We hired the private investigator two days later.
Heather didn't want to. She begged me not to, said it would only open old wounds, but I wore her down with calm logic and gentle kisses. "If it's a scam, we'll know in a week and bury it forever. If it's really her… you deserve closure, baby."
She nodded, eyes hollow, and signed the retainer check with shaking fingers.
His name was Frank Delgado—ex-cop, cheap suit, permanent five-o'clock shadow. We met him in a coffee shop downtown. He slid a folder across the table and promised results in ten days. "Long-lost twins are my specialty," he said, winking like it was a joke. "People don't disappear that clean unless they want to."
Ten days became thirty. Thirty became ninety.
Every Friday evening Frank called with the same update: nothing. No social security hits, no credit cards, no arrests, no death certificate. "She's a ghost," he kept saying. "Either dead or damn good at staying dead."
Heather stopped sleeping. She'd pace the loft at 3 a.m., twisting her wedding ring like she could unscrew the past. Sex became mechanical—quick, quiet, lights off. She flinched when I touched her too tenderly, as if my hands might somehow summon her sister. At dinner she barely ate. At parties she smiled too wide and drank too fast. The woman I'd married—the one who'd ridden me on the dining table like she owned the world—was shrinking right in front of me.
And the worse she got, the more the shoebox called to me.
The first time it happened, I told myself it was an accident. Heather had taken a sleeping pill and passed out on the couch at nine. I went upstairs to "grab a book." Instead I pulled the box down, sat in the dark reading chair, and spread the photos across my lap like a guilty altar.
I started with the innocent ones. Then I found the motorcycle shot again.
Amber stared up at me, leather jacket open, black bra cupping breasts that were—God help me—identical to Heather's. Same soft swell, same faint freckle just above the left nipple. My cock hardened so fast it ached.
I didn't plan it. My hand just… moved. I wrapped my fingers around myself and stroked slow, eyes locked on hers. Every slide of my fist felt filthy and perfect. I imagined that wicked tilt of her chin turning toward me, those hungry eyes daring me to come closer. I pictured her voice—identical to Heather's but rougher, dirtier—whispering, "You like looking at me, don't you, Kevin?"
I came hard, biting my lip to stay silent, ropes of cum spilling over my knuckles and onto the glossy photo. The shame hit immediately, thick and hot, but the relief was even thicker.
After that, it became ritual.
Heather would fall asleep—pill or wine or pure exhaustion—and I would climb the stairs like a thief. Box down. Photos out. Cock in hand. I learned every curve of Amber's body from those frozen images. I timed my strokes to the memory of Heather's moans, but I whispered Amber's name when I came. Every single time.
Three months in, Frank called again. Another dead end. He sounded almost apologetic. "I'm starting to think she doesn't want to be found, Mr. Harlan."
I hung up, walked upstairs, and locked the bedroom door.
Heather was downstairs, curled on the couch with the TV murmuring. I opened the box, picked up the motorcycle photo—now faintly crinkled from repeated use—and laid it on the bed beside me.
My hand was already moving before I even unzipped.
Because somewhere out there, Amber was still a ghost.
But in this room, in the dark, with my wife asleep downstairs, she was the only thing that felt real.