The Substitute Sister

by Lisa Childs

  He caught her on the porch, draping the jacket over her shoulders. When he lifted her hair from under the collar, his hands brushing against her neck, she shivered. His gut tightened with desire, but her contagious anxiety pushed it aside.

  For now.

  Until they found Annie. And they would. And she’d be safe. She had to be.

  Boots shuffled across the porch toward him. Reed turned toward his young deputy.

  “Sir,” Tommy greeted him with respect even though a little smirk played around his mouth and a flush stained his cheekbones. Did everyone on the island know what he and Sasha had been doing?

  “Tommy,” Reed said. “Have you seen Barbie and the little girl?”

  The kid’s face flushed more, betraying his crush on the young nanny. “When you came, I left for lunch, like you said. I didn’t see them in town.”

  “How long were you gone?”

  “Carol rushed my order, but the inn was pretty busy. Half hour. Maybe forty-five minutes.” The young man was too literal to exaggerate, so Reed trusted his reply.

  “And you haven’t seen them since you got back?”

  He shook his head. “No. Just saw Mrs. Arnold and Jerry come back from town. Nobody else.”

  Reed sighed.

  “Is there a problem, Sheriff?”

  He’d like to brush off his concern and Sasha’s. But he couldn’t lie to her. “There might be. I need your help searching for them. Talk to Mr. Scott in the carriage house. Maybe they stopped there to visit.”

  “What can we do?” Sasha asked, speaking for the first time since he’d found her in the nursery. Her face still held no trace of color, only wide-eyed fear.

  “We’ll search the grounds.”

  But the path through the gardens revealed no trace of the nanny and the child. They found the old gardener kneeling in a flower bed. As they approached, Sasha reached for Reed’s hand, her nails digging into his skin. Was she scared of the old man? Why?

  “Jerry,” Reed said, startling the gardener. Dirt sprayed into the air from the trowel he lifted with a jerk of his gnarled hand.

  “Sheriff.” His squinty-eyed gaze moved over Sasha. “Miss Michaelson.”

  Sasha nodded, her thick hair tumbling into her face. “Have you seen my niece?” she asked the old man, her voice holding a slight quaver.

  Reed suddenly wondered how these people had been treating Sasha to warrant such uneasiness. Why had he left her alone with them? He cursed his lack of sensitivity.

  “No, miss,” he said, his expression intent on her face. Other people stared at her, no doubt seeing a resemblance to Nadine.

  Until yesterday, when Reed had seen Nadine’s body on the beach, he’d forgotten about it. When he looked at her, he saw only Sasha, not Nadine.

  Jerry continued, “The old woman and I came back from town just a while ago. I saw only the deputy at the door. No one else.”

  “Mr. Scott?” Reed asked.

  “No, sir. Only the kid, I mean, deputy.”

  Reed thought of Tommy as a kid, too. He’d seen things he hoped to hell the kid never did. But Sasha already had…when she’d found her sister’s body on the beach yesterday.

  They searched the grounds around the house. Next would be the woods and the beach. He turned toward Sasha. “Why don’t you go back inside? The wind’s picking up. Tommy and I will search—”

  She dropped his hand—he thought to comply with his suggestion. Instead she lifted her chin, her eyes full of anger and resolve.

  “I’m helping you search.” Her usually soft voice hardened, brooking no argument from him.

  “I’m going to the beach next, Sasha,” he warned her.

  Sasha swayed as if he’d spun her in a dizzying circle, like Annie loved for him to do. Then the child would walk around like a drunken sailor, giggling her curly little head off.

  “Just stay here,” he advised, hoping for both their sakes that she would listen. He wanted to calm her fears, not add to them. “I’ll be right back.”

  He headed toward the path leading down to the beach. A piece of yellow crime-scene tape lay in the grass next to the trail. Someone had ripped it off the two stakes flanking the path.

  Why the hell would the nanny take the little girl to the place where her mother’s dead body had washed ashore? He hoped he was wrong. He hoped it was some kids from town, driven by curiosity to break the law.

