Stranger in the Mirror [Shades of Heaven] (Soul Change Novel) (6 page)

Caty strode up next to Dean. “You remember Dean, don’t you?” To Dean she said, “She lost some of her memory.”

Marti shook her head. “No, I don’t. Nice to see you again, though.”

“I heard you was attacked,” Dean said. “I had an aunt that was attacked, too.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Marti said.

“It was by a herd of bees, though.”

Marti’s gaze dropped to the floor for a minute to gain composure. “That’s… terrible.”

“Yeah, it was. She had stings all over her body, all puffed up and red.” Dean demonstrated by puffing out his cheeks.

Jesse interrupted him. “Dean, that’s a real interesting story, but I’ve got to”—he looked around the table, then grabbed a handful of lettuce from the salad bowl—“feed Jed.”

Dean scratched his chin. “Is that a herd of bees, or a pack?”

Jesse shook his head as he escaped to the living room to drop the lettuce into Jed’s cage. His mother’s computer, on a desk in the corner, caught his eye. He didn’t have much use for surfing the Internet, wasting time sitting on his butt, but now it drew him.

He knew enough to find a search site and type in the names Marti had given him. He tried a couple different spellings before he got what looked to be viable hits.

The most interesting headline was on YouTube, a clip from a show called, “Americans in Trouble Abroad.” He clicked on the link, and the screen popped up.

A thin man in a dress shirt and tie looked incongruent amidst tropical foliage and people in bathing suits lounging around a sparkling pool. “On our story today, Californians Jamie and Hallie DiBarto ran into some serious trouble in paradise last weekend. I’m here on the Isle of Constantine, just east of Jamaica. Fellow Californian Mick Gentry flew to Caterina, the resort the DiBartos own, stalked the couple for several days, then broke in and viciously ripped Mrs. DiBarto from her bed while she slept.

“Gentry slammed Mr. DiBarto over the head with a metal pipe before forcing his wife along this beach and over those rocks where he had a sailboat anchored offshore.” The camera followed the route along the beach and over a hill of sharp-edged boulders.

“Barely holding onto consciousness, Mr. DiBarto dragged himself to the raft Gentry was struggling with as Mrs. DiBarto fought him. He managed to knock Gentry unconscious and drag him to shore. The DiBartos, still shaken about the ordeal, agreed to grant us a short interview.”

A beautiful blonde sat in one of the swinging chairs that surrounded an outdoor bar. She could definitely be a model, Jesse thought, feeling a strange tightness in his chest. Beside her sat a handsome blond man, everything Jesse pictured when Marti described Jamie.

“Did you know the man who tried to kidnap you, Mrs. DiBarto?”

“Yes. He was… an old lover from a lifetime ago. He was very jealous when I broke things off. I wanted to leave Mick and that whole life behind me.” Hallie looked at her husband with determination, then at the camera. “It’s a good warning: always be careful who you let into your life.”

“And what about Mick Gentry, you might ask,” the reporter said, now standing outside a stucco building amidst a curious crowd of colorfully dressed black people. The camera focused on a hand-painted tin sign swinging in the breeze that read
JAIL
.

“Mick Gentry spent time in this primitive, four-foot-by-four-foot jail cell.” As the reporter stepped inside, a thin man in uniform demonstrated incarceration, waving his hands through the bars. “The most serious crime in this village of three hundred is the occasional rumsoaker, as they call the drunks here. Strangely enough, Gentry was released without any further punishment other than being banned from the island forever.”

“Dat loony be gone, mon,” the man said, coming out to stand beside the reporter, his white teeth in stark contrast to his jet black skin.

“This is Bailey, the local jail keep. What can you tell us about him?”

“Dey make some deal and send him from our island.” He smiled. “But we kept da’ sailboat.”

“We just wanted him off the island,” Hallie said in a clip from the earlier interview. “There’s no reason for him to come back again.”

“And so,” the reporter finished, “the DiBartos continue rebuilding their lives, and only time will tell if old wounds heal. Gentry couldn’t be reached for comment.”

“Wow, the power of obsession,” a woman at a round desk said, closing the story. “Check out our other stories on our channel, where two sisters fight pirates...”

