“You know her, don’t you, Cain?”
“Yes.”
“Great. Maybe she’ll know something. Does she still live here in town? Who is she?”
Cain glanced at Sophie and then returned his attention to the road. “The shutterbug is Martha Barker. She married straight out of high school. Her married name is Martha Garrison—my mother.”
NINE
“Y
our mother?” Sophie asked.
“I don’t know why I was so surprised. Truthfully, I should have thought of it sooner. My parents were born and raised in Promise. They know just about everybody.” Cain grinned. “I bet your mom and mine had the same teachers. Promise is a small town, but back then it was even smaller.”
Sophie picked up the photo and stared at the image. “Do you think your mom will remember my mother?” She couldn’t hide the wistfulness in her voice. “I’ve never met anyone other than my father who could tell me anything about her.”
“Well, there’s only one way to find out.” Cain took the picture from her fingers and slid it into his shirt pocket. “Let’s go ask her.”
“Now?” She tucked her hair behind her ear and grimaced as she looked down at her T-shirt and jeans. A wave of panic washed over her. How should one dress when meeting a woman who could hold all the answers to the millions of questions in her heart? How well had Cain’s mother known hers? Would she remember her? Would she be able to fill in the blanks, answer all of her questions about a woman who had mattered so much to her and yet whom she’d never met? And would Martha Garrison know anything about her father’s real identity? Or hers?
“Hey,” Cain gave her a playful tap on the arm. “Don’t look so scared. My mom doesn’t bite. I’ll give her a call and ask her to meet us at the house.” He lifted his cell phone.
Sophie reached out and grabbed his arm. “Wait!”
Cain held the phone in midair and stared at her.
“I…I want to meet your mother. I do,” she said. “But I want to visit my mother first.”
Cain lowered the phone and raised an eyebrow. “Your mother is buried in Promise? I don’t understand. She isn’t buried in the Weatherly family plot?”
Sophie smiled at his puzzled expression. “No. She’s buried in Crossroads Cemetery under her married name of Clarkston. Dad thought it would be better that way. We’d come back to Promise twice a year and visit her grave. We were never here more than a week or so…but I still think of Promise as my home.” She fought back the tears burning her eyes. “Or at least it used to be. In the days when I thought I was a Clarkston. Now I don’t know who I am and I don’t have anywhere to call home.”
“Home is where your heart is, Sophie. And it sounds to me like Promise fits that bill.” He gently rubbed her shoulder. “I’d be honored to go with you to visit your mother.”
Sophie squatted down, placed the handpicked bouquet of flowers on the grave and ran her fingers across the name Elizabeth Ann Clarkston on the headstone.
“I’m here, Mom. I know it’s not one of my usual visits and Dad’s not with me this time but I’m here. I wish I could talk to you and tell you all the horrible things that have been happening and ask you for your advice.”
She glanced up at Cain standing at the edge of the grave, turned back to the headstone and lowered her voice to a mere whisper. “I’m afraid, Mom. I’m so afraid. And the worst part of it all…” She glanced over her shoulder again and saw that Cain had walked a few feet away to give her privacy.
“Everything’s one big lie. I’m not Sophie Clarkston. I don’t have a clue who I really am.” She stood and stared down at her mother’s grave. “Did you know, Mom? Or did Dad lie to you, too?”
A breeze blew across the back of Sophie’s neck and sent a shiver down her spine. Someone was watching her. Quickly, she swiveled her head and looked around. Cain stood about four graves away, his back to her, looking out at the horizon. To her left, some distance away, she saw an elderly woman holding a Bible at another grave. They seemed to be the only people on the grounds.
Sophie’s eyes skimmed the rows of graves and trees for anything sinister. She
knew
someone was watching her. These eerie, uncomfortable sensations were not figments of her imagination. Whether she could see anyone or not, she knew she wasn’t alone…that someone, somewhere was watching her every move.
“You okay?”
Sophie, startled by the unexpected sound of a voice, jumped and then laughed. “You scared me. You shouldn’t be sneaking up on people, especially in cemeteries.”
Cain laughed. “Point taken. Are you ready to go? I’m anxious to see if my mother can give us any information.”
