Читать книгу Receptionist Under Cover - C.J. Carmichael - Страница 11

NADINE LEFT THE OFFICE promptly at five o’clock, anxious to be on time for her clandestine meeting with Patrick O’Neil. As she hurried down the stairs, briefcase in hand, she felt sophisticated and mysterious. After over a year of working at Fox & Fisher, she was finally an “operative” with her own “case.” She felt like the main character in one of the detective stories she loved so much, and she was even dressed for the part with her classic trench coat and oversize sunglasses.

She’d chosen to meet in Chelsea for several reasons. First, the subway stop was only two blocks from the apartment where June Stone had lived with her son. She thought Patrick might be interested in walking by the place, and if he wasn’t, she would do it alone once their meeting was over.

More important, she was reasonably certain that she wouldn’t run into anyone she knew in Chelsea. None of the partners at Fox & Fisher lived or were working in the area. Nor was she likely to encounter one of her family members, or friends of her parents, any of whom would give her away in an instant.

When she dashed into a cab, it was raining lightly. By the time she emerged at the meeting spot, the rain had turned into miserable November snow. Nadine stamped her feet to keep warm and hoped Patrick wouldn’t be late. She was wearing a wool dress and leggings under her coat, a hat and leather gloves, yet the damp chill seemed to seep through all of it.

At precisely six o’clock he showed up. She spotted him from a block away. He was wearing a dark coat with the top buttons undone, no scarf or hat, yet he didn’t look the least bit cold. Watching him approach, she was struck again by his rugged good looks and the athletic grace of his body. Probably thanks to lots of sun and wind, he looked all of his thirty-six years. His age had been on his bio in the book.

But there was no gray in his hair and certainly he had more energy than anyone she’d ever met.

He shook her hand when he reached her. His blue eyes fixed on her steadily. “It’s nice to see you again. I wasn’t expecting results so quickly.”

He was a little nervous, she realized. Good. Maybe he wouldn’t notice that she was, too. “We’re only a few blocks from June Stone’s old apartment. I wondered if you’d like to take a look before we have our coffee.”

“Yes. I didn’t think it was coincidence that you’d suggested we meet here.”

They set out heading west and Patrick was the first to speak. “I looked for you the other night. Later, after the speeches.”

“I’m sorry. I would have enjoyed hearing your talk, I’m sure. But I had to leave before dinner was served.”

He glanced at her, clearly intrigued. “I don’t suppose you can give me any details about the case?”

“I’m afraid not. We’re very strict about confidentiality at Fox & Fisher.”

“Which is a good thing.” He touched her elbow as they crossed the street. She found the gentlemanly gesture rather sweet, and unexpected, from a man she suspected cared little for most social graces.

But then, he’d seemed very comfortable in his tux the other night.

“Do you attend a lot of charity balls?” she asked.

“I try not to. In fact, after the other night, I called my publicist and said that was the last one. The people who go to these things mean well, I’m sure. But they’re so caught up in the cycle of consume, consume, consume. They listen to my talk and don’t even recognize that their lifestyle is part of the problem.”

Having struggled with the same issues for most of her life, Nadine had to agree with him. Her mother put pressure on her to attend these functions, but each one seemed to require more effort than the last.

“Well, this is it.” She stopped in front of a three-story apartment building. Counting out the units, she pointed to the window near the corner. “I think that was where June and Stephen lived.”

Patrick stuffed his hands into his pockets and stared at the window for a long time. The curtains were drawn, but the interior lights were on and every now and then a shadow flickered as someone walked by.

“My son grew up here,” he said, his voice hoarse. He glanced around the block, taking in the convenience store across the street and a coffee shop on the corner. Both were probably places June Stone—and Stephen—had spent a lot of time in.

“Want to try that place?” he asked, pointing at the coffee shop. It was on the corner of Ninth Street. Rafaella’s was printed in white letters on a black awning over the window.

“Sure.” She started in that direction, then stopped. Patrick was still gazing at the third-floor window.

“I suppose June thought she was doing me a favor by raising our son alone. But she should have told me.”

JUNE’S DEATH WAS HAVING a profound effect on Patrick. She wasn’t the first of his contemporaries to pass away. That would have been Jed, who’d died in an avalanche, a day after Patrick had skied the same terrain. Jed’s passing had been hard, but finding out about June was even harder.

She had been his first love. And now, he was just discovering, the mother of his child.

June had been a straightforward person, intelligent and practical. At eighteen, she’d been cute, but it wasn’t really her looks that had drawn him so much as her outgoing personality and her love of sports. She’d played volleyball and basketball and he’d liked the fact that she could shoot a basket just as well as he could.

