by Victoria Fox
It was their fault.
Simone was in hell. She was sick with worry and dogged by guilt. The last words she and Tess had spoken had been in fury. She understood her sin—oh, she knew it too well. She understood the truth and it made her weep.
Just as her child had been taken from her, so Tess had been taken without her consent. Simone was responsible for ripping a family in two—just the same as hers.
Tess and her twin should never have been parted.
Ultimately, blood was strong as steel. It could not be broken. It could be diluted, kept apart, separated for years on end, but it would always find its way back. Blood defied death; it was the unbreakable, eternal bond, and she should know that better than anyone. She, who had given up her child, her son; her newborn baby …
I’m sorry, Simone thought. I never meant to hurt you.
She didn’t know whether she meant it for Tess or her baby.
That letter she had written, the cunning she had been so proud of but now felt terrible about. The heinous lie she had told about Calida and Julia’s death—not that Tess was any the wiser about that—and its revelation would sever them for good. What had she been thinking? She was a different woman today from the woman she’d been.
If only she could turn back time …
Back to when she visited Argentina; she would be honest with Tess, tell her the truth and on that foundation they would build their union. Because blood was only half the battle—trust was the rest. Now she had broken that, where could they go?
Where are you, Tess?
Back to her grandparents’ attic: she would snatch her baby back and tell them she was surrendering him over her dead body. They would have to kill her first.
Why didn’t I do that?
I was fifteen. I was scared. I was a child myself.
Nothing was any comfort. Simone had created a nightmare and was caught in its whirling, sinister epicentre; not knowing which way was up.
Please come home, Tess. Please come back.
Simone wished that Christmas and all its attendant festivities could fuck off as she made her way to the old apartment she still owned off Broadway. It wasn’t much of a place, disused for most of the year, but Tess knew it. Maybe she would be there.
It was a long shot. Really, it was impossible.
But an unseen force drew Simone to that door. Blood—or something like it.
65
Alex and Daniel aided the police investigations as best they could.
‘You knew Tess?’
‘You grew up with Calida?’
It was always in the past tense, as if they were fielding polite enquiries at a funeral. Neither dared to voice the fear that it wouldn’t be enough.
‘Why were you at Tess’s house?’
Both had the same reason, just different women. Love.
Calida would have been on her way there, Daniel realised, when he lost her trail. He had tried calling her but she must have changed her number.
‘Do you think she’s with Tess?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Daniel.
‘Has anyone heard from the twin?’
‘No, chief,’ said an officer. ‘We didn’t even know she had a twin.’
‘Seems like nobody did. Get on the phones, McCarthy.’
Alex had been on his way to see Tess. They’d been together in the past, he said. He had only ever loved her. And now she was gone.
Outside the station, Daniel flicked out a packet of cigarettes and offered Alex one. ‘Teresita … she’s why you bought the farm, isn’t she?’
Two sisters, poles apart by misunderstanding, and two men, from separate walks of life—but somehow, in this place, not so different after all.
‘Yes,’ said Alex.
‘Why didn’t you tell her?’
‘I was going to. I tried. But she didn’t want to know. Until the night we got together, she was … I don’t know, she was stubborn—’
‘She’s certainly that.’
‘She got married to someone else.’
There was a long silence. They both had regrets.
‘What was she like as a girl?’
A smile lifted one corner of Daniel’s mouth. ‘Difficult.’
Alex smiled too. ‘And Calida?’ he asked.
The smile faded. ‘She was my friend.’
The men smoked.
‘I wish I could tell her,’ said Alex. ‘I’d do anything to tell her now, take her home and show her it’s all still there—that her sister’s there, too. She was so cut up about Calida. To see her, to hold her, to make it better … I know I could.’
‘There are things I’d like to tell Calida, too.’
Alex put a hand on Daniel’s shoulder.
‘You will,’ he said. ‘We both will.’
66
‘Say good night, sister.’
The blade touched the tender skin on her throat. Calida thought of Christmas unfolding outside, of joy and laughter and lights. That was the last thought she had.
Not yet.
Only it wasn’t her voice, this time. It was Teresita’s.
They were girls again. Outside the ranch, on the wooden veranda …
Don’t go yet. Come back. Come back …
The words she had longed to yell at Teresita’s departing car that day when she’d left. Forget our fight. It doesn’t matter. Don’t go; please, don’t go …
It happened fast. Suddenly Calida’s wrists were freed, worked from their ties, and with a last fist of strength she pushed against her assailant. For a second she thought she might be dead, departing her useless body and heading for the skies. The propulsion of his weight across the room told her she was not.
She was alive. She was strong.
Shock stalled him.
‘WHORE!’
The man came towards her. In a flash, Calida’s fear was replaced by fury.
How dare you do this to me? Who the hell do you think you are?
Then another question:
Who do you think I am?
In her heart, she knew. The van outside Teresita’s house, the dress she was wearing from her sister’s closet, the stalker her sister had sensed at her back …
The man swiped at her but he was too slow. Calida tore the gag from between her teeth and spat in his face. He was shuddering now, his eyes wide and darting, floundering at having lost control. How could she have thought he was an old man? He was barely in his fifties, still powerful, still capable of hurting her.
