Crazy In Love (Secrets of Suburbia #3) - Ivy Smoak Page 0,91

of it, but there were still blurry parts. It had been so long since I’d been able to think clearly. “If you’re not my husband, then who are you?”

“I work for him.” That was all he offered.

I’d been to his office before. No one there had his face. I shook my head. “I know all of his employees.”

“His other business. Ensley, your husband was doing illegal procedures.” He grabbed the files he’d tried to show Detective Torres. “Like this.”

I opened the first file. It was medical records for a man named Aiden Brown. The man looked a little like my husband. I turned the page. There were sketches outlining a reconstruction procedure. The shaving down of his jaw. Tweaks to his nose. Even changes to his ears. The final effect was a picture of a man that almost looked identical to my husband. I looked up. “You’re Aiden?”

He nodded and handed me another file. This one was for a woman who looked a little like me.

The sketches of the procedures were on the next page. And on the next…a woman that looked so eerily like me that you could easily mistake us as the same person. Or was it me? I touched my cheek. Was I this woman? I wanted to claw my skin off. “Is this me?”

He grabbed my hand, his touch comforting. “No. That’s Sophia Tremblay. Your replacement.”

“My what?”

“It all came back to me this morning. When you said Sophia looked like you. That she had been beaten up. This woman.” He stabbed a finger at Sophia’s face. “She’s your replacement.”

I shook my head. Replacement?

“You knew that, Ensley. You knew your husband was cheating on you. It’s why you kidnapped me.”

I shook my head. I did know that. But this? The files felt heavy in my hand. He put my face on another woman. To steal my money. To leave me. That was insane. But I also believed it. Because for months I’d been suspicious that my husband had a doppelgänger. He’d tried to erase the memories. Swearing he was just cheating and that he’d stop. Promising it wasn’t true. But this was what he’d been doing behind closed doors. Creating monsters.

“I was supposed to keep you…preoccupied until he came back from Canada. But whenever I came around, you just peered at me through the dining room window like you were seeing a ghost. You wouldn’t let me inside.” He shook his head. “You finally answered one of my calls, agreeing to meet me at that bar on Friday night. I figured you knew I wasn’t your husband. But you didn’t even flinch when I said my name was Noah.”

I touched the side of my head. I remembered him coming around the house the past week. I’d thought I was staring through the glass at my husband’s ghost. And then I’d gone to the bar that night, wanting to believe he was real. I wanted to believe I hadn’t done something terrible. Because I never got my answers. I needed the fucking answers. “And what about my money?”

“He had this whole plan to use Sophia to steal all your money. That’s why he changed her face. To get access to your accounts through her. And I guess they covered their tracks afterwards by hurting her. To make her look less like you again in case they were contacted by the police.”

I shook my head. “He’d need my license. They wouldn’t just trust that she was just me without identification.”

“He took your license.”

I walked past him into the family room where I’d left my coat and purse. I rummaged through my purse and grabbed my wallet. The clear sleeve that always held my license was empty. I frantically pulled all my credit cards out. But my license wasn’t there. Son of a bitch. “Is the money with her?”

“Or him.” He shrugged. “I know you probably still have a million questions, but we need to get out of here. Before Dr. Collins comes back. If he finds out I told you the truth, he’ll kill both of us.”

I just stared at him. “Why did you agree to it?” I touched my own face to show him what I meant. I couldn’t say the words.

“I wanted an out. When he first started this, he was doing good. He was helping people without insurance. But it turned into something ugly. I owed a debt to your husband. But I never agreed to this crazy shit. I didn’t know he was drugging you.