Shifting Shadows (7 page)

Dylan listened to Lottie’s bizarre words, watched Analise’s reactions. It was becoming harder and harder to doubt her sincerity. It was possible she really did have some degree of amnesia, especially after the trauma of her injuries. Even so, he couldn’t be sure of the degree or how long it would last. In his position, he had to assume the worst, couldn’t afford to let anything slide by him. Now he even had to question Lottie’s part in all this. She could be Analise’s accomplice, deliberately trying to divert him.

He decided to turn Lottie
’s words against her, see what she did then. “So you don’t think she really has amnesia?”

“
Dear me, no, I didn’t say that,” Lottie protested.

“
Then I don’t think I quite understand what you mean.”

“
Why, I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Analise. I can only see the outside evidence of what’s going on inside. Do have another cookie. I don’t care what those boring people say, I think a little sugar and caffeine get one off to a good start in the morning.”

He turned his attention back to
Analise and found her looking away from him, through the open door into the main area of the shop. She rose as if in a trance then moved through the door and across the room, a slim, fragile figure weaving among the dressers, tables, lamps and other items toward an old spinet piano.

Her
walk, her body sway, were subtly different. The contemporary suit she wore seemed out of place. In a long gown with puffed sleeves and corseted waist she’d look at home among the antiques.

“
It’s Rachel’s!” she exclaimed delightedly, plunking an out-of-tune piano key, interrupting his own strange trance. Damn! He was letting her crazy story get to him. “Where did you get Rachel’s piano?” She bent to examine it more closely. “Here’s the scratch on the leg where she whacked it with the broom handle. She hated to take lessons and—”

She stopped and
looked at him then at Lottie, her expression fearful. For an instant his heart went out to her. No matter if she was lying or not, it was still possible—he wanted it to be possible—that she was a victim, caught in a web of circumstances not entirely of her own doing.

“
I’m sorry,” she mumbled, returning to the table and falling back into her chair. “The accident...I still get a little confused.”

She looked so damned helpless, so unlike herself. He wanted to rush to her aid, lift her in his arms and soothe her, carry her away from the circumstances that had put them both in this position.

He clenched his jaw. That was illogical, emotional thinking and wouldn’t get him anywhere. He had a job to do, a mission to accomplish. She hadn’t given him any reason to believe in her innocence. Quite the contrary.

Analise picked up a cookie, broke it in half, then broke it again. She couldn’t bring herself to put the dry crumbs into her dry mouth. Damn it! She hadn’t felt confused a minute ago. She’d recognized the piano, remembered Rachel’s tantrum quite clearly, remembered helping her friend rub the scratch with walnut meats to try to hide it.

“
You seem confused about a lot of things.” Dylan leaned forward, cradling the delicate cup in his big hands. If he exerted just the tiniest bit of pressure, he would surely crush the thin china.

“
I don’t know about the scratch on the leg, but that piano came from Rachel Waller’s estate,” Lottie said.

“
Rachel’s estate.” The words hit hard, reminded Analise that the vibrant young woman she remembered as though it were yesterday was dead. She must have known where the piano came from, woven the facts into her delusion. That was the logical explanation. “Did I know Rachel?”

“
Oh, I doubt it. She died several years ago. But her house is right next door to yours. That’s where you live now, isn’t it, Dylan? I’m amazed they ever rented to you. So many heirs, and they can’t agree on anything. She didn’t leave a will, and she never married, so of course there were no children, but the cousins converged from every direction.”

“
Rachel never married? But she was so pretty. She had so many beaux.”

No one said anything for a long moment.

Well, there, she’d dropped another conversation stopper. Was she ever going to quit doing that? She crammed the crumbled cookie into her mouth, washed it down with the now-tepid tea.

“
You sound like you knew her personally,” Lottie said, her voice oddly quiet and contemplative.

