Книга - Who Is Deborah?

Who Is Deborah?
Elise Title


The face in her mirror…It was her face. It had to be. But it looked as unfamiliar as this morning's headlines, as frightening in its strangeness as the bogeyman who'd haunted her childhood dreams.The man in her bed was Nicholas Steele, and it seemed likely that he was her husband.Though his touch was unfamiliar, she was unable to escape his power to stir her passion.She might indeed be Deborah, a woman who had taken her husband's love and twisted it into something foul and frightening. That would be bad enough. Because if she wasn't Deborah, then Nicholas had murdered his wife–and she was in love with a man who had blood on his hands.









Stay low. Keep your head down. One false move and it’s curtains.


I fell out of the lounge chair onto the ground. And then I was crawling. No, dragging myself along the grass, like a soldier under fire. The landscape around me blurred as I moved closer to the edge of the bluf. I dragged myself on, closer, closer to the edge. As if I was being lured by a siren.

No, not lured, I thought, my head clearing for an instant. I wasn’t dragging myself. I was being dragged. Someone was tugging at me. Pushing me. And the cliff was coming up on me.

Terror gripped me. I tried with all my might to pull myself away, but a wave of cold black washed over me, paralyzing my limbs. Then I heard the echo of a scream.

It was me. Hands were grabbing at me. I opened my eyes and stared straight down the jagged mountain cliff. I felt doomed. Lost.


Elise Title is a leading author of women’s fiction, who has penned over twenty bestselling books. With more than eight million copies of her books in print, she is one of the most popular writers of romance fiction. Her fast-paced style and contemporary characters guarantee that every book is a page-turner.




Who is Deborah?

Elise Title







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




CONTENTS


CHAPTER ONE (#ub7ce7790-6e11-5614-a8cf-fe3e59da0309)

CHAPTER TWO (#ua8cb5b50-e4e0-599b-98c8-3c144cef1a8f)

CHAPTER THREE (#u73aa1840-fb1c-532b-bfac-3db4fc794d4b)

CHAPTER FOUR (#u6c48796c-63cd-57d0-99c1-cacea16add45)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)




CHAPTER ONE


It all began the day I discovered I was Deborah Steele. I awoke early that morning, just after dawn—a sharp break in my routine of sleeping till noon. Usual, at least, for the past two months. Before then…Well, that was something else.

I remember waking anxious and disoriented, crying out in a low, broken voice as I heard a clap of thunder. I hated thunderstorms.

Lightning flashed across my drawn window shade and I was overwhelmed by feelings of panic and helplessness. I pulled my pillow over my head, blocking out sight and sound, curling up my whole body as if once again I was fending off…

Fending off what? That was the problem. As Dr. Royce had told me time and again, over the past two months, I wouldn’t allow myself to remember. I suppose he was correct. I was afraid. Everyone is afraid at times; but this fear lived inside me like a malignant virus for which there was no cure.

Tears spiked my eyes, dread mingling with frustration and desperation. I squeezed my eyes shut, praying for the awful feelings to pass, for the storm not to come, and most of all, for someone to find me—to find me in the truest sense. Because I felt lost. Completely and utterly lost.

By midmorning, I had managed to pull myself together. The sky was gray and overcast but it wasn’t raining yet. Maybe the storm wouldn’t materialize, after all. Maybe I’d make it through the day without unraveling. Not a lot to ask for. I could have asked for more. Much more. But I was working hard on not asking for things I wasn’t likely to get or setting myself up for disappointment. Which is why what happened later that day threw me for such a loop…

I was in my usual corner of the occupational-therapy room, my easel set up by a large window that let in the northern light. I stood there painting, as I did every afternoon between the end of my group-therapy meeting and dinner. There were other patients scattered about the large space, busy at projects, some of them chatting as they pounded clay or wove baskets. But I kept to myself. Not that I mingled much at any time of the day, but this was my special time, a time just for me. Two precious hours when I could lose myself in other worlds. Two hours when I could forget the hospital, the tedium, the persistent prodding, the endless frustration, the awful loneliness and the ineffable sense of loss.

Painting was my joy and my salvation. I loved the smell of the oil paints and even the turpentine. When I painted—only when I painted—did I somehow feel connected to myself. While all the other hours of my day dragged by, these two golden hours seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. I knew they had passed when I heard a familiar voice behind me.

“It’s very good.”

The pleasant, approving voice belonged to John Harris, my art therapist. The tall, gangly young man with a shock of red hair stood just off to my right, observing my painting with one of his thoughtful looks.

It was a look I had come to know well over the past two months. I returned his look with one he’d seen often enough before—a look at once guarded and sardonic. “Yes, but that isn’t the point, is it?”

He smiled good-humoredly. “Not the whole point.”

I didn’t respond. I set my brush down and joined him in his study of my canvas—a landscape with a still, blue sky dotted with clouds suspended over a mountain scene. And, as in each of my paintings, there was a single human figure—a young woman with flowing blond hair. This one standing on the top of the mountain, with the wind blowing at her back and looking out to the west. No, not merely looking; searching. I knew this as did John, even though—as in all my paintings—the woman was faceless.

“Tell me about her,” John said gently. I was in ‘real time’ again, hospital time, prodding time.

“You always ask me that. Why?”

He reacted to the added edge in my voice. “It’s the weather, isn’t it?”

“I suppose,” I replied noncommittally.

He gestured to the woman on the canvas. “Does she like the mountains?”

“I’m really not sure. Or maybe she’s the one who isn’t sure.”

He smiled and I offered up a quick, wry smile in return.

“What do you think would happen,” he asked in that measured voice that always made me uneasy, “if you painted her to look like you? Your face, I mean?”

Instinctively, my hands flew to my face. I could feel the tremor radiating from my fingers against my warm cheeks. “But this isn’t really…my face.”

A ribbon of color—ruby red—squeezed from a tube of paint flashed before my eyes. Only it wasn’t paint. It was…blood. Ruby-red blood. My blood. Hot and moist and fetid, blurring my vision. And with the image came a violent spasm of shock. That first glimpse of myself in the hospital before the plastic surgeon had put me together again—in a fashion.

John gave me a sympathetic look. “It’s very possible that you don’t look all that different than you did before.”

My temples began to beat like a drum. “But I don’t know that, do I?” I snapped at him. “Because I haven’t the foggiest notion what I looked like before.” A dam seemed to burst in me. “Why have any face at all when I’m faceless inside? Anyway, if this is my face, why hasn’t anyone come forward to identify me? I ran a photo of myself for over a week in the newspaper with the biggest circulation in New York. No one recognized me, did they?” I finished bleakly.

“Katherine…”

My defenses collapsed, despair washing over me. “Even the name isn’t mine. Made up out of thin air like everything else about me.”

He looked distraught at my outburst and I felt a stab of guilt. My predicament wasn’t John’s fault.

“I’m sorry. It is the weather. I woke up early. I’ve been wound up all day. Sometimes I wish…”

“What do you wish?”

“That the police had just left my bruised and battered body on the sidewalk that rainy night.”

I could hear the rain again, pounding in my head. That was all I could remember of that night. That, and then waking up a few hours later in the emergency room of the New York General, with a sweet-faced, young policeman gazing anxiously down at me. I could picture him perfectly.

“You must have fought back hard,” the policeman had said, a touch of awe in his voice.

My own voice seemed to have dried up. When I’d finally managed to speak, I discovered it wasn’t easy to move my lips. My face was swathed in bandages. Later I was informed that I’d suffered a concussion and that both my nose and jaw had been broken. But at that moment I wasn’t concerned about my mutilated face. Terror had gripped me. “Was I…?”

Before I’d had to say the word raped, he’d hurriedly shaken his head. I’d felt a rush of relief. It hadn’t lasted long—just until he’d started to question me and to my horror, I hadn’t been able to give him any answers. Not only had I been unable to tell him anything about the assault, I’d even forgotten my name. I couldn’t remember anything. My mind was a complete blank. And the police had little to go on, since I’d been found without any identification on me, in a dark alley in a commercial district of the city.

The doctors tried to assure me that once the trauma wore off, my memory would gradually return. But it hadn’t. I’d undergone plastic surgery to have my nose and jaw restructured, and then I’d been moved to the psychiatric ward of the hospital.

“Katherine.”

John Harris’s voice drew me from my reverie. I saw that Dr. Royce was standing beside John. I’d been so wrapped up in my thoughts I hadn’t even seen my psychiatrist come in. He was staring at my painting and then he turned to me.

“Mountains,” he murmured. “Interesting.”

I sensed some hidden import in the tone of his voice that made the muscles between my shoulder blades tighten. This was odd, because the distinguished-looking psychiatrist generally had the opposite effect on me. I’d developed something of a crush on the soft-spoken, good-looking, kindly doctor. Sometimes, when I was particularly depressed, I would fantasize that he had a special fondness for me, as well. Sometimes I even wondered if it was all a fantasy. To my surprise, I found myself wondering it at that moment. I wasn’t sure why. I thought it might be the heightened tenderness and concern I detected in his warm brown eyes. Ironically, instead of being pleased, I felt a flash of alarm. Something was troubling him. Something was wrong.

“What is it?” My voice was a bare whisper.

“Let’s talk in my office,” he said, in a soothing tone. Only it didn’t soothe me at all.

I was glad his office was just a few doors down from the O.T. room.

I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until he shut his office door, and I finally exhaled. I spun around to face him. “Please. Tell me.”

He nodded, gesturing to a big, comfortable gray-tweed armchair. For the past two months, I’d spent an hour every other day in that chair, in therapy.

I managed a lopsided smile as I moved to the chair. “All of a sudden, my legs feel like jelly.”

Dr. Royce took the matching armchair that was a few feet from mine, forgoing his usual seat behind his desk. I was completely convinced that something big was brewing. I felt both nervous and excited.

“Someone’s come to see you.”

No sooner had he said those words than tears instantly flooded my eyes. I thought I must be hearing things. But I could see from the doctor’s sober expression I’d heard correctly. “Who?” I managed to eke out.

