Madeline Scott didn't sit down. Jill didn't make the offer.
The two women had drifted farther into the living room and stood facing each other, keeping their distance. The odor coming off Madeline seemed to have dissipated, or maybe Jill was simply getting used to it. Some of the wildness had left Madeline's eyes, leaving Jill at least reassured that the woman wasn't going to abruptly attack her.
'I only want to talk while you listen,' Madeline said with surprising calm.
Jill swallowed. 'All right. So talk.'
Get whatever you have to say over with, and then get out. Get out.
'Not so long ago I was in your position,' Madeline began. 'I was from out of town, with no real family, and not very long in New York. Things hadn't gone as well as I thought they would when I moved here from Illinois.'
Jill began to feel somewhat relieved. Madeline had obviously rehearsed this, or at least given it a lot of thought. This was going to be a sob story, ending, she was sure, in an appeal for money. Okay, maybe she could buy her way out of this. Out of this dread she hated to admit to herself.
'I was working dead-end, impersonal jobs,' Madeline continued, 'where they'd hardly miss me if I didn't show up. I had no real friends to speak of. Dates? Yeah, a few. But you know how that goes. The men I let pick me up wanted the usual and then out. All the acquaintanceship you might want is out there, but not friends, not people who'll remember you even the next day. So I did what a lot of lonely people in New York do after they've wasted time dating enough losers. I contacted a reputable matchmaking service.'
Jill's mind had been distracted, still trying to figure a way out of this awkward situation, a way to cut it short. What would it cost her? Suddenly she began paying close attention.
'It was the same online matchmaking service you used,' Madeline said. 'E-Bliss.org.'
Jill moved to a chair and sat down. Madeline went to the sofa and sat on the very edge of one of the end cushions.
'Everything I just told you about,' Madeline said, 'E-Bliss learned about on my personality profile form. That and more.'
'There's nothing wrong with E-Bliss,' Jill said, wondering as she spoke why she was defending the online dating service.
But she knew why: she wanted desperately for the matchmaking service to be legitimate. So much of her intimate and vulnerable self was invested in it now.
Madeline smiled sadly, as if knowing what Jill was thinking. 'I believe they're mostly a legitimate matchmaking service,' she said, 'but they operate another service within that one. It requires women without close family, new to the city, and still mostly without close friends or connections. I fit the profile, and so do you.'
Jill took a deep breath and tried to organize her thoughts. 'What does this service within a service do?'
'It searches through all the profiles, probably with some kind of computer software, and settles on the right applicant. Then the company sends someone to gain your trust and learn all about you. Everything from your Social Security and charge account numbers to your favorite candy. Meanwhile, someone else is learning about you, watching you, spending time in your apartment when you're not there, wearing your clothes, even being glimpsed around the building as you. Practicing to be you. And then…she becomes you.'
Whoa!
'You said, 'becomes me'? What's that supposed to mean?'
'Exactly what it says.'
Madeline stared at her silently.
'Why me in particular?' Jill asked, astounded. And afraid again, but not exactly in the same way. There was something creepy about this that was working its way into her marrow. Something some part of her mind knew that the rest of it hadn't yet caught up with. 'I mean, there are plenty of women like you described living in New York. This is the most anonymous city in the world.'
'Why you?' Madeline said thoughtfully, obviously considering. 'I don't know for sure. But I followed the man you know as Tony Lake from the offices of E-Bliss to you. Only I knew him as Dwayne King. I've given this a lot of thought. In fact, it's all I've thought about for weeks. My guess is you resemble someone who wants to disappear, and who's paid E-Bliss so she can take your place.'
'What about the real me?' Jill asked, dreading the answer even though she wasn't sure she believed any of this.
'The real you ceases to exist. You're shot and killed, as they tried to do to me. I managed to break free and run. They kept shooting at me, but I escaped by climbing into an approaching car and urging the driver to get us away. I read in the paper a week later that a man I'm sure was the driver was found dead in Riverside Park from a drug overdose. I don't think it was suicide or an accident.'
Jill's mind was still wrestling with what she was hearing. 'But why would they do this, substitute people for each other?'
'Money,' Madeline said simply.
'Of course. Money. Like everything else. But what do their clients want? What's the reason for the substitutions?'
'I don't know,' Madeline said. 'But I know that what E-Bliss is doing must work. They choose their victims carefully from thousands of Internet applicants for relationships. These women must meet the qualifications and resemble whoever's going to become them. If you're a victim client and you've happened to make a friend who might care or suspect there's something wrong, the new you simply moves away suddenly, as people often do in Manhattan, leaving a note or the last month's rent so there's no doubt the departure was voluntary. I've seen the other Madeline coming out of my apartment on West Seventy-second Street. She isn't my exact double, but with the same hairdo, makeup, and my wardrobe and apartment, not to mention identification, charge cards, and passport, maybe even some minor cosmetic surgery, she became me.'
'My God!' Jill's mind was working furiously, warning her again that this woman was crazy, that what she was saying was impossible.
Only it was possible, and Jill knew it. Loneliness made it possible. Jill remembered loneliness.
Madeline, knowing what Jill must be thinking, again showed her sad smile. 'People who don't know us well or long don't look at us all that closely, Jill, and the new me even has my gestures and speech patterns down pat.'
'This other you,' Jill said, 'why didn't you confront her?'
The gleam of terror in Madeline's eyes was answer enough for Jill.
'Why don't you go to the police?'
Madeline shook her head. 'I tried. They brushed me off as just another deranged street person. And there's no way for me to prove I really am me. Sometimes I doubt it myself. This is larger than either of us knows, Jill. The police might be in on it.'
Jill was jolted by the thought. And again she thought Madeline might simply be paranoid, one of the poor and forever lost who roamed the Manhattan streets talking to everyone and no one, suspecting everything and everyone.
And yet…
'How could the police even know we talked?' Jill asked.
'They'll know. Or at least there's no guarantee they won't. And you can't take the chance, Jill. I'm sorry I did this to you, but I need your help. I was like you, living my life, and suddenly I'm mixed up with…I don't know. Organized crime would be my guess. Or maybe anyone who can pay whatever E-Bliss.org charges for its special service. They might have infiltrated the police and they'll learn what's going on and see that any investigation stops. And that I'll be killed. And now that I've talked to you, that you'll be killed. How can we know whom to trust? If we confide in the wrong people, we'll wind up like the rest of those women. What's left of our mutilated bodies that can't be identified will be put into a pauper's grave or cremated by the city.'
'Left of our bodies? You mean the Torso Murders-'
'Being on the run, I didn't watch or read the news regularly, but when I happened to learn about the Torso Murders, I knew there was probably a connection. That was what was going to be left of me after I ceased to exist as a person. And that's the plan for you, Jill. I'm sure you've never been fingerprinted or submitted a DNA sample, and if you disappeared there'd be no one to miss you or even report your absence.'
