Identical Stranger. Alice Sharpe

      Was this a trick? Had an old picture of Sophie somehow been Photoshopped into this format? So many things were different—hairstyle, hair color, makeup, jewelry, dress and, oh yeah, what little she could see of a dark-haired guy whose face was smashed up against hers. This was not a photo of Sophie and yet it looked as though it was.

      “She’s prettier than me,” Sophie said.

      “She’s a duplicate of you,” Jack murmured, his glance darting from the telephone to Sophie. “And you’re a duplicate of her.”

      “She doesn’t have a mole on her cheek like I do,” Sophie continued, unable to stop staring at the woman on the screen. “Does she color her hair?”

      “I don’t know. Except that she doesn’t have a purple streak.”

      “Neither did I until this morning. You said her name is Sabrina?”

      “Yeah. Sabrina Cromwell. Her maiden name was Long. Sabrina Long. She grew up in Astoria, Oregon, about sixty minutes north of here. How about you?”

      Sophie had been digging in her shoulder bag as he spoke and now produced her wallet. She handed him her driver’s license. “Born and raised in Portland, Oregon. How old is Sabrina?”

      “Eight years younger than Buzz, so around twenty-six or so. Wait, I remember Buzz saying she’s a July baby.” He scanned her driver’s license. “Looks like you were born in July, too.”

      “Lots of people are born in July,” she said as she continued staring at Sabrina’s face.

      He dug in his pocket and produced his own wallet. “You don’t have to take me on face value either,” he said, handing her his driver’s and private investigator’s licenses. She looked them over before returning them. “Are you adopted?” he asked.

      “No. Is she?”

      “Not that I know of.”

      “I want to meet her.”

      “I think she’ll want to meet you, too, but I’m pretty sure she turned her phone off when she decided to take a nap. I’ll try calling her room.”

      Sophie popped to her feet. “She’s here, in this hotel, right now?”

      “Yes.”

      She blinked several times. Was she up to more shocks and surprises? Did she have a choice? She followed Jack to the desk, where he placed the call but ended up leaving a message. “I’m going upstairs to check on her,” Jack said. “I’ll be right back.”

      “May I come with you?” Sophie squeaked, then stiffened her resolve. “I need to see her with my own eyes. This is all so...weird.”

      “I think she’ll need a few minutes to adjust to...things. She’s pretty stressed.”

      “Yeah, well, so am I.”

      He smiled and the transformation was stunning. Half-surreal before, he now turned into a genuine human being. “I can see how you’d feel that way,” he said, and together they rode up to the third floor and walked down the hall.

      He finally stopped and knocked on the door of room 302. It was the same room Sophie had stayed in the summer before, the one she’d hoped to get today because it had a great view of the beach. They waited a few seconds and then he knocked again, harder this time. He twisted the knob to no effect. “I’m going to try a credit card,” he said as he opened his wallet.

      “Shouldn’t we just go downstairs and ask for help?”

      “Probably, but it’s chancy they’ll open the door without provocation. I saw this in a movie. It might work, what the heck.”

      As he ran a variety of cards through the magnetic lock, Sophie heard footsteps and glanced up to find a maid carrying an armload of towels walking toward them. She elbowed Jack, who glanced over his shoulder and quickly stuck the cards in his pockets. Sophie looked back at the maid in time to see a man turn the corner on his way to the elevator. He and Sophie made eye contact. He stopped dead in his tracks. His gaze shifted as he patted his pockets, then he turned on his heels and disappeared back around the corner.

      It looked as though he’d forgotten something.

      The housekeeper paused midstep. “I saw you earlier today,” she said, smiling at Sophie. “Did you leave your key in your room?”

      “Yes,” Sophie said. The woman had mistaken her for Sabrina Cromwell. The last possibility that Jack might be in cahoots with Danny in some elaborate scheme to accomplish heaven knew what toppled off the edge of probability.

      “I can open it for you,” the woman said. For a second, Sophie wondered how they would explain the sleeping woman already in the room, but the bed was empty and the maid went on her way.

      They closed the door behind them.

      Jack glanced at the open door of the bathroom as he strode to the balcony and tried the glass door. It was locked. Planting his hands on his waist, he stated the obvious. “She’s not here.”

      “Where are her things?” Sophie asked because aside from a rumpled bed and a damp hand towel in the bathroom, the room looked untouched.

      “In her car. I guess I should go make sure it’s still parked outside. Give me your cell number and I’ll call you when I get this cleared up.”

      The impulse to wait in the lobby drew her like a magnet. She could find a corner where she could commence thinking about her life. Waiting felt comfortable. It felt natural.

      She looked up into Jack’s blue eyes. The anxiety she found there made waiting seem an inconceivable option. “You think something happened to her,” she stated flatly.

      “I don’t see how it could have, but yeah, I’m concerned.”

      “Then I’m coming with you.”

      “You don’t need to do that. I’ll let you know.”

      “Listen,” Sophie said, reaching over to grasp his arm, then removing her hand at once. There must be something on his jacket sleeve, some invisible substance that made her palms tingle. “There aren’t any rooms available at the hotel, I’m not going home and I’m not going to risk losing track of you and Sabrina. It’s like fate is screaming my name, trying to tell me something. Normally I would ignore such unwanted callouts from things like destiny and all that, but today—I don’t know, I think I should listen. I can’t explain it, I just have to find out where Sabrina is, who she is. I have to see her.” She shrugged and slid him a glance to see if he was ready to bolt. He actually nodded and she took a deep breath. “I don’t understand how anyone can look so much like me and not actually be—” She stopped short.

      “Related,” he finished for her and briefly touched her arm as though he understood. “Nor do I. All right, come with me. Let’s see if we can find her car.”

      * * *

      “SHE’S DRIVING BUZZ’S old Chevy,” he said as they walked out into the rainy afternoon. “Think rusty hulk.”

      He pulled the hood up on his jacket. She hesitated while still under the protection of the portico, and he realized her coat didn’t have a hood and the rain had done nothing but go from bad to worse. “Why don’t you wait here while I check the outside lot, then if need be, we can look in the parking garage together.”

      “Okay,” she agreed.

      Ten minutes later he jogged back to the front of the hotel to find Sophie gone. Man, he was losing women left and right today, but in this case, he thought it likely Sophie Sparrow had rethought her involvement with this situation and cut her loses. He was disappointed and not only because he was curious about the connection between her and Sabrina. Maybe it was for the better. What good could possibly come from being attracted to a woman who lived hours away, looked just like his best friend’s wife and, more to the point, was in the middle of a relationship