PROLOGUE
Move, my brain screams—my arms and legs lag behind.
Blood pools behind her head, oozing out over the tile floor. Her eyes roll back into a blank stare. If I want to get out of here, this is my only chance. I don’t have much time before someone misses her.
I grab the key card out of her coat pocket and gingerly pull off her lab coat, being careful not to stain it with the growing river of blood.
As I slip on her white coat, my head darts around for something I can use as a weapon—but this isn’t a surgical center. No scalpels. No razors. Nothing sharp.
Syringes.
Scads of them.
Yes, this can work.
I fumble through the medicine cabinet, and it’s like a candy store for drug addicts.
Ketamine.
Midazolam.
Haldol.
Potassium chloride, instantly deadly.
But only if I can hit a vein.
Nope. Too risky.
I rip a syringe open with my teeth, push in the plunger, tear open the vial tabs, and stab the needle into the first vial, then the second. I fill the syringe with a lethal dose of ketamine and midazolam, hoping that it will work fast enough, if it comes to that.
Two or three minutes or so for onset, injected into a muscle.
I’ve never envisioned myself as a murderer. But what choice do I have?
Footsteps outside the door stop me in my tracks.
Someone’s hovering, and I can only hope they don’t call out her name.
She moans.
She’s alive?
What if she cries out for help?
Sweat moistens my palms as I wait. I wipe away the dampness, willing myself to calm down. I can’t afford to have slippery fingers with what I’m attempting.
Now it’s quiet. Too quiet. I didn’t hear footsteps or anyone leaving.
Are they just standing there?
Maybe they heard our scuffle?
If she makes a sound, I’m as good as dead.
I rip open another syringe, grab a vial of potassium chloride out of the cabinet, and fill it. On reflex, I tap it to get out the air bubbles, and a nervous chuckle slips out.
What’s the point of that?
I find a vein on the top of her hand, which is creepily warm. She seems to have passed out again, or else she’s dead. But I’m pretty sure she’s still alive, although I can always tell myself she wasn’t. But I’m not positive.
Can I actually do this?
For a split second, I hesitate.
Before this moment, it was self-defense.
It’s her or me, though, so I prepare to jab the needle into her vein.
Instead, I check again for a pulse.
She’s dead … I’m pretty sure.
The door handle turns.
I rush behind the door and ready my other syringe. My heart’s pounding so hard, I’m afraid someone will hear it. My pulse thrums in my ears as I await what’s next.
Then the handle catches, the lock saving me—or whoever’s on the other side.
I wait in stillness as the sound of a woman’s heels click, click, clicking on the tile floor fades to silence, willing my racing pulse to slow.
At least it’s not Cameron.
Then I make my move.
PART ONE
One month earlier
ONE
Nora
The pain is unbearable, deep in the pit of my stomach, the scars of a lifetime suddenly ripped open. I haven’t slept for days. I don’t even know my own mind.
Dipping in and out of consciousness, I’m kept barely functional by little microsleeps. My head aches behind my eyes. I’d give anything to fall into the black abyss, where all my problems dissolve into the quiet darkness.
Soft meditation music plays in the background.
“It’s not your fault,” a voice calls out to me. “Life is hard,” it continues, the ding … ding … ding of the bells hypnotic, comforting. “We can take away your pain. Come to Switzerland. Find your inner peace.”
Tears pool in my eyes.
“It’s all going to be okay,” I tell myself.
I click on the link.
It looks so peaceful there.
For the first time in months, I have hope.
Tears stream down my face as I absorb it all.
Taking away my pain.
It sounds so tempting.
I want to believe.
I need to believe.
So, I do.
And that is my first mistake.
TWO
Casey
“What do you mean you haven’t seen her in days?” I fight the urge to reach out, grab him by the shirt, and pull him into my pinched face.
Ty shrugs, as if this is a normal occurrence, then shuttles me over to the other side of the room. A small dog nearly leaps from its owner’s arms, yapping at me with its teeth bared. At first, I startle, but then it seems funny to me—how it doesn’t seem to know it’s too tiny to be a real threat. Kind of like me, going up against my brother-in-law.
