The Third Twin

by Cj Omololu

  “You’re lying,” I say. “You were supposed to leave this morning.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he says, closing the door behind him and putting a bag on the bed.

  “It does matter! This is a very big fucking deal! The guy on the phone said so.”

  He winces. “Jorge called the house?”

  “Yes. And he’s pretty pissed.” I zip up the duffel and shove it into his hands. “Go. Get the next flight. Don’t screw up your future just for me.”

  He tosses the bag onto the floor and kicks it toward the closet. “I’m not going. I’m staying with you,” he says calmly, folding his arms across his chest. “Maybe this is the future I’m not supposed to screw up. Yours.”

  My heart skips when he says that, and I feel instantly guilty. Part of me doesn’t want him to go. Doesn’t know what I will do if he picks up that duffel bag and walks out the door. “But won’t you—”

  “For once stop second-guessing everything,” he says almost irritably. “Sometimes you have to trust your intuition. I’m here, and I’m helping until we fix this mess.” Zane rummages in the plastic bag and pulls out some jeans and a pair of black flats. “I got you these—hope they fit. I figured … your other stuff …”

  Is still covered in Eli’s blood. I never want to see those clothes again. I take the shoes from him and check the size. “They’re perfect. Where did you go?”

  “The Target by the freeway opens early.” He looks into the bag and tosses it to me. “There’s a toothbrush in there, and a T-shirt. We should get moving. Dad’s going to be home by nine, and we need to make it look like I’m gone.”

  I check the bag. He even bought deodorant.

  “I just …” I’m so overwhelmed, I can’t finish the sentence, so instead I just pull him toward me and give him a kiss on the cheek. If I can’t go home, I want to be with Zane. “Thank you.”

  He hesitates a fraction of a second before he lets me go. “It was nothing. Now get your ass in gear before we get caught.”

  The crunching sound is so loud, it fills my head, and I look down to see yellow crumbs spilling all over the front of my shirt. Zane’s shirt. He bought me a cute gray one this morning, but I put the surf shirt back on instead because it made me feel better.

  He glances over at me from the driver’s seat of his van. “How can you eat those?”

  I pull another ring from the plastic bag and crunch down on it, sending a new shower of yellow dust down the front of me. “I always have sweet tea and Funyuns on a road trip.”

  “They stink,” he says, peering out the windshield at the gas station parking lot. We couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. I’m supposed to be on the run, and Zane’s supposed to be on a plane. The more people who think that, the better.

  “Breakfast of champions.” I blow a hot mass of onion breath in his direction. “You’re just jealous. Besides, someone whose fingers are red from Flaming Hot Cheetos shouldn’t talk.”

  “Hmmm,” he grunts, and takes a swig of his soda.

  Zane’s phone dings. “It’s another email from Slater.”

  He’s been emailing all morning, thinking that Zane’s on a plane somewhere over the Pacific. “Anything new?”

  “No. Ava still hasn’t shown up for school. And there’s going to be a press conference this afternoon.” He looks up at me. “Sounds like everyone’s really freaking out.”

  “Good,” I say. “That means that they have no idea where I am. As far as anyone else is concerned, I vanished into the night somewhere downtown, and you’re—” I still feel so guilty he missed the flight that I can’t bring myself to say “on a plane,” so I settle for, “Gone.”

  Zane types on his phone. “I’m telling him to keep the info coming.” He pauses, and then continues typing. “And that they’re serving the meal, so I have to go.”

  “A meal? Since when do they serve food on a plane?”

  He grins. “They do in first class.” He types a little more. “Also, apparently there is this seriously hot girl in the seat next to me that I’m going to spill some water on so that I’ll have an excuse to talk to her. Probably a swimsuit model going to Tahiti for a photo shoot.”

  “Nice touch.”

  We spend several long minutes watching people pull up and pump their gas, as the silence in the van seems to get louder. Apparently we’ve run out of unimportant things to talk about. Something needs to happen soon, because I’m getting antsy.

