CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

Chance Encounter

A man was staring at me.

Normally, I wouldn’t have been very open to the idea of a man staring at me from across a train car. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t sticking my nose in the air and allowing someone to look at me without acknowledging their importance. Before now, people who stared at me were not interesting. Now I was searching for people who were staring at me. I had been randomly riding trains, searching. I didn’t have much hope that I would find Charles, but I might find the man I had rescued from the jail. Maybe he was still in the area. Maybe he was on the run.

I raised my eyes to meet the stranger’s gaze.

It was not the man from the jail. This man had tawny, blond hair, hazel eyes, and a smooth smile. He looked at me like he was amused by something about me. He may have thought he was something special, but all the good looks in the world might be hiding a terrible secret. In fact, they probably were.

I was living proof of that.

I shouldn’t have felt anything when a man favored me with such blatant interest, but I was feeling something. As I looked at him, I suddenly felt desperate, lonely, like I had been stretched too thin and not stretched far enough at the same time. Something about him made me feel completely insane like nothing in the world made sense.

The man, dapper as a cat, slid his phone into his pocket and moved to take the seat next to me. In a faint British accent, he said, “You remind me of someone, have we met?”

“I don’t think so,” I said stiffly. “I’m new to the city.”

“That’s some accessory you’ve got going on,” he intoned.

“Don’t you like it?” I asked purposefully, wondering if he saw the sword.

“Did you lose the other one?”

I smacked my lips in disappointment. He was talking about my lone earring. Yes, it was massive and I only wore one. If it was only my looks that drew him to me, I was going to be unsatisfied. I hoped against hope that there was some other reason he was completely enthralled and enthralling.

The train stopped and for a moment, the man next to me shifted in his seat. I thought he might get off the train and I was filled with an intense feeling of dread if he should leave before I had sorted out the mystery.

“What’s your name?” I asked, full of hesitation.

“Graham. Yours?”

“Holly.”

He looked into my eyes. “You remind me of someone, Holly.”

When he said that, I realized that he reminded me of someone. Someone I found very interesting. I was practically on the edge of my seat as I prepared to play the game with vicious audacity—holding back nothing. “You remind me of someone too. Maybe we have met. Did you used to have a goddaughter named Beth Coldwell?”

He looked startled. “No. I’ve never heard that name.”

“Really? You look exactly like Christian Henderson.”

It was completely true. The man next to me had done everything he could to mimic the whole Christian Henderson persona. His hair was the same——color and style. His eyes were the same. I wondered if he was even wearing exactly the same brand of contact lenses. He even wore the same ridiculous tailored suits Christian used to wear that pulled your eyes away from his face and down to the neat line of his waist. The vests he wore made him look like he wore wrapping paper that was begging to be unwrapped. Except this man didn’t possess the same gorgeous lines.

The man beside me turned slightly pink. He liked hearing that. “How do you know these people?”

“I used to go to school with Beth,” I lied. “It was always the best day of the year when Christian would come to pick her up. Everyone took notice. I bet everyone takes notice of you, too. You look like his hot younger brother. Hey, do you have somewhere you have to be?”

“Why?” he asked, leaning back in his seat and looking like the world was his.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“I’d like to take you out for coffee,” I said smoothly like I asked men out for coffee all the time.

“Coffee?” he reiterated.

“Or a drink?”

“Or a drink?” he repeated. “I do have someone I’m meeting at the next stop. If you gave me your number, I could call you, and maybe we could meet up on a different day.”

I nodded and scratched his number into the palm of his hand with a ballpoint pen.

At the next stop, he got off with a flirtatious wave at me. There was someone waiting for him on the platform. Thin silver spectacles framed his blue eyes in metal shaped like surgical tools. It was the man who wore the suit the night I broke into the jail—Dr. Bobby Hilliar.

“Rhuk,” I muttered to my earring. “Chase him. Chase them both. Don’t let them out of your sight. Learn everything. This is what we’ve been waiting for.”

“Do you think that’s Charles in disguise?” Rhuk asked.