“
You just said the woman died several years before Analise moved here.” Dylan turned to Analise, his dark eyes riveting, demanding. “Unless you visited her before she died.”

“
Not likely,” Lottie answered for her. “Rachel Waller was a recluse for most of her life. We used to talk about her when we were children. We said she must be a witch, that the only time she came outside was at night. People said you could hear her crying and moaning sometimes, but it was probably only the wind.”

Happy, vivacious Rachel a recluse?
Going out only at night? Crying and moaning?

“
Why?” The word came out a croak. Analise cleared her throat and tried again. “Did they say why? What happened to her to cause her to be like that?”

“
There were lots of stories, of course. Some said she had a lover who left her or died. My mother always maintained she never stopped grieving for her best friend, the girl who lived in your house, Analise. For some reason she blamed herself for her friend’s death.”

Analise
’s breath caught in her throat. She grasped Lottie’s arm. “Who was her best friend? What was her name? Who lived in my house before me?”

Lottie looked startled, blinked several times. She set her cup down and placed her hand over
Analise’s. “It’s been so long,” she said, her voice soothing as though she recognized the urgency of Analise’s question. “I don’t remember. It was a pretty name, a foreign name.”

Analise
heard Dylan suck in his breath.

She leaned closer to Lottie.
“Dupard?” she asked, softly. “Was her name Dupard?”

“
Why, yes, that’s it. Elizabeth Dupard. I always thought that was a lovely name. When I was a little girl, we’d play that we were Rachel and Elizabeth. We didn’t have video games then, you know. Elizabeth always came to a tragic end. I preferred to play Elizabeth. I was sure she was as beautiful as her name, and besides, dying young sounds so romantic when you’re ten years old.”

“
When did she die? How did she die?” Analise realized she was squeezing Lottie’s arm. She loosened her grip, clenched her hands in her lap.

“
I don’t know, dear,” Lottie said. “Maybe an illness. They didn’t have all these miracle drugs in those days, and a lot of people died young.”

“
But there must have been talk, like there was about Rachel. They must have wondered why Rachel blamed herself for Elizabeth’s death.”

Lottie laced and unlaced the fingers of her small hands, obviously distressed with the intense turn the conversation had taken.
“People love to gossip, of course. The theories ranged from Elizabeth being locked out in a snowstorm with Rachel not hearing her cries and letting her freeze to death, all the way to the lurid type, like Elizabeth stealing Rachel’s boyfriend and dying in childbirth. Most versions involved a man, somebody’s lover, though the stories varied as to whose lover.”

“
So you must have heard the stories.” At the sound of Dylan’s voice, Analise turned slowly to look at him. “The stories about Rachel and Elizabeth. That’s where you got the information for your own story.”

“
Yes,” she agreed reluctantly. “I must have.”

“
I guess that’s possible,” Lottie said, “but those stories died out a long time before old Rachel’s death, and she’s been gone quite a few years.”

“
Somebody probably told Analise something when she bought the piano,” Dylan suggested, his eyes remaining locked with Analise’s though he was speaking to Lottie.

Analise
would have liked to believe it too. That would mean she was normal, just a little muddled from the fall, confusing things she’d heard with things she’d experienced.

But it didn
’t feel right, and Lottie was shaking her head as she poured more tea into all three cups. “The piano was part of the inventory when she bought this shop. The heirs had to sell off most of the furniture to pay Rachel’s burial expenses.”

Analise
’s eyes misted at the sad picture Lottie painted of her former friend. The woman she’d fantasized as her friend, she reminded herself, but her eyes were suddenly brimming with tears anyway. She knew on a rational level that she’d never known Rachel Waller, but she remembered her, remembered their closeness, their laughter, their dreams.

Dropping her gaze to her hands which were twisted around her cup, she blinked rapidly to clear the moisture from her eyes and the foolish notions from her head.

As she looked up again, she saw Dylan watching her, his features softened. He reached a hand across the table toward her, then suddenly changed his look to a scowl, withdrew his hand and pushed his chair back from the table.

