The Evil Twin Read online

  THE EVIL TWIN

  Written by

  Kate William

  Created by

  FRANCINE PASCAL

  Copyright © 2015, Francine Pascal

  To

  Trinity Dawn Jensen

  Margo stood in the shrubbery peering through the Wakefields' living-room window.

  Everything is perfect, she thought rapturously, devouring the details with hungry eyes. The glittering Christmas tree, the brightly wrapped gifts, the homemade breakfast, and best of all, the people. The sweet, lovely mother in her elegant satin bathrobe, distributing gifts and kisses; the tall, handsome father, smiling benevolently; the cherished twin daughters; the manly, protective older brother.

  Lifting one hand, Margo brushed the windowpane with her fingertips. My house. My family. Merry Christmas, everyone. She smiled, wanting to laugh, to sing, to dance in the rain. Next year it will be me! Next year she would come down the stairs in her flannel nightgown; she would get kisses and hugs under the mistletoe; she would give and receive thoughtful, wonderful presents. She would be Elizabeth Wakefield.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 1

  Sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Wakefield stood in her bedroom in her robe and slippers on Wednesday morning, staring without enthusiasm at the contents of her closet. It's the last day of school before Christmas vacation, she reflected, examining a blouse and then a dress. Traditionally there were holiday parties in every class, and the entire Sweet Valley High student body dressed up for the occasion. I should probably wear something nice. . . .

  Elizabeth sighed. She'd just as soon put on an old pair of khakis and a polo shirt; she didn't feel particularly festive. How am I ever going to get into the holiday spirit? she wondered.

  Just then her eyes came to rest on one of her favorite outfits, a fancy tuxedo shirt with matching bow tie, trousers, and vest. A wry smile touched her lips. Jessica had always loved this outfit, too—she'd borrowed it all the time in the old days. Elizabeth's mind traveled back to other mornings when her sister would bounce into her room to raid her closet. That seems like so long ago. Well, it was long ago, she reminded herself. It was another lifetime. Before . . .

  A shadow clouded Elizabeth's blue-green eyes, and she pushed the tuxedo outfit aside with a sharp gesture. Those innocent days of sharing and giggling were long gone. Jessica was no longer truly her sister, no longer her best friend. Since the fatal night of the Jungle Prom, everything had changed.

  Elizabeth turned away from the closet and sat down on the edge of her bed. She pressed the palms of her hands against her forehead, wishing she could squeeze the memories from her brain, but they were always there, just beneath the surface. It started before the Jungle Prom, Elizabeth recalled. Jessica and I were supposed to be planning the dance together, but we couldn't agree on anything—except for the fact that we both wanted to be Prom Queen. In retrospect, their rivalry for the queen's crown seemed ridiculous, but at the time, the competition between the two sisters had been in dead earnest. It wasn't until the last minute that Elizabeth had decided it was foolish to care so much about something so trivial. She remembered deciding to drop out of the Prom Queen contest. But that was the last thing Elizabeth remembered about that night until after the accident.

  The pain was still fresh; Elizabeth's eyes filled with tears. Will it ever stop hurting? she wondered. And will I ever know what really happened? No one knew how she and her sister's boyfriend, Sam Woodruff, had managed to get drunk that night. If their punch had been spiked, they hadn't realized it—they had left the prom to go for a drive without noticing their unsteadiness. The twins' Jeep had gone off the road and flipped over. Miraculously Elizabeth had survived the crash with minor injuries. But Sam wasn't so fortunate; he had died instantly.

  Elizabeth's life had turned into a waking nightmare after the crash. Not only did she have to cope with almost unbearable sorrow and guilt, but she had been arrested for vehicular manslaughter. Because she'd blacked out from the liquor, she'd been unable to say anything in her own defense. On the verge of being convicted, Elizabeth had been saved when a young man came forward to confess that his own reckless driving had caused the accident, not Elizabeth's.

