For a long time Francey didn't move. She sat on the floor, hugging a pillow against her, dry eyed, heartsick and confused. "I don't know what's wrong with me," she whispered out loud to the cockroaches. "Nothing seems to make sense anymore."
The cockroaches didn't answer. She had a headache from too much champagne, a stomachache from too much emotion, and all she wanted to do was crawl back into bed and sleep.
But sleep and security and what dubious peace of mind she'd attained had been ripped from her by Michael's voice. She'd thought she could forget about him, forget those ten days on the islands. Forget those moments by the lagoon.
She knew better now. Michael might want that chapter in his life closed—she couldn't. Not without seeing him once more. She wasn't going to be patted on the head and told to get on with her life. She'd heard him, beneath the easy charm. She'd heard his need, as raw as her own. And she damned well wasn't going to forget it.
She was going after him. Willingborough was a well-known boys' school in the south of England; she would fly to London and hire a car. If he could look her in the eye and tell her things were better left as they were, maybe she could accept it. If she saw him surrounded by the accoutrements of English country life, maybe her confusion would fade.
First she would need to book the first flight available. There was six hours difference; if she got a plane out by that evening, she would arrive the next morning and be at Willingborough by evening.
She crawled back up onto the bed, shivering slightly in the too cool artificial air, and started making plans, mentally ticking off all the things she would have to accomplish before making a clean getaway. It wasn't until she was almost asleep that the niggling little discrepancy hit her. Michael had told her that he had taken his schoolboy soccer team to a pub to celebrate the victory they'd just won. According to her calculations, it had been nearly ten o'clock in the morning, far too early for a pub to open, much less for a soccer game to have been played.
Keep away from lies, he'd told her. Keep away from men like me. She hadn't known what he meant; she still didn't. She only knew that was the one thing she couldn't do.
"I'm sorry, Miss, but I'm Michael Dowd," the heavyset, red-faced man informed her. "I've taught here at Willingborough for the past fifteen years, and I've never been in an auto accident. Someone must have been pulling your leg."
Francey simply stared at the man. He had thinning blond hair combed back over a sunburned scalp, a petulant expression in his slightly protuberant eyes, and bad teeth. She couldn't blame him for his obvious irritation, she thought numbly. She must seem like a madwoman.
She shook her head slightly, hoping the scrambled picture would come into focus. But the wrong man was still in front of her, glaring at her, and the stately environs of Willingborough loomed menacingly behind him.
"I don't suppose you have a mother, three sisters and two brothers, and live in Yorkshire," she said, already knowing the answer.
"One brother, parents both dead, and I come from the Midlands. Someone's played a nasty trick on you, miss. Particularly if you've come all the way from the States to meet this liar."
Francey was feeling no emotion whatsoever. The combination of jet lag and a long drive across England, only to be faced with the semi-irate stranger, was too much for her. Her emotions, even her brain, simply shut down. "I needed a vacation anyway," she said vaguely. "I'm sorry that I bothered you." She began to turn away, but the real Michael Dowd appeared suddenly contrite.
"You look all done in. Why don't you come in for a cup of tea or something? My wife could fix you something to eat."
"No, thank you. I'd better get moving."
"But where are you going?"
If it was an odd question from a stranger she didn't realize that until later. She answered without thinking. "Back to London. To ask some questions, see what I can find out."
"Don't you think you'd be better off just leaving things be? It's none of my business, of course, but I imagine the man who gave you a phony name doesn't want to be found."
She looked back at him, resolution forming in her heart. "Perhaps he doesn't. But I don't like being lied to. I'm going to keep looking until I find him. And when I do, I'm going to want some answers."
Michael Dowd looked as if he wanted to argue with her further; then he shut his mouth. "I'd advise against it," he said. "But it's your funeral. Best of luck, then."
She nodded absently, heading back to the car she'd barely mastered. "My funeral," she echoed. "It just might be." She drove out along the spacious drive of Willingborough, with its century-old oaks and chestnuts, its stately grandeur, but her eyes could barely see the road. She drove mindlessly, heading back toward London. Until suddenly everything was awash, and she could barely see. She pulled over, wrestling with the unaccustomed right-hand steering wheel, and put the car into Park. And realized it wasn't raining after all. She was crying.