Lost Identity (25 page)

“Always, and forever. What do you say we head for the cottage before the weather gets any worse?” An ocean breeze blowing through open doors and windows had cleared the house from any gas odor.

“All right. Do you know where this Anchor Marina is?”

“It’s on the coast, a few miles after you cross the state line into New Jersey. Why? Does the name seem familiar?”

“No, but I’d like to stop there on our way to the cottage. If I was on Perry’s new boat, we must have left from that marina. Maybe I’ll remember something if I see it again.”

T
HE DRIZZLING RAIN HAD
thickened as they left the city. Dark clouds scudded across an overcast sky, and the car radio warned of an approaching storm whipping up the coast from Florida.

“Maybe we should put off going to the marina until tomorrow,” Andrew suggested, glancing at her intense expression. Obviously, she was forcing herself to take this step even as she instinctively recoiled from it. He respected her strength of will, but he was worried that
she might fall apart on him under the tremendous strain.

“No, let’s do it today.”

Leaving the turnpike, they drove a few miles on a side road to Anchor Marina, which was located on a small inlet with easy Atlantic access. Boats of all sizes filled the docks, and as Andrew pulled into the parking lot, Trish searched for some flickering of recognition that she’d been here before.

She studied the line of buildings edging the wharf. O’Donnel said that the white cruiser was new.
Had she come here with Perry to see his new boat? Why would they have gone out in weather like this?

Andrew watched a deep frown settle on her forehead. Her hands were clasped so tightly that her fingernails must be biting into her flesh. He waited until she shook her head and gave him a hopeless look. “I don’t remember ever being here.”

“Okay, maybe we should find someone who can answer some questions.”

“You can bet the police have already done that.”

“Undoubtedly, but something may make more sense to you than anyone else.”

“All right,” she agreed, but her tone was less than hopeful as they got out of the car and headed toward a boathouse located at the entrance to the marina. The entered the small building that smelled of wet hemp and fishing gear.

A short little man with weathered skin, sandy hair and a cocky tilt to his baseball cap nodded his head in answer to Andrew’s question.

“Yep, I was working that day. I told the police everything I know—which is nothing.” He squinted at them. “It ain’t my job to try and keep some fool from
taking his boat out when there’s a storm warning posted.”

Trish tried to keep her voice even. “Do you remember ever seeing me before?”

“Nope. Just like I told the cops when they showed me your picture. I don’t keep track of the comings and goings of anybody. Sure, I recognized Mr. Reynolds’s picture, but I didn’t pay no attention to him that day. Beats me if he was alone when the boat went out.”

“And you didn’t report the cruiser missing when it didn’t come back?” Andrew asked.

“Hell’s bells, how’d I know he didn’t decide to put in somewhere else, or take a run down the coast? Ain’t my business to keep track of these would-be Sunday sailors.”

Trish turned away without saying anything more, and walked over to the large window overlooking the marina. Storm clouds hung low and a mist floated over the water, creating a water-colored scene of rocking tethered boats. Winds whipped rain against the windowpane and made a high-pitched sound in the rafters. Vague images flashed in her mind’s eye but were gone too quickly for her to grasp them. She just might be imagining them, and she shivered as a sudden chill went bone deep.

Andrew saw her trembling, and moved quickly to her side.
Had she remembered something?
His sudden hope was short-lived.

She turned to him with glazed eyes. “I sense that there’s something bubbling close to the surface, but I can’t draw it out. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking. If I’ve been here before, I don’t remember it.”

“That’s all right, sweetheart,” he assured her, smiling to hide his own disappointment. “It was worth a
try. Come on, we’d better get out of here before the storm hits.”

As they hurried back to the car, a sudden spear of lightning cut across the sky, followed by vibrating thunder. Andrew kept the windshield wipers going madly as they drove along the beach road. The ocean was a churning mass of angry waves slashing the coastline with a pounding roar.

Andrew kept glancing at Trish. She sat stiffly in her seat, her color a pasty white and the muscles in her face rigid with tension.

“You okay?” he asked anxiously.

