hand on her belly.

  “I’ll go make dinner,” he said.

  “I can help,” she offered. “I’m a good cook.”

  He smiled. “That would be nice. I always dreamed about you and me cooking together, snuggling on the couch afterward.”

  Her heart squeezed inside her. “Let me help you. You’re always doing all the work.”

  He pinched her cheek, causing her to flinch away in pain. “You must think I’m stupid.” He looked around the attic. “Maybe one day, if you’re real good to me, I’ll get you a television. That’s all of the world you’ll ever see.”

  In an almost robotic way, he stood and walked toward the door. Hope drained away, filling her with terror and helplessness. As soon as he was gone, she scooted the bed over and peered out the tiny window. It was darker now, as though the clouds had moved over the moon. Still, she could see the road was empty.

  Why had Jesse come to see Carl at his home?

  Marti remained at the window, knowing Carl always took about thirty minutes to cook dinner. She rapped on the thick Plexiglas, wondering if anyone could hear. When the deadbolt clicked, she turned toward the door, ready to get caught. And punished.

  CHAPTER 19

  The door opened, and Marti’s knees gave way as she sank down to the mattress. Jesse stood there, his expression a mixture of relief and fear as he rushed to her. She started crying, unable to talk for a few seconds.

  “My God, Marti, are you all right? The baby?” He looked around. “The sick son of a bitch.”

  She clung to him for a second, then came to her senses. “Jesse, he’ll be back up in a few minutes! Does anyone know you’re here?”

  “No. I came on a hunch when I realized what Caramel might mean after knowing something wasn’t right with the Oklahoma thing.” He looked down at the cuffs on her ankles. “I’ve got to get you out of here.”

  “You’re not going anywhere with her,” Carl’s voice said in a deadly tone. He shut the door behind him.

  Jesse rushed him, shoving him up against the wall. Chips of plaster rained down on the two. Dammit, she felt so helpless, chained to the bed. A sharp pain ripped through her stomach, and she grimaced, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment. When she opened them again, Jesse was looking at her. She shook her head, telling him not to worry.

  Carl emitted a caterwaul as he twisted a distracted Jesse around and shoved him to the floor. Jesse moved right before Carl dropped down knees first, ready to crush him. They wrestled on the wooden floor until Carl pinned Jesse with his legs. He reached for a pipe wrench lying in the bathroom and swung it high in the air as Jesse struggled to free himself.

  A severe cramp seized her. She managed to scream, “Carl, you can’t kill your own son!”

  Both men stopped and looked at her. Carl’s fingers trembled, and Jesse grabbed the wrench and lurched upward, tumbling Carl onto the floor. He beat Carl until he was no longer fighting back.

  Marti doubled over in pain, reaching for the handcuffs her hands had been in. “Here,” she said breathlessly. “Put him in here.”

  Jesse dragged Carl to the bed and cuffed one hand to the rail. Then he searched his pockets for the keys to the cuffs around Marti’s ankles. Carl’s head lolled about before his glazed eyes settled onto Jesse, right in front of him.

  “I’m your father,” he uttered. “I just wanted another chance. You were never going to love me, but that baby would have.”

  Jesse gave him a disgusted look. “You are notmy father, and I ought to kill you for saying it. I should kill you anyway.” He slugged Carl in the jaw, silencing him.

  When Jesse found the matching keys, he freed her ankles and helped her from the bed. Her legs were stiff from disuse. She groaned, leaning on him, her pain overwhelming.

  “Marti, what’s wrong? Is it Eli?”

  She nodded. “I think… I’m in labor.”

  “Okay, come on. Stay calm.”

  He helped her to the door, locking Carl into the prison he’d made for her. Getting her down the precarious ladder was the difficult part. Beads of sweat covered her body by the time they reached the floor. He eased her down on the couch and made two calls: one to the hospital, one to Lyle.

  She was in too much pain to listen to either. Jesse rushed over and carried her down to his truck. He jumped in on the other side, threw the truck into gear, and tore down the road to the hospital.

  “Hold on, doll,” he said, squeezing her hand. “God, I thought I’d lost you.” He looked at her for a moment, then leaned over and kissed her. “You’re going to make it through.”

  She warmed at the words and their intensity. She wanted to tell him that she loved him in case she didn’t make it, but something happened before she could get the words out: warm water gushed onto the seat, filling the cab with the faint odor of chlorine. “My water broke!” She looked at him, terrified. “I changed my mind! I don’t want to have this baby. Not yet.”

  “How long have you been in labor?” the first nurse they saw at the hospital asked.