  Closer to the beach he found a small pink tennis shoe. Had she lost it on the trail, or had it dropped from her foot as someone carried her down the steep slope?

  Heart racing, he left the shoe, not wanting to disturb any possible evidence. His gut churned as he forced himself to respond as a lawman and not the father he wished he could have been for the little girl. Then he turned his attention toward the rocky shore. “Annie!”

  The waves raced toward the rocks, the roar of the rushing water muffling his voice and Sasha’s approach until she grasped his arm with one hand. The little shoe was in her other shaking hand.

  “Oh, my God, she’s down here. Where? Where is she?” Her voice shook, too.

  “We’ll find them,” he said, but he didn’t add a promise, just a silent prayer.

  Their shoes slipped on the slick rocks as they scrambled along the shore, away from the path. She lost her footing, and he grabbed at her arm, keeping her from falling where she might have struck her head on the craggy beach.

  He wanted to send her to the house again, but he knew she wouldn’t go back, not without Annie. So he moved his hand from her arm, wrapping it around her small waist, holding her close against him.

  As they neared the area where she’d found Nadine, he studied her pale face. Her body trembled against his as she leaned on him. As well as physical support, he wanted to offer emotional support. He wanted to erase the horrific image from her mind.

  She screamed, gesturing behind him.

  Breath leaving his lungs, he turned to the taped-off area where Sasha had found Nadine’s body. And he found another corpse.

  The young nanny stared at them, eyes gaping open in death as her blood bathed the rocks, draining from the gaping wound in her neck.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Annie!” Sasha screamed, throat burning as desperation clawed at her.

  She couldn’t think about what might have happened to the child, not while the nanny lay there…murdered. She had to believe her niece was all right. She had to believe it, or she’d lose what was left of her mind.

  Tears burned her eyes, but she blinked them back, concentrating on calling the child’s name and praying that she would answer. “Annie!”

  Sasha tore away from Reed’s strong arms, feet sliding across the rocks as she ran farther down the shore. Nadine had trusted her child to Sasha’s care. How badly had she let her sister down?

  How could she have let the child out of her sight when there was a killer on the loose?

  Nadine’s killer.

  She glanced back over her shoulder, at Barbie’s dead body. And the killer had killed again.

  Just once?

  Her heart raced, and she could hardly catch her breath as she screamed, “Annie!”

  But the wind and crash of the waves whipped away the sound of her voice. Despite her efforts, she could barely hear herself.

  She would keep looking, keep calling…

  “Annie!”

  She scrambled around a boulder, breath catching in her lungs as she found the little girl.

  Annie sat on the rocks, pant legs wet from the encroaching waves. She played with some small pebbles, piling them up as she constructed walls of a structure for which only she knew the purpose. To keep her safe, to protect her from harm?

  That was Sasha’s job. And she’d failed…miserably. What if the killer had hurt the child? What if Annie had waded into the cold lake, the waves crashing over her?

  “Annie,” she said again, throat clogged with tears. “Annie.”

  The little girl cocked her head toward her aunt, her
bright eyes dulled with sleepiness. “Mommy,” she said before turning back toward her pebble piles.

  Sasha rushed forward, lifting the child into her arms, holding her tight against her chest.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she murmured into Annie’s tousled curls, damp from the spray of the foaming waves. “I promise I won’t let anything happen to you, baby. I’ll keep you safe.”

  From now on.

  She’d nearly lost the child to a murderer and the lake. How could she have been so irresponsible?

  When they were growing up, that had always been Nadine; she’d been the reckless one. Sasha had always played it safe, not that it had saved her from getting hurt, but she’d never been as careless as she’d been since arriving on Sunset Island.

  Maybe Nadine had made a mistake in leaving her little girl to Sasha. Maybe she would have been safer with someone else, with Reed. Sasha pulled Annie closer, pressing her tight to her heart. She didn’t want to lose her, even though she didn’t deserve her.

