Love Inspired Suspense June 2014 Bundle 1 of 2: Undercover Marriage\Collateral Damage\Forgotten Past (51 page)

“I'm telling you he's not the man who attacked me, and I'm guessing he's not the one who murdered your men or Carl and Rachel.”

“Then why was he following her?” Will asked.

“I don't know. Why is he so insistent Faith is Rachel?”

“Yeah, that doesn't make sense. He has to know Rachel's dead—of course he knows,” Teddy said. “Even in the delusional state he's in right now, he knows. It was all over the news for months. According to my friend, everyone within a hundred-mile radius of Austin knew about the murders.” He furrowed his brow. “Do you think he's transferring his feelings for Rachel to Faith? If so, then I don't think we're going to get much out of him.”

“Probably not,” Will agreed. “I've asked Dr. Blake to stop by and speak to him before his lawyer arrives. Since he came to the house armed with a knife, we can hold him on attempted murder, and I will see if I can confirm he tampered with Faith's prescription. Unfortunately, once his attorney gets here, we won't be able to talk to him. Barrett Montgomery may be a piranha and the biggest sleazeball in Maine, but he's the best attorney money can buy.”

“Something else occurred to me on the drive over.” JT hesitated because he knew how crazy his theory would sound. “How did he find us? We made sure Faith's phone didn't have a tracking device on it and, with the exception of you, Teddy and Derek, no one knew where to find us.”

“Maybe he tracked you through your phone. Maybe he was able to follow you somehow,” Will said at last.

JT didn't believe any of those scenarios were true. “I don't think so. I'm telling you, something doesn't compute here. I think we've been investigating this from the wrong angle all along.” The doubt in the three men's expression didn't surprise him.

“We've been over every aspect of Faith's life we could uncover,” Will said as he watched through the two-way mirror as Phillip Masters jerked against his restraints.

“That's not what I'm talking about. We've been digging into Faith's past, thinking this was about her. Because of the calls, we just assumed everything was connected.” JT motioned toward Phillip's disgruntled frame. “But we barely skimmed the surface of what was happening in Rachel's life. What if we're wrong? What if the murders were about Rachel, not Faith?” Before Will voiced his obvious concerns, JT added, “There's no doubt in my mind Phillip Masters was infatuated enough with Faith to come after her—in a hurricane no less. I just don't think he committed the murders.”

“He's obviously delusional and delusional people do dangerous things,” Will reminded him. “Then there are the statistics. Two out of three stalkers end up committing a violent crime against their victims eventually.”

“I know all this. I just can't help but believe we're missing something.”

The gravity of the situation was reflected in Will's tone. “What do you want to do? We don't have a whole lot of time here.”

If JT's instincts were right, they were quickly reaching the critical stage. Because if Phillip hadn't committed the murders, then a killer was still out there, and he didn't want to leave Faith alone for a moment longer.

“I think we need to dig deeper into what was happening in Rachel's life before her death. Call me crazy, but I believe Rachel is the key to solving this thing, not Faith. This has nothing to do with Faith Davenport and everything to do with Rachel Jennings.”

FOURTEEN

W
ith Ollie sleeping contentedly in her lap, Faith listened to the silence of the empty office until she thought she might go out of her mind.

Phillip Masters. She knew his name. More importantly, she recognized
him
. The minute she saw his face, she remembered the terror he'd put her through.

No, not her. Rachel.

He'd called
her Rachel
. He hadn't even hesitated, or thought about it for a moment, he'd simply called her by that name. Which could only mean one thing: Phillip believed she was Rachel. And the really weird part? She'd remembered pieces of Rachel's life, but she didn't remember her own life at all.

She sat Ollie in the chair next to her and got to her feet. The dog whimpered, then went back to sleep.

Outside she could see the rain-slicked streets of Whaler's Point, littered with debris scattered everywhere. In the distance, traffic lights flashed. The storm outside had passed. The one inside her continued to rage.

She leaned her head against the chilled windowpane. Her father's smiling face appeared before her. No...Carl Jennings's face. He'd lovingly clasped the necklace around her neck. The picture inside the locket was so much like her. Evelyn Jennings was the spitting image of her daughter. Her daughter. Not Faith.

Her fingers reached up to stroke the imaginary locket and another memory far more sinister replaced the happier one.

He'd seemed like a dream come true. Phillip Masters was charming, handsome and already a successful surgeon by the time she'd met him.

She'd been flattered in the beginning by his attention, even when he seemed jealous of the time she spent away from him with her friends. Ben. Even the moments she spent with her father. Soon the real monster beneath the debonair exterior surfaced.

