The Other Sister

by Dianne Dixon

  Suddenly, the memory vanished—obliterated by the sound of the alarm on Morgan’s phone.

  She needed to be at work in half an hour, and she still hadn’t figured out how to hide the crazy quilt of cuts that covered her face.

  • • •

  The pharmacy was small, a relic from a more genteel time.

  There was a makeup counter near the entrance—frilly and old-fashioned, fronted by three tall, pink-cushioned stools. Rushing out from behind the counter, squeezing Morgan into a bone-crushing hug, was a boisterous woman with a mane of platinum-colored hair. Her name was Sherri, but Morgan had always secretly thought of her as the Big Blond. She smelled, overpoweringly, of dusting powder and peppermint. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” she bellowed. “Your face looks like wildcats used it for a scratching post.”

  “I’m starting a new job in a few minutes. Can you do something?”

  “Baby doll, before I hit third grade, I could camouflage anything from a pimple to a split lip.”

  The Big Blond put Morgan on one of the pink stools, then swiftly went to work, launching into what Morgan knew would be nonstop chatter. “Tell that mother of yours to give me a call. She’s my best friend since I’m eight years old, and I never hear from her. Y’know, the other day I was…”

  The Blond’s train of thought had been lost.

  Her attention was on something she was seeing over Morgan’s shoulder. While she continued to dab a makeup sponge along one side of Morgan’s face, she let out a low, lusty whistle. “Now that’s what I call good enough to eat.”

  Morgan shifted her position slightly and saw what had caught the Blond’s attention. A man, leaving the store, clutching a bottle of painkillers. Morgan lurched forward, almost falling off her frilly pink perch.

  Then she was gone—bolting toward the door.

  • • •

  When Morgan ran out of the pharmacy, the man she was chasing was about to get into his car. She screamed his name.

  The sound of her voice stopped him in his tracks. For an instant, he stayed motionless, with his back to her, as if bracing to take a bullet. Then he slowly turned around.

  Morgan’s eyes widened. She took a stumbling step backward, startled by his appearance. His forearms were covered in bloody, rake-like wounds that looked as if they’d been inflicted by clawing fingernails, and there were vicious bruises at the base and on the sides of his neck, where someone had apparently tried to strangle him.

  Morgan was looking at Matt.

  And he told her, “Don’t say anything to Ali yet. I need some time.”

  Matt

  In the days since he’d been missing, the horrifying things Matt had done had taken their toll. His reflexes were slow. And as Morgan rushed at him in the pharmacy parking lot, she landed a fury-filled slap, right to his mouth. It stung like hell. He grabbed her wrists, holding her at arm’s length, while she shouted, “How could you deliberately disappear like that? How could you hurt my sister so much?”

  Matt was in acute pain, and it was hard to talk. The rasp in his voice made him sound menacing as he said, “Settle down, Morgan.”

  “Where were you for the past two days?” she demanded. “Where were you?”

  The last person in the world Matt wanted to deal with right now was Morgan. When he’d first met her, he’d liked her, but after he really got to know her, she irritated him. She was too needy, too pushy. He was doing his best not to lose his temper. “This is between Ali and me. I’m going to talk to her about it. I just need time to—”

  “Anything that hurts my sister hurts me,” Morgan insisted. “She’s my twin. We share everything. Tell me where you were!” She was eyeing the marks on his body, the ugly scrapes on his forearms and the bruises on his neck.

  “This is something I need to work out alone,” he said. “After it’s worked out, I’ll talk to Ali. Then it’ll be her business. At no point will it be your business.” The rasp in his voice only added to the threat in his tone. “Stay out of it.”

  The sight of his injuries had stunned Morgan into silence. Matt got into his car and started the engine. After he pulled out of the parking lot, he looked up at the rearview mirror and watched Morgan running to her own car and sliding behind the wheel, obviously intending to follow him. But then he saw her check her watch and make a screeching U-turn, as if she’d suddenly remembered she was late for something important.

