He lets out a breathy laugh, as though relieved, but keeps his eyes on his mug, his thumb tracing around the frosted rim. “Yeah,” he says, shaking his head.
There’s a beat of awkward silence and I take another sip. “Well, I’m going to head up and take a shower,” I eventually say. I start for the door, but he whips out a hand, wrapping it tightly around my wrist. Keeping me from leaving.
“What—” I start to protest.
He cuts me off. “Who are you?”
I frown, angry at the way my heart begins to race. “What are you talking about?”
He steps closer. “Who are you?” he demands, louder.
“You know who I am,” I snap, rolling my eyes. “What the hell’s gotten into you?” I struggle against his grip but it tightens enough to be painful. Pulling me closer.
His eyes scour my face. “You’re not Libby. Who are you?”
He says it with such certainty that I know—I know—he’s figured it out. That I’m not Libby. I try to figure out where I messed up, what I did to tip him off. But it doesn’t matter. His knowing who I am isn’t part of the plan. It could ruin everything I’ve been so carefully constructing.
I need to get away from him. “This isn’t funny,” I warn, trying to pry his fingers from my arm. He spins me around, shoving my back against the sink.
A deep, welling panic spikes through my gut.
“Tell. Me. Who. You. Are.”
“Let go of me,” I bite out between clenched teeth. But even I can hear the uncertain fear in my voice.
He knows.
He leans closer, his chest a wall crowding me against the counter. Trapping me. “Tell me,” he growls, “who you are.”
“Libby,” I whisper. Because I don’t know how to be anyone else. Not anymore.
He shakes his head. Angry. His fingers tighten, cutting through muscle to bone. “Libby has a scar along the back of her knee from when she was five and fell climbing a chain-link fence.”
“Scars fade—I used Vitamin E oil on it,” I argue, refusing to cede anything.
His hands shift, grabbing the counter to either side of my hips, caging me in. “Libby’s left eye has a streak of green across the outer edge.”
“People’s eyes change as they grow up. And don’t forget I spent a week blinded by the sun in the ocean. There was permanent damage.”
He leans closer. “Libby’s bottom teeth were crooked.”
“I got them fixed.”
“Libby’s left pinkie toe is bent from when she broke it jumping from a tree swing in the neighbor’s yard.”
My breath flutters. “Things change, Shepherd.” I lick my lips. “I changed.”
“No!” he roars, slamming his palm against the counter next to me. The vibration of it shudders through me. “You aren’t her!”
“Why can’t you just believe me?” I shout back, desperate.
“Because I loved her! I adored her! I noticed everything about her!”
Sensing a weakness, I turn this around on him. “Oh, that’s why you don’t want me to be Libby? Because you can’t face the fact that I don’t love you?” I laugh, a mocking bark that’s cold and cruel. “Is it easier for you to believe I’m someone else than to believe I don’t love you anymore?”
He presses his lips together, the muscles along his jaw clenching as he draws several deep, shuddering breaths. He’s livid and his hands grip at the counter on either side of me, fingers like claws.
There’s exhaustion and resignation in his voice when he finally says, “You tied your towel wrong.”
The statement is so preposterous it catches me off guard. My eyes fly to meet his and I almost flinch at the accusation in them. “What?”
He leans away from me slightly, giving me space. “You didn’t care when I put the dish towel back after cleaning up a spill just now. You sleep with your windows open. You got your ears pierced.” Misery is visible on him now, in the way he holds himself so rigid as though he can somehow fight off the truth.
I roll my eyes, but he just lowers his voice, continuing. “That’s what you don’t get. I have to admit, you’re pretty brilliant at pretending to be her. That smile, slightly crooked. The way she twists her ring when she’s flustered.” He shakes his head. “But you missed the stupid things that no one ever thinks about. That no one would ever notice if they weren’t hopelessly in love.”
“Like how someone ties a towel?” I ask, incredulous.
“Libby was allergic to wild blackberries,” he says softly. I look at him blankly. He picks up my mug from the counter. “What do you think I put in your smoothie this morning?” He lets it fall, not caring when it smashes against the floor.
My mind scrambles. How could I not have known about that—how had Cecil never told me? I desperately try to turn it back on him again. “You fed me something I’m allergic to? You could have killed me!” I spit at him.
He stares at me, breathing fast. And for a moment I think I have him. The tension leaves his shoulders. “I’d have never put Libby in any danger,” he says, almost incredulous at the very suggestion. “Wild blackberries made Libby sneeze. We figured it out one day while out catching crabs in the creek.”
I scoff but he leans closer, each word precise and ordered. “I’ve been testing you for days.”
His eyes are a storm, violently tumultuous. And I can so clearly see the truth of it: He knows. This isn’t him grasping at straws. This isn’t him chasing a hunch.
He knows that I’m not Libby.
It becomes difficult to breathe.
“And you’ve failed every one.”
TWENTY-TWO
When Shepherd’s fingers brush my cheeks, they’re damp with my tears. He pulls my chin until I’m facing him. It’s like drowning all over again. Those moments after jumping from the Persephone when the world went dizzy and all there was was falling and then sinking, sinking, sinking so deep into the ocean that I thought it would drag me down forever.
