Page 5 of Quake
“Love you too,Dad. So sorry I’m such a fucking disappointment to the Carmichael legacy.”
3
Juliette
Iwasn’tsure where my story began.
At the start of it all, I was born a full two minutes after my twin sister. I grew up in her shadow, but then she was brutally murdered in her own bed at the age of twenty-three.
Every time I looked in the mirror, I was haunted by my past. We weren’t identical—the egg hadn’t split or anything—but we were so similar, people often confused us at first. Melanie was the star, the athlete, the pro surfer with a shelf packed full of trophies.
Me? Well, I was the one with a shelf full of books and an aversion to all forms of exercise, including swimming, running, going to the gym…let’s just say I was allergic to anything sport related that made me crack a sweat.
Then Mel died, and it became national news. It was on the five p.m.? bulletin, the lunchtime headlines, and the nighttime ones, too. It was in the local and the national newspapers before being syndicated for worldwide distribution for over a month. Then it was onSixty Minutesand was given the full investigative journalistic approach.Who killed Melanie?????
The world asked the question for months and months, and every year, on the anniversary of her death, they asked it again.
Who killed Melanie?
No one knew.
For five years, I merely went through the motions, the constant reminder of what had been taken from me wearing down my soul until all I could feel was pain. I numbed myself the best I could, but it still didn’t work. I forgot about the things I wanted to accomplish, letting my dreams of a career in publishing slide and my friendships dissolve into ash.
My parents became shells of their former selves, devoting all their time to finding out what had happened. It became an obsession for them, but for me…
I wanted to escape.
Everything around me reminded me of my dead sister, so there was only one thing I could do. Move away. Start fresh. Change everything in hopes of finding a future that didn’t include the legacy of one of the most horrific murders in Australian history.
So that was exactly what I did.
I had a new hairstyle, a new job, a new city, and a new name. It was like I was wearing a superhero mask, and all my past problems had melted away until they were a blip in my rearview mirror. I had the chance to reinvent myself and become who I’d always wanted to be. I was more than the twin sister of that murdered girl.
Nothing could hold me back now…
Except for one thing.
Me.
* * *
The dripping tap woke me.
A cool drop of water hit my nose, then trickled over my lip, sending a shiver down my spine.
Moving, I winced as my neck began to ache something fierce. I’d fallen asleep in the bath at an odd angle, and my hair and top were all damp. Coughing, I retrieved the knife from my lap, thankful I hadn’t sliced myself open during the night.
Scrambling out of the tub, I bashed my elbow against the sliding screen door and cursed, my eyes still feeling gritty with sleep. Moving through the bedroom, I kicked off my shoes, then tentatively began inspecting the locks I’d hammered into place the night before.
Standing in the middle of my tiny living room, I listened to the sounds of the city waking up, my body trembling. Nothing had been disturbed. The table was still where I’d left it in front of the back door, the locks were still engaged, and the windows were closed—there’d been no need for me to hide in the bathroom with a knife, paralyzed by fear.
With a sigh, I slid the knife back into the block and padded back into the bathroom. Reaching into the shower, I turned the hot tap on as far as it would go and began stripping out of my damp clothes. Catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I hesitated, staring at my reflection and not even recognizing the woman who stared back. Blonde hair and blue eyes peered at me, but I knew it was an illusion created by the fear in my own mind.
The ghost of my dead sister haunted me.
For five years, she’d followed me around, her face splattered with blood, her eyes empty and lifeless as they stared back at me…except they were mine, not hers. It didn’t matter where I was, looking into my bathroom mirror in my dreams or even reflected back at me in the windows of a shop, she was always there, cut up, bloody, and completely lifeless.
She was gone, and I was left behind. I’d moved to the other end of the country, but I couldn’t escape it. The fear had followed me here, just as it would everywhere I went. I would run again, and it would snap at my heels like a rabid dog. I would huddle in the bathtub again, swiping helplessly at an invisible intruder with a blunt carving knife.
