DEAD RINGER

DEAD RINGER

“Kara! Kara! Wait up!” The shouting was accompanied by panting. “Oh my gosh, I can't believe it’s you. Kara wait up.”

 She heard the voice behind her as she ran down the beach feeling the sand between her bare toes, the sun beating down upon her. She kept running.

“Kara,” he cried again and she felt the tug as he grasped her arm and then aggressively swung her around to face him.

“What are you doing,” she cried, pulling away from him violently. “Let go. I haven’t any money on me and I'm not wearing any jewelry.”

He reached out  a hand to grab her again and she stepped back, “I’ll scream.”

She looked up, way up, and met his eyes, gorgeous eyes, blue eyes deeper than a summer sky. The eyes suddenly looked confused. “Kara, it's me, Luke.”

“I don't know any Luke,” she claimed. “ Just leave me alone.”

His hand reached out.

“I swear I’ll scream.”

“Kara! No! It's okay.” He raised his hands palms out in that age-old sign of surrender.

“Don’t you recognize me, Kara? It's me, Luke,  Luke Larson, your brother-in-law.”

“My name is not Kara.”

He took a step back. “That’s impossible, you  are the spitting image of my sister-in-law.” He searched her face, and then his eyes traveled lower, taking in her lean body clad only in a floral bikini top and a pair of cutoff jean shorts. On her head was a baseball cap and sunglasses covered her eyes.

“You even sound the same.”

“Look I don't know you, my name is not Kara, it’s Hannah, and you're not my brother-in-law. Can’t you get that through your thick skull,” she paused. “I don't mean to be rude but you’re freaking me out a little.”

“I’m freaking you out? You’re freaking me out. I’d swear  on anything that you’re my sister-in-law.”

“Swear away.”  She looked around, the beach was fairly crowded for late morning. Surely someone would come to assist her if this tall man looked like he would cause trouble. “Look I can be reasonable if you can.  You’ve obviously made a mistake. I’m probably just her… what do they call it… her doppelganger. They say everyone has someone, somewhere in the world, who looks just like them. This is obviously a case of mistaken identity. I never actually encountered one of these scenarios outside of the movies or a novel but… she broke off. “This is a little intriguing and this has definitely piqued my curiosity.  Call me crazy but tell me about this sister-in-law Karla.”

“It’s Kara,” he began, just as a couple of young children ran between them followed by a pair of harassed parents.

“Do you mind if we walk along the beach a little? This area is a little crowded. I think we are becoming a little bit of a roadblock.”

 She looked dubious.

“I promise to keep you in plain sight of the people on the beach. Just out of the way of all the rugrats. You will be perfectly safe.” 

“OK,” she said reluctantly.

They started walking slowly along the water's edge and he started to tell her his story.

“My name is Luke, Luke Larson, Kara is… was my sister-in-law. She was beautiful, she had the same height and the same build as you. Golden blond hair, and distinctive violet eyes, she was tanned and fit, and she loved to run. It was one of her passions. She also looked exactly like you, a dead ringer.”

Kara stopped and removed her cap allowing her red-gold hair to spill down her back, curls cascading, she shook her head.

“Well that's different,” he admitted reluctantly. Kara was not a strawberry blond.”

“Strawberry blond,” said the woman. “ Well, that is generous of you. I've always hated my red hair. As a child, I was always called Red, Carrots, or Anne of Green Gables.”

“You're kidding, your hair is gorgeous.”

“Anyway, about this Kara?” she asked.

“She had violet eyes, I‘ve never seen eyes like hers before, except that old famous movie actress,” he snapped his fingers. “ Elizabeth Taylor. “Yeah, she had eyes like Elizabeth Tayler.”

She took a step forward, looked him straight in the eye, and slowly pulled off her sunglasses revealing eyes green as the grass of Ireland.

“As I was saying you are a dead ringer, except you

are not a blue-eyed blond. My mistake, I’m sorry for bothering you. I’ll leave you alone now Miss.”

“ It’s Hannah, and I think you owe me a better 

explanation than that.”

“You’re right. I do.  Let's go sit on the wall over there,” he pointed to a stone retaining wall that separated the beach from the narrow roadway just in front of a bunch of hotels and shops that overlooked the water.

Once seated she turned to Luke, “So I look a lot like your sister-in-law Kara, What's your problem with her?”

“What do you mean?

“When you confronted me earlier and grabbed me, you seemed very, very angry. I mean if looks could kill.”

“Look, it's a private matter.

“It didn't seem so private when you swung me around and almost knocked me to the ground.”

“I said I was sorry about that.” he paused and then sighed heavily. “Ok, maybe you do deserve all the gory details.”

“At the very least. Like I said you obviously have a problem with me,” she made quotation marks with her fingers ‘the dead ringer’ and the look on your face was nothing short of murderous.”

