Soul Mates Read online

  Savannah shook her head and scattered enough coins on the counter to pay for the coffee.

  She took her drink to a seat by the window, trying to ignore everyone she imagined was looking at her. She didn’t give a damn about them.

  It was January 2. Four years to the day since Alannah had disappeared, and Savannah would mourn her lost sister any way she chose.

  Part of her wished she smoked or took drugs. Anything to dull the pain of the horrible anniversary.

  I miss you, Sis.

  Over the past four years, Savannah had gained a lot of strength. She had been forced to rely on her own skills (such as they were) to survive. Alannah wasn’t there to help make any decisions.

  She thought she was doing pretty good. She had moved back to her hometown of Aynsville, New York, and she held down a job as a sales clerk at a local bookstore, had a small apartment that she was happy with, and was able to provide for herself.

  She rarely dated, but she had one weakness. Sometimes, she found herself overwhelmed with guilt over everything that had happened. After all, Jeremiah had seen her with the electrician, not Alannah. That had led to the disaster of four years earlier and to her losing her sister.

  So, who were strangers to judge her on the bad days? They didn’t know the whole story, and she wasn’t inclined to share it with anyone.

  She sipped her coffee, and when it was finished, she walked back to her apartment and slept the rest of the day.

  * * *

  Jeremiah Moore was about as far away from Aynsville as it was possible to get and still be in the continental United States. He lived in the outskirts of San Diego, in a dilapidated three-story house. The owners rented him a room and made sure he knew that was all he was entitled to. He had to tip-toe to go down the stairs to the front door, so that he didn’t disturb anybody else. There was to be no visitors, no cooking, no noise that could be heard from the floor below, and no bullshit.

  That all suited Jeremiah fine, because the rent was half of any other place he’d seen when he came to town a year earlier.

  Most of the people in the neighborhood seemed to be Mexican, and he was happy with that too. Less likely anybody would ever figure out who he was.

  The one thing he did demand was access to the owners’ Internet connection. He had a small laptop that he’d found in a second-hand store for $100. All it was good for was surfing the Net. He had no interest in game-playing or watching videos, so he didn’t much care that it was as slow as a glacier.

  Today he woke and realized it was four years since the disaster. Four years since he had lost Alannah.

  As always, he felt that loss in his heart as deeply as he did on the day he’d ruined both their lives.

  He’d long ago realized that everything that had happened was due to him misunderstanding things. Of course, now he knew he hadn’t seen Alannah that day. It must have been her twin sister.

  Alannah had told him she had a twin, and although he’d never met her, it seemed obvious now that that was who he’d seen.

  It’s the only thing that made the tiniest bit of sense. Alannah would never have betrayed him. Not in a million years. He hated himself for not seeing that earlier.

  If he’d only realized that immediately. If he’d only talked to Alannah. If he’d only not terrified her into taking such an extreme action.

  If only.

  He had a small coffee maker in his room, the only thing he was allowed to use to “cook” anything. It only made two cups at a time, and the coffee was hot in a few minutes.

  The laptop was ready for him when he sat down with his coffee. He signed in to his Gmail account and was surprised to see a Google Alert message.

  After Jeremiah had lost Alannah, he set out on a desperate search to find her. Unfortunately, he soon ran out of ideas. It made him realize how little she had talked about her life before they met. He’d taken stock of what little he did know: She was born in a small town in New York state (but he didn’t know which one); she had a twin sister (but he didn’t know her name); her father was in prison for killing her mother; and that was it.

  He had only a pathetic few clues to her background, but somehow he hoped he could use those bits to find her again. He’d set up Google Alerts to try to capture anything he could, but for four years, it seemed she had fallen off the grid completely.

  Until now.

  He tried not to get too excited. It might be nothing.

  Clicking on the email alert, he found himself looking at a news story published a few days earlier.

  LOCAL KILLER DENIED PAROLE

  Brian James Clark, 60, formerly of Aynsville, was denied parole yesterday at Otalay Prison. Clark pleaded guilty twelve years ago for brutally murdering his wife, Marianne Clark (nee Burnside). He has never shown remorse for the murder and Judge Judith Mikerson called the proceeding a formality after testimony showed Clark had no regrets.

  Nobody from Clark’s family attended the proceeding. He is eligible for parole again in 2025.

  Jeremiah read the story three times, trying not to get his hopes too high, but it seemed possible that this was Alannah’s dad.

  He checked and found that Otalay Prison was in New Jersey, about 100 miles from Aynsville.

  Is that where you are, Alannah?

  For once he felt real hope. The next clicks on his computer were to book a flight to New York.

  * * *

  The prison required approval for visitors considered as dangerous as Brian Clark. Jeremiah had to wait two weeks for the approval, and in that time he mostly sat in a motel on a little-traveled highway nearby.

  Fortunately, nobody really cared if he saw Clark or not. He’d had no visitors other than his lawyer, and the approval slid through.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  Clark looked more like eighty than sixty. His face was wrinkled and his eyes sunken, looking like beads glistening from a pillow of yellowish flesh.

