What She Saw

by Sheila Lowe

  “You already kidnapped me. What’s next? You have us killed?”

  “You have quite the flair for melodrama,” Nguyen said with an amused chuckle.

  Jessica pointed to her bruised face. “Nice that you think it’s funny, but I wouldn’t call this melodrama.” Still trying to grasp the weirdness of looking at what was essentially her other half, she addressed this person on the bed who had said she was her twin. “His thugs broke in again and wrecked your living room, and you can see what they did to my face.”

  “That was a regrettable mistake,” Nguyen broke in smoothly. “But as I’ve explained, you will be well compensated. Call it...a bonus.”

  “You arrogant asshole,” Jessica shouted. “How can you pretend everything is okay?”

  “Everything is okay.” Nguyen patted the bed. “Now, Jenna, if you’re feeling up to a car ride, I’m going to ask Mr. Bagshot and Mr. Farley to see you home.”

  “You’re letting us go?” Jessica saw skepticism reflected in Jenna’s face and realized that even their expressions and mannerisms were the same. It was an uncanny sensation, one that would take some time to get used to.

  Nguyen shrugged. “You had a break-in. What are the authorities going to say? As you ladies just discussed, your sister suffered a head injury that causes memory problems. She’s an unreliable historian.”

  “If we both tell them the same—”

  “Sisters supporting each other with some outlandish story of kidnapping? Please be my guest, call the police.”

  “When they see these bruises and what those men did to Jenna’s apartment, they’ll have to take a report and investigate,” Jessica said.

  Nguyen’s smile was so cold it sent shivers over her. He tipped his head in Jenna’s direction. “Ladies, I am not at all concerned about you calling the police. Feel free to blow whatever whistles you like. There is nothing for anyone to find.”

  t w e n t y – n i n e

  Bagshot herded them into a service elevator, then out through a metal roll-up door that opened onto a small loading dock behind the building. No one spoke and Bagshot did everything possible to avoid eye contact with either sister. Three bright red gouges ran from eyelid to chin on his right cheek. Jessica, who had broken a fingernail venting her wrath, took a primordial pleasure in any pain she had caused him. She hoped it hurt like hell; Bagshot had earned it.

  Nate Farley drove the SUV up to the dock and Bagshot hustled the two of them into the backseat. Neither man offered aid to Jenna who, after so many days of relying on a feeding tube for nutrition, was weak and needed help walking.

  Ignoring her own injuries, Jessica was glad to offer support. She could feel the ice inside her beginning to thaw, her guard lowering as she drew comfort from the physical connection to the one person in the world who knew more about her life history than anyone else—more, in this moment, than Jessica herself knew.

  Jenna, entering the apartment first, hesitated on the threshold. Behind her, Jessica knew what she was seeing: tables upended. Cotton batting from the disemboweled loveseat cushion clumped on the floor like dirty snow. Childhood mementos shattered.

  Taking a few unsteady steps into her living room, Jenna sank to her knees with a strangled cry.

  Jessica stood a few feet behind her, not wanting to intrude on her sister’s grief. She was going to need time to absorb what had taken place in her ten day absence.

  For Jessica, the fact that these were not her own possessions as she had believed they were made it no less wrenching to watch Jenna reach for the weather-beaten old teddy bear that Farley had mutilated and clutch it against her. Or run her hands over the books whose covers he had ripped away—books she had kept because she cared about them. Jenna’s wounded expression said it all. Her eyes reached the smashed figurine of Belle. “Didn’t they leave me anything, Ariel?”

  In some crazy way that made no sense, Jenna’s suffering caused Jessica a pang of guilt, as if it had been she, rather than the home invaders who were responsible for the destruction. Feeling the need somehow to absolve herself, she started right-ending the tables. “There was nothing I could do to stop them,” she said softly.

  “I know.” Jenna released a shuddering sigh and pushed to her feet. “I can’t let those bastards get away with what they’re doing.”

