Identical Stranger (HQR Intrigue)

by Alice Sharpe

  “She’s prettier than me,” Sophie said.

  “She’s a duplicate of you,” Jack murmured, his glance darting from the telephone to Sophie. “And you’re a duplicate of her.”

  “She doesn’t have a mole on her cheek like I do,” Sophie continued, unable to stop staring at the woman on the screen. “Does she color her hair?”

  “I don’t know. Except that she doesn’t have a purple streak.”

  “Neither did I until this morning. You said her name is Sabrina?”

  “Yeah. Sabrina Cromwell. Her maiden name was Long. Sabrina Long. She grew up in Astoria, Oregon, about sixty minutes north of here. How about you?”

  Sophie had been digging in her shoulder bag as he spoke and now produced her wallet. She handed him her driver’s license. “Born and raised in Portland, Oregon. How old is Sabrina?”

  “Eight years younger than Buzz, so around twenty-six or so. Wait, I remember Buzz saying she’s a July baby.” He scanned her driver’s license. “Looks like you were born in July, too.”

  “Lots of people are born in July,” she said as she continued staring at Sabrina’s face.

  He dug in his pocket and produced his own wallet. “You don’t have to take me on face value either,” he said, handing her his driver’s and private investigator’s licenses. She looked them over before returning them. “Are you adopted?” he asked.

  “No. Is she?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “I want to meet her.”

  “I think she’ll want to meet you, too, but I’m pretty sure she turned her phone off when she decided to take a nap. I’ll try calling her room.”

  Sophie popped to her feet. “She’s here, in this hotel, right now?”

  “Yes.”

  She blinked several times. Was she up to more shocks and surprises? Did she have a choice? She followed Jack to the desk, where he placed the call but ended up leaving a message. “I’m going upstairs to check on her,” Jack said. “I’ll be right back.”

  “May I come with you?” Sophie squeaked, then stiffened her resolve. “I need to see her with my own eyes. This is all so...weird.”

  “I think she’ll need a few minutes to adjust to...things. She’s pretty stressed.”

  “Yeah, well, so am I.”

  He smiled and the transformation was stunning. Half-surreal before, he now turned into a genuine human being. “I can see how you’d feel that way,” he said, and together they rode up to the third floor and walked down the hall.

  He finally stopped and knocked on the door of room 302. It was the same room Sophie had stayed in the summer before, the one she’d hoped to get today because it had a great view of the beach. They waited a few seconds and then he knocked again, harder this time. He twisted the knob to no effect. “I’m going to try a credit card,” he said as he opened his wallet.

  “Shouldn’t we just go downstairs and ask for help?”

  “Probably, but it’s chancy they’ll open the door without provocation. I saw this in a movie. It might work, what the heck.”

  As he ran a variety of cards through the magnetic lock, Sophie heard footsteps and glanced up to find a maid carrying an armload of towels walking toward them. She elbowed Jack, who glanced over his shoulder and quickly stuck the cards in his pockets. Sophie looked back at the maid in time to see a man turn the corner on his way to the elevator. He and Sophie made eye contact. He stopped dead in his tracks. His gaze shifted as he patted his pockets, then he turned on his heels and disappeared back around the corner.

  It looked as though he’d forgotten something.

  The housekeeper paused midstep. “I saw you earlier today,” she said, smiling at Sophie. “Did you leave your key in your room?”

  “Yes,” Sophie said. The woman had mistaken her for Sabrina Cromwell. The last possibility that Jack might be in cahoots with Danny in some elaborate scheme to accomplish heaven knew what toppled off the edge of probability.

  “I can open it for you,” the woman said. For a second, Sophie wondered how they would explain the sleeping woman already in the room, but the bed was empty and the maid went on her way.

  They closed the door behind them.

  Jack glanced at the open door of the bathroom as he strode to the balcony and tried the glass door. It was locked. Planting his hands on his waist, he stated the obvious. “She’s not here.”

  “Where are her things?” Sophie asked because aside from a rumpled bed and a damp hand towel in the bathroom, the room looked untouched.

  “In her car. I guess I should go make sure it’s still parked outside. Give me your cell number and I’ll call you when I get this cleared up.”

  The impulse to wait in the lobby drew her like a magnet. She could find a corner where she could commence thinking about her life. Waiting felt comfortable. It felt natural.

  She looked up into Jack’s blue eyes. The anxiety she found there made waiting seem an inconceivable option. “You think something happened to her,” she stated flatly.

  “I don’t see how it could have, but yeah, I’m concerned.”

  “Then I’m coming with you.”

  “You don’t need to do that. I’ll let you know.”

  “Listen,” Sophie said, reaching over to grasp his arm, then removing her hand at once. There must be something on his jacket sleeve, some invisible substance that made her palms tingle. “There aren’t any rooms available at the hotel, I’m not going home and I’m not going to risk losing track of you and Sabrina. It’s like fate is screaming my name, trying to tell me something. Normally I would ignore such unwanted callouts from things like destiny and all that, but today—I don’t know, I think I should listen. I can’t explain it, I just have to find out where Sabrina is, who she is. I have to see her.” She shrugged and slid him a glance to see if he was ready to bolt. He actually nodded and she took a deep breath. “I don’t understand how anyone can look so much like me and not actually be—” She stopped short.

