Tweedledum and Tweedledee (12 page)

"We still believe he’s guilty," the inspector said. "There is no doubt about it. We just need to find more evidence to prove it."

I put my iPad down and looked outside. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. It was a beautiful day.

No gunshot residue, huh?

I turned my head and looked at Victor. Then I thought about what he had told me. He knew this. Somehow he knew this.

The question was, what else did he know? Did this have anything to do with his nightmares? With his sudden nosebleed? Could Alonzo Colombo be innocent? Was it possible?

I thought about the girl who had disappeared last night. If Alonzo Colombo was, in fact, innocent, then that would mean someone else had made Alberto Colombo disappear. It would also mean that that someone was still on this ship.

I got up from the couch and looked at Victor and Christoffer. "I need to go talk to someone, guys. Just stay here and watch your show."

32

April 2014

I
WALKED OUT INTO
the hallway. I walked to the right towards my parents' suite, then knocked on the door to the one next to theirs. An older woman opened the door. She looked weary.

"
Si
?"

"Mrs. Alessandrino?" I asked in English.

"That's me."

"Can I come in? My name is Emma Frost. My parents are your neighbors. I’m staying in a suite further down the hallway."

The woman looked confused, then opened the door and let me in.

"Thank you," I said and walked past her inside their suite.

In the living room, I found Mr. Alessandrino. He was sitting in a chair, looking glum and worried.

"We have a guest, Michael," Mrs. Alessandrino said in English. "Her name is Emma Frost."

"Hello, Mr. Alessandrino," I said.

He didn't answer. He kept staring out at the moving ocean. "If she fell in the water, then we're just moving further and further away from her every minute," he said. "We asked if they could stop and go back, but they said it was too late. The coastguard is out there, looking for her and that guy. All we can do is sit here and wait. Wait for what, I ask? Wait till they pull her dead body out of the water? Wait for them to knock on this door and tell us we were right? I know she’s dead. I just know it in my father's heart. It's all in here, you know," he said, and punched his chest hard. "My heart is bleeding right now. It is hurting so bad. I'd rather jump in that water myself and look for her. I might die, but at least that would be something. At least I wouldn't be sitting here."

I felt Mrs. Alessandrino's hand on my arm. "You have to excuse Dr. Alessandrino. He was…is very close with our daughter. She has always been a daddy's girl. Please have a seat."

I sat at the dining table. Their suite was a little bigger than mine and had a formal dinning room as well.

"I'm sorry I can't get you anything," the woman said, almost bursting into tears at the fact.

"It's okay. I didn't come here to be served. I came here to see if I could be of help to you."

Mrs. Alessandrino nodded. She grabbed a chair next to mine.

"Lots of nice people have stopped by to offer their help in our time of need. But unfortunately, there isn't much we can do. The cruise-ship personnel are searching every corner of the ship, but it’s like she has simply vanished." Mrs. Alessandrino inhaled sharply to stop herself from bursting into tears. I put my hand over hers. I felt a huge lump in my throat. I thought about my own daughter, Maya, and wanted badly to call her right now. I had seen her updates on Facebook and knew she was alright, but still. I wanted to hold her. Feel her in my arms. Make sure she was still here. Watching the sorrow in these people's eyes was unbearable.

"So, how much do you know thus far?" I asked.

Mrs. Alessandrino shook her head. "Not much. She was seen in the nightclub downstairs and apparently left with some guy I’ve never seen before. The bartender was certain it was her when we reported her missing. Then, they pulled the surveillance photos and I…I simply can't understand how this can be my little girl. She would never do anything like this. It's just not her."

"And they're sure it was her?"

The woman sniffled and wiped her nose with a napkin. She got up from the chair and walked to a dresser.

"I have the pictures here. They gave us a copy. Would you believe they would serve drinks to a thirteen year-old? She’s just a child."

Mrs. Alessandrino showed me the pictures and sat down again.

