by Marti Green
“Great.” It was my favorite restaurant in Bal Harbour, one that attracted visitors from all parts of Miami—celebrities and socialites, athletes and artists.
It was a beautiful evening, the temperature hovering around seventy, with just a light breeze, so we chose one of the outdoor tables. The waiter had just served our main dishes—mine was pescespada acapulco, fresh swordfish with artichokes, lemon butter, white wine, and diced shrimp—when Poppy asked, “When will this be over for you?”
I’d decided not to tell him of my plan to confront Ben. Better that he not have cause for worry. “As soon as Mallory revokes the prenup. Then Ben will be arrested, and I’ll return to New York.”
“Don’t take this wrong—I’m happy to have you here. It’s just . . . everything has been so stressful for you. I’m sure you want it to end, to have a normal life again.”
“Thank you, Poppy.”
“So, will there be a trial?”
“I suppose so, unless Ben agrees to a plea bargain.”
“And they’ll put him away for a long time?”
“Very long.”
I didn’t tell my grandfather that I thought no amount of time was long enough. Even though with Ben’s handsome face and buffed body, he would be considered prime meat for the prison population, and even though I knew he would be subjected to daily tortures there, it still wasn’t enough for me. I had given him everything, and he’d wanted more. Now, I wanted more.
CHAPTER 45
I had started to get bored silly when Detective Saldinger called. “Your sister has revoked your prenuptial agreement and started the process of settling the estate. It’s time to come home.”
“Okay, Detective. I’ll fly home tomorrow.”
I arrived at LaGuardia Airport at 2:30 p.m. the next afternoon and took a cab directly to my father’s apartment. I still had a key and had made sure to tell Mallory that she shouldn’t arrive before 6:00 p.m. That’s when the staff changed over. It wouldn’t do to have the doorman wonder how he’d seen two of us enter the building.
It was the first time I’d been there since my father’s funeral. After spending night after night for so many months by his side in this apartment, I felt a tug as soon as I stepped inside. The lights were all off and the curtains drawn, so I switched on the foyer light. Ben had let Tatiana go as soon as he’d received pictures of my “death,” giving her only two days to clear out her belongings. I never would have done that. She’d lived in this apartment for more than a decade. When Mallory told me, I sent a check to her at her sister’s apartment in Queens for one year’s salary.
I walked through the rooms of the apartment. The hospice equipment was gone, and everything was in place, as though my father was simply at the office, waiting to return home. It hit me hard, once again, that I was alone. The new people in my life: Mallory, perhaps my father’s parents, were just that—new. They didn’t share my memories.
I settled down on the living room couch with my iPad and surfed the Net, checking out the hot new artists, deciding which upcoming art exhibitions I wanted to attend, pretending that my life was normal. But I knew it wasn’t.
At 6:30 p.m., Mallory arrived, bags of Chinese food in her arms. “We could have had something delivered,” I said.
“I know. I wanted to test our twinness again—see if you like the same dishes I do.”
I opened the bags and pulled out a quart of egg drop wonton soup, shrimp chow mein, and chicken kung pao. “Perfect,” I said.
When we finished eating, Mallory asked, “So, what’s the plan?”
“I’m meeting with Detective Saldinger at the precinct tomorrow morning. He’s going to set me up with a Bluetooth device that’ll let them hear everything Ben says.”
“Probably a pen. That’s what they gave me when Ben took me to meet Clark.”
“I’ll come to the townhouse after Ben gets home, and we’ll confront him. Detective Saldinger and his men will be outside, listening, and when Ben admits what he’s done and sees both of us together, they’ll come in and arrest him,” I said.
“Some nights he doesn’t come home at all.”
“I’ll call him, pretend I’m you, and give him some reason for him to get back.”
Mallory nodded, but not with a great deal of confidence.
“Don’t worry. It’ll go fine.”
“I hope so. I want to get back to my life. That’s if I don’t get sent to jail along with Ben.”
“What? Waiting tables?”
