The Face Staring Back at Me
That night, we all went back into the living room like Howie suggested and watched The Holy Grail. Although I’m pretty sure none of us were actually watching at all. When it finally ended, we all had a cup of Kevin’s spiked eggnog, hugged and went to bed.
As I laid there waiting to hear those all too familiar snores coming from Kevin, I concocted a plan in my head. Getting into Max’s room wasn’t going to be easy. Thoughts about climbing from our balcony to his came to my mind briefly, before I realized that I wasn’t skilled enough to do that. Picking his lock was another great idea, except for the fact that I had no clue how to do that and this hotel used one of those key cards. It all seemed useless until I realized I did have one tool that usually came in handy and that was the good, old fashioned Nick Carter charm. I would manage to go down to the front desk and charm my way into Max’s room.
Finally, after what felt like hours, I heard a small humming snore coming from the bed next to me. Even Kevin’s breathing pattern sounded anal and well thought out. Quietly, I got up and slipped on some clothes. I didn’t even breathe when Kevin suddenly rolled over to face me. I just stood there frozen until I was certain he was still asleep. I tiptoed out of there and closed the door behind me, barely making a sound.
When it came to sneaking, I was a pro. I could out sneak anyone.
“What are you up too?” Well, almost anyone. I gasped when AJ greeted me at my door.
“Jesus Christ man, are you trying to give me a heart attack or something?”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you, so what are you up to?”
“Nothing, just going to the bathroom.”
He looked me over, “Then why are you dressed?”
“What are you, the pajama police?”
“I know you’re up to something.”
I started walking towards the bathroom, just to prove him wrong but of course he followed me. “I’m not up to anything, except taking a piss, want to join me?”
“I know you, Carter. I could tell you were planning something the whole time we were watching that movie.”
How in the hell? I refused to give in to him, “I’m not planning anything AJ.”
“Yeah you are. I know that look all to well. When you are planning something you look up at the ceiling and stick your tongue out like this,” he then of course showed me what I do and by the looks of it, I apparently turn into a very special episode of myself.
“Don’t you have anything better to do than stare at me?”
“It’s the stunning blue eyes I guess, so?”
“So what?”
“What are you going to do? Where are you going? I’m not letting you leave.” He walked past me and blocked the front door.
“How the hell did you know I was sneaking out?”
“Because you learned how to sneak around from the best, dufoburger. Now, what stupid ass thing do you plan on doing?”
“It doesn’t concern you, now go to bed.”
He laughed at me, “Yeah, right. Tell me or I’m going to wake up everyone.”
“AJ please, this is my life we’re talking about here.” I almost raised my voice before quickly going back to a whisper.
“I know that Nick, which is why I am not about to let you go and do something stupid.”
“I’m breaking in to Max’s room.”
He crossed his arms in front of himself, “Oh.” He almost seemed disappointed.
“What did you think I was going to do?”
“I wasn’t sure. That’s a pretty smart idea though.”
“Thanks. Now get out of my way so I can go through with it.”
“How do you plan on doing that exactly?”
I was growing impatient, knowing that for every minute we stood here and talked, there was a greater chance that someone else would wake up and join the party. “I don’t have time for this.”
I tried to barrel past him but he just lightly pushed me away. Even though I had height on AJ, he had strength on me. “I can’t let you.”
“I have to find out what is going on and the only way to do that is to get into his room and look for something, anything that might give me answers. This is the only time I can do this, please AJ…I’m begging you…let me go.”
He stood there for a few minutes, staring at me. Why did everyone do that? “Okay, fine…but I’m coming with you.”
As much as I wanted to argue with him, a part of me was grateful for the company. I was kind of nervous about the whole thing. It would be kind of nice to have someone else with me, even if it had to be AJ.
“Okay, we have to go right now!” I moved past him and opened the door and he followed me out.
“You realize if they figure out we left…”
“Kevin will kill us? Yeah, although I guess he’ll have to get in line.” How sad is that?
I told AJ my plan as we headed down to the lobby and once again he thought I was pretty smart. I also let him know about my dad being an ex CIA agent. He thought it was as funny and unbelievable as I did.
I walked over to the front desk and luckily an older lady was working. This would be a piece of cake I thought to myself and was right as I walked back towards the elevator with an extra key to my uncle’s room within ten minutes of crying about how irresponsible I was and how my poor deaf uncle would never hear my knock on the door.
“That was impressive, Nick.” AJ congratulated me as we got in and I waved to the older woman, mouthing the words thank you as the elevator doors closed.
“What can I say? I have great lost, puppy dog eyes.”
When we got to Max’s room, I felt my stomach lurch a little. Now that I was about to break and enter, it started to hit me how stupid and dangerous this idea actually could be. What if Max did come home early and found me in his room? Even worse, what if I found out that he was a bad guy after all?
“Well?” I looked over at AJ as he continued, “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. It’s not too late to change your mind. We can always just go back to bed.”
As tempting as that was, I owed it to my father to find out what was going on.
“No, let’s do this.” I said as I clicked open the door and snuck inside.
I turned on the light, expecting to see all the evidence I needed neatly laid out on his bed or something. Of course it wasn’t like that at all. The room almost looked bare, like he took everything with him. I felt dejected as I sat down on the chair. “It looks like nothing is here.”
AJ walked over towards me, “Wow, you really suck at being a detective. You didn’t even bother to open a drawer before giving up. Remind me never to hire you for work.” That being said he opened the drawer by the bed and sure enough there was nothing in there.
“See?” I said as sarcastically as possible.
“Theee?” He mocked.
Why did I let him come along? On the plus side, maybe if the bad guys did show up they’d take him instead of me. I stood up and moved to the bathroom. Maybe he hid something in there. But, besides some shaving cream and a bottle of aspirin, nothing was in there either.
