However, Phillip in his business suit looked out of place kneeling on the tile floor in front of the big, claw-footed tub. He glanced up as she approached. “What the devil is this gadget, and where’s the stopper for your drain?”
She studied the contraption he indicated—coiled, flexible steel tubing on one side of the faucet leading to a round, flat object pierced with dozens of small holes through which water was streaming.
“My shower,” she said slowly as the device came clear in her mind. “I had it installed.” Leaning over, she flipped a small lever. “This makes the water come out the faucet instead of the shower. And I don’t have a stopper for the tub, so you can’t fill it with water.” Her assertion surprised her by its intensity, the relief she felt in saying it.
Phillip was right. She didn’t like to take tub baths. In fact, she intensely disliked them, disliked the suffocating feeling of water around her body even when the water was only a few inches deep.
He stood, straightened his clothes. “Well, then, I’ll leave you to your shower. I’ll be downstairs if you need me, and I’ll spend the night in the guest room.” At the door he paused and looked at her quizzically. “1 never did understand why you didn’t take the guest room for yourself. It’s bigger, next door to the bath, has a better view.”
Take Mama and Papa’s room? “But I’ve had the same room since I was born,” she answered automatically then realized what she’d said. Phillip had told her she’d been in this house for only six months. “I mean...” She was too tired to figure out a way to cover her blunder. She bent to turn on the hot water and flip the diverter switch back to shower.
After a quick shower, she collapsed gratefully into her own bed. As she drifted off to sleep, she sent up a fervent prayer that she’d wake in the morning to find her world restored, Mama downstairs making breakfast, Papa alive, reading the newspaper and preparing to go to work.
*~*~*
From far away Elizabeth watched as the woman stirred, her pale hair spreading over the pillow like moonlight. But no moon shone through the clouds. The night was dark.
The woman raised her head slightly, seemed to be listening to something—perhaps the thunder that rumbled in the distance.
She turned on the lamp beside the bed and picked up the clock. The hands showed four o’clock. She switched off the light and settled into bed again.
A sound came like a whisper, a sound not of the approaching storm.
She sat upright in bed, eyes wide, head cocked to the side, listening, then slid quietly out of bed, shoving the covers to the floor in her haste.
The noise came again, closer, as if someone was moving up the stairs.
She yanked the lamp cord from the wall socket, tossed aside the shade and clutched the lamp around the middle, wielding its cut-crystal base as a makeshift club. Taking a deep breath, she tiptoed through her open bedroom door, down the hallway toward the stairs.
Lightning flashed, and in that instant a shadow moved on the landing, but darkness immediately reclaimed the house.
Cautiously she made her way down the hall to the landing then hesitated at the top of the stairs.
A board groaned behind her. Danger loomed suddenly, real and close.
She swung the lamp up and tried to turn, to defend herself.
Cold, hard hands gripped her bare shoulders. She could feel the pressure on her skin, the steel in the hands that shoved her downward. The lamp slipped from her fingers. She screamed, reached vainly for the rail.
Down and down she tumbled, over and over as her worst nightmare came true, her fear of falling becoming a reality. But the cold, suffocating blackness she somehow expected didn’t come, and she almost cried with relief when she hit the floor with a painful thud.
Before she could get up, he was there, a dark silhouette bending over her, shoving a pillow over her face. Panic stricken, she fought him, flailing against him, but he held her down, pressed the softness of the pillow tightly around her nose, her mouth—and the blackness stole her breath.
Then it was over and she floated upward toward the bright light that waited, beckoning. She turned back for one last look and saw him leaning over her body, feeling for a pulse.
And she remembered everything.
Sudden anger stirred her soul. No! She would not let him get away with this again.
She looked regretfully at the beckoning brilliance of the light, but made her decision. She had to stay.
A hand grasped her shoulder, shook her. She struggled to rise through the darkness, through the mists that weighted down her body, glued her eyelids closed. She tried to scream, but it came out a low moan.
Straining against the hands that held her, she dragged her eyes open, saw the figure looming over her in the darkness and was finally able to scream.
“Easy, sweetheart,” Phillip soothed. “It’s me. Everything’s all right. You were having a bad dream, moaning and thrashing around in here.”
She collapsed back against the pillows, let out her breath, willed her racing heart to slow.
Her gaze was drawn to the clock. Four o’clock, just like in the dream.
Phillip sat on the edge of the bed and took her hand. “What were you dreaming that upset you so badly?”
“I don’t remember,” she lied. The dream was still too close, too terrifying to discuss. She wanted him to leave, give her time to think. “I’m awfully sleepy.” She lay back on the pillow and closed her eyes, remaining in that position until she felt his weight lift from the bed and heard her door close.
She stared into the darkness, replaying the dream in her mind. Every detail remained distinct and vivid. Someone had come into her house, pushed her down the stairs, smothered her—tried to kill her—did kill her. But she’d come back, angry and determined to stop her killer.
In your dream, she reminded herself as panic sent her heart racing, turned her skin clammy and damp. Only in your dream.
