Intent to Seduce & A Glimpse of Fire(30)

“Sophie’s not at the Serenity Spa.”

Lucas stopped dead in his tracks. “You’re sure.”

“I’ve spent the past two hours confirming it. Once I found an impostor in her cabin, I decided the time for disguise was over. I even persuaded the amazon in charge of this place to let me check every single client at their morning yoga exercises.”

As Tracker filled him in, Lucas paced the length of the bedroom and back. Fear flooded through him along with questions. He clamped down on both of them, concentrating on the facts that Tracker was feeding him.

“They switched at the airport in Charlotte?”

“According to the actress Sophie hired to impersonate her, they both went into stalls in the ladies’ room where they donned wigs and changed clothes. Then they exited at different times.”

“And it was shortly after that Sophie called me to let me know where she was, and I told you Mac was with me.”

“Right. The actress in Sophie’s cabin swears she knows nothing about where Sophie was going. I believe her mostly because I don’t think Sophie would have told her. She planned this thing out pretty carefully. She wouldn’t want us to be able to trace her easily. I’ve got men checking the flight manifests out of Charlotte right now. So far, they haven’t come up with anything.”

“Falcone’s got her.”

“We don’t know that.”

“I know it. That’s what the phone call was about. He told me he had something that would make me reconsider. He was talking about Sophie.”

There was a pause before Tracker replied, “He won’t hurt her. He wouldn’t dare.”

The fact that Tracker wasn’t arguing with him sharpened the fear in his stomach. He had to believe Falcone wouldn’t hurt Sophie. Turning, Lucas paced the length of the room again. He had to keep telling himself that. More than that, he had to think, to plan.

As he strode by the dresser, his gaze fell on the stuff Mac had dumped out of her purse. In addition to the cell phone, which matched the same pearl color of his sister’s, a wallet, a small plastic makeup case and loose change littered the top of the dresser.

“My office is checking the flight manifests out of Charlotte. So far they haven’t found any record of a Sophie Wainright flying out.”

“Maybe she used another name,” Lucas said.

“Easier said than done. With the new security, she’d need a pretty accurate picture ID. And I already checked. She flew into Charlotte on a round-trip ticket under her own name.”

“Maybe the actress used that ticket.” Turning suddenly, Lucas walked back to the dresser and stared down at the cell phone. The evidence was right there.

Dr. Lloyd wouldn’t have loose change lying in the bottom of her purse. Nor could he imagine her having a pearl-colored phone. Hers would be black, practical. He pictured Mac as she’d stepped off the plane. She’d taken off the blond wig, but if she’d been wearing it, she would have looked a lot like Sophie.

The sharp, jagged fear that had been slicing through him suddenly turned cold and hard. He knew even before he opened the wallet what he would find.

Sophie’s picture on the driver’s license stared up at him.

“Sophie used Dr. Lloyd’s ID,” Lucas said. He could feel the fury beginning to bubble up, but he clamped down on it tightly.

“Dammit,” Tracker said. “I should have thought of that. The two of them must have switched everything before they left Sophie’s shop.”

“Yeah,” he murmured. “I should have figured it too.”

With one part of his mind, he listened to Tracker outline what he was going to do. But another part of his mind was sifting through everything that the doc had done in the past twenty hours. Images and sensations swirled through him.

Nothing could have been calculated to keep him more distracted. Hell, he hadn’t been thinking straight since he’d seen her step off that plane.

Had it been all her idea—or was she merely following a scenario that his sister had mapped out? Pain sliced through him, deep and sharp. Suddenly he recalled Mac’s initial reaction when the ringing of the cell phone had wakened him.

It could be So—

She’d expected it to be Sophie.

“Does the doc know where your sister is?” Tracker asked.

“I’m going to find that out right now.”





CHAPTER FOURTEEN




LUCAS FOUND HER on the balcony standing in the same spot where he’d realized that he wanted her in his life.

