The Blonde Identity: A Novel

Zoe was pretty sure she never lost consciousness—she probably couldn’t have stayed on the bike if she had. But that didn’t stop her from making a vow that she would never get on another motorcycle ever again.

Ever.

She was torn between squeezing Alex’s waist so tightly she was afraid she might pop her sister right in two and worrying that if she held on too loosely she would fly off the bike and hurtle through the sky and maybe never come down. Or come down really, really hard. Zoe knew it was the second one she had to worry about, but she managed to be afraid of both, somehow. Zoe managed to be afraid of everything.

“For crying out loud, hold on!” Alex shouted back and Zoe squeezed—her eyes. Her arms. Her legs. Zoe squeezed everything.

“When I move, you move!” Alex shouted and Zoe tried to mimic her sister’s motions, the subtle sways and sharp jerks that saw them zooming through the streets of Zurich, down alleys and over bridges, under overpasses and through—

Yup, at one point they drove through the lobby of a five-star hotel, shooting out onto a narrow street until they were going the wrong way down a one-way and, impossibly, no one followed.

Eventually, the city streets faded away and Alex revved the motorcycle faster. The frigid wind blew against Zoe’s face; her hands felt like ice as they held on to Alex. And through it all, Zoe tried to find her balance. Literally. Figuratively. Because when she closed her eyes, she saw the man from the train and knew she was surrounded. But when she opened her eyes, she saw the white lines of the highway zooming by way too quickly.

So Zoe kept her eyes on the back of Alex’s neck and wondered if that was what the back of her own neck looked like. It was a stupid thing to wonder but it felt like the only safe thought in her head—like any other thought could literally kill her.

She didn’t know how long they drove or how far they went. If Alex was as paranoid as Sawyer (and something told Zoe that her sister was probably far, far worse), she knew they must have looped and crisscrossed and backtracked a dozen times. But, eventually, even Alex seemed to relax. Zoe literally felt her posture change and her muscles loosen. The motorcycle slowed, blending in with the sparse traffic on the winding highway.

Still, Zoe was surprised when Alex steered the bike off the road and onto a scenic overlook a few minutes later. Tires on snowy gravel. Moonlight on mountain peaks. And one lone, yellow pole light shining overhead.

Her cheeks were so cold they burned, and her hands were starting to shake. Her legs were so numb that when she finally climbed off the motorcycle, she thought she might collapse before she could stumble to the low rock wall that skirted around the edge. She wasn’t going to look over into the abyss, though. She couldn’t take the risk of getting dizzy. Besides, she was afraid of what might look back.

So instead, she looked at . . . herself.

For a long time, Zoe tried to understand what she was feeling because it wasn’t exactly déjà vu. She’d known she had a twin, of course, but it was still surreal to stare into a face like hers—eyes like hers—and feel like she was looking at a stranger.

Everything about Alex was harder, tougher, stronger. She actually seemed comfortable in those leather pants. Even the red hair seemed natural.

Zoe looked like a little girl playing dress-up, but Alex looked like she had spent her whole life becoming the woman on that mountain.

For days, all Zoe had wanted was to find Alex—save Alex—but she finally understood what Sawyer hadn’t been willing to say: that maybe Alex wasn’t just hiding—wasn’t just missing. That maybe the version of Alex who’d had anything to do with Zoe was already dead. That maybe that had been the case for a very long time and Zoe hadn’t just forgotten her sister. Maybe she’d never really known her at all.

“What the hell are you wearing?”

As questions went, it wasn’t the most obvious place to start, but Zoe couldn’t fault her sister’s directness.

“Clothes?” Zoe tried because, evidently, Alex got the brains as well as the toughness and the coordination and the ability to wear leather unironically. Besides, Zoe had other, more important things on her mind, like—“What . . . How . . . What just happened?”