  “I don’t know. The pain’s been there for a few hours. I thought they were Braxton-Hicks at first.”

  “When’s your due date?” she asked, taking
Marti’s blood pressure.

  “June twenty-third,” Marti and Jesse answered simultaneously.

  “How accurate was your date of conception?”

  “Very,” Jesse answered wryly.

  The nurse eyed him, then started to take Marti’s temperature. “Thirty-four to thirty-six weeks is the hardest time to go into labor, for us anyway. Doctor Diehl will have to make the determination of whether he’ll suppress your labor for another day. With your water broken, that could be tricky.”

  Dr. Diehl let Marti’s labor continue. At four o’clock the next morning, Eli Bernard West came into the world with a healthy wail. Their two Lamaze classes had helped minimally, but Jesse had done everything possible to make it easy on her. Easy being a relative term.

  “Jesse, would you like to cut the cord?” Dr. Diehl asked.

  He looked hesitantly at Marti. “Will it hurt her?”

  “She won’t feel a thing.” He handed Jesse the scissors, and very gently, he cut the cord. “Good job, son. Since the little fellow decided to come early, we’re going to have to take him and run some routine tests. Now, don’t worry, he looks perfectly healthy to me. You’ll get to see him in a couple of hours.”

  “God, there’s a lot of blood,” Jesse murmured as the nurses started to clean Marti up. His hands were shaking.

  “She’s going to bleed for a while,” one of them told him. “It’s normal.”

  Marti felt overwhelmed as they wheeled her to her private room. Emotionally exhausted, happy, sad, she tried not to think about the last week of hell she had spent as Carl’s prisoner. Jesse held her hand during the ride and sat next to her hospital bed once she was settled in.

  She looked dazedly down at her belly, smaller now. “I need more of that sugar they were giving me intravenously. I’m so tired.” Her voice sounded tiny and weak.

  “You’ve been through hell in more ways than one.” He brushed a strand of hair from her face. “Go to sleep.”

  She grabbed onto his hand. “I don’t want to. Do you think the baby’s okay?”

  His green eyes studied her as he reached up and stroked her cheek. “Yeah, he’s going to be fine. Marti, you gave me the greatest gift in the world. There’s nothing I could do to show you how much that baby means to me, or that you stayed until you had him. The money doesn’t even come close.”

  She’d forgotten about the money. “I don’t want your money, Jesse. I’ve got some put aside, from decorating…” Her voice trailed off, and she fought tears.

  He didn’t say anything for a few minutes, but there was so much emotion in his eyes, so much she couldn’t explore. She placed her hand on top of his, still resting against her cheek. I love you, Jesse. Exhaustion tugged her into sleep, leaving her words unspoken.

  After Dr. Diehl stopped in to see how Marti was doing a few hours later, the nurse brought in Eli. Marti didn’t even see the nurse, just the tiny person in her arms.

  “He’s fine,” the nurse said. “Had a little trouble maintaining his body temperature and glucose for a few hours, but now he’s perfectly fine. I’ll be back later to check on you.”

  Marti’s heart felt so tight she could hardly breathe. Eli’s eyes weren’t open yet, but he reached blindly for her fingers, clutching them tight. She stared at him, feeling Jesse’s warmth at her side, and his own awe of the tiny life in her arms.

  “Hi, little guy,” she whispered. He gurgled in response. Oh God, how am I going to leave you and your daddy? “You sure wanted to come out into this crazy world, didn’t you? What was your hurry?” She kept her tone light, though her voice sounded strangled with the tears she was fighting. “Jesse, he’s so perfect.”

  When she looked up at him, Jesse was watching her. He looked more tired than she felt, with his wrinkled shirt and tousled hair. He had looked almost the same the first time she’d seen him, when she’d woken to find herself in another woman’s body. How different things were now.

  She handed Eli to him. Jesse’s broad shoulders dwarfed the tiny being in his arms, but he cuddled the baby with supreme gentleness.

  The door opened, and Helen crept in. Her smile glowed when she saw Marti and Jesse with the baby.

  She gave Marti a hug. “How are you, hon? What a traumatic thing to go through, the kidnapping and then going right into labor.” Her kind smile faded when she looked at both of them. “What’s the matter?”

  Marti couldn’t keep the chill of her heart from reaching her face. “I’m just tired, that’s all,” she lied. Helen had severely disappointed her and made Marti doubt herself. She had a feeling that tucked away in Jesse’s heart were a lot of questions, waiting for the right moment to burst out.

  He handed Helen her grandson. “Meet Eli Bernard West.”

  She cuddled him, closing her eyes. “I love that you named him after your father.”