  Jeremiah tried to smile. “I’m a friend of your daughter.”

  “Daughter? What’s that got to do with me? Haven’t seen anyone in a decade. Couldn’t give a rat’s ass, neither.”

  “I read your trial transcript.”

  Clark stared at him and moved his mouth around as if trying to stop himself from drooling. Jeremiah wondered how he could ever manage to look after himself if he ever was paroled. He was pathetic.

  There was a thick plane of glass between them, and they each spoke through a phone. Clark leaned back and shut his eyes.

  Jeremiah continued. “I can understand why you killed your wife. She stepped out on you—”

  “Did more than that. Treated me like a fool. It wasn’t just once or twice, she did it like every week, out fucking some new guy and just giving me the shaft.”

  Jeremiah nodded, not believing a single word he was about to say. “I feel for you. We’re not far from the same age and we could be friends if circumstances were different. Women just don’t understand.”

  “What’d you say your name was?”

  “Jeremiah. Jeremiah Moore.”

  “What’d you say you want?”

  “I’m looking for your daughter. I hoped you could help me find her.”

  “What’s she done now? Doesn’t surprise me if she’s got trouble.”

  Jeremiah was confused.

  “Why’s that? I thought Alannah would have been a model daughter to you.”

  “Alannah?” Clark stared at the glass pane and ran a finger down it, as if he was trying to judge its strength. “Who the hell is Alannah?”

  Jeez, thought Jeremiah. Is this guy an idiot?

  “One of your daughters. You have twin girls, right?”

  “Don’t know what you’re smoking, boy, but I only had one girl. Savannah. No twins, no other girl, just her. An only child. Bad seed from the beginning, that one, caused enough trouble for two, but there is only the one of her.”

  Jeremiah stared at the old man, not understanding.

  “You’re sure?” He
didn’t know what else to say.

  Brian Clark started to laugh, a long loud laugh, as he leaned back in his chair.

  “Boy, I may have a few challenges with my life, but I think I’d know if I had a second daughter, don’t you?”

  “Do you know where Savannah is now?”

  “Nope.”

  “You all grew up in Aynsville?”

  “Yeah. Who knows, maybe she’s there. I don’t give a rat’s ass where she is.”

  * * *

  Aynsville was only a two-hour drive from the prison, but it seemed to take a million years to get there. Jeremiah had no clue what to think.

  The town was bigger than he expected, about 20,000 people. He drove along the main street downtown, where there were a few dozen shops. It looked like the main street of any other town in America. There were the same people: the teenagers standing near a pizza joint, staring at him as he drove by; the old man with a walker, stopped to take a drag on his cigarette; the mom with three small kids trailing after her while she carried two bags of groceries home; the dozens of other forgettable faces that littered the landscape.

  And then he saw Alannah.

  She was walking in his direction, not paying much attention to anything. He had stopped for a red light and was waiting for it to change.

  He saw her and his stomach lurched.

  It’s you, he wanted to cry, but no words left his mouth. He was frozen with shock at finally finding the woman he loved.

  She looked exactly the same as he remembered her. Beautiful face, slim, and right then he knew once more that he loved her more than he could ever say. She was his life. Nothing else had mattered to him and nothing ever would.

  I found you.

  He rolled down the driver’s window and stared at her long after the light turned green. Suddenly, the car behind him honked loudly and then magic happened: Alannah turned to see what the noise was all about and they locked eyes.

  He smiled and started to call out to her, but she had a faster reaction than he did.

  She covered her mouth with a hand and froze for a moment then turned and ran away.

  Jeremiah was stunned at first but realized she probably still blamed him.

  He gave the car some gas, but she’d turned around a corner. He got there and turned as fast as he could.

  The ghost who was his soul mate was gone.

  Chapter 23

  2020

  Savannah Clark was twenty-eight. Part of her felt that age, but part felt like she was a dozen or more years older. The past four years had been the worst of her life, probably the worst she’d ever go through.

  She missed Alannah.

  Every day she continued to write in the diary they had shared. Now, though, instead of writing to a mysterious and elusive Diary, she was writing to her lost sister.

  “Dear Alannah” started every entry. She wrote about the everyday incidentals of her life, what she had for lunch, who she served at the bookstore, the weather. All this mundane stuff she wrote because Alannah could no longer experience any of it herself.

  Less often, she wrote about her hopes and dreams for the future, because she rarely had any.

  The saw that came down and ripped apart the coffin containing Alannah seemed to have truly buried her sister. She hadn’t been seen nor heard from since that night.

  Sometimes, rarely, Savannah would wake in the middle of the night and wander to the bathroom like a zombie, and she’d maybe feel a hint of Alannah in the air, as if she were a ghost who was trying to return.

  Savannah would flash to become wide awake, and the sensation would disappear, along with her fantasy of being reunited.

  The four years had trudged along like mud oozing down a hill after a rainstorm. Savannah spent most of her waking hours waiting until it was time to go back to sleep at night. Sweet, dreamless sleep was the only cure for her depression.

