“Sam,” I said gently, linking my fingers through his, “that’s what I’m there for. To get us closer to our guy. If you don’t let me do that, I’m just a lazy wagon getting paid to eat good food and read pulp fiction.”
After a moment Sam laughed, a small reluctant breath. “Right,” he said. “Fair enough. Have a look at the lads when I bring them out.”
He squeezed my fingers, gently, and let go. “Before I forget”—he fished inside his coat—“Mackey sent you these.” It was a bottle of tablets like the one I’d brought to Whitethorn House, with the same pharmacist’s label announcing loudly that they were amoxicillin. “He said to tell you your wound isn’t all the way healed yet and the doctor’s worried you could still get an infection, so you’ve to take another course of these.”
"At least I’m getting my vitamin C,” I said, pocketing the bottle. It felt too heavy, dragging at the side of my jacket. The doctor’s worried . . . Frank was starting to think about my exit.
* * *
Rathowen station was craptacular. I’d seen plenty like it, dotted around back corners of the country: small stations caught in a vicious circle, getting dissed by the people who hand out funds and by the people who hand out posts and by anyone who can get any other assignment in the universe. Reception was one cracked chair, a poster about bike helmets and a hatch to let Byrne stare vacantly out the door, rhythmically chewing gum. The interview room was apparently also the storeroom: it had a table, two chairs, a filing cabinet—no lock—a help-yourself pile of statement sheets and, for no reason I could figure out, a battered eighties riot shield in one corner. There was yellowing linoleum on the floor and a smashed fly on one wall. No wonder Byrne looked the way he did.
I stayed out of sight behind the desk, with Byrne, while Sam tried to kick the interview room into some kind of shape. Byrne stashed his gum in his cheek and gave me a long depressed stare. “It’ll never work,” he informed me.
I wasn’t sure where to go with this, but apparently it was no reply required; Byrne retrieved his gum and went back to gazing out the hatch. “There’s Bannon now,” he said. “The ugly great lump.”
Sam has a lovely light touch with interviews, when he wants to, and he wanted to that day. He kept it easy, casual, nonthreatening. Would you have any ideas, any at all, about who might have stabbed Miss Madison? What are they like, those five up at Whitethorn House? Have you seen anyone you didn’t recognize, hanging around Glenskehy? The impression he gave, subtly but clearly, was that the investigation was starting to wind down.
Bannon mainly answered in irritable grunts; McArdle was less Neanderthal and more bored. Both of them claimed to have no clue about anything, ever. I only half listened. If there was anything there, Sam would spot it; all I wanted was a look at John Naylor, and at the expression on his face when he saw me. I arranged myself in the cracked chair with my legs stretched out, trying to look like I’d been dragged in for more pointless questions, and waited.
Bannon was in fact an ugly great lump: a serious beer belly surrounded by muscles and topped off with a potato head. When Sam ushered him out of the interview room and he saw me, he did a double take and shot me a vicious, disgusted sneer; he knew who Lexie Madison was, all right, and he didn’t like her. McArdle, on the other hand—he was a long skinny streak of a guy, with a straggly attempt at a beard—gave me a vague nod and shambled off. I got back behind the desk and waited for Naylor.
His interview was a lot like the others: seen nothing, heard nothing, know nothing. He had a nice voice, a quick baritone with the Glenskehy accent I was starting to know—harsher than most of Wicklow, wilder—and an edge of tension. Then Sam wound it up and opened the interview-room door.
Naylor was average height, wiry, wearing jeans and a baggy, colorless sweater. He had a mop of tangled red-brown hair and a rough, bony face: high cheekbones, wide mouth, narrow green eyes under heavy eyebrows. I didn’t know what Lexie’s taste in men had been like, but there was no question, this guy was attractive.
Then he saw me. His eyes widened and he gave me a stare that almost slammed me back in my seat. The intensity of it: this could have been hatred, love, fury, terror, all of them at once, but it wasn’t Bannon’s narky little sneer, nothing like it. There was passion there, bright and roaring like an alarm flare.
“What do you think?” Sam asked, watching Naylor stride across the road towards a muddy ’89 Ford that was worth maybe fifty quid in scrap metal, on a good day.
What I thought, mainly, was that I was pretty sure where that prickle at the back of my neck had been coming from. “Unless McArdle’s very good at faking on his feet,” I said, “I think you can move him to the bottom of the list. I’d bet money he didn’t have a clue who I was—and even if your vandal’s not our guy, he’s been paying a lot of attention to the house. He’d know my face.”
“Like Bannon and Naylor did,” said Sam. “And they weren’t one bit pleased to see you.”
“They’re from Glenskehy,” Byrne said gloomily, behind us. “They’re never pleased to see anyone, sure. And no one’s ever pleased to see them.”
