Chapter Text
Fourteen dollars.
She counted it out and stuffed it back in the pocket of her jeans. Dana had exactly fourteen dollars to her name. That bastard Corey had taken everything else – her makeup, her one change of jeans, even her frelling phone. All of it packed in the saddlebags of the BMW, leaving her with the 500cc Suzuki, twenty years old and a permanently choked carb.
And, no doubt, helmet hair.
Dana kicked the bike’s tire. It wasn’t the bike’s fault. It had over three hundred thousand miles on it, rebuilt four times – twice by her father, twice by Dana herself. Of the two bikes she almost… no, screw that. Sentimental value was one thing, and she more than appreciated her father’s single legacy to her, but GTL was six cylinders and 1600cc of sleek luxury. Bit of a road hog, but by the end of the day she felt like she’d ridden six hours of foreplay. Whereas the Suzuki’s vibrating front suspension numbed her wrists and made her tailbone ache.
And, technically, it belonged to Corey – despite the way he’d let her ride it, more on than off, for as long as they rode together. Almost fifteen years her senior, they made a bit of an odd couple – he a college professor on sabbatical and she… a student of the world. She liked his bike; he kept her like some rare species of wildlife he needed to study. An exotic pet. Thus the explanation for why all her stuff was in his bike. She wasn’t even that upset that he’d left her behind. They’d barely spoken between here and Moncton and the hours long delay at the border – his two marijuana joints to blame – was just the last straw.
So, she was dumped, in Maine, with fourteen dollars to her name.
The helmet hair was more of a problem. A girl had to do what a girl had to do, and she couldn’t do that with hair that was stringy and flat.
Dana tucked the helmet onto the handles. She wasn’t going to carry it into the bar. The leather jacket was bad enough, especially in a tourist trap place like this one looked like, but attitude was the secret to carrying that off.
Actually, once inside, she revised her estimation of the place up several notches. Good atmosphere, not overdosed on the nautical kitsch despite the location and nautical name. The oil in the fryer was fresh. She could smell old fat from forty paces after years in waitressing. Good mix of locals and tourists too. If the locals came, the food had to be decent, and the prices reasonable.
Dana slipped down the way to the ladies, escaping a hostess headed her way – actually the hostess stopped in her tracks at the sight of her. Maybe the helmet hair and the leather was too much after all. It didn’t look like a fancy dress place, but snooty eateries popped up in all kinds of out of the way places. Maybe even little Haven, Maine.
She did what she could with water and the hand dryer. Combed out her hair with her fingers. Dampened and scrunched, it fell in free flowing raven waves to her shoulder blades. So, yes, sometimes it earned her keep.
She rubbed color into her cheeks. She’d skipped breakfast, and lunch had been a snack bar out of a vending machine at Customs, so perhaps she had an excuse for looking a bit wan. Brown eyes – she passed over them. She could have been married and rich if only she’d been born with blue eyes. She’d never liked the brown eyes, despite the compliments men tried with her on that feature. They didn’t feel right. Her eyes should have been blue.
If only wishes were horses.
Fourteen dollars, she reminded herself. It had nothing to do with pride.
The hostess burst into the tiny restroom as if pushed from behind. She held an empty tray in both arms in front of her, like armor, her wide brown eyes staring. “Hi.” She lifted a tiny hand with a tiny wave, promptly hid it again behind the tray. Five foot two, five three maybe, Dana observed. Size zero. Latina. Scared like Dana held a knife to her throat.
“Hi?” Dana responded. The fourteen dollars was starting to look even smaller now, if they were going to insist on her buying something for the privilege of using their bathroom. That’s the only reason Dana could think of that the woman would be scared of her, pushed in here by some interfering manager when he couldn’t confront her himself.
Yes, she rode a bike. Yes, she wore leather. No, she did not have piercings or tattoos or a bad attitude. Even the scary bald black boyfriend – that bastard Corey – was probably in the next county by now.
“You wouldn’t happen to have any mousse or gel on you, by any chance?” Dana asked. Eyeliner was too much to hope for.
The hostess stared some more.
Okay then.