He put off answering for a moment—his way of giving me a chance to gather myself. There was an electric coffeepot on a table near him. He poured a cup and handed it to me. My hands were trembling badly as I took it from him, but I sipped the hot, strong brew gratefully. Then I plucked out some tissues conveniently placed by my chair and wiped my eyes and blew my nose.

“His name is Greg Eastman.”

Dr. Royce fixed his gaze on me as he said the name. If he expected some reaction, a ray of light to dawn, I disappointed him. Not to mention my own sorry disappointment. The name meant absolutely nothing to me.

“Who is he? How…How does he know me?”

“He’s a private investigator.” A faint smile curved the psychiatrist’s lips. “He recognized you from the photo you ran in the paper.”

I started to smile, too. “He recognized me? Then…then my face isn’t…I haven’t…changed….”

“Not enough for him not to recognize you.”

There was something I didn’t understand. “Are you saying he wasn’t sure, at first? Is that why he’s waited…?”

“No. He told me he was out of town when your photo ran in the paper, but his secretary had, as a matter of practice, clipped it out and filed it in his Missing Persons folder. The minute he saw it…” Dr. Royce paused for a moment. “He knew it was you.”

I waited, as if suspended, for him to tell me who I was. I will never forget that wait. A part of me felt it was interminable; another part of me was afraid for it to conclude. Discovering my identity could be as frightening as not knowing it at all.

When Dr. Royce finally spoke, there was such solemnity in his voice that the hairs on my forearms literally stood on end. “He says your name is Deborah Steele.”

I stared at him blankly, not knowing what to say to this announcement, how to react. It was the strangest sensation. I suddenly went numb all over.

“Deborah.” I tried the name out for the first time. It sounded as foreign and removed from me as the name Katherine—as any name I might have pulled out of a hat.

My hand was shaking so, I only barely managed to set my coffee cup down on the table. “Is he sure?”

“Naturally, he wants to see you in person, but…I think he’s pretty certain. He knew you. Quite well, he says. He knew…that you painted.”

My eyes widened.

“And he brought along a photograph.”

“Of…her?” I couldn’t think of her as me.

Not yet. It was all too unreal. I wasn’t even sure I wouldn’t wake up any moment and find out this was all some wild, impossible dream.

“The similarities are striking.”

I sensed he was holding something back. “And the differences? Are they striking, too?”

It was the only time I ever saw Dr. Royce blush. “Naturally…there are some differences. The nose and jawline…” His voice trailed off.

I had a feeling there were more profound differences, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear what they were. “This private detective—Greg Eastman—you say he knew me.”

Dr. Royce leaned forward a little. I braced myself. As it turned out I needed bracing.

“He’s not merely a private investigator. He’s a close friend of…your husband.” He exhaled a breath. “Nicholas Steele.”

Husband? My heart began to pound and a line of perspiration broke out across my brow. I could feel the color drain from my face. I must have looked ghastly, because Dr. Royce’s expression became etched with concern.

“It’s a lot to take in. Don’t expect to do it all at once,” he cautioned in that comforting voice he used whenever I became overly agitated.

“Husband?” This time I said the word aloud, but it still didn’t sound real. Or possible. I looked at my bare ring finger. Had I worn a wedding band before the attack? Had it been stolen, along with everything else I had on me? But, I didn’t feel…married. I felt so…detached. I stared incredulously at Dr. Royce. “You say his name is…Nicholas Steele?”

He was watching me closely. “Does it sound familiar to you?”

I started to shake my head, but then I stopped abruptly, my heartbeat accelerating. “I…don’t know. It does…ring a bell. I…I think I’ve heard the name…before.”

Could this be that first chink in the armor? If it was, I would have expected to see some sign of pleasure in the doctor’s face. I didn’t. If anything, his expression took on amore somber cast. I was crestfallen.

“Nicholas Steele is a writer,” he said gently. “His novels are bestsellers. You might have seen some of his books here at the hospital or seen an ad for one of them in a newspaper.” He paused. “On the other hand, it is possible you may—”

I shook my head then. “No,” I said, cutting him off. “I must have seen his name on a book or in the newspaper. It certainly doesn’t conjure up any images.”

“Maybe that’s just as well.”

As soon as the words had slipped out of his mouth, I could see that he regretted them.

He smiled awkwardly. “I only meant…He writes horror novels.”

By this point my head was swimming. How could I, the victim of a horror so traumatic I’d erased it and everything that came before it from my mind, be the wife of a famous—for all I knew, infamous—writer of ghoulish deeds? It was utterly perverse and incredible. I had to be dreaming—an insane nightmare.

“You don’t believe this, do you? You don’t think I’m the wife of a man…like that?”

Dr. Royce donned a fatherly expression. “Like what? Just because he writes horror stories doesn’t mean—”

“I can’t even imagine reading a horror novel. I can’t believe I…I ever did.”

“Wives aren’t required to be fans of their husbands’ work.”

“You think I’m Deborah?”

“I talked with Mr. Eastman for close to two hours. He was very candid, and he gave me a great number of details that I must say sounded credible.” He hesitated, and my body tensed. “He also told me that Nicholas Steele lives in a small town about three hours north of here. Sinclair. It’s in the Catskill Mountains.”

I finally understood his remark back in the O.T. room when he was looking at my landscape. “I wasn’t painting any particular mountain. I…I couldn’t have been.”

“Not on a conscious level,” he went on, in an almost-chatty tone. I knew he was trying to calm me down, but even he had to know that wasn’t a likely prospect. Still, though my head was spinning with it all, I tried to concentrate on his words.

“Mr. Eastman has a getaway cottage up in Sinclair,” Dr. Royce was saying. But I wanted to hear about Nicholas Steele, this writer of horror stories, this man who was supposedly my husband. Or did I?

“Eastman spends most weekends and summers there. He’s known Steele for more than five years. They’re tennis partners and Eastman says he’s even been acknowledged in a couple of Steele’s books for giving him technical advice. From what he said, I gather he and Steele are very good friends.”

“And what about me?” There. I’d said it. Me. Not her. Me. It was the strangest feeling, yet not altogether unpleasant.

I saw that Dr. Royce didn’t miss the shift in pronouns. “Nicholas Steele was, according to Eastman, a dyed-in-the-wool bachelor until he was off in St. Martin doing some research on a book and met ‘the girl of his dreams.’ That’s a direct quote from Mr. Eastman.”

I found myself smiling, but then the incredulity of it all made me stop abruptly.

Dr. Royce continued. “When he returned to Sinclair three weeks later, he had a bride with him.”

“A whirlwind courtship, marriage on a tropical island…It sounds like something out of a romance novel.” But, better a romance than a horror novel.

“That was just over two years ago,” he told me quietly. “And then, two and a half months ago, Deborah Steele disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” I echoed, and shivered.

Dr. Royce’s gaze fixed on me. “She left the house to catch the train down to Manhattan for a shopping trip and…and that was the last that was heard of her. Eastman says he spent a month working both with the police and on his own, trying to trace her. Finally he returned to Sinclair, since he thought it was possible she could have met with some kind of accident or foul play before ever getting on the train. After getting nowhere in Sinclair, either, he came back to Manhattan and—”

“Saw the picture of me in his file.”

Dr. Royce nodded. I found myself nodding back inanely, the whole time feeling completely adrift. Eventually I asked, “Now what?”

“Mr. Eastman wants to see you, talk to you. I told him I would talk with you first and that I’d suggest you let all this…news…sink in for a day or two, or however long you need. There’s no rush. I know all this is an enormous shock to your system—”

“Is he still here?”

Dr. Royce hesitated. “Yes, but—”

“I want to see him.”

“Katherine—”

“But it isn’t Katherine, is it?”

He scowled. “For you, it still is. You can’t take on a new name and a whole new identity in a matter of minutes. It will take time. And there’s still the possibility that he’s wrong.”

“All the more reason for us to meet right away,” I insisted.

I could see that Dr. Royce wasn’t particularly pleased with my refusal to take his advice. Now it was I who leaned closer. “I must know. You do understand that.”

He nodded. “My only concern is for your welfare. Too much, too soon—”

“I’m stronger than I appear.” I laughed softly, experiencing a ripple of surprise. “I didn’t know that myself until just now.”

“I did,” he said, a smile curving his lips. And in that smile I saw genuine caring. I think that’s where much of my strength came from. Little did I know that very soon, I’d have to call on that strength in spades.




CHAPTER TWO


I tried to compose myself as I waited in Dr. Royce’s office for Greg Eastman to come in. Dr. Royce had wanted to wait with me, to stand by me during the meeting and give me moral support. Or maybe artificial respiration if I passed out! But I’d been adamant about wanting my very protective doctor to leave me on my own. I think my assertiveness surprised him. It surprised me even more. I didn’t really understand my sudden spurt of boldness, writing it off as partly desperation, partly the need to begin to stand on my own two feet.

My two feet, however, weren’t holding me up all that well. They felt like a cross between rubber and marshmallows. I sat down in the armchair. I folded one hand over the other. I crossed my bare legs at the ankles. I took deep breaths. Nothing helped. My heart was racing. My palms were sweaty. I was a nervous wreck.

I kept thinking, you should be happy. This is what I’d dreamed about for months. Finally, someone’s come for me—someone who knows me, someone who’s bringing me the greatest gift possible: myself. Not that it couldn’t be some terrible mistake. This private investigator might come in, see me, and realize I wasn’t Deborah Steele, after all. Suddenly I was fervently praying that wouldn’t happen. In those last waiting moments, I found myself longing to be Deborah Steele. For if I wasn’t Deborah, I was once again…nobody. I didn’t truly exist. Even the idea of being married to a man whose mind must be steeped in horror fiction didn’t prevent me from my longing to be Deborah. I focused on what Dr. Royce had told me—the whirlwind courtship and marriage on a tropical island, the romance of it all. Oh, if I could be Deborah, the girl of this man’s dreams…

I couldn’t keep my anxiety or my anticipation at bay for more than a few moments. This meeting with Greg Eastman could hold the key to unlocking my past. And my future. Whatever had gone on before, whatever lay ahead, had to be better than the awful blankness, the loneliness that consumed me almost every waking moment here in the hospital. At least, that’s what I told myself at the time.

