Beatrice had already started to get sick off and on by that point, and he had a seven-year-old son to think of. He couldn’t lose his job or his home.”
Mavra turns away from me to stare in silence at the fireplace across the room. I let the ticking of the old grandfather clock downstairs soothe me with its rhythmic sound.
“Did you fake your memory loss that entire time?” she asks.
I laugh and shake my head.
“I was a good actress, Mavra, but not that good. When Dr. Thomas died of a heart attack, enabling me to finally get away from him, I went straight to the prison. I’d been planning that reunion ever since the day they sent me away. I showed up on their doorstep with a forged letter from Dr. Thomas announcing I’d finally been cured,” I explain. “Ravenna was standing right there in the hallway and they had no choice but to tell her the truth that she’d forgotten after thirteen years—that she had a twin sister who’d been sent away when we were five.”
Mavra narrows her eyes in concentration for a few moments before turning her head to look at me.
“Did you kill Dr. Thomas?”
I shake my head. “Technically, no, but I certainly didn’t do anything to try and save him.”
Standing above the man who tormented me for the last thirteen years, I smile as he clutches his hands to his chest, his eyes filled with fear and pain from the heart attack I assume he’s having.
“Please…call…ambulance…” he stammers, gasping for air.
I walk into the hallway without a word, leaving him on my bedroom floor, where he collapsed before he could take me to the examination room for my daily round of suffering. My eyes never leave his as I lift the receiver of the phone that hangs on the hallway wall and dial 0. I keep my face blank, listening to the ringing on the other end of the line through one ear and Dr. Thomas wheezing through the other. I want to laugh at the look of relief in his eyes as he watches me through the doorway, assuming I’m stupid enough to help him.
When my call is answered and I speak, I watch the expression in his face quickly change from hope that help would be on the way to wide-eyed panic.
“Yes, Operator? Could you please connect me to the taxi service?”
When I’m passed through and rattle off the address for the taxi that will arrive within fifteen minutes to take me to the bus station, I can’t help but laugh as I hang up and walk back to Dr. Thomas’s side.
Crouching down next to him, I chuckle again as his face turns an alarming shade of red and sweat drips down his forehead. Placing one palm against the left side of his breastbone, I feel the thump of his heart through my hand, the seconds in between beats growing longer and longer.
“Don’t be a chicken, Dr. Thomas. You knew this day would come. You should have spent more time being afraid of me, instead of hurting me.”
The memory of the day I finally got away from Dr. Thomas quickly fades when Mavra speaks again.
“You spent the next two weeks learning everything you could about Ravenna,” she states slowly, parts of the story finally clicking into place. “You already knew a lot about the prison and their lives since you were taken away, but you needed to know more about your twin. Her favorite color, her likes and dislikes, her daily activities…you pretended to be her friend so she’d give you the rest of the information you needed because…”
She trails off, looking at me imploringly to finish the thought.
“Because my plan had always been to come back and take what was rightfully mine,” I continue for her. “Get rid of the good, perfect sister and take her place. It was my turn to have loving parents and a good life. When she was out of the picture, I would slide right into her life and announce to my mother and Tanner that Tatiana left in the middle of the night and things could go back to the way they were. Unfortunately, things didn’t go quite according to my plan.”
What a stupid, stupid girl. I can’t believe how easy it was to get her to climb down into the hole to look for bones that aren’t even there. As I stare at her body floating at the top of the water that quickly filled the