Married To A Stranger

by Connie Bennett

  Like it or not, he had to take a few minutes and run downstairs to the staff dining room, throw himself onto the tender mercies of head chef Columbia Hanes and beg for an afternoon snack. If he could make it through the lobby and past the main dining room without running into someone who needed a question answered or a problem solved.

  “Thomas! What perfect timing!”

  Halfway across the lobby, Tom stopped in his tracks, mentally kissed a snack goodbye and turned toward the husband of the hotel’s owner. “Good afternoon, Judge Bradshaw. What can I do for you? Has the Secret Service been mauling your hedge maze again?”

  The silver-haired man shook his head. “No, there’s no major garden crisis today, Thomas. I just learned at the front desk that Mr. and Mrs. Hopewell went into the city for the day. Do you have any idea when they’ll return?”

  “No, I’m sorry. Bobby DiVesta called just after lunch to say it had taken the entire morning for Mrs. Hopewell’s doctor to give her a clean bill of health, and he had no idea when they’d be getting in. I suspect it won’t be until later this evening.”

  “Oh, I see.” The Judge seemed disappointed.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Oh, no. It’s nothing urgent. I have an invitation I want to tender, that’s all. Elizabeth and I have been racking our brains all week trying to think of something special to do for them,” the Judge said chattily, falling into step beside Tom when he began moving toward the dining room. “I wanted to throw them a big anniversary bash, but Elizabeth didn’t think something that personal was appropriate for a couple who are essentially strangers to us—no matter how nice they are.”

  Emily Post wasn’t Tom’s strong suit, and the Hopewells’ anniversary was the least of his worries about the couple, but he wouldn’t have been rude to Cameron Bradshaw no matter how busy—or how hungry—he was. “Your wife has a point, I suppose. And it’s very likely that Adam Hopewell will have plans of his own.”

  “Yes, that’s what Elizabeth said. So, instead, we’re inviting them to the President’s reception next Tuesday, the day before their anniversary. Don’t you think that’s a lovely idea?”

  Tom was a little taken aback. “Well, yes. I suppose they’ll be thrilled, but…”

  “But you’re worried about the guest-list clearance, aren’t you?”

  “Actually, yes.”

  “Well, don’t. I’ve already cleared it with Agent Luther. He didn’t see any problem with inviting them.”

  “Oh. Good,” Tom said, though he was a bit surprised. If he’d been in charge of presidential security he wasn’t sure he’d have wanted a woman with a bull’s-eye on her back at a party for the Chief Executive. But he wasn’t in charge. “I’m sure the Hopewells will be thrilled with the invitation.”

  “I certainly hope so,” Cameron replied. “I believe that a couple celebrating their tenth anniversary at the hotel where they spent their honeymoon deserves some special acknowledgment by the management.”

  “The Hopewells spent their honeymoon here?” Tom asked with some surprise.

  “Oh, yes. Ten years ago,” the Judge confirmed. “Of course, the assault on Madeline has certainly changed the complexion of their anniversary, but I don’t think that should make a difference to the resort, do you? They had made reservations to celebrate the occasion here long before the attack, and I think that deserves some recognition on our part.”

  Tom went from surprise to disbelief in the space of a heartbeat. “Wait a minute, Judge. You must be mistaken. There was never another reservation on file for the Hopewell couple.”

  Cameron’s silver brows drew together in a frown. “I’m quite sure you’re wrong, Thomas. I had a long talk with Madeline the day after she arrived, and she told me that she and her husband had reservations here for their anniversary, and that he simply moved their arrival date forward a week. I’m certain that’s what she said.” He shook his head definitively. “Yes, I’m positive. We were talking about the attempt on her life and she said that her husband’s theory on what she was doing in Charleston had something to do with the possibility that she was planning on coming to Bride’s Bay early.”

  Tom was positive the old man was wrong. Unless… “Tell me, Judge, where did Mrs. Hopewell get her information about having reservations here?”

