The Murder My Husband And Twin Sister Planned For Me (Proof of Betrayal #6)

Chapter One

Rachel Taylor came home earlier than anyone expected because her mother had looked across the kitchen table and said, with a firmness that admitted no appeal, that she was perfectly capable of being elderly without an audience.

Nora Taylor had been recovering from a mild stroke for six weeks, and Rachel had spent most of those weeks sleeping in the narrow spare bed at her mother’s townhouse, learning the rhythms of medication bottles, blood pressure cuffs, and daytime television presenters with too-white teeth.

Grant had been patient about it in public. He had told friends at dinner that Rachel was devoted, that family came first, that he admired her for it.

In private, Grant sang a different tune.

“You’ll wear yourself out,” he had said that morning over the phone.

“I’m fine,” Rachel had replied, balancing the phone between her ear and shoulder while rinsing Nora’s mug.

“You always say that.”

“Because I usually am.”

A pause had followed.

“Come home tonight,” he had said. “I miss my wife.”

The phrase should have warmed her. Instead, it had sat oddly in the air, like a guest who had arrived wearing the wrong expression.

By late afternoon, Nora had insisted Rachel leave before dinner. Rain had followed Rachel along the road home, fine and persistent, turning the windshield into a shifting veil.

The Taylor house looked much as it always did when she pulled into the drive, large, pale, respectable, and faintly overlit. Grant liked the outdoor lights on before dark. He said it made a house look cared for.

But Grant’s car was not in the garage.

Rachel sat for a moment with one hand on the steering wheel. He had told her he would be home working through contracts. Perhaps he had gone to the office. Perhaps he had forgotten what he had said. Marriage, she had learned, contained a remarkable number of perhapses.

Inside, the house greeted her with an unnatural tidiness.

The cushions on the sofa had been arranged with the precision Grant used before guests arrived, and the kitchen bench had been wiped clean except for one wineglass drying beside the sink.

Rachel put her overnight bag near the stairs and stood listening.

Nothing answered.

A sensible woman would have gone upstairs, showered, maybe ordered noodles. Rachel had every intention of being sensible, but she crossed to the laundry only because her blouse was damp at the cuffs and she wanted to put a load on before the evening disappeared.

Grant’s gym bag sat on the bench beside the washing machine.

The sight of it made her pause.

Grant had not used a gym bag in months. His recent commitment to fitness consisted mainly of buying expensive trainers and mentioning Pilates whenever someone discussed back pain. The bag was black nylon, still wet across the bottom, and its zip had been left half-open.

Rachel took out a rolled towel, a T-shirt, and a pair of socks.

Beneath them lay an old paperback thriller, a bottle of deodorant, and the leather gloves he wore when driving the convertible in winter because he thought they made him look European.

The lining near the side pocket had come loose.

A neat tear showed where stitching had been worried apart.

Rachel reached inside with two fingers.

A slim phone slid into her palm.

Not Grant’s phone. Grant’s phone was large, silver, and perpetually placed screen down whenever Rachel entered a room. This one was small, black, and cheap. A prepaid phone, the kind bought by people who wanted to be reachable and untraceable in equal measure.

Rachel stared at it for a long moment.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said aloud.

After placing the phone on top of the dryer, Rachel took a photograph of it with her own mobile.

The gesture felt dramatic and faintly foolish, but years of living with Grant had taught her that facts were safer when they could be shown.

He had a talent for turning memory into weather—changeable, impossible to hold.

The phone needed a passcode.

Rachel tried Grant’s birthday first.

Rejected.

Their wedding date failed as well, which shouldn’t have surprised her as much as it did.

After a moment, she entered the date of the first development deal that had made him genuinely wealthy. Grant remembered success better than sentiment.

The screen opened.

Rachel’s hand went still.

There were only two message threads.

One contained delivery notifications from the prepaid provider.

The other was saved under the name V.

Rachel did not need a detective to tell her who V was.

Vanessa Taylor had been born seven minutes after Rachel and had never forgiven her for the head start. Their mother had dressed them alike until they rebelled in high school, though Vanessa had continued the competition long after Rachel stopped playing along.

Vanessa wanted the brighter dress, the louder laugh, the better table, the last word. Rachel had spent decades calling it insecurity because envy sounded uglier when applied to your twin.

Grant had once joked that marrying him saved Rachel the trouble of changing her name, since Taylor had already been hers.

The most recent message was from Grant.

The rental is confirmed. She thinks it’s an anniversary reset. No cameras. Cliff path behind the house. We do it after dinner.

Vanessa’s reply sat beneath it.

And after, we clean everything. No Rachel, no mess, no loose ends.

A sound came from Rachel’s throat, small and unsuitable, as if someone else in the room had reacted before she could. She set the phone down. Her fingers had started to tremble.

A sane explanation must exist. People said horrible things in anger. People exaggerated. They used jokes that curdled in private.

Rachel had heard enough dinner-table cruelty disguised as wit to know that language could be reckless like that.

But Grant and Vanessa had not been reckless.

Scrolling upward revealed a photograph of Vanessa in Rachel’s bedroom mirror, wrapped in Rachel’s robe.

A message from Grant followed.

You look more like her than ever.

Vanessa had answered with a row of laughing faces and a line Rachel had to read with her free hand pressed hard against the dryer.

Maybe that’s why you married the wrong one.

A video file sat above the exchange. Its title held Rachel’s initials and a date from the week she had spent at Nora’s after the stroke. Rachel touched the screen.

The video opened on her own bedroom.

Grant’s voice came first, low and amused. Vanessa moved into view wearing nothing but Rachel’s robe, loose at one shoulder, her hair falling in the same chestnut waves Rachel had stopped wearing loose because Grant said it made her look girlish. The camera shook as someone laughed.

Rachel stopped the video after only a few seconds.

The room seemed to have grown too orderly around her. The stacked towels, the clean bench, the small domestic machines with their obedient lights. A life could look intact from the doorway while something hideous worked behind the walls.

Rachel placed the phone flat on the dryer and took screenshots. Messages. Photos. The video file name. The exchange about the rental. Vanessa’s line about cleaning. Each image went into a new folder on Rachel’s phone. She named it Taylor Evidence.

A car door closed outside.

Rachel locked the small phone, slipped it back through the torn lining, and replaced the towel and shirt exactly as she had found them. By the time Grant’s key turned in the front door, she was at the sink rinsing her hands.

“Rachel?” Grant called.

“In the kitchen,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady.

Grant appeared in the doorway wearing his navy overcoat, his hair damp from the rain, handsome face arranged into surprise.

“You’re home,” he said.

“Mom threw me out.”

“That sounds like Nora.”

Grant crossed the room and kissed her cheek. His lips were cool. His cologne carried a trace of something sweeter beneath it, a perfume Rachel knew because Vanessa had once given her a bottle and said it smelled more adventurous than the one Rachel usually wore.

Grant glanced toward the laundry.

“Have you eaten?” Rachel asked.

“Not yet. I thought I might pick something up.”

“I can make omelets.”

“That would be nice,” Grant said, watching her with the mild attention he used when negotiating.

Rachel took eggs from the refrigerator and set a pan on the stove.

Grant poured himself water, leaned against the counter, and began talking about a council meeting as if murder had not been lurking in his gym bag among the socks.

Outside, rain tapped against the windows with patient fingers.

Rachel cracked the first egg into a bowl.