had looked in before. In that moment, she knew I recognized her. That’s why she needed that scarf back. It was one thing to pretend to be Lindy to scare me, torture me, whatever her motive. It was another for me to know the truth. That she and Lindy shared the same DNA.
“So maybe Lindy isn’t dead—but her sister is.”
* * *
SHEP WATCHED AS Charlie hung up her coat and kicked off her boots before heading for the couch. His head swam. If Charlie was right...
On the way back the two of them had tried to make sense of all this. He knew he wouldn’t be able to come to an adequate conclusion without more facts. But that didn’t stop Charlie.
“Don’t you see? It all makes sense,” she argued. “You told me that when you talked to Lindy’s teachers about her senior year in high school, they said they noticed she was different from day to day. Mr. Jones thought it was a mental imbalance, but what if the reason Lindy was different was because the girl in the classroom wasn’t Lindy at all? It was her identical twin pretending to be her?”
Shep rubbed his temples. “Let’s say it’s true and that Kat had some reason to keep her second daughter a secret. Where did this twin live? And eat? How is it that someone wouldn’t have noticed? And if they both were around those couple of months you lived in that house, Kat had to have known and yet you saw her reaction to our questions.”
“Maybe Kat did notice. Maybe she knew,” Charlie said with a shrug. “But what could she do? Expose the truth? Not if she was hell-bent on keeping the other daughter a secret. Anyway, we lived in that huge old Victorian house with all these floors and rooms we didn’t use, including a really spooky basement none of us ever went down into. The twin could have lived right under our noses.”
He couldn’t help being skeptical. “So if they did switch at school, where did the other one go all day then?”
She shook her head. “Dad was at work. Kat was always out shopping or having lunch with friends. And remember what the man down the street told you? Someone had hidden a key under a flowerpot in the back. It had to be Lindy so her sister could come and go at will.”
He shook his head, amazed at the way Charlie’s mind worked.
“The question though, is where has the twin been since Lindy’s murder? And why show up now?” she said.
“I believe the question is why Kat would lie about this daughter—if said daughter even exists.”
“I have no idea,” Charlie admitted. “Sometimes Lindy wasn’t as awful as other times. If I’m right, then I was dealing with two different teenage girls with their own motives for what they did.”
Shep had to admit the identical twin angle was making sense—if true. But just how dangerous was this other sister? More dangerous than even Charlie thought?
“Do you really think Kat is going to tell us the truth after all these years?” he asked.
Charlie checked her phone. Still nothing from Kat, he thought. “You don’t think she’ll try to skip the country, do you?”
It had crossed his mind. “I don’t think she’d do that to Cara, but I guess it will come down to how desperate she is to keep all of this a secret. If you’re right about an identical twin, then Kat is first class at keeping secrets. She’s also not above lying to us,” he pointed out. He wouldn’t put anything past her—and, he hated to point out, Kat hadn’t actually admitted there was a twin.
“We’ll see when she calls.”
When her phone rang, they both jumped. She checked the screen. “It’s Amanda.” He could see she didn’t want to take it.
“What’s up?”
She told him what had happened at work. The ringing stopped—and started again.
“Amanda,” Charlie barked into the phone. Earlier, she’d put her phone on speaker anticipating Kat’s call.
“I have to know. Greg will be so upset if you aren’t my maid of honor.”
Shep saw her roll her eyes. “Fine.”
“Tara will be so glad.”
“Wait, why will Tara be so glad?” Charlie asked.
“Because she is going to be one of my bridesmaids.”
“I thought this was a small wedding.”
“It is, but the best man has a friend who’s coming so I thought why not?”
“So Tara agreed to this?”
“Of course. It’s a wedding! Who doesn’t want to be in a wedding?” Amanda hung up.
“You’re going to be