Yesterday Lost

by Lorena McCourtney

  She jolted to a stop, water beating her face, pounding her body, stretching it as if she were on some liquid rack. Desperately she tried to get her nose above the choking deluge. Dimly, through a ragged veil of surging water, she saw figures on the ledge. Two figures, no, three. Then one was gone. They were shouting, she thought, but the roar of the river filled her ears now. It was within her, a part of her. Her head lolled to one side. It would be so much easier just to let go, release this agonizing pain in her shoulders.

  Hold on, Katy! Strangely, she had time to wonder where the command came from. From within herself? From a shouting figure? From the Lord? She hung on, not even certain what she was holding to. Only that her arms were stretched out in front of her, her hands clamped on something, legs trailing helplessly, buffeted by the current.

  Yes, the long branch had caught between rock and ledge! But for what purpose? She couldn’t fight her way upstream, could do nothing but cling here until her arms gave way or the branch broke.

  And then she was moving. Moving forward, inch by inch moving against the relentless flow of the river. How? She went under, came up choking, but she didn’t let go. Dimly she knew that even if consciousness failed her, she wouldn’t let go. Because, whether in this life or the next, she held fast to the eternal hands of the Lord.

  Then human hands were lifting her, dragging her across the rocky ledge, prying the rough branch from the death grip of her hands. Weakly she rolled to her stomach and then her knees, her head hanging between her outspread arms, coughing, spitting, gasping, choking, throwing up.

  She felt strong arms encircle her and a body shelter her protectively from the pounding rain, heard wordless murmurs of comfort. She relaxed limply. Jace’s body, Jace’s murmurs. She couldn’t say anything. Words couldn’t get past her numbed lips. But she could think them. Jace, Jace, I love you. And thank you, Lord, thank you for sending him to save me!

  He slipped out of his shirt, dried her face, and wrapped the damp shirt around her shoulders. Safe in his arms, head pressed against his chest, she felt more than heard the rumble of his words as he spoke to someone else. Joe, she thought vaguely, something about looking for Evan.

  Then, his body still sheltering her, she felt him lift and carry her. Brush scraped her legs as he carried her through the strip of woods and then broke into a run. Wind and rain tore at them, treacherously shifting to attack from all sides, but Jace’s stride never faltered. Then he was gently setting her on something, and she dimly realized it was the seat of the pickup, out of the wind, out of the rain.

  “Jace, I—” Nausea grabbed her, and she bent forward, coughing and choking.

  He got a blanket from behind the seat, wrapped it around her, and cradled her against him, gently rocking her. “Shhh. Don’t try to talk.”

  A soft whimper escaped her as her arms, with a sudden fierce strength of their own, wound around his body, willing him to stay close. His wet hair dripped on her, but she only tightened her arms.

  “It’s okay now, Katy. You’re safe now,” he crooned soothingly. “I love you.”

  Even in her sweet relief that water could no longer fill her lungs at any moment, the truth rushed back at her. “Maybe not,” she whispered.

  “Yes! Oh, Katy, if you knew how I felt when I saw you there in the water—”

  “I’m not Katy.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Katy, you’ve just had a terrible shock!”

  Even in her dazed, half-drowned condition, she realized that he didn’t believe her, that he thought she was just confused, delirious, hallucinating!

  She swallowed, the movement painful, her throat threatening revolt. She wanted to talk to him, wanted to tell him everything, but it was so difficult to get words out. Her voice felt strange, raspy and alien. But she must tell him one thing.

  It came out a croak. “Jace, I’m so sorry I was suspicious of you. I love you!”

  He drew back in spite of the vice grip of her arms, the look on his face surprised but guarded. As if he were dealing with someone not necessarily in full control of her mind. “Suspicious of me?”

  “And it wasn’t you. It was Evan. All the time it was Evan.” Another coughing spell shook her, and rivulets of cold sweat ran down her already shivering body. “Evan killed Kat. He tried to kill me!”

  Jace tilted his head to look at her, and she saw the troubled doubt in his hazel eyes. “Katy, I saw him trying to save you! He fell in the river trying to save you.”

