Shifting Shadows (13 page)

Dylan could have argued with her about that. As she stood there in the night, with only the glow from the street lamp and the window of her house illuminating her face, she made a picture that would doubtless find its way into his dreams—the good ones, not just the drowning one. Her pale hair slid softly about her shoulders, capturing and reflecting the minimal light. Her eyes shone large and luminous, almost as if they had their own source of illumination.

He forced himself to f
ocus on other things. “The moon will be up soon,” he said, a vague reply to her comment.

“
What have you been painting? Still the storm picture?”

He stepped off the porch and walked closer, then stopped a
s he realized what he was doing. Getting closer to her wasn’t any part of a solution. He crossed his arms, putting a shield between them, between the effect she had on him and the reality of why he was there. “Actually, I’m doing a work of your house,” he said, looking upward. “You have some interesting architectural details.”

She looked up too as though she could see through the
roof of the porch, through the night. “Yes, it’s a true Queen Anne with just the right amount of gingerbread to be charming, but not an excess.”

“
Your color scheme isn’t authentic, you know.”

“
No, it isn’t. But it looks good. It looks
right
...don’t you think?”

She smiled, and his lips involuntarily imitated hers, moving a
s if they were once again touching hers.

“
Yeah, it looks good,” he said. She looked good, right, standing there on the old porch with her moonlight-colored hair and star-bright eyes.

“
I love this house.”

“
The first time I saw you, when I was moving in, you were on a ladder way up by that attic window—” he pointed “—replacing a couple of those shingles.”

“
Fish-scale shingles.”

“
Yeah. A couple of those fish-scale shingles that had blown down in a windstorm.” The wind had still been blowing pretty strong, and she’d looked fragile clinging to that ladder. In spite of everything, he’d wanted to rush up and rescue her. That feeling hadn’t changed.

With a start, he realized he
’d lifted his arms to her porch rail and was leaning toward her, only inches from her. She had a way of making him momentarily forget his pain, his duty. That wouldn’t do. He stood erect, searching for a barrier to throw up. “Relations seem to be improving with the ex,” he said. That should put a barrier firmly in place.

It did. She jerked back as if he
’d slapped her. “He’s being supportive and kind,” she said defensively. “He’s been good to me since the accident.”

“
Meaning he wasn’t good to you before the accident?”

She threw up her hands.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember, damn it! But if he wasn’t, he’s trying to make amends.”

“
For what?”

Analise considered Dylan’s question. Phillip had implied he regretted treating her like a possession, but there was something more. It was right there in the corner of her vision, always just out of reach. “I wish I knew,” she murmured, speaking more to herself than to Dylan.

“
You wish you knew what?” he demanded, his gaze boring into her.

“
I just told you I can’t remember. You can keep asking me all night, and I still won’t be able to remember.”

An owl hooted eerily into the silence. Something small rustled in the dead leaves winter had left against her porch, and then all was
silent again.

“
I know,” Dylan said. His voice was soft, different, that strange-familiar voice again. The apparition of a memory teased at her then vanished before she could capture it.

“
Who are you?” She didn’t know she’d spoken the words aloud until he answered her.

He looked away, no longer meeting her eyes.
“I’m your neighbor.”

She considered his answe
r. If he were nothing more than her neighbor, he would have thought the question unnecessary, ridiculous. By his simplistic response, he told her that he had no intention of addressing her real question...and that he knew a real question existed.

“
What happened to your brother and your father?” she asked, swallowing back her reluctance to bring up something she knew was painful to him. But it was the only personal part of himself he’d given her.

His gaze returned to her,
full of hurt and anger, but he said nothing.

She cringed, regretting that she
’d tried to invade his private pain. “It’s getting cold. I think I’ll go inside,” she whispered, backing away, ready to leave, to spare him further agony from her prying.

“
I’ll be over in the morning to go to the library with you.”

He turned and walked away,
climbed the steps to his porch then went inside, the blackness of the house engulfing him.

She remained outside for a few minutes, staring at the empty space he
’d left. She’d hurt him by reminding him of his losses.

Finally she went insi
de, closing the door behind her. Again the staircase loomed before her. She stood with her hand on the doorknob, unable to stop herself from wondering if Dylan’s repressed anger had exploded against her, had sent her tumbling down the stairs.

No, that wasn
’t possible. He’d been too kind, taking care of her, teaching her to drive, going with her to the cemetery, agreeing to take her to the library tomorrow. Yet that could be interpreted another way. He never let her out of his sight, was obsessed with the question of her recovery of her memories.

Nevertheless
she had to admit that she looked forward to being with him tomorrow...to his strength that would carry her through the rough spots she might find at the library, to sitting in the car with him, her body only inches away from his, to feeling the gentle touch of his big hands.

She darted upstairs, trying vainly to get away from him, away from her inexplicable, perhaps even dangerous
, feelings for him.

*~*~*

The sun shone outside the next day, but that light didn’t penetrate to the old, musty basement of the library. Analise was intensely grateful that Dylan had come with her. The place was creepy. She wouldn’t have wanted to be there alone.

“
I’m sure glad they put these old papers on microfilm,” Dylan said, taking down a tray and setting it on the long wooden table beside a viewer. He seemed completely relaxed today with no trace of last night’s distress. “Otherwise, I’m sure we’d never have been allowed to touch the sacred relics.” The ancient librarian had made them sign away their lives before permitting them entrance to the storage area.