She turned to me, and for the first time, I saw a flash of anger in her eyes. “I liked my life. It was a life I earned.”
I reminded myself that, despite our shared genes, my sister was a stranger to me. Briefly, I wondered if I’d been mistaken. If, despite her protestations that she didn’t want my money, that had been her aim all along. And even if it wasn’t, what was to say she wouldn’t want it down the road? She claimed she wanted only a relationship, but wouldn’t she also want the things I could do, the things I had? I know I would, and she was identical to me.
“I wish I could talk you out of this,” Saldinger told me the next morning. “I get why you want to do it, but what if he goes crazy and tries to hurt you?”
“You’ll hear it and run inside.”
“That gun that I saw you with. The night we got Clark. Can Ben get at it?”
“It’s kept in the bedroom upstairs. He won’t have a chance to reach it.”
He just shook his head slowly. “If I felt I needed a confession from him, I could have wired up Mallory anytime over the past week. I’ve told you, it’s not necessary.”
“I need to see the look on his face when he realizes I’m alive. That’s all.”
Saldinger sighed, then glanced around the precinct room uneasily. There were at least a dozen desks in the open space, half of them empty, the other half occupied with men and women busy at their computers or with open files. No one was looking our way. “It better not blow back in my face. That’s all I can say.”
I smiled. “It won’t. I promise.”
He handed me what looked like an ordinary pen. “This is a transmitter. It’ll allow us to hear what’s going on, and we’ll record it on our end. Just press down the top to turn it on and again to turn it off. It’ll work inside your pocket.”
I placed the pen in the pocket of my slacks. “Got it.”
“What time do you expect him tonight?”
“I’m going to call him from the townhouse, pretend I’m Mallory, and give him some reason to come home. Figure around six-thirty, seven.”
“I’ll have an unmarked car outside starting at six. Call me once you speak to your husband.”
I said goodbye, then left the station. I decided to walk uptown to my townhouse. Manhattan was my home. The crowded streets, the loud noises, the smell of food from the myriad restaurants all gave me a feeling of comfort. Lounging by the pool at Poppy’s, or jogging along his stretch of beach, was a nice diversion, but I’d go crazy living there year-round. Manhattan was good to those with money, delivering a plethora of restaurants and culture—theater, ballet, opera, symphony, and, of course, museums galore. It was where I belonged. I couldn’t imagine what it would have been like growing up in Allentown, Pennsylvania. I was glad I hadn’t.
CHAPTER 46
On my walk uptown, I stopped at one of my favorite boutiques and picked out two pairs of identical black woolen slacks and two of the same black-and-white silk tunics that fell just below my hips.
I let myself into the empty townhouse. Ben was at Jensen Capital, and Mallory was at the gallery. I looked through the rooms to see if anything was amiss. Although I knew Ben was a neat freak, I had no idea whether Mallory was a slob—but everything was in place. I brought the new clothes up to the guest bedroom and hung one set of the slacks and blouse in the closet. I stopped quickly in the master bedroom, picked up some items I needed, then headed back downstairs and called Ben.
“What are you still doing at home?” he aske
d.
“I’m leaving for the gallery soon. Were you planning on coming home after work?”
“Nope. Heading out to Lisa’s.”
I seethed anew on hearing her name. “There’s a problem here that I need you to handle.”
“What?”
“Your friend dropped by the house. The guy you hired for—you know.”
“What the hell? I made the final installment, left it in a postal box at Mail Connections, just as he instructed me. What’s the guy trying to do now? Shake me down for more?”
“I have no idea, but he’s coming back at eight o’clock. He said you’d better be home.”
I heard muttering on the other end of the phone. “Ben?”
“I’ll be there.”
I left the townhouse and walked through Central Park, which was bursting with people on this day that seemed like a promise of an early spring. Carlos, the doorman, nodded to me when I arrived.
