The Substitute Sister

by Lisa Childs

  “I brought you some tea.” Mrs. Arnold, carrying a silver tray, spoke from the doorway.

  Sasha jerked, evoking a giggle from the little girl. “You brought me tea?”

  Without her having to ask, to order? After what she’d seen, she’d thought nothing else could shock her. But the sympathy on the housekeeper’s usually dour face did.

  “Yes,” the woman said with a negligent shrug of her wide shoulders. “You got so soaked in the storm. You must be chilled to the bone.”

  But Sasha hadn’t felt the cold, hadn’t felt much of anything…but shock.

  “I’m warm now,” she said, as she cuddled the squirming child.

  Annie got down from her lap, heading across the nursery to her toy box. She pulled out the blocks someone had neatly arranged.

  “But I would like some tea, Mrs. Arnold,” Sasha said, genuinely moved by the older woman’s overture of concern. “Thank you.”

  The housekeeper sat the tray on top of a low dresser, then poured a couple of cups. “Sugar? Cream?”

  Sasha wasn’t used to being waited on in her own home. “A little sugar, please.”

  “Smart,” the older woman said with an approving nod. “You need that for energy. You’ve been through a lot since you came to Sunset Island.”

  Until now, Sasha hadn’t thought the older woman had cared. She had even considered that her misfortune had made Mrs. Arnold happy. Vindicated. Because she’d thought Nadine evil. And because Sasha looked just like her, Mrs. Arnold had thought she was just like Nadine. Evil.

  But Nadine wasn’t evil. She was dead.

  Sasha shivered, remembering her reaction when she’d first come upon Nadine. After five years of not seeing her twin, she hadn’t thought first of Nadine when she’d found the body on the beach. She’d thought of herself.

  Of how it looked as if she were lying there, throat slashed, dead eyes staring…

  Had the push last night been just a warning or a serious attempt on her life? Did someone want her dead, like they had Nadine?

  “Why?” she asked, echoing the question that kept running through her mind.

  Mrs. Arnold grimaced, not realizing Sasha’s question hadn’t been for her. “The sheriff said you needed something hot to drink. That’s why I brought it up.”

  Not because she’d cared but because Reed had. But who did Reed care about? Her or Nadine?

  “Still, thank you for going to the trouble,” Sasha said, taking a sip of the warm liquid. She tasted chamomile. To soothe her nerves? That wasn’t about to happen anytime soon. Not in this house that Nadine had inherited by what some considered nefarious means.

  “It was no trouble,” the woman said, sipping at her own cup of tea.

  The housekeeper had never joined her before, not for any meal. Sasha hadn’t known if that was normal procedure or because the woman didn’t like her.

  “No trouble…” Sasha repeated, turning her gaze to the child who happily played, having now taken out every toy someone else had put away. Annie was no trouble, but once again the enormity of what Nadine had done descended onto Sasha’s shoulders like a heavy burden. She’d left Sasha her child, the most precious thing in the world to her. Why? And could Sasha handle the responsibility or would she screw up like she had the relationship with her sister?

  “She’s a sweet child,” Mrs. Arnold said, although Sasha had never noticed her pay the little girl much attention.

  Sasha sighed. “Yes, she is.” And she deserved so much more than a nervous aunt. She deserved her mother.

  “Your sister was pregnant with her when she came to work for Mrs. Scott,” the other woman went on.

  “I met Mr. Scott today,” she told the housekeeper. “He said his mother had a soft spot for pregnant single women.”

  Mrs. Arnold nodded as her pale eyes grew moist. “Yes, she did. Mrs. Scott was a lovely woman.”

  “You were very close,” Sasha said, sympathy dissolving some of her distrust toward the woman. Unlike her fractured relationship with her sister, Mrs. Arnold had been close to her employer, her friend. So close that she missed her still.

  “Yes, that’s probably why I hear her…at night.”

