Married To A Stranger

by Connie Bennett

  Maddy felt sick to her stomach.

  “They’re both alive and well, by the way,” Hogan continued. “But they’re pretty upset, because when I called to ask about their daughter Madeline I was told in no uncertain terms that they didn’t appreciate cruel practical jokes. It seems that their daughter, Madeline, died at the age of two in a hospital in Salt Lake City. The bottom line, ma’am, is that you don’t exist.”

  Maddy stopped breathing, stopped thinking. Her brain—her entire body—shut down for a fraction of a second, just long enough to let her feel what it was like to have the ground fall out from under her.

  “That’s…that’s not possible.”

  Hogan looked sad when he told her, “It’s more than possible, ma’am. It’s the truth. Madeline Hopewell is an assumed identity. There’s no other explanation.”

  “There has to be! Obviously there are two Madeline Hopewells—the one who died and me!”

  Hogan shook his head. “That would mean there were two baby girls named Madeline born to the same parents in the same hospital in Ogden, Utah, on the fifth of February in nineteen-sixty—”

  Maddy jumped to her feet. “No! There are two of us! Your information is wrong!”

  “No, it’s not,” Hogan said. He came to his feet, too. “You’re not Madeline Hopewell. And the man who’s been claiming to be your husband isn’t——”

  “No!” Maddy screamed.

  She turned and fled. She couldn’t listen to him anymore. He was lying to her. This was a horrible joke, a prank, a mistake. It was a bad dream and she’d wake up in a minute. She had to wake up, because if she didn’t it meant she didn’t have a clue to her own identity—not even a name. And it meant that Adam—the sweet, kind, tender, sexy husband who’d made her feel safe, who’d made her trust him, who’d made her fall in love with him—was a liar and a fraud.

  For all she knew, he might be a murderer, too.

  “NO, NO, NO! Take him down!” Tom Graves shouted, moving quickly onto the workout mats where two of Bride’s Bay’s newest employees had taken center stage to grapple quite literally with self-defense techniques. Tom was starting to lose patience, but he held on to his temper because the problem was really his fault. As training partners these particular two students were a total mismatch.

  Shane Foster was a bona fide preppie fresh out of grad school. He was trying—and failing—to take down Karl Olander, a wiry young scrapper who’d started work yesterday as a replacement for Roger Blaknee, who’d worked in the hotel laundry until last week when he’d suffered a stroke.

  The exercise they were working on right now was a modified karate move that depended on balance. Tom stepped in to demonstrate the technique again and then stepped back to give Shane maneuvering room. Olander played his part, coming at Foster in full attack mode. Shane got set, grabbed Karl’s arm and somehow ended up flat on his back with the wiry Swede standing over him.

  Tom ran his hand through the rapidly thinning hairs on the top of his head. “Okay, guys, step aside.” He moved to the center of the mat again and pointed at one of the three other students standing on the sidelines. “You. Over here. We’ll start from—” He stopped talking when he caught a glimpse of Madeline Hopewell in tennis attire as she rushed by the floor-to-ceiling window of the health-club workout room. There was a man behind her, and Tom had a pretty good idea who it was.

  It didn’t surprise him when the door flew open and the Hopewell woman burst in, looking positively frantic. “Okay, guys, you’re gonna get a break,” Tom said to his students. “We’re ending early today. Hit the shower and get back to work.”

  Mrs. Hopewell moved aside to let the students pass. They all looked at her curiously, but she barely gave them a glance. All of her attention was focused on Graves.

  “I need your help and I don’t know where else to turn,” she said without preamble.

  Tom nodded and looked at the man standing just behind her left shoulder. “You’re Hogan?”

  “That’s right. It’s nice to meet you finally.”

  “Same here,” Tom replied. He had talked to Hogan about the Hopewell case several times before the couple had arrived, but the most intriguing conversation they’d had was the one this morning, when Hogan had called to ask if the Hopewells were still at the resort. That had been less than an hour after the husband left, and Hogan had seemed pleased by that news. Though he’d refused to tell Tom why, the detective stated his intent to come to the resort today to speak with Madeline Hopewell.

