by Theresa Weir
Keeping her face hidden, she lifted her hand and felt around until her knuckles came in contact with the surface of the table. She let go of five chess pieces, then went searching for more. Dylan joined her under the table.
She couldn’t look at him. “This is so embarrassing. ”
“I’m finding it rather enlightening. And very entertaining. Things were getting a little boring around here, isn’t that right, Davis?”
“Uh, right,” came a man’s flustered voice from above the table. “Is this a bust or not?”
“This is that unrequited business.”
“Oh ... ?” That was followed by a thoughtful pause. “Oh.”
Dylan picked up the queen. “You know ...” He bounced the piece in his hand, as if testing its weight. “I used to like the knight best, but now I think the queen is my favorite piece.” He reached above his head and put it back on the table. “J’aboube.”
Dylan's chess partner burst out laughing, as if it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. “J’aboube, ” Dylan repeated. “It means, I adjust. You’re supposed to say it before you straighten a piece.”
“Oh.” How on earth would she have known that?
Dylan's friend was still laughing, and Claire was beginning to feel more stupid by the second.
“Even if there was a drug deal going down, what are you doing here? Have you suddenly joined the weekend police?”
“No, I— Well, I didn't want to see you get into any more trouble than you're already in.”
He stopped her hands in their frantic search for more pieces. “Why?”
“Well ... I ... “
"Claire?"
Dylan reached for her, tilting up her face until she was looking at him in the dark under the table. “I thought you hated me."
“I never hated you. How could you think I hate you?”
He was looking at her as if he wanted to kiss her. He would kiss her, if she let another second go by. “I have to go." She backed out from under the table, bumping her head as she stood up.
Claire wanted to disappear, to vanish. Now that she was upright, she took better note of the other man in the room. While he no longer stood with his hands in the air, he nonetheless had his back to the wall, staring at her as if she were crazy. He might be onto something.
“Do I know you?” she asked. He looked familiar. “Aren't you the chess player?”
The man shot a nervous glance in Dylan's direction, then quickly shook his head.
“Yes you are. Daniel French. That’s your name. You're Daniel French.”
Dylan took a step toward her. “Claire, we have to talk.”
What was going on here? She turned to see Libby still standing near the door with her fingers pressed hard to her lips, her eyes glistening, trying to hold back her hysteria.
Claire had to get away. She was so ashamed. Of everything. “Go ahead and laugh,” she said to her friend, completely humiliated. “This was your bright idea.” How had she let herself become involved in Libby’s paranoia? She should have known better. Claire edged past her, stepping out into the cold night.
“But it’s funny!” Libby shouted after her.
She wasn’t quite sure why, but Claire felt like the victim of some stupid prank. Without waiting for Libby to catch up, Claire jumped into the Jeep and turned the key. The passenger door opened and closed.
Lost in her misery, Claire backed up, then began to pull out of the parking lot.
“You can’t say you don’t hate me,” Dylan said from the passenger seat, “then take off like that.”
Claire slammed on the brakes, almost sending them both through the windshield. She put the Jeep in neutral and pulled out the emergency brake.
“I think we need to backtrack to the night I said the L word.”
Claire turned to him, her arm looped over the steering wheel. She had to tell him. She had to come clean. “You don't love me.” There. She'd said it. It hurt. It hurt like hell, but she’d said it.
He tried to argue, but she continued, her voice effectively drowning him out. “Oh, you think you love me, but you don’t. Because what you feel for me isn’t real. You want to know how I know that? I’ll show you.” She grabbed her purse, opened it up, and pulled out the voodoo doll, holding it high enough for the motel’s yard light to illuminate the Doughboy’s placid face.
“What the hell’s that?”
“A voodoo doll. A voodoo doll of you, to be specific. And if you’ll look closely, you’ll see the three places where pins used to be. Here—” She pointed to the head. “And here—” She pointed to the chest. “And ... well, here.” She pointed to the crotch.
His wasn’t the reaction she’d been expecting. Instead of getting mad at the way she’d tricked him and manipulated him and made him into a sex object to perform at her beck and call—whatever beck and call was—he laughed.
He laughed.
The idiot.
The wonderful, wonderful idiot.
“Don’t you understand?” she asked, exasperated. Would she have to spell it out? “Haven’t you ever seen a voodoo doll?”
“Oh, I've seen a lot of voodoo dolls.”
“You have?”
“Claire, I used to live in New Orleans. Voodoo was one of the biggest cash crops.”
“Then you should understand what I did. And how dishonest it was.”
“I lived in New Orleans long enough to know that there was the tourist voodoo, and the real voodoo.”
She poked at the top of the doll’s head. “This is your hair.”
"'Did you burn candles while chanting a love incantation? Did you use any herbs like willow and yarrow? Did you perform the ceremony of beckoning?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Exactly.”
“But I’m sure I would have tried it if I’d known about it.” When she went truthful, she went all the way.
He took the doll from her. “This isn’t anything. It’s a toy. A stuffed doll.” He rolled down the window.