“I’m starving,” Sam said. “Come for lunch?”
I shook my head. “I can’t. Rafe’s already texted me, wanting to know if everything’s OK. I told him I was still in the waiting room, but if I don’t get into college soon, they’re going to head down to Wicklow Hospital looking for me.”
Sam took a breath, straightened his shoulders. “Right,” he said. “We’ve knocked one out of the running, anyway; only two to go. I’ll give you a lift into town.”
* * *
Nobody asked, when I got into the library; the others nodded at me like I’d been out on a smoke break. My snit fit at Justin, the night before, had made its point.
He was still sulking at me. I ignored it all afternoon: the silent treatment makes me tense as hell, but Lexie’s stubbornness would never have cracked, just her attention span. I finally snapped over dinner—stew, so thick that it barely counted as a liquid; the whole house smelled wonderful, rich and warm. “Is there enough for seconds?” I asked Justin.
He shrugged, not looking at me. “Drama queen,” Rafe said, under his breath.
“Justin,” I said. “Are you still mad because I was a snotty cow last night?”
Another shrug. Abby, who had been reaching to pass me the stew pot, put it down.
“I was scared, Justin. I was worried I’d go in there today and the doctors would say there was something wrong and I’d need another operation or something.” I saw him glance up, a quick anxious flick, before he went back to turning his bread into little pellets. “I couldn’t handle you being scared as well. I’m really, really sorry. Forgive me?”
“Well,” he said after a moment, with a tiny half smile. “I suppose so.” He leaned over to put the stew pot beside my plate. “Now. Finish that off.”
“And what did the doctors say?” Daniel asked. “You don’t need more surgery, do you?”
“Nah,” I said, ladling stew. “Just more antibiotics. It hasn’t healed up all the way; they’re scared I could still get an infection.” Saying it out loud sent a twist through me, somewhere under the mike.
“Did they run tests? Do scans?”
I had no idea what doctors would have done. “I’m fine,” I said. “Can we not talk about it?”
“Good girl,” Justin said, nodding at my plate. “Does this mean we can use onions more than once a year, now?”
I got a horrible dropping feeling in my stomach. I gave Justin a blank look.
“Well, if you want more,” he said primly, “then they don’t make you gag after all, do they?”
Fuckfuckfuck. I’ll eat just about anything; it hadn’t occurred to me that Lexie might have food quirks, and it wasn’t exactly something Frank could have found out in casual conversation. Daniel had lowered his spoon and was looking at me. “I didn’t even taste them,” I said. “I think the antibiotics are doing something weird to my mouth. Everythi
ng tastes the same.”
“I thought it was the texture you didn’t like,” Daniel said.
Fuck. “It’s the thought of them. Now that I know they’re in there—”
“That happened to my granny,” Abby said. “She was on antibiotics and she lost her sense of smell. Never came back. You should talk to the doctor about that.”
“God, no,” said Rafe. “If we’ve found something that makes her stop bitching about onions, I vote we let nature take its course. Are you having the rest of that, or can I?”
“I don’t want to lose my sense of taste and eat onions,” I said. “I’d rather get an infection.”
“Good. Then pass it over here.”
Daniel had gone back to his food. I prodded dubiously at mine; Rafe rolled his eyes. My heart was going ninety. Sooner or later, I thought, I am going to make a mistake that I can’t talk my way out of.
* * *
“Nice save on the onions,” Frank said, that night. “And when it comes time to pull you out, you’ve got it all set up and ready to go: the antibiotics were messing with your sense of taste, you quit taking them, and hey presto, you got an infection. I wish I’d thought of it myself.”
I was up my tree, bundled in the communal jacket—it was a cloudy night, fine drizzle spattering the leaves, threatening to turn into full-on rain any minute—and keeping a very sharp ear out for John Naylor. “You heard that? Don’t you ever go home?”
“Not much, these days. Plenty of time to sleep once we’ve got our man. Speaking of which, my weekend with Holly’s coming up, so if we could start winding this up, I’d be a very happy camper.”
“Me too,” I said, “believe me.”
“Yeah? I got the feeling you were starting to settle in very nicely.”
I couldn’t read his voice; no one does neutral like Frank. “It could be a lot worse, sure,” I said carefully. “But tonight was a wake-up call. I can’t keep this up forever. Anything useful on your end?”
“No luck on what sent May-Ruth running. Chad and her buddies can’t remember anything unusual happening that week. But they might not anyway; it’s been four and a half years.”
This came as no surprise. “Oh, well,” I said. “Worth a shot.”
“Here’s something that came up, though,” Frank said. “Probably nothing to do with our case, but it’s odd, and anything odd is worth thinking about, at this stage. Just on the surface, what kind of person did Lexie come across as, to you?”
