“Hello.”
She listened and Jack felt his guts drop as he realized her face was turning white. She looked at him, her eyes wide. Then, speaking with remote calmness, she said into the phone, “Yes, Isobel. I remember you.”
Jack caught her gaze and shook his head, while he scrambled to assimilate the news.
The first thought that struck him was a rail against fate. How did they find me and why now? Why now and not five, ten, fifty years from now?
Sophie pointed to the lounge door, then jerked her thumb toward the front door. That he understood only too easily. Get Peter the hell out of here.
He rose to his feet and was cynically amused to find his legs were shaky. He forced himself to a casual walk and drifted into the lounge.
Peter was standing in the middle of the room, hat in hand, an angry red mark across his cheek. His eye on that side was watering. When he saw it was Jack, he smiled. It was almost a sneer.
“Figured you’d be here somewhere.”
“Didn’t seem to stop you spilling your thoughts, anyway.”
“Yeah and I figured you’d be listening too.” He looked at Jack speculatively. “Don’t suppose you want to put me out of my misery by telling me who you really are.”
“I’m Martin Stride. I have ID that can prove it.”
“Fake, sure.”
“It’s as authentic as you can get,” Jack assured him, for it was. It had been issued just as any other ID gets issued. “I don’t suppose you want to tell me something? Did you really set up that holdup just to win Sophie’s approval?”
It was a stab in the dark. The timing of Peter’s arrival at the café and his odd reactions when he got there hadn’t felt right and this had been one possible solution Jack had thought of.
Bingo! Peter’s eyes widened just a little, the lips nearly parted, enough to hint of a sagging jaw behind them, before he caught himself and his face hardened. “I don’t have to stand here and be insulted,” he said, putting on his hat and zipping up the heavy winter coat that Jack would give his eyeteeth to possess when he was out on the road. Judging by the look in Peter’s eyes, though, he knew he had given himself away.
He left without another word, just as Sophie was coming back into the room. “Bye, Peter,” she said, as if he was in the habit of popping in and out and would be back soon. She didn’t even turn to watch him leave.
Her expression was dazed as she looked at him. “Isobel!” she said.
“Did you tell her I was here?”
“No. But Jack, she knows you’re in the area. I don’t know how. She didn’t explain it just then. She’s calling back in ten minutes. She said she had to get to another phone.”
That sent a small wave of relief through him and he sank to the chair, letting his hands dangle across his knees.
“What?” Sophie asked.
“She’s worried about a trace. That makes it more likely she’s on my side.”
“Yes but how did she find you?” Sophie demanded. “Ohmigod!”
He looked up, his head jerked up by the dismay in her voice. She was looking over his shoulder, higher, at the shelves in the corner. He twisted around, bouncing to his feet, expecting…something.
There was nothing there.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded.
She was moving toward the shelves, frowning, reaching up. On the second-most top shelf was a white cardboard box and Sophie pointed to it. “Peter opened that box.”
He shook his head. “So? What if he did?”
“Jack, it had your gun in it. I didn’t put it away the other night. I forgot. Then I put it up high out of the kids’ reach when I found it on the coffee table the next morning. I didn’t have time for anything else. Then I forgot it was there.”
He reached for the box and it was a stretch for him but he got it without the clambering Sophie would have needed to do to reach it. He lifted it and was reassured when he felt the weight of it. “It’s still in there,” he told her and opened the lid to assure himself it was. He put the lid on and returned it to the shelf.
“See, the lid is the other way around,” Sophie said, her voice without substance. “I tore the corner of the lid getting it up there and when I walked in just now, the tear was facing the wall, not face out like it was when I did it. Now it’s face out again.”
Peter had been alone in the room for several minutes at least twice. He could have spied the box, reached for it and inspected it, then put it back all before anyone came back into the room. To what end, though?
The serial number.
A cold chill went through him. The serial number would lead Peter right back to him. To Jack. Not Martin.
Sophie saw the fear cross his features and grabbed his wrist. “Jack, talk to me.”
“The serial number,” he said, his voice remote. “If he took the serial number he’ll trace it. It’s my gun, Sophie. Jack Laubreaux. Not Martin Stride. He’ll get the name and if he traces the name, someone will hear about it. They’ll hear and they’ll come running.”
He looked at her, his expression pinched. Bleak. “I think the flare just went up.”
It took a second for her to understand the analogy. “You can’t leave just because you suspect Peter might have taken the number. Jack, for heaven’s sake, Isobel might be able to help. She might be able to do something. She’s in a position where she could do those checks and not tip people off. You know who she is now, don’t you?”
From his remote expression, it looked like his thoughts were miles away. He wasn’t listening to her. “No, who is she?” he asked.
“She’s the governor of Indiana.”
That seemed to register in his mind. He focused on her again. “Governor?”
“Yes. Governor. Don’t you think that puts her in a position to help us? Couldn’t this be the break you were talking about?”
“What I want to know is how she got your number.”
“I’m in the phone book.”
“How did she know which phone book to look in?” he demanded.
