A Trace of Memory, page 10
Emma wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. This was the life she’d been made for. The culmination of her lifelong dream to sing for appreciative audiences and use her God-given gift.
Applause followed her last note. Blinking back tears of thanksgiving, she nodded to the spectators, then politely turned and held out her arm to give credit to the musicians backing her up.
Her jaw went slack. There they were. All of them. Blake was on the acoustic guitar, a slim clone of him plucked a Dobro, and the man standing next to the bass fiddle was the same one who had kept her locked up.
Astonishment overwhelmed her. She tried to scream. No sound came. The scene began to fade as panic filled her.
Wait! There was one more person in the band. A fair-haired woman in the rear held a mandolin and there was a banjo propped behind her, as if she played both.
Emma tried to catch the woman’s eye and failed. She dropped the mic and waved her arms, attempting to shout a warning.
It was no use. The young woman’s eyes never left Blake and the bass player. There was abject terror in her expression, a terror Emma could certainly identify with.
Thinking that perhaps she could jump into the audience and thereby escape, Emma pivoted. They were gone. She was alone with the others—and with her fear.
As she tried to leave the stage, someone grabbed her arm. His fingers clamped so tightly it made her cry out.
“Let me go!”
“No way, darlin’,” Blake Browning drawled. “We’re all in this together, remember?”
Remember? That word rebounded inside her head as if she were in an echo chamber. She did remember, at least some things, and they were far from pleasant. She’d just discovered that members of their group made a practice of robbing the churches and theatrical groups that invited them to perform. The only time they’d apparently refrained from lining their pockets was when they happened to be playing in a less reputable establishment. Then, the bass player and Blake and the other guitarist, his brother, Ben, would peddle drugs. She knew that as surely as she knew her own name.
“I’m quitting and going home,” Emma remembered declaring. “You can’t stop me.”
But they had, hadn’t they?
She thought she heard sirens in the distance. Were the police finally going to arrest Blake? She certainly hoped so. Her anonymous letter to local authorities must have finally found its way into the right hands!
In the background, people were shouting but all Emma could see was the hatred in the eyes of the horrible man who was restraining her. He flung her across the dressing room. She hit the wall with a sickening crash and slumped to the floor.
Colored lights flashed behind her closed eyelids, their brilliance painful.
She tried to raise her hands, to cover her stinging eyes. Something was stopping her.
Looking down, she saw her wrists were encased in silvery handcuffs. Someone was shouting orders. Pushing her ahead. The mandolin player was there, too.
Emma met that woman’s terrified gaze and suddenly realized they were friends.
“Take care of Sissy for me,” the woman whispered. “Please! There’s no one else I can ask.”
“But...how?”
Police cars faded away. People vanished as if a thick fog had risen and covered the entire scene.
Not seeing anything clearly was far worse than being able to discern even the most problematic situation.
Emma twisted and struggled against the restrictions of the hand that was grasping her arm. She wanted to scream. She gulped in enough air, but when she tried to shout, nothing happened.
“I’m Emma Lynn Landers,” she declared. “I’m innocent. Let me go? Please?”
The entire room began to vibrate as if she’d been overtaken by an earthquake. Emma tried to brace herself. To keep from tumbling into the yawning abyss that was opening at her feet.
Her balled fists connected with a firm surface and she pictured herself beating on the chest of a police officer as she and her companions were about to be carted off to jail.
“Emma,” someone called from far, far away.
“No, no,” she wailed. “I’m not guilty. I didn’t know. Honest, I didn’t.”
Bright light continued to flash. Emma squeezed her eyes tight against the intrusion, wanting desperately to linger in limbo long enough to understand what she’d been visualizing.
The moment she entertained that thought, she realized she’d been dreaming.
Her eyes popped open. It wasn’t Blake or the police who had been grasping and shaking her. It was Travis.
And she wasn’t in Tennessee anymore. She was back in Serenity.
Out of breath and still a tad disoriented, Emma looked into his face and saw so much concern it astounded her.
“It worked. I—I remembered more,” she told him.
Travis pulled her closer. “Hush. You’re safe now.”
She pushed away just enough to meet his gaze. “Listen so you can help me recall this later, in case I forget.”
“All right.”
“I was singing with Blake. And the man who tried to grab me in the store was in the band, too. So were a couple of others. One was a young woman who played a mandolin. We were all being arrested and she told me to take care of something.”
“What?”
The details were already fading. Emma held her breath and forced her thoughts back to the scene of the police encounter. “She said Sissy, I think. Do you suppose that’s the little girl’s name?”
“We can try to find out. What else?”
“Blake, his brother, Ben, and the bass player were crooked, all right. Just like everybody thought. What I don’t understand is why they didn’t go to jail for their crimes.”
“And why they’re apparently after you,” Travis added.
