Egan, page 20
“I think it’s the next step,” Magnus replied, “and will likely be rough on both of them. Her sister was pretty angry at the accusations, so I’m not sure she’ll take Berry’s involvement in this investigation any easier.”
“And yet do we have any reason to believe that Cherry might have been set up in this?”
“That’s the question we have to really look at, isn’t it? Because, if she was set up, she had nothing to do with it. And vice versa. If she had nothing to do with it, then her being set up is a possibility.”
“Maybe,” Egan hedged, with a wry look over at Magnus.
“Do you like her? Cherry?”
“No, I don’t like her at all, but now I know from an insider perspective a little more about what she’s been involved in, specifically as Cherry inserted herself into her sister’s life, and that has made me judgmental,” he admitted, with a wince.
“So, yeah, I get what you’re saying. The problem is, I’m not sure anybody else will be less judgmental,” Magnus stated. “A lot of upset is happening right now, and an awful lot of people are looking for answers. I’m not sure that some of them are even particularly worried about getting the right answers.”
“Right.” Egan grimaced. ‘Still, if Cherry had anything to do with these deaths …”
“Absolutely,” Magnus agreed, “there’s no forgiveness.”
“You and I both agree on that, but it’s not even that there’s no forgiveness,” Egan clarified. “It’s that there has to be something else to this, in order for this whole thing to not be a complete crock of shit.”
Magnus chuckled. “It sounds like a complete crock of shit no matter what, unless you have another way to define it.”
“No, I don’t.” Egan groaned. “I don’t seem to have any way to define any of it. I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life,” he muttered. “I guess the worst thing that I’m worried about is that in some way she’ll be implicated.”
“You mean Berry?”
“Yes, though I absolutely love the fact that she immediately asked you to go search her room.”
“Sure, but you also know that just makes her look a little more suspicious.”
Egan stopped, turned, and looked at him. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously,” Magnus stated, with a nod, “because that’s how suspicions work, right? Say, for instance, what if Berry’s the one who planted it in her sister’s luggage, over all the bad feelings that the two of them have had between them all these years?”
“Jesus,” Egan muttered, “is that even possible?”
“I don’t know.” Magnus laughed. “You tell me.”
“No, it isn’t. I don’t understand this thought process at all,” he stated. “And I can’t imagine that anybody would think Berry was a part of this.”
“I would agree with you, but you also know how people think. If they can blame one twin, they’ll blame the other.”
He nodded at that. “Great, so we need to get to the truth and not only that, … we need to clear Berry.”
“I’d love to,” Magnus confirmed, “but have you got any idea how to do that?”
“I think one of the first things is to get Cherry to open up—and that might very well take Berry’s help—because if there’s one thing that the two of them do, it’s sparking fires against each other.”
“If you want to show me a way to make that happen, I’m all for it,” Magnus told Egan. “Otherwise, we’re limited to simple questions.”
“And yet Berry has asked to talk to her sister, so I think we should let her,” Egan noted, turning to Magnus. “Agreed?”
“Agreed. Let’s go do that now then, and we’ll see where it goes from there.”
And, with that, they headed back to the medical clinic. As they walked in, Berry hopped to her feet and looked at Egan hopefully. “Can I talk to her?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”
The relief that washed over her face made him feel guilty for not being able to clear her name right away. “You also need to be prepared and understand that she might throw you under the bus.”
Berry stopped, turned, and stared at him. “What?”
He laughed. “I know you don’t think along those lines, but it’s quite possible that she’s already found a solution to her nightmare, and that solution will be to throw you under the bus.”
“I guess she could try,” Berry replied, puzzled, “but I don’t know how.”
“It’s easy enough for Cherry to lie, to say that you’re the one who put the drugs in her room, particularly after you found out about her sleeping with your past boyfriends.”
She stared at him, then shook her head. “God, I don’t even know if she would do that. You’re not making me feel very good. Even contemplating such a thing just makes me sick, but thank you for the warning,” she murmured. “Now, I really need to talk to her.”
“Egan and I will both be present,” Magnus declared.
She winced and nodded. “Fine, then let’s go see what my sister has to say.”
Day 8, Late Morning
Berry walked into the back room, the guard having been excused, since both Magnus and Egan were present.
Cherry looked up at her and glared. “Come to gloat, have you?”
“Why would you think that?”
“Why wouldn’t I? This is your doing obviously. So now you’ve come to see the results of your labor.”
Berry stopped and stared at her in shock. “You know, Cherry, they told me that, once you’d had a few minutes to get your head straightened away, you would turn around like a cornered animal and pin this on me, but I couldn’t believe it.”
“It wasn’t me,” Cherry declared flatly. “I don’t have any connection to that drug.”
“Say whatever you will, but you do have a connection to that drug,” Berry argued, “If nothing else, just because of Rick alone. Remember Rick Mendas?”
“I do, but why is that my problem?” she asked, with a laugh. “That’s your problem. After all, he was your boyfriend.”
“Who you were sleeping with.”
