Identical Stranger (HQR Intrigue)

by Alice Sharpe

  “And the photographer?”

  “They never found him. A composite sketch linked him to another young woman’s disappearance although no trace of her body was ever found. After Lisa, apparently, he changed his MO or got run over by a truck, or just flat quit... He just disappeared. No one has ever identified him.”

  “No wonder Lisa’s death haunts you,” Sophie said softly, squeezing his fingers with hers.

  He turned on his side again, his presence little more than the gleam of his eyes and the musky warm fragrance of his skin. “If I hadn’t belittled her big chance, I might have been around during the supposed photo shoot. I might have sensed something about the guy. She might still be alive.”

  There was no way to respond. He might be right. He might also be wrong but he knew that. She inched closer and he raised his arm so she could nestle against his side.

  “I don’t have nightmares all the time,” he told her softly as he stroked her hair with his free hand. She had thrown one arm across his chest and felt the beat of his heart in her wrist. “It’s just that Sabrina said a big man with dark hair had been taking pictures of her while she drained pasta water and then she vanished into thin air. It brought everything back.”

  “You talked about destiny,” Sophie said. “Maybe somehow your past and Sabrina’s present are merging.”

  “That would mean that against all odds she’s with a human monster right now. I don’t know how to save her from that.”

  “If it’s at all possible, you will,” Sophie said, and she glanced at the clock. “We have two hours before we have to leave for Seattle.”

  “Stay here with me,” he whispered.

  “Of course,” she said simply.

  But there was nothing simple about anything.

  * * *

  THEY DROVE TO Seattle under leaden skies, the steely pavement slick with ice as the windshield wipers tried to keep up with the sleet. Sophie was not looking forward to riding a ferry in her thin coat.

  Today was a holiday and the schools were closed, but just to be safe, Sophie used the time they spent waiting for the ferry to load to call her principal and arrange for a last-minute substitute-teacher replacement for her class, saying she was indisposed for a week, hoping that was silly, that by tonight they’d have found Sabrina and put this whole thing to rest.

  Jack called Detective Reece and found out the detective wasn’t in the office.

  It was finally their turn to drive aboard and park. The lower deck of the ferry was packed tight with vehicles except for the empty middle lane, as this was a ferry that made four different stops at four different islands. They got out of the car and Sophie studied the other vehicles.

  “He couldn’t have known we were coming here,” Jack said, pulling his coat closer. Sophie knew how he felt. The bottom deck was open on both ends to allow vehicles to move off and on the boat. An icy wind that felt like it carried ice in its gusts blew straight down the middle, whipping loose hair and clothing and torturing warm-blooded creatures. If she wasn’t still wearing Jack’s blue cashmere sweater, she was certain she would turn into a Popsicle.

  “We’re the second-to-last stop,” Jack added as they climbed the inboard stairs to the second floor.

  The heaters were working but the cold still seeped inside. They found an empty bench and sat down. Jack immediately went to work on his phone and Sophie looked through the windows at the sleet-driven skies that merged into the Puget Sound’s restless cold water. A small family seated at a nearby table caught her attention and she watched them for a while. The woman looked about her own age. The two children playing checkers beside her were about six or seven, around the age of the kids she taught. For the first time, she seriously wondered what it would be like to have children of her own. With their striking black hair and pretty faces, both the girls could easily be Jack’s daughters.

  Her daughters.

  She smiled at the whimsy and leaned against Jack as fatigue from their interrupted night caught up with her. She actually nodded off, waking only when the ferry pulled against the pier of the first island and more than half the passengers got off, a line of their departing vehicles wending away from the docks as the ferry continued its journey.

  “About last night,” Jack said as he put away his phone. That got her attention. She was about to tell him that maybe this conversation should wait for another time when he added, “I know it must seem to you that I’ve never gotten over loving Lisa.”

  Not what she expected, but as that’s exactly how it did seem to her, she nodded.

  “My feelings for her are frozen in time,” he continued as he took her hand in his, “but I don’t harbor fantasies that she and I would have ever lived happily-ever-after. Our profound differences were already driving us apart. That last fight wasn’t the first one we’d had, believe me. I’ve let that part of my past with her go. What remains is the what-if part, my guilt, my failures.”

  “I can see how that is,” Sophie responded. “If Danny had gone slower, if he’d understood the issues between my mother and myself instead of trying to use her to influence me, I might have talked myself into marrying him and if that had happened, it wouldn’t have been long before I came to the same realizations that you did.”

  “The person you choose to love shouldn’t be a compromise,” he said.

  “No, you’re right, they shouldn’t.”

  “Love has to come from your heart.”

  She stared at his lips as he spoke, then glanced to see the mother and her children seated a few feet away. The kids had moved on to a computer game.

  “You told me to tell you when I was ready to make love,” she whispered.

  He laughed softly. “Right here, right now?”

  “Well, you assured me I wouldn’t need any sexy lingerie, so yep, I’m good to go.”

  He put an arm around her and kissed her forehead. “In front of those little kids?”

  “Oh, I see, you’re nothing but a big tease. All talk and no action.”