Sophie nodded. She glanced over her shoulder once more and then followed Cain to the car.
The view as they wound their way down the mountain was breathtaking. Promise, nestled in the valley beneath them, had grown and expanded in little bits at a time over the years. When she was a child, she used to think that Promise looked like a collection of miniature dollhouses in the palm of God’s hand. In the days when she’d been certain there was a God.
Sophie sighed deeply. She knew God existed. How could anyone take a look at this magnificent view of mountains and valley, blue sky and streams, and not feel the strong presence of a higher power? But like a spoiled child who didn’t get her way, she was finding it difficult not to be angry at Him for leaving her on her own during the worst time of her life.
She sensed more than felt Cain tense beside her. She looked over at him and asked, “Everything okay?”
He eased his foot off the accelerator, his gaze bouncing back and forth from the rearview to the side mirror.
“Cain?”
“It’s okay. I’m going to slow down and give this guy behind me a chance to pass.”
“Pass? On a twisting two-lane highway? You think that’s smart? Can’t he wait until we get to the bottom to pass?”
Before Cain could reply, the car behind them tapped their bumper.
Sophie squealed and reached her hand out to steady herself against the dashboard. The drop off the side of the mountain loomed in her peripheral vision.
Cain muttered something unintelligible under his breath, pulled the car over as far as he dared and hung his arm out the window to wave the other car around him.
Instead, the car butted them again…harder this time.
Cain wrenched the wheel and moved his car away from the guardrail and into the middle of the road.
As they sped up and twisted around a bend, Sophie offered a silent prayer that no one was coming in the opposite direction. And offered a second prayer that if He never listened to any of her other prayers He would listen to this one.
Without warning, the car behind pulled alongside them, inching them toward the guardrail. It was all happening so quickly Sophie could barely get her bearings. She tried to see who sat behind the wheel of the other vehicle but the tinted windows prevented her from seeing inside. She took a good hard look and her stomach twisted in knots. It was a black, four-door sedan, just like the car that had tried to run her down.
The sound of screeching metal wrenched the air as Sophie’s side of the car scraped against the guardrail.
Cain twisted the steering wheel, forcing the driver’s side to slam against their attacker.
Again they were forced back against the guardrail.
Suddenly, a small blue sports car appeared behind the black sedan. Sophie couldn’t believe her eyes when the sports car slammed into the black sedan, hurling it forward. The dull, deep metallic thud of the two cars impacting echoed through the air.
Immediately, the black sedan sped up and pulled in front of Sophie and Cain. The blue car stayed parallel to Cain’s.
Cain’s jaw clenched and his knuckles whitened as he hit the brakes. Their car skidded and swerved. The squeal of brakes and the smell of burning rubber filled the air.
The blue car sped up, passed theirs and raced the black sedan neck and neck down the winding road until both cars disappeared around a curve.
By this time Cain had skidded to a halt, leaving half their tires’ tread along the highway.
Sophie’s heart thundered inside her chest. What had just happened? She turned to look at Cain. Anger seemed to seep out of his every pore.
“It’s over. We’re all right,” she assured him.
Cain slapped his hand against the steering wheel and stepped out of the car. Sophie quickly followed.
“Did you know those guys?”
“No,” Cain replied. “But I’m going to.” He pulled out his cell phone and punched in a number.
“Cain…it probably is a coincidence, but did you notice…?”
“That it was the same black sedan that tried to run you down three days ago.” His jaw looked etched from granite. His eyes glittered like glaciers. “Yeah, I noted that little fact.”
“And the blue car?”
“An idiot teen who thought he’d lucked out and come upon some drag racers and decided to join the party? Who knows?”
Sophie sighed. Her limbs shook uncontrollably and she could barely stand. If that wasn’t bad enough, now she was going to have to face Sheriff Dalton—again. Every time she thought she was having the worst day in history, the next day dawned worse than the one before. When was it all going to end?
Sophie sat on the guardrail and pulled cold water deep into her throat from the bottle the sheriff had handed her after she gave her statement. The icy liquid soothed her parched throat. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” The sheriff hooked his thumbs into his belt and rocked slightly back and forth. “Seems like you keep getting yourself into a heap of trouble, young lady.”