  “Why, from her husband, of course. Until she regains her memory, he’s the only source of information she has,” Cameron replied.

  “Excuse me, Judge,” Tom said, turning in another direction. “There’s something I need to look into.” And with that he hurried toward the front desk where Shane Foster was on duty by himself. “Is Ms. Jermain in her office?” he asked the young man as he moved into the reception alcove.

  “I think so, sir. I could buzz if you like.”

  “Not necessary,” he said, knowing that he could cross the alcove and knock in a lot less time than it would take the rookie to figure out how to use the hotel intercom system. Foster had been working at the resort for more than a week now, but he wasn’t catching on to the computer and communications system as quickly as he should have. According to his résumé he should have been able to run the hotel database computer program in his sleep.

  Investigating that inconsistency was just one of the many things on Tom’s extensive to-do list, but right now the Hopewells had moved to the top of that list.

  “Liz? You got a minute?” he asked, sticking his head into her office.

  When Liz looked up it was clear he was distracting her. It seemed to take her a second to bring him into focus. “Of course, Tom,” she said, motioning him toward a chair. “What’s up?”

  “Something puzzling,” he said as he settled into his seat. “Tell me, Liz, have you noticed any problems with Judge Bradshaw recently?”

  The question clearly surprised her. “No, of course not. What kind of problems are you referring to?”

  “Memory lapses or getting his facts mixed up. Anything like that?”

  “Absolutely not. Cameron sometimes lays on his kindly old Southern gentleman routine a little thick, but he’s still as sharp as a tack. Why would you even suspect that—”

  “Something he just told me,” Tom said, cutting her off because he could see that his question had upset her. “And if he’s right, it doesn’t make any sense. According to the Judge, the Hopewell couple already had reservations here before the attack on the wife. They were supposed to check in sometime this week to celebrate their anniversary.”

  Liz shook her head. “No, the Judge is mistaken. I dealt with Adam Hopewell personally every time he called. I know for a fact that there was no reservation on file before his wife went into the hospital.”

  “That’s what I understood when you first told me about them. You even commented on how lucky they were to get one of the high-security suites.”

  “Right. If Senator Luccacio hadn’t changed his mind about vacationing with the President, we wouldn’t have been able to accommodate them. Adam Hopewell called just an hour or two after the senator’s secretary phoned to cancel his room.”

  “So there was never a reservation on the Hopewells before that call?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Tom leaned forward in his chair. “Then why did Adam Hopewell tell his wife there was?”

  Liz shook her head helplessly. “Are you sure he did?”

  “Unless the Judge is confused,” Tom replied. “Has Hopewell ever said anything to you about having spent his honeymoon here ten years ago?”

  Liz leaned over to her computer and called up the file in question as she replied, “He didn’t, but Duke Masterson mentioned it. He wanted to make sure we did the champagne-and-flowers treatment for their anniversary.”

  “Did you verify that they really did spend their honeymoon here?”

  Liz looked at him, confused. “Why would I do that?”

  Tom grinned sheepishly. “You’re right. You wouldn’t have any reason to. But I’m the suspicious sort, so humor me. Is there any way to v
erify it?”

  She shook her head. “No, sorry. We lost all our back records about six years ago when our old mainframe crashed.” A bolt of inspiration lit her face. “However, you could always check Grandmother’s guest register. She’s got them going all the way back to the very first guest who ever stayed here. Of course, it’s been nearly twenty years since signing in was compulsory, but most everyone does it for the sake of tradition.”

  “Where are the old registers?”

  “Downstairs in the fire vault with the rest of the Jermain family papers.”

  “Can I get a peek?”

  “Now?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “All right,” Liz said, rising. As she led the way out, she asked, “Tell me, why is this so important, Tom?”

  “It’s probably not,” he replied, falling into step with her. “But like I said before, I don’t like loose ends. If Adam Hopewell lied to his wife about having reservations here, there’s got to be a reason. I want to know what it is.”

