Double Image (36 page)

There were several in the refrigerator. Presumably for the men helping her, Coltrane thought.

“Don’t bother about a glass. The can is fine,” he said.

“You sure?” She poured Chablis into a glass and touched it against the beer can she had given him. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

“It doesn’t seem much like New Year’s, does it?”

“I have a friend who keeps emphasizing that it’s a matter of attitude,” Coltrane said, “that we should think of it as a chance for a new beginning.”

“Yeah.” Troubled, Tash sipped her wine. “The question is, a new beginning of
what
? The start of the
really
bad times?”

“I don’t think that’s the attitude my friend had in mind.”

Leaning against the counter opposite her, Coltrane had a dizzying sense of unreality. Tash Adler even
spoke
like Rebecca Chance, her full-throated voice and engaging cadences the same as Rebecca Chance’s in
The Trailblazer
and
Jamaica Wind
. She seemed to be in her mid-twenties, the same age Rebecca Chance had been when she disappeared.

“Is something the matter?” Tash asked. “You’re looking at me as if . . . Have I got something caught in my teeth?”

He laughed. “Not at all. Sorry. I didn’t mean to stare. It’s a photographer’s habit. I can’t help imagining how I would take someone’s picture.”

“Is that what you want to do? Take my photograph?”

“There’s something about the way you’re leaning against that counter.”

“Oh?” She looked puzzled.

Coltrane realized that a compliment about her looks might sound as if he was coming on to her. The last thing he wanted was to alienate her. “The raspberry of the exercise suit you’re wearing is the only bright color in the room. Otherwise, everything’s white. Well, not totally. Those knives in that container have black handles. So do the handles on that toaster and the knobs on the stove.”

“I added those touches of black deliberately,” Tash said. “Without contrast, white isn’t effective.”

“That’s what intrigued me. Your suit makes this room a black-and-white photograph in color.”

Tash considered him. “You’re very observant.”

Coltrane made a modest gesture. “It comes from taking a lot of photographs.”

“No, I suspect taking photographs didn’t make you observant. The other way around. But I also suspect you often see more than you ever wanted to. Not everything’s beautiful.”

Coltrane remembered sighting through his telephoto lens as Ilkovic directed his men to grind up the bones of the corpses that the backhoe had dredged up from the mass grave in Bosnia. “Yes, not everything’s beautiful.”

“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?”

The reference caught Coltrane unawares, blunting the satisfaction he had felt in getting Tash out of the house. “How did you know about me and Ilkovic?”

“While you were in the bathroom waiting to get your clothes dried, Carl Nolan told me.”

It felt odd to be having a conversation with someone Coltrane couldn’t see. He made an effort not to tilt his head in Tash’s direction and ruin the illusion that he was alone.

“I knew about what had happened at that movie ranch,” Tash’s voice continued below and behind him. “At the time, there wasn’t much else in the newspapers or on the television news. But when I met you, your name didn’t register. I didn’t make the connection.”

“That’s encouraging. I hate to think that every time I introduce myself to someone new, I’ll always be remembered as the man who shot Ilkovic. I prefer to be known for my photographs, not for killing someone — even if he did deserve it.”

“I’m sorry for asking you to talk about it.”

“No, it’s fine. I can’t pretend it didn’t happen. I used to check for headlights behind me all the time. I used to drive around the block and down narrow alleys and one-way streets — anyplace that would make it unusual for someone to stay behind me. But the timers on the lamps, all that business in the garage, they weren’t anything I’d tried before.”

“It’s reassuring to know you’re inventive.”

“Yeah, but it’s not something I’m overjoyed to find out I’m inventive at. Keep staying down.” Coltrane steered onto the Pacific Coast Highway and checked for any headlights that emerged onto the highway after him. “So far so good.”

“Let’s hope,” Tash’s muffled voice said.

“When you found out what I had done to Ilkovic, did it change the way you looked at me?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“As you put it, he deserved to be killed.”

“That he did.” Coltrane sighed bleakly. “That he did.”

“People you know did change the way they related to you?”

“One in particular.”

“Powerful emotions can be frightening.” Coming from the darkness, Tash’s disembodied voice sounded more faint, almost childlike. “Do you have nightmares?”

“Yes. I thought they’d go away, but they haven’t. I keep dreaming that Ilkovic isn’t dead, that he’s still coming for me. I imagine his hands . . .”

“I have nightmares, too,” Tash said. “Someone’s reaching for me, but I can’t see his face. Since I don’t know what he looks like, it’s natural that he’d be faceless, I suppose, but it’s worse than that. It’s almost as if he doesn’t have a . . .”

“Head.”

“Then you understand.”

“That’s in
my
nightmare also,” Coltrane said.

“This’ll sound odd, but I’m glad.”

“What?”

“You’re the first person I’ve been able to talk to about what I’m feeling and know that you understand. Walt, Lyle, Carl, and the others — I try to explain how alone and afraid I feel, and they tell me they know what I mean. But they
don’t
know. How can they possibly? They’re big men with badges and guns. Their lives are in control. They’re not being stalked.”

“We’re in a limited club.”

“Not you. Not any longer. But it’s reassuring to know that you survived. I feel safe with you.”

“I hope I don’t let you down.” Again, Coltrane checked his rearview mirror. “I didn’t see any cars pull onto the highway after us. I think it’s okay now for you to sit up.”

“Since I’m feeling safe . . .”

Coltrane wondered what she meant to say.

“Why don’t I stay down out of sight until we get to
your
place?”

“It’s a long drive,” Coltrane said.

“It won’t be if we keep talking the way we are. Tell me about your photographs.”

“ALL CLEAR,” Coltrane said as his garage door rumbled shut.