She sat up, turned on the bedside lamp and looked at it.
Relief flooded through her. It was similar to the one in her dream, but a little different. Both had crystal bases, but the one she’d wielded and dropped on the stairs in her nightmare had been solid crystal. This one had a marble pedestal.
Only a dream.
She flicked off the light and lay back down, turning her head to the side...and even in the dark of the cloudy night she could see that the lamp on the other side of the bed was missing.
She felt again the hands on her shoulders pushing her downward, the pillow over her face suffocating her, squeezing the life from her.
Nightmare or memory?
She had awakened at the foot of the stairs. Had someone pushed her? Had someone tried to kill her?
Of course not. Why would anyone want her dead?
She couldn’t answer that question since she couldn’t remember anything about Analise’s life.
She was no longer sleepy, couldn’t lie still. She got out of bed and paced nervously about the room, searching desperately in the corners of her mind, willing the hidden thoughts to surface.
Nothing came.
She leaned her forehead wearily against the window and looked across the yard to the Waller house. She used to be able to see right into Rachel Waller’s bedroom. She and Rachel had often stood in the dark and passed secret signals—signals that didn’t always make sense even to them, but the secrecy from their parents was the important part.
She stepped back, wrapped her arms around her bare shoulders. No, she reminded herself. Dylan lived in that house. She’d invented the Wallers. She’d invented Rachel.
She straightened, lifted her head, recalling that Dylan had admitted that he lived in Rachel Waller’s house, the previous owner.
Rachel had been a real person.
But that only meant she’d heard the name of the owner of the house next door and used it in her fantasy.
She peered intently at Rachel’s house, Dylan’s house. The curtain in Rachel’s room seemed to move, a
nd for an instant she thought she saw her friend standing there.
Impossible.
She shivered, backed across the room, gave herself a mental shake. Even if someone had been there, she wouldn’t have been able to see the person on this overcast night. Her imagination was running away with her again.
Nevertheless, she moved slowly to the window, approaching it from the side. As though sneaking up on someone, she thought, telling herself how absurd she was being. She peered out cautiously, but the curtains across the way were motionless.
Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone had been watching her. And not just someone. She fancied she had felt Dylan’s gaze on her, his eyes the color of the night and just as deep.
She flung herself back into bed, away from the window.
But she couldn’t get away from the piercing memory of Dylan’s gaze or the thrilling memory of his hand holding her arm.
Even as she recalled his touch, the dream came back to her—another feeling of strong hands. She shuddered, rebuked herself for even thinking such things. No one had tried to kill her. Certainly not Dylan. He’d helped her. His touch was gentle.
But he had shown a great deal of concern about what she did or didn’t remember. Did he want to be certain she didn’t remember him pushing her down the stairs, smothering her with a pillow?
Chapter Four
In his bedroom Dylan let the curtain fall, stepped back and sank onto the edge of his bed. He drew a hand across his forehead, wiping away the damp beads of perspiration. The room was cool, but the dream had shaken him.
It was the same nightmare he’d had all his life, and it always took him an hour or two to recover from the horror. But this time was the worst. This time the face had changed to Analise’s at the last minute. This time it was Analise who’d lifted her arms from the engulfing waves, her eyes pleading, as though he could help her. The terror, the knowledge of death and finally the look of accusation when he couldn’t save her had distorted Analise’s face the way it usually did the face of the unknown dark-haired woman.
He’d awakened, gulping for air, sweating profusely, and vaulted to the window, looked out, and saw Analise standing at her window, staring back at him as if she somehow knew his dream, his thoughts, his plans.
He reached over and turned on the lamp. There was no point in going back to bed. He never slept after the dream.
He headed downstairs to make some coffee. After Phillip left Analise’s house, he would go get some chocolate frosted doughnuts, Analise’s favorite. The pastries had gained him entrance to her house on several mornings, had given him the chance to talk to her, to try to win her trust, to trap her. He’d made progress, he thought. She’d become more friendly though a part of her remained aloof.
Today he was grateful for that aloofness.
Until the events of Sunday, he’d come dangerously close to letting himself be blinded by his desire to trust her. The really crazy part was that, even after Sunday, even after yesterday, he wanted, against all the evidence, to believe she was sincere. He wanted it more than ever. Overnight she seemed to have developed a new dimension, one that called out to an unexplored dimension inside him.
The memory of her sudden openness and her demure yet blatant sensuality made him wish desperately that their circumstances were different, that he was keeping such close tabs on her for a different reason. But always the memories of Tom’s charred body, of his mother screaming, of his father’s agony came up to keep him focused on reality.
He peered from his living room window and scanned the side of her house. All her windows were dark. There was no sign of activity. She’d gone back to bed...alone, he assumed. He’d seen a light in the spare bedroom earlier. And surely she wouldn’t have been watching him from her window if Phillip had been in the same room.
