The Impersonator by Mary Miley Page B

Carr.

 
    9
     
    That milestone was but the first on the road to riches, and while gratified by my success, I knew it was not yet time to pop a champagne cork.
    I returned to the Grande Hotel to find my room had been searched during my absence. The signs were subtle but unmistakable to someone who had prepared for it. I dropped my hat and gloves on the bed, kicked off my shoes, and surveyed the premises. The two drawers I had left not quite closed were shut tight, the clothes hanging in my closet had shifted as pockets were searched, and the suitcase I had positioned in the corner precisely between two purple flowers on the carpet now sat directly on top of one of those blossoms.
    The intrusion caused me no alarm. The trustees had hired someone to scour my belongings for clues while I was away. He had found nothing. There was nothing to find. Only one thing could harm me, one item that would, in the wrong hands, utterly destroy our plans. My most precious possession—the collection of publicity photos and playbills from my mother’s career and my own early years.
    I knew back in Cleveland that I should destroy the lot, but I could no more have done that than I could take an innocent life. They were all I had of my mother and of my childhood. I knew I could not keep them with me. Nor could I give them to Oliver to hold. I dared not even remind him of their existence. He was not above destroying them himself if I refused to.
    Finally, I had separated out the playbills and pictures of recent vintage to serve as props for my charade, and wrapped the others in plain brown paper. On the front of the package, I wrote a note that read, “Treasured photos and personal papers belonging to Leah Randall. Do not throw away! Please hold until she returns to claim them.” Before leaving Randolph Stouffer’s mansion in Cleveland, I placed the package in a bottom drawer of the desk in his study, a desk that looked as if it hadn’t been disturbed by Mr. Stouffer in years. With any luck, no one would even see the package until I was thoroughly ensconced in my new life and could return to claim them without fear of exposure. I regretted the risk, but life was risk and I was a player.
    The trustees had advised me to alter my plans, to go directly to San Francisco to visit my grandmother. As matriarch of the Beckett family, she deserved my first allegiance. From her house I could proceed to the Carr estate near the coastal town of Dexter, Oregon.
    My first reaction had been to ignore them. Our plan was for Oliver to stay as far from me as possible so that even the most suspicious mind could find nothing to link us, but a little reflection brought me around. The most difficult part of this deception would be convincing those who knew Jessie best—the aunt and the cousins—that I was Jessie reincarnate. How much stronger would my claim be if I arrived having already won the recognition of the trustees as well as my grandmother and uncle? I would appear at the Carr estate a veritable fait accompli.
    So I had dutifully deferred to the trustees and accepted Mr. Wade’s offer to send a wire to my grandmother and arrange a short visit to San Francisco the next day. That was when Mr. Wade informed me that my uncle Oliver happened to be staying with her.
    “I’ll be glad to see Uncle again,” I said. “He used to visit the house in Dexter often and brought me presents.”
    “I’m sure a reminder of some of those presents will convince him of your true identity,” Mr. Wade offered. I thanked him for that excellent idea and for his offer to send a train ticket to my hotel this evening. I had no money, but Mr. Wade seemed disinclined to part with cash.
    The afternoon was fine, and I had no desire to spend it cooped up in my room. I would do some window-shopping, enjoy a nice meal at the Grande Hotel, and have a long, hot bath before retiring.
    No sooner had I stepped out onto the sidewalk than I felt hostile eyes on my back. It took only a few