Borrowed Identity (10 page)

“Tell me,” he whispered into her hair. “What happened?”

“He tried to kill me.” Her voice was barely audible.

“Who?”

“I don’t know.” Fresh terror tinged her words. “There was someone in here with me. I didn’t imagine it. I’m not crazy.”

“Okay. I believe you. Tell me everything. Start at the beginning.”

“He tried to strangle me.” She broke off for a moment, swallowing hard in the darkness. He waited for her to continue, holding her tight as if his strength could seep into her flesh and bones. “He came out of nowhere. I hit and I kicked and I scratched. He started choking me. I couldn’t breathe.”

If this woman was lying, then he was a fool, because he believed her.

“I need to check things out. I’m going to let you go now. Okay?”

“Yeah.” She disengaged from his embrace. “Go ahead.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m okay now. Really.” A brave smile curved her lips.

Michael switched on the bedside lamp and quickly scanned the room. Everything seemed to be in order. His gaze went to Kelly. Her face was still pale but from the
stubborn tilt of her chin and the defiant sparkle in her eyes, he could tell Kelly’s fighting spirit seemed to be reemerging.

Returning to her side, he gently pulled her white nightgown away from her neck and looked for evidence of an attack. Her throat appeared blotchy and sore. There was some sort of abrasion, but it didn’t look like marks left by fingers. She could have done it herself if she was clever and wanted his trust.

His damn training was a nuisance at times. It would have been nice to take things at face value for once instead of looking for hidden truths.

Determined to give her the benefit of the doubt, Michael held a finger to his lips, and motioned for her to be quiet. He stepped over to the closet and jerked the door open. It was empty. His next stop was the bathroom. He checked everywhere, including behind the glass shower door. No one was in sight.

He didn’t want to leave Kelly alone for a second longer than he had to, so he returned to her. She hadn’t moved a muscle and was shaking uncontrollably again. The glimmer of her old self he’d seen moments earlier was no longer evident. He realized she’d only been putting on a brave front for his benefit.

Without a word he swept her into his arms and carried her down the hall to the bedroom he was using. She would be safe there.

Boomer joined them. The dog settled at the foot of the bed, curling into a ball.

Michael tucked her securely into bed. She was still trembling. He had to help her. Surely there was something he could do for her.

“Would you like some water? I could get you a glass.”

He made a move for the door, but her hand shot out to stop him, grabbing his forearm. She possessed amazing
strength for a girl of her stature. He wouldn’t be able to break away without a struggle.

“I don’t want anything,” she said in a barely audible voice. “Can you stay with me?”

He could tell be the tone of her voice that she hated admitting to her fear. That asking him to stay hadn’t been easy. He climbed on the bed beside her. She automatically turned to her side, facing the opposite wall. He stretched out and put an arm around her, pressing against her length in an effort to warm her, resting his face in the curve of her neck. Her hair tickled his nose, but he didn’t move, not even to scratch.

She smelled incredible, like nothing he’d known before. It was a clean, fresh scent, like flowers after a spring rain. And she was soft. His hands itched to move, to stroke and explore. If he hadn’t been working—and if she wasn’t on the verge of a mental collapse—he wouldn’t be able to stop until he lost himself in her beauty and warmth.

“I told you about my mother,” she said, breaking into his thoughts. “Remember?”

“Yes.” He waited patiently for Kelly to make her point. He would lie there quietly all night if he had to, not pressuring her in the slightest to hurry her words. He would give her whatever she needed.

“But I don’t know anything about you,” she said. “Tell me about your family, your childhood. What was it like?”

The request caught Michael off guard.

Tension invaded his body like a spreading disease. He hated talking about himself. He didn’t believe in dwelling on things a person couldn’t change. Getting him to talk, he’d been told, was a nearly impossible task, fraught with frustrations. He didn’t open up easily to anyone and rarely spoke about his feelings. Probably one of the many reasons he hadn’t married.

He told himself this situation was different. He could talk
to Kelly. She wasn’t trying to find ammunition to use against him later. She could have been killed by the intruder.
If there was an intruder,
a dark voice whispered in his head. She needed to get her mind off the terror she’d felt when the stranger’s hands closed around her lovely throat. The least Michael could do was talk to her. He didn’t have to tell her anything radical.

