Purgatory (Colorado series)

by Denise Moncrief

  She couldn’t go with him…and she couldn’t let him go.

  All she had to look forward to here in Colorado was a miserably lonely existence. At least in Virginia, she’d be near Steve.

  What harm would it do to leave this place? There’s nothing holding me here. She had pushed Brian away with both hands. Maybe with me gone, Brian might get on with his life. I owe him that much.

  Brian didn’t realize it, but he was already hopelessly in love with Peyton Chandler. It wouldn’t be long before nature took its course. Brian was a goner; he just didn’t know it.

  Her tired eyes refused to stay open. Her position in the rocking chair was awkward—her sleep restless.

  She dreamed of the child she never had.

  ****

  When she awoke, the room was dark, the fire had gone out, she was on the floor, and there was a spasm in her lower back. The pain of loss seized her. She had grieved her unborn child more than the loss of her memory, blaming herself for the baby’s death. Her morbid fascination with the crash site had more to do with the miscarriage than with her injuries.

  A searing pain started in the back of her head followed by a blinding burst of light and a terrifying, claustrophobic feeling. A vision flashed across her psyche. She pushed up from the area rug in front of the rocking chair. Her headache was monumental, throbbing and pulsing at her temples. The vision was already starting to fade. Holding her breath, she attempted to push the memory back into her head.

  She played with the vision for a while, agonizing over the details. The face of the man was fuzzy, but his anger was fierce, his familiar gray eyes glittering with undisguised animosity. He struck her on the back of the head and dumped her into the trunk, slamming the lid with such force the car shook. She remembered the nauseating odors of gasoline and axle grease, gagging on the oily rag, running out of clean, fresh air to breath. She shook her head, but the image remained blurry around the edges.

  The memory wouldn’t quit. It just kept going and going. In the next scene, she watched as the same man hit her while she lay on the ground in a ditch, her motionless form no longer moving, no longer struggling, no longer fighting. Her hand flew to her mouth as bile rose up her throat. He dumped spade-full after spade-full of soil over her face while her eyes remained wide open. How could she see this scene as if she were viewing the horrifying event outside herself? Unless what she was remembering happened to someone else, someone who looked a lot like her.

  As she relived the last details of the memory, her throat constricted as if she was suffocating. She recalled Dr. Greene’s advice on countering panic attacks and calmed after a long, tense interval. A trickle of sweat dripped down her spine. Her hair lay in damp clumps on her forehead. How long had she been struggling with the flashback and its aftereffects?

  She rubbed the back of her hand across her mouth. The horror left a bad taste. She stayed fixed to the spot, unable to move, until she lay down and fell asleep in exhaustion.

  ****

  The scene resembled an old black and white film, aged and sepia around the edges. The action jerked from one scene to another as if directed by an eccentric documentary maker trying to create something edgy and out of the box.

  The voices were indistinct, muted, and disjointed, disconnected from the drama unfolding before him. The slight breeze that began earlier that day was now threatening to become a full-force windstorm. The trees swayed, crashing their limbs against each other as if in protest to what they witnessed on the ground below.

  He knew the hounds were still baying, but he couldn’t hear them. No doubt, they had found the object of their intense, clamoring search. He considered their success with mixed emotions.

  The sheriff’s deputies removed the dirt one painstaking and agonizing spadeful at a time. He strained to see over their shoulders while the coroner stood by, ready to ply his eerie trade. Their faces were set and grim; nobody expected good from this task.

  It was fortunate the rain hid the stream of tears that fell from his eyes. Although the motions of the actors appeared artificial, his tears seemed painfully real.

  Steve wanted to speed up the nightmare, but at this point, it always slowed down. It always ended the same. The face of the woman in the shallow grave, although familiar, was not the face he had memorized. Something was wrong. She never looked like that…ever.

  It was her eyes. They were the same blue, but even in death, they captured a strange haughty expression he had never seen in them. He tried to gaze into the depths of the woman’s soul one more time, but her soul didn’t reside there any longer. All he saw in her blank, staring eyes was unexpected death.