Once in the apartment, I started going through Dad’s papers. Ben had asked Mallory to do that, and although she’d pretended she had been, I had instructed her to leave that to me. She wouldn’t know what I might want to keep. She had, however, purchased boxes for me. I started in Dad’s office. Most of the documents in his file cabinet were office-related. I put those together in three boxes, figuring I’d have them delivered to Ted Manning. They were probably duplicates, but he could decide what to do with them.
I pulled out the bottom drawer, and it contained only two folders. The first, marked Personal Records, contained the birth certificates and baptismal certificates of my parents, my mother’s death certificate, and her Social Security card. The second folder was marked Charlotte. Inside was my birth certificate, with my adopted mother’s and father’s names. Next, my adoption papers. I had been three days old when my adoption took place.
Clipped to those papers was a small envelope. I opened it up and pulled out two handwritten pages.
To my beautiful daughter Amelia,
Today is the hardest day of my life. Today, I signed papers for you to be adopted. As soon as you were born, I knew I had to do this, but I’ve cried for two days straight. You were a surprise. I didn’t know I would give birth to twin girls. I want so much to keep you both, but I’m only seventeen years old, and my mother has disowned me, and your father died fighting for his country.
They told me the man and woman who are adopting you have a lot of money. I’m glad. That means they can take care of you better than I can. I hope they love you, but it will never be as much as I love you.
If you’re reading this letter, it means your parents have told you about your sister and me. We live in Scranton, Pennsylvania, now, but I don’t know where we’ll be when—or if—you get this. I hope one day you find us.
Your loving mother, Sasha (Susan) Holcolm
I sat on the chair, stunned. My parents knew my mother’s name, where she lived. They knew I had a twin. They kept me from both of them. They must not have told Poppy, because he’d seemed surprised when I’d told him about Mallory. All these years, I could have had a relationship with my sister. I could have known my mother. Now it was too late.
At a little after 7:00 p.m., I started to make my way to the townhouse. Just before I reached my home, I texted Mallory to make sure Ben had arrived. He had. Detective Saldinger was parked a few houses away from mine. I don’t know how he managed to get a spot so close—finding a parking spot on the street in Manhattan was akin to finding the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Maybe the pot of gold was easier. I stopped at his car to say hello, and he introduced me to his partner, Frank Sidoriak.
“What’d they do?” I asked. “Assign partners alphabetically?”
He laughed. “Nope. Just happened to work out that way.” He quickly turned serious. “You all set? Got the pen?”
“All set.”
“Walk ahead, then turn the pen on. I want to make sure it’s transmitting okay.”
I did as he asked, and he gave me a thumbs-up.
It was time to go inside, to finish what Ben had started.
I made my way to the back door, then texted Mallory to let her know I was there.
Mallory texted back, I’m ready, and I quietly opened the door into the mudroom that led to the kitchen. Mallory was waiting for me, dressed just as I was, in the new clothes I’d bought this morning. We each had our hair pulled back into a ponytail. Anyone looking at us would be hard-pressed to discern a difference.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Where do you think? There’s a Knicks game on.”
Of course. That meant he was in the den, glued to the television. I glanced over at my sister and felt a tug of sadness. I wished we hadn’t met this way. I wished I’d known her when we were growing up. I wished our lives had been equally blessed with wealth. I wished Detective Saldinger hadn’t planted the seed of doubt in me. I didn’t buy into his concern that Mallory had designs of her own to replace me. Not now. I just couldn’t be sure that wouldn’t change down the road, and I feared that uncertainty would make it hard to have a relationship with her, when this ordeal finally ended.
I nodded to her, then walked from the kitchen over to the den. I peeked in, then casually asked upon spotting the empty beer bottle, “Want another?”
Ben looked up from the couch. “That’d be great.”
I returned to the kitchen, retrieved a bottle from the refrigerator, then brought it to Ben. I sat in a chair opposite him. He gave me a fleeting look, then turned back to the game. When I didn’t move, he paused the game. “What?”