She screamed, jumped across the gearshift and grabbed his arm. “Don’t!” She had visions of it lying in the parking lot, cars running over it.
“Claire. It won't hurt me if I throw this out.”
“But what if it does?” she whispered, leaning into him, hanging on to his arm with both hands. “I don't want to risk it. Please don't. Please?”
He tossed the doll on the dashboard, rolled up the window, then wrapped both of his arms around her, pulling her close, the bulk of her winter jacket between them. He lifted her face to his and found her lips.
She sighed and relaxed into him, returning kiss for kiss.
“You smell like a motel room,” she said groggily, finally able to get him back for the mothball thing.
He just laughed and kissed her some more.
“There's your proof,” he said a couple of minutes later when the windows were steamed up and Claire was sweating under her heavy winter clothes.
“Hmm?”
“I still want you as much as ever. Does it ever get warm enough around here to wear fewer clothes? Wouldn't it be nice if you were wearing a dress right now? Kind of a flowing white shift with nothing underneath but those panties I like so well.”
“In the summer, it gets warm enough to lie outside naked.”
“You don't say?”
“I don't make a habit of that kind of behavior, but with the right company, it might be ... very nice.”
“I have to ask you something,” he said, suddenly becoming serious. “Did you mean it when you said chess was sexy?”
“Is that what this is all about? You’re trying to learn chess because I said I thought it was sexy?” She pressed her lips against his, intending that it be a quick kiss, getting lost in him all over again. “That is the absolutely sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. But Dylan, you don’t have to play chess for me to think you’re sexy.”
“That’s good.” He slid his hands under her coat, cupping her
to him. “That's what I needed to hear.”
“I’m sorry I barged in on your game like that. I’m sorry I thought you were doing something illegal.”
“That’s okay. That’s what I love about you. Your zugzwang. ”
“My what?”
“Zugzwang. It means you have the compulsion to act, even if it means you could worsen your position.”
“Zugzwang.”
Another chess term. She wanted to give herself over to the moment, but little things filtered their way into her subconscious. She had a mental flash. In her mind, she saw the tattoo on Dylan’s arm. She’d always thought it was a horse, but now she realized it could also be a knight. And what about the way he was always tinkering with things, planning out new and more elaborate ways to make things work with his mathematical mind. Why hadn’t she seen it before? The clues had been there all along, even back as far as the day she’d rescued him from the blizzard, when he’d looked up at her and mumbled something about a queen needing a knight.
“You weren’t here tonight to get a chess lesson, were you?” she asked.
“No.”
There was no hesitation in his answer. Was that a sign that he’d planned to tell her the truth? “You were here to play.”
“Yes.”
She took it one question further. “Have you ever played professionally?”
“Yes.”
“What about Daniel French? Where does he fit into all of this?”
“That’s something I was going to tell you.” He shifted uncomfortably. Claire had the feeling she already knew what he was about to say.
“I’m Daniel French. Dylan is my middle name. It’s what my family always called me.”
Why hadn’t he told her? If he cared about her, why had he kept his identity a secret? “Why did you let me believe you were a criminal?”
“At first I knew that if I tried to tell you differently, you wouldn’t believe me. And then, later, I guess I wanted to see if you would like me, just me, for myself and who I was, not who I was supposed to be.”
She had another thought. “So who is that in there with Libby?” She was afraid she knew the answer to this one, too.
“Trevor Davis.”
“The criminal. You guys traded places. I can see the advantage for Trevor, but why would you want to switch places with a criminal?”
“That . . . Well, that was more Davis’s idea than mine.”
That was all he said about it, about a man who’d left him for dead and taken his identity. Apparently revenge wasn't something that burned in Dylan’s soul the way it did in most humans. But then, Claire had always known he wasn’t like everybody else.
In the motel room, they found Trevor Davis and Libby hunched over the card table, the chess set between them, with Trevor going over the basics.
“And this horse, I mean the knight, can move over the top of things? If this square here”—she pointed—“is empty, he can do this?” She moved the piece to a new square.
“That’s right,” Trevor said, seeming quite pleased with his new and intrigued pupil.
“This is so interesting,” Libby said, looking up from the board. “I never knew chess could be so interesting.”
“Yeah.” Trevor checked the clock. “I’ve got to be back to the airport soon.”
Libby slid off the bed. “Do you have to leave right away? I'm got plenty of room at my place.”
Trevor looked as if he couldn’t have heard her right. The poor guy obviously wasn’t used to women coming on to him. Especially a woman as attractive and as forward as Libby.
“Are you kidding?” he asked.
“You could teach me more fascinating chess moves.”
The man actually blushed. Claire stood watching the interplay. Trevor didn’t seem at all Libby's type, but you never could tell, and Libby actually seemed taken with him.
Maybe Libby had come on too strong, or maybe Trevor really did have to be somewhere. Whatever the reason, he ended up packing up his chess pieces, calling a cab, and heading off into the sunrise, leaving a dejected Libby waving good-bye.
