Shifting Shadows

by Sally Berneathy

  She rushed to the phone and dialed Phillip’s number, counted the rings, willed him to answer.

  “Hello.”

  “Phillip, thank goodness—”

  “You’ve reached the residence of Phillip Ryker. No one is available to take your call right now. Please leave a message at the tone.”

  She slammed down the receiver, checked her watch. Four-thirty. Her exploration of hell had taken only a little over an hour, not an eternity. Phillip would still be at his office.

  Becoming more frantic with each moment that passed, she dialed that number and reached his secretary.

  “Dorothy, this is Analise. I need to speak to Phillip.”

  “Analise! I haven’t talked to you in ages. How are you doing? I heard about your little accident.”

  “I’m fine, thank you. Please, I’ve got to get hold of Phillip immediately.”

  “He’s in a meeting with Robison and Stevens. The big three, you know.”

  At Dorothy’s words, something stirred, trying to surface through the fog. Something painful, so painful her head actually started to ache. No! She couldn’t bear any more pain right now. She shoved the almost-memory aside.

  “I’ll have him call you as soon as he’s free,” Dorothy continued.

  “No, I can’t wait that long. I have to speak to him immediately.”

  “You want me to interrupt him?” Dorothy asked, sounding a little peeved as well as puzzled at Analise’s insistence.

  “Yes. I want you to interrupt him.”

  “Very well. Hold on.” She was definitely peeved. Analise waited, pacing back and forth, too tense to sit even though her leg muscles ached from all the tension.

  Finally Dorothy returned. “He asked me to take a message,” she said primly. “He can’t come to the phone right now. He’ll call you back as soon as they’re finished.”

  Analise bit her lower lip, forcing herself to remain calm. “Tell him I need for him to get over here as soon as possible. Tell him it’s very important. He doesn’t have to call me unless he can’t do that. And if he calls, he should let the phone ring once, then hang up and call back.”

  “I’ll be sure he gets the message.” Dorothy’s voice took on an almost-haughty tone, as though she found the idea of delivering such a strange message beneath her.

  “Please tell him now, Dorothy.”

  Dorothy’s only response was an indignant grunt. Well, if Phillip’s secretary thought she was crazy, it couldn’t be helped. Better crazy than dead.

  She started upstairs to her bedroom to pack, but the ringing of the phone stopped her. One ring, silence, then it started again. Phillip.

  The receiver seemed oddly heavy as she lifted it. She knew she was doing the right thing, but every cell in her body protested.

  “Analise, what’s going on? Dorothy interrupted our meeting to give me your message.”

  “Nothing. Everything. I’ll tell you when you get here. Please, come immediately. I need to get out of here right now.”

  “Calm down. I’m on my way. I’ll get there as fast as I can. Promise me you won’t do anything until I can get there.”

  Don’t do anything? What did he think she was going to do? “I’ll have my bag packed and ready to go. Please hurry.”

  “I’ll do eighty all the way. Just swear to me, Analise, that you won’t do anything foolish before I get there.”

  Anything foolish? Did he somehow know about Dylan?

  “I promise,” she said wearily.

  Puzzling over Phillip’s odd admonitions, she went upstairs to her bedroom, took a bag from the closet and began trying to pack. She had to force herself to concentrate on the mundane details of which items she’d need in the next couple of days.

  Folding a nightgown, she felt her heart dissolving. Would Phillip’s eyes be the ones to see her in the silky white garment? Would he expect to touch her the way Dylan had touched her?

  She threw the gown back into the drawer and sank onto the bed, head in her hands, tears escaping from her eyes onto her fingers. Why, now that she knew the truth about Dylan, did she still love him, feel that she’d be a hollow shell without him? Maybe living to a ripe old age wasn’t such a great option after all if your soul was already dead.

  Damn! What was the matter with her? She hated herself for feeling that way, but she couldn’t help it. A part of her wanted to go to Dylan, throw herself in his arms and beg him to somehow explain everything away, to make it all right, to hold her forever.

