by Nancy Bush
“See my name and picture?” she demanded.
He lifted his eyes and glanced at the bracelet. Then he looked at her identification again.
Callie realized, in a distant part of her mind, that this was the longest she’d gone without thinking about Sean since his death. She stuffed that thought aside to dissect it later and said, “If my license is good enough for the state of California, it ought to be good enough for you.”
He didn’t answer.
Callie fought back another smart comment, deciding if this was a silent battle of wills, she could play. He ignored her credit cards and the crinkled edges of the euros shoved into her wallet. His expression gave no clue to his thoughts.
At long last he said, “You applied for this driver’s license less than a year ago.”
“It’s a renewal.” At his renewed silence she couldn’t help herself from adding, “It is. I’ve lived in California since I was twenty. Before I was Callie Cantrell I was Callie Shipley.”
“You’re married?”
“I’m a widow.”
He scowled and instantly his behavior changed. “I know,” he said darkly. “I know what you did.”
Callie narrowed her gaze at him. “You know I’m not this Teresa you’re looking for.”
“Then you’re her twin.”
“Fine,” she snapped.
He made a sharp movement with his arm, closed her wallet, and dropped it back into her carryall. “I could almost believe you if I didn’t know better,” he said. “That lost and miserable act is hard to resist.”
“I think you’re the kind of person who can’t admit they’re wrong.”
He inclined his head. “Probably. But you have the bracelet.”
“I’m not Teresa.”
“Where’s your son?” he demanded.
Her gut twisted. Carefully, lest emotion got the better of her, she said, “The only son I ever had is dead.”
His head jerked up and he gave her a sharp look. “Dead?”
“Don’t worry. He’s not the boy you’re looking for.” Her voice was brittle. “He was my son. He has nothing to do with you and this Teresa person. He only mattered to me.” She swallowed hard, sensing she could break down if she wasn’t careful.
He was watching her with a mixture of fascination and horror, as if he couldn’t turn away.
“I don’t know you,” she insisted. “I don’t know the boy you’re looking for.”
“Why did you come here with me, then?”
“Did I have a choice?” She was outraged. “What are you talking about?”
“You haven’t tried to call the police. You didn’t want me to go to your place, and you took me all the way to this particular hotel.”
“Don’t put this on me,” Callie said, slightly alarmed.
“You’ve got some agenda going. If you’re not Teresa, you’re involved at some level, so start telling the truth.”
“I am telling you the truth! I’m Callie Cantrell.”
“Okay.”
Callie stopped short. “Okay?”
“If you’re Callie Cantrell, tell me about her. Convince me you’re not the woman who married my brother and had a child with him. You’re not the woman who took off after Stephen’s death, with the bracelet, maybe to avoid questions about his death.”
“What?”
“You’re not Teresa DuPres Laughlin, even though you look just like her.”
Callie suddenly understood West Laughlin’s smoldering anger. Shaken, she said, “I’m not her. I was married to Jonathan Cantrell. We had a son. Sean. Jonathan and Sean both died in a car accident on Mulholland almost exactly a year ago. I have a series of scars down my right side from the same accident that killed them. I’ve been told I was lucky I survived, but I don’t feel lucky. I feel miserable. And lost. And sometimes—most times—I wish I’d died with them.” They stared at each other. She could tell her words got to him and added, “I’m sorry about your brother, but I don’t know Teresa.”
“I just want to find Stephen’s son. I want to make sure he’s safe.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“What?” He was taken aback.
“I think you’re the one with the agenda.”
He put his face within inches of hers. “I cared about my brother, and I care about his son.”
His voice had lowered to a whisper, but that took nothing away from its intensity. On the contrary, every syllable seemed to hammer into her brain. Callie held his gaze with an effort. The pain in her jaw from the fall had created an overall headache and she wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take.
“What’s the matter?” he asked suddenly.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t give me that. You look terrible.”
