Wrong Face in the Mirror: A Time Travel Romance (Medicine Stick Series) (7 page)

Alistair was beginning to think there was something really wrong with Hart. He tried to remember back to the weeks of their marriage when they’d actually been together. Had it seemed then that she was less than . . .well, less than wholly in touch with reality?

He’d been so stupidly besottedly in love that he probably wouldn’t have noticed. For the first time in his life, he’d set aside his logical mind and been enraptured with this lovely, imaginative girl who had the good taste to fall in love with him.

They’d run away together, full of a sense of romance they didn’t want to share with others. Her brother had been furious when they returned, accusing Alistair of taking advantage of his sister’s tender years.

Tender! She was seven years younger than he was as most people counted years, but he’d felt she had an ancient wisdom about her. She was more grownup than he’d probably ever be.

Then she’d confessed to him that she loved another and had made a mistake in marrying him. It had been so out-of-the-blue that he couldn’t take it in, but she had seemed so sad and terribly sincere that he hadn’t known how to persuade her otherwise.

She’d packed up her little suitcase and left the house and he’d gone into town on a bender such as he’d not indulged since he was in his wild teens and, unfortunately, he’d told his buddies at the saloon about how Hart had left him for another man.

He closed his eyes at the thought. In his right mind and sober, he’d never have bad-mouthed the woman he married and still loved.

And the next thing he knew, the sheriff from a nearby county was telling him he was under arrest on suspicion of murdering his wife. That particular sheriff was freshly elected and new to his job and had no previous acquaintance with Alistair or the damn fool might have known better. His deputies locked him up in his own jail with deep apologies and he recovered from his bender, waiting to be transferred to a less friendly county lock-up and not much caring because he was so afraid for Hart.

Maybe that fellow she’d said she loved had harmed her. She was inexperienced with bad men and probably had little idea of the reasons and rational of such.

Somehow the transfer never came through and he suspected some of his local friends had gamed the system to keep him in Wichita County, though he heard that Hart’s brother was pushing hard against him. “It’s always the husband,” Tommy went around reminding everybody, wild in his grief. He talked about what he would do to Alistair if he could get his hands on him.

It had been a nightmare lasting
only a few days and he’d given up all hope of seeing Hart again when they came and let him out, telling him she’d been found in Oklahoma City, unconscious but with no apparent injuries. And they could hardly build a case against a man for a murder that hadn’t occurred.

What had happened to Hart and why couldn’t she remember? With something like a mental jerk, he realized what he was thinking.

He no longer believed she was faking amnesia and wasn’t sure he believed her claim of being in love with another man. Something was very wrong with his wife and he determined to do what he could to help her.

DNA tests would be part of the examination of those bones found in the lake, but he couldn’t wait for those. Hart said a woman named Stacia had died that day and he’d
found out that a person by that name had lived in Medicine Stick.

If she was real, h
e needed to learn what had happened to Stacia and her family. That would be the first step in investigating a murder that happened so long ago that explanations were unlikely, but his primary concern was Hart herself.

Hart came home from work to find her sister-in-law waiting in her car outside the antique shop. Nikki got out when she saw Hart pull up and said without even bothering with a greeting, “We’ve got to talk.”

Puzzled at this unexpected attention, Hart unlocked the door and led the way inside.

Nikki shuddered dramatically. “It’s so dirty and creepy down here. I don’t know how you stand it.”

“I don’t live here. I live upstairs.” Hart did feel faintly guilty that she hadn’t made some effort to at least dust and sweep the downstairs, but she had been so busy and concerned with other things that she hadn’t been up to facing the mess.

Anyway, it was her place, not Nikki’s. She wasn’t going to let a person who so obviously didn’t like her make her feel bad.

She didn’t offer to make tea or find a cold pop for her sister-in-law. She was just to
o weary to do more than motion the other woman to a chair.

She waited, thinking to judge from outward appearances
that Nikki with her round face, dimpled cheeks and large blue eyes looked instantly lovable.

