by Nancy Allan
Amy turned away and went back into the living room where she paced in front of the stone fireplace, oblivious to the fire’s warmth. Even though she had showered, her hair was almost dry, and she had changed into jeans and a sweatshirt, she still shivered, unable to get warm. Listlessly, she walked over to the living room windows, flipped on the yard lighting, and pressed her forehead against the cold glass. She peered into the black void over the bay, her thoughts on the woman she’d seen.
Who was she? How could she look like me? How’s that possible? What is going on? Mentally Amy ticked off family members. Not one of them resembled her. They were scattered across the continent, were of various ages, but she couldn’t think of anyone who was close to her age, size, or appearance. Then who?
The moon slipped out from behind the clouds spilling a wide beam of white light across the bay. Huge breakers crested toward the beach. Near the house, trees and shrubs danced in the wind.
A powerful beam of light swept over Cape Peril. A helicopter hovered, its searchlights sweeping the cape, the lighthouse, down the steep cliffs, and out over the sea.
Amy pulled back from the window and examined Dan’s reflection in the glass. He was perched on a stool in front of the bar, pouring another shot of whiskey into his glass. He downed it in a single gulp. “I should be at the hospital, not wasting my time here. I’m supposed to be on call.” He slipped off the stool and walked over to the window, nodding in the direction of the helicopter hovering over the cape. “This whole thing’s a big farce. Can’t imagine what they’re doing out there, besides wasting taxpayer’s money. And to top it off, those idiots wanted my fingerprints and blood samples. Jerks.”
With her back to him, Amy replied, “I wish you’d cooperate with them, Dan. They need to be able to identify the prints they’re lifting from the window, from ours. They must wonder why you made such a fuss about it and why you kept insisting nothing happened when the opposite is so blatantly obvious.”
“Oh come on, Amy, I was trying to prevent bad publicity.” He returned to the bar for a refill.
Amy glanced over her shoulder at him. “Always worried about bad publicity.”
Dan slammed the whiskey glass down on the granite countertop. “I do. You go around saying this woman looks like you and the people in this town will label you crazy. I don’t want them thinking I’m married to a lunatic. For all I know, you saw your own damned reflection.”
Amy was stunned. She whirled around and stared at her husband. “Surely, you don’t believe that.”
Dan shrugged and lifting his whiskey glass, downed the last ounce.
Amy could feel anger creeping through her like hot lava and this surprised her. Complacent by nature, she seldom got angry. “You care about what people might think, but you don’t give a damn about what happened here, tonight. Instead, you did your best to discredit me—to make me appear witless!”
He swiveled around on the stool and looked directly at her. “Sometimes you get carried away over things, make a big deal out of nothing. You know how you can be.”
Dan poured another shot. “Not only that, I didn’t want the police out here snooping around, like they’re doing right now. And I don’t want this hitting the press, which is exactly what’s going to happen.” Angrily, he downed the shot.
Amy said sarcastically, “The publicity thing again.”
Dan rubbed his eyes in frustration. After a beat he said, “Okay, let’s say you did see a woman. Maybe she was hurt.” He saw Amy’s look. “Okay, maybe she was bleeding. And just maybe she kind of looked like you. It was dark. How could you have seen her face?”
“I told you. I turned around and she was right there…outside the window, not five feet away. And that was before the power went out.”
“Doesn’t make sense. None at all. Were you drinking or what?”
“Drinking?” Amy stepped over to the bar and lifted the whiskey bottle. “No, Dan, I wasn’t drinking. That’s your diversion, not mine.”
“All right. Don’t get all riled up. It was just a question.”
Amy stared at her husband. At thirty-eight he was still good looking—although he worked at it—the gym four times a week to keep his body toned, the stylist twice a month for a trim and a dye job, manicures, tanning beds, and who knew what else. Nevertheless, nothing could alter that charming boyish face that women loved. As an OB/GYN, his practice was overflowing with doting women. Amy pictured them, one after the other, on his examining table, Dan’s hands sliding over their naked skin, probing intimate areas of their bodies. How long had it been since those hands touched me? How long since Dan and I have made love? How long since he had spoken to me with any respect? Or, since we’ve had a normal, intelligent conversation?
