Past Suspicion (Christian Romantic Suspense)

by Therese Heckenkamp

  “You’ll have to hurry if you plan to go today,” she added. “It closes at five.”

  “Thanks,” I said, almost breaking into a run.

  Once outside, I did run, and I was panting by the time I reached the colonial style building that served as the Lorens Historical Society. It looked old and weathered and in need of repairs, and yet something about it was strangely welcoming, despite the fact that on the lawn, a cannon stood aimed at me. Perhaps because the historical building had been a part of this town so long, it felt its duty was to be friendly to everyone. I shook my head. Buildings don’t have feelings, I told myself as I pushed open the door.

  When my eyes adjusted to the dim interior, I saw a tall woman advancing in my direction. My first impulse was to turn and run. The woman’s rapid approach reminded me of a hawk swooping down on its prey.

  “Old telephone books?” she asked in response to my stuttered question, and her voice was sweet and gentle, a startling contrast to her looks. “Yes, we keep them here. They’re in the back room on the far right. I’m afraid they aren’t used much, so we keep them wrapped in plastic for protection. You’re quite welcome to the books. Just make sure you wrap them up again when you’re finished. Give me a call if you need anything, but keep in mind we close in ten minutes.”

  And suddenly she was gone, swallowed up by the dark hall. Almost like a ghost, I thought.

  My footsteps echoed through the lonely hall. Something told me I was the only visitor. I felt a twinge of pity as I passed rooms arranged in an intriguing old-fashioned manner, with antiques and other outdated items on display, and I wished I had time to stop and look at everything more closely. Maybe I’d come back another time, but today I couldn’t let myself stray from my purpose.

  Locating the phone books, I hurriedly paged through the thick book of 1978-79, conscious of the precious minutes ticking by.

  This time I found him: Renton, Christopher . . . 5218 Far Street. A telephone number was also listed, but the address was what I wanted. I uncrumpled the paper containing the historical society’s address, and on the back I jotted Christopher Renton’s address using a pencil stub I found in my pocket. Thanks to my habit of drawing, I always wore clothes with pockets and I was usually never without some kind of pencil.

  After rewrapping the books, I stood, ready to leave, when a thought made me pause. These books gave me access to the last twenty years. Why not look up my mother? I glanced at my watch. Five minutes to five. Plenty of time.

  Tiffany Hutch and her brother were listed together until 1980. From that year on, it was Peter Hutch alone. Which made sense, because my mother had moved away in September of 1979 to get married. But I knew all this already. I’m not sure why I looked her up—it was almost like I did it to assure myself she had really existed.

  On an impulse, I flipped to Renton. In 1980, Christopher was no longer listed. Just like my mother. I chewed the pencil eraser thoughtfully. I knew my last name was Finley. My mother had married Dr. Robert Finley, so it was senseless even to speculate . . .

  Yet I did. This Christopher Renton and my mother had been friends. Just how good of friends? I wondered. They had disappeared from the Lorens phone listings the same year, the year my mother had moved and married. But it wasn’t Christopher Renton she had married.

  Unless—unless he’d changed his name. I shook my head, battling the uneasiness inside me. Why would he do that? It was absurd for me to even think such a thing. I have to find out more about this Christopher, I thought. Now more than ever.

  I couldn’t remember my father very well, other than those times he’d tossed me up into the air. Sure, I had my parents’ wedding photo, so I knew what he looked like. But just knowing a man’s face doesn’t tell you who he is. Now I became flooded with doubts. Crazy doubts. Because I knew nothing about my father—nothing other than what little my mother had told me.

  And from what I’d discovered lately, this was not reassuring.

  * * *

  That evening after a dinner of pizza—big surprise—I made up my mind. Philip and I hadn’t made any plans for tonight, and I was glad. This was something I had to do on my own. I told my uncle that I was going for a walk and I wasn’t sure when I’d be back.