Was that a news bulletin? Of course she looked terrible. He’d frightened her—terrorized her—chased after her and scared her. How could she look any other way?
“Your jaw?” he asked, frowning.
“Yes, my jaw. My whole head hurts. Everything hurts.” When West made an impatient gesture, she embellished, “It’s killing me,” then lifted a hand to cup her chin, wincing a little.
“It’s your own fault,” he said tersely.
“It’s your fault. You tackled me and I went facedown.”
“You ran away. I never meant to hurt you.”
“As I recall it, you said you wanted to kill me.”
“Maybe you should lie down,” he said, ignoring her jibe.
“Maybe I should go home?”
He smiled faintly, then sobered as he witnessed her flash of spirit give way to what he thought was pain. He looked down at the table and she sensed he was indecisive about what to do with her. She had a mental image of what he was seeing and understood his doubts. She probably looked like death itself.
“If you’re not Teresa, you look enough like her to be her double. And the bracelet . . .” he said, trailing off as the waitress approached their table.
Callie asked for more tea and West ordered the continental breakfast tray for two.
As the waitress left, Callie realized how hungry she was. She’d missed breakfast and now it was lunchtime.
“If Stephen didn’t give you the bracelet, where did you get it?” West asked.
Tricky territory. “It was—a gift from a friend.”
“What friend?”
“Just someone I know.”
“Who?”
“Her name is Aimee,” she said, telling a half-truth. As soon as she’d said it she wished she’d come up with something else.
“Aimee,” he said doubtfully after a long moment.
“That’s right.”
He shook his head. “There was an accident on Mulholland last year.”
“Yes . . .”
“It just so happens I’m from Los Angeles too.”
“Really.” She found that faintly disturbing.
“You just decided to vacation on Martinique?”
“I came here on my honeymoon. With Jonathan,” she reiterated.
“When was that?”
“Five . . . no, almost six years ago.”
A tray of croissants, jellies, butter, and fresh pineapple rings arrived at that moment. Two more tall glasses of iced tea were put down in front of them and Callie felt her sinking spirits revive at the sight of food.
West didn’t touch the tray. He was distant and remote, staring moodily across the water toward Fort-de-France. “You never met Stephen Laughlin?”
“No. I don’t know Stephen—your brother, you said?—and I don’t know you.” Callie plucked up a croissant and began to butter it.
“Half brother,” West said.
“Still don’t know him.”
“There aren’t two women who look like you with that bracelet on this island.”
“Probably not. But I’m not Teresa. If you don’t believe my identification, then, I don’t know. . . .” She broke off.
West leaned forward. �
�What?” he asked softly.
“You can call William Lister, the Cantrell family attorney. He’ll tell you who I am. He knows I’m here. I’ll give you the number.”
“Family attorney, huh?”
“That’s right. He’ll tell you everything about me you need to know. Are you ready to write this down, or put it on your phone?”
West pulled out his cell phone. “You know your attorney’s number by heart?”
“Well, yes,” she said.
“You must have a close relationship,” he said dryly. “I expected you to pull out your cell phone.”
“I don’t have a cell phone.”
“Really?”
“Not everyone does,” she pointed out.
“Yeah, but you look like the kind of woman who would.”
“You make a lot of assumptions. What kind of job do you have?” she asked.
“I’m currently unemployed.”
“Really.”
He nodded, apparently unwilling to give her any further information. Callie told him the digits, making certain he repeated them back to her. “It’s William’s office number so his receptionist will probably answer.”
“Who gave you the bracelet?” he asked again as he plugged the number into his call list.
“You think I’ll have a different answer if you just keep asking?”
He lifted his head and half-smiled. But then he said, “That bracelet’s a family heirloom. My grandmother’s. And it’s been missing since Teresa took off.”
Callie didn’t know how to respond. No wonder he thought she was Teresa.
Teresa . . .