  Jesse stiffened, his voice flat when he said, “Yes, my father.”

  When Helen met his eyes, hers were free of guilt or secret knowledge. “He would have been so pleased.”

  As hard as Marti tried to keep the thoughts at bay, she remembered Carl telling her that he’d arranged for Bernie’s accident. She would tell them all that later, when Lyle came in to question her. For now she could only hope that Jesse hadn’t given any credence to the words that had made Carl hesitate before swinging that wrench at Jesse.

  Marti drifted slowly from the trenches of sleep, aware of a voice speaking softly near her. At first she irrationally thought Eli was already talking but dismissed that as she became more awake. She then recognized Jesse’s voice and cracked opened one eye. He was leaning over the plastic crib Eli was sleeping in, speaking in a soft voice.

  “What am I going to tell you about your mama, little man her?”

  As she fought to keep the tears at bay, her deep breath betrayed her wakefulness.

  Jesse swung around to face her. “I didn’t know you were awake.”

  “I just woke up,” she said, swallowing hard. “Is he sleeping?”

  “Yes.”

  He came to the side of the bed, and she longed for him to take her hand. He didn’t. Instead those hands clenched the side of the table next to her bed.

  “Did Lyle come in and talk to you this morning?”

  “Yes. He said he was sorry he didn’t see it. He knew something wasn’t right with Carl, but he figured it was his way of mourning his son. I’ll have to testify at the trial.”

  “So you’ll be back in town then?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  He leaned down, bowing his head for a moment. Expelling a long breath, he looked at her again. “He didn’t… hurt you, did he?”

  “No, he didn’t hurt me. Or rape me. I was too ‘fat.’ Thank God for being pregnant,” she said, trying to smile. “Carl was the one who killed Marti, and attacked me, and raped Donna.” She told him how she’d put it together and ended up at Carl’s. “He was going to keep me there forever and raise Eli as his nephew. That was when he was sane. Well, sort of sane.”

  The thought made her shiver and bury her head, trying not to cry as she did in front of Lyle earlier that morning. Jesse put his arms around her, and she melted into his touch. He held her for a few minutes. Finally, he moved away and steadied himself on the table.

  “Marti, there’s something I need to ask you. You screamed that he couldn’t kill his own son, and he stopped.”

  She nodded. “All I know is what he told me. He said he and Helen had an affair, and she got pregnant with you. I would have thought he was lying, but I’d found pictures of her in his bedroom.” She took a deep breath. “His mind was warped; he thought I was Helen, and he was going to pretend Eli was you.”

  Jesse took her drink container and flung it into the corner, spraying water everywhere. She had never seen such betrayal in anyone’s eyes, not even Jamie’s. His body trembled as he struggled to stay in control. Thankfully she hadn’t caused it. She maneuvered to the side of the bed and reached out to touch him. He jerked away, puttin
g his hand out as a shield.

  “Don’t.” He looked out the window. “His blood. My blood.”

  He stormed from the room, leaving her gripping the edge of the bed with all her strength. “You’re nothing like him, Jesse,” she called after him. “Blood or not!”

  Jesse’s insides were imploding, drawing into a tight knot. He didn’t want to believe it. He would ask Helen, and if she said it was all an ugly lie, he’d believe her. His senses swirled around him, making him wonder about his own sanity. He had gone crazy worrying about Marti, and when he’d received that note, he believed she had left him at first. He shook his head, not wanting to relive those moments of pain. Almost losing her made him realize how much she meant to him.

  Helen looked up as Jesse stormed into the house, his face drawn. Caty’s eyes widened as she flicked off the television.

  Helen stood, her face taking on a panicked expression. “Is everything all right? Marti? The baby?”

  “They’re fine. Caty, leave.” At her shocked look, he took a quick breath and added, “Please.”

  She glanced at Helen, then slipped on some shoes and headed outside. A few moments later, her car started. Helen remained standing.

  “Jesse, what is going on?”

  He didn’t want to be standing there asking his mother this. But he had to. “Did you have an affair with Carl before I was born?”

  Her face paled, giving him as much of an answer as her words. “How—”

  “He told Marti. As a matter of fact, Ma, he’s still obsessed with you. Did you know that? He went fruit-loop and believed Marti was you.”

  Her hand went to her mouth. “Oh, God.”

  “How could you do that to Pa?”

  “It was only once.”

  “Once is enough.”

  “Let me explain, Jesse. I know it was wrong, but—”

  Rage and hurt warred inside him. He turned, and, before he dumped it on her, stormed out. The sky was clouded over, and he wished for rain, for lightning, and thunder.