Duplicate Daughter

by Alice Sharpe

  His part would come later.

  Chapter Ten

  Katie knelt on the floor beside Bill, bathing his forehead in cool water she shook from a bottle onto a clean cloth. His fever had suddenly spiked. Once again, she found herself wishing Tess had been able to come north. It should be her kneeling here. Tess’s head was filled with medical knowledge.

  What was Katie’s head filled with? How to make a dirty martini? How to pull a draft beer correctly? The merits of Buffalo wings over nachos? How to maximize the profit from the sale of alcohol to cover the rising cost of quality food?

  Pretty useless stuff.

  She’d never felt useless before. As a woman with an active imagination and big dreams, she’d always been able to do just about anything she set her mind to. She could rotate her own tires, install a water heater if she had to, con the rowdiest drunk out of his car keys.

  But she didn’t know what to do when a man had a bullet hole in his chest or when another man was afraid of losing his daughter or when her mother—and the answers to all the vital questions she and she alone could provide—was in jeopardy, kidnapped for some obscure reason. These things left Katie high and dry.

  So she bathed Bill’s forehead with a damp piece of cloth and tried to still his tossing and turning, listening to his ramblings, committing every word—at least those she could catch—to memory.

  He said “Lily” so often it was obvious his granddaughter was on his mind. He also mentioned Katie’s mother, Caroline. He talked about snow and bullets and trucks and hooded men, and then inevitably, back to Lily and increasingly of Patricia, too, and the pain in his voice mirrored the pain that had to be wracking his body.

  But the thing he kept reiterating the most had to do with Nick’s fireplace. Katie remembered it as a massive wall of big rocks, rough and uneven. Was one of the rocks a false face? Could Bill have chiseled a hiding spot during those long Alaskan summer days when Patricia dug in her garden, Helen cleaned the cabins and Nick flew the paying guests on photo shoots? Could there be something hidden behind that little wooden door, back where the wood supply was?

  It was possible. She could see Bill assuring Patricia he’d just sit inside with Lily while she napped, reading a book, drinking a cup of coffee, no problem.

  Katie tried her theory out on Bill, asking questions, listening carefully to nonsensical ramblings. He was incoherent and agitated and brought up new subjects like ledges and spies and emeralds—the list went on and made no sense. What kind of pill had Nick given him? Was it possible Bill was allergic to the drug?

  In some odd way he reminded her of her father, a man with secrets, a man with ghosts. Lots and lots of ghosts.

  By the time they got to Frostbite, it was early afternoon. Katie’s leg throbbed with a vengeance. Had she reinjured it? Did it matter?

  Nick landed the plane with ease. Apparently Sam had done some runway clearing while they were gone. After they rolled to a stop by Nick’s hangar and Nick turned off the engine, he turned to look over the seat at Katie.

  “How is he?”

  “Finally asleep.”

  “We’ll have to wake him. I have no idea where to look and he can’t make the trip on the snowmobile again in his condition.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to work. He’s been literally unreachable since you medicated him.”

  “Great.”

  “I don’t know if he’s allergic to the medicine or simply getting worse. We need to get him to a doctor.”

  “And we will, but not before retrieving whatever it is he came for. I know you’re anxious, I know you don’t want to be here, but it has to be pretty important. I’m not leaving without at least trying.”

  “But how do we know what to look for? And how do we know there’s even something still there?”

  “Reading between the lines, my father made his way to Frostbite with, apparently, a killer. He risked all that to come to my place. If his was the face at the window that you saw last night, he probably saw me leave with Helen and knew I was gone. He checked, saw you and went away again. In other words, he wanted to get whatever it was he left and then disappear again without my knowledge. And that means, to me, that whatever it is he means to get must be a permanent part of my house, something not directly connected to him, something easy to take. He wouldn’t count on my still having things he left behind over two years before.”

  She smiled. “It’s as good a theory as any, I suppose.”

  He looked down at his father, who had mercifully stopped flailing and muttering and fallen into a very deep slumber. “Damn. Did he say anything at all that could help?”

  “I have no idea. He talked about the fireplace a lot. Is it possible one of the rocks can be removed making a hiding spot?”

  Nick seemed to consider this. “Offhand I’d say no, but it’s someplace to start. We have three hours or so before we need to get the plane back into the sky. I’ll be back by then.”

  “Wait a second, what do you mean you’ll be back? Where will I be?”

  “You’ll stay here with…him. In his condition, who knows what he might do if he wakes up and finds himself alone? Or what if he says something important?”

  “I’m not staying here,” she said defiantly.

  “Katie—”

  “Listen, I could try to tell you everything he mumbled, but who knows if I’d remember it all? I need to go with you and see if something jumps out at me. He talked about ledges and emeralds and a bunch of other unrelated things. I can’t do it from here. Isn’t there someone else you could call to come stay with him? How about the guy who runs the airport. What’s his name, Sam?”

  “Sam’s the salt of the earth, but he’s also the biggest gossip in town. His wife isn’t much better. No way I’m going to involve Helen’s sister or Lloyd. Wait, there’s Kitty. Damn, I should have thought of her before.”