  “Tell me what’s going on and how I can help,” Tom said.

  “First, you have to promise that nothing I say to you will leave this room,” Maddy demanded, her jaw clenched and her hands knotted into fists. She was clearly under intense stress. “If you’re going to feel an obligation to report any of this to the man who calls himself Adam Hopewell, then say so now.”

  Her phrasing was not lost on Tom. He’d had suspicions about Hopewell yesterday, but nothing that bordered on the scope of what Madeline seemed to be suggesting. He glanced at Hogan, and the detective just nodded. “All right. Nothing leaves this room,” Tom promised.

  “You won’t call Adam at the hotel in New York?”

  “No. Now tell me what’s going on.”

  It took everything Maddy had to control her voice as she related what Hogan had told her. She had fled from him at the tennis courts, but she hadn’t been able to run from the truth. There was no reason for the detective to lie. She’d been forced to accept his information and to draw the logical conclusions from it.

  But one thing had been clear. She needed more information—about herself and about Adam. Tom Graves was the only person she could think of who might be able to help her. If hotel security and the Secret Service had background files on all guests, that would include her and Adam.

  She wanted to see those files, and once she’d finished telling Graves everything she knew—with Hogan filling in details from time to time—she made her intention clear.

  “I’m going to find out what the hell is going on, Mr. Graves, and you’re going to help me. I called Judge Bradshaw and told him I need help. He said you would give me anything I needed, and if you’ve got a problem with that, you’re to call him.”

  “I don’t have a problem with that, Mrs. Ho—” He stopped abruptly. “Jeez. I don’t know what to call you now.”

  “Yeah, well, imagine how I feel,” she said caustically. “Just call me Maddy for the time being.”

  “All right, Maddy. Anything you want that I can provide is yours.” He shook his head to clear it. “I knew something strange was going on yesterday, but I never imagined anything like this.”

  “What made you suspicious?” Maddy asked him.

  “I found out that no one named Hopewell had honeymooned here oh the dates we have listed for your anniversary, and that Adam lied to you about having already had reservations here for those dates,” he answered. “Tell me something, did your husband—”

  “We’re not exactly clear on the subject of whether or not he is my husband,” Maddy said harshly. The pain that welled inside her was intense, but she fought it down. She had to think rationally if she was going to figure out why she’d been carrying phony ID and what kind of sick game Adam had been playing.

  “Sorry,” Tom apologized. “I don’t know what to call him.”

  Hogan looked at Maddy. “Let’s call him the husband for the time being, because it’s always possible that you two really are married.”

  Maddy shook her head emphatically. “No. We’re not. I know it. I feel it! I didn’t believe Dr. Manion two weeks ago when he told me I had a husband, and I should have trusted my instincts! Damn it!” Maddy wrapped her arms around her waist, as if to hold in her pain.

  Graves reached a sympathetic hand out to her as a gesture of comfort, but Maddy jerked away. She’d gotten into this mess because she’d allowed herself to depend on a total stranger for strength and solace. It was a mistake she’d never, ever make again. S
he had to find her own strength, and she sure as hell didn’t want anyone’s pity.

  When she finally had control of her voice, she told them, “If Adam is really my husband, it means we both have to be using assumed identities. That suggests we were involved in something illegal, which could explain why he wouldn’t give the police my real name. But why should he lie to me? Why weave this ridiculous story about our blissful honeymoon at Bride’s Bay?” she asked bitterly.

  Hogan and Graves just looked at each other, clearly at a loss for an explanation.

  Since they didn’t have answers, Maddy knew she was going to have to find them herself. “All right, here’s what we’re going to do,” she said, taking charge the way she should have right at the beginning. “We’re going back to the Fortress and put every scrap of information we’ve got into one pile. I want to see hotel security’s background files on me and Adam. I want to know everything the police know about the attack on me at the airport. We’re going to take this situation apart piece by bloody piece, until I get some answers that make sense!”

