I know, my life is in perpetual motion. “He’s my husband, Leah. Not another boyfriend to steal.”

“Do you love him, Megs?”

“I don’t know.” My voice is quiet, muffled by the trees behind us, refracted by the moonlight on the lake.

“He loves you, Megs. You know that don’t you?”

I nod. That is what I’m afraid of.

“Really loves you.”

I know. He terrifies me.

“What would he do, do you think? If he knew that you knew?”

I swallow. I don’t know. I don’t want to know.

“Shall I tell him?” She is reaching for her phone. “Give him the heads-up that his wife knows about his little dalliance and that she might be a little bit pissed at him. That she might consider packing her bags and leaving him.”

Her phone screen lights up the darkness around us. My heart is in my mouth as she scrolls her contacts for his number.

“Oh, Chris. Here it is.”

The heavy wine bottle swings in a clean arc. I’m surprised when it doesn’t shatter into pieces as it makes contact with her skull. Instead the deep “thunk” reverberates in the night air. The phone drops from her hand and clatters between the wooden slats of the deck, plops into the water.

There is more blood than I would have expected. Not that I ever expected to kill my sister. However many times I had wanted to.

Chapter Three

How do you get away with murder?

It’s not exactly something you can Google.

I need a plan.

Shit, shit, shit.

My phone vibrates in the pocket of my hoodie: Where are you, Meggie?

It’s Chris.

A cold sweat breaks out down my back and I look around me, searching for a sign of him. But of course he’s not here watching me.

He’s just doing his usual: checking up on me, pretending to be the concerned husband. Making sure I’m not out with some other guy. I close my eyes to try to catch my breath, but inexplicably his face swims in my vision. Not Chris, that guy from the hotel.

What if I had just said yes that night? Gone up to his room and slept with him.

It is easy to think in what-ifs.

What if Chris hadn’t slept with my sister?

What if she had been the nice, normal twin I’d so desperately willed her to be for all those years?

What if she had loved and supported me instead of trying to rip my world to shreds at every available moment?

What if she hadn’t tried to tell Chris that I knew?

What if I hadn’t killed her? Right there on the deck of her cabin.

What if I had any idea of what the hell I was meant to do now?

I need to buy myself time. To make some space in my mind to be able to think this through. I text Chris back with some bullshit about work. He never questions my work. Thank God for small mercies.