His voice brought her back.
“What?” She realized that she was staring at him and turned away.
Dan repeated himself. “I said, ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’”
Amy shook her head. “Never mind. I’m going to make a fresh pot of coffee. Want anything?”
“Yeah. Make me an Espresso. In fact, make it a double. And see if there’s any of that deli meat left in the fridge. I’ll have that too. Never had time for supper, thanks to this fiasco.”
Amy made a plate for Dan while the espresso machine dripped dark black coffee into a demitasse. She took the plate and expresso over to him. “Want anything else?”
“Yeah. Tell everybody to go home. You’ve created a hell of a mess here, Amy.”
She turned away. “I’ll go see how they’re making out.” Amy left Dan and walked into her study. She was conflicted. On one hand, it bothered Amy immensely that Dan was angry with her for causing so much trouble. She didn’t like upsetting him that way. On the other hand, she was worried about the woman she’d seen. The whole thing had left Amy with an ominous feeling she couldn’t shake.
From the window, she watched the scene outside. Two patrol cars were on the drive, lights flashing. Crime scene tape traveled from the garden below the window all the way to the road. The sheriff was talking to his team as they were wrapping up. The dog handler got in his truck and pulled away. Turning, the sheriff spotted Amy in the window and motioned her outside. Amy threw on her coat and padded out onto the porch in socks, closing the door firmly behind her. She didn’t want Dan involved.
Dallas bounded up the stairs two at a time, landing outside the front door as she stepped onto the landing. Amy looked up at him. Sanville’s sheriff was well over six feet, lean, big shoulders, weathered face, and pale blue eyes that, at this moment, seemed to be looking right into her. She took a step back and caught her breath. The sudden rush of emotion stunned her. Dan had been the only man she’d ever loved, and even though the love had slowly drained from their marriage, she had never considered another man. Amy felt herself flush. Dallas was speaking to her. She took a deep breath, tried to compose herself, and met his gaze.
“We’re finished for tonight, Mrs. Johnson.”
“You didn’t find her.”
“No ma’am. But Max picked up the trail.”
“Max?”
“The tracker dog. We use him in situations like this. It was Max that found that fellow who went missing from Mabel Beach last month.
Amy nodded, remembering.
The sheriff continued. “Blood is a powerful human scent for a tracker dog, even with the rain we had. His handler let Max sniff a sample and then dispatched him from the road, back down the drive to your garden, and then across the lawn and into the brush, where you described the incident earlier tonight. The rain made it difficult, but Max was able to pick up the scent now and again, all the way back to the lighthouse and a clearing in the trees where a car had been parked.”
Surprised, Amy said, “You mean, she was right there, in the brush?”
“That’s right.”
Amy tried to make sense of this. “So, are you saying she came by car and parked it over at the lighthouse...then walked all the way here through t
he brush?” Amy’s thoughts flashed back to the eerie sound she had heard in the brush like a voice calling her name. She shuddered.
“Appears that way,” Dallas repeated. “She left some pretty good fingerprints on your window as well as a clear set of footprints in the garden. Problem is,” he hesitated, “there’s a second set of footprints there. That pair belong to a much larger, very heavy individual. The rain must have stopped around that time because those large mucky boot marks are visible on your drive, along side the trail of blood.” Dallas pointed out the markings as he spoke. “Interestingly, the small set of footprints enter the garden, but they don’t leave, suggesting the victim was carried to a waiting vehicle.”
Amy grew more distressed. “But I would have seen that.”
“It must have taken place before you arrived outside. How long did it take you to get from the study to the garden, keeping in mind that you said you didn’t react immediately?”
She thought back. How much time had she lost before her dash down the hall? She’d been in shock. Time had passed, but how much? “Maybe five minutes. Maybe more. I’m not sure.” She rubbed her forehead, and then looked over her shoulder toward the garden. “I’m confused, Sheriff. You say someone carried the woman to a vehicle. If that’s the case, did she come with someone, or did someone come after her?”
