Haunting Rachel

by Kay Hooper

  Rachel walked on.

  Another room she looked into had windows covered with brown paper, blocking the light.

  She went on, and around the next corner there was a door that seemed to have a great deal of light behind it. At first Rachel thought it was locked, but she tugged and tugged, and finally it opened.

  For a moment, she was blinded by all the light pouring from the room. That’s all there was—light.

  “Rachel.”

  She took a step back.

  “Rachel.” He stepped out of the light, smiling at her.

  Adam. Happily, she held out a hand to him.

  He took off Adam’s face, and it was Thomas.

  Rachel’s hand fell, and she took another step back, suddenly frightened.

  “Don’t trust him, Rachel.” Thomas took off his face, and it was Adam again.

  “Don’t trust him.”

  The Thomas mask fell to the floor, and when she looked down at it, it was horribly broken, the ragged edges dripping blood….

  Rachel woke up with a cry tearing free of her throat. Her heart was thundering, her breathing so hoarse that each gasp stabbed her.

  She sat there, her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around them, shivering, staring around at the morning-bright room, trying to reassure herself that it had been only a dream.

  Slowly, her fear and panic faded, but anxiety lingered. She had never in her life dreamed like this. Masks. Thomas and Adam, seemingly interchangeable, one or both of them warning her not to trust … someone.

  Who?

  Was it only her own subconscious warning her to be very sure of her feelings for both men—the living and the dead?

  Or was it a different kind of warning?

  ELEVEN

  hen Rachel came back into her bedroom after her shower, she paused while getting dressed and gazed at the yellow rose in the bud vase on her nightstand. It should have been wilting at least a little, she thought.

  It wasn’t.

  She reached out and touched a silky petal, then withdrew her hand and stared at her fingers. On two of them were crystal drops. As if the flower were so fresh, it still held morning dew.

  Rachel sank down on the side of her bed and stared at the rose. Flowers didn’t just appear out of nowhere and then freshen themselves every night. So there had to be an explanation.

  Except she couldn’t think of one.

  Even if there had been nothing else, Rachel would have been unsettled. Added to her dream, it was profoundly disturbing.

  “Don’t trust him, Rachel.”

  Dreams were seldom straightforward, instead presenting symbols and signs that had to be interpreted based on what was going on in one’s life at that moment. She knew that. So what was her subconscious trying to tell her? Not to trust Adam? Or not to trust her growing feelings for him?

  Rachel didn’t know, and not knowing was painful.

  She finished dressing and went down to breakfast, pleased to find that Mercy had stopped by, as she sometimes did. Their lives had been so busy that they had not had much time to talk lately, but during the past weeks Mercy had made it a habit to stop by once every few days for coffee and conversation.

  On this morning, Mercy was a bit preoccupied, but she did note a change in her friend. “Bad night?” she asked as she joined Rachel at the table.

  Rachel grimaced. “Does it show?”

  “Yes,” Mercy replied slowly. “It does.”

  “Just unsettling dreams,” Rachel said.

  “About?”

  Rachel hesitated, then shrugged. “Tom. Adam.”

  “You still dream about Tom?”

  “I hadn’t for a long time. But lately …”

  “Since Adam came?”

  Rachel nodded. “I guess my subconscious is trying to work out how I feel about them both. Adam’s coming over this morning, so you may see him, Mercy. Be warned. He’s the image of Tom.”

  “Maybe that’s it,” Mercy murmured.

  “What?”

  “Why you’re different.”

  “I didn’t know I was.”

  Mercy smiled. “Look in the mirror. It isn’t a drastic change, but this morning you look a lot like that girl I knew as a teenager. Your whole face seems more alive somehow. Expressive of what you’re feeling.”

  Rachel knew that Tom’s death had changed her. What she had not realized was that Adam’s arrival had wrought another change. “And you think it’s because Adam looks like Tom?”

  “Isn’t it possible? You lost the love of your life, and ten years later his double shows up. I can only imagine that he would be easy to love.”

  Rachel gave herself a moment, sipping her coffee, then spoke slowly. “I can’t deny that Adam looking so much like Tom might have influenced me in the beginning.”

  “Might have?”

  “All right—did. But, Mercy, I know he isn’t Tom. He looks like him, even sounds like him, but there’s something in Adam I never saw or sensed in Tom.”

  “What?”

  “A toughness. A danger. Tom was always more careless and carefree than anything else. Friendly, charming. You never got the feeling that Tom could be dangerous, that there was anything especially powerful or tough inside him.” Rachel shrugged. “He loved fast cars and fast planes, and he laughed more than he frowned. He’d make promises blithely, with every intention of keeping them, but somehow …”

  “Somehow they always got broken.”

  A little hesitantly, Rachel looked at Tom’s sister. “He always tried to keep his promises, I know that.”

  Mercy smiled. “Of course he did. He was my brother, Rachel, and I loved him. But he was a lot like our father. His charm took him through life, and it succeeded so well for him that he never really had to work at anything. Never had to fight for anything that mattered to him.”

  “You’ve never said anything like that before.”

