Identical Stranger

by Alice Sharpe

  Jack set it on the table and opened it. “Thanks. How many years have you been taking pictures?”

  “Most of my life,” Louis said.

  “You must really enjoy it.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “This close-up picture of the bride eating cake is really nice.”

  “Thanks. Standard photo op.”

  “I was just thinking it must be hard photographing outdoor events around unpredictable Oregon coast weather. It would have to be easier in someplace more reliable. Like Southern California, for instance, where it’s sunny most of the time.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Ever been down there?”

  “In California?”

  Jack flashed a smile. “Yeah.”

  Louis Nash’s expression turned into a scowl. “Maybe. What’s it to you?”

  Jack shrugged. It was impossible not to notice that Louis had gone from cautious to angry. “Just curious—”

  “Damn it all. Marie sent you, didn’t she!”

  “Marie?” Jack didn’t have to pretend to be thrown off balance. “Who’s Marie?”

  “Are you another one of her private dicks?”

  “I don’t know—”

  “’Cause, yeah, I know I’m in arrears with alimony. This business barely supports me. I have a mother, too, you know, and she needs stuff—Marie has a great job. For eleven years that woman has been making my life a living hell. I’m going to get a lawyer and put an end to this. You tell her that!”

  Jack shook his head. “I don’t know anyone named Marie. I’m not here for anything like that. I just need a photographer this summer, that’s all.”

  Louis’s balled fists relaxed a little. “She didn’t send you?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, man,” Louis said, rubbing his face. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Exes can drive a man nuts.”

  “Ain’t that the truth?”

  Was Nash a sociopathic killer or a man hounded by an ex-wife? A list of questions to be answered built in Jack’s head. “These pictures are of a beach wedding. My girl is traditional. She wants a church. Do you have photos of a wedding like that?”

  Louis took a calming breath. “I’m doing one tomorrow morning right down the street. Come back on the weekend and you can see the pictures.”

  “How about tomorrow night?”

  “They won’t be ready. Besides, I’m closed tomorrow night.”

  “Don’t you have other church weddings you could show me?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Nash said as he snapped the appointment book shut. “It doesn’t much matter. I’m booked every weekend in July. Afraid I can’t help you.”

  “Maybe we could reschedule—”

  “I’m booked clear through the summer,” Nash interrupted. They stared at each other again. A noise coming from outside caught both their attention. Jack scrambled to his feet and took off for the front door. He knew the sound of a gunshot when he heard one. He tore the door open and exited onto the wooden porch in time to see a green taxicab with a black diamond on the door pull away from the curb. His heart almost stopped in his chest as he took in the rest of the scene.

  The passenger door of his car was open and Sophie lay on the sidewalk clutching some kind of colorful paper in her right hand. Blood soaked her left sleeve. His feet pounded the cement as he ran to kneel beside her.

  She was almost as ashen as the cement on which she lay, eyes glassy. His heart started beating again when a dark tendril of hair fluttered against her cheek with an exhaled breath.

  She looked up at him as though trying to place him, her gaze traveling between him and Nash, who had followed Jack outside at a slower pace and now stood looking over Jack’s shoulder.

  “Call an ambulance,” Jack said, his voice cracking. Louis turned on his heels and limped back to his house.

  How many victims had he knelt over in his life? Dozens. And not one of them had caused this blind panic building in his gut. “Sweetheart,” he said softly as he lifted her right hand and pried her fingers from a stranglehold on what he now saw was a city map. “Sophie?”

  “I don’t need an ambulance,” she finally mumbled.

  “The hell you don’t,” Jack said, hoping Louis had phoned for help. He dug in his pocket for his phone. “Hang in there, honey.”

  “I...I,” she whispered as she gazed up at his eyes.

  He squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry, everything will be—”

  “I didn’t recognize him.”

  Jack paused from entering the emergency number just in case Louis hadn’t. “Paul Rey?”