  “Related,” he finished for her and briefly touched her arm as though he understood. “Nor do I. All right, come with me. Let’s see if we can find her car.”

  * * *

  “SHE’S DRIVING BUZZ’S old Chevy,” he said as they walked out into the rainy afternoon. “Think rusty hulk.”

  He pulled the hood up on his jacket. She hesitated while still under the protection of the portico, and he realized her coat didn’t have a hood and the rain had done nothing but go from bad to worse. “Why don’t you wait here while I check the outside lot, then if need be, we can look in the parking garage together.”

  “Okay,” she agreed.

  Ten minutes later he jogged back to the front of the hotel to find Sophie gone. Man, he was losing women left and right today, but in this case, he thought it likely Sophie Sparrow had rethought her involvement with this situation and cut her loses. He was disappointed and not only because he was curious about the connection between her and Sabrina. Maybe it was for the better. What good could possibly come from being attracted to a woman who lived hours away, looked just like his best friend’s wife and, more to the point, was in the middle of a relationship with a guy named Danny?

  Was he attracted? Yeah, for whatever reason, he was. He wanted to know why she’d stuck purple in her hair. He wanted to know why she was timid one minute and brave the next.

  Bypassing the valet’s offer of help, he entered the parking garage located under the hotel.

  Sophie was waiting for him inside the entrance. He was able to stifle the smile that threatened to curve his lips, but there wasn’t a thing he could do about the spark of pleasure that flared in his chest.

  “It was cold standing out there,” she said as she joined him. “It’s not much warmer in here, though. I take it her car isn’t in the lot?”

  “No. Let’s work our way down.”

  But sear
ch as they might, they could not find a rusty white Chevy SUV with a red stripe down its side in among all the sleeker, newer models. By the time they reached the bottom tier, Jack was sure Buzz’s car wasn’t parked in either the lot or the garage. That meant Sabrina had driven it away from the hotel. Why? What caused her to leave without telling him? It seemed so out of character.

  He took out his cell to try Sabrina again but the reception was nonexistent down here.

  “Let’s go back up to the lobby and see if I can get some coverage. Obviously Sabrina left the hotel for some reason. I guess she couldn’t find me to explain why. I’ll call her again.”

  Sophie had to know as well as he that his words didn’t explain why she didn’t call or text or why she wasn’t responding to his repeated attempts to contact her. She nodded but made no comment.

  He started up the ramp, unaware until he was nearing the ground floor that Sophie wasn’t directly behind him. He turned to look for her right as revving engine noises bellowed up from below. A human scream came right before four thousand pounds of screeching metal shot past Jack and accelerated up the last ramp, leaving behind the acrid smell of burned rubber.

  Jack ran back down the ramp half-sick at what he might find. “Sophie?”

  She was plastered to one of the brick support pillars, eyes closed, shaking like a leaf. She was missing her right shoe, and her handbag had disappeared from her shoulder. He clutched her arms. Her eyes flew open, and for a second she stared at him as if she’d never seen him before. Then she burst into tears and fell against his chest.

  A few seconds later, pounding footsteps heralded the arrival of the parking valet, who stopped short in his tracks and stared at them as he gasped for breath.

  “Is everyone here okay?” he finally managed to sputter.

  Jack titled Sophie’s chin up. Her brown eyes were huge but a resolute expression had begun to chase away the initial fright. “How about it? Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Shaken but recovering,” she muttered.

  “What happened?”

  With a glance at the valet, who seemed to be hanging on their every word, she shook her head again. “Later.”

  The valet was not as reticent. “I heard a racket down here and then a car came flying out going ninety miles an hour!” he said, his eyes as round as hubcaps. “I thought for sure someone had been run over flatter than a pancake.”

  “Did you get a license plate number?” Jack asked.

  “Are you kidding?”

  “How about a glimpse of the driver?”

  “As I was ducking out of the way for my life? Nope.”

  “Was it a car you’d parked?”

  “Doubt it. We have valet spaces reserved on the first floor so we can deliver as fast as possible. If it came from down here, chances are good someone parked it themselves.”

  “How long have you been on duty?” Jack asked.

  “Since morning. I’m going home soon.”

  “Then do you remember a woman who looked a lot like Ms. Sparrow here parking an older white SUV Chevy?”

  “Or taking it out,” Sophie added, her voice shaky.

  “No. I haven’t seen a car like that, not that I remember anyway. There’s a parking lot outside. Some people prefer to use that no matter what the weather. Some people really don’t like underground garages.”

  “I may now be one of them,” Sophie mumbled, then took a deep breath and straightened up, pushing herself away from Jack’s grasp. “I’ve lost my shoulder bag and my phone,” she announced, nose and eyes dripping.

