Swim Deep

by BETH KERY

  “I was hoping you could help me? I need to access some old newspaper articles and I really don’t know how to do it,” I said regretfully.

  The librarian gave a little smile. “You don’t have to be apologetic. Nobody your age knows how to use microfilm anymore for research. Why would you, when you’ve always had computers?”

  She stood up and started to come around the desk.

  “Can I ask what you’re looking for?”

  I hesitated.

  “I’m interested in a family—the Madasters. Specifically, anything about Noah Madaster’s career.” The librarian just nodded matter-of-factly and waited patiently to see if I said anything else. I had no doubt she knew who the Madasters were. They were a prominent family in the area, after all. Her nonchalant reaction was so unlike anything I’d experienced with Evan. I hadn’t realized until that moment, standing there with a stranger, how charged the atmosphere always became at the mere mention of the name Madaster.

  “I’d also like to find all the articles available about Elizabeth Madaster’s disappearance seven years ago,” I said.

  “Follow me,” the librarian said. She began walking at a brisk pace. “For Noah Madaster’s governorship, you might want to start off with the Las Vegas Review-Journal or the Reno Gazette-Journal, although anything on his early career as a physician might be more easily found in our local paper, the Nevada Appeal. Same for anything on Elizabeth Madaster, seeing as how she grew up and lived in the Carson City-Tahoe area. How are you related?”

  We’d left the large entrance area of the library and were walking down a wide corridor. The librarian glanced over her shoulder at me inquiringly. It took me a few seconds to replay what she’d said in my head, and respond.

  “How am I related to the topic?” I asked, thinking she was asking me why I held an interest in the Madaster family.

  The librarian’s eyebrows pinched together. “No, I meant how are you related, family-wise? I’m sorry, I just assumed.”

  “Oh, no. I’m not related to the Madasters. I’m just doing some research, and it’s very hard to find anything online.”

  The librarian’s footsteps slowed. “Like a photo of either of them, for instance?”

  “Yes. I couldn’t find even one photo.”

  We’d come to a stop in the corridor. The librarian glanced behind me uneasily.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked, looking over my shoulder, but not seeing anything out of place behind me.

  “Elizabeth Madaster was the head of the charitable organization that spearheaded the building of this library. Did you know that?” the librarian asked me, her tone gentle. Cautious?

  “I didn’t. I did know she was very involved philanthropically.” A thought occurred to me. “Does that mean you knew her?”

  The librarian nodded.

  “But you do realize that you and she—” She waved her hand circularly in the vicinity of her chin, giving me a pointed look.

  “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” I told her with a nervous laugh.

  “I may as well show you,” she said after a pause, pointing behind me and walking in that direction. “You’ll find out soon enough when you look at the microfilm.”

  I followed her fifteen or so feet down the corridor. A low row of bookshelves ran along the length of the hallway. Above the bookshelves, various commemorative plaques and photos associated with the library had been mounted on the wall.

  “This is a photo of Elizabeth Madaster,” the librarian said, turning to watch my reaction. “You can see why I assumed… ”

  I looked into the dark blue eyes of the woman in the photograph.

  Everything seemed to fly away from me. Only the photo and my body remained fixed in time and space.

  The woman in the portrait was myself.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Someone was talking, even though the speech was insignificant, like the patter of raindrops on the window during an earthquake.

  The first urge that rose up powerfully inside me was to laugh.

  I’d been so caught up, so consumed by all my insecurities about Elizabeth. Every time I’d fantasized about what she was like, the camera in my brain remained unfocused. I glimpsed her enigmatic smile before she turned away in my imagination, or experienced the magnetic, dreaded allure of her dark sexuality. I breathed her, that’s how omnipresent she was at Les Jumeaux… or when I was with my husband…

  When we were in our bed.

  Always in my imaginings, she was more than. I stood in her shadow.

  But I’d never once dreamt that my appeal to Evan was that I was her.

  Not completely, of course. No one could ever truly fill her shoes. But the photo I stared at could have been a glamour shot of me—a more polished, more confident, slightly older version of Anna Solas with shoulder-length hair.

  If it weren’t for the age difference, we might have been identical twins.

  “Damn. I shouldn’t have shown you, should I have?” I blinked and focused on the librarian’s face. Her eyes were wide with alarm.

  It felt as if an hour had passed as I stared at her face in the portrait, but it was more likely just the longest minute I’d ever lived. I realized vaguely the librarian had been speaking to me the whole time, and that her lined face appeared very concerned.

  “Of course you should have shown me,” I said, my voice sounding surprisingly level.

  “You… you honestly didn’t know, did you?”

  “No, I had no idea.”

  “But your interest in the Madaster family? I just figured it was related.”

  I’m interested in Elizabeth Madaster because she’s my husband’s former wife. I’m obsessed with her because she’s my husband’s obsession. Apparently, he chose me on an Internet dating site because of Elizabeth. He’s married me because I’m her physical double.