When he stepped into the office after what felt like an eternity but was probably no more than ten minutes, I popped up like a puppet whose strings had been abruptly tugged hard.

Greg Eastman smiled. “Please. Sit down.”

Self-consciously, I followed his request. My boldness having deserted me altogether, I could manage little more than a quick glance at the private investigator. It was long enough, though, to know that he looked utterly unfamiliar to me. I felt incredibly disappointed as I stared down at my hands.

When I think back on that first meeting with Greg, it was his smile that I remember most. Sympathetic, charming, coaxing at turns. His grab bag of smiles didn’t quite put me at ease—that would have been impossible—but they did give me some comfort. I think I must have been expecting some hard-boiled shamus right out of a detective novel. Greg was nothing like that. He was clean-cut and attractive, with close-cropped sandy blond hair, regular features, and that engaging smile.

His next words broke the awkward and extended silence. “This must be quite a shock for you, Deborah.”

The name rolled so easily and naturally off his lips that my head jerked up.

“Am I…her?” My mouth was dry. The words came out like a harsh croak.

“After they made you, they threw away the mold.” Immediately after uttering the glib remark, he looked contrite. “Sorry. It’s just that I’m so incredibly relieved to see you. Dr. Royce has explained everything to me, Deborah. The assault, the injuries you suffered, the memory loss that resulted. But it’s going to be all right. Now, you can begin to really heal. I’ve come to take you home, Deborah.”

Home. I had promised myself I wouldn’t break down, but it was all too much. Home.

My sudden burst of tears filled Greg with alarm. He didn’t seem to know what to do, what to say. After a few attempts to calm me with words and pats on my shoulder, he finally just kept handing me tissues until I got my bearings again.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, horribly embarrassed.

“Don’t be. It’s probably the best thing for you.”

The best thing for me. No. The best thing for me would be to remember being Deborah.

“Did the headshrinker fill you in?” Greg asked. He gave me a quirky smile in response to my blank look. “Sorry. The psychiatrist.”

I repeated by rote what Dr. Royce had told me. “He said that you knew me from Sinclair. In the Catskill Mountains three hours north of here. You have a getaway cottage there. You’re a friend of Nicholas Steele’s. You’ve known him for five years. You’re tennis partners.”

I continued in a monotone. “Nicholas was married for two years and then two and a half months ago his wife, Deborah, disappeared. You saw my photo in the newspaper clipping and recognized me as Deborah Steele.” I might have been giving a canned speech at a conference. Nothing that I said had any foundation in reality for me. I felt like I was talking about someone else altogether. Deborah and Nicholas. They were both no more than phantom beings. I felt no connection to either of them.

Greg leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, palms capturing his square chin. He seemed unfazed by my mechanical presentation.

“You must have been mugged the first day you got to the city,” he said. “I checked out the area where they found you. At night, it’s a pretty desolate spot, but there are a few designers who have lofts in that neighborhood. You always had a thing for searching out new fashion designers. The best-dressed woman with the most original wardrobe in Sinclair. Not that Sinclair’s exactly a fashion mecca, but we do have our country-club set.” He winked, clearly expecting to garner a little laugh or a smile from me at the very least.

But my mouth was stuck in a tight line. To make matters worse, I became horribly self-conscious about the drab cotton print sundress that hung loosely on my narrow frame. My meager wardrobe, culled from the hospital’s thrift shop with a few hand-me-downs from a couple of nurses tossed in, was about as far from designer wear as one could get. I was certainly not the fashion plate of the New York General.

Greg leaned a little closer. I squirmed under his scrutiny, thinking he, too, was none too impressed with my attire, nor with my whole appearance. But how I looked and what I was wearing turned out not to be what was on his mind. “I know all this must be hard for you, but it’s hard for me, too, Deborah. You really don’t remember anything? Anything at all?”

Slowly, I shook my head. “This feels very unreal. I don’t even know whether to believe any of it. I keep thinking…you must have made a mistake.”

“No mistake,” he said confidently. And then he added, “Maybe this will help.” He withdrew a photo from a manila envelope and extended it toward me. As much as I wanted to look, I felt frozen to the spot. I couldn’t even reach out my hand to take the photo from him.

Eventually he laid it in my lap, facing me.

Still, it took several long moments for me to manage to lower my eyes to it.

It was an eight-by-ten glossy of a blond-haired woman in a bikini, smiling provocatively into the camera as she posed on the bow of a sailing sloop. What emerged most from the shot was the vibrancy of her coloring—the healthy, glowing golden sweep of hair, the tanned skin, the glamorous red lipstick, the vibrant blue eyes that sparkled with such youth and vitality.

Was this me? A me in happier times? Had my blue eyes ever shone like that? Had my blond hair ever looked so lustrous? Had I ever been so carefree? So curvy?

Incredible as it was, the similarities were undeniable. Not just that our eye color and hair shade matched, but it was there in the shape of the eyes. And in the mouth. Even our noses weren’t all that different. The jawlines…Well, they weren’t the same. Hers seemed to jut out more, giving her an air of defiance. It went with the seductive glint in her eyes. She seemed so sure of herself. And maybe a little full of herself, as well. That was the heart of the difference between us. I was certain that was what Dr. Royce saw, too, when he examined the photograph.

“You just need to put on a bit of weight, get out in the sun again, and—”

“Tell me about her,” I said, cutting him off.

He looked slightly startled. Then he smiled. “Well, she’s beautiful, vivacious, fun loving…”

But those were all qualities I could see myself in the photo. I wanted to know about the parts of her—of me?—that I couldn’t see.

My disappointment must have shown on my face, because he gave me a tender smile. “You always looked very sure of yourself, but you didn’t always feel that way. Not by half. We were good friends, Deborah. You…confided in me. You told me how important painting was for you. You talked about how lonely you were as a child.”

“My family…?”

A flicker in his hazel eyes told me it was a sad story. “Your father walked out on you when you were a small child. You always wished you could at least picture him in your mind, but you couldn’t. Your only memory of him was of a red plaid shirt he’d worn. You used to…tear up a little and say, ‘Can you imagine remembering nothing at all about your father but a dumb old shirt?”’

I hung on every word Greg spoke, struggling to make them mean something to me. I could feel for this sad child, but I couldn’t identify with her as being a part of myself.

“And my mother?”

He sighed. “She died when you were nine. You went to live with a maiden aunt in Omaha. I always used to tease you that no one really lived in Omaha.”

“And…and what would I say?”

“You’d say, ‘I didn’t live there, Greg. I existed there. Just barely, at that.”’

I sat very still, tears slipping down my cheeks. It sounded so much like the feeling I had here in the hospital. This was the first real connection I felt to Deborah.

“I honestly think that once you’re with Nick at Raven’s Cove, it will all come back to you,” he said in a soft murmur.

“Raven’s Cove?”

Greg grinned. “From Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘The Raven.’ An appropriate name for the abode of a renowned spook writer. Not that Nick takes any of that nonsense seriously. I think it was his cousin who named the place.”

“His cousin?”

“Second cousin once removed, or something like that. Lillian. She sort of looks after things. Very quietly and unobtrusively. You needn’t worry about old Lill.”

“I’m worried about everything,” I confessed readily. “I don’t think I’m really able to take it all in.”

He went to reach for my hand, but instinctively I jerked it away. Even though I remembered nothing about the assault, it had left me with an uneasiness about being touched. I started to apologize, knowing Greg meant only to comfort me, but he waved off my apology.

“Deborah, listen to me. You don’t belong here. You won’t get well here. And that’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Of course, he had to know I wanted that more than anything.

I asked shakily, “Have you…spoken with him already?” I couldn’t say his name yet. Nicholas? Nick? Darling? I felt my cheeks redden.

“Yes.”

“He’s…expecting me?”

“Yes.”

“Were you so certain I’d come?”

“As certain as I was that you were Deborah. And now I’m more certain than ever. I’ll say it again. Deborah Steele is one of a kind. Since you can’t know that, take it from someone who does.” It was a warm compliment and I sensed no seductiveness in it. Here, I started to think, was someone whom I might be able to trust. Trust wasn’t something that had been coming easily to me. I got the feeling from the little Greg had told me, it never had. But I must have trusted him in the past. He’d said I’d confided in him.

“It’s going to be all right, Deborah. I promise.”

I managed a small smile. “I have to confess, Mr. Eastman—”

“Greg. I’ve been Greg ever since we first met, two years ago. What do you confess, Deborah?”

Her smile deepened a little. “I confess, Greg, that your confidence is a bit contagious.”

He smiled back—a smile at once charming and ingenuous. “Progress already. Won’t Dr. Royce be pleased.” He rubbed his hands together. “I’ll phone up to Nick and let him know we’ll be on our way.” Then, realizing I might feel he was moving too fast, he hastened to add, “As soon as you’re ready.”

Having all but sealed my fate, I felt a flurry of nervous anticipation. No amount of sitting around the hospital would make me any more ready than I was. Not that I was the least bit ready psychologically, mind you.

“I just need to pack and tell Dr. Royce—”

“Good,” Greg said cheerily. “Then we’ll make it up to Raven’s Cove in time for dinner.”

The rain started as Greg guided his sunny yellow Miata sports car onto the New York State Thruway. Flicking on his windshield wipers, he asked, “Are you okay?”

“It’s just…the rain,” I replied, not knowing whether Dr. Royce had told him anything about that.

“It should clear up,” he said with an overabundance of confidence that the cloud-laden skies didn’t support.

But it wasn’t only the rain. It was my growing sense of unease. All I could think, now that I was actually on my way, was that I shouldn’t have jumped into this so impulsively. Dr. Royce had tried to talk some sense into me. He’d even suggested phoning Nicholas and having him come down to the hospital to meet with me a few times…

“Why didn’t he come?”

Greg gave me a blank look.

“Nick.” I felt somehow foolish speaking his name.

“I only just told him about finding you a few hours ago. And his editor was up there. He would have come…Would you rather he’d have…?”

