by Regan Black
“You think your dad had an affair.”
“I do, yes. The date is the August before the holiday picture.”
He glanced between the photo and Paige. It was impossible not to see the resemblance. “Reasonable conclusion,” he decided. “Who took the picture?”
“Pretty sure it wasn’t my mom,” she replied. “I assume another friend was hanging out with them that day. That’s our swimming pool, about thirty years ago.”
“Seriously?”
She opened the door and walked outside. Holding the photo, he followed.
A gravel path curved away from her house, framed by more boxwood hedges and dormant flowering shrubs. The path widened at an iron gate locked with a passcode box. On the other side of the gate was the pool, and on one end of the pool were four palmetto trees, much taller after thirty years of growth.
He gave a low whistle, comparing the photo to the current view. Looking down into her blue eyes, he asked, “So who else knows Cora Coker isn’t your mom?”
Chapter Five
Paige yanked him backward, into the deepening evening shadows on the path between her home and her parents. “Don’t say things like that out loud.”
“But you’re thinking it.”
“Well, yes.” She resisted snatching the photo from his grasp. Tearing it would be a disaster, although she couldn’t explain precisely why she felt that way. She hurried back down the path to her house. If he was right and her mom wasn’t her mother, who had given birth to her? Where had she come from? And why wouldn’t her parents have been honest about it?
She pressed a hand to her belly. This was twisting her in knots. “You can’t let on about this,” she told him. “A couple of times since I found the picture, I’ve tried to talk to Dad.” She had to pause, ride out a wave of frustration. “How do I ask if I’m adopted? Is that even the right term for this situation? How do I explain finding this picture without wrecking Mom’s joy over the surprise party?” She closed her eyes on a wave of dizziness.
One decades-old picture had sent her reeling into an endless cycle of questions. “How could he have been unfaithful to Mom?” She clapped a hand over her mouth and looked around, half expecting the detectives to jump out, eager to pull the family skeletons out of the closet.
“That woman in the kitchen with Melissa. She was too young to be this woman, right?” She tapped the photograph.
“Right. The woman at the kitchen is closer to your age. You’ve never seen her around Melissa before?”
“No. I’ve seen the face in the mirror every morning, though.” Back inside her office, she dropped the photo on the worktable, wishing she could burn it. “Put me in a pair of glasses and a hat and we’re the same person. How is that possible? How will you or anyone be able to convince the police that wasn’t me?”
“Paige, you need to sit down and breathe a minute.”
She let him nudge her into a chair.
“You were not at the scene at the time of the murder.” He crouched in front of her. “Your legal team can navigate and explain the evidence gathered by the police as necessary. Remember you have a team and we will figure this out.”
“I wish I had half your confidence,” she said, her face buried in her hands.
“This has been a hard couple of days for you.”
“The worst,” she agreed. Bad days were piling up since she’d started going through that box of memories Gloria had handed over. She sat up, her hands clasped in her lap, and studied the man in front of her. “I remember this about you,” she said.
“Pardon?”
“You’re calm and confident. Unflappable. You were just like this on the beach, even as you insisted we keep that dumb dog in check.”
His mouth curved into a rueful grin and she was utterly undone. Could she be any more of a cliché today? First she was the innocent party accused of a crime, then the rich girl rescued by Daddy’s money and lawyers, and now the client charmed by the man hired to help her. Grief could throw off anyone, but she needed to get a handle on these random reactions.
“We’ll have to go up there soon,” she said. “I need to pull myself together.”
He glanced at his watch. “We have some time. It might help you to unload a little about these unexpected surprises.”
“If you say so.” She wasn’t convinced that talking about it would help. Thinking about it incessantly hadn’t done any good.
“Your parents never mentioned adoption or hinted that Cora wasn’t your mother?” Carter asked, moving to a chair across from her.
“No. They told me starting a family was difficult until at last, voila, I arrived. Everyone said I got my looks from Dad and my heart from Mom.” She closed her eyes, struggling not to cry. “If the woman in the picture is my biological mother it makes even more sense based on her features. Mom always called me her miracle baby.” Cora had become a mother, but at what cost?
“Do you think the woman in Melissa’s kitchen is my sister?”
“That woman looks enough like you that she could be your twin,” he said.
“If you think that gives me comfort you’re flat out wrong,” Paige said. “I don’t even know how to process my dad being unfaithful. I grew up thinking his middle name was integrity. Now you want me to consider that he had an affair and when the woman turned up pregnant, he took one twin instead of both?”
She pushed to her feet and paced back and forth. She couldn’t imagine having drinks with her parents while all of this weighed on her. If only there was an excuse that would appease her mom.
Her mom was who she needed to focus on. Whatever her father had done, right or wrong, Jack and Cora had been good parents. They’d given her amazing opportunities, and never once had she doubted how much she was loved and cherished. Yes, her mother could be clingy at times and she’d never told Paige the truth about her birth. Regardless, Paige had been loved. Not everyone experienced that security.