The sheriff removed his hat and ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. He twisted the cap back into place. “There was a second vehicle.”
“How do you know?”
Dallas considered a moment before answering. “We know a car was parked over by the lighthouse. We’re assuming the person in question parked there, out of the line of sight of your house. Meanwhile, we found tire tracks near the lighthouse that go right over the edge.”
Amy’s eyes widened. Are you saying…?”
“The car was pushed off the cliff.”
CHAPTER 3
Sleep was impossible. Amy tossed and turned; her dreams were a disturbing collage of the evening’s events. The woman’s face appeared repeatedly, awaking Amy each time. Was she seeing that woman or herself? About 2 a.m. she sat bolt upright, bathed in sweat. In the twilight, Dan’s sleeping outline was visible in the next bed. She missed the comforting warmth of his body next to hers, especially tonight. After Jamie was born, he’d replaced their king bed with two doubles, complaining that Amy’s getting up for the baby disturbed his sleep. When Jamie began sleeping through the night, she tried to convince Dan to go back to their king bed, but he refused.
Amy slipped out of bed, tiptoed to the closet for her robe and slippers, and without using lights, went out into the hall. She stopped outside Jamie’s room. The nightlight by his bed cast soft light across his pillow where Mush, his favorite bear, was sitting. How had he forgotten Mush? He never went to Nita’s without it. Amy made a mental note to drop it off for him in the morning. She padded down the stairs to the study.
Nagging thoughts of deadlines and unfinished blueprints prompted her to turn on the Mac. She selected a drawing file in the hope of re-focusing her thoughts onto something productive. The floor plan flew open on the big screen, she made a few modifications, but her concentration waned. She closed the file and left the study.
Amy roamed from room to room listlessly, questions stalking her like ghosts. Who was that woman? Where did she come from? Why did she come here? Why does she look like me? How’s that even possible? Amy stopped at the door to the library that was tucked off the living room. Old photo albums lined the lower bookshelves. She hadn’t looked at them in years, and didn’t want to now; but maybe, just maybe, they held a clue.
Walking into the room, she dropped cross-legged onto the braided rug, and gazed reluctantly at the albums, dreading their contents, afraid to see the painful memories that they harbored. It was some time before she gathered enough courage to pull out a fat, pink book filled with her baby pictures and images of her childhood. Our Daughter was embossed on the cover. Reluctantly, Amy lifted the hard cover.
Her mother’s handwriting leapt from the first page. Amy’s birth was recorded as 12:12 a.m. June 2nd, thirty-two years earlier in Beaverdale, a small town southwest of Portland.
A tiny footprint, a miniature handprint, and a clipping of platinum hair, like Jamie’s, attested to her fragile beginning. Further along, old photos of a scrunched little face stared back at her. “Pixie,” she said involuntarily, recalling her old nickname.
Photo after photo recorded her growth and development. The infant blossomed into a toddler with a head of flaxen curls and a mischievous smile, also like Jamie’s. Amy thumbed through the pages and swallowed hard when a 5x7 photo of her parents jumped from the page. She wanted to snap the book closed to protect herself from the memories. No!
Inhaling deeply, she willed herself to continue. Quickly, she turned the page. This time it was a photo of her dad that stopped her. He’d been gangly and fun loving in his youth, but over the years he’d changed. He had matured into a wonderful, confident, caring man. A deep, dark sadness welled up in her. If only… No! Don’t think about it.
Her finger slid across to an enlargement of her mom--young and vibrant--cradling Amy lovingly in her arms. Photos depicted the years passing happily. Finally, Amy came to the last and final family photo. Her father, his hand on her shoulder, beamed proudly. Her mom had both arms around her. Suddenly, Amy was in the room with them. She could feel the warmth of her father’s strong hand, mother’s excitement, and their protective love. Her mother’s hearty laughter rang in Amy’s ears. “Oh, Mom.” Amy pressed the book close to her chest and squeezed her eyes shut. “Dad,” she whispered. "I miss you both so much." The album slipped from her hands…and she wept.