“I know you’re not Libby,” he whispers. “Who are you?”
There’s no surface I can swim toward anymore. And there’s nothing left in me to fight against the surge of water.
For the first time, I wonder if this is how Libby felt out on the raft when she decided to give up. If she experienced this same kind of lightness. That it could be over. There could be an end. If only I let go.
I run my tongue over my lips, but it does nothing to ease the dryness. “I’m Frances,” I whisper. “Frances Mace.” The name once so familiar, now so foreign.
And even though he must understand what this means, he still asks the question. “And Libby?”
“She died on the life raft.”
He turns his face away, but not before I catch a glimpse of the anguish. I glance down at the mug broken at my feet, giving him this moment. Suddenly his hands on my shoulders aren’t keeping me pinned to the counter, but are keeping him standing.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. But how can that ever be enough?
He says only one word: “Why?”
When I don’t answer fast enough, he lifts his head, expression cold. “Why are you here? Why are you . . .” He pushes away from me so that he can scan me top to bottom. “Why are you her?”
“I can explain,” I tell him, hands up as though to physically fend him off. He stares, waiting. I cross my arms over my chest, fighting back a shiver. Trying to find the right words to make him understand.
With a sigh, I tell him the truth. “The Persephone wasn’t struck by a rogue wave. She was attacked. Armed men boarded her, killed everyone on board, and sank her.”
His jaw clenches, anger brewing in his eyes. And then he barks out a scornful laugh. “This is ridiculous,” he says, shaking his head. He starts for the door. But I can’t let him leave, not without him understanding.
“Wait!?
?? I chase after him, grabbing at his arm.
He whirls on me. “Don’t touch me!” Warning is written all over his expression.
“I can explain! Please,” I beg.
“You’re pathetic,” he bites back, continuing toward the garage.
I flinch, the barb striking deep. Hating that this man now knows my deepest secret. “For Libby!” I call after him. His shoulders bristle. “Please, just give me a chance to explain—for her.”
When he turns to me his eyes are murderous and I force myself to meet them head-on. His resolve doesn’t waver. “If you really cared about her—” I start.
He draws a sharp breath. “Don’t you ever question my feelings for Libby,” he snarls, jabbing a finger toward me.
I use his emotions to my advantage. “Then just listen to me. I know you don’t trust me. But please, just give me this.”
We stand, both drawn so tight we’re almost quivering. The air conditioner hums, cold air blanketing across my sweat-dampened clothes. Shepherd’s gaze flickers down and then aside. Then he nods, once.
I let out a relieved breath. “Thank you.” He responds by clenching his jaw. I try to think about the best way to explain—how to make him understand. “There’s something in my room you should see.”
He says nothing as I lead him upstairs. When we reach my room he hesitates at the threshold.
For the first time, it feels like I’ve lost control of everything. Up until this point, I’ve played this game of revenge like chess, pushing the players around the game board, knowing how to move each one to impact the others. The endgame always firmly in sight.
But now, Shepherd’s changed the rules. Suddenly he can move the pieces around as well and it throws everything into jeopardy.
I’ve lost the ability to control him.
The only thing I have left is the truth.
I fall to my knees and reach under the bed to pull out the fireproof briefcase. My fingers dance over the lock, such a familiar pattern of numbers and movements. And then it’s open, revealing stacks of notebooks and albums, some of them bursting at the seams with yellowed newspaper clippings. Years of meticulous research. Documentation. Planning.
“It’s all here,” I say, gesturing. He doesn’t move from his place in the doorway.
I push to my feet, starting toward the bathroom. “I’ll shower,” I tell him. “Give you time to look through it all. Then we’ll talk.” He says nothing in response.
Once in the bathroom I pull off my sodden jogging clothes. And then I just stand there, staring at myself in the mirror. I search for signs of Frances, trying to recognize myself again.
But I’m not sure there’s anything of her left. Certainly not enough that Grey could see it. I’ve spent so long holding the pieces of Libby around me that I’m not sure I’m even capable of letting go.
My eyes fill with tears, blurring the image in front of me. No longer looking at the individual features, just seeing the whole—those things that Frances and Libby always shared. Oval face. Dark hair. Brown eyes. Wide forehead.
What’s left of either of us? Unsettled, I twist the O’Martin signet ring on my finger. Libby’s old habit, now mine. I pull the ring free, holding it up between my reflected selves.
It was the first thing of hers Cecil gave me. A seal between us that I’d accepted his proposition. I glance at my bare hand, the skin at the base of my finger indented, a paler white. A ghost of the ring.
A reminder that even if I chose to, I could never be free of Libby. She is entangled in me, now and forever.
TWENTY-THREE
I stay in the shower until the water runs cold and even then I don’t get out until my teeth chatter and I can no longer feel my toes. I take my time brushing my hair, putting on lotion, postponing the inevitable. Finally, I tug yesterday’s clothes from the hamper and dress.
When I open the bathroom door I find Shepherd standing on the balcony, staring out at the bright ocean. A light breeze teases at his hair, tugs at the hem of his shirt. Behind him, the notebooks are scattered across my bed and a few yellowed newspaper articles have drifted to the floor.
