Yesterday Lost Page 16

  What she was, she realized wryly, was muddy, scratched, sore, and lost. She couldn’t even hear the roar of the rapids here. She might, in fact, be off her own unfenced eighty acres. She eyed the sky again, but she couldn’t tell exactly where the sun was through the ragged canopy of branches. And she was no backwoods survivalist capable of finding her way by sun directions anyway.

  Knowing she wasn’t going to become un-lost simply by standing there, she stuffed the necklace in her pocket and started walking. Within a few feet she had to wonder how she’d managed to get where she was. Now she had to detour trees and impenetrable clumps of brush and fight her way across rough ravines. Her backpack caught on vines and brambles, and she’d long since lost her hat. The thought finally occurred to her that even though she was lost, she had food, and she slumped against a supporting tree trunk and gratefully downed sandwich, orange, and bottled tea. Then she started out again, hopefully heading toward what she thought was the sound of a vehicle on the road, only, a few minutes later, to find herself staring at a scrap of orange peel on the ground. She’d simply gone in a circle!

  She wandered for a good forty-five minutes more before stumbling out of the trees. She blinked in the bright sunlight of the open meadow. And there, only a few hundred yards away, stood the house! With Mrs. L. showing the ever patient Joe exactly how she wanted the wire cages placed over her tomato plants.

  Katy refrained from doing what she wanted to do, which was run and hug them as if she’d been lost in the woods for a week. Instead, she casually sauntered up to them.

  Mrs. L. took one look at her and gasped, “Katy, what on earth? Just look at you, child! Oh, I knew when I read your note that something terrible was going to happen.”

  She herded Katy inside like some misbehaving five-year-old, scolding all the time she was washing and disinfecting and applying ointment and Band-Aids. When they emerged from the bathroom, Mrs. L. still fussing, Joe was helping himself to a glass of lemonade from the refrigerator. He offered Katy one, and she accepted gratefully.

  “Oh, I found something.” Katy pulled the chain and gold medallion from the pocket of her shorts. She spread it on the kitchen counter.

  “Where did you get that?” Mrs. L. gasped.

  “I found it out in the woods.”

  “Where?”

  “Actually, I don’t know. I got all turned around and don’t really know where I was.”

  “Katy, you mustn’t go wandering off alone!” Mrs. L. scolded with surprising vehemence. “You could fall in the river or get lost in the mountains. And there’s bear and maybe even cougars out there!”

  Joe poked at the necklace with a bony finger. “Isn’t that one you used to wear, Katy? For good luck or something?” He was, in his own quiet, reserved way, fairly friendly with her now. “Looks expensive, like real gold.”

  “Joe Barnes, you wouldn’t know real gold from that shiny stuff they call fool’s gold,” Mrs. L. declared. She sounded mildly exasperated. She draped the necklace across her hand, studied it critically, then dismissed it with a careless toss on the counter. “I certainly don’t remember it, and I’m sure I would if Katy’d ever worn it. In the summer we sometimes get outside people sneaking across the property trying to find a way to the river. Probably one of them lost it.”

  Joe frowned, momentarily looking as if he’d like to argue, but he meekly backed down when Mrs. L. snatched the lemonade pitcher and told him it was time to get back to the tomatoes.

  “And just look at those muddy shoes!” she exclaimed as she shooed Joe toward the door.

  Katy had removed her dirty shoes when she entered the house. Now Mrs. L. picked them up and, holding them at arm’s length, marched into the laundry room. “I declare, sometimes . . .”

  Whatever Mrs. L. declared faded behind the closed door and a rush of water into the metal sink. Joe went back to the tomatoes, and Katy took the necklace to her bedroom and dropped it on the table by her bed. The necklace did look expensive, but the gold medallion was too heavy and ornate for her taste, and she didn’t care for the astrological design.

  She was suddenly exhausted, worn out both physically and emotionally by the day’s events. She’d probably have been better off, she thought wryly, if she’d simply gone to Sunday services. She undressed, wrinkling her nose in distaste at the smears of dark mud on her shorts. She rinsed them off in the sink, then showered, in the process also washing off most of the ointment Mrs. L. had so carefully applied to her scratches.