‘You’ll pay for that,’ the man snarled, thrusting against her.
Calida tasted fear. She could feel the man’s stiffness pressed against the inside of her thigh, and choked. ‘Get off me!’ she screamed. But it was no good. He was rubbing himself against her, grunting like a pig. His hand snaked under her clothes and touched her bare skin. Wildly, she recoiled. Vomit surged up her throat.
‘Get away from me!’
He would not be deterred. Calida thought fast.
The knife. In his desire, he had forgotten about it.
The blade glinted on the dark floor and she pounced. Before the man could react, she slashed his leg. With a wet, stunned gurgle, he collapsed.
Calida slashed him again, and again, and again.
He had shown her no mercy.
She should kill him.
‘You did a bad thing to me,’ she rasped, her words—his words—spitting from her lips like fire. ‘I don’t like people doing bad things to me. If someone does a bad thing to me, I have to do a bad thing back.’ She raised the knife.
‘But first,’ she said, ‘tell me who you are.’
She needed to know.
‘Tell me who you are before I kill you.’
67
Barcelona
On Christmas Eve, Mia called her parents. ‘They’ll murder me if I don’t!’ she protested, but they both knew she’d powered her phone to see if Gabriel had texted.
Tess was in the shower when Mia started banging on the do
or.
‘What is it?’ Tess turned the water off.
‘I’m not sure,’ came Mia’s voice. ‘Get out here.’
Tess dried and wrapped herself in a towel. She opened the door, hair dripping.
‘What’s happened?’ she asked. She thought of Béatrice and Anton. ‘Mia?’
Mia shook her head. She was icy pale. ‘I’m not sure what it is.’ She handed over her phone. ‘I went online. Apparently, you’ve been kidnapped.’
Tess scanned the item. ‘Of course I’m missing,’ she said. ‘I’m here.’
‘Yes, but look.’ Mia scrolled across. ‘There.’
Tess read:
MYSTERY VAN NEW LEAD IN GEDDES VANISHING.
Investigations into the disappearance of troubled Hollywood starlet Tess Geddes gained new momentum today following eyewitness reports that cited Ms Geddes climbing into an unmarked van outside her New York building on Friday night. Witnesses report a woman matching Ms Geddes’ description conversing with an unknown male, before departing in his vehicle. Ms Geddes’ friends and family have expressed acute concern over her disappearance five days ago, saying it is ‘entirely out of character’.
‘Shit,’ said Tess.
‘You need to go back. They think something’s really happened to you!’
‘But this is crazy. What are they talking about? Who got in what van?’
‘Simone will be going out of her mind—you have to get in touch.’
Tess took Mia’s phone, and noticed she had a series of missed calls from an unidentified number. Thinking it must be Simone, she dialled straight back.
She held the phone to her ear and waited.
Mia was right. It was time to go home.
68
New York
‘I’ll tell you.’ The man choked against the knife blade, his eyes alight with wicked satisfaction: at last, a chance to assert his identity. ‘If you dare …’
Calida held the dagger to his throat, the tip tickling the thin skin covering his windpipe. He had a pronounced Adam’s apple. She asked herself if she could slice through it if she must and the answer was yes. Just as Diego had slaughtered the guanaco because it was right: to put a hopeless thing out of its misery.
Her wrist cramped with her refusal to budge. The man’s leg was hurt but otherwise he was strong. He hadn’t been drugged, like her. He hadn’t been starved, like her. But she had the weapon. She had to stay in control. ‘Talk.’
The man gulped. His throat bobbed moistly.
‘My name is Martin Gallagher,’ he said. There was a pause, as if this name should mean something, but it didn’t. ‘But that wasn’t the name I was born with.’
Calida waited. The knife-tip didn’t move.
‘My old name was David Geddes.’
That did mean something. She just wasn’t sure what.
‘My mother is called Simone,’ he said, and the bitterness in his words frightened Calida more extremely than anything else he had done to her. ‘She gave me away. When I was a baby, she gave me away and left me for dead. She didn’t care what happened to me. She was a girl, then, and I know what excuses she would bring. Do you think those excuses mean anything to me? Do you think they make any fucking difference?’ He bared his teeth. ‘If anything, they make it worse.’
Calida’s mind raced. You think I’m Tess.
That’s why.
This has nothing to do with Scarlet Schuhausen. It’s always been you.
Simone. Tess. You.
‘The people who took me were cruel and careless. They didn’t want me. Nobody wanted me. And it wasn’t enough that she gave me up. She helped herself to another child when it suited her. Never mind about me, or the fact I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to be born, wasn’t ready to live, but when she was ready—that was fine. So she adopted you.’ Hate infected his words. ‘She gave you everything. More than I would ever have asked for. All I needed was the love of my mother. My mother.’
You think I’m Tess. You think we’re the same.
It was in Calida to blurt the truth—right there, waiting on the back of her tongue. But the words didn’t come. She couldn’t say them.
