“That part is challenging.” Sonny seems to enjoy the sparring, and Paris is beginning to realize that maybe it helps him by sharpening his focus. “The hotel staff was cooperative, but the general manager won’t authorize the release of any security footage without a warrant. Same with the airport. And to get a warrant, we need the cooperation of the Vancouver police. And since you’re not a terrorist, a fugitive, or a serial killer on a killing spree, that’s not likely to happen anytime soon. You’re not a priority in Canada.”
Inwardly, Paris collapses with relief, silently cheering her birth country’s utter lack of interest in helping. Outwardly, she says, “I’m curious. Where is it you think I went?”
Sonny shrugs. “Don’t know. But I have a feeling you’re the kind of woman with a lot of secrets.”
Bingo.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The truth is, Paris did go to Vancouver. She just didn’t stay there. Whichever hotel employee saw her hop into a taxi Friday morning was correct.
The day Zoe released their wedding photo, Paris began to panic. It felt like it was just a matter of time before someone from her old life started asking questions about why Jimmy Peralta’s new wife looked an awful lot like a dead stripper from Toronto. Paris didn’t have a plan for how she’d handle this, other than to deny it. There was no proof, and people had doppelg?ngers all the time. Looking like someone else isn’t a crime. If anyone asked, she would simply deny, deny, deny.
Until Ruby’s first letter arrived, Paris had no idea that the ashes supposedly belonging to Joey Reyes were in an urn somewhere in her aunt’s house in Maple Sound. It never occurred to her that the body would be cremated and sent to her next of kin—she hadn’t given much thought to the body at all after she’d burned it. And it wasn’t until she googled it that she learned ashes could be tested for DNA.
The best defense was a good offense, so Paris got to work. She started by creating a new email account under a fake name, which allowed her to create a fake Facebook account that said she was a retired nurse who used to work at Toronto General, the hospital where Tita Flora worked before the family moved to Maple Sound. She sent out friend requests to as many nurses as she could find who’d worked there, and then sent a request to her aunt. Tita Flora accepted immediately, likely because they had so many mutual friends.
Boom. Now Paris had a way to track what the family was up to. And the first thing she saw on her aunt’s page was that Tito Micky was dead. There was a photo of Tita Flora laying flowers at his grave on the fifth anniversary of his death, in the cemetery behind St. Agnes Catholic Church in Maple Sound. It looked like a pretty, peaceful spot.
Paris didn’t know how to feel about that.
It would be another two months before a window of opportunity presented itself, and when it happened, it was because of Carson. Her youngest cousin, the little boy who used to follow her around, was almost thirty now, and he was getting married. The whole family—minus her late uncle, of course—would be attending the wedding in Niagara-on-the-Lake, three hours away from Maple Sound. They’d be gone the whole weekend—Lola Celia, too, who was still alive at the age of eighty-eight. Why was it always the meanest ones who lived the longest?
This meant the house in Maple Sound would be empty.
The plan was straightforward: all Paris had to do was break into the house, locate the urn, switch out the ashes, and get the hell out. When the family returned from the wedding, they’d never know anyone had even been there.
Next: her alibi. This one was easy. The yoga convention in Vancouver was the same weekend in June, giving her the perfect reason to cross the border. Paris registered online and booked a last-minute cancellation at the convention hotel from Thursday to Sunday.
While stalking Tita Flora on Facebook, Paris also spent a lot of time on anonymous message boards searching for someone with a specific type of expertise. Eventually she was given an email address for a guy named Stuart. Using another fake email, she contacted him. He quoted her ten grand, and said it would take two weeks. Paris withdrew half the amount in cash from her savings account, and drove down to Tacoma later that day.
Stuart turned out to be a nineteen-year-old college dropout covered in Cheetos dust. He lived at home with his parents, who both worked during the day. He ushered Paris upstairs to his bedroom, where she stood in front of a plain white wall as he snapped a few headshots of her with his iPhone. She paid him five thousand dollars, and he told her to wait for his email.