“Who you were angry with that I slept with.”
“And yet, at the time, you also told me that you were wondering if maybe he had given you something, and that’s why you did what you did.”
“Obviously that’s how the drug works. I just woke up the next morning and found myself in bed with him,” she said, with a wave of her hand. “I didn’t know how or why.”
“So you immediately put the blame on him and the drug, rather than on your own behavior and poor judgment.”
Her sister looked at her, injured. “Jesus, Berry, you can’t really think that I not only set him up but that now I’ve set you up too?”
“I don’t know whether you were trying to set me up or not,” Berry admitted, “because the bottom line is that the drugs were found in your room.”
“Right, so you’re the one who set me up,” Cherry stated, with a nod. “That makes sense.”
“How is that something that makes sense?” Berry asked, again staring at her sister in shock.
“You’ve always been jealous of me.” Cherry sneered. “This is really just more of the same.”
“Good God, Cherry, I’ve never been jealous of you. Not for a moment.”
“Sure, you are. I’m the pretty one.”
“You already told me how you felt about that.”
“I take it back,” she said immediately. “It was the drugs making me talk.”
“I see.” Berry frowned. “So it was the drugs that made you apologize for all that shitty behavior?”
“Yeah, consider the apology revoked.” Cherry stared at Berry in anger.
But was that a touch of fear in her expression? Berry slowly nodded. “I’ll take that into consideration. Now that Yegorahn is dead, his friends did confirm that some criminal activity was going on here, but they didn’t know what. Only that Yegorahn was part of it.”
“He told me that he would go talk to somebody. I told you that already,” Cherry said in exasperation.
“Yeah, and I don’t know how much of that was the truth and how much of it was you just BSing your way through this.”
“BSing my way through? That’s rich. Look at you standing there, all high and mighty, pure as the driven snow.”
“Oh, I’m definitely not that, but at least I can say I’ve never utilized that drug.”
“No, of course not,” she snapped, with a sneer. “Doesn’t mean other people haven’t used it on you though.”
At that, she stiffened, and, then seeing the immediate joy in her sister’s face, she nodded. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? You bought that date-rape drug for somebody to give to me.” Berry sagged into the chair, staring at her sister in horror.
Cherry stared right back at her and then shrugged. “Maybe it was in the back of my mind,” Both men behind her stiffened but refrained from interfering. “But I never used it,” she rushed to say. “But, yeah, maybe it was something I considered, you know, like when you pissed me off.”
“So, your plan was to arrange for somebody to use that drug and rape me?” Berry asked, frowning at her sister, wondering how two genetic twins could be so different.
She shrugged. “Yeah, for all you know, that’s what Rick did.”
“No, Rick did not. We were already lovers long before that. He didn’t need to use the drug.”
“Maybe not”—she smirked, then turned and glared at her—“but you’ll never know that, will you?”
“Has it been used while you’ve been here? Did you use it as a trial on anybody else?” Berry asked Cherry.
Her sister shrugged and then caved. “Look. I’m not that much of a bitch.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that, since what you’re saying right now is that you obtained the drug and that you’ve hung on to it all this time, looking for an opportunity to use it against me.” Then she frowned. “Is that what Yegorahn was planning?” she asked, with a note of revulsion.
Cherry didn’t say anything but grinned. “You really hated him, didn’t you?”
“I was fine as long as he was your partner,” Berry replied, “but I didn’t want anything to do with him.”
“And he knew that, which was one of the reasons why he was looking into it, why he was considering it. He knew that I wanted it, that I was looking forward to seeing it happen,” Cherry said delightedly.
“Seeing it happen?” Behind her, Egan took a step forward, his face revealing the fury he felt.
Berry reached out and grabbed his hand to push him back and then whispered to her sister, “Do you hate me that much, Cherry?”
She shrugged. “It’s not that I hated you that much. I just wanted to drop you down below me,” she muttered painfully.
“What does that even mean? Good God, Cherry, is that how low your own self-esteem is? Do you hate yourself that much?” Her sister glared at her, and Berry nodded. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?”
“Rick was yours, and you knew how much I loved him.”
She stared at her. “No, Cherry, I didn’t. He was my boyfriend, and I had no idea you cared in any way.”
“It’s not as if I would sit there and go on and on about it, but, yeah, I did care. I really did. I cared about him.”
“And yet you set him up?”
“I didn’t set him up, at least not at first,” she muttered. “But then, when he wouldn’t see any sense, I seduced him, and he still wouldn’t see any sense.”
“He didn’t see any sense?” Berry repeated, staring directly at her sister and hearing another horrible, painful truth. “Because you used the drug on him, didn’t you?”
Her sister nodded slowly. “Yes,” she muttered. “And I’ve felt like shit over it all these years. And all that it’s really done is made me angrier and angrier at you.”
“Angrier at me?” Berry repeated, shaking her head at her sister in horror. “How the hell am I even responsible for this madness in any possible way?”
“Because everybody prefers you,” she snapped. “Everybody, absolutely everybody prefers you.”