  But that would be suicide. Forever wouldn’t last very long.

  Determinedly ignoring her heart, she set about packing her bag.

  Finally she brought down two suitcases and placed them in the foyer. They were probably missing half the things she was going to need. She hadn’t been able to concentrate on articles of clothing and toiletry items when her thoughts kept running to the oil painting of Elizabeth drowning, to the one of her that showed her face glowing, to Dylan’s face above hers as they’d made love.

  The phone had rung again as she was packing, but she’d ignored it. If it was Dylan, he’d probably be back on her front porch before long, and somehow she’d have to keep him out.

  She tested the chair at the door, made sure it would hold, then went over to the window and looked out at his house. As though he knew she was watching, he stepped out.

  She shriveled as he stared directly at her. But she couldn’t afford to give in to her fears. She had to know what he was going to do.

  He took two giant strides across the porch but stopped on the edge. As his gaze turned toward the street, the darkness of a thousand stormy midnights erupted in his eyes and hardened on his face. She stepped back involuntarily.

  A car door slammed outside. Phillip! Her mind told her she was glad Phillip had arrived, perhaps just in time. What might Dylan have done? Broken down her door and forced his way in? Now he had a witness and would have to restrain himself.

  But against all common sense, she wasn’t ready to see Phillip, to leave with him.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Forrest,” she heard Phillip say. She reminded herself that she should be grateful he’d come. He’d kept his word, left the meeting with Robison and Stevens and broken every speed limit on his way over. She could count on him. It showed his devotion, that he would walk out on his two best clients, his partners.

  Those names...

  That same feeling of pain, physical as well as emotional, had come when Phillip had mentioned them at dinner at the restaurant and again when Dorothy referred to them only a few minutes ago. Analise put her hands to her head, fighting the ache while she tried to trap the hazy memory inside until she could focus on it.

  A knock sounded, scattering the fragments before they could coalesce.

  Dragging back the chair, she opened the door. Phillip stood on her porch, tall, slim, immaculate and smiling. She should be happy to see him there. She should feel safe now. To her chagrin, she had to force herself to respond to his smile, to his sterile embrace.

  “Ready, sweetheart?” he asked, releasing her and leaning down to pick up one of her bags. “What’s this?” He indicated the ladder-back chair lying on its side.

  “I’ll tell you all about it on the way,” she said, gathering up her handbag and an all-weather coat.

  But the sight of the chair halted her, sent her mind spinning. When she left, she wouldn’t be able to put it in place under the knob. She wouldn’t be able to keep him out. He could slip in and go through everything, take his time and eventually find it—the envelope, the papers.

  Her gaze darted up the stairs, to her office. She had to find the list she’d hidden. She could almost see it, in a file. In the middle of a file, the wrong file.

  “Come on, Analise,” Phillip urged. “Let’s go.”

  She dropped her purse and coat and started up the stairs.

  “Where are you going? I thought you were ready.”

  “Five minutes, Phillip,” she called over her shoulder. “I think I r
emember where I put it. Maybe this will give me some answers, tell me why Dylan wants to kill me.”

  “Why Dylan wants to kill you? Analise, what on earth are you babbling about? Nobody wants to kill you, and you’re not somebody named Elizabeth. That fall did more damage than we realized. Come back down here and let’s go home.”

  But she was already inside her office. “In a minute. I have to find this.”

  She yanked open the top drawer of the file cabinet, scanned the designations on the tabs. They were all personal. That wasn’t it.

  The second drawer. The files from the shop. Her mind felt like a kaleidoscope with the pieces slowly falling into place but not yet forming a recognizable pattern.

  Addresses. Computer. Customers. She looked toward the back. Suppliers.

  She jerked out the fat folder and thumbed through the papers, the lists of companies...and there it was. She’d taken the pages out of the envelope she’d originally taped to her desk drawer in order to more effectively disguise them among her other lists.

