Читать книгу: «Identical Stranger», страница 3

Chapter Three

“I forgot about the photos,” Jack said as he took his phone out of his jacket pocket. They had just entered the hotel again; maybe that’s why he’d finally thought about all the pictures he’d taken earlier today. He and Sophie sat in the lobby once again, only it was now wine and cheese happy hour. While he called up photos, she jumped up to peruse the selection. He also called the hotel Sabrina had mentioned staying at the previous night after her encounter with the rock. What if she’d returned to it for some reason? But the hotel hadn’t seen or heard from her since she left earlier that day. Another dead end.

“Things are really picked over,” Sophie said as she returned with a tiny cluster of grapes and a couple of crackers. “Tell me about these photos.”

“While Sabrina supposedly napped,” he explained, “I took pictures of every male I saw. Maybe you’ll recognize the driver who almost ran you down. If I photographed him earlier today. He may be a guest here and we may be able to get a name.”

She perched on the arm of his overstuffed chair as he scrolled through the more than four dozen cameos he’d taken. “Wow, you didn’t miss a beat,” she said when a picture of a ten-year-old kid with his mother showed up.

“I thought it might amuse Sabrina. She was so upset I was hoping to get her to smile.”

“How well do you know her?” Sophie asked.

“I met her when Buzz and she first got serious and then again at their engagement party. I was Buzz’s best man at their wedding and then I stayed with them one night while I was on my way up to Canada on a case. That was last November, before Buzz left for Antarctica. So, to answer your question, not real well. Today was the longest time she and I have ever talked without someone else around.”

He’d been scrolling while they spoke and now she said, “Stop. Go back one. One more. There.”

“The guy in the hoodie?”

“Yeah.”

He looked up at her, alarmed by how often he had to fight the urge to touch her hand or bump her shoulder. It had been a long time since he’d been flooded with impulses so old-fashioned and innocent yet fueled by such desire. Years in fact, ever since Lisa.

Did Sophie remind him of Lisa? Is that what drew him to her? He didn’t know for sure.

Now was not the time to give in to retrograde musings. He put aside random thoughts as he casually said, “This is the man who attempted to run you down?”

“No. This is the guy I saw upstairs outside Sabrina’s room right before the maid opened the door for us. He came around the corner behind her. He looked at me for a second and then acted as though he’d forgotten something. He turned around and went back the way he’d come. He wasn’t wearing a hoodie then. I think he had light brown hair.”

“Sounds pretty innocuous,” Jack said.

“Yeah. But there was something kind of strange about the whole thing, too,” Sophie said. “The more I think about it, the more I get the feeling he recognized me.” She shook her head. “Maybe he’d just seen Sabrina enter her room earlier in the day and thought I was her.”

“Sabrina talked about seeing a man in the restaurant this morning,” Jack mused. “She was sure she recognized him but she also mentioned he had a beard.”

“This guy was clean shaven.”

“Beards can be shaved off or fake ones can be applied with adhesive,” Jack said.

“That’s true. So we’re at...nowhere?”

“I’m not sure. The first thing to do is ID this guy.”

“How?”

“The valet, the people at the desk. If the guy was upstairs in the hall, then he probably has a room here. We’ll knock on every door if we have to.”

“Or try the maid,” Sophie said.

“That’s good. I don’t recall her name.”

“Bonnie,” Sophie said immediately. “Fiftyish, fading red hair, green eyes.”

Jack whistled softly. “I have to admit I barely remembered what she looked like.”

“That’s because you were busy trying to hide your attempt to break into Sabrina’s room. Let’s split up and question people. It’ll be faster that way.”

He smiled as he got to his feet. “Let’s just do it together. Maybe one of us will pick up things the other misses.”

They started with the valet, who was a different guy from the one who had helped them earlier. As many of the conference attendees were calling for their cars in order to leave the hotel for dinner elsewhere in town, he didn’t have time to ponder the photo. Because he hadn’t been on duty since the day before, it seemed a moot point. The housekeeper had gone home for the day, and though Jack protested, they split up with Sophie taking the front desk and Jack going down to the basement to try to find the handyman he’d glimpsed when he and Sabrina first went to her room. Maybe he saw or heard something.

