I keep my eyes on Andrew, watching him see the screen split with the old picture of me even more wan and pathetic next to a vibrant publicity shot of Ava. Then he looks at me, and my expression must confirm it. I am guilty.
“Lizzie,” Andrew’s voice is extremely calm. Too calm. “Let’s speak in private.”
“Me too, meee too,” Emma cries, unwilling to be left out.
I put a hand on the top of her head, where the feathery curls are impossibly soft between my fingers. When she was being born, when her mother was dying, I was killing off the person I had been and birthing the lie I am living now.
Andrew picks up the remote. “You can watch Dora for one episode. Just one.”
Emma lights up at the unexpected treat, usually reserved for getting her nails clipped, taking medication, and other painful occasions. She squirms out from under my hand, flops on the sofa, and sits motionless, barely breathing as the petite explorer appears on screen.
Back in the bedroom, I expect threats or recriminations. The bed where only eight hours ago we both slept back to back is now neatly made. For a moment, with piercing ferocity, I hope Ava is dead. If this is a stupid publicity stunt and it costs me everything, I will kill her.
Then I remember the vicious emails, and I am afraid again.
CHAPTER
3
ANDREW SITS DOWN heavily on the edge of the bed, rumpling the cover he’s pulled up neatly, the way he always does. His bedside table has only a lamp and a copy of New Scientist. Mine is littered with lip balm and hand cream, crumpled tissues and paperback novels.
“What the hell, Lizzie. Or … what did they say your real name is?” His gaze skates away, as if looking at me will distract him from figuring out what to do next.
Can I lie, pretend that picture wasn’t me? I want to scramble farther away from the truth until I am the woman I pretend to be. But Andrew is smart, really smart, and I do love him. I can’t run away from this without losing him and Emma both. “Zoe,” I say softly. “My name was Zoe.”
“Zoe,” he repeats, twisting his wedding band around his finger. “And your parents aren’t dead.”
I shake my head, but he isn’t looking at me. “No.”
“Did they think you were—?” He doesn’t say dead, but I know he is thinking about Emma. What he would do if she disappeared. He is compartmentalizing his emotions and analyzing the situation, just like my parents would do, if they ever had emotions.
“No!” The word is stronger than I expected, but I need him to feel. “No, I wouldn’t just … I call them.” And now he knows the lie has been ongoing, that I’ve been sneaking off to make phone calls. How can I fix this? “We’ve never been close, but I didn’t want them to worry. I just needed to leave.”
“Why? Lots of people aren’t close to their parents. They don’t change their names and scam themselves into someone else’s life.”
Scam. Fraud. Liar. My heart is pounding. “I didn’t. It’s a real name. I changed it legally; my driver’s license is real. I just needed to be someone else. Someone not related to her. I didn’t plan to meet you.”
He looks up, his brown eyes boring into mine. “You were on a dating site. You were looking for someone. And you found me.”
My heart feels cold and leaden, like I’m turning to marble. Now that he is looking at me, I feel like he sees all my weaknesses. Look closer, I want to say. See me. See that I love you.
But he’s frowning as if I’m an insect he’s trying to identify. “You found me and used me, used Emma to … what? Hide? I thought I knew you.”
I sink to my knees so we are face-to-face. “You did! You do. I’m the same person.”
“I don’t know anything about you. Except you’re Ava Hallett’s sister.”
I have to make him understand. “You haven’t read her books. They’re all about me. She took my life, anything I did, anyone I loved. She took them and twisted them and ruined them.”
“What are you talking about?” He has a vertical line between his brows, and I long to press my thumb onto it, to smooth it away.
Instead, I reach out for his hands, clinging to them. “Anywhere I went, she set a novel. Anything I tried to do, she wrote about. Anyone I knew, she used against me. She’s not just a writer, Andrew, she’s a best-selling author. Haven’t you seen her books in the airport or her movies on a plane?”
“You’re not making any sense.” He shakes me off and stands up, but I rise and follow him around the edge of the bed.
Maybe if I talk fast enough, he will hear what I’m really feeling. “I wanted to disappear. I didn’t want her to know anything else about me, ever. When we met, I really was working in a coffee shop. I really did fall in love with you. I really do love Emma, so, so much.” My voice wavers, but my stupid, treacherous eyes refuse to well with tears. “You are my family and this is my life. I never lied about anything that really matters.”
Andrew holds his hands up to ward me off. “Nothing that really matters? You lied about everything. We’re married, and I don’t know you at all. And what about your parents? Do they know about me and Emma?”
I can’t help it; a bitter laugh breaks free. “My parents? I waited thirty weeks before I called them, and they hadn’t filed a missing persons report. They never understood how much it hurt when Ava scooped out my personal life like the inside of a jack-o’-lantern. They told me to be happy for her, to quit being so sensitive.” Andrew and Emma are the only people who have ever truly loved me.
Oh, why can’t I cry now, when my heart is breaking?
I wrap my arms around my stomach, and I see pity in Andrew’s eyes. “Lizzie,” he says softly.
He’s come to a decision. I can see it in the steadiness of his gaze. Maybe if I grovel, I can change his mind. I have to change his mind. “I know. You don’t trust me around Emma. I’ve lied to you, you don’t know who I am, you can’t trust me, but—”
“But we’ve got time to think about all of that later.” Andrew’s voice is calm. “Right now, you have to go to the police before this thing snowballs. I may not know everything about your life, but I do know where you were last week. I know you weren’t making your sister disappear. You’ve been right here in Texas with me and Emma. The sooner you get that cleared up, the sooner we deal with everything else.”
“I’m afraid,” I tell him. “Anything I say is going to pull you and Emma into the spotlight.”
“All you have to do is tell the truth,” he says. “We’ll take Emma to day care and then drive over to the sheriff’s office. It’s not like you’ll be talking to the FBI. Emma was in playgroup with Bob’s daughter. Just make a statement here at the local office.”
“Will you stay with me?”
He doesn’t answer, and I can feel the unsheddable tears building inside. My voice rises. “Andrew, please. I need you. I can’t do this by myself.”
“That’s not my problem.” He sounds like he’s speaking to a telemarketer, an annoying stranger …