“If he’s taken it into his head that it’s poetic justice for him to steal Christian’s face because Christian stole his, then it’s possible. What’s more important is that I recognize the man he met as the only person who walked out of that jail alive. Don’t you?”

“Of course. I was there, but I didn’t have any luck tracing him.”

“Well, neither did I. I had his name, but I found nothing. An internet search for Dr. Bobby Hilliar came up blank. Dr. Robert Hilliar yielded nothing. Dr. Robin Hilliar wasn’t it. Roberto, Bob, and after a few more attempts I couldn’t think of anything else to try. Not only could I not find anything for him, but I couldn’t find anything about the original Dr. Hilliar who sewed my back up. They must use the name Hilliar as an alias or a keyword. It seems like there is no Dr. Hilliar with a license to practice medicine in the area. You’re following them, right?”

“Yes.”

“If the man who called himself Graham has my heart, they’re probably on their way to perform a test. Probably level one, the cutting test. No one would look that chill if they were on their way for a higher-level test.”

At that moment, someone took the seat next to me. “Holly, what are you doing?” a voice asked cuttingly.

I turned around and saw Trinity. She had two shopping bags with her and a disapproving look on her face.

“What are you carrying in your condition? I hope those bags are light. I took one from her hands and let the other sit on the floor at her feet. “I’ll carry them the rest of the way home for you.”

“That man?” Trinity said. “From over there, it looked like he was hitting on you and you gave him your number.”

“Are you asking me if I completely forgot that I’m a married woman?”

Trinity nodded.

I didn’t know how to respond, so in an act of desperation I put out my left hand. “Do you see a wedding ring on this finger?”

She looked at me quizzically. “Are you saying that you and Tramaine are separated?”

I decided it was in my best interest to act hazy on the subject. I shrugged. I could not explain to her that we were in Ottawa only to find the man I was talking to so we could murder him and desecrate his corpse. Nor could I explain that not only would my husband be overjoyed that I had spotted him, but doubly pleased that I had flirted with him well enough that he took my phone number and promised to call.

Reformed Trinity grabbed me by the shoulder. “Are you married or not?”

I hated lying. “We’re half married.”

“What the frick is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that there was a technical problem with our wedding. It happened, but it was annulled because of a technicality. Right now, I’m sitting on the side of not being married. Not because I don’t love Tramaine, but because he needs to get his ducks in a row so that we can get remarried.”

“That sounds bizarre,” Trinity said, letting go of my shoulder.

“It is. I’m pissed off and I gave a man my number. Relax. Nothing motivates Tremaine more than competition.”

“You’re going to try to make him jealous?”

“I’m hoping to drive him to a murderous rage,” I said flippantly, but truthfully. “Tell him everything you saw me do the next time you see him. I’ll thank you if you make it seem like the sparks were flying and juices flowing. Whatever sounds more disgusting. Your word will be more powerful than anything I could say since I have no proof and that man is not going to call.”

“What makes you think he won’t call?” Trinity asked indignantly.

“How long were you single? How often did you date as a teenager? How many times did a guy call you after taking your number?” I puffed a laugh.

“Okay. Hardly ever, but I didn’t look like you. He’s a raging moron if he doesn’t call.”

I turned my head to look at her. No matter who she was friends with, she was such a loyal friend. I smiled. “That’s really sweet of you to say, but it’s a moot point either way. I’m not going to stop loving Tramaine, but if he can’t get his act together, he’ll leave me when the guilt overwhelms him. I’m doing this for him.”

“Flirting with another man to solve your marital problem doesn’t make any sense,” Trinity complained.

“It’s okay if it doesn’t. It’s an impossible situation, and you won’t understand it until your husband suddenly isn’t your husband anymore. Few people experience an involuntary divorce in this bizarre way. You know what that’s usually called?”

“What?”

“Death.”

Trinity frowned. “You two haven’t been married that long.”

“How long do you need to be married before losing your husband makes you less of a widow?”

She scowled some more. Righteous indignation was Trinity’s thing and now it was being directed at me. In all the years we’d been friends, it had never been directed at me before. “I will tell Tremaine,” she said, grinding her teeth together angrily.

I let out a slow breath. “The first chance you get,” I advised her.