  That was a turning point, Elizabeth mused. After the trial I thought we could start putting the pieces back together. Jessica had finally seemed ready to forgive her for the part she'd played in Sam's death; they were so close to making up. And then . . .

  Rising, Elizabeth crossed to her desk and pulled out a letter her boyfriend Todd had written to her during the trial—a letter in which he asked Elizabeth to forgive him for being cold and distant after the accident, for shunning rather than supporting her. Explaining that he'd been hurt and jealous at the thought that something had been going on between her and Sam, Todd had begged Elizabeth to give him a sign that she was ready to talk . . . and to forgive him.

  As she skimmed the letter, Elizabeth's jaw tightened with anger. She pictured Todd hand-delivering the letter to her house, and then she pictured Jessica intercepting and hiding it as part of a cruel plot to steal Todd for herself.

  Elizabeth grew furious all over again just thinking about it. I felt so guilty—felt so sorry for Jessica! she thought. And for all those horrible, painful weeks when I thought Todd had stopped loving me, Jessica was telling him I was the one who wanted nothing to do with him. We wasted so much time.

  But Elizabeth had discovered Jessica's treachery before it was too late. Since then Elizabeth and Todd had fallen more deeply in love than ever. All's well that ends well, she thought, returning Todd's letter to the drawer. All hadn't ended well between her and Jessica, however; far from it.

  Elizabeth slipped out of her robe and pulled a red V-neck top and black skirt from her closet. As she dressed, she listened to Jessica blow-drying her hair in the bathroom that connected their two bedrooms. For a moment Elizabeth's heart softened; she ached for all that had been lost, for the carefree, innocent days when she and Jessica were constantly in and out of each other's rooms, talking, laughing, bickering, sharing . . . just being sisters.

  Will we ever be close again? Elizabeth wondered. It was hard to imagine, as bitter and estranged as they were now. Despite their personality differences, they'd always been completely in tune with each other. Lately, though, Elizabeth felt as if she were living with a total stranger who just looked like her identical twin. She couldn't begin to guess what Jessica was thinking and feeling.

  Standing in the middle of her bedroom, Elizabeth looked around at her pretty furniture, her books and photographs and posters and stuffed animals. A strange premonition crept over her. Things are going to get much worse before they get better, Elizabeth thought, an unaccountable shiver racing up her spine.

  Jessica unplugged the hair dryer and stuck it into the cabinet under the sink. She brushed out her silky, shoulder-length hair, then shook her head to give her hair a more tousled look. She put on some lip gloss and a little mascara; she smoothed body lotion onto her suntanned arms and legs. Then she returned to her bedroom and began to dress.

  She chose an outfit that was appropriate for the last day of school before Christmas vacation—a short, forest-green knit dress with long sleeves and a scooped neck—but she did it without really thinking. It seemed as if she did everything without thinking these days. I might as well be a robot, Jessica thought morosely as she contemplated her earring collection. I'm just going through the motions. Get up, go to school, go to cheerleading practice, come home, eat dinner, go to bed. Nothing means anything anymore.

  At least she had a date to look forward to today. Her spirits lifted a little as she thought about James, the gorgeous dirt biker she'd fallen madly in love with after he won the Sam Woodruff Memorial Rally . . . Jessica's heart sank again. Sure, it was great going out with someone new—it boosted her ego to have a guy as sexy and intriguing as James paying so much attention to her. But she never would have organized the dirt-bike rally in the first place if Sam hadn't been killed in the tragic car crash the night of the Jungle Prom.

  Tears welled up in Jessica's eyes and then spilled over, streaking her mascara. She opened the top drawer of her dresser and removed the framed photograph she kept hidden under a tangle of socks and underwear. "I miss you so much," she whispered to Sam. "No one can ever take your place—not James, not anybody."