“Does it matter? I’m out there, a publicly recorded name, address and phone number. You could probably spit up that information on me somewhere on the internet in thirty seconds.”
He shook his head a little. “It’s getting crowded and busy around here. I don’t like it.”
“She’s phoning back,” Sophie warned.
“You can’t tell her I’m here,” Jack said quickly.
“Jack…” She held out her hand. “Don’t discount a possible means of help just because you’re feeling claustrophobic. You’re letting your paranoia drive you.”
His glance was direct. “It’s the only way to stay alive.”
The need to stomp her foot was almost overwhelming. She clenched her fists instead. “Jack, for one moment, just one moment, stop letting your instincts take charge. Please. Just think about it. Logically.”
He took a deep breath and let it out. Slowly, he sat down again. “There’s too many unknowns,” he said quietly.
“True but this is something new that’s happened. It’s a development. Surely it’s worth the risk to follow it and see where it leads? It might be a way out of this.”
The front door banged open again, with the little breeze of cold air that always accompanied it wafting into the room.
“Mom!”
“Here, Morgan!” she called, wishing she’d got just one more minute to convince Jack. Instead she felt a tiny flutter of panic in her. Time was running out and she was being forced into decisions and situations where she didn’t have a chance to choose or shape to her requirements, or to even argue that she didn’t want to participate at all.
Morgan came in, his cheeks glowing with the cold and his eyes sparkling. He had candy stains on his chin and cheeks and a grubby paper sack of candy in his hand. “It was a great party! You should have seen all the presents Matthew got! A whole Lego Star Wars set!” He hugged her and saw Jack on the other side of the room and bounced
over. “Martin! Look at what I made!” He pulled something red out of his pocket and spread it on Jack’s knee, as Jack smiled a little, mustering enthusiasm.
It was a Christmas stocking, cut out of red felt. “See—I glued it together with hot glue. They gave us glitter glue to write our names on but I’ve already got a stocking, so look.” He pointed.
In wobbling, drunken letters, Morgan had written “Martin” across the white portion at the top of the stocking. He looked up at Jack, waiting for his approval.
Sophie put her hand over her mouth, holding herself. The little gesture, the implications behind it, was heartbreaking.
Jack tried a smile and made it. “It’s great, Morgan,” he said.
“Gotta pin it up, too,” Morgan insisted, whipping it away and scrambling around the coffee table to the mantelpiece, where the rest of the family stockings already hung. Morgan took a pin from the bowl on the mantle that Sophie was using to pin up cards as they arrived in the mail and tried to drive it into the wood.
Sophie got up and helped him push the pin home, then gave him a hug. “There’s juice in the fridge, if you want it.”
“Yeah, ’cause the candy makes my throat dry and I ate lots of chips too.” He rushed into the kitchen.
She went over to the chair where Jack sat like a stone. He looked shell-shocked. She crouched and picked up his hand. It was cold.
“It’s not just me you’ll be leaving, you see,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes.
The phone rang.
Stiffly, Sophie got to her feet and went and answered it.
“Sophie, it’s Isobel again.” She sounded hurried.
Sophie turned and saw Jack had followed her out.
“Hello, Isobel.”
“I can’t stay on the phone long, so let’s make this quick.”
“How did you get my number?” Sophie asked.
“Excuse me?”
“How did you get my number?”
“Hell, I told my secretary to find it. I don’t know…there’s probably a CD or a website out there somewhere with the information on it.”
“How did you know which state to look in?”
Isobel’s voice was very gentle. “Sophie, I’ve known where you are since you walked out of Sinai. I knew you had married and moved to that little place in Montana the month you moved.”
“Why would you keep tabs on me that way?”
“Jack would have wanted me to. I thought, if ever you were in trouble, bad trouble, I could maybe help. He’d have wanted it.”
“You told me he’d died.”
“I had too, Sophie. As far as you were concerned, he may as well have been dead. You would never have seen him again under normal circumstances. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh but it was a kindness in disguise. You’ll probably never believe me but it was.”
“How do you know Jack is in the area?”
Isobel sighed. “I can’t give you a lot of detail, except that there were certain records—police records, credit checks, that sort of thing—I’ve had passive watches on them for years now. If ever anyone searched certain names, I’d get to hear about it. Five days ago, someone in your area did a search on one of those names.”
“And that tells you Jack is in the area?”
She could hear the hesitation in Isobel’s voice. “Jack had another identity, Sophie. He went through witness protection. I can’t give you details, so don’t ask me. He was relocated and given a new name but they had found him. He ran. He’s been running nine years now. A few days ago someone in your area ran a check on his other name. They must have had contact with him.”
“What have I got to do with that?”
She could hear Isobel’s impatience, her fear, crackling through her words. “Look, I’ll have to go very soon here. I don’t want to stay on much longer. Sophie, if I could put a watch on those records so could someone else. They could be moving into the area as we speak, looking for Jack. If he’s there, they’ll find him. They’re relentless. They won’t give up. If you’ve seen him, if you do see him, if by some miracle he finds you, you have to warn him.”
There was the sound of conversation behind her, a door closing. She had a hand over the mouthpiece for the talk was muffled. Then it cleared.