  “Who is Kitty? How is she going to handle being asked to look after a man who should be on his way to an emergency room?”

  “Like a pro. She’s a retired air force nurse, and nothing fazes her except too much government and people with knives. I should have thought of asking her for help right at the start.”

  “Does she live close by?” Katie said, stuffing things back in her satchel. A sense of urgency filled her with a strange foreboding. Or maybe not so strange. Where was their erstwhile gunman?

  “Not far,” he said. “I’ll get the plane back in the hangar and go fetch her.”

  CAROLINE MAYS—no, she reminded herself, she was married now, her name was Caroline Swope—spread one blanket on the cold earth and used the other to cover herself. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t eat any of the food her abductors had left, but the promise hadn’t lasted long.

  The apple had been surprisingly good. Crisp—she hated soft apples. Cold. Maybe it helped that she was sitting in the dark with no distractions, but she thought not. If anything helped the apple taste better than normal, it was probably the thought that it might be the last apple she ever ate.

  She’d cried for a while and been glad for the roll of toilet paper with which to blow her nose and dry her eyes. Now she was exhausted and wished with all her heart that she hadn’t taken off her wristwatch before bed. She supposed she should be grateful she wasn’t wearing one of the little flimsy nighties Bill favored and had insisted on cotton pajamas. They weren’t exactly cozy, but they were better than half a yard of black nylon and a handful of lace.

  She closed her eyes, her face resting on her hands so she could smell the good scent of apple instead of the musty smell of a grave. Her emerald wedding ring cut into her cheek, but she didn’t mind. Almost immediately, her thoughts began to race back through time. She fought them at first, but then they seemed comfortable and safe and she allowed them to happen, allowed herself to spin lazily in their shadows. At first.

  She was fifteen, pretty, popular, a good student. School was her sanctuary and she loved every moment she spent there mainly because it sav
ed her from spending more minutes at home. Home was a nightmare. Her mother drowning in a bottle, the terror of her father’s late-night visits to her bedroom, no one to listen to her, to help.

  But school was safe.

  And then when she was a sophomore, she met the buddy of a girlfriend’s older brother, home from the navy, attending police academy. A good-looking man who made her feel unique and worldly and grown-up and safe. She married him when she was barely a junior, two months pregnant at the time, forging her parent’s permission. She could still recall the gut-wrenching experience of leaving school and friends. Her new husband insisted they move away from the community. He had no family, no attachments and he didn’t want anything to do with her family. Nor did she.

  But, oh, the loneliness that followed as reality steadily ate away at fantasy. Her husband was sullen and moody. He gambled, kept secrets and ignored her, exacerbating every feeling of inadequacy she possessed. The days passed in long, unrelieved units she spent dreaming of the day her baby would arrive and she would at last experience the unconditional love and devotion she craved.

  Caroline sat up with a start, hugging the blanket close, trembling from the inside out.

  She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t sit here alone for days on end, not knowing where Bill was or what was going to happen or who those horrid men in hoods were, sitting by herself, thinking, remembering, regretting…she’d go mad!

  She whispered, “Tess? Please, Tess, hear me. I need you.”

  The damp, cool earth absorbed her words like a sponge.

  Caroline gave up trying to handle things like the forty-four-year-old woman she was and buried her face in her hands like a child.

  NICK FOUND Kitty at home, curled up with a book. She agreed to help at once and was ready to go in minutes. The red-and-white airplane was still at the airfield and so Nick insisted on locking his plane in its hangar with Kitty and his father safely tucked inside.

  Nick and Katie took one snowmobile and headed back to his place. Nick drove while Katie held on tight, wondering how he could still be alert enough to face the next few hours when he’s had so little sleep the night before.

  At least the snow predicted earlier in the day hadn’t yet materialized. Once they left town, they took the logging road back toward the cabin, stopping when they reached the narrow bridge.

  Nick turned the machine off, shed himself of his helmet and turning, faced Katie. She took off her helmet, as well, and for one fleeting moment, wondered what her hair looked like.

  Nick removed his right glove and, reaching up, smoothed a tangle of bright red locks away from her face.

  “I wish I had a picture of you,” he said, his voice muffled by all the snow.

  She smiled and, for a moment, allowed herself to lean into his warm hand. She closed her eyes, and the next thing she knew, his cool, dry lips touched hers.

  Katie was no stranger to stolen kisses. But somehow this one was different. This man was different, and she didn’t know if that portended well or poorly. It was no secret that she gave her heart too easily and that until now, it had been handed back in worse shape than when it left.

  The kisses continued, so warm and so exhilarating in all the cold and haste and tension. She clung to him, half-tempted to lure him into the foliage and spread her coat on the snow. She wanted him closer, wanted his skin next to hers, and only the knowledge that this was hardly the time and place to begin an impulsive love affair kept her from whispering this idea into his ear. Still, it felt as though they were two shipwrecked sailors in a sea of white.

  “My poor heart,” she said at last, her head resting against his chest. He was wearing too many layers to detect a heartbeat though her fingers had stroked his throat a moment before and she’d felt a deep thump.

  “What do you mean?” he whispered.