“Ask if Sabrina called or has any messages,” he told Sophie before he left her side.

“Will do,” Sophie said.

Jack was pretty sure the reason he didn’t want Sophie out of his sight was because she was his sole link to Sabrina. At least it felt as though she was. No two women could look that much alike and not have very close connections.

The truth was, however, he suspected it also had to do with the fact that he was worried she was in the line of fire that he felt partially responsible for creating.

The basement was a brightly lit network of rooms portioned off for conference seminars and was all but empty now. He made his way to the housekeeping, kitchen and maintenance facilities and found a small room labeled Maintenance.

“Hank Tyson never showed up today,” Jack was informed by a harried-looking man wearing a badge proclaiming he was Jerry Able, head of housekeeping. “I’m filling in for him. I don’t know how he handles this job all by himself. With the hotel this crowded, the list of complaints is longer than Santa’s naughty list.”

“I saw someone in coveralls carrying a toolbox up on three a few hours ago,” Jack said.

“Wasn’t me. I called in a local guy to help out. Had to. With this many guests, we’ve got dozens of heater failures, clogged sinks, stuck windows, issues with dead bolts—you name it. Brad Withers and the new guy he hired, Adam something, tried to stay on top of everything. You must have seen one of them.” He frowned as he added, “Wait, do you have an emergency? What kind?”

“No emergency,” Jack said. He called up the picture of the man in the hoodie. “Is this Brad Withers or Adam?”

“I don’t know,” Jerry said. “I mean it’s not Brad for sure but I’ve never actually seen Adam.”

Jack retraced his steps to the lobby, where he found Sophie. He told her the little bit he’d learned. “How about you? Did the desk have any information? Does Sabrina have any messages?”

She shook her head. “Most of the staff has turned over. No one recognized the photo of the man in the hoodie that you sent to my phone. Only one woman remembers Sabrina and that was just because she checked her in this morning. She thought I was her and issued me a new room key. I let it ride.”

“We need people to be looking for her,” he said.

“Well, it was the only way I could learn anything about messages. I’ll go clear it up.”

He caught her arm. “Let me think for a minute.”

“I thought I could stay in her room tonight,” Sophie explained. “If she comes back, I can let you know. Are you on the same floor?”

“I don’t have a room here either,” he said. “The hotel found me a place a mile or two down the road. It’s called Pine Lodge or Pine Lane or something.”

“Pine Ledge,” she said and shuddered dramatically. “You don’t want to stay there.”

“I’ve probably stayed in worse,” he said. “As for you in Sabrina’s room...are you forgetting she more or less disappeared from there?”

“I haven’t forgotten. She must have answered the door to someone who enticed her away—”

“Or snatched her,” he said and even he heard the despair in his voice. This could not be happening, not to Buzz and not on Jack’s watch. He was the one who insisted she take a nap and then left her alone. Where was she? Was he wasting time staying in this hotel?

“Wait a second,” he said aloud. “How did the guy terrorizing Sabrina get a room here if he was just following her? The hotel has been booked for well over a week. He would have had to already have a reservation, which meant he was privy to her plans and that probably means he’s someone Sabrina knows.”

She looked uneasy, as though a thought had occurred to her that she was reluctant to voice. “Go on, say whatever it is you’re thinking,” he prompted her.

“Don’t they say it’s usually the one closest to a person who—”

“No,” he interrupted. “Buzz would never hurt Sabrina or engage someone else to do it for him.”

“But—”

“No. The man is as good as a brother to me. I know him. I know how he feels about his wife. Whoever is terrorizing Sabrina is breaking into her house, dropping rocks on top of her, following her and, maybe now, stealing her out of her room. No way does Buzz have anything to do with any of this.”

“Okay.”

He made a sudden decision. “There’s a chair in the hall,” he announced. “I’m going to park myself in it. I know I won’t sleep if I’m three miles away no matter how good or bad the hotel is so I might as well fidget the night away where I can keep an eye on the door to your—her—room.”

Sophie stared at him a second. “I’ve known you for about three hours. You confronted me in the lobby, called me a nutcase, more or less, and then showed me a picture of a woman who looks a lot like me.”