And maybe she was. Perhaps all her friends adored her and she was kind to children and patient to the students she coached at Mountainside High. Whatever? If so her benevolence didn’t evidence itself in regard to her husband’s sister.

“You really owe us the money,” she said abruptly as if entering into an ongoing argument.

Hart blinked. “What money?”

Nikki scowled in confusion. “Didn’t Tommy ask you for a loan? He said he did and you turned him down.”

Hart considered. “Was this from the time when I can’t remember?” She started to add that the pittance she earned for her job at the prison had to be less than what Nikki made as a coach and teacher, but refrained.

“Of course not. Just two days ago and don’t pretend it didn’t happen. Your own brother and you with hundreds of thousands and you won’t help him out.”

Hart swallowed hard. Hundreds of thousands? All she knew about was the slightly over ten thousand dollars in her bank account and she wasn’t sure that was real.

“Nikki,” she said calmly. “Tommy didn’t ask me for money.”

Nikki stared at her with gradually fading disbelief. “The idiot!” she said. “He didn’t want to ask you for money, so he just said he did.” She recovered quickly to
add eagerly, “You will give it to him?”

Hart didn’t feel she had the right to give away money that didn’t seem to be truly hers. Somehow she didn’t feel as though she’d ever been a person with a pile of money. Surely a life of privilege would be so ingrained that it would come out in spite of loss of memory. Wouldn’t she just expect everything to be grand and luxurious?

“You won’t,” Nikki said grimly, reading her expression. “You selfish bitch.”

“There’s nothing about your attitude that makes me want to be generous,” Hart answered impulsively. “Maybe Tommy should talk to me about this himself.”

Hart found she trembled with the onset of rage. What was wrong with these people that they went around blaming her for things she couldn’t remember and wasn’t sure had actually happened.

“I don’t remember having money, Nikki, and I can’t give away what I don’t have.”

“But we’ve got to have twenty thousand before tomorrow night or Tommy will lose his truck. And without his truck, he can’t work.”

This was more than a little puzzling. Tommy and Nikki both had better than average jobs for this area, their home and vehicles were modest, they didn’t dress extravagantly. How could they be in such desperate straits? “Is Tommy on the road now?”

Nikki shook her head. “He’s at the house stuck in gloom.”

Hart got to her feet. “Then let’s go talk to him right now.”

She took her own car, following Nikki down the few blocks to the house in the shadow of the mountain. It was cooler this evening and she sensed a change of weather in the air.

Well, it was about time. It was the hottest September she could remember since back in the dirty thirties when everything had been dry as dust and the temperatures daily spiking.

She didn’t have time to think that she was certainly not able to have memories of the 1930s because they were at the house and she got out to follow Nikki inside. The girls whooped at the sight of her and ran for hugs and kisses, bringing tears to her eyes because it was so good to have somebody care for her without any personal agenda.

After they’d had a few minutes of catching up on the girls’ school and friends, Nikki insisted on taking them into the kitchen for brownies and milk, telling them that their aunt needed to talk with her brother. “In private,” she added for emphasis.

They looked disappointed, but detached themselves from Hart’s arms and went with her into the kitchen. “I want brownies with nuts,” Christy insisted.

The smile the girls had brought to her face faded and she brushed away tears as she went on into the living room to find Tommy slumped on the sofa, his face resting against his hands. A half-empty bottle of beer set on the table at his side.

“Tommy,” she whispered. “It’s me, Hart.”

He wouldn’t look at her. “I heard,” he said. “Nikki told you.” Finally he looked up, the fair skin of his face flushed with embarrassment. “She’s exaggerating, Hart. We’re doing fine and anyway it’s none of your concern.”

She sat down on the edge of a chair, feeling decidedly uncomfortable. Once again she was struck by the thought that she and Tommy were so unlike. He was a big man with an open face that normally expressed cheerful liking for the world, but which now showed only pain.