He’d preferred the solitary sports. Back in school it had been track and field. As an adult he’d taken up cycling, kayaking, mountain climbing…The list went on and on.

When they’d broken up, the summer after graduation, he’d been sad, but not for long. He’d worked at a bike shop until he had enough cash for a trip to Europe. He’d always had a yearning to travel.

Meanwhile June had gone on to college, as she’d always planned, only now he knew that her first year would not have gone as planned, because she’d been pregnant. He’d had time to do some calculating and he figured the baby would have been born in March, at the latest.

Three months after she sent him a Christmas card saying everything was fine.

Another shadow passed by the window in the apartment. It seemed sad, somehow, that a new family had moved in, playing out their passions and dramas and dreams in the very rooms where June and Stephen had once lived.

Patrick glanced away. Nadine had removed her sunglasses—it was growing dark now—and was waiting for him patiently, though she was probably cold. Now that the sun was gone, the air was cooling rapidly.

“Thanks for waiting,” he said, moving toward her.

“No problem. It must be quite a shock. Not only finding out you had a son. But he’s eighteen years old.”

“Yes. I cared about June, she was a good person and I don’t want to blame her. But if she’d given me a chance, I would have liked to be a part of his life.”

“Maybe the two of you would have gotten married.”

Somehow he couldn’t picture that. “Maybe.”

They were at the café now, and he held the door open for Nadine. Inside, the room was welcoming, furnished with sofas and upholstered chairs, the windows draped in soft fabrics and the lighting warm and intimate. It felt a bit like walking into someone’s home.

They were directed to a table for two next to a redbrick wall. Patrick helped Nadine off with her trench coat, then removed his leather jacket and hung both on a nearby coatrack.

He didn’t normally pay much attention to the clothing people wore, but he did notice that Nadine’s dress clung nicely to her petite figure. When she removed her hat, he saw that her thick, dark hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail. In his line of work, he saw women in practical ponytails all the time—but this one looked more elegant than sporty. The style showed off her delicate ears and earrings long enough to swing with each movement of her head.

He was reminded of how perfectly lovely she’d looked at the gala ball the other night. To the manner born, and all that stuff. He supposed being able to fit in with your surroundings was a useful talent when you were in her line of work.

He forced himself to wait until they’d both ordered coffee to ask, “So tell me what you’ve found out.”

She cleared her throat. “I’ve contacted June’s sister in Boston.”

The obituary had mentioned Diane—whom he remembered vaguely.

“I tried to call Diane, too,” he said. “But her number wasn’t listed.”

Nadine nodded, setting her earrings in motion again. “She still goes by Stone, though she is married. I hoped they might own a home and I was lucky. By checking the Boston property tax listings online I was able to find their address. From that, I figured out the most likely school for their children to attend.”

That was clever. “But how did identifying the school help?”

“The school has a Web site. In one of the monthly newsletters, Diane was listed as pizza mom.”

“Pizza mom. What in the world is that?”

“It sounds like a school fundraiser. The kids send in orders for a special pizza lunch once a month. At any rate, Diane was the volunteer organizer and her phone number was printed right next to her name.”

Pretty ingenious legwork, Patrick thought, relieved to have this solid evidence that she knew what she was doing. “So you called her. Did you tell her I’d hired you to find Stephen?”

“Not exactly. I told her my name and that I lived in Manhattan. I said I had just heard that her sister had passed away and I was trying to find Stephen.”

“You didn’t mention me?”

“At this point I thought it would be good to say as little as possible. Diane made it very easy for me, actually. She didn’t ask many questions at all. She’s probably fielded a lot of calls since her sister passed away, so she just assumed I must be a friend.”

He edged forward on his seat. “Did she tell you about Stephen? Is he living with her now? He’s only eighteen.”

Nadine sighed, which he didn’t take as a good sign.

“Diane says that Stephen stayed with them for a few weeks after the funeral. But, apparently he wasn’t very impressed with Boston. He decided to head to the Rocky Mountains, in Canada, with a friend. They’re both certified ski instructors and they’re hoping they can find a job.”

“Canada? Hell, that’s far.” He’d been hoping to locate Stephen in Boston, just a short flight away. This was an unexpected complication, and disappointing. “Couldn’t he find a job a little closer? There are plenty of ski hills in New England.”

“Diane told me Stephen is taking his mother’s death pretty hard. He wanted to go somewhere far away, a place with no memories.”

