Identical Stranger (HQR Intrigue)

by Alice Sharpe

  She turned to face Sophie. “Which one are you?”

  “I’m Sophia Sparrow.”

  “I missed a call from Daniel last night. Was that about...you?”

  “Probably. Mrs. Rey, Sabrina is missing. Jack and I are here because two days ago your son Danny asked me to be his wife. That same day, your son Paul tried to kill me. The police are actively seeking Paul for questioning concerning my attempted murder and the possible kidnapping of Sabrina.”

  “Murder! What in the world?”

  “Paul tried to kill me,” Sophie repeated. “He’s still trying for that matter. We believe his intended victim is Sabrina but when she disappeared he mistook me for her.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Nora interrupted, her thin hand fluttering near her throat. “That boy! How did he find out about all this? What about Daniel? Are you two getting married? I mean, how could you resist such a fine man?”

  “Easily!” Sophie said with enough horror in her voice to make Jack feel better about life. “Mrs. Rey, please explain all this to us.”

  “There’s nothing to explain,” she said, her lips compressed.

  “Don’t forget the police will be here sooner or later,” Jack said.

  “Oh, your damn grandfather,” she said wearily with another glance at Sophie. “He’s the one I blame.”

  “Both my grandfathers are dead,” Sophie said.

  “Not your genuine one, he’s not dead, leastwise, not yet, though his time is running out, poor soul.” Nora said this with a heavenward glance that Jack took to mean the old guy was tucked away somewhere upstairs.

  Sophie backed up to a chair and sat down heavily. “He’s here? In this house?” Nora’s brief nod brought a groan from Sophie. “I’ve known something like this was coming since the moment I saw Sabrina’s picture on your camera,” she told Jack. Her dark eyes were round and stunned. “I don’t know why I’m surprised.”

  “God, you look just like her,” Nora said. “You even sound like her.”

  “Who?”

  “Your mother. If the old man had just left things as they were.”

  “Stop talking in riddles,” Jack said with a glance at his watch. “We’re running out of time here. By ‘old man,’ you mean R. H. Cannon?”

  “The one in the same,” Nora said as she sat down in a chair close to Sophie’s. Jack remained standing, too impatient to get back to Oregon to even think about sitting. He could feel Sophie’s nerves from three feet away as she leaned forward in her chair, her hands gripped between her knees.

  The housekeeper smoothed a few wrinkles from her gray dress as she avoided looking at either one of them.

  “Nora?” Jack prompted. “Tell Sophie about her mother and her grandfather. Help her understand.”

  “Please,” Sophie added.

  Nora looked up and sighed loudly. “I never wanted anybody to get hurt, I just wanted Danny to have what I couldn’t give him on my own. But you deserve the truth. It started with his daughter, your mother. Her name was Shelly and she was as stubborn and headstrong as Mr. Cannon. When she turned up pregnant at sixteen, he threw her out. She showed up again a few months later, just about ready to pop and sick as a dog. He relented and she gave birth upstairs, right here in this house. She died the next day.”

  Nora shook her gray head. “What was he supposed to do with two infants? He didn’t even want to see them so he had his attorney arrange private adoptions. He demanded all the papers be given to him, and those he destroyed because he never wanted to see those kids again, he wanted no path to lead back to him. Over the years, he hinted that me and my boys would inherit his wealth when he died. Who else did he have?”

  “So Danny grew up thinking he would be well-off one day,” Sophie said quietly. Jack could all but see the gears spinning in her head as she tried to merge the Danny she’d thought she knew with the actual man he was.

  “Well-off? Ha. Rich is more like it. This house, the island, the millions in his bank account, everything. And Mr. Cannon liked the boys whenever they came with me to work. In those days I came back and forth to the island. Now I just live here full-time. Anyway, you know how little boys can be. Loud, clumsy, taking things that amuse them... Mr. Cannon had something of a short fuse. Things kind of went downhill as they got older.”

  “In what way?” Jack asked.

  “The university Mr. Cannon helped Daniel get into threatened to expel him over another boy’s claim that Daniel cheated on his exams. At first Mr. Cannon said he wouldn’t help, but in the end he made a big grant and Daniel graduated. What’s a couple of million to the old guy compared to my son’s reputation? But Daniel had...issues...in law school. He was too clever for those dullards and they resented him. Right after that, Paul was arrested for some little thing he swears he didn’t do. Mr. Cannon bailed them both out but he said he’d had enough, he wasn’t going to help them again.”

  “Mrs. Rey,” Jack said when she fell into thought, “it’s getting late and we have a ferry to catch. Please get to the point.”

  “Oh, very well. Last fall, when Mr. Cannon’s doctor told him he didn’t have much time left, Mr. Cannon decided he wanted to see what had become of his granddaughters, so he hired a private detective to find them. After learning about how each had made something of themselves, at least in his book, he decided he wanted to see their faces, so he ordered photographs.”

  She looked at Sophie and shook her head. “You and your sister are spitting images of your mother. That got to the old man. He called his lawyer. I kind of overhead them discussing changing his will, you know, before the door was closed all the way. The end result was he cut both of my boys off, and left me a modest endowment. And after all I’ve done for him, the years I’ve dedicated—”

  “He commissioned photographs,” Jack said with a quickening pulse and a glance at Sophie. “That means someone took pictures of you and Sabrina.”