  She glanced up at him. “Nick, you know how hopeless this is, don’t you? You and me, I mean.”

  “I’m not thinking that far ahead,” he said, kissing her forehead.

  “You make me feel anything is possible, and that’s a fantasy,” she said, avoiding his gaze.

  He chuckled. “Don’t ruin a stolen moment in the snow,” he said. “We’ve been shot at and lied to and said painful goodbyes and been scared. It’s perfectly natural that we should find comfort this way.”

  “Now you sound like my high-school boyfriend,” she said, sneaking a peak at his mouth. Big mistake. That mouth was made for kissing. Using a high falsetto voice, she mimicked the long-ago boyfriend. “Oh, Katie. Just one night, Katie, because who knows what will happen tomorrow. We could both be dead.”

  Nick smiled against her forehead. Imitating her pitch and cadence, he said, “Oh, Katie.” He held her away from him and continued, his eyes as green as the snow-shrouded evergreen trees towering above them. “Just one night, Katie, because who knows what will happen tomorrow. We could both be dead.”

  They smiled at each other until the truth of this childish logic uttered under the present circumstances hit them both. Their smiles faded as their heads dipped together again, and this time the urgency behind his kisses had her heart pounding in her head until she all but threw herself off the snowmobile and took a few halting steps, regaining control as her feet sank into the deep snow.

  When she looked back, Nick had unfastened from the snowmobile a pair of short skis.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, turning. Using the same trenches she’d just carved, she returned to his side.

  “The snowmobile is too loud,” he said, strapping the skis onto his boots. “We can’t approach the house making all this racket—we’ll be sitting ducks.”

  “But I don’t know how to cross-country ski—”

  “You couldn’t do it anyway with that leg, Katie. I’ll go ahead and check things out, then I’ll send you a signal and you bring the snowmobile.” He unhooked two poles from the vehicle.

  “What kind of signal?”

  He jerked his head back, indicating the rifle slung over his back. “One shot followed twenty counts later by one more shot. You can still see the trail we made this morning, you won’t get lost.”

  Katie nodded. “Be careful—”

  “If there isn’t a second shot after the count of twenty or if you don’t hear anything at all—or if you hear a volley, for that matter—turn around and go back to Helen’s sister’s house and get her and Lloyd to help you. Don’t come after me, Katie. My chances will be better if you go get help.”

  She held up both hands as he got to his feet. “Hey, I’m no heroine, you’re on your own.”

  “Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  With a last, enigmatic look, he took off toward the house, the swish of his skis slicing through the snow, the only sound save the chattering of Katie’s teeth.

  She waited, growing colder as the shadows crept up the snowy, tree-lined lane and the sky darkened. She didn’t think she could live in a place with so little light in the winter, even if the summers were long and pleasant. And she couldn’t imagine Nick, who seemed totally at home with snow and all its trials, anywhere else.

  Out of the blue, thoughts of Lily filled Katie’s head. Was it possible she missed the little girl already? She tried to recall the tune the child had sung to her bunny. She tried to recall the story of the birdie and the palm tree. She was so damn cold, she tried to remember sitting underneath a palm tree, something she’d done once upon a time on a vacation to Florida when she was seven years old.

  She glanced at her watch. Thirty minutes had passed.

  Thirty-five minutes came, thirty-six minutes left. On the end of the current adventure, one had to add the time it would take to return to the plane and take Kitty home. No way around it, their window of opportunity was collapsing in on itself.

  No signal. She’d promised to go get help.

  Making one of her hasty decisions, she put on her helmet and climbed aboard the snowmobile.

  She had a bad feeling…
/>   She put the vehicle in gear and headed toward the cabin. She still had the handgun in her pocket. Nick must be in trouble.

  She headed toward Nick.

  Chapter Eleven

  Katie decided she didn’t have the strength, the stamina or the know-how to be subtle. She’d be the cavalry rushing in to help, damn the consequences.

  And try not to make things worse.

  Still, she wasn’t crazy enough to ride to the rescue in such a way that she made an easy target, and so when she drew even with the boathouse, she stopped the snowmobile and parked it against the side, out of the way and hopefully out of sight of the house.

  Taking off her helmet, she waited, listening, and when she heard no sound, took a few tentative steps forward.

  She could see the ski tracks Nick had made. They led to the back door. Nick’s skis and poles sat abandoned next to the door which, she finally noticed, was ajar. Footsteps led around the house. Caught in indecision about whether she should go inside the house or follow the footsteps to the front, she strained to hear something…anything.

  What she heard was a gunshot. For a second, she actually counted to see if another shot was forthcoming. And then she heard a motor start at the front of the house. She entered the mudroom and ran through the kitchen and living room, toward the open front door, where she hurried outside and damn near tripped over Nick’s prone form.

  He raised his hands and shouted. “Don’t shoot. For God’s sake, Katie, put the gun down!”

  Katie didn’t remember drawing the gun. Breathing heavily, she looked toward the yard. A bundled-up shape riding a snowmobile was darting between the guest cabins, headed for the front bridge and the road beyond.

  She considered firing, but by now he was too far away.

  She put the gun down on the porch as she kneeled beside Nick.

  “What happened to you?”