The residence was immaculate, which indicated nothing more sinister than someone who had an ingrained habit of cleanliness.
David wondered if the truth was that Mathers had broken into the house and someone—Patrick Corley, who had somehow faked his death, or a twin who really did exist—had given him a beating during his intrusion, not a day later in his trailer. Humiliated, Mathers might have invented a story to tell the gullible Kendra, embellishing it with the supernatural. His claim to being chemical-free and “native organic” in his use of only locally grown marijuana was probably another lie. Most likely, he sampled a smorgasbord of drugs and drew on past experiences with hallucinogens to concoct the otherworldly events he claimed had occurred in this residence.
As David stood in the foyer, at the foot of the stairs, he became aware of the deep silence that pooled in the house. Through the sidelights that flanked the front door, he saw trees thrashed by the wind, but he couldn’t hear even a whisper of that tumult.
On the second floor were a well-equipped home gym and three spacious bedrooms, each with an en suite bath and walk-in closet. All three bedrooms were being used, as Mathers had reported.
David first explored a closet full of men’s clothing and then the bathroom cabinets. He found nothing extraordinary. In the associated bedroom, there was nothing on the nightstand other than lamps, and nothing whatsoever in the drawers.
In the first woman’s bedroom, he discovered a gallery of photographs, thirty-two framed pictures, in every one of which he appeared.
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The collection was arranged on both nightstands and across the top of the dresser. A variety of sizes. Each in a unique silver or gold-plated or white-enameled frame. A lot of them were publicity photographs from the back of his book jackets or had been used to accompany newspaper and magazine interviews. They could have been downloaded from his website. He only now realized that he had never smiled in a publicity shot, that without calculation, he had always looked solemn, intense—even haunted.
In addition to the many professional portraits, there were ten snapshots, six of him alone, in which he was smiling at the camera. He recognized some of the locations: a bench overlooking the ocean at Inspiration Point, a few blocks from his house; another bench in that same park along Ocean Boulevard, where he was backdropped by the breakwater at the Newport Harbor entrance; sitting at a patio table at a cozy neighborhood restaurant.
In all these photos, he was in his early twenties. They were from his personal collection, taken by Emily, with her camera.
In the remaining four snapshots, she was with him. They were from the same period, before she disappeared. He couldn’t remember who had taken them, probably friends from those days.
How had they ended up here? Had Maddison stolen them? If so, when? Not just the previous night, because she was still in Orange County, and these pictures were here, framed with such care.
Last night was the first time that she’d been in his house. He dared to believe that only Emily could have had these photographs, that Maddison’s possession of them suggested—proved—that she was in fact Emily.
One other object had caught his attention: A fine gold chain hung from a nail in the wall above the bed. At the end of the chain was a glass ampule containing perhaps an ounce of what appeared to be a red fluid. He leaned over the bed, reached to the ampule, held it in his hand to take a closer look. He was all but certain that it contained blood.
He released the ampule and watched it swing like a pendulum until it became still. He used his smartphone to photograph it.
Whose blood? What did it mean to her? What did it represent?
David surveyed the photographs again. He didn’t know what he should think of this collection. He didn’t want to think of it at all. He yearned to be with Emily, a desire that could perhaps never be fulfilled. And in the enduring absence of Emily, he wanted to be with Maddison, Emily’s uncanny duplicate—who might be Emily herself under a new name—to be with her 24/7, now and forever, until they were old and wizened and white haired, to be with her in a condition of total acceptance, without any suspicion, without reason for suspicion, without being consumed by the puzzle of her existence.
Of course this Gordian knot of mysteries was so extraordinary that denial was impossible. He had no viable option other than to continue his investigation. And his only hope of happiness was to resolve every hitch in this tangle of enigmas and discover, at the end of all discoveries, that Maddison was an innocent rather than a villain, that she was somehow Emily returned or reborn.