Receptionist Under Cover

by C. J. Carmichael

  “I’m afraid not. We’re very strict about confidentiality at Fox & Fisher.”

  “Which is a good thing.” He touched her elbow as they crossed the street. She found the gentlemanly gesture rather sweet, and unexpected, from a man she suspected cared little for most social graces.

  But then, he’d seemed very comfortable in his tux the other night.

  “Do you attend a lot of charity balls?” she asked.

  “I try not to. In fact, after the other night, I called my publicist and said that was the last one. The people who go to these things mean well, I’m sure. But they’re so caught up in the cycle of consume, consume, consume. They listen to my talk and don’t even recognize that their lifestyle is part of the problem.”

  Having struggled with the same issues for most of her life, Nadine had to agree with him. Her mother put pressure on her to attend these functions, but each one seemed to require more effort than the last.

  “Well, this is it.” She stopped in front of a three-story apartment building. Counting out the units, she pointed to the window near the corner. “I think that was where June and Stephen lived.”

  Patrick stuffed his hands into his pockets and stared at the window for a long time. The curtains were drawn, but the interior lights were on and every now and then a shadow flickered as someone walked by.

  “My son grew up here,” he said, his voice hoarse. He glanced around the block, taking in the convenience store across the street and a coffee shop on the corner. Both were probably places June Stone—and Stephen—had spent a lot of time in.

  “Want to try that place?” he asked, pointing at the coffee shop. It was on the corner of Ninth Street. Rafaella’s was printed in white letters on a black awning over the window.

  “Sure.” She started in that direction, then stopped. Patrick was still gazing at the third-floor window.

  “I suppose June thought she was doing me a favor by raising our son alone. But she should have told me.”

  JUNE’S DEATH WAS HAVING a profound effect on Patrick. She wasn’t the first of his contemporaries to pass away. That would have been Jed, who’d died in an avalanche, a day after Patrick had skied the same terrain. Jed’s passing had been hard, but finding out about June was even harder.

  She had been his first love. And now, he was just discovering, the mother of his child.

  June had been a straightforward person, intelligent and practical. At eighteen, she’d been cute, but it wasn’t really her looks that had drawn him so much as her outgoing personality and her love of sports. She’d played volleyball and basketball and he’d liked the fact that she could shoot a basket just as well as he could.

  He’d preferred the solitary sports. Back in school it had been track and field. As an adult he’d taken up cycling, kayaking, mountain climbing…The list went on and on.

  When they’d broken up, the summer after graduation, he’d been sad, but not for long. He’d worked at a bike shop until he had enough cash for a trip to Europe. He’d always had a yearning to travel.

  Meanwhile June had gone on to college, as she’d always planned, only now he knew that her first year would not have gone as planned, because she’d been pregnant. He’d had time to do some calculating and he figured the baby would have been born in March, at the latest.

  Three months after she sent him a Christmas card saying everything was fine.

  Another shadow passed by the window in the apartment. It seemed sad, somehow, that a new family had moved in, playing out their passions and dramas and dreams in the very rooms where June and Stephen had once lived.

  Patrick glanced away. Nadine had removed her sunglasses—it was growing dark now—and was waiting for him patiently, though she was probably cold. Now that the sun was gone, the air was cooling rapidly.

  “Thanks for waiting,” he said, moving toward her.

  “No problem. It must be quite a shock. Not only finding out you had a son. But he’s eighteen years old.”

  “Yes. I cared about June, she was a good person and I don’t want to blame her. But if she’d given me a chance, I would have liked to be a part of his life.”

  “Maybe the two of you would have gotten married.”

  Somehow he couldn’t picture that. “Maybe.”

  They were at the café now, and he held the door open for Nadine. Inside, the room was welcoming, furnished with sofas and upholstered chairs, the windows draped in soft fabrics and the lighting warm and intimate. It felt a bit like walking into someone’s home.

  They were directed to a table for two next to a redbrick wall. Patrick helped Nadine off with her trench coat, then removed his leather jacket and hung both on a nearby coatrack.

  He didn’t normally pay much attention to the clothing people wore, but he did notice that Nadine’s dress clung nicely to her petite figure. When she removed her hat, he saw that her thick, dark hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail. In his line of work, he saw women in practical ponytails all the time—but this one looked more elegant than sporty. The style showed off her delicate ears and earrings long enough to swing with each movement of her head.

  He was reminded of how perfectly lovely she’d looked at the gala ball the other night. To the manner born, and all that stuff. He supposed being able to fit in with your surroundings was a useful talent when you were in her line of work.

  He forced himself to wait until they’d both ordered coffee to ask, “So tell me what you’ve found out.”

  She cleared her throat. “I’ve contacted June’s sister in Boston.”

  The obituary had mentioned Diane—whom he remembered vaguely.

  “I tried to call Diane, too,” he said. “But her number wasn’t listed.”

  Nadine nodded, setting her earrings in motion again. “She still goes by Stone, though she is married. I hoped they might own a home and I was lucky. By checking the Boston property tax listings online I was able to find their address. From that, I figured out the most likely school for their children to attend.”

