Then, a few seconds later, another knock.
“I didn’t order room service!” I practically yelled, hoping to scare them off.
Another knock. Insistent this time.
Annoyed, I tossed the laptop onto the comforter and strode to the door, fully prepared to give whoever was on the other side a piece of my mind.
I swung the door open. At first, I saw no one.
“Down here, silly,” said a childish voice.
I looked down and found something utterly bizarre.
Two little girls. They looked about five, maybe six at most. Identical twins—carbon copies of each other, except one was head-to-toe in a pink jumpsuit and matching coat, and the other was in jeans and a blue blouse.
Each clutched a stuffed animal and parked beside them was a large suitcase.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, my eyes darting up and down the hallway, searching for a missing parent or a negligent guardian.
The girl in blue—the one who’d called me silly—thrust a folded piece of paper into my hand.
I took it and started reading. It was a letter.
I read it again.
And then a third time.
None of it made any sense.
Looking thoroughly unimpressed, the girl in blue grabbed her sister’s hand and marched right past me into my room. I just stood there, watching them, my brain trying desperately to connect the words in that letter to any past event—and to the unsettlingly familiar features of their faces.
Because damn… they looked like me. The resemblance was downright disconcerting.
“So,Daddy?” the one in blue said, crossing her arms and staring me down. “Where are we gonna sleep?”
Daddy.
The word detonated like a bomb inside my head.
How could I possibly be their father?
Chapter One
LOGAN
We’d been like that for over an hour.
I was sitting in a chair, my eyes darting between the letter in my hands and the two little girls sitting side-by-side on the king-size bed.
One of them—the one in blue—was looking around, seemingly curious about every detail of the room. The other, in pink, just stared at me with a frightened expression. She hadn’t said a word since they’d arrived.
“Is there any food in that little fridge?” asked the chatty one.
“There should be,” I replied. “Help yourself.”
“Cool!”
She jumped off the bed and went to the minibar. She opened the door, peered inside, and selected two chocolate bars and two cans of soda. After carrying them back to the bed, she handed one of each to her sister. The two of them ate and drank in silence, continuing just as before: one watching me, the other scanning the room.
