Purgatory (Colorado series) by Moncrief Denise

Author:Moncrief, Denise [Moncrief, Denise]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Suspense, Contemporary
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press, Inc
Published: 2013-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

They still had about a mile of trail to go before they reached the terminus and the promised waterfall. Steve was beginning to regret his impetuousness. He should be leaving Colorado now instead of allowing this hurt to gouge deeper into their separate wounds.

The day had been pleasant, if a little tense, until his pained revelation. He placed one foot in front of the other like an automaton, not noticing his surroundings, wondering what his revelation had done to Chris and how his refusal to answer her question about Carol had affected her. Her compassion tore his heart in two.

Longing flared in her eyes, but the desire seemed to evaporate as soon as it appeared. Could Chris be falling for him? No, she had already fallen. In that moment, he knew she loved him, but she was never going to allow her feelings to show as long as she wasn’t sure who she was. In her eyes, he had seen something far deeper than mere physical attraction. He recognized the emotion that had flamed and caught fire. He’d seen it in eyes that looked so much like hers before…when he was with Carol.

How can I tell her about Carol without telling her about herself? It’s too obvious. Somehow, the two women had merged in his thinking. It bothered him he could no longer distinguish between current reality and faded memories. Chris was becoming Carol. Or rather, Carol was becoming Chris.

He didn’t want to remember Carol’s face. He didn’t want Chris to see his pain again. Against the Norfolk Sheriff’s advice, he had been there when they recovered the woman’s body. He closed his eyes as the mental picture of Carol in the grave presented itself against his will, the image seared on his memory. Sometimes he awoke crying, the nightmares painfully real.

If Chris was his wife, what happened to their baby? He had hid his raw emotion from her when he told her about the pregnancy. Could the child be alive somewhere? The question had plagued him since the day he arrived in Purgatory and first stared into her eyes.

She broke into his tortured thoughts. “Do the authorities believe she was your wife?”

He didn’t want to answer, to start another hard dialogue. Rather, he wanted to backtrack to their earlier interrupted conversation, the one where she confessed she’d miss him when he left.

He stopped mid-stride and answered her without turning. “Yes.”

“Why?”

He turned to her. “Her physical description and her dental work matched records for Carol Stone. She had a healed break in her femur that was consistent with her medical records. She had an arrest record in North Carolina for driving under the influence. The fingerprints matched.”

He could see her mind turning the information over, absorbing all its meaning. “So the dead woman was really Carol Stone. Then the woman you married, who was she?”

“That is the question, isn’t it?”

“So the woman you married was using Carol’s name, and then Carol was murdered.”

“That’s how it looks.” He wondered if Chris would take her speculation to its obvious conclusion.

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