The Imposter Read online

  The man's smile faded. "Oh. I thought you knew—though, of course, there's no reason why you should."

  "Knew what?" said Ryan.

  "I'm your father, Allen."

  Chapter 8

  Ryan was thrown off balance for a moment, but no longer. He'd played this scene before, in The Shadow Box, so he knew how it was supposed to go. "Dad!" he exclaimed, and threw his arms around the man.

  Now Mr. Kurz was the one who seemed off balance. Awkwardly, he patted Ryan's back and murmured, "Welcome home, son."

  Ryan wanted very much to take Burton aside and demand an explanation, but that would have looked a little strange—suspicious, even. The explanations would have to wait. For now, all he could do was keep up the act.

  As they headed for the baggage claim, Burton said gruffly, "Ah, listen, Kurz. Is there any way we can … you know … settle up here and now? I've got to fly out to Vancouver for a couple of days to do some field work."

  "Oh? I assumed you'd be staying with us for a day or two. There are still some things we need to discuss. And to tell the truth, I didn't think to bring my check book."

  Burton's expression turned even more sour than usual. "I guess I'll have to come along, then, won't I?"

  When Ryan retrieved his sad-looking suitcase from the baggage carousel, Mr. Kurz gave it an amused glance. "Nice bag."

  Ryan felt his face go red. "It's all I had."

  Mr. Kurz clapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, just teasing. We'll get you a new one, champ." He surveyed Ryan's nerdy outfit with the same amused look. "How about some clothes, too? Maybe a whole new wardrobe."

  "Sure. Do they sell flannel shirts here?"

  Mr. Kurz laughed. "You do know it's August, right, champ?"

  Champ? What kind of guy would call his kid "champ"? With genes like that, no wonder the poor kid was a nerd.

  Ryan had thought that, being by the ocean, Halifax would be on the cool side, but it was a good thirty degrees outside. As they walked to the parking lot, he shaded his eyes and scanned the horizon. There was no ocean in sight, not even any seagulls, just a lot of trees. "Where's the water?"

  Mr. Kurz pointed south. "About a half-hour that way." He swung his arm in a ninety-degree arc. "We go that way."

  "Oh. It's just that I've never seen the ocean."

  "You will, don't worry."

  They stopped next to a sleek gray Mercedes sedan. Mr. Kurz unlocked the trunk and they threw their bags in. "Nice car," Ryan said.

  Mr. Kurz shrugged. "It's all right. I've got a restored '55 T-Bird convertible I usually drive, but of course we couldn't all fit. Ollie's been trying to get me to sell that T-bird for years. She says it's not 'appropriate.'"

  "Ollie?" said Ryan apprehensively.

  "My wife. Your stepmother. Her name's Olivia, but everyone calls her Ollie."

  As he climbed into the front seat, Ryan darted a sharp glance at Burton, who sat in the back. Somehow he had neglected to mention that Mr. Kurz had a wife; did that mean he didn't know? Or did he just think it didn't matter? Burton didn't meet his gaze; he was surveying the leather upholstery as if he meant to buy the car. It left Ryan wondering how many other things the man hadn't bothered to tell him.

  "For a while there, we actually had a chauffeur," Mr. Kurz said, as he peeled out of the parking lot. "But I could never see any point in it. I like to drive myself. So Ollie, she says, 'Well, I suppose there's no point in paying for a driver if you won't let him drive.' So you know what she did?"

  "Fired him?"

  "No, she made him the gardener!" Mr. Kurz broke into a laugh so hearty that Ryan couldn't help smiling. Burton unwrapped another candy from his seemingly endless supply. Mr. Kurz glanced at him in the rearview mirror. "My guess is you're a reformed smoker. Am I right?"

  Burton stared at him for a moment, then popped the candy in his mouth. "Yeah," he said grudgingly. "I used to go through two packs a day. Now I go through a bag of these."

  "Hey, I know what it's like. I don't think I could ever have stopped if it hadn't been for Ollie. You know what she did? She hired this Korean fellow that does acupuncture—you know, with the needles about yay long?" He demonstrated with his hands, taking them off the wheel for an uncomfortable few seconds. "I said, hey, nobody's going to stick those suckers in me. But you know what? The darn things actually worked!" He let go another hearty laugh.