  • • •

  In the bedroom of his apartment, Matt slowly opened his shirt. It took several attempts before he could work his way out and drop it onto the bed.

  As the shirt hit the bed, there was a flash of memory… Pain, and a woman’s bony, pale feet scuffling and slipping across the matted carpet of that dingy hotel corridor.

  With a gradual, reluctant tilt of his head, Matt looked down at the marks on his abdomen. They were cut in just above his navel. A pair of long, horizontal gashes, brutally bruised. Their swollen edges, red and welted; their centers embedded with threadlike trails of gritted filth.

  Matt let out a roar, driving his fist into the wall, punching a hole in it. The wounds on his body were reopening other, older hurts—injuries covered over but never completely healed.

  The knowledge of who had inflicted both his old wounds and his new ones, and how it had been done, was tearing Matt apart. He uncapped the bottle of pills he’d bought at the pharmacy. Then he let them roll out and scatter across the floor. He was too far gone for them to be of any help.

  He switched his phone on, scanning the accumulated messages. Most of them were from Ali, each one more frantic than the one before. There was also a message from his friend Aidan, the author at the book-signing party. Breezily unconcerned that Matt hadn’t shown up for their planned evening of drinking. And asking Matt to call as soon as possible about some “bloody great news.”

  He put the phone in his pocket; he’d deal with Aidan later.

  Matt lay back on his bed, staring into space—trying to figure out a way to explain his disappearance, and his reappearance, to Ali.

  Morgan

  After being on the job less than twenty minutes, Morgan had already retreated into the emptiness of a ladies’ room two floors below her office. She was pacing, repeatedly checking her phone. She’d called Ali more than an hour ago to tell her about Matt, and had been sent straight to voice mail. Ali still hadn’t replied.

  Deciding to calm down by splashing cold water on her face, Morgan was suddenly staring into the restroom mirror. She’d arrived at her new job looking like a complete idiot. One side of her face was a puckered patchwork of raw-looking cuts. On the other side, the cuts were streaked with muddy-looking trails of foundation and mascara. The smeary aftermath of the Big Blond’s half-finished makeover, and the crying Morgan had done in the pharmacy parking lot.

  She muttered, “Shit,” then let out a laugh that went on way too long. Hysteria trying to win a fight with misery.

  When she went back upstairs, Morgan stayed at her desk, keeping her head down, devastated that she’d showed up for work looking like a train wreck. And completely bewildered that Ali hadn’t responded to her phone call.

  What could be keeping Ali so silent?

  Ali

  Ali was sitting beside her mother at a glass-topped table in a private room adjacent to a bank vault. She hadn’t heard most of what her mother was saying. She was worried about where Matt was and what had caused his disappearance. Fearing the worst.

  Ali was also struggling with the loss of her apprenticeship at Z in New York, the opportunity she’d been counting on to launch her restaurant career. When Ali had tried to confirm the dates and her travel plans, Zev Tilden’s haughty assistant had told her that since she’d already insulted them by calling and turning down her apprenticeship, Z didn’t have any further interest in her.

  At first, Ali was shocked. Then angry. Then totally confuse
d. It was a conversation that made no sense. She insisted she’d never called to cancel her apprenticeship. She asked to speak to Zev Tilden to sort things out. Tilden, in full temperamental-chef mode, announced he had a world-class restaurant to run and didn’t have time for amateurs who couldn’t make up their minds. Ali was yesterday’s news. Someone else was already in her spot. End of discussion.

  Ali was heartbroken.

  And now, with Matt’s disappearance, the heartbreak had doubled. Ali was having trouble paying attention to what her mother was doing—taking items out of a safe-deposit box. A sapphire ring. Then bricks of banded cash, followed by the deed to a small tract of land. The last thing lifted out was a uniquely designed portfolio made of black mahogany and shaped like a large cigar box. The clasp and lid hinges were sterling silver.