Emma sighed. Her shoulders slumped and she leaned against his chest, listening to his rapid pulse. “I didn’t see anything about that, except right when I first fell asleep,” she said with chagrin. “But we do know one important thing.”
“What’s that?”
“The prescription works. It relaxes me enough that my subconscious can break through.”
“You’re not going to put yourself through that kind of ordeal again,” Travis said flatly.
“I have to,” she insisted. “Because now I know for sure that somebody else needs me.”
“Do you think this Sissy may be your daughter?”
“No. I got the distinct impression she belonged to the woman in my nightmare. Otherwise, why would she beg me to look after her when she was being arrested?”
Stiffening and pushing herself away so she could stand and pace the floor, Emma kept searching for more memory clues. All she could come up with was a distressing thought she’d had before.
“I left her behind,” she confessed, wide-eyed. “As soon as I know where I was when I ran away, I have to go back for Sissy. I simply have to.”
Travis’s instant protestations fell on deaf ears. Emma had failed a friend, and probably a child, as well. She might not be able to reclaim the wasted years, but she could at least put something about them right.
She could—she would—rescue Sissy.
Somehow.
* * *
Travis wished with all his heart that he could spare Emma more anguish, yet he knew she’d never be satisfied until she remembered every detail.
“Did you actually visualize the little girl this time?” he asked gently.
She shook her head, sighed and used her fingers to rake back her long hair as she paused to gaze out the window. “No. I was onstage with the band.”
Travis saw her countenance soften when she turned back to face him and said, “I was singing a gospel number.”
“You always did have a special talent for that.”
“Thanks.” She squeezed her eyes closed, her forehead wrinkling from intense concentration. “Blake and his brother, Ben, were both on guitars. The bass player was the big guy who came after me in the store.”
“And there was another woman?”
Emma’s eyes glistened. “Yes. She was about my age and acted really scared, particularly around Blake.”
“Go on.”
“That’s all there was. Well, except for the band being arrested right after the performance. That was when the female mandolin player begged me to look after Sissy.”
“Okay. Let’s go see what we can find in online newspaper archives for that time period.”
With Emma preceding him, he followed her down the stairs. “I’m guessing you envisioned something that happened before your dad passed away. That fits with Harlan’s information about the band in general, although he said the police reports didn’t mention you by name.”
“That’s another puzzling thing,” Emma said. “If I was arrested with the others, why isn’t my name on record?”
“And why did your woman friend end up pleading guilty and serving time when you and the others went free?”
He saw Emma’s jaw drop, her eyes widen. “Robbie. Her name was Robbie!”
“Are you sure? That sounds more like a guy’s name.”
“It must be a nickname.”
“Okay.” He gestured toward the cluttered spare room on the ground floor that he used for an office. “I’ll give you the laptop while I use the computer at the desk. Between the two of us we should be able to find news reports about her arrest and conviction. If we draw a blank and have no other choice, we’ll ask Harlan.” He flashed a lopsided smile. “I just hate to call him again.”
“He’s supposed to have that store video for us to look at soon, anyway,” Emma reminded him. “If we don’t have anything to show for our efforts by then, we can mention it when we’re in his office.”
“Good plan.” Watching her, he felt his anxiety slowly lessening. She was coming along well, according to Samantha’s predictions and the research he’d done on his own. Yes, she had been involved with criminals, but that didn’t mean she was of the same mind. Plus, she hadn’t gone to jail. That had to count in her favor.
As he seated himself at the keyboard and began his search of Nashville news archives, he was reminded that Blake Browning, Blake’s brother, Ben, and the bass player had also gone free. Only the one woman had been convicted. And, given those men’s current activities, there was no doubt they were as guilty as anyone. Perhaps more so.
Therefore, there was a lot more to this whole mess than they knew. There had to be. And he would find out what. Failure was not an option. Emma’s life might very well depend upon his efforts.
ELEVEN
Emma’s internet search turned up the first clue. She gasped and pointed to the screen. “Here! Look.”
As Travis leaned over her shoulder to read the caption under the photo and begin to scan the print, she realized she should have moved farther away before calling it to his attention. The warmth of his breath tickled her cheek and his presence in her personal space was overwhelming.
Nevertheless, when he did straighten and back away, she missed his closeness.
“That explains a lot,” Travis said pensively. “Your friend Roberta was married to Blake. It doesn’t mention a child but that assumption also makes sense. If Sissy was hers and Blake’s, as some of your previous memories indicated she might be, then Robbie would have plenty of reason to worry.”
Emma was hardly able to believe her eyes. “It says she confessed to everything and exonerated the rest of the band. That’s crazy. My impression of her is exactly the opposite. She was a sweetheart, not a criminal. If anybody’s guilty of theft and messing with drugs it’s Blake and the other guys.”
