Shifting Shadows

by Sally Berneathy

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, unsure if she was expressing sympathy or somehow apologizing for something.

  “Dad had a heart condition,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “Tom’s death killed him. Mom has aged twenty years in the past three months.”

  She clutched his hand with both of hers, thinking perhaps she understood some of the torment she’d always found in his gaze. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, unsure why he was telling her all this now.

  “Do you remember—?”

  The phone shrieked, interrupting his words.

  He dropped her hand, and she sensed that the moment—whatever moment it was—had passed. “Let it ring,” she said.

  He got to his feet. “Answer it. We’ll talk this evening when we have more time.”

  She rose, and he pulled her to him for a quick good-bye kiss.

  “Don’t go anywhere except to work.” His dark gaze bored into hers.

  “Where would I go?”

  “Promise me,” he demanded harshly.

  She shrugged. “Okay.”

  “I’ll get back as early as I can.” He started from the room then turned back to her. “Lock your door behind me.”

  She nodded and went to pick up the still-ringing phone.

  “Hello?”

  For a moment there was silence. “Hello, sweetheart.”

  Phillip’s voice came across the wire, cheerful in a forced, taut way. The tautness wasn’t surprising after her rejection of him the night before, she supposed, experiencing a rush of guilt. She hadn’t rejected Dylan. Had welcomed, even encouraged, his lovemaking.

  “Hello, Phillip. How are you this morning?” She wished she could take back the inane words, but didn’t know what words she’d replace them with.

  “I wanted to talk to you before you got off to work. I, uh, wanted to apologize for last night. I’m sorry if I pushed too hard. I’m just worried about you. Are you sure you’re all right? You sound a little strained.”

  “I’m fine, really.” Then, because her guilt urged her to make a propitiatory offering, she reluctantly continued, “I had quite a scare. When I woke up, my room was full of gas.”

  “That damned space heater! I knew something like this would happen. I told you it was dangerous. You stay right there and I’ll come get you.”

  “No,” she protested. “I’m all right.”

  “For how long? What’ll go wrong in that crumbling mausoleum next? The whole place could blow up.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my house,” she defended. “The space heater isn’t defective. Somebody turned it on.” The moment the words left per lips, she regretted saying them, regretted letting him goad her into revealing more than she’d intended. It seemed she’d done a lot of that this morning.

  “Who?” he asked immediately.

  “I don’t know. It might have been me. I could have tried to light the heater in the middle of the night and didn’t get the job done.”

  “That just proves it’s not safe for you to be alone. You’re not competent right now to care for yourself.”

  She bristled at his condescending attitude. “Or maybe it wasn’t me. Anyone with a credit card could have slipped through that lock on my door.”

  “And turned on the gas deliberately? Why would anyone try to kill you, Analise?”

  “I don’t know.” She had to back down. She had no idea why anyone would try to kill her. If only she could remember... “No reason. It was just a thought.”

  “Have you called the police and told them any of this?”

  “No, of course not. I said it was just a thought.”

  “Sweetheart, you’ve been through a severe trauma,” he said smoothly. “You’ve sustained a head injury, suffered amnesia, and things are bound to be a little confusing until you’re well again. Trust me, nobody’s trying to kill you. You got up in the middle of the night, turned on the gas, forgot what you were doing and went back to bed.”

  “But—” It was something she’d considered, but she resented it when Phillip made the accusation.

  “After this incident,” he continued, as though she hadn’t spoken, “I can’t allow you to stay there alone. Let me take care of you, just until you’re better. I’m not asking for anything beyond that, Analise. For all the years we had, for all the mistakes I made, let me do this for you.”

  Tears sprang to Analise’s eyes...tears for the love she’d had with Phillip which hadn’t lasted and for the love she had with Dylan which was being crushed before it had a chance to thrive.

  “I’ll come by and get you around seven tonight,” he said when she didn’t respond. “Don’t you worry about a thing. I’m going to take very good care of you.”

  “No,” she whispered, but the receiver in her hand had gone dead.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Analise held the telephone receiver in her hand, staring at the inanimate plastic object. Phillip had ignored her protest, was coming to get her, to take care of her. For a few days.

  Maybe, a voice inside her head whispered, that’s what all these accidents were pushing her toward. Lottie had said there were no accidents. Everything happened for a reason.

  If Elizabeth had died when she left her husband and now Analise’s own life had been in danger after leaving Phillip, maybe she needed to be with him to make the accidents stop, to be safe, to get things right this time.

  Her gut clenched at the idea. Maybe it was what she needed to do, but putting the thought into deed was going to be like pushing her way through quicksand. Every atom, every essence of her being rebelled against it.

  Carefully she replaced the receiver in the cradle. How much of her reluctance came from an aversion to being with Phillip and how much from her desire to be with Dylan? The most charitable answer she could come up with was an equal split between the two reasons. And if she was totally honest, she’d have to admit that, no matter who the other man might be, she wouldn’t want him if she could have Dylan instead. Just as Elizabeth had wanted Shawn no matter the cost.

  But Elizabeth had been wrong. Elizabeth had died.

  On feet that weighed a hundred pounds each, Analise climbed the stairs to get dressed for work.