  “You weren’t ready to hear it.” Mercy shook her head. “He loved you, and I like to believe he would have made you a good husband, but those fast cars and fast planes would have kept him away from you a lot. Just the way they’ve kept Dad away from Mom.”

  Rachel had been vaguely aware of Tom and Mercy’s parents as a child, and had gotten to know them a bit better during her engagement to Tom, but she had never really considered them as a couple. Thinking about it now, she realized that Alex Sheridan traveled a great deal and was seldom home, and that Ruth Sheridan—like her own mother had—occupied her time with charities and other social duties and responsibilities. To all appearances, it seemed a content marriage, just as her own parents’ marriage had seemed content. On the surface.

  “I never thought,” she said slowly.

  Mercy’s smile held a touch of ruefulness. “Charming men have a way of discouraging thought.”

  Rachel looked at her. “Is that why you’ve tended to date men who were—”

  “Not charming?” Mercy laughed. “I guess you could say that. I learned to value other qualities more.” Then she sobered and gazed at her friend steadily. “The point is that you can’t believe you’re being disloyal to Tom because Adam has come into your life. Whether anything develops between you or not, Tom shouldn’t be part of the equation. He had his share of faults, just like the rest of us, and you have no way of knowing—really knowing—if the two of you would have been happy together. But even that isn’t important. He’s gone, Rachel. Let him go.”

  Rachel managed a smile. “That’s easy for you to say. You haven’t met Adam yet.”

  “Looks can be deceptive, as the man said. At least, I think it was a man. Anyway, just keep reminding yourself that Adam is not Tom. Sooner or later you’re bound to get them separated.”

  “Umm. I hope you’re right.”

  “I am. Which entitles me to ask one nosy question.” “That being?”

  “Why is Adam Delafield coming over this morning?”

  Rachel’s hesitation was brief. “To help me go through Dad’s private paper
s.”

  Mercy raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Rache, I hate to sound too much like Graham Becket, but is that a good idea?”

  “I don’t know,” Rachel replied frankly. “Yesterday I would have said I trusted him. In fact, I did say it. Today … I just don’t know.”

  “Then maybe you should ask him not to come. Give yourself a little more time to make up your mind about him. With everything that’s happened to you recently, it would probably be a good idea.”

  Rachel shook her head. “No. Dad trusted him, Mercy. He trusted him enough to lend him a lot of money on a handshake.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “Reasonably sure. Maybe as sure as I’ll ever be. In any case, I can’t see how his helping me would be a mistake on my part.”

  “You hope.”

  Rachel sighed. “Yeah. I hope.”

  There didn’t seem to be much to say after that, and in a few minutes Mercy took her leave. She was preoccupied once again as she walked toward her car, but that abstraction vanished as she watched a strange car pull up beside her own—and the living image of her dead brother get out.

  “My God,” she whispered. Until that moment “he looks like Tom” had been a statement she only vaguely understood, but now Rachel’s confusion became all too clear.

  He saw her, saw her shock, and came toward her slowly. His expression was as enigmatic as Nick’s had ever been, and that veiled look sat oddly, she thought, on her brother’s open face. The disparity freed her from the paralysis of astonishment.

  “My God,” she repeated.

  He stopped an arm’s length away and slid his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “You’re Mercy Sheridan,” he said. “Rachel described you.”

  Tom’s voice. Yet not quite. “And she described you. But I didn’t … quite believe her.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know it must be a shock.”

  “You could say that. You could certainly say that.” Mercy shook her head, her eyes fixed on his face. “You really could almost be his twin.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “No wonder Rachel is …” She didn’t finish that sentence, and if there was any reaction from Adam, it was so subtle, she missed it. Mercy drew a breath. “Well. I would say it’s nice to meet you, but you’ll have to let me get used to the idea.”

  “I understand.”

  She wondered if he did. “Rachel’s expecting you. And I have to get to work. So—I guess I’ll see you again.”

  “I hope so,” he said, the words conventional and his tone light. He stepped back onto the walkway and watched her until she reached her car and got in. Then he turned and headed toward the house.

  Mercy had a lot on her mind these days, but the shock of Adam’s appearance stayed with her all the way to the bank. And she wasn’t sure which bothered her more. That Adam looked so much like her dead brother, or that his familiar face held a secretiveness Tom’s had never displayed.

  “Here’s something.” Rachel was at her father’s desk, going through the contents of the bottom drawer while Adam sat on the sofa with the contents of the other remaining desk drawer spread out on the coffee table before him. “Another scrap of paper with a name and phone number, and the notation call about JW. Those were the initials beside that largest loan.” She kept her tone casual, just as she had since he had arrived.

  “Is it a Richmond number?” Adam asked.

  “There’s no area code, so it must be.”

  “What’s the name?”

  “John Elliot. Doesn’t ring a bell with me.”

  Adam came to the desk and looked at the paper for a moment, then reached for the phone. “One way to find out.”

  He punched the number, listened for a few moments with his brows rising, then gave his and Rachel’s names and her number and asked that the call be returned to either of them as soon as possible.

  “Voice mail?” Rachel asked as he hung up.

  “Yeah.” He frowned. “John Elliot is out of town for an unspecified length of time. Rachel, he’s a private investigator.”