“This sucks!” I was about to plop back on the chair when I noticed something under the bed. “Wait a second.” I dropped to my knees and started crawling towards the bed where AJ was sitting.
“What the hell are you doing? Shit, do you see a bug or something?” He moved his feet up on the bed. Yeah, nothing like knowing that a bug could turn AJ into a little girl. That always comes in handy when breaking and entering.
I grabbed the briefcase out from under the bed. “Look what I found.”
He moved his body to look down at what I was doing, “Wow, that’s like so stereotypical of him. I wonder if he has a wig and gun stashed somewhere as well.”
Of course the case had one of those locks that you needed a combination to open. “How am I going to open this?” I asked as I began to randomly scramble the numbers and kept trying to click open the box.
“Maybe we can use a knife or something?”
“Then he’d know someone broke into it.” I said as I once again turned the numbers to make a different combo.
“Why don’t you try his birthday? Isn’t that what people usually do?”
“I don’t know his birthday. I don’t even know his real name!”
“What about your dad’s birthday?”
“Why on earth would he even…oh hell, I’ll try it.” I was frustrated but thought why not? Of course it didn’t work.
“What about yours?”
I looked up at AJ and rolled my eyes, but I did try it. Scrolling 012880 and to my surprise there was a click. “Holy crap!” I said once again looking up at my friend as he smiled down at me.
“I told you! What’s inside?”
I cautiously opened the case, very slowly just in case Max had booby trapped it. It seemed like something he might do. Thankfully my fingers didn’t fall off or my head didn’t explode as I got a good look at what was inside. “Wow.” I said as I pulled some of the contents out.
There were a handful of fake Ids and passports with all kinds of names on them. “Now I know where to go when I need a fake ID.” AJ said as he came and sat on the floor next to me.
“I wonder if any of these are actually him?” I continued to leaf through all the identification when my eyes landed on one. “I bet this is his real name.” I said as I handed AJ the passport.
“Carter Huhn.” He said out loud. “You think this is where your dad got your last name?”
I nodded at AJ. “Do you see anything else with Carter Huhn’s name on it?” I moved the IDs off to the side to see what else might be in the briefcase. AJ had taken out a few papers and was looking through them.
I grabbed a batch of papers too and immediately found my name on one of them. Not my ‘now’ name but my real name. “Andrew Martins.” I read out loud. “I think this is me.”
AJ glanced over at me, “What is it?”
“My birth certificate.” I scanned down the page, “looks like my birthday is real. That’s nice to know. I was expecting to find out I was actually ten years older than I am.”
“Or ten years younger.” He added.
“I was born in Kentucky, how odd.” I continued to read down the document, happy to see proof of the person I used to be. “My mother’s name is Nicole Martins and my father’s real name is Jack Martins. Jack…that doesn’t fit him, he’s definitely more of a Bob.”
When I was done reading that one I moved to the next paper which looked like some legal mumbo jumbo that I couldn’t decipher. The name Carter Huhn was on it which further confirmed for me that we had found Max’s real identity. I quickly leafed through the rest of the papers in my hand not really knowing what any of them were. They seemed more like the kinds of things you’d find in a safe deposit box in a bank, but I guess that was out of the question for someone like my uncle.
At the bottom of the box were a few manila file folders. “Did you find anything, J?”
“Nope, not really, except that your uncle owns a lot of cars. Seriously dude. He must be loaded. All of these things are deeds to cars and houses.”
I handed AJ one of the two folders that I held in my hands, “Well, let’s see what these are all about.” I said as I opened the first one and immediately regretted it as I saw the dead eyes of my therapist staring back at me. “Jesus!” I dropped the folder.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Jane, my therapist. He has a picture of her, dead.” I handed him the folder but he refused to look in it. “How the hell do you think he got that?”
“Maybe he has connections at the police department.” AJ said as he opened his folder and started going through it. I hoped his wasn’t as gruesome as mine, which I decided to pick up and continue to examine making sure I placed Jane’s picture facedown.
There were a lot of pictures of people in this folder. Most of them looked like surveillance shots. “Maybe he’s doing some private investigating or something.” I shuffled through pictures of a woman walking down a street. He had about twenty of her going in and out of stores, houses and …
“What the hell?” I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had to be seeing things.
“What?” He asked.
“This is impossible.”
The picture clearly showed the woman’s face this time and there was no mistaking who I was looking at. .
AJ took the picture out of my hands and had the same look of shock on his face, “I thought she was dead.”
“I did too.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“Maybe this is an old picture.” AJ checked the back for some kind of date, but he knew as well as I did that the picture was recent. “There has to be a good explanation Nick. I mean, she’s dead.”
I couldn’t even formulate words for all the things that were going through my mind. For years I had been motherless, thinking an accident claimed her life when all this time…there were no words for what I was seeing. So, I flipped to the next picture and there she was again, laughing and smiling at whatever the person who she was talking to on the phone was saying.
I had to look away for a second, thinking maybe if I looked down again I would be wrong but that wasn’t the case. The face staring back at me every time I glanced down was Jane Carter.
“I don’t…” AJ started but was interrupted when we heard the unmistakable sound of someone trying to get into the room. The doorknob jiggled and the two of us had no idea what to do.
Quickly I threw the documents back into the briefcase and AJ followed my lead and did the same. Once we had them back in their place, I shoved the case back under the bed. I glanced at the balcony wondering if maybe we should make a run for it. The only bad thing about that was there really was no place to hide out there. All the person had to do was open the curtain and we’d be found.
“The bathroom!” I whispered as we both ran over to the bathroom and threw ourselves in as the door knob continued to jiggle.
