“I can’t help you.” Alex raised his hands, but Jackson slapped them down.
“You have to. You owe me.” His volume rose with each word.
“Are you sure he’s dead?”
“Of course I’m sure.” Jackson lowered his voice, but it carried nonetheless—the bane of a strong masculine timbre. “I know what a dead man looks like.”
I held my breath, waiting for Alex to mirror my revulsion. His level tone never faltered. “I won’t be involved in covering up—”
“Aren’t you already covering something up? What difference does it make if you get in deeper?” Jackson sucked air through his teeth. “You want me to tell Rhonda—”
“No.” Indignant fury radiated from Alex, quick as lightning and just as electrifying. “Leave her out of this.”
Stone-cold silence ensued while Jackson waited for his brother’s compliance. A siren wailed in the distance as if noting the sinister nature of their conversation.
“Where’d you leave him?” Alex asked.
He was weaving a trap and Jackson was flying right into it. Alex would want everything Jackson had in return for helping him. I almost bolted from behind the door. I stuffed my hand in my mouth to hold back my thoughts, to keep from alerting Jackson to Alex’s machinations. Alex wanted Jackson’s share of the family business and he’d stop at nothing to get it. I didn’t trust Alex, but I trusted Jackson even less. As much as my conscience demanded I do the right thing, common sense made me hesitate because of the possible consequences.
Jackson rubbed his hands on his jeans. “I stuffed him in the trunk. Down by the dock. That’s where the car stalled—”
“Okay. Okay.” Alex ticked off a laundry list of essentials for their endeavor. That was so Alex. Organized. Focused. Driven. “I’ll get some gloves and rope. We’ll need something heavy…like a tire or cinder blocks—”
“Okay. Okay,” Jackson repeated Alex’s words. “We need trash bags.” Neither man moved. “You won’t regret this.” Jackson’s voice broke.
“I already regret it. And you owe me more than your half-hearted gratitude.” Alex’s angry words slithered across the room like venom, coiled and ready to strike.
“I told you, I’d give you—”
“Let’s get out of here before Rhonda wakes up and catches you. She said she’d call the cops if you ever showed your face around here again.” Even as the statement left his mouth, my fingers itched to grab the phone and dial nine-one-one.
“She did?” Jackson tossed his head back and laughed hard.
From across the room, I witnessed Alex’s loss of respect for Jackson, the death of brotherly love. A glimmer of raw hate flickered in Alex’s eyes before he stopped and turned to his brother. “And when we’re done…leave.”
“Leave?” Jackson asked.
“Go away. Far, far away, Don’t call me. Don’t come knocking on my door. Leave us alone.”
Floorboards creaked as Alex pushed Jackson forward. The front door closed behind them and their conversation faded. I closed my eyes and counted to ten before I dared enter the front room to peer through the blinds. Jackson got into Alex’s sporty two-seater. The engine revved and the car disappeared into the dark, cloudless night.
****
The lingering remnants of the nightmare blew a cold shiver up and down my spine. That night, Rhonda didn’t know whose murder Alex and Jackson had covered up, but time explained their behavior. Jackson had rid them of an associate with unwanted connections. The man seemingly disappeared without a trace, but Rhonda had guessed what happened. From that day forward, Alex looked over his shoulder as if a knife hovered in the air between his shoulder blades.
Did Rhonda ever tell the police about the conversation she overheard? Was she complicit in their crime? Did she have her own motives for keeping her mouth shut? For some reason, those answers eluded me. Was Rhonda not quite the innocent bystander her memories portrayed her to be?
Maybe she sheltered her motives in those two missing years her mind refused to illuminate. How long after the conversation did Rhonda die? The timeline didn’t work no matter how I juggled the events and tried to move them into place.
I couldn’t shake off the aftereffects of the memory. Rhonda didn’t have to deal with that nightmare. She was dead. Even though the emotional and mental remnants might not affect her any longer, Jennifer was alive and had to suffer the physical reactions. My hand trembled as I held it in front of me. If I went to the cops, would they believe me? My story would sound strange at best and delusional at worst. It appeared there was no safe haven—no stable psyche for my soul to inhabit.