“
I’d better get on to work,” he said gruffly. “Thanks for the tea. I’ll pick you up about six, Analise.”

He
walked through the shop and out the door. The bell jangled behind him.

Through the
shop’s plate glass window she followed his progress as he strode purposefully, to his black car with never a backward glance.

And while it made no sense, his going left
an emptiness.

She
should have been glad to be rid of his distrust, his suspicions, his perpetual questions. But what she felt as he drove away was the loss of someone to whom she was mysteriously linked even though she couldn’t deny the possibility that he’d tried to harm her. Someone who, her heart told her, had been a part of her life through good and evil for a very long time.

Even as the car vanished from
her sight, she knew he’d be back, knew their business wasn’t finished.

If they hadn
’t been lovers, what had they been to each other?

Analise
jumped in sudden fright as she felt hands on her shoulders, but these hands were small and gentle. “What’s wrong, Elizabeth? What’s happening?”

“
I don’t know.” Belatedly it hit her. Fearfully, excitedly, she looked up at Lottie. “Why did you call me Elizabeth?”

“
Did I?” Lottie frowned thoughtfully. “How odd. All this talk about Rachel Waller and her friend, I suppose. You finish your tea now, and I’ll tidy up. Mrs. Arnold should be in about eleven to decide which wardrobe she wants. I certainly hope she takes that big walnut one. We could use the space.”

“
Please,” Analise said, “talk to me for a few more minutes. You’re the first person I’ve felt comfortable with since all this started, the first person who doesn’t seem to think I’m completely mad.”

Lottie sat beside her and patted her hand.
“Poor dear. Of course you’re not crazy. Any time people don’t understand something, instead of just accepting and believing, they have to find some way to explain it. Thinking that person is insane is a very handy method.”

Analise
grinned wryly. “But I’m one of those people who think I must be mad.”

“
Not a bit of it. Let me brew up another pot, and you tell me all about it.”

Analise
clutched the woman’s arm as she started to rise.

She couldn
’t accept Lottie’s understanding without telling her everything, the worst. “Lottie, when I woke up yesterday morning, I thought I was Elizabeth Dupard.” She swallowed hard. “I still think I am, even though I know that’s not possible.”

Lottie nodded slowly, as if
Analise had just confirmed something. “That opens up some intriguing possibilities. I’ll just be a minute.”

Analise
knew the only rational
possibility
for her delusions, but she sat straighter in her chair, waiting for Lottie to return and offer an explanation other than insanity.

The older woman came back
to the table shortly with fresh tea and listened without comment as Analise told of her strange tangle of memories and lack of memories, about Phillip’s theory that she was confusing the present with stories she’d heard about her house. But not even to Lottie did she confide about her dream and the fragment of crystal in her handbag. She needed to think about that further, try to figure out where the dream ended and reality began.

“
Phillip could be right,” her assistant concluded. “You were obsessed with that old house from the minute you saw it. Harriet—your realtor—told me you were dragging furniture down from the attic the first time she showed the place to you.”

Analise
nodded slowly, images settling into position like family members returning home. She’d known the minute she walked in the door exactly how the house should look.

Lottie sipped her tea then set the cup back onto its sa
ucer with a delicate clink. “Then you bought this shop and, oh, my, you had quite a time finding more furniture for your house. You’d get in your head exactly how a piece ought to look then turn the countryside upside down till you found what you wanted. Do you remember that?”

Analise
nodded slowly as a collage of images flashed through her mind. “Sort of.” She picked up her own cup...not so much to drink as to hold onto the solid feel of something she knew was real.

“
Then again,” Lottie continued, her gaze never flickering, “Phillip’s theory could be all wrong. You could be Elizabeth Dupard reincarnated. That would explain how you knew so much about furnishing the house.”