She started to answer but the words froze in her throat as suddenly the movement of the car changed into the sensation of a whirling boat, and her whole body was caught up in a terrifying memory.

She cried out and covered her ears as slashing winds and the tumultuous roar of a pounding surge built to an excruciating crescendo in her head.

“No, no,” she screamed.

Andrew pulled the car off the road and braked to a sudden stop. When he tried to take her in his arms, she lashed out at him with the fury of a trapped animal.

“Stop it, Trish. It’s me. It’s Andrew.”

She stared at him with glazed eyes and then with a whimper, collapsed against his chest. The images in her mind whirled like a runaway film, superimposing one upon the other.

“What is it, Trish? What’s happening to you?”

Her voice was strained, and he bent his head close to hers. She struggled to describe the upheaval that was going through her mind and body. Every word
she drew for him presented an unbelievable horror that he could picture very vividly.

Lying on the deck of a boat, she was drenched by the onslaught of sucking waves. Even as she struggled to get to her feet, she was lifted up and swept out of the boat. Somehow, she stayed afloat in the churning water, and was carried in by the surf to the beach where Andrew found her.

“Who was on the boat with you?” he prodded when she fell into silence.

“There was someone but I don’t know who.” Her mind was suddenly filled with ephemeral images that came and went too fast for her to hold on to them.

“Do you remember what happened before you found yourself on deck?”

She bit her lower lip so hard that her teeth left a mark. As fervently as she willed herself to remember, there was nothing recognizable that she could draw forth from the churning turmoil in her mind. Sobbing, she shook her head.

“It’s okay, darling,” he said, holding her close, and stroking her hair. “Don’t you see? This is a breakthrough. I bet that bits and pieces of your memory will begin to surface now. We just have to be patient.”

His words were intended to be reassuring but they brought their own terror. How could she continue to go through this mental torture?

Andrew waited until the tremors in her body had lessened and the fear in her anguished expression had eased before started the car again. Trish cowered against him, keeping her eyes shut and her head lowered during the rest of the drive.

They were only a few miles from the cottage, but the rain had turned into a deluge by the time they
reached it, and they raced from the car into the shelter of the house. Trish dropped wearily down on the couch while Andrew quickly laid a fire in the fireplace.

“I’ll get us something warm to drink,” he said and started toward the kitchen just as a glare of headlights flashed across the windows. “Who can that be?”

Trish instantly stiffened. The police? Had O’Donnel come for her? Her mouth went dry and for a moment, she fought a panicked impulse to flee out the back door. The detective already had enough circumstantial evidence to charge her with murder.

As Andrew crossed the room to open the door, she stood up, suddenly too weary to fight against the inevitable.

“Come in,” Andrew said, in surprise.

A wash of relief flowed through Trish when she saw that it wasn’t O’Donnel in the doorway, but a split second later, a jagged memory like the piece of a jigsaw puzzled fell into place.

“No,” Trish gasped, staring at Janelle. That overwhelming sense of betrayal that she’d felt before rose again in her tight chest.

As the woman stood in the doorway with the dark storm behind her, Trish’s memory suddenly gave back the same picture of Janelle holding a gun, standing in the cabin’s doorway, silhouetted against the slashing wind and whipping water.

“It was you,” Trish croaked. “You shot Perry.”

Janelle’s expression tightened as a gloved hand came out of her pocket, revealing a gun. “So you remembered, Patricia. That’s what I was afraid of.” She motioned Andrew away from the door. “This isn’t exactly the way I’d planned but the result should be
the same. Two lovers found dead in each other’s arms.”

“You won’t get away with it,” Andrew told her flatly, his brown eyes hard as rock.

“I wish things could be different, I really do.” She gave Trish a tight smile. “Even though it looked as if you were nicely in a net to take the blame for Perry’s death, I knew sooner or later something would trigger your memory.”

“That’s why you stayed so close to me, pretending to be taking care of me,” Trish said in a voice that shook with a sense of betrayal. “Why would you do it? Why would you shoot Perry?”

