Page 44 of Twin Jeopardy

Chapter Fourteen

Once every couple of months, Vince’s dad invited Vince to play golf. He didn’t have his father’s love for the game, but he enjoyed the time they spent, just the two of them, walking the course and talking. Most of the conversations were superficial, but he still relished these moments with the man he admired most in the world.

“When do you think you’ll get your truck back?” Dad asked after they had teed off that Sunday afternoon.

“I don’t know. The sheriff’s department hasn’t completed its investigation.” He hooked the shot, and the ball went sailing into the rough. “Do you and Mom need your car back? I could borrow one from a friend.”

“No, you keep it as long as you like.” They trudged toward Vince’s wayward ball. “I was just wondering. Do they have any idea who did it?”

Vince lined up his shot and took it, hitting the ball back onto the fairway. “No. The sheriff asked if I thought it could be Valerie.”

He expected his dad to be shocked or to protest that that wasn’t possible. Instead, he looked thoughtful. “I’ve often wondered if she is still alive somewhere.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Take your shot, son.”

Vince’s heart wasn’t in the next strokes, but he managed to keep the ball on the fairway and eventually in the hole.

His dad led the way to the next tee box. “Why do you think Valerie is still alive?” Vince asked again. Had his dad been keeping something secret from him all this time?

“I suppose because we never found her,” he said. “And because she’s my daughter. It’s a fanciful idea, I guess, but if she’s dead, wouldn’t I feel it? I know your mother feels the same way.”

What did Vince feel? Valerie was his twin, yet he had long ago accepted she was dead. But what if she wasn’t?

He waited until his dad had taken his shot before he spoke again. “If Valerie is alive, why not contact us?” he asked. “Why write cryptic notes or mess up my truck?”

“Maybe she’s under someone else’s control and this is her only way to communicate.” He swung and connected with the ball, sending it straight up the fairway. He was so calm that Vince realized he must have spent a lot of time thinking about this possibility.

“Dad, she’d be twenty-five years old now. How could she be under someone else’s control?”

“Someone could be threatening her, forcing her to do these things.”

“But why? No one has asked for money. No one has tried to physically harm us. It’s just...annoying.” He took his stroke and sliced the ball to the right.

“And a little frightening.” Dad put his hand on Vince’s shoulder, a rare moment of physical closeness from his normally undemonstrative father.

“Yeah, it is frightening,” Vince admitted. “I keep wondering what’s going to happen next.”

“If they want something, you’ll find out,” his dad said. “Scammers are experts at the long game, reeling people in slowly.”

“Is that what happened with you and that guy who claimed to be ex–special forces? The one you and Mom paid all that money to?” That had been a particularly elaborate scam, and a costly one. The man claimed Valerie was being held prisoner in a Mexican brothel, and that, with funds for their expenses, he and some other former military friends could rescue her.

His dad looked rueful. “I thought I was smart enough to see through all the liars by that time. Valerie had been missing five years, and I thought I had heard it all. But this man was a pro. He presented just the right image. I resisted him for a long time, but then he sent pictures—photographs of a young woman he claimed was Valerie. We could only see her from the back—that should have been my first clue this wasn’t legit. But she had the same hair, and we could see the resemblance. He said if we paid for him and a team to fly down there, they promised to get her back. We wanted so much to believe, and he counted on that.”

Vince’s chest hurt, listening to this sad tale, even though he had known the basic outline for a long time. “I think anyone would have done the same in your shoes,” he said.

They played through the next hole, the heaviness of their memories wrapped around them. After Vince’s next shot, his dad said, “I never told your mother this, but I thought I saw Valerie once.”

Vince’s breath caught, and he stared. “Where? When?”

“Seven years ago. I had a work meeting outside of Omaha, Nebraska. A group of us visited a casino on the Missouri river one evening. There was this cocktail waitress—pretty, young, very friendly. I noticed her, but I wasn’t paying any particular attention to her. Then one of the guys nudged me and told me she obviously liked me because she kept staring at me. I looked over, and she caught my eye and smiled. And—I recognized her. It was Valerie.”

“In a casino in Omaha? Dad, why did you think it was Valerie?”

“Her eyes, and the way she looked at me. I hurried toward her, but she darted away. I spent the rest of the night searching for her. I even went back the following day and asked the manager about her. He said they didn’t have any employees that fit the description I gave them. But I know what I saw.”

“What did you do?” Vince asked.

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