Bishop's Rock Page 6

  “Yes, I just got up too quickly. I’m fine now.”

  “Should I find your husband?”

  “No, I’m going up to my room to lie down.”

  She felt his gaze on her as she left the dining room. The stairway seemed steeper than she remembered, the hallway longer. She took forever to find her room. Once outside, she stared down at the knob. The door was open a crack. Surely she had closed it when she left. Or had she unlocked it just now and forgotten?

  Tentatively, she pushed open the door. Cole Matheson was inside going through her things.

  Lea backed away and flattened herself against the wall. Her heart drummed as the hallway spun around her. She had to fight the urge to slide to the floor and bury her head in her arms. Instead, she stumbled back downstairs, clinging to the banister as she descended. At the bottom, the same concerned staff member approached her again.

  “Is there anything I can do for you, Mrs. Westin?”

  “Call the police. Someone is in my room.”

  His brows soared. “The police? Why don’t I just go up and take a look?”

  She clutched his arm. “You don’t understand. Someone is trying to kill me. I don’t know who I can trust.”

  He took her hand and guided her away from the stairs. “Let me see if I can find your husband.”

  “No!” She jerked away from him. “Please, I need the police. I need someone to help me.” Her hand fluttered to her head. “I can’t think...”

  He opened an office door. “Maybe you’d like to wait inside. I’ll bring you some water.” He said over his shoulder, “Go find Mr. Westin. Tell him his wife isn’t well.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said on a gasp. “Andrew could be the one who wants me dead.”

  “It’s okay,” he said in a soothing tone. “You’re safe here.” He closed the door, leaving Lea all alone in unfamiliar surroundings.

  Panic engulfed her. She glanced around frantically. Someone wanted her dead. She couldn’t trust her husband. She couldn’t trust Cole Matheson. A man like that can be very convincing. He’ll fabricate whatever story he needs to in order to gain your trust.

  She couldn’t trust anyone. She couldn’t even trust her own instincts.

  Someone wanted her dead.

  Her head reeled. Her mind grew cloudy.

  She opened the door a crack. Andrew stood just outside with the clerk. “Her doctor warned that something like this could happen. A sort of PTSD. Thank you for being so understanding. I’ll take it from here...”

  She closed the door and locked it. Then she shoved a chair under the knob.

  A long window behind the desk looked out on the garden. She crossed the room in a flash, crawled through the window and darted for the shelter of the woods.

  Chapter Ten

  Winded from her run, she came out of the trees at the base of Bishop’s Rock. She’d meant to head for the springs—someplace familiar to her where she could lie low and think—but in her desperate flight, she’d lost all sense of direction. She felt dizzy, disoriented and more frightened than she could have imagined.

  The world spun around her and she stopped, resting her back against a boulder as she gulped in air. She couldn’t keep running forever. Better she should go back to the house, collect her cell phone and calmly call the police. Would they believe her? Would they come for her or would they simply alert Andrew of her whereabouts? She had no proof that she was in danger and too many people had witnessed her irrational behavior. Why would the authorities believe her? Why would anyone?

  She closed her eyes and took deep breaths, slowing her heart rate as she tried to calm herself. The dizziness came in waves. She felt fine now. She would stay where she was for the moment and try to plan her next move—

  Someone was coming, calling out her name as they came through the trees. She listened for a moment before turning to scramble up the base of the rock, taking refuge behind a scrub brush twenty feet up.

  A moment later, Andrew appeared on the path. His phone was to his ear, but he put it away quickly as he scanned his surroundings. Then he lifted his head and called out to her. “Lea? Can you hear me? You don’t need to run from me! I’m your husband. I’m here to protect you!”

  Oh, how she wanted to believe him. But something in his voice...something tugging at her memories...

  “I know you’re here,” he said. “I followed you from the ranch. You must be so scared after what I told you at breakfast, but you’ll be safe with me. I won’t let that man hurt you. Come to me, Lea. I swear I’ll protect you.”

  “Stay where you are!” someone else shouted. Lea recognized Cole Matheson’s voice, though she couldn’t yet see him.

  She was drawn to the sound of his voice. She wanted more than anything to hurry down the side of the rock straight into his arms, but she couldn’t trust him, either.

  “Don’t listen to him, Lea. I’m your husband. Just tell me where you are and I’ll come to you.”

  “He’s not your husband,” Cole countered.

  Icy shock swept over her. She started to stand, to demand to know what he meant, but self-preservation kept her hunkered in place. She could see Andrew from her vantage point. He had left the path and sought cover behind a boulder. He had a weapon in one hand aimed at the path where Cole would appear at any moment.

  “He’s lying to you!” Andrew shouted. “He’ll say anything to gain your trust!”