Jesse tuned out the rest, stunned. Jamie, Hallie, the island resort. All that craziness Marti had told him, all true. It was hard to imagine that the woman in Marti’s body had looked like the Hallie on television. No wonder she wanted her old body back. He closed his mouth for the first time since clicking on the link and marched into the kitchen.

“There you are,” Helen said. “Would you please start on those dish—”

He took Dean’s arm with one hand, and Billy’s with the other. “Why don’t you two fellows take a walk down by the river? I have something to talk to the girls about, and it’s personal.”

Billy laughed. “What, you gonna talk about periods or something?”

Jesse didn’t answer, just steered the two toward the swinging door. Dean looked apprehensively toward the river, then at Billy.

“He won’t throw you in again.” Jesse gave his brother a meaningful squeeze on the shoulder. “Will you, Billy?”

“‘Course not.” He put an arm around Dean, then looked at Jesse. “You girls have a nice talk now.”

Jesse turned to find all three women watching him, waiting. “Okay, sit down. I’ve got something to tell you.”

They sat down at the table, still cluttered with serving dishes and crumbs.

“Ma, Caty.” Jesse turned to Marti. “I’d like you to meet Hallie DiBarto.”

Marti’s mouth dropped open. “Jesse.”

He put his hand on her arm. “I want to tell them the truth.”

And he did, from her inability to recognize him at the hospital, to their conversation on the swings, and when he’d called Caterina back by hitting the redial button. Marti only nodded to this fact or that, probably because he’d taken over. After he’d finished, both Caty and Helen sat back in their chairs with confused expressions on their faces.

“Is this some kind of joke?” Helen asked.

“Would I joke about something like this?”

Helen’s and Caty’s expressions were mixed now as they looked at her.

“It’s true,” Marti added.

“The reason I told you is that Marti’s going to need help in the next few months, and it’ll be easier if you know what’s going on. But I don’t want anyone else to know, even Billy. No telling who he’ll blab to. Caty, I need you to give Marti a quick waitressing lesson tomorrow when she goes back to work. Maybe you can get there early and show her the ropes. Caty?”

Caty snapped out of the stare she was giving Marti. “She’s really someone different? It’s not just a memory lapse?”

Marti fiddled with a napkin. “I’m really someone else. This is all new to me, the small town, being a waitress.” She tried not to wrinkle her nose. “I feel like I’m on a different planet, all alone.”

Helen reached over and patted her hand. “You’re not alone.” She kept looking at Jesse, maybe to make sure it wasn’t a joke. Or insanity. “We’re just glad you’re here, and that both you and the baby are all right.”

It was acceptance, tentative, but acceptance all the same. He wasn’t sure they completely believed them, and he couldn’t blame them. The oddest part, though, was the soft, teary look on Marti’s face as she looked at his mom’s hand on hers.

Enclosed in the privacy of the truck cab, Marti turned to Jesse. “What possessed you to tell them the truth? And why didn’t you warn me?”

Telling her about the story on
IN THE NEWS TODAY
would only make her worry about that other life, and possibly send her scurrying off to the Isle of Constantine. He didn’t want that, not just yet. He settled on the half-truth.

“I was watching you all evening, at dinner and around my family, and I realized that you really aren’t Marti. I believe you.”

“Was it the kiss?” she asked, her throaty voice sounding odd.

The kiss. He knew what he was trying to prove until his mouth touched hers, and then he forgot how the old Marti even kissed. The way this Marti responded was far different than the way she used to, which lacked anything that would make his heart go as fast as his racecar.

“Forget that,” he said, wishing he could. “It was everything.”

Her expression grew softer. “You really do believe me?”

“Yes. And once I believed you, the truth burst right out. Now Billy and Dean I wouldn’t trust with this crazy secret, but I trust Ma and Caty.” Jesse started the truck but turned to her before putting it in gear. “You know, that was almost as hard as the first time, when I told them you were pregnant and we were getting married. I wasn’t sure if Ma would throw me outta the house or have the men in the white coats haul me away.”

She rolled her eyes. “Too much time spent here, and the men in the white coats will be hauling
me
away.”

