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sister complained. “I don’t know what Angela’s
trying to pull, but I’m Aggie.”
    “Girls,” Mary admonished. “This isn’t very funny.”
    “I agree,” Aggie stated. “I’m Aggie and I’m going to go
change clothes.”
    “I’m Aggie,” her twin insisted. “Dad, Mary, can’t you tell?”
    “All right. That’s enough.” Their father’s voice had the
rough boozy edge he usually hid carefully. “Let me look behind your ear.”
    “What?” Mary asked and their father explained.
    “Angela fell off the top of the swing set when she was
three. She has a scar from the stitches behind her right ear.”
    Aggie swept back her hair and showed her unblemished skin to
her father. “See, I’m Aggie. Angela, the charade’s over. Give it up.”
    Her sister swept back her hair and showed her equally
unmarked skin.
    “No scar,” she whispered.
    Aggie burst into tears and ran from the room.
    A few minutes later, her sister walked into the bedroom and
took the still sobbing Aggie in her arms.
    “It’s okay, Aggie,” she crooned. “I told them. I’m sorry.”
    “Why are you doing this?” Aggie asked.
    “Just for fun,” Angela answered. “Stop crying, Boo. You’re
making me feel bad.”
    “This isn’t fun,” Aggie insisted. “I want my own identity.”
    “Look,” Angela held out her hand. “I made us nametags.”
    Aggie took the cards. The names read ‘Boo’ and ‘Boo’.
    “Not funny.” She handed the cards back to her sister, who
turned them over. The flip sides read ‘Aggie’ and ‘the idiot’. Aggie flopped
back onto the bed.
    “I have an idea,” Angela offered. “My apology, sort of.”
    Aggie turned her head and looked at her twin.
    “I won two free tickets to Vancouver,” Angela explained.
“Why don’t we go for a little holiday together?”
    “How did you get the tickets?”
    “A radio contest. They’re for December 13. That’s a
Saturday. Do you think you can come?”
    Aggie thought about the deception Angela had pretty much
forced upon her. She thought about the library, and Andrew. Then she thought of
her father and the brandy in his coffee. Angela was family. More, she was her
twin. It was time to get reacquainted. She sat up and hugged Angela.
    “Sure,” she agreed. “Let’s go to Vancouver. How long can we
stay?”
    “The ticket is open ended,” Angela explained. “We can stay
as long as we like.”
    “What about your job?”
    “I’m taking some holidays. Can you get some time too?”
    “Andrew and I are planning to go to England next summer.”
Aggie looked at her twin. Her sister’s eyes had a desperate longing in them
that she couldn’t resist. “I’ll take a few days.”
     

Chapter
6
    Jimmy Buko was a man of high emotion. He liked to say that
he lived life at two speeds: flat out and faster. He made money with passionate
intensity. He spent generously but without undue self-indulgence. Since he was
fourteen, his need for sex had outstripped all available supply. With rigid
self-control, he avoided inflicting himself and his insatiable needs on ‘good’
women and limited himself to one high class call girl a week. Tonight was the
night.
    “I want a new girl,” he growled into the phone.
    “Bambi was looking forward to tonight.”
    “No. Send somebody new. Tall with red hair.”
    “I do have a new girl, Amber.”
    “Does anybody have a real name?”
    “You can call your girl any name you choose, Mr. Buko.”
    “Send Amber, but tell her that I want her to introduce
herself by her real name. Otherwise she’s out the door.”
    “Of course, Mr. Buko. She’ll come to room 1036 of the Hyatt
at ten pm.”
    Jimmy hung up without saying goodbye. The rest of the day
passed in a blur of meetings and signatures. At the end of the day, his
secretary reported that the companies’ holdings were now worth $527,468,124 and
change, up $1,417,892 from the previous close. A good day.
    Jimmy went upstairs to his personal suite and changed into a
jogging