  She fell asleep and woke groggily to the ringing of the phone. Then she came awake with alacrity. Jace? “Hello,” she said eagerly.

  “Hi, Katy.”

  Not Jace. “Hello, Barry.” She didn’t try to conceal her lack of enthusiasm.

  “I’ve been thinking about you a lot, Katy. Do I dare hope you’ve been thinking about me too?”

  “Oh, yes, I’ve been thinking about you.” But not with the absence-makes-the-heart-grow-fonder longing for which he was probably hoping.

  “Is the leg getting stronger?”

  “Yes, I took a long walk today.” She didn’t go into details.

  “Are you also doing the exercises the doctor recommended?” His tone was solicitous.

  “Yes.”

  With no encouragement from Katy on the subject of exercise, he tried a different one. “This must be a beautiful time of year there in the mountains.”

  “Yes, very nice.” A little guiltily she realized he was trying hard to be friendly and pleasant, and she was being quite rude. Which was characteristic enough for the old Kat, of course, but Katy felt uncomfortable with it now even though her feelings toward Barry were hostile and suspicious. So when he asked if her memory was showing any signs of progress, she answered more fully than she might have if he’d asked the question first.

  “No real progress, although a few times I’ve had these odd shadows flitting around in my head. Mrs. L. thinks they’re a memory of a Fourth-of-July celebration I went to a long time ago with my parents and her son, Evan.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe.” She was lying with one arm under her on the bed, and when she shifted to a more comfortable position, the phone cord almost brushed the necklace off the small table. Impulsively she asked, “Barry, do you remember my ever wearing a medallion with an astrological design on a gold chain?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Why do you ask?” She heard an odd wariness in the question.

  “Because I found it—” She broke off. Dark smears of mud on her shorts. Heavy dark mud clinging to her shoes. She’d seen that gooey mud before.

  On Barry’s shoes.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Barry went on talking about gold hoop earrings he’d once given her, but Katy’s mind lingered on mud. Carrying the phone, she stretched the long cord until she could peer into the bathroom sink. A faint dark line still stained the sink, but she’d effectively washed away the dried mud itself. And Mrs. L. had washed it off the shoes. She dismissed a small rush of disappointment. What did she think, that a similarity in mud was going to incriminate Barry in something? And even if it was exactly the same mud, so what? Barry could accidentally have wandered into it when he got turned around in the woods, just as she had. And in what ominous activity did she think mud would incriminate Barry?

  This whole line of thought was so melodramatic and overwrought that she had to wonder if she wasn’t being totally unfair to Barry.

  “. . . consider coming back to New York now?” he was saying. “I’d feel so much better if you were here. And being in familiar surroundings here might be more help in restoring your memory than the ranch,” he added persuasively.

  That thought had never occurred to Katy, but perhaps it was true. She had spent far more time in New York than she ever had on the ranch. Should she make plans to return to New York?

  ***

  Jace returned in the middle of the week, pleased with the res
ults of his trip. He told her all about it as they took a walk along the shoulder of the road. He’d suggested hiking the rutted lane back to the river, but Katy had shuddered and declined. Her aversion to any water deeper than a wading pool or more forceful than a shower was stronger than ever.

  “They’re giving us twenty computers!” he said. “They’re not the very latest model, but they’re a big improvement over those old ones the boys have been using.”

  He expanded on details about the MHz and RAM and hard drive numbers, which didn’t make complete sense to Katy but, surprisingly, she felt a vague familiarity with them. Why? Crickets and computers, she thought, shaking her head. A strange combination indeed. Plus the nagging feeling that never quite went away, that there was something desperately important she must do that she’d forgotten.