While Jesse took a shower, Marti wandered around the living room and scanned the photos on one wall. She stopped at a picture of Jesse standing next to a black Nova with a yellow thirteen on the side. He held up a trophy, his white smile triumphant. A black and white picture showed the front of a car, parked in a garage with the hood up. Sticking out of the roomy engine compartment was an older man with Billy’s beady eyes and same silly grin.

“That’s my dad,” Jesse’s voice said from behind her.

“Geez!” She spun to face him, her hand on her heart. “And you yelled at me for sneaking up on you the other night.”

He shrugged, looking boyish with his towel-ruffled hair. “You’re not carrying a rifle.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I wish I was.” Turning back to the engine picture, she said, “What happened to him? You said something about your grandmother seeing him in Heaven.”

“It was a freak accident during the grand finale of the stock-car season—demolition derby. A guy from Arcadia hit Dad’s car, and his gas tank exploded. There was nothing they could do for him.” His mouth tightened as he stared at his father’s picture.

“And yet you still race?”

“I couldn’t not race. It’s my life. I made my car look like his, so in a way, he’s there racing with me.”

She looked at him; saw the burning determination in his eyes. “You must have been mad at Marti for getting pregnant.”

He shrugged then leaped over the side of the couch to land in a sitting position. She walked around front, seeing nothing in his closed expression.

“Jesse, it’s normal to feel anger at something that takes your dream away.”

“That’s the way life is,” he said, each word a block of ice.

She sat down next to him, wishing he would open up. Since the couch sagged in the middle, she found herself leaning against his bare arm. Why the feel of his skin bothered her, she didn’t know, and the scent of clean male and deodorant scrambled her thoughts. She made a casual movement out of scooting away from him.

When he stretched, he seemed like a lion, strong and intense. His arms reached up over his head, leaving her to stare at the depth of his chest, the rib bones that dropped off to a flat stomach. Her gaze travelled lower where blue jeans encased his hips; the contours of his thigh muscles showed even through the thick denim.

She forced her thoughts and gaze toward the television.
None of those thoughts for you. Haven’t you learned that you do nothing but destroy anyone who loves you? Not that Jesse would ever love you. And what are you going to do, my precocious libido? Lure me into lust with him so it’s harder to leave? No way, I’m smarter than that now. Yessiree, much smarter.
Strangely, the biggest urge she had at the moment was to crawl into his arms and ask him to hold her tight. Just hold her.

“Who’s Mick Gentry?”

She hoped he didn’t hear her sharp intake of breath at the unexpected question. “Where did you hear his name?” She wanted to buy a few seconds to think his question through.

He shrugged, pretending a casualness she knew wasn’t wholly there. “You said the name in your sleep.”

“Oh. What else did I say?”

“Nothing I could understand, only his name. So, who is he?”

She pulled a throw pillow onto her lap, fiddling with the edge of braided rope. “He was… a mistake. A man I met in California, the wrong kind of friend to make.”

“Was that all he was, a friend?”

Marti looked Jesse in the eye, straightening her shoulders. “He was the best part of dying. And so you don’t think all I ever did was blow my life on mistakes, I’ll leave it at that.”

He shrugged again but kept studying her in that thoughtful way of his. “Do you ever think about him?”

What was he talking about?
“Not at all. I don’t know what the woman who took my place is like, but she’s obviously smart enough to figure out who the right man in her life is. Mick’s probably in France sulking. Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering.”

CHAPTER 4

It was still dark when Jesse led Marti out to the truck the next morning. He told her he was driving her to work until he’d had a look at her car. It only needed gas, but he wanted to have some control over her movements for a while. Bumpus followed them out, wagging his tail. Jesse glanced at Marti’s uncomfortable expression, then back at Bumpus, who was used to accompanying Jesse to work at the garage.

“Another time, boy.”

It was odd, but she didn’t look right in the dress with the Bad Boy on the apron anymore. He knew she hated it, a California model in a polyester waitress uniform, but he’d reminded her how lucky she was to even wear the thing.

He reached over and touched her chin, lifting it to face him. “Cheer up, doll.”

Something warm lit in her brown eyes, and she smiled. He didn’t know why he was calling her that now. The word seemed to slip out of his mouth. He removed his hand, suddenly feeling too intimate with her.