Past Tense (4 page)

What would it hurt, after all? “My grandmother’s house. I used to spend a lot of time there when I was a child. The place was enchanting.” Sadness crept into her low voice. “When she died, the house was sold.”

“I’m sorry.” Letting go of her hand, he lifted his cup, setting it down again when he realized it was empty. “Sam, let me help you.”

“I don’t need any help.” She rose from her seat, abandoning her own mug of cold tea. “Shall we go? I have work tomorrow.”

“Work?” he echoed as he followed her out the door into the cool misty night. “What do you do?”

She shivered as the dampness seeped through her jacket. “Translations. I’m fluent in German and French, and I can work my way around Italian and Spanish. Right now I’m doing a literature text for a retired professor. French to English. It’s an easy one.”

They entered her building, climbing the stairs to the third floor. At the door of her flat, Sam fumbled in her handbag for her key. She put it in the lock, eying Tony uncertainly.

“Uh, I’m really tired—”

“Miss Clark. Oh, Miss Clark.”

The singsong voice interrupted her polite dismissal. Sam turned toward her neighbor. Miss Hunnicott came down the hall, her sensible shoes clumping on the worn Oriental runner. In her hand she held a large manila envelope.

“Miss Clark—” For the first time she seemed to notice Tony. She stopped in mid-sentence, and looked at him with disapproval flaring her thin nostrils. Until he smiled, and the censure turned to a coy fluttering of her sparse eyelashes. “It’s nice to see Miss Clark with a friend,” she said with a simpering smile.

“Thank you,” Tony said, giving her the benefit of his most sincere, heart breaker’s grin.

“Miss Clark, this came for you today while you were out.” She handed Sam the envelope. “One of those new private delivery services.”

“Thank you,” Samantha said. “I appreciate you’re taking it for me.” She weighed the package in her hand. Thin. No return address. Probably junk mail, not that she’d occupied the flat long enough to receive much of that.

Miss Hunnicott still lingered. “I knew it must be important. That’s why I waited for you, Miss Clark.”

“Yes. Thank you,” Sam said again, aware of Tony’s curiosity, and wondering how she was going to get rid of him.

“Perhaps we could have tea tomorrow,” Miss Hunnicott said in a wheedling tone when she saw she had less than all of Sam’s attention.

“Perhaps,” Sam said vaguely. “I’ll see if I come in early enough in the afternoon.”

Miss Hunnicott laid a soft, pudgy hand on Samantha’s sleeve. “Please do, my dear. I’m always glad to have you.”

“I’ll try. Good night, Miss Hunnicott.”

“Good night, dear.” She started down the hall, then turned. “I wonder who will move into the empty flat on the second floor. I hope it’s somebody interesting.”

Sam paused. “Empty flat?”

“Didn’t you see the sign outside?”

“Oh. Oh, yes.” It must have gone up only that day. She hadn’t paid any attention. “Good night, Miss Hunnicott,” she said again.

She entered her flat quickly, without attempting to stop Tony who followed her through the door. She would sort him out later, after she escaped the velvet clutches of Miss Hunnicott.

“She’s lonely.” Samantha moved to the kitchen to find a letter opener. “No relatives here, and I think all her friends are dead.” Slitting the envelope she looked at Tony standing in the doorway, his hand braced on the frame. “I really am tired, Tony.”

He gestured at the envelope. “I’ll go in a minute. But look at your mail. It must be important.”

His behavior was worse than her neighbor’s, Samantha thought.

She upended the envelope to remove the contents. Out dropped a second, smaller envelope and a folded note. Picking up the note, she read the brief message.

“It’s from my solicitor’s office,” she muttered. “Strange he didn’t mention it when I had lunch with him today. He could have just given it to me instead of sending it.”

The note merely said that the enclosed envelope had come for her with a request that it be forwarded to the present address of Samantha Smith.

“Smith?” Tony said in an odd voice.

Damn. Samantha crushed the note in her fist, realizing too late that he’d read it over her shoulder.

“I thought your name was Clark.”

“It’s a mistake,” she said hurriedly. “They’ve sent it to the wrong person.” She turned, the paper burning her hand. “I think you’d better go.”

Tony looked mutinous, then shrugged. “If that’s the way you feel about it.”

