The Third Twin (33 page)

There’s a bush at the corner of the house, and it makes a good cover as I look down the street at all the activity. There are four cop cars and a big black SUV parked at various angles in front of Elena’s house. I don’t see Rubi and Ava anywhere. They must already be gone, which means that the minutes until the cops find out Rubi’s true identity are ticking by. One cop is leaning into the open window of a car, talking to another cop, who is obviously typing something on a computer. The mood seems less urgent and more casual now that they’ve gotten what they came for. I look the other way at Zane’s van, parked behind a silver SUV one more house down from where I’m standing. Thank God there wasn’t room to park in front of Elena’s house when we got here today.

Nobody seems to look my way as I walk down the front yard next to the shrubs, then quickly along the sidewalk to Zane’s van. I say a silent prayer and find the door unlocked. I slip into the driver’s seat, duck down, and find the keys in the armrest right where he usually keeps them. I peek over the dashboard at the cop still standing at the open car window. He tilts his head back and laughs at something the other cop says—just another day, as far as he’s concerned.
“Go inside already,” I say under my breath as the minutes crawl by. Finally he bangs twice on the door of the squad car and waves as it begins to reverse. Then it pulls forward, and I press my face against the passenger seat while the car speeds off, inches from the van I’m hiding in. I glance back up in time to see the other cop take a quick look down the street, say something into the radio that’s attached to his shoulder, and turn toward Elena’s front door.

As soon as he’s out of sight, I slip the key into the ignition, and the van’s engine roars to life. I don’t even glance at Elena’s house as I turn in the middle of the street and head toward town. I can’t see out the back in the rearview mirror, so I sit up and tilt the mirror toward me until I see the end of Elena’s driveway receding into the distance. I hold my breath until I’m around the corner. Nobody on the street is paying any attention to the beat-up white van as it rolls away. After a few minutes of driving, I pull off the main road and into the parking lot of a strip mall. Surrounded by other cars, I feel a lot less conspicuous. I reach into my pocket, pull out Cecilia’s phone, and stare at the screen as it waits for me to enter the passcode. In the background there’s a photo from a couple of years ago of Rubi sticking her tongue out at the camera. Why would Cecilia pretend that she hates new phones? And laptops and tablets? I stare at the four empty boxes on the screen and on a hunch type in the four numbers of our birthday—at least, the date that Dad decided was our birthday—but the phone won’t let me in. What else would she use? I type in her birthday, but that’s not right either. The address at Elena’s house is too long. I’ve got to call Zane! I try to calm down
enough to think straight. I type in our birthday again, but only the month and day, 0620, and let out a whoop when the screen clears and her icons pop up.

I punch in the numbers Zane wrote on my hand and hear it ringing on the other end. I’m impatient for him to answer. Just as I think it’s going to voice mail, I hear him pick up, but there’s only a rustling on the other end.

“Zane?”

There’s no answer, and I wonder if they’ve already gotten back to the house.

“Zane?” I ask again.

I can hear muffled voices. He must not realize he picked up. I hang up and put my head on the steering wheel, then bang on it, tears in my eyes. Pick up the phone! Come on, Zane! Pick it up. Looking out the windshield at the liquor store, dry cleaner, and Baskin-Robbins, I wonder what I’m going to do if I can’t find him. I can’t go back to Elena’s. I can’t go back to my house. Or Zane’s. For someone who hates technology, Cecilia has pages and pages of icons for things I’ve never even heard of. I go back to the home screen, and my finger hovers over the photo icon. She obviously has photos of Rubi. Does she have photos of us growing up too? Was she taking them all along and we never noticed? I click on it, and it takes a few seconds for the image that appears to make sense in my brain. It’s me and Zane in the backyard of Elena’s house. I’m on the platform of the swing set, my hands covering my tears as Zane leans away from me. That’s creepy—why was she spying on us? I flip to the next photo and drop the phone when it comes up. Fumbling on the floorboard of
the van, I find it, but I don’t want to look again. I take a couple of deep breaths and look, but it’s still there—a picture of me and Eli in the alley of the club last night, his face twisted into a mask of hatred and betrayal as I try to convince him he’s in danger. Cecilia was there. Right there, just before he was killed.