  As the pain shot through his heart once again, the lightning split the night sky and Steve woke up again. He rubbed his face, and his fingers felt the familiar wetness. When he opened his eyes, he wasn’t at home. Then he remembered where he was. He hadn’t had the nightmare since he came to Colorado. Actually, he hadn’t had the nightmare in months. Why now?

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chris shrugged her jacket off and tossed it on the back seat. Just as she popped the trunk to unload her groceries, she heard a noise. A man appeared out of the shadows at the rear of the carport, his sudden appearance startling her.

  She slapped her hand on her chest. “What are you doing here?”

  He didn’t answer.

  This wasn’t a memory regained. No, this was real. The blurry face from her flashback last night stepped out of the shadow and came into focus in vivid reality. Her worst nightmare had come to life, staring at her with a malicious grin on his face. She could no longer be sure where the nightmare left off and reality began. How much had she dreamed, and how much did she remember? The danger he represented slammed into her consciousness. He was the man who had locked her in the trunk of a car. He was the man who yelled at her, threatening Steve’s life.

  Why hadn’t she remembered him before now?

  “It’s…you.”

  His laugh made her blood run cold. “You’ve been acting like you don’t remember me. But you remember now, don’t you?”

  “Leave me alone.” She backed away from him.

  He stepped closer. “Just give me the money, and I’ll be glad to leave you alone.” She doubted that. His tone told her otherwise. Once she gave him what he wanted, she was as good as dead.

  “What money?”

  He sneered. “Don’t play games with me.”

  “I don’t have any money.” She really didn’t. Her bank account balance hovered in the nether regions.

  “Where did you hide it?”

  “Hide what? What are you talking about?” Her voice rose with her fears.

  “The ransom money, you idiot.” He snarled at her. “It’s mine, and I want it. What made you think you could run away and take the money? We were going to split it, remember? Now… Well, now I want it all.”

  “I didn’t take your money.”

  “No, baby, you took Steve’s. Don’t act like you don’t remember. The whole thing was your idea. Now, where did you hide it? I know it’s not in the house.”

  “You…you wrecked my house?” It all clicked. She was right. Jeff made those terrifying calls. Jeff invaded her private domain and ripped the feeling of security out from under her.

  But something was off. Jeff wasn’t his name, was it? Was he using someone else’s name?

  His eyes narrowed at her. “If it’s not here, is it in the Jeep?”

  “What? The Jeep? No!”

  His face turned red with anger. “Don’t lie to me,” he yelled.

  “I’m not lying.”

  He drew his arm back to strike her. She dodged the attack. The scream wouldn’t rise to her throat; it hung in her diaphragm. She made a run for the house, planned on slamming the door behind her and locking it, but the man grabbed her hair and threw her into the side of her car. Her head hit the trunk corner, and she almost fell to her knees. Pain surged throughout her. Lifting her hand to her temple, she felt the unmist
akable warmth of fresh blood.

  As he reached for her again, she smashed her knee into his mid-section and ran into the house, but in her hurried and disoriented state, she failed to lock the door behind her. A sharp stab of pain erupted in the back of her head just as she reached the kitchen door—a familiar pain—and the last thing she remembered before she awoke in the trunk of a car.

  ****

  Steve began the joyless task of tossing his clothes into his luggage. He had no enthusiasm for the trip home to Virginia. He was leaving his heart behind in Colorado. Pausing over the shirt he wore on the Bear Creek trail, he sucked in the earthy smell of the outdoors and then flung it into the suitcase.

  He zipped the case, placed it on the service dolly with his other bags, and scanned the room one last time before leaving. The trudge down the hallway and to the front reception desk seemed to take a lifetime. He waited for Claire to give him her attention.

  She lifted an eyebrow. “Checking out?”

  “Yes.” He tried to remain calm. Appear casual. “Is Chris in her office?”

  Claire shot him a skeptical glance. “No. She’s not here today.”