Was there any chance Teresa was the name Jonathan had called her when they’d first met? Was that just coincidental, something she was trying to make up inside her mind? A connection that wasn’t there?
She recalled it feeling strange, at the time, all the attention the wealthy and charming Jonathan Cantrell had suddenly showered on her. She’d been walking out of a coffee shop when he practically ran into her. Steadying her by her arms as she juggled her paper coffee cup, he’d said a name, then had caught himself up as if he’d just snapped out of a dream. He apologized for almost knocking her down and insisted on helping her to her seat. He’d been charming and good-looking, and wore designer label chinos, shirts, and deck shoes with ease. He’d sat down with her at the metal table for two and coaxed her cell number from her with very little effort, and then had pursued her as if she were the jewel in the crown. In a matter of months he’d gotten down on one knee and proposed and Callie, a teaching assistant at a nearby school who’d been thinking about going for her master’s to become a full-fledged teacher, had accepted with tears in her eyes. The only relationship she’d really had was with Bryan. Bryan had followed his dream while Callie tutored, waited tables, and generally put her life on hold for him. It was years before she could make a final break, and only then when she learned he’d been seeing another wannabe actress who just happened to be pregnant with Bryan’s child.
She was about a year out of that relationship when she met Jonathan. It was a fairy tale from the beginning. The handsome prince saving the drifting, slightly lost midtwenties gal with the red-gold hair. Except nothing about their marriage was magical except Sean.
Teresa . . . or Marissa . . . ?
She remembered Jonathan calling out to her and literally running into her, almost as if he’d done it on purpose. She recalled wondering if it was some ploy on his part. A way to meet women by practically knocking them off their feet. Hey, it was Los Angeles and she’d seen a lot of crazy things.
Her mind reached for that missing piece again. She failed, as ever, to grasp it, but a deep recognition filled her. There was a connection. Something . . . something . . . and thinking of Jonathan, and the name Teresa, brought it closer. Had Jonathan seen something of this Teresa in her? Was that why he’d been so eager to make her acquaintance in the first place? God, she wished she could remember fully, but there were big blanks in her memory since the accident. She’d tried to believe they were the result of her injuries, and maybe they were, but she’d needed time at Del Amo to put herself right mentally and emotionally.
Or maybe she was just trying to force a connection as much as West Laughlin was, in order to make sense of everything.
West’s jaw was slid to one side, as if he were fighting back something he wanted to say.
“Tell me about West Laughlin,” she said.
“You really don’t know who I am?”
“I thought we’d established that I’m not Teresa.”
“Like I told you, I’m the black sheep of the family.”
“That’s all I get? How come you’re unemployed, Mr. Laughlin?”
“Mr. Laughlin,” he repeated ironically. “Okay . . . Ms. Cantrell . . . I got myself fired from the LAPD. They call it furloughed, but I pissed off my captain and he’s trying really hard to keep me from getting rehired.”
“What did you do?”
“Broke off a relationship with his daughter.”
“Oh, really. That doesn’t sound like something that would hold up.”
West grinned for the first time, and Callie looked away, concentrating hard on the horizon instead of that devastating smile. She didn’t like this man, she reminded herself. All she wanted was information from him that might explain something about Tucker.
“It wouldn’t,” he admitted. “But I didn’t really give a damn at the time. My grandmother, Victoria, has believed for years that Teresa had something to do with Stephen’s death. I always thought it was just that she wanted her grandson back. Tucker. Kinda had my own issues and ignored her, which is how she’d treated me most of my life. But then, some things happened and I wanted to make sure Tucker was okay too.”
“Why are you looking for Teresa in Martinique?”
“The e-mail trail on Victoria’s computer. Teresa tried to wipe it off, but it was still there. I got the right people to find a way in and see what was written. There wasn’t much.”
“You know the right people.”
“I know tech people,” he said. “The e-mail went to an Internet café in Fort-de-France. I’ve already been there but no one remembers anything and it was a while ago.”