  The cold wind whipped around them, the little girl’s shiver setting off one in Sasha. Then warmth enveloped her as Reed wrapped his arms around them both, his shaking hand tousling the little girl’s curls.

  “There she is, there’s our beautiful girl,” he said, voice gruff with emotion.

  Our. Not his. Not hers.

  But she couldn’t read anything into his words. He was just relieved the little girl was safe, especially since another young woman was not.

  Sasha tipped her head back, meeting his gaze, knowing the tears brightening his eyes were falling from hers. Tears of relief, tears of anguish.

  Another woman had been murdered as violently as Nadine. Had Annie been down by the water when the murder occurred? Sasha doubted that Barbie would have been that uncaring of the child’s safety. She would have kept Annie close. Close enough to witness her nanny’s murder?

  What had the little girl seen?

  SASHA LEANED against the nursery doorway, captivated by the image before her. Reed knelt beside the crib, stroking his big hand over Annie’s small face. She hated to disturb him, but she had to know. “Is she all right?”

  He nodded, his shoulders barely moving. She knew he carried the same amount of guilt she did. Given his job, maybe more. She shouldn’t have trusted the nanny, shouldn’t have let her take Annie off alone.

  And why had she? So she could selfishly act on her feelings for Reed. Feelings she should have continued to resist because they could lead to nothing but more heartache.

  How much more heartache would Annie have to suffer? She’d lost the two people closest to her. And she might have witnessed the murder of one of them.

  She voiced her fear, “Do you think she saw what happened to Barbie?”

  He shook his head. “No. I doubt it. She talked about the water, the stones, nothing else.”

  “Why would Barbie take her there?” she asked, voice cracking with the emotions swirling through her. “Morbid curiosity?”

  He stood up and turned toward her, shuttering his expression. What was he trying to keep from her? “Sasha, you don’t need to worry about—”

  Because Annie was asleep, she held in an outraged shout…barely. “How dare you? I lost my sister already. Today I almost lost my niece. I need to do more than worry. I need to know what’s going on…” Before she left.

  After what had happened today, after the danger Annie had been in, Sasha had no choice. In order to keep Nadine’s daughter safe, she had to leave Sunset Island.

  Reed joined her in the doorway, so tall and strong. But she couldn’t count on him for protection. She’d learned five years ago that she couldn’t count on anyone.

  His hand cupped her elbow, steering her into the hall. “This is a police investigation—”

  She cast another glance toward the sleeping child. “This affects me.” And Annie. “I deserve to know.”

  A ragged sigh slipped through his lips. “Okay, you’re right.”

  So she asked again, “Why did she take Annie down to the beach?”

  “Sasha, remember that I have no hard evidence. Yet.” His green eyes gleamed with determination and something even fiercer, anger. He took it personally that someone was killing people for whose safety he considered himself responsible.

  “This is just supposition,” he cautioned.

  “Let me hear your supposition.” Because she had a feeling that his instincts were probably much more reliable than hers.

  “Barbie was probably meeting someone,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “Apparently your sister’s killer.”

  Her killer. Poor Barbie. “So this is the same person? A serial killer?”

  She shuddered. The island seemed so peaceful, so quaint. But she knew its isolation, its eeriness.

  “That was my first thought.” Dread deepened his voice. “But I think it’s more involved than that.”

  More personal. “She knew who killed Nadine.”

  “I think so.”

  And he’d interrogated the girl but gotten nothing out of her. Sasha hadn’t guessed the extent of the guilt he felt, but she felt it now, as if she were close enough to share his burden. But they weren’t close. Despite how intimate they’d been that afternoon, they were relative strangers.

  Weren’t they?

  She reached out, running her fingertips along his jaw, hoping to soothe his troubled soul. “You’re not to blame for any of this. Only one person is.”

  The killer.

