by S W Vaughn
Clearly, she wasn’t interested in small talk. Fine with me. “Got a restroom in here?”
“Down that way.” She pointed to the last aisle in the store, adjacent to the other entrance.
I nodded thanks and crossed in front of the counter. There was movement outside, and the truck-side entrance opened just before I reached the last aisle. I started to shuffle aside, a murmured ‘excuse me’ ready on my tongue, when I caught sight of the person entering the building and a startled jolt went through me, freezing me in place.
Jesus, I could’ve been looking in a mirror.
The man from the truck side had my face. Same olive complexion, same hazel eyes, same black hair, though he wore his short where mine was shaggy and brushed my shoulders. Even the shape of his face was the same. There were plenty of subtle differences — he was a few inches shorter than me, the cleft in his chin was a bit more pronounced, my cheekbones were a little sharper. I’d like to say I was in slightly better shape than him, too, though he was no slouch. But the resemblance between us was nothing short of striking.
And, I realized with a shock, I knew him.
A memory stirred, one I hadn’t thought about for a long time. One of my many stints in juvie — New Heights. I’d met that slimy little bastard Jake there, but he hadn’t been the only remarkable thing that happened during that time. I remembered the kid who looked just like me. Even though our sentences had only overlapped for a week, it wasn’t the kind of thing you could forget easily.
“Donnie?” I finally said as the name swam up from the murky depths of my childhood.
I imagined that the startled expression on his face was mirrored on mine. When I said his name, he gave a nervous laugh. “Holy shit,” he said. “You’re that kid from juvie … Mark, right?”
“Yeah.” It was close enough that I didn’t bother to correct him. Something about this guy had always unnerved me a little, beyond the fact that he looked so much like me, being around him made my skin crawl. We hadn’t exactly ended up pals in lockup, hadn’t really talked much at all. We’d never even exchanged so much as last names or the reasons why we were both in that place — the run-of-the-mill small talk normally traded by convicts of all varieties, even the under-eighteen ones. I figured he was just as creeped out as me by our bizarre, completely unrelated resemblance.
Doppelganger. The word alone gave me chills.
“I can’t believe it, running into you out here,” he said. “You don’t live in the city anymore?”
“No, I’m still in the city.” I chose my words carefully, knowing that a shared juvenile record wasn’t enough for me to start blabbing about my profession to this man. For all I knew, he could’ve cleaned up his act when he got out of there. “Just on my way to visit a friend up north. You?”
He opened his mouth, started to answer, but then held up a finger and pulled a phone from his jacket pocket. I noted that, like me, he was unmarried — no wedding band, no tan line indicating he usually wore one.
When he glanced at the phone’s screen, a quick spasm flitted across his features. “Uh … yeah, me?” he said slowly as he swiped at the phone and started to text something. “Sorry, this’ll only take a second.” He tapped almost frantically, and for a second I thought I glimpsed sweat beading at his temples. But then he finished, put the phone away, and flashed an apologetic smile. “Work,” he said with a shrug. “I’m supposed to be going on vacation, but you know how it is.”
I made an agreeable noise, as if I did indeed know how it was. If he had a job that he took vacations from, I definitely couldn’t let anything about me slip. Whatever he’d done to land in New Heights, it appeared that his time there had somehow set him on the straight and narrow — which was more than most of the ‘graduates’ from that place could say.
Awkward as this encounter was, I figured this was the point where we’d make our excuses and go our separate ways. But my lookalike hadn’t moved or lost interest in me. Apparently he was expecting something more.
“Vacation, huh?” I finally said, trying to surreptitiously edge down the aisle toward the bathroom.
He nodded. “Yeah, Vermont. It’s supposed to be nice this time of year.”
“So you’ve never been there before?” I asked, as if I knew all about Vermont and how nice it was, oh yes, vacationed there all the time. As if I cared whether he’d been there or not. Small talk wasn’t really my thing.