“Identical to you. You keep shying away from that.”

She waved an impatient hand. “That’s not the point. I’m not sure why, but I trust you. If you knew me you’d realize how crazy that is because I’m one of those cautious people who drive the rest of the world to drink. Anyway, stay in Sabrina’s room with me. If she does come back in the middle of the night, at least she’ll recognize one of us.”

“Actually, she’ll recognize both of us.”

“Are you taking the offer or not?”

“You sure?”

“Positive. I plan on calling room service for dinner. I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry and tired and I have a lot of deep thinking to accomplish. You in?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “Just let me get my suitcase out of the car. Can I get yours for you?”

“I don’t have one,” she said. “I believe I may have mentioned I left kind of spontaneously.”

“Wait right here,” he told her. “I’ll be right back.”

* * *

THEY ATE CHICKEN sandwiches while they watched the local news. It wasn’t until it was over that Sophie realized Jack had been waiting for some kind of a horrible report that a female body had been discovered on a lonely beach or at the bottom of a cliff. She was glad she hadn’t thought of that.

The room came with two queen-size beds so where to sleep didn’t pose an issue. A bigger problem was the fact that Sophie didn’t have anything to change into. Jack solved that by handing her his pajama top, which brushed her knees, and then putting on his bottoms.

“I saw this very scenario in one of my mother’s old movies,” Sophie told him as they stood a few feet apart looking each other over. “I believe it’s time for you to string a clothesline between our beds so we can drape a blanket to preserve my modesty.”

He laughed, then he sat down on the bed and fooled with the alarm on his phone. She glanced at him again, rather taken aback by all the muscles in his chest and the hypnotizing shape of his well-formed arms. Was he trying to prove something by parading all that male virility so close she could touch—

Wait a second, just stop. Since when had things like rippling muscles and toned abs intimidated her? She wasn’t even interested in that kind of thing. A person’s mind was the true seat of sensuality.

Really? her subconscious chided. What about Danny’s mind did you find so terribly stimulating?

That was a tricky one. In fact, she’d be hard-pressed to truly define him. In ways, he’d seemed one faceted, but then again, she’d known him only a few weeks. What he might have lacked in original thought, she decided, he made up for in other endearing qualities. Like the way they always laughed at the same things. Really, they never even disagreed let alone argued.

Until this morning.

In her head, she heard him tell her mother that he found Sophie’s enthusiasm about her students and her job “cute.”

“Cute” sat heavy in her heart.

“Looks like you’re working away on those deep thoughts,” Jack said as he checked his phone messages.

“Any word?” she asked, ignoring his remark.

“Just work-related stuff, nothing from Sabrina. So, what were you thinking about?”

“Danny.”

He put the phone aside. “Go on. This sounds interesting.”

She wished she knew Jack well enough to ask him to put on a T-shirt. His chest with its fine sprinkling of dark hair was distracting. And where did those square shoulders come from? Did he spend half his life in a gym?

Just as though he read her mind—or perhaps her stare—he got up and snatched a forest green T-shirt out of his suitcase, pulled it over his head and returned to his bed. It kind of helped. “You were going to tell me about your Danny,” he said with an encouraging smile.

“Not my Danny, not anymore,” she said and sat down on the edge of her mattress facing him, making sure their knees didn’t touch. They were very close nonetheless, something that might have bothered her more if his comment hadn’t driven home the fact that she’d blown it with Danny. He was gone by now, taking her opportunity for marriage and family with him. This hadn’t bothered her hours before, but now, as the dark outside the hotel window pressed against the window glass, she suddenly felt adrift.

Instead of telling Jack little or nothing as she had planned, she found herself spilling her guts and, by voicing the events of the morning, reliving them. He didn’t say a word as she spoke, and when she was finished she met his gaze. “Do you think I was unfair to him?”

He responded at once. “You unfair to him? Hardly. I think Danny has to take the heat for this mess. The guy sounds...odd.”

She felt a sudden wave of defensiveness for Danny. After all, Jack had heard only her side of the story and as she’d retold it, her own complicity in what happened is what struck her. “I don’t know if that’s a fair observation,” she said.