“No, that’s not true,” she disagreed. “No way that’s true.”
“It is true,” Cherry declared, as she glared at her sister, “and I, for one, am really fucking tired of it.”
“But we’re twins.”
Cherry gave her a hard grin. “I’m really glad you mentioned that,” Cherry stated, with a mocking look. “Because you’re right, we are the same.”
“No, we’re not. We may look alike, but we are not the same, not in that way.”
“You just said we’re the same. You just don’t want to acknowledge it.”
“How can I acknowledge that? It’s not possible.”
“It is possible, and it’s real.” Cherry gave a hard look to her sister. “But what’s all this? Why are you making it into a big deal, when it’s really just a sister issue?” Cherry turned to glare at the men in the room. “What it isn’t is anything about a murder,” Cherry noted. “I did not murder Yegorahn.” At that, her eyes teared up, and she added, “In many ways, he’s the only one who ever understood me.”
*
Egan didn’t know what to even make of this right now. It was just too hard to even contemplate how so very different the two twin sisters could be. He just kept shaking his head; then suddenly it hit him, and he turned to Magnus. “In spite of all this, there is one other truth that needs to be sorted.”
“Only one?” Magnus asked, staring at him. “Right about now, this whole thing is a bloody mess.”
“And it’s getting bigger every turn we take,” Egan added. “But I guess what I’m trying to say is that there is still another problem.”
“Such as?”
He thought hard first to compose his words and then spoke carefully, “Those missing men, who went out on an Arctic walk, and we never found them. They just disappeared, except for Terrance so far. What if”—he turned and stared at Cherry—“What if they were drugged, and they were just taken out into the winter elements and dumped?”
Cherry stared at him and shrugged. “I don’t know. If anybody did that, they did it without my knowing.”
“Are you sure about that?” Egan gave her a cold stare. “I’m not so sure you’re innocent in all this.”
She stared at him in frustration. “I am.” She glared at him. “I didn’t have anything to do with that shit.”
At that, Berry cried out, “How the fuck can we know that for sure now? How can we trust you after all the shit you’ve lied about?” She almost bellowed again. “How can we trust anything you say?”
Her sister turned and glared. “Because you know me.”
“I don’t know you at all,” Berry whispered into the quiet room. “I don’t know anything about you right now,” she murmured. And, with that, she looked over at the others and pleaded, “If you’ll excuse me, I need a few minutes.” Then she turned and ran out of the room.
Sydney walked into the room, then looked over at the two men, frowning.
Magnus raised an eyebrow. “Problems?”
She shrugged. “That bottle of the date-rape drug,” she began, “it’s half empty.”
He looked at Sydney, then at Cherry.
She immediately said, “No, no, no, no, no, it was not half empty. It was full,” she stated, staring from one to another, “and I never used it.”
“You may say that,” Egan noted, “but how are any of us supposed to believe you now?”
“I didn’t do anything,” she snapped. “I didn’t use it on anybody.”
Sydney just nodded. “But that doesn’t mean somebody else didn’t use it.”
“I know that Yegorahn didn’t,” she snapped. “He was pretty upset at the concept. I was talking him around though.”
“But was he really?” Egan asked, with a snarl. “So far we haven’t heard anything come out of your mouth that was the truth.”
“You did mention he wanted to use it on Berry, and you wanted to see that happen.” Magnus chipped in from the side, and she glared at him.
“On the other hand,” Sydney added from behind him, “if somebody else was using it, that would have made it particularly easy to take out Yegorahn. He was a big man, after all, and I always wondered how somebody got the jump on him.”
Cherry looked at her wide-eyed and shook her head. “No, I had nothing to do with his death. He was my ticket out of here.”
At that, Magnus asked waspishly, “How the hell did you expect that to work?”
“He wanted out too. He didn’t have any confidence in this whole mess, and he wanted out. He told me that he had a way and that the drug I had would make it happen.” She was breaking up now, staring at each of them.
“Good God.” Magnus shook his head. “So your date-rape drug had nothing to do with some criminal activity going on here?”
She nodded. “Yes, it did, but Yegorahn had a way to make that work in our favor.”
“So, he would blackmail him? This other person, whoever he was?”
She winced and nodded. “I think so.”
“And yet you have no idea who might have taken Yegorahn out.”
“No, I wish I did.”
“Really? Why is that?”
“Because I’m still here, goddammit,” she snarled, “and this is the last fucking place I want to be.” At that, she slumped onto the bed and leaned against the headboard. “Just leave me alone, will you?”
“Why?” Egan asked, trying to understand her urgency. “Do you really think we don’t need to know what happened to your boyfriend?
“Sure, you need to know,” she snapped. “I always suspected his team, but I don’t know that.”
“Why would you suspect his own team?” he asked.
She looked at him and sighed. “Because he wouldn’t take them along when we escaped, and one guy in particular wanted to go, but Yegorahn wasn’t open to the idea.”
“Why was that?” Magnus asked.
“Because Yegorahn hated him,” she muttered, fatigue in her voice.