“No. I don’t know,” I answered shakily. Saying that, I was struck by how little I knew about Nicholas Steele. It was beyond me at that point to think of that stranger, a writer of macabre stories, as my husband. In my rush to begin my real life again, I’d pushed this rather crucial but certainly troubling part of it aside.

Greg must have picked up on my distress, because he started to tell me about him. “I should have brought along a picture of Nick. I could have pulled off a jacket cover from one of his books lying around my office.” He winked at me. “I’m not only a close friend, but an avid fan. Well, let me ease your worries. He’s real easy on the eyes. Tall, dark and Hollywood handsome. Although I’m always teasing him about getting a haircut. He keeps it long and pulled back in a ponytail. A real rogue pirate. Women find him witty, charming and incredibly sexy, and most men are envious as hell of him.”

“Are you?” I turned scarlet. “I’m sorry. That was a stupid, inappropriate question. Please forgive me.”

Greg merely laughed. “It wasn’t stupid or inappropriate. You always did have a habit of speaking your mind, Deb. Loss of memory notwithstanding, there’s no reason that should have changed about you. And the answer is yes. As envious as the next guy.” There was a slight pause, a quick glance in my direction, as he added, “Maybe more so.”

My face remained flushed, but Greg seemed amused, letting the innuendo slide by.

“Not that Nick’s perfect, mind you. He can be a bit intimidating until you get to know him. He’s very self-contained, exceptionally disciplined, an impossible perfectionist.”

I gave him a nervous look.

Greg quickly attempted to alleviate my anxiety. “A perfectionist when it comes to his work, that is. He sets incredibly high standards for himself, but he’s not one of those people who expects those around him to necessarily follow suit,” he assured me, following the remark with a dry laugh. “Otherwise we’d never have become friends.”

I gave the private investigator a curious look. He laughed again. “Compared to the illustrious Nicholas Steele, I’m just an ordinary slob, Deb.”

I didn’t think he was ordinary, but I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything. “We should be there in another hour or so,” Greg said a few minutes later.

Another hour? So soon? As if to amplify the mounting tension I was feeling, the rain began falling harder and the car was buffeted by the accompanying winds. The quick, steady rhythm of the windshield wipers seemed to mirror my rapid heartbeat. What had I gotten myself into?

My silence, and no doubt my rigid posture, clued Greg in to my anxious mood. Without thinking, he reached out and patted my knee in what I knew was meant to be a calming gesture. Still, I couldn’t suppress my automatic response.

My sharp cry of alarm at his touch nearly cost Greg control of the car. He managed, after a few panicky moments, to pull over. There was a truck stop up ahead on the highway. He drove into the parking lot. Both of us were shaken up at this point.

“I’m sorry.” We both said the same words at the same time. Greg laughed. I managed a weak smile.

“We can go inside, get a cup of coffee and wait the storm out,” he offered.

I shook my head, chiding myself for overreacting. I had to somehow get it into my head that every touch wasn’t a threat. Even though all memory of the assault was absent from my mind, I was paranoid. The storm and this trip only heightened it.

I took in a deep breath, exhaling slowly as Dr. Royce had taught me. I could feel some of the color return to my face. “I’m all right now. Please, let’s go.” I felt foolish and self-conscious and was greatly relieved when Greg started for the exit ramp without a word.

To my amazement and I’m sure Greg’s relief, by the time we neared Sinclair a little over an hour later, the skies had cleared. When we approached the small main drag of the quaint mountain town, the streets were actually dry, the descending sun casting a warm golden hue over the picture-postcard landscape.

The setting, far from stirring any memories, was completely unfamiliar to me, but my spirits perked up nonetheless. There was something warm and friendly and easygoing about the village. Good vibes, I thought, smiling.

Greg was delighted with the change in me. “You’re already looking more like your old self,” he commented, his eyes sparkling.

The remark gave me a surprising little thrill.

We were approaching a quaint, barnboard red-shingled convenience store. “Could we stop for a minute?” I asked. “I’d like to pick up a few things. I made do with very little at the hospital.” I was thinking some cosmetics were in order, and some perfume would be nice. What scent, though? What did “Deborah” wear? Did “my husband” have a preference?

Greg drove into the small parking area in front of the convenience store. “I’ll fill up across the street and be back here in a few minutes.”

As I opened the car door to step out, I was tempted to ask him about the perfume, but then felt foolish and embarrassed.

“Do you need some money?” he asked.

“Oh…No. I have…enough,” I said, hurriedly stepping out and waving as Greg pulled out.

Actually, I’d been penniless at the hospital, a ward of the state. The only reason I had money on me now was that I’d accepted a small loan from Dr. Royce. Despite the fact that he was against my leaving the hospital so precipitously, he’d insisted that I not go off empty-handed. I felt funny about accepting the money, but I was touched, too. For a moment, I wished I’d discovered I was Dr. Royce’s wife, not Nicholas Steele’s. I suppose most patients have special feelings for their therapists. And I suppose the converse is true of some therapists, as well. It certainly was true of Dr. Royce—even though the money he loaned me wasn’t actually his, but came out of an emergency hospital kitty. I promised to pay it back as soon as possible, not thinking at the time that it meant having to ask Nicholas Steele for the money. Or did I have some money of my own?

A little bell jingled over the glass-and-wooden door as I stepped into the shop that on the inside gave the appearance of an old-fashioned general store. There was even a bulletin board near the cash register where locals tacked up folksy announcements, photos, and notices of items for sale.

I was relieved to see that other than the young girl at the register, there were only a couple of customers in the shop—a pair of middle-aged women chatting and browsing over at the book-and-magazine rack. The prospect of being around a crowd of people made me feel skittish. I had voiced that concern to Greg at one point while we were driving up. I worried that such a rich and celebrated author as Nicholas Steele would surround himself with some sort of literary “in” crowd. Greg, however, had assured me that Nick led what most people would call a very reclusive life. He valued his solitude, had few close friends, dispatched sycophants with practiced ease, never gave big parties. Greg also insisted that, sought-after though Nicholas was, he, too, felt uneasy and out of place in large groups. Of course, a certain amount of that was required to promote sales of his books. But, fortunately, Greg had added, Nicholas Steele’s horror novels were so popular at this point that they basically sold themselves, allowing him to be very selective about the guest appearances and such that he now rarely made.

The cosmetics rack turned out to be in the aisle that was directly on the other side of the book-and-magazine rack. Feeling overwhelmed by the wide assortment of choices for lipstick, blush, eye shadows, eyeliners and face powders, I could do little more than stare at it all.

I was only vaguely conscious of the conversation between the two women at the book rack until I heard one of them say, “Nicholas Steele.”

“Night Cries is his latest,” the other was saying in a raspy voice. “Of course, that won’t come out in paperback for months. I put my name on the waiting list for it at the library the day it came out in hard cover. It was weeks before my turn came up. And then, I foolishly went and made the mistake of starting the darn thing right before bed. I was so terrified I couldn’t sleep a wink that night. And I still can’t go up into my attic without Tom.”

“I don’t care what any of those celebrity magazines say about the man, I think Nicholas Steele must be a little mad himself, don’t you think?” her friend replied. “I mean, what person in his right mind could even come up with such gruesome plots?”

My whole body was trembling as I heard a soft chuckle. “Well, we devour every one of them, Joan,” the raspy-voiced woman countered. “So what does that say about us and all of Nicholas Steele’s other fans? We may gasp in horror, lose sleep, but we keep turning the pages as fast as we can.”

“It’s not the same thing, Alice,” Joan argued. “Besides, he looks…weird. That dark hair pulled back severely from his face in a ponytail. Those eyes. I’ve never seen anyone with truly black eyes before. Why, you can’t even see where the irises leave off and the pupils begin. He gives me the willies.”

“I don’t know,” Alice mused. “I think he’s rather medieval looking. His features are so arresting and unusual. He looks like he stepped out of a history book. Or some swashbuckling movie. On the few occasions I’ve spotted him in town, I found myself thinking he ought to be wearing a dark cloak, rapier sword in hand, riding a white charger down Main Street.”

“Hiding in the shadow of doorways seems more appropriate,” Joan said dryly. “Or lurking in a rat infested dungeon like that madman, Olafson, in his book, Only the Dead.”

“Oh, please, I get goose bumps just thinking about that book.”

“I tell you, Alice, Nicholas Steele has a warped mind. It’s no wonder that wife of his ran away like she did. Can you imagine living with that man?”

There was another soft chuckle from Joan. “I don’t know. It could be rather exciting. Even…dangerous.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Surely this couldn’t be the same man Greg had told me about? He’d made Nick sound so appealing and glamorous. He’d said women adored him. Not if they perceived him as weird and frightening, surely. But hadn’t I conjured up a frightful image of Nicholas Steele myself when Dr. Royce first told me he was a horror novelist?

I was so caught up in the conversation and my response that I was completely unaware of having been approached by the cashier.

“Is there something I can help you with?” the young woman inquired politely.

I swayed at the sound of her voice, having to grip one of the cosmetic racks to keep my balance. Several of the items toppled to the floor.

“Say, are you okay?” the cashier asked anxiously, looking as if she expected me to collapse and have some sort of a fit.

With every ounce of strength I could muster, I pulled myself together and nodded. Then, without a word, I hurried to the exit. Just as I made it to the door, I heard one of the women saying to her friend, “Why, I don’t believe my eyes.”

“What? What?”

“Isn’t that Deborah Steele?”

The bell that had seemed to make a friendly jingle when I’d entered the store, sounded more like it was tolling ominously as I made my retreat.




CHAPTER THREE


I must have looked a sight as I fled the general store, so in embarrassment, I turned my face away from Greg as I got into his sports car. Meanwhile, snippets of those two women’s conversation kept echoing in my mind. He must be a little weird himself…Those eyes…It’s no wonder that wife of his ran away….

Ran away? But I didn’t run away. Greg had told me I’d gone on a shopping trip. He’d made it sound so…mundane. Why would he lie to me? Why?

I couldn’t still my trembling. Had he lied? And if he’d lied about that, why not about other things?

No, no, I told myself, refusing to give in to my paranoia. What did those two silly gossips know? Greg was Nick’s friend. My friend. Why would he lie to me?

