Deceptions of the Heart by Denise Moncrief Page B

cowering. She resembled a lioness defending her territory. “You’re not buying this, are you, Alex?”
    “Shut up, Kristen. Whoever she is, she has a serious problem. I have to help her.” His angry reprimand suggested his willingness to help was more than a good Samaritan impulse on his part.
    “Why?” Kristen countered. “She’s not Rhonda. She’s nothing to us.”
    “Because somehow Jackson is involved.” He looked at me and rubbed his upper lip. “Have you talked to anybody in Virginia about this?”
    “No. They wouldn’t believe Jennifer. I can’t trust them. I think they’re trying to kill her.”
    “Why do you think that?”
    “Her housekeeper has been giving her two pills twice a day. One of them is a barbiturate and the other is an anticonvulsant. They shouldn’t be mixed. Ever. Jennifer is supposed to be taking medication to prevent her body from rejecting her new heart, but neither of the pills she’s been taking are cyclosporine. That really scares me because I’m depending on her heart.”
    “Aren’t you capable of handling your own meds?” he asked, referring to me as Jennifer.
    “Sudha said it was for Jennifer’s protection. I think she was lying.” I insisted on being myself, referring to the woman whose life I’d invaded as someone I’d come to know instead of who I was.
    “Your protection? That’s weird. Sounds to me like you need protection from Sudha.” He said Sudha’s name with a derisive bite. “Is there anyone you can talk to? Have you gone to the cops?”
    “I told a deputy sheriff I was having problems with my memory, but he didn’t believe me. That was before I confirmed Sudha was giving me the wrong medication.” I rolled my head on my aching neck. “I can’t go back to him—”
    “Why not?”
    “I think Jennifer and the cop have a history.”
    He rose from his chair and began pacing again. “This is serious.”
    “I can’t trust her housekeeper. I can’t trust her doctor. I can’t trust her husband or her stepdaughter. Or the local cops. I can’t trust anyone. That’s why I came to you. Because I don’t know them and I know you. You are the only person in the world I’ve ever been able to trust. You know that.”
    He looked sheepishly at Kristen. She turned pale, her face ashen as if they had a dirty little secret. He turned away from her.
    My stomach lurched. “Oh, Alex,” I stammered and rose from my seat, clutching my chest. “Oh, please. Tell me it isn’t so. You didn’t.” I scrutinized his new wife. “I recognize you now. I met you once. At a firm Christmas party. You’re a paralegal.”
    “I haven’t been a paralegal since—”
    “Shut up, Kristen,” he warned.
    She withdrew from his wrath, no longer a ferocious lioness but more like a chastised kitten.
    “You cheated on me with her,” I sputtered and pointed at the cheap, bottle-blonde tramp. “I can’t trust you. I can’t trust anyone. Who will I turn to now?”
    He jumped from the chair and caught me before I bolted through the door, his hand wrapping around my wrist. “Please, Rhonda, don’t leave yet.”
    I clawed his paw from me. “Don’t touch me. As far as you’re concerned, Rhonda is dead. I’m sorry I came here. I don’t want your help any longer.” I smirked at Kristen. “If he cheated on me with you, he’ll cheat on you, too. And don’t let him get by with telling you to shut up. He’s a bully. All you have to do is stand up for yourself and he’ll back down.”
    I slammed the door behind me, making a hasty exit from the horror that was my life.

Chapter Nine
    Dr. Crane leaned back in his chair. “Mrs. Cristobal, you have presented me with an extraordinary story. This is incredible. In fact, it’s impossible .” He paused as if waiting for me to object, but I was still reeling from my narrative. Reciting all my experiences, my doubts, my fears, had exhausted me.
    The sun gleamed through the streaky panes of the picture window behind him. A bird