  Lifting the picture to her lips, she kissed it lightly, then returned it to the drawer. Slowly but surely, she was getting over the pain of losing Sam. Organizing the dirt-bike rally had helped her come to terms with his death, and even though sometimes she still missed him so much it hurt, Jessica knew that one day her heart would heal. There was another wound, though, that cut even deeper, one that no one else could see. It tormented Jessica every moment of the day and night, waking or sleeping. Worse even than Sam's death was the terrible secret that stood between her and her sister. Jessica was the only person who k
new the full truth about what had happened on prom night, and the knowledge was destroying her.

  I wanted Elizabeth to make a fool of herself so people would vote for me for Prom Queen instead of her. For about the thousandth time Jessica recited the horrible confession in her mind. I spiked her drink. I started it all. Because of her malicious stunt, Elizabeth and Sam unknowingly got drunk and drove off in the Jeep.

  And I let Liz take the rap for the accident, Jessica thought. If the guy in the other car hadn't come forward at the last minute, she would've been convicted of manslaughter and sent to a juvenile home even though it was all my fault, not hers. I would have let that happen to her. What kind of evil person am I?

  Jessica held back a sob. She wanted so desperately to tell Elizabeth the truth, to come clean, to absolve herself. Yet at the same time, she knew it was a truth that would make it impossible for them ever to be close again. If Elizabeth couldn't even forgive her for stealing Todd's letter . . .

  Jessica crossed her room, preparing to head downstairs to breakfast. Halfway to the door she froze in her tracks, arrested by a sudden eerie sensation. It came and went in a flash, but the message was clear. Trouble—there's more trouble for me and Liz. . . .

  Jessica tossed her hair back, shaking off the melancholy mood. More trouble? She had to laugh. What on earth could be worse than what we've already suffered through?

  Steven Wakefield reached across the kitchen table for the pitcher of milk. "I can't believe I'm up this early," he remarked, stifling a yawn. "After pulling those all-nighters during finals week, I figured I'd sleep till noon every day of vacation!"

  "Maybe you're getting used to living without sleep," Elizabeth suggested as she spread some apricot jam on a piece of toast.

  "Maybe." Steven dug into his cereal. "Or maybe I'll just have to take a nap this afternoon."

  At that moment Jessica entered the kitchen. "Hi, hon," Mrs. Wakefield greeted her daughter.

  "Morning, Jess," said Mr. Wakefield.

  "Hi, everybody," Jessica mumbled, pulling out a chair and sitting down without looking at anyone.

  Steven glanced from Jessica to Elizabeth and back again. Elizabeth didn't even look at her sister; Jessica, meanwhile, drained a glass of orange juice and started in on her cereal without another word. I thought they'd be over this, Steven reflected. I thought I'd come home for Christmas vacation and everything would be back to normal around here. So much for that fantasy!

  At least his parents seemed to be in a cheerful mood. "It's been ages since we last went up to San Francisco, Ned," Alice Wakefield mused as she stirred milk into her tea. "I really can't wait! While you're in meetings, I can ride the cable cars and shop and maybe take in a museum or two."

  "So it's all work and no play for me, eh?" Mr. Wakefield joked.

  Mrs. Wakefield smiled, the dimple in her left cheek making her look more like the twins' older sister than their mother. "We can do some fun things in the evening, too," she promised her husband. "Go to the theater, the symphony . . ."

  "What's this about San Francisco?" Steven interjected. "What meetings?"

  "Don't you remember, Steven?" asked Mrs. Wakefield. Her blue-green eyes sparkled. "It's so thrilling! A major environmental-engineering firm is paying for both of us to fly to San Francisco a few days after Christmas. They're putting us up in the most elegant hotel in the city."

  "Is this about that legal-consulting job you mentioned last time I was home, Dad?" Steven asked.

  "To tell you the truth, I don't know for sure what it's about," Mr. Wakefield confessed. "I'm assuming it has something to do with the big antitrust suit they're involved in, but they haven't given many specifics. The letter I got included a complete itinerary, two plane tickets, and a hotel-confirmation number." He laughed. "They're sweeping me right off my feet. Usually there's more of a courtship involved—phone calls back and forth, negotiations over fees, that sort of thing." His brow furrowed. "It does seem a little odd, doesn't it? I've never even spoken with Michelle de Voice, my contact at Kotkin, Greiner, and Burns."