  Cole’s voice sounded closer, but she still couldn’t see him. “You’re not Lea Westin,” he said. “Your name is Vanessa Kane. The real Lea Westin is dead. He brought you here to kill you, too.”

  Vanessa Kane. The name jolted her as though she’d been physically struck.

  “Those pills he’s been giving you for your headaches...they’ve kept you off balance and disoriented. They’ve kept you from remembering...”

  She inadvertently moved and she saw Andrew’s head snap up. His gaze narrowed as he vectored in on her location. Then a sound from the trees brought him around quickly and before she had time to think, she stood and screamed, “He has a gun!”

  Andrew wheeled and fired a shot in her direction. The bullet ricocheted off the granite wall behind her, showering her with tiny missiles. She lost her balance, and for a split second, she flailed her arms helplessly before tumbling headlong down Bishop’s Rock.

  She was vaguely aware of more gunfire, of frantic shouting, of someone kneeling at her side, gazing down at her tenderly. “You’ll be okay. Just hang in there. The EMTs are on the way...”

  * * *

  SHE HAD SUSTAINED yet more bumps and bruises and a broken arm, but her memory still hadn’t returned. The police had come to talk to her in the hospital. The questions had seemed endless even though her account of the events was sparse.

  She lay propped against the pillows, so deep in thought that it took her a moment to realize someone had come to her door. Cole Matheson hovered tentatively on the threshold.

  “Can I come in?”

  She marveled at how happy she was to see him, a stranger she now trusted with her life. “Yes, of course.”

  He came to her bedside, staring down at her tenderly. “How do you feel?”

  “My arm hurts, but I’m okay, thanks to you. He would have killed me, Cole.”

  “That was the plan.” He sat down on the edge of her bed. “But you don’t need to worry about Andrew Westin. Elise Terry has already cut a deal. With her testimony, he’ll be going away for a very long time for the murders of Lea Westin and Frank Grimes.”

  “Hard to believe that someone like him, someone with all his advantages, would kill two people in cold blood for money.”

  “He killed Lea because you were both on to him. You worked as a freelance accountant for Global Alliances. You were the one who discovered the missing money. When you took your suspicions to Lea, she be
gan to investigate. Andrew tried to scare her off the scent by having her followed. That’s when she got in touch with me.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “For not giving up on Lea. You would have never found me otherwise.”

  “I was nearly too late,” he said grimly. “He tried to kill you in Houston. He came back to the hospital to finish the job, but when he realized you had amnesia, he decided to bring you here, convince everyone that you were his wife. Murder would send him to prison. The accidental death of his wife would make him a very wealthy man.”

  She shook her head in disbelief. “How did he expect to get away with such a thing? He couldn’t know when I’d get my memory back.”

  “He only needed Lea to be alive for a few days. He’d already alerted the staff of your erratic behavior, and he would have been the one to identify your body when you tumbled down Bishop’s Rock. You and Lea shared similar physical traits and you both shunned social media. You had no friends or family to speak of, no coworkers who would have reported you missing. If and when his plan was exposed, he and Elise Terry would have already been long gone with the money.”

  “No friends or family to speak of,” she murmured. “I moved to Houston after my mother died. There was a broken engagement, a lot of heartache. I needed a change of scenery.”

  “You’ve remembered all that?”

  “The police told me. I was new in town and I worked from home. My whole life was spent online. Someone like me is easy to erase,” she said.

  “Not to me.” Cole’s gaze deepened. “I’ve never met anyone less forgettable.”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” she said. “You barely even know my name.”

  “Vanessa.”

  She shivered.

  He took her hand. “You’re not alone anymore, okay? We’re in this together.”

  She nodded. “So what do we do now?”

  “Something I’ve wanted to do from the moment I saw you staring down at me from that balcony.” He leaned in, threading his fingers through her hair slowly, cautiously, giving her time to pull away if she wanted to.

  Instead, she lifted her face to his kiss.

  * * * * *

  Read on for more psychological suspense in the coming full-length Harlequin Intrigue novel WHISPERING SPRINGS by Amanda Stevens, available at your favorite retailer and e-tailer.

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  Whispering Springs

  by Amanda Stevens

  The bored driver waited for her at baggage claim, placard in hand as he scanned the harried travelers. There was her name in big bold lettering: Ava North.

  She was almost embarrassed to wave him over. It wasn’t like she’d been traveling for hours or needed assistance getting from point A to point B. The flight from Houston to San Antonio had taken all of fifty minutes, less time than the commute from her apartment to the airport.

