If I Can't Have You (17 page)

“Why?” Stewart asked, and Trevor rested his forearms on Stewart’s desk.

“He didn’t want to be with Carole,” Trevor said, “but she was his costar, and the studio wanted him to play up the romance, make the filmgoers think they were just as much an item in real life as they were on the screen. Good gossip brought a lot more people to the theaters back then.”

Stewart grinned, his look somewhat skeptical. “Your father told you an awful lot, didn’t he?”

Trevor leaned back, absently stroking the mustache that was no longer there. “He had no one else to talk to.”

“So what did he tell you about running away? Why did he disappear?”

The worry in Adriana’s eyes had heightened, and he knew she was afraid that he’d say the wrong thing, that Stewart wouldn’t believe him, that someone would learn that he’d traveled through time. What would happen then? Would he be hauled off to some laboratory for study?

Would Adriana care? That was the only thing that really mattered to him now. That he wouldn’t disappoint Adriana. That he’d look good in her eyes.

He’d always wanted to look good in people’s eyes. The hell of it was, he’d never succeeded with the people who’d mattered the most—his parents.
Adriana was giving him more of a chance than they ever had. Maybe she was an angel after all.

“If I tell you what happened,” Trevor said, “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t talk about it with anyone but us.”

“Stewart’s a friend. And he’s your attorney now, too,” Adriana said. “He’ll keep everything you tell him confidential.”

She reached over, and Trevor thought for sure she was going to squeeze his hand, but she drew away. It didn’t matter. Her smile gave him reassurance enough.

Trevor looked back at Stewart, ignoring the way he was staring at Adriana, at him, probably wondering what kind of relationship they shared. He couldn’t let the man’s scrutiny bother him. Right now he was forced to think of the all-too-real events of that evening and relate them to Stewart, substituting
my father
for
I.

“My father told me that the last thing he remembered was climbing into bed with Carole and passing out. When he woke, he was covered with her blood, and he had a knife in his hand.”

“Then he did murder her,” Stewart stated, already assuming the worst.

“I don’t think so. Trouble is, he couldn’t remember.”

“Then why didn’t he stick around? Why didn’t he call for help?”

“She was dead, and he was frightened. Everything pointed to him as the killer. Would you have stuck around to tell the police you were innocent?”

“I wouldn’t have gotten myself into that situation in the first place.”

“No, I doubt you would have,” Trevor said, wishing he could wipe out a lifetime of making wrong decisions—but he couldn’t. All he could do was start over. This was his chance to have a new life.

“My father was a coward,” Trevor said.

“He wasn’t,” Adriana protested.

But Trevor nodded his head, remembering that morning in Carole’s room. “He
hadn't
want
ed
to suffer through bad press. He
hadn't
want
ed
his image smeared. Those things and acting were what mattered the most in his life.”

Trevor hoped Adriana would forgive him for destroying the perception of the man she’d idolized. “My father thought about committing suicide, but he disappeared instead. He didn’t want to face anyone or anything. He just wanted to run away. That’s what cowards do.”

Adriana had turned away, staring out the window. Trevor didn’t want her loving a myth, he wanted her to get to know him, the real, living, breathing Trevor Montgomery. The man who wasn’t as heroic off-screen as he was on. The man who had demons that haunted him. The man who’d never been in love because he’d never learned how to love.

The man who thought he might have finally found the woman to teach him.

“So,” he said, turning back to Stewart, “that’s why my father disappeared. What else do you want to know?”

Stewart picked up a pen and hastily scratched on a yellow pad of paper. “Where did he go?”

Trevor hesitated, not to think up a reason, because he and Adriana had already dreamed up a story, but to pause, as if remembering the events of his father’s past. “He went to Mexico. He’d gone there quite often with friends. It was easy to get across the border and even easier to hide. He lived by himself for nearly thirty years, in a village where no one knew him, where no one had ever heard the name Trevor Montgomery.”

Stewart kept his eyes down, his pen poised over the paper. “What’s the name of the village?”

The man was testing him, but Trevor felt ready for anything Stewart might throw out.

“Santa Elena. It’s not on many maps.”

Stewart glanced at Trevor over his glasses. “How very convenient.”

“It was for my father.”

Trevor looked out the window, reciting his story as if he’d expertly memorized lines from a script. He gave each word the proper inflection, his tone was low and reflective, his gaze distant, anguished. His acting was perfect.

“He was close to sixty when he met my mother. Not long after I was born she decided she didn’t like the quiet, rural life, so she left him to raise me on his own.”

“Was he a good father?”

“I have nothing else to compare him to,” Trevor said, which was a lie. He knew that, in spite of his own less-than-perfect ways, he’d be a damn sight better father than his real one had been.

“I’m sure he did the best he could,” Trevor continued, dreaming up words to say as he went along.

“He passed away ten years ago... when he was eighty-four. He refused to see doctors—no matter how much I begged—because he was afraid someone might figure out who he was.”

Stewart looked up from his paper and rubbed the bridge of his nose. A frown marred his face. He was a good lawyer, Trevor imagined. Skeptical of everyone—especially the man talking to him now.

“How did he die?” Stewart asked.

“Old age, I imagine. I never really knew, except that I went into his room one morning and he wouldn’t wake up.”