“Tell me how you met.”

She smiled. “It was like a movie in a way, you know, guy trying to figure out what kind of apple to choose, girl—who happened to be a big fan of apples—offering advice. He was very sweet. He explained his company had sent him to Portland for a few weeks and admitted he was lonely. He asked me out to dinner and when I said yes he seemed so pleased. I was craving Italian food. Turns out it was his favorite, too. It was just so—”

“Suspicious?” he said.

She frowned. “Cynic. I thought it was exciting. He asked my opinion about things and listened to my answers—that’s a very engaging thing for a guy to do. And he’s super kind to my mother. She isn’t exactly easy to get along with. She and I—well, we’re like oil and water. It would be a war zone if I hadn’t learned not to react to every little thing. Anyway, back to Danny. His marriage proposal came with a ready-made honeymoon, a big house one block over for us to live in and financial aid for my mother in the form of live-in help so she can stay in her own house. And he even quit his job with a prestigious law firm up in Seattle to relocate to Portland. That’s pretty amazing, right? I don’t know why it hit me so hard this morning.”

“Then I stand corrected,” Jack said. “The guy sounds like a prize. Why did you turn him down?”

“It was just so unexpected. And it was hard thinking straight with my mother butting in all the time.”

“Why was she there again?”

“She lives with me, or I live with her. It was her and Dad’s house and then she lost it after he died. I bought it back when I finished college and started teaching. She has a few health issues that aren’t as bad as she thinks they are, but, well, the truth is, she can’t afford to live on her own and I can’t afford separate housing for her.”

“Sounds like you and she have an...uneasy... relationship,” he said.

She started to protest but nodded instead. “Yeah, it is. I’m a disappointment.”

He looked incredulous. “What?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “I’m not big enough, you know?”

“Physically, you’re perfect so what does that mean?”

She fought the moment of pleasure his compliment created. “I’m not smart enough or funny enough or ambitious enough or... You know what I mean. I understand most of her bitterness comes from Dad dying so young and all the burdens of raising a kid falling on her shoulders. He left Mom with few resources.”

“Sounds as if you’ve been trying to make things up to her since then. How old were you when he died?”

“Eleven. He was the one who wanted children. Mom really didn’t, she was happy with just the two of them, but he talked her into it. My birth caused all sorts of physical issues for her.”

“How do you know all this?”

“She told me.”

He stared at her for a long minute, the blue of his eyes filling her whole head. “Sophie, what kind of parent tells their child they didn’t want them?”

Sophie blinked. She couldn’t think of a word to say. Out of loyalty at the very least, she should defend her mom, but words just escaped her.

“Does Danny know about this?” Jack asked.

She swallowed and, for the second time that day, that stone-like feeling started to creep up her legs toward her heart. She stood abruptly and glanced longingly at the door. She was running out of safe havens. Taking a deep breath, she slowly sat back down. “I think it’s kind of hard to miss,” she admitted.

“Then why did he propose in front of her?”

“I wondered that, too. I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t he ask you to step outside?”

She gestured toward the window, through which nothing could be seen. “It was cold and pouring down rain.”

“Trust me,” he said softly. “If I loved a woman enough to ask her to share the rest of my life and I knew someone intimidated her, I would stand in a blizzard to talk to her in private. The only reason I would do it right there in front of that person—” He stopped short. “Well, what do I know?”

“Finish what you were going to say.”

“I’ve said enough,” he mumbled. “Only, if this guy is such a dandy listener, then how did he so totally misread your level of commitment?”

“I must have misled him.”

“You seem pretty straightforward to me,” he said.

“I’m not myself today,” she mumbled.

“Maybe you are yourself today.”

“What does that mean?”

“Maybe today you got pushed over your own personal edge of tolerance. Maybe today you finally got tired of never being heard.”

Once again his blue gaze filled her vision. She rubbed her forehead until it faded away.

“I’m sorry,” Jack said into the continuing silence. His voice turned introspective as he added, “I have no right to counsel anyone on romance and love.”

