Page 56 of My Twin Sister

She stares at me, and now I understand why Morgan felt the way she did about her older sister. There’s something about her that’s a little intimidating, but in a way that makes you want to please her instead of telling her to fuck off.

“If you don’t tell me, I’m just going to find out myself. Save me the trouble, Grace.”

I hate that she’s forcing my hand. I have to tell her something. Enough that she’s not going to leave here and start trouble on my half-baked theories.

“Well, I obviously didn’t die that night, and Sherrif Gibbs and the coroner both said I did. That’s one cover-up. My dad is innocent. I can’t prove it yet, but he is. And I don’t believe he killed himself either. Like I said, it’s a lot of assumptions right now. So let’s not burn the town down just yet.”

Her eyes drift to the floor, and I can see her mind working. Then she nods slowly.

“Patterns,” she says. “There are patterns of cover-ups and setups.”

“Yes. But a pattern doesn’t prove anything. Not yet.”

Brooke stands up. “Right. I know that.” She takes another sip from her mug. “I’m going to go. Can I take this?”

She indicates to the mug in her hand. I shrug. “Sure.”

People who drive around with open coffee mugs scare me, and it makes total sense that Brooke is one of them. She shows herself out, and I stay sitting at the dining room table for a minute. I hope I didn’t say too much. I hope she’s smart enough to keep her mouth shut and stay out of trouble.

I top off my own coffee and go back upstairs. I start in my dad’s office. It was supposed to be Geny’s room, but that lasted all of one night when we were ten. We tried again sophomore year of high school, and it lasted for almost a week because Geny was mad at me for something I can’t even remember. After that, dad turned it into an office.

I don’t know what I’m looking for. I sort through old bills and tax documents, a lot of junk mail I have no clue why he was holding onto. My dad was as old school as the rest of Raven, and most of his life was on paper, not digital. Camera phones weren’t really a thing back then. I think some people had them, but it was still the age of disposable cameras and then carrying around a separate digital camera and uploading the photos onto your computer.

I think about the pictures found on his work computer. It’s not that I don’t think my dad could figure out how to get the pictures onto the computer. He was a high school principal in the twenty-first century. He may not have been a computer whiz, but he wasn’t an idiot either. It just feels off. But the whole thing feels off.

I’m not sure where my thoughts are leading me or what point I’m trying to make to myself, but an hour later, I’ve gotten nowhere. I see my phone screen light up across the room and I use it as a welcome distraction. It’s a call from Murphy.

“Hello?” I answer.

“Good afternoon,” he says.

I glance over at the clock. “It’s barely eleven. It’s not afternoon.”

“Eleven is afternoon.”

“It’s literally not. It’s one hour before noon.”

He sighs. “It doesn’t have to be after noon to be afternoon. It’s just a section of the day. Like morning. And evening.”

“It’s in the name, Murphy. Don’t get mad at me.”

“This is not what I called you for,” he says with a smile in his voice.

“No?”

“No. I’m off early today. Thought you might make nice company for a meal.”

I bite back my grin, but no one can see me, so I allow it to grow on my lips. “You have good timing. I’m starving.”

“Good. Meet me at Carol’s?”

I tell him I’ll be there in ten minutes and hang up the phone before sprinting to the bathroom to get cleaned up and changed. I’d planned on going for a run, but this feels like a better distraction from my recent lack of progress and setbacks with Geny. I finally catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and wince at the purple bruising around my nose. It doesn’t feel broken, but I’ve never had a broken nose so I wouldn’t know. I apply a little more makeup to hide the worst of it before heading out.

Thirty-Four: Grace

I send Brooke a text when I start walking to the diner. I don’t want to say too much, but I ask her if she’s okay and to call me later. Then I send Geny a text. It’s windy, and I hear the distant crashing of waves from the lake. The sky is a bright shade of gray, clouds solid as far as the eye can see. It’s the kind of weather that would be perfectly spent inside by the fireplace. Which is my favorite time to be outside.

Geny probably won’t respond, but it doesn’t stop me checking my phone every few minutes. She’s always needed a few apologies to let me off the hook. She didn’t always get one. A lot of times I tested how long she’d stay mad at me. The longest was forty days.