Chapter 2 - The Impostor's Grip
Claire reacted purely on raw animal instinct.
She threw all her weight backward against the heavy oak front door.
The heavy wood slammed shut with a deafening boom that vibrated through the frame.
She turned the deadbolt with frantic, slippery fingers.
She jammed the secondary brass security chain into its track.
From the other side of the wood, inside the house, a violent force crashed into the door.
The entire entryway shuddered.
The glass pane in the decorative transom rattled violently against its frame.
Claire stumbled back across the wet porch and grabbed Anna’s coat sleeve.
“Move!” Claire yelled over the downpour.
Anna grabbed the heavy black urn off the porch boards, hugging it tight to her chest.
The two women sprinted down the four wooden front steps into the pouring rain.
Mud splashed across Claire’s fleece pajama bottoms as her slippers soaked through in seconds.
Behind them, the brass doorknob jiggled with savage intensity.
Then came the sharp, sickening sound of wood splintering as the lock groaned under massive pressure.
“My car is parked down the road!” Anna shouted through the howling wind.
“Why didn't you pull into the driveway?” Claire screamed, running beside her through the dark yard.
“I saw a strange rental sedan parked behind your garage!”
“I knew someone was inside the house!”
They reached the edge of the manicured lawn where the asphalt met the flooded gutter.
A silver, nondescript hatchback sat fifty yards down the suburban street under a dying streetlamp.
A loud crash echoed from the house behind them.
Claire glanced over her shoulder.
The front door of her house had burst open.
The man who wore Michael’s face stepped out onto the porch into the pouring rain.
He did not shout.
He did not run in a panicked frenzy.
He walked down the steps with terrifying, deliberate purpose.
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small black object.
Claire felt her breath seize.
“Get in the car!” Anna shrieked, hitting the remote unlock button on her key fob.
The headlights of the silver hatchback flashed amber in the gloom.
Anna threw open the passenger door and shoved Claire inside into the dry, dark interior.
Claire scrambled across the console as Anna hurled the urn onto the back seat.
Anna threw herself behind the steering wheel and slammed the driver-side door.
She shoved the key into the ignition and twisted it with violent force.
The starter motor sputtered once.
Twice.
“Come on, please,” Anna whispered frantically, striking the steering wheel.
Through the water-streaked windshield, Claire saw the man walking down the center of the dark asphalt.
He was fifty feet away.
His dark blue shirt was plastered to his chest by the rain.
His expression was completely deadpan, void of human emotion.
He raised his right hand.
He was not holding a weapon; he was holding Claire’s smartphone, which she had left on the kitchen island.
He held it up to show her, then slowly slipped it into his jacket pocket.
“Anna, go!” Claire screamed.
The engine caught with a throaty roar.
Anna shoved the gear selector into drive and slammed her foot down on the gas pedal.
The front tires spun against the wet leaves and slick asphalt before gaining traction.
The car surged forward into the dark suburban road.
The man did not leap out of the way.
He stepped calmly onto the grassy curb as the side mirror missed his shoulder by inches.
As the car roared past him, his eyes locked dead on Claire through the passenger window.
He tapped his bare ring finger against his own chest.
Then he pulled out a small pair of car keys and pressed a button.
Behind them, through the back window, the headlights of Michael’s black luxury SUV suddenly lit up in the Morgan driveway.
“He has Michael’s truck,” Claire gasped, turning around in her seat.
Her hands were shaking uncontrollably, her teeth chattering from freezing rain and pure shock.
“He’s going to follow us,” Anna said, her knuckles bone-white on the steering wheel.
She navigated the winding turns of the quiet residential neighborhood at high speed.
The wipers slapped back and forth across the windshield with frantic, rhythmic squeaks.
Claire pressed her face against the passenger window, staring back into the darkness.
The twin beams of the black SUV appeared at the end of the long curving avenue.
The truck was accelerating smoothly, maintaining a steady, calculated pursuit.
“Who is he?” Claire demanded, her voice cracking with hysteria.
“Who was in my house, Anna?”
“Who was I sleeping next to for the past week?”
Anna took a sharp left turn onto the main county road, the tires squealing against the wet blacktop.
“His name is Julian,” Anna said between ragged breaths.
Claire felt the world tilt again.
“Julian who?”
“Julian Morgan,” Anna replied.
Claire stared at Anna in complete disbelief.
“Michael was an only child!”
“His parents died years ago; he never had a brother!”
“We went through his family records when his father’s estate was settled!”
Anna glanced in the rearview mirror as the black SUV turned onto the main road behind them.
“Michael didn't know about him either until six months ago, Claire.”
“Julian is Michael’s identical twin.”
“He was separated at birth and raised in an institutional foster home in upstate New York.”
Claire pressed both hands against her temples, her mind fracturing under the weight of the revelation.
“Why would Michael keep that from me?”
“Why would he hide his own twin brother from his wife?”
Anna accelerated through a yellow traffic light, leaving a spray of water across the empty intersection.
“Because Julian didn't come looking for family, Claire.”
“Julian came looking for revenge.”
“And he came looking for Michael’s wealth, his social standing, and his life.”
Claire looked into the back seat at the cold black marble urn sitting on the gray upholstery.
A wave of overwhelming, suffocating grief crashed over her without warning.
The man she loved wasn't traveling.
The man who had kissed her forehead before leaving on business trips was gone forever.
He had been dead for three weeks while she went to the grocery store.
While she watered the garden.
While she made dinner for a stranger who wore her husband’s bone structure like a tailored suit.
Tears finally broke through Claire’s numbness, spilling hot and fast down her cold cheeks.
“How did Michael die?” Claire sobbed.
“Did Julian kill him?”
Anna’s jaw hardened, her eyes fixed on the rain-swept highway ahead.
“Julian didn't have to pull a trigger, Claire.”
“Michael had a congenital heart defect that Julian managed to exploit.”
“Julian was blackmailing him, draining our business accounts, pushing him toward an inevitable collapse.”
Claire caught the word instantly.
“Our business accounts?”
“You said you were his wife, Anna.”
“How could you be his wife when Michael and I were married in Boston seven years ago?”
Anna slowed the car slightly as they approached the ramp leading toward the dark, wooded interstate.
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“Because Michael’s life in Connecticut was only half the truth, Claire.”
“And until tonight, neither of us was ever supposed to know the other woman existed.”