  They passed the employee dining room on their way downstairs, and the luscious smells wafting out of Columbia’s kitchen made Tom’s stomach rumble. Supper preparations were well under way.

  They went down a stairway, then moved through a warren of corridors past the laundry, linen storage and maintenance. Just when it seemed that they’d run out of corridor, Liz stopped at a door that led through a large storage room to a thoroughly modern walk-in fire vault.

  Liz dialed in the appropriate combination and led Tom to the back of the vault. Elizabeth’s papers were so well organized that it took only a few minutes to find the appropriate journal…

  And even less time than that to determine that there was no entry in it for honeymooners Adam and Madeline Hopewell.

  LIZ WAS QUICK to remind Tom that signing in wasn’t mandatory, and that it made no sense for a man to lie about where he spent his honeymoon. His amnesiac wife was bound to ask questions about things they’d seen and done ten years ago, which meant that the husband would be required to concoct an extensive web of lies. And all for what?

  Liz couldn’t answer that and neither could Tom, but he was more determined than ever to find out. He escorted Liz back up to the first floor, thanked her for her help and hurried on upstairs to the room the Secret Service had commandeered as its command center.

  Days ago, when Tom had told Dan Luther about the Hopewells, the agent had assured Tom that the Secret Service would investigate the couple and their situation fully. With resources like that focused on the couple, Tom hadn’t seen any need to waste time and manpower conducting his own background investigation. He had spoken extensively with the Charleston police detective in charge of the attempted murder case, but beyond that Tom knew next to nothing about the Hopewells.

  That was going to change.

  The door to the room across from the Presidential Suite was ajar, and Tom poked his head in. The sitting room that would eventually be the nerve center of the Secret Service command post could have qualified for disaster-relief assistance. Most of the furniture had been removed and equipment was strewn everywhere, knots of disconnected cable of assorted sizes and colors snaked across the floor, and walking across the room was a risky proposition, at best. Tom knew that eventually order would be made from the chaos, but for now it was a nightmare. And Dan Luther, with his suit coat off and his shirtsleeves rolled up, was smack in the middle of it. It was the. first time Tom had seen the agent out of “uniform.” “Dan? You got a minute?”

  Luther looked up from the cables he was connecting to a console and nodded. “Yeah. Come on in. What’s up?”

  “I’d like to take a look at your background file on the Hopewell couple,” Tom replied as he carefully picked his way across the obstacle course.

  “Oh? Has something else happened?”

  “Not exactly. At least, nothing like the Rumbaugh incident yesterday.”

  Dan Luther chuckled as he shunted two cables to a junction switch. “You mean no more hysterical accusations against harmless computer salesmen?”

  “Not today,” Tom replied as he made it safely to the console. “And I guess there’s nothing new on Rumbaugh since we discussed him this morning?”

  “Not a thing. The word I get from the investigators in D.C. is that he’s exactly who he says he is. But we’re still checking,” the agent replied. “So what’s up now?”

  “I just found out something strange and it’s made me curious.”

  Luther laid the cables aside and propped his hip on the tabletop. “Well, if you’re curious, I am, too. Tell me.”

  “This is probably going to sound silly, but it appears that Adam Hopewell has been lying to his wife.”

  Luther looked at him blankly. “That has been known to happen on occasion, Tom. I don’t think marital difficulties fall within our jurisdiction.”

  “Normally I would agree, but what he lied about doesn’t make sense, and I like things to be nice and orderly,” he replied, then went on to explain.

  When he finished, Luther said, “So?”

  Tom knew he didn’t have much to go on, but he’d expected a little more reaction than that. “Don’t you think it’s odd? Why did Adam Hopewell tell his wife he had reservations here?”

  “Probably because he really did.”

  Tom wondered if the agent had suddenly gone deaf. “No, Dan, I told you. I checked that out. There was nothing in the computer.”

  “Clerks have been known to make mistakes.”