I bend, picking one up. It’s a picture of Frances. The one from her yearbook.
I swallow.
From my yearbook.
“All this time and she’s been dead.” He doesn’t bother turning to look at me, just continues staring out into the empty horizon. “For years I’d hoped . . .” His voice cracks and he swallows the rest of the sentence.
But I know what he was going to say. He’d hoped that he and Libby could be together again. That maybe he could remind her of their history together, of the way they’d fallen in love.
He’d been holding on to a girl who no longer existed. And now he hadn’t just lost her, but the dream of her. Of them together.
Sometimes I think that’s the hardest part to recover from. Not the loss of someone, but the loss of the possibility of them.
“And this . . .” He turns and stalks to the bed where he grabs one of the notebooks at random and flings it at me. I flinch, throwing up my hands to catch it as it smacks against my chest. I don’t have to look at it to know the pages are filled with details about Grey. Just thinking his name causes a heat to swell inside me, battling against the terrified numbness of having been unmasked.
“All these details—so dry and cold.” He reaches for ano-ther one and I recognize it instantly as his. He starts reading. “‘Shepherd’s parents both worked for Cecil—his mother, Mariana, first as a maid and then as a personal assistant. His father, Manuel, as his estate manager. Both Mariana and Manuel were killed in a car accident when Shepherd was six (Luis was sixteen). The only family that could take Shepherd and Luis in lived in Mexico and Cecil offered to act as their guardian so they could continue living in the States.’”
“Stop,” I tell him. He does, tossing the notebook at me so that I fumble to catch it.
He’s already moved on to another. This one is Libby’s. “‘If she wears a watch (which she only does when school is in session), she puts it on her right wrist. She detests anything between her toes and refuses to wear flip-flops. From around ages nine to eleven she had a plant in her room that Shepherd nicknamed the suicide plant because—’”
“Please, stop,” I whisper.
He throws this notebook at me as well, reaching for ano-ther. “‘According to several interviews Martha Wells takes one vial of Refreshergy every morning before her swim. That she drinks it with a smoothie will impact metabolism of the toxin but since it’s stable unless mixed with sodium chloride, the cramps won’t hit until she’s in the ocean.’”
I lunge toward him and rip it out of his hands. “Enough!” I shout at him.
But he surges against me, coming so close that not even air separates us. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he shouts. “You planned to poison an innocent woman!”
“It’s not a lethal dose,” I counter.
His eyes go wide. “Do you even listen to yourself? ‘Not a lethal dose’? That’s not an acceptable response!”
He’s right. I know he is and I hate it. I hate the condemnation in his voice. Even more than that, I hate the disappointment. Because disappointment only comes when you expect something of someone. And no one has expected anything of me in years.
Except to be Libby. That’s the only thing anyone has wanted from me since the moment I was pulled from the ocean. Even then I knew it was an impossible task. I would always fall short.
Even the fake me is a disappointment.
Cecil never said so directly, but I could see it in his eyes. He tried to love me. He was always kind and generous and I truly believe he cared for me.
But at the end of the day I was not his daughter. I was neither Frances Mace nor Libby O’Martin.
I was simply lost. As adrift in this new life as I’d been in the Persepho
ne’s life raft.
The only thing that has ever truly been mine—that belongs to neither Frances nor Libby but to this new hybrid creature I’ve become—is this: my quest for truth and revenge.
And I will not allow Shepherd to take that from me. I will not allow him to condemn me for seeking the truth.
I lift my chin, squaring my jaw. Ready to face anything he throws my way.
He shakes his head, horrified. “Everything—all of this. Is it some sort of messed-up game to you?”
“You don’t understand,” I scoff.
“There’s nothing to understand!” He waves his hands at me, as if I were some sort of specimen he’s afraid to even come into contact with. “This—you—it’s out of control!”
I raise a finger, pointing it at him. “I am not out of control. If you’ve learned anything from reading through my notebooks, it’s how meticulously I’ve planned it all out.”
He turns and starts pacing, his fingers laced behind his head. I can’t hear the words he’s mumbling, but it’s pretty obvious it’s about me being crazy.
I begin gathering the notebooks that dropped to the floor, setting them on the bed with the others and arranging them in order. Every sense is trained on Shepherd—listening to the stuttering shuffle of his feet, the harsh way he inhales and holds it.
“You can’t mess with people’s lives like this, Frances,” he finally says.
Hearing my name—the real one—sends my pulse racing. Half in fear, half in thrill. I clench my fists, nails digging into my skin. “They messed with mine.” I hate how petulant that sounds, but it’s the truth.
He lets out a long breath, moving close enough that the heat of him radiates against my back. “You have to let that go.” His words are a gentle plea. And it makes me wonder what stake he has in all of this. Why he even cares.
I close my eyes, thinking how easy it would be to sway back against Shepherd and let his arms circle around me, bearing me up. It wouldn’t be that difficult to let it all go—I could take Libby’s money and run. Disappear and let the Wells family live out their lives in whatever peace they’ve been able to find.