The Third Twin (15 page)

He shrugs and stares off into the distance. “I would have been if I thought you needed it.”

I look up into his face. There’s a bruise just under his eye where the guy hit him last night. “Apparently I did need it.”

“Who was that guy?”

“I don’t know. He obviously knew Alicia, but I’ve never seen him before, and Ava is claiming sudden memory loss.”

There’s another high-pitched squeal, and we turn to watch Ava and the guys jump through the waves. Well, I’m watching the guys. I’m pretty sure Zane’s watching Ava. I punch him hard in the arm.

“What?” he asks, an innocent look on his face. He rubs his arm. “You’ve got bony knuckles—that hurt.”

“Stop staring.”

“I’m not staring. I’m thinking.”

“And I know what you were thinking about.”

“You don’t know a damn thing,” he says, giving me a crooked smile, which goes a long way toward making me forgive him. I glance up at his tall lankiness, at the way his hair is getting long at the back, although I’m not sure if he’s growing it out intentionally or just forgot to cut it for the last couple of months, because he tends to lose track of ordinary things.

“Fine,” I say, dropping it. I don’t blame him for watching my sister. Everything about her practically screams
Look at me!
every second of every day. Her entire life revolves around achieving maximum impact, and a day at the beach with people we’ve known since kindergarten is no exception.

“Lex, what are you doing?” Zane finally asks. “I told you Alicia is nothing but trouble.”

I don’t bother denying it. “It was sort of an accident. Eli thought I was Alicia at the café that day, so I only did it as a joke at first.” I dig a toe into the sand. “Doesn’t matter anyway. It’s over now. Eli found out about Alicia last night.”

“I heard.” Zane tilts his head. “He wasn’t exactly understanding?”

“Not exactly.” I wipe angrily at a tear that’s working its way down my cheek, not knowing if I miss Eli or if I’m just angry at myself.

“I’m sorry.” He looks concerned. “You really liked this guy?”

I can’t help smiling. “Yeah, I did. He was fun and different.” I think about WaterRidge and the food trucks. “
I
was different when I was with him.”

Zane plants his board in the sand and looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “Why do you need to be different? What’s wrong with Lexi?”

My eyes fill with tears. “Right now, everything. I didn’t get into Stanford; the cops want to talk to Alicia, and for obvious reasons they can’t; and I screwed up what might be my only chance at a relationship this year.”

“Whoa,” he says, his face full of concern. “Back up a little bit. What’s up with the cops?”

I hesitate, feeling the force of my emotions and the information I’ve kept bottled up inside. I watch Ava squeal and kick at the edge of the surf, and I envy the way all her troubles seem to roll off her.

“Sounds like you’re in a little over your head.” Zane flops down onto the sand and pats the space next to him. I sit down and lean against his shoulder, his skin warm from the sun, and his muscles solid against my side. “Tell me everything.”

So I do.

After a great beach day yesterday, today is foggy and miserable—perfect weather to help Cecilia.

“I think I got everything on the list,” I say as I walk into the kitchen and set the grocery bags on the island. Cecilia’s sitting at the table, staring into space, her face a mask of worry.

“What’s up?” I ask, digging into one of the bags.

“Nothing,” she says, glancing away from me.

“It’s not nothing,” I insist, a tiny ball of dread forming inside me. I put the bag down. “I can tell. What happened?”

She takes a deep breath, and her eyes flick up to mine for just a second before looking away again. “The police. They were here a little while ago. At the front door.”

I feel my heart surge. They must have figured out the fake ID. “Did you answer it?”

She looks at me like I’m stupid. “Of course I did. I have nothing to hide. They were looking for Alicia.”

Crap. “What did you say?”

“What do you think I said? That there’s no Alicia here.” My face must be giving something away. “Do you know anything about this?”

“Not really.” I sit down beside her, sorry that she got involved in this at all. “Sort of. It’s just a misunderstanding. A mistake. Did they leave a card?”

“Yes.” Cecilia reaches into the pocket of her apron and pulls out a card identical to the one I already have. “One of them gave me this.” She studies my face. “What have you two done? Is Ava in trouble? Is there something you need to be telling me? When your father isn’t here, you and your sister are my responsibility.”

“No,” I say as lightly as possible. “It’s really no big deal. Ava’s fine. I’ll take care of it.” I tuck the card into my pocket and give Cecilia a kiss on the cheek. I can see that she’s not totally satisfied. “Really, it’s okay. I’ll talk to Dad when he gets home.

“You promise?” She looks skeptical.

“Yes. I swear.” I jump up and start going through the bags again, even though my brain is focused on the cops. “The cilantro looked terrible at the store, so I went to the produce place by the freeway.”

Someone calls to her from the backyard, so she gives me one last, piercing glance and walks outside. I hear Cecilia’s raised voice and a male voice speaking Spanish. The gardener is standing outside with the leaf blower on his back, pointing to something on the side of the house. He looks agitated, but he’s speaking so fast, I can’t understand a word as they walk
off toward the side of the house. My Spanish was so much better when I was a kid.

I’m putting the milk in the fridge when I hear a buzzing sound and see Cecilia’s phone jiggling across the counter. “Cecilia!” I shout, but she must be too far in the back to hear me. The buzzing stops, but then starts up again a few seconds later. I pick it up to put it in a safer spot, and see that she’s gotten a text. Cecilia never gets texts. She hates the phone and has it only because Dad passed it down to her years ago when he finally got a new one. I glance at the patio door, even as I can’t believe I’m thinking about it. Something’s going on with Cecilia, and she’s not going to tell me what it is. Looking back again, I slide the ancient phone open to unlock it and click on the message.
It’s Rubi. She’s gone again.
I’ve never heard her mention anyone named Rubi before. I hear Cecilia’s voice outside, so I mark the text as unread and close it before putting the phone right back where it was.