  The truth was, I intended to take a stroll past 5218 Far Street. It was as if now that I had information, I couldn’t rest until I did something with it, couldn’t pass up the chance of discovering something new. I had to find out if 5218 Far Street still existed.

  My insides fluttered like a flock of seagulls as I walked down the sidewalk. Not much goes on in a small town on a weeknight, and the silence made me feel extremely self-conscious. Once in a while a car drove by, and I imagined it slowing, the driver staring at me . . . and I quickened my pace.

  I paid close attention to the green street signs. High Street. Lake Street. My tour with Philip had given me some idea of the street layout, but not enough to keep me from wondering why I hadn’t looked at a map before setting out. Searching on foot was time consuming and tiring. I left the business district behind and, relying mostly on instinct and after retracing my steps several times, I eventually found Far Street.

  Here the houses seemed to shrink in width and grow in height as I walked, giving me such an Alice-in-Wonderland sensation that I had to pause and take a few deep breaths before going on. Many of the houses, especially the ones surrounded by hostile metal fences, were in need of repairs; I thought a few of them should be torn down. I shivered under violently shifting shadows. Trees waved their branches as threateningly as if they had read my thoughts and felt they now had to guard the houses.

  When I finally located number 5218, it was to discover that it was not a house at all, but part of a duplex. Gathering all my courage but still feeling cowardly, I marched past an especially menacing tree, mounted cracked concrete steps, and rang the bell.

  At first I thought no one would answer. I was suddenly relieved; what would I say if someone did answer? I was about to turn away when the door handle moved. Panic seized me, and any strategy I might have formed deserted me. The door creaked open and I found myself staring blankly down at the face of a child. Her hair hung long and stringy and the corners of her mouth were stained purple from grape juice or a Popsicle. She regarded me curiously for a moment, then smiled.

  “I’ve got a new doll,” she said, holding up a plastic doll with tangled curls.

  Before I could answer, a voice shrilled from the dark interior, “Janie, who is it?” A woman appeared and pulled the child back from the doorway so she could fill it herself. She was an incredibly large woman, making me feel incredibly small.

  “Well, what do you want?” she asked. “If you’ve come for those old bottles, I’ve already—”

  “No,” I broke in hastily, finding my voice. “I’m sorry to bother you.” I forced down the lump in my throat. “My name is Robin Finley. I was just wondering—I just wanted to know if maybe you could give me some information—about someone who lived here before you. His name was Christopher Renton—”

  “Honey.” The woman put a hand on her hip. I could see the little girl peering out from behind, eyes bright with interest. “I can hardly keep track of my own family, let alone someone else’s. People come and go here all the time. If they’re lucky, they find somewhere better to live. Anyhow, I don’t recall that name. It wasn’t the name of the one who had this place before us, that much I know.”

  “Well, this guy—he lived here twenty years ago—”

  “Twenty years ago!” A dark look crossed the woman’s face. “Honey, I think you need to find yourself a better hobby than wasting people’s time with nonsense like this. Twenty years ago! What you need is a time machine—”

  “I’m sorry to have bothered you.” I turned away, blushing fiercely. When I heard the door slam shut behind me, I flinched. I was so grateful to get back on the sidewalk that I wasn’t even annoyed with myself for giving up so easily. My confidence was shaken to an extreme. How could I have t
hought I could just ring a doorbell and start firing questions at a stranger? And how could I have expected answers? Christopher Renton hadn’t lived at 5218 Far Street for decades.

  I sighed. The woman was right; what I needed was a time machine.

  I jumped at the sudden honk of a horn. I spun around to see Justin waving to me from a green Jeep. “Hop in!” he called, and I was so relieved at not having to walk home alone in the settling darkness, that I did.

  “Well, well, look who’s playing reporter,” was the first thing to escape his lips. I immediately wished I’d stayed on the sidewalk. “I should have known you’d do something like this.”

  I couldn’t tell whether he was angry or not. And I didn’t care. “Something like what?” I whirled in my seat to face him. “What business is it of yours if I choose to—”

  “Hey, simmer down—and buckle up!”