“Don’t tell me you couldn’t find what you needed in Gus’s,” Greg said, his attention on the traffic as he pulled out of the parking area and turned left on Main Street.

“What?” I dabbed at the perspiration on my brow. “Gus’s?”

“Gus used to own the convenience store. Sold it about fifteen years ago, but all the locals still call it Gus’s.”

“Does…Nick?”

“Nick’s probably the only one in Sinclair who doesn’t know what they call the store. He’s oblivious to such mundane tidbits.”

“Is he?”

“When you’re the local celebrity, as Nick is, you can’t help but cause a bit of a stir every time you come into town. Nick’s not the type who likes a fuss being made over him. And he hates all the gossip—”

“Gossip?” I jumped on the word.

Greg grinned. “Sure, there’s always gossip. It goes with the territory. Nick understands that. He tries to act like he’s impervious to it, but I know him well enough to know it bugs him.”

“What…kind of gossip?” I could hear the tremor in my voice, but I hoped Greg wouldn’t pick it up.

“Oh, everything from Nick being a sorcerer to a vampire. For a while there was a rumor floating around town that he was a direct descendant of Dr. Frankenstein.”

He chuckled. “And then there was the one that he kept a wild tiger as a pet and fed it live rats. I guess when you’re gossiping about a horror writer, it’s easy to imagine all sorts of ghoulish nonsense. And I suppose Nick’s appearance and demeanor only encourage it. All of which delights his publishers because it translates into more book sales. They love the mystique that swirls around Nick. I mean, just think if the famous horror novelist, Nicholas Steele, looked like a dreary accountant.”

“What about…me? Was there…gossip about me, as well?”

I’m not sure if it was the question itself or something in my voice that made him slow the car to a stop and look over at me with concern. “Deborah, what is it? You’re white as a ghost. Are you having second thoughts?”

A hoarse laugh escaped my lips. “Second, third and fourth.”

He gave me a broad, easy smile. “It’s only natural. I suppose it must feel to you something like one of those arranged marriages with a total stranger.”

“Something very much like that.”

“Does it help any to tell you that there must be thousands of women out there who’d give anything to be in your shoes?”

My glance skipped down to my shoes—a pair of worn, scuffed, white pumps. “I can’t imagine anyone wanting to be in these shoes.”

Greg laughed. “They aren’t your usual style, I’ll admit that. If we’d thought about it earlier, we could have stopped along the way. There are a couple of dress shops in Sinclair, but the whole street closes down by five.”

“That’s all right.” I was feeling uncomfortable enough in “my” outfit—well, as much mine as anything I possessed.

“What do you think of that place across the street? It’s pure Greek Revival. On a small scale, of course.” He pointed to an attractive whitewashed cottage. My mind wasn’t on town architecture and I gave it the barest of nods, muttering a brief pleasantry about its cheerful appearance.

“It’s my home away from home. I’m settling in for the whole summer, so if you get lonely or just want to drop by when you’re in town…” As he spoke, he pulled out onto the road again and headed north of the town.

“Was I often lonely in…the past?”

“When Nick’s working on a book, he pretty much withdraws from humanity for whole spurts of time. If Lillian didn’t bring him in his meals, he’d probably waste away to nothing and never even notice.”

“Why Lillian?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why didn’t…I bring him in his meals?”

Greg shrugged. “You probably did sometimes. It’s just that Lillian does all the cooking and she has a tendency to be a bit of a mother hen around Nick.”

“Is she much older than him?” And then I realized I didn’t even know how old this husband of mine was. I wasn’t even sure how old I was, for that matter. I asked Greg.

“Nick’s thirty-seven and I recall him once mentioning that Lillian was a couple of years younger than him. You’d never know it to look at her. When I first met her I thought she was his spinster aunt. Maybe forty-five, even fifty.”

“And me?”

“Poor Deb. It just hit me how totally devastating it must be for you to have no memory whatsoever. Not even to know how old you are. It’s really tragic.”

I was feeling pretty tragic by then, and must have looked it because he quickly donned an upbeat tone. “You turned twenty-six on April seventeenth. But you don’t look a day over twenty-five.”

“If you want to win my trust, Greg, you mustn’t tell such bald-faced lies.”

I was surprised to see hurt cross his features. “I thought I had won your trust, Deborah. A long time ago. But, of course, I see that I have to begin all over again. Rest assured, I will.”

There was no smile on his face now, and a deep crease stretched across his brow.

I felt guilty for doubting him and for making that snippy remark. He didn’t deserve it. I might not remember anything of our past relationship, but I could sense his genuine caring.

With a cloudless blue sky overhead, the Miata began climbing a narrow winding mountain road about a mile past Greg’s cottage. This was the way to Raven’s Cove. To Nicholas Steele. I was feeling better about Greg by then, but I was a complete nervous wreck about my imminent arrival “home.”

Greg made small talk about the surrounding landscape as we ascended the mountain. I knew it was an effort on his part to get my mind off what lay ahead, but that was all I could think about. In the middle of his waxing poetic about the beauty and the joys of country life, I abruptly cut him off.

“Has he always written horror stories?”

Greg had to smile. “You weren’t listening to a word I said, were you?”

“Not a word,” I admitted sheepishly.

“Okay, you want more dope on Nick. Sure, I can understand that. Let’s see. Did he always write horror stories? I’m not sure. The horror genre is certainly where Nicholas made his name. He did confess to me on a couple of occasions that he’d like to try his hand at something else, something altogether different, but…it’s difficult. His fans would be terribly disappointed if they didn’t get their Nicholas Steele ‘horror’ fix each year.”

The voices of the two women in Gus’s came to mind.

“Was I a fan?”

“Sure, you were. Oh, I don’t know that you read all his books, but what I’m saying is…you supported him.”

“And he, in turn, supported me?”

Greg gave me a teasing, lopsided smile. “In the style to which any woman would love to be accustomed.”

I flushed. “I didn’t mean that. I meant…my work. My painting.”

To avoid answering my question, Greg turned all of his attention to driving carefully on the narrow, curving road. I realized then that he’d done that once before, when he’d failed to answer my question about whether there had been any gossip about me. It’s no wonder she ran off like she did. Had that been pure rumor? Had an innocent shopping jaunt and my disappearance gotten distorted into something hinting of menace and treachery?

“You’re going to be blown away when you see Raven’s Cove. It’s really something.” He gave me a warm smile. “I suppose it will be like seeing it for the first time all over again.”

“Was I…‘blown away’…when I saw it before for the first time?”

Greg laughed. “I’m the wrong one to ask about your first impressions of the place. You’ll have to ask Nick that question. When the infatuated groom brought you home, he didn’t want anyone else around.”

Infatuated. I experienced a fluttery sensation. “Even his cousin?” I asked innocently.

“Lillian? Oh, she doesn’t count. She’s part of the woodwork up in Raven’s Cove.”

I doubted Lillian, or anyone for that matter, would appreciate such an unflattering, even callous description. I was a little disappointed in Greg for saying it, but then I told myself no one was perfect and I was probably being hypersensitive. Was it any wonder? We were nearing the top of the mountain, nearing the awesome Raven’s Cove. Despite Greg’s enthusiasm about the place, I couldn’t help imagining a dark, foreboding mansion that would come looming out of the clouds like a portentous apparition, like something from one of Nick’s own horror novels.

I looked out at the lush, wild terrain, suddenly aware that in the whole drive up the mountain I hadn’t spotted a single other home or building of any sort.

“Doesn’t anyone else live on the mountain?” I asked Greg.

“Not very likely. Nick owns the whole kit and caboodle. Bought it so he could protect his privacy.”

He gave me a reassuring look. “Don’t worry. You won’t be completely alone. I drop in at Raven’s Cove a lot.” He smiled at me. “You’ll probably get to thinking I’m a pest.”

“No I won’t,” I assured him so quickly that I flushed. “I mean—I think you’re…very nice.” My amendment, I was sure, only served to deepen the pinkness in my cheeks, but then I spotted something reflected in Greg’s features that made me wonder if I’d always thought Greg nice. Had there been times when I had considered him a pest? Or, were there times when I’d felt he was too nice? Those disturbing thoughts led me back again to the nature of my relationship with my husband.

“Greg, were we—Nick and I—happily married?”

When he didn’t reply right away, my heart started to race. “Tell me. You…you must,” I said in a shaky voice.

“Deborah, listen to me.”

Listen? I was hanging on his every word.

“I pride myself on being an expert observer of people,” he went on. “That goes with being a private investigator. And I’m very successful at my work.”

I didn’t question that. He’d found me, hadn’t he?

He pulled the car to a stop and turned to face me. “There isn’t a doubt in my mind that you have always been in love with Nick. From the first moment I saw you two together to that last day when you took off, you loved him. Trust me on that.”

I stared at him. “It wasn’t just a shopping trip, was it?”

Greg closed his eyes and then opened them again slowly. “You got a little miffed at him. Even the happiest of married couples have their spats. You and Nick were no exception.”

“What did we fight about?”

“I thought if I told you that you’d left in a huff that day, you wouldn’t…come back. And I felt I owed it to Nick and to you to bring the two of you back together. When…When your memory comes back, Deborah, I know the two of you will smooth things out.”

“What things?” I asked stiffly.

He rubbed his eyes. “You sometimes got on Nick’s case about not…paying you enough attention. I told you when he’s working on a book, he pretty much closes himself off from the outside world. You resented it at times. It was only natural. And you were young, wanted to have fun, go places. Sometime you got lonely, bored, and craved a little more attention from Nick. Anyway, you’d planned this sailing trip. Just you and Nick. A kind of second honeymoon, I guess. And then Nick told you at the last minute that he had to cancel because of some revisions he felt he needed to do on his book. You got pissed—”

“You were there?”

He looked away. “For part of the row. I left before you did.” When he turned back to me, there was a pained expression on his face. “Maybe if I’d stuck around I could have…calmed you down. Knowing Nick, the angrier you got, the more…restrained he got. You probably ended up good and frustrated—”

“You’re telling me I walked out on Nick?”

