Purgatory (Colorado series)

by Denise Moncrief

  “His wife’s, of course.” His revelation rolled over her like a landslide, crushing her with the weight of its meaning.

  “His wife’s missing. He doesn’t know if she’s dead or not.”

  “Is that what you’d like to believe? Is that what you’ve been telling yourself? His wife is dead. Do you want to know how she died? Wait, I think you already do.” His words were slow and precise, chosen to inflict as much pain as possible. “I think you remember exactly how she died.” His hand slid onto her shoulder. She drew away from his touch, standing so fast she toppled the chair.

  Anger surged through her, the strongest emotion she had experienced since the accident five years ago, the hurt so heavy she nearly collapsed under the weight. “I’ve got to go.”

  She couldn’t get to her car quick enough. His laughter echoed across the landscape until the sound of the radio drowned it out.

  ****

  Steve had barely gotten back to his room at the Inn when someone pounded on the door. He answered the loud knocking, surprised to find Chris glaring angrily at him on the other side. Without warning, she struck him on the face with the flat of her hand. Pain from the impact shot up his jaw toward his brow. He shook his head and rubbed his face, backing away from the fire in her eyes. The heat startled him more than the blow.

  “What was that for?”

  “You lied to me.” Her harsh words pushed him backward. “I felt sorry for you. I even wished I was your wife.” Her whole body jerked as if she’d been socked in the gut. “He told me the truth.”

  “Who told you the truth? What truth? What are you talking about?” But his questioning was futile. He was well aware what she meant. Maybe he shouldn’t have kept Carol Stone’s death from her. He hadn’t wanted to face it with her…not just yet.

  Her unemotional mask fell away. “How could you? How could you lie to me?” She wailed, undisguised terror flashing in her eyes, and backed toward the open door. He took a step toward her.

  “Stay away from me.” She thrust her hand out as if to protect herself. Reaching the door before she could leave, he slammed it shut behind her. Her eyes widened in fear. She shoved her hands into his chest.

  Grabbing her shoulders, he pushed her against the door. “I’m not going to hurt you.” She tried to shake his hands off. “Stop it. Calm down and tell me what happened.” Catching her chin in his hand, he dared her to look him in the eye, holding her captive, determined to force her to see the truth. He’d never hurt her. How could he? He loved her. Couldn’t she see that? Wasn’t it obvious?

  “I’m not letting you go until you tell me what this is all about.” He tried to remain calm, but his words sounded demanding and hard.

  The fight seemed to drain out of her, replaced with resignation and fear. “You lied to me.”

  “You said that already. What lie did I tell you?” He couldn’t keep the impatience out of his voice, deliberately pushing this confrontation forward to its conclusion.

  She turned her head away from him. “Your wife is dead.” Her shoulders slumped with defeat.

  Regret slammed into his heart, the impact no less painful because he already knew what she would say. “I didn’t lie to you. The woman they found isn’t my wife. I never believed she was.” He let her go, stepping back from her, getting as far from her as he could get, distancing himself from her pain. “I believe she’s still alive somewhere.”

  She shook her head as if rejecting his explanation, reached for the doorknob behind her, and backed out of the room, gone in a heartbeat. Her departure wounded him more than the blow to his jaw. In her haste, she left the door open. The housekeeper stared at him with unconcealed suspicion. He slammed the door in her face.

  ****

  Chris was barely ten yards from the site of the crash. From this height, she could usually see both ways down the road, the sky and the trees, the creek crashing down the waterfall and flowing under the bridge. But right now, she saw none of that. She only felt the wind whipping across her face, the air hinting of expected snow. The sky was a dark, gloomy gray, causing the day to seem like night. The gloom matched the despair in her heart.

  She dragged her tired body onto a huge rock hanging over the creek below, lying across the top, unconscious of the rough surface abrading her skin along the scar line. The damage to her face didn’t matter. The physical hurt didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. The pain in her heart consumed every smidgen of feeling. Hot anguished sobs wracked her body. Her tears mixed with the loose dirt forming a small mud slick on the rock’s surface.

