Second Chances (6 page)

Paige felt her lip trembling and bit down on it, harder then she'd intended to. She winced at the shock of the pain, but was glad for it since it gave her something else to focus on.

The pictures of Nathan and the woman looked legit. Both of them seemed very happy in each of the photographs. She went picture to picture, studying the faces. First Nathan's and then the woman's. She could not deny the resemblance was uncanny.

She lingered on the last picture, the one of the two of them standing by the lake in the full splendor of Fall. They looked so happy, so in love. Paige actually felt something run through her but could not identify exactly what it was. She glanced away from the picture and turned to look down the aisle to see if he was returning. In the aisle a little boy was running back and forth with a green action figure in his hands. Nathan was nowhere to be seen. She sat back in her seat and glanced out the window and caught her reflection looking back at her, a frown upon her face.

She looked again at the lake picture and let out a soft laugh. Jealousy she realized, that was what she was feeling.
 

"That is crazy," she told herself.
 

Crazy or not, Paige realized it was true. She was actually feeling jealousy. She stopped looking at her double and focused on Nathan. She remembered how she had smiled when he had first approached her at the airport. The sudden electricity that had run through her, which hadn't been the least bit unpleasant. He was definitely a handsome man. She flipped to the picture of the beach and blushed when she realized she thought he looked even better with less clothing on.
 

"What the hell am I thinking?" she asked herself, certain she was blushing.

She did her best to put the pictures back in order and then return them to their place inside the wallet. Her eyes passed over the case on the floor and she began to reach for it.
 

She bolted upright in her seat, looking down at her hands as if they were completely foreign to her. What had come over her? What had she been about to do? What was she still contemplating doing?

"What I have to," she murmured to herself. A slip of a smile crossed her face, which felt both reassuring and totally disconcerting at the same time. When had she started talking to herself?

Paige once again checked the aisle behind her, still no sign of Nathan. Maybe he had locked himself in the bathroom and was having an emotional breakdown of his own. He had certainly seemed at least as upset as she had felt. She looked down at the case and then back down the aisle again. She did not see that she really had any choice. She plucked the case from beneath the seat and placed it on her tray table, sticking the wallet in her jeans.

It was just a black computer case, like hundreds she had seen before. There were three sets of zippers. She unzipped the one across the face of the case. It wasn't a very deep pocket and was empty except for two pens and a pencil with a broken tip. Hardly the treasure trove of information she had been hoping for.

Before moving on with her search, Paige once more looked back down the aisle. The mother of the little boy with the action figure had finally wrangled him back into his seat. Paige couldn't actually see the boy anymore, but she could see his tiny hand holding the figure, making it walk across the top of the headrest of a chair two rows back. The bald businessman asleep in the chair had no clue his shiny head was being investigated by the little boy's action figure.

She returned her focus to the case. She tapped her finger from one zipper to the next, as she recited a childhood rhyme in her mind.

"And you are not it," she whispered.

She unzipped and opened the main compartment of the case. The computer was shiny silver with the Apple logo marking the cover of the laptop. To the side of the computer were a number of USB zip drives. She ran her hand over the computer, silently debating for a minute before zipping the compartment closed again

Once more a quick, guilty, glance back before undoing the last set of zippers and revealing a series of deep pockets. From one of the pockets she pulled an iPod. She turned it on and flipped through the covers of the albums. She gave herself a silent pat on the back for not freaking out when she saw that most of them were her favorites.

While not freaking out, she could not stifle the gasp at the site of what was in the next pocket. Her hands once again trembling, she picked up the dog-eared paperback. She recognized the book at once. She had a copy of the book in her own carry-on. She had no doubt what she would see if she were to flip open the cover. She decided against doing just that and set aside the copy of
Tom Sawyer
and examined the remaining contents of the case. The only other occupants were four hard-back journals, each a different color. One was sea-foam green, another royal blue, another blood red and the final one was black. She ran a hand over the covers, closed her eyes and smiled. Suede, she'd always loved the feel of it.

She picked up the green one, placed her hands against the cover and rubbed it softly. Paige pursed her lips for a moment before nodding to herself. She ran a thumb along the edge of the pages, fanning them a bit. The pages in the back were blank, but she saw there was writing in the first third or so of the book. She let the cover close.

Paige licked her lips, but they still felt dry. She began to open the cover and then stopped, started again and then stopped once more when she felt his presence. She turned her head just a fraction and saw Nathan watching her from the aisle. A startled shiver raced through her and Paige dropped the book.
 

"No," Nathan said quickly. "It's okay."

Paige picked up the book and looked up at him hesitantly, not quite meeting his eyes.

Nathan slipped into his seat next to her. He reached for the journal and Paige let go before his fingers touched hers. He ran his hand over the cover, just as she had only moments ago. He saw that her hands had again begun to tremble a bit. Once more, she gripped the armrests.

"Really," he began in a soft tone. "I'm not upset at all. I guess...I guess in a way you should see these. I mean, they were written to you."

"Written to me? By who?"

"Me," Nathan answered. "After...after you were gone, I had a really rough time dealing with things. God, that is such an understatement. I was totally screwed up. I didn't know who to turn to. I went to see a shrink to..."

Paige tensed and Nathan let out a short laugh.

"Please don't worry. I told you, I am not crazy."

She met his eyes this time and he had to laugh again at the expression on her face.

"Yeah I know, how many crazy people actually think they are, right?"

She nodded.

"Well, I was close to cracking. I don't doubt that. It was the hardest time of my life and I don't doubt that if things had continued on the way they were then I may well have completely lost it. The funny thing is that it was thoughts of you that made me remember Dr. McKay."