  “He had a beard...”

  “Shh,” he said. “Stay still.”

  “A taxi... Oh, Jack, I...hurt.”

  “I know, baby,” he said, stroking her hair away from her face. She’d hit her forehead when she fell and now blood trickled toward her eyes. He found a bandanna in his pocket and dabbed at it as he studied her. Had there ever been a moment in his life when he hadn’t known every single detail of her gently arched eyebrows, that lovely little mole on her cheek, the shape of her lips? He knew there had been but it seemed a lifetime ago.

  “I hear a siren,” he said when the high-pitched wail registered in his brain. He looked back toward Nash’s house but the front door was firmly shut. “Here’s the ambulance. Try to be still.”

  The emergency crew swarmed around her and Jack stepped away. While they stabilized her, he deposited the map into the empty paper bag from their lunch stop so he could give it to the police. He couldn’t imagine Rey would have finally left prints but procedures were procedures. He looked for his gun, hoping Danny’s brother hadn’t taken it—wouldn’t a stolen firearm be a fun thing to explain to Reece? But he quickly found it in the center console, where Sophie must have slipped it out of sight.

  He answered the ambulance driver’s questions and watched as they loaded Sophie into the narrow ambulance. Before he got in his car to follow her to the hospital, he called Detective Reece and reported what had happened.

  “That damn fool,” Reece groaned. “Why can’t we catch him? I’ll get a crew out to the scene to gather evidence and meet you at the hospital. If they keep her there overnight, we’ll protect her room.”

  “You and me both,” Jack responded.

  Chapter Eleven

  “How do you feel?” Jack asked her several hours later.

  Sophie had been sedated through the process of cleansing, stitching and bandaging her arm and had awoken to hear the doctor tell her that she was going to spend the night for observation. Ensconced in a room she had all to herself, she watched as a woman wearing a pink smock covered with frolicking kittens came through the door wheeling a blood pressure machine.

  “Hi, my name is Joy,” the woman said, addressing Sophie. “I’ll be your nurse until midnight. Right now I need to get your vitals and things.”

  Detective Reece started to leave the room.

  “You don’t have to go yet,” Joy said. She reminded Sophie of a cupcake: round, smiling, rosy cheeked, dark brown curls bunched on top of her head like a dollop of chocolate frosting. “I can work around you.”

  “So how do you feel?” Jack repeated.

  How Sophie felt was shot up, washed out and sleepy. “I feel stupid,” she said because that’s what she felt the most of.

  “So Paul Rey was wearing some sort of disguise?”

  “He had a beard and his eyes were dark instead of blue. He didn’t look anything at all like Danny’s brother.” With that comment, she included a glance at Detective Reece, who stood at the foot of her bed. “Nothing like the picture you showed us.”

  “What exactly happened?” Reece asked.

  Sophie took a steadying breath. Joy had finished with the blood pressure and now stood by with a thermometer poised fo
r insertion in her mouth. “I was sitting there with Jack’s gun in my hand ready to shoot Paul Rey if he dared show up. Then this cab pulled to the curb in front of the car. The driver got out, smiled at me and waved a map. His body language said he was lost and needed help. I put Jack’s gun in the glove compartment so he wouldn’t see it and I got out of the car to help the guy.” She looked from one man to the other and added, “Let me reemphasize that he didn’t look anything like Danny’s brother.”

  “Then what?”

  “He spread the map out on the hood of Jack’s car and I leaned over to look at it. The next thing I knew, I detected movement out of the corner of my eye and in that moment, I knew what a fool I’d been, that he was Paul Rey and he had a gun. I turned toward him and grabbed it.”

  “The gun?” Reece asked, eyebrows raised.

  “Yes. I grabbed it and he fired. For a second I didn’t understand why my left arm went numb when I’d grabbed the muzzle with my right hand and then I realized the bullet had entered that arm. I looked in his eyes before I guess I fainted. The next thing I knew, Jack was kneeling by my side and Paul was gone.”

