Kate shifted closer to Tyler as she felt his hand running through her hair. "Mm ..." she moaned and took in a deep breath. "Are you up?" she asked with her eyes closed.
"Sorry to wake you."
"It's all right. I was half awake anyway."
She couldn't sleep. Her brain kept processing everything that had happened, and she couldn't think about anything but her new doppelganger.
She scooted closer to Tyler, listening to his steady heartbeat, allowing it to wind down her overactive mind. Then, realization hit her.
There was another possibility.
Kate hadn't been able to reach Lydia since they had gone up to the cabin. It was only over a weekend. But no matter how busy Lydia was, unless they were in one of their cold wars, she would at least reply to Kate with a text.
Maybe it had something to do with Detective Cooper.
Then again, their visit had happened so long ago, and they had nothing to go on. Why would anyone tell them to back off now?
As her mind churned through the possibilities, her concern for Lydia grew. And as that concern grew, she couldn't stay in bed.
She got up and picked up the phone.
"What's wrong?" Tyler asked.
"I need to check something with Lydia."
It was still way too early to call someone, but she dialed Lydia's phone repeatedly, determined to speak to her even if she had to spend the entire day doing nothing but hit the redial button.
When Lydia's drowsy voice answered the call, Kate shouted into the phone, "Don't you know you're supposed to call a person back when there's a missed call? What's wrong with you? Where have you disappeared to?"
"Sorry, I was busy," Lydia said after a moment.
"Busy? So busy that you can't take one minute of your life to send me a text?"
"Sorry."
Kate sighed, crawling back into bed. After venting the pent-up anxiety, she relaxed and told her sister everything that had happened the night before.
Then she questioned Lydia, asking her if she'd received any threats and if she'd been back to Detective Cooper's house.
Lydia assured Kate that neither had happened.
"I guess she didn't get any threats," Tyler said when she put the phone down.
"Nope."
He narrowed his eyes and continued. "Why do you look like you don't believe her?"
Kate gave him a wry smile as her head bobbed up and down. "Lydia's stubborn. You don't know how many times she got into a row with my grandparents in hope of digging out more information regarding my parents' deaths. She's never stopped asking. And now with the detective being the only lead, I'm afraid she wouldn't let it go so easily."
"Then why didn't she just tell you?"
"Because she knows I'll try to stop her, and she doesn't like to entertain people who don't hold the same view as she does."
"But the visit was some time back."
"I know. It doesn't make sense. Besides, he's an old man in a wheelchair. I don't think he'd get himself here just to throw a rock through my window."
"But?"
"The last time I spoke to Lydia, she told me she was concentrating on a cold case project and that was all. Now, she suddenly has so many reports to complete. I haven't seen her in weeks, so she could've gone back to the house a few more times or found something else. I don't know. It doesn't seem like her to let it go so simply. Like how Joanne doesn't seem the kind to throw rocks into someone's house in the middle of the night."
"Dan said the police went over to his parents' house, and Joanne was at home. His parents also vouched that she was there the whole night."
"You know what? This could be a stupid prank by some neighbor's kid. We're reading too much into it. I'm going to change and get to work."
Since Kate hadn't been staying at her own house, there wasn't anything for Marianne to cook. But even as she headed down the stairs, she could smell food. "Where did you get that?" she asked.
"Mr. Sawyer went out to get it this morning."
She pulled out a chair and slumped onto it before leaning forward on the table.
It was a four-seater table, nothing like the long oval dining table back at the mansion. It felt weird to be seated so snugly when there were so few people.
"I think you should apply for a restraining order, just in case," Mr. Sawyer said as she began eating. "I can't guarantee that we can get it. But she did hurt you once, and with her behavior last night, it should convince a judge to give you one."
"Yes, you should," Marianne said. "For your own protection."
She turned to Tyler, thinking he'd jump on the bandwagon while he had his supporters. Instead, he shrugged and waited for her reaction.
"Aren't you going to ask me to get a restraining order?"
"It's just a piece of paper; it doesn't provide much protection."
"And it seems too extreme, doesn't it? She's Dan's sister. She didn't threaten or try to hurt me. She was only focused on you."
"Then forget about that," Tyler said.
Kate saw Marianne's eyes widening even as her own eyes narrowed.
"But let me drive you to and from work. You tell either Evelyn or me where you're going and always take someone with you wherever you go, preferably Evelyn or me."
Kate laughed and shook her head. "That was why you agreed with me on the restraining order issue, so you can make me compromise on this."
"You have a choice; you can say no."
"Really?" she asked, scrutinizing his face. Tyler had been patient with her. The least she could do was to agree with him and ease his mind. "Yeah, I can do that."
Evelyn arrived just as their conversation about Joanne came to an end. After stealing a donut and catching up on what had happened, Evelyn and Kate went to work.
The moment they stepped into the office, they knew something was wrong. There was an extremely tense atmosphere, and everyone seemed afraid to make any movement.
Kate scanned the room, and her fingers reached for her necklace as she saw Joanne sitting at her temporary desk, still dressed like a replica of herself.