Dana hit the hand dryer once more, flopped her hair upside down underneath for one more fluff cycle.
The hostess escaped out the door.
Dana wondered if that had even been some awkward kind of come on. Then she heard voices on the other side of the door. A man’s voice, demanding, and the squeaking voice of the hostess trying to justify herself. So her first guess had been right. Bloody man – sending a woman to do his job.
She wrenched open the door to confront him. Fourteen dollars or no, she wouldn’t let the other woman lose her job. She could pay for a drink. It wasn’t some fucking spa, either. It was just a restroom in a bar.
The look he gave her was gratifying, at first. He forgot entirely about the hostess, who made good her escape with a brief look over her shoulder, her tray still tightly held to her chest. Dana liked to make a good first impression, and this guy – he was so her type it was scary. Careless hair that fell into his eyes, and one of those faces that only grew more interesting the more you looked at it. At him. Lean as a greyhound and fingers long enough to inspire curiosity and puckish speculation.
But it was not a look of appreciation as much as it was shock. The shock of imminent hypovolemic collapse kind of shock. Seeing a ghost kind of shock.
“Dude, are you all right?” She pushed him back against the wall. If he was about to pass out – which looked possible – he probably outweighed her by some sixty pounds and she didn’t want to have to catch him. This way at least he wouldn’t hit his head. “Sit down before you fall down. Are you diabetic or something?” Fucking Corey had her fucking phone – but she could get someone in the bar to call if he was --
“Audrey?” Faint, but clear. As if he recognized her.
As if he’d missed her. Oh, lucky Audrey.
“Not Audrey, sorry.” Dana backed away, testing, but he stood on his own. “Get your blood sugar checked,” she advised. “Your meds are way off.”
Duke watched as the woman – Audrey! – took a stool at a prominent corner of the bar. Slid one leg over top of the other, turned her shoulders open to the room. She ordered only water. She may as well have hung a sign: Open for Business.
It was Audrey. She was Audrey, Duke was certain of it. The way his heart banged against his chest only confirmed it.
Audrey. Back again after two goddamn years missing.
Not Audrey – and ohmygod there it was. Audrey – as Audrey – was gone, replaced by this creature with Audrey’s face and Audrey’s eyes and….
Duke sat, his legs near to giving out underneath him again. Reaction warred in him – she was back, she was gone. Two fucking years and he’d just been getting used to the idea that they wouldn’t see her again for another twenty-five, and here she was. Alive and whole and so staringly beautiful – and she wasn’t Audrey.
Duke watched as recognition flitted across several faces, as locals in the bar recalled Audrey Parker, and tried to fit this woman with the black hair and skin tight jeans, ripped with ragged holes that Duke would guess were real and not designer artifice, with their image of the proper professional –nice– former FBI agent.
He watched as a real drink arrived for her. He watched as young Ben Hanover tried his luck, but he soon had to share her attention with Barb and Jack Sutton – who, Duke recalled, had to be careful he didn’t call trains off their tracks to run them down when they argued. Ben went back to his buddies.
Both the not-Audrey woman and the Suttons soon separated, unsettled and disturbed looks between them. Barb petted Jack on one arm as they passed by Duke, calming him. She looked up at Duke, confusion and hurt in her eyes.
Duke stopped her before she could say anything. “I see her.” They probably didn’t know anything about Audrey’s unique history, may not have even known about Audrey’s abduction and disappearance. They just knew that they’d reached out to a former friend to find –
It wasn’t her. She looked like her, the face was the same, but she wasn’t her; didn’t remember them, and didn’t speak the language.
“How?” Barb asked.
“This is Haven,” Jack said, the only explanation needed and patted his wife’s hand. “Does Nathan…?”
He cut himself off at Duke’s expression and flicked “No.”
They backed away, exchanged looks that Duke had labeled könnte schlimmer sein – looks he’d seen people in Haven wear more and more as the years ticked by and the Troubles still went on. Not schadenfreude, but maybe a more compassionate version of it. Could be worse. We have problems, but life could be worse. Nothing to do but hold on until the ride was over.
But no one reached out to help their neighbor, join forces, or work together.
Not since Audrey.
