My Twin Sister

Forty-Five Grace

I don’t even know how she got into the house. The doors are all locked and they’ve never had a hidden spare key. But then, she and Wyatt probably have a key. That would make sense.

She takes in the room. “What are you doing?”

Panic rises, and the gun trembles in my hand. Her eyes go to it and widen in surprise.

“Grace? What are you doing?” she asks again.

“Why are you here?”

“To find you.”

But that doesn’t make any sense. “How did you know I was here?”

It’s her turn to look uncomfortable. She mumbles something but I can’t make it out. “What?”

She speaks louder this time but won’t look me in the eye. “A tracker.”

“A . . . tracker? You’re tracking me? How?”

“An app on your phone. I don’t use it all the time, I swear. Just when I can’t find you.”

She says it like that makes it okay, and my mouth hangs open in genuine disbelief.

Frank coughs and we both turn to him. He stares between us before licking his lips and trying to talk. “Geny, you have to help me. You have to call 911 and get someone over here. Grace is sick. It’s . . . It’s not her fault. She just needs help. We have to get her help.”

I open my mouth to defend myself, but Geny speaks first.

“Shut up,” she says. “Shut up, shut up!”

I look back at my sister and she’s pressing the heels of her hands to her ears and squeezing her eyes shut. I step toward her, and she jumps when I gently touch her arm.

“Geny, go home. Just go home and go to sleep and all of this will be over when you wake up.”

She shakes her head. She looks almost deranged with her wide eyes and panic-stricken face. “I can’t. I can’t let you do what you’re about to do.”

“There’s a lot you don’t understand. He deserves this. Please trust me.”

She needs to leave. I’m so close to doing what I came here to do, and I can’t walk away now. I can’t let Geny get in the way.

“But you don’t understand!” she shouts.

Just then, the door behind her slowly creeps open. Wyatt peeks through.

I throw up my hands. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

It’s officially a party at my crime scene, and I am officially the worst criminal in history. Geny spins around. When she sees Wyatt, she backs away quickly, putting her palms up to him.

“No, no, no, no. I’m not crazy. Please just wait a second.”

Wyatt puts his hands up too, trying to reduce his threat level, eyes pinging between her, me, and his dad tied to a chair and bleeding from the mouth.

“Wyatt, thank God. She’s got a gun. Call the police and get my guys here now. Untie me.”

His son ignores him and turns to me. “Are you sure this is what you want to do? You’ll go to prison. He’s not worth it.”

Frank’s mouth drops open, and I watch him slowly come to the realization that Wyatt is not on his side. He never was.

“I have to do this,” I say. My words are rushed, but he needs to know the truth.

He has to let me do this. “A life behind bars is worth it to me. I couldn’t live with myself if I let him walk away from everything he’s done.

He was doing it again, Wyatt. You weren’t watching him close enough.

My dad found out, and that’s why he’s dead and being framed.

Those pictures are your dad’s. He killed my dad. Morgan and Brooke too—”

“Stop it! Everyone shut up!” Geny explodes from the corner. She looks angry, but something in her eyes is clearer than it was a minute ago.

“It’s my fault!” she yells. “It’s all my fault and I can’t let you lose the rest of your life when I already took the first part of it.”

Her eyes go glossy, but she blinks hard and the tears go away. Wyatt needs to get her out of here. She needs help.

She looks at me. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“I’m not looking at you like anything, Geny. I’m just worried about you.”

“It was my fault Frank wanted you dead.”

I sigh. “What are you talking about?”

“I pretended to be you. That night. After Wyatt dumped me and was going to go back to you even after what you did. I hated you. I went to the lot he always parked at during his patrol. Where you guys would sneak around.”

My face goes hot and my stomach clenches but she doesn’t stop.

“I pretended to be you, and I told him I was going to tell everyone about you two. I told him I was going to ruin his life and then I left.”

My mind is buzzing. I don’t know what to say or what to think. Frank looks just as dumbfounded as I feel. So does Wyatt for that matter.

“I didn’t know what would happen. I knew you’d get in trouble probably. Or that Frank would try to ruin you first. I didn’t think Wyatt would hurt you.”

Wyatt takes a step toward her, and she takes a step back. “You knew?”

She nods.

He looks around, confused and angry. “You thought I killed Grace . . .”

