Open Secret

“You shouldn’t ask me in.” He was firm. Warning her? “After you’ve put your groceries away, can we meet somewhere? Is there a coffee shop nearby?”

“How about the food court at the Crossroads Mall?”

“Smart.” He nodded. “Lots of people around.” He backed away. “I’ll look for you there in half an hour?”

“Half an hour,” she agreed.

He walked away without looking back. Hand shaking, she unlocked her door, scooted the grocery bags in with her foot, then closed and locked it behind her. She felt a little unnerved by the encounter, even though he hadn’t threatened her in any way. Well, how often did she have a stranger who knew her name approach her outside her own door? He must have been waiting outside for her to come home and then followed her in.

A private investigator. How strange.

She put away the groceries quickly, one eye on the clock. Maybe she should call her dad, just to be sure someone knew where she was going and who she was meeting.

But she wasn’t afraid of Mark Kincaid, investigator. The busy food court in a mall was probably the world’s safest place to talk to someone. And somehow…well, she wanted to know what this was about before she told her parents about him. Because it was odd, to have a real P.I. say he’d been looking for her, of all people.

She heard the Pakistani couple who lived next door coming home, and used the opportunity to leave her apartment while the hall wasn’t empty. Outside, she was relieved to see another resident just getting out of his car. She hurried to her Miata before the middle-aged man made it inside.

Okay, maybe she was just a little bit afraid.

But he wasn’t lurking in the parking lot, and she drove the half mile without incident. If someone was following her, she couldn’t tell.

Crossroads was a small mall that catered to a different crowd than the upscale Bellevue Square, where software millionaires shopped and BMWs were more common in the parking lot than Fords. Inside she heard as many foreign languages being spoken as she would have in the international lounge at the airport. There seemed to be lots of Indians and Pakistanis in the area, as well as Vietnamese and lately Russian immigrants. As a result, the food court had more varied ethnic cuisines than the average mall.

She spotted him right away, sitting at a small table on the periphery. He looked relaxed, his legs stretched out, one hand wrapped around a Starbucks cup, but something told her it was a pose. Most people who sat alone had their heads bent, their thoughts private; they might be reading a newspaper, or staring blankly into space. Guys watched pretty girls, people looked for friends, but they didn’t scan the crowd as if there might be a terrorist in it. Mark Kincaid’s gaze moved constantly, assessing and dismissing. No one neared him without being unobtrusively inspected.

The next moment, he saw her. Their eyes met, and she felt a peculiar flutter of…something. Alarm, but she didn’t know the cause. Then he smiled and nodded and she told herself she was being silly.

She bought a latte at Starbucks before wending her way to his table and sitting across from him.

“All right, Mr. Kincaid. Please tell me why you’ve been looking for me.”

“I was hired by your sister to find you.”

“Sister?” Silly to be disappointed, but she was. It had been a little bit exciting to be the person he was looking for. “I don’t have a sister.”

He frowned. “Your parents didn’t tell you? Surely they knew.”

Huh? Okay, she could buy that they might never have told her if she’d had an older sister who was stillborn. That might make sense, given the ages they’d been when they had her. But how could this guy say, Surely they knew? Of course they’d know if they had another child!

Anyway, she thought in confusion, if she’d had a stillborn sister she was by definition dead, not alive and hiring a P.I. to find Carrie.

The thoughts pinged around in her head so fast, it was a moment before she realized how illogical they were.

“I don’t understand.”

“You have a brother, too. I’m looking for him as well.”

“What? No.” She shook her head. “You have the wrong Carrie St. John, Mr. Kincaid. Really. I have no brother or sister. I’d remember if I did.”

His brows drew together. “You know, you may be right. There’s obviously some confusion here.”

She should have been glad that he was agreeing, but she didn’t like his hasty retreat. He was actually starting to push his chair back. He seemed so sure she was this other person, and then he’d given up so easily. Too easily.

“Wait!”

He hesitated in the act of rising, then sat back down.

“There’s something you don’t want to say to me, isn’t there? I still believe I’m not the Carrie St. John you’re looking for, but after I came here to talk to you, I think you owe me an explanation of why you thought I was.”

“Ms. St. John, I think you should talk to your parents about this.”

“What am I supposed to talk to them about?” she asked in exasperation. “You?”

“Tell them what I said. See what they say.”

“I know what they’ll say! That you’ve mixed me up with someone else. I don’t want to talk to them. I want you to tell me… I don’t know.” She waved a hand impatiently. “Whatever it is that you suspect.”

His expression suggested that he felt sorry for her. “I’m not sure I’m the appropriate person…”

“Tell me,” she demanded, her alarm making her more determined.

He let out a breath. “All right. Ms. St. John, you do realize you’re adopted?”

She stared at him, then began shaking her head hard. “No. No! You’re wrong. I’m not. I don’t know where you got the idea, but…”

“Your parents threatened to get a restraining order if I approached you. I should have realized they were too upset, under the circumstances. But I convinced myself… Never mind.” He looked at her with compassion. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”

“No!” She shoved back her chair, scarcely noticing when she knocked over her latte. The lid fell off and the contents splattered over the table and ran onto the floor. He rose, too, but she backed away. “You don’t know what you’re talking about! No, you’re crazy! That’s why they wanted to get a restraining order.” With venom she added, “I just wish they’d told me to watch out for you!”

The compassion on his face had become pity. “They couldn’t tell you, because then they would have had to admit why I wanted to talk to you. You would have asked questions. They hoped it wouldn’t come to that.”

“They wouldn’t keep a secret like that. You don’t know them!” At this moment, she hated him. “Don’t come near me again, Mr. Kincaid. I’ll call the police.”

She fled, all but running from the mall, looking over her shoulder to be sure he wasn’t coming after her. In her Miata she looked down to see that some of the latte had spattered on her white shirt. She saw it as if from a distance. She was floating outside herself, looking down to see the young woman thrust the key in the ignition with a hand that shook, back out of the slot and accelerate with a squeal of rubber on pavement.

She could not inhabit that body, because then she might actually start thinking. She might remember the sorrow on her mother’s face, just yesterday.

I’m different from you, she’d said.

I know. Tears had stood out in her mother’s eyes. Her voice ached with regret. I know, dear.

She might remember all those times when she’d felt as if her life was a set of clothes that didn’t quite fit, however she squirmed and corseted and padded to make them.

No, she would stay outside herself until it was safe to think.

She parked in her slot and ran up the stairs, wishing frantically that he didn’t know where she lived. She would set a chair under the doorknob tonight, to make sure no one could get in. She’d keep the phone right next to her bed.

Carrie let herself in, turning the dead bolt the instant the door was shut, gasping with relief to have reached sanctuary. If only she’d called her dad before she went to meet this supposed private investigator, she’d have saved herself some grief. She couldn’t even remember why she hadn’t. She trusted her parents.