  Everything I thought was true sixty seconds ago, including the fact that my husband loved me for who I am, is now a complete and utter lie.

  I didn’t say those things, though. Instead, I said neutrally, “They say we all have one, you know.”

  “Have one?”

  “A doppelganger,” I told the librarian with a dry smile. I couldn’t believe I sounded so normal. “Someone out there in the world who is our double. Myth has it that when you see your doppelganger, you’re about to die.”

  The librarian started slightly. Maybe I hadn’t sounded as normal as I thought I had.

  “Are you sure? There’s no way you are related to the Madasters?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  “I’m from the Chicago area. My parents are the polar opposite of the Madasters. It’s just some freak of nature.”

  A random arrangement of genes. An anomaly that had fallen onto my life like a mile-wide asteroid.

  “Do you mind if I take a photo of the portrait?” I asked the librarian.

  “Of course not,” she said. She seemed very startled by the sequence of events, but I could feel no empathy toward her in that moment. I was operating on automatic. After I’d taken a couple shots, and read over the plaques and framed articles commemorating Elizabeth’s dogged and dedicated service in getting the library built, I turned to the librarian.

  “I think I’ll come back another day, if you don’t mind? To finish the research?”

  It was a lie. I doubted I’d ever be to this part of the country again in my life.

  “Of course,” she said. She surprised me by reaching out and squeezing my forearm. “I am so sorry. I didn’t handle this very well at all. I made an assumption about why you were interested in the Madasters.”

  “It’s all right. I’m glad you showed me.”

  The librarian nodded. I turned to leave. I had only my next move in mind, the next one hundred or so steps to the front door. My brain and body
buzzed with uncomfortable energy. Walking to the front door was all I could plan at that moment.

  “I mentioned I knew her.”

  I spun around at the sound of the librarian’s voice.

  “Elizabeth Madaster,” the librarian said. “She was the kind of woman that you could tell had a lot on her mind… the type of person you suspected had been through a lot. But she was always kind to me. She was a real lady. She told me in the beginning we were going to get this library built, and she never wavered in that promise, even when the odds were stacked against us. Elizabeth Madaster could have moved a mountain with the force of her charm and sheer will.”

  Of course she was, I thought resignedly. She was a saint, a lady, a mystery, and a whore. All of the things men found irresistible.

  Including my husband, apparently.

  So here it was, I thought as I sat in the passenger seat of the car and we began the climb back up into the mountains.

  The truth at last.

  Evan had married me because of my shockingly strong resemblance to his dead first wife.

  “It looks like we might get rain tonight,” Valeria observed as she drove. I sensed her glance over at me. “Anna, are you sure everything is okay?”

  “Did you know that I look almost exactly like Evan’s first wife, Elizabeth?”

  “What?”

  My hand went out reflexively to handle on the door when we swerved on the road.

  Valeria quickly corrected the car. “What are you talking about?”

  “I saw a picture of her, there at the library. We might be twins,” I said. I studied Valeria’s profile as she stared ahead at the road. I thought her incredulity was genuine.

  But then again, what kind of a judge of character was I, really? What kind of discerner of the truth?

  It was an epic joke to think I could see behind a person’s façade to their true self.

  “Wes never said anything to you about it?” I challenged. “Or Evan? Because they both knew. All along. They’ve both been playing some kind of game with me.” At that moment, a vivid memory popped into my brain of Wes Ryder topping the rise of the overlook, and starting in surprise when he’d seen me. I’d thought his shock was strange, since he’d gone up there in search of me. But my presence hadn’t been what had taken him aback. The fact that I was the spitting image of Elizabeth Madaster had.

  My mind went back to the first moment I’d met Evan, face to face. Now his careful reserve combined with those sudden flashes of heat and desire took on a whole new meaning.

  “No, Anna. I swear I didn’t know,” Valeria said breathlessly, clamping the steering wheel hard.

  Fury suddenly swept through me. It felt like a handhold. I grabbed at it in desperation. I recalled how Evan had claimed to fall for me through my art, and how I’d believed him, because I’d wanted to. I’d needed to believe he saw me like no one else had… like no one else could. In reality, he’d been seeing another woman the entire time. I—Anna Solas—had been invisible.

  Insignificant.

  That he’d manipulated me in that particular way, using my art, my unique means for expressing myself to the world, felt like the most infuriating betrayal to me at that moment.

  He had noticed my similarity to Elizabeth through the dating site, found out about my life. I’d handed myself to him on a platter by using that dating service. He realized I worked for Tommy Higoshi. How convenient that’d been, that we coincidentally shared that mutual contact.

  Evan had schemed to meet me.

  That’s why Tommy had felt compelled to tell me on the eve of my wedding that Evan had made of point of asking to see my paintings even before he’d joined the dating site. At the time, I recalled thinking Tommy’s manner had been odd when he’d told me that, like he’d been trying to give me some kind of coded message. Now I understood.