An invisible force punched
Analise in the stomach, jerked her upright to full attention. Reincarnation. The idea was absurd, of course. It ranked right up there with ghosts and séances.

Analise
studied the older woman intently. Lottie wasn’t joking. Nor did she even appear to think the idea was a little offbeat. Her tone and expression were matter-of-fact and placid.

“
Maybe that’s why you were so drawn to that house. Maybe being in the house where you used to live started tugging on the past, then you fell, and that bump on the head scrambled the memories of two lifetimes. We only use a tiny portion of our brain. Who knows what lies hidden in the rest of it? Maybe you just accessed some of those hidden memories. Maybe you need them for some reason.”

Analise
opened her mouth to protest, but somehow the words stuck in her throat. “What reason?” she asked instead, setting her cup carefully back onto the tray, no longer certain of the reality of even the smooth china.

“
Well, I don’t know. You’d be the one to answer that question. Elizabeth may have had some unfinished business since she died so young. Maybe you were headed in the wrong direction and wouldn’t have got things right this time either. We have to come back again and again until we finally get it right, you know.”

Analise
’s logical mind rebelled at the outrageous idea.

Of course she wasn
’t the reincarnation of Elizabeth Dupard. She’d doubtless heard bits and pieces of the life of the woman who’d lived in her house before her, and her imagination had filled in the details.

But as surely as she knew on a rational level that she wasn
’t Elizabeth Dupard, in her heart she still felt that she was Elizabeth.

With a shiver, she remembered the first time she
’d seen Phillip yesterday. As he’d walked across the yard toward her, for an instant he’d seemed to resemble Blake, one form superimposed over the other like a double image. If she was Elizabeth...

She gave herself a mental shake. She was
Analise, and Phillip was Phillip.

“
Are you all right?” Lottie asked, leaning toward her.

“
Yes. Yes, I’m fine.” Analise drew shaky fingers across her forehead, trying to wipe away the irrational thoughts. “Why did I divorce Phillip?” she asked.

Lottie sat back, a look of concern on her usual cheerful face.
“You said you’d both changed and grown in different directions. You no longer had anything in common.”

She remembered Phillip
’s insistence that she go home with him, his possessive attitude toward her. “Did he fight the divorce? Did he want me back?”

“
If he fought the divorce, you never mentioned it. He came in here a couple of times with papers for you to sign. You were always polite to each other. To tell you the truth, I wondered why you ever got married in the first place. I didn’t sense any passion between you two, good or bad.”

Analise
was reminded of the way she’d felt like a sawdust doll in his arms. “What did you think about him?”

Lottie actually looked uncomfortable for half a second. But she faced
Analise squarely. “His aura isn’t clear. I can’t read him. He’s hiding himself. Just like Dylan. I think I like that young man, but he’s hiding something too. You be careful of the both of them.”

Cold enveloped
Analise at Lottie’s warning, the confirmation of her own nebulous fears.

The bell over the door jingled, startling her. An elderly, dignified lady made her entrance.
“My goodness, this weather is really nasty,” she exclaimed.

“
Mrs. Arnold,” Lottie said, rising from the table and going out to greet the woman. “Come have a cup of tea and some of my blackberry-jam cookies.”

Analise
spent the rest of the day assisting customers and soon discovered that she possessed an astonishing knowledge of the inventory of the shop. Because Analise had acquired the knowledge from others or because Elizabeth knew about the furniture from having lived with many pieces from that period?

Her memories were beginning to run together, and she couldn
’t determine which belonged to her fantasy of Elizabeth and which belonged to Analise. Logically, she knew that should be comforting. She was returning to herself, to Analise. She might very easily wake up in the morning and realize that she’d invented Elizabeth. That would solve a lot of problems, should be a relief.

But
she didn’t want to lose Elizabeth. She didn’t want Elizabeth to go away, to
die
.