Even knowing the futility of it, he couldn’t stop the rise of white-hot fury that came with the thought of Phillip. He forced himself to turn away and head for the kitchen. But the image of Phillip in his tailor-made business suit with those eyes of shiny, dirty ice pursued him. He hated the man, and he couldn’t stand the thought of Analise sleeping with him.
He snatched up the coffeepot and went to the faucet to fill it. His hands shook, and he ordered himself to get his emotions under control. But it was tough. Before yesterday he’d seen Phillip only in pictures, from a distance when he watched the man’s big house in Leawood and from the window when Phillip came to see Analise.
Seeing him so close, being forced to shake his hand, watching him touch Analise, suspecting that his well-manicured fists had put those bruises on her, he’d had to fight to keep from attacking Phillip on the spot. He’d wanted to wipe that condescending smile off his face.
And now to think of him in the same bed as Analise, touching her bare skin...
He wouldn’t think about that. It was irrelevant, had nothing to do with the reason he was there.
He poured water into the coffee maker and cursed his weakness.
*~*~*
As soon as Phillip left with a promise to return that evening, Analise got up and dressed then went downstairs. Though she preferred the taste of tea, a cup of strong, sweet coffee should go a long way toward clearing the remnants of her nighttime fantasies.
When she stepped onto the landing, however, a shiver ran down her spine, so strong a sensation of doom that she actually turned around in a slow circle, making sure no threat waited in the shadows as it had in her dream.
Shaking off the eerie feeling, she continued on down to the kitchen.
She found a can of real coffee, not the instant stuff Phillip and Dylan had used the night before, but she wasn’t up to trying to figure out how to use the electric machine and couldn’t find a percolator. However, she could always make boiled coffee.
She turned on the fire the way she’d seen Phillip do and set the saucepan containing water and coffee over the flame. That accomplished, she relaxed, began to feel a little more normal. This house, at least, was familiar. That was a starting point. Looking around her, she determined to concentrate, to find what she’d lost.
The cabinets, the sink, the icebox, the floor—everything was different, but the room itself was the same. The back door should have a crack in the window, but it didn’t, and the screen wasn’t rusted. Nevertheless, it still led to the backyard.
She moved to the window and looked out, through the gray, misty morning onto a scene of large trees just beginning to bud. A stump rested where her elm tree with the swing had stood. She turned back inside, feeling as though she’d just lost an old friend.
Across the room she saw the door that led to the narrow back stairs. It looked familiar and welcoming. She crossed to it, opened it and gazed up. The stairs were as dark, forbidding and perversely inviting as ever.
A warm feeling washed over her, and she smiled as she thought of the many times she’d climbed those stairs to the attic, to what she’d always considered her private room. After she’d discovered her own baby furniture stored up there, she’d insisted it was her dolls’ room and had gone there to play in spite of the heat in summer and the cold in winter. Then she’d continued to go up there as a teenager to write in her journal. Even after she’d married, she’d left the journal there, sneaking up on her visits home to write in secret.
She gripped the door handle tightly, excitement surging through her. The journal! Would it be where she’d hidden it?
She stepped back, clenching her fists, fighting the insanity of that thought. Of course it wouldn’t be there. The journal didn’t exist. Elizabeth Dupard didn’t exist. Perhaps she’d read a book, a story from a hundred years ago, and the head injury had caused confusion between fiction and reality.
But—she allowed some of the excitement to return—she had incorporated a real person, Rachel Waller, into her story. If she had created a memory of hiding something in the attic, maybe it was because Analise had hidden something in the attic, the something that had been pulling her
upstairs last night. She started up but hesitated on the second floor.
Papers. That’s what Analise had hidden. But not in the attic, in the third bedroom. She almost laughed aloud. She remembered!
She dashed down the hall and yanked open the door then stepped back, her heart sinking. The room bore no resemblance to the bedroom she remembered. It housed a baffling array of items including a big wooden desk, metal cabinets, tables, a small bookcase and strange machines. Stacks of papers covered everything. She almost backed away, confused and intimidated, but instead she forced herself to enter, to sit in the chair and pick up a pile of the papers. This was a link to Analise...her office, she realized. All these things were familiar to her, hidden somewhere in the depths of her memory.
Most of the documents seemed to deal with the antique shop she’d seen in the picture on her dresser, the antique shop she apparently owned. Many were receipts for repairs she’d had done to the house. Then she found an envelope addressed to Analise Parrish, postmarked Tulsa, Oklahoma, from Carl and Elaine Parrish. Hesitating, feeling as if she were invading someone else’s privacy, she pulled the letter from the open envelope.
“Dear Analise,” it began. She flipped to the bottom of the second page. “Love, Mom and Dad.”
Analise’s parents were both still alive though they lived far away in another state.
Tears filled her eyes as she read the breezy, newsy letter, as the picture of the smiling, blond woman who’d written it took shape in her mind. Analise’s mother—her mother—was very different from Mama. She was younger, more independent, more like a friend than a mother. But Analise adored her. She knew that, and for the first time, she found Analise inside herself—a small part of Analise, but the rest must be there somewhere.
Shifting Shadows Page 5