  I did, clicking the buckle as loudly as possible. Philip wouldn’t act like this, I thought indignantly.

  “Now tell me,” Justin said, leaving Far Street behind, “what did you expect to accomplish by bursting in on strangers and barraging them with questions?”

  “I—”

  “That’s very unprofessional.” Justin switched on his blinker to turn right. My ears focused on the ticking sound, trying to avoid hearing his harsh words. “This isn’t television. This isn’t a novel. You have to use common sense—”

  “Where are we going?” I broke in, realizing this wasn’t the way back to my uncle’s.

  “You have a special time you have to be home? A bedtime, perhaps? With all the late nights you’ve been spending, I wouldn’t think one slight detour would make a difference.”

  The sarcasm in his voice cut me, and whatever friendly feelings for Justin I might have gradually been accumulating vanished. “What business is it of yours? And how would you know how late I—”

  “For one thing, you told me yourself that you’ve been going out with that Philip guy. Or have you forgotten? Seems like you only remember me when I can help you with something.”

  I opened my mouth, ready to make a retort, then closed it. Was it true what he was implying? Was I a selfish person who used others only for what I could get out of them? Lately, I guess I had been. But I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. “I’m sorry.”

  “Anyway,” Justin went on, his voice becoming husky, “I did a search and I didn’t come up with much. This Renton fellow lived in that duplex, which you apparently already know, and he worked at a hardware store until he moved in September of 1979. After that—he disappeared—there’s nothing more to report.”

  I settled back, feeling deflated and emotionally drained. There was silence but for the hum of the motor and the tires on the road.

  “You think I should give up, don’t you?” My eyes wandered over the gray dashboard. “You think I should forget all this—this pointless searching—”

  “Do you think it’s pointless?”

  “No.”

  “Then it’s not. Only—you have to be able to draw the line between the past and the present,” I turned my head to look at Justin, waited for him to go on, “the relevant and the irrelevant. The changeable and the unchangeable. In short, you have to know when you’ve done all you can, then leave the past behind. Where it belongs.” Justin frowned over the steering wheel. “I think Edna Ferber said it best: ‘Living the past is a dull and lonely business; looking back strains the neck muscles, and causes you to bump into people not going your way.’”

  The impact of those strange words kept me silent for a full minute. I didn’t even think to ask who Edna Ferber was. Quietly, I said, “I’m not living the past.”

  “Maybe not, but it’s still something to think about.”

  But I didn’t want to think about it. It was too weird. We bumped along the road, wrapped in the fading evening, and I still didn’t know where we were headed. I was about to ask when I realized this passage between the crowded trees looked familiar. Justin swung the Jeep through a tangle of brush and cut the engine.

  “The Ingerman Mansion,” I murmured. I turned to face Justin. “Why did you bring me here?”

  He didn’t say anything right away. I found myself listening to the silence—a silence so strong that I wanted to reach out and touch it, but it remained just out of reach, making it all the more enticing.

  “You’ve been here already, I know,” Justin said finally, not answering my question.

  We stared up at the mansion’s imposing form. Shrouded in dusk, it looked unreal, a mere outline wavering in the shadows, as if it were a ghost itself. Or a mirage that might vanish at any moment.

  “Yes, and it’s creepy in there,” I said. A vision of the rose room and the balcony floated before my eyes. I hugged myself. “I’m never going inside there again. Ever.” Somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted.

  “Do you think it’s haunted?” Justin asked. I glance at him in time to see a soft shadow cross his face. Then he answered his own question. “I don’t believe it’s haunted. But it’s best to leave it alone . . . for other reasons.”

  My eyes were drawn to the mansion’s empty black windows, half expecting a white form to appear. I shivered. Without a word, Justin slipped off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders.

  “Have you ever been inside?” I asked, fingering the soft leather and bringing it closer to my skin.

  “People aren’t supposed to go inside. But I guess most folks around here have, at one time or another. Me included.”