“Nikki said you need money.” It seemed best to dive right in since she didn’t know how to approach this with subtlety. “And that I have some.”

He laughed. “I think if I’d inherited a couple of million dollars I’d remember that if nothing else.”

“Well, I don’t. And if I have money, how come you don’t?”

“My dad married a poor woman, but after she died he married your mom. She didn’t have money, but it was in the family. When your grandma died, she left your mother and you a bundle.”

“And you need twenty thousand, that’s what Nikki said. So how do I transfer it to you?”

“You’re not even asking what I need it for?”

She shook her head. “You’re my brother . . .”

“Half-brother.”

“You’re my brother. I keep hearing how expensive everything is today
.”

“You’ve already been more than generous, Hart. I won’t take your money. I just told Nikki you refused because I wanted her to get off my back about this.”

So she’d given him money before. Well, it seemed only fair. They might have had different mothers, but they’d shared a father, even though she couldn’t remember him.

“What happened to our dad?” she asked abruptly, suddenly wondering.

“Your mom and our dad were killed in a car accident when you were in high school.”

“Oh!” She didn’t know what to say. She was emotionally unattached to this unknown man, but he was all the father Tommy had ever known.

“
I kind of went off the rails after they died. It’s hard losing your folks. You begin to feel doomed.”

“I guess,” she agreed doubtfully. She’d been brought up to believe that you kept going no matter what, that you had a duty to survive no matter what life dealt you.

Then she frowned. Taught by whom? Certainly not Tommy’s father. She still couldn’t think of this unknown man as her dad.

“Anyway,” she tried to get back on subject. “How do we get the money to you?”

He shook his head as though knowing he should resist, but was too desperate to do so. “You can just write a check.”

“My ledge
r indicates that I don’t have that much in my account.”

“Little sister, you have money in more than one bank, not to mention stocks and bonds and some other properties. You
financed this house as a matter of fact.” He grinned with wry humor.

“Okay. If you can tell me which bank and which checkbook.”

He nodded.

“I’ll go back to my apartment and look through my papers. If you’ll come by in a few minutes, I’ll have a check for you.”

“Thanks,” he said. He stood with her when she got to her feet and followed her to the door, but before she could leave he reached out to grab her hand.

“I have a gambling problem, Hart. I like to go to the casinos and, well, things got out of hand, built up slowly and I was in trouble. I promise you it won’t happen again.”

She walked slowly out to her car, wise enough to know that her brother probably wouldn’t be able to keep his promise.”

It didn’t matter. She had to give him the money. This time at least.

It was easy enough to trace the Larkin family after they left Medicine Stick. He started with further conversations with Mayleen Carson and the Forresters, taking careful notes from their memories, and then going online much as a person would tracing his own family background.

The Larkins had moved away to California in late 1947, following relatives who had gone to that state during the dustbowl migration years earlier. They were Robert and Seren
a Larkin along with their sons Lucian, 20; Frank, 22,  and a daughter Helen, 18.

No mention was made of another daughter, nor did the later census reports in their new home list anyone named Stacia.

It did not seem as if Stacia had ever left Medicine Stick.

She wrote the check for Tommy, feeling as though she were writing it on somebody else’s account like a forger. Tommy seemed more uncomfortable than grateful when he picked it up, staying only as long as was necessary to be polite, saying as he left, “Guess Nikki will be happy at least.”

She went to the window in front to watch him drive away, not regretting the gift she’d given him, but knowing that for Tommy’s sake she could not continue to give him money that allowed him to indulge a risky addiction.

Hart still had no feeling of a blood connection to Tommy, but she was fonder of him than she’d realized. He tried in his own way to look after her and was, no matter what the truth, the closest she had to a family connection. Him and his little girls. She already loved Mandy and Christy and believed they loved her. Nikki was another matter. It was somewhat like her relationship with Alistair Redhawk. Nikki seemed to hate her on sight, but she had no idea why.

The answer had been right in front of his face all the time.  Well, almost. It was on the front page of the Mountainside Express, the little newspaper that had been defunct since 1957.