  “We’re outgunned,” Jessica pointed out, lending her sister a steadying arm. She was more than ready to leave BioNeutronics and whatever experiments they were conducting and never look back, but Jenna shook her head. “I’m not going to let it go, Ariel.”

  “Right now, you need to go to bed and rest. I’ll bring you some tea and toast.”

  Jenna allowed herself to be shepherded into her bedroom. Jessica helped her get settled, then went to the kitchen and dropped two slices of wheat bread in the toaster.

  She nuked some water and dunked chamomile tea bags in two mugs, adding a spoonful of honey to each.

  While waiting for the toast to pop she washed her face and hands in the kitchen sink and dried them on a paper towel. She was afraid to look in the mirror and see the damage Bagshot had done. Her nose felt less swollen, but her cheek still throbbed like a toothache.

  Returning to the bedroom, she found Jenna curled in a fetal position on the right side of the bed, looking very young and vulnerable.

  Is that how I look, too?

  An old cliché popped into her head: two peas in a pod. As Kevin Nguyen had pointed out, there were subtle differences, but the face on the pillow was amazingly like the one that looked back at Jessica from the mirror every day. Even with the difference in their hair length, they were alike enough that she had mistaken Jenna’s driver’s license photo for herself.

  With some effort, Jenna pulled herself up on her elbows and accepted the tea and toast. She looked pale and ill. She said, “I feel so—messed up. What the hell did they do to me?”

  “What was this “experiment” Nguyen claimed you volunteered for?”

  “I didn’t volunteer!”

  “Shhh, of course you didn’t.” Jessica sat on the edge of the bed. “You need to eat, get those drugs out of your system.”

  “I will,” Jenna said. “Climb in with me so we can talk.”

  “I feel gross after sitting on that floor all night. Do you mind if—”

  “Take whatever you like,” Jenna said, not needing to hear the rest of the request.

  The hint of a smile played around her mouth. “We’ve always shared clothes. Maybe you don’t remember.”

  Jessica rummaged in the nightstand for a pair of shorts and a Tee-shirt. “I’ve been sharing yours for the last ten days.” Dropping her Levi’s where she stood, she winced as she bent her knee to step out of them.

  “My God!” Jenna cried, pointing at her sister’s leg. “They did that to you, too?”

  Jessica looked down at the right kneecap, which had taken the main impact of her fall and was red and swollen.

  “There’s an ice pack in the freezer,” Jenna said. “Make one for your knee and one for your face.” Then, as Jessica went to the kitchen, called after her, “Take some ibuprofen, too.”

  Feeling as though a piece of a puzzle had been fitted together, Jessica did as she was told. She came back and climbed under the covers, slapped the icepack over her knee, then positioned her pillow against the wall behind her. “I guess I’m lucky they didn’t do worse.”

  “There’s nothing lucky about that,” Jenna said, pointing to her sister’s bruised face. She adjusted her pillow next to Jessica’s. “Why do you think they let us go?”

  “You mean you didn’t buy Kevin’s explanation?”

  “I don’t buy anything that little toad says.”

  “Me neither. Was there an experiment, or was he just blowing smoke?”

  “They did something. My head feels stuffed with oatmeal.”

  “If he was telling the truth, you were in a drug-induced coma for about ten days.”

  “I remember blurry faces looking down at me and I hear
d voices, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. You know what’s weird? That’s exactly what you told me when you came out of the coma after the accident.”

  “That’s an experience I wish we didn’t have to share. Jen, tell me about Project 42. What did you mean when you told Nguyen you were going to blow the whistle?”

  “They took me to stop me from talking about what they’re doing.”

  “Simon took the project away from me. I mean you. He’s—”

  “‘Took it away’?” Jenna set her mug and half-eaten piece of toast on the nightstand and stared at Jessica, waiting for an explanation.

  “When I went to work on Tuesday, he told me that all the files were removed from the work station and that I—you—were off the project. They brought in two new scientists to finish the project. Neither of them speaks English, so no problem with them saying the wrong thing to anyone. Plus, they’re working in—”

  “—the private lab,” Jenna finished for her. “I set up that lab so it wouldn’t have to go through the purchasing department. Jess, what do you know about Project 42?”

