Chapter 4
Ispent the rest of the afternoon and way too much of the early evening researching everything I could find on Addison and Allison.
Which turned out to be depressingly little.
Apparently homicidal wereapes with secret twins didn’t leave a strong internet footprint.
Who knew.
The glowing screen of the Merlin Database flickered in front of me while I sat cross-legged on the couch surrounded by empty coffee mugs, snack wrappers, and approximately fourteen open tabs that all basically said the magical equivalent of:
information unavailable, classified, or please stop asking questions before someone curses you.
Very helpful.
Outside the cottage windows, the late afternoon sky had started shifting into that soft gray-blue color Hollow Cove always got in early spring. The snow was finally melting in patches across the yard, leaving muddy grass behind, and every once in a while, I could hear distant shouting from town.
Festival setup. Or as Dolores probably called it, “civic coordination.”
Somewhere in the distance, my aunt was likely terrorizing volunteers over decorative moss placement while I sat here spiraling over dead wereapes and mystery twins. Life came at you fast.
The Grimway Citadel records were even worse.
Minimal access. Restricted reports. Redacted incident details. One file literally only stated: DECEASED
Which sounded suspiciously like: we absolutely know what happened but don’t want lawsuits.
I rubbed my eyes and leaned back against the couch cushions with a groan. “Come on,” I growled at the screen. “Give me something useful. Childhood trauma. Old addresses. Weird hobbies. Secret cult memberships. Literally anything.”
Nothing. No school records. No pack information. No magical registry entries. No old photographs. No “cute twin sisters enjoying summer camp before eventually becoming emotionally catastrophic.”
Just Allison. Always Allison. Like Addison barely existed before showing up on my porch to accuse me of murdering her sister.
Which should not have bothered me as much as it did. But it did because something was weirdly unsettling about somebody arriving in your life already hating you. Like Allison had spent years building this version of me in Addison’s head.
A villain. A thief. The woman who ruined her life.
I hated that.
Mostly because it was ridiculous. But also because tiny ugly pieces of it brushed too close to old insecurities I didn’t particularly enjoy revisiting.
I clicked through another restricted Citadel report and sighed. Still nothing. No family records. No mention of Addison. No surviving relatives listed anywhere.
Normal people had histories, paper trails, old social media accounts with embarrassing vacation photos and badly filtered cocktails.
Addison had nothing, like she’d stepped out of thin air wearing designer jeans and emotional trauma.
A loud thump sounded behind me, just as a blur of black fur moved in my peripheral vision.
Darian, my kid, was currently using the living room like his own personal obstacle course.
In full baby gorilla form. Again.
At this point, I was starting to think the furry version was becoming his preferred setting. Maybe it was.
I spun around just in time to see Darian tumble off the coffee table while proudly holding one of Marcus’s boots over his head like he’d conquered an enemy tribe.
“You know what?” I pointed at him. “I respect the confidence.”
He screeched happily and attempted to eat the shoelace.
Right.
His tiny gorilla body launched across the couch cushions with alarming speed before he grabbed on to the curtain with both furry fists and started climbing.
“Darian,” I warned without looking away from the screen. “That curtain costs more than Mommy’s dignity.” Not really since House had decorated it himself. But Darian didn’t know.
He answered with a series of excited little grunts and hoots, his tiny fists drumming against his chest.
I’d reached the point in motherhood where I could somehow tell the difference between happy screech, hungry screech, sleepy screech, and screech preceding disaster.
That last one was the worst. Especially since Marcus found half this stuff adorable instead of horrifying.
“Oh look,” he’d say calmly while our son hung upside down from a bookshelf like a tiny possessed jungle cryptid. “His upper body strength is improving.”
Meanwhile I was two emotional breakdowns away from bubble-wrapping the entire cottage.
I turned my attention back to my screen, feeling more irritated than anything at this point. The more I researched Addison, the worse it got. Like I was missing something important. And my instincts hated missing things.
Especially when those things arrived at my house wearing expensive jeans and revenge energy.
I clicked another file open. Nothing. Another. Nothing. Another. Still nothing.
“Seriously?” I groaned. “How are you this mysterious? Are you secretly a spy? A serial killer? A minimalist?”
Darian suddenly launched himself from the curtain directly onto the couch with a delighted squeal.
One cushion exploded onto the floor.
I stared at him.
He stared back proudly.