Ten years before
that it had been alive and if not thriving, at least seeing regular publication. And in September 1947 a sheriff’s office investigation had been underway about a missing woman named Stacia Larkin.

The news was only front page in Mountainside. Obviously there was little concern about foul play. A twenty-four-year-old woman hadn’t come home to the rooms her family was sharing in Mountainside after leaving their home in Medicine Stick. They had left the town together just prior to its flooding, gone to sleep in their beds
in two different houses belonging to friends and relatives. At each house, family members had thought Stacia at the other.

Comments from neighbors were sly. It was obvious that scandal not violence was suspected. It was well known that Stacia’s dad was over-protective and that the beautiful girl was courted by
numerous suitors.

Elopement, not murder was suspected.

Only Stacia’s sister Helen insisted this wasn’t the case. Her sister hadn’t been in love with anyone and wouldn’t have run away, Helen said firmly. She was terrified that her sister had been left under the rising waters of the newly named Medicine Stick Lake. The article concluded by saying that the Wichita County sheriff’s office was looking into the matter at the wish of the concerned family.

The story appeared only as a mention in the next weekly entry, but after that didn’t show up again.

With growing uneasiness Alistair went to the locked room where the pre-computer day files were kept for his own office. It wasn’t an easy task going back in the minimally organized files and because his days were interrupted by arrests and investigations and regular patrols, as well as the excitement of taking part in a drug task force descent on a remote farm house on the far edge of the county, it took him several days to find the entry in 1947.

The two page report wasn’t particularly enlightening. A black and white photo of a curvaceous young woman with long hair and a striking face looked out at him, catching him for a moment in the conviction that the eyes were alive and watching him.

It was hard to attach that vibrant young woman with the skeleton he’d seen in the lake.

The report had been filed by Robert and Serena Larkin, parents of the supposedly missing woman. The mother had seemed somewhat hysterical and the father, who said he’d initially suspected an elopement, now said he was worried because his girl would have gotten in touch with them by now. It was weeks after the flooding of the lake and the deputy assigned the lackluster investigation appeared to be of the opinion that a grown woman had a right to go anywhere she chose. It might be sad that she hadn’t gotten in touch with her parents, but the neighbors said they’d kept too tight a lid over the woman, treating her as though she were sixteen instead of her actual age and pushing her into rebellion.

Alistair took the report and the photo with him and left the jail. Once more he had an excuse to visit Hart Benson.

Since it was Saturday and she told herself she had nothing better to do, Hart had decided to start cleaning the downstairs shop. Her plans weren’t too ambitious, but she wanted at least to clear out some of the dust and cobwebs.

She was using a feather duster to attack those webs within reach when a tapping at her front door attracted her attention. Sheriff Redhawk waved to her through the glass. Even though she didn’t really feel like talking to anybody today
and had planned to hole up in her own territory and pretend to be a recluse, she had little choice but to open the door and let him in.

“Morning, Hart,” he said. “Sorry to bother you, but I thought you’d be interested in what I’ve learned.”

She was not in a good mood. She’d spent the last couple of days trying to figure out what to do about Tommy and why she couldn’t feel closer to her own brother.

Sheriff Redhawk
always brought disturbing ramifications with him and she didn’t need any more complications to deal with today. Still she let him in.

The air was thick with the dust she’d disturbed with her broom and she felt grimy and knew she probably had spider webs in her hair. She still had no memory of this man past their recent meeting
s, but she wasn’t blind to the fact of his attractions. He was both intensely masculine with his strong form and chiseled face, but also desirably exotic with his Kiowa heritage.  She could envision him on the back of a Indian pony, feathers decorating his headdress and war paint on his face, and found that image strangely intriguing.

She thought it best not to show him upstairs and used her duster to clear a seat for him and another for herself among Mrs. Harris’ old furnishings.