What in God’s name was he going to tell Nathan?
Nathan regarded the two steps up from the Gull’s gravelled parking lot to the wooden deck and walkway as something of a curse. He’d fallen and tripped down them more times than he could count, leaving the bar. It didn’t hurt anything except his pride – and there were enough professional level drinkers in this town that the Chief of Police falling on his face on the way home hardly attracted notice.
Falling up them, on the way in, that could start talk.
Goddamn Duke knew better than to call him after fucking six p.m.
‘Come’ he’d insisted. Without explanation or any clue what he was walking in on. ‘Pour your drunken ass into a taxi if you have to, but come’. And hung up, ignoring what Nathan was sure would have been perfectly reasonable reasons why Nathan was in no way obligated to work overtime or show up when goddamn Duke snapped his goddamned fingers.
Call the bloody cops if he needed to. Not him.
One step at a time. Hand on the post, he didn’t even need to crawl.
The bar wasn’t in flames. Nathan lifted a hand to a couples’ ‘Chief.’ greeting as they left the restaurant for their car. No one was running. No one was screaming.
Whatever Duke wanted, it had better be good.
Inside, it looked like an ordinary Thursday evening. Nathan crossed his arms and leaned up against one of the interior posts – the better not to stagger and fall – but also to convey something of his disgust as Duke filed across the room towards him.
Nathan shied away from the look in the other man’s eyes as he got closer. The judgment. Duke had no right to judge him. And he could keep his fucking pity for his own sorry life.
“Am I wrong?” Duke asked.
What? What the fuck now? Nathan didn’t even bother the half dozen or so possible responses that rose in him, quips to slashing insult. It was too easy and he was too… beat. Beaten.
“Wrong about what?”
“Can’t you see her? Brunette, at the bar.”
Duke had called him here about a girl? A girl?! Seriously, Nathan was going to make Duke pay for this.
He looked, saw who Duke meant. A slip of a girl with ripped jeans, untidy black hair in need of a strong comb, and a garish black leather jacket with red lightning bolts. And Audrey’s profile.
“You’re wrong.” Nathan could see the resemblance. She looked like Audrey. Much more than the others; the others who had popped in and out of the corner of his vision, a tone of voice from around a corner, a laugh with just the right mixture of affection and rue and lilt. Just enough resemblance to make his throat close and his heart leap out of his chest, but always, always – once he looked again – not her. The same with this woman – not her. “Seriously, Duke?”
Not to mention that there was a quarter century still to wait.
If this was some attempt on Duke’s part to interfere with Nathan’s life – judgment after all on his drinking – then this might be the point where he and Duke were going to have to part ways for good.
“Look closer,” Duke pleaded. Nathan concentrated instead on Duke. This was important to him, obviously – nothing to do with Nathan, really. Duke faced away from her, surveying the rest of the restaurant over Nathan’s shoulder, probably not seeing it at all.
Duke and Audrey had been friends too. Nathan sometimes forgot. He wasn’t the only one she left behind. He put his hand on his friend’s shoulder, squeezed – he hoped – lightly. He almost never made physical gestures like that. This seemed to call for it.
“Fine.” The word slipped out before he knew it. He’d been about to shut Duke down, walk away, deny the possibility outright. But it occurred to him that Duke needed to know, to see for himself. And it wouldn’t hurt him to give Duke that much. She couldn’t hurt Nathan, but if Duke got his hopes up… the consequences could be catastrophic. Literally.
Dana looked back over her shoulder as a wonderful smell accompanied the clink of a plate landing on the bar behind her. Grilled shrimp, and fries. Someone was buying her dinner? “I didn’t order this.”
The tall intense diabetic leaned forward, one foot up on something. His smile was suddenly intimate. “On the house.”
“You?” She smiled, she couldn’t help it. The menu here in Haven was decidedly thin – she’d already rejected the fishermen, the tourists and the boys. And people kept giving her that look that she didn’t understand. That ‘can’t place you’ look. It threw her off her game. But of her remaining choices…
“Welcome to the Gull. I’m Duke Crocker. This is my place.”
