The Stranger Game

by Cylin Busby

  I just nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

  Dad added, “And Sarah is back now. Why does it matter where Nico was that day, or what she did?” He was so calm and collected. The news from the detective was not a surprise to him, either.

  “That’s the other thing. Paula seems to believe that—well—” He paused, looking at Mom carefully. “She thinks this isn’t actually Sarah.” Before Mom and Dad could even react, he went on, “Paula says that the girl we all think is Sarah is actually an imposter, a stranger who has assumed her identity.”

  “That is ridiculous!” Mom laughed. “And I think we all know where this is coming from.” She looked over at Sarah. “Tell the detective about Max and Paula, why she might say these terrible things about you and your sister.”

  Sarah quickly explained the relationship between the three of them, how Paula had been dating her boyfriend when she returned home and how awkward things had been between them. How Paula blamed Sarah for Max breaking up with her. She went on to add that Paula had been cold to her since coming home for the summer—the two former best friends had seen each other only a few times. “I definitely got the idea she was not happy with me,” Sarah added. “I mean, I can hardly believe it, after everything that’s happened, but she still seems mad at me for stuff from years ago.”

  The detective nodded. “While I understand that, Paula gave us a list of discrepancies—between the Sarah that she knew and Sarah now. It’s everything from her fingernails to her height and stature. I have to tell you, the list has raised some questions.” He held out a piece of paper to Mom, but she shook her head, refusing to touch it.

  “I think we can all agree that Sarah has changed, and honestly I think a lot of this is very hurtful to her, to be compared to her old self—my God! Look at what my daughter has been through.” Mom looked over at Sarah as if to check that she was okay. “How can we stop Paula from saying these awful things?” Mom asked.

  “Well”—the detective took in a breath—“we don’t usually run a DNA test if the family confirms a missing person’s identity, and they are, uh”—he stumbled here—“still living. But we could.” He looked over at Sarah. “We would need your approval, of course. Then we could put these questions to rest.”

  Mom sat stone-faced for a moment, and Dad didn’t move. But Sarah suddenly spoke up: “Sure, I’ll take a test,” she said, shrugging as if it was no big deal.

  “Now wait a minute, Sarah has to give DNA to prove who she is? She’s Sarah! I mean, just look at her! This is getting crazy.” Dad leaned forward in his chair.

  The detective glanced over at him. “It will take only a few minutes, the test is painless, a swab in the mouth.”

  “Fine, when? Tomorrow?” Mom said in clipped tones.

  “I could take her down to the station now, have her back to you in an hour at the most.” Detective Donally stood and looked over at Sarah again.

  “Whatever is easiest,” Sarah said calmly, without looking at me.

  “No,” I heard myself say.

  Every head in the room turned to look at me.

  “I have something to tell you.” My voice didn’t even sound like my own.

  “Nico, don’t,” Sarah said quietly. “You don’t have to.”

  But she had no idea what I was about to confess.

  SARAH

  SOMETIMES, WHEN I’D BE sitting on the couch, Candy would just come up and put her arms around my neck, call me “sissy”—short for sister. She would hang on me and play with my hair, saying, “You’re so pretty, Libby.” I knew it wasn’t real, that Ma was teaching her, just like she taught me, how to use what you’ve got to get what you want. If you’re pretty, use that face. If you’re curvy, use that body. If all you have is charm, then smile and let ’em have it.

  Candy would usually follow up with a request: Do you have any gum? or Can I watch TV now? Can I stay up late with you and Ma? It was never a hug just because. It was never love.

  When I woke up in the children’s shelter that morning, and the Morris family came into the room, it was like a whole different feeling. Love, everywhere. I felt it, when Mom wrapped her arms around me, in the tears on Dad’s face. Love, unconditional. Family love, the real kind. It felt so good, I wanted to jump up and yell. I wanted everyone to know that I, Liberty Helms, had a family, finally, a real family of my own, people who loved me. But they didn’t love me, they loved Sarah, the missing girl. Or did they?