  “What do you think we should do?” I finally ask, more to hear myself talk than because I’m looking for an actual plan.

  “I think we should find out who really killed Eli. Before …”

  “Before the cops find me,” I finish for him.

  Zane turns his head away from me to watch a homeless guy walk into the bathroom on the side of the building. “We’ll get this figured out.”

  “How? I already know who did it. I just can’t prove it.”

  He turns back to me. “Why are you so sure it’s Ava?”

  I can almost feel him pulling away from me. He doesn’t want to believe me. “The evidence. She was there last night because of me. She’s been following me around taking pictures and making appointments as Alicia.”

  “But wasn’t there a picture of her and that Dylan guy too? She couldn’t take a picture of herself.”

  I’ve already thought about that. “She could have gotten someone else to do it. Makes her look even more innocent.”

  “You really think Ava is that much of an evil mastermind?”

  I try not to let my emotions get away from me. “Why not? She’s been putting incriminating Photoshopped pictures on Alicia’s page. Who else would do all of this?” Never mind why.

  “They’re not Photoshopped,” Zane says.

  I stop, my mind rushing at full speed. “What aren’t?”

  “The pictures on Alicia’s wall. That’s what I was doing last night after you went to sleep. I analyzed some of the metadata on the photos, and they’re real. Every photo you upload has a binary code attached to it, and some of them, like the selfie profile picture, were uploaded somewhere in Oceanside. Does Ava hang out in Oceanside?”

  I feel a charge rush through me. “The address she gave at the salon was in Oceanside. And the DMV registration—that was in Oceanside too.”

  “Do you even know anyone there?”

  “No.” I pull my phone and the battery out of my pocket. Aside from the disposable phone, some crumpled bills, my license, and a useless ATM card, my phone is the only thing I own right now. “The address is in here.”

  We both look at the blank screen. “How fast can they track my phone, do you think?”

  “Pretty fast,” he says. “Especially if they’ve got a trace on it. The minute it’s turned on, it’ll ping the location and give a triangulation of the cell phone towers in the area.”

  “When did you get so technical?”

  Zane shrugs. “I hear things.”

  “I’m not sure we have a choice. The only place for us to start is in Oceanside, and the only info is trapped in here.”

  Zane turns the key in the ignition. “Okay. Fire it up, but only for a few seconds. Long enough to get the info but not so long that they can figure out where we are. We’ll be out of here before any cops can respond anyway.”

  I take a deep breath, push the battery into the back, and turn the phone over to watch the screen jump to life. Sixty-seven missed calls. I don’t have time to process that, only look at the address in Oceanside and pop the battery out again as Zane makes a right turn out of the gas station.

  “You get it?” he asks, pulling into traffic.

  “Yep.” I watch the side mirror, convinced that I’m going to see a black-and-white patrol car in the reflection any second now. “It’s 12941 Sunderland in Oceanside.”

  “Put it in my phone for directions. Should take only about twenty minutes to get there.”

  And then what? Knock on the door and ask for Ava? I can’t think that far ah
ead right now, but our movement makes me feel better, like we’re actually accomplishing something. I stick my dead phone into the center compartment, slide down in the seat, and put on some oversized aviator sunglasses I find in there. Glancing out the side window, I expect every car we pass to honk when they recognize me, but everyone is just going on about their regular Wednesday, yelling at traffic and illegally texting on their phones. I wish we could stay on the freeway forever, speeding toward nothing, leaving all of the mess behind us.

  Too soon, we pull off the freeway and follow the directions to the house on the map.

  “It should be halfway down this street,” Zane says, leaning forward to look out the window at the identical stucco houses that line both sides of the road. “12927 … 12935 …,” he says, reading the painted numbers on the curb.

  “Why don’t they just go in order?” I’m suddenly pissed. Pissed at the stupid house numbers. Pissed at what happened to Eli. At having to run from the cops and try to prove to everyone that I didn’t do anything wrong. “It would be so much easier if each house on each street would just start at one, then two, then three. None of this skipping-around crap.”

