Forgotten Past by Mary Alford
Chapter Fifteen
JT wasn’t sure how long he’d been sleeping when something awakened him. He’d fallen asleep in a chair in the study, his cell phone still clutched in his hand.
He sat up straight and listened. Nothing but silence. The house was dark. Then he heard it again. It sounded like footsteps. Impossible. The house was locked up tight. He’d made sure of it. The clock illuminated the time. Three-thirty in the morning.
Ollie came into the room and jumped onto his lap. Why wasn’t the dog with Faith? He hadn’t left her side all day. Ollie let out a low whimper. The poor little thing was shaking. Something had scared him.
“What is it, boy?” JT stroked the Pug’s ears. The collar had worked its way up Ollie’s neck. JT started to tighten it when he noticed something odd. There was an object stuck inside the dog’s collar. It had a jagged edge and it had rubbed the dog’s neck raw. JT took the collar off and examined it closely. What he found made his heart go ballistic. Someone had planted a tiny GPS tracking device inside the collar.
“Oh. My. Gosh.” JT set the dog down and then dropped the collar to the floor and smashed the device.
He started to dial his phone when he heard it. Heavy footsteps heading up the stairs. Toward Faith’s room.
JT grabbed his weapon and slowly moved to the door. He’d left it open in case Faith needed him during the night.
His eyes adjusted to the surrounding darkness but still he saw no one. Then upstairs, a floorboard creaked.
He carefully moved into the hall and close to the stairs. He could see the door to Faith’s room. It stood wide open. He’d partially closed it earlier when he’d checked on her.
JT took the stairs two at a time. Before he reached her room, someone slammed the door shut and engaged the lock. And at just that second, JT’s cell phone shrilled to life.
◆◆◆
“Wake up, Rachel. You and I have unfinished business.” At the familiar sound of his voice, she forced her eyes open. The room was dark, but she wasn’t alone. He was there with her.
“Where are you?” It had been inevitable. She had been dreading this moment since that hot August night two years earlier.
“I’m here. I’m right here with you. For always.”
“No.” The word slipped out against her will. She didn’t want to die. She’d lost so much. Fought too hard to live. “No, Ben.”
His laugh held traces of the insanity her father had become aware of shortly before Ben ended his life.
“So, you finally figured it out. That’s too bad. You should have kept taking your meds, Rachel. I went to a lot of trouble to manipulate Masters into keeping that prescription active. I wanted to protect you from those memories and you fouled it all up.” He stepped into a sliver of moonlight. This was not the Ben who’d been like a brother to her. This was her father’s worst nightmare. She remembered their terrible argument. Her father pleaded for her life. Faith’s untimely arrival. Their deaths.
Someone yanked at her bedroom door. JT. No. Please God, no.
Ben read all her fears. “You remember what I did to your father and that meddling friend of yours. She was going to report me to the police if your father didn’t. She had no idea who she was messing with. I fixed it so she took the blame, but she wouldn’t let it go. She squealed to your father.” Ben came closer. Terrified, she stumbled to the far side of the bed, but his fingers caught the edge of her gown.
JT continued to pound on the door.
“He’s next, Rachel.” He laughed as she fought wildly to free herself from his grasp.
Ben slid across the bed and pulled her up against him. The cold blade of his knife nicked her throat. Only a tiny whimper escaped before she forced herself to relax.
“That’s better. Don’t worry. You’ll be dead before he can help you,” he whispered against her ear. “I’m sorry, love, but you have to die. You went to the police.” Ben’s grip tightened on her. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but you left me no choice. That’s when I decided you had to die, and I’d already set up Phillip as the perfect patsy. He was so easy to control. I just had to dangle you in front of him and he’d do whatever I wanted.”
“Wha...what did you do?” she gasped, desperately stalling for time.
“I promised him he’d be with you and he jumped to fill the prescriptions. He even made those calls to you. He was already stalking you by that time, but when you left Austin after Carl and Faith died, he lost you. I told him where to find you. Thanks to Ollie’s collar. I even told him what he should do to you each time.” His eyes gleamed with sadistic delight. “The candlelit dinner. The photo. He thought he was wooing you. Only I knew those things would send you running for your life.”
Ben laughed and it sounded maniacal. “I even made sure he wore the ski mask the night he broke into your house in Kansas. It was a nice touch, don’t you think? I knew that even though you didn’t remember him, you’d be able to recognize his height and build so that you could identify him one day.” He smiled smugly. “He had no idea I was setting him up to take the fall for the murders. It would have all worked perfectly if you hadn’t botched it up by stopping the meds.”