I shrugged, even though he couldn’t see me. There was something squirmy about this, too intimate, like being asked to describe myself. “I don’t know. Bouncy, I guess. Cheerful. Confident. Lots of energy. A little childish, maybe.”
“Yeah. Same here. That’s what we got off the video clips, and that’s what we got off all her mates. But that’s not what my FBI boy’s getting from May-Ruth’s pals.”
Something cold rippled through my stomach. I tucked my feet up higher into the branches and started chewing my knuckle.
“They’re describing a shy kid, very quiet. Chad thought that had to do with her being from some nowhere town in the Appalachians; he said Raleigh was a huge adventure to her, she loved it but she was a little overwhelmed by it all. She was gentle, a daydreamer, loved animals, was thinking of maybe becoming a vet’s assistant. Now tell me this: does that sound anything like our Lexie to you?”
I ran my hand through my hair and wished I were on solid ground; I needed to move. “So you’re saying what? You think we’re dealing with two different girls who both happen to look like me? Because I have to tell you, Frank, I’ve pretty much hit my limit for coincidences on this case.” I had this insane vision of more and more doubles popping out of the woodwork, matching mes vanishing and reappearing all over the world like a huge Whack-a-Mole game, a me in every port. This is what I get for wanting a sister when I was little, I thought wildly, biting back a hysterical giggle, be careful what you wish for—
Frank laughed. “Nah. You know I love you, babe, but two of you are enough for me. Plus our girl’s prints matched May-Ruth’s. I’m just saying it’s odd. I know people who’ve dealt with identity-swappers—protected witnesses, adult runaways like our girl—and they all say the same thing: these people were the same afterwards as they were before. It’s one thing getting a new name and a new life; it’s a whole other thing getting a new personality. Even for a trained undercover, it’s a constant strain. You know what it was like, having to be Lexie Madison twenty-four seven—what it’s like now, sure. It’s not easy.”
“I’m doing OK,” I said. I had that wild urge to laugh again. This girl, whoever the hell she was, would have made a fantastic undercover. Maybe we should have swapped lives earlier.
“You are, of course,” Frank said smoothly. “But so was our girl, and that’s worth looking into. Maybe she was just naturally gifted, but maybe she had training, somewhere—as an undercover, or as an actor. I’m putting out feelers; you have a little think and see if you’ve noticed any indicators that point in one direction or another. That sound like a plan?”
“Yeah,” I said, slowly leaning back against the tree trunk. “Good thinking.”
I didn’t feel like laughing any more. That first afternoon in Frank’s office had just flashed across my mind, so vivid that for an instant I smelled dust and leather and whiskeyed coffee, and for the first time I wondered if I had completely missed what was happening in that little sunlit room; if I had bounced blithely, unconsciously, past the most crucial moment of all. Here I had always believed the test had come in the first few minutes, with that couple on the street or when Frank asked me if I was afraid. It had never occurred to me that those were only the outer gates and that the real challenge had come much later, when I thought I was already safe inside; that the secret handshake I had given, without even realizing it, might have been the ease with which I helped come up with Lexie Madison.
“Does Chad know?” I asked suddenly, when Frank was about to hang up. “About May-Ruth not being May-Ruth?”
“Yep,” Frank said cheerfully. “He does. I left him his illusions as long as I could, but this week I had my boy tell him. I needed to know if he was holding something back, out of loyalty or whatever. Apparently he wasn’t.”
The poor bastard. “How’d he take it?”
“He’ll survive,” Frank said. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” And he hung up. I sat in my tree, making patterns in the bark with my fingernail, for a long time.
I was starting to wonder if I’d been underestimating, not the killer, but the victim. I didn’t want to think this, I’d been flinching off it, but I knew: there had been something wrong with Lexie, way deep down. The flint of her, the way she had left Chad behind without a word and laughed while she got ready to leave Whitethorn House, like an animal biting off its own trapped paw with one snap and no whimper; that could have been just desperation. I understood that, all the way. But this, the seamlessness of that switch from sweet shy May-Ruth to bubbly clown Lexie: that had been something else, something wrong. No kind of fear or desperation could have demanded that. She had done it because she wanted to. A girl with that much hidden and that much dark could have sparked a very high caliber of anger in someone.
It’s not easy, Frank had said. But that was the thing: for me, it always had been. Both times, being Lexie Madison had come as natural to me as breathing. I had slid into her like sliding into comfy old jeans, and this was what had scared me, all along.
* * *
It wasn’t until I was getting into bed, that night, that I remembered: that day on the grass, when something had clicked into place and I had seen the five of them as a family, Lexie as the cheeky late-baby sister. Lexie’s mind had gone along the same track as mine had, only a million times faster. She had taken one look and seen what they were and what they were missing, and fast as a blink she had made herself into that.