  Why do I have to go through this? Why me? No one knows who I really am. I can’t trust anyone. I can’t trust myself. Who can I turn to? Who will help me? I’m so scared. I don’t want to have to fight every day to decide who I am. Can’t I just belong to someone, somewhere?

  “You are not alone.”

  Chris pushed up on her elbows. “Who’s there?” She halfway expected to find Steve once again scrutinizing her. After several minutes tense waiting, she decided she was alone and the voice was her imagination.

  Maybe it was a flashback or a memory. Maybe I’m losing my mind at last. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

  She lay on the rock again, wishing the granite would absorb her weary body, desperately wanting to fly away where there wasn’t any pain. On her back, gazing up into the darkening sky, she cried out at the approaching storm. “Won’t somebody please help me? I’m so alone.”

  “You are not alone.”

  There it was again. The voice wasn’t audible. It was more like an echo deep within her anguished soul. She stared at the overcast sky and felt the first, tingling sensations as snow fell gently on her face. She breathed in air laced with the smell of pine, earth, and life. She was tired of feeling dead inside. She stood and raised her hands to embrace life and then had the clearest memory. Not a vision from a flashback. Not a mental picture. But a clear understanding of her self, her soul, her spirit.

  She wasn’t alone if she didn’t want to be. It was her choice to belong, or not to belong.

  She wiped her muddy tears on the sleeve of her jacket. Jumping from the boulder, she felt her ankle twist. Enough of a bite to feel the smart of angry tendons. She relished the pain. The sting of life. The wonderful ache of her heart reviving and replacing the numbness of empty years with vitality and the will to survive, to overcome, to thrive, to belong.

  She didn’t have to be alone.

  As she drove toward home, she sensed a change coming on and welcomed it. Although the air hung heavy with the promise of the season’s first snowfall, her heart felt lighter for the first time in months, maybe years. She hugged the first real peace she’d had since the crash to her very self, rejoicing in the thrill of living.

  Chapter Eleven

  When Chris arrived home, she inserted the key into the lock. Her front door cracked open without resistance. Pushing the door with her foot, she peered around the frame into the living room and saw enough to know someone had trashed her house.

  The house stood quiet, too quiet. Not even the hum of the refrigerator broke the silence. Unlike the night she had been sure someone was in her home while she slept, this time everything she owned lay scattered about the room. A scream rose in her throat, but she pushed it down with effort.

  Why now? Why did this have to happen now?

  Just when she was getting a firm grip on her emotional stability. She closed her eyes and counted to ten. “Whoever did this is not going to scare me,” she announced to the empty space, false bravado weaving threads of doubt through her brave words. Her voice reverberated back at her. The room refused to take her seriously.

  She was scared.

  Farther into the house, she saw the completeness of the devastation. She spied her television toppled from the makeshift home entertainment center.

  What did the man want so badly he destroyed everything she owned to find it? Her newly acquired sense of peace vanished.

  She tiptoed across the rubble tow
ard the fireplace and pried lose the stone covering the small hiding place where she kept her rings. Relief flooded her. They were still safely hidden. She picked up the velvet bag and tumbled the rings onto her hand. The diamond glimmered with reassurance. She sighed with relief. This piece of her past remained in her possession.

  She rose from the floor and backed up a bit to catch the afternoon light refracting the polished gold and stumbled over a potted plant, or what was left of the poor mangled fern. She wanted to cry. Her brown thumb failed her repeatedly, the fern the only plant that survived her gift for killing whatever flora she acquired.

  A noise bounded down the hall toward her. Was someone still in the house? She stood stock still, glued to the wood floor beneath her feet. Did the culprit lurk in the back of the house, waiting for her to fall into his trap?

  She took one hesitant step backward toward the door, her feet crunching glass. She stopped and listened. Was that a bump? Taking another step toward the safety of her vehicle, her hand reached behind her for the still open door, anticipating her grip on the doorknob.