  “Good heavens,” Reece said, his cherubic face now wearing a stunned expression. “You are one very lucky young woman. I have a CSI team out there right now. They’ll find the bullet... We can match it to the one he fired over at the Cromwell house.”

  “If you ever catch him, you’ll have a good case,” Jack said not without irony. “Were there any results from the other foot searches this afternoon?”

  “Not a thing,” Reece said.

  Jack gently touched Sophie’s shoulder and she rested her cheek against his warm hand. The nurse took the opportunity to stick the thermometer in her mouth.

  Reece continued. “Thanks to your description of the taxi we were able to narrow it down to Green Diamond Cabs. They’re a small enterprise that operates a grand total of four units. They figure one of the cars was stolen off their unmonitored lot last night. They hadn’t even missed it yet. We found it abandoned out near a rock quarry.”

  “We drove by Buzz’s house when we got back after talking to Adam Cook down in Seaport,” Jack said. “Rey must have picked us up there.”

  As Joy withdrew the thermometer and started entering data into a computer affixed to the wall, Sophie spoke. “We saw a green cab, remember?”

  “That’s right,” Jack said. “Damn. I should have stayed away from the Cromwell house. I figured even Rey wouldn’t show up with an unmarked car out front.”

  “He’s either a lot smarter than we think he is or a lot luckier than he has a right to be,” Reece said.

  “What did you think of Adam Cook’s story?” Jack asked Reece. “For that matter, what have you found out about the man himself? And what about getting the hotel’s surveillance tapes?”

  “Gentlemen,” Joy said. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to continue your conversation in the hall while I ask Ms. Sparrow a few questions?”

  Jack raised Sophie’s hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  “And I’m posting a guard on your door,” Reece added as both men exited the room.

  Sophie answered a dozen questions about her health in general and her pain level in particular. Despite Jack’s protective streak and Reece’s assurances of a guard at her door, she had no desire to be drugged out on pain meds so she said she felt fine. Still, she’d been given something for the procedure where they worked on her arm and the truth was she was having trouble keeping her eyes open.

  “I couldn’t help overhearing you talking to the detective,” Joy said.

  “Oh. Well, everyone is trying to catch the nutcase who shot me.”

  “Of course. My husband is a firefighter and two of his best friends are with the sheriff’s office. I know all about shop talk and questions, Lordy, do I.”

  “I bet you do. Does your husband work here in Astoria?”

  “Yep. See, that’s what I overheard. You talked about the Cromwell house and I know Buzz is in Antarctica and Charlie, that’s my husband, said something about searching for Sabrina... Is she okay, do you know? I keep waiting to hear something on the news...” She narrowed her eyes and gave Sophie a closer look. “I didn’t notice this before what with the bandage on your forehead and you lying down and all. You bear a striking resemblance to Sabrina Cromwell, don’t you?”

  “I’m her twin sister,” Sophie said and managed not to burst into tears.

  “I didn’t even know she had a twin.”

  “It’s a long story,” Sophie said.

  “Oh, gosh, when Charlie mentioned an informal search, my heart just about dropped. I hope she’s okay. She’s the nicest person. Charlie was away at training when my last baby came early—it was Sabrina who came over to the house to drive me to the hospital and watch my three-year-old until my mother could get here. And we’re not even close friends. And what she did for Charlie’s buddy and coworker, well, it was great. If she hadn’t gone out of her way to talk to him... Anyway, I saw his wife last week and she was smiling for the first time in weeks and gushed about a trip... Well, Sabrina is a doll.”

  Sophie just stared at the woman. Something she’d just said rang a distant bell but the words had begun to all run together. She fought to stay awake but it was a losing battle.

  Sometime later she opened her eyes to find Jack asleep in a chair at the foot of her bed. “Jack?” she whispered and he instantly opened his eyes and joined her.