  She stared at the photocopies, the names of corporations...umbrella groups that hid the real owner so none of the fires could be connected, could be traced back to...

  “Phillip,” she whispered.

  “Right here, sweetheart.”

  She hadn’t heard him come up, but he was standing at her elbow, his breath hot on her cheek. The dark fires she’d seen in Dylan’s eyes weren’t so horrible after all, she decided. Phillip’s eyes were glacial, almost colorless and totally devoid of emotion.

  And suddenly it came flooding back, the memory too painful to face.

  “You used your clients,” she said, the words tumbling out as the memories returned. “You and Robison and Stevens. You bought distressed properties from your clients through phony corporations, then burned them down and collected the insurance.”

  “And you lived very comfortably on the proceeds.”

  She shook her head as the pain and guilt encompassed her. “But I didn’t know. Not until last week...Sunday. I was going through my records for last year for income tax purposes and I found some of yours mixed in.” She shivered as she recalled every agonizing detail. “I called you for an explanation. I wanted to believe it wasn’t what it looked like.”

  Phillip’s hand closed over her arm. “And I told you my clients were glad to get rid of those properties, to recoup any portion of their investment. The insurance companies have plenty of money. Nobody got hurt. But that wasn’t good enough for you. You got all self-righteous on me. You actually threatened me!”

  She tried to back away from him as the final pieces tumbled into place in her mind. But he held her firmly in his cold, impersonal grip. She had told him she would go to the police. Phillip had laughed at her, saying that what she had would never stand up in court.

  So she’d gone to his office that night, letting herself in with the key she’d neglected to give back to him, and had made copies of his files, enough to prove what he was doing.

  “The security guard phoned to tell me you’d been in my office,” he said, as if reading the progression of her returning memory. “So I went down and checked. You can’t hide your tracks when everything’s computerized. Everything but my personal files, at least, and I knew where every piece of paper ought to be. You weren’t very careful.”

  She swallowed hard, flinching from the horror of the memory. “In your personal files. That’s where I found it. Three months ago you killed a man.”

  “Tom Hunter was an insurance investigator about to cause problems. Not that I had anything to worry about legally. I’m a lawyer, after all. But Gordon and Robison...” For an instant she thought she saw fear in his glacial gaze. “Do you have any idea what it means to be involved with them? They have connections. They’re powerful men.”

  “And they’d have killed you before they took the chance of letting you betray them to the law,” she guessed. “So you murdered a man and burned his body in your next fire to hide the evidence.”

  Phillip smiled, and the ice in his eyes pierced her chest, settled around her heart. “I couldn’t let him ruin everything. Burning down useless buildings is just the beginning. I’m on my way up, and I had hoped you’d come with me. You’re very beautiful and quite entertaining. Robison and Stevens were most taken with you. I really am sorry, sweetheart, but I can’t let you ruin things.”

  Analise’s blood froze as the implications of his words hit her. “You...”

  “Pushed you down the stairs? Yes. And turned on the gas. I knew your amnesia, if it ever existed, wouldn’t last forever. But it would have been so much easier for both of us if you’d come home with me. You could have taken too many sleeping pills or something else painless. Now...” He shrugged, lifting one shoulder of his gray suit jacket. “For all our years together, I’ll do the best I can.”

  Analise’s mind reeled as her world shifted around her.

  Phillip had tried to kill her. Phillip was going to kill her. Not—

  “Dylan?” she asked. “Is he working for you?”

  “Dylan? Your lover?” He jerked her arm painfully at that, and his eyes turned even colder, something she hadn’t thought possible. “I was downstairs last night when you were up here with him. I’ve suspected something was going on for some time, but you kept insisting you were just friends. What I heard last night proves you lied.” He jerked her arm again. “How long? Was he the real reason you left me?”

  She tried to pull free of him, but his grip was like steel. “I left you because you’re cold and uncaring. I needed more than money, but you didn’t have more to give. Your recent actions proved that.”