I longed for the warmth of my robe. It lay in a heap on the chaise where I left it before my trip to California. I slipped out of bed, wrapped the terry cloth around me, and headed toward the bath. An ounce of water wet my dry mouth. I rinsed the bad taste the dream left behind and spat into the sink. When I straightened and looked into the mirror, I studied the woman I’d come to detest. I lifted the silver-plated tissue holder and drew my arm back, prepared to smash her face into a million tiny pieces. The absurdity of the gesture struck me as pathetic. I couldn’t get rid of her and her messy life so easily. The lines between her existence and mine had blurred beyond recognition.
My eyes ached from the desire to bawl like a baby. I resisted the urge, refusing to melt down again. A full moon hung in the night sky outside the bedroom window, peeking through the sheers. I pushed the elegant drapes aside and placed my hand on the window pane. Chill spring air permeated the glass and traveled down my humerus bone, settling in my elbow. I rubbed the throbbing pain, but it didn’t go away. It matched the dull throb in my head.
With nothing else to do but wait and worry, I succumbed to exhaustion and dropped onto the thick comforter. Too tired to slip under the covers, I rolled and pushed my face into the pillow. My lungs cried for oxygen. When the suffocation became too painful to endure, I shifted, sucked in a lungful of air, and closed my eyes once again in another useless attempt to get some sleep.
A creak and a clatter broke through my drowsy drifting. The dual terrors of the nightmare and Jackson’s attack on the verandah had heightened my sensitivity to things that go bump in the night. My gaze gravitated toward the closet. The dark corners of the room wobbled. My bedside light was off, but I was sure I’d left it on. I reached for the switch and stopped mid-air. Heavy breathing and muffled footsteps cut through the intense quiet. After a few anxious moments, I dragged myself to the edge of the king-sized, pillow-top mattress. My hand sunk in luxury as I tried to gain traction without making a sound. I slipped one foot and then the other over the side. I stopped. Listened. Whoever was sneaking through my bedroom had moved on to my bathroom.
My feet hit the hardwood floor with a dull thud. I stopped again, cringing at my clumsiness. No movement from the bathroom. I slipped across the room and peeked inside. A woman in a brilliantly colored tunic knelt on the floor, poking through the items under the sink. I recognized the familiar form and pulled the baggie of pills from my pants pocket.
“Is this what you’re looking for, Sudha?” A gasp escaped her, then she bounced to an upright position. I smirked. “What made you think I’d leave the pills where you could find them?”
“Foolish woman,” she seethed. Her low opinion of Jennifer cascaded over me like a waterfall. “Give them to me.” She held out her hand, much as I did when I demanded them of her.
“Why am I foolish? You’re the one scrounging around my house looking for evidence.”
“Let me have them or I will—”
“I don’t think so.” I shook my head. She lunged toward the baggie in my hand. I closed my fingers around it. “Uh-uh,” I said as I backed away from her. “These are mine.”
She lowered her eyelids, moving toward me with malicious intent imprinted on her face.
“Why’d you do it, Sudha? Was it to keep me sedated so I wouldn’t ask too many questions? Was it to keep me delusional? Or maybe you were just trying to kill me.”
“Believe what you want.” Sudha pulled a gun from her pocket.
Until that moment I had mastered my fear, but with the weapon aimed at my face, I froze in terror. “What do you want from me?” I whispered.
“From you? Nothing. There’s nothing you can give me.” She smiled like a caged jackal, baring her teeth. “You don’t appreciate what you have. You take your life for granted. If I had what you have—”
“Oh, please! This is about what I have and what you haven’t? Don’t we pay you enough? You live in our house, eat our food, drive our cars. What more do you want?”
She backed away from my question as if it was a cobra. Mania glittered in her dark eyes. Her hatred prickled over my skin. “I want your husband.”
Hysteria overwhelmed me and I laughed. Of all the things she wanted from me, she coveted what wasn’t mine. “That’s what you want? My husband? Are you serious?”