"Joanne, I fired you last night. What are you doing here? Get out."
Kate sighed. She'd thought that since Joanne was Dan's sister, Evelyn would at least be civil.
"You said I'll win if I can stick it out until the team's out of probation, so I'm sticking it out."
"No, you're not. This brainless stunt of yours struck you out. Get out of the office or I'll call security."
"What are you trying to do, Joanne?" Kate said, stepping forward. "You think that by dressing up like me, by sticking with this deal between you and Evelyn, you would make a difference in things between you and Ty? Even if he does accept you, it's only because you're my substitute—which makes no sense because he already has me. And do you want to live the rest of your life pretending to be someone else? So what if you aren't a spoiled brat? It appears to me that you don't need to prove that to anyone but yourself."
"No. When Ty sees that I'm not a spoiled brat, he'll see me differently."
Kate shook her head slowly as she licked her lips. Being polite and sensitive to Joanne wasn't getting them anywhere. "Joanne, he won't care. The only thing he cares about is making sure you don't hurt me. That's the only situation when he'll even think about you."
She saw Joanne opening her mouth to speak, so she quickly continued. "When someone threw a rock through my window, he thought it was you and was hell-bent on calling the cops. He didn't care what would happen to you."
"You're lying!"
"Ask Dan, ask Marianne. They know what happened. All he cares about is me. No matter what you do, no matter how you look, you can't replace me. We're getting married, Joanne. You need to move on. Doing this just makes you look crazy."
A tear rolled down Joanne's cheek. "No! No! No! Ty's mine! You already called the cops on me last night. You can do it again. I don't care!"
Exasperated, Kate turned away from Joanne and took a deep breath.
Trying to talk sense into Joanne was impossible. Why did she even bother to try?
Looking at Evelyn, Kate gave the go ahead.
Nothing was going to enter Joanne's ears, not now. Maybe not ever.
"Insane lass." Evelyn grabbed Joanne's arm and started their tug-of-war toward the office door. "Call security!" Evelyn hollered to no one in particular, but the staff all did as they were told until one of them shouted that she had security on the line.
Kate couldn't stand watching the debacle.
She went into her office and plumped herself onto her chair. She buried her face in her hands, frustrated that things ended up in such a mess.
She'd believed that if she spoke to Joanne calmly, she could make Joanne understand that her actions weren't going to yield any of her desired results.
"Are you all right?" Evelyn asked as she came into the office.
"Please tell me you didn't kill her."
"I didn't. I dumped her outside and locked our doors. I think we should get Tyler to install a security system in the office." Evelyn waited for Kate to reply. But she didn't, so Evelyn took Kate's silence as consent. "I'll call him."
"The two of you are like a wrestling tag team."
"You should be glad that your two favorite people in the world get along well."
Kate laughed dryly, waving Evelyn away to do whatever she wanted.
She was determined to forget about everything and focus on work. She went through all the designs, discussed the changes to be made with the teams, and went through the new projects that were in line. When she was done, she began working on a few designs for the mansion's attic.
"Am I disturbing you?"
Kate looked up and broke into a smile. Without thinking, she went toward Tyler and buried her face in his chest. "She was here and it went horribly."
"I know. Let me take you out for lunch. Then we'll come back to check on the security system."
She glanced up at him, then out to the main office, seeing a group of people working on various areas of the office. "You're fast."
"Only for you."
She smiled at that. "Yeah, that sounds good."
"If we have time after lunch, we'll go over to your house and see if the window has been fixed. Dan will be there, but we should still check on it."
"I completely forgot about my window. You got Dan to fix it?"
Tyler grinned. "I didn't ask, he offered. He says he knows someone who can fix it today, and he volunteered to be there so I can be free to watch over my precious."
She laughed at that. "You don't have to watch over me."
"So, where do you want to go?"
"We'll go over with Evelyn to meet Dan, then we'll all go for lunch together."
By the time they got to the house, the window was fixed, and Dan returned the keys that Tyler had handed him that morning. "All done!"
"Thanks, Dan. You didn't have to do this," she said.
"Oh well, like Ryan says, you're like the new, likable sister in the group. That's what family does."
She chuckled. "Thanks anyway."
At lunch, she showed them the designs she'd worked on and asked which design Tyler preferred.
Dan groaned at the idea of turning the attic into a study. "How about a games room? Get a pool table."
Tyler grinned but told Kate that he loved her library idea.
"So you're staying at the mansion after you guys get married?" Evelyn asked.
She turned to Tyler. "The house is great when everyone's around. It's big enough to accommodate everyone, and it doesn't seem creepy when it's filled with all of us."
"So it's a yes?" Tyler asked with a growing grin.
"And that means we, including Joseph and Ryan, will be free to go to the mansion whenever we want, right?" Dan checked.
"Yes, to both questions," she answered. "But only if Ty agrees as well."
"I never agreed to them showing up at my apartment, but they still do. So I doubt they'll care. You'll have to fire Marianne to solve the problem."
"Over my dead body," she said.
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