The Arrangement (9 page)

Alison realized she was still holding the tube of cortisone cream. She put it back on the shelf behind another larger tube of something else. “I’m looking for hand cream. Where would I find that?”

A smile replaced LaDonna’s worried expression. “Come with me,” she said. “We’re actually overstocked right now. I like the colloidal oatmeal, myself. It’s very soothing, and if you have sensitive skin like I do, it’s a must have.”

LaDonna shot Alison a pleased look. “Don’t take this wrong, but I didn’t think people like you shopped in stores like this. I mean, regular old drugstores. I think it’s great. Oh, are you sure you’re all right?”

Alison had stopped and clapped a hand to her chest. She was still fighting off what felt like a coughing fit. It burned through her lungs like fire. Maybe she really was sick.

“Excuse me, I need to go,” she said, brushing past LaDonna. It was incredibly rude, but if she didn’t get out of the store, something terrible was going to happen. She struggled not to cough as she ran.

“What about the hand cream?” LaDonna called after her. “Did I tell you it has colloidal oatmeal? It’s great stuff. Alison, are you all right?”

Alison shot through the drugstore door and froze, momentarily paralyzed at the sight of the unfamiliar parking lot.

Where was she?

Mirage Bay, the strip mall in the center of town.

How did she get here?

The black BMW convertible that had once been hers. It was parked not twenty feet away from her. The keys were in the pocket of her dress.

Who was she?

Alison had no answer to that one as she plunged her hand in her pocket and grabbed the keys.

February second, six months earlier

She liked the black water best of all. A leafy canopy of oak trees blocked the afternoon sun, and something about the tide pool’s glassy surface seemed to smooth all the imperfections from her reflection. She looked serene and peaceful. It was almost a normal face gazing back at her, not freakish at all. The times she bathed here were like a meditation on her own solemn beauty. For a little while, she was whole.

She was about to rise from the water when a rustling sound caught her attention. She hesitated, crouching down and searching the shadows. A whimper of despair formed in her throat. Someone was watching her.
Him.
She knew even before she saw him step out of the bushes.

That bastard. The sick bastard had found her.

“Ugly
slut,
” he hissed at her. He crashed into the shallow pool, black spray exploding in every direction. Slowly, as if in shock, she rose from the water and watched him come thundering toward her. She was naked, dripping.

He was the one who tormented every pathetic moment of her pathetic life. He called her names and crudely groped her. He and his friends chased her everywhere she went, surrounding her like dogs in a pack, laughing and jeering at her disfigured face. Once, they’d tripped her, knocked her to the ground and peed on her, and no one had stopped them.

He had made the whole town loathe and despise her. And now he was going to rape her and leave her for dead. He would have to get rid of her, wouldn’t he?

You fucking bastard! I won’t let you destroy me!

Tears soaked her face. She couldn’t run anymore. Hatred locked her in place. Maybe it was time to die. Time to be free of him—and the crippling shame. He had turned her into a cowering animal.

“Slut,” he said under his breath. “You’re the ugliest slut I’ve ever seen.”

A pitchfork was stuck in the hard dirt and sand at the edge of the pool. She used it for cleaning out the seaweed and debris. It was her only chance, but it was too far away.

“You’re a fucking birth defect,” he snarled. “You should never have been born. How the hell did a freak like you end up with a hot body and those incredible tits?”

He lunged at her, but she sank down, evading him. She was fast, but he had brute strength on his side. And animal lust. His jeans were unzipped, his hard penis exposed. She knew what he was going to do, and he knew that she was alone and defenseless. He’d been watching her the entire time.

He threw out his arms like a wrestler, preparing for the takedown. Her mind was running a hundred miles an hour, calculating the odds of getting away. Suddenly he lunged again. She tried to duck, but he caught her by the hair and dragged her to her feet.

It hurt like hell, but she forced herself to relax, to go limp. She waited until he yanked her around and kissed her, and then she slammed her knee into his groin.

He howled with pain and flung her away. They both ended up in the water. Veins bulged in his neck as he gripped her by the throat and held her under. He was going to strangle her!
She was going to die.
She gasped for breath, sucking black water into her mouth and nostrils. It flooded down her throat and into her lungs. Her wild thrashing only made it worse. Within moments, her mind was fuzzy. Everything was as black and murky as the pool.

She lost consciousness, but something brought her back. The pressure was gone. His hands had fallen away from her throat. Maybe he thought she was dead. Her will to live gave her the strength to heave herself up, but she slammed into something solid. It was his body, and she hit him hard.