  Ava could have easily headed west on I-10 in her own vehicle, but Blair Redding, the former college classmate who had put together this ill-advised gathering, had insisted on arranging all the transportation. No doubt with the intent of making it harder to leave before the week was up. Ava wouldn’t be at all surprised if she and the other guests were asked to relinquish their cell phones once they arrived at the destination. Blair had always been that much of a control freak.

  Steeling herself for the coming days, Ava put up her hand to attract the young man’s attention. She didn’t like vacations in general and reunions in particular. Spending time at a remote ranch with the people she’d left behind years ago was a version of hell she would have preferred to avoid, yet here she was. An uncharacteristic outburst in district court had jeopardized not only what should have been a slam-dunk case but also her five-year career as an assistant DA. The judge had threatened to hold her in contempt, and her superior had promised a suspension if she didn’t make herself scarce for a few days.

  “You’re exhausted,” he’d said, not without sympathy. “The caseload we get in this office wears us all down eventually, and you do yourself no favors with the hours you keep. How long has it been since you put in for a personal day, let alone a real vacation? Go,” he’d insisted when she tried to formulate a passable defense. “Get out of my sight before I’m forced to do something drastic.”

  Ava had dragged herself home, where she intended to drink and fume for the rest of the day. But idleness, her mother always said, was Ava’s worst enemy, followed closely by the unholy trinity of overreaction, righteous indignation and self-destruction. No matter how appealing the thought of a good wallow was, Ava knew a week of brooding in her apartment would lead nowhere good. So she’d dug the invitation out of the trash and RSVP’d at the last minute. Then she’d packed a bag and headed for the airport that same afternoon without allowing herself time to reconsider.

  The man with the placard gave her a perfunctory smile as he picked up her suitcase. “This is it? Just the one?”

  “That’s it. I’m Ava, by the way.”

  “Noah Pickett.”

  “Have the others arrived yet, Noah?”

  “Two flew in over the weekend. They came with a lot of baggage,” he felt compelled to add.

  Ava wondered if she was to take his observation literally or figuratively.

  “Do you remember their names?”

  “Jane got in on Saturday. The redhead came on Sunday. I don’t remember her name, but I remember her,” he said with a grin.

  No man alive ever forgot Celeste Matthews. “What about Blair? I assume she’s already at the ranch.”

  “Since last week,” he confirmed with a nod. “Her husband is arriving today.”

  So they were all there, Ava thought with a shiver. With the exception of Lily, of course. Lily Callen had been the group’s first tragedy, a horrifying suicide on graduation weekend that had left everyone stunned. The days following her jump from a hotel rooftop had passed in a nightmarish blur of police interrogations and funeral preparations. Afterward the friends had parted in a flurry of tearful goodbyes and silent recriminations. Ava had fled to the isolation of her family’s beach house for the summer. Blair had gotten married. Celeste had backpacked through Europe with a guy she barely knew before settling down in New Orleans with another. Jane had moved to California.

  And Dylan Burkhart, the love of Ava’s life, had disappeared off the face of the earth.

  Funny how his desertion still niggled at times, mostly when she was al
ready feeling blue or vulnerable. No reason why it should, of course. After all, she was the one who had ended their relationship. She was the one who had sent him away. Told him in no uncertain terms that it was over and she didn’t want to see him anymore. She’d just never considered that he would take her at her word.

  No matter. Some things weren’t meant to be, and Ava had no regrets. She was happy enough with her chosen path, but her time in the DA’s office had changed her. Not that her physical appearance was so different. Same brown hair. Same green eyes. But she’d become hardened and world-weary. A cynic, though she’d once been a romantic.

  Such was the life of a prosecutor, she thought with an inward shrug.

  She wondered how Blair had coerced the others into coming, especially Jane. She’d been the first to lose touch. Ava hadn’t seen or heard from Jane Sandoval since the day she’d driven her to the airport. That strange goodbye had lingered with Ava all summer long, but then law school had consumed her time and attention and she’d eventually moved on, too.

  Over the years, she’d heard from the others sporadically. Celeste still lived in New Orleans and Blair was in Austin. For a while, the three of them had made an effort to get together, but their visits had been awkward and unpleasant. The events surrounding Lily’s death had eroded their friendship, and Ava was only too happy to put those days behind her. She rarely thought of any of the women anymore. Even Dylan was little more than a passing memory. Or so she told herself.

  “Have you ever been to Whispering Springs?” The driver gave her a sidelong glance as he stored her bag in the back of the SUV.

  “A few times in college. A group of us used to go out there to rock climb. Spooky place.”

  “You’re a climber?”

  “Not me, no. I have a thing about heights. I like to hike, though, so long as the trail doesn’t get too vertical.”

  “You’ll find plenty of easy trails around the ranch,” he assured her. “How long has it been since you were there?”

  “At least ten years.”