B00B9FX0MA EBOK (16 page)

A waitress emerged from the kitchen, practically bumping into me. She glared at me, and I watched as she headed to the table where Matt and my twin were sitting.

I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. What could I say? What could I do? She’d planned this, just like she’d planned everything else. Was she going to stay for the entire date? What would she tell Matt? She was wearing a similar dress to mine. Was that a coincidence, or had she been spying at me at Keely’s house?

You said you wanted to wear the gray dress
. Ingrid’s throwaway comment suddenly took on an entirely different meaning. Somehow, when I was looking for her, she’d found
them
. Had she been spying on me the whole time, ready to become me whenever I turned my back? I thought she was finished torturing me, but it was clear: She’d only just begun.
Of course.

Matt would notice. He knew me. He knew the way I talked to myself and the weird stuff I found funny, the stuff she wouldn’t know, no matter how much spying she’d done. Waiters and busboys rushed in and out, but none of them gave me a second glance. It was as if I was invisible. No one noticed that my life was in the process of being stolen from me.

Just then, she scraped her chair back, smiled at Matt, and allowed her hand to linger on his shoulder.

“I’ll be back in a second!” I heard her voice over the dining room din. It was lower than mine — the type of voice that would use words like
darling
or
lovely
without irony. Why couldn’t he tell? Then, she sauntered away from him as if she had all the time in the world, clutching her phone and smiling at the host, the waiter, and the other patrons as she walked toward the back — toward me.

I took a tentative step forward, ready to confront her, when all of a sudden a busboy crashed through the kitchen doors, his over-laden tray clattering onto the sandstone floor. I jumped to get away from the debris, and as I did, I saw her slip out a rear door.

“Are you all right, miss?” The busboy sat back on his heels and looked up at me. I nodded and numbly headed toward the table.

“Are you okay?” Matt asked, his eyebrows furrowing in concern.

“Do I seem okay?” My voice was sharp.

“Yeah. I mean … I guess so.”

I nodded tightly. How could he not have noticed that he was talking to a totally different girl?

“Is that the right answer?” Matt asked. “Or did you have another one in mind?” There was an edge to his tone as well.

I shook my head. “No, it’s fine. I’m fine.” The word got stuck in my throat. I looked away. Before, I’d loved the way Matt’s eyes had lit up when he’d seen me in the school parking lot. But now, after seeing them light up for
her
, his gaze felt tainted. The whole night was tainted. I knew that my sister had
been sending me a message by showing up, only what was it? That she could steal my life? That she was watching me? That I couldn’t try to predict her actions? All of the above?

The silence between us widened as Matt glanced from the table to the bar to the framed landscape painting of rolling Tuscan hills mounted above the fireplace.

Finally, Matt cleared his throat.

“You seem really quiet all of a sudden. Like, shy. What’s going on?” he said finally.

“Just tired. I’m glad to be here.” I sounded far less convincing than I had earlier, and I knew he knew it.

“Good,” Matt said. The same strained silence fell over us again. “So, what sports are you into?”

“None, really. You play hockey, right?” I felt like I was about to cry. Things had spiraled wildly out of control: My twin was out there, she
wasn’t
going to go away, and I was trying to act normal on a date. Just then, the waiter arrived and placed a steaming plate of shrimp and mussels atop linguine in front of me.

“The seafood special!” he announced loudly.

Of course. I was allergic to shellfish. Which my twin must have known. My stomach rolled in fresh waves of nausea.

“Fresh pepper?” the waiter asked, holding the grinder aloft like a trophy.

“Sure,” I said, watching the flakes rain down on my food. What did it matter? I noticed her abandoned white napkin sitting next to the plate, a blotted raspberry-kiss smirk all too evident. It looked like it was mocking me. I shook the napkin out and smoothed it in my lap, obscuring the mark.

“Great.” Matt grabbed his fork and stared down at his plate
of pasta. And I may have imagined it, but I could have sworn I heard laughter in the background.

And then, I noticed something on the floor.

It was a luxurious black leather purse, far more expensive-looking than the canvas satchel I toted everywhere. I leaned under the table and frantically grabbed it, rifling through it and pulling out a wallet.

Matt put his fork down. “Are you leaving?”