“Uh, no. First time.” His gaze darted past me for a second, to the entrance across the store where I’d come inside. “It’s so bizarre running into you out here,” he said. “I mean, what are the odds? Unless you’re headed for Vermont too.” He gave a nervous laugh.
I shook my head. “Listen, man—”
“So anyway, enough about me,” he interrupted. “What’ve you been up to all this time?
“Oh, you know,” I said vaguely, deciding that if this conversation didn’t end politely in about sixty seconds, I was going to end it rudely. “This and that. I manage.”
He laughed like we were suddenly old friends. “Yeah, I’ll bet you do. That shirt looks like it cost more than my whole closet,” he said. “Is that an Armani?”
My upper lip twitched. It was an Armani, actually, but I didn’t want to discuss my financial standing with him. “Well, you look good,” I said.
“Yeah, sure I do. Man, it’s been a long time.” A grin eased itself across his face. “Hey, you remember that kid Jake who was in with us?”
The mention of Jake, the backstabbing little weasel, galvanized me into action. I grunted something that was close to yes and took a definitive step away, down the aisle toward the bathrooms. “Look, I really have to hit the head,” I told him. “Good catching up with you.”
“Oh, sorry. No problem,” he said as he moved back to give me a little more room. “I was just going to grab a drink for the road, but I’m not really in a hurry. We can talk more when you’re done. I mean, how crazy is this, bumping into each other way the hell out here?”
I detected a bright, almost manic thread running through his cheerful tone, and found myself wondering if his memories of that week in New Heights were the same as mine. He seemed desperate to claim me as a long-lost friend. Maybe he didn’t have many of those.
He’d probably act the same way if he ran into Jake, or even that psychopath Clemente kid who didn’t speak to anybody and spent most of his time sitting in a corner, tearing napkins he’d filched from the cafeteria into tiny pieces and swallowing them one by one.
“Yeah, maybe,” I managed. “Excuse me.”
As I headed down the aisle, I hoped Donnie-boy would decide to continue on his way before I was finished. Conversing with my mirror image was vastly unsettling, to say the least. I could barely stand to meet his eyes.
A shiver of unease gripped me as I walked into the bathroom and pulled the door shut.
The restroom was bigger than it looked from the outside. Four urinals, three stalls, and a closed door at the back across from the larger handicapped stall with a hand-lettered sign that read Showers $5 for 5 minutes, $1 per additional minutes. More highway robbery. Still, as I cozied up to a urinal and unzipped, I briefly considered paying for the privilege. I wouldn’t mind a hot shower right about now, and a few hours of sleep on top of it.
But I couldn’t have that yet. No rest for the wicked.
I was washing my hands at the middle of three sinks, idly wondering what kind of astronomical odds there were that I’d run into some kid I sort of knew from juvie who happened to be a dead ringer for me, at a truck stop in the middle of nowhere, when that grating door chime from the gas pump side went off. The people who worked here really had to hate that thing.
Then I heard a male voice shouting, the sounds of a scuffle, a muted crash. And a woman’s scream.
The crack of a gunshot ended the scream, and I knew exactly what was happening.
Nicky’s thugs were here.
Goddamn it, how? I wanted to shout, but there was no
time to question. However it happened, they were out there, and I had to deal with it. I palmed the Shield, knowing exactly how many shots I had — a fresh clip of eight, plus one in the chamber. I wasn’t sure how many guys were in the black sedan that had been following me, but it couldn’t possibly be more than the number of bullets I had. Five men, tops.
I pushed the restroom door open and whipped through gun-first. The aisle leading to the truck-side entrance was clear, but I heard more shouting and crashes. Another gunshot. “There he is!” the same male voice I’d heard before bellowed.
“Hey, what the hell?” a different voice called. That one belonged to Donnie. “No! I’m—”
Two more shots rang out, silencing him, and I went cold with realization.
Nicky’s dumb goons must have mistaken him for me.
Now I’d have to kill those assholes, before they found out they were wrong.