  Jace went on talking about the trip to Texas, gestures occasionally punctuating his enthusiasm. A faint scent of dust lingered in the air from the log truck activity of the day, and a whiff of fresh hay drifted from the school’s barn. The snow line had crept up on Mt. Shasta now, but summer sunshine couldn’t melt the depths of snow on the summit , and the peak retained its snowy splendor. Katy had brought along the gold chain and now showed it to Jace. She didn’t explain how or where she’d acquired it, not wanting to influence his first reaction.

  “Have you seen this before?”

  “Looks like one you used to wear. You were into some New Age-y and astrological stuff. You also had a crystal you wore sometimes. Does it feel familiar in some way?” He grinned with a hint of guilt. “I’ve been reading whatever I can get my hands on about amnesia. I think a lot of it is psycho-babble, and some of it is simply far out and preposterous, about reincarnation and multiple personalities. But there seemed a sensible logic in one piece I read that said certain personal objects might trigger a memory.”

  Katy swallowed, not quite knowing how to broach this subject. “Jace, sometimes I wonder if I can’t arouse any memories of the ranch, or you, or Barry, or this necklace, because they don’t exist.”

  Jace stopped and tilted his head as he turned to face her. The setting sun touched his dark hair with a hint of auburn fire and brought out the gold flecks and green depths in his hazel eyes. “I’m not following you.”

  “Jace, what if Mrs. L. made a mistake when she identified me. What if I’m not Katy Cavanaugh? What if I’m someone else entirely?”

  For a moment she thought he might laugh and tease her about her weird imagination, but he didn’t. He put his arms on her shoulders and studied her eyes and nose and mouth. He stepped back to examine her body with an intensity that would have embarrassed her if it were not so clinical.

  He smiled. “You sure look like Katy Cavanaugh to me.”

  “But I’m not like Kat Cavanaugh. You and everyone else agree on it.”

  “Your doctor said personality changes were a possible by-product of amnesia. I’ve read that, too.”

  “I know. And maybe all these strange thoughts I’m having are simply frustration that the shadows in my head won’t come into the open so I can recognize them. And then finding the necklace way out there in the woods—”

  “In the woods?” Jace seemed startled. He looked more closely at the medallion swinging from her fingers. “I thought you just ran across it in a jewelry box or drawer.”

  “No.”

  “Where in the woods?”

  She explained about the shock of seeing the airstrip where her parents had died, the ground crumbling beneath her feet at the river, and running until she was lost. She shivered as the panic echoed through her again, and he wrapped her in the security and comfort of his arms.

  “C’mon, let’s go back to the house. You’re upset.”

  She lifted her head and tried to smile. “And advancing from run-of-the-mill amnesiac to weirdo with delusions?”

  He kissed her on the nose. “We’re all a little weird sometimes.”

  He tucked her arm under his, but she resisted his tug toward home. “Let’s keep walking. At the risk of sounding even stranger, I have another theoretical question to ask.”

  “Ask away.”

  “Suppose, just for the sake of supposing, that I really am not Katy Cavanaugh. Suppose I’m really someone else entirely. Daisy Doe from Denver, perhaps. Or Judy Jones from Juneau.”

  He closed his eyes and pretended to be in deep concentration. “Okay, I’m supposing. You’re really Judy Jones from Juneau. Shouldn’t some other Joneses be looking for you?”

  “Yes, but that’s a separate issue. Right now let’s stick with this one. Let’s just say Mrs. L. made a mistake in identifying me and I’m not Kat Cavanaugh.’

  “Okay. Big mistake.”

  She had a feeling he was simply humoring her, but she barged on. “Then what happened to the real Kat Cavanaugh?”

  Jace opened his eyes. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” She’d lain awake and thought about this for a long time last night. “My former roommate says Barry threatened to kill me. To kill Kat,” Katy amended, struggling to keep this confusing perspective straight. “Suppose he came out here and in a fit of fury did it. And buried her body out in the woods, not realizing the medallion caught on a bush while he was carrying her. He dashes back to New York, calls out here a few times to keep tabs on what’s going on, and then gets the shock of his life when I, identifying myself as Kat, answer the phone. So he rushes out here to take a look at me, and when he sees I really do look like the real Kat, he decides he can solve all his problems by making a model out of me.”