“Okay,” he sighed. “What exactly do you want to know?”

“Where were you born? Who are your parents? Are they still alive? You know, the usual stuff.”

He would rather have a root canal operation than discuss his past life.

“New York,” he said shortly. “And I don’t have parents.”

“I’m sorry I asked.” Her voice grated with sudden anger and she stiffened.

Women! He wouldn’t understand them if he lived to be a hundred. She wanted to stick her pretty little nose in his business, so he’d answered her questions. Now she was angry because she didn’t like his tone of voice? “What do you want from me? I gave you the facts.”

“Yes, you did.” Kelly sat up straight and glared down at him. “‘Just the facts, ma’am.’ Give me a break. We’re supposed to be engaged. You asked me to marry you, but you can’t even talk to me. I don’t know who you are.”

“That didn’t seem to bother you until now. Why didn’t you ask these questions before you agreed to marriage?”

“I did,” she said. “Don’t you remember? You always changed the subject back to me. You wanted to know everything about me. You listened like you were writing a book, but you wouldn’t return the favor. I need to know who you are. If I’m going to marry you, I have to know you.” Her lower lip trembled. “I guess I didn’t want to rock the boat before. I was relieved I wasn’t going to end
up alone. You have no idea what my life was like before you entered it. I couldn’t believe someone actually wanted to marry me—scars and all.”

She had no idea how beautiful she was. How perfect.

“I’m sorry,” Michael said. “You have every right to know about the man you’re going to marry. Ask me anything you want. I’ll try to be honest with you.”

As honest as he could be without blowing his cover.

She lay back down beside him, facing him now. A small smile played across her lips. She was incredible. She’d been through so much and yet she still had the ability to smile, to laugh and be happy. He would sacrifice anything to keep the smile in place. Even his own life, if it came to that.

“What was your childhood like?”

“Well, it wasn’t ideal. My father was a drunk. I guess you could say I was spunky when I was a kid. I followed him one day, thinking he was going to work, and I found him in a bar getting sloshed. For a long time I thought sitting on that stool, tossing back cold beers, was his job. Denial, I guess.” Michael paused. “My parents split when I was about thirteen. My father was abusive. He beat my mother on a pretty regular basis. I wanted to kill him.”

Kelly gasped. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

“He didn’t hit my brother or me very often. He used words instead. Every day I got to hear what a disappointment I was to him.”

“That’s horrible.” Kelly said, “You don’t have to go on. You don’t have to tell me any more if it’s too painful.”

“No, I want to.” He was amazed to hear the words spill from his lips. He actually wanted Kelly to know about his past. “My mother tried to leave my father once. She took me and my brother with her that time, but the old man caught up with us. He put her in the hospital for a week. After that she wasn’t allowed to take my brother and me
out at the same time. She always had to leave one of us behind.

“Finally she couldn’t take it anymore.” Michael shrugged with a derisive laugh. “One day we went to the store and she told me we weren’t going back. I just happened to be the one with her that day. I got lucky. Otherwise I would have been raised by the old man instead of Jimmy.”

“What happened to your brother?”

“I saw him a couple of times after we were fully grown,” Michael replied. “We were so different. Had nothing in common. We went our separate ways.”

“That’s sad.”

Michael stroked a finger from her nose to her mouth, following the groove. Her compassion called to him like a siren’s song. The intimacy of the situation wasn’t lost on him. They were in bed together, lying face-to-face. He wanted to kiss her, but he didn’t dare. He wasn’t a complete idiot. Kissing would lead to touching. Touching would lead to making love.

She deserved better from him. She thought they were getting married. In the end he would have to hurt her. But he wasn’t going to complicate matters, wasn’t going to make things worse by making love to her.

“I suppose,” he said. “But I didn’t know any other life. It seemed normal to me at the time. Kids will accept almost any situation as long as they don’t know any better.”

“Did you ever see your father again?”

“No,” he replied. “He died of cancer some years ago. Good riddance.”

“Oh.” She grew braver. Her fingers went to his face, tracing lines and smoothing over the planes. She seemed lost in what she was doing, as if she was trying to memorize his features. He didn’t speak for fear it would distract her.

