Chapter 4 - The Game of Survival
The air in the storage unit felt toxic, heavy with the stench of calculated murder. My husband was dead. The man who had held me when my mother passed away, the man whose laughter was woven into the fabric of my entire adult life, had burned to death on a highway just hours ago at the hands of his own flesh and blood.
Grief hit me like a physical blow, tearing through my chest with such violent intensity that I fell to my knees, clutching my stomach as dry heaves wracked my body.
Ethan is gone.
The realization was a crushing, suffocating weight. But right behind the wave of grief came a surge of raw, primal terror.
Julian was coming back to the apartment tonight. He believed his plan was airtight. He believed the police had bought the story, that the car accident was closed as a bizarre vehicle theft, and that I was completely blind to the switch.
If he realized for a single second that I knew the truth, he wouldn't hesitate to eliminate me too. He had already killed his own twin brother; killing the widow who stood between him and complete ownership of the Parker estate would be nothing more than tying up a loose end.
I forced myself to stand up. I wiped the tears from my cheeks with the sleeve of my coat.
You cannot break down now, I told myself fiercely. If you break down, you die.
I pulled out my phone and took clear, high-resolution photographs of every single page of Julian's journal. I photographed the corkboard with my pictures, the index cards with his creepy notes, and the suit monograms.
I then took the physical journal, slid it into my leather tote bag, and turned off the lights. I rolled the steel shutter down, locked it with the keycard, and hurried out of the storage facility.
My first instinct was to run straight to the 19th Precinct in Manhattan. But as I sat in the back of another cab heading toward the city, rationality took over.
If I walked into a police station with a handwritten journal claiming the dead man was my real husband and the living one was an identical twin who had assumed his identity, they would tie me up in bureaucratic tape. They would order DNA tests, which could take days or weeks because identical twins share nearly 100% of their DNA markers. Standard forensic tests would show that the living man and the dead man were genetically identical.
Julian had the real Ethan's phone, his keys, his biometric data, his appendectomy scar, and his memories. If Julian caught wind that the police were questioning him, he could liquidate Ethan's offshore accounts, vanish into thin air, or strike back at me before anyone could prove his guilt.
I needed an ally inside the system who was already suspicious.
I pulled out the business card Detective Morgan had handed me earlier that morning.
I dialed his direct line.
"Morgan," the detective answered after two rings.
"Detective Morgan, this is Natalie Parker," I said, keeping my voice as steady and low as possible.
"Mrs. Parker. Are you alright? Has something else happened?"
"Detective, I need to meet you right now. In person. Away from the precinct and away from my apartment."
Morgan's tone immediately sharpened. "Why? What’s going on?"
"The man in the morgue was Ethan," I said, tears burning the back of my eyes. "And the man who walked out of my apartment this morning is his identical twin brother, Julian. He murdered Ethan to steal his life. I have his confession journal, his staging room, and proof."
A stunned silence echoed over the line. For five seconds, the only sound was Morgan's heavy breathing.
"Where are you right now, Mrs. Parker?" Morgan asked, his voice low and dead serious.
"I’m in a cab crossing the Manhattan Bridge."
"Listen to me very carefully," Morgan commanded. "Do not go home. Meet me at the diner on the corner of 2nd Avenue and 49th Street in twenty minutes. Go to the back booth. Do not call anyone else, and under no circumstances do you answer your phone if your 'husband' calls."
"I understand," I whispered.
"See you in twenty."
The line clicked dead.
I looked out the cab window at the towering skyscrapers of Manhattan. Somewhere among those concrete canyons, Julian was playing the role of a lifetime, sitting in Ethan's corner office, signing Ethan's name, pretending to be the man he had just murdered.
I gripped the strap of my tote bag until my knuckles turned white.
May you like
He wanted Ethan's life.
I was going to make sure he received Ethan's justice.
