Page 80 of Mirror Image
Doug leans forward, voice trembling. “Oh, Mary, sweetheart. It’s going to be okay. Once you’re ready, everything will go back to the way it was—before . . .”
He trails off, realizing too late that sentence has no safe landing.
Mary lifts her head. Her expression has gone cold. Sharp. Defined.
“Before what, Dad? Before Sam showed up?”
“Your father didn’t mean it like that,” Terry rushes in. “We’re just . . . we’re so sorry this happened to you.”
“Me?” Mary barks out a humorless laugh. “I lived. Sam is dead. And you still can’t cut her a break.”
The silence afterward is suffocating.
Terry recovers first, voice soft but too steady. Controlled.
“Of course we’re sorry Sam is gone. We never would’ve wished—”
“Wouldn’t you, though?” Mary snaps. “Now you can pretend none of this happened. Pretend she never existed.”
“Mary,” I murmur, “I don’t think—”
“No!” she shoots at me, eyes blazing. “You don’t know what they did.”
“I do know,” I say gently. “You told me.”
Doug and Terry’s gazes swing in my direction.
“She told you what, exactly?” Doug asks.
Next to him, Paul Crane stiffens noticeably, tapping his pen once on the legal pad. The motion is soft but pointed.
“That you tried to . . . encourage Sam to leave,” I reply carefully. “And to end her relationship with Mary.”
Their relief is instant—and telling.
If that wasn’t the thing they were scared we knew . . .
What else is waiting under the floorboards?
“Is there something els—” I begin.
“You know what?” Julian cuts in, abruptly rising. His chair screeches across the floor. “This is too much for Mary. We need to get her back upstairs—”
“I said I’m fine,” Mary interrupts, breath hitching. “I just . . . I have a splitting headache.”
“I’ll have the nurse bring something,” I tell her softly. “But for now . . . more coffee might help. Caffeine?”
She nods.
I reach for the carafe. “Light and sweet, right?”
“Yes, please.”
I’m halfway through opening the tiny creamer cups when Terry’s voice slices through the room.
“Since when do you drink creamer?”
I look up. “Is there a problem with creamer?”
