My Double Life by Janette Rallison Read Free Book Online Page A

“Kari’s father is Alex Kingsley.”
    Even though she’d said it in a way that indicated I should know him, I didn’t.
    She added, “The lead singer of The Journey Men.”
    “Oh, The Journey Men,” I said. “We have all their CDs. My mother is a big fan.”
    As soon as the words left my mouth, something clicked into place in my mind. No, actually that isn’t the right word. It wasn’t a click, it was a push—the push of a row of dominoes, each falling into another, tumbling, dropping, scattering until everything was a mess.
    Kari took a forkful of fettuccine, then glanced over at me and didn’t eat it. “Are you all right? You’ve gone completely white.”
    “I’m okay,” I lied. I could be wrong. I mean, what were the chances? I tried to picture the CD covers of The Journey Men and the posters I’d seen in my mother’s closet. The lead singer—he had sandy blond hair, but what color were his eyes . . . ?
    “Which one is your father?” I asked, and my voice came out almost normal. “Is he the tall one with sandy blond hair and blue eyes?”
    “Right,” Kari said. “That’s him. Usually front and center.”
    I stared back at her without blinking. The last domino had hit the ground.

CHAPTER 4
    My heart pounded so hard I could hear nothing else. I had to get away. I couldn’t look at Kari. I stood up, leaving my plate on the coffee table. For a moment I felt dizzy; my voice sounded detached, even to me. “I think I’m going to talk to my mother about this whole thing. Maybe we can work something out.”
    Ms. Pomeroy saw me heading to the front door and called, “You can step into my bedroom to use the phone.”
    I shook my head. I wasn’t having this conversation over a phone, not when my mother was somewhere in the hotel. “I’ll be right back,” I said.
    I’m sure Kari wouldn’t have approved of my walk as I went down the hallway. It had no finesse, no strut, just a lot of resentment.
    The elevator took me to the basement. I marched down the hall to the housekeeping office. I half expected Mom to not be there. She spends a lot of time checking the rooms, but when I went through the door, I saw her standing by her desk, talking with Don. The whir of the washing machines and dryers muted but didn’t cover their words.
    “I’m positive,” he said. “She was in the room with that ditzy singer—the one who looks like her.”
    “Kari Kingsley,” I said. “Her name is Kari Kingsley.”
    They turned and saw me. My anger must have been evident. Mom said to Don, “I’ll talk with you later,” and he left.
    I stared at her, emotion biting into the back of my throat. “Alex Kingsley is my father, isn’t he?”
    The color drained from my mother’s face. She sank into her chair.
    I always thought I’d be happy when I found out my father’s identity, but instead I churned with a rage I didn’t understand. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” I said. “You knew Kari and I looked alike because she was my sister, and you never told me.”
    Mom’s eyes registered shock. “She knows? She told you?”
    And that hurt too—that Mom admitted the truth so easily now, when I’d never been able to pry it out of her before. I was not about to answer her question.
    Tears pushed against my eyes. “All this time, we had pictures of him in the house,” I said. “I thought you hadn’t shown me any pictures because you didn’t have them. I thought it would be hard to track him down. But I saw him and heard him all the time, and I didn’t even know it!”
    “Lexi—” she said, but I didn’t let her finish.
    “Don’t call me Lexi!” I yelled. “You named me Alexia. You named me after him, didn’t you? How could you do that? You gave me his name and then made sure I had nothing else from him—not knowing who he was, not even knowing what he looked like. You could have just pointed him out on the CD covers.”
    She had always known how badly I wanted to know what my father looked