  "Is that so," Burton said and turned his attention to the passing scenery.

  Ryan wondered if there were any acupuncture spots that would stop a person's stomach from tying up in knots. Things weren't going the way he'd anticipated. That was the trouble with improvising. He'd been prepared to answer questions about what he had been doing for the past thirteen years, but Mr. Kurz wasn't asking any. He seemed satisfied with small talk. "Kelley is home for the summer, you know, and she's very excited about meeting you."

  "Me, too," said Ryan. "About meeting her, I mean." Actually, excited wasn't exactly the right word. Bewildered was more like it, since he didn't have the first notion who Kelley was. Furious was another possibility. He wanted to turn and glare at Burton, but thought better of it.

  At first, they seemed to be heading for the city; the traffic and the buildings got gradually more congested. But then they turned northwest and things started to look more countrified again. Mr. Kurz drove as if he owned the road; he wasn't rude to the other drivers, or impatient; he just expected them to get out of his way, and they usually did. Ryan glanced at the speedometer only once, and then decided that it was better not to know.

  After half an hour or so, they got off the main highway and took a secondary road, at an only slightly reduced speed. They slowed a little more for a tiny village whose name Ryan didn't catch. A few kilometers farther on, the road passed by one of the most impressive estates Ryan had ever seen—vast expanses of horse pasture surrounded by freshly painted white board fences, a stable that Ryan would have been happy to live in, a tennis court, a half-acre pond. At the highest point of the property sat an equally impressive house. With its wide-columned porches and tall stone chimneys, it could have served as the set of Falcon Crest, or his mom's all-time favorite film, Holiday Inn. In fact, if you surrounded it with cotton fields instead of horse pastures, it wouldn't have been totally out of place in Gone with the Wind.

  Ryan whistled softly. "Man! What a spread! Who lives there?"

  Mr. Kurz laughed as he shifted the Mercedes down and turned into the end of the long, winding drive. "You do."

  Chapter 9

  Up close, the house and the grounds were even more impressive and immaculate. The place really did look like a movie set. Nothing was soiled, nothing was broken, nothing was out of place—except for Ryan.

  And Burton, of course. He looked as if he belonged on the set of some other movie altogether—The Dirty Dozen, maybe. He was obviously trying to act all confident and blasé, as if he dealt with filthy rich—or impeccably rich—clients every day of the week and twice on Sunday. But he was no better at playing the worldly-wise investigator than he was at posing as a stage manager.

  Though the day had grown unpleasantly warm, the interior of the house was blessedly cool. They entered a tile-floored solarium filled with tall, leafy plants—a room roughly the size of the apartment back in Toronto. "Notice how nice the temperature is in here?" said Mr. Kurz. He smacked his palm against one of the stucco walls. "It's because of these. They're rammed earth, two feet thick. I worked right alongside the architect that designed the place." He leaned toward Ryan and lowered his voice. "Don't tell Ollie, but I helped out with the construction a little bit, too." He straightened and grinned broadly. "Well, speak of the devil!"

  A tall, slim woman in a loose, sleeveless dress entered the solarium. Her wooden sandals clicked on the tile like a tap dancer's shoes. Ryan's first impression was that she was a human version of the estate itself: everything just so. She looked several years younger than Ryan's mom. Her hair was dark red and her skin extremely fair, almost translucent. She was be
tter looking than most of the actresses he'd worked with. In fact, she could probably have made a good living as a model if it hadn't been for her un-model-like posture. There was a rounded, stooped look to her upper back and shoulders, as if she had spent her growing-up years trying to compensate for being taller than everyone else.

  "Are you saying unkind things about me again?" she asked brightly.

  Mr. Kurz planted a kiss on one of her prominent cheekbones. "Not me! Was I, fellows?"

  Ryan knew how important it was to establish your character with your very first line, so he laid the nerdiness on thick. "He was just describing the construction of the house. I found it extremely interesting."

  "Oh, him and his house. He'll talk your ear off about it if you let him." She held out a long, graceful hand to Ryan. "You must be Allen."

  "Yes, ma'am." He gave her hand a brief, limp shake.