  Nico stood in the doorway that day, stiff but obviously so fragile—she was as broken as I was. I knew it would take some work to win her over. Kill ’em with kindness, Ma always said. But it wasn’t so easy. It became clear pretty fast that Sarah and Nico had not been super-close sisters. Then I realized it was more—how she flinched when I sat next to her. She was scared to even come into my room. Sarah had hurt her, physically and emotionally. She hated Sarah, or she had.

  She wasn’t the only one. I saw it in Paula’s eyes, challenging me. The way Mom and Dad reacted to the most simple kindness, like it was a gift, a revelation. Sarah had not been a nice person. She was more than a bitch, she was downright terrible. And it was my job to clean up her mess if I wanted this family to be mine.

  Max was a lost cause: he wanted the cold blond beauty he had worked so hard to win over, the most popular girl at school, and I wasn’t her. So, after breaking Paula’s heart, he moved on. Paula’s friendship with Sarah had been based on competition, and if I wasn’t playing, what was the point? So I started with Nico and worked my way up. Funny thing was, once I got to know Nico, I really did like her. It wasn’t pretend. Sweet, damaged kid. Why had Sarah tortured her? I’d never know now, because Sarah was dead. And Nico—innocent Nico—had watched her die.

  CHAPTER 28

  “SARAH HAS A TATTOO,” I blurted out fast. “She did it herself, right before she went missing.”

  “What?” Mom said, her mouth hanging open, eyes wide.

  Sarah looked over at me. I was probably the only one who noticed her tiny smile, the squint to her eyes. “Nico, how could you tell everyone? You promised,” she said.

  “Sorry, Sarah,” I said quickly, watching as Detective Donally paged through his folder.

  “I remember something . . .” he murmured, looking for a sheet of paper. “Your boyfriend also knew about this,” he said. “Max?”

  “Ex-boyfriend, but, yes, of course he knew, it’s his initials,” Sarah said, looking down and blushing a bit.

  “Oh my goodness,” I heard Mom say quietly.

  Detective Donally pulled a sheet of paper from the folder, saying: “Max did tell us about the small tattoo when we were originally investigating the case. He offered it up as evidence of their affection for each other. I believe, it says here”—he turned the sheet of paper over and read—“not only do you have a tattoo, but he has a matching one, of your initials, on the right hip?”

  Sarah stood and pulled down the side of her shorts, showing at the hip, right where her bone curved beneath the skin, the tiny letters in black: an interlocked M and V.

  Mom glanced at Sarah’s skin and let out a sigh. I couldn’t tell if she was thrilled or horrified. “What on earth were you thinking?” she said to Sarah. She shook her head, then turned to the detective. “And if this was in your records of the investigation from years ago, why is it the first we’re hearing about it?”

  “I’m sorry,” the detective started to say. “I didn’t see the point in sharing anything hurtful about your missing daughter. Max made it clear that it was a secret they had. . . . Honestly, I kept it in the file in the hopes that we could use it for, well”—he paused for a moment—“for body identification.”

  Dad put his hands out in front of him. “This was a long time ago, she was only fifteen. I’m sure Sarah would never do something like that now.”

  The detective stood and gathered his file together quickly. “I guess a trip down to the station isn’t really necessary. I’ll just add a note to her file that a visual confirmation of
Sarah’s identity was made.” I saw now that he was blushing slightly—either embarrassed at having challenged Sarah’s authenticity or the intimate nature of the tattoo, I couldn’t tell which.

  Mom stood up, her chest blotchy and red like it got sometimes when she was mad. “And what about Paula? What are you going to do about her? I have half a mind to press charges against her!”

  “Don’t worry about her—we’ll get in touch and let her know that Sarah’s identity has been confirmed. Really, Mrs. Morris, I do think she means well,” Detective Donally said, backing toward the door. “She seems to be a troubled young woman.”

