Dead Ringers (2 page)

The memory froze him. He hadn't thought of that night in years. His resentment had no room for the memory of the kindness and sadness in his father's eyes as they'd talked over their steaming hot chocolate.

Inside the kitchen, something shifted. The floor creaked once, and then again.

“Anybody home?” a voice called softly from behind the door.

Frank stared at the chipped paint, at his hand upon it. The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but not enough so that his heart stopped racing. It was nearly midnight, after all. Visitors didn't drop by this late at night, and they certainly didn't let themselves in.

“Who the hell is in there?” he demanded.

A soft chuckle, a rasp of movement, a creak on the floor. “Come and see.”

He yanked his hand back as if the cold paint had seared his fingertips. Wetting his lips, heart thundering in his ears, he tried to clear the alcoholic fog from his thoughts. He remembered his cell phone again, charging on the nightstand upstairs, and took several stumbling steps back toward the front of the house.

Come and see.

No thanks.

His hand grabbed the newel post at the bottom of the stairs, managed to get a foot onto the first step, but then he heard the squeal of hinges as the kitchen door swung open. Frank couldn't help but stare at the dark silhouette emerging from the kitchen, a tall man who started along the short hall toward him.

The wan light from the floor lamp in the living room cast a gloomy yellow pall into the hallway. The man stepped into the light.

Frank narrowed his eyes, tried to blink away the beer goggles.

“What the hell?” he whispered.

The man walked toward him with a familiar smile. Drunk and stunned, Frank shook his head, trying to force the world to make sense. Only when the man was three paces from him did he see the malice in those eyes.

His own eyes. His own smile. His own face.

“Hold on,” he said, trying to wave the guy away. “Just back up a second and—”

The intruder had quick hands. The first blow crashed into Frank's left temple and he slammed against the faded wallpaper at the bottom of the steps, sagging, knees already weak. Anger rushed through him, a righteous fury that made him spring off the wall and swing wildly at that familiar face—a face he hated every time he saw it in the mirror.

The intruder batted his punch away, stepped in and slammed a fist into Frank's gut, shoved him hard so that he slammed into the wall again, and followed up with a barrage of punches to the jaw and throat and abdomen. Lost in pain and the buzzing fog of half a dozen beers, he tried to muster up some words of protest.

The best he could manage was a single syllable. “Stop.”

The smile had vanished from the intruder's face. His eyes were wide with a kind of dread all his own, and with sorrow.

“I can't,” he said.

He grabbed a fistful of Frank's hair—hair so entirely like his own—tugged and twisted, and drove Frank headfirst into the newel post. Pain exploded in Frank's skull and then a sea of blackness swept in, blanketing his thoughts, suffocating them. He felt himself falling toward the floor, but then the darkness swallowed him whole.

The intruder with Frank's face made himself at home.

 

THURSDAY

 

ONE

When Tess Devlin spotted her ex-husband, Nick, standing at the intersection of Oliver and High Street in the shadow of the curved, glassy towers of International Place, her first thought was that he must have gotten a raise. His suit had the right cut, crisp lines, and a subtle pattern that suggested surprising confidence. It had been two months since she'd last seen him and in that time he'd apparently shed ten pounds and decided to tame his sometimes unruly hair. If she didn't know better, she'd have guessed he was one of the attorneys at Barr and Crowe, the massive law firm inside One International Place.

But she did know better. Nick taught archaeology at Boston University and couldn't have afforded this beautifully tailored suit on his best day. Their daughter, six-year-old Maddie, had seen him every other weekend but Tess and Nick had avoided each other during the handoffs, staring in their respective cars, pulling into driveways and beeping horns as if they were engaging in some kind of late-night drug deal instead of co-parenting their beautiful little girl.

Now Nick waited at the crosswalk for the light to change. Tess thought about hanging back, avoiding contact, but she was a big girl. They hadn't ended well, but they had tried to put any animosity behind them for Maddie's sake. Tess stepped up beside him, smiling at him even though he kept his gaze straight-ahead.

