Second Chances (25 page)

She nodded.

"You lost everything, absolutely everything?"

She nodded again. "Your Paige as well?"

"Yes," he said. "I...umm. I met her only a few weeks after the fire. She told me about it. She had lost everything and her friend Tanya had suggested a vacation. She had just returned from that vacation in Hawaii and relocated to Fairfield. Toby had dragged me out to a club, something I hated doing. He and Tanya had seemed to hit it off and that left you...Paige and I alone at a table. She hated clubbing as much as I did. We spent the time making up stories about the people in the club and making sarcastic comments about them. I was in love with her before the night was over. It was only a few weeks later that I proposed."

There was a sad smile on Paige's face as she listened to Nathan and she again felt an irrational twinge of jealousy.

"What happened to her friend? Tanya?"

"She moved away a month or so after we got married. Some job opportunity in Seattle. Paige still kept up with her, a phone call every couple of weeks or so, but that was it. The truth was, we became each others lives. We saw Toby and a few people related to the business every now and then, but we were newlyweds and completely infatuated with each other. We didn't really give a damn about the rest of the world. As far as we were concerned the world began and ended with us."

"She was very lucky," she said.

"No. I was the lucky one."

Nathan got up and walked to the window. He braced himself for what he knew was coming.

"What happened to her?" Her tone was almost apologetic.

He was quiet for a long while and Paige began to wonder if it was possible he hadn't heard her, but he finally let out a long sigh and then said, "They claimed it was suicide, but I never truly believed that. She was murdered."

Linda drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. She looked at her watch again, only five minutes later than the last time she'd looked. She peered at the people passing under the street lights, hoping to see Cameron. He hadn't been gone that long, but sitting alone in the car made it feel like an eternity. They hadn't been able to park in the hotel parking lot since it had security and Cameron was certain they'd be noticed just sitting in the car. She had volunteered to go, but he had vetoed that immediately. The hotel was not far away, but Linda was not familiar with the area at all and the possibility of her getting lost wasn't out of the question. More importantly, he insisted that she was a known factor. Neither Paige nor Nathan knew him and while the odds of her running into them was slim, the possibility did exist and he did not want to tip them off. He was certain that as of right now Nathan and Paige had no clue they were being tracked and he did not want anything to change that.

Linda let out a yelp when a hand knocked on the window. Cameron stood at the passenger door. She felt her face flush in embarrassment and flicked the door locks open. He slid into the vehicle, a scowl on his face.

"Sorry, I didn't know I had locked the doors," she lied.

"What?" He waved a dismissive hand. "I think they are still there. I believe I saw their car. So unless they are out walking around, they must be in the hotel. Unfortunately I wasn't able to sweet talk their room number out of the front desk woman. She offered to call up to the room, but wouldn't tell me which one."

"Do you think we can place a tracker on the car?"

Cameron pulled his phone out of his jacket. Linda tried to hide her smile. It seemed his land line policy was out the window.

"Jimmy, we've located their car and I think they are likely in their room, but have no clue what room that is. Anyway we can track the car?"

Jimmy was silent for a moment the only sound was the clicking of keys.

"Sixth floor room thirty-one. It's a double with an ocean view. Sorry, should have told you that earlier."

Cameron's scowl was replaced with a grin. He had definitely been underutilizing Jimmy.

"What about the car?"

"Like I said before, it doesn't have a GPS. If you have a tracking device that would be one thing."

"I don't have access to that right now. Can we improvise something?"

"Sure. Almost every phone these days has GPS and can be turned into a tracking device. Problem is how long the battery would last. Heck these days its hard not to be tracked. But like I said, its all about power."

Linda snapped her fingers and asked. "Then why don't we just use his phone? You can get his info, can't you?"

Cameron gave her an approving smile and she felt her heart flutter.

"Yeah that isn't an issue. I already have all his data and I've actually attempted that already."

Cameron frowned as he sensed what was to come.

"Unfortunately his phone is dead."

"Maybe he never turned it back on after they landed this morning," Linda said.

"That is possible," Jimmy said. "But that doesn't mean anything. Even with the power off I could reactivate it, so the battery must be dead."

"Okay, Jimmy, just do whatever the heck it is you do. Monitor for that phone to come back up. The minute it does, I want you to notify me."

"Sure boss. I'll intercept any voicemail he gets as well."

"Excellent."

Cameron hung up the phone.

"Guess we need to do this the old fashioned way." He looked at his watch. "I don't think they are going anywhere tonight, but we have no way to know what time they might leave. I wouldn't think too early, but I want us out here just in case."

"Stakeout all night?"

"No, I don't think that will be necessary. They don't know we are after them. We'll go check in somewhere close by. I want us back out here by four or five though just in case they get an early start."

"Can't we just end this now?"

Cameron looked over at her, his eyebrows raised in a question. She patted her purse.

"We know what room they are in now. I could go in, bang bang, problem solved. I mean, you aren't planning to try and retrieve her are you?"

"No. As much as I hate to admit it, I think at this point I have to accept that she is a lost cause."

"So why not let me end this now?"

"Tempting, very tempting. However, I don't think we are there yet. Something went wrong with this entire thing and I would like to know what."

"So you don't think it has to do with advancing the time tables?" Linda regretted the words even before she finished saying them and braced herself.

He was silent for a moment, before saying, "I can't discount that as a possibility."

Her jaw almost dropped at his admission.

"However, I am inclined to think it is much more than that. I need to know if there is more to all of this and that means finding out if anyone else is involved. I want to see where they go, who they talk to. I could have more people working against me than I know."
 

He reached over and placed his hand over hers and gave a gentle squeeze. She felt herself flush at his touch.

"Don't worry. You'll get an opportunity to use that gun of yours. We'll need to end them soon enough, but first I need to see how many loose ends there really are."

