Still confused, Lark scrolled through the comments.
So happy for your friend!
Nice ring could be bigger LOL
They make a very cute couple.
Then she found the one Callie was talking about: So weird he looks EXACTLY like this guy doing some kind of a big deal at the place where I work.
???, Callie had written.
Replying to his own comment, Cousin Sam had pasted a link to a PDF, which, when Lark clicked it, took a moment to open in the phone’s browser.
She glanced up at Callie, ready to make a joke about Trip’s doppelgänger, but the miserable look on her friend’s face stopped her from saying anything.
The link, when it opened, was an internal newsletter for a place called American Healthcare Systems. The picture of Trip was on the front page, part of a story headlined: AHS and Cancura: A Revolutionary Partnership.
Only he wasn’t called Trip. The article identified him as Jonathan Wright III, CEO and founder of Cancura.
“It just looks like him,” Lark said, even as she enlarged the image until his head and shoulders filled the frame.
“Unless he has an identical twin he never told you about.”
“He has a brother named Matt in Ohio who works in a factory or something. Trip never said anything about them being twins.”
“Lark. Trip is Jonathan Wright.”
Her mind flashed back to the hotel lobby in Minneapolis. I see a Jonathan Wright and a Jonathan Yerbinski, but no Mitchell.
Dazed, Lark walked around the desk and sat down in the chair beside Callie. The closest thing she could compare it to was the time she’d wrecked her car, rear-ending a scrap-metal truck on the 405. It had happened so fast she couldn’t understand why the airbag had deployed, why her windshield was shattered, why she was no longer moving.
“This doesn’t make any sense.”
Callie started to cry. “I don’t want to be right.”
Was she right? What did it all mean? Maybe Trip was a Cancura investor, and some distracted newsletter editor had used the wrong photo or screwed up the caption.
Lark stood up. “I’ll get to the bottom of this, Callie.”
Callie nodded, wiped her cheeks with the back of her hands, and hurried out after retrieving her phone.
Back behind her desk, Lark keyed in Jonathan Wright III and Cancura to a Google image search. One of the first results was a page titled “Team” from cancura.com. At the top of the page was a studio shot of Trip, hair slightly mussed, eyes crinkled in a smile she’d seen hundreds of times.
Founder and CEO Jonathan Wright.
But the short biography called him Jonathan Mitchell Wright III.
The third. Triple . . . Trip.
Mitchell.
Trip Mitchell.
Lark was still struggling to get a grip on her wastebasket when she threw up into it, not much coming out except the yogurt and berries she’d had for breakfast and the chai she’d sipped in the car. Wiping her mouth with a tissue, she picked up her phone with shaking hands and selected Trip from her contacts.
He was still in the air, so she couldn’t call. She could leave him a message. Or a text.
What would she say? Hello, Jonathan?
How would he answer?
No, she needed to see his face.
She locked the phone and dropped it, held her head in her hands. Saw the ring on her finger and tore her skin ripping it off.
Saw the stupid kitten on the Hang in there, baby poster and threw her cup at it, the cup crumpling and the dregs of her tea foaming down the wall.
Still barely able to get her fingers under control, she opened a browser on the computer to a travel site and keyed in Chicago. There was a seat on a flight leaving midafternoon.
First class.
She put it on her own credit card.
Chapter Forty
HOLLY
It’s a hard truth that no one is irreplaceable.
—“How I Lied about My Name and Discovered My Truth,” a TED Talk by Jon M. Wright
Brian opened the door, wearing flip-flops, jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and a surprised look. The heaped laundry basket on the floor behind him showed exactly what Holly had interrupted and relieved at least part of her anxiety over showing up at his house unannounced.
“Is everything okay?” he asked, studying her face.
“Can I come in?”
“Yes, of course,” he said, stepping aside and seeming embarrassed he hadn’t offered. “Sorry the place is so messy.”
It wasn’t dirty—but lived in and clearly marked by the occupancy of two lively daughters. Holly tried not to let her curiosity show as she entered the foyer, and he closed the door behind her. She had never been to Brian and Nancy’s home, even though it was only a ten-minute drive away and she had long known exactly where it was.
“Maid’s day off?” she joked.
He shook his head. “If my job is taking care of the kids, I’m not just going to do the fun parts. Even if I don’t always do the other parts very well.”
“Well, now I feel guilty,” she told him. “Besides Galenia, we have a cleaning service and a lawn crew. And neither Jack nor I so much as hangs a picture on our own.”
“Holly, between your medical practice and your charity work, you practically have a full-time job. You deserve all the help you can get. Now, can I get you a cup of coffee? A glass of wine? A shot and a beer?”
“I don’t think my nerves can handle anything other than mineral water at the moment.”
She followed him back to the kitchen, noting the family photos lining the hallway. They had taken a formal family portrait every year, but nearly all the casual shots featured the girls only, suggesting Brian had been behind the camera while Nancy was elsewhere.
Dishes were piled on the counter, and kids’ books and papers cluttered the dining room table, so Holly sat at the breakfast bar and set her bag on the tall chair next to her while Brian reached into the fridge.
“The woman Jack’s seeing is named