  “No!” Wildly she realized how close Evan’s scheme had come to working. If she’d drowned, he’d have claimed he’d been trying to rescue her. He had Jace as an eyewitness to back him up. And even now Jace thought she was too confused to know what she was saying. “He pushed me in! Because he knew I was remembering I’m not Kat Cavanaugh.”

  “You’re in no condition to talk now.” Jace’s words cut decisively into her outpouring, as if he wanted to stop her from making more outrageous claims. In a soothing tone that angered her even in her weakness, he added. “I’ll get you to the house and then come back to help Joe and Mrs. L. look for Evan.”

  She tried to speak, but another coughing spell grabbed her, and she could only lean limply against him. She hadn’t the strength or energy to convince him now. Weakly she whispered, “I’ll be okay here.”

  “No, you won’t. Katy, you almost drowned, you’re shivering and—”

  Her strength momentarily surged, “I’m not Katy!”

  He hesitated, and then asked carefully, “If you aren’t Katy, who are you?”

  “My name is Sara Garrison.”

  He looked startled, as if he had expected more vague talk about shadows and indistinct feelings rather than such a direct, specific answer. “We’ll talk about this later,” he finally muttered.

  He slid into the pickup beside her, nudging her across the bench seat with his hip. He wheeled the vehicle in a tight circle, roaring past the forlorn little red convertible, its interior soaked and rainwater puddling on the black leather seats. By now the storm had almost passed, just a sprinkle of light raindrops still pattering the meadow grass flattened by the earlier fury of the brief summer downpour.

  At the house, without asking, he carried her from the pickup to the bedroom. His bare chest felt warm and solid against her chilled body. Before he could deposit her on the bed she struggled to her feet. “I’m okay. I can manage.”

  He balanced her lightly with his hands on her elbows, his troubled eyes questioning her condition, both physical and mental. “I hate to leave you like this, but we might still be able to find and save Evan.”

  “Yes. Go find Evan.”

  “You get out of these wet clothes and into bed.” He ran his hands up and down her chilled arms, massaging them lightly, as if to give her of his own warmth and strength. “Maybe a hot bath first.”

  “Jace, how did you happen to be there to rescue me?”

  He hesitated, as if he didn’t want to take time to explain, then hurriedly said, “Joe and I were headed for our kayaking area to pick up some equipment left behind a few days ago. I saw the convertible back there near the end of the meadow and thought that was peculiar. So we went over to investigate.”

  A simple, logical explanation. Yet she knew there was more to it than that. “You were there because the Lord put you there to save me from Evan.”

  His reaction to that statement was mixed, a nod to agree that his being where she needed help was the Lord’s doing, but a narrowing of his eyes in response to the strange workings of her mind concerning Evan. She could almost read paranoid and delusional written there.

  “I came home to the Lord last night, Jace,” she said softly. “I’ve been fighting it all this time. I was bitter and angry about something that happened in my life—my other life— but last night I found my way back to Him. And when I was in the water, I was scared. But I wasn’t alone.”

  Jace’s hands moved to her upper arms, and he leaned
over and kissed her lightly. “I’m glad. I’ve prayed for this.”

  “But you doubt it?” she asked, sensing an undercurrent of restraint.

  “I don’t know what to think,” he admitted. “You almost drowned, and you’re telling me so many strange things. That you’re not Katy, that Evan killed Kat and tried to kill you, that you’re suspicious of me—”

  “No, that I was suspicious of you, but I’m not now!”

  “Okay. Look, I have to go help Joe and Mrs. L. look for Evan. When he went in, she screamed and ran off down the river as if she might jump in after him. Even if he did what you say he did—”

  “I know. You still have to try to save him.”

  He nodded. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He kissed her again, then headed for the door, already at a run before he reached it. She still had his shirt, and she clutched it close to her face, taking comfort in the damp male scent of it. Absentmindedly, she realized she was barefoot. The river had snatched her shoes. She suspected it had taken more than that from Evan.