“You went to the bank!” Alex shouted. “That’s what happened! What were you thinking, Zo? Were you thinking? Please tell me someone put a gun to your head or a bomb in your bra and made you walk in there? Because, otherwise, you might be a moron and I really hope you’re not because that shit’s genetic.”

Alex was staring at her. White breath in the dark air. Skin flushed with sweat in spite of the freezing wind. She looked like someone who knew things—like someone who knew herself—and Zoe had never been more envious of anyone in her life.

“Zoe!” Alex shouted.

“No . . . no one was watching the bank. The bank was clear. No one was watching—”

“Of course someone was watching the bank!” Alex threw up her hands and walked back toward the motorcycle and for a split second Zoe wondered if she was going to leave, just get on and drive away. For a moment, Zoe wondered if she wanted her to.

But Alex turned, voice as cold as the wind as she asked, “What are you doing in Europe? Why were you at the bank? Why . . .” They must have gone full circle because she came back to, “What the hell are you wearing?”

It was so surreal, like looking at a mirror in a fun house. Or a fairy tale. And for a moment Zoe wasn’t sure if she was blessed or cursed as she stood there, seeing down the road not taken at what her life might have been—who she might have been—if things had gone a different way.

“We-we’re . . .” She didn’t want to stammer but she couldn’t help herself. “We’re identical. I went to the bank because we’re identical.”

“I gave you that box number in case I died! Which, news flash, not dead yet! So I don’t know what the hell you’re doing here, but you’re going home. Now.”

Zoe felt small in the presence of someone who was exactly her same height. She felt small and weak and fragile, and she hated it. It was way more fun being the woman Sawyer thought she was. But Sawyer was a stranger and Alex had obviously known Zoe since the womb, so clearly Alex was the expert. And Zoe hated that, too.

“You’re on the first flight home, so help me—”

“Fine!” Zoe didn’t realize she was shouting until she saw the shock in her sister’s eyes. “Great. I’d love to go home. Where is home, exactly? Just point me in the right direction and I’ll get out of your hair.”

“What are you talking about?” Alex seemed leery then. Like maybe a black ops division of the CIA had perfected body-swapping technology. Maybe some next-gen cloning or . . . Maybe Zoe was an enemy agent who had been given extensive plastic surgery and a little light brainwashing? Alex looked like she didn’t know what was happening but she wasn’t going to trust this weird chick with the knockoff version of her designer face. There could only be one Alex and she had no patience for any cut-rate imposter, even her own sister.

“The first thing I remember is waking up in Paris three days ago,” Zoe said softly. She was far too tired for shouting.

“What?” Alex asked. Then, worse, Alex laughed. “You mean . . . You think you have amnesia?”

“No. I know I have amnesia! Because I woke up in a snowbank with a bruise on my temple and nothing in my pocket except some lip balm and a few euros and a half-used tissue . . .” She took a deep breath. “And something that looked like a hotel key but was really a membership card for a fancy-pants bank in Zurich.” She threw her arms out wide. “And now we’re here.”

Alex stepped closer, fire in her eyes. “Where did you get the card?”

“That’s the part of that story that interests you? Not the bloody snow or the—”

“Where did you get the card?”

Now Zoe really was confused. “You gave it to me.”

“Of course I didn’t. Now where did you get it?”

“I. Have. Amnesia!” Maybe Zoe wasn’t in a nightmare. Maybe she was in a time loop, because no matter how many times she said the words they never got any less crazy.

“This is crazy,” Alex said, proving her point.

“I know!” Zoe snapped. “My entire memory is nothing but head wounds and bloody knees. Uncomfortable shoes and people shooting at me. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t—”

“This is real life.” Alex rolled her eyes and something in the gesture hit Zoe like a punch; an avalanche of déjà vu was starting in the mountains and barreling her way fast. “This isn’t one of your books, Zoe!”

The avalanche was there, sweeping over her and carrying her away.