  "We've all been in such a state of excitement here, anticipating your arrival," she said, but she didn't really seem all that excited. She looked him up and down, her eyes narrowed slightly, like an art critic assessing a painting. "I must say, you don't look at all like your pictures."

  "You don't think so?" Ryan said, trying to sound casual.

  "No." She smiled slightly. "You've gotten much handsomer." The way she said it, it sounded more like a polite, offhand remark than an actual compliment. After greeting the silent, sullen Burton, Ollie said, "Well, I expect you and my husband have business matters to discuss, so we'll leave you alone." She took Ryan's arm. "Besides, there's someone I want you to meet."

  Ryan managed to reply, "Okay," when what he really wanted to say was, "Oh, no." The way Burton had explained it, the only person they'd have to convince was one sick, sentimental old man. First, it turned out that the man was neither old nor sick. Then it turned out he had a wife. Who was Ryan going to have to face next? The old Empress, like in Anastasia?

  Ollie guided him out onto the patio, where a stocky, weather-beaten man in work clothes was watering a huge, stone-walled bed of flowers. She wanted him to meet the gardener?

  "Sandy? Would you mind going to the stable and telling Kelley that she has a visitor?" Ah, yes, the mysterious Kelley; he'd almost forgotten about her.

  Sandy clearly did mind, but he went anyway, leaving the hose running. Ollie shook her head in exasperation. "The help you get these days. It's almost worse than no help at all. Allen, be a dear and turn that off before the water makes an absolute bog of my flower bed."

  "Yes, ma'am." As Ryan screwed the nozzle shut, the water spread out in a fine spray, soaking the sleeve of his flannel shirt.

  "Oh, my," said Ollie. "Well, it's a warm day; I'm sure it'll dry in no time. Oh, here comes Kelley now. I'll leave you two alone. I'm sure you'll have tons to talk about."

  Ryan twisted around to see a tall, solidly built, dark-haired girl approaching, smiling tentatively at him and tugging nervously at the pair of leather gloves in her hands. Ryan guessed she was close to his age—his real age, not his fake one. Presumably she was Ollie's daughter, which meant that she was—what?—his stepsister? His half-sister? It depended on when Mr. Kurz and Ollie got together.

  Except for her height, the girl didn't look much like her mom. For one thing, her posture was a lot better; apparently she was fine with being tall. For another, Ollie wouldn't have been caught dead in the clothes Kelley was wearing—faded jeans and a baggy t-shirt featuring the logo from Cats.

  "Hi." She sat awkwardly next to him on the stone wall. He noticed how flushed her face was, possibly from strenuous stable work but more likely from embarrassment.

  "Hello," he replied, and then they both sat there like a couple of very bad mimes. He had no clue what to say next. If he were being Ryan, there would be no problem. He'd say, "Oh, have you seen Cats?" and, with any luck, it would turn into a conversation. But he was being Allen, and Allen would probably just think she was wearing the shirt because she loved cats with a small c. "I guess you must be Kelley," he tried. That sounded like the dorky sort of thing Allen would say.

  She nodded. "And you must be Allen."

  "Yeah. I wouldn't mind being somebody else, but I guess I'm stuck with it." Funny how something could sound like a joke when you were really just telling the truth.

  Kelley obviously didn't get the joke. "I know what you mean," she said soberly. Ryan waited for her to go on, but that was apparently all she had to say. Over to him.

  "You know, this is a really impressive place. It must be very enjoyable living here."

  "Uh-huh," she said, without much enthusiasm. She wasn't doing much to hold up her end of the conversation.

  "It's quite a change from Toronto, I can tell you."

  Kelley gave him a puzzled look. "Toronto? I thought Mr. Burton said you lived in Montreal."

  Ryan winced inwardly. He was going to have to have a long, unpleasant talk with Burton. "I do," he said hastily. "But Mr. Burton had me come to Toronto, and we flew out from there."

  "Oh. So, how do you like Montreal?"

  "Um, okay, I guess. We haven't been there all that long." Or had they been there for years? He had no idea.

  "Parlez-vous français comme un Québécois?"

  "Mais, non. Mon français est … how do you say it sucks?"

  Finally he'd coaxed a smile out of her. "Have you ever been to Nova Scotia before?"