  “You can tell her if she wants to cause any more distractions from the actual investigation into Sarah’s disappearance, I will come after her, with a lawyer,” Mom added, marching him out. She undid the lock and swung the door open hard.

  “Sorry to have interrupted your evening, and we’ll be in touch if there’s anything new—actually new—on Sarah’s case,” he mumbled as he scooted down the walk and out to his car.

  As soon as the door closed behind him, Mom turned around, her face tight with anger. I waited for her to turn on me, grab me by my shoulders, shake me until I told her everything. But instead, she launched into Paula. “Honestly, what is wrong with that girl?” Mom said fiercely. “I’m about to call her mother. And you . . . a tattoo.” She turned to Sarah, shaking her head.

  “All I can say is that I wish I’d never done it—if I could take it back I would.” Sarah had tears in her eyes.

  “You are going to take it back, we’re having it removed as soon as possible, I’ll make an appointment with the dermatologist,” Mom declared.

  I could tell from Sarah’s face that she was on the verge of bursting out laughing, but instead she pulled Mom into her for a hug. “I made a lot of mistakes back then,” she said quietly.

  Dad’s eyes got that teary look and I could hear Mom sigh. “You were just fifteen.” She pushed a lock of Sarah’s hair behind her ear. “And you’re not like that anymore, are you?” A look passed between them that I tried to read, but it was fleeting.

  “Let’s focus on what’s important here,” Dad said, like he was running a meeting at work. “Our family is back together, and nobody—not Paula, Detective Donally, Detective Spencer, Max, or even a silly tattoo—is going to change that, not ever.”

  Spontaneously, the family that never used to hug formed a tight circle, our arms around each other. We stood in the foyer, our heads bowed. It felt good to be complete again.

  SARAH

  EVEN THOUGH SHE COULD have, Nico never asked. Maybe she didn’t want to know how I broke my arm. How I got the burns. Why I had a couple of teeth missing. Maybe not knowing made it easier to believe the lie between us.

  I know it did for me.

  Because I never had to talk about it, slowly the memories faded of Liberty’s life. And Sarah’s memories became mine. But the visits to the psychiatrists weren’t totally useless: one of the docs gave me a prescription that really helped me sleep and was perfect for those nights when I got my period and the cramps were killer. Knocked me out flat. The other doctor had some techniques that also helped with my bad dreams: no caffeine before bed, no stimulants of any kind. I spent a half hour in bed every night reading, usually a romance or something light—fashion mags. The nightmares still came, but less often, and then they seemed to stop altogether.

  When I caught myself thinking about those days, the darkest ones with Ma, I just changed my thoughts, like changing the channel on a TV—another bit of helpful advice from the doc. I see myself hiding under that porch, the one attached to the trailer, with the dust filtering down between the boards, while Ma wrestles with the cops just over my head, saying she lives alone—she has no children. And I switch to another thought—me and Nico, out at the pool. Shopping at the mall. The way Mom looks at me when I come home from work, like seeing me come through the door is the best part of her day. She says that I make her proud, and I hear the words of my math teacher, all those years ago: I’m profoundly proud of you. I can banish those dark memories because now I am loved. I’m done running, pretending to be someone else. I’m Sarah Morris now. I am Sarah.

  And I know I am loved.

  EPILOGUE

  I KNEW MY SISTER was dead. I felt it in my body, as if my bones could tell me the truth. They were, after all, her bones too. The same parents had created us, the same genes, the DNA, the stuff that makes us who we are. We were made of the same, she and I, and so no one knew her better than I did.

  And I was there when she died.

  We go back to the park every year on her birthday, my sister and I. We never actually set foot inside, just stand outside at the gates. March 11, early spring, and almost always raining or damp. A dozen white roses, wrapped in a yellow ribbon, left on the brick wall at the entrance arch.