  He caught her hand, bringing it toward his mouth for a quick kiss. “I may not be to blame, but I’m just as at fault. It’s my responsibility to protect these people. I failed.” His breath shuddered out. “I failed your sister, Sasha. And today I failed Annie…and Barbie.”

  “She knew who the killer was. She should have told you. She could have saved herself.” But she’d been young and resentful. “Was she part of it? Part of Nadine’s murder?”

  Maybe it hadn’t been coincidence that she’d taken Annie for a walk that day, too. Maybe it had been part of the plot to kill Nadine.

  “I don’t know. I searched her room. Again. I had searched the entire house after Nadine’s death, but I hadn’t found this then.” He withdrew a folded piece of paper from his jeans pocket. “It’s addressed to you. Nadine wrote it.”

  She’d already heard from Nadine once that day. If she hadn’t, if Nadine’s frantic whisper hadn’t wakened her, Annie might have been carried away on those encroaching waves. She might have been lost in the lake just as her mother’s body had been for too many days….

  “Nadine,” she said, her breath catching.

  God, her feelings for her twin were so complicated. If only…

  Reed squeezed her shoulder, the grasp of his big hand offering little comfort as it reminded her of that afternoon, of those stolen hours of passionate kisses and hot caresses…and so much more than she’d ever thought possible.

  “It’s not the whole letter,” he said.

  She pulled herself from her wanton thoughts and reawakened desires. “You kept some of it?” she asked.

  He shook his head, frustration tightening the hard line of his jaw. “No, someone else did.”

  The killer.

  “Like Barbie, Nadine knew the killer, too,” she guessed, “even before he’d killed. He must have been threatening her.” As Reed had suspected, when Nadine’s money ran out, the killer had gotten rid of her. “Why not tell you?”

  Why not tell her? Regret squeezed like a cold hand around Sasha’s heart. Because she had told Nadine that she never wanted to hear from her again. Ever. For any reason. They were no longer sisters.

  But if she hadn’t felt like she could come to Sasha, why not Reed? Had she been involved in something illegal? Something she’d paid a blackmailer to keep secret? “Why hadn’t she asked someone for help?”

  Tears stung Sasha’s eyes. Damn her. If only Nadine had reached out, she would be alive…not a ghost in an eerie old house. But
maybe that was why she’d called Charles, for help. But it had already been too late. But then, maybe Charles had been more destroyer than savior. Obviously, Sasha had never known what the man was capable of.

  Reed pressed the letter into her hand. “You need to read it.”

  She didn’t want to. No one had ever hurt her as much as Nadine had, not even Charles. Her fingers trembled against the paper. “Don’t you need to keep it? Isn’t it evidence?”

  “Yes,” he admitted.

  She tried to hand it back, but he fisted his hands. “I’m bending the rules because you need to read it, Sasha. Then you can give it back to me.”

  “I’m leaving tomorrow,” she said, the words coming out in a rush before she could change her mind.

  No surprise flickered in his green eyes. He’d known and he wasn’t going to ask her to stay. Maybe that was why he was so adamant that she read the words her sister had written for her.

  So that when she left, she’d have a better understanding of her sister. For her sake? Or Nadine’s?

  She stopped fighting to hand the letter back, instead she curled her fingers around the rumpled paper. Perhaps Nadine had written it and then wadded it up to throw it away before mailing it. Maybe Barbie had found it in her employer’s trash. Why hadn’t Nadine sent it?

  The angry words she’d hurled at her sister when Nadine had called her after the wedding that had never taken place resounded in Sasha’s head. I never want to hear from you again. You’re dead to me. And now she was.

  She blinked back tears. “Okay. I’ll read it.”

  He squeezed her hand, then released it and walked away. She wanted to ask him so many things. About the letter.

  And about them. Did he care that she was leaving? Would she see him again before she did?

  She didn’t ask. And although she didn’t hear her this time, she could almost feel Nadine calling her back into the nursery. Drawn to the rocker, she settled into it and unfolded the letter.

  Dear Sasha,