Past Suspicion (Christian Romantic Suspense) Read online

  Also by Therese Heckenkamp:

  Coming December 2012 . . .

  Frozen Footprints

  PAST SUSPICION

  Therese Heckenkamp

  PublishAmerica

  Baltimore

  © 2003 by Therese Heckenkamp.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

  First printing

  ISBN: 978-1-4512-5048-0 (Paperback)

  PUBLISHED BY

  PUBLISHAMERICA, LLLP.

  www.publishamerica.com

  Baltimore

  Printed in the United States of America

  To my sisters, Monica and Cassandra,

  my very first readers.

  And my mother,

  who opened the wondrous world of books to me.

  Living the past is a dull and lonely business;

  looking back strains the neck muscles,

  and causes you to bump into people

  not going your way.

  — Edna Ferber

  Prologue

  1979

  Lilacs . . . their sweet scent drifted into my nostrils, twirled through my mind, and disturbed my sleep. No matter. It had not been a sleep of rest anyway.

  Images of spring, butterflies and blossoms bloomed in my mind, prodding at my memory. Thoughts came slowly. It occurred to me that my eyes were closed and that I should open them. But I didn’t want to. It would take too much effort. And besides, I felt safe under the cover of my eyelids, seeing only what I wanted to see, and I had a foreboding that if I opened my eyes, I would regret it. But something was pulling at me, a sort of fear of the unknown, urging me to open them, and it was even stronger than the smell of lilacs. Too strong to resist.

  So I gave in and opened my eyes.

  Since then, I have not known peace.

  My surroundings brightened, revealing that I was in a small white room, not unlike a hospital room. In fact—a wave of fear swept through me—it was a hospital room. My heart pounded against my chest as my brain asked, What am I doing here?

  It was a question I could not answer. My mind refused to try.

  I realized then that there were people in my room. But who were they? I did not recognize their faces. My fear swelled. I tried to get a hold of myself, to understand what was going on, but my head hurt, felt disoriented. And I was hot. I could feel the sweat trickling down my forehead. My body ached, and I couldn’t distinguish one limb from another. Panic added to my fear.

  The strangers were talking, but I couldn’t make sense of their words; the syllables blended together into an undecipherable hum. I yearned for these people to be silent so I could ask what I so needed to know.

  “Why—am I here?”

  No answer.

  Struggling up from my warm, moist pillow, I took a deep breath and spoke as loudly as I could.

  “What’s going on—why am I here?”

  This time they heard me. “She’s awake!” someone cried. Instantly, people were swarming over me, suffocating me. I wanted to push them away, but I didn’t have the strength. I wished I hadn’t said anything—wished I hadn’t woken up. Dizziness and exhaustion overtook me, and forgetting my frustration, I fell back and closed my eyes.

  * * *

  A man’s round face peered down at me through a halo of haziness. He spoke in a voice that, though gentle, held a note of urgency.

  “Tiffany, how do you feel?”

  I blinked to clear the haze. The face shimmered in and out of focus, but I could see he needed a shave and that his glasses were slipping off his nose. There was something oddly familiar about the man, but even though I knew I should know him, I couldn’t identify the face. He knew me, but I didn’t know him. That’s when it hit me: I didn’t know who I was.

  “Am I . . . Tiffany?”

  “Tiffany!” Behind the round glasses, alarm reflected in the man’s eyes. “You don’t remember?” For an awful second, I thought he was going to cry. Even though I couldn’t remember who he was, I knew I didn’t want to hurt him. Still, I had to ask . . .

  “Who am I?”

  * * *

  “It will come back. Just don’t try so hard. Give it time.” That’s what the doctor told me repeatedly over the next few days. “You’ve had a bad accident. You need time to heal. You have serious bruises and a broken leg, but you’re a lucky young lady to be alive.”

  I didn’t feel lucky.

  They told me about the accident, but since I was alone when it happened, no one knew the details. They’d hoped I would be able to explain how it had happened. I tried to remember, but the threads of memory were tangled in my mind, and the more I tried to untangle them, the more tangled they became.

  Was it a castle or a mansion? A bridge or a balcony? A push or a fall?

  Most disconcerting of all, when I began to remember, I wasn’t sure if I was actually remembering, or simply recreating from the things they told me . . .

  From the mansion’s balcony I had a view of a lush lawn, green as emeralds and sprinkled with brilliant flowers, stretching to the horizon. Shrubs and trees encircled a rock garden far below me. I leaned over for a better look. This is when the vision changed to a nightmare. I heard a cracking like the sound of splintering bone. The balcony’s wooden railing suddenly gave way, and I was falling, falling to those rocks below.

  While this memory meshed with what they told me about the accident, I knew it wasn’t complete. I felt as if I were looking through a carefully focused lens. Outside the lens was what I needed to see, but I didn’t know how to take the necessary step back to view my surroundings as they really were.

