Undercover Bachelor

“Your target has no such compunction. That’s one of the reasons why Interpol wants to get the goods on this traitor so they can put him away permanently.”

“When is all this going to happen?”

“The tour leaves June fifth from Salt Lake International Airport on a special charter flying to Paris. You’ll be gone ten days for a tour of Eastern France and Switzerland.”

“I assume Interpol has done all the paperwork?”

“Take a look.” Roman pulled a passport out of an envelope sitting on the desk and handed it to him.

They stared at each other. “I was their first choice? Hell, I was their only choice!”

“That’s because you’re the best,” his friend said with convincing sincerity.

Gerard didn’t have to peer inside to know his own picture had been put there along with all the false identification. Deciding to get this over with, he opened the cover and saw his image staring up at him. Hank Smith, age thirty-eight, male from Utah, issued by the San Francisco office.

“Hank Smith? I wonder which idiot came up with that one?”

“Hank suits you, and there are more Smiths living in Utah than any other name. It all makes sense.” Roman winked. “According to the rest of the documentation, you’re a French teacher from St. George, Utah, who decided too late to sign up your own students. You’re willing to take any other teacher’s overflow and will pay full price for the opportunity so you’ll know how to organize for next year’s tour.”

“High school kids, huh?”

Roman flashed him a wry smile. “From what I understand, foreign language students are the better, more well-behaved bunch, but I have no doubts it will still be a challenge.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Gerard bit out

“There’s a meeting next Wednesday night at the Salt Lake Library downtown where the students and teachers get acquainted. Then there will be a final meeting a week from Wednesday night at the same place to go over last-minute instructions and give out tickets. It’s all in here.” Roman handed him the thick envelope.

“That next meeting is only four days from now.”

“I won’t assign you anything else to give you time to prepare.”

“I don’t know, Roman.”

“If you can’t make a decision yet, then don’t. I’m still giving you the time off. Go rock climbing for a couple of days. That’ll clear your head. Call me when you know what you want to do. I’ll deliver the message to Interpol, whatever it is.”

“Thanks, Roman. I’ll think about it.”

“Next, please. Your name?”

“Whitney Lawrence. Union High School.”

“I don’t see... Oh, yes. You’re one of the students wishing to travel with Mr. Bowen, but he’s full. We’ve assigned you to Mr. Smith’s group.”

“But I have to be with Mr. Bowen! One of my friends was on tour with him last year and loved him. That’s the only reason I signed up.”

That was the whole point of the situation in which Whitney had purposely placed herself.

“Everyone wants to be with Mr. Bowen because he’s such a popular French teacher. But you signed up too late. His students were already organizing for the trip last fall. Fortunately, Mr. Smith has room. He’s a fine French teacher, too. Don’t worry,” she said when Whitney made a long face. “You’ll all be on the same bus together.”

“Oh. Okay,” Whitney sighed out loud dramatically, hoping her reaction was that of a typical teen. Inwardly, she felt instant relief at the news.

“Everyone is meeting in the room at the far end of the hall. Here’s your name tag. Put it on so you’ll be recognized.”

“Thanks.”

Whitney took the tag and pinned it to the vest she wore over her short-sleeved blouse. Wearing sneakers, white socks and thigh-length cutoffs, her outfit resembled those of every teenage girl lined up in the hall of the library.

With her hair falling to her shoulders, the top portion caught near the crown with a clip, her hairdo blended with all the other hairdos which were more or less the same. Minus any makeup and blessed with her mother’s young skin, Whitney prayed she looked the eighteen years she was purporting to be. Only her passport would betray her, and she wasn’t letting it out of her possession for any reason.

She’d deliberately waited until this last meeting to show up, wanting to keep as low a profile as possible.

Everyone at the Sharp and Rowe law firm would be shocked to see their newest attorney, who had just passed the Utah bar, passing herself off as a teenager. But no one could know she was on a mission to expose the man responsible for getting Christine pregnant.

Of course it was possible her plan wouldn’t work. But better she use the vacation time coming to her since studying for the bar to try and track down the culprit, than stay at home brooding over her sister’s pain.

It wasn’t fair that a man got off scot-free in a situation like this. It happened all the time, all over the world, but that didn’t make it right. If she could carry out this tricky scheme for her sister’s sake and discover his identity, it was possible the father might suffer an attack of conscience and help pay child support. If nothing else, Whitney felt it would have been well worth the subterfuge for that much satisfaction.

Her family believed she was taking off to Mexico with a couple of friends she’d met while going to law school. If she couldn’t find Greg’s biological father, Whitney didn’t want to tell her family what she’d done. But if she was successful, that would be a different story.

Therefore, instead of sending the occasional postcard home which would give away a European location, she intended to make a couple of phone calls to the family so they wouldn’t become suspicious or worry. Christine had promised to go by Whitney’s apartment every day to check the mail and water the plants.

John Warren, a fellow attorney who’d been one of her study partners through college and had passed the bar at the same time as she had, was the only person who knew her plans.

When he heard what had happened to Christine and listened to Whitney’s idea to catch the teacher responsible, John applauded her plan, but he didn’t buy the teacher theory. Rather he tended to believe that the tour guide or the driver had been the one to charm her sister into bed.

To Whitney’s surprise, she discovered that John didn’t like or trust European men. Apparently he’d had a cousin who’d gone to Europe on a music tour and had gotten involved with some Austrian tour guide in Vienna who had only been playing around. It ruined her life for a long time.

Happy to help Whitney even the score, he volunteered to subpoena STI’s records on some pretext to obtain the names of the tour guide and bus driver on Christine’s tour.

Armed with the necessary information, Whitney had been able to request a tour that included the same teacher, driver and tour guide who’d been on Christine’s trip. It was leaving June fifth.

That day was almost here, Whitney mused as she stepped inside the doors of one of the library meeting rooms. At a glance it seemed forty or so students were standing in separate lines before tables placed around the room.

Pennants in different colors with teachers’ names had been mounted alphabetically on the walls above each table: Ms. Ashton, Mr. LeCheminant, Mrs. Donetti, Mr. Hart, Mr. Grimshaw, Mr. Smith, Mr. Bowen and Mr. Sorenson.

The teachers hadn’t come in yet.

Whitney was probably the last student to arrive and took her place behind a couple of boys talking animatedly about how much spending money they were taking with them.

On their tags she saw that the one named Jeff from Ephriam High was her height, five feet nine. The other named Roger from Dixie High was maybe an inch taller with a more robust build. Both had dark brown hair and they were cute.

As soon as they saw her, they stopped talking and just stared.

“Hi, guys.”

“Hi!” they said in unison, their faces breaking into huge smiles. “Are you one of Mr. Smith’s students?”

“No. I had planned to go with Mr. Bowen’s group, but I signed up too late, so they put me with Mr. Smith.”