“Any advice on how to come to terms with having a sister who’s a killer?” she asked.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” he said. “You can trust me to get to the bottom of this.”
“I am trusting you. I showed you the pictures.” She flung a hand toward the worktable and the horrible discovery that turned her heart and her identity inside out.
“Have you run across anything else about the woman or found more notes from her to your dad?”
She shook her head. “Thankfully, no. You know what I was doing on Wednesday night instead of killing my friend? I was here conducting incognito searches for the woman in the picture. I couldn’t tell the police that. My parents can only speculate that I was home.”
“You were home, that’s the point. Your parents have enough clout the police can’t ignore their alibi for you.”
He’d already said it wasn’t enough and her frustration mounted. Her friend was dead and the police didn’t have another suspect. How would she clear her name without destroying the people she loved most?
“The worst part? I’m not thinking about Melissa. I can’t stop wondering how I fit into this family now. Is there someone out there who misses me?” She pressed a hand to her belly. “I feel horrible that these questions are even in my head. My parents gave me a great life, unless I don’t fit here anymore.”
“Your parents haven’t turned on you, Paige. Your dad hired me. He brought in the best legal counsel in the country. Seems like your parents still want you right here with them.”
That gentle, soothing voice again. Good grief, she wished she didn’t need that calming effect so badly. “You’re right. Which brings me right back around to being ashamed and selfish. Is it so wrong to want an explanation? I wanted an explanation before Melissa wound up dead. After seeing myself on that surveillance tape, I think I deserve to hear the whole story.”
“Answers are my job,” he said. “Time and again, I’ve seen answers dredge up ugly stuff and drag people under like a riptide. You have to be ready.”
; “I do hear what you’re saying.” She lifted her hair off her neck, let it fall again. She was ready, good or bad. “I just want to understand.”
“Do you always keep the photos and receipts that raised all the questions here in the office?” he asked.
“Usually, yes.” She watched him assess the room. “I have electronic backups and the doors and windows are tied into the security system.”
“I’d feel better if you stored the original items elsewhere,” he said. “Would you like me to hold them for you?”
The idea of releasing the originals made her shiver, no matter how upsetting they were. “I have a safe in my bedroom.” She gathered the evidence of her father’s lies, her family secrets, into a small stack. It seemed impossible that these few items could turn her world upside down.
“The safe is smart. Now, how can I help you get through this evening?” he asked gently.
She sighed. “I’ll manage. Mom taught me well how to pretend life is normal.” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes, she gave him her most congenial smile. “Carter, would you like to pretend you aren’t a bodyguard and have drinks with my parents as a family friend?”
He gave her a wary look. “That’s a little frightening.”
She curtsied, a sarcastic gesture. “Polish and poise courtesy of a year in the daunting crucible known as cotillion.” At one time she might’ve been proud of that accomplishment. Tonight, the skills might serve her, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was a fraud.
Carter had cooperated, shifting away from his role as an investigator during the unavoidable meeting with her parents. He’d taken a few minutes to update Jenna and now he had to rely on her to make quick progress.
His mind kept churning over Paige’s unexpected findings and suspicions, considering new angles and possibilities as he watched the family dynamics. It seemed likely that Paige had been a product of an affair and subsequently adopted by Jack and Cora. Keeping an adoption secret wasn’t unusual, but it often resulted in distress and distrust.
He just didn’t see how those secrets tied into the chef’s murder. Not yet anyway. They were just getting started and he had to be patient. With himself, his client and the investigation as a whole.
He’d hoped that coming over might give him a chance to speak privately with Jack, but so far, no luck. Paige and her father were both doing their best to keep Cora’s mind on lighter topics. The conversation revolved around Christmas traditions and although Carter was able to participate with fond memories from his own childhood, he could practically hear the clock ticking on the case.
“Do you remember the first time we took Paige snow skiing?” Cora asked her husband as Paige passed out thick wedges of cherry pie.
“Of course,” Jack replied. “She was a natural.”
Paige, in her role as doting daughter, added a few fun stories to the mix. If he didn’t know better, it would’ve been a normal social moment.
In his pocket his phone hummed twice, but he ignored it until he could check it privately. The person reaching out could only be Jenna and if it was something truly urgent she would buzz him nonstop until he picked up. So it wasn’t until he was back in the privacy of the guest room at Paige’s house that he finally read through her messages.
Jenna had found the name of the woman in the photograph, Yvette Salter. A match to the Y.S. initials on the back of the photo. She’d been employed at the financial firm for just over a year and the dates lined up with what Paige had learned from Gloria.
The next message listed Yvette’s date of birth, her social security number, and a date of death about twelve years ago.
Would knowing his mistress was dead make it easier or more difficult to get answers out of Jack?
Another message was a notice that Paige’s case file had been updated on the agency cloud service. When he clicked the link, he found a medical record for Cora Alden Coker.