  After that awful night, she’d wandered off in a daze. She had no more clue what had happened than anybody else. Once the theater was closed, she had found herself at the edge of the crowd leaving, and she just walked.

  She barely stopped to pick up a few possessions from the apartment they shared, and then she walked again.

  Three hours later, she thought it was safe enough to hitch a ride. When a fiftyish man picked her up and gave her the kind of smile she was used to, she climbed into the passenger seat, said she had a migraine, closed her eyes, and let him drive.

  She ended up in Salt Lake City and stayed there for two years. The last thing she had wanted was to run into anybody she knew.

  The Internet kept her up to date on the investigation, so she found out about the fake blood and that it seemed that Alannah might still be alive.

  She didn’t buy it. If Alannah was alive, she would know. She knew her twin was gone.

  The wounds didn’t heal in Utah, and eventually she woke up one morning and decided it was time to go home.

  Not that she had any particular ties to Aynsville. Her mother was long dead, now her sister was no more, and her father was shuttered up in prison, as he deserved.

  No family, but her origins were still there. She wanted the comfort of knowing the town she grew up in, and there was always a slim chance that going home would help bring herself back to life.

  That didn’t happen. Aynsville was familiar, but the depression stayed with her just as strongly as ever.

  She thought the nightmare was behind her, though. Nobody would be looking for her in any case, but even if they were, she’d been gone from her hometown for a dozen years.

  Then, as she was walking down the road, she heard that car horn and couldn’t help glancing up.

  Jeremiah Moore was there. Staring at her.

  She froze, not knowing what to do.

  Panic hit her.

  She couldn’t talk to him.

  Why are you here? she wanted to scream. But, she knew.

  He was there for her. For Alannah.

  And he thought Savannah was her. She could see it in his eyes. Even though it’d been four years, she knew she looked the same as she had then, identical to her sister, and Jeremiah’s face radiated with the love he’d shown her in the time leading up to that day.

  She wanted to scream at him, to tell him to go to hell, to leave her alone and don’t ever fucking bother her again.

  Like that would happen.

  He opened his mouth as if to call to her, but he was too far away.

  Her head wanted to explode. She felt short of breath and her limbs tingled.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered. “Please just go.”

  But he didn’t. He stared at her, and all of a sudden, she knew he was going to abandon his car in the middle of the intersection and run over to her.

  Savannah didn’t know what to do, but she had to get away. She ran and somehow kept running for an hour before she finally tripped and fell. She scraped her cheek and felt blood dripping from her forehead.

  She cried. It wasn’t from the pain, not from the memories, not from missing her sister, not even from seeing the man who caused Alannah’s death. She cried because she had no other emotions left. She cried for the loss of her own identity, as she was stuck in the shell of a person who used to be fun-loving and alive.

  She cried because she’d just as soon be dead as whatever she currently was.

  Savannah wanted to go back and fix everything, but that wasn’t possible.

  She didn’t recognize the neighborhood. Wherever she was, she hadn’t been here before. She stood and walked back the direction she thought she’d come from. She was covered in sweat and probably looked half-dead.

  Couldn’t care less.

  In the distance, she could see River City Church, whose spire was the tallest landmark in the little town. Once she saw that, she knew approximately where she was. She figured she was an hour from her apartment.

  Halfway there, a hand grabbed her shoulder from behind.

  She froze, knowing it was him.

&n
bsp; “Alannah,” said Jeremiah softly.

  She didn’t have the energy to run, and for that matter she didn’t have the mental drive. She no longer cared.

  Savannah turned to face him.

  He looked the same, solid face, dark wavy hair, but he had aged, and not all that nicely. Four years had added two decades of wrinkles and droopiness to his face.

  Guess we have something in common.

  She thought about smiling, but that thought quickly passed.

  “Oh, God, you hurt yourself.”

  He reached out tentatively, as if to rub the scrapes on her head, but he held back at the last second.

  “You need a doctor.”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  He stared into her eyes, as if he didn’t know what to say.

  Finally he said, “You’re just as beautiful as you were back then.”

  “I’m not her.”

  He blinked.

  She took a step back. He’d been too close.

  “I’m Savannah. Her twin sister.”

  He took a long breath.

  “I talked to your father. I didn’t understand, but he said there were no twins.”

  “Guy’s a fucking idiot.”

  “He seemed—”

  “He murdered my mother. He sat there waiting for the fucking cops to arrive.”

  She stared down at her feet and then lifted her eyes to face him.

  “You know I’m not her. Jesus, man, you know it. And you know it was me giving that blow job. You fucked up big time, you freak. You killed my sister!”

  “She’s not dead.”

  “She is.”

  “It wasn’t real blood.”

  “I know that! You think I’m fucking stupid or what?”

  “I—I don’t know what to think.”

  Jeremiah wiped his face with his hands. For a moment, it looked like he was going to cry.

  Another thing we might have in common.

  “Let me drive you home.”

  Savannah wanted to just leave him, but her body was aching and she didn’t want to walk any more. She nodded and climbed into his rented Camry.