It isn’t a question but Geny answers anyway. “Yes.”

“Why would you marry me if you thought I killed your sister?”

It’s a good question. One I’d like to know as well.

“I didn’t blame you,” she says in a whisper. She shrugs. “How could I? I created the situation and you protected your dad. Grace hurt you. How could I blame you for hurting her back? And it was my fault. If I’d let you go and walked away none of it would have happened.”

She can’t fight back the tears any longer and begins to sob. I have a lot of feelings about the new information she’s given me, but it doesn’t overshadow Frank or what I know I need to do.

“I forgive you, Geny. Wyatt, take her home.”

I turn toward Frank and level the gun at his chest.

Aim for center mass. Never the head. It’s too easy to miss.

Unless you’re in the zombie apocalypse, the chest will do just fine.

I can hear my dad’s voice clear as day, though this is a different situation than he ever anticipated me being in.

Frank is tied up. I could walk right up to him and point the gun against his skin, guaranteed not to miss.

But I know not to get too close. Tied up or not, he won’t be in reach of the gun.

There’s a scuffle behind me, and Geny shouts at Wyatt to leave her alone.

I’m jolted forward and hands grapple with my own.

Geny is on me, trying to wrestle the gun away from me.

Wyatt is trying to pull her away, but she has hold of me and she’s not letting go.

I’m so afraid of the gun going off and shooting someone I love that I let it go.

Geny grabs onto it and pulls away from both me and Wyatt. We both step back. We should’ve gotten her help a long time ago. It’s too late now, and whatever she does next is on Wyatt and me. All the signs were there, but we were too busy to do anything about it.

She points the gun at the floor but has a solid grip on it, ready to point and shoot at any moment.

“I won’t let you ruin your life any more than it already has been,” she says.

I want to cry. To scream at her that this isn’t up to her and beg her not to take this away from me.

“He deserves to die, Geny. He’s a fucking monster, and he’s not going to stop until he’s in the ground.”

“I agree with you. But he isn’t the monster you think he is.”

And then time slows down. I thought that only happened in the movies, but every second stretches in front of me, and I am powerless to do anything. The sound of the gunshot is so much louder than I remembered when practicing. But I guess I always had earplugs.

Frank slouches in the chair and the three of us are stuck, frozen in place. I don’t know for how long. Time still feels weird.

I come out of my shock slowly, and then all at once. “Why would you do that?”

Upstairs, a scream erupts and we all look at the ceiling. Tina screams Frank’s name and my chest burns. I hurry to Geny and try to take the gun from her, but she pulls away.

“Geny, give me the gun. You have to get out of here. If someone calls the police, you can’t be here.” I say it in a whisper, hoping Tina doesn’t hear. Hoping she just woke up and didn’t hear us all talking this whole time.

Geny shakes her head. “No. You need to leave. I’m staying.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Wyatt snaps. “You’re going to go to prison for murder. What about Jack and Carter?”

My sister’s face crumples. “Take care of them. Please.”

She looks between me and Wyatt.

“Geny,” I say. “Just give me the gun and go home to your boys.”

She takes three quick breaths and stands taller. Fear shoots through me.

“I killed Morgan.” She says it so fast I think I must have misheard her. “And Brooke. It wasn’t Frank, it was me.”

“No,” I say. “You’re sick. You’re not in your right state of mind.”

“I’m not lying! I killed them both. I didn’t like Morgan taking my place. You practically ignored me for months for her.”

I remember the months Morgan and I grew close. The long training runs we did together. The secrets we shared with each other I couldn’t tell anyone else. And then I remember her parents crying at her funeral. Brooke, her sister, unable to stand up. They buried an empty coffin.

“If it was you, then why did Frank botch the investigation?” I look over at him as if expecting an explanation, forgetting for a second that he’s dead.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Probably because he thought it was one of his guys’ fault. I called in a tip that she had been doing drugs on the beach that night with an older guy. That I overheard him saying the drugs were stolen from the evidence locker.”

Wyatt’s hands are clasped on top of his head as he paces back and forth. I try not to think about what he’s feeling right now. His father dead a few feet away, his wife holding the gun.

“How did you know about the cops stealing drugs?” I ask.

She rolls her eyes and then narrows them at me. “Everyone knew, Grace. It was practically common knowledge.”

