that wasn’t her body they found behind the house—”
“You’re mistaken,” Kat said, her voice barely audible. All the color had drained from her face and Charlie could see she was trembling.
“If anyone knows why she’s stalking me in her favorite scarf that she knows I would recognize, it’s you. You’re her mother.”
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Kat said as she stumbled back and slumped into a chair. “I need you to leave.” Her voice came out in a hoarse whisper.
Charlie wasn’t leaving. Let her call the police. The woman owed her answers and damned if she wasn’t finally going to get them. “Not until you tell me the truth.”
Kat shook her head, her lips trembling as her eyes filled with tears. “You don’t understand.” Her gaze slowly rose to meet Charlie’s. “My daughter...” The woman’s voice cracked.
“You can no longer deny she’s alive,” Charlie said. “We have DNA proof. And I knew even before that. I had looked into her eyes. I knew her and she knew me. Lindy isn’t dead, is she? It’s the only explanation. But how is that possible?”
“You’re wrong. It’s not Lindy. Not my precious Lindy,” Kat said and began to sob like a woman still grieving the loss.
Charlie felt a chill race across her flesh, leaving a trail of goose bumps. “Lindy is either alive or...” Her heart began to pound as she thought of what Shep had learned about Lindy from her teachers.
She turned to him. “You said the DNA from the blond hair on the scarf was a perfect match? That can only mean that Lindy is alive or...” She looked over at Kat who had slumped into the chair, head down. “Or there are two of them.”
“Charlie?” Shep said.
“Either Lindy is alive or she has an identical twin,” Charlie said as she frowned down at Kat. “But if she’d had a sister...”
She looked to Shep. He was staring at her as if she’d lost her mind. “I never heard any mention of a sister, let alone an identical one. Kat,” he said when no one spoke over the woman’s sobbing. “Is there another daughter besides Lindy and Cara?”
The woman’s head came up with a jerk at a sound outside the house. Her sobbing stopped abruptly and she hastily began to wipe her eyes as she stumbled to her feet.
“Please, I can’t talk about this now,” she said, her voice hoarse as she rose and looked toward the front of the house. She wiped her tear-streaked face. “That will be my daughter Cara. She doesn’t know. She can’t know. Please, you have to leave. I’ll tell you everything, but you have to go now.”
The front door opened. “Mom?” Cara stepped in loaded down with shopping bags and stopped at the sight of Shep and Charlie—and her mother’s face. “Why is he here again? I’m going to call the police.”
“No,” Kat said, stepping toward her unsteadily. “They were just leaving.” She looked imploringly at Charlie. “I’ll walk you out.”
Once outside, she asked Charlie for her cell phone number. Charlie watched while Kat put it into her own phone with trembling fingers.
“If we don’t hear from you, we’re calling the police,” Charlie warned her.
“I’ll call you later. I promise.” Kat turned to see that Cara was watching them from the front step. “I’ll explain everything.” With that, she quickly climbed the steps and ushered her daughter back inside.
“How could Lindy have had an identical twin without you knowing about it,” Shep said the moment they were alone in his pickup. “There has to be another explanation.”
“It’s the only thing that makes any sense. I don’t know why I didn’t realize it sooner. It explains the DNA match. If Lindy really was murdered that night, then this woman I’ve seen has to be her identical twin.”
“But you would have known. Your father would have known. Did Lindy ever mention a sister?”
Charlie shook her head.
“If true, why keep it a secret? And where did this twin live?”
“I don’t know,” she said, looking over at him. He made good points. “I just know it’s got to be true. For whatever reason, it was a secret. Kat didn’t want anyone to know. But Lindy knew, something that Kat apparently is just now realizing.”
He shot her a look of disbelief. “Are you sure you aren’t jumping to conclusions? Kat didn’t admit that Lindy had a twin.”
She gave him a pitying look. “But she also didn’t deny it, did she? Shep, I looked into the young woman’s eyes. Eyes I