Deceptions of the Heart (23 page)

Jennifer wouldn’t know anything, but Rhonda might. But, of course, Rhonda had to drop out of law school. She resented that.

“You know it’s true,” I said. “What’d you do this for? This only gets you in deeper—”

“Deeper than what?” he asked, leaning in to me, one hand on each of the chair arms. “Now who’s spouting trite lines from lame movies?”

I held my position, refusing to back away from his overt power tactics. “If you talked to the police…told them you were covering for your brother, surely they would cut you some slack.”

“You…” He backed up and pointed his nasty finger at me. “You watch too much TV.”

I laughed at him. “I don’t watch TV.”

“Well, your idea might work if that was all I’d done.” His sarcasm undercut his sincerity. “Some things can’t be overlooked.”

“What have you done?”

He waved the gun at me with reckless abandon. “Don’t pretend you don’t know.”

My heart pounded faster and faster. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

Maybe I do know. Maybe that is what I don’t want to remember. Maybe there is a whole list of things I don’t want to remember.

“Don’t you care about Kristen and your girls? We could just forget about this and you could go home to them. Put me on a plane. To anywhere. I’ll leave California and never come back. You’ll never see me again.” I offered him the option even though I knew he’d refuse. “I won’t cause you any trouble.”

“If you didn’t intend to cause me trouble, what are you doing here?” he asked.

“Don’t you know? You followed me here. You were the one playing mind games with me, weren’t you?”

He circled me. Round and round. Restless and wild. “What were you doing at my house?”

“What do you think? If you were there, you know the police came. Don’t you even care what that was all about?” I asked.

His laughter rang throughout the warehouse. “Kristen called the cops. She said she would if you ever came back.”

I bit my lower lip, struggling to remain calm. “Kristen didn’t call the police. Anson did.”

He ceased his circling, coming to an abrupt halt in front of me. “Why?”

I gouged into what little conscience he had left. “You really want to know? You really care about them that much?”

The gun was in my face again. “Tell me.”

For a horrible moment, I lost my nerve. My parched mouth demanded relief. My body craved release from the stress of enduring two psychological traumas—Jennifer’s current abduction and Rhonda’s previous betrayal. “Crane beat her up. We found her like that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Dr. Crane, the respected cardiologist, assaulted your wife. What are you going to do about it?” I waited for him to react, but he didn’t. “Why are you still messing with me when your wife is in trouble? That maniac could come back.”

“You’re lying.”

“You know what he wanted from her?” I asked, pushing more of his buttons.

“Stop lying to me.”

“He wanted to know where you were. He wants to find you. Why, Alex? What is between you and Crane? Is there something I need to know? Is Jackson involved in this somehow? You blackmailed him, didn’t you? Jackson thought it was me—Jennifer—that was blackmailing him. But it was you, wasn’t it? And then Crane…”

He backed away from me, unadulterated terror on his face. “Crane? What does he want with me?”

“When we were in his office, the two of you set me up. I thought your conversation sounded off…as if you’d rehearsed it.” My accusations jumped at him between raspy breaths. “When he realized I wasn’t going to let it alone, he decided to send you after me, didn’t he? But you didn’t cooperate. You had your own agenda.” I’d lost faith in my power to speculate—to discern the truth from lies. Anson and I had surmised Crane looked for Alex in order to get to me. “When he couldn’t find you he took his frustrations out on your wife.”

“He beat Kristen?” I nodded. “What about the girls?” The first spark of humanity flickered across his face.

“Don’t you know?”

He pulled his fist back, his intent clear. “Tell me.”

My head still ached from when he smacked my head on the steering wheel. “He took them.”

Fear. Anger. Disgust. Pain. A million emotions rolled across his haggard features—contours and ridges that Rhonda wouldn’t recognize. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket, glowering at me while he dialed. “Yeah, Crane. Alex Prentiss. I have what you want. I’ll trade her for my daughters.”

As he held the phone to his ear, the exultation melted from his face.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The pungent aroma of motor oil and gasoline filled my sinuses. I tried to move, but something hard pushed the middle of my back, putting pressure on my spine. I kicked my legs, but the cramped space limited the slightest movement. Tears streamed down my cheeks, but I couldn’t rub the stain away. Tape bound my wrists. The car jerked and bounced. My head bumped something metal. A pain shot through my temple. A scream rose up my throat, but stopped at the oily rag stuffed in my mouth. My stomach threatened to heave what little remained there.

When was the last time I ate? Hours or days?

The car screeched to a halt. Feet crunched on gravel. The trunk lid swung up and bright sunlight startled me. I squinted and tried to focus after being in the blinding darkness. Alex yanked my arm. I bumped over the lip of the trunk and slid on my butt to the ground.

When my eyes adjusted to the blaring light of day, Crane peered down at me. I twisted in my bindings. The gag in my mouth muffled my grunts of distress.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Here’s your daughter.” Alex yanked the gun from his jacket pocket and waved the weapon at Crane. “Now where are my girls?”

Crane turned and nodded to Alex. “Call your wife. They should be home by now.”

Alex couldn’t juggle me and the phone and the gun. He snorted his frustration.

Crane ignored his frenzy. “Give me my daughter and get out of here,” he ordered, the voice of authority even in the face of Alex’s mania.

Alex stepped back, waving the gun first at Crane and then pointing it toward my head. He put his phone to his ear. “Kristen…” He shifted from one foot to the other. “You’re sure they’re all right?” Another moment of intense silence. “I’m coming home.” His voice faded as the car door groaned open.

Tires flung gravel as he sped into the blazing sunshine. My face burned from a million tiny flecks of rock. Crane knelt beside me and unfastened the dirty rag. I gulped five or six deep intakes of fresh air while he brushed the hair from my eyes. “Did he hurt you?”