Without waiting to see if he went out the door, Sam smoothed out the note. The typed message read:
Mr. Collins is out, so I’m taking the liberty of sending this on to you since it appears urgent
. It was signed by Collins’s part-time secretary.

With a sense of foreboding, she picked up the second envelope. In the bright kitchen light, the post office stamp stood out clearly.

Montréal. The return address was that of Smith Industries. No wonder Mrs. Graham had thought it important.

Samantha’s face went cold and still. Something was wrong. Smith Industries would not be sending her mail through Mr. Collins, since she had given them Amelia’s Nice address. It had to be someone else, using the company stationery.

With trembling fingers she tore open the flap and pulled out the single sheet of paper, staring at the bright travel brochure advertising the amenities of Nice and the French Riviera. Scrawled across the photo of the golden beach were two words:
You lied
.

“No.” The word whispered past her stiff lips. She closed her eyes, denying what she’d seen. It wasn’t possible. They couldn’t have found her. She went into the living room and sank down onto the sofa.

“Samantha?”

Through the roaring in her ears, she heard Tony’s voice. Was he still here? “Samantha, you look so strange. Are you all right?”

She was definitely not all right. Dazed, she turned to him. “I thought you’d gone.”

Again he detected the inconsistency, the flatness in her vowels.

“Not yet,” he said. “Good thing, too. Samantha, what’s going on? What scared you?”

Slowly, as if she feared it might turn into a snake, she unclenched her fist from the envelope. Like a condemned woman resigned to her fate, she unfolded the brochure. More red letters, crudely printed with a felt marker, leaped out at her.
You can’t hide forever
.

Beside the words was a crude drawing of a gallows with a stick figure hanging from it, the neck twisted obscenely.

“Oh, no.” Her eyes wide with horror, she dropped the paper on the table.

Gingerly Tony picked it up, staring at the message. “Who sent this, Samantha? What is going on?”

Samantha covered her face with her hands, as if by shutting out the light she could deny the implications of the words and the brochure. She let her hands slide down to her lap where she clasped them tightly together. “They’ve found me. They know where I am.”

Chapter Three

“They? Who’re they?” Tony dropped the brochure on the coffee table. Feeling totally out of his depth, he sat down beside her. He clasped her icy hand in his, rubbing it between his palms. “And what do you mean they’ve found you? Who is it you’re hiding from?”

She hid her face against his sweatshirt, breathing in the cool scent of outdoors and the underlying warmth that emanated from his skin. “I can’t tell you, Tony. It’s better if you don’t know.” She lifted her head, her eyes tear-wet and stricken. “I’ll probably have to move.”

“How long have you been hiding?” Tony asked, without much hope of a straight answer.

But she surprised him, and her reply had a ring of truth he recognized. “Almost six months.”

“And no one knows where you are.”

“Only Mr. Collins, my solicitor. And he would never betray me.” She stood up suddenly, urgent words tumbling from her mouth. “Tony, you can’t stay here. I may be in danger. And you might be, too.”

He remained where he was, staring at her. “Really? What kind of danger?”

A muscle jumped in her jaw as she tightened her lips. “I can’t tell you.”

Tony stood up abruptly, his knee knocking the table. The mug Sam had forgotten from hours ago fell over, spilling the dregs of cold coffee. “Damn. Where’s a cloth?”

“In the kitchen.”

Tony mopped up the coffee, which fortunately hadn’t soaked anything important. Taking the cloth back to the kitchen to rinse it out, he paused on the way. “Sooner or later you’ll have to tell me. I want to help you.”

“I don’t need any help.”

“I think you do,” Tony said calmly. “I’m not leaving until I get some answers.”

“It’s not your affair.” But her protest was lost as he turned on the water at the sink.

Samantha sank back into the sagging cushions. What could she do now? Run again, somewhere else? She massaged the spot between her eyes that was beginning to ache. She had taken such pains to lay down a false trail, winding through Europe in a car rented under Amelia’s name. She’d been so careful, never making close friends, never letting anyone suspect she wasn’t what she seemed, a black sheep member of the aristocracy, exiled in the anonymous city.

And Tony Theopoulos, who had been pushed by some diabolical fate into her life, threatened the whole setup. If the past caught up with her, how was she going to protect him as well as herself? He already knew, or guessed, too much.