“What do you have to tell me now, Sheriff?” she asked, feeling a frisson of fear. She was beginning to worry about what she would hear next, considering that most of the recent revelations were disturbing the fragile peace she tried to build within her own mind.

His gaze met hers. “I’ve been investigating the situation at Medicine Stick at the time the town was vacated to make way for the lake.”

The simple statement pierced through her as the picture of her little town as she’d last seen it played through her mind from her home with its pink roses growing out front to the Millers’ store where she worked on a regular basis helping customers with their purchases.

She’d liked chatting with her neighbors as they dropped by for their
shopping and getting to hear all the latest gossip. It had been a good life with her family and friends. Her most serious concern had come from her knowledge of her own mental wanderings and an increasing fear that her sanity was compromised. She blocked the thought. Where was all this coming from?

“I talked to some people and looked up some stuff, records and such. Did you know the reports from old Medicine Stick school
s are in a back room at the county courthouse?”

She frowned, another image coming to her mind, this one of the little brick building where the first eight grades of school met. After that she’d been sent into the high school
next door. Most of the kids had stopped at eighth or earlier, but Mama had insisted that her oldest daughter be allowed to continue because she was ‘bookish.’

When she didn’t say anything, he went on. “That Stacia person you mentioned, Stacia Larkin, she made good grades.”

“Mama said nothing was much good but ‘As’ and she didn’t want to see anything else from me. She never got to go to school herself and the boys weren’t much interested, so she pushed Helen and me.”

She realized she’d said the wr
ong thing when his eyes widened and she realized that even her speech pattern had changed. She didn’t sound like a person with a masters in literature, but more like a country girl from back in the ‘40s. The words that had come from her mouth surprised her as much as they had him.

There was no point in trying to explain something she didn’t understand herself so she didn’t try.

“Stacia had a mother, father, two brothers and a sister named Helen,” he went on as though she hadn’t said something highly disturbing. “All of them showed up in Mountainside after the lake was flooded, but Stacia was never seen by her family again.”

Hart felt as though her stomach dropped to her toes. “How can you know that?”

“They reported her missing. It was in the newspaper and a report was filed with the sheriff of that time.”

“But after that . . .”

“Hart, I made a phone call this afternoon and talked to Helen’s daughter at her home in California. She said her mother wondered all her life what had happened to her sister.”

“Helen has a little girl?”

“Honey, Helen died several years ago. Her daughter is in her fifties and has children of her own.”

Helen was dead. The thought was devastating. And her sister was the youngest of them all; she could have no
hope for mom or dad or the boys. She rushed up into the apartment and to her bathroom where she was violently sick.

Alistair followed her into the bathroom, dampening a clean wash cloth and gently washing her face once she stopped vomiting, then giving her a glass of water to wash out her mouth. Finally, holding on to his arm, she went back into the living room with him.

“Hart,” he asked gently. “You never told me who the other man was. Did you think I would try to harm him?”

Her laughter sounded bitter, almost angry. “Alistair, I don’t think I was ever married to you. I don’t remember him and I don’t remember any life with you.”

For the first time he seemed to believe her. She guessed that up to this moment he’d thought she was faking her lack of memory.

She looked pleadingly up at him, conscious of their closeness.
“Alistair, I am not Hart Benson. My name is Stacia Larkin and I remember everything about being her up until the time she died.”

He frowned. “You remember dying?”

She shook her head. “No. That’s the puzzling part. I saw her die. I saw her crumple down on the street in front of Millers’ Store and from the way she lay there, I knew she was dead.”

“Then it’s impossible. If you were the one who died, you would have seen the person who killed you. You would have been looking out of Stacia’s eyes, not at her.”

“Do you think I haven’t thought of that?” she shrieked the question.

He took her into his arms and held her comfortingly against his own chest.

“I look into the mirror and the person I see there is not me. I have red hair. I’m taller and more buxom than Hart Benson. But if I’m here in her body, then what has happened to her? What has happened to the woman you love?”

He held her tighter and she knew that he must be thinking that the only possible answer was that she was out of her mind.