  Sasha controlled the shiver raising goose bumps on her skin. The woman spoke of ghosts as calmly as she’d asked if Sasha had wanted sugar in her tea. “I don’t believe…”

  But she couldn’t finish that. After what she’d heard, what she’d seen, she had no idea what she believed anymore.

  The older woman stared at her. “The sheriff said that. Looked at me like I’m crazy. But I thought you, of all people, would understand.”

  Because she heard things, too.

  First Mr. Scott and now Mrs. Arnold just about read her mind. How could everyone else on the island know what was going through her head when she herself didn’t know half the time?

  She really needed to leave…before she lost her sanity entirely. “I don’t know what you’re saying, Mrs. Arnold,” she said, then took a sip of tepid tea to wash down the lie.

  The older woman shrugged again. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just not ready to let her go.” Her pale eyes widened, her knowing gaze meeting Sasha’s.

  Like she wasn’t ready to let Nadine go. Is that why she heard her?

  “Mrs. Scott was a remarkable woman, very caring. She took in your sister even though she’d never worked as a maid before. She was supposed to help me.” Resentment tightened the older woman’s face. “Instead she insinuated herself with Mrs. Scott.”

  “So the inheritance is genuine then.” And the housekeeper’s resentment of Nadine unnecessary.

  “On paper, maybe. But the how and why of how it got there is suspect. Mrs. Scott wouldn’t have cut off her son. She loved him, did everything for him, even taking care of some of his…indiscretions,” she admitted. “That was why she had that soft spot.”

  Because her son had left other women alone and pregnant? Was Nadine one of those women? She had nothing to lose by simply asking and so she did. “Is Annie his?”

  “Mr. Scott? That child’s father?” Mrs. Arnold shook her head so vehemently she dislodged a few gray locks from her tight bun.

  “But you said…”

  “I was talking out of turn, and I should have known better,” the older woman berated herself and then Sasha with a fierce glare. “I was referring to affairs that happened years and years ago.”

  And Annie was only two.

  “People change,” the housekeeper hastened to add. “Even your sister did, after she had the baby. But by then it was too late, Mrs. Scott was already dead, her estate left to a stranger instead of one of her family.”

  Sasha had her doubts. Couldn’t Annie be a Scott, too? Just because Nadine had changed, and she was damned glad to hear it, it didn’t mean that Roger Scott had.

  She looked out the nursery window, through the rain slashing the glass, but instead of the carriage house, her gaze was drawn to the other activity on the waterlogged lawn. Men in shiny slickers headed up from the beach. Some carried black satchels. Evidence bags? Two men carried a heavier burden, a stretcher on which lay a zippered black bag. If they were to lower that zipper, even from this distance, she would be able to see the face of the woman lying inside that bag.

  Her face.

  Nadine.

  A man, taller than the others, waved those men to a halt. Then he walked over to them, standing bareheaded, his brown hair darkened with rain. Reed. He reached for the zipper, then stopped, his hand resting on the bag.

  Saying goodbye? To his friend? Or his lover?

  The scent of lavender alerted Sasha that Mrs. Arnold had stepped closer. She stared out the window, too. “Anyone could be that little girl’s father. Anyone.”

  Not Reed. Sasha didn’t believe that anymore, just like she didn’t believe that Nadine was alive.

  “ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” Because Reed wasn’t. He hadn’t been since seeing the face of the dead woman on the beach…because for one split second he’d thought
it was Sasha.

  She lifted her chin from where she’d rested it on her knees, her arms wrapped around her drawn-up legs as she perched on the end of the sofa in the sitting room. Her blue gaze met his, her eyes so bright. Just naturally? Or with tears?

  Sasha had cried so hard on the beach, her heart was obviously broken over her sister’s death. Despite their rift, he knew she’d loved Nadine. And with love was mingled guilt for all the years lost between them.

  The way Nadine had died could only compound Sasha’s pain. It was as if she’d lost her twice. First he’d called her, a stranger’s voice in the night, telling her that her sister was dead.

  But no body, no certainty, until she’d found it herself.