Flicking through some more photos, I can’t believe what I’m seeing, but it’s all right in front of me. The photo of Eli and me at the party, the one of Ava and Dylan at the beach, along with the picture of Casey standing outside my car that night in the parking lot. Cecilia took them all and then posted them to Alicia’s page. She’s not afraid of technology. That was a lie.

I flick back to the first picture and study it, a feeling of dread seeping into my limbs. My hand shakes as I toss Cecilia’s phone onto the passenger seat and turn the key in the ignition. Zane guessed right—she was trying to protect us in some twisted way. And now he’s the only one left alive. I have to find them before she can finish the job.

I’m driving just to be moving, when I realize I don’t know where I’m going. Where did she say she was getting the food? Los something? Shit. I pull over again and grab her phone. It sounded like someplace they go all the time. I scroll through her address book and see it—Los Pericos. I quickly push the
CALL
button and wait until a guy with a heavy accent answers the phone.

“Hi,” I manage, trying to sound calm. “What’s your address?”

“Two seventy-eight East Fourteenth Street,” he says, the background noise almost deafening. They must be busy.

“Where is that?” I say, looking at the green street signs hanging on the traffic lights above my head. “Exactly?”

“In the Pelton Center. Next to the Bank of America,” he says abruptly, and hangs up.

I’m already on East Fourteenth Street. I see a neon sign
a few blocks ahead that starts with a
P
, and I pull into traffic. I slow down as I realize that they might not have even gone there. What if making Zane go with her was just an excuse to get him alone? I remember how he didn’t want to go, how she basically guilted him into it. I feel time slipping away—it must have been close to an hour ago now.

The parking lot of the Pelton Center is pretty big, but I spot Cecilia’s gold Lexus right away, parked directly in front of the restaurant. It has the dent above the back left tire that Ava put there when she was learning to drive, back when it was Dad’s car. The restaurant is packed, and I can’t see inside very well, but I keep my eyes trained on the front door. It feels like hours, but the clock says I’ve been here only a few minutes when the glass door swings open and Cecilia walks through, followed by Zane carrying several plastic bags full of food. They’re talking and relaxed, and I can barely believe the relief that floods through me. Zane’s fine, at least for now.

Before I can decide what to do, the back lights of the Lexus come on and Cecilia pulls out of the parking space. I try to pull out behind her, but my aisle is blocked by an old man in a giant Cadillac with his turn signal on, waiting for a car to pull out from in front of the bank.

“Come on!” I shout, honking my horn, but he just waves into the rearview mirror and keeps waiting. I can’t sit here. I have to get to Cecilia and Zane before anything happens. Reaching over, I pick up Cecilia’s phone to call Zane again, but it goes straight to voice mail.

I finally back all the way down the aisle, which is harder than I thought it would be in Zane’s giant van full of blind
spots, and turn toward the exit, but I don’t see the gold Lexus anywhere. I crane my neck to see down the busy street and spot them at a light about a block away. I hit the gas, pull in front of a bus, and manage to make it to the light four cars behind them. The light changes and they cross the intersection, but instead of turning right like she should to get back to the house, Cecilia keeps going. I only sort of know where we are, so she’s probably using a shortcut. I swing around two of the cars in front of me so that there’s only a VW and a small red car between me and the Lexus. I’m trying to figure a way around the cars, when Cecilia takes a quick right, and I’m too slow to react. I watch the Lexus disappear down an alley between two strip malls.

Damn it. I can’t turn around in the middle of the busy street, so I turn right at the next light and then right again at the end of the next block. If I’m lucky, the alley will come out directly in front of me. I see an alley, but I don’t see the Lexus, so I turn into the narrow space between the buildings, and the gold Lexus screeches to a stop about ten feet in front of me.