I didn’t listen. I opened the wallet, feeling my stomach free fall as the girl in the driver’s license displayed in the ID window stared back at me.

Jamie Thomson-Thurm. 167 Revere Drive.

Finally, I knew the identity of my sister.

But she had mine.

I
pushed myself back from the table. “I need to leave,” I said. “Now.” She had my wallet. She had my ID. With my ID, she could do whatever she wanted — which must have been her plan. She wanted to mess up my Ainsworth chances, to make me freak out about the future. Or at least, she wanted me to
think
that was what she was doing.
Had she killed Leah?
And if she had, then what else might she do?

“Is everything all right?” Matt rose to his feet.

“No. I’m sorry.” I wove between tables, knowing everyone was staring. I felt a hand on my shoulder. I whirled around and shrugged it off.

“Don’t touch me!” I yelled in a ragged voice I didn’t recognize as my own.

Matt’s face fell and two waiters hurried to his side, half restraining him. I knew I needed to say everything was okay, but I was panicking, feeling like a caged animal caught in a trap. Deep down, I knew Matt wasn’t the enemy. But I also didn’t know how I could possibly explain everything to him. What I needed was to find Jamie. And until then, Matt wouldn’t be safe. Better he think I was a psycho and stay away than cross paths with Jamie.

Based on her last name, I could only assume she lived with our father. It made no sense based on what my mother had told
me about James running away, but at this point, the lies were starting to bleed into the truth. There was no one left to trust.

My feet thwacked against the pavement as I ran to the Greyhound bus station on the other end of Main Street. I’d never taken the bus, but it seemed like the fastest, easiest way to get out of town. I was done playing detective. I’d fallen into her trap. And I wasn’t going to do that anymore.

The bus station was tiny and empty, except for two students with huge camping-type backpacks sleeping on the metal chairs. There wasn’t a bus attendant, only a dirty schedule taped to the tiled wall.

I squinted at it. It was barely visible in the dim fluorescent lighting and the numbers swam in front of me.

Just then, a bus pulled up to the curb.

I raced outside and onto the first step of the bus.

“Boston?” I asked.

“Well, we can bring you through Concord, and then you can catch another bus from there.” The bus driver glanced dubiously down the stairs at me, surely thinking I was some sort of teen runaway.

“That’s fine.” I fished a twenty from Jamie’s purse, and picked my way through the seats. I wanted to be by myself. But the only seat available was next to a large man holding a cat carrier in his lap.

As soon as the bus lurched out from the station, I dumped out the contents of Jamie’s purse on my lap. There was the oxblood-red wallet, containing a driver’s license, a few credit cards, and a stack of crisp twenties. I opened the zippered compartment and pulled out a pile of papers.

Receipt from a coffee place. A picture of a brown guinea pig with a white tuft of fur on its head. Was that her pet? It was such an odd thing to carry, but it also made me feel a little less panicky. Murderers don’t carry around pictures of cute animals, do they? The picture was faded, and the corner was frayed. It was clear the photo was old. I turned it over. In childlike handwriting were the words
Peanut Butter. I named him after my favorite thing in the world.

I gently tucked the photo back. More receipts. Then I found it. An index card with my passwords, my Social Security number.

My whole life.

I slumped down in my seat, aware that the man carrying the cat was looking at me strangely. Adrenaline surged through my veins.
167 Revere Drive
. In my mind, I repeated the words over and over, the syllables the only thing I was sure of. Once I met my father, I’d have proof that there had been two babies. I’d have someone on my side. And then —
then
— I could go to the police with proof and confront my mother and make everything go back to the way it should be.

167 Revere Drive, 167 Revere Drive.
The words lulled my brain, made me stop thinking of what Jamie would be doing now that she was in Bainbridge.

“Miss?”

A meow, followed by a hiss. The man with the cat carrier was trying to get past me.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Concord,” he announced.

“Concord? I have to go!” I leaped to my feet and raced down the bus steps into another dingy bus station. I headed toward the lone ticket window. The tired-looking clerk raised an eyebrow.

“Boston, please?”

“Bus doesn’t leave until seven.”

“There’s nothing earlier?” I pressed.

The clerk shook her head.

“All right.” I shoved a twenty through the metal grille of the window, then settled on a hard plastic chair to wait — while my sister was probably wrecking my life.