Her life didn’t come back to her. Nothing flashed before her eyes. There was no dream sequence or montage set to a remixed-but-timeless pop ballad. It was more like Zoe was a magnet that had just felt metal for the very first time. Something was close. Something was right there, rising to the surface of her consciousness until . . .

“I like books.” As profound epiphanies go, that one was, admittedly, lackluster, but something was still growing inside of her and, suddenly, Zoe knew. “I write books.”

And Alex . . . Alex just gave her a dry, quizzical look, so over Zoe and so bored. She was probably grateful none of her cool spy friends could see them then. She would have acted like she didn’t even know Zoe, loser that she was. But Zoe wasn’t a loser. Zoe was . . .

“I’m not a high-end jewel thief . . .”

“A what?”

“I’m an author!” Yes! That was it! That was—

“I think we need to go back to the part about the head wound.” Alex finally looked concerned.

But Zoe felt lighter than she had in days. “I have to tell . . .” She trailed off as she remembered the sight of Sawyer in that little park, covered with lasers. Sawyer surrounded by agents. She thought about screeching tires and the distant sound of gunfire and she lunged for Alex, desperate.

“Do you have a phone?”

“What?”

“I need a phone! If we get separated, I’m supposed to call and leave a message for him. I need to get to a phone.”

But Alex was going stiff again. “Call who?”

Suddenly, Zoe remembered that Alex didn’t know she and Sawyer were . . . well . . . whatever Zoe and Sawyer were. Allies? Friends? More? There were times when she caught him looking at her, when his lip quirked and he put his hand on the small of her back. . . . When he was kissing her and holding her and telling her that it hadn’t been a danger bang . . . When she let herself hope they might be more.

“Zoe!” Alex shouted. “Call who?”

But before Zoe could speak, a voice came floating on the wind, saying, “Me.”

He was a shadow in the darkness, but he was there. He was there and he was alive and he appeared to have most if not all his original parts. There were a few new bruises, maybe a little dried blood. But he was there. And Zoe forgot all the things that, moments before, she’d been desperate to tell him. She just ran and threw herself into his arms, felt her feet go off the ground as he held her so tightly that she could actually feel his heart beating against hers.

“You found us.”

“I found you.”

She kissed him once on the lips but that wasn’t nearly good enough, so she peppered more kisses on his cheeks and on his chin and that’s how she knew that he was smiling—because she kissed that smile right off his face.

“You found me,” she said on a sigh then pulled back. “Wait. How did you—”

“Your comms unit has GPS.”

“Oh! Fancy!”

“Zoe.” Alex’s voice was a warning, and Zoe felt her sister moving through the shadows, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Sawyer.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “I saw all those laser guns—”

“That’s not what they’re called.”

“—pointed at you, and I wanted to help, but you told me to run, so I—”

He held her face in his hands—not like she was fragile: like she was precious. And Zoe had never been so achingly aware of the difference. “You did the right thing. Now, did you get it?”

“Zoe!” Alex shouted, but Sawyer’s face was just right there—so close. Kissing close. So she kissed him again because she could.

“Yes.” The word was a whisper against his lips. “I got it.” Then she stuck a hand down her shirt and watched him try not to grin.

“Need some help looking around down there?”

“No,” she chided then pulled the thumb drive free and handed it to him. His eyes went wide at the same time something else changed. Maybe the wind. Maybe the clouds drifting back over the moon.

But she felt Alex at her back, heard her low command. “Zoe, come over here. Now.”

And Zoe realized that they were still in the shadows—too far from the yellow ring of light to really see—so she took Sawyer’s hand and called back, “It’s okay, Alex. It’s just Sawyer.”

“Zoe.” Alex didn’t sound okay. “Walk to me. Now.”

“Alex.” Zoe tried to tease. “Sawyer’s on our side, remember? He’s CIA, too.”

Then Alex inched into the light and Zoe noticed two things: the gun in her sister’s hand and the look on her face as she said, “No. He’s not.”