She glanced toward the kitchen. What was keeping him? All she could hear was water running, followed by splashing sounds in the sink.

Her eye fell on the yesterday’s newspaper, which had fallen off the table. She gathered up the scattered sheets, stopping short as she saw a photo displayed on the society page. It was Tony, a drink in his hand and a cool smile on his face. He stared back at her, his dark suit and white shirt making him stand out from the crowd behind him. “The prominent hotelier, Anthony Theopoulos, was one of the distinguished guests at Lady Cecelia’s charity ball last evening,” gushed the caption.

All the more reason to get him out of her life, Sam thought with a sinking feeling in her stomach. He moved in the kind of society she’d avoided since coming to London. She knew Lady Cecelia. In fact, their families had known each other for years.

She couldn’t see Tony again, risk being recognized by someone who would report back to Bennett. It might already be too late.

“Well?”

Samantha jumped. “You took long enough. What did you do, clean the whole kitchen?”

“Why, were you timing me?” Picking up the newspaper, he frowned at the photo and dropped it without comment. He’d already read the story, which made him sound like a playboy, an image he wanted to downplay.

He settled down in a chair opposite the sofa, letting his leg hang over the arm. “Who’s looking for you, Samantha? What are you so afraid of?”

She opened her mouth, but Tony forestalled her reply. “I know. You can’t tell me.” He shifted restlessly. “Isn’t it time you told somebody?”

She gave the idea serious consideration. He could see the wheels turning in her brain. But in the end she shook her head. “No, it’s better this way.”

His foot hit the floor with a thump and he stood up. “Then I can’t help you either, can I? Good night, Samantha. It’s been, uh, interesting.” The door closed very softly behind him.

Samantha sat for a long moment after the sound of Tony’s footsteps receded down the stairs.

He wouldn’t be back.

It was better that way, she reasoned. Safer for him. And for herself, as well.

Forget Tony, she told herself firmly. He was too much like the men she’d always dated, successful and restless, always looking for the next woman, the next business deal. Her mistake with Bennett was too fresh in her mind.

She couldn’t get involved with Tony, no matter how concerned he seemed about her situation.

Her eye fell on the brochure. Nice, playground of Europe. Someone had found out that she was not in Nice, and used her connection to Smith Industries to trace her. But why pick London? Smith Industries also had offices in Geneva and Milan.

Of course, they could have tried there. She had no way of knowing. Her spirits lifted slightly. The sender of the brochure with its implied threat wouldn’t know whether she’d received it, unless she panicked.

It had to be a shot in the dark, impotent as long she kept to her normal routine. She would just have to be careful, make sure she guarded her anonymity even more closely.

Her more immediate problem was Dubray. She was sure it had been Dubray in the elevator. Or someone who looked enough like him to be his double.

There was one way to prove it. Pulling out the phone book, she looked up the number of the Regal Arms, dialing it swiftly. “Mr. Dubray’s room, please.”

“One moment, please. I’ll look it up.” A short pause, then the pleasant voice was back. “I’m sorry, madam, you did say Dubray?”

“Yes,” Sam said impatiently. “Robert Dubray.” Not that she had any idea what she would say if he came on the line. But confirming his presence in London might satisfy her need to prove she hadn’t been hallucinating.

“We have no one registered by that name, madam. I’m sorry.”

Sam bit her lip. Had she been mistaken then? “All right,” she said into the phone. “Thank you.”

She had seen him. She knew she had. But as she tidied up the flat and prepared for bed, doubts kept seeping in. Along with random thoughts of Tony, and his kind, dark eyes.

Samantha had never before noticed the patterns of light that crossed her bedroom ceiling when the nearby traffic light changed, but she learned them in minute detail throughout that sleepless night.

* * * *

By morning, under vibrant sunshine, Samantha admitted that she might have overreacted. It was premature to assume that she’d been found. Unless someone was already watching her, whoever had sent the note would have no way of checking whether she’d received it or not. It would have been impossible to trace every piece of mail sent out from Mr. Collins’s office.

Frowning, she poured herself a bowl of corn flakes, barely tasting them as she ate. For a moment she considered phoning her aunt. No, she couldn’t. She trusted Aunt Olivia, but her aunt was too fond of Bennett not to inform him if Sam contacted her.