  “Not a thing.”

  Jenna kicked the bedspread back and started to get out of bed, then fell back against the pillow with a groan. “Damn, I’m so dizzy, but I’ve got to get to my office. I—”

  “Downloaded the files,” Jessica finished for her. Odd how she knew just what Jenna was going to say. Her twin didn’t seem surprised. “How did you find out?”

  “Because I found where you hid the flash drive—”

  “In the rubber tree plant.” Now it was Jenna’s turn to finish the sentence.

  Jessica explained how the woman from the plant maintenance company had found the plastic baggie sticking up from the potting soil.

  She described her abortive attempt to get the bootleg files out of the building, her nighttime attempt to retrieve it, and Farley’s interception.

  “Why’d you throw it out the window?” asked Jenna. “You could have just waited until the next day and walked it out.”

  Jessica shook her head. “After that woman got pulled out of line for a strip search, I couldn’t take that chance.”

  “We have to go back and get it. It’s the one way I can prove—”

  “Chill, Jen. It’s here.”

  “Here? My flash drive is here?”

  Jessica related how the gardener had returned the drive and she had hidden it under the Chinese food. “It’s still on the kitchen counter in the takeout bag. Didn’t you smell it when we came in?”

  “Holy cow, Ariel! Good thinking.”

  “I almost told those goons about it last night. I’m glad I didn’t.”

  Jenna said, “One day while Simon was out I copied everything from the Project 42 directory off his computer. Then we had this huge fight about the project and I never got a chance to go through them.”

  “Downloading the files set off an alarm in Kevin Nguyen’s computer.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of. That’s why I decided to bury the flash drive in the plant. I knew there was high security on it, but I didn’t know exactly how they had it set up. Simon and Kevin worked that out and he didn’t tell me.”

  “Kevin must have totally freaked when I showed up at work,” Jessica added. “Here comes someone who looks like you, says they are you, while he knew you were unconscious in the basement. He couldn’t very well accuse me of being an imposter without exposing what he’d done.”

  “It’s not the first time we’ve traded places, Ariel. You took a math test for me in high school; sometimes we traded dates.” Jenna gave a small laugh. “I can’t believe you thought you were me.”

  “What else could I think? I woke up on a train not knowing who I was. Like I told you, I ran into Zach and he brought me here. There’s still so much that’s not clear, but over the last couple of hours, since you woke up, my memory has been trying to wake up, too. It started when Detective Jovanic was here yesterday.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Detective Jovanic? He’s been trying to help me find out what happened to me. Dr. Gold introduced me to him.”

  “Dr. Gold? My therapist? Wow, you sure did take over my life, Jess. That feels a little weird.”

  “No lie. Anyway, Dr. Gold thinks I’m you. He hypnotized me to see if I could remember anything.”

  “Well, did you?”

  “I saw Greg—the accident—though at the time I didn’t know who he was. Detective Jovanic brought me the accident report yesterday. He came up from L.A. with his girlfriend.”

  “His girlfriend?”

  “Claudia Rose. The handwriting analyst you met at a convention you attended with Simon.”

  “Oh wow, I remember her. She was great.” Jenna’s expression softened. “Poor Jess, it must have been awful for you.”

  “I just knew I would find blood everywhere, but there wasn’t any, just a little spot.” Even though she now knew what had happened, the terrible apprehension Jessica had experienced upon first entering the apartment swept over her again. She couldn’t help shuddering.

  Jenna squeezed her hand. “They must have cleaned up after they took me. Thank you for coming to look for me, Jess, even if you didn’t know that’s what you were doing. You’ve always looked out for me.”

  “I have?”

  “You’re ten minutes older and you never let me forget it,” Jenna grinned. “Don’t worry, Ariel, I’ll fill you in on everything.”

  Ariel. Belle. Nicknames they must have used since childhood. Jenna confirmed it. “We fought over the names. You wanted to be Belle, but I started crying, so you gave in and let me have my way, as usual. I was always a spoiled brat.”