Anxious for a chance to focus the spotlight elsewhere, she perked up. “That’s a provocative sentence. Care to explain it?”

“No, I do not.” He opened the bed and got under the covers. “I’m ready to put an end to this day. How about you?”

“Please.”

She lay there in the dark, very aware of Jack just a few feet away, listening to him breathe. It was a nice, steady, reassuring noise, and as her mind drifted she admitted that although his comments and questions had been probing and painful, she’d enjoyed talking to him. Was there any truth in what he said?

Eventually her thoughts circled back to Danny and she recalled the times she’d basked in his compliments. Now, in retrospect, she’d been like a thirsty flower aching for water. She sometimes found children like this in her classroom and her heart always went out to them. Was that partially because she recognized their need in herself?

Man, that was embarrassing but she could feel the truth lurking in there somewhere. If Danny had seen her only as an easy way to fill a few idle hours, then why quit his job and move, why buy a house, why ask her to marry him?

What if he truly did love her? What if he’d just gotten heavy-handed with the marriage stuff and just wanted to share the moment with her mother, who, face it, was an awfully big part of Sophie’s life. She knew he’d tried to call several times today, she’d seen his name on her screen every time she looked... What if she’d just told him she needed a few days to think instead of running away? What if she’d had a backbone and insisted she and Danny go talk in the kitchen? Why was it his problem to figure out her needs?

What had she done?

If she’d been alone in the room, she would have switched on the light, gotten dressed and driven home. She suddenly had no idea what she was doing here.

And then she remembered Sabrina. Sabrina, missing. Sabrina absent from this room without explanation, drawn by someone or something she couldn’t ignore. Sophie knew in a moment of insight only two things could do that. Love...or fear. Jack was adamant that his friend would not be behind anything that would harm Sabrina, and she would have to accept he knew what he was talking about. But what if Sabrina had called her husband for comfort? Maybe Buzz knew where she’d gone.

Fear was different. Fear could be generated by something hidden, something Sabrina might not have confessed to her husband or his best friend, a secret, something that caught up with her.

Regardless of anything else, where was Sabrina right now? Sophie fell asleep saying a silent prayer that wherever she was it was because she wanted to be there and she was safe.

It was impossible to tell how much time had elapsed when a voice woke her from her sleep. She sat up immediately, her heart in her throat, and scanned the room. “Sabrina?” she said and was met by nothing but silence. A line of light shone under the door but the rest of the room was dark and still. And then she heard the voice again, and realized it came from Jack.

“Lisa,” he moaned, and then, “No!” uttered with a gut-wrenching sob that sent chills washing through Sophie’s body.

“No, no,” he whispered again, pain dripping from his voice like blood from a wounded animal.

Sophie lay frozen, not sure what to do. As the sound of tossing and turning continued, she slipped out of bed and approached his dark shape. He was mumbling now, his head turning from side to side. She sat down beside him and he immediately clutched her wrist.

“It’s okay,” she said in a calm voice. “Everything’s fine. You’re safe.”

His grip didn’t loosen and his body stayed rigid. She had the feeling he was like a soldier in a trench, lying in wait, uncertain what was coming but geared up to annihilate it in order to stay alive.

She tried to reach the light switch on the lamp but it was just out of reach. The shifting of her body weight made his grip tighten.

“Jack,” she said. “It’s me, Sophie, remember? We met earlier today, here in Seaport. I’m the girl with the purple streak in my hair.”

For the first time, his fingers relaxed, but he still didn’t let go. She took a deep breath and continued prattling on about nothing as she adjusted herself on the bed next to him, propped up on his spare pillow, half sitting with her legs stretched out in front of her. She stroked his hair without considering whether or not it was too personal. He was in pain, that much was clear.

When his restlessness stopped and his breathing returned to normal, she slowly withdrew her hand, but when she shifted her weight to stand, his arm slipped over her legs and his head fell against her hip. Trapped!

But not uncomfortable.

She tugged on a corner of the blanket to get a little coverage, then settled down, her intention to wait until he started snoring and then disengage herself. It seemed like second nature to continue stroking his fine hair as she leaned back and closed her eyes.

Who was Lisa and what in the world had happened to her?