He went over backward. She must have caught him off guard. As he floundered, she crawled to the side of the pool. But by the time she got to the pitchfork, he was on her again, fangs bared, rearing up like a grizzly bear to finish her off.

She got him in the stomach with the prongs.

He grabbed the pitchfork and ripped it away from her, trying to get free. But the handle hit the ground and dug in. It threw him forward and impaled him like a fish on a spear. His eyes bugged out, and one of his flailing arms clubbed her alongside her head.

That was the last thing she remembered. She must have passed out, but not before heaving him over backward with the pitchfork and stabbing him again and again, seventeen times. They said he’d died of multiple wounds. Horrible wounds. Only a monster could have mutilated a human body like that.

Was it guilt or horror that drove her to flee over a mile down the beach, scale the sea wall and run all the way out to the edge of the cliffs, to Satan’s Teeth? Was it guilt or horror that made her plunge into the roiling waters below?

Alison sat up, breathing hard. Sweat soaked her trembling body. She’d had the dream again. It was coming more and more often and with greater detail each time. Gruesome and graphic detail. Tonight she’d heard him grunt and seen the blood gush from the wounds. She’d felt his body resist the prongs, and the horrible release when his flesh tore.

Her stomach rolled, and she sprang from the bed, knowing she might wake Andrew. She was going to be sick, and she had to get out of the room. She headed for the French doors to the balcony, hoping the air outside would cool her drenched body and slow her spinning mind.

Moments later, as she bent over the balcony railing, breathing deeply, she came to grips with several terrifying realities. It was no wonder she was having nightmares. This was where the nightmare had started. Right here in Mirage Bay, six months and how many days ago? She didn’t know. She’d lost track, but that was when her miserable life had taken a fatal turn.

She couldn’t stay here, not in this house or this town, and the reason was simple. She wasn’t—and had never been—Alison Fairmont.

She was Marnie Hazelton.

I
t was Marnie Hazelton’s body that Andrew had found, battered and bleeding from the reefs. He’d assumed it was his wife because of the charm bracelet. He’d had no way of knowing that Alison had lost the bracelet when she’d taken it in for sizing, or that Marnie, who had always secretly idolized Alison’s golden perfection and had innocently stalked her like a starstruck teen, had found it.

Andrew hadn’t known any of that, but he had known that Alison didn’t have a ruby birthmark on her throat, or anywhere. That was when he’d realized it might be the wrong woman in the operating room, but he’d said nothing to the doctors. It was too late, or so he’d told Marnie. All the major work had been done.

The breezes off the ocean were cool, and Marnie shifted gently from foot to foot, trying to warm herself. The rocking motion calmed her. She’d done it since earliest childhood, and her Gramma Jo had insisted it was because Marnie was a gift from the ocean. Gramma swore she’d found her as a baby being rocked by the sea in the wicker basket. She’d also insisted in mysterious tones that the sea might one day call Marnie back.

Marnie had never believed any of it. Gramma Jo loved to tell tales, but the rocking motion did seem instinctive, and she’d always been drawn to the sea, especially when life had seemed hopeless. She’d stood for hours on the cliffs overlooking the ocean, and watched the waves crash against the rocks below, watched and swayed to the eternal rhythms.

Maybe she had actually jumped from the cliffs the night Butch died. Maybe the sea had called her back. She couldn’t remember.

When she’d returned to consciousness in the recovery room, she’d told Andrew that she’d killed someone and didn’t want to live. Andrew had known immediately that she was Marnie Hazelton. Everyone knew about Butch Bogart’s murder and Marnie’s disappearance, but Andrew had shocked her with his reaction. He’d not only questioned the reliability of her memory of the incident, he’d made it clear that he considered
her
the victim and Butch the criminal.

“Whatever that bastard got he deserved,” Andrew had assured her. “
I
should have killed him when I had the chance.”

They’d both known what he was referring to. This was not the only time Andrew Villard had intervened in her life. When she was still a gawky kid, he’d come upon her cornered in a back alley by Butch and his friends. They’d already ripped her blouse, and they were egging each other on. If not for Andrew, she would probably have been assaulted by every one of them.

Butch was big and beefy even then, a varsity wrestler on the high school team, and clearly the ringleader. Most people were cowed by his size alone, but Andrew had been an accomplished boxer in college. Poor Butch was swaggering one minute and on his butt the next. His friends had scattered like rats from a garbage can.