When the bus finally rolled up to Boston, my eyes were gritty and dry from being awake so long and my heart was hammering against my chest as though I’d downed two extra-large espressos — even though I hadn’t had anything except the water at the restaurant last night.

I blinked as I wavered unsteadily outside the bus terminal. I’d been to Boston a few times before, on school trips, but never often enough to know my way around. All of my fellow passengers seemed to have some sense of where they were going. I just had the Brookline address. I stumbled out to the taxi line, blinking in the weak sun. I flexed and unflexed my toes inside my shoes, then did the same with my calf muscles. It didn’t help.

“Taxi?” A driver jerked his thumb toward the black-and-white cab idling on the corner.

I nodded.

“One sixty-seven Revere Drive?” I asked. “In Brookline.”

The taxi driver nodded. My breath came in short bursts. James Thomson-Thurm was English. He had two children. He enjoyed parasailing, waterskiing, and opera. He had, at one point, been in love with my mother.

What if he doesn’t believe me?
The thought crept into my mind. Meanwhile, back in Bainbridge, everyone would believe Jamie was me.

“Right here?” The cab driver pulled up to a four-story Victorian house at the center of a circular drive. Or,
house
wasn’t the right word. It was a mansion, straight from an architecture magazine. It wasn’t the type of place I’d imagined a professor of medieval history would live. And yet …

“Is this one sixty-seven?” I asked, squinting at the address.

“Yes, ma’am. That’ll be thirty dollars.”

I pulled out Jamie’s wallet and peeled two twenties from the front of the stack in the main compartment. A sticky note was affixed to it.

The note was signed with a heart.

She’d known. She’d
known
I would come here. The computer history.
Of course.

“Thirty?” the driver pressed.

I passed the two crisp twenties toward him.

I balled my hands together, my fingers digging into my palms. It was now or never.
My name is Hayley Westin. You knew my mother, Wendy. Almost eighteen years ago, I was born….

It was the speech of my life — literally. All I needed to do was look him in the eye and tell the truth.

Steeling my courage, I walked up the flagstone path and rang the bell. Almost immediately, as though I’d been watched, the door swung open.

I was standing face-to-face with my father. He looked more weather-beaten than the man in the picture on the back of the book jacket, but the piercing eyes were the same.

I took a deep breath. “First, I’m not Jamie. I’m Hayley. And I …”

He laughed, a loud angry bark. “Don’t even do this to us. Not now.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me inside, through a gleaming hallway and into a large, well-lit kitchen. A beautifully manicured backyard was visible through the glass sliding doors, with trees wrapped in burlap sacks for the winter.

“Wait. Do you know who I am?” I yanked my elbow away from him. He grabbed it back.

“Deborah!” he bellowed. I detected the slightest trace of a British accent. In the very rare times I’d ever pictured us meeting, I thought we’d be introduced at someplace cozy, like the Ugly Mug. I never imagined him speaking to me in a hate-filled voice that made me tremble every time he opened his mouth.

A thin woman made her way into the kitchen. She was wearing a pair of black slacks and a purple cashmere sweater. It was impossible to tell her age — she could have been anywhere between forty and sixty-five — but what struck me were her eyes. Large, blue, and flickering, making it impossible to hold eye contact. She was clearly James’s wife, but why did she look so angry with me?

Unless …

“You think I’m Jamie,” I said slowly.

“We’re not playing games anymore. Yes, we think you’re Jamie. Yes, we think you’re our daughter,” the woman said, her voice low, musical, and vaguely threatening.

“I’m not Jamie. I’m
Hayley
. Her twin. Hayley Westin.”

Deborah and the man — my
father
— locked eyes, but it was impossible to read what they were trying to tell each other.

“Hayley,” Deborah hissed. “How convenient.”

Jamie’s father shook his head sadly. “Dr. Morrison said this could happen. It’s called splitting. It’s just another sign that she’s a very sick girl. And, of course, knowing she has a twin makes it that much easier to imagine an alternate personality. That’s why Wendy and I had agreed to keep it a secret.” He shook his head angrily. “Anyway, that place he told us about up in Maine is supposed to be the best, and I think with the right therapy, and maybe some electroshock, she could resume a normal life….” he said, as though I weren’t in the room.