And the threats began.

Her father finally convinced her to file a restraining order against Phillip when he broke into their home and held her captive.

But Phillip's father had more influence around Austin than Carl did. With a single call to the police chief, he'd gotten all the charges dropped. Even though the restraining order was still in force, most of the police were afraid of the powerful Masters family and Phillip Sr.'s wrath in particular.

In the end, it had become little more than a joke and she'd left her home in order to escape him. After months of traveling, and never feeling safe no matter where she went, there was silence again. It was as if Phillip had lost interest in her. She'd gone back home. For a time, everything was normal. It had been about a year before the murders and a couple of months before she and Faith had met...

Faith shook her head. None of this made sense.

Then, out of the blue, he'd called asking her to dinner. She refused, but Phillip could be so charming and persuasive. He told her he only wanted to talk, to explain. She'd needed to believe it was over this time.

She'd been wrong.

From the moment she walked into the restaurant, she'd known meeting Phillip again would prove to be a horrible mistake. He'd stalked her many times after that.

Those memories returned just as terrifying as ever. But those were not her memories. How could she remember in such detail Rachel's life while her own remained a mystery?

Had she made up the whole thing in her head to cover up her part in her friend's death, as the doctor suggested? Maybe none of those things had actually happened. Maybe they just existed in her head.

* * *

“Faith? Are you okay?” JT pulled the door open. Her expression was the first thing he saw. It alarmed him. She was close to the breaking point.

“No, no, I'm not. I'm not okay at all. I think maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I've imagined this whole thing. Maybe there never was a stalking.” The fear in her eyes was palpable.

He stepped inside and closed the door. “You're not crazy. Phillip Masters was stalking you. I promise, everything is going to be fine.”

“How can you say that? I haven't been able to remember a single thing about my own life and now, suddenly, I'm remembering my best friend's past. That's insane, JT.”

“I know it's hard to understand.” JT poured a glass of water and held it out to her. “Drink this.”

She held up her hands in frustration then took the glass from him. After she took a long, slow sip, she set the glass down on the table.

“You're not insane, Faith.” His arms circled her waist and brought her close. “I know you're frightened but it's almost over,” he added with a sincerity he didn't feel.

She moved away and he let her go. She needed space. He understood that.

“Why would I recognize Phillip Masters?”

“It stands to reason you'd know him. After all, Rachel was your best friend. I'm sure you would have spent time together with Rachel and him.”

She wanted to believe JT but something more was on her mind. “Then what about the locket? Why would I recall that specific memory—that particular time Rachel spent with her father? I didn't even know Rachel when she was sixteen and yet the memory is so real. And there's more.” She glanced at him. “I remembered more about what happened when I was attacked at the ranch, but it didn't happen to me, it happened to Rachel. I remember my—Rachel's—father convincing her to take out a restraining order against Phillip.”

This bit of news took JT by surprise. “If there had been a restraining order, why wasn't it included in the record of their murders?”

“Because the Masters name carried a lot of weight around Austin. The police were afraid of making an enemy of him,” she said. “Do you think that Phillip might be responsible for Rachel's and Carl's murders after all?”

It didn't add up in his mind. “I don't know. I'll have Will check on it. Give me a moment and then let's go home. It's been a long day.”

She continued to watch him without budging. “JT.”

“Please, Faith, let's not argue.”

“Okay,” she said at last.

He left her to gather Ollie while he stepped out to the hall to call Derek. “Check on a restraining order against Phillip Masters Jr.,” he said when Derek picked up.

“How'd you find out about it? We just located the original order. I'm here with Will and Teddy and we're still going over the details of the order with the chief of police right now. For some reason the cops didn't see fit to include any notes about it in the file of the murder case. Makes me wonder if Faith really did report the attack at the ranch and it got left out of the file as well.”

“I'd say that's a possibility.” JT went on to explain what Faith had told him about Phillip Sr. being a powerful man in Austin who had a lot of influence on the police. Afterwards, he took a deep, bolstering breath, hardly believing what he was about to say next.

“Derek...there's something else I need you to do.” JT made sure Faith wasn't close enough to overhear the conversation. “There's a glass on the chief's desk with two sets of fingerprints on it. Mine and Faith's. If she was in foster care, chances are her fingerprints are on file somewhere. I need you to see if you can match the ones on the glass to Faith Davenport.”

His friend didn't say a word for a long time. “You're thinking...”

“That it wasn't Rachel Jennings who died that night. It was Faith Davenport.”