“It wasn’t like that, really. We both knew you’d be back, probably with a pile of new clothes and a new hairstyle. If nothing had…happened to you.”

“And how did Nick feel about all this?”

Greg’s lips compressed. “Nick isn’t one for sharing his feelings. Or showing them, for that matter. If you ask me, I think he’s actually very vulnerable and kind of puts up a wall to protect himself. Not that I claim to be Freud or anything.”

“What did he say when you told him you’d found me? That you were bringing me…home?” The word home nearly stuck in my throat.

Greg sighed. “He said he’d wait supper for you.”

We stared at each other in silence. It was Greg who broke it. “Give him a chance, Deborah. Give yourself a chance. And know one thing for certain. I’ll always be there for you. You knew that in the past. And I want you to know it again now.”

But I didn’t know what I knew in the past—about Greg, about Nick, about anything. And I was equally, if not more so, in the dark about the present. As for the future—it was impossible to even consider.

The house was nothing like I’d conjured up in my mind. It wasn’t the dark, ominous, Victorian-style mansion I’d fantasized. Raven’s Cove, nestled into the crest of the mountain like it had been carved into the granite, was a wonder of modern architectural design. All glass and cedar, the house was built on several levels jutting down the cliffside, each level having access through sliding-glass doors to its own landscaped terrace. While it inspired no memories for me, I couldn’t help but be captured by the visual if stark beauty of the place. My spirits managed to lift a bit. Maybe Nick would even greet me with open arms—the prodigal wife returned; the girl of his dreams. Maybe his love would be the key to unlocking my memory. Now I was the one sounding like I’d stepped out of a romance novel. How naive and innocent I was, then. Or, maybe it was just desperation. Desperation to belong, to feel wanted, to have a real home, to be loved and cherished.

A gravel path swung around to the main entrance of the house with its oversize double front doors fitted with smoky etched glass around cedar frames. The right door opened just as Greg pulled the car to a stop.

“Ah, the welcome committee,” Greg muttered dryly.

My gaze fell on a tall, somber, middle-aged woman who stepped over the threshold, her face expressionless—except for her eyes. Even from this distance, I could recognize a look of undisguised reproach and wariness evident in her dark, lackluster eyes.

Greg appeared at my side of the car, opening the door and temporarily obscuring my view of the woman I presumed to be Nick’s cousin, Lillian. Greg reached out for my hand to assist me in getting out, then, probably remembering my previous distressing reaction to physical contact, thought better of it, and let his hand drop. He couldn’t know this, but for once, I’d have welcomed his touch. I felt in great need of someone to hold on to just then; someone who was no longer a complete stranger to me at least, someone who didn’t regard me with such overt displeasure as the woman at the door.

After a moment’s hesitation, I alighted from the car without assistance, while Greg stepped around to the trunk to retrieve my small case—the sum total of my possessions. I felt very much like a sorry waif as I nervously ascended the fan-shaped slate steps to the front door under the watchful eye of the solemn, spare-figured, tight-lipped Lillian. Not even a grudging smile of greeting. A welcoming committee, indeed! Why, the woman went so far as to step back inside the house before I even reached the door! And without saying so much as a word.

As we followed Lillian inside, I glanced anxiously over at Greg, but he merely presented me with another of his lopsided smiles and an encouraging wink that did little to buoy my plummeting spirits.

“Well, here we are, home at last,” Greg said cheerily to Lillian, ignoring the woman’s dour expression.

“He’s in the den. Working,” Lillian responded stiffly, her voice cold and dismissive.

“Then I’ll just go and rouse him from his ‘work,”’ Greg replied, undaunted.

Panicked to see my one ally take off, I nearly ran after him. But that would have meant running right into Nick—looking like a scared rabbit, no doubt. Better to calm down a bit and wait for him to come to me.

Not that it was easy to calm down, left alone with the austere and silent Lillian. I considered easing the tension by saying something, but was at a complete loss. Nor was Nick’s cousin any help. Lillian merely stood there in the vast marble-floored hallway giving me a cold, piercing look, not uttering a word, her proprietary manner making itself markedly clear. It was as though the woman was going out of her way to intimidate me—at which she was succeeding nicely.

The question was, why? Did I look so different that she was suspicious of whether I truly was Deborah? Did she think Greg had made a mistake? Or was Lillian giving me this cold reception because she resented my return? Had the two of us not gotten along in the past? If so, my bet was it was a case of mutual dislike. And then the thought struck me: Had Lillian been jealous of me? Was Nick more than just a cousin to her? Had she liked having him all to herself again these past two months? Pampering him? Bringing him his meals? Never making demands on his time, I surmised. Not the way I had.

I felt a flash of irritation. At least the woman could have the decency to speak her mind. I was even building up the courage to confront her. Anything seemed better than this tense, silent face-off. But, as if Lillian suspected I was about to say something, her lips curved slightly in what could hardly be called a smile, and, still without a word, she abruptly turned and took off down the hall, disappearing through a door at the far right.

Left alone, I fought to regain my composure before my next and very likely even more traumatic encounter ensued. While I waited for the arrival of “my husband,” I regarded the large, sparsely decorated sunken living room to my right. The far wall was all window and sliding-glass doors, affording a spectacular view of the surrounding mountains and the sky, now streaked with brilliant slashes of red, purple and orange as the sun sank lower toward the horizon.

Pulling my gaze from the breathtaking vista beyond the windows, I focused my attention on the room itself. While there were few furnishings, each item was tastefully placed and reflected an expensive and refined taste. There was nothing large, cumbersome or gloomy here. The eclectic mix of modern pieces and antiques worked beautifully. A few modern paintings hung on the white walls. I recognized the artists, all quite celebrated. There was nothing here painted by an amateur; nothing of Deborah’s—mine—in sight.

Despite the attractiveness of the room, it had the same starkness as the exterior of the house. It was all too meticulous. All too perfect. And there was an awful heaviness in the air, producing a chill that had nothing to do with temperature, but with something indefinable, something cloying and…sinister.

Paranoia rearing its ugly head again, I chided myself. I was getting carried away, letting some silly gossip I’d overheard in town distort my perspective, color my feelings. Color them ruby red. The blood-red shade flashed unbidden into my mind.

I was already trembling badly when I heard a door open behind me. Then footsteps on the cold, ungiving marble. Whirling around, I came face-to-face with him at last. The celebrated author of horror novels.

I saw now that the two customers back at the general store had been right about Nicholas Steele. He was everything they had said—and more. The inky blue-black eyes that shone with an inner, mysterious glow, the striking, angular features, the arrogance and pride of his tall, stately carriage, the glistening black hair pulled back from his face, and held by a leather band at his nape. “Medieval,” one of the women had described him. Yes, I thought. It was as if this man were somehow from a darker, more dangerous, perhaps more reckless period of history.

With an air of desperation, I looked past him, hoping to see Greg. But the private investigator had remained inside the den. His own decision? Or Nick’s? Whichever, it was clear to me that this was to be a private meeting between the two of us. A happy reunion? A callous dismissal? I had no idea. Those dark, mesmerizing eyes of his gave nothing away. He stood now no more than three feet from me. Except for the description of him I’d overheard in the shop, I in no way recognized this man who was supposedly my husband. And there was absolutely nothing in his look that indicated recognition of me as his wife.

He continued his silent survey, much as his cousin Lillian had done a few minutes earlier. But with Lillian, I had felt a mixture of intimidation, discomfort and irritation. My feelings were altogether different now. It was as if I were being tossed pell-mell into white-water rapids, rushing precariously closer to a waterfall. I could even hear the roar of the water in my ears, feel the danger engulfing me. But I felt helpless to stop my course—a course I had so impulsively set in motion the moment I’d agreed to come here to Raven’s Cove and Nicholas Steele. Why, oh, why, hadn’t I listened to Dr. Royce, followed his advice? If I’d seen Nicholas Steele at the hospital, looking at me the way he was looking at me now—silent, appraising, utterly unsettling—would I ever have come here? I really don’t know. Even today, it’s a question I can’t answer for certain.

But one thing I knew then: I longed to look away, run away, escape this man, this cloying house, but I was so transfixed by his riveting, mesmerizing scrutiny of me that I could do nothing but remain frozen in place.

Well, not quite frozen. I began to sway. In a daze, I saw him reach out toward me. An instant later, his large hand rested on my shoulder. His touch—it was like fire and ice all at once. I opened my mouth to speak, to cry out, but then his face began to multiply before my eyes; worse still, to spin. Spinning and spinning, faster and faster. And then, mercifully, blackness descended as I fainted dead away.




CHAPTER FOUR


A sound of chirping birds broke through my sleep. I fought waking up, rolling onto my stomach and pulling the covers over my head to block out the light. It was far too bright. How could that be? I always slept with my shades drawn. Always in the hospital, that was. Before that…Well, there was no before that.

Sleep was my refuge, my escape from tension, anxiety, tedium. Early to bed, late to rise. That was my pattern. I knew, just as the doctors did, that it wasn’t a real solution to my problem: but then, there didn’t seem to be a solution.

Or did there? The question jabbed at me, and, in a minute, I was completely awake. And disoriented. Where was I? Last I remembered, I was standing in the vast white-marble-floored hallway of Raven’s Cove, staring into those mesmerizing blue-black eyes of Nicholas Steele. And then I had gotten so dizzy….

My eyes shot open, my head still beneath the cover. I saw that I was now in a big, roomy bed made up with exquisitely soft linens. I also saw that I was no longer in the dress I’d had on. I was wearing a delicate cotton nightgown. Who had carried me to bed? Undressed me?

Slowly, warily, I drew the covers down from my eyes, blinking in the brightness of the room. A spacious, sunny room it was, with floral paper on the walls, a large bay window offering a spectacular vista of sky and mountains, an hand-painted antique armoire, a lovely chintz chaise longue coordinated to match the wallpaper…

My gaze stopped dead at the chaise, and I drew in a gasp. Sitting there, silent, his dark eyes giving me a measured, unflinching look, was none other than Nicholas Steele himself. Shaken though I was to find him there, somehow I wasn’t surprised.