“What about you? There’s no mention of you at all. If you were arrested, there should at least be something.”
“I know, I...”
The images of the police raid were like a vapor, yet Emma managed to grasp a bit more. Blake and his brother were shouting obscenities while the hefty bass player used his enormous instrument as a weapon, swinging it at the officers and knocking them aside until they finally managed to subdue him.
She had been put into a different police car than any of the others before having her cuffs removed by the policewoman seated next to her.
Sorry to have to do that to you, the officer had told her. We didn’t want the others to know where the tip came from.
Emma stared at Travis. “I was the one who turned the others in,” she said softly, hardly believing her memory. “That’s why I wasn’t booked and why my name never showed up as part of the gang after the raid.”
“That’s good news—isn’t it?”
“Yes, and no,” Emma told him as her thoughts spun. “What I can’t understand is why Robbie went to jail and the men got off. I’m sure that wasn’t how it was all supposed to end.”
He once again leaned over her and pointed. “Read that paragraph at the bottom. It says she did confess.”
Emma could hardly believe her eyes. “Why would she do that? She was no more a part of Blake’s criminal activities than I was.”
“How can you be positive?”
“I don’t know, but I am,” Emma admitted with a shake of her head. “All I remember is being shocked, just the way I am now, and thinking that the authorities had gotten it all wrong.”
“I wonder if there’s some way you can visit her in prison and find out more?” Travis asked.
Cold dread coursed through Emma as if ice water had infiltrated her veins. Prison meant confinement, just like the room in which she’d been held against her will. The mere idea of purposely going to another place like that made her sick to her stomach and weak in the knees.
“There has to be another way,” she breathed, her words barely audible. Bile rose in her throat, the taste bitter on her tongue. She knew she must have done all she could for Robbie at the time because that was her way. She would never have abandoned a friend in need.
So what had gone wrong? Apparently, plenty. Robbie had been convicted and the others had escaped punishment. Whoever had said justice was blind had been correct. The question now was why were Blake and the bass player hounding her? And why had they kept her prisoner for however long it had taken to break her spirit and affect her mind?
That thought made her mad enough to dispel the feelings of nausea. Those evil men had probably framed poor Robbie as well, and were now seeking vengeance against Emma and her Serenity friends.
“The man on the phone. The one who called the house?”
Travis nodded sagely. “What about him?”
“He accused me of keeping a secret. Do you suppose I do know something important, maybe something that can free Robbie and give her back her little girl?”
“If you did, wouldn’t you have acted before she went to jail?”
“I thought I would have.” Emma once again eyed the newspaper story filling the computer screen. “Look at this date. Is it possible I was already Blake’s prisoner by the time Robbie was sentenced?”
“That might fit. But why is he bothering you now? If he locked you up to keep you from coming forward to testify on behalf of your friend, why continue to hound you? The trial is in the past.”
“It has to be the secret, whatever it is,” Emma speculated. “I’d first thought it might be something about Robbie’s innocence. Now, I’m not so sure. As you said, it’s too late to help her.”
“Unless she recants her confession and you vouch for her during an appeal,” Travis ventured. His brow furrowed. “That still doesn’t explain why Blake and his buddy are so determined to make you talk, unless you really do know something else that could land them in jail—or worse.”
Emma shivered and folded her arms against the unexpected chill. “I wonder if they killed someone.”
“That might have been dramatic enough to affect your memory, particularly if you witnessed it.”
“It would explain a lot.”
“Only if it really happened,” Travis warned. “I don’t like those guys any better than you do, but if you start accusing them of committing murder you may put yourself in more danger than you’re in already.”
“Yeah. Okay. You’re right.”
He arched a brow. “I beg your pardon?”
“I said, you’re right.”
“I know what you said,” he teased, “I’m just having trouble believing I heard correctly.”
She had to smile in spite of her anxiety. “I’m certain I must have told you that you were right about something, sometime.”
“Not lately,” he said with an easy drawl. “I’d better make a note of this so I can remind you the next time you decide to ignore my advice and go off on a tangent.”
A strong need to defend her actions arose. “The trip into the field to look for you was Cleo’s idea. So was shopping.”
“What about when I told you to stay in the truck and you ended up in the barn with the dogs?”
She grimaced. “That was a special situation. I heard whimpering and I was worried about them.”
The light weight of his hands on her shoulders was reassuring yet unsettling at the same time, especially when he began to gently knead her knotted muscles.
“And I worry about you,” Travis said. “All the time. There’s no way I can continue to protect you if you don’t listen to my advice.”
“What I should do is leave here so you won’t have to do anything,” Emma countered. “I’ve already spoken to Adelaide about it but she recommended I sit tight. At least for a while.”
“Excellent advice.” He continued to touch her, but the massaging movement of his hands had stilled the moment she’d mentioned leaving.