Thank God I found them! I’m reaching for the door handle when I sense that something’s wrong. Cecilia’s eyes go wide as she sees me in the van, and it’s not just surprise. There’s guilt there too. I know without a doubt that she’s behind everything that has happened. She didn’t cut herself making dinner the other day—that was all for show. She cut herself struggling with Dylan that morning. Right before she put a blade into the back of his neck.

I need to get Zane away from her. I’m up much higher
than they are, and I don’t think she can see my hand as I reach for Cecilia’s phone, barely glancing down as I dial 911 and hit
SPEAKER
. Cecilia’s staring at me through the windshield of her car, so I turn to the side and rub my nose to cover my actions as I give the dispatcher our location.

“Do you need police or fire department?” the dispatcher asks.

“Police,” I say. “Hurry!” Zane’s already at my window.

“Lexi! What’s going on?”

I’d better be right, because there’s no turning back now. I leave the phone on the seat and climb out of the van. I have to play this right—not let on that I know anything and stall until the police get here. “Oh my God, you guys! You’ll never believe what happened at the house!” Even to me, my words sound false and hollow.

Cecilia plasters on a fake smile as she slides out of the driver’s seat. “Lexi!” she says with surprise. “Is everything okay?” Her left hand is empty, but her right hand is in her coat pocket as she steps out of the car. I’ll bet everything that she has a knife in there. This was no innocent shortcut. She was planning on killing Zane right here, next to the filthy green Dumpster.

“What happened?” Zane’s eyes are full of concern as he stands next to me.

I have to keep going like I don’t know what Cecilia is doing. Who she has become. “The cops came. To the house.” I’m standing awkwardly by the hood of the van, but I can’t think of what else to do without giving anything away. It’s taking everything I have to stay in this one spot. I have to keep her
here and keep her talking. “They took Ava. And Rubi, because they thought she was me. I hid in the closet until I could get out through a window.”

Cecilia looks shocked. “So they think they have you already?”

“Yeah. But it won’t take very long for them to figure it out.” I let the built-up frustration come to the surface, and my voice breaks. “And I don’t know what to do now.”

Usually Cecilia would be the one to put her arm around me, to tell me that it’s going to be okay, but this time it’s Zane. I can feel his heart pounding as I press into his chest. I pull him down toward me even more. “The cops are coming,” I whisper into his ear.

He leans away from me, looking confused. He doesn’t understand.

But Cecilia does. “You need to get away from her,” she says, a menacing tone in her voice that is totally out of character for the person I know so well.

“Why?” He grabs my hand and steps slightly in front of me.

“Because Cecilia is the one we’ve been looking for,” I say, my eyes steady on her.

A strange sort of calm seems to come over her as she gestures toward the Lexus. “Look, why don’t we all get back into the car and get out of here? We can talk about this rationally somewhere else.”

My heart’s pounding. What’s taking the cops so long? “I know what you did,” I say, stepping out from behind Zane.
“I found your phone. The one you didn’t want us to know about. And I saw the photos.”

Cecilia’s face pales as she absorbs the information. She stands up straighter, and I can see her resolve strengthening. “I did it for you. For both of you. To protect you, because that’s been my job since the day you were born.”

“To protect us? Are you serious?” It feels like I’ve been punched in the stomach. I knew that Cecilia did this, but to have her actually admit it almost knocks me off my feet. Cecilia’s been my mom, my nurse, and my shoulder to cry on. And now she’s my enemy.

“Those boys were bad. All of them. They hurt you, and I knew that if I didn’t do something, it was going to get worse.”

“So you killed them? You really killed them?” I know in my head that it’s true, but it’s so hard to picture Cecilia plunging a knife into Dylan’s neck and then coming home to pack my lunch for school. It’s crazy.