Blood and Bone(10)

But honestly, it’s the only answer.

I wipe, realizing my pee has actually dried on my body, and wash my hands. In the mirror my eyes get stuck on the scar. I don’t know how I got it. I don’t know how I got any of them. Some are bad, from the accident. The worst is the one on my back that looks like a hole. It’s where something stabbed in from the car. The slice across my ribs where they had to do emergency surgery is pretty grim. The only one I actually kind of like is on my forearm where glass shards cut me.

I have scars everywhere and remember none of them. I have given each of them a limited amount of thought, as they are foreign to me, like my past. They are part of the unimportant. The things on the other side of the fog.

But the scar on my chin just got very important. I wish the picture were in color so I could see if her eyes match in color.

I hurry out front and nod toward the door. “I have to rush home tonight. You mind if I’m off an hour early?”

Angie shakes her head. “No, go on with ya. I have to do some chatting with my lawyer anyway, and it’s a cold day. No one is going to be shopping today.”

I wave and dart out the front door. I’m nearly running when I get to the house, bursting through the door huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf.

Derek comes into the foyer, puzzled but smiling the moment he sees me. “Hey, you’re early.” I nod, but the moment he sees my eyes he loses his grin. “What?”

I hold my phone out with the picture showing. “Samantha Barnes. Who is she?”

“Don’t know. Who is she?”

“Her.” I hold it up so he can see better. “She’s Samantha.”

“This is you?”

I shake my head. “That’s not me. Look at the date on that.”

His eyes flick to the phone and then me. “Wow, she really looks remarkably like you. Different hair, though. Different look in the eyes too.”

“You don’t know anything about this?”

I think I see him check for humor, but when he doesn’t find any, he swallows his laughter. “What? Know about what? No? I don’t know the right answer here. Do I know a random girl who looks like you and failed to mention it? Is that what you’re asking?”

“I think I’ve been cloned or am a clone.”

The mocking leaves his tone completely. “As far as I know you have never been cloned. It’s still illegal, as per my understanding. I could be wrong. I have been before. You recall that time when I thought the movie had Ingrid Bergman and you said no, it was Katharine Hepburn?” His joking is lost in the things I can’t comprehend. And my hands are trembling when he wraps his around mine and pulls me to him, kissing my head while shaking his. “I have seen this a dozen times in other places and other people—identical people who don’t know each other. It almost always turns out that they’re related distantly or something along those lines.”

“She could be my twin.”

“No. You didn’t have a sister, and you weren’t cloned. You’re a girl from California, and your life was amazing until three years ago.”

I lift my face, still totally mystified. “But she is identical. We even have the same scar.”

He smiles wider. “Everyone has that scar.” He lifts his chin, sticking it out. “See!” It’s true—he has the exact same scar. I never noticed his before either. “What brought this on? Is there something going on in your head? Have you been having delusions? Have you been keeping things from me?”

I shake my head again, hating the worried look I have placed in his eyes. “Some guy—some guy named Roland or Ronald or something. He came up to me saying I went to Berkeley and asked me how I was and called me Sam. I told him I wasn’t her, but he was insistent I was Samantha Barnes. He was sure I was her. So I Googled and found this.”

“Have you ever met this man before?”

“No. I don’t know him. He truly just knew Samantha Barnes.”

He takes my phone and reads the article. “Well, it’s sort of sad, isn’t it then? She’s dead. She died in an accident.”

“I could have died in my car accident.”

“Oh, Jane, stop.” He chuckles, sighing and looking at her picture once more. “I’ll give it to you, it’s spooky, but trust me—you are not her and vice versa. You are Jane, my Jane.”

“Her cat was named Binx.”

He chuckles softly. “There were many black cats named Binx after that Hocus Pocus movie. It’s weird, that’s all. I guarantee you’re somehow related.” He pulls me in tighter again, wrapping me in him. That’s when I melt. I close my eyes and wish I could forget the entire three days, all of it.