Chapter 29
Libby had left her car at Claire's, so they all piled into the Jeep, with Claire behind the wheel, Dylan in the passenger seat, and Libby in the back with Dylan's plastic bag.
“I'd say that certainly went well,” Libby said, congratulating herself, leaning forward, arms draped over the seat so her face was between Claire and Dylan. She kept chattering about how cute Trevor was, and how it was too bad he'd had to leave. When they got to Claire's, with an ecstatic Hallie barking and circling Dylan, Libby fished out her keys and hopped into her car, waving and blowing kisses as she drove off, finally leaving Claire and Dylan to themselves.
~0~
Two days later, Libby was pounding on Claire's door again. Before Dylan or Claire could answer, she barged in, tossing her purse down on the couch and pulling off her jacket. “I knew he should have stayed at my place. Have you two seen the news?”
They both shook their heads. Claire blushed and Dylan smiled at her. They hadn’t had much time for any extracurricular activity.
Libby turned on the TV. “You have to see this.”
They had to wait through some bad commercials, then the regularly scheduled programming was interrupted.
“Here we are once again with the top story of the day, or perhaps the season,” said the news anchor. “The person thought to be enigmatic chess master Daniel French. is actually con man and wanted criminal Trevor Davis.”
“Jesus,” Dylan mumbled, dropping to the couch, hands between his knees, eyes on the screen. “I should never have made him come here.”
“And that's just the beginning of this bizarre, tragic tale.”
“A tale. Why is it always a tale?” Claire wondered out loud.
“Shhh.” Libby waved her hand.
The camera cut to a prepared, taped story. Suddenly on the screen was a shot taken from the air. A shot of mountains and snow. An airplane crash. Dylan felt sick to his stomach.
“In January, a private plane crashed in the snow-covered mountains of northern Idaho. The pilot died upon impact. One man walked away. The other is presumed dead.”
The camera cut back to the studio, to the man behind the desk. “The survivor who walked away that day claimed to be reclusive chess champion Daniel French, but we’ve only just discovered that he is not French at all. He’s none other than convicted felon Trevor Davis. Davis is an escaped prisoner wanted for fraud and embezzlement. He has confessed to leaving the severely injured French on the plane by himself, claiming to have gone for help, while at the same time stealing a dying man’s identity.”
They cut to an interview with the captain of the rescue team. “Is there any way the real Daniel French could have made it out of the mountains?”
The man shook his head. “He had several things against him. His injuries, of course. But he also had the depth of the snow that was already on the ground, the storm that blew in the following day, the frigid temperatures, and lack of experience.”
“You didn’t mention a bunch of assholes firing guns,” Dylan said.
“I don’t know if one of my men, experienced as they are, could have made it off the mountain under those conditions, let alone your average person.”
They cut back to the news desk. “There you have it. Sad news for the world of chess.”
“Is anyone still looking for Daniel French?” asked the co-anchor.
“The search was called off weeks ago,” the newscaster said with just the right amount of somberness. “At this point, he is presumed dead."
Libby shut off the TV. “I can’t believe it. I finally find a guy I like, and he’s a felon.”
“Libby, you were only around him for a half hour,” Claire pointed out.
“Sometimes that’s all it takes.” Libby grabbed her coat. “I gotta go.” She stormed out as if it were there fault.
And maybe it was, Dylan thought after she left.<
br />
Claire tried to get his mind off Trevor, but nothing worked. She suggested renting a movie.
Nothing he wanted to see.
Or going for a drive to the high mountains.
Not today.
Or making love.
He’d been all set to say no before she even asked the question. He had to shift gears halfway through his answer.
“No—okay.”
An hour later, he was back on Trevor again. “It’s my fault.”
“Let me remind you that if you’d been thrown into prison instead, he’d be celebrating.”
'"No, he would have come forward.” He rubbed his forehead. “I can’t quit thinking about him getting raped by a bunch of murderers. There has to be some way to get him into a minimum-security prison, one for white-collar criminals. I'm going to talk to a lawyer.”
Before Dylan could get things lined up, Trevor ended up taking care of the problem himself.
Hardly more than twenty-four hours after his arrest, Trevor escaped from the jail where he was being held temporarily.
A couple of days after Trevor's escape, Dylan was acting moody again. Claire didn’t know what to expect, but when he pulled her into his arms and asked her to go to New Orleans with him, she couldn’t have been any more surprised.
“I have some things I want to pick up,” he explained. “Some things I left there a long time ago.”
They caught a flight out of Boise, leaving Claire's Jeep in long-term parking, and Hallie in the care of Libby. At first Claire protested about the cost of coming along, but then Dylan explained that he could afford it. “I want you with me.”
They had a layover at the Denver International Airport. It was the first really big public place he’d gone in years. Getting off the plane, walking down the narrow ramp, brought back memories of cameras flashing and reporters jamming microphones in his face.
Stepping out of the accordion ramp, he braced himself, half expecting to be bombarded by press.
Nothing happened.
Nobody recognized him.
They were passing a newspaper stand when Claire stopped him, a hand to his arm. "Is that you?" she whispered.