I slipped my hand into my pocket and flipped on the transmitter pen. “I’ve been wondering. What made you think I would go along with your plan to kill Charly?”
Ben didn’t hesitate. Within minutes, he acknowledged that he was the one to come up with the idea. He had gone to Mallory and convinced her to go along. I knew that Detective Salinger, ensconced in his police car outside the townhouse, heard every word Ben said. I was about to leave when I decided to ask Ben for an advance on the inheritance.
He picked up the remote and turned off the TV. I figured this had to be serious—either that, or the game was a blowout. He cleared his throat. “I’m glad you brought that up. I’ve been thinking . . .”
Always a bad sign, I thought.
“I think the split needs to be something different from we discussed.”
I had to restrain myself from laughing. Not only did the bastard plan my murder, he now wanted to cheat his accomplice. “Why?”
I pretended to fume as Ben went through his explanation for keeping almost all my money for himself. When the charade started to bore me, I stormed out of the den and back into the kitchen. It was time for the fireworks. I slipped my hand into my pants pocket and clicked off the transmitter pen. “Did you hear?” I asked my sister.
“Every word.”
“Let’s go.”
Side by side, we walked to the den. Ben had already turned the Knicks game back on and didn’t look up when we stood in the doorway. Detective Saldinger wouldn’t enter the townhouse from the unlocked back door until he heard Ben react to seeing Mallory and me together. That had been his promise to me—to let me watch Ben’s reaction when he realized I was alive.
But that wasn’t enough for me.
I called Ben’s name, but he didn’t look up. I called it again, louder. He held up his hand to shush me, without turning his head.
“A minute. Key play here.”
When he finally paused the TV and swiveled toward us, his face turned a deadly pale.
He stared at us both with his eyes wide, his mouth open.
“Hello, Ben,” I said.
His head twisted back and forth between us as his eyes rapidly blinked.
“You’re . . . you’re not dead.” His voice came from his trembling lips as a croak.
“Who, me?” I said.
“Or me?” Mallory said.
“But . . . the pictures. You were . . . dismembered.�
�
I laughed. “I work with artists, you fool. They can make anything look real.”
He swept his hand across his forehead and wiped away the beads of sweat that had formed. “You went to the police?” he asked both of us, not knowing which one was his wife.
“Did I?” Mallory said.
“Or didn’t I?” I chimed in. “You can’t really tell us apart, can you?”
He stood up from the couch and started to approach us. “You bitch,” he hissed, still turning his head back and forth between us.
I slipped my hand under my tunic and pulled out the gun I’d retrieved from Ben’s night table earlier that day. I pointed it straight at my husband. “I’d stop there if I were you.”
“Charly, what are you doing?” Mallory shouted at me. I didn’t answer. I just kept my eyes on Ben.
“Charly, put that away. I don’t know what she told you, but it was all her idea. She paid the hit man. She found him and paid him. She told me if I didn’t go along, she’d kill me, too.”
“You can’t believe that,” Mallory said to me.
I didn’t. Not that it mattered. I took a step toward Ben, and he backed away from me. I kept approaching, backing him toward the wall, not getting close enough for him to grab the gun.
“Charly,” Mallory said, “it’s over for him. Let Detective Saldinger handle it now.”
“So he can get some fancy lawyer who’ll come up with some way-out defense? Remember the Twinkie defense? Got the guy cleared of a murder charge.”
“You’re not a murderer,” Ben said, his voice now low and steady, his eyes locked on mine. He’d reached the wall. I stopped just out of his arm’s reach. “You don’t want to do this. I’m going to prison. You don’t need to, also.”
It gave me pleasure to see the fear in his eyes. I relished the power I felt with the gun in my hand. For months, I had been powerless as I’d watched my father die. I’d felt powerless as Ben snuck off every evening to be with his mistress. No longer. Now, I felt infused with power. I could have turned on the transmitter, put the gun down, and waited for Saldinger to come into the townhouse. I didn’t want to. As much as I’d once loved Ben, that’s how much I hated him now.