  That was clever. “But how did identifying the school help?”

  “The school has a Web site. In one of the monthly newsletters, Diane was listed as pizza mom.”

  “Pizza mom. What in the world is that?”

  “It sounds like a school fundraiser. The kids send in orders for a special pizza lunch once a month. At any rate, Diane was the volunteer organizer and her phone number was printed right next to her name.”

  Pretty ingenious legwork, Patrick thought, relieved to have this solid evidence that she knew what she was doing. “So you called her. Did you tell her I’d hired you to find Stephen?”

  “Not exactly. I told her my name and that I lived in Manhattan. I said I had just heard that her sister had passed away and I was trying to find Stephen.”

  “You didn’t mention me?”

  “At this point I thought it would be good to say as little as possible. Diane made it very easy for me, actually. She didn’t ask many questions at all. She’s probably fielded a lot of calls since her sister passed away, so she just assumed I must be a friend.”

  He edged forward on his seat. “Did she tell you about Stephen? Is he living with her now? He’s only eighteen.”

  Nadine sighed, which he didn’t take as a good sign.

  “Diane says that Stephen stayed with them for a few weeks after the funeral. But, apparently he wasn’t very impressed with Boston. He decided to head to the Rocky Mountains, in Canada, with a friend. They’re both certified ski instructors and they’re hoping they can find a job.”

  “Canada? Hell, that’s far.” He’d been hoping to locate Stephen in Boston, just a short flight away. This was an unexpected complication, and disappointing. “Couldn’t he find a job a little closer? There are plenty of ski hills in New England.”

  “Diane told me Stephen is taking his mother’s death pretty hard. He wanted to go somewhere far away, a place with no memories.”

  “He didn’t have memories of his mother in Boston.
”

  “Maybe Stephen craves adventure…like his father.”

  Her comment jolted Patrick. To this point his son had seemed more abstract than real. But he and Stephen shared the same DNA. And though it wasn’t logical, he felt proud.

  “Diane dropped Stephen off at the airport about two weeks ago,” Nadine continued. “He and his friend were flying to Calgary, Alberta, where they planned to buy a cheap car, then head out to the Rockies.”

  “So now what?” Patrick wondered. Since finding out he had a son, he hadn’t been able to sleep through the night once. He needed some resolution. Soon. “Canada is a big place. How do we find him?”

  THE SERVER ARRIVED THEN TO SEE if they wanted to order anything to eat. Nadine could tell Patrick was impatient with the interruption, but she was suddenly starving.

  She’d been working hard the past few days, running on adrenaline and nerves. She needed food to settle her stomach.

  “I’ll have the pasta special, please.”

  Patrick just shook his head. As soon as they were alone again, he asked, “So what’s the plan?”

  “We need to find where Stephen is working. It makes sense that he would head to one of the larger, world-class resorts, not just a local ski hill. I’ve done some research and it seems that there are three main possibilities, within two or three hours of Calgary.”

  “And they are?”

  She pulled a sheet of paper from her bag and read out the list. “Sunshine Village at Banff, the Lake Louise ski hill or the Kicking Horse Resort in Golden.”

  “I’ve heard of all of those.” His forehead knotted as he seemed to consider something. “In fact, I made some notes a few years ago when I was considering a book on ski adventures in the Canadian Rockies. And you’re sure Stephen will be at one of those three places?”

  “Pretty sure. The only other major ski hill in Canada is Whistler, but Stephen would have flown into Vancouver if he wanted to find a job at that resort.”

  True enough. “So what happens next? Have you tried phoning those resorts?”

  “I’ve called, but so far I haven’t had any luck. It turns out that they do a lot of hiring at the beginning of November. They won’t have their full complement of employees entered into their systems for a few weeks yet.”

  “Hell.” He shifted impatiently in his seat.

  The server came with her dinner, and she picked up her fork. “Here’s my recommendation. We wait fourteen days, and then I try calling the resorts again.”

  “That’s too long,” he said without even considering it. “You need to fly up there and look for him in person.”

  “Me? Fly to Canada?” Too late, Nadine realized she should have expected the suggestion. She could tell Patrick wasn’t a patient man. And finding his son was clearly very important to him.

  “I can’t wait two more weeks to find him.”

  “We could hire an investigator in Calgary to follow this up,” she suggested.

  Patrick frowned. “I’m not keen on working with someone I haven’t met with face-to-face.”

  She tried to think of a third option, but couldn’t. Maybe she could dissuade him if she talked dollars. “It will be expensive. Air flights, hotels, rental cars. Plus I’d have to charge for meals, on top of my regular hourly fee.”

  “Obviously the retainer I paid you won’t be nearly enough. I can write you another check right now.” He pulled out a blank check from his wallet. She waited while he filled it out, then passed it to her.

  Five thousand dollars. Holy crap. “This should cover it.” She stared at the check, realizing she was out of excuses now. She had to take a trip to Canada—but how was she going to do that? She’d taken on this case intending to wrap it up while still carrying on with her usual receptionist duties.

  Nadine swallowed. She’d have to think of something to tell the partners. “Right. Well, then. I guess I’m going to Canada.”