  “I never noticed anything,” Sophie said.

  “But Sabrina did. She caught the man on the neighbor’s porch.” He forced himself not to jump to conclusions. Gather facts. “How do you know what’s in his will?” he asked Nora.

  “He told me.”

  Sure, Jack thought. He’d bet that none of the old guy’s mail got to him without first going through her. How many envelopes had she steamed open? Most likely she found the will and read it without anyone’s knowledge. “What about the results of his investigation into his granddaughters’ identities? Did he tell you about that, too?”

  “The file was just lying around. I...happened to see it one day.”

  “And you told your sons,” Sophie said.

  “I told Daniel. It was his future at stake.”

  “And Paul?”

  “I never said a word to Paul,” she vowed.

  “Why not? It’s his future, too, isn’t it?”

  Nora produced a folded tissue that she used to dab at her dry eyes. Jack knew a delaying tactic when he saw one. “Nora?”

  “Paul was...is...a problem. At first he was in jail and then when he got out he was so wired and unpredictable. Who could talk to him about anything—important? I mean, he took his father’s full last name again like it was some badge of honor. Paul Reynard, big whoop. I even heard him refer to himself as ‘The Fox.’ That’s what his dad called himself umpteen years before. Some fox. More like a chicken, killing those men by stabbing them in the back. Daniel always said his brother was a loose cannon and that’s just how he was acting.”

  “Reynard is similar to the French word for fox, renard,” Sophie said with a long glance at Jack. “As in those origami foxes he fashioned to threaten Sabrina.”

  “That fits what we know about him,” Jack said.

  “If Paul knows about you and Sabrina, then he learned it elsewhere,” Nora volunteered. “After all, there was only one available girl.” She added this l
ast part with a sweeping glance at Sophie.

  “So Danny told Paul and they cooked this scheme up between the two of them,” Sophie said.

  Nora looked aghast. “No. Daniel wouldn’t say a word to his brother. But Paul could have snooped around here while I was busy caring for Mr. Cannon.”

  “Do you know where Paul is now?” Jack asked.

  She sniffed and shook her head. “No.”

  “You need to call him off.”

  “I have no way of doing that. He was here last week when the doctor told us that Mr. Cannon had taken a turn for the worse. The old geezer is dying, sooner rather than later. If Paul got it in his mind that he has to get rid of the other girl, well, that’s what he’ll try to do.”

  “What about the name and location of the investigator Mr. Cannon employed.”

  “How would I know?”

  “Nora, I swear—”

  “Okay, keep your pants on. Something Taylor. In Portland. That’s all I know.” She studied Sophie again. “I suppose you want to meet your grandfather. Let him see you in the flesh, cement your inheritance.”

  Sophie shook her head. “When this is all over, maybe Sabrina and I will come here and meet him—together.”

  “It might be too late by then,” the housekeeper said.

  For Jack, the words had an ominous ring to them on several fronts.

  * * *

  “SO, DANNY FIGURED if he married me he would get at least half of my share of my grandfather’s inheritance,” Sophie said as they drew closer to her house in Portland. They’d each been wrapped in their own thoughts during the ferry ride back to Seattle and the subsequent drive south. Sophie knew that dealing with Danny was the easiest part of what was to come. It was her pending conversation with her mother that she dreaded.

  “It looks that way.”

  “I wonder how he ever convinced himself that I wouldn’t eventually see his true motives,” she continued. “I mean, his family’s connection to my grandfather is obvious—how could he not know I would figure it out? Didn’t he learn anything in law school about grounds for annulment or divorce? How dumb and naive did he think I was?”

  Jack shrugged, which considering his options seemed like the better part of valor, even to Sophie. Instead he offered an observation of his own. “I think Paul decided that since Sabrina was already married and therefore unlikely to marry someone new before your grandfather died that killing her would mean everything would go to you and thus Danny. Then Paul could show up and have a private chat with his half brother where he could point out how helpful he’d been and claim his share.”

  “What a couple of morons,” Sophie said. “And we’re still no closer to finding Sabrina.”

  Jack reached across the gearshift and took her hand. “Sophie, you know I called Detective Reece on the ferry ride back to Seattle, right?”

  “I overheard you,” she admitted. “I take it Danny got himself all lawyered-up and that Paul is still on the run.”

  “Reece also contacted Kyle Woods’s grandfather up in Canada. The man swears his grandson hasn’t been up there to see him since Christmas and that he’s not expecting him until his birthday bash in March. They also checked with Homeland Security. Woods’s car hasn’t crossed the border. In other words, Kyle is also missing.”

  “Are the police connecting Sabrina and him?”

  “Unofficially, yes. Since Sabrina’s car hasn’t been seen since Saturday, they’re pretty sure she’s off with Kyle somewhere on a lover’s tryst. And they’re very happy with Paul Rey, aka Reynard as the man behind everything else, including Hank Tyson’s murder down in Seaport.”

  “Did they find Mr. Tyson’s vehicle?”