  And every year, on that day, there’s a huge celebration with our family—bigger each year, it seems, with Mom and Dad, Grammie and Uncle Phil and our cousins. We are still making up for lost time, for the four years when there were no birthday parties. Sarah invites her friends, new friends—there’s no one from her past in her life anymore. Where Max and Paula have disappeared to, I really don’t know. I heard Paula was in graduate school out West. Max was doing his residency somewhere in New York City. I’d lost touch with both of them, as had Sarah.

  When Sarah first came back, I let myself believe: What if it is her? What if she crawled from that lake, from the deep, with no memory of who she was, and someone took her in? She was back, with no idea what had happened, no knowledge except for her name. That would mean that I was not guilty. That I hadn’t kept the secret for four years. That she was still alive. And she looked like her, so much. Everyone thought it was her. My parents embraced her, everyone did.

  I wanted to believe, especially because she was so changed. She was the sister I always wanted. And I was that for her. I wanted to forget. But I never would. The secret would live with me forever, and it was Sarah’s secret now too; there was no escaping the truth.

  But on the edge of our happy, restitched lives there was always, for me, a dark anxiety. I worried that Paula would snap again someday, and persuade another detective, a cop, of what she had seen, what she thought she knew, and implicate Sarah and me in the process. I was haunted by the possibility that someone might discover the real Sarah, whatever was left of her. What if they drained that lake, or dragged it? What if there was a terrible drought at some point, and her bones emerged from the silt?

  Every now and then, a reporter gets in touch—when some other kid goes missing, especially if it’s in our state—or some kid is returned. They want interviews or photos, but we always politely decline, referring them to the Center for Missing Children for information on Sarah’s case, without giving any personal details. I understand now why Mom never wanted Sarah’s return publicized: She didn’t want to face the scrutiny, the doubt, the questions. Better not to know, not to ask. I was starting to see just how wise my mother was, a trait I had never respected or recognized in her, now I not only admired, I emulated.

  On my last trip home from college, Tessa came over for dinner with the family, and I let Sarah try her experimental highlighter on my hair—something she had mixed up in the lab at beauty school. It smelled like rotten eggs and burned my forehead a little bit. “When I get done with the chemistry side, I’ll add a fragrance, promise,” she said. She stepped back with the plastic gloves on her hands to admire her handiwork for a moment while Tessa made faces behind her.

  After she rinsed it off, I had a few sections of lighter blond hair in the front, but the strands were also brittle and frayed. “Too much peroxide,” Sarah murmured to herself, jotting something down in a notebook. “I’ll put a deep conditioner on tonight, that’ll be better by morning. But look, it worked—natural blond made blonder, right?”

  “I think it looks pretty good—summer in a bottle,” Tessa said, putting her hands on my shoulders and lookin
g at me in the mirror.

  “I think you just came up with the product name: Summer in a Bottle. Mind if I use that?” Sarah was serious.

  I looked at my hair in the mirror over the sink, startled by the almost-white highlights around my face. It wasn’t really my look, but I knew Sarah could fix it tomorrow, dye it back a more honey blond. Or maybe I’d just leave it, tell my friends at Princeton, proudly, that my sister was creating a line of hair products and I was her guinea pig, supporting her every effort—her partner in crime.

  A team.

  After all, what are sisters for?

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This novel was inspired by the mysterious true crime case of Nicholas Barclay, a Texas boy who disappeared in 1994 at the age of thirteen, and the young man who impersonated him and insinuated himself into the Barclay family three years later.

  I am grateful to all my early readers, especially my agent, Brenda Bowen, and her assistant, Wendi Gu. Special thanks to Nanci Katz Ellis, who read the manuscript more times than I did. To the Ross men, Damon and August, I owe more thanks than I can ever express; you both have taught me the true meaning of family and love.

  A deep bow of gratitude to Donna Bray for her unwavering support, and the editorial team of Balzer + Bray for their talent, hard work, and dedication.

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