  Suddenly she had to get away from him. Even more than fearing for her life, she didn’t want him to touch her, not ever again. She kicked at his shin, felt her foot connect, heard him curse. She got her balance, drew back to kick again, but the small pistol that appeared in his hand stopped her.

  “I said I’d try to make this as easy on you as possible, but if you force me, it can be nasty. I really don’t owe you anything after your activities with Dylan last night.” He yanked her toward him. “Come on. Into the bathroom.”

  Now that she was face-to-face with imminent, real danger, Analise found herself remarkably calm and lucid. She allowed him to lead her down the hall. “Why the bathroom? I don’t have any sleeping pills in there.”

  “I know, but thanks to your penchant for antiques, you have a mint-condition, very sharp, straight-edged razor. I noticed it the night I tried to run your bath.” He shoved her into the small room. “Fill the tub with water. You’re going to slash your wrists. It won’t hurt at all. You’ll just drift away, out of my life and my business.”

  She backed against the tub, watching Phillip take the razor down from the collection of bric-a-brac mounted on the bathroom wall. “Slash my wrists? Commit suicide?”

  He extended the blade fully from its decorative half-open position. “You’re suffering from a traumatic concussion. We have the doctor’s records for that. My secretary will testify that you were distraught when you called and that she heard me begging you not to harm yourself. I came over here to take you home, protect you from yourself, but you went upstairs to the bathroom and never came back.” He waved the gun at her. “Fill the tub with water, Analise. Please don’t be difficult. Don’t make me have to shoot you. That would be messy and painful.”

  Analise turned her back to him and twisted on the faucets. Her heart and mind were both racing. How could she get out of this? Why wasn’t Dylan here? But she’d locked him out.

  She had to stall for time, figure out something. “I don’t have a stopper. I always take showers.”

  “Use a rolled washcloth.”

  Taking a cloth from the wicker shelf, she complied, moving as slowly as possible. But finally it was in the drain, and the water started to fill the tub.

  The water. Always the water. The water surrounding her, pulling her down as she looked up at Shawn on the deck of the boat, call
ed to him for help. He shouted her name, prepared to dive in after her. She couldn’t swim, but she’d heard him brag that he’d swum across the Missouri River. He’d save her.

  He was climbing over the rail. But the dark figure beside him grabbed him with one large hand, lifted a club with the other and smashed it against his head, then tipped him into the ebony waters to join her in death.

  Blake stood alone on deck, his silhouette the last thing she saw before the darkness settled around her.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Blake?” Phillip asked. She realized she’d turned toward him, spoken the name aloud. “Who the devil is Blake?”

  She shook her head, twisting back around to stare at the hated water rising in the tub. A blinding fury possessed her. Damn it, he wasn’t going to do it to her again! It wasn’t the water that had killed her. It was him. The water was neutral, an instrument, nothing to fear. It belonged to her as much as to him.

  “I think that’s full enough,” he said. “Stand up and take off your clothes.”

  She plunged a hand into the water. “It’s too cold. Please, I need a little more warm.”

  She turned the cold tap all the way off, watching the steam rise from the hot water as it poured into the tub. With one hand she grabbed the flexible shower hose and with the other twisted the diverter, sending the entire flow through the hose.

  She whirled and sprayed the scalding water into Phillip’s face.

  He stumbled backward, dropping the razor as he lifted his hands to protect his eyes. But he didn’t drop the gun.

  Analise rose to a crouch from her kneeling position, trying to keep the spray on him as she groped blindly for the razor. He stumbled, slipping in the water, and fell to the floor.

  Her chance! If she could only get out of there before he regained his feet, she might be able to escape. Gasping for breath, she pushed herself upright, dropped the hose, which was losing its effect as the water became merely warm, and tried to run past him. The room was small, the door only two strides away. But he grabbed her ankle, and she plummeted painfully to the wet tile floor.