Chapter 27
Thérèse
Now
Three months ago, I wasn’t all that surprised when Cassie came home with Olivier in tow. She’d always been impulsive. If trouble was hiding somewhere, she’d be sure to drag it out so she could play, like a cat hunting down a mouse.
I studied Olivier as he pulled their bags out of the Uber’s trunk. He was handsome and polished—wearing a neat polo shirt and fitted dark jeans. He also looked a little shocked as he took in our decrepit house. The poor guy seemed to have no idea what he was getting into, and it was obvious that he didn’t fit in. All of that faded away when my darling sister told me his name, and then when Olivier opened his mouth. She’d found a French guy this time, and she knew exactly how that would make me feel.
After we canceled our trip to Paris, my desire to go hung in the air. Cassie would catch me using my Duolingo app and laugh mercilessly at my bad accent. She used my Netflix account and railed against the French movies in my recently watched list—Subtitles? No, thank you!I didn’t need to tell her that I’d signed up to all these DNA websites, that I continued to research my and Mom’s names—Thérèse and Jacqueline Ronald—and that I’d contacted everyone involved in Mom’s case, to no avail. Cassieknew I’d never stopped hoping that, one day, the pieces of my life would come together.
Now we were both orphans and that didn’t sit right with her. She and I could never be the same. The French boyfriend made sense in that way. Me, on the other end, I was done playing games. I buried myself in work, asking for more shifts at the bar and at the store, taking everything I could get. I got up earlier for breakfast. When I wasn’t working, I’d lock myself in my room, watching the last two episodes ofSex and the City—the ones when Carrie goes to Paris—on repeat.
Ignoring my sister and her new boyfriend worked pretty well for a couple of weeks. I must have exchanged all of two sentences with him after the day he arrived. Then there was the night he walked into the bar. His eyes were empty, his shoulders slumped. He looked beaten. There was no way this was his kind of drinking establishment—I pictured him sipping fancy cocktails in tufted leather booths instead—and as he slouched over the sticky linoleum surface on the counter, I almost felt sorry for him.
When he saw me, his jaw went slack. The bar was ten miles away, in the next town over, and it felt like it was mine, one of the only places where I was comfortable leaving Good Taylor at the door. I’d wear the fitted tops I’d found at thrift stores or in Cassie’s wardrobe. I put on bright-red lipstick and thick eyeliner, trying a different version of me, the one I might become if I ever got out. Of this town. Of this life. Of under Cassie’s thumb.
It wasn’t my intention to talk smack about Cassie, so when Olivier asked why my colleague called me Reese, I told him the official version. Poor little Cassie couldn’t say my weird name, so she changed it to Taylor. That’s what most people in town called me, but this was my workplace, my turf. Cassie never came here—there were other bars with better music and nicer-looking guys.
I’d expected this would be the extent of our conversation, but Olivier had shaken his head.That was your name! She shouldn’t have taken that from you. Does she always play with people like that?
It was a slow Tuesday and I poured us both a drink. We moved on to the topic of the inn, and Olivier mentioned Cassie’s idea to renovate it. I almost spit out my drink all over the counter. His face fell even further as the pieces clinked into place.It wasn’t her idea, was it?I shook my head sadly. Olivier seemed like a smart guy, but Cassie was a pro at make-believe.
Now he looked even more dejected, but I felt a little better. Olivier got me. He didn’t know it yet, but that’s what was happening: someone in this world understood what I’d been up against for so long. Someone felt the same way. I could have an ally. Maybe this was the turning point I’d been holding out for all along, why I’d stuck around in spite of everything.
As the evening wore on, filled with talks about our pasts, our hopes, and his dreams—I didn’t have any at the time—I stopped thinking of him as Cassie’s boyfriend. This wasn’t the first time I’d flirted with a guy at the bar, though it was the first time the guy looked like Olivier. And the first time a guy looked at me the way he did.
The thing is, I’m not innocent. Good Taylor doesn’t really exist; she was all about survival, a little girl who had been left for dead and was scared of what terrible thing might come next. So I’ll admit this: when I walked to the restrooms at the end of the night, I was testing something. Just this once, I wanted to see if I could prove Cassie right andactuallytake something from her. When Olivier came over and kissed me, I only thought about how much I wanted to hurt her. This new guy would be gone from her life soon enough anyway, and it would never go any further between us. Olivier was too good to be true. It was a moment of weakness on his part.
But here I am in Paris, sitting on a bench in the middle of the night, shaking from top to bottom because I can’t stand being so close to him and not nestling myself in his arms.
“I love you,” Olivier says again. “I meant every word that afternoon in the car.”
Every time it cuts deeper into me, past the shell I’ve had to build to protect myself. He loves me. He wants to be with me. Just like he said thatafternoon, when he talked about getting rid of Cassie. I thought he was playing a sick joke on me. Who would do that to be with me?
I wanted to believe him so badly. Despite what I said, and despite what happened the last time I followed a guy to his hometown, I would have come to live here with Olivier, if he’d wanted to. We could have started over in Paris together. But he didn’t want that, so instead I pictured the two of us in New York. We’d be together every night, sharing tidbits about our day over delicious meals at dimly lit restaurants. Walking through Central Park hand in hand, surrounded by strangers. A fresh start, with him. It filled my heart to the brim and more. It all felt very possible.
A few hours later, Cassie announced Olivier had proposed to her.Look at this ring!They were going away to celebrate. Where to? Paris,obviously. Did I forget Olivier was French? It’d be the trip of a lifetime. How wonderful! Didn’t I think it was wonderful? Of course I did. Good Taylor always thought everything Cassie did was absolutely fucking wonderful.
I get up from the bench, trying to clear my head. When Olivier looks at me like that, I feel exposed. Naked.
“You went along with all of it,” I say. “And then, not only were you going to Paris; you also were going there on your honeymoon.”
“Because I realized it was easier that way. The happier Cassie and I appeared, the better it would look after her terrible accident happened. And then, of course, I wanted to protect you. You could never be suspected of anything, even though you’d get all the money.”
My blood turns to ice. “What are you talking about?”
Olivier looks right and left, checking that we’re completely alone. Somewhere in the distance, a man lets out a drunken yowl. “That was always going be the tricky part. If something happened to Cassie, all eyes would be on me. It’s always the husband. And when the police found out Cassie had inherited a packet of money, I’d look doubly guilty. It wouldn’t matter how tight my alibi would be; they’d never let me go. So I had to make sure Iwouldn’tget her money.”
“But if you’re not—” I say, pretty certain I’m misunderstanding him.
“Youare,” he says, looking deep into my eyes. “All of the two million dollars. Or at least what she hasn’t wasted away already. And the house.”
“No, that’s not possible.” My voice sounds squeaky. Olivier nods. “She hates me.”
“She does,” he agrees, “but she has no one else. You’re her family, whether she likes it or not. I’m just a stranger she married on a whim without thinking it through. And she must have realized that because it wasn’t hard to convince her. She called the lawyer herself and everything. You’re her next of kin.”
“I don’t want her money,” I say, sitting back down. In spite of me, my foot starts tapping on the gravel, making little crushing sounds. I think about the stash of bills I took, how dirty I feel to be using them. I want what’s mine. Nothing else.