Derek let out a low whistle. “If that's true, then why did Ben Jennings identify the wrong woman? It doesn't make any sense.”

“I don't know. Maybe the killer planted something on Faith's body to convince him it was his cousin. Faith mentioned a locket in one of her recollections. With the fire, the cousin might have relied on the necklace as proof the body found next to Carl's was Rachel.”

“If what you say is true and if what the Austin police concluded was correct, why would Rachel want her father dead? By all accounts, they had a good relationship. He certainly appeared to adore her. I don't get it.”

JT rubbed a weary hand across his face. “That makes two of us, pal,” he said.

“Well, it's becoming more apparent a lot of things about this case are not close to what we originally suspected. I can't see Faith, or Rachel, being mixed up in the murders.” Derek sighed wearily. “The Austin police did a lousy job of investigating all the angles of the case. They latched on to Faith as their primary suspect and ignored all other leads that might have helped them solve this case.”

He saw Faith coming toward him and hastily added, “I have to go. Let me know the minute there's news.”

“Watch your back, JT. I don't think we've seen the end of this yet.”

Unfortunately, JT couldn't agree more.

* * *

They made the drive back to Mark's place in virtual silence. JT read all of Faith's worries in the impenetrable silence hovering between them.

He wanted to reassure her, but he couldn't because if what he suspected was true, the real killer was still out there.

He unlocked the door and Faith headed for the stairs without so much as a word.

“Faith, wait.”

She didn't look at him as she rested her hand on the bottom banister. “I'm tired, JT. I just want to go to bed.”

“Faith, look at me.” She didn't. He couldn't let her walk away like this. He went to her and turned her to face him. “I know this is a setback.”

She closed her eyes. “It's more than that. What's the point anymore? Phillip might be sick, but he's not a killer. He was in love with Rachel. He didn't kill her or Carl. Certainly not those two officers. He wasn't the one who attacked you.” She took a breath. “We both know how this is going to end, JT, and it isn't good.”

He reached for her hand and entwined his fingers with hers. “You've got to keep fighting. You can't stop now.”

“I don't think I can. I'm all out of fight,” she whispered wearily.

“You can. If not for yourself then do it for me.” When she didn't answer, he realized he needed to give her a reason to keep fighting. “For us. Do it for us.” He hesitated only a second then laid his heart at her feet. “Faith, I love you.”

For a long time she couldn't speak. There were tears in her eyes when she looked at him. “You don't love me. You can't.”

“I can. I do. I love you.”

The hope in her eyes scared him. She desperately wanted to believe him. “But you don't even know me.
I
don't even know who I am. I could be responsible for...” She didn't finish but he knew what she was afraid of.

“You didn't kill them, Faith, and I do love you. Believe me, that's not a word I use lightly. You're only the second woman I've cared enough about to say it to. I love you.” She stopped resisting and he pulled her into his arms and held her close. “That's why I need you not to give up. Keep fighting. You have to be strong, Faith. I need you to be strong.”

He kissed her gently then let her go. “Try to get some sleep. There are some things I have to go over with my team, but I'll just be downstairs in the study if you need me for anything.”

She touched his face tenderly. “I love you, too.”

His breath caught in his throat. “When this is over, we have a lot to talk about.”

“Yes, and I can't wait.” She leaned over and kissed him one last time then left him alone.

He waited until she closed her bedroom door then he made coffee and went back to the study. She loved him, too. His heart felt as if it would burst from his chest. She loved him. He had something to look forward to. And something he didn't want to lose. The reality of what was at stake weighed heavily in his thoughts. He was still staring into space when Derek called him back. “Anything?”

“You were right. The fingerprints on the glass don't match Faith Davenport's. I'm still trying to see if Rachel's are on file anywhere, but I don't think there's any doubt she's Rachel.”

JT put his head in his hands. “So Faith Davenport died and Rachel lived. Why kill Faith and pretend she was Rachel? Why go to such an extreme? What reason would someone have to keep Rachel alive for two years while pretending she was someone else?”

“Maybe the killer has a personal connection with her.”

“Perhaps.” JT couldn't make any sense of it. “Did you get anything more from Masters?”

“Nope. He wouldn't talk to Dr. Blake at all. The attorney arrived shortly afterwards with the old man on the phone, furious with us for violating his son's civil rights. He's being arraigned in the morning, but we're hoping the judge will see him as a flight risk.”

“What about the cousin? Has he remembered anything more?”

“I don't know, he's still not answering. I don't like it. I'll keep trying, but in the meantime, I called the Austin police and they're sending a squad car over to his place to check on him. Let's hope the killer didn't get to him first.”