  “Really?” he says, taking his eyes off the road to look at me. “The inconstancy of house numbers is what you want to talk about right now?”

  I fold my arms across my chest. “Well, it’s stupid.”

  “And 12941 is right there,” he says, pointing to an off-white house with a red tiled roof.

  “Holy shit!” I blurt out. “There’s a blue Honda parked in the driveway. Keep going!” I smack his arm as he slows down. “We don’t want to park right in front.”

  “Where do we want to park?”

  “There.” I point to the curb about four houses down. Close enough that we can see the front of the house and the driveway but far enough away that we won’t be noticed.

  “What’s with the Honda?” he asks as he turns around and pulls over to the curb.

  I stare at it, trying to make sure it’s really there. “Whoever got the speeding ticket in Alicia’s name was driving a Honda. And there was a blue Honda parked in the empty lot at WaterRidge that night.…” I trail off, trying not to think of that night with Eli, back when everything was still good.

  “There are a lot of blue Hondas in the world.”

  “Don’t even start,” I say. “This particular blue Honda is no coincidence. It has something to do with Ava, and I’m not leaving here until I find out what.”

  “So we wait?”

  “I guess so.” I can’t think of a better idea at the moment.

  Zane glances down the street. “Not a lot going on here in the middle of the day,” he says, surveying the blank, staring windows and closed garage doors. Like a lot of neighborhoods here, the street has the feel of a ghost town, the sidewalks always empty in a place where nobody ever gets out of their cars.

  I’m making deals with myself in my head. We’ll wait here for five minutes … no, ten minutes, before I jump out and knock on the door, demanding answers. I have no idea what I’m really going to say, but the deadline makes me feel more productive. I’m watching the numbers tick by on the ancient clock on Zane’s dashboard when I see her walking down the front steps toward the car. Ava’s head is down as she searches for something in a white bag I don’t recognize.

  “There she is,” I say, slumping down farther in the front seat.

  “Jesus, you’re right,” Zane says, ducking down in his own seat.

  I can’t believe what I’m seeing. All the puzzle pieces fit together, but I never thought they’d actually form this picture.

  “It doesn’t mean anything,” Zane says. “There could be a lot of explanations for why Ava’s way out here.”

  “Right.” We both know that the only explanation is that she’s hiding something. Something big. I watch as Ava opens the door and slides into the front seat of the car in the driveway like she’s been doing it all her life. She’s so preoccupied that she doesn’t even look around as she backs the car into the street and takes off.

  “Should I follow her?” Zane asks, turning the key in the ignition.

  “Yes! Go!” I look around for cops, but all I see is an old man driving a white car past us.

  Zane swings in behind him.

  “This is perfect,” I say. “She won’t notice us now.”

  “She probably wouldn’t remember my van anyway,” he says, careful not to take his eyes off the blue car. “We haven’t exactly been hanging out the past decade or so.”

  “We can’t take that chance.” My heart speeds up as Ava heads for the freeway.

  “Where do you think she’s headed?”

  “No clue. But we’re going to follow her until we figure it out.”

  We get on the freeway and lose the Honda in the stream of cars. “I don’t see her,” I say, scanning the road ahead of us.

  “She’s up there,” Zane says, gunning the van so that I can feel the engine straining to keep up. “I won’t lose her.”

  After a few moves in and out of lanes, I see the back of the Honda a few cars ahead. Zane slows down so that he can keep up without getting any closer. I start to notice familiar freeway exits up ahead. “What if she’s going home?” I ask. “There are probably cops all over the place. We can’t follow her there.”

  “If she’s going that way, then we’ll just pull over. We’re not going to get caught, I promise.”

  The turn signal on her car lights up, and I check the green freeway signs overhead. “She’s taking La Costa.” Suddenly I know where she’s going. But why? Does she have more information for them? “She’s going to Ms. Alvarez’s office.”

  Zane heads for the freeway exit. “She must have something that will clear your name. Otherwise she’d just talk to the cops.”