He shoved the thought out of his mind. But it wasn’t so easy to shove the woman out, or the feelings coursing through him. It hurt to look at her. Pain shimmered inside him, fueled by the fact that he still wanted her. He took a step toward her, and when she turned, for one second he allowed himself to absorb the look on her face.

Then he reminded himself that it was a lie. She was a lie.

“Where’s Sophie?” he asked.

“At the spa. In North Carolina.”

“No, she’s not. She never went there.”

He watched each and every emotion flicker over her face—surprise, confusion and a trace of concern. She was good.

“I don’t understand. She told me she was there.”

He held out the wallet then in the palm of his hand. “You’ve got her wallet, her driver’s license. Does she have yours?”

“Yes. We switched by accident in her shop.”

“By accident? And was it an accident that she hired an actress to impersonate her at the spa?”

She stared a him. “An actress? What are you—”

“Let me spell it out for you, Dr. Lloyd. My sister was very angry with me, so she decided to teach me a little lesson. I’m sure she shared all this with you. She hired someone to take her place at a spa. Then she got you to fly down here in her place and distract me so that she could disappear. You tell me she’s at the spa. She calls me and pretends she’s there. If I call there, they tell me she’s all checked in, and as far as they’re concerned, she is. Still, I might have checked further, but she told me you have a problem you wanted to discuss and asked me to help you out. I’ve got to hand it to the two of you—it was a brilliant plan to distract me.”

Mac lifted a hand, then dropped it. “I know what it looks like, but I—I didn’t know—I—”

He studied her as she spoke, but he couldn’t trust himself to read her. She’d made him lose his objectivity, his control. She’d made him lose everything. “How many times has she gotten in touch with you since you got off my plane?”

“Two…no, three times.”

“And she never once told you where she’d really gone?”

“She told me she was at the spa. She was happy there at first. Last night I thought she sounded a little restless and bored, but she denied it.”

“And you expect me to believe that? You’re not that good a liar, Dr. Lloyd.”

He watched the hurt spring to her eyes and the color drain from her face. There was some satisfaction to be gained from that. It wasn’t enough. “You played me, Doc.” He took a step toward her then and watched her step back into the railing. The need boiled up within him to grab her and shake her hard, make her tell him the truth.

But there was fear too—that if he touched her even now, he wouldn’t be able to let her go. Fisting his hands, he shoved them deep into his pockets.

“The two of you must have had a few good laughs at my expense. How long was the charade supposed to go on? And who dreamed up the little research project on sexual fantasies?”

She flinched at each of his questions as if he’d slapped her, and he felt disgust roll through him. Struggling for control, he turned away from her. He had to focus on the fact that all signs pointed against her. Drawing in a deep breath, he said, “Look, I’m begging you to just tell me where she is. I wanted her down here in the Keys with me for a reason. I’ve made an enemy in the last week. She could be in danger.”

“I’d tell you if I knew. She told me she was at the spa.”

He whirled on her then. “Then why did you agree to the switch in identities?”

“I didn’t. We took each other’s purses by accident when we put the wigs on in her shop.”

“And the wigs were for…?”

She raised her hands and dropped them. “The fantasies.”

“Of course. Well, I have to hand it to you. They were very good. Just one question, Doc. Is there anything about you that’s real?”

She didn’t answer. But he heard the sharp catch in her breath, saw the tears, just a flash of them, before she lowered her eyes. They only seemed to increase the hurt that threatened to consume him. Digging deep within himself, he struggled to rebuild the shield that for so many years had protected him. “One last time. If you know where my sister is, tell me.”

She didn’t look up but merely shook her head.

He moved to the glass doors, turning back only when he’d stepped through them. “Congratulations, Doc. You led me right down the garden path.”

Never again. He didn’t say the words aloud, but they drummed in his mind as he walked away.



GRABBING HER CLOTHES out of the closet, Mac stuffed them into her suitcase, hangers and all. She had to get out of the suite, out of the hotel. Once she did, she could stop thinking about Lucas. Then she’d be fine.