Chapter 3

The abandoned factory on the outskirts of town was surrounded by overgrown weeds. The air smelled of motor oil and rust.

Andrew was standing beside a rusted oil drum in a black trench coat, a half-burned cigarette between his fingers. When he saw me approaching, he crushed it out.

"Mrs. Jarvis, you're sharper than I expected."

"You knew?" My voice trembled.

"I've suspected for ten years." He didn't turn to look at me, his gaze fixed on the grey sky in the distance. "A week before the accident, ten years ago, Nathan came to me. He said Kevin Prescott was obsessively impersonating him — wearing the same clothes, using the same cologne, copying the way he walked, the way he talked. Everything."

He paused.

"I told him to relax. Said it was probably just a coincidence. A week later, the accident happened. When the man who woke up in that hospital looked at me with those unfamiliar eyes, I knew. He wasn't Nathan."

I handed him the pendant and the photo.

Andrew stared at the pendant, his fingers tightening around it. He didn't say a word.

"He kept it," I said. "Why?"

Andrew slowly shook his head. There was a flicker of confusion in his expression — the kind he didn't even seem aware of. "That's his biggest mistake. And the one thing I've never been able to figure out."

He handed the pendant back to me, his voice returning to its usual calm. "Mrs. Jarvis, we can't go to the police yet. Kevin Prescott has control over the entire Jarvis Group. Without ironclad evidence, making a move now will only tip him off. You need to keep playing the devoted wife. Stay close to him. Find the proof from back then."

"Can you do that?"

I closed my eyes. I thought about last night. About those calloused hands.

"Yes." I opened my eyes. "But you haven't answered one of my questions."

"What question?"

I looked at him. "Nathan — is he alive or dead?"

Andrew's expression faltered for just a fraction of a second. Less than a second. But I caught it.

"I don't know," he said.

I held his gaze and said nothing more.