  He chuckled as he pulled her head close and kissed her nose. “How about we compromise just this once. You’re freezing. There’s a sign right over there that promises a snack bar. What’ll it be? Hot chocolate or coffee.”

  “Instead of sex? Better make it the hot chocolate,” she said with a big phony sigh. “With marshmallows.”

  He looked straight into her eyes, opened his mouth and closed it.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

  His phone rang as he stood and he looked at the screen. “Detective Reece,” he mouthed to her and, answering the phone in a voice totally at odds with the one he used to speak to her, headed toward the snack bar that was apparently located around the corner amidships.

  She leaned her head back against the bulkhead and thought about what he’d said and what he hadn’t said. The strange thing was how appalled she’d been by Danny’s marriage proposal and vows of undying love after only five weeks. But she’d known Jack for only two days. Two days! The thought of falling in love with him did nothing but cast a rosy glow on her future.

  And then a horrible feeling came over her. Danny had used her for some reason she still didn’t understand but the truth was she’d used him, too. He’d rescued her, in a way, from herself, given her a diversion. She’d met Jack right smack on the heels of escaping her delusions and latched onto the mystery of Sabrina’s absence in order to keep from thinking about her own life. And now she was ready to lose herself in an affair with a man who lived one and a half states away, a man she’d known less than forty-eight hours.

  What was wrong with her?

  She didn’t know what kind of cereal he liked, whom he voted for, if he went to the movies, if he wanted children or liked pancakes or long walks or piña coladas...

  She felt the woode
n bench vibrate and turned her head as she opened her eyes. “Do you—”

  The look on his face stilled her.

  He stood up and extended his hand, pulling her to her feet when she took it. “Come on, let’s walk,” he said.

  They took a turn around the interior deck. Sophie could feel Jack’s anxiety in his stride and the way his gaze took in every detail of their surroundings, including their fellow passengers. He finally paused before a door leading to the outside deck. “Care to brave the elements?”

  “Lead on,” she said, shivering at the thought of it.

  The outside was as cold and icy as she’d known it would be. He turned into the biting wind and they took a few steps. The water rushing by the moving boat was as flat and gray as the skies overhead. Icy gusts flattened her hair and snaked under the hem of her jacket and up her sleeves.

  “I talked to Detective Reece,” he said, gripping her arm as they slowly made headway. She positioned her head not only to hear him better but to protect her face. Her nose felt as if it was about to snap off. “He heard from Sergeant Jones down in Seaport.” When she glanced up at him, the expression in his eyes warned her there was bad news in the offing. “Two beachcombers found a dead body last night—”

  She gasped as her knees buckled.

  He caught her. “No, honey, I’m sorry. Not Sabrina. It was a man. They’ve identified him as Hank Tyson.”

  Once she was able to speak again, she mumbled, “Who is Hank Tyson?”

  “The hotel maintenance guy, the one who didn’t come into work this weekend. Reece says he’s been dead a couple of days.”

  “The poor guy,” Sophie said, recovered now from her scare. “Did he get trapped by a wave or fall?”

  “Reece says it appears he was strangled. It’s still unclear if he died from that or the subsequent fall. They’ll know more after the autopsy.”

  Sophie stared at him. “Murdered?”

  “Yeah. Sophie, think about it. Hank didn’t show up for work Saturday morning. What if someone killed him with the intention of taking his place? Then the hotel got their own employee to cover and he called in Brad Withers and his man Adam something... The thing is maybe the guy who stole Sabrina killed Hank.”

  “Or maybe Hank’s brother-in-law or bookie or estranged wife settled a grudge,” Sophie offered.

  “True, but I don’t like coincidences.”

  They’d reached the blunt-nosed end of the ferry. In the near distance, Sophie saw the lights and shapes of Weather Island drawing closer. Jack steered them around the corner where the wind was mercifully at their backs. “Why would this ‘someone’ choose Sabrina out of all the other women in the hotel, and more importantly, why would he kill a guy just on the chance he could snatch a victim in such a public place?” Sophie mused aloud.

  “His target was Sabrina and no one else,” Jack said, his voice tight. He ran his hand through his hair. “Remember that Sabrina saw someone painting her neighbor’s porch. The next day she came home to the impression her house had been violated.”

  “Jack, what are you saying?”

  “In addition to presumably Danny’s half brother apparently leaving origami foxes outside her door, never indoors, by the way, there was also another man. This one took pictures of her while she was cooking.” His eyes grew bright for a moment and Sophie knew all this was relating right back to Lisa, at least in his mind and his heart. “If he went inside her house and looked through her belongings, he could have seen she had reservations at the Seaport hotel.”

  Sophie’s heart skipped a beat. “I saw scraps of papers on her desk. It appeared she’d jotted down pertinent information about her plans, including hotels and things like that.” She stared at him a moment before adding, “You’re talking two separate men with the same goal.”

  “No,” he said quietly. “I’m talking two men with two different agendas. One—Danny’s half brother, whose aim is to silence Sabrina for some unknown reason. His possible MO is leaving little foxes to intimidate her, throwing rocks in the attempt she’ll fall off a cliff and it will look like an accident, trying to run her down. He’s not very proficient. Even pointing a gun at you didn’t work out. He’s dangerous because he’s desperate, again for some unknown reason, and his attempts are escalating in violence.”