  Mrs. Wakefield waved this consideration aside. "There was no need to. She'd already arranged every last detail, right down to a limo to meet us at the airport. All we have to do is get our bodies on the plane!"

  "I think it's a tribute to your legal reputation that the company's inviting you up with no preliminary dancing around, Dad," Steven commented. "Obviously they know you're the man for the job. Consulting projects are always kind of secretive, aren't they?"

  "It'll be fun," Mrs. Wakefield declared. "San Francisco is one of my all-time favorite cities. The Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman's Wharf, the cable cars, Chinatown . . ."

  Mr. Wakefield grinned. "You're right. It has all the ingredients of an unforgettable trip. It's almost too good to be true!"

  "Which reminds me," said Mrs. Wakefield, turning to Steven. "The girls don't need a baby-sitter, but we'd feel better if we knew you'd be home with them. You're planning on hanging around Sweet Valley this vacation, aren't you?"

  Steven nodded. "You can count on me." He grinned at his sisters. "Just warning you, I run a tight ship. I expect to be able to bounce a quarter off your beds, and no male visitors without a chaperon present."

  Elizabeth cracked a weak smile. Jessica shrugged. Steven sighed. He was happy for his parents, but it didn't look as if being home alone with the twins was going to be a barrel of laughs. For the entire meal Jessica and Elizabeth had been sitting right across from one another, pointedly ignoring each other. And the worst thing, Steven thought, is that the rest of us are starting to get used to it.

  What happened to the old Liz and Jess? he wondered. The twins had been through a lot. . . . Had it changed their personalities forever?

  Chapter 2

  "I hate this Secret Santa candy-cane thing," Lila Fowler grumbled to Jessica and Amy Sutton as they found seats in the Sweet Valley High auditorium before the start of morning assembly. "How did such a dumb tradition get started, anyway? Every year I always get candy canes from total dorks."

  "Maybe the dorks figure you'll be in the Christmas spirit and give them a chance," Amy reasoned.

  "Dorks are dorks no matter what the season," Lila declared with a disdainful toss of her long, glossy brown hair. "Anyhow, it takes more than a cheap piece of candy to get my attention."

  "I think it's a fun tradition," said Amy. "The way elves deliver the candy canes in the middle of class and stuff—it's a great way to make sure we don't get any work done the day before vacation."

  "Look at it this way, Li," Jessica suggested, slouching down in her seat. "All the proceeds from selling the candy canes go to the children's hospital, right? Being the object of so much unrequited adoration makes you a major-league philanthropist. They'll probably name a wing at the hospital after you."

  Amy laughed. "Except the whole hospital's called Fowler Memorial already!"

  Lila patted her mouth in a ladylike yawn. "Here comes ol' Chrome Dome. Wake me up when he's through talking."

  The yawn was contagious. Jessica felt her eyelids drooping as Mr. Cooper, the bald principal of Sweet Valley High, reminded the students that even though there would be parties in most classes that day, they were expected to behave themselves as usual and not get too noisy. Then Ms. Dalton chatted for a minute or two about the next French Club outing. Just as Jessica started to nod off for real, she heard her sister's voice echo through the auditorium. She tensed, straightening in her chair.

  "We all know The Oracle's the best high-school newspaper in Southern California," Elizabeth was saying cheerfully. "No, make that in the whole country!"

  There was scattered applause from the audience. "With great columns like 'Personal Profiles'" —this remark was greeted with whistles and laughter—"you're probably wondering how we could make the paper better than it already is. Well," Elizabeth continued, "there's always room for innovation, and we know there's lots of untapped talent out there. So to kick off the new year, right after vacation the Oracle staff is holding a special meeting for people who think they might have an idea for a column or a cartoon strip or a feature article. Come bounce your ideas off us—you might end up on the front page!"