  She dropped to the edge of the bed when the back door slammed behind Jace, mind full to explosion with all that had happened, both today and months ago on an isolated road on the Oregon coast, all the years of a complete lifetime before that. The past crowded her, as if there were too much memory for the disk space of her mind. She was grateful that she now knew who she was, yet knowing came with a price, a bittersweet victory because of the pain that accompanied the knowledge.

  There were also bewildering spots of almost-memories that she knew weren’t hers, memories that belonged in Kat Cavanaugh’s past. But she’d tried so hard to be Katy Cavanaugh that even now some of the memories almost seemed to be her own. Wonderful Thornton and Mavis Cavanaugh, loving, caring parents—

  But not her parents because she was Sara Garrison

  She couldn’t begin to sort through everything at once. It was like a mountain of photo albums she must plow through, sorting among them to find the pictures that belonged to her. And there, at the very peak of the mountain of snapshot memories, was Cricket, her pictures glowing brightest of all. Sara’s heart ached with the pain of remembering sweet, loving, lost little Cricket.

  No, not lost, she contradicted fiercely, because till the very end, even in the midst of her pain, Cricket had clung tightly to her little-girl faith in Jesus.

  ***

  It was two hours before Jace and Joe and Mrs. L. returned to the house. Sara met them at the back door, the burgundy velvet robe she’d thrown on to chase away the chill of the river incongruous with the summer sun now blazing outside. Jace’s chest, still shirtless, looked warrior strong even though rough scratches streaked the tan, and his face was tired and grim. Dirt and river water spattered Mrs. L.’s clothes, and her gray hair hung disheveled around the haggard despair of her face. Joe held back as he followed the other two into the kitchen, as if he wasn’t quite sure where he fit into this strange situation.

  Jace shook his head in answer to the unspoken question in the tilt of Sara’s eyebrows. “We couldn’t find him.”

  “Maybe he climbed out of the river somewhere?”

  Jace glanced at Mrs. L. as if he hated to deprive her of hope, but his answer was decisive. “No. The river didn’t let him escape.”

  Even now, Sara couldn’t feel hatred for Evan, just a bewildered horror. And an aching for Mrs. L.’s pain, even though Mrs. L. had aided Evan in his murderous scheme. She glanced between Jace and Mrs. L., who had slumped to a bench in the breakfast nook. Mrs. L.’s face, crumpled with grief, also held a dazed disbelief, as if she couldn’t quite believe it had really come to this.

  “Did she tell you anything?” Sara/Katy asked.

  “Yes. That Evan was in love with Kat and had been for a long time. He stayed on here at the ranch after Barry left, thinking he had a chance with her after she’d broken her engagement to Barry. But when she laughed at him and made fun of his height and said she wouldn’t even be seen in public with such a shrimp, much less consider marrying him, he snapped.”

  Mrs. L. visibly cringed, although Sara didn’t know whether it was from horror at what her son had done or from hearing again the deliberate cruelty of Kat’s scornful words to him. The housekeeper’s eyes remained on her hands, her expression so hopeless that even after knowing she had lured Sara to the river for her death, Sara still felt a ragged sympathy and compassion for this woman who had been so good to her in so many ways.

  “So after it happened, after he killed her, Mrs. L. spread that story about taking Kat to meet friends in Redding to keep people from wondering about her disappearance. She had Kat’s roommates ship her things out here to stop any investigation in New York. And then, when she saw your photo in the newspaper, she thought it was a miracle, the way to prove to everyone that Kat was still alive and well.”

  Mrs. L. lifted tormented eyes. “I never thought far enough ahead, never thought about it coming to killing you. I called Evan the day after you got here. I made that special trip into Yreka to do it because I was afraid you might overhear if I called him from here. He was angry at first. He thought identifying you as Kat and bringing you to the ranch was a stupid thing to do. But I’d already done it, so he said we’d go along with it for a while. I kept hoping you’d never remember that you were someone else, that you’d just become Kat. Because you were so sweet and nice and I liked you. Sometimes I even thought that maybe somehow you really were Kat, that Evan thought he’d killed you but somehow he’d made a mistake. And you were still alive, and somehow you’d made your way to Oregon and become nicer when you got amnesia. I know that doesn’t make much sense, but. . .” Mrs. L.’s voice trailed off, and she wiped a trickle of tears from the corner of her eye.