“Where’s he buried?”

Trevor shook his head, already prepared for the question. “He wanted to be cremated. I don’t have any records. I don’t have anything that belonged to him before he went to Mexico, and he didn’t have much of anything the last fifty years of his life.”

Stewart rested his elbows on the desk, his hands steepled. He tapped his index fingers together, obviously deep in thought.

Trevor just wanted to get the meeting over with and get out of there. He’d never liked attorneys—good or bad. They reminded him too much of his father. Stern, skeptical, and cold. Stewart was no exception, even if he was Adriana’s friend.

Stewart took off his glasses and set them on top his yellow pad. “It all sounds very interesting—and quite contrived. Why should I believe you’re Trevor Montgomery’s son?”

“Because I look exactly like him. I have his eyes, his nose, his mouth, his hair. We have the same voice.”

“There’s an impostor for just about every famous person.”

“I’m not an impostor,” Trevor said calmly, thinking that Stewart might be looking for a reaction. “I’m the son of a famous person.”

“What do you think, Adriana?” Stewart asked. “Is he telling the truth?”

Adriana nodded, nervously twisting the black silk scarf in her lap. “I didn’t believe it at first, but it’s true. He knows things only Harrison and I knew about Trevor.”

“So what is it you want, Mr. Montgomery? Your father’s property back? Your father’s money?”

“Citizenship,” Trevor said. “I want to live in this country, but I have no records at all of my birth.”

“How did you get across the border?”

“I gave a sob story to a very American-looking family about my girlfriend running off and ditching me on the streets of Tijuana. They believed me. I climbed into the backseat of their car, and we crossed the border.”

“Do you have any money?”

“Some.”

“Do you have any way of supporting yourself?”

“I c
an act.”

“That’s not very lucrative—unless you’re a star. Do you have any experience.”

“Some.”

“Is that what you did in Mexico?”

“That’s enough!” Adriana blurted out. “You’re my friend, Stewart. I believe him, and I need for you to believe in him, too. He needs a birth certificate, a Social Security card, and a driver’s license. That’s all. As for money, I told him I’d support him until he gets on his feet.”

“Do you think that’s wise?”

“He told me he didn’t need any support. He wanted to do everything on his own, but I insisted we come and see you. If anything I’m doing is unwise, it’s sitting here telling you everything. I’ve always trusted you, but you’re making this more difficult than it needs to be. Please, get us the identification. July 4, 1964, is his birth date. His father was Trevor Montgomery. His mother was...”

“Gabrielle Montgomery,” Trevor interrupted. “Her maiden name was Ramon.”

Rosenblum leaned back in his chair, studying Trevor, studying Adriana, then slowly leaned forward and scribbled on his pad. “I’ll need dates of birth.”

Trevor nodded, gave Stewart the necessary information, and hoped his composure would keep Stewart from digging up information that didn’t exist.

“How long before we can get the I.D.?” Adriana asked.

“A few days,” Stewart told her. “A week maybe. I’ll get in touch with you when it’s ready.”

Trevor reached across the desk and shook Stewart’s hand. “Thank you for your help.”

Stewart laughed. “Thank Adriana, not me. She pays me very good money to be a very good attorney. What you’re asking of me isn’t legal, and I
could lose my license if I get caught. But Adriana’s not only a client, she’s a friend, and I’ll do whatever she asks. I’ll tell you one thing, though, Mr. Montgomery. You hurt her in any way, and I’ll come after you. I’ll find a way to expose you as a fraud.”

“Hurting Adriana isn’t in my game plan,” he assured the attorney. No, he had no intention of hurting her at all.

They stood across from each other in the crowded elevator and not once did Adriana seek Trevor’s eyes. Even through her dark sunglasses he could see her staring at the floor, at the wall, at the back of an old lady’s head.

What could possibly be going through her mind? Was she worried that he might be an impostor? Lord, he hoped those words of Stewart’s hadn’t made her doubt him all over again.

He lit up a cigarette when they walked out of the building, relieved to be away from Stewart’s interrogation, out of the confining elevator, and in the fresh, coastal air.

“Do you have to do that?” Adriana asked, frowning at the cigarette in his mouth.

“Does it bother you?”.

“Yes,” she said flatly, then turned, headed toward the parking garage.

Trevor stubbed the Chesterfield out in a sand-filled ashtray at the edge of the office building, then rushed to catch up with Adriana.

“What’s bothering you?” he called out before she could climb into the Mercedes.

She turned around slowly, then leaned against the
car door. “I feel like I’ve been sitting in a courtroom for the past two hours, waiting for someone to find me guilty of perjury.”

“
It wasn’t all that bad,” he said, taking a place at her side. “I
thought things were going well,
right up to the end, that is. You realize he didn’t believe a word of it”

Adriana’s head snapped toward him. “Why do you say that?”

“He’s too smart, and all he saw was a good friend being suckered by a con artist.”

“But you’re not.”

“No, I’m not a con artist, Adriana, but Stewart’s going to prove that I am, and we have no way of proving I’m not, unless we tell him the truth. Of course, he won’t believe that, either.”

Adriana rubbed her arms as if a sudden chill had rushed through her.

“I should have gotten a birth certificate some other way, from someone who wouldn’t ask any questions,” she stated.