“Me? I’m the victim, Sheriff, not the bad guy.” She cupped her fingers over her eyes to shield them from the sun as she looked into his mirrored sunglasses. Sophie hated mirrored sunglasses. You could never see the person’s eyes.
“So Cain tells me.”
“Well, Cain tells me you have problems with teens drag racing in the streets.”
“That we have, Ms. Clarkston. But even our dumbest teenagers wouldn’t be stupid enough to play chicken on a mountain.”
Sophie could feel the blood drain out of her face. “You don’t think it was teenagers racing?”
“Do you?” The large hulking man intimidated her. He must be scary as all get-out during a formal interrogation. She sure hoped she’d never have to find out.
“I don’t know what to think, Sheriff. All I know is one car hit us. A second car hit them. And they raced away. That’s about all the excitement I want to think about today.”
He scribbled a note in the small pad he carried and put it back in his pocket. “The thing is I was on my way to your house anyway. Checked with the title company. The cottage is definitely registered to Elizabeth Weatherly. The problem, little lady, is that I haven’t been able to find anything telling me you have a right to be living in that cottage. I haven’t been able to locate a marriage license in the name of Elizabeth Weatherly Clarkston. I haven’t been able to locate a birth certificate for a Miss Sophie Clarkston. And strangest of all, I haven’t been able to locate your daddy. Now why do you think that is?”
Sophie clenched her hands together and tried not to hyper-ventilate. Instead of answering the sheriff’s questions, she asked one of her own. “Are you going to throw me out of the cottage?”
Those blasted mirrored sunglasses stared back at her and she looked away. One one thousand. Two one thousand. If he didn’t answer soon she was going to scream. Three one thousand. Four…
“Nope.”
Her eyes flew to his face.
“Anybody with eyes in their head can take one look at you and know you’re Elizabeth’s daughter. You’ve got a key and nobody seems to be kicking up a fuss that you’re there. So for the time being, I’m gonna leave things as they are.”
“Thank you, Sheriff. I appreciate that.”
“Just don’t get too comfortable, Ms. Clarkston. There are too many questions about you and your daddy. And I’m not at all happy about all the trouble cropping up in Promise since you got here. I’m keeping my eye on you, and at the first sign of deception on your part you’re on the street and out of my town pronto. Understand?”
Sophie nodded and swallowed the lump in her throat as she watched him walk away.
“Don’t let him rattle you, Sophie. I told you before that Sheriff Dalton’s bark is a lot worse than his bite.” Cain had approached during the end of her conversation with the sheriff and offered her his hand. “Ready to go home?”
Sophie let him pull her to her feet and followed him to the car. The dents along the passenger side made the door hard to open but Cain managed. She slid into the front and fastened her seat belt. As Cain walked around to the driver’s side, she glanced at her watch. Almost noon. The day had barely started. She groaned. What else could go wrong today?
“Let’s go see my mom,” Cain said as he settled behind the wheel.
Sophie squeezed her eyes shut. She had her answer.
“Cain.” His mother stepped back, allowing him to enter the house. “What’s going on? What’s so important you couldn’t tell me on the phone? I had to leave my shop in Daisy Lee’s hands. Only the good Lord knows what I’ll find when I get back. Are you okay?”
Cain stepped into the foyer of the large Colonial and reached an arm behind him to usher Sophie inside. “Mom, this is…”
His mother’s eyes locked with hers and she gasped. “Sophia.” The older woman’s hand flew to her chest and for a split second Sophie wondered if her unannounced appearance had caused her to have a heart attack.
“You’re the spitting image of your mother.” Martha Garrison stepped back and scrutinized her from head to toe.
Sophie shifted uncomfortably under the inspection. She glanced at the lilac print wallpaper in the foyer, the large fern in the plant stand at the base of the stairs, the wall of family pictures ascending up the stairwell. She’d never been in a house so opulent. She’d spent most of her life in motels and short-term rentals. Her cottage was the closest thing she’d ever had to a real home. Her eyes soaked in the decor like a sponge.
“You are Elizabeth Weatherly’s daughter, aren’t you?” The woman’s smile reached her eyes.