“Everything okay?” I ask as she comes back into the kitchen.

“Fine,” she says, but she seems distracted.

Her phone buzzes again, and she glances at me before picking it up. After reading the text, she puts the phone into her pocket, muttering something to herself.

“Anything wrong?”

She looks at me like she’s forgotten I’m here, and her cheeks instantly go red. “No.” She gives me an insincere smile. “My sister’s having some trouble with her husband, is all.”

I’ve known Cecilia my whole life, and for the first time, it feels like she’s hiding something from me. I want to ask her
who Rubi is, but I can’t think of any way to bring it up without telling her that I read the text.

The gardener appears again in the doorway and says something to her that I can’t catch.

“What’s going on?” I walk over to him.

“It’s nothing,” Cecilia says, turning away from Julio. “Don’t worry about it.”

Julio looks worriedly at me. It’s definitely something. “What’s going on?” I repeat.

“Someone … looks … outside of
la casa
,” he says in halting English.

I feel a shiver run down my spine. Something about the tone of his voice makes me nervous. “ ‘Looks’?
Adonde?
”

Julio points to the side of the house near the fence.

“I’m sure he’s overreacting,” Cecilia says, but I’m already heading across the deck. She follows me as Julio leads us around the back of the house.

“
Aquí,
” he says, stopping outside Ava’s bedroom window. He points to a pile of sunflower seed shells on the ground about three feet away from the window. At first I don’t think much about it, but then I look at them more closely. These aren’t random seeds that have been eaten by someone and tossed away. This is a pile of opened seeds that have been chewed and discarded in a single pile over a longer period of time. I look through the window and see Ava’s entire room through the parted curtains. At night, when the lights are on and Ava’s using the window as a mirror from the inside, you wouldn’t be able to see anything out here. Or anyone.

I put on a fake smile and bend down to pick up a handful
of the seeds. All three of us are standing near the pile, and our shoes have messed up whatever footprints might have been made in the soft dirt. “I’m sure Cecilia’s right and it’s no big deal. Someone just left these here.”

Julio looks worried. “
Pero debemos decirle a su padre.
”

“Don’t worry. I’ll tell my dad,” I say. I look more closely at the window but don’t see any handprints on the glass. The seeds rattle in my pocket, and I glance over my shoulder as we walk back toward the patio, half expecting someone to be watching us.

Ava comes into my bathroom as I lean so close to the mirror, it feels like I’m about to poke my eye out with the pencil.

“What are you doing?” She flicks the pendant that’s already around my neck. “I thought Alicia was dead.”

“Hey!” I yell as she jiggles my arm and totally blows the line I was working on. She leans over and hands me a wad of toilet paper to rub it off and start again. “She is. But I have to do it one more time. I don’t have any choice.”

“Sounds serious.” She grabs the pencil out of my hand. “You’re useless at this. Let me do it.”

I kick the door shut behind her, in case Cecilia is lurking anywhere nearby. “I’m going down to the police station.”

She pulls back so she can see my face. “What? Why? I thought we agreed to let it go.” I can see anger flashing in her eyes.

“I’d love to, but the cops aren’t. They came back again,”
I say, annoyed that once again I have to clean up another one of Ava’s messes. “Scared Cecilia half to death. I need to find out what’s going on, because your whole blow-over theory is obviously flawed.”

“Shit. Really? What did she tell them?”

“She told them that there wasn’t an Alicia here. But they already know better, thanks to you.” I grab some dark gray eye shadow from the drawer. “If you hadn’t pulled the Alicia crap on the cops, this would all be over by now.”

Ava slams the eyeliner pencil down onto the counter. “Well, I’m not going to help you do something so completely stupid.”

“Whatever,” I say. My hand is shaking as I wipe the shadow across my lid, and I put both hands down on the counter to steady them. I can’t let Ava see how nervous I am. “But you better plan what you’re going to say when they knock on the door the next time. And I guarantee that there will be a next time. Dad’s going to be home in five hours, and I need to have this behind us by then.” I can’t let Dad know about Alicia—not on top of the whole Stanford mess. I can almost see the look in his eyes if he opens the door and sees the cops standing there. If he discovers that I’m not the person he thought I was.

“You don’t think … you don’t think the cops suspect Alicia?” Ava asks.

“I’m worried that’s exactly what they think. This way, I can be on the offensive,” I say quickly, convincing myself as I’m explaining it to her. “I’ll go down there as Alicia and innocently find out what’s going on. It’ll look like we’re cooperating.
Alicia didn’t do anything wrong, and I’m going to tell them that. We’ll straighten this whole thing out, Dad will come home, and nobody will ever know.”

Ava picks the pencil back up and scrapes the end with her fingernail. “I thought you were big on telling the cops the truth. That we made the whole thing up.” She leans in toward me again. “Close your eyes.”

I stand as still as I can while she puts on the eyeliner, glad that she’s back on my side. “It’s too late for that. They already saw her ID, and you gave them all that crap at the door. They said that they’ll talk only to Alicia, so I’m going to let them. She hasn’t done anything wrong, so I’m not worried.” I wish I was as confident as I sound.