After several long minutes she added, “Neither one of us
had an easy time of it. I think you have scars, too. They just aren’t as obvious as mine.”

He was taken aback by her observation. Could she be right? Was he hiding as she was, too?

“You want me to leave the light on while we sleep?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.” She smiled wryly at him. “Are you trying to tell me to shut up and go to sleep now? Stop asking questions?”

“Not at all. We can talk as long as you want.”

“As long as we don’t talk about you,” she said. “Fine. I’ll drop the inquisition. For now.”

“Thank you.”

He sat up, leaning his back against the headboard. He wasn’t planning on sleeping. Just in case there was someone in the house, someone stalking Kelly, he was going to stay awake tonight. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d gone without sleep for a forty-eight hour period. It probably wouldn’t be the last.

She relaxed against him. “I don’t know what it is about you, but I feel safe in your arms.” She blushed. “Maybe I shouldn’t have admitted that. Don’t men like women who are mysterious?”

“Not all men.” He remembered Wade’s visit. “By the way, I caught your friend Wade sneaking around in the dark earlier.”

“I’m sure he wasn’t sneaking around.” She sat up again, her spine ramrod straight. “Wade has a key. I hope you didn’t scare him. I told him he could come over anytime he wanted to.”

“Yeah,” Michael said. “So he could work on the house. But he wasn’t fixing anything tonight. He was in the hallway in the dark. There’s no telling what he was doing before I caught him.”

“Would you stop saying you caught him!” She sighed.
“I’ve known Wade for a long time. He’s a good guy. He’s harmless.”

“I’m sure someone said the same thing about Ted Bundy at one time.”

“Let’s just agree to disagree. Okay?”

Her tone was defensive. She was obviously loyal to the people she cared about. It was another virtue on a growing list. In his line of work he didn’t come across many people of strong character, and he was sure he hadn’t met a woman like Kelly before.

Of course, how he felt about her was a moot point. Once she learned the truth about him, she’d want nothing to do with him.

“Wade collects things,” she added. “That’s probably why he was here.”

“What sort of things does he collect?”

“Things he thinks people lost. He has a ‘lost-and-found’ box at home. I saw it once. He had an assortment of keys, loose change and various objects in it.”

“Are you sure he only takes lost things?” Michael rolled his eyes. “If not, they have a word for it:
stealing.
”

“Wade doesn’t steal. He has the mind of a young child.”

“He knows right from wrong,” Michael insisted.

“Maybe he does. So what? He’s a good man. He isn’t hurting anyone.”

“Hmm.” Michael was unconvinced. “We’ll drop it. For now.”

Kelly rested on her side, facing away from him again. She didn’t move for several minutes. He started to think she’d fallen asleep. He closed his own eyes, resting, but her soft voice reached into his self-imposed darkness.

“Will you answer another question?”

Another one? “Yes.”

“Will you be honest? I don’t want you to simply tell me what you think I want or need to hear.”

“Okay.” Michael tensed, holding his breath.

“Do you think I’m losing my mind?” She flipped over to face him. Her eyes were wet from tears. “Is it possible that I’m becoming like my mother?”

“I don’t know.” He wanted to say something that would comfort her, but he didn’t have the words. He wasn’t a doctor. He didn’t know anything about her mother’s disease. “I saw red marks on your neck earlier. You could have been attacked. On the other hand, I was nearby. I didn’t see anyone leave your room. How could they have gotten in and out of your bedroom without being detected? They didn’t go out the window.”

She sank back on the pillow and slung an arm over her face. Her chest rose and fell with her shaking breaths. “Well,” she whispered, “maybe Moore House is haunted, after all. That would put me in the clear.”

An idea occurred to Michael, shocking him with its simplicity. Why hadn’t he thought of it before?

“You mentioned secret passages in your story about Jesse James. Could there be a secret door going into your room?”

“No way.” She shook her head emphatically. “Two out of four of the walls in the master bedroom are exterior ones. Then there’s the wall next to my bed. It shares a wall with a guest bedroom. No secret door there—no room for one.” She twirled strands of hair around her finger. “The only remaining wall has the bathroom and closet. Wade and I expanded the bathroom a few years ago. We cut into the closet, making it smaller, in order to accomplish that feat. We had to knock down a couple walls. We would have found a passageway if it existed.”