Andrew had tried to talk to Marnie afterward, but she’d been too ashamed and confused. Why would a man like Andrew Villard take on that bunch of thugs for her? She wouldn’t have expected him to look at her, especially compared to a beauty like Alison, who was six years older than Marnie. He and Alison were royalty. The whole town watched them from a distance, enraptured.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

Marnie froze. It was Andrew behind her on the balcony. She rubbed her arm, aware of her chilled skin. How long had she been out here?

“A bad dream,” she said, surprised at the pang she felt. She didn’t want to feel pangs. It was idiotic. She resented bitterly the possibility that some part of her might want a relationship with a man who would actually care enough to ask about her bad dreams.

Impossible.
Andrew already knew about this dream. He knew about everything, her darkest secrets.

“It’s cold out here,” he said. “Should I get your robe?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. You’re shivering.”

She let out a sharp sigh. “I can’t stay here, Andrew. I need you to find out what’s happened to my grandmother. I have to be sure she’s okay, and then…I’m leaving.”

“Alison, we didn’t come out here on a whim.”

“I’m
not
Alison. Stop calling me that!” She spun around to face him, shaking with emotion. “I hate her—and so do you.”

His gaze narrowed, and Marnie wished to God she hadn’t said it. Not because it wasn’t true. He obviously loathed Alison, but Marnie hadn’t been talking about Alison.

“Maybe I have reason,” he said.

“Reason to hate her? Well, maybe I have reason to get the hell out of here.” She clutched herself, thinking she was going to freeze to death. “I killed him. It was all there in my dream, every gory detail. Butch is dead, slaughtered, and
I
did it.”

“I don’t believe that. You may have acted in self-defense, but you didn’t stab anybody seventeen times. You’re not capable of that, which is why you
can’t
leave.”

She stared at him, defiant.

“You have to stay and prove it.
Alison,
” he said softly, emphasizing the name. “You know why we’re here. We have a deal, you and I.”

Marnie didn’t want any part of their deal. She was trying to figure out how to make him understand that when she noticed what he had in his hand.

“Why aren’t you wearing this?” He held out the charm bracelet.

“Because it isn’t mine.” She could barely control the pain in her voice. “Do you have any idea how hard this is for me?”

Six months ago the bracelet had saved her life. Today it was a symbol of her entrapment and her guilt.

“Wear it,” he insisted.

She stared at him, burning to refuse. He had refused to acknowledge her as anyone but Alison. He wouldn’t even utter her real name. Marnie Hazelton didn’t exist for him, so he couldn’t possibly know how hard this was for her. Nor did he care. They had an agreement, and he expected her to honor it.

Why couldn’t she? Why the hell couldn’t she just do this? The alternative was jail, certainly for her. A life sentence. The death penalty. It all loomed in Marnie Hazelton’s future.

Her throat tightened as she took the bracelet from him. But was she angry at him for her predicament, or herself? He had come up with the master plan, but she had agreed to it. He’d never once threatened her.

He’d come to her when she was still in the hospital, recovering from the surgery. Sitting by her bedside, he’d told her that Marnie Hazelton could hide in plain sight. She could assume Alison’s identity. He’d promised he would help her. He would coach her and tell her everything he knew about his wife and her history. Marnie hadn’t believed it could work, but she and Alison were remarkably close in body type, and Andrew had convinced her she could explain away any changes in her appearance and voice as a result of the surgery. And if she was asked questions she couldn’t answer, she could use her diagnosis as an excuse: transient amnesia, caused by head trauma.

Andrew had only had one binding condition: Marnie Hazelton must die so that Alison could live. She had to be Alison at all times, even when they were alone. Even when she was alone. She had to transform to the very marrow of her bones. Otherwise, no one would be fooled, and their plan would fail.

It should have worked perfectly. Marnie was well motivated, and with Andrew’s help she had become an uncanny facsimile of Alison. She’d transformed herself, inside and out, even capturing the watchful Mona Lisa smile that hinted at the mysterious inner workings of Alison’s mind. But then the dreams and flashbacks started. The past kept rushing back at her, and despite her condition of no intimacy, she could never have imagined that life with Andrew could be so barren. It felt more like a life sentence than a dream come true.

“The bracelet may have been Alison’s good luck charm,” she said, “but it’s not mine.”

“It saved your life.”

“And aren’t
you
glad?”

The bracelet’s charms slipped through Marnie’s fingers, glittering like sunlight, even at night. It was eighteen-karat gold, and each charm was a musical symbol, but the only one Marnie cared about was the worthless copper penny ring that she herself had attached to one of the gold links.

