the Third Twin (1996)

The question threw him. “Well, uh … for one thing, I’d sure like to know more about your research.”

“Oh. Well, unfortunately I have a dinner engagement already.”

He looked very disappointed. “Do you think I’m too young?”

“For what?”

“To take you out”

Then it struck her. “I didn’t know you were asking me for a date,” she said.

He was embarrassed. “You’re kind of slow to catch on.”

“I’m sorry.” She was being slow. He had come on to her yesterday, on the tennis court. But she had spent all day thinking of him as a subject for study. However, now that she thought about it, he was too young to take her out. He was twenty-two, a student; she was seven years older; it was a big gap.

He said: “How old is your date?”

“Fifty-nine or sixty, something like that.”

“Wow. You like old men.”

Jeannie felt bad about turning him down. She owed him something, she thought, after what she had put him through. Her computer made a doorbell sound to tell her that the program had finished uploading. “I’m through here for the day,” she said. “Would you like to have a drink in the Faculty Club?”

He brightened immediately. “Sure, I’d love to. Am I dressed okay?”

He was wearing khakis and a blue linen shirt. “You’ll be better dressed than most of the professors there,” she said, smiling. She exited and turned her computer off.

“I called my mom,” Steven said. “Told her about your theory.”

“Was she mad?”

“She laughed. Said I wasn’t adopted, nor did I have a twin brother who was put up for adoption.”

“Strange.” It was a relief to Jeannie that the Logan family was taking all this so calmly. On the other hand, their laid-back skepticism made her worry that perhaps Steven and Dennis were not twins after all.

“You know …” She hesitated. She had said enough shocking things to him today. But she plunged on. “There is another possible way you and Dennis could be twins.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “Babies switched at the hospital.”

He was very quick. This morning she had noticed more than once how fast he worked things out. “That’s right,” she said. “Mother number one has identical twin boys, mothers two and three each have a boy. The twins are given to mothers two and three, and their babies are given to mother number one. As the children grow up, mother number one concludes that she has fraternal twins who bear one another remarkably little resemblance.”

“And if mothers two and three don’t happen to be acquainted, no one ever observes the startling resemblance between babies two and three.”

“It’s the old staple of the romance writers,” she admitted. “But it’s not impossible.”

“Is there a book on this twin stuff?” he said. “I’d like to know more about it.”

“Yeah, I have one.…” She looked along her bookshelf. “No, it’s at home.”

“Where do you live?”

“Close by.”

“You could take me home for that drink.”

She hesitated. This one is the normal twin, she reminded herself, not the psychopath.

He said: “You know so much about me, after today. I’m curious about you. I’d like to see where you live.”

Jeannie shrugged. “Sure, why not? Let’s go.”

It was five o’clock, and the day was at last beginning to cool as they left Nut House. Steve whistled when he saw the red Mercedes. “What a neat car!”

“I’ve had it for eight years,” she said. “I love it.”

“My car’s in the parking lot. I’ll come up behind you and flash my lights.”

He left. Jeannie got into her car and started it. A few minutes later she saw headlights in her rearview mirror. She pulled out of her parking space and drove off.

As she left the campus she noticed a police cruiser tuck in behind Steve’s car. She checked her speedometer and slowed down to thirty.

It seemed Steven Logan was smitten with her. Although she did not reciprocate his feelings, she was kind of pleased. It was flattering to have won the heart of a handsome young hunk.

He stayed on her tail all the way home. She pulled up outside her house and he parked right behind her.

As in many old Baltimore streets, there was a row stoop, a communal front porch that ran the length of the row, where neighbors had sat cooling themselves in the days before air-conditioning. She crossed the stoop and stood at her door, getting out her keys.

Two cops exploded out of the patrol car, guns in their hands. They took up firing positions, their arms stretched out stiffly, their guns pointed directly at Jeannie and Steve.

Jeannie’s heart stopped.

Steven said: “What the fuck—”

Then one of the men yelled: “Police! Freeze!”

Jeannie and Steve both raised their hands.

But the police did not relax. “On the floor, motherfucker!” one of them screamed. “Facedown, hands behind your back!”

Jeannie and Steve both lay facedown.

The policemen approached them as, cautiously as if they were ticking bombs. Jeannie said: “Don’t you think you’d better tell us what this is about?’

“You can stand up, lady,” said one,