  From down the hall, a dog scampered into the room and ran past her out the door. The scream she’d been suppressing erupted from her mouth. Her flattened hand slammed against her chest, attempting to still the erratic rhythm of her racing heart.

  She shook her shoulders to relieve the tension. “Chris, get a grip. It was just a dog.”

  She searched for the phone in the rubble, intending to call Brian. There it lay, under a pillow. As her hand reached for her lifeline, the jarring ringtone shattered the quiet in the house. She backed away from it. Her heart pumping even harder. It continued to jangle, refusing to allow her the right to ignore its insistent clamor.

  She answered before its summons could assault her taut nerves again.

  “Did you like the gift I left for you?” The creepy, distorted voice of her tormentor rasped his question. She surveyed her destroyed living room. The voice had been in her house. A shudder began at her tailbone and slipped up her backbone, one disk at a time.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I want what’s mine.”

  Her hands clenched around the receiver, her knuckles turning white with the strain. “I don’t have anything of yours,” she screamed into the tiny hole in the receiver. Anything of remote value remained here, still in her possession.

  As far as she could tell, he’d taken nothing with him. He didn’t want her stuff. She uncurled her fingers and stared at the rings still clutched in her other hand. Surely, he didn’t want her rings. Why would he want them? What good were they to him?

  “Sure you do. And you’re going to give it to me.” It not them. He didn’t want the rings. But then…what did he want?

  The man had slipped, forgetting to disguise his voice. She recognized the voice. From where? From when? Recently? Before the accident?

  A gnawing urgency begged—no, demanded she remember. With sudden, intense revulsion, she sensed her deep hatred of the man who owned that horrid, nauseating voice. Hatred left a bitter taste, galling and pungent, burning her insides with its acidity.

  Her psyche teetered. Mental release beckoned. A flash of light creased her vision. She shook it away. No, not this time. She didn’t want vague half-memories. She wanted reality, craved sharp, clear reality, no matter the pain.

  “I’m not giving you anything. In fact…I’m going to hang up and call the cops.”

  The man reacted with swift, sharp words. “If you tell anyone about this, I’ll kill him.”

  The threat snapped a memory loose. The past screamed up from the depths—her response instantaneous. “Leave him alone.” Had she uttered these exact words in another time, another place? Somehow, the him was the same. She knew it, without a doubt. “If I had whatever it is you want, I’d give it to you. Just leave him alone.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I’m hanging up now—”

  “Did you enjoy your train ride?”

  A flash of memory. The man outside the restaurant the day she had that horrid fight with Brian. Was he the one? Maybe she hadn’t imagined the menace the man’s demeanor emanated. What name did he call her?

  It started with a C, didn’t it? Carrie, wasn’t it? Did he know her? Was he her harasser? She tried to pull the image of his face out of her subconscious, but it wouldn’t form into an image, sharp and defined. Yet something familiar stuck with the vague memory.

  A chill snaked through the phone line into her hand, piercing her flesh and digging into her bone. Her blood ran sluggish in her veins as she realized the man had probably stood in the exact spot where she stood. Her eyes darted toward the window. The curtains hung in tatters—the blinds tangled and useless to block the view from the street below. How did he know she was home? Was he watching her?

  Through the torn window covering, she saw Brian’s vehicle pull into the drive. She groaned. Atrocious timing. She didn’t want him here with the man’s threat still hanging in the air over her head.

  Brian exited his vehicle as if in slow motion. She dropped the phone onto the base. Waited a minute, picked it back up, and listened for the dial tone. Without thinking, she pushed the buttons that would connect her with Steve at the construction site. She knew the digits by heart, having called and urged Jeff on numerous occasions to settle his account with the restaurant. What would she say to Jeff if he answered? The question proved moot. An irritating busy signal came across the line.

