My Duplicated Husband novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Warrant

The camera swung up from the freezer to Dina's face.

She sat on an overturned crate in a cold concrete room, in a ski jacket, with her blond bob tucked under a wool hat.

She looked tired and very pleased with herself.

"Here is how this works," she said. "I told you noon at the yard office. Don't bother coming."

"What do you want?" I said.

"Oh, I've stopped wanting things from you."

"A judge signs a warrant tonight, on a neighbor's statement."

"The sheriff will swear your roses looked recently disturbed."

My heart stopped.

"They'll be at your door by dawn tomorrow," she said.

"They'll dig up the bed and find the hearth scrubbed."

"And they'll find a wife with a bruise and a motive."

"Rory's here," Joy said sharply, leaning in. "He's right there. In your freezer."

"Is he? I wouldn't know. It's a very ordinary rug."

She reached out and tapped the screen.

Then she was gone, and the phone was just a phone.

Nobody spoke for a long time.

Joy's face had gone slack and white.

Lorne sat in his chair.

"Okay," he said at last.

Everything in his voice had changed.

It was low and level, the voice of a man who had finished being afraid.

"Blood. Lydia scrubbed the hearth with bleach, but bleach leaves traces. They'll find blood in the grout. They'll test it."

"And it will match a man who disappeared," I said.

"It will match me."

I stared at him.

"Rory and I are identical twins," he said. "The same DNA, strand for strand. Any blood on that hearth belongs to both of us."

Joy let out a short breath.

"He's right. It's one of the first things they teach in forensics class."

"So I tell the sheriff it's mine," Lorne said. "I fell Friday night and split my head open, and Lydia cleaned up after me."

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Duplicated Husband from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.