“Dana Bellamy.” She held up a hand already holding a shrimp tail, her mouth full. “Are we supposed to shake?” she grinned, when that seemed to be his plan. “Sorry. Starving. And these are really good.”
“I’ll tell Lanny you said so.” He helped himself to one of her fries, another intimate grin.
“Is it really Duke, or is that a nickname?” Duke was a dog’s name, in Dana’s experience. What kind of parent would name their child that?
“It’s real.” The look that flickered through his brown eyes revealed the same thought, unexpressed or even acknowledged.
Oh, this was trouble.
This was going to be so much fun, one side of her said, but some other voice inside her was taking up arms – warning her to run and not look back. She played fair and square with her dates. She did not want their money. She only wanted their company for as long as they wanted hers. She was not particular about who paid for the drinks or the meals, and the beds usually came with roofs over her head – but she’d been broker than this and survived. She’d always survive.
She had skills beyond her hair and her face and her legs. She did this because… she could, and because it quieted all the other voices in her head; a man who wanted her, adored her, made her feel good – made her feel good. She saw herself as he – they – saw her, and it was enough. When they stopped seeing her as pretty, starting seeing her as something grubby and worthless, then it was over and she was gone.
Sometimes with just the twenty year old Suzuki and the change in her pocket.
She did not love them, neither did she despise them. And neither, as in never, did she feel this instant ‘click’ inside her of something just right falling into place.
That felt like trouble, because that felt like it was permanent and would hurt when it broke.
“Can I get a refill,” the man beside her called, rudely, tapping his empty glass on the bar. She’d seen him come in a few minutes ago, already barely able to stand. Duke had met him near the door, then surprised her by not throwing him out again right away. Served him, straight double. Even from two seats away he reeked of alcohol.
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”
Dana cursed her tongue and her temper. She liked men. She liked a lot of different sizes and kinds and styles of men, and amused herself with their faults and foibles. But once in a while, for no reason she could ever pinpoint, she came across one that made her instantly hostile. It wasn’t just the drink. Damon, in London, had never been actually sober the entire time she spent with him. But he sang such lovely songs of love and loss when three sheets to the wind that she’d stayed for four months.
This one – tall too, skeletally thin that the too bulky sweater and jacket did not hide, square-jawed and icy dead eyes – she would have picked him from a line-up of ladykillers. The literal kind.
“Dana Bellamy, this is Chief of Police Nathan Wuornos.”
She blinked at Duke, now acting like he was master of ceremonies or something. There were sudden layers of warning and fear (?) in Duke’s voice, the laughing intimacy gone like morning dew. Chief of Police? That explained why Duke hadn’t thrown him out – but she was not going to be used to pay off whatever debt Duke owed him. Which is what it felt like, when the Chief of Police held out his hand for her to shake – like she was being introduced to a trick, in all senses of the word.
She stood, pulled out her cash. “Lovely shrimp,” she said, even though the plate was barely touched. “How much do I owe you?”
“On the house,” Duke said faintly.
Dana put a five down on the bar. “For that little girl you made do your dirty work. Good night.”
Dana's dramatic flourish of an exit was ruined by the over-choked carb on her bike, right now – half-way between running hot and completely cold – it flooded at the first touch of the starter. Goddamn it, she should have taken that thing apart a month ago.
She pulled her helmet off as Duke and the police chief came out to the lot. "Either of you know a good bike mechanic in this –" bit it back, "little town?"
Life was funny, Dana mused as she wandered around the little apartment above the restaurant. Duke had fallen over himself to offer her whatever she wanted – getting the bike fixed, a place to stay in the meantime, whatever she wanted from the restaurant – and then he'd left. She could hear his hissed argument with police chief coming from down below, but not what they said. She recognized obligations, and across the globe the care and feeding of obnoxious - not to say outright bent - cops took some effort. A little flattery, a lot of free booze. But it struck her as funny the way Duke had installed her here and gone back to the other man. She was definitely second on the list of Duke's priorities.
The clothes in the closet were her size, or would have been if she'd been eating more regularly. Not her style though – blazers and pants. Blech. Even the dresses, all three of them, very mid-west and conservative. Conservative heels. Winter boots that looked brand new, and something you would give to a kid that had to walk through snow to school. Uphill, both ways.