  People came to visit me. I was supposed to know them; they said they were my friends. Everyone tried to cram my head with memories I was supposed to have but didn’t. A woman who owned a garden nursery brought me a pot of chrysanthemums tied in a yellow bow, claiming we were great friends and that I used to visit her after school. Mr. Stafford, editor of the local newspaper, said I worked at the paper as an intern. Now he wanted to interview me. Teachers, neighbors, friends . . . these people were hidden in the shadows of my past, and I had to struggle to bring them into the light.

  Maybe I was trying too hard. Some things did come back, but gradually—in jumbled, disconnected pieces that floated about in my head, and I wasn’t strong enough or fast enough to catch all the pieces and fit them together.

  The round-faced man was my older brother—ten years older—and my only living relative. Our parents were dead, and had been for a long time. My father had died first: 1966, in the Vietnam War. I’d hardly known him because I was only five when he died. Seven years later my mother died, and my brother came home from college to look after me. Now he was twenty-eight and I was eighteen. These were the kinds of simple facts of my life that returned a little each day.

  I began to recover, and I was looking forward to returning home and to school and to a normal life.

  Then he came to see me.

  He was a tall, dark young man with dark eyes. He was the one who had brought me the lilacs. He was handsome, but for some reason this frightened me. Something about his face, his chiseled features and deep eyes, was too intense. When our eyes met, I had to catch my breath. He told me he was my boyfriend; everyone else said he was my hero; and for all I remembered of him, he certainly could be.

  But I didn’t want to believe it. My memory of him did not return and grow as it did with the others, and
this bothered me. The doctor explained something about selective amnesia, when for some reason or another certain things or people cannot be remembered. Apparently, that was what I had.

  The young man tried earnestly to make me remember. But it was as if something in me did not want to remember. I was afraid of him and dreaded seeing him, though I did not know why. Since I could not justify these feelings to myself, I couldn’t tell anyone else; I didn’t know how to explain and didn’t want anyone thinking I might be crazy on top of all my other worries.

  I made the nurse take the lilacs away. I didn’t want them in the room to remind me of him.

  He came to see me as often as he could, always asking questions, his dark eyes probing, scrutinizing any response. He said he understood what I was going through, and he was gentle and patient with me, whispering words of encouragement. But it didn’t last. One night he accused me of only pretending not to know him.

  Then he threatened me. He demanded something from me that I could not give him. I didn’t know whether to believe the things he told me, and I didn’t know what to do—I had nowhere to turn—because I feared what he might do. I was scared to believe him; I was scared not to believe him. All I wanted was for him to leave me alone.

  But he wouldn’t.

  Things got worse. They got so bad that I could stand it no longer. So I made up my mind: no matter what it took, I was going to escape.

  Chapter One

  1999

  I know now why my mother kept her past a secret from me: she loved me. Keeping it secret was her way of protecting me. She must have thought what I didn’t know couldn’t hurt me. Too bad she didn’t realize that what I didn’t know just might end up hurting me the most . . .

  My mind was as cluttered and disorganized as the people boarding the plane, cramming luggage into overhead compartments and stuffing it under seats. Since I didn’t feel like talking, it was just my luck to get stuck sitting next to a man who began telling me his life story before we even left the gate. As if it wasn’t going to be a long enough flight, I had to hear how he had been raised in a bubble (with only two other people) for some kind of seclusion-environment observation project, and you’d think he’d be shy, but—go figure—he just couldn’t stop talking. I wished he’d stayed in his bubble.

  “So,” he said amiably, “what about you? You look like a nice little girl. How old? Fourteen? Fifteen?”

  “Eighteen,” I lied, just to shock him. Actually, it wasn’t much of a lie, since my birthday was in less than three weeks.

  He wasn’t shocked anyway. I wasn’t even sure he’d heard me. “Visiting

  relatives in Wisconsin?” he asked.

  Deciding now was a good time to follow my mother’s advice about not talking to strangers, I stared out the window instead of answering.

  Not that I saw anything out that window. My mind had no room for scenery. Thoughts which I’d wadded up like unwanted notes over the course of the past week began uncrumpling in my mind. Thoughts like, My mother’s too young to die. This can’t be happening. And, It’s too unexpected. But meningitis, the doctor told me, happens like that. Unexpected. And it didn’t matter how old you were or how much you had to live for.

  Clattering and rattling, the drink cart rolled by. “Want anything, little lady?” asked Mr. Bubble. I shook my head.

  What I wanted was to be left alone. That’s what I’d told Mrs. Gills, my mother’s lawyer, shortly after she informed me my mother had left instructions for me to go live with my uncle in Lorens, Wisconsin.

  “What uncle?” I demanded. “I don’t have an uncle.”

  “Oh yes, you do,” said Mrs. Gills, giving me a patient, lipstick-laden smile, as if I were a child and of course she did not expect me to understand such complicated matters. At least I knew how to wear lipstick without getting it on my teeth. “He’s your mother’s brother. The instructions are quite clear. As your only living relative, this uncle is now your guardian.”

  That’s how I ended up on this plane, sitting next to Mr. Bubble and zooming away from my life in California to live under the control of a stranger—my mother had left “instructions.”

