Identical Stranger (HQR Intrigue) Read online

  “Okay,” Jack said. “I’m listening.”

  “A week or two ago I saw a letter in his car. The return address label said it was from someone named R. H. Cannon, Weather Island, Washington. Someone had crossed out the R. H. Cannon part and handwritten the initials N.R. above the label. I asked Danny about it and he blew me off. At the time, I thought N.R. might be the name of an old girlfriend but then I remembered his mom’s name is Nora. I’m not sure her last name begins with an R, but I’ll bet you a dollar that letter was from his mother and that R. H. Cannon is the name of the man she works for. Danny told me the guy lived in Seattle. Well, Weather Island is just a forty-minute ferry ride away.”

  “I’ve never heard of Weather Island,” Jack said.

  Sophie smothered a yawn. “I went there with my dad when I was a kid.”

  He started the car. “Let’s give it a try. But listen, Seattle is only about three or four hours away. Let’s get a room for the night on the outskirts of town and drive the distance tomorrow morning.”

  “We’d have to get an early start if we want to catch the first ferry.”

  “Then we’ll get an early start. It’s been a very long day.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Only I’ll have to borrow your pajama top again.”

  “No problem. You look a hell of a lot sexier in it than I do.”

  She doubted that. “As long as we get up there before Danny has a chance to blow the whistle. I want to be back here by tomorrow night. Maybe by then Sabrina will be home and this whole thing will be over.”

  “I hope so,” he said, but she detected no real confidence in his voice.

  “Now you’ve got me hoping she’s having an affair with fireman Kyle. At least that would mean she’s safe.”

  “I got an email from Buzz saying he’s coming home. It’ll take him a couple of days...but he’s on his way.”

  “Did he sound worried?”

  “He didn’t say it outright—everyone who knows Sabrina respects that independent streak in her—but if he’s cutting the study short, that’s a pretty good indicator he’s concerned.”

  To Sophie, the reality of Sabrina’s absence seemed to come and go. For hours now she’d clung to Sue’s assurances that Sabrina would show up when she wanted to, but now, sitting here in the dark and thinking back over a day that had started with an origami fox on their breakfast tray and still wasn’t over, it didn’t seem quite so likely. “I should have asked Danny if his half brother knows how to make origami.”

  “That would have been smart,” Jack said as he turned the key. “However, there was quite a bit going on.”

  “No kidding. Did the Astoria police have information about anything?”

  “They told me to call back tomorrow, which is understandable. Detective Reece went home hours ago, so I left a message with all the information. When I call him in the morning, I’ll give him Danny’s name and his half brother’s information again. He’ll be able to get a last name for us in case his mother has flown the coop. I’ll also give him Kyle Woods’s name and ask him to make sure Kyle wasn’t using the old guy as a ruse to get away for a private meeting with Sabrina. I just want to know she’s safe and bring her home.”

  “Home,” Sophie said, reeling at the mention of the word. Up until an hour ago, she’d had one, but now—no, now she didn’t. “I don’t have a home anymore,” she said aloud to come to terms with it.

  “Technically, that house is still yours, not your mother’s.”

  “Do you really believe that?” she asked him as she leaned back against the headrest.

  “Not if you don’t,” he said. He reached over to grip her arm in support. She caught his fingers and he glanced at her.

  “Thank you,” she said. “For going in there with me. For...everything.”

  She liked that he didn’t pretend not to understand what she meant. He squeezed her hand in his and then released it. “You’re welcome.”

  They found a hotel easily and without even asking, Jack rented a single room with two beds. Sophie washed out her underwear, put on Jack’s pajama top and crawled into bed. She watched his face as he worked on his laptop. He sure was easy to look at but it went deeper than the surface with him. She enjoyed the mobility of his expressions, the untold stories in his eyes.

  Up until now, she’d acknowledged to herself that she really liked him. Liked spending time with him, liked talking to him. She felt his protective vibe without being overwhelmed by it, and for the first time since losing her dad, it seemed someone thought her idiosyncrasies endearing rather than stupid.

  But there was a wall between them, too, and it wasn’t just Sabrina’s disappearance or the incident in the street outside Sabrina’s house. It was also Danny’s belligerence and her own mother’s selfish greed. She’d been on a roller coaster the last two days—so much had happened that was making her rethink her entire life.

  “The good news is Daniel Privet really was an attorney with Finder and Finch,” Jack said. “He’s not listed anymore, though, so I guess they took him off their list real fast. I also checked the ferry schedules. It’s a private company that services some of the smaller islands, including Weather Island, and it leaves Seattle at seven forty-five.” He closed his laptop and got to his feet. “And you’re right, a guy named Randall Harrison Cannon lives there. I couldn’t get a name on a housekeeper. Not knowing her last name is problematic. I could run further searches on Danny to get to his mom but since we’re going there anyway, I’ll save that for later. I’m bushed,” he added as he set the alarm on his phone.

  A few minutes later he came out of the bathroom wearing his pajama bottoms. No T-shirt tonight. A light coating of fine dark hair highlighted his pectoral muscles and his taut torso. Last night she’d found his nudeness an annoying distraction. Tonight she found it absolutely captivating.