  I only half heard him now. I knew the sun was setting, but I couldn’t see it because the mansion blocked my view. But I could see part of the sky, pastel colors spreading out from behind the mansion like a watercolor wash, making a background so bright that it enhanced the mansion’s darkness and turned it into a sharp silhouette. The perfect picture of a haunted house.

  “See that?” Justin’s voice was low. “That’s the one thing that makes me wish I were on that balcony right now.”

  I knew which balcony he meant, though we couldn’t see it from here. Despite the jacket, I shivered and looked away. “It would take more than a beautiful sunset to get me on that balcony again,” I said, almost in a whisper.

  Justin’s face took on a distant look. “You haven’t seen a sunset till you’ve watched one from there.” His hand was still on the wheel, but I saw his fingers relax. When he suddenly cleared his throat, the look disappeared and his fingers tightened. “I guess I’d better get you home.” The engine burst to life.

  We drove without speaking. The mansion, so eerie in the twilight, remained in my mind long after it was out of sight.

  It wasn’t until after Justin had dropped me off and I was staring out my bedroom window at the glowing moon, unaware I was still wearing his jacket, that I realized I still didn’t know why he had brought me to the mansion.

  Chapter Twelve

  I stood in the mansion, in front of the etched glass doors leading to the balcony. Only, I wasn’t me. I felt weighed down by my long dress, tightly bound, poised and feminine under the hair piled atop my head. I felt faint.

  Fresh air was what I needed. I opened the glass doors and stepped onto the balcony, where a stray wind teased out a few tendrils of hair, whispered against my face and neck, tickling me.

  Oh, the sunset! I had the perfect view from this balcony, facing west. I stood watching the vibrant blend of rainbow colors, gold melting into orange into pink . . . I could watch them forever. The sight brought joy and comfort to my heart; and I needed that terribly tonight because my heart ached with emptiness, as it had for days, ever since . . .

  But I must not think of that. This sunset helped sooth the pain and fill the emptiness, if only for a little while.

  I felt no fear, standing high up on the balcony. Rather, I found exhilaration from being above the rest of the world. I could almost believe I was floating, if those railings weren’t in the way, marring my view.

  Tonight I needed to get closer. Closer
than I ever had before. My head light and dreamy, I moved nearer and leaned against the rail with a sigh. So caught up in my fancy was I that when the rail gave way, I didn’t act immediately, in that split second that might have saved me.

  At first I thought I was flying. But when I saw the ground rushing up to meet me, the spell broke, and I knew the truth.

  I was falling.

  Gasping, I sat up in bed, my body bathed in sweat. It had been such a beautiful dream, then suddenly—what a nightmare! I had been so foolish to lean against the rail!

  “It was just a dream,” I whispered. “Forget it.” But that was impossible; the vision was too vivid, and as I stared into the darkness of my room, the scene played itself over and over before my eyes.

  My visit to the Ingerman Mansion must have set it off, I realized. And I was ashamed at my vulnerability, ashamed that I could be so easily affected.

  I hadn’t been myself in the dream. That much I knew. Unconsciously, my mind had played me into the role of Connie Ingerman, twisting my own confused thoughts and fears into a tangled nightmare, suggesting that Connie’s fall had been an accident.

  What was the matter with me? I was becoming obsessed, so caught up in the past that I was losing my hold on reality. My hands trembled. Was it as Justin had implied, and before long I would be completely lost, living in the past?

  No. That wouldn’t happen. I gripped the sheets. I wouldn’t let it happen. I would go back to California and leave all this behind. What was I doing here, getting myself involved in other people’s lives, putting them before my own, forfeiting my sanity in the process? It wasn’t right. Whatever I was trying to uncover here in Lorens, the quest I was undertaking—it had to stop. As long as I remained in Lorens I knew I wouldn’t be strong enough to resist; the only answer was to go away and leave these things behind.

  But wouldn’t that be running away?

  I remembered my mother. She had tried to run away, and where had it gotten her? Had she ever really escaped?