The interface for Pullman is understated, in muted tones of dark gray and royal blue against a cream background. It evokes a sense of posh writing paper, the stuff that feels creamy beneath your fingertips. It takes a few moments for Megan to locate the online sign-in icon.

Leah has a program that stores her passwords for everything, and even the codes for this account are on there. I still can’t fathom how these girls made it to adulthood sometimes. I mean, who even does that?

“Oh shit!” Megan says as the Pullman site asks her to input her keyword. A word that is not in the password-breaker app.

“You don’t know it?” My fingers briefly tighten and she flinches.

“Of course not. How the hell would I know it?”

“Can’t you guess?”

She brings up the password software and scans the list of other keywords that Leah regularly used. Then she laughs, a deep throaty laugh that catches me off guard in its sheer unadulterated sensuousness. It is not a sound I have heard from my wife before.

“Sorry.” She clears her throat.

“What is it?” I’m irritated she’s not sharing the joke.

“When we were kids, we had a whole imaginary family thought out. Uncles and aunts and cousins and even a baby brother. We had this fantasy that one day we would meet them all and live happily ever after, and then we would meet twin brothers and marry one each and then have an even bigger family,” she explains. “All the names she uses are those family members, except there is one she hasn’t used. My twin was Oberon. Hers was Tarquin.” She types the seven characters into the little box and hits enter, her breath catching in her throat as she waits to see if she’s right.

Keyword accepted. The words flash on the screen and she releases the end of the breath.

Initiating facial capture.

“You’d better move out of view of the camera,” she tells me and I oblige as the little red dot above the screen flashes on.

When she motions that the face scan is complete, I step back behind her.

Please move closer to the camera to commence retinal scan, the instructions blink rhythmically.

Megan turns to me, fear in her eyes. “Retinal scan?”

“Problem?” But I already know. They share the same everything; even I could barely tell them apart. But their retinas were as different as yours and mine. “Can you override it?”

She taps at the screen and scrolls to the bottom. “No.”

My fingers dig into her collarbone. Think man, think! What the fuck am I going to do now? I need that money. I feel her trying to pull away from my grip, but I dig tighter.

I will get what I deserve. But now I need a new plan.

Chapter Fifteen

The day after lockdown started, Megan had begun smoking again. Or I should say openly smoking. She’d always enjoyed a clandestine cigarette, huddled out on our patio like I wouldn’t realize. There must be some gene for it because Leah also used to sneak outside, sucking angrily on her cancer sticks when she thought I was asleep and tangled in her sheets.