Closer Than Blood

“Did anything like that go on when you were in juvy?” Tori went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. She pulled out a couple of diet colas and handed one to Lainie.

“Is this an interview?” Lainie let out a little laugh.

“No, not an interview. Just a question.” Tori shook her head and flipped the top of her soda can.

“The guards there were one step above a rent-a-cop.” They sat on the sofa, a dark blue velvet sectional that was in serious need of repair.

“I honestly don’t remember much of that place. I consider the memory loss to be a chief benefit of the passage of time.” Lainie looked around her sister’s apartment. Would she be living in a place like this if that car accident hadn’t occurred? What would she be doing now? “Something happened to me that time I was there,” Lainie finally said. Tori put her hand on Lainie’s knee.

“You were raped?” Lainie hesitated. She wasn’t ready to tell her sister that.

“No,” she said, testing Tori a little.

“But I could have been.” Tori sighed.

“God, you’re not going to be one of those stupid journalists who lives the story, are you, Lainie?”

“I wasn’t raped,” Lainie said, “but that one guard got rough with me.” Tori looked incredulous, then concerned.

“Really?” Lainie nodded.

“Yes, really.” In a flash, the concern faded. Tori shrugged.

“Maybe you should put that in your story. Might sell some papers.”

“Nothing happened. I just thought, you know.”

“No, I don’t.”

“I thought maybe something might have happened to you.”

“Don’t be a twit, Lainie. Sometimes I think we couldn’t possibly be related—except for the fact we’re twins, of course.” Lainie laughed, nervously.

“Thanks. I guess I feel better now. Knowing that nothing happened to you.”

“It wouldn’t be because you are worried about me, Lainie. I know that much. You’d just feel guilty. You swim in guilt. You blame yourself for everything, don’t you?”

“Sometimes I do.” Tori finished her cola.

“Maybe we can switch again sometime. You can sing for me at the casino and I can make the world a better place.” She started to laugh.

“Wouldn’t that be funny?” Lainie pretended to think so, but deep down she knew what her sister thought. Her words almost never matched the truth of her heart. If she had one, that is. After they made their false promises to get together soon, Tori said good-bye to her sister. Her apartment was a dump. The clothes in the closet were tacky. The ’70s cover tunes she was forced to sing with the subpar band were inane. She loathed almost everything about her life right then except one thing. She threw herself on the bed and started to laugh. It felt so good to know that Lainie still hurt. Lainie’s pain always made her smile.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Lakewood, Washington

Parker paid fifty-five dollars to the front desk clerk at the American Inn in Lakewood, just south of Tacoma, and went to his room. It was an old-style motel, the kind that Norman Bates would run if he’d never been arrested for being a psycho. It was a dump, used mostly by military guys cheating on their wives or the wives cheating on their husbands. A faded lithograph of a bald eagle in flight hung over the double bed, a nod to the military patrons who kept the place busy. In a way, Parker liked the crappy accommodations. It would be the last time he ever stayed in a place as dank and dirty. The world that he and Tori would inhabit would be as stunning as the sunset over the Olympic Mountains that they shared that first time they’d made love. Real love. Not the kid’s stuff of a hand on her breasts or her mouth on his penis. But when they’d united their bodies in intercourse. It was in her car parked on a side road near Titlow Beach. He remembered how she cried. How the tears streamed down her face as he’d given her the kind of pleasure that his father had denied her.

“I love you. I hate myself for it,” she had said.

“I do.”

“Don’t,” he answered, as he touched her cheek to wipe away the tears.

“Nothing good will come of this,” she said.

“You’re wrong, Tori.”

“This is so dangerous,” she said. Parker nodded.

“But I also know how much we mean to each other.” She stared at him with her big blue eyes, shiny with tears.

“We are soul mates, star-crossed soul mates,” she said.

“We can never be together.” He snuggled next to her, but she pushed him away. She was thinking.

“Don’t say that,” he said.

“There has to be a way.” Tori adjusted her blouse. She’d removed her bra and put it in her purse. Next, she slid her panties up her thighs and straightened out her skirt. She let Parker take in the silkiness of her legs and lifted her hips.

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

“I’ll find a way.” They stepped out of her car and walked to a bench with a view of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. A man was jogging and winked at them as he ran by.

“Everyone will want this for us,” he said.

“Everyone but your father,” she said. The air was cool and they felt the chill on their sweaty skin. They watched as the sun crawled behind the Olympics, burnishing the waters of the sound orange and pink.

“Reminds me of Hawaii,” she said.

“I’ve never been there.” Tori paused a moment, thinking of the last time she’d been there. Her first husband’s death? How things had transpired on that remote beach? At the beach house? “Oh, where we’re going to live is even more beautiful,” she said.

“We’ll have servants. You’ll have a new car in whatever make and model you like.”

“Really? Any car that I want?”

“Yes, but remember, there won’t be a lot of places to drive on an island. We’ll just have to find other ways to keep ourselves occupied.” She touched his inner thigh. Parker closed his eyes and grinned at the memory of that evening rendezvous, but his smile faded as he thought of his mother. She wasn’t part of this, and he shouldn’t have dragged her into it by being so stupid about the money pouch from the church. His dad had been competition for his love for Tori, but his mom had never really done anything but love him. He wished he could tell her that he loved her and that he was sorry that he’d never see her again.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Haleiwa, Hawaii

Ten years ago

It had been a warm night with trade winds that barely fluttered the knife-blade fronds of the coconut palms that leaned over the beach. Kiwana Morimoto went about her business of straightening up the lanai and the patio. She stacked chairs and pulled the cover over the bubbling cauldron that was the hot tub. Next, she turned her attention to the trio of tiki torches to make sure they were refueled so Tori Campbell didn’t complain about that detail a second time.

“Look,” Tori said, “I don’t think we should have to haul that smelly fuel and pour it into the torch basins. That’s a smelly, smelly job suitable for support staff, not guests.” The snotty tone still rankled Kiwana. She shook her head as she poured the citronella-scented oil until the liquid pooled slightly in the cone of a funnel. Support staff, indeed, she thought. She looked up as the sound of an argument reverberated through the jalousies of the master bedroom.

“I don’t like her and I don’t like the way you look at her.” It was Tori’s voice. It was harsh and full of anger. The next voice belonged to Zach.

“Look at her? How is it that I look at her?”

“Like a hungry dog. Like what you are half the time.”

“Why are you pulling this shit, Tori?” Kiwana noticed that Zach’s voice was resigned rather than irritated, as if they were engulfed in the continuation of a conversation they’d started earlier. The postponed Hawaiian