Kaden lifted one brow, giving me the kind of look people usually reserved for overly-imaginative children. “You think that’s Allegra?”

“Yes.” I nodded vehemently. “That’s her hand.”

His expression was one of concern now. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?” he asked gently. “You might need to get some more sleep. The doctor said that—”

I held up a palm, cutting him off. “I’m fine.”

“Well, I don’t see how you can tell whose hand it is. I mean, it’s obviously a girl’s hand, but other than that, it’s just a hand….”

“No, you don’t get it. I’ll zoom in again so you can look at her nails. Her index finger and thumb, specifically.”

Kaden squinted at the screen. ”They look pretty jammed up.”

“Exactly. I took Allegra to a day spa a while ago, and we got manicures. The nail technician took her acrylics off, and her index fingernail and thumbnail were exactly the same as that,” I said, pointing to the photo. “On her right hand, too. And the hand in the photo is a right hand.”

He shook his head slowly. “I dunno.…” he replied. “It’s probably just a coincidence.”

“But think about it. It’s too weird. Andreas has a friend—or ex-friend—in these photos with the exact same nail problem as my sister in the exact same place. They both lived in Oakwood at the Tozier Towers until she moved in here. And they both happened to apply for jobs here at the exact same time and end up at the same orientation. I think they know each other!”

Kaden frowned. “Hm. Maybe. It is kinda weird. Except one thing—I remember orientation day, and they introduced themselves to each other as if they were previously strangers. And they’ve never acted like they know each other at all in the weeks since then.”

“Maybe they didn’t want anyone to know? That would explain why Andreas went through and cut her out of all his online albums. Just in case.”

He cocked his head to the side. “Why would they do that, though?”

I frowned. “Because… what if my sister is the one who paid him to stalk me around and try to get photos of me looking bad? She wouldn’t want people to suspect it was her, so of course she’d pretend they don’t know each other.”

“Why would she do that?”

I chewed my bottom lip as I mulled it over for a minute. “Um… well, she’s been acting weirdly, and with some of the stuff she’s been doing, it’s almost as if she’s trying to steal my life and be the only ‘good’ daughter in the family. Like she wants me to either look bad or disappear from the spotlight entirely,” I said. “So what if she actually knew Andreas from a while back, and she ended up asking him to help her take me down? She has money now that she’s back here. She could easily pay him.”

“But she didn’t even know who she really was on orientation day. Back then, she thought she was still DeeDee, because she hadn’t had all the flashbacks yet,” Kaden said, shaking his head. “And if this was some big plan that she concocted to take you down and become the golden child of your family, she would’ve had to know her true identity before she started working here.”

My shoulders slumped. “Oh. Yeah, you’re right.”

I sighed. I’d been so sure that I was onto something. After all, the messed-up nails on that girl’s hand looked exactly like Allegra’s, and there were just so many coincidental links between her and Andreas.

In a last-ditch effort to figure out once and for all whether I was right or wrong, I hurriedly did some more stalking on Andreas’ Facebook account. Most guys didn’t know this, but girls were like the freaking NSA when it came to stalking people online. We knew all the tricks.

According to the album upload date, the date of the pirate costume party was July 14^th, 2014. I quickly scrolled back through Andreas’ Facebook timeline until I reached July 2014, and then I slowed down and looked at every single post and activity link that was available.

“A-ha!” I said, finding what I was looking for.

“What is it?” Kaden asked.

“I’ll tell you in a minute,” I said, clicking on the link I’d just found.

It was an activity post saying ‘Andreas Whittier attended Chelsea Dupree’s Pirate Birthday’. I clicked into the event page, which still existed after all these years, and then I scrolled through the list of invitees.

“Look! I was right!” I finally said, triumphantly pointing to one name. “Look who was on the guest list along with Andreas!”

Kaden leaned forward and frowned. “Holy shit. DeeDee Brown. So they did know each other before they came to the Mirabella.”

I tried clicking on her profile, but it wasn’t possible. The account had been deactivated. That didn’t matter, though. We still had enough proof to prove a direct link between Andreas and my sister, even though they’d pretended not to know each other before now.

I turned back to Kaden.

“So it’s possible Allegra knew who she was before she came back. She already figured out that she was a Cadwell. She must’ve remembered a while ago,” I said. “Long before she came here and had those supposed flashbacks. And she also knew Andreas, and they planned to come here together, I guess.”

Kaden shook his head slowly. “I just don’t get why she’d do this… why didn’t she come back sooner? As soon as she remembered who she was? I mean, we know she is your sister. The DNA confirmed it, right?”

“Yeah. I know. It’s so weird. Unless….” I chewed on my lip again. “It could be kinda like what I said earlier. She wanted to come back and reclaim her name, but maybe she also wanted to get rid of me. Maybe she read about me in magazines and gossip sites, and she hated me from all of that. Thought I didn’t deserve all the luxury and abused what I had, especially seeing as she grew up poor when her rightful place was here.”

“So she decided to not only return, but to also make you look bad and alienate you from your family,” Kaden said, catching onto my train of thought. “Shit, maybe she even wants your parents to disinherit you so she gets more money down the track.”

“Yes. Exactly. That would explain why she hired Andreas to help her… if it was her, that is.”

Kaden nodded. “I think you’re right. It has to be her. It all makes sense now that we know the two of them actually know each other.”

“But it’s going to be hard to make either one of them admit it. Like, if we confront Andreas and try to get him to admit who hired him, he can easily just say that you made the whole thing up to try and get me to talk to you again.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, wrinkling his forehead.

“I mean ever since that whole stupid scandal came out, Bianca has been trying to help by telling anyone who will listen that I was totally innocent and had no idea who you were. So everyone probably thinks I hate you now, right? And if that’s the case, Andreas could easily say that you made it all up to get my attention.”

He nodded. “Right, yeah. And no one else heard him say it, obviously.” His eyebrows knitted together curiously. “But you do believe me, right?”

“Of course I do.” I smiled. “I know you wouldn’t make something like that up.”

“So how do we get him to admit it?” he asked.

I smiled. “You truly don’t understand just how sneaky women can be, do you?”

“Nope. Enlighten me.”

“It’s easy. We’ll tell him we’re going to the police with all the stalking stuff—as we rightfully should—and that we have a bunch of stuff connecting him to Allegra. But then we’ll also tell him that if he helps us by admitting she hired him, we’ll tell the police to go easy on him. I bet you a million bucks that he’ll eventually crack and throw her under the bus. People will do anything to avoid trouble with cops.”

A slow smile spread across Kaden’s handsome face. “You watch way too many crime thrillers. I’m actually kinda scared of you now.”

“As you should be.” I winked. “It’s Saturday, right?”

“Yep.”

“Do you remember what hours Andreas works on Saturdays?”

“Hm… he usually worked the same shifts as me when I was here, and my Saturday shift always finished at three.”

I glanced at the clock. It was almost two. “We should go and wait for him. I want to get this over and done with.”

Kaden squeezed my hand. “Are you sure? You’re probably feeling pretty delicate after what happened. And the doctors said you need to rest.”

I looked up at him, my face set in a grim yet determined expression. “I’m fine,” I said. “Let’s go.”