“Nice suit,” she said. “You come into a fortune you didn't tell me about or were you hiding it all along?”

Several other people gathered at the curb, but the
DON'T WALK
signal remained lit. Nick took out his cell phone and glanced at it, perhaps checking for text messages, either ignoring her completely or just profoundly distracted. He'd always had a touch of what had once been called Asperger's Syndrome and sometimes would just get lost in himself. In small doses, his difficulty with socialization and with reading people's facial and verbal cues was easily overlooked, but the little, unintentional hurts built up over time and had contributed to the ruin of their marriage.

“Yo, Devlin,” she said, tapping his arm.

Nick flinched away from her, holding his phone off to the left as if he thought she might try to steal it. He gave her a down-the-nose, slightly askance look that made her feel like some kind of freak, but he said not a word. The old scars on her flesh burned for a moment before the memory of them faded, but the pain in her left shoulder and her spine … that never faded. It lingered all day, every day, so familiar that sometimes she even forgot to feel the hurt of those old injuries. Nick had not caused the accident that left her with chronic pain, but he had never understood how it had taken up residence within her. Pain was the ghost that haunted her every waking moment. He wasn't really capable of empathy, but this?

“Seriously?” Tess whispered. Nick might be her ex-husband, but even at their worst, he'd never given her this cold a shoulder. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

For the first time, he swiveled his head to meet her gaze, brow knitted in a deep frown. “I'm not sure what your story is, but could you maybe go psycho on somebody else?”

Tess gave a hollow laugh, hating the way her gut turned to stone. This shouldn't hurt so much, but it did. Goddamn him, it did.

“Nick, come on,” she said. “Why are you—”

His frown deepened and his mouth twisted in a cynical huff. “I get it now. Nick, is it? Sorry to break it to you, but you need your eyes checked. The name's Theo. Whoever Nick is, I wish him luck.”

Tess stared, mouth open in a round little moue of shock. She appraised him again, the chin and jawline, the ears, the cast of his vivid blue eyes, even the pattern of late-day shadow that his razor would have to combat in the morning. Thinner, yes, and maybe the circles under his eyes had vanished and he had a better haircut, but … was it possible?

“Well, damn,” she said quietly. “I think you may have a twin brother you've never met.”

The man who was not Nick Devlin blinked, gave her a small scowl, and then turned to march away from her. The
WALK
signal had lit and the cluster of end-of-the-workday refugees spilled onto the crosswalk, striding quickly toward wherever their Thursday night would bring them. Tess stood frozen on the curb, the stream of people flowing around her, and stared at the rear of Not-Nick's head.

He glanced back at her, and something about that glance made her wince. His expression held a flicker of fear and his eyes hid
something,
and suddenly she felt like a fool. The son of a bitch had almost pulled one over on her—what an idiot she'd been to buy his spin for even a second.

“You little shit,” she muttered, tugging out her own cell phone.

Turning from the street, she began to pace along the sidewalk, anger making her forget the pain in her back. Her foot caught an empty fast-food drink cup and it skittered on ahead of her. The wind picked up, bringing in the cold air off Boston Harbor, and she shivered as she searched her contacts for her ex-husband's name. The late-afternoon sun had fallen so low that the buildings cast long gray shadows, enveloping much of the city in a premature dusk. Normally she loved the crisp chill of the autumn air, but not today. Not right now.

She tapped the screen and put the phone to her ear. It rang twice before he picked up.

“Hello, Tess,” Nick said, his voice warm but curious. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

The kindness in his tone only made her angrier.

“You can be a real prick sometimes,” she said, stuffing her free hand into the pocket of her coat and turning away from a pair of well-dressed women striding past.

“Yeah,” he agreed warily. “You said as much when you were divorcing me. What's this about?”

Tess looked across the street, searching the pedestrian crowd for him, but he'd either blended in with the herd or turned a corner already.