“What…happened?” I managed to say after I saw that he was not about to be the one to break the silence.

“You fainted.” His voice had a deep resonance about it. A commanding voice. It suited him, I thought. As did its faintly mocking tone.

Bristling, I found myself replying in a tone that matched his. “Yes, I know that. I mean, after I fainted.”

Something changed in his features. It was very subtle, but I noticed it. I could not, however, interpret its meaning.

He rose from the chaise. Standing, he seemed even more compelling. It wasn’t merely his physique, but rather a presence about him, a strength and sureness of will that that radiated.

I was about to give up on getting an answer, when he replied matter-of-factly, “I carried you upstairs. Then you were tucked into bed where you slept a rather drugged sleep through the night. You missed one of Lillian’s excellent roasts.”

I was stunned to learn that it was the next day. How long had he been sitting there watching me? I felt a cold chill. “I’m not on any drugs, if you’re concerned—”

“I’m not.”

There was a prolonged silence. To my surprise, this time he broke it. “I imagine you’re hungry.”

I shook my head. Food was the furthest thing from my mind. “Did you…?” I glanced down at my nightgown.

“Did I what?”

I silently cursed the warmth I knew was rising in my cheeks. And him, as well, for forcing me to spell it out. Did he deliberately want to embarrass and humiliate me? Because he was still angry about our fight? About my walking out on him? Had he suffered and now wanted to make me suffer in turn? Although, to look at him now, there was no sign of suffering.

I drew in a breath. “I am hungry.”

Was that actually a hint of a smile I detected on those otherwise grim lips?

“I’ll have Lillian bring you up a tray.” He started for the door, not even bothering to ask what I wanted to eat. But, of course, he had to know what his wife ate for breakfast.

My mind, however, wasn’t on the menu. I was remembering my previous intimidating encounter with Lillian. I didn’t want to begin my first and, for all I knew, last morning in Raven’s Cove having to confront dour cousin Lillian if I could avoid it.

“Nick?” I called out to him as he opened the door.

He turned, his expression suddenly dark. I was taken aback.

I saw that he had no intention of volunteering the cause of his glaring disapproval. He simply waited for whatever else I intended to say.

“What’s wrong?” I asked finally.

“Is there something wrong?” A sardonic expression replaced the dark look.

I felt a flash of fury. He was deliberately baiting me. “You didn’t appear to approve of my calling you by your given name,” I said rather stiffly, having no idea if that was the reason for his dark look. As I discovered, it was.

“My given name is Nicholas.”

“Greg calls you Nick.”

“Only to annoy me.”

“I see,” I answered quietly.

“You did occasionally call me Nick,” he said with a slightly upward curve of the corners of his mouth that wasn’t quite a smile. “But only in the throes of passion.”

I flushed, looking away.

After a brief silence, he went on. “What was it you wanted to say?”

I was surprised to hear a softer tone in his baritone voice. Nicholas Steele was, I thought, one of those disturbingly mercurial people capable of constantly throwing you off your guard. Just when you thought you knew what to expect of him, he would toss you a curveball.

“I was going to say that I’d prefer to have breakfast downstairs.” Hopefully, I prayed, not under the watchful eye of cousin Lillian.

He nodded disinterestedly. Again he started to leave the room. At the door, though, he abruptly turned back to me.

“You’ve changed a great deal.”

There was such portent in his voice that I gasped audibly. “You’re not sure, are you? At first I thought your rude behavior had to do with your being angry at me still. Greg told me that we’d argued and that I’d walked out.”

“Did he?”

“The moment I first saw you, I sensed that you weren’t at all sure whether you wanted me here. But it isn’t because you’re still angry. You aren’t sure I’m…her. You think I might not be…Deborah.”

“Do you always tell people what they’re thinking?”

“Did Deborah?” I shot back, having no idea where my courage was coming from.

He gave me a long, appraising look. “Yes, as a matter of fact.”

“You seem to be in almost as much of a predicament as I find myself in,” I said.

“It looks that way, doesn’t it?” He paused. “While you and Greg were driving up here, I phoned the New York General and had a chat with your psychiatrist, Dr. Royce. He’s apparently quite solicitous about your welfare. Did you know he was particularly fond of you?”

I didn’t miss the cutting edge in his voice. “He’s particularly fond of all his patients,” I replied archly, foolish enough to think I’d have the last word. Needless to say, I hadn’t.

“And are all of his patients particularly fond of him?” he asked dryly, his dark gaze fixed on me. Oh, how I willed myself not to flush, but it was beyond my control. He seemed to get some perverse pleasure out of seeing me embarrassed, and I thought to myself, this certainly wasn’t the captivating man Greg described to me—a man whom women supposedly found witty and charming. I was decidedly not charmed. As for his reported sex appeal, I dismissed even the possibility of that entirely. He was rude, insinuating and cruel. I may have once been the girl of his dreams, but I couldn’t imagine that Nicholas Steele had ever been the man of my dreams. Of my nightmares, was more like it.

“It’s Dr. Royce’s opinion that however you might once have been, both in terms of your appearance and personality, he believes it’s quite conceivable, even probable, that you could appear and act quite differently now.”

“Am I so different than I—than Deborah—was?” There was a little catch in my voice. Greg had so convinced me I was Deborah, I’d begun to fully believe it myself. Nicholas’s doubts took me completely unaware.

Since I didn’t expect a smile, that was just what he threw me. It was like a break in dark clouds. “Not completely different. You share a low tolerance for frustration.”

“You mean she found you frustrating?” I tossed back cheekily.

His smile faded. I saw that I had clearly overstepped my bounds. As if I had even the vaguest idea what my bounds were, under such strange, not to mention strained, circumstances.

“You look remarkably like Deborah, though a little paler, a little thinner,” he said, his tone formal and analytical now. “Your hair’s a bit darker, but then perhaps you haven’t spent much time out in the sun during your hospitalization.” There was a long pause. “Deborah was a real sun-worshiper. She was always taking herself off to sunny shores.”

“Alone?”

He gave me a curious look. “Not always.”

“You went with her sometimes, then?”

“That isn’t what I said.” His tone was wry and insinuating.

I flinched visibly. “Maybe if you weren’t always so busy writing and revising your horror novels, your relationship with your wife would have been…closer.”

He laughed harshly. “Deborah never minded my working. It left her free to pursue her own pleasures, unencumbered.”

This was certainly not the picture of Deborah that Greg had painted for me. Nicholas was describing a spoiled, willful, and possibly unfaithful vixen. A sharp contrast to the loyal but lonely young wife whose only crime was that she craved a bit of attention from her workaholic husband. So, which picture of “Deborah” was the accurate one? Which of the two men was I to trust?

As I was suffering this torment of doubt, Nicholas was giving me another of his long, assessing looks. “In the end, maybe it’s not so important whether I’m certain you’re Deborah as that you are.”

“Still, this is your home,” I said. “Either way, you can always ask me to leave.”

“You never needed my permission in the past.”

And, I realized with relief, I didn’t need it now. I could leave of my own free will. And very likely not be missed at all. But then I glanced at Nicholas, catching him unaware, for once. There was a hint of sadness there in those dark, uncompromising eyes. It was there for only an instant, but it made me think back to Greg’s remark that Nicholas was really quite vulnerable behind that mask of arrogance he wore so well.

He gripped the doorknob. “I think you’ll find the atmosphere and amenities of Raven’s Cove at least as pleasant as the hospital,” he commented offhandedly, the mask again solidly in place. “And I can assure you that as long as you’re here, you won’t be required to engage in any activities that displease you,” he added.

Though his expression was bland, I felt sure I understood the meaning behind this comment. But could I believe him? Right now he had some doubts about my identity. I told myself it was understandable. I was certainly not a carbon copy of the Deborah I’d seen in that photograph. Not by a long shot. But, if he came to be convinced I was Deborah—whether or not my memory ultimately confirmed it for me—wouldn’t he expect me, as his wife, to sleep with him? Would it even matter to him that in my eyes he would still be a stranger?

Despite feeling the heat spread again over my cheeks, I eyed him with a touch of defiance. “Who undressed me? And put me in this nightgown?”

He laughed dryly, giving me a rueful, condescending look. “Lillian. Who did you think?”

Without waiting for an answer, he exited the room. Only after he’d gone did I realize that I was shaking. Admittedly short as my memory was, I couldn’t recall another instance of a person making me feel the way Nicholas Steele did. I felt that he was the most exceedingly dangerous man I had ever encountered. And the most compelling.

As I showered in the spacious and lavish private bathroom adjoining the bedroom, I considered packing my few belongings and taking the first train back to the hospital. A few minutes later, returning to the bedroom, I was even further convinced that I should leave. There on my bed was a hardcover book. Night Cries. Nicholas’s latest horror novel. The cover alone—a woman, faceless save for a wide, screaming mouth, her arms outstretched, superimposed on a midnight-black background—terrified me.

I stared at the book with revulsion. Had Nicholas dropped this off for me? A token of his…Of his what? There was a tremor in my hands as I finally lifted the book from the bed. At first I meant only to stick it away in a drawer, unable to bear the hideously pained image on the cover. But as I took hold of the book, I found myself compelled to open it. I selected one page at random—just to see what made this master of the macabre so renowned.

A harsh cawing broke the stillness of the night. Then silence. The silence of death. Creeping behind the trunk of a large elm, he lay in wait for her. He knew he would not have to wait long. A few minutes later, he heard the crunch of leaves underfoot. He smiled. Not a very pleasant smile. He had sometimes wished he had one of those ordinary faces with their ordinary smiles. The kind of face people trusted. A face women trusted…

She let out a sharp cry when he stepped out from his hiding place. But then she laughed softly, wantonly.

“Silly man. You nearly scared the living daylights out of me.”

He knew, in the darkness, she could not yet make out who it really was she had come to meet for this little rendezvous. But she would. In time, she would. The anticipation filled him with delight. Oh, how he longed to hear her crooning voice turn into a whimper. What pleasure he would take as the wantonness bled from her face and gave way to terror, her gut tightening like a fist. Please, please, don’t hurt me, she would cry.

