The Good Twin(51)

“My husband? Ben knows about you?”

“As soon as he saw me standing in the doorway, he knew we were sisters. He asked me to wait to contact you because your father’s illness was causing you so much stress, and I agreed. In the meantime, I tracked down a longtime friend of my mother’s and learned the truth about us.”

“But three months? Ben asked you to wait this long?”

“No. After a few weeks, Ben said that he’d told you about me. He said you didn’t want to see me. You were afraid I was going to hit you up for money.”

“That’s ridiculous. Of course I’d want to meet you. My God, I never dreamed I had a sister, a real blood sister.”

“Ben told me other things about you. Nasty things. Then he asked something of me.”

I looked over at her, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes. She mouthed some words, so low that I couldn’t hear them. I asked her to repeat what she’d said. She leaned into me and whispered in my ear, “Ben has arranged for someone to kill you. He asked me to step in and pretend to be you so no one would know you were missing.”

I pulled back sharply and stared at her incredulously. It was still freezing outside, but I no longer felt the cold. Instead, I felt my body flush with a heated fury and, at the same time, felt like a rope around my neck was cutting off my air. “You agreed!” I spit out. She didn’t need to answer. I could see from the expression on her face that she had. I spun around and began walking away as quickly as I could in three-inch heels.

Moments later, I felt a pull on my arm. Mallory had run after me.

“Don’t be foolish. What are you going to do? Run to the police? Ben will deny everything. He’ll probably even deny that you have a sister. ‘Must be the stress you’re under,’ he’ll tell them. And he’ll find another way to do it. At the beginning, he said he’d only do it if I agreed to step in. But I don’t believe him. He’s too invested in it. And he wants to be with his girlfriend. You have to be smart now.”

I stared at Mallory with a venom I didn’t know I could feel. I tried to pull away from her, but she wouldn’t let go. “I hate you. You’re not my sister. You’re a monster. A monster.” Finally, I wrenched myself free, but I couldn’t run anymore. I sank down to the ground, leaned against the building, and dropped my head into my hands. My whole body felt numb. Mallory crouched down next to me.

“I don’t blame you,” she said. “What I agreed to was horrid. But I thought you had rejected me, without even meeting me once. Ben had convinced me that you were horrid. That you were cruel and demanding and spoiled. That you humiliated him at every opportunity. That you treated your friends the same way. If we did this together, I would get half of your money.”

“So, you were doing it for the money. Is that supposed to make me excuse you?”

“We were identical twins. You were given up for adoption and lived a life of luxury. I was kept and had nothing.”

“There’s no amount of money that would make me agree to kill someone.”

Mallory’s face twisted into an ugly smirk. “Spoken by someone who never went without. Whose every need was met. Who never went hungry and was always loved. Yes, if that’s how I’d grown up, I would find it very easy to say the same thing.”

I wanted to lie down in the street and disappear. Just an hour ago, I’d been ecstatic to discover I had a sister. Not just a sister, but my identical twin. Now, that euphoria had been replaced with a sense of loss so profound that it was unbearable. I’d come to terms with the fact that I’d soon lose my father. Now, not only had I been betrayed by the woman who shared my genes, but my own husband wanted me dead.

I wasn’t naive. I knew my marriage wouldn’t last much beyond my father’s funeral. But despite the anger I’d felt toward Ben these past few months, despite the fantasies I’d entertained from time to time of physically harming him, it still seemed unreal to me that Ben would actually hire someone to murder me. Yet, why would Mallory lie about this? “What made you change your mind?”

“Your lips are turning blue,” Mallory said. She looked around. “There’s a Starbucks across the street. Do you want to go inside and get warm?”

I nodded, and she stood, then held out a hand to help me up. We crossed the road, got on line, and ordered two Caffè Mistos, then grabbed a table in the corner.

After we were settled, Mallory leaned in to me and, speaking softly, said, “Ben had convinced me that you were a beastly person. And I tried not to feel so angry, but I couldn’t stop. Angry that you didn’t want to meet me. Angry that you had so much and I had so little. Angry that my mother never had time for me and your parents doted on you. But when I began studying you, so that I could fool people, I realized Ben was lying. The things you posted on Facebook, on Twitter, the things your friends posted about you—I could tell you weren’t the cold, demanding witch he portrayed. You seemed warm and caring.”

“You were following me for months. It took this long for you to realize Ben was lying?”

She cast her eyes downward and slowly shook her head. “It took me this long to realize that family was more important than money.”

I didn’t know what to think. I felt disgust for this woman sitting across from me. I didn’t think I’d ever forgive her for conspiring with Ben. And yet, and yet . . . she was my blood.