Marla rested her hand on the doorknob, tried to turn it again and failed. She even pressed her shoulder into the old panels, grasping at straws that the old lock might give way, but the door didn’t budge.
The door is locked because of you, Marla, and you know it. He didn’t like you snooping in his desk. He doesn’t trust you. You’ve sensed it. She headed back to her room and eyed her bed, the one she slept in apart from Alex. Somehow this is all because of Nick and what you feel about him. Her throat tightened and though she wanted to deny what she felt, she caught a tiny glimpse of the woman she’d once been.
What had Joanna said? You were always . . . well, you know, men noticed you.
Joanna had said a lot of disturbing things. Where was the damned ring Joanna had mentioned? The gift from her father. At the thought of Conrad Amhurst she felt a dark weight in her heart, a pain she didn’t understand. She couldn’t remember the man and yet she was certain their relationship was far from loving, maybe even estranged.
So why wear the ring?
More important, where was it? In her room? In Pam’s wrecked Mercedes? Locked in some safe? There was only one way to find out: find the damned thing. She started with her bathroom and the jewelry box on the counter. No ring. She checked the nightstands, then searched through every drawer in her bureau. Nothing. “Think, Marla, think,” she muttered under her breath and walked into the closet, hoping to spy another cache for her favorite pieces of jewelry, but found nothing.
Maybe Alex had it removed when she’d gone to the hospital.
But he didn’t ask that your wedding ring be taken off, now, did he?
She swept her gaze over the contents of the closet once more and stopped short when she spied the case for her tennis racquet. Maybe inside. She unzipped the leather case, looked through the one flat pocket and found no ring, nothing but a credit card receipt from a store downtown.
She stuffed the receipt in her pocket, then pulled out the racquet and held it in her hand, hefted its weight, lifted it up and down, testing its feel.
You’ve got a serve that scared the devil out of me.
“Okay, ace, let’s see it,” she said to herself.
Pretending to toss a ball in the air with her left hand, she drew back her right. In a split second she swung the racquet up high over her shoulder, then slammed it down. Hard. The racquet whooshed and felt awkward as hell. The grip was too large, the weight uncomfortable. Had she really won tournaments? She tried to concentrate, but failed miserably. Again.
“Big surprise,” she mocked. The closet was suddenly too tight, filled with clothes and memories that didn’t seem to belong to her. She had to escape, to get out of this unfamiliar house with all its dark secrets and locked doors. She needed to breathe again. To find herself. Snagging a peacoat from a hanger, she hurried down the back stairs and through a mud room to a covered porch. Another few steps and she followed a garden path that wound through the grounds. A thin mist shrouded ancient rhododendrons, ferns and azaleas while tall fir trees rose ever upward to disappear into the fog and this patch of land, on the top of a city hill, seemed oddly isolated.
Burying her fists in the deep pockets, Marla walked along a brick path slick with rain and littered with fir needles. Her breath fogged and she shivered as she passed a series of tiered ponds. Beneath half a dozen lily pads, spotted koi swam lazily.
She was nearly certain she’d ne
ver gazed at the pools before.
Nearly.
Frustrated, she glanced upward to the highest peaks of the house where the lights glowed in the windows. Moisture gathered on her cheeks and she caught a glimpse of movement, a dark shadow in an upstairs window. Was that her room? But she’d just come down from there . . . she recognized the print of the drapes . . . but who would be in her bedroom? No one was at home except the servants.
That was it. Whoever was in her room was probably just cleaning up, the maid going about her daily rounds and besides, who cared? It wasn’t as if she was hiding anything. And yet . . . Marla glanced up at the window again and the figure was gone.
Angry with her overactive imagination she yanked her hood over her head and she edged around a garden spot where roses had been pruned, all hint of blossoms long disappeared, only short thorny stalks remaining.
The hairs on the back of her neck rose. She felt as if she was being watched. Turning, she looked up at the house again. There he was. The dark figure. He was lurking in another room . . . on the other side of the suite . . . Alex’s? But Alex’s room had been locked. She’d tested the door herself. Her heartbeat kicked up a notch. Surely it was only a servant, one with a master key, and yet she had the uneasy feeling that she was being silently observed . . . guarded. A raindrop fell from the edge of her hood and she blinked. In that second the image was gone—no sinister figure lurking in the darkened room. No eerie threat.
You’re jumping at shadows, she told herself, but felt her skin crawl with goose bumps as she walked through an arbor and spied a swing set that was beginning to rust. Had she ever pushed Cissy on one of the swings? Ever caught her daughter as Cissy had laughed and slid to the bottom of the short slide?
Think, damn it, Marla. Concentrate. Remember!
She sat in one of the swings and pushed herself with her toe. There were grooves in the gravel beneath the swing, deep impressions made by tiny feet where puddles had begun to collect. She closed her eyes and heard the sounds of the city, the hum of traffic, clatter of a cable car, a dog barking his head off not too far away. Beyond the brick wall there were neighbors. Down the hill was the city, but here, in this fenced estate, she felt cut off from the world.
But San Francisco was just outside the electronic gates.
All she had to do was walk through.
And go where?
“Anywhere,” she murmured, her hands chilling against the cold links of the chain supporting the swing. Nick’s hotel is only a few blocks down the street. No way would she go there, she told herself, but maybe, once outside this elegant fortress, she would find some peace, force her damned memory to return. She had to uncover what she could about Pam Delacroix—who the woman was, how Marla knew her and why they were driving to visit Pam’s daughter.
Her head pounded with a zillion questions, and guilt, ever lingering just beneath the surface of her consciousness, was with her when she thought of the two people who had died in the crash. Two people. With families. She felt that she should pray, but knew instinctively that prayer wasn’t something she did very often. Today, however, she figured she might make an exception. A little spirituality couldn’t hurt. But she couldn’t call up a single word as she balanced on the child’s swing and the rainwater that had collected on the seat seeped through her jeans.