The girl certainly doesn't look thirteen in those pictures, I thought to myself. She was wearing a very tight dress and dancing wildly with a guy who, in several of the pictures, had his hands on her body.

"I really can't stand looking at those pictures," Mrs. Alessandrino sobbed. "I don't understand what is going on with her. It's like she’s someone else all of a sudden."

"I know how you feel. I have a fourteen year-old myself and it felt like she changed overnight as well. Like, all of a sudden, she is this grown up who is nothing like the girl I used to know."

I flipped through the pictures from the club, then paused. "What is this?"

"That is a picture we had taken last night during dinner at the restaurant. The ship's photographer took it. It's the last picture we have of her…where she looks like herself and not this…this strange…," Mrs. Alessandrino paused. She wiped her eyes with the napkin, then sniffled. "It's the last time we were all together."

"You all look very happy."

"We were," Dr. Alessandrino suddenly said. "Who'd know that one stupid mistake could destroy such a beautiful picture? Could destroy our lives like this?"

"Now, Michael. We don't know if she is dead yet," Mrs. Alessandrino said. "She might just have slept in some cabin somewhere that they haven't searched yet. Remember, they told us that it will take them all day to go through the entire ship. Some of the people who have been out all night might still be sleeping. If she was that drunk, she might not wake up until later today. I still have my hopes up. Be the pessimist if you want, you old grumpy man. I refuse to believe the worst."

"I'm not believing anything. I know she is dead, woman. Don't you understand? I know she is gone," Dr. Alessandrino hissed.

"Don't listen to him. He always was the pessimistic one in our family," she said to me. "Not a good trait for a surgeon, right? I mean, if it was someone I loved who was going under the knife, I would like the doctor to be a little optimistic. But that was never my Michael. Not since…Well, not since he had a bad experience once. It's not something we talk about."

I nodded silently, not knowing what to say to all this. I wondered if it was a mistake to come. I had nothing to offer to these people in all their sorrow and worry. I held the Polaroid photo in my hand and looked at the family who appeared to be so happy. I wondered if they just pretended, just like we had tried to when the same photographer took our picture and everything went wrong. Was this entire trip just a mistake? Were we just pretending we were happy among each other?

"Are you alright, dear?" Mrs. Alessandrino asked.

"I'm fine. Sorry. I was just thinking of my own family. My daughter is not on this cruise with us. I just miss her all of a sudden."

"Take good care of her while you have her," Dr. Alessandrino said. "We tried everything to protect Francesca from the world, except for wrapping her in bubble-wrap. But it still wasn't enough. The one moment you're not paying attention can snap them away from you."

"Michael!" Mrs. Alessandrino hissed. "She's not dead yet."

"Yes, she is."

"No!" Mrs. Alessandrino was yelling with tears in her voice now. "No, she is not!"

"Then tell me where she is. Tell me."

"Arh, you old grumpy man," she snarled. "Just because of that old stupid story about those weird twins…Not everything in life has to end badly."

I got up from my chair. "I think I need to get back. But please let me know if there is anything I can do to help you in any way."

"That is awfully nice of you, dear," Mrs. Alessandrino said and followed me to the door. "I'm sure she'll turn up later today and then everything will be fine."

I listened to her say the words, but I could tell by the tone of her voice that she was losing confidence in them. She said them, but no longer believed them.

It broke my heart.

33

April 1982

T
HEY CAME INTO THE
back of the truck in the morning, as usual. The twins were awake when the door opened and bright sunlight struck their faces. As usual, it was the two men who entered with sticks in their hands. And, as usual, they were supposed to beat up the twins as a part of their preparation ritual. They never fed them till nighttime, after the shows. Their breakfast always consisted of beating and humiliation.

The cage was opened and the two men stuck their hands in and grabbed the twins' arms. They pulled them out of the cage and threw them on the ground of the truck. The twins usually growled when someone touched them, but not this time. This time, they didn't make a sound as the men lifted their sticks and let them fall down hard on the twins' mutual body. They didn't moan in pain; they didn't snarl in anger.