I crept along the aisle, keeping low, and popped up when I got near the end. The first thing I saw was the goon in the suit standing near the end of the counter, just out of sight of the aisle I was occupying. He wasn’t looking in my direction — his attention was on whatever was happening in the far aisle. Behind him, the cashier sat sprawled on the floor, her back against the cabinets full of cigarette cartons across from the counter. She’d died in wide-eyed shock, as if she was trying desperately to understand the sudden hole that had been punched through her forehead.
I took the goon out with a headshot before he even knew I was there and called it revenge for the cashier, who hadn’t deserved to be gunned down just for having to work this shitty job.
The instant I fired, the male voice I’d heard before snarled, “What the hell? Bitsy, the fuck are you shooting at?”
I had a feeling Bitsy couldn’t answer him, so I rushed around the corner at a crouch and stepped over the big guy’s body, headed toward the shouting.
The owner of the voice circled the far aisle and stepped toward the counter, and I recognized him as Nicky’s right-hand man. Vinnie the Cancer. He caught sight of me and stopped with a whole-body flinch. His jaw dropped, and his heavyset features blanched. “I … you,” he spluttered.
“Yeah. Me,” I agreed, and shot Vinnie three times. Mostly because I was pissed that he wasn’t Nicky. Right now, I really wanted to kill that son of a bitch, simply for believing I could’ve ever done anything like what happened to his girlfriend, and subsequently causing this clusterfuck. But of course, he wouldn’t have come after me himself. He was busy running a mafia family and making false accusations.
I never killed people unless I was getting paid, but I’d have done Nicky for free.
Silence filled the store, broken only by the low hum of the coolers that lined the wall of the far aisle. “Anybody else in here?” I called.
A sputtering cough responded, and a voice rasped, “Help … been shot.”
Shit. Donnie-boy was still alive.
Though it was unlikely I’d be able to risk saving him now that he knew I’d killed two men, I’d probably try anyway. I headed for the cooler aisle where the weak cry had come from. Two bodies on the floor — one dead, the other headed there fast. The dead one was closest, dressed in blue coveralls with the name George stitched on the breast pocket. He must’ve been the driver of the tow truck at the diesel pumps.
Just beyond him was Donnie from New Heights. He’d been shot twice — once in the leg, once in the gut. Even if I called for help, he’d never make it.
But if Nicky’s idiot goons hadn’t been after me, he would’ve been fine.
My stomach rolled in sympathy as I stepped over the tow truck driver’s body and crouched next to the dying man. “Ambulance is on the way,” I told him, knowing it was probably true. No doubt one or more of the truckers outside in the lot had punched up 911 the instant the gunfire started, so whatever I was going to do here, I had to make it fast. “Just take it easy.”
He flashed a wan smile as blood dripped from his mouth. “Too late,” he rasped, and then started coughing again. It lasted for a long time. When he stopped, his eyes cleared briefly and he looked at me.
His bloodied lips stretched wider.
“One way … or another,” he grated. “Marco.”
Oh, so he suddenly knew my name. And what the hell did that mean?
Before I could ask him, his eyes rolled back and he slipped away. He was still breathing.
Wouldn’t be for much longer, though.
“Jesus, you morons,” I seethed at the goons as I shot to my feet and forced a hand through my hair. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
The morons, being dead, failed to speak in their own defense.
Though I was sickened and horrified that all these people had died because Nicky’s dumbass employees shot first and asked questions never, part of me realized I’d been handed an unexpected opportunity with an extremely narrow window. Before I’d really thought the whole thing through, I found myself going through my lookalike’s pockets, grabbing keys, phone, and wallet. I transferred the items into my coat, then took out my wallet and phone. The three hundred in cash from my wallet went into my jeans pocket, and I tucked my belongings into Donnie’s jacket.
Finally, I wiped my own gun thoroughly on my shirt and put it in his hand. I knew that would cover it. Movies and cop shows suggested that in a scenario like this, some sharp-eyed team with diverse personalities would descend upon the scene of the multiple homicide and comb everything for evidence, carefully identifying each body with fingerprints and DNA and all manner of exhaustive tests, until they uncovered a mystery that needed to be solved — for example, this dead guy was actually someone else. Cue dramatic music and half an hour of chasing leads to the shocking Big Reveal at the end.