"I don't want to give the impression that we were perfect. Paige and I had arguments like any other couple. The funny thing was often our arguments were about here. Newport, I mean. There were times she would talk about the great times she had at college. She always talked about it with such fondness. It sounded so important to her. So every now and then I would suggest that we should take a trip down here. After all, we weren't that far away. Those conversations would never end well. She would find the craziest excuses to get out of the trips."

"S...she would seem nervous about the idea?"

Nathan turned away from the window and looked at her. She was still clinging to the pillow.

"You were nervous about coming here too, weren't you?"

She nodded but said nothing.

"Yeah I guess nervousness sounds about right. It would turn to anger if I pushed the idea."

"So she never agreed to go?"

"No, she did. We discussed it for over a week. A little each day. I didn't push, we just talked it out. My thought was that she couldn't get passed the idea of the fire. Her last memory here had been that damn fire and it had shaken her more than she let on."

Paige listened intently, her eyes unfocused and Nathan was certain she was thinking about the fire as well.

"But like I said, we discussed it over an extended period and finally decided to just run down for a day trip. We were going to come on a Friday and if we got here and she wasn't having fun then we'd head back, but if she was enjoying herself then we'd find a place to spend the weekend."

Nathan turned and looked back out the window, his shoulders slumping a little.

"I actually thought she was getting excited about the trip. Still nervous, but excited as well. She had talked to Tanya a few times that week. She said that Tanya thought it was a wonderful idea and wished she could get away to join us. We never got the chance to make the trip."

He leaned is head against the window, the cool glass on his forehead. He opened his mouth a few times, but nothing came out. The memories still seemed so fresh. He took a step back and sat on the edge of the bed, keeping his back to Paige.

"It was Thursday night. She said she was going to run out for a few last minute items. It was a day trip, what last minute items? I never asked her. Honestly never gave it any thought until much later. I had asked her if she wanted me to go with her, but she had said no. In fact, she was quite adamant that she didn't want me to go with her. It was just before eight that she left. I started to get a bit worried around nine. By ten I was crawling the walls. I must have dialed her cell phone every three minutes."

He stood back up at the window again.

"It was after eleven when the police arrived at the house. They in...informed me that my car had been in a serious accident. The driver had died, but because of the physical trauma and th..the fire damage, visual identification would be impossible."

Paige had stood up and walked behind him. She began to reach out but pulled back, unsure what she should do. Unsure what she could do to comfort him.

"Dental records confirmed it was Paige. The examination of the accident scene was extensive. Investigators reported that eye witnesses said that she had swerved into oncoming traffic and slammed head on into an eighteen-wheeler. The car had crumpled and exploded almost at the instant of impact. She hadn't worn her seatbelt and they said the airbags had been disabled. I was in such a daze at the time, I couldn't believe such a thing. They searched her computer and found several searches on how to disable airbags. I couldn't believe that Paige had done that and neither had one of the investigators. He'd thought that I might have done it, that I...I had planned the thing somehow."

Paige placed her hands on his shoulders, tears ran down her face.

"I remember flying into a rage at the suggestion. If it hadn't been for Toby, I might have tried to beat the hell out of that guy. Toby knew what she had meant to me and was able to convince them there was no way I would even dream of such a thing. Of course, they had to investigate every possibility. Their tech guy was able to recover some deleted items, one of which was a suicide note. It seemed to convince them, but not me. No, there was no way she would ever have done such a thing. She was so happy. We were so happy. After everything she'd dealt with...she just respected life too much to do that. They said there was no signs that she had even attempted to apply the brakes."

Paige hugged him tightly from behind, burying her head between his shoulders. She wasn't sure which of them was sobbing more.

"I didn't then, nor do I now believe for even a single instant that Paige killed herself."

She held him tightly, afraid to let go. The room seemed to be spinning around her. How had this woman relayed the story of her life to Nathan? That fire happened to me, not her, right? And yet his Paige had told him about it before she herself had experienced it. How was it possible? Had she killed herself? Why would she? Could the same thing happen to her? What could ever make her kill herself? Or was Nathan right and it was murder. If they had killed his Paige, would they, whoever they were, try to do the same thing to her?

The room continued to spin around her. The edge of her vision dimmed and then the floor was rushing up to meet her.

Under the covers and the cover of darkness, Jason massaged his aching muscles. He had spent the first hour after he'd been put to bed just flexing his fingers and rubbing his palms. It had been excruciating, but compared to the pain he was in now, that first hour had been near bliss. His right leg hurt more than any other part of his body. He struggled to remember why. Something had happened to it. How long ago? A week? A month? Years? He fought the fog in his head, but it was a losing battle. It might come to him eventually but it wasn't something he could fight through by shear force of will alone.
 

"A warning," he said aloud and startled himself. He looked around the room and almost laughed when he realized he was the source of the words.

He nodded. A warning indeed. That was it. His leg had been a warning. But from whom and about what?

He flexed his legs some more and his knees throbbed. He welcomed the pain, he knew it was a good sign, though he wasn't sure why.

He pulled back the sheets and slowly worked himself into a sitting position. He sat there for a minute and listened. He knew they checked on him during the night. On him and the others. But he wasn't sure how often. He thought that they had been by only about thirty minutes before, but he did not trust his sense of time. He heard no footfalls outside, but sometimes he didn't. Some of them wore soft-soled shoes, some even slippers.

He decided to risk it and pushed off the mattress. He wobbled for a minute, his legs feeling like jello. He cursed as he dropped back onto the mattress. He walked almost every day. Sarah worked with him on range of motion exercises, helping maintain muscle tone. Walking almost always involved some pain, especially getting up from a sitting position, but he was always able to do it. He just never did it without assistance and it never hurt this much.