  He sat down on the edge of his bed, put his phone on the nightstand and looked at her. She waited for him to say something but he didn’t. The fact that his gaze didn’t make her squirm kind of stunned her.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked at last.

  “I’m thinking you’re an amazing woman,” he said.

  She smiled. “Do you think so?”

  “You’ve conquered a lot of negativity and you’ve done it with your sanity intact. I admire that.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “How did you do it?” he asked.

  “I had a wonderful father. To this day I don’t know how he and Mother ever got together. He was nurturing and kind and sweet tempered, but just like me, he was never enough for her. He sold shoes for a living, the same job for twenty years. He was so proud when someone specifically sought his help...but he didn’t make a lot of money and Mom was always pressuring him to make something out of himself.”

  “She couldn’t see that he already had,” Jack said.

  She nodded. “He was happy.”

  “And he adored you.”

  She nodded as tears flooded her eyes.

  Jack got down on his knees beside her. He swept hair from her forehead and kissed the exposed skin. “I think he lives inside of you,” Jack said. “Is there any better gift to give a beloved child?”

  “What if I’m not his child?”

  “You mean, what if you’re adopted?”

  “Yes.”

  “So what?” Jack said. “He was your dad, and like it or not, Margaret is your mother. They raised you, they loved you, well, each in their own way.”

  “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry about the tears.”

  He plucked a tissue from the box on the nightstand and handed it to her as she sat up. The warmth of his blue eyes was a hypnotic embrace that drew her to him. “Danny was using me,” she said as she dabbed the moistness from her eyes.

  “I know.”

  “Why?”


  “You’re beautiful and sexy. No man could resist you.”

  “Jack, you know that’s not true. He didn’t find me alluring at all. I was an investment to him. But in what way? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “We’re going to find out,” he said. “It’s too big a coincidence that his half brother has apparently been stalking Sabrina and now is going after you. Hopefully the police will wring the truth out of Danny and we can get this thing wrapped up.”

  His focus had dropped to her mouth as he spoke. She could read his mounting desire as clearly as if it was written on his face. Was that because she shared it?

  His face drifted toward hers and their lips touched. They separated immediately. Sophie smiled. He kissed her again as they fell back together on her bed.

  She had never been kissed with such abandon, with such intensity or purpose. His fingers stroked the soft flesh of her throat, down to the hollow at the base, under the pajama top to brush along her clavicles... His lips followed their path and for a moment she was lost in the sheer ecstasy of unexpected and glorious sensations.

  “Jack,” she heard herself say. Her voice sounded as though it came from a distant knoll.

  Time seemed to stop for a moment or two, then they both started speaking at the same time. “You first,” he said.

  With a mental kick to her stupid psyche, she whispered the truth. “No matter how good this feels on the outside, on the inside I’m just not ready. I can’t go from Danny to you in one day. It’s not who I am.”

  “I hate that guy,” he whispered.

  “This isn’t about him.”

  “I know that.” He propped himself up on his elbow, gazed into her eyes and gently brushed her face with his fingers as though unable to keep from touching her. As her own hand currently ran along his biceps, she understood the compulsion completely.

  “The first time we met I thought you were someone else,” he said in a soft sexy voice that reverberated inside Sophie. “What was really confusing was that to me, at that time, you were my best friend’s wife who I’d always thought pretty but distant. And then suddenly you’d grown warm and desirable. It really shook me. I can’t tell you what a relief it was when you turned out to be...well, you.”

  Her smile deepened. “You felt something that soon?”

  “Yeah. Now don’t laugh, but I’d had the premonition, if you want to call it that, that answering Sabrina’s call was kind of like responding to the call of destiny. When I met you—well, I knew I’d been right. It felt as though everything in my life had been leading to that moment. We were meant to meet each other. There’s a bigger plan for us. Does that sound whacky?”

  “Yeah, it does,” she said. “But I kind of get it. The flip side of that is I never dreamed you’d look twice at a woman like me.”

  “And I can’t take my eyes off you,” he said, smiling. He leaned forward and kissed her lips, then gently grasped her chin and looked into her eyes. “When the time is right, I want you. All of you. Tell me when the moment arrives that you feel the same way about me and I don’t care where we are or what we’re doing, I’m going to take your body to places it’s never been.”

  “That’s quite a promise,” she said.

  He smiled and kissed her nose. “I’m good for my word.”

  “I’ll make sure to buy some sexy lingerie,” she added as he slipped out of her arms and stood up.

  He stared down at her. “You won’t need any lingerie.”

  She watched him get in the other bed, and once again their gazes met. She was already second-guessing her judgment.

  “Good night, Sophia Sparrow,” he said softly as he turned off the light.

  “Good night,” she whispered and closed her eyes.

  Instead of sleep, she found herself reentering what would always be Margaret Sparrow’s house no matter who held the mortgage papers. Her mother’s refusal to acknowledge Sophie’s very real concerns about discovering a look-alike still rankled her. As proof that Sophie was being ridiculous, she’d produced a picture of herself sitting atop a bed holding a newborn in a pink blanket. “See?” she’d said. “One baby. Not two.”