Analise
laughed nervously. The sound seemed to disappear as soon as it left her mouth, absorbed by the multitude of volumes stacked on shelves all about them.

“
Here’s the right year.” He handed her a film. “Let’s have a look at it.” His fingers touched hers briefly, casually, accidentally...wonderfully.

Before he could draw back, she clutched his hand and looked up at him.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m not sure why you’re doing this, but I want you to know how grateful I am.” She smiled weakly. “This could get tough.”

A
multitude of emotions—guilt, anger, concern—played briefly across his features before he got them under control, back to being carefully shuttered. “I’m glad I could help,” he mumbled then moved away, going back to search through more files.

She turned to the viewer, concentrating on the task immediately before her.

She found the first mention of Shawn Fitzpatrick in the Holbert Weekly News two months before Elizabeth’s death.

Our town has a new and interesting visitor. Shawn Fitzpatrick, a radical labor leader from Chicago, has been going about
, harassing the good people of our town. Mr. Fitzpatrick, who immigrated to the shores of our great land from Ireland, is now betraying the country that took him in by preaching seditious Socialism.

Blake
Holbert, son of the founder of our town, has had several of our citizens who work at his factory complain that Fitzpatrick is interfering with their jobs, trying to get them to organize in a labor union, to bite the generous hand that feeds them. When contacted by this paper, Mr. Holbert said, “My workers are paid a decent wage for a decent job. I treat them like my own family, and they’re happy. If they aren’t happy, they know they’re free to leave and find employment somewhere else.”

Analise
sat back, her jaw clenched.
Like his own family
. If he treated his workers like he treated his wife, they needed someone like Shawn.

“
What did you find?” Dylan asked.

“
This man was a monster,” she said, indicating the viewer. “Read that. He owned the town. The newspaper would have printed whatever he wanted. So he comes out with a thinly veiled threat to fire anyone who listens to Shawn.”

Dylan looked at her strangely
then leaned over to read the story, his body touching hers, warming hers. The adrenaline surged through her—adrenaline from thinking about the injustices in the old news story, from Dylan’s nearness, from some indefinable connection that flowed around them.

She had to make a concerted effort to break that link, to scoot her chair a few inches away and give him better access to the viewer.

“The bastard,” Dylan growled then stood abruptly, backing away from the viewer. “But that’s pretty much the way it was in those days. Laborers were treated badly, paid poorly, and union organizers weren’t exactly welcomed with open arms.”

Shawn certainly hadn
’t been welcomed, Analise thought as she went back to searching through the papers. Fights broke out at the factory. Shawn was thrown into jail then released. The articles became more hostile.

As
Analise read the words, she could recall—or deduce from the stories, she told herself—how the atmosphere around town changed. The laborers became angry rather than depressed. They began to hope, to demand their rights.

And then without warn
ing, she saw it, the words jumping into her field of vision.

Elizabeth
Holbert Missing, Husband Fears Drowning
. As she read the headline, Analise felt again the sensation of cold suffocation.
Drowning
. Elizabeth had drowned. That would explain her lifelong fear of water, a fear so great she couldn’t swim, couldn’t even stand to bathe in a tub. Water pressing against her sent her into a panic.

“
Analise? Are you all right?”

She realized she had slumped in her chair, was gasping for air.
“Yes,” she said, the word coming out barely a whisper. She cleared her throat. “Yes, I’m fine. I found the story about my—about Elizabeth’s death.”

Dylan moved closer, placed his hands around her neck and massaged her tense muscles.
“Relax,” he said. “It’s only a newspaper story. Take a deep breath.”

His fingers were gentle as they caressed her skin. They felt exquisite, and she wanted to close her eyes, ignore all the crazy things going on around her, shut out the newspaper clipping about Elizabeth
’s death, relax as Dylan urged, escape into the pleasurable sensations he created.

But she couldn
’t. Somehow his touch seemed a part of the old stories, something she couldn’t fully own until—

She couldn
’t finish that thought. She only knew she had to continue reading.

Reluctantly, eagerly, she dove back into the past.

Prominent citizen Blake Holbert reported today that his wife, the former Elizabeth Dupard, is missing. He last saw her when they went to bed last night, but found her gone when he awoke this morning.

Bloodhounds were brought in from Jonas Horton
’s farm to track Mrs. Holbert. Her trail ended less than a mile away at the bank of the Missouri River.

“
Elizabeth has been troubled of late by nightmares and sleepwalking,” Holbert said. “I fear the worst.”

Analise
sat back in her chair. “I wasn’t sleepwalking,” she whispered. “I was running away from him.”

In her mind
’s eye Analise could see Elizabeth dressing in the dark, feel her holding her breath for fear Blake would wake and catch her. Elizabeth’s ribs still ached, and her eye was still discolored from her last infraction though she wasn’t even sure what she’d done wrong.

When her tre
mbling fingers dropped her brush on the dresser with a loud clatter, she almost sobbed, knew for certain she’d been caught.

But he lay still.

Even when she closed the front door behind her and ran into the darkness, her heart still raced with fear. She felt as if she were running through water, so slow did her progress seem. Finally, in the distance, she could see the gleam of moonlight on the river and dared to hope that she might make it.