  Jessica listened keenly, soaking up every detail, every little tidbit. It all seemed vitally important. She felt a spark of excitement, knowing that she would get her questions answered at last. One question, not about her own past, pushed to the forefront. “I found the torn up picture of you and Simon in the drawer.”

  “It was the only picture I had of us together. Even after I ripped it up, I couldn’t make myself throw it in the trash.” Jenna scrunched her eyes together as if to barricade herself against an unwanted image, but tears leaked through her lashes. “I told him I didn’t want to see him anymore, but he wouldn’t listen. He kept calling that night. I finally turned the phone off.”

  “I know, I found it under the bed. He left a load of voicemails and texts.” Jessica got up and limped to the bathroom for some tissues for her sister.

  Jenna accepted the wad and blotted her wet face. “I’m done with him,” she said in a tight voice.

  “He doesn’t know about Nguyen and what he did to you. You should have seen his expression the first time he saw me. He accused his wife of sending someone after you.”

  Jenna’s face lit up, then fell. “He’s married to a senator who’s running for president. How stupid am I?”

  “Jen, I didn’t know you were having an affair with him, did I?”

  “It’s all so humiliating. He’ll never leave her, I finally figured it out.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “How could I?” Jenna’s voice rose and spots of color suffused her pale cheeks. In that moment, she looked like a little girl who’d dipped into her mother’s rouge.

  “I started seeing Simon after your accident. You’d been in a coma, then we were grieving for Justin. Greg was in jail for murder. I would have been as much of an asshole as that asshole you married if I’d dumped my problems on you, too.”

  Jessica, who had not intended it as an accusation, was stunned at the intensity of her sister’s response. “It’s okay,” she said, trying to soothe the tempest her words seemed to have raised. “I get it.”

  “I don’t think you do!” Jenna jumped out of bed and, keeping a hand on the wall for support, left the bedroom, leaving Jessica staring after her. “Look at this mess!” She stood in the middle of the living room, hands raised in the air. “It’s not right to leave a p
lace like this.”

  “Why are you so mad?” Jessica asked, following her.

  “Mad? Me? I don’t get mad, remember? I clean.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, that’s right, you don’t remember. I’m OCD Jenna.” A boulder dropped to the pit of Jessica’s stomach as her twin tore into the kitchen and began wrenching open cabinet doors. The sounds of slamming them shut seemed as loud as a gunshot.

  Reaching under the sink, Jenna seized a plastic garbage bag from the box. She ripped the bag open and marched into the living room, grabbing her mangled possessions and stuffing them roughly into it. She turned on Jessica. “How could you let them do this?”

  Jessica recoiled as if she had been slapped. “Let them? What could I have done to stop them?”

  “Something. Anything! What the fuck’s wrong with you? I’m gonna burn all this shit, I swear I am.”

  Jenna’s hands were shaking violently. She hurled the half-filled trash bag to the floor, spilling its contents. Jessica strove to keep her voice as low and calm as her twin’s was harsh and ragged. “We can deal with all this later. Some of it might be fixable.”

  “No! It’s no good now. Those people are evil. They’ve screwed up everything they touched.” Heedless of Jessica’s growing bewilderment, Jenna continued her rant. “What do you care anyway? It’s not your stuff! I’m going to burn it all, right here, right now.”

  She marched back to the kitchen and began scrabbling through the junk drawer. “Where are the matches?” she shrieked. “I can’t find the matches. What have you done with my goddamn matches? Where are they?”

  Jessica’s mouth had gone dry, her chest constricted in fright. The wasps were back at it, full force in her ear.

  “Jenna, stop it! You can’t friggin light a fire in the living room.” Her twin, her mirror image, was a demented movie of herself.

  “I’m going to burn it. All of it.” Jenna twirled, pointing an accusing finger. “What have you done with the matches, goddamn it?”

  Something had gone horribly wrong. Jessica might not consciously remember, but she knew instinctively that this was not the sister she had grown up with.