  God, he wished he’d found Nadine instead. But his suspicions had proven correct. Whoever had killed Nadine had dumped her body into the lake, and the recent storms had sent her crashing back onto the beach of Sunset Island.

  “I just found this today,” she said.

  “What?” he asked, startled by her voice in the heavy silence that had fallen between them.

  “This place. This room. The house is so big.” She sighed, a soft expulsion of pent-up breath. “It could be weeks before I see every room in it.”

  Was she going to stay weeks? Something eased in his chest, the knot tied there since he’d realized that with the discovery of her sister’s body Sasha would leave. She had something to bury now.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “It’s a huge house.”

  “A mansion,” she said, nodding. “It’s about the house, you know.”

  “What is?” The reason she’d decided to stay? He’d like to think it didn’t matter why. But it did. He would rather she decide to stay because of him.

  But it was soon…too soon and too dangerous for him to have such thoughts about Sasha. Because no matter how many weeks she stayed, she would eventually leave.

  “Nadine’s murder,” she said, her voice soft but firm with conviction. “It’s about the house.”

  He couldn’t rule it out. But his gut told him that it had more to do with Nadine’s past. And the drained cash account supported his instincts. But he didn’t want to bring up Nadine’s sins with her grieving sister. She didn’t need to be reminded of the bad times between them.

  Moving closer, he settled onto the couch beside her. To distract himself from her proximity, he glanced toward the darkened glass of the windows.

  “It’s late,” he said. And he should be leaving, heading back down the hill toward the little cottage his ex had thought so primitive.

  He should go…for the safety of his madly beating heart. But for her safety, he should stay. He knew he couldn’t bear it if something happened to her, if someone hurt her like her sister had been hurt.

  Again the image of the body on the beach flashed through his mind. Same hair. Same face. Same eyes.

  But not Sasha.

  She sat within touching distance of him. All he had to do was reach out… He fisted his hands at his sides.

  “I’m serious,” she said.

  “I know you are.” A serious threat to his self-control, to the walls he’d built after his divorce.

  “This isn’t like what I said this morning—” she swallowed hard, and her face flushed “—when I thought that Nadine had…”

  Pushed her. No, Nadine hadn’t. But someone had. He really shouldn’t leave her. Even though he’d posted an officer outside the door, she probably needed someone closer.

  Could she need him as much as he needed her? God, he’d thought her dead….

  “I know, Sasha.”

  “It wasn’t Nadine,” she said, and a little gasp of breath shuddered out of her.

  “You’re safe. I’ve posted a guard at the door. I should have done that earlier,” he berated himself. “Before you went for your walk…before you found…”

  Tears shimmered in her eyes, but she blinked them away. “You didn’t believe me. I know I sounded crazy. And the power had gone out. But I—”

  She stopped, shook her head. “I felt hands on my back.”

  She’d been about to say something else, something more. But he wouldn’t push. Whenever he’d pushed his ex, all he’d gotten were lies. He didn’t want Sasha to lie to him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, knowing it was woefully inadequate for everything she’d suffered.

  “I’m fine. Really. I caught myself last night. And today…”

  For a moment, had she seen herself dead, as he had? What had it been like to find a corpse with her face? He couldn’t imagine.

  He moved closer, sliding his arm around her trembling shoulders. “Sasha…”

  “Today was hard,” she admitted. “But I wasn’t in any danger.”

  “You didn’t see anyone?” Not that he suspected she had. The killer wouldn’t have known the body would wash ashore—as fate would have it—on the beach below the house where he’d murdered her. Unless he hadn’t thrown her far off, unless he’d only waded out and weighed her body down with something the stormy waters had torn away.

  “Mr. Scott,” she said with a slight shudder, and he wrapped his arm tighter around her, pressing her close to his side. “He’s a strange man.”

  “An artist,” Reed said, but he doubted that explained the man’s odd personality.

  “Maybe that’s why he’s so insightful.”

  “Maybe. What did he say to you?” Had he threatened her? Was that why she’d shuddered?