“We had an argument,” Ty says. “She left. I figure she’ll come back when she cools off. Can you please keep your voice down?”
“What kind of argument?”
Ty stiffens and presses his lips. “That’s none of your concern.”
Narrowing my eyes at him, I hold my ground. “Oh, I think it is my concern. Why didn’t you tell me she was missing?”
He’s a big guy. You’d think he was a lumberjack or a mountain climber with his full beard and bulging biceps, but he’s actually a veterinarian. The kind of person who gets along better with animals than humans.
To my knowledge, he has never hit my sister. But he has a temper, that much I know. The kind of guy who saves it all up and then blows a gasket, according to Nora. My sister’s not easy to live with, either. It’s not a great situation, but then, I thought they were doing better. At least, that’s what she told me.
“She’s not missing. You know how she gets. She’s done it before,” he says.
“Have you gone to the police?”
Ty looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “No. Of course not. Why would I?”
His blonde assistant appears, tapping her foot, her arms folded.
Am I annoying you? I want to say.
“Dr. Thompson?” Her head darts towards the entrance door that leads to the exam rooms, around the back of the reception desk.
“I need to go,” Ty says.
But I’m not about to leave it at that. “She’s not answering her phone. This is strange. I’m going to the police.”
“Fine,” Ty says. “Do what you need to do.”
And with that, he’s gone.
***
Officer Williams is a no-nonsense-looking woman. Early middle-aged, if I had to guess, with a tawny complexion and short dark hair. She fidgets from time to time with a ruby necklace as she questions me and takes down my information.
“What’s your sister’s name?”
“Nora Thompson.”
“Age?”
“31.”
“Married, you said?”
“Yes. No kids.”
“And the husband. He hasn’t seen her in three days?”
“That’s what he told me today.”
A male officer shuttles a scruffy guy in handcuffs past me. He looks time-warped from another era, with longish hair, tattered flip-flops, and ripped jeans—and not the designer kind. We’re in the precinct bullpen, and it’s not that crowded. This isn’t a high-crime area. More of a sleepy So Cal beach town.
The man shoots me a look teeming with regret. I take it as a cautionary tale. Nobody wants to be that guy, me included.
Officer Williams proceeds to ask me exactly the kind of questions I feared she would.
Has she done this before?
Did they argue?
Exactly the kind of questions that will cause the police to fail to take this seriously. Yes, I know there is a pattern here. Yes, I’m not an idiot. But this feels different, somehow. I know it, in my gut. It’s a twin thing, although if I say that, she’ll probably dismiss me as some kind of new-age wacko. I tell her I have a feeling something is terribly wrong.
“Nora is your twin sister.”
I nod.
“Are you close?”
I shrug. “We’re twins. Even when we’re not close, we’re close.”
She offers me a half-smile and nods. “I get that. My best friend in high school was a twin. They didn’t get along all the time, but they still went to the same college. Seemed a little stifling to me, but I guess it worked for them.”
“That’s why I know that something’s not right. Nora hasn’t been in contact with me all week.”
“But you said that happens. It’s not like you text or call each other every day.”
“That’s true, but not for this long. And I’ve texted and called her repeatedly. It’s not like her to go completely dark.”
“That’s never happened before?” the officer asks.
Hesitating for a split second, I lie. “No.”
A little white lie, for the greater good.
I can’t tell the officer everything. Not yet. I need her on my side, and I need more proof that something’s happened.
So, she humors me. We fill out a missing persons report. She asks for Nora’s social media, her email address, her cell number. She takes down all my contact information.
“I’ll get back to you when I have something to report,” she says.
Her look tells me I’ve overstayed my welcome.
I depart the Carlsbad Police Department, having accomplished pretty much nothing.
THREE
Nora
Palm fronds sway in the gentle breeze as I stare out at the sea. A gust of wind catches my napkin and whisks it off the table. I bend down to pick it up, but a hand beats me to it.