Janelle’s mouth twisted in an ugly line. “The two most common motives for murder, of course. Money and love. Perry and I had an affair while his first wife was alive. When she died, I expected that Perry and I would get married. Instead, he dropped me when he met Darlene, and I decided to take my revenge out in a way that would line my own nest. Unfortunately he began to get suspicions that someone was skimming money from some of the accounts, and I knew his investigation was centering on me. I heard him on the telephone setting up the date to talk to you about it while you took a spin on his new boat.”

“And you followed her there,” Andrew said, hoping to take Janelle’s attention away from Trish. He had backed up so he was standing at one end of the fireplace, and he didn’t know how long she would talk before carrying out her plan to shoot both of them. His mind was racing with the urgency to take the gun from her.

Janelle glared at him. “I had no choice. The two of
them were already talking about me in the cabin when I got there. I had to protect myself.”

As a curtain in her mind rose like the opening of a stage play, Trish said, “You shot Perry, and I knocked the gun from your hand. We struggled and I managed to get away. I fled up to the deck but you caught up with me and hit me on the head.”

“I should have shot you then, but someone was coming out of the boathouse and I was afraid they’d see me or hear the shot. I threw off the bowline so the cruiser would drift away from its mooring. As the fierce waves quickly took the boat out to sea, I hoped that it would capsize and that would be the end of all of it.”

“Then you never really liked me, did you?”

Janelle gave a short laugh. “It was easy to feed you stuff about shopping trips and pretend I knew all about your love life. It was laughable how gullible you were. Having O’Donnel zero in on you as Perry’s killer was an unexpected benefit. Of course, I couldn’t depend upon you not recovering your memory. That’s why I tried to set up that suicide scam with the gas.”

“Can you really stomach killing three people in cold blood, Janelle?” Andrew asked, as he took a step closer to her.

“Don’t,” Janelle warned, leveling the gun at him.

“Andrew, please,” Trish cried, sensing that he would sacrifice himself to save her.

“Into the bedroom, both of you, and take off your clothes,” Janelle ordered. “This time there won’t be any slipups.”

Andrew took a step toward Trish, then suddenly turned and hurled himself at Janelle’s knees like he was making a football tackle. She went down, but as
she fell, the gun went off. A deafening shot exploded in the room.

Trish felt a searing pain like a hot iron in her side. She touched a stream of warm blood bubbling up through her fingers, and her legs gave way beneath her. She slumped to the floor as a gray cloud floated her away into a blessed nothingness.

Chapter Seventeen

The same paramedics as before answered Andrew’s frantic call, and Officer Baxley’s patrol car was close behind. Janelle was still unconscious from the blow Andrew had landed on her jaw when she tried to get up from his tackle. He was covered with Trish’s blood as he knelt beside her, trying to staunch the flow from her wound.

The ambulance took her to the little hospital where she had been before, and Andrew found himself in the same waiting room, pacing the floor and breathing prayers for her life. It was hours before she came out of surgery, but the news was good. Trish’s wound was a clean one. The bullet missed any vital organs, and the doctor said that once she was moved out of the intensive care unit, her recovery should be rapid.

Andrew visited her every hour for five minutes as was allowed, but she was always asleep, and he had to be content with holding her listless hand and whispering loving encouragements.

After he watched the sun come up, he headed for the cafeteria for a cup of coffee, and was beseeched by a throng of reporters. The news media had been alerted to Janelle’s confession that she had murdered
Perry Reynolds and had been foiled in her attempt to carry out a plan to make Trish and Andrew’s deaths look like a suicide-murder. Flashbulbs went off in Andrew’s face and a barrage of questions were fired at him. He was trying to make a retreat from the onslaught when Lieutenant O’Donnel pushed through the crowd with two other policemen, and held up his hand for silence.

“Hold it, people!” he ordered the crowd. “You’ll get a news release when we have some facts to relate. Until then, clear out!” He nodded to the two policemen who moved forward and herded the protesting reporters out the front door of the hospital. Then he turned to Andrew. “Let’s find someplace to sit down. You look ready to fall on your face.”

When the hospital administrator stepped up and offered a small office, O’Donnel gratefully accepted. Andrew sank wearily down on a couch and put his head in his hands as the detective pulled up a chair and took out his notebook.