  “That I should trust you.”

  No wonder she’d been frightened. After what Norder had done to her, she was about as likely to trust again as he was. “Would it be so hard to trust me, Sasha?”

  She drew in a quick breath, and he knew she wouldn’t answer his question. “He also said that most people stay on Sunset Island because they’re running from something. He believed that of Nadine.”

  And so did Reed, now that it was too late to help her. “That’s probably true.”

  “What are you running from, Reed?”

  At the moment he felt like running from her, from the feelings churning inside him for her. “Nothing, Sasha.”

  He’d left nothing behind in Detroit, nothing but a bunch of broken promises and dreams.

  A sad smile lifted her lips. “And that’s why I can’t quite trust you. You’re holding back.”

  “We’re not talking about me.” With her so close, pressed so tight against him, talking was the last thing on his mind.

  “It makes you uncomfortable. You’d rather interrogate suspects than tell me anything about yourself. But yet you know everything about me, know all my humiliations—”

  “Not yours. Nothing was your fault, Sasha.” Not Nadine’s betrayal, not her life and not her death. He wanted to lift the guilt from Sasha’s slender shoulders and add it to the load he carried. “I know you’re hurting…”

  She turned toward him, tipping her face up…as if ready for his kiss. He cupped her cheek, rubbing his thumb across the smoothness of her skin.

  “Reed…”

  Her hands reached for him, threading through his hair, pulling his head down so that their lips met. Held. Breath caught, trapped in his lungs as his heart beat fast and hard. Desire gripped him, testing his control. He deepened the kiss, parting her lips.

  Sweet. She was so damned sweet. His tongue slid along the straight edge of her teeth, along the slickness of her tongue that dueled with his. He could kiss her for days. Who needed to breathe?

  She murmured in her throat and crawled into his lap, like her niece often did. But she wasn’t a child. She was a woman who knew what she wanted.

  At least he damned well hoped she did, because he was reaching the point of no return. Again. He’d reached it that morning when they’d kissed in her bed. If Norder hadn’t interrupted them…

  Her fingers slid through his hair, trailing down his nape to his back. “Your shirt’s still damp,” she said against his mouth. “You must be cold.”

  She pressed against him, her
breasts soft against his chest. “I’m not cold now,” he said. He was about to burst into flames from the heat generated between them.

  She leaned back on his lap, sliding her bottom across the hard ridge of his straining erection. He groaned. Then her fingers went to work on his shirt, undoing the buttons. “You need to get out of this wet shirt.”

  “Sasha…” Her fingertips teased him, sliding along his chest, teasing his pebbled nipples. He shuddered. “You’re playing a dangerous game here.”

  “I’m not playing,” she said, her eyes bright with desire as she looked into his. “For the first time since I found—since this afternoon—I feel something, something good.”

  His hands slid down her back to her hips. “You feel wonderful,” he said with a groan as he fought against the urge to take her there, on that little sofa in the sitting room.

  But she was talking about shock, how she’d been in it most of the day. He couldn’t take advantage. Regret tearing at him, he lifted her off his lap.

  She lay back on the cushions, her arms outstretched to him. Passion flushed her face, her lips swollen from his kisses. “Reed…”

  He’d already lost control. “Sasha, you need—”

  “You.” She leaned toward him, slid her palms over his naked chest, rested her hand on his heart. “Do you need me?”

  Vulnerability softened her eyes, the curve of her swollen lips. With nothing between her skin and his, couldn’t she feel how hard his heart hammered for her?

  “Sasha…” He’d intended to stop before things went any further. But if she couldn’t feel his need for her…he’d have to show her.

  His hands went to the hem of her sweater, sliding up under the soft, knit fabric. Her stomach quivered under his touch, and she sucked in a quick breath. He slid his fingers higher, fumbling with the clasp of her bra. It had been so damned long for him….

  The clasp released its hold, and he lifted the sweater, baring her midriff and then her breasts to his hungry gaze. “So damned beautiful…”