"I suppose he was my doctor? I am the crazy one?"

This time Nathan's laugh was full of genuine amusement.

"No, not at all. He was just someone new in town. You had met him at Dan Fiori's little vegetable stand. When I went to see him, he told me you were one of the sweetest people he'd met. How did he term it?"

Nathan bit his lip as he tried to remember. Finally he reached over and withdrew the black journal from the case. He flipped through the first few pages.

"He told me how sorry he was for my loss. Told me what a wonderful woman he thought you were. Let me see if I can recall his words. She had made me feel instantly welcomed and accepted, even before knowing who I was. And even after I told her what I did. The strangest thing was that she reminded me of my mother. The simple notion of kindness to a stranger, even if it was something as simple as telling me how to tell a good tomato from a bad one. Living in the city for so long you can sometimes forget there is a thing called common courtesy. Your wife reminded me that it still existed," Nathan read from the journal.

"You came home and told me about meeting him. I remember laughing when you said he'd seemed embarrassed to admit what he did for a living. And then..."

Paige looked over at him, a sad smile of remembrance played upon his lips.

"Sorry," he said, shaking himself free of the past. "As I was saying, I went to see him afterwards."

She stiffened a little, but said nothing.

"He was quite surprised by every...anyway. He said a lot of things that day, not much of which I understood or likely even believed. I think he knew I wouldn't be coming back to see him on any kind of regular basis, but he made sure I understood that I couldn't keep everything bottled up inside. In the end it was the journals. Well it actually started with a letter. After that it turned into the journals. And like I said, I suppose that they are for you, because you are the one I write to and about in these," he said patting the journals.

"I don't know if reading them right away, especially here is the best thing," Nathan said as he stacked the journals in front of her. "But they were meant for you, so..."

Paige looked at the journals and shook her head. She didn't think she was ready for whatever revelations might lie within.

"Nathan, I don't have a clue what is happening here. I know I am not crazy."

He opened his mouth to respond, but she silenced him with a raised hand.

"I don't think you are crazy either. The woman in those photographs does look like me, exactly like me. I can not deny that, but I know she is not me. I am not her."

"But..."

She again silenced him with a wave of her hand.

"I do not know what to think. I don't have any explanations or theories. I am sure you have a million things you would like to tell me or ask me, but I can't deal with this right now. I do not know if I have any of the answers you are looking for or not. What I do know is that I am this far from a complete breakdown," she said, holding up her hand with her thumb and index finger only centimeters apart. "I need some time to think about this. Some time to try and process it all. Can you understand that?"

Nathan nodded.

"I want answers too. As much as I would like to simply walk away from you and all this, I know I can't. These," Paige said, pulling out his wallet and looking at the pictures once more. "These scare the hell out of me. What you have said scares the hell out of me. And what you have not said scares me even more. I think I need to know the answers to all this even more than you do. Who was she? Why was she pretending to be me?"

She turned and looked out the window. She tried to slow her breathing and wiped at the tears threatening to spill from her eyes.

"Just not now. I can't deal with it yet. I need a little time. Please."

The sound of her voice, barely on the edge of control, barely holding back the trapped anguish, was almost more than Nathan could take.

"Take all the time you need," he finally managed in a dry whisper.

Paige leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes against the steady stream of white. Nathan leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes as well. In less then ten minutes exhaustion finally won over and he was snoring softly.

She turned and looked at him. He looked so peaceful.

"I do not know you," she said to herself.

She noticed the Wi-Fi logo on the back of the headrest of the seat in front of her. It seemed to be calling to her. She glanced from her watch to the logo, then at Nathan and finally back to the logo. She thought for a minute, chewing on her lower lip and then pulled out Nathan's computer and dug out the instructions for the inflight Wi-Fi.
 

Cameron Kassar looked down at the flashing light on the phone. He read the caller ID and frowned, it was much too soon for her to be calling. He picked up the phone and pressed the button next to the flashing light. "This is Kassar, go ahead Linda. She hasn't arrived already, has she?"

"No and apparently she won't be any time soon." There was an edge to her voice and Cameron couldn't decide if it was nervousness or barely contained anger. Perhaps it was both.

"Explain."

"Not much to tell. I never received a call during her layover and now I've received an email from her. It said for me not to bother meeting her at the airport. That something has come up that she has to deal with."

"And what was that?"

"She didn't say. The email said that she would call me as soon as she knew what she was doing."

"What about her job? She wasn't concerned about that? Did you try and contact her?"

"I know my job, Mr. Kassar. Yes, I tried to contact her, but it is only email. I couldn't actually talk to her. I tried to question her and of course mentioned her job."

"And?"

"She didn't go into any real details. She said it was something she had to do and that if she lost the job then she'd deal with it. I wrote back again trying to press for more, but I haven't heard back anything in the last half hour."

Cameron took a slow deep breath and sat down on the corner of his desk.

"Wonderful," he muttered.

"Listen, I am not hanging around here forever just hoping she calls or emails back. I knew you should never have changed the timing. Everyone said you were moving too quickly with this one. I am supposed to be on vacation in a week. I haven't seen my husband in almost three..."

"Calm down, Linda," he snapped. He looked at the phone, surprised for a moment by the fierceness in Linda's voice. Had he underestimated her? "Don't act as if this is some grand conspiracy to screw up your vacation. You will stay until the end of the week, as originally planned."

"And if she doesn't show?"

"Then you go. Your part will be over. I will find a replacement." There was a subtle change in the tone of his voice on the last word.

"What are you going to do? Go looking for her?"

Cameron remained quiet, waiting. The line was silent.

"Sorry. Forget I asked. I don't want to know."