  Tommy had worried something was unusual about Evan’s focus on me. But he hadn’t been able to put his finger on what, exactly. Tommy and Evan had become friends after Elizabeth passed. Tommy had never seen Evan’s first wife.

  He’d never realized we looked almost exactly alike.

  Evan had used Tommy as well.

  Anger burned in me so uncomfortably that I pushed my fist against my gut.

  “Are you sure there isn’t some other explanation for all of this?” Valeria asked me anxiously.

  “I don’t see how,” I said, staring the grayish, steel-blue clouds crouching menacingly over the mountains. “I have a picture of a photo of her on my phone. I look exactly like Evan’s first wife. How many explanations could there be for why he’d want to marry me?”

  Valeria was probably worried about the job she’d taken, but I’d passed the point of believing I made a difference to her happiness. I was inconsequential.

  I would be gone tomorrow.

  We didn’t say anything else to each other on the trip back to Les Jumeaux.

  The Gothic lines of Les Jumeaux’s pitched roofs and towers looked much the same to me. But the house and its beautiful mountain and lake landscape had forever changed. How could I have ever believed that I was a unique part of this place, that my life would become intertwined with it? I was barely a blink of the eye in the grand scheme of things.

  My stupidity hurt almost as much as my acid anger at Evan.

  Ignoring Valeria as she called out to me, I climbed the grand staircase. Not until I sat securely in the seating area of our suite did I allow myself to ask the questions.

  What would I do? Where would I go?

  Should I confront Evan? Demand answers?

  Would it give me even an ounce of satisfaction to do so?

  No, it wouldn’t.

  That answer came to me, swift and certain. It would not help me to confront him about his lies and manipulations, about how he’d turned my life upside down just to gratify his obsession. In fact, it might make matters worse, to discover the truth.

  Vividly, the memory of him holding my hands and trying to convey to me the importance of the prenuptial agreement leapt into my mind’s eye. I recalled the crass irritation of his lawyer.

  “Evan has provided you with much, much more than the clothes on your back, even in the case of divorce. You’re a very fortunate young woman, Ms. Solas.”

  Lucky. That’s what that lawyer bastard had called me.

  I realized dully that Evan had insisted upon providing for me, even in the case of me filing for divorce, because he’d known he’d been using me. He’d insisted upon the clause in the prenuptial agreement providing for me because he’d known this day would come.

  His thoughtfulness in that regard only highlighted his premeditation. His deliberate cruelty.

  “I don’t want to ruin your life.”

  Pain seized my whole body. I clenched my eyelids shut and braced myself against it. It tore through me like fire anyway.

  “But you have, Evan.”

  I sat there for I don’t know how long, my muscles clenched tight as I tried to fight off the pain and anger and rising panic.

  Finally, I stood and walked over to the closet. I found my large suitcase. Had it really only been a month or so since I’d stored it away there?

  It didn’t matter. I had to get out of here. It was like I’d become aware that the house exuded some kind of foul, noxious gas. How had I not realized I’d been breathing it, slowly poisoning myself all along?

  Evan had said he would return this evening. I had to get out of there as soon as possible. The thought of seeing him made my mind go blank with rage.

  Why the hell did you make me fall in love with you? Was that really necessary to your plan, you fucking, heartless bastard?

  I threw my suitcase on the bed so hard, it bounced up several inches. I unzipped the case and started throwing handfuls of clothing straight from the bureau drawers into it. In my fury, I acc
identally shoved the Tsang sculpture of the lovers kissing, making it scoot several inches all along the bureau.

  “It’s my wedding gift to you. Do you like it?”

  Rage clamped down on me. I dropped the clothing, picked up the priceless porcelain in both hands, and hurled it against the wall. It hit with the impact of a small explosion.

  “Anna, what the hell are you doing?”

  I turned around to see Evan standing just inside the door.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Evan’s gaze appeared startled and sharp on me. Whiskers darkened his jaw. The appeal of him, even under these circumstances, horrified me.

  “What are you doing home so early?” I asked.

  “I was worried after we talked this morning. Rightfully so, I’d say.”

  He entered the room, long legs motoring toward me.

  “What’s happening?” he asked tensely, his gaze landing on the shattered pieces of sculpture. He grabbed me by the upper arms. I made a muted sound of furious misery and jerked out of his hold.

  “Anna? Tell me what’s happened,” he demanded.

  My throat burned. I was so angry—so hurt—I didn’t have the energy or desire to try to spell it all out for him. I just reached in my back pocket and extricated my phone.

  I held up the image of Elizabeth Madaster.

  His expression froze, altered somehow. The light didn’t fade from his eyes. It went out like a snuffed candle.

  “Valeria told me just now she took you to Carson City. She said you were upset, but she wouldn’t say why. You saw this at the library?” he asked, his voice infuriatingly calm.

  “That’s right,” I said, still holding the incriminating evidence up to his face.

  “You don’t have to keep showing me the picture, Anna. I know what Elizabeth looks like.”

  “Sure you do. You’re looking at her right now.”

  For several seconds he just stared at me, his face ashen.