  "Mais, non."

  "Well, I hope you like it here."

  "Everyone's made me feel welcome so far."

  "I don't know," she said. "I haven't been doing such a good job of it. I'm sorry, it's just that—well, it's not every day you meet a brother you've never seen before. I just didn't know what to say."

  "Hey, neither did I. Anyway, you're doing okay now."

  "Yeah, I guess." She stood up suddenly. "Listen, I have a couple more things to do in the stable. You want to come and help?"

  Though Ryan could think of dozens—perhaps hundreds—of things he would rather do, he said, "Sure."

  When Kelley opened the gate to the horse pasture, she seemed to open up a little, too, as if she were on her own turf now, and felt more comfortable there. "What you were saying before—about being somebody else …?"

  Ryan's stomach tightened in alarm. Was she onto him already? "What about it?"

  "Well … who would you be?"

  "Pardon me?"

  "If you could be somebody else—anybody—who would it be?"

  He laughed. "I don't know. It was just something to say."

  "Oh." She sounded disappointed, as if she thought they had something in common and found she was wrong.

  "But if I really could be somebody else, I guess I'd be …" He paused. Who would Allen want to be? Who were a nerd's idols? Albert Einstein? Bill Gates? "Michael Crichton," he said.

  "No kidding?" She led him into the stable, where she picked up a pitchfork and began scooping manure-caked straw out of a stall.

  Ryan was careful to stay well out of her way. "Don't you have hired help to do that kind of stuff?"

  She shrugged. "I enjoy it. It's like … very real, you know?"

  "Ah," said Ryan. That was true, he supposed, but there was such a thing as too much reality.

  "So. Why Michael Crichton?"

  "Well, for one thing, he's really smart. I mean, he knows all about science and medicine and everything. And yet he's not geeky. Besides, he makes a lot of money. What about you? Who would you be?"

  "Me?" She ducked her head, clearly embarrassed. "I don't know."

  "Come on, I told you mine. Fair is fair."

  "Well … I wouldn't mind being Michael Crichton, either. But … since I'm a girl, I guess I'd have to say … Promise you won't laugh, now."

  "Cross my heart."

  "I'd have to say … Madonna."

  Ryan laughed. "Madonna?"

  She blushed and gave him an exasperated look. "You promised!"

  "Sorry, sorry, it slipped out. I guess I was picturing Madonna shoveling manure." With one hand, he molded his face into
a serious look. "So. Why Madonna?"

  "Because. Because she can be herself and make everybody like it."

  "The way she acts, the way she dresses, you think that's her real self?"

  "Sure."

  "Come on. That's all just put on. It's a persona; an act. She's probably really a very insecure person and she's trying to compensate. I'd be willing to bet that at least ninety percent of the world's population is secretly insecure."

  "You think so?"

  He shrugged. "Most of the people I know are. And most of them are putting on an act to try and cover up the fact." Of course, most of the people he knew were actors.

  "You're probably right. I guess … I guess maybe I wouldn't actually want to be Madonna, anyway. Just somebody besides me."

  When Ryan made his remark about being somebody else, he'd been joking. Kelley clearly wasn't. He scuffed his feet uncomfortably. It made him nervous when people started talking about their feelings; he never knew what to say. His mother was always doing that to him—getting all emotional and expecting some kind of sympathy from him.

  But, of course, he wasn't himself now. He was Allen. It was easier, somehow, if he just thought about what Allen would say. "Hey, you seem fine to me. You seem like a very nice person."

  She gave a slight, grateful smile. "Thanks."

  "So, if you're done here, maybe we ought to go in, eh? They'll be wondering where I am." He probably should have said "Mom and Dad will be wondering," but he couldn't bring himself to call them that. Besides, when he said they, he was thinking mainly about Burton, and about all the nasty things he wanted to say to the man.

  Kelley pushed her wheelbarrow full of manure outside and dumped it on a large and fragrant pile. "It's getting close to dinnertime and I have to change. Mother insists that I wear decent clothing to the table."

  "I could see maybe changing your shoes but, otherwise, you look decent enough."

  "She lets me wear whatever I want when I'm riding." She leaned toward him confidentially. "I spend a lot of time riding."