  *~*~*

  As the day wore on, Analise had to fight the impulse to snap at customers, at Lottie, at her own thoughts. Was she having some sort of residual effects from inhaling all that gas? Maybe she should have gone to the doctor, though she had no desire to go through all the poking, prodding and questioning again.

  She could tell that Lottie knew something was wrong, but she was reluctant to admit what had happened. She didn’t want to hear her dear and trusted friend say that she ought to go back to Phillip. Lottie had said she had to get it right this time, change the direction in which she was headed. Analise didn’t want Lottie’s confirmation of what her mind told her was right and her heart screamed was wrong.

  However, Lottie had also told her she should let her soul lead her. And her soul wanted to be with Dylan. Her soul was bound to his, had found his again beyond death, even in another lifetime.

  But Phillip had also found her again and was trying to set right what had once gone wrong.

  The thoughts whirled round and round with no answer in sight.

  As she started to replace a hundred year old hand painted vase after a customer left, she noticed her hands were trembling. While still a couple of inches above the tabletop, the vase slipped from her shaky fingers and clinked against a lamp.

  “Did it break?” Lottie asked.

  She examined the vase closely. “No, but it could have. Would you mind very much if I left the shop in your hands for the rest of the day?”

  “I don’t mind at all. You run on home and try to get some rest. You look a little peaked. I’ll take care of this place. Don’t you worry. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  The words were oddly reminiscent of Phillip’s. But Analise was more inclined to trust Lottie.

  She drove home, parked in the street in fr
ont of her house and got out.

  Before Phillip arrived she needed to go through her office one more time and try to find those papers she’d hidden. In her mind’s eye she could see herself holding them, could remember feeling disappointment, sadness and fear as she studied them then decided to hide them. But the contents of the papers and their hiding place remained a blur.

  As she started up the walk, however, the sight of Dylan’s house pulled at her as strongly as the need to find her mysterious documents. She wanted to go over, knock on his door and see him, talk to him, touch him, let him hold her and make the world right, make her believe nothing else mattered, even if only for a little while.

  But it was only three o’clock. Though he’d said he’d be home early, his big black automobile wasn’t parked in its usual spot.

  She left her car and went over to his house, unsure what she was doing, but unable to stay away. Walking up the sidewalk, she recalled when Rachel’s father had laid the bright red bricks. Now those bricks were faded and cracked with grass growing between them.

  So far she still had Elizabeth’s memories though Analise’s were returning. When she recaptured all of her present life, she desperately hoped Elizabeth’s wouldn’t leave. She no longer felt as if two people inhabited her body. Elizabeth’s life was as real as Analise’s childhood—a stage that, while it might be farther in the past, was still a part of her.

  She stepped onto the porch where she and Rachel had played with dolls, giggled about boys and made whispered plans for her assignations with Shawn. The boards were curled, some were rotting. The neglect, if nothing else, made her aware of how much time had passed.

  Lottie’s words came back to her—Rachel had lived there as a recluse, blaming herself for her friend’s death when all she’d done was help the lovers get together, encourage their love, do what her friend wanted.

  Had Rachel suspected that Shawn had caused Elizabeth’s death? Had he betrayed her love the night she’d run to him? Rachel must have thought that or her sense of guilt wouldn’t have run so deep as to ruin her life.

  Standing in front of the door, Analise shivered as once more the question of Dylan’s presence in her life rose to the front of her mind. Why was he here? What had he meant when he’d said, you don’t know...? He’d avoided telling her what she didn’t know, had kissed her and asked her if that wasn’t all they needed to know. It had been enough at the time. He had the ability to make her feel that, to forget everything else.

  Just as Shawn had done to Elizabeth.

  Even though she knew he wasn’t home, she knocked loudly on his door. No one answered. No sound came from inside to suggest movement.

  She started to turn away, to go to her own house and—what? Pack a few clothes to take to Phillip’s? She couldn’t go with him. Yet she couldn’t not go with him. What if Lottie was right, and the only way she could escape certain death was to reconcile with Phillip?

  What good was living if she couldn’t be with Dylan? She looked down the street, hoping to see Dylan’s car approaching.

  No traffic was in sight.

  As she turned back to the door, she abruptly realized that she’d stood there like that before, in this lifetime, before the accident. And been refused admittance. She’d never been inside Dylan’s house. On the few occasions she’d gone over, he’d come out to join her, but he’d never invited her in.

  She’d thought at the time that he was probably a lousy housekeeper and didn’t want her to see the place.

  But now she had to wonder. Was there something inside he didn’t want her to see? Her mind raced in confused circles. She had to find some answers before it was too late.

  Looking about her to be sure no one was watching, she straightened her beige linen suit—as though that slight effort would make her look less like a criminal—and pulled a credit card from her wallet. Dylan had remarked that a child with a library card could get into her house, so perhaps the same was true with his. If he had come into her house like this—and she didn’t know how else he could have gotten in the night she’d been in the attic—she was entitled to enter his the same way.