  No, it didn’t make logical sense, Sara agreed, but she didn’t doubt how desperately Mrs. L. had wanted to believe it.

  “But you knew the body was buried out in the woods.” Jace’s voice wasn’t unkind, but it was uncompromising.

  Mrs. L. shook her head. “No, I didn’t know. I never saw the body. I thought he’d taken it far off somewhere. But Katy found the necklace out in the woods, and then I knew the body was buried out there, and somehow everything seemed so much more terrible after I knew that.”

  A pang of sadness and sympathy for the real Kat swept over Sara. Kat hadn’t been an admirable woman. She’d lived a shallow, self-centered, and misguided life. But to have it end in violence and a lonely grave in the woods. . .

  “And then—” Mrs. L. lifted her eyes to Sara’s, and her voice became a haunted whisper. “And then you started to see those ‘shadows.’”

  How well Sara remembered the first time she had seen those shadows in her mind. Almost wistfully, because she was already almost certain of the answer, she asked, “Was there ever a Fourth of July when the Cavanaughs and Kat and Evan went to a fireworks celebration?”

  Mrs. L. shook her head. “No, I just made that up. But after that night we knew you were starting to remember, and Evan wanted me to arrange an accident for you. But I just couldn’t do it, so he said we’d have to do it this way. I didn’t want to. I felt sick and miserable about it, and I tried and tried to think of some way not to do it. But there wasn’t any way around it, and we couldn’t wait until you remembered and ruined everything. So Evan came last night, in the middle of the night, in a car he rented under a phony name. He hid it in the woods a few miles down the road. And then this morning I got you to come back to the river with me. . .”

  The car she had seen last night when she peered out the window, Sara realized. Evan, with murder on his mind.

  Mrs. L. held out her hands and helplessly repeated the same words she’d spoken at the river. “I’m so sorry, Ka—” She broke off in the middle of the name, acknowledging now that it was wrong.

  “I’m Sara Garrison. Almost drowning in the river brought everything about my real identity back to me.”

  Mrs. L. asked no questions about that other identi
ty. She didn’t even look curious, just defeated and hopeless. “Evan always did have trouble with his temper,” she said, more as if she were talking to herself than to them. “That was why Thornton and Mavis thought it would be best if I didn’t work for them for a while when he was a teenager, and he resented that. And it hasn’t been easy for him, working for that stingy company in Texas, and them so mean and unpleasant when some of the franchises he’d set up didn’t work out.”

  Still making excuses for him, Sara realized regretfully. Just as she’d probably done all his life.

  “I have to call the authorities.” Jace glanced at Mrs. L., his face troubled.

  She looked up, coming out of her reverie about Evan, and smiled wanly. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll just wait in my room.”

  Joe hesitated and then said, “I’ll wait with you.”

  Sara curled up on the sofa in the living room, the velvet robe tucked around her bare feet, while Jace made the call. She was comfortably warm now, but a body memory of the chill of the river still lingered. After the phone call Jace reported that the authorities were on their way with a search party to look for Evan’s body and someone to pick up Mrs. L.

  “What will happen to her?” Sara asked.

  “Maybe a plea bargain of some kind, because I don’t think she’ll deny being an accomplice to attempted murder.” He came to the sofa and wrapped his arms around her. “Ka—Sara, can you forgive me for doubting what you said about Evan trying to kill you?”

  “It must have sounded like just one more bit of craziness from someone who was already swinging on a mental teeter-totter. Can you forgive me for being suspicious of you?”

  “Yes,” he said instantly, even before he knew what those suspicions were.

  She explained then, how she kept feeling she wasn’t Kat Cavanaugh, but if she wasn’t, where was the real Kat? And jumping from there to a suspicion that Kat was dead and either Barry or Jace must have killed her. “I suspected Barry because she’d dumped him personally and professionally, and I knew he’d threatened to kill her. But I also suspected you, thinking you were already angry about the land deal on the ranch, and then maybe you hadn’t told me the truth about you and Kat, that perhaps she had rejected you instead of the other way around, and when it happened you snapped. . .”