  Seeing that mahogany portfolio was like being hit by lightning. For the first time since she’d entered the bank, Ali’s attention was on something other than her worries.

  Her mother slid the portfolio across the table. “This belongs to you now.”

  Ali touched the lid of the box lightly, reverently. “Wow. Mom, I’ve heard about this…but I’ve never actually seen it.”

  “Everything you need for your dream is in there, honey. Your roots. And your wings.”

  Ali’s hands were unsteady as she opened the silver clasp and raised the mahogany lid. The portfolio’s interior was lined with emerald-green velvet, its contents arranged between a series of brass dividers. In the center section were dozens of recipes handwritten in brown ink on ivory vellum paper. In the surrounding sections were lists of exotic seasonings and herbs, along with formulas for simple kitchen essentials like homemade baking powder. In a side section, there were swatches of fabric in a rainbow of textures and hues. And there was an assortment of color chips—some, the standard paint-store variety; others, bits of plaster scraped from the walls of old buildings.

  In the long, narrow space at the bottom of the portfolio were two scrolls—a detailed drawing of the dining room and kitchen of a tiny, uniquely charming restaurant and a diagram of an outdoor garden that adjoined the restaurant’s rear wall. Tucked in beside the scrolls were elegantly labeled envelopes filled with seeds, ready for planting.

  When she saw the handwritten dates on the seed packets, Ali was surprised. “These are less than a month old. I don’t understand. How could she have—”

  “Your grandmother MaryJoy began putting this box together more than seventy years ago and never stopped. I think for a long time she believed she was piecing together a dream that belonged solely to her. She brought it with her from Ireland when she came here as a young girl. But somewhere along the line, she recognized the two of you shared the same dream…and that you would be the one to make it real.” Ali’s mother seemed to drift into a memory that was especially sweet. “She worked on that portfolio right up until the day she died. She wanted to give your restaurant the very best launch she could.”

  MaryJoy O’Conner, the Irish grandmother Ali had loved so much, had left her an astonishing gift. And for an instant, Ali was indescribably happy. Then she was immediately nervous, quickly shutting the lid on the portfolio. “What about Morgan? What did Morgan get?”

  Ali’s mother pointed to the deed she’d taken out of the safe-deposit box. “Morgan gets the land, the acreage Grandma MaryJoy bought years ago. She wanted to make sure Morgan would always have a home, a place of her own. The cash and Grandma’s engagement ring were left to me.” Ali’s mother put the banded stacks of cash into her purse, then slipped the ring onto the middle finger of her right hand. Ali saw that the ring’s centerpiece, the sapphire, was the same color as MaryJoy O’Conner’s eyes—violet blue.

  “And now, for better or worse,” her mother said, “the bits and pieces of the past have become part of the future.”

  Ali had no idea of the destruction that would come from that deed to the tract of land and the gift of the portfolio, her tailor-made dream in a box.

  Matt

  He’d been waiting all day, and finally, Ali’s car had turned into the driveway. As soon as it came to a stop, Matt ran to open the door.

  In an instant, Ali was in his arms, burying her face in his shirtfront, shaking like a leaf.

  “Shh,” Matt told her. “It’s okay. I’m back. I’m fine. Everything’s okay.” He leaned in to kiss her, wanting to feel her lips on his, but the kiss evaporated. Ali had pushed away from him, staring at the bruises on his face and the claw marks on his forearms.

  “Ali, it’s all right. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” His voice was calm, but his adrenaline was pumping. He didn’t want to lose her.

  Seeming unable to take her eyes off the angry marks on his body, Ali reached to touch them. Matt stopped her. His wounds couldn’t be touched; they were too painful.

  “What happened to you?” Ali looked up at him, pale and frightened. “Where have you been? You’ve been gone for almost three days.”

  “I’m not going to tell you about that.” He was surprised by how matter-of-fact he managed to sound.

  Ali made a little gasping sound, a whimper of surprise and hurt.