  She whirled around and charged out. Hogan and Graves followed. It never occurred to either of them to dispute her right to order them around.

  WHEN HE SAW the woman emerging from the health club, the Raven paused near the outer exit close to the golf pro shop. She had the police detective, the hotel security chief and two bodyguards following her in a miniature parade, and something was clearly wrong. The Raven had to find out if it had anything to do with him, so he pretended to be searching his pockets as though he’d forgotten or lost something.

  It was risky, but he had to know. He was going to put himself into the woman’s line of sight. He wanted to be looking into her face when she saw him so that he’d be able to determine whether or not she recognized him.

  He lingered a moment longer, then timed his departure perfectly, closing in on the exit at just the right moment. She ran right into him.

  “Oh, excuse me!” he exclaimed. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t watching where I was going. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” the woman replied distractedly, hurrying on out the door.

  Tom Graves paused a moment, though, and frowned at the uniformed man who had obstructed the door. “Shouldn’t you be back at work?” he asked.

  The Raven looked heartily chagrined. “I’m just on my way there now, sir.”

  “Good.” Tom moved on out the door, caught up with the others in two giant steps and gestured toward a resort Land Rover in the parking enclave.

  The Raven watched them for another moment, smiling. The woman had looked right at him without flinching. Something was clearly upsetting her, but so far she still hadn’t regained any memories that included him.

  Perfect. He was still safe. There was no reason to believe that his plan had been exposed, and no one had the slightest reason to question him or his right to be here. There were only four days remaining until the arrival of the President.

  Everything was proceeding on schedule.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  WHEN MADDY GOT BACK to the hotel the front desk had a message for her from Adam giving her a phone number to his room at the Regency Hotel in New York.

  Graves and Hogan looked at her expectantly, but if they thought there was a snowball’s chance in hell that she’d use that number they were in for a big disappointment. Maddy had no intention of talking to Adam until she’d figured out who she was and what kind of sick game he’d been playing with her. She’d turned the pain he’d caused her into a white-hot rage, but she knew she hadn’t even begun to plumb the depths of the emotional anguish she was going to suffer because of the man who had made her fall in love with him.

  Tom led them on to the Fortress, where they started pooling their intelligence resources, but his contribution was sketchy at best. He explained that he’d asked for the Secret Service file on her and Adam late yesterday afternoon, but it hadn’t arrived yet and he hadn’t had time to do much checking on his own.

  He did have some credit information, which seemed pretty standard, but that was about as far as he’d gotten. Hogan went over the details surrounding the attack on Maddy and recounted his investigation step-by-step up to the point that he’d been told the case was closed.

  Maddy tried to be as dispassionate as possible as she related some of the things Adam had told her about herself, hoping that Graves or Hogan might spot something in the lies that would lead to a clue. Nothing did.

  In fact, nothing helped at all until Maddy remembered the phone calls Adam had made in the past few days. She asked to see a copy of the telephone bill for their suite—and that was when she struck pay dirt.

  Instead of finding a lot of international calls on the bill—their bank in Paris, Pere Ruben in Austria, Anthony Vernandas in Buenos Aires and a half-dozen other overseas calls Adam had mentioned to her—she found all the calls were to numbers in the U.S., mostly the Washington, D.C., area. And all of those D.C. calls were to the same phone number.

  She asked Hogan to check out the number, and within a few minutes he had determined that Adam’s calls had been made to a phone belonging to one Jacob Carmichael at 469 Beech Street in Georgetown.

  “Then that’s where I’m going,” Maddy announced.

  “Whoa. Wait a minute!” Tom said, coming out from behind his desk. “We may not know what’s going on here, but there’s still the little matter of someone wanting to kill you. We’ve got no reason to believe that has changed.”