“He didn’t have memories of his mother in Boston.”

“Maybe Stephen craves adventure…like his father.”

Her comment jolted Patrick. To this point his son had seemed more abstract than real. But he and Stephen shared the same DNA. And though it wasn’t logical, he felt proud.

“Diane dropped Stephen off at the airport about two weeks ago,” Nadine continued. “He and his friend were flying to Calgary, Alberta, where they planned to buy a cheap car, then head out to the Rockies.”

“So now what?” Patrick wondered. Since finding out he had a son, he hadn’t been able to sleep through the night once. He needed some resolution. Soon. “Canada is a big place. How do we find him?”

THE SERVER ARRIVED THEN TO SEE if they wanted to order anything to eat. Nadine could tell Patrick was impatient with the interruption, but she was suddenly starving.

She’d been working hard the past few days, running on adrenaline and nerves. She needed food to settle her stomach.

“I’ll have the pasta special, please.”

Patrick just shook his head. As soon as they were alone again, he asked, “So what’s the plan?”

“We need to find where Stephen is working. It makes sense that he would head to one of the larger, world-class resorts, not just a local ski hill. I’ve done some research and it seems that there are three main possibilities, within two or three hours of Calgary.”

“And they are?”

She pulled a sheet of paper from her bag and read out the list. “Sunshine Village at Banff, the Lake Louise ski hill or the Kicking Horse Resort in Golden.”

“I’ve heard of all of those.” His forehead knotted as he seemed to consider something. “In fact, I made some notes a few years ago when I was considering a book on ski adventures in the Canadian Rockies. And you’re sure Stephen will be at one of those three places?”

“Pretty sure. The only other major ski hill in Canada is Whistler, but Stephen would have flown into Vancouver if he wanted to find a job at that resort.”

True enough. “So what happens next? Have you tried phoning those resorts?”

“I’ve called, but so far I haven’t had any luck. It turns out that they do a lot of hiring at the beginning of November. They won’t have their full complement of employees entered into their systems for a few weeks yet.”

“Hell.” He shifted impatiently in his seat.

The server came with her dinner, and she picked up her fork. “Here’s my recommendation. We wait fourteen days, and then I try calling the resorts again.”

“That’s too long,” he said without even considering it. “You need to fly up there and look for him in person.”

“Me? Fly to Canada?” Too late, Nadine realized she should have expected the suggestion. She could tell Patrick wasn’t a patient man. And finding his son was clearly very important to him.

“I can’t wait two more weeks to find him.”

“We could hire an investigator in Calgary to follow this up,” she suggested.

Patrick frowned. “I’m not keen on working with someone I haven’t met with face-to-face.”

She tried to think of a third option, but couldn’t. Maybe she could dissuade him if she talked dollars. “It will be expensive. Air flights, hotels, rental cars. Plus I’d have to charge for meals, on top of my regular hourly fee.”

“Obviously the retainer I paid you won’t be nearly enough. I can write you another check right now.” He pulled out a blank check from his wallet. She waited while he filled it out, then passed it to her.

Five thousand dollars. Holy crap. “This should cover it.” She stared at the check, realizing she was out of excuses now. She had to take a trip to Canada—but how was she going to do that? She’d taken on this case intending to wrap it up while still carrying on with her usual receptionist duties.

Nadine swallowed. She’d have to think of something to tell the partners. “Right. Well, then. I guess I’m going to Canada.”

Patrick rubbed his chin. “Maybe we should both go.”

“Pardon me? But I thought you had a book due?”

“I can write just as well on the plane and in a hotel room in the Rockies as I can here in my apartment. If I travel with you, then I’ll be right there to meet Stephen, as soon as you find him.”

Oh, Lord, no. This job was going to be difficult enough, without having the client traveling with her—seeing all her mistakes firsthand.

“I’ll call you as soon as I find him. You can catch the very next plane—”

“Calgary’s on the other side of the continent. Even if I do manage to book the next available flight, I’ll still lose a day to travel. And I know I’ll be out of my mind with nerves the whole time. No. I really think this plan is the best. Besides, while I’m there, I can see if there’s any potential for a book on the Canadian Rockies.”

Nadine couldn’t think of anything to say that would dissuade him.

With her head bowed over the dinner she no longer had any interest in eating, she tried to sneak a look at him. But she found him staring at her. His forehead was lined, his eyes appeared anxious. To her overwrought imagination, it seemed he was wondering if he’d made a mistake hiring her.

She wouldn’t blame him, because she was wondering the same thing.