No food in the fridge, and except for the dust, nearly everything else looked like someone was just away for the weekend. The kitchen area – kitchenette – she'd seen better in most fleabag motels across the country – was inexpertly scrubbed after being covered in fingerprint powder. She recognized the traces of carbon black in the cracks in the grout, in grooves between the boards of the floor. No suspicious brown stains that she could see, at least.
She found what she was looking for, without knowing she was even looking, in a drawer beside the bed. Pictures. Duke and a smug-looking black woman. Duke and a blonde. Blonde and another man, looking at each other, looking like they could eat each other. The four of them, posed around a table on the deck below.
No, the deck here, on the second floor. With all four of them crowded together to make the picture, Duke's arm outstretched to hold the camera.
Happy smiling people. Her hands drifted over the photos – an uneasy sense of longing somewhere in the back of her throat. It was like a catalogue photo, or a tourist brochure. Come to Maine! Pretty people with pretty happy lives. Doubly uneasy, because the blonde could have been her twin.
They said that everyone had a doppelganger somewhere in the world. Given the way Dana had roamed over most of it, perhaps it wasn't surprising she would find her own, but it still creeped her the hell out. No one would have put Dana's life on a tourist brochure. Dana herself didn't even keep the few photos that people tried to give her. To remember them, maybe? To remind her of the good times when the bad times came.
Fuck that. When the bad times came, Dana was so outta there.
Still, that little ache in her throat for the pretty happy woman in the photo. Dana wished they could have met.
Duke was back – she'd heard him come up the stairs, come inside. She showed him the photo. "Audrey, I presume?" The lucky Audrey whom Duke had mistaken her for at first glance. "This was her place?"
Duke nodded. "For a little while." He'd brought a bottle of wine with him – he uncorked it and started pouring two glasses.
Dana forced herself to shed her jacket, unzip the unsexy but necessary biking boots. The voices inside her were screaming at her to run and keep on running. "You're forgiven."
Something else, though, held her like a lock. Part of it was undeniably the attraction she felt. Already she wanted his hands on her body and his mouth on hers. She wanted to light the fire in the fireplace and let him take her on the braided rug in front of it. Part of it, though, was not even about him. She felt it, she just couldn't put a word to it yet.
"I apologize. For what?"
"For mistaking me for her." Dana looked at it again. It was like looking at an alternate reality version of herself. What her life could have been – if only.
He laughed, under his breath. "No one would mistake you for her."
From the baklava number of layers in that, Dana guessed that had something to do with his argument with the drunken police chief. "Let me guess. She's wanted by the police."
Duke barked a surprised laugh as he handed her the glass of wine and sat down in the armchair beside her, while she had curled her feet under her on the couch. "You could say that."
"What happened to her?" Dana ran a finger from his thumb up the inside of his arm to his elbow. She was pleased to see the way he went absolutely still, then turned a narrowed intense look at her. There was starting the fire, and then there was starting a fire. Talking about some dead girlfriend was not her usual strategy. It seemed to be working, though.
But Duke stood suddenly, leaving the wine glass behind.
"Don't," he barked, holding one hand out as if to ward her off. "Nathan was right. This is a really bad idea."
Nathan? … Chief of Police Nathan Wor-something or other, she recalled. "Duke – I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything –" She'd misjudged how sensitive he was on the subject of said dead girlfriend, obviously. "My mistake. I'm sorry." She picked up her boots, and her jacket. "I'll go." Where was a problem to be faced – later – but the Suzuki's engine was probably fully cold by now. She could get it started. If nothing else she would walk it down the road to a hill. Start it that way.
She'd done it before.
"Don't go." It was both order and plea.
"Man, she really did a number on you, didn't she?" Dana closed her eyes. That was… not polite. And not what she'd meant to say. "Dude – Duke. I can't stay, here, looking – even to myself – like we could be twins. Not when you are still this messed up. It's not fair." That may have been why the voices were still screaming. He wasn't looking at her, adoring her, wanting her. He wanted Audrey. "It's just too confusing."
"I'm not the one who is confused," he said.