Page 70 of Lorenzo

The meal remains on the table, half-finished and forgotten. Donna stops just inside the room, and Mocha settles beside her leg after one command.

I gesture toward the table.

“Sit.”

She takes the chair nearest the end. Mocha sits at her side, his eyes alert.

Alessio sits across from her. Edoardo takes the chair beside him. I remain standing for a moment, looking at the two photographs my son has placed on the table.

The women are nearly identical.

Nearly.

Now that I know to look, the differences are there.

The woman in the elevator has a slightly narrower face. Her brows sit differently. Genevieve’s mouth is fuller, though the angle of the crime scene photograph makes the comparison difficult.

It is enough to make me wonder how anyone noticed.

“How did you find Rachel?” I ask.

Donna sets her bag beside her chair.

“I spent hours looking into Genevieve's background. Her personal information, her public profiles, her history, her jobs, her income, every single thing about her. A good part of that time was just staring at pictures of her, looking at the people in the backgrounds, her outfits, the settings.”

She sets her hand on Mocha's head. “I was waiting on a contact to send me pictures of that night, the crime scene, the stills from the lobby. And when they came in…” She shrugs. “It just didn't look right.”

“And your mind landed on twins?” I ask skeptically. “It's pretty far-fetched.”

“Well, if you think about it logically, there aren't many other explanations. Right?” she says. “The stills from the lobby and elevator are grainy enough that I guess someone who looked similar could fool someone, but not me. I'd been studying those pictures for hours. This was too close. It couldn't be anything but twins, unless you buy into doppelgangers.”

“They're wearing the same dress,” Alessio says.

“Yes,” she says. “It's Genevieve's dress. I saw it in another picture on her social media. It makes sense that it was her dress. Whoever did this wouldn't risk otherwise.”

“So this Rachel wore it that night, and they took it off and put it on Genevieve,” Edoardo asks.

Alessio’s jaw clenches.

“You said you left the hotel, and you didn't zip the dress up, right?” Donna asks him.

“Right,” Alessio says quietly.

“But the report I got, it says that her dress was zipped up.” She sits back. “I'm not saying it's not possible for her to do it herself, but it would have been difficult. And if she intended on it being zipped up, she probably would have asked you before you left, especially if you were still there while she was getting dressed.”

I look quizzically at her.

She shrugs. “It happens from a lifetime of wearing dresses too tight with inconvenient zippers.”

For a moment, I imagine Donna wearing a dress that’s too tight. And an inconvenient zipper…

This is not the time, I scold myself.

“Where was Genevieve while Alessio was with Rachel?” Edoardo asks.

“I don’t know.”

“She might have already been done,” he speculates. “They could have had her on ice.” Literally.”