  “What happened here?” Brian’s voice echoed throughout the house. She slammed the phone down, unwilling to divulge her brand new secret. Instinctively, or maybe due to fears lodged in the recesses of her hidden memories, she perceived the caller was threatening Steve. If she told Brian about the caller’s threats, Steve’s life might be in danger.

  Chapter Twelve

  Brian stood in the middle of the room holding a broken lamp. Chris sifted through the accumulated trash. That’s all it was anymore, just trash. She picked up a broken picture frame and then tossed it back on the floor. He studied her with a concerned frown on his face. “Maybe you should call Dr. Greene.”

  “No. I’m fine.” She was angry, but she wasn’t hysterical.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Really. I’m fine.” She turned sharp eyes on him. “I’m not going to have a nervous breakdown, Brian. I promise.” She stifled the urge to snap at him. “I’m done with that.”

  “Someone is trying to scare you.”

  She bit her tongue. If he knew about the other incident…if he knew about the phone calls and the hateful messages…

  “What are you thinking?”

  She hated how perceptive he was. “Someone is…”

  “Is what?”

  “Trying to scare me.” She blinked at him.

  “Steve?”

  She shot him a dismissive glare. She had ceased to suspect Steve. He hadn’t tried to mess with her. She was certain. He just hadn’t told her the truth. Whoever did this intended to twist her mind. Whoever did this wanted her to know the truth. Wanted her to break under its awful weight. Wanted to dribble it into her consciousness one drop at a time until the load was too much to bear.

  “Then who?” Brian’s slow interrogation pestered her last ounce of patience.

  She bit her lip to keep from screaming at him. “I’m not sure.”

  “You’re not sure?” He threw the broken lamp on the floor. She jumped when it cracked and shattered. “Talk to me, Chris.” She hesitated. He shot her the sternest glare he had in his arsenal. She recognized the look.

  She complied unwillingly. “I’ve been getting these calls—”

  “Calls? You mean—”

  “Would you let me finish a sentence?” she barked. He rolled his hand, indicating she should continue. “I got some messages on my machine.”

  “What did they say?”

  Her ferocious scowl didn’t appear to faze him. “Ummm…something about how I couldn’t run far enough. He’d find
me. And…he knows who I am.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

  “Well…I only got a few of them…okay, there were a lot of them.” She hated the defensive nature of her answer. “I turned my answering machine off and screened my calls.”

  “Chris!”

  “I know I should’ve told you, but you’ve been so busy.”

  He grumbled his opinion of that. “I haven’t been that busy.” He stepped closer. “Are you going to be all right?”

  “Sure. I’m not looking forward to cleaning this mess. Whoever did this did a real good job…or would it be a real bad job?”

  Yeah, she’d be all right…for now.

  ****

  Brian insisted she stay at the Inn. She agreed without argument. Once inside her room, she tossed her overnight bag onto the bed and sighed. He entered the room right behind her, determined to see her settled for the evening. She thought his insistence a bit forced.

  “Who told you about Carol’s death?”

  His abrupt question stalled her in her tracks. The tone of his voice grated on her nerves. “Who told you I know?”

  “Steve.” So Brian knew about her meltdown.

  She hung her head and picked at her nails. She regretted her overwrought reaction to Jeff’s malicious disclosure. “Was he worried about me?”

  “Yes. Very.”

  “I’m sorry I had everyone worried.” She still wouldn’t turn to face him. Her behavior shamed her.

  “Not everyone,” he muttered.

  She wondered what he meant by that, but was too afraid to ask. Did he know something she didn’t? Had Brian already known about Carol’s death?

  “So?” He pushed for an answer. But to what question? So many floated in the air between them, unspoken and unaddressed.

  “So…what?”

  “Who told you?”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. The sharp, clear memory of a man yelling at her raced across the surface of her mind. If you tell anyone about this, I’ll kill him. She shook her head to clear the flashback, but the images stuck with her. She trembled. “I can’t tell you.” She glared at him, her tense stance daring him to contradict her.