Jill Hathaway - Imposter

For J, S, and F—

the men in my life

CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE

DEDICATION

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ALSO BY JILL HATHAWAY

COPYRIGHT

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

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.