  His insistence on trying to pretend that Ava wants to help me is getting irritating. “Would you stop? If it was something that would help me, Dad would be with her. If he knew about it, he’d never let her go alone, not with all of this going on. For all we know, Ava’s bringing Ms. Alvarez the bloody knife that she just happened to find in my room. With my DNA on it. That coincidentally matches her DNA.”

  Zane shakes his head but says nothing.

  Ava turns into the parking lot. “Go past it and around the corner,” I say. “There’s another entrance on the other side, where she might not see us.” It seems to take hours to go around the block. “There,” I say, pointing to a clump of eucalyptus trees toward the back of the lot. “Pull in there.” Ava’s parked up at the front by the building. I see her head in the driver’s seat, but she doesn’t look like she’s making a move to get out.

  Zane quickly backs the van into a space at the edge of the lot near the exit. There aren’t many cars in the lot, and I feel exposed. “What’s she doing?” I finally ask.

  “Texting, I think,” Zane says. A few seconds later his phone chimes, and I jump.

  “It can’t be,” I say, and pick it up to look at the screen. I exhale. “It’s only Maya,” I say, handing him the phone.

  “Okay, this is weird,” he says, reading the email. “Maya says that Ava is on her way to meet you, that you’re going to turn yourself in.”

  I glance over at Ava, still in the blue car. “Do you think she knows we’re here?”

  He squints in that direction. “I don’t think so. She hasn’t looked up once.”

  Zane unclips his seat belt. “I’m going to go talk to her. You stay here, where it’s safe.”

  “No way. I’m the one—” I begin.

  “What’s she going to do to me?”

  “That’s the point! I have no idea what Ava might do.” I feel so unmoored. For seventeen years, I’ve known Ava as well as I’ve known myself—I could finish her sentences, anticipate her wants, and read her emotions, but none of that’s true anymore. She’s like a stranger to me.

  “I’ll be fine,” Zane says. “But you need to stay out of sight. If somehow the cops follow her, take the va
n and get the hell out of here.”

  “She’s moving,” I say, my attention drawn back to the blue car. We watch as Ava gets out of the Honda and walks toward some trees at the other end of the lot. For the first time since the club, I’m able to see her clearly. She’s got on jeans and low-heeled boots, but there’s something about the way she moves that’s off somehow. “Something’s wrong,” I say.

  Zane glances at me. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, watching her lean against one of the trees. Over her shoulder she’s got the white bag that I’ve never seen before, and she picked a spot where she can see the entire lot but is almost hidden from view. “I can’t say exactly. She just … she just doesn’t look normal.”

  “I’m going,” he says, reaching for the door.

  “No!” I say, suddenly afraid. “She’s already killed three people.”

  “We don’t know that,” Zane says. “Besides, the only guys who are dead have been going out with one of you.”

  I can see how determined he is, and honestly I just want the not-knowing to be over. “Give me your phone, then,” I say. I go to the home screen and press the video icon. “Put this in your pocket. We won’t have any video evidence, but we might at least get some audio that could help.”

  “Street smarts too,” Zane says, slipping the phone into his pocket.

  “Be careful,” I say.

  “You be ready to tear out of here if you need to,” he says. “Don’t worry about me.”

  I slide into the driver’s seat and watch Zane as he makes his way across the parking lot. He looks casual, as if he’s heading for the office building. As soon as he’s about to reach Ava, a guy dressed in a suit comes rushing down the steps and stops in front of him. I’m straining to see what they’re doing. Is the guy a plainclothes cop? After a few seconds, Zane turns toward the main street and starts gesturing right and left. The guy must just be asking for directions. I can see Zane glancing worriedly at Ava, but even though she must see him, she hasn’t moved an inch.

  Once the guy’s on his way, Zane heads straight for Ava. Before she can even say anything to him, my eyes are drawn to a familiar car that just entered the parking lot. The car parks next to the blue Honda, and the girl driving gets out, but I can’t believe what I’m seeing. This is crazy.