  In spite of her justification to herself, her fingers shook as she positioned the card between the lock and the doorsill and noticed the shiny new dead bolt a few inches above. Almost relieved, she returned the plastic rectangle to her wallet. The decision had been taken out of her hands. She’d tried to find out about Dylan and failed.

  She started to walk away then remembered the kitchen door. When Rachel lived there, the door had never been locked. Dylan had probably put a dead bolt on it too. But she had to check it out.

  Heart hammering at her audacity, at the chance she might be caught, she walked through the side yard around to the back. The ground was still wet and spongy from the recent rains, and she almost turned back to get a pair of shoes sturdier than her flimsy heels. But that was only an excuse. Breaking into Dylan’s house, ferreting out his secrets, had suddenly become a very real possibility, and she wasn’t sure she was ready for what she might find.

  Ready or not, she had to do it. She was tired of the unknown, of asking herself questions she didn’t know the answers to. She slogged on around to the kitchen door. There was no new, shiny dead bolt, only the ancient lock.

  This time her fingers shook so badly she could hardly get the card into the space. Somehow, though, she managed. It slid past the lock easily, and the door creaked open. For an instant the world spun and blurred about her, and her heart actually seemed to stop before racing on.

  She dropped the card back into her purse, her fingers too numb to get it into her wallet. Raising a hand to her throat, she took a deep breath and walked into Dylan’s kitchen.

  Unlike the one in her house, it had not been completely modernized. With the exception of aging, the cabinets and sink were much as they had been when Rachel’s family lived there. A small, old refrigerator had replaced the icebox, and a gas range stood where the old wood stove had been. A coffeemaker, toaster and microwave were the only evidence of modern living.

  Tentatively, expecting every minute that someone would jump out and accuse her of breaking in, she opened a cabinet door. Paper plates and cups.

  Other doors revealed empty spaces.

  That told her nothing. Lots of men living alone never cooked. She’d have to venture farther into the house.

  Tiptoeing, holding her breath, she moved from room to room. Dylan lived very Spartanly. The dining room and back parlor were completely empty. The front parlor contained a single, rather shabby chair and a small table, both situated over by the window...the window that looked toward her house.

  On the table and the floor beside the chair she saw the first real evidence that anyone inhabited the house—several empty paper cups with dark coffee stains, a couple of soft-drink cans, a book of crossword puzzles, a true-crime novel, an automatic pencil, a pair of binoculars and a spiral notebook.

  She should have left then. She knew that. Going through his house was one thing. Reading his notes was quite another.

  But the chair was positioned for a perfect view of her porch and her hall window. She had to know what he’d written in the notebook. If it didn’t concern her, she’d only glance at it, then leave.

  Not wanting to touch it, she leaned over the table, peering at the page that lay open, the page with yesterday’s date. “Took Analise to library—” He was taking notes on her activities! “—to look up stories about Elizabeth, the woman she thinks she is. She didn’t get any more current than 1912. Phillip took her to Italian Taste for dinner. He mentioned Gordon Robison. She said she didn’t remember him.” Dylan had been there, had eavesdropped on her! What did he know about Phillip’s business partner?

  The notes ended.

  She picked up the book, flipped back a page and found the same type of notations for the day before. The data was cut and dried. All details of his personal involvement with her were carefully omitted from his notes.

  She looked abo
ut her dazedly, her whole world falling apart. The connection she’d felt, the love she’d felt, none of it had been real. Her heart clenched into a hard, cold knot.

  There was virtually no furniture there. This wasn’t his home. He’d leased this house just to spy on her.

  But why? What had she done to cause this? If only she could remember!

  Something in her shriveled up and crawled into a dark cave to hide. Even if he cared for her, Dylan had betrayed her. He’d made love to her while keeping from her the knowledge of his spying.

  His notes contained no reference to any feelings for her. He kept his two lives completely separate.

  Was he a stalker, obsessed with her? Would he kill her if she didn’t respond to his attentions, if she tried to leave with Phillip?

  Maybe he’d been hired to spy on her, to report back to his client about her activities. If he had been, could he also have been hired to kill her? Was he one of those men she’d seen in movies and never believed existed, a man who could make love to a woman then kill her while she lay still warm from his touch? A man to whom murder was nothing personal, just a job?

  Her trembling fingers dropped the notebook. She reached down, retrieved it and, with badly shaking hands, replaced it on the table.

  Slowly she mounted the stairs and walked down the familiar hallway to Rachel’s bedroom.

  As she grasped the cold glass knob of the door that led into the room where she knew he slept, where she’d seen him at the window, she could have sworn the knob suddenly turned hot, burning her hand. She jerked back, then reached out and touched it again. It was cold. Her own fear had deceived her.

  She opened the door slowly.

  The first thing she saw was the unmade bed. Dylan had slept there. The body she’d caressed last night which had seemed to belong to her had lain there. She walked over, touched the rumpled sheets, half expecting to find them warm.

  But they were cold. The only remnants of him were the faint scents of green fields and midnight that she’d come to associate with Dylan.

  Across the room two open suitcases sat on the floor, their contents jumbled and spilling out, further evidence that he didn’t really live here. As she backed away from the bed, her gaze fell on the nightstand. Beside the lamp rested a camera with a big lens, probably telescopic.