He would hurt her. But he would take his sweet time. He would toy with her. He would show her who was in charge; who had been in charge right from the start.

Forgive me, she would cry. He would laugh at her. Didn’t she know, that forgiveness wasn’t in his nature…?

I let out an audible gasp, slamming the book shut. And then, as if the closed book were some kind of lethal viper, I flung it across the room. It slammed against the wall, then landed front cover facing up on the royal blue carpet—that horrible faceless woman, her mouth opened in a scream, arms outstretched. Now I understood. The woman was crying out in the agony of mental and physical torment, pleading for forgiveness, begging for her life. I rushed over, grabbed up the book and stuck it in the top drawer of a bureau.

How vile and gruesome! What kind of mind…? I realized I was echoing the sentiment of one of the female customers I’d overheard yesterday at Gus’s. And then another of the women’s remarks replayed in my head. He has to be a little mad himself…

Ignoring the armoire with its large assortment of expensive, fine looking designer clothing, I hurriedly pulled a creased sundress from my suitcase, shaking out the wrinkles as best I could. I closed the case, leaning on it for support. This situation was impossible. The man who might possibly be my husband frightened and mystified me. His cousin, who clearly bore me no good feelings whatsoever, only added to the impossibility of my remaining. To stay, surrounded by suspicion, not even knowing if I belonged, was madness itself. And even if I were to discover that I was Deborah, maybe I had left Raven’s Cove and my husband for good reason. Maybe I’d never meant to return as Greg had implied. However I examined my dilemma, the solution was the same: Get dressed and leave at once.

But I couldn’t just leave. Raven’s Cove was perched on the top of a mountain. It had to be a good five miles of winding roads to its base, and another five, at least, to town. I couldn’t very well hike it, heavy suitcase in hand. Nor did I feel at all comfortable about asking Nicholas to drive me. I wanted no further confrontations with the intolerable Nicholas Steele. And no others with Lillian. I supposed I could telephone to Greg and ask him…But he seemed so bent on my giving my new—or to his mind, old—surroundings a fighting chance. He would very likely try to dissuade me from my impulsive decision. And I didn’t know if I had the strength to argue. My only other option was to call for a cab. Surely there was a taxi service in Sinclair.

There was a phone by the side of my bed, but no phone book in sight. I dialed Information. To my relief, there was one cab company in town. I received a busy signal on my first three attempts, but finally got through on my fourth try.

“Sinclair Cab,” a nasal voice snapped.

“Yes, I’d like a cab to the train station,” I replied in a hushed whisper, as if someone might be listening. My gaze strayed involuntarily to the bureau where I’d put Nicholas’s frightful book. “Right away.”

“Address?”

I hesitated. “Raven’s Cove.”

There was a drawn-out silence.

“Is…Is there something…wrong?” I asked finally. The response took me aback.

“You must be her.”

I rubbed a sweaty palm on my dress. “Excuse…me?” I was getting my first taste of what small-town life was about. It was clear that word had already spread through Sinclair about my arrival at Raven’s Cove. Or, as at least a couple of the townsfolk and Greg believed, my return. For all I knew, Nicholas shared their belief and was just getting some perverse amusement out of voicing doubts as to my identity. Again, I wondered if it was payback for my having walked out on him. Maybe he held other misdeeds against me, as well. He’d certainly implied some indiscretions on my part.

“You say the railroad station?” the dispatcher asked.

“Yes.”

“You planning to catch a train?”

“Yes.”

“Where to?”

I thought it was none of the dispatcher’s business.

After a pause, he said, “Next train out’s at eleven. Goes to New York City. Express.”

“Fine.”

“Not even nine. You don’t need a cab for a while yet.”

I was about to tell him I was in a hurry, but stopped myself, realizing how odd that would sound since I’d be stuck waiting at the train for close to two hours. Besides, I didn’t want this nosy dispatcher spreading rumors. I could just hear the townsfolk buzzing away. Wanted to get out of there in a real hurry, she did. Sounded scared out of her wits. Guess it’s true about that Steele fellow being mad…

In as level a voice as I could manage, I said, “I do have a few errands to do in town first. Do you think you could get a cab up here by ten?”

“I got one driver out sick and my other guy’s got a pickup in town in ten minutes. A gal who’s going over to Carlisle. Better make it ten-fifteen. Just to be on the safe side.”

The safe side.

There was no safe side about it, I thought as I hung up, frowning.

After I was dressed, I searched in my purse for my hairbrush. It wasn’t there. I realized that I must have left it back at the hospital. Crossing to a mirrored dressing table, I searched there for a brush. The surface of the dressing table had a pristine tidiness about it. Save for a small collection of ornate and very beautiful blown-glass perfume bottles that sat on a mirrored silver tray, there were no other personal effects to be seen.

Still shaky and weak, I sat down at the table. I opened the top drawer. Inside was not only the brush that I needed, but a framed eight-by-ten photograph, half hidden by some blank embossed stationery. For all my trepidation, my curiosity got the best of me. Nervously, I removed the photo from the drawer, waiting a moment for my breath to steady before actually looking at it.

There was certainly nothing gruesome about the photo. Far from it. It showed a couple embracing on a white sandy beach under a palm tree. Deborah and Nicholas. The shade fell across Deborah’s face, clouding her image. But Nicholas’s face was in full sunlight, as was his tanned, athletic body clad only in a pair of black swimming trunks.

I almost didn’t recognize him. Could the grim, patronizing, disdainful man who inspired such anxiety and worse in me, and the smiling figure in the photo, truly be one and the same? Oh, I had caught a quick glimpse of Nicholas’s smile, and it had most definitely softened his features. But the smile he wore in this photo utterly transformed his face. Up until now, I had thought Nicholas imposing, striking, but not really good-looking. Not in any traditional sense. His features were too strong, too harsh. But in the photo he looked heart-stoppingly handsome. Perhaps because the smile he was bestowing on Deborah was so adoring, so filled with love. No. More than love. Adulation.

I wiped tears from my eyes. Instead of placing the photo back in the drawer, I set it on top of the dressing table. It held such fascination for me. And something else. A sense of loss. So that was what my tears were about. If I was Deborah, then I questioned whether I would ever again see such love in Nicholas’s face. And if my memory returned and I proved not to be Deborah, then I’d never know what it must have felt like to have been so cherished and adored. All I would know was envy.

I lifted out the sterling-silver-handled hairbrush from the drawer. A beautiful object. Why had it been left behind? Had I been so angry when I walked out, that I took almost nothing with me? I realized, despite Nicholas’s doubts, I was already incorporating Deborah into my identity. After all, I had no other. And somehow, for all the discrepancies between Greg’s vision of Deborah and Nicholas’s, I felt like her. And, much to my consternation, I even felt I could have fallen wildly, deeply in love with the man in the photograph on the dressing table.

As I brushed my hair, I noticed the perfume bottles beside the photo. Finishing with my hair, I gingerly lifted one of the bottles up and carefully removed the sculptured-glass top. I sniffed it cautiously, as if it might be tainted.

The scent was strongly floral and cloying. My nose crinkled as I hurriedly closed the bottle. It wasn’t something I would wear at all. Was that a clue? Did it mean I mustn’t be Deborah? And again the question, did it even matter now? Now that I was resigned to leaving Raven’s Cove?

I put the bottle back on the tray. Of course, I might have received the perfume as a gift and not cared for it. I tested the other scents. Unlike the first one, these were more pleasant. One in particular—a perfume with a slightly pungent fruity aroma—was especially pleasing. I felt tempted to put a few dabs behind my ears.

“He doesn’t care for Intoxication.”

The remark was so strange that for a moment I didn’t even connect it to an actual voice. The information had been supplied by Lillian, who was standing at the open door. She’d had the gall to step in without even bothering to knock. Had it been Lillian, not Nicholas, who’d put his book in my room while I’d been in the shower? In any case, both cousins certainly seemed too comfortable about walking into my room unannounced and uninvited.

Unnerved by Lillian’s sudden appearance, I accidentally let the exquisite glass perfume bottle drop from my hand. It hit the corner of the dressing table, shattering on contact. The scent, far stronger now as it spilled out on the table and carpeting, permeated the air, making me feel queasy. I stared down at the shattered glass with dismay, then bent to pick up the shards.

A scornful smile colored Lillian’s expression, not improving it, as she crossed the room in long, gliding steps and brushed me aside with a dismissive wave of her hand. Silently and thoroughly, the gaunt woman set to the task I’d begun. If the heavy scent bothered her, she gave no sign of it.

“I’m…so sorry about the vial. It’s just…You startled me.” No sooner had the words come out than I instantly regretted them. It certainly wouldn’t help matters to blame Lillian for my own clumsiness.

“Nicholas sent me up to ask what you wanted for your breakfast.” Lillian spoke without affect, but I felt duly chastised nonetheless.

“Oh…It doesn’t…matter,” I replied meekly, glancing at my closed suitcase. I had meant to skip breakfast at Raven’s Cove and remain in my room until just after ten. Then my plan was to steal out of the house and meet the cab at the wrought-iron gates to the property.

“Bacon and eggs?” Lillian was dropping the last of the larger shards into the wicker wastebasket beside the dressing table.

“No, thanks. I don’t really care for—Just some…toast and coffee will be fine.”

Lillian glanced up from her task, giving me a curious look. I had the clear impression she’d been testing me; that she knew Deborah didn’t care for bacon and eggs and wanted to see what I’d say. Did Lillian, like her cousin, have doubts about my identity? Not that it mattered what either one of them believed at this point, I told myself firmly. Or what I believed, for that matter. Either way, I was leaving.

But then my gaze fell once more on the photo. Was I again acting impulsively? In leaving so precipitously, was I really running away from…myself? As I looked at the image of the handsome, adoring man with his arms around the “girl of his dreams,” I couldn’t help wondering if it would truly be so awful for Nicholas to come to accept me as Deborah; to welcome me back to Raven’s Cove? Could this be a chance at a new beginning, not just for me, but for him, as well? For the two of us together? What if he were to once again look at me with that same heartfelt love…?





Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Получить полную версию книги.


Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/elise-title/who-is-deborah/) на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.