  Patrick rubbed his chin. “Maybe we should both go.”

  “Pardon me? But I thought you had a book due?”

  “I can write just as well on the plane and in a hotel room in the Rockies as I can here in my apartment. If I travel with you, then I’ll be right there to meet Stephen, as soon as you find him.”

  Oh, Lord, no. This job was going to be difficult enough, without having the client traveling with her—seeing all her mistakes firsthand.

  “I’ll call you as soon as I find him. You can catch the very next plane—”

  “Calgary’s on the other side of the continent. Even if I do manage to book the next available flight, I’ll still lose a day to travel. And I know I’ll be out of my mind with nerves the whole time. No. I really think this plan is the best. Besides, while I’m there, I can see if there’s any potential for a book on the Canadian Rockies.”

  Nadine couldn’t think of anything to say that would dissuade him.

  With her head bowed over the dinner she no longer had any interest in eating, she tried to sneak a look at him. But she found him staring at her. His forehead was lined, his eyes appeared anxious. To her overwrought imagination, it seemed he was wondering if he’d made a mistake hiring her.

  She wouldn’t blame him, because she was wondering the same thing.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE NEXT MORNING, NADINE’S phone rang before it was light. She pulled herself out of her warm bedding and picked up the receiver she kept by her bed. Her mother loved calling her early on the weekend.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Ahh—this is Patrick O’Neil. I was trying to reach Nadine Kimble.”

  Adrenaline pumped through her, waking her more effectively than any alarm clock. “This is Nadine.”

  She swung her feet to the wool rug, still holding the receiver to her ear.

  Patrick O’Neil. She’d given him her home number last night so he could call after he’d made their travel arrangements. But she hadn’t expected to hear from him this early. According to the digital display on the built-in media center across the room, it wasn’t even eight.

  “I managed to get two tickets on a ten o’clock flight. I hope that leaves you enough time to pack.”

  “Ten o’clock this evening? It’ll be tight, but I should be able to manage.”

  “Ten o’clock this morning.”

  Good Lord. Was he serious?

  “I can arrange for a limo to pick you up in an hour. Is that enough time?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  He was silent for a bit, then said, “I thought we agreed I would go for the first available flight?”

  “Yes. But—”

  “As long as you have your credit card and your passport, you’ll be fine.”

  Holy crap. Adrenaline surging, Nadine ran to the bathroom and checked her hair. It needed washing, but she would never have time to dry it properly. She tried to remember where she’d put her passport after her last international trip to…

  She thought it had been Belize. But it might have been that shopping trip to Paris.

  “You really don’t waste time, do you?” she said, switching the phone to Speaker so she could squeeze toothpaste on her brush.

  “I figured the faster we got on this the better.”

  Sure. But giving her one hour notice? She started thinking of all the things she would need. A trip to Canada meant warm coats, boots and bulky sweaters.

  “Oh, and try to limit your luggage to carry-on. We have to make a connection in Toronto and the timing is kind of tight.”

  Hell.

  “I have everything organized. All I need from you is your address.”

  So he could pick her up in the limo. Only, she couldn’t let him do that. Her Upper East Side address would be sure to lead to questions she didn’t want to answer.

  “I need to get my files from the office. How about you pick me up there?”

  Thinking of all she had to do, in one short hour, made Nadine’s stomach swirl.

  Find her ID, pack her bag, cancel Sunday dinner with
her parents, let the people at the office know she was going away for a few days….

  Oh, boy. That was going to be the hardest. Maybe she should just phone the office number and leave a message. But that would give Lindsay and Nathan zero notice that she wasn’t going to be at work on Monday.

  After a quick shower, Nadine dressed in airplane clothes—no metal zippers, or belts, shoes that slipped off easily, layers in case the plane was too hot or too cold.

  Who should she call—Nathan or Lindsay? She would feel extra guilty lying to Nathan, he was such a straight arrow himself. But Lindsay would give her a grilling, and she didn’t have time to come up with a great cover story.

  In the end, she dialed the number for Nathan’s cell phone, because she was certain that he would accept her “need to go away for a few days on a personal matter” without any questions.

  As she waited for him to answer—or, better yet, to be diverted to his message service—she started searching through her underwear drawer for her passport.

  While she was there, she might as well pack her underwear, too.

  Suddenly she heard Lindsay speaking. “Fox here.”

  “Oh, hi, Lindsay. I thought I was calling Nathan.”

  “He’s in the shower. What’s up?”

  Nadine drew a deep breath and stopped looking for the passport. She needed one hundred percent concentration now.

  “I was just calling to let you know that I have to go out of town on a personal matter. I’m not going to be able to make it into work on Monday or Tuesday. Wednesday might be iffy, too.”

  “Wow. That personal matter sure came up quickly. You didn’t say anything about this yesterday.”

  “I’m very sorry for the late notice.”

  “Not a problem. Actually, it’s a good time for you to take some holidays as you won’t get many opportunities once Kate is on maternity leave.”

  “Right. Well, I guess I’d better get going…”

  “Where?”

  Nadine had been hoping to hang up, but Lindsay spoke too quickly. “It’s—nowhere special.”