  “True, but if his reservations were lost, why didn’t he complain about it to Liz Jermain?”

  “Perhaps because there was no reason to,” the agent suggested. “His original reservation wasn’t for a high-security suite, was it?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Well, if Hopewell was set on staying in a high-security suite from the time his wife left the hospital until the end of the month, it wouldn’t have made any difference whether he had a reservation, would it? There wouldn’t have been a room available if Senator Luccacio hadn’t just canceled. Ms. Jermain probably put Hopewell into the suite automatically, and there was no need to make an issue out of a lost reservation. In fact, Hopewell might not even have known it.”

  “That’s possible, I suppose,” Tom said hesitantly. There was a slim chance that Luther was right, but Tom’s gut instinct was telling him no. There was something strange going on. He could smell it. “Tell me, Dan, why did Senator Luccacio cancel his vacation with the President so suddenly?”

  “Something to do with his recent appointment to the Appropriations Committee, I believe.” A look of disbelief slowly evolved on the agent’s face. “Tom…surely you’re not suggesting there’s some connection between a United States senator and a slick, jet-setting antique dealer? That’s ludicrous.”

  “So is lying to your amnesiac wife about where you spent your honeymoon,” Tom said, his voice growing hard as alarm bells finally began pealing in his head. There was something a little too calculated about Luther’s disbelief—and his answers. They were too pat, and they were coming a little too quickly. Tom finally realized that he was being “handled.” He couldn’t imagine why, but he didn’t like it one bit.

  “I want to see the background file you’ve compiled on the Hopewells,” he told the Secret Service agent.

  Luther clucked his tongue. “That’s a little problematic, Tom. All our security checks are being conducted out of the office in D.C. I just get flash updates, not the full reports.”

  In a pig’s eye, Tom thought. Agent Dan Luther was the Secret Service point man for a presidential visit, which meant that he was responsible for every aspect of the Chief Executive’s stay at Bride’s Bay. If anything happened to the President, Luther would be held accountable. His career, possibly even his own life, was on the line, and with stakes that high it was ludicrous to suggest that he didn’t have immediate access to all security reports.

  Tom would have bet his last dollar that Dan Luther had the s
ecurity check on the Hopewells in his possession—possibly even in this very room.

  So why was he lying?

  It took everything Tom had to keep that opinion to himself and affect a look of mild puzzlement. “Really? That surprises me, Dan, because you had enough information on the couple to clear their attendance at the reception the Judge and Miz Elizabeth are giving the President.”

  Luther’s eyes narrowed just the tiniest bit. “My boss cleared that, Tom. I just passed the good word on to the Judge.”

  Two lies in as many minutes. As point man, Luther had the final say on anything relating to the security clearances. This was getting curiouser and curiouser. “Be that as it may, you can get the full report on the Hopewells down here, can’t you?” Tom asked casually.

  The agent nodded. “Absolutely, but it’s not going to do you any good. You’re wasting your time.”

  Ah, the truth this time. If Dan was lying about not having immediate access to the Hopewell file, then it could only mean that he was stalling to give himself time to clean it up. Obviously there was something about the couple that the Secret Service wanted kept quiet, and that information would certainly be deleted from the file before it got to Tom.

  But Tom was determined to find out what was going on. So he simply shrugged and told Luther, “Hey, it’s my time. I’d really like a look at that file.”

  “Okay. I’ll have the office courier it down here,” the agent promised. “In the meantime, maybe you can give me some help with something.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a rumor one of my men heard this morning about Liz Jermain being involved in a secret love affair.”

  Tom nodded. “Yeah, that rumor has been circulating since before I started working here.”

  Luther frowned. “Is there any truth to it?”

  “Probably,” he admitted. “She’s been known to leave the island on very short notice without telling anyone where she’s going, or giving any explanation of where she’s been when she gets back. She was behaving very much like a woman in love when I first got to the island, but her behavior lately suggests that there may be trouble in the relationship.”