  His kiss was sensual but brief. “This isn’t how I planned on spending our second night together,” he said.

  “Me neither.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Chilled. Is it cold in here?”

  “Not really,” he said, and kissed her forehead. “You feel warm to me,” he added as he laid the back of his fingers against her cheek.

  “Never mind that. Jack, I need to call my mother and let her know I was hurt but that I’m okay.”

  “Your mother,” he said as if surprised.

  “Yes. My mother. I don’t want to shut her out of my life and that includes the bad things, too.”

  “I’ll get your phone. It’s in your purse—”

  “No, that’s okay, it’s too late to call her tonight. I’ll wait till morning.” She blinked her eyes a couple of times.

  Jack felt her forehead again. “I’m calling the nurse,” he said but before he could press the call button, the curtain parted and Joy walked in. “Last vitals for my shift,” she chirped.

  “I was just about to call you,” Jack said. “Sophie feels warm.”

  Joy produced a thermometer. A moment later she read the results. “It’s not too bad but I’ll get the doctor on call, just to be on the safe side. Don’t worry, this isn’t uncommon.”

  Sophie endured an exam that ruled out all serious causes and was started on an antibiotic to be on the safe side. By the time things had settled down, Joy had left for the night and Jack looked as tired as she was.

  “Why don’t you go back to Buzz’s house and get some sleep,” she said as he pulled a chair up to the head of her bed.

  “I don’t want to leave you.”

  “I know, but I just need sleep. There’s a guard on the door.”

  “But—”

  “Sabrina is still missing,” Sophie reminded him.

  “I know that.”

  “It’s past midnight. Buzz will be home today, right?”

  “Tonight, yeah, I see what you’re saying. Okay, I’ll continue the search.” He stared down into her eyes as he added, “Whether you’re ready to hear it or not, the fact is, I love you, Sophia Sparrow.”

  She smiled into his eyes. She’d never said those three words to anyone but assorted pets, stuffed animals and her parents but she whispered them now without hesitation. “I love you, too, Jack Travers.” />
  He kissed her again and she closed her eyes as he left the room.

  * * *

  WIDE AWAKE AFTER the drive back to the Cromwell house, Jack spent an hour searching Sabrina’s office for anything to do with Kyle or anyone else for that matter. He checked the emails on her computer—nothing abnormal. She communicated with Kyle and Sue and Buzz and dozens of other people, including the woman Sophie had mentioned, Bunny. He read through everything that was recent but there was nothing to suggest any clandestine romance or that she’d so much as entertained the idea of running off to meet anyone let alone actually done it. It didn’t surprise him that a thorough search didn’t reveal any indication Sabrina had returned to the house after talking to Jack.

  The conversation he’d had that evening at the hospital with Reece hadn’t been very productive. While Reece was apologetic about his department’s inability to find Paul Rey, they were still dragging their feet on Louis Nash. He learned that Reece wasn’t aware Louis had an ex-wife but then he’d laughed and said, “Who doesn’t?”

  As for Adam Cook, Jack learned he currently lived in Brad Withers’s basement in a relatively small house. Where did he get the money to buy a new place? While it was true he had a criminal record in another state, his nose had been clean for several years. The Seaport police promised to look into him more closely in the days to come and Reece assured Jack that the police had requested and tomorrow would review the hotel’s security tapes.

  And meanwhile, time ticked away.

  Jack felt like throwing something across the room. How was it possible Sophie had been shot by that bozo Paul Rey when every law enforcement type in the county was looking for him? How was it possible Sabrina had been missing for days without anyone but him and Sophie and her friends at the firehouse taking it seriously? How was it going to be possible to face Buzz tonight without any news about his cherished wife?

  He poured himself a finger of his friend’s whiskey and sat in a chair in front of the unlit fireplace. He had far less than twenty-four hours. The mantel clock struck three. He set the booze aside and went to bed.