  “This proves nothing,” Sophie had responded.

  “It proves everything. If you still don’t believe me, look at this.”

  She’d turned the page to reveal a picture of her father holding her in his arms. He was standing in the kitchen, warming a baby bottle in a pan on the stove. He held a six-month-old Sophie against his chest and his smile jumped from the page.

  There was a single high chair to his left. Not two. One.

  Your father would never have given away a baby. That was the unspoken message between Sophie and her mother. You don’t trust me, I get it, but you do trust him, don’t you?

  And the answer was yes, she did trust her father, his big heart, his homespun wisdom, his love. He’d been her rock and she’d missed him every day since an untimely heart attack stole him away.

  But that trust didn’t obliterate the fact that as far as Sophie could tell, Sabrina and she were identical except for a mole on Sophie’s cheek. If her parents didn’t have two babies of their own, then they adopted her. Why keep that a secret?

  Maybe it was Sabrina’s mother who had been unable to care for two. Maybe she’d shared her windfall of babies and exacted a promise of silence. “Back in the day, did you know a woman with the last name of Long?” Sophie had whispered.

  Her mother hadn’t flinched. “Long? No. Why?”

  “I need Sabrina,” Sophie mumbled.

  Jack’s voice responded although she couldn’t understand what he was saying. Her eyes flicked open and she realized she’d been dreaming and that she hadn’t spoken aloud.

  “Lisa,” he moaned in the same forsaken voice as the night before.

  His cry was what had awoken her.

  And right that second, Sophie realized why she’d really turned Jack away. She wasn’t the only one with bridges to burn and demons to excise.

  She got out of bed. This time when her weight hit the mattress he reached for her. No tight grasp, just open arms. She slid beneath the covers to lie beside him, her goal to comfort, but his goal was different. His hot mouth claimed hers, his hands moved down her body, grasping her rear, pulling her so close even the layers of cloth between them seemed to burn away. She felt his hand reach under the pajama top, travel up her thigh, across her belly, cup her breast. He pulled her closer and she was enveloped by a man bigger, hotter and sexier than any she could have ever created in her imagination.

  In a moment, he would make love to her.

  “Sophie,” he whispered into her hair. “Sophie, Sophie.” She kissed him hard and long, his voice floating her name like a blanket to warm her heart. He knew exactly who she was, exactly whose body he touched, whose arms encircled him.

  His hand sliding between her legs drove all thought from her mind. She pulled at his pajama bottoms as he pushed aside the pajama top.

  One hand tangled in her hair, the other touched her breasts tenderly. In a moment he would be inside her. She felt conflicted, half ready and half worried that for him, lovemaking had started with a memory of one woman before distilling into the realization of another. Of her. It was even possible he might still think she was Lisa even though he’d called out Sophie’s name.

  He’d told her what he wanted from her—absolute commitment to the moment—not doubt and indecision.

  The whites of his eyes as he gazed down at her glistened and he grew still as if sensing her sudden detachment. He kissed her lips briefly as he lowered his head next to hers. His weight seemed to double before he rolled onto his back beside her. His fingers entwined with hers.

  After a minute, he kissed her forehead and gripped her shoulders. “Lisa, right?”

  “You woke with another nightmare.”

  “Damn.”


  “Jack?”

  “You want to know about her.”

  “Yes.”

  He sighed. “I don’t even know where to start.”

  “What was she like?”

  “Pretty. Dark hair, blue eyes, smart, funny. She was studying prelaw because her father wanted her to. What she wanted was to be a famous chef with her own television show. She worked at this little bistro to try to get experience. Someone from a magazine saw her in the kitchen and offered her a spread in a series they were doing called ‘Coeds Cook!’ She was very excited—this was her big chance. They said they’d send a photographer to take a few informal pictures of her whipping up a marinara sauce to make sure she came across sexy enough.”

  “Sexy enough? For a cooking magazine?”

  “Yeah. That’s what I thought. But the magazine turned out to be one of those titillating college girl things. I told her the article would include two sentences about cooking and two pages of photos of her wearing damn near nothing but an apron. She went ballistic, told me I didn’t respect her decisions, etcetera. I don’t know, maybe she was right, maybe I didn’t understand then how important it all was to her. Anyway, I saw her a couple of days later and she said the photo shoot had gone great and she was on her way to see the pictures. She’d completely forgotten we had a longstanding date to go to a concert. I stormed off. That was the last time I ever saw her.”

  Sophie knew there was more. She could feel his despair in her own bones, pumping through her own veins. She waited.

  “She disappeared that night. No one knew where she was. She was just...gone.”

  “Like Sabrina,” Sophie said softly.

  “Like Sabrina. I was the major suspect, of course, until the cops discovered the magazine’s photographer had given them an alias and a false address. No one could find out anything about the guy and he was as gone as Lisa was. They made a composite sketch—the guy was tall, dark, walked with a limp. The people who hired him said he didn’t talk a lot. One of the typists there said he creeped her out. Long story short, Lisa was found out in the desert a week later. Her body had been set on fire. They had to identify her with dental records. An autopsy determined she’d suffered broken bones before her death... When I think of what she endured before she finally died it breaks my heart.”