Marcus’s genes were becoming everybody’s problem.
A memory of Addison standing on the porch flashed through my mind again. Composed. Perfect posture and that stupid perfect hair. Totally in control. And that was the part I couldn’t shake.
Not the threat. Not even Allison’s death.
The control.
Because Allison had always felt loud emotionally, like a lit match looking for gasoline.
But Addison? Addison looked like the kind of person who stayed composed while planning your psychological destruction in a notebook somewhere.
Way scarier.
I leaned back deeper into the couch cushions and exhaled slowly.
Part of me still couldn’t believe Allison was dead.
I hated her, despised her, maybe I even wished her dead at some point because of what she’d done.
But now when I thought about it, it didn’t make me feel any better.
I should have been relieved. Instead, somehow it just made everything sadder because underneath all the crazy, Allison had genuinely loved Marcus.
In her own terrifying, deeply unhealthy way.
And now she was just… gone.
And now her twin was standing on my porch carrying all that leftover grief and rage straight into my life.
Awesome.
The sound of the front door opening spun me around.
“Hey, babe,” said Marcus as he stepped inside. The sight of him did deeply inappropriate things to my nervous system. What could I say? My husband was hot.
His eyes scanned the room in full protective alpha mode before landing on Darian hanging upside down from the couch.
“He’s fine,” I said before he could ask. “We’re both fine.”
My wereape husband stepped farther into the room, smoothly catching a flying cushion one-handed before it hit him in the face.
Darian let out an excited screech the second he spotted Marcus and launched himself directly off the couch.
Marcus caught him effortlessly midair because apparently my husband was part wereape, part jungle king, and part unfair fantasy.
“He’s energetic tonight,” said Marcus calmly as Darian climbed onto his shoulder like a tiny gremlin.
I snorted. “That’s one word for it.”
Marcus glanced toward the open laptop on the coffee table. “You’ve been researching.”
I nodded slowly. “Trying to.”
“And?”
“And apparently Grimway’s records are about as transparent as cursed swamp water.”
Marcus frowned slightly as he bounced Darian gently against his chest. “Yeah. I couldn’t find anything else useful either.”
I looked up from the laptop. “I’m surprised you have time with all that festival stuff.”
Marcus shifted Darian higher against his chest before answering. “I made calls.”
Something in his tone made me sit up a little straighter. Chief calls. The kind involving favors, debts, and people who probably preferred not to be found.
“To who?”
“The New York pack first,” he said. “Then New Jersey.”
I wasn’t an expert on wereape packs, but I did know that they didn’t exactly operate like neighborhood book clubs.
Most of them stayed isolated, territorial, and deeply suspicious of outsiders. The fact Marcus could casually contact multiple major packs like some supernatural mafia boss was a reminder of how connected—and intimidating—my husband actually was.
“And?” I asked him.
“Nothing.” His expression hardened. “I also reached out to a few lone wereapes I know,” he continued. “Older ones. Travelers. People who’ve moved between packs.”
Darian let out a sleepy little grunt against Marcus’s shoulder and grabbed lazily at the collar of his shirt.
Marcus absently rubbed a hand along our son’s fuzzy back before continuing. “No one knew Addison.”
I frowned. “That’s impossible.”
Marcus nodded once. “Exactly.”
Because Allison had never exactly been subtle.
She was loud emotionally, possessive, obsessive.
The kind of woman who entered every room wanting attention.
People remembered women like that. Especially inside supernatural communities where everybody gossiped like immortal old ladies with magical trauma.
“She had a twin,” I said slowly. “An identical twin. How does nobody know she exists?”
Marcus’s jaw flexed slightly. “I don’t know.”
That made no sense. Because Marcus usually knew things. People talked to him. They feared him, yes. Owed him, oh yeah. But they told him things as well.
My husband had built an entire network across the supernatural world without me even fully realizing how deep it went.
And still? Nothing.
I closed the laptop halfway and leaned back against the couch cushions, watching Marcus carefully. “You really never knew?”
Marcus’s gray eyes lifted to mine. “No. I swear to you, Tessa. Allison never mentioned a sister.”
Something uncomfortable twisted in my stomach again because that made absolutely no sense.
“She was engaged to you,” I said. “You lived together.”
Marcus nodded once.
“And she never once said, ‘oh by the way, I have an identical twin out there somewhere’?”
“No.”