The Stranger in the Mirror(77)

A sleepy-sounding voice comes over the line.

“This is Julian Hunter, Cassandra’s husband. There’s been an accident. I found this number in my wife’s handbag.”

“Oh my gosh. Is Cassandra all right? She asked me to watch Valentina at the aquarium sleepover and bring her home with my daughter in the morning. The girls are still sleeping. Cassandra wanted to surprise you with a night alone.”

My daughter is safe, thank God.

“She’s fine,” I lie. “Can you give me your address, and I’ll come get Valentina?”

We make arrangements, and I end the call.

But where is Cassandra? She must have left on foot. Maybe she tried to flag someone down. She was either hurt or . . . could the trauma of what she saw have sent her into shock? I think of all the manipulation my therapy has done to her mind, her memory. One thing’s for sure: I can’t call the police. They might discover who she really is.

I stand up and pace. The new Cassandra must be out there somewhere. I’ve got to find her before she remembers—before she turns me in, and everything I’ve done over the past two years to mold her into Cassandra is for nothing. And when I do, I’ll make her believe that she’s crazy, that the best thing for everyone is for her to end her life. It will be sad for Valentina, but better for her to grow up with a loving father than for her new mother to remember the truth and put me in prison. Then Valentina would be utterly alone, thrust into foster care. There is no way I will let that happen.





Part IV

Present Day





??60??

Blythe




As the car sped along, Blythe opened the folder on her lap and reread the email Jim Fallow had sent to her in the morning. He’d looked into the past of Connor Gibbs, the dead owner of the nightclub, questioning those who’d worked for him, finally discovering the identity of the mysterious Blue Mirror stripper—a woman named Shannon Foster from Orlando. He’d attached a four-year-old article from the Orlando Sentinel. Blythe scanned the headline once again—“Police Investigating Murder/Suicide in Orlando Home”—and moved to the body of the article:

Orlando, December 26—Ernest Foster, a commercial airline pilot, killed his wife, their daughter, and his wife’s mother on Christmas Day, before taking his own life, investigators said Tuesday.

The authorities found the bodies on Monday afternoon after a call from another daughter, Amelia Foster, a photographer living in Boston who had arrived Christmas morning and found the bodies of her parents, grandmother and twin sister. She is the only surviving relative.

Investigators searching the house found Jean Foster, 49, in the living room with gunshot wounds to the head and chest, said the Orange County district attorney. Daughter Shannon Foster, 23, and her grandmother, Jeannette Everly, 70, were both dead of gunshot wounds to the head.

Deputies found Mr. Foster in an upstairs bedroom with a fatal and self-inflicted gunshot wound. Investigators said no note was left at the scene.

The authorities would not speculate on a motive but said Mrs. Foster had applied for a restraining order against her husband in 2003, saying Mr. Foster had beaten her and had broken furniture in their home.

She later dropped the complaint.



From the back seat Blythe stared out the window as the four of them—herself, Gabriel, Ed, and Gigi—drove to White Plains, New York, to question Zane Dryer, Cassandra’s ex-husband. Zane, an investment broker, had agreed to meet them at his office that afternoon. They hadn’t told him much on the phone, only that they were friends of Cassandra’s and that they were concerned about her well-being.



Blythe looked down at the page once again and brought it closer to her face, squinting as she once more examined the family photograph the newspaper had published. There was no question in her mind that Amelia was Addison. She and Shannon were obviously identical twins, and if Addison and Amelia were one and the same, Addison would be only twenty-seven now. Blythe closed the folder and leaned back in her seat, closing her eyes. She hoped they would get the answers they were seeking when they met with Cassandra’s ex-husband, Zane. He might hold the key to the truth.

“When did the detective say they were divorced?” Gigi asked, shifting in her seat on the passenger side to look back at Blythe.

Blythe opened her eyes. “Almost ten years ago.”

Ed scoffed, looking from the driver’s seat into the rearview mirror at Blythe. “Impossible. I don’t care what Julian said, I knew there was no way Addison was close to forty.”

“Of course she’s not. This must be her. Julian is hiding something. I think he’s tricked her . . . and all of us . . . somehow,” Gabriel said.

“Well, we’ll know soon enough,” Blythe said.

They pulled into the parking lot of Soundview Investments at three. The receptionist in Zane’s office took their names and picked up her phone to announce them.

Moments later a trim man with sandy hair and wire-rimmed glasses approached them, holding out a hand. “Zane Dryer.”

Blythe estimated that he was in his early forties, a friendly-seeming guy. He led the group down the hall to his spacious office.

“Thank you for agreeing to see us,” Blythe said, getting right to the point. “As I told you on the phone, we live in Philadelphia, where we knew your ex-wife as Addison, though she was forthright that it wasn’t really her name. She’d had amnesia for the previous two years and was unable to remember her real name.”