“I didn’t know about Jamie. Jamie was the one who found
me
, and Jamie’s the one trying to take over my life. I came to stop it. And you have to help me. You have to at least believe me!” I locked eyes with James. I knew my voice was getting dangerously shaky, that I was on the verge of sounding like I was having a breakdown. I took a deep breath and went back to what I’d meant to say. “I’m Hayley Kathryn Westin. My mother is Wendy, and eighteen years ago, you and …”

James’s face crumpled, then hardened. He took a menacing step toward me.

“Stop it!” Deborah shouted. She put her hands on my shoulders. “Jamie. Hayley. Stop it,” she said. The scent of her
jasmine-and-honey perfume was overpowering. I tried to pull away, but she only tightened her grip. Behind her, a dark-haired boy padded into the kitchen. He was about my age, with shaggy hair that curled over his ears. He had the same blue eyes as his mother, but the half smile looked like my father’s on the book jacket. Which meant he had to be my half brother.

I stared at him, trying to get him to understand what was going on. I barely knew myself. “I’m not your sister, am I?” I asked, holding a wide, unblinking gaze and hoping he’d see something — a freckle, a gesture, a scar — that Jamie didn’t have.

He turned away, his shoulders stiffening. “I thought she wasn’t coming back,” he said in a hard voice.

“Aidan, go upstairs. You don’t need to see this,” James said firmly.

“See what? See Jamie self-destruct … again?” Aidan asked, sitting down at the kitchen table, his eyes flicking from Deborah to James, then back again. “Should we just call the police this time? Because I bet she did something she shouldn’t have. It was the stolen car last time. What do you think it is this time? Murder? What did you do, Jamie?” he asked.

“I’m sorry,” I said finally, breaking the silence. It was another Alice in Wonderland moment. I’d fallen down the rabbit hole and couldn’t make sense of the information being presented to me. Was I Jamie? Was I Hayley? Or was I someone else entirely? “If you can just listen to me, I’ll explain….”

“We don’t need your explanations. And
sorry
doesn’t work anymore,” the man said in a low voice, as threatening as the sound of a far-off thunderstorm.

“James,” Deborah said in a low voice. “Why don’t you call Dr. Morrison. We can’t talk rationally with her. It’ll hurt her, and it’ll hurt us. She needs help.”

James paused, then nodded once. As he left the room, Deborah and I stared at each other.

“You stole from us. We’re your
family
. This is trust. And I don’t know if we’ll ever get that back,” Deborah said slowly.

“I know this sounds crazy. I know you don’t believe me. But I’m Hayley. And if I can just call someone, I can prove —”

“Prove that you’re manipulative? That you’ve found more people to pull into your web of lies? No. You won’t do that. I know James believes in you, but I don’t. I really don’t. You turn eighteen in a few months, and then we’re done. We can’t be responsible for someone who’s so willfully irresponsible about everyone and everything in her life. When I think back to you as a child … the guinea pig —” She broke off.

“What guinea pig?” I asked, fear climbing up my spine.

“Only my favorite thing in the world,” Aidan said. My mind flashed to the picture in the wallet, the childish handwriting.

“Peanut Butter?” I asked reflexively, before I could stop myself.

“Good memory,” Aidan said tightly. “Especially for someone who apparently has no idea who Jamie is.”

I thought of the picture in the wallet.

Deborah shot a warning look at Aidan, then turned toward me.

“Stop it. For all of our sakes, just stop it.” She’d grabbed a napkin from the center of the table and was shredding it into smaller and smaller pieces, which rained down like snow on the table.

Just then, James came into the room. “It’s all set. They have emergency protocol for situations like this. They won’t be long.”

“So what do we do with her until then?” Aidan asked.

“We wait,” James said tersely. He folded his arms across his chest.

“Can we talk?” I asked in a small voice. Being in this house, surrounded by Jamie’s family, made it hard to think. I felt guilty, as if I were Jamie. Everyone was staring at me. No matter what I said, they wouldn’t believe me.

And so I bolted. I ran toward the sliding glass doors and yanked. They wouldn’t budge. I turned on my heel to run toward the front and was tackled by Aidan, who was six inches taller than I was. I lost my balance and fell, my head cracking against the floor.