They remained completely quiet.

"Freaks!" one of the men shouted.

The other one spat in their faces, then swung the stick and whipped them on their back till red stripes appeared on their bare skin.

Still, the twins made no sounds. They simply stared at the men, looking like they were waiting for something, waiting for the right moment.

It frightened the men. Everyone was afraid of the twins. Ever since the gang's fortune teller had made the prophecy. In her tea-leaves, she had seen the twins kill them all. Rip their bodies apart, one after another. That was why every gypsy in the gang wanted to beat them so badly. They wanted to beat the strength out of them, beat out the spite.

Sensing how the beating didn't affect the twins on this particular morning, the men became frustrated and increased the intensity. They made the strokes harder and wilder; they swung the sticks faster, and left very visible marks on their mutual body.

Still, there was no reaction.

"Monsters!" one of them yelled.

"Beasts!" the other one joined him. "Ugly, freaking beasts. Go back to hell where you came from."

The men were sweating, soaking their shirts under the arms and on the chest. They were frustrated now. The twins could see it in their eyes. They could smell it in their sweat. The sweet smell of anxiety.

"You two are the ugliest damn thing on this planet. Nasty drooling mutants," one of them continued.

He was circling the twins, while panting for air. Their back was striped from the beating. But they refused to feel any pain. Today was their birthday. At least, they had decided it was. This was the day when they would be re-born.

One of the men was looking at the other. "I don't know what’s wrong with them today," he said.

"Mama Florea said to make them aggressive, so that's what we'll do," the other said. "We'll continue until they get angry."

"Fine by me," the first man said. He grabbed a baseball bat and lifted it in the air. With a huge roar, he ran towards the twins and swung it against them, when suddenly they reached up an arm and grabbed the bat in the air. With a strength that was barely human, they stopped it in mid-air.

The man gasped and let go. He watched with eyes wide open as they crushed the bat, splintered it into atoms in front of him, using nothing but one single hand.

For the first time since the men entered the truck, the twins showed some kind of emotion.

They smiled.

"What the hell…?" the other man said.

For years, the twins had hidden their true strength. They had taken the beatings because they thought they didn't deserve any better. They subdued themselves to others because they thought they weren't worth anything. They thought that, no matter where they went, people would only treat them the same way. But not anymore. On their twelfth birthday, the twins decided it was finally over.

They rose to their three feet like they had done in fighting the vicious dogs, opened their mouths and let out a growl that didn’t sound human at all.

The men gasped and stumbled backwards, but before they knew it, the twins had fallen back to their arms and like a giant two-headed spider, and jumped both of them. With their long nails, they scratched their eyes out, then strangled them both simultaneously with their four bare hands.

34

April 2014

T
HE MAN DIDN'T FEEL
good. He was walking back and forth in his lower deck cabin sweating, rubbing his hands together, and trying hard to not lose control. It was so tough. So difficult for him to keep his thoughts from running off.

Something wasn't right. It wasn't good enough. He looked into the case where his creation lay. Deedee had gotten a new leg and extra skin to patch up where he needed it. But it wasn't good enough. The man had miscalculated somehow. The old skin was falling off fast now, like it was evaporating in front of his eyes. He didn't have enough. He had gotten rid of the girl's body in a hurry, once they started looking for her all over the ship. He had dissolved her with acid in the bathtub and made her disappear. He had scrubbed the floor clean of her blood, so no one would see it. Then, he had disinfected the entire cabin so none of her fingerprints would show up, in case they decided to examine his place.

But next thing he knew, Deedee was falling apart again. It wasn't going according to his plan. He needed to change his plans. Instead of going straight for the face, he realized he needed one more. He needed to act once again to have enough skin for the body. He only took what was on the back and abdomen because of the simple fact that it was the finest skin. And he only wanted the best and finest for Deedee. His skin was going to be soft and smooth as a baby's.