“We’ll find Jack,” Michael said. “We’ll find him.”
JACK woke in a dark room, his head throbbing. He tried to focus, but the edges of his eyesight were blurry. He probably had a concussion. He tried to remember the last thing that happened, and that’s when Laura’s smiling face swam into view.
He moved quickly, trying to push himself up from the chair he sat in, only to find himself tied in place, his hands secured behind him. He swore, tilting his head to the side and listening. There it was. Someone was in the room with him. He could hear breathing.
“Laura?”
A light snapped on, causing Jack to close his eyes to ward off the glare. When he risked opening them again, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. He was in a basement, the only light coming from a naked bulb with a chain overhead.
Laura stood beneath the light. She was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail and her face bare of makeup. She looked like a different person.
“Where are we?” Jack asked.
“In a safe place,” Laura replied. “I’ve been scouting locations for a week. This house is empty because the owners moved to Bay City. I set up a showing with a local realtor and got the combination for the lockbox on the door. It was pretty easy to gain access. The place is ours … and there are no neighbors within screaming distance.”
Laura looked pleased with herself.
“Where is Ivy?”
“Oh, little Miss Ivy evaded me,” Laura said, rolling her eyes. “I was trying to get her, but she disappeared into the woods. I was following her, but I somehow lost her. I gave up and went back to her cottage to wait for her to return – I was going to kill her there and leave you to find her dead in her bed with a bunch of roses spread around her – but you showed up instead.
“I had to make a choice,” she continued. “I knew I was running out of time after seeing you at the hotel. As much as I want Ivy, I want you more. I had to settle for you. I guess Ivy gets a pass … for now.”
Despite his predicament, Jack was secretly relieved. Ivy was safe. With his disappearance, Brian, Max, and Michael would rally around her. She wouldn’t be alone. If the unthinkable happened and Laura managed to kill him, at least he would pass with the knowledge that Ivy would live on. That was everything to him.
“I don’t understand why you’re doing this, Laura,” Jack said, deciding to approach the woman from a place of friendship and shared mutual pain. “I know you loved your brother, but is this really what you want to do?”
Laura contorted her face in dramatic fashion. “You still don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?”
“I’m not Laura. I’m Marcus.”
Jack bit the inside of his cheek, unsure. Was Laura so mentally unbalanced she thought she was Marcus? That was a problem he wasn’t expecting. “You’re not Marcus. You’re Laura Simmons. Marcus was your brother. Deep down inside, you have to know that.”
“You’re such an ass,” Laura said. “I know who I am. I’m Marcus. Somehow I managed to jump out of my body right before I flew over that guardrail. I landed in Laura’s body. She was asleep, so it was pretty easy for me to push her out.”
That was the most ludicrous thing Jack had ever heard. “Did you see that on a television show or something?”
Laura frowned. “Do you really not believe me? Are you going to force me to prove myself to you?”
Jack considered the question. Maybe there was hope for Laura if he proved that Marcus wasn’t inside of her. Maybe she would finally see the truth of what she’d done if he could somehow manage that. “Let’s do that,” he suggested. “Prove to me you’re Marcus.”
“Okay.” Laura tapped her lip as she thought, eerily mimicking one of her brother’s mannerisms perfectly. Jack swallowed hard. She was really going all out. “Okay,” Laura said, taking a step forward. “Six months after we became partners we went out for our first beer together. It was a little Irish pub on the south side of the Cass Corridor.
“I bet you that I could pick up a girl before you could,” Laura continued. “We made an agreement about overtime and I approached a brunette with huge boobs. You went after a mousy thing at the bar. She shot you down and I went home with the brunette.”
Jack’s heart rate sped up. That was true. He remembered that night. Still … . “Marcus could’ve told you that story,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “He liked to boast about his sexual prowess. I’m not sure why he would do that with his sister, but I wouldn’t put it past him.”
“Oh, good grief!” Laura kicked an empty bucket across the basement, the sound echoing throughout the space. “Fine. If you don’t believe me, ask me something that only Marcus would know. Make it as obscure as you want.”
“Okay.” Jack licked his lips. “What happened to the gun Marcus used to shoot me with? How did you get it?”
“That’s not the type of question I was talking about,” Laura snapped. “I’ll answer it for you because I know how you like answers, but then you’re going to ask me another question. After I shot you – and I was sure you were dead, so I have no idea how you managed to survive – I knew I had to get rid of the gun.
“I drove to that old lot where we used to question narcs and dug a hole and buried it,” she continued. “I dug it up again about six weeks ago and used it on my mother because she would not shut her filthy hole. She figured out that I switched places with Laura and she was threatening to do an exorcism on me. The old bat