“Well, that’s just the thing. My family always felt that Kara had some part in my brother's death.”

“I’m sorry,” she gasped, her face turning pale, “What happened?”

He sighed again ‘In for a penny, in for a pound’ as they say. He adjusted his position on the wall, getting comfortable for a long story.

“ My brother was always a charmer, tall, dark, and handsome as they used to say. He had an easy smile. He was the baby of the family and Markie was spoiled rotten. Whatever Markie wanted, Markie got. He was eight years younger than me. My Mum had three or four miscarriages so Markie was the rainbow baby, the miracle baby, the fair-haired child. Everything came easy for him: women, jobs, money.  Everyone doted on him. When our Grandparents died they left almost everything to Mark. He had spent his last summer before university, looking after them at their palatial home in the lake district. Charming them,  ingratiating himself.”

“You don’t think he was sincere. That he actually wanted to help them,” she asked.

“Personally, I always felt he just didn't want to spend his last summer before university, labouring in my Dad’s construction company, especially since I was going to be his foreman. We weren’t exactly close as brothers go, but I never realized how much I missed him till he was murdered.

“Murdered,” she gasped.” I never realized…”

“No, how could you know?”

“Tell me about this … Kara.”

“He met her at university, Kara St.Clair was her name. He fell in love with her, they had a whirlwind courtship and he married her right after graduation. He got a job in the financial field. He liked expensive cars, expensive houses, and expensive women.”

“This Kara was an expensive woman.”

“Definitely, she wanted it all. Jewelry, gowns, exotic holidays. A match made in heaven eh? She was beautiful and smart, but sly, and we always felt that she was going into the relationship with an agenda. She always wanted more.” he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together.

“Mark was no better, always looking for a … get rich scheme;  which I’m sure she encouraged him to get involved with. Well, he got involved with the wrong people, a bunch of ‘wheelers and dealers’ according to our Dad. Mark got involved with some nefarious scheme with a group of people from South America.”

“Drugs?”

“ No, some kind of investment. Big money involved, big, big money. I don’t really understand high finances, all I ever wanted to do was build. When I was little it was Lego, when I grew up it was houses and condos. I have no head for numbers. But Mark was a genius when it came to numbers and how to make a fast buck, but when it came to people skills and hooking up with the right people …  well that's where Mark was lacking.”

“So what happened to Mark?”

“ One day he called our parents and told them that he and Kara were going away for a long extended holiday on their boat. The police think they were taking off with the money that Mark somehow swindled or stole or … who really knows.  The police think that maybe the group in South America had something to do with the boat blowing up. They found Mark's body but they didn’t find Kara’s. To this day we have never been really sure if she's alive or if she is dead like my brother. The boat cleared the harbour, then … Boom.”

“That’s such a tragic story,”  she commiserated, her hand over her heart.

“ As I said, they found Mark’s body but never found Kara. There was a small dinghy on the boat that was also unaccounted for; whether it burnt up in the explosion, sunk in the water… Well,  that is something that the police were never able to determine.

 “The police thought that Mark had absconded with a ton of money. That never showed up either. Burnt, sunk, stolen by pirates, stolen by thieving seagulls, only God really knows where the money went.”

“ Nothing was ever heard from Kara. When I saw you running on the beach I felt that I had finally solved the mystery that always surrounded the accident.  You are right, I was angry. I saw you, who I thought was Kara, running free and easy while Mark lies in a cold grave. I saw Kara, holidaying on a gorgeous beach while the family agonized over what happened to her.   I didn’t care about what happened to the money. It was blood money, dirty money, owned by bad people. All I know is that I lost my brother.”

She stood up from the stone wall.” I'm sorry, really sorry. Thanks for sharing with me. They say that time heals all wounds. Once again I'm sorry for your loss. I have to go now. But I’m sorry you didn't find the person you are looking for. Kara.”

Luke watched as she crossed the road and headed down the sidewalk only to become lost in a sea of tourists.

He stayed seated for a long time, watching her till she was out of sight, wondering if he should follow her. Shadows changed position in the sand and yet he still sat, his mind as tumultuous as the sea could sometimes be.

 She walked away without turning back, moments later she joined the throng of people that cluttered the beach area. They stopped in the little seaside shops and filled their bags with their souvenirs, sunhats, sunglasses, beach umbrellas, and other touristy paraphernalia. With a sense of purpose, she wove in between them, on a mission to reach her designation.

She entered her hotel and quickly made her way up to her room. Dropping her sunglasses and baseball cap on the bed she pulled a heavy locked suitcase from under the bed. Turning towards the vanity mirror she studied her reflection carefully, then raised her hands to her head and gently pulled off her red gold wig revealing her golden blond hair tucked tightly underneath. She reached for the small case in front of her and gently took out her contacts revealing her signature violet blue eyes.