My Twin Stole My Fiancée and Life novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Until Saturday

In the cell Calvin watches Natasha call him mentally ill and Monique go silent. His father slips in and begs him to take the plea and stay away until Saturday, his birthday.

They put me in a holding cell with a steel toilet and a bench bolted to the wall.

My wrists were rubbed raw where the cuffs had been.

Through the bars I could see the front desk, and Officer Lark Carmody standing at it with my brass key in a plastic evidence bag.

"Ellingwood," she said, without looking at me. "Your key."

"What about it?"

"The lock on that front door isn't damaged. No pry marks, no broken glass. It turned for you on the first try."

"I told you that."

"You told me a lot of things in the first ten minutes."

She finally looked up. Her eyes were brown and tired and did not apologize.

"A burglar doesn't walk in with a pie," she said. "I noticed the pie."

"Then let me out."

"I can't. There's an order with your name on it, and your sister's statement says you were in violation. Only a judge can undo that."

"Then call my boss in Denver. Call the firm. I was on a bridge three weeks ago, I can show you the inspection logs."

She wrote it down on a notepad, slowly.

At least she wrote it down.

The front door of the station banged open and my sister walked in.

Natasha wore her camel coat and carried a paper coffee cup. Monique came a step behind her, still twisting my ring.

Both of them stopped when they saw me behind the bars.

For one second Monique's whole face crumpled.

Natasha put a hand on her back, and it smoothed out again.

"Officer Carmody," Natasha said, in the soft voice she used on teachers and bankers. "I wanted to make sure he's being looked after. He hasn't been well."

"Ma'am?"

"My brother has episodes. We've been afraid for months. He lost his job and he stopped taking his medication, and he's been writing to us at night."

"I haven't lost my job," I said. "I don't take any medication."

"You see?" Natasha said, very gently, and turned her wet eyes on Lark. "He doesn't remember."

Lark studied her for a long moment.

"Mr. Ellingwood says he has a company that'll confirm his employment."

"I'm sure he does," Natasha said. "He can be very convincing."

I came up to the bars.

"Monique," I said.

She wouldn't look at me.

"Two years," I said. "I put that ring on your hand in a parking lot while it rained. You said yes with water running off your nose."

Monique's shoulders shook once.

"Don't talk to her," Natasha said, quick and cold, and I saw it for the first time: the flat look under the soft voice.

Then she smiled at Lark again as if nothing had happened.

"We'll push for arraignment on Monday. Thank you for being so careful with him."

She took Monique's elbow and steered her out.

Monique turned her head at the door and her lips made a word.

I couldn't read it.

Lark stood watching them go with the evidence bag hanging from her hand.

"Huh," she said.

That was all she said.

At nine that night the desk sergeant let one more visitor through.

My father came in alone, in his flannel work shirt, his gray hair flattened by his cap.

He didn't sit. He stood on the other side of the bars with his hands hanging.

"Dad."

"Don't," he said. His voice cracked on it. "Don't make this any harder than it is."

"Harder than it is? You signed an order against me. You stood in the living room and let them put me in handcuffs."

"It's only until Saturday."

I stared at him.

"What's Saturday?"

He pressed his lips together.

"Take the plea, son. Take the citation, pay whatever they ask, and stay away from the house until Saturday night. After that, I swear to God, you can come home."

"Why Saturday?"

He glanced at the officer by the desk and dropped his voice.

"Because Saturday is your birthday. Our birthday, yours and Natasha's. Everything gets settled that night, and it has to settle the way it was meant to."

"The way it was meant to."

"Please, Cal."

He reached through the bars and for one second his rough hand gripped my forearm just below the cuff marks.

Then he let go and walked out without looking back.

I stood holding the bars until my knuckles went white.

My birthday was four days away. I'd had twenty-nine of them, and not one had ever needed to be settled.

On the front desk, in plain view, my own key lay in its evidence bag.

Lark Carmody hadn't locked it up with the rest of my things.

She had left it where I could see it.

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