Outside the door, it sounded as if JT put the full weight of his body against the door. It gave a little more and a tiny whimper escaped from deep inside her.
“You should have left things alone, Rachel. We could have been so happy if you had married me when I asked you. I loved you. We could have had it all. Your father’s money. Our undying love.” Her eyes darted to the door once more.
“Are you listening to me?” The knife nicked at her throat again. She could feel a trickle of blood slip from its edge and land on her arm. Ben’s hand holding the knife was unsteady. He was almost completely gone now.
“I loved you, you spoiled little brat. We could have been so happy but you refused to move away from Daddy. Even when he threatened to have me arrested for stealing the money that should have been mine all along. The money he took from my mother. I should have killed you when I had the chance that night, but I couldn’t because I loved you and I believed we could still make it work.” His voice trembled with rage. “It would have if only you’d kept taking your meds. In time, I knew I could convince you Phillip killed your father and Faith.”
The door shook underneath JT’s weight and finally gave way. In a splinter of wood and metal, it shattered off its hinges and into dozens of pieces.
JT raced into the room. The knife tightened against her throat. From somewhere close by she heard the sharp repeated rap of gunfire. Saw the flash from the barrel. Don’t let it be too late. Then the knife sliced across her throat. The world around her swirled into a familiar darkness. The past repeated itself.
◆◆◆
“I’m sorry, Faith. I’m so sorry you had to die,” Rachel whispered into the filmy darkness. Faith Davenport’s life was cut short and Rachel’s spared because of the affections of a madman.
She stopped fighting the pain. She’d been struggling to understand the past for so long and now she knew. It was time to stop fighting now.
The shrill of a siren blaring close by registered within her subconscious. Close by, someone spoke softly to her. Someone familiar. JT.
“Hold on, Faith.” He still called her Faith. Did he still believe she was Faith?
“No.” She tried to force the words out to explain.
“Open your eyes.”
“No.” Faith was dead and she wasn’t who he thought her to be.
“I know it hurts, but the wound is only superficial. You’re safe. It’s over, Faith. It’s really over.”
“No.” He didn’t understand at all. It wasn’t close to being over. It had only begun. She had only begun to remember who she really was.
Rachel opened her eyes. JT looked at her with so much love that she wanted to cry. It wasn’t for her. He loved Faith. He didn’t know who she was.
“Don’t cry. I promise it will be okay.”
“No, it won’t. It will never be okay again. I’m not Faith.” She spoke the truth aloud, yet his expression didn’t change one little bit. It still radiated love.
“Faith...” Before he could finish what he wanted to say, the paramedics arrived to examine her.
“I’ll be right here with you,” JT assured her.
She glanced away...because she didn’t want him to see her cry.
“It doesn’t appear to be serious. We’ll bandage it. When we get to the hospital, the E.R. doctor will want to examine you further to make sure,” one of the paramedics told her.
“No.” She needed to be alone. The memories of her past had become like a tidal wave. She needed time to sort them out.
“Faith, they need to make sure you’re all right. Let these people help you.”
“No. I don’t want to go to the hospital.” Close by, Rachel could hear the blare of another siren growing faint as it disappeared in the distance. It was taking someone else to the hospital. Ben.
“Is he...?” Even though he’d caused her so much heartache, she still couldn’t hate him. He was sick. Her father had known this. Dad wouldn’t want his nephew to suffer no matter what.
“He’ll live. The shot was clean.”
Will stopped next to JT and spoke in a low voice. “We’re going to the hospital to wait for Ben
Jennings to be released. Then we’ll charge him with attempted murder to start with. With more charges certain to follow.”
“Good.” JT turned back to Rachel. “You’re safe now. He’s never going to hurt you again.”
“I just want to...” She wasn’t sure what she wanted anymore.
“Let’s get you inside. You should rest.” He brushed her hair away from her face, his fingers gentle against her skin. “Look at me.” The tenderness in his voice forced her to do as he asked. “I know you’re scared. A lot has happened, but it’s over. It’s finally over.”
He waited a moment longer then lifted her into his arms and carried her back upstairs to her room.
“Rest now. You’re exhausted. We can talk later. We have all the time in the world.” When she still didn’t answer, he settled for a kiss before leaving her alone.