David Morrell - Double Image

“I need to ask you something.”

Coltrane inwardly came to attention.

“The reason I asked you to stay.”

Coltrane waited.

“I didn’t want to talk about this in front of the others,” Tash said. “You seem to know an awful lot about Randolph Packard.”

“Since my late teens, I’ve been trying to learn everything I can about him.”

“Then maybe you could tell me something. Do you have any idea at all why he would have included me in his will?”

It took Coltrane several seconds to recover. “You don’t know?”

“I was absolutely mystified when his attorney got in touch with me. Sure, I know who Randolph Packard was, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out why he would have given me that estate in Mexico. It’s like he picked my name out of a hat or something. Totally unexpected. I asked his attorney. What’s his name? Blaine?”

“Yes.”

“I asked Blaine if he knew why Packard had chosen me, but Blaine told me he hadn’t the faintest idea.”

“From what Blaine told me , that seems to be the truth.”

“I didn’t know who besides Blaine to ask,” Tash said, “and by then, I was deep in this mess with whoever…” She gestured toward a wall and whatever lurked beyond it. “I’ve had a lot of things on my mind. So when, out of nowhere, I heard you mention Packard and the estate in Mexico, you could have knocked me over.”

“I have to be honest about something.”

Tash’s dark eyes narrowed, as if she was afraid of what he was going to say.

“I haven’t been entirely open with you,” Coltrane said.

She looked more uneasy.

“The reason I came here wasn’t just to find out if you’d be interested in selling the Mexican estate. I’ve never seen it. Who knows how it’ll strike me if I ever do see it? What I really came here for was to ask you the same question you asked me .”

“Why Randolph Packard gave me the Mexican estate?”

“Yes.”

Tash shook her head in exhaustion. “Please. I have all the mysteries I can handle.”

“But maybe the answer to mine will help solve one of yours. Have you ever heard of an up-and-coming movie actress in the thirties named Rebecca Chance?”

Baffled, Tash considered the name. “No.”

“I’m not surprised. She disappeared before she had the chance to become a star.”

“But what does she have to do with-”

“She was being stalked. The same pattern of letters, gifts, and phone calls. Then one day she vanished.”

“If you’re trying to frighten me even more than I already am…”

“No,” Coltrane said. “I’m trying to help you figure out why Randolph Packard put you in his will. Packard was desperately in love with her.”

“Rebecca Chance.”

“Yes.” Coltrane paused, struck anew by the alluring features of the woman across from him and the uncanny situation in which he found himself. “And Rebecca Chance looked so much like you… you look so much like her… you might as well be the same woman.”

“What in God’s name are you talking about?”

Coltrane hesitated.

He told her everything.

“ Photographs ?”

“And movies that Rebecca Chance was featured in. But you’re right to zero in on the photographs. They’re what’s truly important. Because Packard took them. Because he hid them.”

“And Rebecca Chance is identical to me?”

“So much so that I thought I was hallucinating when I first saw you.”

“This is… I can’t…” She stared at him. “Show them to me.”

Coltrane blinked in surprise. “What?”

“I want to see the photographs.”

“But I don’t have them with me. I can come back tomorrow and bring-”

“Now. I want to see them. Take me to them .”

Tash’s emotion was so intense that for several moments Coltrane wasn’t able to move or speak. He found himself saying hesitantly, “All right… sure… if that’s what you…”

“I’ll just need a second upstairs.”

“We’ll be going into L.A.”

“You don’t have to worry about driving me back. I’ll follow you.”

“I wouldn’t mind driving you back. It’s just that…” A misgiving nagged at him. It had nothing to do with showing Tash the photographs. If anybody had the right to see them, it seemed to him that she did. His uneasiness came from another source, something to do with the parallel between Rebecca Chance’s stalker and Tash Adler’s stalker and…

Mine . With a shudder, he realized that in order to help Tash, he had to be as cautious now as he had been when Ilkovic was hunting him. He had to put himself in her place, to imagine that he was the person in danger.

“It’s better if I drive you,” Coltrane said.

Tash paused on her way from the kitchen. She looked mystified.

“If someone is watching your house, he’ll follow you when you follow me, and he wouldn’t have much trouble. A Porsche isn’t inconspicuous.”

“That’s what Walt said.” Tash sounded disheartened. “Get rid of the Porsche, or at least rent something bland until this jerk is in prison. I’ve already reduced my movements until I’m practically living in a box.” She shook her head stubbornly. “I’m not going to let that bastard take anything more away from me.”

“But you don’t have to drive the Porsche.”

“What am I going to do, run behind you and bark at your tires?”

It sounded so unexpectedly humorous, they stared at each other and found themselves laughing.

“God, it feels good to do that,” Tash said. “I can’t remember the last time I truly laughed.” It made her radiant.

“Honestly,” Coltrane said, “I think I should drive you.”

“But if he’s out there, he’ll still see the two of us in your car. He’ll still follow.”

“Not if you get in my car while the garage door is down. You lie on the back floor until we’re a distance away. Since he won’t know you’re with me, he’ll stay and watch the house. Have you got any timers for the lights?”

AS THE GARAGE DOOR DESCENDED, Coltrane removed his hand from the remote control he had taken from the Porsche and continued backing onto the murky road. He turned on his headlights only after the door was sufficiently low that illumination into the garage wouldn’t reveal that Tash wasn’t in there and wasn’t pressing the control on the wall to lower the door.

So far so good, Coltrane thought. But he knew that a couple of other tactics were required to make the ruse convincing. Pausing at the foot of the driveway, he turned on his car’s interior lights and consulted a map, as if figuring out how to get back to the highway. Anyone watching the house would see that he was alone. Next, he shut off the interior lights and tapped his horn twice, two short blasts, evidently saying good-bye. As he proceeded along the road, his headlights probing the darkness, he glanced at his rearview mirror and saw a lamp go off in a window.

“The timer worked perfectly,” he said.

“It looks like I’m still at home and turning off a few lights?” Tash asked from where she hid on the back floor.

“Yep. And there goes the second one,” Coltrane said, watching his rearview mirror.

“Inspired,” Tash’s voice came muffled from the back.

“Not to be immodest, but I agree. Even so, stay down for a while. I want to watch for any headlights that start following us.”

“Is this…”

Coltrane waited, but Tash didn’t finish her question. “What?”

“Maybe you don’t want to talk about it.”

“How can I know until you tell me?”

“Is this what you had to do when you were running from Dragan Ilkovic?”