The Good Twin(28)

Ben nodded, then reached into the inside pocket of his sports jacket and withdrew two envelopes. “Here’s ten grand for each of you. Jeff, you get the rest when the job is done. Danny, I’ll give you half of the remainder, ninety-five thousand, just before I’m ready for you to do it. The rest when it’s over. That work for you?”

They both murmured, “Yes.”

“One caveat,” Clark said. “We don’t meet after it’s done. I don’t want to be seen with you. I’ll let you know after it’s over how to get me my money.”

“Sure.”

“You know,” Clark continued, “the husband is always a suspect. How can I be sure you won’t squeal on us?”

Ben smiled. “Not this time. No one will even know my wife is gone. No one will miss her. It’s foolproof.”

Clark reached over and took both envelopes, then handed one to Mullin. “Don’t kid yourself. Nothing in life is foolproof.”





CHAPTER 21

Today would have been my mother’s forty-fifth birthday. When I was very young, I used to draw a picture for her as a birthday present. She’d hug me and tell me how much she liked it, and I always felt loved in those moments. There weren’t many times when I did, and as I got older, my anger toward her grew. If she wasn’t going to love me, then I wouldn’t love her. Tit for tat. Except, I wanted her to love me, to tell me she was proud of my art, of my good grades, of my hard work. I couldn’t see past my disappointment.

My mother always bought me a present for my birthday, even if it was something small. She would bake a cake for me, and when she’d returned from her cleaning jobs and we’d finished dinner, she would present the cake with the number of candles for my age, plus two. I remember, on my eighth birthday, smugly telling her that there should be only one extra candle—eight, plus one to grow on. She smiled, but her eyes looked sad when she said, “You’re so special that you deserve two extra candles.” Now I understood that the second candle was for my sister.

I wonder how my life would have been different if I’d grown up with Charlotte. If my mother had kept us both, the little money my mother had for gifts, even for food and clothes, would have been split between us. But I don’t think I’d have been as lonely if I’d grown up with a sister, no matter how little money we had. When you’re a child and poor, it doesn’t matter if you have a little less—it’s all that you’re used to.

If, instead, she’d given us both away, would the Jensens have adopted me as well? Would I have grown up spoiled and selfish, like my sister? I’d had a lot of time to fill in my country hideaway, no job to report to, no classes to take. I’d spent hours looking up studies on identical twins, and it seemed clear that personality traits were genetically determined, and since twins shared the same genes, they had similar personalities. Yet, Ben’s description of Charly was so at odds with how I saw myself. The studies also said that when identical twins were raised separately, their different life experiences could have an impact on brain development, resulting in different personalities.

I hesitated. The glowing picture I had of myself was borne out of necessity. I had to be hardworking to survive. There were no extras in my life to hoard selfishly. If I acted out, my mother withheld affection more than she usually did. So, who was I really? Did my genes make me the compliant child, always wanting to please? Or was I meant to be cold, calculating, and self-centered, like Ben had described Charly? Whose personality had been changed by her environment? Mine or Charly’s?

I knew the answer. It had taken me less than two weeks to agree to murder a sister I’d never met. Until Ben had presented his plan, I’d accepted my life—the poverty, the struggling, the lack of maternal affection. Now, I wanted what Charly had. I wanted her wealth. I wanted the townhouse and the gallery. I wanted her life. I was as greedy and coldhearted as my twin.



I woke up to a foot of snow on the ground. I’d been living in High Falls for seven weeks now, and other than a few sprinkles, this was the first snow they’d had. Everything outside was covered in white, unspoiled by cars or footprints. I was due to have lunch with Jake today but knew that would be canceled. He’d be busy plowing driveways. At least I’d see him when he came to do mine.

I poured myself a cup of coffee, bundled up in a warm jacket, slipped into boots, then took it out on the porch to sip. It was too beautiful to stay inside. The house was surrounded by snow-covered trees, and it looked like a scene from an Andrew Wyeth painting. Just as I thought that, two deer popped out of the trees and skipped across the snow to woods on the other side of the lawn, completing the picture of Americana.

I finished my coffee and was about to step inside when I heard the rumble of Jake’s truck, slowly plowing snow as it crept up the driveway. When it reached the top, I waved at him. He opened his window and shouted, “Hi.”

“Have time for a ten-minute break and a hot cup of coffee?” I shouted back.

He nodded, then shut off the motor and stepped outside. He was bundled up in a heavy lumberjack jacket, snow pants, and high boots, with a wool cap pulled down over his ears and heavy gloves on his hands.

“It’s not that cold outside,” I said when he got closer.

“It is when you’ve been out doing this since five a.m.”