Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
The level above it angled to the north west and into the slope. It held Ledger’s room, which had a three-quarter bath attached to it.
Or, if I’d figured out how Lincoln had crafted it, his daughter’s room.
This I guessed because opposite that were two smaller bedrooms that shared a Jack and Jill suite (for Lincoln’s boys).
And pushing deeper into the earth of the natural slope, the guest room with en suite that I officially still occupied, but unofficially had only briefly occupied.
The kitchen/dining room level didn’t dive as deeply into the slope, but it also included a very large room that held a pool table and a very fancy, full wet bar.
Riggs’s bedroom was mostly a level all its own. Though some of it was built over the living room, most of it jutted off over the lakeside of the house.
So, yes.
Eccentric.
We settled in Cade’s office, and I figured Cade had shared what he had to say already with Delphine, because he launched right in before she returned with coffee.
He started by putting his hand on an enormous pile of papers and folders resting on his desk that had to be at least ten inches tall before he shared, “Harry gave me copies of everything he could pull on the entire Whitaker mess, including the local and Seattle case files, court documents and depositions. And I’ve spent the last four days reading through them.”
My goodness.
That was a lot of work.
Cade took his hand from the pile. “Now, you can guess I have experience with twins, and because I had my own and do what I do, I researched the various phenomena about them. But that isn’t fresh research, and I didn’t have time to dive back into it.”
“Right,” Riggs said when Cade paused.
“Saying that,” Cade continued, “got firsthand knowledge of the link they share. They communicate intuitively in ways we don’t. They have an uncanny sync. They also feel each other’s emotions, and sometimes even physical pain. Last, they have a closeness where, in major life events, for them it doesn’t feel like they’ve fully experienced it unless they either experience it with the other, or until they share with the other that it happened.”
Riggs and I nodded.
This was common knowledge with twins, except that last, which I found intriguing.
“That said, they are each their own man with their own thoughts, opinions and personalities,” Cade shared. “They are not one person split in two. They’re two distinct people who look the same.”
More nodding from me, not Riggs.
Cade kept at it.
“From what I could tell, this was the same with Roosevelt and Lincoln. But it was the way in which they were brought up that Roosevelt became the dominant of the two.”
“What does that mean?” Riggs asked.
“It means, he was a clear favorite of their parents. It’s like the Carpenters’ experience.”
Now, he’d lost me.
Fortunately, he kept talking.
“The Carpenter family thought Richard was the prodigy. As such, the entirety of that family shifted all their attention to Richard. When it emerged that it was Karen who had the singular talent, they couldn’t adjust.”
Oh.
He was talking about the Carpenters musical group, fronted by Karen’s extraordinary voice, backed by Richard’s not-as-extraordinary, but still skillful talent at a keyboard.
I was again following him.
“This caused some dysfunction with that family, but with Roosevelt and Lincoln, Roosevelt actually was the prodigy. As twins, and this is a guess, Roosevelt couldn’t abide being singled out as a favorite because he had the double issue of feeling that awkwardness, at the same time, feeling his brother’s pain at not being the same. And just to say, that’s vice versa for Lincoln. My further guess is, this was the primary reason Roosevelt left home in Seattle as soon as he could and came to MP to forge his own path. It was also why he looked after his brother in the many ways he did, along with shaping the man he became, solitary, except for the bond with his brother, and not big on attention.”
Again, this tracked.
Delphine came in with four coffee mugs hooked precariously in her fingers, and seeing this, Cade got up immediately to help her dole them out.
Once we had our mugs, she sat on the side of his desk next to where he sat in his chair, and he idly wrapped his fingers around her thigh.
Man, they were cute together.
Cade went back to it.
“I’ll share this is entirely theoretical, but with the way Roosevelt and Lincoln grew up, and Roosevelt’s protectiveness of his brother, I think this formed an unusual bond. Particularly when Sarah came into their lives.”
Now we were getting to the good stuff.
Cade kept going.
“In their depositions, the Whitaker parents reported that Roosevelt always had a thing for writing. And they had evidence to that effect. The guy started writing essays and short stories when he was thirteen and had finished his first book by seventeen. This is an explanation why they got published so young. He’d already spent years honing his craft.”