  She’s dead, I thought, clenching my hands, but she’s still running my life. All I wanted was to stay in California until I could figure out my future. Sure, I’d always wanted to travel, but I had in mind places like Paris, Egypt, South America, or Australia. Exotic places. Not a place called Lorens. The town’s probably so tiny, I thought, even a speck on a map would be an exaggeration.

  I turned to Mr. Bubble, who was entertaining himself by floating crushed pretzel pieces in a cup of tomato juice. “Have you ever heard of Lorens?”

  “What’s that? A town? A person?” Using his finger, he began stirring the pretzel juice mixture. “Nope, never heard of it.”

  I turned away, my suspicions confirmed. I was headed for the middle of nowhere.

  After somehow swallowing his concoction, Mr. Bubble fell asleep and began snoring, an erratic snort-snort noise that made me imagine pulling out the oxygen mask and stifling him. Now I knew how he’d gotten free of the bubble experiment—the others had kicked him out.

  To make matters worse, a baby started crying two seats ahead of me. I turned from my window to glare at the back of the mother’s head. Her hair looked as if she hadn’t combed it in weeks, and not only that, it was in desperate need of a dye job.

  Then I smiled to myself, a smile that held no joy. Yes, my mother has the power to make me leave home, but not for long. I went over my plan, which I’d formed the day Mrs. Gills told me I had no choice in this matter because I was a minor. I’ll be eighteen soon, and when I get enough money, I’m going straight back to California. Until then, I’d simply view my time in Lorens as something to be endured, like a sore throat or bad vacation. When it was over, I would forget all about it.

  The baby stopped crying, and even Mr. Bubble’s snoring subsided to a level that I could tune out, so I settled back against my seat and closed my eyes.

  It seemed only a moment later that a voice over the loudspeaker announced we were landing at Mitchell International Airport. I roused myself and peered out over Milwaukee. Against my will, I was intrigued by the city’s thousands of lights piercing the night, like stars below me instead of above.

  We landed all too soon. I waited until Mr. Bubble pushed his way into line, then let several people pass me before I stood up, hoisting my carry-on bag, and joined them in filing out of the plane. Now begins my interlude, I thought.

  I’d expected my uncle to march up to me the instant I left the terminal, so I was surprised when, after the crowd of hugging people dispersed, I was left standing alone. I searched all the unfamiliar faces, but no eyes met mine. So this is how it feels to be invisible, I thought.

  After a moment of waiting like this, I walked to a row of vacant seats and plopped down, even though my feet wanted to walk me right out of the airport and into the city, where my uncle would never find me. The idea was tempting, but since I’d never had a chance to do anything crazy like that before, I wasn’t sure I had the nerve to pull it off.

  As the minutes ticked away on my mother’s watch—now my watch—I found it increasingly difficult to be patient. I studied the watch, the fading gold casement, the worn leather band, until my eyes became bored. Then I studied my wrist, the light golden hairs, the thin white scar running up the inside of my arm. Still my uncle did not come.

  Did he even get the news? I wondered, running a hand through my short blonde hair. Maybe I’d end up waiting here all night. My heartbeat accelerated. I would give my uncle his chance, and if he didn’t show up by morning—why, I would leave the airport—I’d find a job somewhere in Milwaukee and fend for myself. At least that would be exciting, much better than vegetating in Lorens. The more time passed, the more my hopes rose. Maybe this uncle really didn’t exist.

  “Robin?”

  I looked up to see a short, middle-aged man hurrying toward me, and all my plans evaporate
d.

  Yes, it’s me—how did you guess? I almost snapped. Maybe because I’m the only person waiting here?

  But I held my tongue. Not that I particularly cared what my uncle thought of me, but because suddenly I was too tired to bother saying the words. “I’m sorry I’m late. It took me longer to get here than I figured,” he explained. His eyes shone behind the round glasses, and he smiled a big smile, making his face look very round. “I knew it was you right away. You look so much like your mother.”

  Whatever, I thought, trying not to roll my eyes. I knew I didn’t look like my mother. Her hair was dark brown, for a start. We were different in a lot of other ways, too. But I figured my uncle would discover that soon enough.

  “I’m sorry about your mother,” he began, and I sighed because I knew what was coming next. “I know it’s a hard time for you right now, but I’m glad you could come . . . I think you’ll like Lorens.”

  I didn’t reply, hoping my silence would speak for itself. I stood up, shouldering my bag. My foot had fallen asleep, and I tried not to wince. As we walked, my mind moved on to my plan. I began wondering how I was going to get the money to return to California.

  “I want a job,” I said suddenly. “Is there any place I can get one in Lorens?” My mind flashed what was by now my stock vision of a tiny hick town with a gas station and maybe one McDonald’s.

  My uncle paused in retrieving my luggage. “There’s no reason for you to get a job, Robin. I thought you’d just want to have fun—make some friends, not be stuck indoors all summer—”

  “I want a job,” I said firmly. I had no intention of staying in Lorens all summer and certainly no desire to form ties to the place by making friends. “I need the money.” I didn’t say what for; he could figure it out for himself.