  That was that, then. If he wanted to say goodbye, he’d have to stop by her house on the way to the airport.

  He removed his luggage from the service dolly and tossed it into the back of the Jeep. Leaning on the side, he recalled Chris’ hesitation the other day. Could that have been only a few short days ago? Or was it weeks? He’d lost track of time, feeling as if he’d expended a lifetime of emotion.

  He began what he considered his final drive to the lifts. As he drew closer to the construction site, his heart grew increasingly heavy. There were a few details to check on before he left the lifts in the hands of the owners. He had to pull himself together and put on a professional demeanor. He had to act interested in what he was doing.

  It all seemed meaningless now.

  When he entered the trailer, he found the office empty. He wondered where Jeff was, but didn’t give it another thought. Other matters preoccupied his mind.

  As he drove the flat valley basin outside Durango, a steam train chugged along the parallel track. He thought about his train ride with Chris, realizing they had spent very little time together not laced with uncertainty and hard questions. There had been hardly any laughter. He and Carol had always enjoyed laughing together. Now he longed for just one moment with Chris that was normal.

  Could he ever be normal again? Could he be normal without her? He couldn’t see himself coming back to Colorado, not unless she asked. He watched the smoke from the steam engine trail upward into the blue Colorado sky. It seemed the puffy, gray wisp symbolized his hopes. As he pulled into the driveway of her house, he entertained the vague notion he might try to persuade her to come to Virginia with him. If she gave the slightest indication she might be agreeable to the suggestion, he would ask.

  As he exited the Jeep, he noticed her dark-blue sedan under the carport with groceries in the open trunk. Passing the car, he walked to the front door, knocked, and waited. As the seconds passed, he got the impression she wasn’t home, but that didn’t make sense with the groceries still in the car.

  Opening one of the sacks, he found melting ice cream. Clearly, she had not intended to leave when she did. He walked around the house, but nothing seemed unusual. Back at the front door, he tried the doorknob. The red-painted door opened as if of its own accord.

  At first, he couldn’t tell anything was amiss. In fact, she had done a marvelous job of cleaning up her wrecked living room. His mind recalled and lingered on the evening he kissed her in her kitchen. He shook himself back to the moment. Hesitating to venture further into the house, he had no desire to invade her privacy. What if he was letting his fears carry him away? He didn’t want her final image of him to be one that invoked anger.

  As he turned to leave, he saw it. He stepped closer to the door that separated the kitchen from the living room. On its clean white surface, something red in the unmistakable imprint of a hand smeared and trailed down the length of the door. He touched the liquid and shuddered as he realized he was touching blood, possibly her blood. Red spatter speckled the base of the doorway. He backed away from it in alarm.

  Pushing past the bloody door, he surveyed the kitchen. She wasn’t there. The rest of the small house was empty as well. He raced outside to the carport and gazed at the car once again. Then he saw evidence of a struggle—strings of long, blonde hair caught in the corner of the trunk lid, a dent in the fender, impressions of tire marks in the gravel of the drive that looked like someone had spun out. He stared closer and saw more red splotches, bright against the white gravel stones of the drive.

  Panic gripped his insides. He could feel her terror, just as if he were there with her. Time ticked away. What should he do? Whom should he call? The sheriff? Certainly. His mind cleared. He remembered a car passing him on the road just as he had approached her house, speeding over the hill not more than one hundred yards from her street. A prescience so strong it nearly doubled him over pressed against his consciousness.

  Chris had to be in that car.

  Yanking his cell phone from his jacket, he raced for the Jeep and punched in Parker’s office number. The sheriff was unreachable. That didn’t surprise him; he’d never been able to reach Parker on the first try. He wanted to relay his fears to the woman who answered the phone, but didn’t do so. Instead, he left an urgent message. As he was about to try Parker’s cell number, his phone beeped three times and died. He slung the useless piece of electronic junk onto the floorboard of the Jeep.

