The Double by Parker Avrile

Author:Parker Avrile
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Paris April
Published: 2018-10-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

Flare

The conversation died. It wasn't that late, but it felt like the flight was endless. For a few minutes, we all slept or pretended to. I reclined a plump leather chair into a bed and closed my eyes. At such moments, I envied the easy way Darke knew how to tumble into sleep.

I did want to know my twin, my shadow self, the brother who'd grown up without all of my advantages. He was a mirror, if only a distorted one. Was Benn the man I would be if I hadn't been rich? Our genes were supposedly perfect, and yet I wasn't perfect and neither was he. What was broken inside of us? Could I see it if I gazed long enough into the soul of my twin?

The jet descended, this time all the way to the ground. It couldn't yet be eight o'clock. How had so much happened in so little time? I squinted into the dark but saw nothing. No lights. No evidence of a permanent building or even an impermanent one. The pilot must have landed by instrument. Benn rattled in the galley.

“Coffee.” He thrust a warm mug at my hand. “A mountain blend from Ethiopia.”

“Thanks.”

Father grunted but took his mug too.

The pilot emerged from the cockpit. I'd met Ryder before. Tall and graceful, a former Navy pilot, he was five years or so older. His deep brown eyes crinkled with concern as he whispered something to Benn that made him shake his head. The closeness of Ryder's lips to Benn's ear, the relaxed way his hand caught Benn's elbow...

They were lovers.

Benn glanced back at me and saw the understanding in my face. He shrugged a winning shrug that must have broken a thousand hearts.

He hadn't seduced a sharp guy like Ryder in a night or two, but he'd seduced him. No way it was coincidence he was hooking up with Uncle Drew's favorite pilot.

“When did you know?” I asked. “When did you really know for sure you had a twin and he was me?”

Benn stepped away from Ryder then, not to deny him, but to study my reaction more closely. “Only about three weeks before...” His breath caught, but he didn't need to tell us before what. “He held it back, he could have told me the first time he saw my face. He must have known from the first minute he ever saw me I was the twin of Bennett Greene's son. But he held that back until he was starting to be done with me.”

Deep breaths. “Why would he hold that back?”

“To keep me close to him. He knew I'd want to go find my own family.”

I sat down hard, my coffee forgotten. The timeline didn't fit anybody's theory of the murder. Benn found out Russo was lying to him, found out he was keeping back information about his twin. Snapped. Shot him dead. Ran for his life. That was manslaughter but not premeditated murder. But only if he snapped in those first few moments after learning the truth.

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