  She leaned back slowly in the desk chair and stared at him. “So Dad wanted this JW investigated?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “But the bank has an investigator on retainer. Why would Dad use another one?”

  “Maybe because this was one of his private loans.” Rachel shook her head. “There’s no date on the note. We have no way of knowing if this JW was investigated before or after Dad lent him the money. Or even at all. It could be a plan he was never able to put into motion. Until John Elliot gets his messages and calls us …”

  “We just have another question.”

  Rachel took the note and said, “So I guess we just copy this, put a copy in the file with the rest of our bits and pieces—and keep looking while we wait for Elliot to call.”

  Adam perched on the corner of the desk. “You sound discouraged.”

  “Well, it’s like putting together a jigsaw puzzle when we don’t know what the picture is supposed to be. And half the pieces are missing. I’m afraid I’m going to look right at something vitally important and not realize it. Why the hell did Dad have to be so cryptic?”

  “He was a very … discreet man.” Adam smiled.

  “To a fault.”

  “If you want to put off finishing this, Rachel—”

  “No, no. It has to be done.”

  “Yes, but not necessarily today. I know this is hard for you, and not just because we’re putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Maybe we need to take a break. Why don’t I buy you lunch, and then maybe we can take a closer look at that store you leased yesterday.”

  Rachel smiled slightly. “You’re not going to let me off the leash, are you?”

  He grimaced. “That obvious?”

  “That you don’t want me leaving this house by myself? Oh, yes, it’s fairly obvious.” But is it for my safety, Adam? Or for yours?

  “Rachel, until we know more than we do now, it’s better to be safe than sorry. That explosion last Friday was too close for comfort.”

  “I know, but, Adam, the mechanic admitted the cut brake line could have happened accidentally. And even though the police said the explosion was definitely arson, it’s happened more than once in that neighborhood in the past months, and nobody in the area saw anything.”

  “We still don’t know who called the agent looking for you,” he reminded her.

  “I know. And I mean to be careful. But I won’t be a prisoner. Even in my own house.”

  He nodded. “Okay. But that aside, I still want to take you to lunch, and I’d like to hear your plans for the store. You’re not going to abandon me today just to prove a point, are you?”

  “Of course not.” Rachel looked at him, wishing, for the first time that he didn’t look like Tom. But he did, and because he did, how could she trust the instincts telling her she could trust him?

  “Good. Then why don’t you go grab a jacket and tell Fiona we’re leaving, and I’ll straighten up in here.”

  “Okay. I won’t be a minute.”

  “Take your time.”

  When he was alone in the study, Adam hesitated, then picked up the phone and quickly punched a number. When the call was answered briefly, he said merely, “We’re leaving,” and hung up.

  He quickly gathered up the scattered papers on the coffee table and put them into a box where they were keeping the items that didn’t mean anything to either of them. He locked the file with the new note and copies of the other notes and notebooks in the top center desk drawer.

  He was about to close the desk drawer Rachel had been slowly emptying when something down at the very bottom caught his attention. It looked like the corner of another small black notebook.

  When Adam dug it out, that was exactly what it was. But this one was filled with numbers more cryptic than anything they’d yet found. And something that looked to him like some kind of code.

  Adam hesitated, then swore under his br
eath and put the notebook into the inside pocket of his jacket, then locked up the drawer.

  When Rachel came downstairs, he was waiting in the foyer, lounging back against the newel post and watching two of Darby’s men wrestle with a rather fine barrister bookcase. It was taking up much of the hallway leading toward the rear of the house.

  Darby appeared with her ever-present clipboard, and Rachel said, “We’re going out for a while. If you need anything while I’m gone, just ask Fiona.”

  “And hope she’s feeling charitable?”

  “I’ve spoken to her. She promised to be polite and helpful.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, we’ll see.”

  A few minutes later, as they headed toward Richmond in Adam’s rental car, he said, “So Fiona’s rough on other people as well, huh? I thought it was just me.”

  “No, she’s pretty democratic in her dislikes. Actually, though, she’s just slow to trust and hates change. But she’s been with my family a long time.”

  “I gathered as much.”

  There was a short silence, and to Rachel it felt a bit strained. If Adam had noticed her reserve, he hadn’t commented, but she couldn’t get last night’s dream and her doubts about him out of her mind. She cast about for something to say to break the silence. “We’ll have to go by Graham’s office before going to the store. He called last night and said he got the keys from the agency when he took the signed lease by.”

  Adam frowned slightly. “Rachel, I think you should arrange to have security in that store right away. A top-notch alarm system for sure, maybe even a security service to make regular patrols.”

  “That’s what Graham said.”

  “It’s a sensible idea.”

  “I know. I’ll call and make the arrangements tomorrow. But I also have to arrange for some preliminary remodeling. At night we can lock everything up, but security won’t be very tight with workmen coming in and out during the daytime.”

  Adam frowned, but didn’t comment.

  Rachel wondered what disturbed him. The possible threat to her safety? Or something else? She wished she had the courage to ask.

  When she spoke again as they reached the restaurant, it was to change the subject. “Have you talked to Nick lately?”