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Imposter
Jill Hathaway
Be afraid of your shadow…Vee Bell has witnessed murder. She nearly died trying to track down the killer, all because of her secret condition. When she passes out, she slips into the body of someone else. She’s dying for someone to tell, but no one seems to be interested.All of a sudden life is happening in reverse: Vee is waking up in weird places not knowing what she’s done. The only thing she’s sure of is that someone is messing with her. And when a prank goes horribly wrong, this time the hands with blood on them might be hers.Imposter is the super-slick killer thriller and sequel to Slide.
For J, S, and F—
the men in my life
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE (#ulink_608d1aa6-236f-5cec-9040-a507afe645f6)
DEDICATION
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_95df002d-3cce-54ae-9014-503a48f3f763)
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_6298b5ea-5881-57df-89a5-330f707e1c77)
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_75bafef4-47ed-5501-989e-923ac35a402b)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_555c3120-0107-5a40-ac0d-8483a64d0ceb)
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_bda76fdc-e157-5f1c-adc7-6a52678ec668)
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_cd887b25-a308-5236-bb7b-34eb44417455)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_01ecf5d9-ef0b-5009-9c9c-e7852a4c465b)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_e26c7aeb-4980-5687-8b99-e9a8d311a5bb)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (#litres_trial_promo)
ALSO BY JILL HATHAWAY (#litres_trial_promo)
COPYRIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
(#ulink_c870eb7b-4cb0-5f17-96e2-8ef1f4c6870a)
he dream always goes like this:
I’m in the passenger seat of a car, racing down the interstate. The smell of gasoline stings my nostrils. My lips are moving, and sound is coming out, but my words don’t make any sense.
And I know what’s going to happen, but there’s nothing I can do about it.
The woman with white hair and death eyes is behind the wheel. She won’t stop laughing. When I try to tell her to stop the car, that she’s going to kill us all, my words are all backward and inside out and she just laughs and laughs. She turns her face toward me, and there are worms and spiders wriggling out of her mouth. I’m so distracted that I almost forget—
We’re going to die.
There’s a grinding noise, and we both look out the windshield at the same time. The road curves to the left, but we go straight, flying off the road, the headlights illuminating stalks of corn.
The tree comes out of nowhere.
The screams make my ears throb, but I can’t cover them with my hands because they’re holding the plastic container of gasoline.
An explosion of light and heat.
And then we are no more.
My limbs go rigid as I find myself awake. My mouth is open, but I’m unsure whether the screams stayed in the dream or followed me into my darkened bedroom. When the door pushes open and my sister, Mattie, pads inside, I know that I must have awakened her. My father, a pediatric surgeon with a huge surgery slated for tomorrow, must have his earplugs in. At least I didn’t wake him.
Mattie lifts the covers, and I scoot over to make room for her. “Was it the dream again?” she whispers, and I turn to look at the ceiling. Mattie knows I dream of Zane’s death, but she doesn’t know that in the dream it’s me dying. That I was actually with him when his psychotic mother crashed the car, killing them both instantly. That I was . . . inside him.
There is no technical term for what I am, what I can do. At least not that I know of. The moment Zane died, I was in his mind the way I’ve slid into the minds of so many others when I’ve touched something they’ve left an emotional imprint on. That night, I was purposely trying to get into Zane’s head to locate my missing sister, so I tapped into him using one of his beloved Fitzgerald novels. People can leave bits of themselves on all sorts of things—jewelry, clothing, furniture, money. It all depends on what they’re touching when they feel a surge of emotion.
I wasn’t always able to slide. In fact, I was pretty normal until I turned twelve. That’s when I started to slide. In one particularly upsetting episode, I was taking advantage of the fact that Billy Morgan was out of the classroom and hiding his Cubs pencil case behind the teacher’s desk, and the next I found myself using a urinal in the boys’ bathroom. It was pretty traumatic. Since then, I slide into others whenever I touch something with a strong emotional imprint. Sometimes I can stave it off by munching caffeine pills, trying to stay alert and focused, but most of the time I have no control. Only over the past year have I learned how to manage my power. There are still times, however, when I’m exhausted or distracted—and I just can’t help it.
But Mattie doesn’t know all this. All she knows is that my first love was killed in a horrific car accident six months ago and he keeps haunting my dreams. She reaches her arm across me and squeezes. She gets how dreams can seep out of your head into reality. She lost her two best friends around the same time that Zane died—one to murder and one to suicide. I imagine her dreams are as bloody as mine.
“It’s only three thirty,” I say, after peeking at my alarm clock. “Let’s just go back to sleep.”
Mattie nods, her eyelids already drooping. I watch her drift off, and then I roll over and stare out the window. Sometimes I can see my mother’s face in the shine of the moon, but not tonight. The clouds are too thick.
The smell of bacon pulls me from my restless sleep. My father must have gotten up extra early to make us breakfast before he leaves for the hospital. I glance at the alarm clock. Not even six yet. Mattie’s mouth is wide open, and she lets out these sporadic snores that sound like a little dog yipping. I roll out of bed without disturbing her and turn off my alarm clock.
Downstairs, my father stands at the kitchen counter with his back to me. His dark hair lifts in adorable little spikes. Though I know full well he’s made Denver omelets enough times to be able to recite the process backward and forward, he traces his finger gently over an orange cookbook lying open before him.
It was my mother’s.