  Jace considered her scenario, then shook his head. “Big problem with that. Mrs. L. took you into Redding to meet your friends after Barry went back to New York.”

  “If he went back to New York immediately after leaving the ranch.

  Jace’s smooth forehead wrinkled. “You’re saying he could have come back and killed her?”

  “Exactly. Jace, while Barry was here, he went for a walk in the woods by himself. He came back with gooey mud all over his shoes. I came home with the same kind of mud on my shoes when I got lost out there and found the necklace! Maybe Barry went back to check on where he’d buried the body.”

  Jace shook his head and patted her cheek. “Katy, hon, I think you’ve been reading too many murder mysteries. There are muddy little springs scattered all around the woods here. We had a terrible mess when the boys found one and got in a mud fight last spring.”

  “I haven’t read a single murder mystery recently,” Katy said defensively, unhappily aware that she’d apparently lost him when she plunged into the mud clue. Until then he’d seemed to see a certain logic in her suspicions. “I’ve been reading my mother’s old children’s books.” She paused, a loop in her convoluted thinking now twisting back on her, this one a dismaying consequence that hadn’t occurred to her before. “If she is my mother.”

  “Katy—”

  “You really think I’ve lost it, don’t you?”

  He hesitated. “I can see how in such a peculiar situation as this that peculiar possibilities might occur to us. But the idea that the real Kat was murdered and you’re someone else who looks exactly like her and just happened to get amnesia at the right time to step into her shoes . . . Well, you have to admit it’s pretty far-fetched.”

  “We don’t need to tell anyone, but we could, you know, just look around out in the woods,” she suggested.

  “And you could, you know, lighten up and get a little more rest and sleep.” He smiled as he repeated her uncertain phrasing. “And maybe, you know, not let your imagination run away with you?”

  Katy reluctantly nodded. Yes, what she was suggesting was far-fetched, and she often didn’t sleep well, and sometimes her imagination did jump into overdrive. And the suspicions of someone who couldn’t even remember her own past had all the credibility of a tabloid article about UFO abductions and alien babies. And yet. . .

  ***

  Kat
y went to bed that night determined to simply stop thinking all these wild thoughts. Yet they churned in her head as if caught in some endless spin cycle.

  Because, if she ignored the “far-outness” of the possibility that she wasn’t Kat Cavanaugh, that she was someone else, it all fit. Barry’s astonishment on that first phone call. His version of past events, so different from former roommate Stephanie’s. The differences between Katy’s personality and the past Kat’s personality. Barry, with his fury over Kat dumping him both personally and professionally, had the motive to kill Kat and the observed outbursts of violent temper to do it.

  Had Barry earlier congratulated himself on the amazing coincidence that Mrs. L. had accidentally produced a double to solve his problems? Was he now nervous because the necklace had turned up? He wouldn’t want to acknowledge remembering the necklace if he now realized it had been around Kat’s neck when he killed her.

  And now, viewed from a different perspective, Barry’s eagerness for Katy to come to New York took on new and ominous undertones. Was his real motive in wanting her in New York so that he could keep an eye on her in case her memory returned and his whole scheme collapsed in inevitable questions about what had happened to the real Kat?

  No, she realized with a shiver in spite of the warm night, Barry couldn’t let it go that far. He would have to keep people from ever realizing Kat Cavanaugh was missing. If some unfortunate New York “accident” happened to this Katy Cavanaugh, there would never be any dangerous questions or investigation about a missing person. Kat Cavanaugh would simply be dead. And Barry Alexander would be home free.

  If he’d killed once, he could kill again.

  Okay, take care of that by simply staying far, far away from Barry and New York. As of right now, any thought of going to New York was cancelled.

  But just before sleep, another odd thought prickled the perimeter of her consciousness: Jace had also been shocked and astonished that first time she’d talked with him on the phone. Kat, he’d said incredulously. Kat? And he’d also been shocked to learn the necklace was found in the woods. . .