The Likeness

Cassie Maddox is telling Lexie Madison’s story, not her own, though she says they are intricately linked. She flashes back to when she and her boss Frank Mackey created the identity of Alexandra “Lexie” Madison for Cassie to use in an undercover operation to infiltrate a college drug ring. Cassie and Frank used a mix of fiction and parts of Cassie’s own life to create the fake identity. Cassie is 26, with a background in psychology, fresh out of the training college, and eager to get into the field. When Cassie and Frank finished creating her undercover identity, they toasted with spiked coffee.

Cassie now works a desk job in the domestic violence unit after being injured in the highly publicized Operation Vestal. She was stabbed during the mission and is being treated for post-traumatic stress. At present, she is on the gun range shooting for therapeutic benefits. Cassie receives a frantic call from her partner Sam O’Neill pleading with her to come to a crime scene in Wicklow near the town of Glenskehy.

Local officers are on the scene, but Cassie is confused by the lack of investigators present. She is even more confused to find her old boss Frank there with a white-faced Sam. Before looking at the crime scene, Franks wants Cassie to put on a disguise. Sam gives her the details. A local man discovered the body of a slain young woman in an abandoned house. The Famine cottage is dark and covered in vines, but Cassie can see the body looking almost peaceful with barely a mark on her, “but this girl looked as if she had arranged herself carefully on the floor and let out her last breath in a long even sigh” (18). Cassie notes the odd way the body was placed to suggest it was at peace, but both of the hands are clenched. When she looks at the face, she is stunned to see the victim looks just like her.

Cassie gathers herself and examines the evidence. The girl has assumed Cassie’s undercover identity of Lexie Madison. Frank gives more details about the crime scene. The girl ran to the cottage for cover after the stabbing. She bled out sitting up in the corner, but someone else arrived and dragged her to her resting spot. Her wallet and keys have no blood on them, revealing the attacker took them and wiped the prints before putting them back on the body. Detectives identified her as a local who lives with fellow students in Whitethorn House.

Cassie is still confused why she is there until Frank tells her he wants to cover the death and have Cassie go undercover again as Lexie to find the killer. Cassie thinks the plan absurd, but she feels a pull toward the girl who adopted the identity she created. Frank says, “They say everyone’s got a double, somewhere” (19). He convinces Cassie they cannot conduct a proper investigation once authorities release Lexie’s name and face to the public. He asks the local police to wait three days before releasing Lexie’s name to the public. If they do not have a suspect by then, he tells them to claim it was an assault so Cassie can pose as the victim to flush out the killer. Cassie agrees to begin living undercover as Lexie, though the town gives her an eerie feeling. Frank stays to deal with the local authorities. As they leave, Sam breaks and embraces her, admitting he thought the body was Cassie. Cassie and Sam have been keeping their romantic relationship concealed.

Cassie spends the three days anxiously cleaning and organizing her flat. She begins to miss her low stress days in the domestic violence unit. Cassie wishes she had paid more attention at the crime scene, so she conducts her own investigation of the situation. She thinks about her childhood: both her parents died in a car accident when she was five years old, and her aunt and uncle raised her. Cassie does not remember much about the trauma, but she remembers her mother’s singing. She had a happy life but often invented make-believe siblings to deal with her loneliness, saying “What I wanted was someone I belonged with, beyond any doubt or denial” (34). She enjoyed spending time with her friend Emma.

In the present, Cassie realizes how the dead girl assumed the identity of Lexie Madison: She was looking for a way to disappear, someone called her by the fake name, and she grabbed the opportunity. Cassie thinks this is the first murder case where she is investigating the victim more than the murderer.

Frank arrives with more details about the investigation, including photos of the victim’s housemates. The victim first used the fake identity in February of 2002 to open a bank account, then used it again to get into university. She was set to defend her PhD English thesis in October. The victim lives with four English post graduate students in Whitethorn House, which was part of an inheritance for Daniel March. Justin Mannering’s father is a lawyer. Raphael “Rafe” Hyland is a handsome trust fund boy. Abigail “Abby” Stone is from Dublin and not wealthy like the others. All the roommates attend Trinity College in Dublin. Cassie studies a photo of the group at Christmastime and observes their dress and mannerisms.

Frank met with each roommate, and they all have alibis. They are under the impression the victim is in the hospital recovering under close guard. Cassie is still unsure if she will accept the mission. Frank wants her to start by coming to the case briefing with Sam that afternoon. After exchanging terse words, Frank leaves, knowing she will accept.

Cassie is most concerned about how the mission will affect her relationship with Sam. Her last relationship, with Aidan, ended after her undercover work took over her life. Sam comes for dinner, and Cassie tells him she is getting involved in the case. They argue but reconcile before he leaves. Cassie refrains from telling him what scares her most about undercover work, which is that “all the best undercovers have a dark thread woven into them, somewhere” (53). Cassie pours over the picture of Whitethorn House and is intrigued. She texts Frank to tell him she will accept the mission.

Detectives hold the briefing at Dublin Castle, the Murder squad headquarters. Cassie is overwhelmed with memories from her time on the team when she sees the office and some of her old coworkers. Besides Sam and Cassie, Frank, Cooper (the coroner), and O’Kelly (the superintendent of the Murder squad) are all in attendance. Cooper and O’Kelly do not have a good relationship. After small talk, the teams begin to process the details of the case. Cassie tries to stay focused while remembering her old job and her former partner Rob. The detectives name the mission Operation Mirror, and O’Kelly asks about Cassie’s presence.

The first task is to compare Cassie’s physical identity to the victim, a process that mortifies her. Cassie is a remarkably close match even down to her hands. Frank goes over the details and the timeline on a whiteboard. Cassie learns that Frank had her original cover identity of Lexie disappear due to a nervous breakdown. Detectives still have not determined the victim’s country of origin, and as far as they can tell she has no enemies. All the roommates’ stories check out, and none of them have criminal records. The victim often walked the trails late at night around Whitethorn and had explored the cottage previously.

Cooper begins a detailed review of his autopsy report of the victim. The cause of death is a puncture to the lung from the stab wound. He also reveals she was pregnant. She has no defensive wounds, and Cooper estimates she died around 30 minutes after the stabbing. The detectives are most concerned with determining what happened in that half hour. Frank has narrowed it to three possibilities: It was a random act of violence, but the team sees problems with this theory; the attacker was an enemy of Lexie Madison, but there are no suspects; the killer is someone from the victim’s previous life, maybe the father of the unborn child. The team runs through motives but does not land on anything solid. Sam introduces a fourth scenario: mistaken identity, meaning the attacker thought it was Cassie posing as Lexie. Cassie claims she has no known enemies now. Sam only agrees to Cassie going undercover if she has 24-hour surveillance with backup ready to go in at a moment’s notice.

Cassie is still uncertain about taking the job. She worries how it will affect her personal and emotional life: “Nothing in this world takes over your blood like a murder case, nothing demands you, mind and body, with such a huge and blazing and irresistible voice” (71). Frank and Sam disagree on whether the housemates are suspects, and Frank insists the case can be solved from the inside. He produces a video of the housemates arriving at Whitethorn House for the first time. Cassie gets her first look at the victim. The friends talk in the video about how old and filthy the house is. After hearing the victim’s voice, Cassie feels an instant connection to her and knows she must take the case, even if it puts her in danger.