  “But Adam is in New York,” Maddy argued. “We’ve got a phone call he made about two hours ago to prove it.”

  “Hold it,” Hogan interjected. “Are you thinking that Adam is your assailant?”

  Maddy wasn’t taking anything for granted ever again where Adam was concerned, and it was becoming easy for her to believe the absolute worst about him. The first lie in this whole mess had been hers. For some reason she’d been using phony ID cards. But all the other things he’d told her—those were also lies, and they’d been told for a reason.

  She swiveled her chair toward Hogan. “You’re the one who first suggested that posing as my husband would be a good way for the killer to get close to me, remember?”

  Hogan shook his head. “Yeah, but that theory doesn’t hold water now. It’s conceivable that he might be in league with your assailant, but if he wanted you dead, he’s had ample opportunity to arrange an accident.”

  “Under the scrutiny of two bodyguards?” she asked archly.

  “He’s the one who requested those guards,” Tom reminded her. He sat on the edge of his desk and looked down at Maddy. “He didn’t have to do that. He could’ve played down the danger and told you that regular hotel security measures would be sufficient protection. Or when nothing happened after the first few days, he could have dismissed the guards.”

  “Oh, right,” Maddy said sarcastically. “And the day after he dismisses them I have an accident, he plays the grieving spouse, and neither hotel security nor the Charleston police department suspects foul play? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.”

  Hogan and Graves looked at each other. “She’s right about that,” Tom said. “He couldn’t have dismissed the guards, but I still think he could’ve found a way around them if he really wanted her dead.”

  “Maybe he was just supposed to watch her to see if she got her memory back,” Hogan suggested.

  “Or to find out of she really had amnesia at all,” Tom speculated. “Could be her assailant thought she was faking.”

  “I’m not,” Maddy interjected. “And playing guessing games isn’t getting us anywhere. I can’t avoid the possibility that Adam is involved in a conspiracy to kill me. For what reason I don’t know, but it’s the only thing that makes any sense. He’s not just some nut off the street who read about me in the newspaper and decided he wanted to play house. If that had been the case, he would have taken advantage of—”

  Maddy stopped. She wasn’t going to tell these two men about the night she’d a
ll but begged Adam to make love to her. He’d claimed such noble reasons for saying no to her. Reasons so moving, in fact, that she had finally lowered all her barriers and placed her trust in him unreservedly.

  Maddy realized that if she looked closely at the events of that night she would probably see a dozen tiny ways Adam had manipulated her, but she couldn’t examine the details right now. They were too painful. They reminded her too sharply of what a fool she had been.

  She would analyze what Adam had done to her later, when she could do it knowing she wasn’t going to shatter into a thousand pieces. For the time being, all that mattered was getting to that address in Georgetown and seeing if a surprise visit to Mr. Jacob Carmichael could shed any light on the phone conversation he’d had with someone claiming to be Adam Hopewell.

  “Look, gentlemen, here’s the bottom line,” she said in a voice that brooked no disagreement. “I’m willing to take my chances outside of Bride’s Bay and risk going one-on-one with whoever tried to kill me, because as my life stands right now, it’s not worth a whole lot. I’m leaving here and you’re not stopping me. The only thing you can do is call Adam at his hotel in New York and tell him where I’m going, and if you do that you’ll probably triple the risk. If someone has been waiting for an opening to kill me, my best chance of survival is to get off the island and hope no one notices I’m missing.”

  “Granted,” Tom said. “But you’re not leaving here alone, so we’ll compromise. I’ll send Ed and Bobby with you. If your husband calls, I’ll cover for you—tell him you’ve joined in a volleyball tournament on the beach, or you’re helping-with Luau Night. He’s eventually going to get suspicious when you don’t call him back, though.”

  Maddy shook her head. “No. I can’t call him. I should, but I can’t.” She rose and began pacing the room.

  “That’s all right,” Tom said soothingly. “I’ll cover for you as long as I can. Just stick close to Ed and Bobby and pray for the best.”