She’d had the ring since she was a kid. She and LaDonna Jeffries had been best friends in those days, and they’d often played at an abandoned train station not far from Gramma Jo’s house. One of their pastimes had been putting pennies on the track and letting the freight trains flatten them. If the penny was balanced just right when the train’s wheels hit, the middle could be punched out without destroying the rim, creating a perfect copper ring.

Marnie had worn her ring home that day, and Gramma Jo had told her never to throw it away. Penny rings not only brought good fortune to the wearer, she’d said, but kept them safe from evil spirits. Gramma had given her a chain to wear the ring around her neck, and Marnie hadn’t taken it off once, even while she was bathing, until the chain finally broke.

She’d learned the rudiments of jewelry making from her Gramma Jo, who did everything she could to bring in money, including making and selling agate jewelry at the flea market in town. Marnie had learned many things from her surrogate grandmother, and the most wrenching part of the agreement with Andrew had been losing contact with her. Marnie couldn’t imagine what Gramma Jo must have gone through when she learned of her granddaughter’s disappearance.

Eventually Marnie had started calling her grandmother’s number weekly, just to hear her voice. Marnie hadn’t spoken, except to say that she had the wrong number, but even that much contact had reassured her that Josephine Hazelton was alive and well.

“If you hate the bracelet so much,” Andrew said, “why didn’t you give it back to Alison?”

Marnie didn’t feel the need to tell him that she’d kept the bracelet because it had represented dreams she couldn’t articulate in those days, even to herself. The sparkling jewelry had symbolized everything she’d longed to be. Not that she’d really held out hope for a fairy tale life like Alison’s, but when it had looked as if Alison would never come back to Mirage Bay, Marnie had begun to wear the bracelet, pushed up on her skinny forearm and hidden under her long-sleeved tops. Only when she’d attached the copper loop had it felt as if the bracelet belonged to her.

“You and Alison ran off and got married,” she said. “You never came back. When was I supposed to return it?”

“We came back.”

“You mean last February? Years later? I would have felt a little foolish returning it then. Obviously, though, I should have.”

Andrew shrugged. “I’m sure Alison had forgotten all about the bracelet by then. She had bigger things on her mind.”

Like a fifty-million-dollar-trust fund? Marnie wondered. While she was still in the hospital, Andrew had revealed that it was Alison’s idea to come back to Mirage Bay. She’d wanted to reconcile with her mother, but Marnie still wondered if it had something to do with the trust fund.

Naturally, she was curious how Andrew felt about the fortune Alison had walked away from. He didn’t seem motivated by money. He was wealthy enough in his own right, and he’d already told Marnie that if the money eventually came to her as Alison, he would make no claim on it.

She’d sensed that he was using the trust fund as a carrot to lure her back to Mirage Bay. He wouldn’t have insider access to the Fairmont family without her, and there was also the question of who got the money if it didn’t go to Alison. If Andrew knew, he hadn’t mentioned it. He’d actually said very little about his plan to find out who’d framed him.

“Let’s go inside,” he said now. “I’ll light a fire and get you some cognac.”

Marnie shivered. Anything that would ward off the cold sounded good. There was an overstuffed couch in front of the fireplace, with a quilted throw that she could wrap up in. Maybe she could even make him understand that staying here wasn’t a good idea.

He stepped back, giving her room to go inside.

Light glowed from the bedroom as she passed him. Fleetingly, she wondered if it made her gown transparent. And if he was looking.

He went straight to the liquor cart and set about preparing her a drink while she curled up on the couch with the quilt. A moment later he offered her a snifter of warm cognac and a cocktail napkin.

She left the bracelet on the table and held the glass with both hands, letting it take the chill from her icy fingers. The mulled cider he’d poured himself was still on the warmer flame, flickering like a golden votive, while he got the fire going. It was a real fireplace with cedar logs, stacked in a heavy woven basket on the hearth. He piled several logs on the grate and lit them.

As the sparks caught and smoke curled up the chimney, Marnie remembered the times she’d stood on the beach and gazed up at the big house on the bluffs, watching wispy ribbons of gray come from one or another of the chimneys. It was a magnificent Mediterranean manse with several floors and ornate wrought-iron balconies, and she’d been completely fixated on what life would be like inside such a grand place.

It was nothing like she’d expected.

Still, she could feel herself relaxing as the logs began to crackle and spit. The bedroom smelled as sweet and redolent as a beach fire. She’d made her own fires as a kid, and slept next to them on the sand with nothing more than a blanket on cool fall nights when the beach was deserted.