at the Hartley Plaza. But I’d seen him sign that bar tab to his room. Was I going mad?
The car reversed out of the parking space. It came up the ramp, making for the exit into the street. I panicked and glanced around in desperation for a place to hide. A door to my right led to a stairwell. I opened the door and ducked inside. As the door swung slowly shut, the Subaru drove past. Martin looked out the window. I tried to press back against the wall, but he saw me through the open gap. The car continued, and the stairwell door swung shut.
I sucked in a shaky breath. Had I imagined this? No. It had to have been someone else, not Martin. Not the warm Australian developer seeking a backer for his project in New South Wales. Not the man who wanted kids and had been so attentive . . . the man I’d had sex with in an elevator.
I rubbed my face hard.
Mistake—that’s all. I’d made an error. He was someone who looked like Martin Cresswell-Smith. A doppelgänger. It was not unheard of. And I’d been sucked into some weird concept of reality after seeing a child that could be Chloe. That was all this was.
Then, as I stood in that cold, concrete, pee-scented stairwell, my phone rang. I fumbled in my purse, checked the caller ID.
Not a familiar number.
I connected the call with a shaky gloved finger and put the phone to my ear.
“Hello?”
There was a moment of staticky noise. “Ellie . . . hello? Hello—can you hear me?”
I blinked. My legs sort of sagged. I glanced through the tiny window that was set into the stairwell door as if the car might still be there. But there was nothing. I felt confused.
“Are you there, Ellie? This is Martin. Have I got the right number?”
“I, uh . . . yeah. Yeah, this is Ellie. Um. Could you hang on a sec? I . . . I’m just . . . in a store, paying for a purchase.” I pressed my phone against my coat, muffling the sound. I waited, gathering my wits, trying to organize my thoughts, hoping I could make my voice sound normal. I put the phone back to my ear. “Sorry about that.”
“Before you say anything, Ellie, I want to say I am so sorry not to have managed to return your calls until now. I had my phone nicked at Heathrow, somewhere between a fish-and-chips shop, an airport bar, and the plane. It had your contact details. I had to wait until I got home and could get my history and contact information reloaded.”
“Where . . .” My voice caught. I pushed open the door and peered down into the lower level of the parking garage again. The spot where the orange Subaru had been parked was still vacant. My mind wheeled. I cleared my throat. “Where are you now?”
“Sea-Tac Airport. About to board a flight up to YVR. It’s been a whirlwind of back-to-back meetings since I last saw you. I miss you.”
I blinked. “I . . . This is so weird.”
“What is?”
“I thought I just saw you.”
“Where?”
“Vancouver. Downtown.”
He laughed. Warm. Because everything Martin did felt warm. That familiar feeling of attraction, affection, curled through me.
“I must have a double. Look, I’m going to be landing in Vancouver in a few hours. I’ll be there for two days. Can I see you tomorrow night, El? Dinner, maybe? I know a special little place in Deep Cove. I’d love to spend longer with you this time.”
“I . . . I’d like that.”
We made a plan to meet at the restaurant, and the call ended. Dazed, I stood in the stinking, cold stairwell for a moment, trying to regroup. My old therapist’s words played through my mind.
“We go through life mishearing and mis-seeing and misunderstanding so that the stories we tell ourselves will add up. We fill in gaps that make no sense because we want to believe something.”
That was it. I’d so badly wanted to see Martin that I’d believed I had.
THEN
ELLIE
Just over two years ago, January 22. Vancouver, BC.
“God, you look good, El. More beautiful than I remembered.”
“And you—you’ve been in the sun. Where’d you get the tan?” I’d known the moment I saw him sitting at the table by the window that it was not Martin I’d seen yesterday. The doppelgänger had not had a tan. And the doppelgänger’s hair had been longer. Martin was sunbrowned and his hair