Page 87 of So Close

“What are you talking about?” He straightens, his hazel eyes turning a stormy green.

“Kane hasn’t come into the office since she came back. He’s been with her constantly –”

“Who?”

“Lily!”

“That’s impossible,” he snaps, his spine painfully straight. “I don’t know what you’re –”

“I know.” I speak in a rush, leaning forward. “I could hardly believe it, either. It’s such a bizarre situation, and Kane is –”

“Aliyah.” His voice cracks my name out like the lash of a whip. “Lily is dead.”

“She’snot. We don’t know what happened. She has some sort of amnesia and –”

Ryan stands abruptly. “Who told you this? Kane?”

“Yes, of course. He explained it to all of us.”

His head is shaking back and forth in a quick, violent negation. “He’s lying to you. I don’t know why, but he’s lying. I’m going to call him.”

I watch him pull out his phone and jump to my feet. “Ryan, wait! You should know more before you talk to him. There’s a reason he’s been hiding her from you. We need to figure –”

“Aliyah, I know he’s lying!” His face has blanched. “There’s something very wrong here. I’ve been growing increasingly worried about him. He shouldn’t still be grieving this deeply. It’s been too long. And the lilies he has on everything …? It’s sick. He’s sick. He’s been out of the office fortwo months? Have youseenhim?Talkedto him?”

My heart is beating too quickly, making me feel off-balance and dizzy. “I’ve been to the penthouse, of course, to meet her. And they were in the offices just –”

He holds me off with an outstretched palm. “You’ve met the new girlfriend?”

“Lily! Ryan, you’re not listening to me. Lily is back. She’s with Kane.”

“That’s fucking impossible!” he roars, hot color flooding his bloodless face. “Lily. Is.Dead. I was with Kane when he identified the body.Iidentified the body with him. She was my girlfriend, too. I’d know her anywhere.”

“What?No. That can’t … Rosana asked Kane about a body. He said there wasn’t one. That the Coast Guard stopped looking and declared her lost at sea.”

He sets his cup on the edge of my desk, then grips the edge in both hands, his head bowed. “Yes, they initially declared her lost. But then her body was recovered in a fisherman’s net. It was …” His muscular shoulders quake. “It had been a few weeks. Her beautiful face was unrecognizable, and one of her arms was gone. She was the right height, though. And slender, even after being in the water so long.”

“You misidentified … whoever that was. Under the circumstances –”

“No! She had tattoos. She had a massive phoenix on her back. And it wasn’t flash – the art you pick off the wall in a parlor. A friend had drawn it specifically for her. There were still parts of it identifiable on the body. There’s no way to mistake her for anyone else.”

I breathe carefully through my mouth, feeling like I might vomit. I remember Lily in the library, dressed in black slacks and a corset. Her short, sleek cap of hair allowed a lot of skin to show. I remember the tattoo. One doesn’t forget body art of that size. I remember looking at the photograph above the fireplace and realizing they were identical – the photo of Lily’s back and the back of the woman who entered the library.

“She has the tattoo,” I get out, my voice hoarse. “The woman with Kane.”

Ryan’s head jerks up and swivels to look over his shoulder at me. “I need to see her – face to face. There’s no one like Lily. The best plastic surgeon in the world couldn’t re-create her. I’ll know right away.” His teeth grind audibly. “Whoever this woman is, she’s preying on a desperate man’s grief.”

I nod repeatedly. “Yes. She’s dangerous. I knew that the moment I laid eyes on her.”

“There’s a reason he’s kept her from me, Aliyah. He knows Lily is gone. He knows I know. If he tells me about this woman, the fantasy doesn’t hold up and falls apart. It’s a stage of grief: denial. The first stage. The fact that Kane hasn’t progressed past that after all this time is a serious red flag. He needs help.”

Swallowing the rush of bile that has filled my mouth, I struggle to make sense of it all. I’ve looked at that photo of Lily hundreds of times. The woman I met in Kane’s library has her face. Ryan won’t be able to grasp that until he sees her himself. The resemblance is beyond uncanny, although there’s clearly been a passing of time.

Who had Giles Rampart been investigating – the woman pulled from the Atlantic or the woman presently sleeping with my son?

We knock on doors, ask questions and dig.They’d shown her photograph and relied on people’s memories of that unforgettable face. It would be all too easy to conflate the histories of two equally stunning women.

Maybe the woman he married six years ago was exactly who she’d said she was. Perhaps the woman he found recently is the one Rampart was actually investigating.

---