All of the foul things I wanted to say to him stopped at my tongue. I clamped my mouth shut.

“Do you know where you are?” he asked. I shook my head. He smiled. “Ah yes, the memory problems. You should know this house.” An abandoned house. A seedy part of town, once a working-class neighborhood, now only a haven for street people and crack addicts and human merchandise.

He used a penknife to cut the duct tape around my wrists. “He didn’t have to do that to you.” He grabbed my elbow. I tried to rise from the ground, but my legs wouldn’t cooperate. He gently lifted me to standing. “Come inside,” he said. “Let’s get you something to drink.”

He guided me into the house one halting step at a time. The sun glinted through the shattered windowpanes. A moldy stench permeated the air. He lowered me into a decrepit chair. It tilted to one side and I almost fell onto the floor, but he grabbed the arm and righted it just in time.

I rubbed my abraded wrists where the duct tape tore at my skin and studied my captor. Nausea surged up my gut and lodged in my throat. My eyes blurred. Rhonda’s heart raced—its rhythm thumping along at an unnatural, jerky pace. Thoughts of escape tormented me, but my curiosity and light head bound me without chains.

“What do you want from me?” I asked.

“I knew who you were when I saw your picture,” Crane said, wringing his hands over me like a mad scientist.

“My picture?”

“When I take a new case, I like to put a picture of the patient in the file. Helps me see the patient as human and less like just another surgery.”

I didn’t want to listen to his pompous, overripe sentiments. There was only one thing I wanted to know. Only one thing he could give me. “So if you’re my father, who’s my mother?”

His frenetic energy increased. He tapped one finger on a nearby table. His foot beat a steady rhythm. “You really don’t know anything, do you? But you’ve been nosing around trying to figure it all out, haven’t you?” Sincere admiration glowed on his face.

I offered him a cold, hard stare with unblinking eyes. “I want to know what happened to my mother. Is she…was she your wife?”

His face softened, as if he was recalling something sweetly touching on the viewing screen of his mind. Then his smile faded. “My wife ran away years ago.”

“She ran away? Or did something happen to her?” My tone accused him of so many things.

He laughed, a tired chuckle, full of regret. “You know about that, huh?”

“The police think you killed her. That’s what the newspapers said. So did you? Did you kill my mother?”

“Well, no. If I had, you wouldn’t be here. She must have been pregnant when she left.”

“Then how do you know I’m your daughter?”

“The picture. You look so much like her, it’s spooky. I ordered a paternity test. You gave me blood samples, remember?”

My nurse’s training surged in my memory.

No, I don’t remember, but if I had transplant surgery, someone took blood from me when I was put on the wait list for a heart.

More of Jennifer was pushing through the muddle of my bifurcated personality. On the edge of uncovering my past, my abused psyche craved more information about my mother…Jennifer’s mother. The possibility that I was so close to the truth tingled through my veins.

He smiled as if he read my mind. “I found her here. When you were two. Just a little thing. I watched you. She would swing you in that swing set in the backyard. But then she must have realized I was watching. She disappeared one night. I waited for days but she didn’t come back. I never saw her…or you again.” His disappointment seemed heavy, like so many pounds of lead weight strapped to his legs.

“So…what do you want from me? Why am I here?” I asked with lips that refused to still their rebellious trembling.

His eyes focused somewhere over my shoulder. “It seemed impossible our lives would cross again after all those years. But then to find out you needed a heart transplant…”

“Why didn’t you come looking for us?”

He turned as if noticing me for the first time. “I hired private investigators. They found where your mother was buried, but they couldn’t find you. Adoption records are sealed, you know.”

I had a hard time believing he recognized me from a picture. Why had he considered me as a patient? I tilted my head, waited at least thirty seconds, and attempted to gouge his conscience. “Why did you find me a heart outside the list?”

“Because you’re my daughter,” he replied as if I was a ninny.

“Why would you do that for me and then bring me here? Like I’m your prisoner.”

He puffed his cheeks out. “I had to get you away from Alex Prentiss.” So many emotions reeled across his countenance. Love. Hate. Fear. Passion. Regret. Anger. Pride. And something far more sinister—something shaky and not quite moored to sanity. He moved closer to me. “The man is dangerous and unstable.”

“And you’re not?” I laughed, a dry, derisive cackle smacking of disrespect. He growled as if I’d wounded him. We both knew he didn’t intend to let me leave.

“Why am I still here? Let me go.” I demanded, as if I was the one in control of the situation even though he was the one with all the physical power.

“I can’t let you leave,” he muttered as if his mind was elsewhere. “I have to make sure you’re safe.”

I suddenly understood the sinister, mad-doctor gleam in his eyes. His reasons had nothing to do with my safety despite his assertions otherwise. “I want to go back to my husband.”

“You’re safer with me. I’m your father.”

“My father? Where’ve you been all my life? Your paternal rights are nonexistent. I think my mother made sure of that. She must have had her reasons.”

He frowned. “That wasn’t my choice.”

“Mine either.” I crossed my arms. A sharp pain erupted in my left shoulder. “I don’t think I’m safe with you. I saw what you did to Kristen.”

“She wouldn’t tell me where Alex was,” he said as if his actions were reasonable.

“So you beat her? Is that what a reasonable man would do…under the circumstances?” I leaned my head to one side, my hair bouncing around my ear, longer now that I hadn’t had time for a proper haircut. “Is that how you treated my mother when she wouldn’t do what you wanted her to do? Is that why she left you? Is that how you handle women? How you handled Kristen?”

“You don’t understand. That woman—”

“She didn’t deserve what you did to her any more than my mother did.” I hammered on the weakness of his character as if I held a large mallet in my hands.

A pulse beat in his temple. “It’s not like that.”