“Just a second, Mike.” Her voice came more directly into the phone. “I have to go,” she said quickly, her voice very low. “Sophie, tell him I can help. I can bring him in.”
The phone disconnected with a click.
Chapter Eighteen
Peter hung up the phone and looked at the name he’d written on the legal pad in front of him.
Jack Laubreaux. Chicago.
The name, without any searching at all, told him many things. The gun wasn’t registered in Sophie’s name. A minor issue. But if it wasn’t in Sophie’s name, then he would have expected a gun in her house to be in her ex-husband’s name. Given the current circumstances, he’d fully expected Martin Stride’s name to come up. Maybe even Jinni’s.
But what he got was Jack. Jack.
That was what Sophie had called him in the car park at Beany’s.
Peter frowned, pulling up the memory. She’d called him Jack and he’d spoken over the top of her, introducing himself as Martin. Later, when he’d asked her about it, Sophie had told him Jack was dead. Someone she’d known a long time ago that Martin looked like.
It hung together very nicely.
It might even be true. The Walther he’d taken the serial number from had been sitting in that box for maybe years. It had shown no signs of maintenance or oil and there had been no bullets with it.
But she had called him Jack and Peter was now convinced that Martin was an assumed name. So, he pulled the keyboard of his computer over to him and called up the same national database he had plugged into a week ago. This time he tapped in Jack Laubreaux and hit enter.
The answer came back to him so fast it caught him by surprise, for he had been intending to go get himself a coffee and had half-lifted himself out of the chair.
He scrolled down the return screen. There were over three hundred and fifty entries.
Chicago, Freeport Illinois, Greenfield Wisconsin, Colorado. Well, he’d already known the guy got about. Then there were the entries listed under other names—the database would spit up anything that had the name he was searching anywhere in it at all, so some of the entry titles looked like they were misfires. But Jack Laubreaux wasn’t a common name at all, so Peter knew there would be a very good chance all the weird entries were legitimate.
He kept scrolling down, reading entries, getting an overview of the life of Jack Laubreaux. They were in chronological order so the progression following his life as it happened. The last entry was dated over ten years ago. Then nothing.
Peter sat back, staring at the last entries on the screen, thinking that one over. Just reading through the list gave him facts. Laubreaux had been a cop. Only cops or career-criminals tended to build so many entries so quickly. Some of the entries in there had document codes that Peter recognized. Police reports. They didn’t have “Laubreaux” as the subject. He had done the reporting, then.
Then abruptly, ten years ago, silence.
A few entries from the bottom was a name that tickled Peter’s memory. Patrick Callahan. A court case.
He opened the entry and had read only a few lines when understanding blazed in his mind.
All this time Sophie had known.
Which begot another question; if this Laubreaux had operated out of Chicago and Sophie was a west coast girl, how did she know him?
Who was Sophie, then?
He stood up. Time to go get that coffee. He’d be here a while.
* * * * *
It was just after nine p.m.
While Sophie was upstairs tucking the kids into bed, Jack stood at the bay window, staring out at the night, his mind bouncing around with the aimless frenetic energy of a lion locked in its cage. It wasn’t constructive thinking. It
wasn’t really thinking. It was a silent litany of facts and fears that were adding up to a conclusion he didn’t want to face. Time had run out.
If he was honest, he was looking out the window to see if there were any cars he didn’t recognize parked on the street or cruising slowly by. That, right there, was a frightening thought. He’d been here long enough to know what cars were local and what weren’t.
It was Jinni’s night off, but even she knew something was up. After dinner, she’d come through from her downstairs bedroom into the lounge, dressed for her evening out, her long coat over her arm. He’d been standing by the mantelshelf, unable to sit down. She’d come straight up to him. “Should I stay here tonight?” She kept her voice low, beneath the volume of the television.
It had caught him off-guard and he kicked himself a little. Their everything-is-normal act during dinner had sold Georgia and Morgan but not Jinni. He glanced at Sophie, sitting on the sofa between the two of them and pretending she was watching the movie. She saw his glance but stayed silent and he understood that. Her children were the priority right now.
Jinni simply stood waiting for his answer, the stoical patience forcing him to give it.
“You don’t have to stay here.”
“Then you won’t be leaving until I get back?” she asked.
That made him jump.
“There’s trouble, isn’t there?” she asked softly.
“Yes.” He gave the answer reluctantly. How many more people would he have to drag into this before he could disengage and leave them in peace?
“Then I stay,” Jinni answered.
“No,” he said, quickly. “Nothing will happen tonight. If I leave quickly enough, nothing will happen at all.” I hope, he added silently.
For that was another of the new unsettling thoughts chasing around in his mind as he stood looking out the window. Until now, simply leaving town had been enough to leave a cold trail and keep those he left behind uninvolved in his affairs. He could no longer say with any certainty that his leaving would work that way, now.
All the while, he could feel a cold, dark shadow reaching out from the east, racing across the country, coming for him. The need to run was almost overwhelming.
Dead Again: A Romantic Thriller Page 22