She moved a step closer. I swore I could smell the gun. “Am I not good enough for him?”
“If I’m not good enough for him, what makes you think you are?” I asked.
She slid back the action. It made a strange clicking as it moved across the barrel and set the firing pin. “You…you are a wicked woman. You do not deserve him.”
“I’m wicked? You’re the one holding the gun.”
“Move,” she ordered.
I stalled. “Move? Where?”
“Back up slowly.” The gun brushed the shirt that covered the flesh and bone protecting my vulnerable heart.
I stumbled backward out of the bathroom…and bumped into Anson. His sudden appearance startled Sudha enough she lowered the weapon. He lunged for the gun. They struggled, both of them with their hands on the grip. His covering hers. A victorious gleam erupted in her eyes as she caught me staring at her in stunned immobility, the gun pointed in my direction with unerring aim. Anson swatted her outstretched hand. The shot rang past my ear...
****
“Jennifer?” Muted urging wiggled into my consciousness. “Jennifer, wake up.”
“Who’s Jennifer?” My question echoed in my head, foreign and distant—the ringing in my ears intense.
“You’re all right,” a man told me. “Sudha left.”
“Sudha?” My eyes fluttered and focused. For a moment, I panicked. Then I remembered. “Are you all right?” I asked as I tried to rise from my prone position on the floor.
Anson pushed me back, lowering my head onto his lap. “Lie still a minute longer.”
The aftereffects of fear wobbled across his features. I touched his face. To my surprise, it didn’t melt beneath my fingertips as my fuzzy mind expected it to. My arm dropped across my abdomen. He placed one strong hand over mine.
“I’m so glad you’re all right,” I murmured.
I witnessed his attitude toward me change in his eyes. Was the shift my imagination? Had all his anger evaporated and been replaced with concern? “And I’m glad you’re all right. Now try to sit up…slowly.”
I tried, but the room spun. He slipped his arm behind my back and kept me upright. My mind cleared in rapid spurts. Numerous images clanged against each other in my suddenly alert mind. I shook my head in order to sort them into their proper sequence. Me with the pills. Sudha with the gun. Anson fighting for my life. “She wanted the pills.”
His nose scrunched. “What pills?”
“The one’s she gave me.” The limp baggie was still clamped in my hand. I dangled it in front of him.
“I thought you flushed them.”
He reached for the pills, but I yanked them back. Like a security blanket. “Flushed them? I did. But…” I found my balance and turned to look at him. “But I kept two of them for insurance.”
“You never cease to amaze me, Jennifer.” The compliment was real. “How did you know that she’d—”
“Be back for them? I didn’t. I guess keeping them was—”
“Gut instinct.” He scratched his head and laughed.
“What?” I asked in bewilderment. “What’s so funny about almost dying?”
“Nothing. That’s not why I’m laughing.”
I waited for him to explain. His grin widened. “We’re finishing each other’s sentences.”
That’s a funny thing to think about in the middle of a crisis.
I appreciated the sentiment, however ill-timed. “Haven’t we ever—”
“Finished each other’s thoughts? Not that I can remember.”
I smiled. “Me either. But then, my memory is…limited.”
I placed both hands on the floor and pushed up. He steadied me with a firm grip on my elbow. My back ratcheted into an upright position. We stood, studying each other. Silent communication passed between us. The night could have ended badly for one or both of us, but we were both alive.
“You’ve been attacked twice tonight,” he said as if from a distance.
I nodded. The ringing, throbbing static in my ears intensified with each miniscule movement of my head. I pressed my palms over my ears, indulging in a moment’s relief, but the scratchy white noise returned within seconds.
“That’s not good,” he told me.
His understatement wiggled through the distortion. The floor spun and swayed beneath my feet, causing my stomach to drop as if I’d just experienced lift on a roller coaster. My head spun as if no longer connected to my body. I placed one hand on each side, but my head continued its crazy dancing. “Give me a second. Vertigo.”
“Take your time.” He wrapped an arm around my waist. “You know, I think something’s going on—”