‘Simone didn’t love me enough to keep me,’ he spat, ‘but she was willing to love someone else. All that crap about giving a child a home, had she given me one? Had she given a second thought to the home I ended up in? I lived with brutal people. People who made me do things I didn’t want to do. I’ve never recovered from that.’
Calida’s grip was loosening on the knife. She felt pity, and with pity came weakness. ‘How was I to know?’ she murmured. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’
‘It never is, is it, Teresa?’ He sensed her waning and his eyes hardened. ‘That’s your real name—just a dirty, poor little girl who hit the jackpot. That was my jackpot. It was my prize. Simone was my mother—not yours.’
He moved like a snake, quick and lethal.
The knife fell from her hands.
69
Simone stepped inside her Broadway apartment. There was an awful aroma.
What on earth …?
It was so long since she’d been here. Hollywood friends occasionally used it, Lysander when he was in town and keeping a low profile—and it occurred to her that she should have taken better care of it. Installed it with a proper alarm, for starters.
I’ve been burgled.
Dread notes hit her one after the other—the open window, the trashed ornaments, the torn curtains and the bombsite of the living room.
Everything was wrecked. Chairs tipped over, drawers opened and emptied, shelves kicked in, picture frames smashed. Simone’s eyes flew from one assault to the next, appalled at the crime. Whoever did this didn’t just want her cash; they wanted to hurt her. They hated her. Terror washed over her, cold and prickling.
She heard a sound upstairs. A scuffle; a creak on a floorboard …
And a man’s voice, a boy’s voice; a voice she had never heard, and yet …
A voice she knew.
Calida was thrown on the floor, helpless as a ragdoll. She felt her grip desert her, and exhaustion take over. How long have I been here? A day, two, three? She was hungry. Thirsty. Spent. Her mouth was dry and her ears were ringing.
I need to sleep. Go to sleep now.
She could still taste the drugs, her insides raw, shutting down inch by inch.
I tried. I’m sorry. It’s over.
He would think he had got her. He would leave Teresita alone.
It’s over.
The man was laughing. He reclaimed the knife; glad at his confession and the effect it had wrought, mightier than ever now that the truth had spilled free.
Then, abruptly, he stopped.
His head snapped up, flat as the hood of a cobra. He could hear something.
Sounds from outside the room, all around, beneath, above, like angels.
A door clicking shut. The steady tread of footsteps.
The man turned, his attention caught.
It’s too late. I need to sleep.
Calida closed her eyes. The last thing she saw was the lost expression in his eyes. Like a child to its mother’s call, he turned and went towards the light.
A faint buzzing stirred her. It shouldn’t have happened; her cell should be as dead as she was. Calida reached for it. She could barely see, barely hear, barely breathe.
The screen was lit. Mia.
Calida held it to her ear but couldn’t speak.
Instead, she listened.
So did the person on the other end.
Then, the person said:
‘Hello?’
‘Mother?’
As if in a dream, he stepped out to meet her.
Their eyes met across impossible gloom. He held a knife.
Simone knew without any doubt who the man was. How could that be, when so many years had passed, when she had last seen him as a baby?
But she did.
She reached for him, but not quick enough.
‘Mother … it’s you …’
‘It’s me,’ she choked.
‘Where have you been?’
Simone opened her mouth. No words emerged. The scene defied definition and her addled brain worked to slot it all together—the wrecked apartment, the weapon, Tess going missing—but she was terrified of the picture it made.
‘No,’ she pleaded, ‘what are you—?’
It was too late. As she reached him, he lifted the blade and plunged it between them, sinking through flesh. Two hearts, racing next to each other.
One of them pierced.
One of them stopped.
Simone choked, slumped forward, the wet spill of blood as it seeped inside out, silent and scarlet, and they seemed to catch each other, together at birth and together in death, it was only the part in between they had missed.
70
Calida would know that voice anywhere. Any time, any place, across thousands of miles and thousands of ages, she would know it for all time in her soul and her dreams, the place she had come from and the place to which she was going.
‘Teresita,’ she whispered back.
There was a sob, solitary and deep: a sob not from the throat but the heart. Calida had never heard a heart do anything but beat and break. Hearts cried too.
‘Calida?’ The last part crumbled away. Then she heard crying, proper crying, the kind that only children do, uncontrolled and unembarrassed and without restraint. Disbelief ran to fear to ecstasy, and her sister sounded very far away, as if her voice, her weeping, was reaching her down a tunnel. As if Teresita was calling her across the Patagonian steppe, against the wind and dust. ‘Calida, is that you?’
‘It’s me.’
‘Say something,’ she cried, ‘Say anything, just talk to me—’
‘It’s me. It’s OK, Teresita … It’s me.’
Calida couldn’t make out the next bit. Something about if it was a joke, if it wasn’t real, it couldn’t be real because Calida was …
Dead?
I’m not dead … Am I?
‘Remember Paco?’ Calida managed, her eyelids heavy as hot tears fell. I’m sleeping. This is a dream. But she wanted to dream it a while longer. ‘Remember Papa? Remember the lavender? Remember the stables, and the shadows on the wall?’