I didn’t know. Not until recently. I realize, once again, that I was so caught up in my own shit that I missed so many things happening right in front of my face.

Geny continues. “You thought she was your friend, but she couldn’t even tell us apart. She thought I was you when I invited her to the beach that night.”

My head swims, taking in her words. Did she think it was me the whole time? Did she think it was me killing her? I’m too afraid to ask.

“Please don’t look at me like that,” Geny says. Her face crumples again. “It happened fast. I promise. I hit her in the head with a rock from behind. She didn’t see it coming. She wasn’t conscious when I held her under the water. She didn’t suffer.”

I hate the way she says it like that’s supposed to make things better. Like bashing a girl in the head and drowning her was merciful instead of evil.

I clear my throat and try to keep my composure for just a little longer so I can get more answers. “Why Brooke?”

She stares at me for a few seconds, seeming to debate how much she wants to tell me. Probably because she can’t justify what she did to Brooke the same way she did Morgan. Brooke drowned slowly through the night. Brooke suffered.

“The same reason,” she says softly. “You were blowing me off for her. Talking to her more than you would to me. I saw what happened with Morgan and I didn’t want to lose you.”

“So, what? You thought torture was fitting because you felt slighted?”

She covers her face with her hands. “I’m so sorry.”

I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything. I glance over at Wyatt, but he’s looking at Geny with tears in his eyes. He crosses the room quickly and I jump, thinking he’s going to try to get the gun or something, but he puts his arms around Geny and pulls her into him.

Geny shakes with full-body sobs. Wyatt holds her through the worst of it, cradling her head and murmuring something to her on repeat. I stay rooted to the ground, my whole world shifting beneath my feet.

“Did you pretend to be me again?” I ask. “Is that how you got her to the beach?”

Wyatt loosens his grip on Geny, who lifts her head to me. Sniffling, she nods. “Yes.”

“How?” I ask.

“How what?”

“How did you make her think it was me? Morgan might not have noticed back then but Brooke would have noticed. My face is bruised and she saw me earlier that day. She would have notice.”

Geny almost laughs. I want to smack her.

“It was dark, Grace. I could have been wearing makeup. It’s not like she was looking out for your sister to be pretending to be you. She didn’t even notice.”

My chest burns and I have to fight back the anger. “And then what?”

I don’t want to know but I have to. Brooke deserves the truth about what happened to her to be out. The least I can do is hear it.

“I drugged her on the walk there. I gave her a thermos of hot chocolate and asked her to walk with me. I put my sleeping meds in it.”

I feel tears trail beneath my chin. “And then you buried her?”

She nods again. “I dug a hole while she slept. I don’t think she woke up before she drowned.”

There she goes again. Trying to make it better somehow. I turn away from her. I cover my face with my hands and try with all my strength not to fall apart.

All this time, I thought it all had to be connected.

Everything led to Frank and it all made sense.

Frank was a monster and monsters do monstrous things.

But when it comes down to it, he was a very specific kind of monster.

His crime was his taste for young girls.

And the one time he tried to avoid getting caught was because my sister made him think I was set on ruining his life.

It still makes him capable of killing my dad for the same reason. But I’ll never know because Geny shot him in the chest.

My sister is a murderer.

Jealousy made her do awful things. My entire image of her has shattered. She couldn’t stand me having any other close friends, so she killed anyone I ever got close to. And then she indirectly tried to have me taken out of the picture so she could have Wyatt.

Sirens in the distance bring me back to the present moment. They mix with Tina’s shrieks from upstairs. Geny pushes away from Wyatt and her terrified eyes meet with mine.

“Go. Go back to my house. You were there all night. You never left. Stay with my boys.”

I shake my head, but she steps toward me and holds my face in her hands.

“I killed three people, Grace. Let me pay for it. I’ve taken enough from you.”

Her hand finds mine. Despite the anger, hurt, and distrust I have for her, I squeeze her fingers in mine.

“I love you,” I say.

She smiles sadly. “I love you, Grace. Run.”

I glance at Wyatt, and he nods for me to go.

And so I go. I run through the back door, and I don’t stop until I reach Geny and Wyatt’s house.

I run like I’m back in high school trying to win the state championship.

I run like I’m nineteen and I’m afraid for my life.

I run and I leave my sister behind. Again.