  “Yeah, at his house. Apparently he was killed there and dumped on that beach.”

  “So they’re not operating on the theory Sabrina has been kidnapped.”

  “Reece says the chief needs proof before he starts messing with Sabrina’s Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure. We need something to demonstrate she’s in some sort of danger.”

  “And gut feelings aren’t enough.”

  “No. Especially since I don’t know her well and you’ve never met her at all. But don’t worry, I’m going to find your grandfather’s detective tonight and get the names of the people who photographed you and Sabrina. If the chief needs proof, I’ll get it for him. Do you want to come with me?”

  What she wanted was Sabrina, and the desire to meet her, to see her, to touch her was so overwhelming that it took her breath away. But with the very next breath, something else happened. One minute she was riding along in a warm car. The next she was running for her life, plunging through the dark, desperate and terrified.

  And then a roar like a mountain lion thundered through her head. Giant teeth closed over her leg, pierced her skin, pulled her to the ground, dragged her back into the underbrush, into oblivion. The putrid smell of rot filled her nostrils as dirty cold water splashed over her face.

  The despair was as unbearable as the pain.

  Sophie opened her mouth to scream but as suddenly as these sensations had dominated her mind and body they were gone.

  Jack’s hand brushed hers. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Fine,” she said with a shaky voice. If what she’d just experienced was a glimpse into Sabrina’s soul it meant she was alive, but only just. With a surge of passion, Sophie wished she could join her sister wherever she was, for how did a person fight such desperation alone?

  “You got awfully quiet.”

  “Maybe we’ve got this all wrong,” she said slowly. “Maybe Sabrina drove off the road and is lying in a ditch somewhere out of sight.” Trapped and hurt in a mangled car would certainly account for the cold, the water, the hopelessness, especially after two nights alone.

  “The police searched the highways.”

  “Which highways? North, south, east? The only direction she couldn’t have driven was west into the ocean. They can’t possibly have searched every single side road. For heaven’s sake, she’s a firefighter. Why don’t we get her coworkers all up and down the coast to help look for her? Isn’t that what they do, save people?”

  “Good idea.”

  “We need to go back to Astoria.”

  “I know. But I have to talk to the PI first. I need the names of the photographers. I can’t operate solely on the supposition she’s been in a car crash.”

  “I know you can’t,” Sophie said. “You go do the detective thing, I’ll do the mom thing, then we can drive to Astoria together.”

  Warmth spread up her arm as he took her hand. “That sounds good. I don’t want to be far away from you.”

  “I don’t want that either,” she said, and an understanding of some sort traveled between them.

  “I’ll let you off at your house and then come back for you.” He added, “And, Sophie, if you feel the need to stay in Portland for the night, we can do that.”

  She raised his hand to her face, held his knuckles against her cheek and kissed his fingers. Maybe she’d known him less than three days, but they’d been three pretty intense days and no matter what her head said about falling in love, she suspected her heart had a mind of its own. “I’ll be ready when you come back for me,” she said as she got out of the car and watched him drive away.

  “You’re back,” Margaret Sparrow said as Sophie walked into the house. Her mother sat on her recliner as always. Oscar lay on her lap but he sprang to his feet when he saw Sophie and scampered to her side. She knelt down to scoop the cat into her arms, sparing a second to wonder if Sabrina’s tabby, Gabby, was okay. Tomorrow, she’d go get the cat from the vet’s. Tomorrow, with any luck, they would find Sabrina and she would finally meet her twin sister.

  “I haven’t heard from Danny,” her mother said with pursed lips. “I think you blew it.”

 
; Sophie sat down on the sofa. “Never mind Danny.” She took a deep breath, aware that she might not have very long before Jack returned. “I know what happened,” she added.

  “You know what exactly?” her mother scoffed and Sophie stared hard at her a second. Had she always been this antagonistic and sour? Pretty much, Sophie realized. She wasn’t sure what had triggered such negativity—for most of her life she’d assumed she’d been the cause, that disappointment in her only child or even the fact that she hadn’t wanted a child in the first place had made Sophie an unbearable burden.

  But now, looking at the woman who had raised her, who had nurtured her in her own way...well, she wasn’t sure about anything.

  Maybe that was where to start this conversation. “I know I’m adopted,” she said. “I know I have a twin sister and I know who my biological grandfather is. What I’d like to know from you is how it all began, for you and Dad, I mean.” She took a deep breath. How could she ask her mother to be honest if she couldn’t do the same, even with herself? “What I’m asking you, Mom, is this—was there ever a point where you loved me?”

  Her mother looked at her defiantly.

  I’m wasting my time, Sophie thought as Oscar jumped off her lap and headed to the kitchen.

  Sophie looked from the cat’s retreating form to her mother’s face. Were those tears glittering in the older woman’s eyes?

  * * *

  IT WAS LATE afternoon by the time Jack found Dominick Taylor Investigations. The downtown building he entered was a converted three-story house divided into separate offices. A sign directed Jack to the basement.

  At the bottom of the stairs he found a glass door printed with the investigator’s name and he tried the knob, hoping it would turn, hoping the guy hadn’t gone home for the day.