Memories overwhelmed her, memories she had carefully locked out for years. Her father’s excitement at her accomplishments, her mom’s warm embrace, and days filled with wonder and joy. She had loved her parents with all her young being. Then, suddenly, they were gone. Obliterated. A horrific accident. Bodies so mangled that closed coffins were necessary. She’d never had the chance to see her parents one last time and say her goodbye. Amy could never get past that. A single word, but so important.
A year of her teenage life disappeared. She fell into an abyss of darkness, grief, and crippling heartache. It was like being hit by a truck at full speed. Her soul had been crushed.
Amy recalled the premonition that haunted her for days before their accident. Afterward, she’d wished she could have deciphered the strange, ominous feeling. Had she been able to do that, she may have found a way to save their lives. Finally, Amy wiped her tears and pulled the album back into her lap. Her mother’s photo stared up at her. Her beauty held an astral quality. Had it foretold her fate?
Amy was hit by the realization, that at age thirty-two, Amy now looked almost exactly like her mom at the time of the photo. Amy pushed herself off the carpet and walked to the fireplace mantle where there was a recent photo of herself. She pulled it out of the frame and returned quickly to the library where she placed it beside her mom’s. She stared in astonishment. We’re almost identical!
And now—there’s three of us...
Amy thumbed through the baby book again, reading the captions her mother had written. Then, one by one Amy searched each family album for a clue to the existence of the woman she had seen at the window. There wasn’t a sign of another child who resembled Amy.
Hours later, Dan’s disgruntled voice awoke her. “What the hell are you doing down here?”
Her eyes flew open. Light streamed in the windows, rays dancing across her face. She squeezed her eyes closed, and sat up, trying to understand what she was doing on the rug in the library. When she remembered, a heaviness re-settled over her.
She trailed Dan into the kitchen. He grabbed the cereal box; she reached for the coffeepot. “You look like shit,” he told her, pulling a bowl from the cupboard.
“Thanks. Want toast with your cereal?” Amy stumbled around the kitchen waiting for the coffee to brew.
“No, I don’t want toast.” He pulled the milk from the fridge and read the date. “It’s expiring this week. You need to go shopping, Amy. You know I hate stale milk,” he grumbled, pouring it over his cereal. “You’re not keeping up with things, Amy.”
She sat down across from Dan, eyeing him. Nothing was good enough anymore. She didn’t buy the right groceries, she allowed dust to settle on the furniture, she let Jamie spread his toys across the carpet, and on and on. The complaint list grew longer every week.
He interrupted her thoughts. “I’ve been thinking about last night. You’re obviously stressed out. I think this would be a good time for you to take that vacation your firm owes you. Go away for a while. Nita can look after Jamie.” He looked over at her purposely, waiting for a response. When none came, he continued, “You’ve been working too hard. You need a break. Go somewhere for a couple of weeks. I’ll let Nita know.”
Groggily, Amy got up and poured the rich steaming coffee into her mug and held the pot in his direction. He held out his cup and she poured. “No, Dan, I’m not going anywhere. And I’m not leaving Jamie. What I am going to do is find out who that woman is, and what’s going on.”
“No! Amy, don’t do that. Leave it alone. You hear me? Things are getting out of hand. I don’t want you making a bigger deal out of this than you already have.” He ate in silence then dropped his spoon. “Damn it, I wish you hadn’t called the sheriff.” He picked up the spoon and tapped the tabletop with it. “Complicates things.”
Surprised, Amy said, “Really? Most people don’t think of the sheriff as a complication unless they’re on the wrong side of the law.” She cocked her head and looked at him intently, once again feeling anger rise within her. Does he ever care about anyone but himself? “You know, for a doctor, you’ve got shockingly little compassion for people.”
Dan dropped the spoon and stared at her. “What did you say?”
Amy turned away. Where did that come from? The truth was, she was weary of Dan’s self-centered, uncaring attitude. She turned back, her eyes steady on his, “You never care about anyone, except yourself, Dan. It’s tiring.”