Our eyes lock. His are dark brown, almost black, framed by long, lush lashes that soften their intensity. He wears a crisp white blazer over a light grey polo shirt and jeans. It should be too hot for an outfit like that, but the air feels cool, an artificial kind of cool, although we’re outside. None of this makes any sense, but I go with it. Perhaps it’s the effects of my treatment. My senses are a little off.
“You must be Nora,” he says.
“Cameron?” I ask, knowing the answer full well.
He nods. “Welcome,” he says, and he slips into the seat across from me.
There’s a familiarity about his demeanor that puts me at ease.
“I bet you have a lot of questions,” Cameron says.
“You could say that.”
“Would you like a drink first, or do you want to get right to it?”
“A drink sounds good.”
We’re at a pool bar that sits in front of a small stretch of rocky shoreline.
“What can I get you?” he asks.
I shrug. “A virgin mimosa?”
Why am I asking permission?
Cameron makes his way over to the bar area and shares a chuckle with the attendant.
Are they laughing at me?
No, I need to let go of the self-doubt. That’s why I’m here.
The setting is lovely. Tropical and fragrant, surrounded by acres of jungle. I don’t know exactly where I am. I flew into Puerto Vallarta, so I’m somewhere in Mexico, a few hours to the south of the airport. That much I know.
The sea is an emerald green. The water is shallow, with coral popping out of the water’s surface, dotting it, like baby shark teeth. Patches of dark sand slip between the rocks. Not suitable for swimming, but stunningly beautiful. Beyond the reef breaks the raging surf, the raw power of nature on display.
Cameron saunters back over to me with my mimosa and his coffee mug.
“What day is it?” I ask.
He smiles as he sits. “Does that matter?”
I shrug. “Habit, I guess.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
I’ll get used to what?
The pain is gone, I notice. That toxic sludge in the pit of my stomach—no longer there. I feel lighter, but oddly out of sorts, like a part of me went with it.
“Where are we?” I ask.
He tilts his head, appraising me. “How do you feel?”
“Good. Better. Lighter? But you didn’t answer my question.”
He smiles. “We’re everywhere. And nowhere. It’s not important. What’s important is you.”
I’m important.
That feels nice.
“What do you want to do today?” he asks.
“What can I do?”
“Anything you want. That’s the whole point.”
Anything I want.
It’s almost too much to fathom.
“What if I want to do nothing?”
“Then you do nothing.”
I smile and take a sip of my mimosa.
Today, I’ll do nothing.
And then I’ll take it from there.
FOUR
Casey
Being a twin has its pros and cons. When you’re young, you’ve got built-in company, but you’ve also got built-in competition: for breast milk, for attention, for diaper changes. Not that I remember that far back. But I would imagine, given Nora’s personality, my needs often took a back seat.
Still, there’s something I can’t explain about being an identical twin to anyone who hasn’t experienced it. It’s as if we’re still connected, somehow. When Nora’s upset, I feel it in my soul, as if it’s happening to me, too. We came from the same egg. We were one once, and on some level, we always will be. They say a mother can only be as happy as her least happy child. After all, the child grew inside of her. The child was a part of her. A mother feels her child’s pain. That’s even more true for a twin, because we never existed apart from each other.
Yet we are so different, Nora and I. Yin and Yang. Flip sides of the same coin. Mirror twins, we’ve been told, which occurs in about 25 per cent of identical twin births. I’m right-handed, she’s left-handed. I have a mole on my right cheek, and she’s got one on her left.
Psychological mirroring is a more controversial phenomenon, and people will tell you that it’s not a thing. But I swear, with Nora and me, we’re total opposites in personality and demeanor, too, and whether it’s due to nature or nurture doesn’t matter. What matters is she sucks up all the air in the room, leaving me to choke down the toxic fumes that remain.
To say Nora has a flair for the dramatic would be an understatement. To say she’s a raging nutcase would be an exaggeration. The truth lies somewhere in between and has vacillated over the years.