I retreat into the front hallway and approach the kitchen again, shuffling my feet loudly so he can hear me coming. When I enter, I see that he’s closed the cookbook and returned it to its home between the extra virgin olive oil and canisters of exotic spices.
“Good morning,” he booms. “How did you sleep, Vee?”
I could tell him about my nightmare-riddled sleep, but I don’t want to worry him before he goes in for a big surgery. He needs his mind clear when he works on the babies. He has to be able to forget about everything, including his girls at home.
“Fine,” I say, plucking a piece of bacon that’s been cooling on a paper towel and popping it into my mouth. The crispy meat melts into salty deliciousness against my tongue. “Yum.” I grab another piece.
“Is Mattie awake yet?” he asks.
“Uh, no,” I say. “I’ll go get her.”
Upstairs in my bedroom, I stand for a moment, hesitating. Mattie could get another half hour of sleep if I leave her alone. From the dark circles that are permanently under her eyes, I know she’s been as sleepless as I have. Still, I’m sure she’ll want to see Dad before he leaves for work. I bend down and squeeze her shoulder.
“Mattie,” I say gently. “Breakfast. Dad made bacon.”
She doesn’t move.
I put my hand on her leg and shake. “Mattie!”
“What? What’s wrong?” She bolts upright, staring at me with wide eyes. I wonder if she was dreaming of Sophie, lying motionless in a puddle of blood on her bed. Or Amber, sprawled on the football field with a hole in her head. Mattie’s had horrifying luck with best friends lately. I don’t blame her for being jumpy.
“Nothing, Mattie.” I tousle her hair. “Breakfast.”
Mattie is still shaking when we sit down at the table. My father has set out three placemats, three plates, three glasses. It’s been a long time since there were four of us. It hardly even hurts anymore to look at the chair by the window, the one where she used to sit.
Under the table, I pull a tattered picture out of my pocket. My mother is young in the picture, smiling broadly at the camera, under the shadow of a sombrero. She and my father were on their honeymoon in Mexico when the picture was taken.
With my blond hair and blue eyes, everyone who knew her says I’m the spitting image of my mother. I push the photograph back into my pocket. I know it’s dumb to carry it around, but ever since the horror of last fall, it makes me feel like she’s with me. A little.
“So what are you doing today, Dad?” Mattie asks, grabbing a piece of toast and smearing some butter on it. I spear a forkful of eggs and lift them to my mouth.
“It’s a case of polydactyly,” he says. At our blank expressions, he goes on to explain, “The girl was born with an extra digit on her right hand. Today I’m going to remove it.”
I put down my fork.
“I tried to explain to the parents that it would be best to wait until she’s a little older,” he says. “But they aren’t comfortable living with the deformity. I can’t say I blame them, exactly. People can be cruel. . . .”
“The parents are willing to risk surgery just to get rid of an extra finger?” Mattie asks, voicing my own question. It seems wrong to cut a baby just to make her fit into a mold that society is more comfortable with. They’re uneasy with her appearance, so they’ll make her fit in. I wonder what would have happened if I’d been diagnosed with my sliding condition in the womb. Would my parents have thought I was a freak? If there were an operation to make me normal, would they have requested it? I suspect my mom wouldn’t have because I think she was able to slide, too. She regularly suffered fainting spells. I bet, just like me, she found herself sucked into other people’s heads, other people’s lives. Too bad she died before I was ever able to ask her. Now I’ll never know. Whenever I try to broach the subject with my father, he starts talking about something else.
My father doesn’t believe that I can slide. I tried to tell him when it started happening, but he sent me to a shrink who said I was just trying to get attention after my mother died. I’ve tried hard to forgive him for that, for thinking I was lying, for pushing me away when I needed him the most. But sometimes the anger creeps up inside me and I just have to get away from him.
“The parents want to take care of the problem before she’s old enough to remember it,” my father explains.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I say, pushing my chair back from the table. My father and sister watch me grab my plate and glass, which I rinse off and put into the dishwasher before trudging upstairs. My sleepless night has started to weigh on me, and I wish I could just crawl back into bed.
Rollins, my best friend, will be here in a half hour, and that lifts my spirits a bit. He always knows what to say to cheer me up.
“You look like hell,” Rollins says when I open the door of his old Nissan and slide in. He hands me a Styrofoam cup of coffee. “Decaf,” he says. “Just like you asked. I don’t know how you drink that shit.”
After taking a sip of the steaming liquid, I lift my middle finger. “Excuse me if I haven’t been sleeping well. I thought cutting the caffeine might help.”
His face goes serious. “The dreams again.”
Unlike Mattie, Rollins knows what really happens in my dreams. That I’m reliving the moment of Zane’s death. He knows what torture it is for me.
“Yup,” I say, taking another sip. “In full Technicolor.”
“Ugh, Vee. I’m sorry.”
At that moment, the back door swings open and Mattie throws herself inside. The whole car fills up with her too-sweet perfume, and I start to gag. “Jesus, Mattie. Did you empty the bottle?”
“Hey,” she snaps. “Someone hogged the shower, so I didn’t get a chance to wash my hair this morning. Do you have any idea who that might have been?”
I give her a sheepish look. I kind of fell asleep a little between washing my hair and putting in the conditioner. Mattie woke me up by pounding on the door and shrieking that she was going to pee her pants if I didn’t open up right away. The only way I was able to appease her was by letting her borrow my black scoop-neck sweater.