Lottie had left for the day
and Analise was explaining the intricacies of a Victorian music box when the doorbell jingled. Every nerve in her body suddenly came alert, and she knew without looking up that Dylan had entered the shop. His force reached across the room and touched her as surely as it had the night before when she’d stood at her window.

She concluded the sale, deliberately focusing her
attention on the customer until the door closed behind the woman. Finally she turned and looked at Dylan.

He stood with arms folded across his chest, watching her.

During the day she’d begun to feel at ease, safe in this one area of her life. His presence took that away and put her off balance again, made every fiber of her being alert, awake and expectant.

“
Ready?” he asked.

She nodded,
closed up the shop and followed him outside. The sun had finally emerged about noon and now glowed brightly on the horizon. As they walked toward his car, Dylan touched the small of her back lightly, casually, and her breath caught in her throat. The contact didn’t feel casual. It was two opposite poles connecting, a linking that allowed energy to flow between them. She heard his sharp intake of breath and knew he felt it, too. For a moment he didn’t move, his hand attached to her body as if by magnetic force.

Then he turned away—
angrily, it seemed—and, without a word, opened the car door for her.

He wanted to avoid the attraction between them, pretend it didn
’t exist. Why? What did he know about her that she didn’t?

Inside the automobile
he finally spoke, his tone even, conversational. “You sounded very knowledgeable, talking to that lady about the music box.”

She started to tell him it was almost identical to one Papa had given Mama so she had reason to be knowledgeable, but she swallowed the words. If she didn
’t understand this world, she was at least learning to survive in it.

“
It’s a type I know about,” she replied ambiguously.

He pulled away from the curb, merged into traffic.
“I guess it really is pretty easy to get wrapped up in the past when you live in one of these old houses. They do tend to kind of pull you back in time.”

His statement came out of nowhere. He sounded friendly, almost apologetic. And for no sane reason, that lifted her spirits immeasurably.

“Since I moved next door,” he continued when she didn’t respond, “I’ve noticed an influence on my painting. I guess our surroundings play a part in what we think and how we feel. I can see how it would be disconcerting to wake up in that atmosphere after a scary experience like falling downstairs.”

The sunlight seemed to grow brighter, to seep inside her.

“What kind of an influence?” she asked, grasping at the piece of himself he’d offered, admitting to herself that she yearned to talk to him, to reach out to him, to solidify that eerie bond between them.

He was quiet for a moment as if considering whether he wanted to tell her.
“My paintings have taken on a more ominous tone,” he finally said. “Even my subjects are different. I paint storms now where I used to paint sunny days. I’ve had the same nightmare all my life. I hate it, yet suddenly I’ve felt compelled to paint a gruesome picture of it.”

“
You think that comes from living in Rachel’s house?” For an instant she saw a nightmare in his eyes, and she didn’t think this one came while he was sleeping. Instinctively she reached to touch his arm. Then, as abruptly as it had come, the tortured look was gone, the curtained expression back. She started to draw away, unsure if her gesture of comfort would be accepted, and she couldn’t stand for it to be rejected.

He covered her hand with his for a fleeting
moment. Warmth surged upward, and she knew her face was probably flushed.

But then she fel
t him pulling away again, and the air around them grew cooler. She snatched her hand back.

“
Is Phillip coming over tonight?” he asked, his tone flat and cold.

“
He said he would,” she answered, fighting down the disappointment that rose so sharply with his sudden change.

“
For an ex-husband, he certainly has a proprietary attitude toward you.”

She couldn
’t deny that. She’d noticed it too. “Did you know him? Before the accident, I mean,” she asked, searching for some basis for the intense dislike Dylan so obviously felt for Phillip.

“
I’ve seen him at your house a couple of times.”

It didn
’t sound like a lie, but it didn’t have the ring of total truth either.

“
You’re a lucky lady,” he continued in an apparent change of subject. “That’s a big staircase. You could have suffered some real injuries. Did you fall all the way from the top or trip farther down?”