  Chapter Twenty

  Chris opened her eyes in a cramped, dark place. The situation seemed so familiar. She wanted to scream, but an oily rag stifled the sound clogging her throat. She experienced pain from two directions—the physical pain of her head injury and the mental pain of her reality. A sore spot on the back of her head throbbed each time the vehicle hit a bump. Her whole body ached from the contorted way she was bound. The ropes cut into her wrists and ankles. Sticky warmth spread on her forehead. How bad was she bleeding?

  The pain in her head made thinking difficult, but she overcame the inclination to retreat into mental oblivion. Her mind reeled with what she remembered. Was it five minutes, an hour, a day? How long had it been since Cory came out of the shadows? Oh yeah, she remembered his real name now. He had been pretending to be someone named Jeff Osborne. How did she know Cory?

  The car jolted to an abrupt stop. She held her breath as a door squeaked open and then heavy boots crunched on gravel. Would he open the trunk and let her out? Or was the car intended to be her coffin? A rush of air hit her in the face as the lid swung open with a violent jerk. Snow landed on her hair and her cheek. From where she lay, she peeked past Cory at green foliage and gray sky.

  He cut the cord that bound her ankles and yanked her arm by the duct tape that bound her wrists, dragging her out of the trunk, nearly pulling her shoulder out of its socket. Her tingling feet refused to cooperate. He tugged her hard by the arm to keep her from tumbling to the ground. Spinning her around with one swift dizzying motion, he tore the rag from her mouth. “Okay, I know you wrecked the Jeep up here, and it’s still in the woods somewhere. So where is it?”

  She shook her head to clear the cobwebs, spitting the nasty taste of engine oil from her lips. “I told you I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She tried not to sound scared, but she was.

  He twisted his fingers in her hair and pulled her head back, making the pounding in her head bounce with renewed energy. “You know very well what I’m talking about, so tell me where it is. I know it went off the road up here somewhere. I heard someone say it’s still out here in the woods. Now, where did you go off the road?”

  “You’re wasting your time. There’s no money in the Jeep.” His assumption didn’t make sense. Wouldn’t the climber have found the money when he found the Jeep? If she couldn’t produce the money, what would he do to her? What did he plan
to do to her anyway? The possibilities terrified her.

  “Stop stalling, Carrie.” He blinked, his contempt rolling across her wave upon wave, nauseating her. She remembered her conversation with Steve about him. Her perceptions of Jeff had been correct—up to a point. The man was viler than she thought.

  “Who’s Carrie?”

  A sneer spread across his face. “So you still don’t like being called Carrie, do you Carol? Where you come from isn’t good enough for you anymore, huh? Are you too high-class now that you’ve been hanging around the rich man?”

  Carrie? Carol? Oh, was Carrie a diminutive for Carol? That strange man had called her Carrie when he bumped into her in Durango, the same day she ran into Steve at the train station.

  “I’m not Carol.” She knew she wasn’t Carol. The certainty wedged deep into her consciousness.

  Cory knows Carol. Why is he confusing me with her? But then why wouldn’t he? Steve confused me with her. But Steve doesn’t think Carol was really his wife because she wasn’t pregnant. Steve thinks I’m his wife. I want to be his wife.

  The conundrum increased the tension in her brow. The pulse in her head throbbed with each beat of her heart.

  “You know, I believed that stuff about the amnesia for a while. You had them all fooled, Carrie, but I don’t buy it. I think you remember just fine. You know who I am, don’t you?” She remained silent. He pulled her hair. “Don’t you?”

  “I’m not sure who you are.” She stared at him, trying hard to remember who Cory was and why she should be afraid of him.

  “Sure you do.” He smirked as he ground out his accusation.

  The old defense mechanism surfaced in the face of this new crisis. She made her expression go blank.

  “I know who you are. And I know you know who you are,” he screamed in her face. “Now where is it?” He raised his hand to strike her. She backed away from his outstretched arm and stumbled. Grabbing her shoulders, he shook her until her teeth bounced against each other, sending little shock waves through her jaw and into her neck.