There was no hospital record for Cora near the time of Paige’s birth. He supposed, with the Coker’s resources, a birth could’ve been handled privately and off the record with ease nearly thirty years ago. It just struck him as unlikely. Especially when he kept reading. A few months prior to the birth date listed for Paige, Cora had been hospitalized after a suicide attempt. She should’ve been about four months pregnant, but there was no note in the medical record.
This was his job, and Paige had asked him to unravel the mystery of her birth, but it felt terribly invasive.
If this had been a standard case, he’d be focused on the murder scene and his client’s ties to the victim, but Paige didn’t have any motive. She wore her heart on her sleeve and she was clearly more invested in the questions surrounding her father than anything else. If she’d wanted to derail the retirement party, there were plenty of legal ways to do it. The woman had given him no indication she was capable of taking a life.
He picked up the phone and called Jenna. He owed her more than a text message for this extra digging. “I’m assuming you looked at Melissa anyway,” he said when she answered.
“You assume correctly,” she replied. “I understand wanting to get a full background on the client but that was a tangential search.”
“This case is different, trust me. Give me what you found on the chef.” He was hoping for some deep dark secret that would clear things up quickly.
“All-righty then. Our client was definitely tight with the chef. Nothing indicates there was a problem between them. Paige is really well-respected in Charleston and the general region.”
“The Coker family doesn’t do things halfway,” Carter said.
“That’s coming through loud and clear.”
So why hadn’t Jack sealed the records from Cora’s time in the psychiatric ward? It seemed like a strange oversight. Then again things must have been really horrible if his wife had attempted suicide. Was that due to discovering the affair or, as Paige believed, had her mother been depressed because they couldn’t get pregnant?
“Have you found a copy of Paige’s birth certificate?”
“I did. She was legally adopted through a private adoption,” Jenna reported. “It took a lot of digging to come up with the records behind the birth certificate on file.”
“Do you have any names of the people involved?” he asked.
“Yvette Salter is the birth mother. The attorney’s name is basically illegible and the law firm they used is no longer operating. I’m still unraveling that. You realize that if she is Jack Coker’s bio-daughter he wouldn’t have needed a formal adoption.”
One more twist to unwind. “Send me what you have on the law firm,” he said. “Please.”
“Sure thing. Are you ever going to ask me about the video evidence against our client?” Jenna wondered.
“That was my next question.”
“See, what I hear on this end is that you’re distracted,” Jenna stated. “She’s a real cutie but she’s not your type.”
“Oh really? What’s my type?” he asked, playing along.
Jenna chuckled. “I think you like them in bikinis and soaking up the sunshine on your boat.”
“I’m not opposed to hosting beautiful women of any variety on my boat.”
“Well, who would be?” Jenna shot back. “All I’m saying is I think you know better than to go looking for love in this particular stratosphere.”
“What I know best is not to go looking for love with a client.” He cleared his throat. “What did you find on that video?”
“Not anything too helpful.”
Carter swore under his breath.
“I couldn’t find anything in or around the crime scene that shows the woman using that gun. I will tell you at first glance the fingerprints match Paige’s.”
“That’s impossible. She wasn’t there.”
“I agree. The woman who was in that kitchen came in through the back door. I caught a glimpse of her on a traffic camera and worked my way to and from the time of the murder.
I’ve looked and looked, but there’s no indication she is the one who brought in that gun. Regardless of that, the woman is definitely not Paige.”
“So how did her fingerprints get on the gun?” Carter wondered.
“That’s another curious glitch. I ran the print through another analysis and there aren’t enough points for a match that would hold up in court.”
“Okay, Jenna, pretend I’m stupid. What are you saying?”
“I’m saying the fingerprints are similar at first glance. They are not the same. Eventually the police forensics department will discover that. Or her lawyer will happily point it out in court.”
He hoped it didn’t come to that. “I’d rather they figure it out before the real killer gets away with murder.”
“Same,” Jenna agreed. “It’s your investigation, but in my opinion, you should focus on finding the woman in that kitchen with the vic.”
“About that,” Carter began. “I’m fairly sure the woman at the scene is Paige’s sister.” He swallowed. “Possibly her twin.”
“That would explain the nearly identical appearance and fingerprints,” Jenna said. “I’ll go digging for more birth records.”
“Thanks,” Carter said, ending the call.
If anyone could sort that out, it was Jenna. He scrubbed at his face. This case wasn’t nearly as cut and dried as he’d anticipated. A challenge was one thing, always welcome. But after only a few hours on the job, his connection here felt personal.
Never a good feeling for a man who took pride in maintaining a professional distance.
Chapter Six
The next morning, Paige was in the kitchen sipping her second cup of coffee when Carter walked in. She’d heard the shower running in the guest bath and done her best to ignore all thoughts of him. It hadn’t been easy.
“Morning,” she said.