  “I’ll find them,” the valet said, and went to work searching for the bag. With a triumphant whoop, the kid found her purse on top of a car parked a few spaces away and retrieved it. He handed it to Jack, who pressed it into Sophie’s hands.

  Sophie opened the purse and withdrew a tissue to wipe at her face.

  “I’ll look for your shoe,” the valet offered as he scanned the pavement and kept talking. “You know, we get some awful drivers here, we really do, but this guy took the cake.” He leaned way over to shine a penlight under a row of vehicles. He stood again and turned to search the other direction. “That dude peeled out of here like the cops were after him.” He knelt again to shine his light. “Found it!” he called as he all but crawled under a van. He stood up grasping the shoe and focused the narrow beam of light on the skid marks scorching the pavement. “I guess you’re just lucky he was a good enough driver to miss hitting you,” he said as he handed the shoe to Sophie.

  Sophie’s lips parted. Jack thought she was going to say something but instead she slipped the black loafer on her foot as he steadied her arm.

  “Do you have your phone on you?” he asked the valet.

  “Sure.”

  “Sophie, give him your number. Let’s see if your phone will ring.”

  “Good thing I turned it back on,” she said as she rattled off her number.

  A second later they heard a ring that Jack tracked down to the far side of the garage, where he found it had landed against the tire of a truck. As he picked it up and glanced at the lit screen, he saw numerous alerts that “Danny” had called. He handed it back to Sophie. She scanned the screen momentarily before turning the device off and shoving it in her pocket.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she said as she settled her handbag on her shoulder.

  “Sure.”

  She waited until the valet was far ahead of them before tugging on Jack’s sleeve. “The car didn’t veer to avoid me,” she said. “It swerved to hit me.”

  * * *

  “WHY DID YOU wait to tell me that?” Jack asked as they took their first deep breath of fresh ocean air. The rain Sophie had previously avoided now created a welcome cleansing, and she closed her eyes to turn her face upward.

  “Sophie?”

  She let Jack lead her under the portico, relieved when the valet left to help an arriving customer. “I don’t know,” she said. “I guess I didn’t want to make a fuss.”

  He looked down at her as if to speak, but his expression suddenly softened. With one finger he touched her cheek. A raindrop glistened on his fingertip and he met her gaze. It was a strange moment full of currents Sophie didn’t understand, but that was okay. This whole day had been a time out of time, one bewildering moment following another.

  “Jack?” she finally said.

  He blinked away whatever place he’d been lost in. “You sound just like Sabrina,” he said. “She didn’t want to make a fuss either. And now she’s gone.”

  “Well, I’m right here. Weren’t you going to try calling her again?”

  He pulled out his phone and a moment later shook his head. “It goes right to voice mail.”

  They walked back into the lobby. Feeling shaky, Sophie took a chair by the door as Jack continued on to the front desk.

  After leaving the hairdresser, she’d headed to Seaport almost on autopilot. This town and this hotel were familiar—she’d been vacationing here for years, first with her parents and then alone after she graduated from college. She’d felt sure this was the place she could figure things out before returning to Portland and explaining herself to Danny and her mother.

  In light of what had happened within the last hour, that plan now seemed ancient.

  She thought again to the parking garage—could she be mistaken about the driver’s intentions?

  Jack sat down next to her. “Sabrina is still not answering her room phone, her own phone, anything. I’ve called the town’s other hotels and the hospital. The front desk has no record of her checking out. She’s just vanished.”

  “People don’t just vanish,” Sophie said.

  She saw him flinch and wondered what nerve she’d inadvertently touched. “Actually, peopl
e do,” he said softly. “At least for a while, sometimes forever.” He seemed to shake off whatever had distressed him and leaned toward her. “Tell me why you stayed down on the bottom level of the garage and what happened between the time I left and returned.”

  “You said something about your phone reception and I stopped to dig my phone out of my purse, turn it on and offer it to you,” she began. “Then I became aware that an engine had started and I turned around. A whitish car inched out of its spot, then turned and started my way. I was still standing in the middle of the lane so I moved aside. The driver gunned the engine and the car sped up. I dodged farther right—that’s when I think I lost my shoe, but the car veered, too, so I tried to get behind the support. As I ran, I think my bag slipped down my arm and then the car tore it out of my hand. It made the corner with screeching brakes and shot upward toward you. I thought it might hit you... I just stood there like an idiot, too rattled to move. And then there you were—well, you know the rest.”

  “You felt the attack was purposeful?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Did you see the driver?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Kind of?”

  “I think he was about my age. I don’t know—it was a blur.”

  “Sophie, think carefully, does anyone know you’re here?”

  “In Seaport? No.”

  “Think for a little longer. You must have told someone you were coming to the coast.”

  “I didn’t even know I was coming until I was practically here.”

  “Okay, you said something about your mother guessing where you were and you’ve mentioned a guy named Danny a few times.”

  “My mother could have guessed. I don’t know that she did, but she might have.”

  “Would she have told Danny?”

  “If he asked. But he would never try to run me down.”