So yes, I could imagine that Nora would take off for a few days and not contact anyone. She’s done it before, and I hope the cops don’t find out that I lied to them. That might even be illegal, although I doubt anything would come of it.
But the circumstances were different then. We were younger. More impulsive. People weren’t on their devices as much back then. She’s seen my texts, if she’s conscious. Would she willfully ignore them? I thought she was past the point where she’d pull this kind of stunt. I want to doubt it. She has no reason to do that.
I’ve called all the hospitals in the vicinity and got the all clear. But without Ty’s help or the police, there’s not much more I can do in terms of tracking her. Nora’s an artist. A painter, and she works from home, so it’s not like work will miss her. There’s no news from the detective on her case. So, I’m taking matters into my own hands.
The office is sparse but functional, housed in a strip mall with more than a few vacancies, which I take as a good sign. I don’t want a private investigator who wastes money on fancy furniture and artwork.
“Ms. Valentine?” A man calls to me and motions me through the door.
He’s on the older side but looks to be in good shape, with decades of experience in law enforcement, according to his website. Not that there were tons of younger guys to choose from, and besides, this situation calls for wisdom over youthful enthusiasm. I need someone who has good instincts, borne of decades of experience.
Someone like Hank Mercer.
We don’t sit near his desk. Rather, he takes a seat on the black leather love seat, and I park myself in the club chair next to it.
He asks me what Nora does for a living.
“She’s a painter,” I reply. “Relatively successful, in that her paintings sell and occasionally bring in some money. Before she got married, she was an art teacher at a private school, but when she married Ty, she quit to focus on her artwork.”
“And the husband brings in the steady money?” Hank asks.
I nod, but I don’t think money would cause Ty to do anything drastic. He’s always accepted his role as breadwinner, although I could see him being fed up with her antics. They argue a lot. I tell this to Hank.
“And what do you do?” he asks.
I picked a practical career that’s in high demand, unlike my sister, and I wonder why this even matters. But I’m sure he has a process, so I tell him. “I’m a paramedic,” I say.
“Tough job. You’re off today?”
“I had some vacation time lined up.” I look away, shifting in my seat. His piercing gaze makes me uncomfortable.
I’m single. No kids. No strings. I was thinking about taking my first trip to Europe, but once again, Nora’s disrupted my plans. But I don’t reveal this to Hank. It’s almost as if he’s suspicious of me, like he’s reading my thoughts.
Does he think I had something to do with her disappearance?
That this meeting is some kind of pre-emptive strike to cover myself?
“Maybe this was a mistake,” I say. I lean forward, preparing to abandon this meeting. “I should probably leave it to the police.”
“This will go a lot better if you tell me everything,” Hank says.
Shrugging, I say, “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“You’re here because you have to be. She’s your sister. But you’re not happy about it.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Why would I be happy that my sister is missing?”
“When most people come to me about a missing person, there’s an air of desperation about them. A sense of urgency. An excitement of sorts, that someone is finally listening to them. But you? You’re going through the motions.”
“And why do you think that is?” I ask.
“Because she’s done this before. You’re resentful about having to be here, but you’re doing it anyway because, well, that’s what the good sister does.”
“What makes you think I’m the good sister?”
“Just a hunch.”
I sigh.
And then I decide to tell him everything. Well, not everything, everything. But enough to get him to trust me.
“She has some issues,” I say.
Hank smirks. “Temperamental artist?”
“You could say that. She was diagnosed with OCD in middle school and then borderline personality disorder when we were in high school. Do you know much about those conditions?”
“A little. Enough. But why don’t you tell me what that meant for you?”
“Is this a therapy session, Mr. Mercer?”
“I prefer Hank.”
Rolling my eyes, I continue. “It means my needs took a back seat to hers, from the day I was born, I would imagine.”
Hank nods. “That explains your demeanor. Then why are you here? Why not just wait for her to resurface?”
“Because this time, it feels different,” I say.
He shrugs. “Then it probably is. So, let’s get to work.”