  “I’m not going to discuss where I’ve been because what I’m telling you right this minute is more important.” Matt made a point of locking eyes with Ali, refusing to let her look away. “Al, you know I’d never do anything that would harm you. And you know I’d never lie to you. That’s what’s important. That’s what you need to focus on.”

  Ali’s attention darted to the wounds on Matt’s arms. The claw marks. The evidence that wherever he’d gone and whatever he had done were appalling. “What happened?” she asked.

  Fear jackhammered through Matt. “I owed someone a debt. It’s gone now. And it has nothing to do with us.”

  Ali moved away, bewildered by his refusal to tell her where he’d been. He understood that if he didn’t tell her, he was going to lose her. He could feel it. But there was nothing he could do. Everything was being drowned out by the images flashing through his mind—the limp body sailing backward through an open window…and the long, long time it took before there was the noise of flesh and bone smashing onto the sidewalk below.

  “Tell me where you were, Matt. Please.” Ali was pleading with him.

  Aware of how expressionless his voice was and how dead his eyes were, Matt could only tell her, “What happened is done. It’s over. There’s nothing to discuss.”

  Ali

  That dead look in Matt’s eyes sent chills through Ali. She stared at him in disbelief. “It’s done. It’s over. That’s all you’re going to say about where you’ve been for the last three days?”

  Matt nodded. “That’s all you need to know.”

  Confused and scared, Ali looked around the driveway as if the answers she needed were floating in the wind.

  “Ali, what happened was part of something I’ve been avoiding for a long time. The final part.” Matt brought her toward him, cradling her face in his hands—his touch so familiar, so gentle. “Believe me. Trust me. I’m telling you the truth. Where I was doesn’t need talking about. It’s ugly, and there’s no reason to drag you into it.”

  Ali understood he was asking her to listen, to have faith in him, yet there was that seed of doubt.

  “I suspect there’re things about himself that Matt doesn’t want anybody to know.”

  “What kind of things, honey? Good? Or bad?”

  “That’s the problem. It could go either way.”

  In light of his refusal to talk about his disappearance, the memory of that snippet of conversation frightened Ali enough to make her jerk free of Matt and run toward her apartment.

  When she reached the doorstep, she stopped, needing to give him one last chance. “I love you. If you love me, you’ll tell me where the past three days of your life went.” Ali wanted him to come back to her and be Matt. She wanted him
to be the man she thought she knew: someone who was pure and open. “Tell me,” she said again. “Please.”

  Matt shook his head.

  Ali pushed the key into the lock and turned it, went inside.

  But even after she had slammed the door on Matt, she could still see that dead look in his eyes. She could still feel him, out there, waiting.

  Matt

  Matt had had absolutely no contact with Ali in the twelve days since she’d slammed the door of her apartment and locked him out of her life.

  On every one of those days, Matt had thought about Ali, and longed for her. And blamed her for not loving him enough to trust his silence about what he’d done in that dingy Manhattan hotel room. It had been payback for transgressions that had taken place years before he met her. Things he promised himself he would never do again.

  The memory of Ali turning her back on him because he couldn’t tell her what happened in that room was tearing Matt apart. He didn’t know how to survive losing her.

  And now, a miracle. Ali was within his reach.

  Matt was driving away from the college campus when he saw her. She was getting out of her car a few yards down the street. Looking like a dream in a simple summer dress.

  It wasn’t until he parked, ran after her, and pulled her to a stop that he realized he didn’t know what to say. The only thought in his mind was I want you I want you I want you.

  Ali was staring at him, puzzled, asking, “Why did you come?”

  “I-I didn’t. I just happened to see you. I was on my way to—” Matt was confused; Ali was standing on the steps of a church. “It’s Thursday. Why are you going to church?”

  Ali blinked, like she was trying not to cry. “I’m here for the appointment with Reverend Miller.” She looked away, embarrassed. “He’s been my pastor since I was a little kid and he was so happy when he heard about us getting engaged. I didn’t want to tell him over the phone…about the wedding being canceled.”