“Were you trying to be funny, or did you want to make a fool of me?” The phone felt clammy in her hand.

“Y'know, I don't appreciate…” Nick began, but she heard him falter. “No. I'm not gonna fight with you, Tessa. I can hear in your voice how pissed you are right now, but I don't have the first clue what I've done to set you off, so maybe you want to elaborate?”

She pressed her eyes shut. Felt the chill breeze run up her dress and whip her hair around in front of her face. A shudder went up her back, like someone had just walked over her grave. Her mother had always used that expression but Tess realized she had never really understood it till now.

Your face,
she wanted to say.
Even your voice
.

But he sounded so sincere.

“If you're playing some kind of game—”

“Tess. Explain.”

She exhaled, once again searching the sidewalk on the opposite side of the intersection. In all the time she'd known him, she'd never seen Nick in a suit that nice, never known him to be willing to spend that kind of money on anything, or to have that kind of money to spend. Not even on his daughter, whom he professed to love.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“Just got back from a hike. Where are you?”

“You're hiking?”

“Up in the White Mountains, staying at the Notchland, but right now we're just having coffee at that little place across from the train station in North Conway. You remember it?”

Her thoughts raced. She turned to stare at the spot on the corner where she'd encountered Not-Nick—because he really had been Not-Nick, hadn't he?

Tess felt her cheeks flush with heat. She lowered her head. “With Kyrie.”

“What…” He trailed off for a moment before replying. “Of course with Kyrie. You know…” Nick broke off again and she heard his muffled voice as he explained that it was his ex-wife calling. “Sorry, I'm back.”

“I'm the one who's sorry. Go and enjoy your time off with your girlfriend. Take her to that little Irish pub for the late-night music.” Tess shook her head, feeling foolish now that all of the anger had bled out of her. Of course Nick—her Nick, with that touch of Asperger's—would not consider that telling her he was taking his girlfriend to the places they used to enjoy together might hurt her. They had loved to hike, back before …

Stop,
she told herself.

“Call me when you get back,” she said. “I have a wicked stupid story to tell you.”

“You sure you're okay?” he asked.

Over at the crosswalk, the
WALK
signal lit up. She started toward it, laughing softly as she rejoined the post-workday exodus.

“Right as rain,” she said, trying not to imagine Nick and his new mate riding the North Conway Scenic Railroad. Were they staying in the same room at the Notchland that she and Nick had always booked, the red-walled one with its drafty windows, creaky four-poster bed, and enormous fireplace? If there'd been one thing Nick had never failed to do properly, it was build a fire.

“I'm right as rain,” she said again. “I'll give Maddie your love.”

Tess heard him say her name as she hit the button to end the call, trying to remember Not-Nick's exact features. Had she overestimated how much the stranger looked like her ex? That seemed far more likely than him having a secret twin brother that his parents had never told him about. Didn't they say everyone had a double somewhere?

Weird,
she thought.
So damn weird
.

She hurried across the intersection, phone still clutched in her hand. As she stepped up onto the opposite curb, she glanced again at her contact list and tapped the screen to call her best friend Lili. The line crackled as it rang three times, then a fourth and fifth, and when she was about to give up, Lili answered.

“Hey, lady,” her friend said. “Did you get that babysitter? We still on for drinks tonight?”

“Oh, yes,” Tess replied, the autumn chill caressing her legs and racing up her back. “A thousand times, yes.”

 

TWO

Tess had met Lilandra Pillai in a drama class back in their bad old days at Tufts University, just a few miles outside of Boston. Lili had been double-majoring in archaeology and history, Tess in history and political science, but they both had a not-so-secret love of the theater and simultaneous terror of the stage. There would be no auditions for them, no performances outside of the soliloquies and scenes required within the relative safety of the classroom, but from that point on, they hit Boston's theater district on a regular basis, scoring tickets at student discounts and waiting at stage doors to effuse over the actors together. Each had other friends, but between their history majors and the live-theater fanaticism, they enjoyed a rapport others couldn't touch.