Page 15 of Twin Jeopardy

“No problem. Did you stop by earlier, before I got home?”

“What? No. No, I just left the office.”

“Okay. What is it you need me to see?”

She looked around the room. “Can we sit down?” Without waiting for an answer, she started for the sofa.

“Do you want a drink or something?” he asked.

“Not now. Maybe after.” She sat, then took an envelope from her purse and set the purse on the floor beside her. “Someone put this through the mail slot beside the door of the newspaper office this afternoon,” she said, and tapped the envelope. “No one even uses that slot anymore—it’s a relic from when the building was occupied by the electric company and people used the slot to leave their payments. But every once in while we get a Letter to the Editor dropped off that way. When I came in about five o’clock and saw the envelope, that’s what I thought this was. A complaint or something like that.”

He sat beside her, angled toward her, their knees almost touching. “Whatever it is has you upset,” he said. “Is it a threat or something?”

She thrust the letter toward him. “Read it,” she said.

He took the envelope. It was a blank, white business-sized envelope, unsealed. He opened it and slid out a single sheet of white paper. The message on it was typewritten.

Nice article about the search for Valerie Shepherd. But you got a few things wrong about that day. More than a few things, actually. I don’t blame you. You were sold a bunch of lies. I think people lie more than they tell the truth, especially when the lies make them look better. Maybe one day we’ll meet and I’ll tell you what really happened.

He scanned the brief message. This was what had Tammy so upset? This rambling from a person who couldn’t possibly know what had happened? He glanced up from the sheet. “It’s just someone babbling about lies,” he said.

“Look at the bottom of the page,” she said. “At the signature.”

He let his gaze travel to the bottom of the sheet of paper, to a cursive scrawl in black ink. The hair on the back of his neck rose as he stared, and he had trouble breathing. No. He was letting his imagination run away from him. It didn’t really say what he thought it said.

“It’s signedV,” Tammy said. “VforValerie?”

“ITCAN’TBEVALERIE.” Vince looked and sounded calmer than Tammy felt. She wasn’t one to overreact, but those chilling words about lies—and the singleVat the bottom—had combined to set her heart racing and her adrenaline flooding. She had been alone in the newspaper office, with no one to offer a different perspective, so she had called the one person she was sure would know the truth. Except, now that she was here, she felt more foolish than frightened.

Vince dropped his gaze to the letter again, his eyes tracking the words across the page. Then he set the sheet of paper aside on the coffee table in front of them. “No one lied that day,” he said. “At least, my parents didn’t lie, and I didn’t.”

“Maybe the letter writer means someone else.” Tammy wet her dry lips and glanced at the letter as if it was a spider she needed to keep an eye on in case it came any closer. “Maybe there’s someone who saw what happened to Valerie and never spoke up.”

“Then why not come forward and tell us what happened?” His voice rose on the last words, anger edging out the calm she suspected must have been an act. Of course he was upset. Having someone impersonate his sister must have been a horrible jolt.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have realized it was a fake. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It’s okay.” He blew out a breath. “You didn’t expect this, but I should have. Every time any new publicity about Valerie’s disappearance comes out, people like that come out of nowhere.” He nodded at the letter. “I don’t know if they’re mentally ill or running a scam, or maybe both. I can’t tell you how many times my parents have dealt with this kind of thing.”

“How horrible for you all.”

“It was. For months after she first went missing, they would get calls from people who promised to find Valerie—for a price. So-called psychics and private detectives. My parents spent a lot of money paying off various people. They wanted so badly to believe it was Valerie that they lost all common sense. I’m betting this is more of the same.”

“That makes me sick,” she said. “What is wrong with people?”

“You’re a reporter and you ask that?”

She let out a shaky laugh. “I guess I don’t let people like that take up any more headspace than necessary.” She glanced at the letter again. “Should I throw it away?”

“File it. Just in case this person decides to cause trouble.” His expression grew troubled again. “I wonder if they were trying to shake me down too.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I got home today, my neighbor told me a woman had stopped by looking for me. I thought it might have been you, but you said you hadn’t been by. Now I wonder if it was the person who wrote the letter.”

“You would know if the person was Valerie?”

“I hope I would. Though after fifteen years, who knows? Anyway, a scammer would claim to know Valerie or to be her ‘representative’—a friend, or a lawyer.”

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