  “And the other man?” she asked.

  “This guy is different. This guy is a hunter and he’s got Sabrina in his sights. For some reason, he fixated on her, spied on her with his camera, came into her house, looked at her things but didn’t touch them, made her shudder when she couldn’t even see him. And he killed to get to her.”

  “Jack, that’s awful.”

  “Yeah. But the worst part is we know the half brother doesn’t have her or he wouldn’t be trying to do in her look-alike—you. That means that this second guy—”

  “Don’t say it,” Sophie blurted out, the ice shards racing through her body having nothing to do with the blustering weather. “You’re talking about a cold-blooded killer, a beast, a man like the one who killed Lisa.” Warm tears rolled down her frigid face. “You have to be wrong.”

  The ferry horn blast caught them both by surprise. Jack wrapped an arm tightly around her shoulders as the boat maneuvered its way to the pier.

  Chapter Eight

  “Being on this island seems like a giant waste of time,” Sophie said as Jack followed his phone’s voice directions to the Cannon estate. “We should be back in Oregon looking for Sabrina.”

  “We have three hours before the ferry returns for the trip back to Seattle,” Jack reminded her. “And please, don’t forget we’re looking for the guy who tried to kill you—twice. Who knows, when questioned it might turn out he saw something that will help the police find Sabrina.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Sophie said. “I’m just scared. You know, for her.”

  He squeezed her hand. “This morning,” he said to distract her, “I asked Reece about both Danny’s brother and this Cannon guy. He told me Danny’s brother’s legal name is Paul Rey. He just got out after serving three years for assault. Oh, and they’re picking up Danny for questioning. As for Cannon, he’s the force behind a lumber empire. It seems he’s too rich for his own good.”

  “And Danny’s mother works for him.”

  “Yep. Her name is Nora Rey. Fifty-five years old, has worked as his assistant slash gopher for umpteen years, trusted employee, etcetera.”

  “Raised two sons,” Sophie added. “One criminal, one attorney with questionable ethics and motives.”

  “Yeah, well, what Danny told you about his father was only half-true. He did work on a ferry but not as the captain. He was a deckhand and he got fired from that job when he was caught stealing valuables out of passengers’ vehicles. After that, he left the family and traveled to Alaska, where he was killed during a bar fight. Meanwhile, Nora married another loser, this one named George Reynard, and gave birth to son Paul. George killed two men in an alley during a robbery a year later. Apparently, she shortened her surname after his death, maybe so her young son wouldn’t grow up with the stigma of his father’s crimes.”

  He paused for a second, wanting to protect her feelings but knowing eventually she would learn the truth and it might be kinder coming from him. “Danny also lied to you about quitting his job in Seattle in order to move to Portland to marry you. He was actually terminated months ago because of suspected ethics violations. He’s got a kind of...checkered...relationship with things like truth and honesty.”

  “So he wasn’t a practicing attorney when he ‘bumped into me’ at the grocery store?”

  “Nope.”

  “Boy, I sure want to know what he was up to. I hope his mom can tell me.”

  “We should find that out very soon,” Jack said as the phone announced they’d reached their destination. Jack slowed in front of open wrought iron gates flanking an uphill d
rive. He drove straight through and eventually they found themselves at the highest point on the island next to a large house that stood against the icy, gray skies like a Gothic nightmare.

  “Yikes,” Sophie said.

  “No kidding.” He stopped the car in front of the stairs leading to a flagstone porch and an arched doorway. As they hurried through the sleet to cover, it was impossible not to notice the 360-degree view that took in everything from the ferry landing far below, to Seattle’s obscured skyline to the east.

  Their knock was answered almost at once, making Jack wonder if there were surveillance cameras on the gates or warning sensors along the steep driveway.

  The woman they faced looked worn-out. Gray hair cut blunt framed a heavily lined face decorated by a pair of bifocals.

  The woman gaped at Sophie. “What are you doing here?” she all but whispered.

  “You recognize me,” Sophie said.

  “No. Of course not.” The absurdity of this response seemed to occur to her and she shook her head. “You’re one of them.”

  “One of who?” Jack asked.

  “Those damn twins. You have to be Sabrina.”

  “Why do you think I’m Sabrina?” Sophie asked.

  “Because Sophia’s with Dan—” She stopped abruptly and looked from one of them to the other. “Why are you here? How do you know—”

  “Please,” Jack said. “It’s cold and wet. Let’s not stand here talking in circles, okay? You’re Nora, right?”

  “Nora Rey, yes.” The woman bit her pale bottom lip before standing aside and holding the door open. “You’d better come in.”

  The entry was two stories tall, dimly lit and oppressive. Steep stairs climbed to the next floor while a crystal-and-gilt unlit chandelier hung suspended from the ceiling. “Follow me,” Nora said as she crossed to the threshold of a much smaller and more intimate room. She gestured for them to enter. Once they had, she followed them inside, closing the door behind her, her movements smooth and silent as though she’d spent her life gliding around this very large house like a wraith.