David Morrell - Double Image

“What happened?” Coltrane asked numbly, reaching the nearest group.

The well-dressed neighbors eyed his battered lips with suspicion.

“Do you live around here?” a policeman asked.

“No.” The flashing lights were oppressive as Coltrane watched an attendant open the back doors of the ambulance in Duncan’s driveway.

“Then please get back in your car, sir, and-”

“I came to visit the man who lives in that house.” Coltrane’s voice sounded faint to him, far away.

“Duncan Reynolds?”

“Yes.” Coltrane felt colder. “I haven’t talked to him in awhile. I was in the area. I thought I’d see if he was home.”

“When was the last time you spoke with him?”

“A couple of weeks. What happened here?”

“Was he depressed about anything? Money problems? Problems in a relationship? Problems with-”

“No money problems. His employer died in November. The will was generous.”

“Did the death hit him hard?”

“What are you getting at?”

The policeman hesitated. “A gardener noticed a smell. He hadn’t seen your friend in several days. All the doors were locked. He peered through a back window and saw a trouser leg projecting from behind a chair.”

“Dear Lord.” Coltrane’s mouth was so dry that he had trouble forming the words.

“When we forced the door open – I’m sorry to have to tell you this – we found your friend’s body.”

“What caused-”

“I’m not the medical examiner, but the way it looks now, he shot himself.”

COLTRANE’S THOUGHTS WERE SO DISJOINTED THAT DRIVING down the hill toward his house, he was slow to notice the car parked in front: a BMW. A minute earlier, he would have sworn that his emotions couldn’t possibly have gotten more complicated. He would have been wrong. After pressing the garage-door opener, he steered into the driveway, stopped in the garage, and got out. On the street, the BMW’s door opened and closed. High heels clicked on concrete, coming toward him.

Jennifer, wearing a blue business suit, her short blond hair glinting from the light above the garage, stopped in front of him.

He felt awkward, embarrassed – didn’t know what to say.

She broke the silence. “I promised I wasn’t going to bother you again.”

“Actually, I’m glad to see you.”

She went on as if she hadn’t heard him. “I’ve got a speech prepared. I don’t want to forget any of it.”

“Then you’d better not stop.”

“I vowed I wouldn’t phone you. Not show up at your home. Not happen to cross paths with you the way I did the last time we broke up. But here I am. The fact is, I’ve been leaving messages on your machine for the last two days. When you didn’t get back to me, I figured you were determined to avoid me.”

“I didn’t know about the messages. I’ve been away.”

“So I had to break my word and show up here and wait for you.”

“You might have had a long wait,” Coltrane said.

“It already has been. As soon as I got off work, I drove over here. Three hours ago.”

“Somehow, I get the feeling it’s not because of my irresistible charm.”

Jennifer nodded. “You pretty much wiped out your charm the last time we talked.”

“Then…”

“Just because I’m furious at you, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t feel terrible if something happened to you. Her real name isn’t Natasha Adler.”

“What?”

“And men have a habit of dying around her.”

THEY SAT IN THE TUBULAR CHAIRS IN COLTRANE’S LIVING ROOM, two cans of diet Pepsi open, glasses filled, neither of them drinking.

“After you told me to get lost,” Jennifer said.

“I hope I wasn’t that blunt.”

“Everything’s a matter of perspective. From my perspective…” She took a long breath. “Anyway, let’s just say I felt hurt. I felt used. I…”

Coltrane looked down at his hands.

“I’m not trying to throw this back at you,” Jennifer said. “The only reason I’m going into this is to make you understand why I did what came next.”

“After what I’ve been through the past couple of days, believe me, I understand what you felt. Throw it back at me. I deserve it.”

“I felt angry. And confused. And deeply deeply troubled. Not just about our breakup, but about Tash Adler. Maybe you thought it was normal to fall in love with her on the spot. But given your usual reluctance to make an emotional commitment, I thought your sudden commitment to her was disturbing as hell.”

Coltrane felt stung.

“Those photographs of Rebecca Chance,” Jennifer said. “Tash Adler’s uncanny resemblance to her. The whole business didn’t only baffle me; it struck me as being unnatural. So I decided to try to make sense of it. Not because I thought I might find some dirt that would help get us back together. I had no hope of that. I still don’t. It’s not why I’m here. For all I know, you’re going to tell me I’m making all this up so I can cause trouble between you and Tash. But I have to try. Because if something happened to you, I’d never forgive myself for not having warned you.”

“Don’t worry. You can’t cause any more trouble between Tash and me than there already is,” Coltrane said. Coming into the house, Jennifer had asked about the gashes on his mouth. He had told her what happened in Mexico and Big Bear.

“If I’m right, there could be a lot more trouble,” Jennifer said. “I think you’re in real danger.”

“Keep talking.”

“I wanted to find out just who this woman is that she could set your mind spinning the way she did.”

“And? You said her real name isn’t-”

“She was born Melinda Chance.”

“How do you know?”

“I hired the same private detective you did when you wanted to find out where Natasha Adler lived. He didn’t have much to go on, just what you’d told me about the stores she owns and her connection with Rebecca Chance. But that was enough. The stores aren’t owned in her name. They’re controlled by a corporation she runs, called Opportunity Inc. The private detective followed the trail of that corporation and worked backward, but I’m going to explain from the beginning and work forward.” Jennifer opened a briefcase that she had brought with her. “Here’s a copy of a birth certificate. Melinda Chance. Born April twenty-ninth, 1972, Fresno, California. Father unknown. Mother – Stephanie Chance.”

“All that proves is that some woman had the same last name.”

“Here’s a copy of a page from a Fresno high school yearbook.”

His stomach fluttering, Coltrane peered down at the copy she set before him. It was a good-quality photographic reproduction. He scanned the rows of students’ faces and fixed almost at once on the features of a young woman gazing back at him. Her dark hair was a little shorter, and her features were more girlish than womanly, but she had the same smoldering coals in her eyes. Tash. Except that the name under the photograph was Melinda Chance.

“When was this yearbook issued?”

“When she was seventeen. Just before she left Fresno.”

“What’s this caption under her name? ‘Destined to launch a thousand ships’?”

“A compliment about her looks. At first, it puzzled me, too, but it reminded me of a quotation from something, so I asked a reference librarian to track it down for me. ‘Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships…?’ It’s from a Renaissance play by Christopher Marlowe. The face that’s referred to is Helen of Troy’s. I thought the allusion was a little fancy for a high school yearbook, but then I noticed that below the caption it says ‘Favorite activity: the Drama Club.’ Here’s a photocopy of another page from the yearbook. These are the members of the Drama Club. Melinda Chance is easily the eye-catcher. As the caption indicates, among other things, the club practiced by reading scenes from classic plays. Must have been a tough teacher. Portions from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus . That’s the play with the ‘thousand ships’ quote. You can see the title on the cover of the book she’s holding in this photograph. It’s about a man who sells his soul to the Devil.”