But in real life, they wouldn’t do any more investigating than they had to. The body had my ID and the keys to the car outside that was registered to me. Therefore, this dead man was Marco Lumachi, alleged hitman — they’d never been able to stick any charges to me in the city, even though I’d been under suspicion a few times — who’d apparently killed two mobsters before dying of gunshot wounds. Case closed.
That scenario actually made more sense than the truth.
The next step was to grab a few supplies and get out of here. I helped myself to a plastic bag from behind the counter and filled it with a six-pack of Coors, three bottles of water, and a bunch of beef jerky and snack cakes on the way through.
Just before I stepped out, I palmed my doppelganger’s keys and pasted an expression of shock and fear on my face. Then I scuttled outside, making a beeline toward the SUV at the diesel pumps like it belonged to me. I jumped into the driver’s side, tossed the bag of people-fuel on the passenger seat, and started the engine with a hard twist, peeling away from the pumps.
“Vaya con dios, Donnie,” I murmured as I circled the pumps, floored the gas toward the mouth of the parking lot and swung a right onto the road, barely stopping to check for traffic. The highway onramp headed north was only about five hundred feet from the truck stop. I slowed, signaled, and made an easier turn onto the ramp.
Nothing in the rearview mirror. No lights and sirens. I guessed response times for emergency services weren’t exactly fast out here in the sticks, but at least I wouldn’t have to worry about the possibility of being questioned or stopped at a roadblock.
Momentary relief slowed the hammer of my heart. I’d drive to the next rest stop, and then pull over and figure out exactly where in Vermont I’d been headed on vacation before I was so rudely murdered at a gas station.
Chapter Three
Preston
Clearly, sleep was not going to grace her with its presence anytime soon.
It was going on midnight when Preston gave up, folded the covers back and got out of bed. She hardly glanced at the unused pillow or the spotless and somehow accusatory nightstand on the other side, a token resistance that she considered an improvement. Maybe she’d move up to sleeping wherever she wanted to on the be
d, instead of staying on ‘her’ side every night.
But of course, she wouldn’t. And she knew why. Even after three years, it would feel like a betrayal to take up his side. Like she was giving up hope.
She couldn’t do that to Paul.
She used the bathroom without turning on the light, and then slipped on a pair of shorts to join the t-shirt and underwear she’d worn to bed before heading downstairs. Maybe a half-glass of wine, or a shot of something harder, would quiet her mind enough to let her sleep.
Half an hour later, she was on the couch and sipping at full wine glass number two while some Netflix thriller movie played at low volume on the television in front of her. But she wasn’t paying attention to the movie.
She was thinking about the dead girls.
They didn’t know the name of the girl in the woods, and they wouldn’t for a while. There was, of course, no identification with the body, which made perfect sense. The girl couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen when Preston saw what she saw.
What she’d seen was a murder. And if anyone had actually believed her when she’d told them, maybe they would’ve found the body and caught the girl’s killer twenty years ago. But they didn’t even try. So now, they might never find the person who did this. Time had erased most of the evidence, and at the same time it had marched away from anyone who might’ve known anything about what happened that day. The memories of any friends, relatives, or potential witnesses would be faulty at best by now. Who could possibly remember a specific day twenty years ago with any kind of detail?
Except for Preston, that was. She hadn’t forgotten a thing about it.
She wondered how her parents were going to react to the news that the girl had been found — especially her father. Both of them had been supporting after her ‘ordeal,’ trying their best to help her through the trauma, but they refused to believe she’d witnessed a murder. Her father in particular shut the topic down hard, convinced she’d seen a couple of teenagers having some kind of deviant sex. At one point he’d gone out to the big, ramshackle house on TR-28 to speak to the woman who lived there. Preston never found out how that conversation went, because her father refused to utter a word about it.