He was watching her closely as he gave her this information, as if expecting her to jump up and scream, “You got me!” She shook her head and said, “Still not me.”
“You were on the pier this morning, wearing the bracelet.” His gaze drifted upward. “You didn’t even change the color of your hair.”
“You’ve never actually met this Teresa,” she said.
“No, but I’ve got a picture.”
“You do?” she asked in a tone that suggested he’d been holding out on her.
He pulled out his cell phone, touched the screen for the photo app, and scrolled until he came to a picture. He then held the phone up so she could see. Callie shaded her eyes from the bright sun and examined the image on the screen. It was a picture of a man and a woman standing beside each other in front of a rambling, two-story house with a wide, covered porch that looked straight out of the Old West.
“Victoria said that it was taken shortly after the wedding,” he explained. “I scanned it and put it on my phone after she asked me to find you and the boy.” At her studied silence, he added, “It’s the best I could do.”
Callie was only half-listening. The young woman in the picture was definitely not her, though she did bear a striking resemblance. It was the hair that was the same, distinctive, and their body type. Facially, it was difficult to tell as the woman was looking into the sun, squinting against the glare. Callie estimated her age in the midtwenties and as Callie herself was over thirty, she asked, “How old is this photograph?”
“It was taken about five years ago.”
“Well, it’s not me. I see the resemblance, but it’s not me.” It didn’t look anything like Aimee, either. “Who’s the guy? Your brother?” She turned her attention to the man i
n the picture standing next to Teresa, his arm wrapped protectively around her waist. He was dark, like West, with a serious face, but otherwise there was little resemblance.
“Half brother,” he said again.
“And Victoria’s your grandmother?” Callie asked.
“The Laughlin matriarch,” he agreed.
“And she put you on this quest?”
West held out his hand for the phone. “That’s right.”
“Maybe you should call her and let me talk to her,” Callie suggested. “She knew Teresa. She should know I’m not her, right?”
“Maybe if she met you in the flesh. She’s in her eighties, and my phone’s not working internationally,” he said. “Tried to set it up before I left, but apparently there’s some hiccup.”
“So, where are these tech people when you need them,” she murmured dryly as she handed his phone back to him.
“Yeah, well . . .” He gazed around the restaurant as if seeing it for the first time. “I’m halfway convinced you’re not Teresa.”
“Only halfway? Really?”
“Tell me who really gave you the bracelet. Lead me down that path the right way. Convince me I’m wrong, and I’ll apologize and go away.”
Far across the bay a flock of gulls swooped down, crying plaintively. Callie watched a ferry chug toward the Pointe du Bout terminal and silently wondered what she could say that would still keep Tucker safe. A part of her believed him halfway as well.
She reached for her iced tea, thinking hard. She recalled the first few times she’d met Tucker. The way he’d meditatively rubbed Callie’s red-gold hair between his fingers and wrapped his arms around her like he never wanted to let go, a behavior she’d unabashedly encouraged. If she accepted what he was saying, then it seemed probably that Aimee was not Tucker’s mother, that this mysterious Teresa was, and that Callie wasn’t the only one using someone as an emotional surrogate. Tucker was using her for the same purpose.
Chapter Four
Teresa feigned sleep beneath the weight of Andre’s arm—Lord knew she was tired enough to crash for a week—but her mind was racing. It kept traveling in circles around the events of the night before—her date and the meager amount of money he’d given her, and then her hours of driving, thinking, and planning—to the bank account with its four zeroes, an account Andre didn’t know about, an account where she deposited the bounty of her nights of stealing. She’d become adept at pretending, lying, and thieving; she’d pulled a lot more jobs than he knew and had pocketed the money herself. She’d even managed some burglary and the adrenaline high was just as good as the cash she walked away with. She had close to twenty thousand dollars stuffed into a secret account, and though she suspected Andre sensed something was up, she’d been so good, so constant, that he hadn’t been able to figure out her intent completely.