My Sister, Myself

by Alice Sharpe

  “I don’t understand…”

  Tess looked up at detective Ryan Hill, who regarded her with such empathy that it crumbled what little control she had left and she swayed on her feet again. Only this time, he caught her elbows in his strong hands and held her steady.

  “Is she…going to be okay?” she murmured, wiping away the tears.

  “The doctor said he thinks there’s a good chance she’ll pull through.”

  “Has the driver come forward? Have you found him yet?”

  “There are a thousand white vans in New Harbor, Miss Mays. Without a license plate…” Detective Hill’s voice trailed off as he ran a hand through his black, glossy hair. “There’s a whole lot you need to know.”

  Tess looked away from his gaze, staring at the bank of monitors, then at the face that was at once familiar and foreign—her twin sister. Her twin. All those years of loneliness and she’d had a twin the whole time….

  ALICE

  SHARPE

  MY SISTER,

  MYSELF

  This book is dedicated to my sister, Mary Shumate.

  Not a twin, but just as close to my heart.

  I would like to thank Arnold Sharpe, Joseph Sharpe and

  Jennifer Jones for their patience, support and expertise.

  I love you all.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Alice Sharpe met her husband-to-be on a cold, foggy beach in Northern California. One year later they were married. Their union has survived the rearing of two children, a handful of earthquakes registering over 6.5, numerous cats and a few special dogs, the latest of which is a yellow Lab named Annie Rose. Alice and her husband now live in a small rural town in Oregon, where she devotes the majority of her time to pursuing her second love, writing.

  Alice loves to hear from readers. You can write her at P.O. Box 755, Brownsville, OR 97327. SASE for reply is appreciated.

  Books by Alice Sharpe

  HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

  746—FOR THE SAKE OF THEIR BABY

  823—UNDERCOVER BABIES

  923—MY SISTER, MYSELF *

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Tess Mays—A fateful phone call disrupts her safe existence. Will she take up her long-lost twin sister’s struggle to prove her dead father innocent?

  Ryan Hill—A detective with the New Harbor police department, Ryan is committed to protecting both of his late partner’s daughters. Trouble is, one is in a coma and the other is turning into a wonder woman right before his eyes.

  Katie Fields—Tess’s twin. What did she uncover before being struck down by a hit-and-run driver?

  Matt Fields—His suspicious death in a house fire provides the catalyst that brings his long-separated daughters back together.

  Caroline Mays—Tess and Katie’s mother. But why did she keep her children apart and where is she now?

  Nelson Lingford—What’s the acute businessman’s role in the fire that destroyed his stepmother’s home?

  Madeline Lingford—Would this crippled widow commit murder to protect her stepson?

  Irene Woodall—The art dealer has obviously become Katie’s confidant within the Lingford household. How can Tess circumnavigate her to get at the truth?

  Vince Desota—His greed has all but destroyed his life, and he’ll stop at nothing to get back at the man he blames for his failures.

  Clint Doyle—A burly bodyguard who takes his job seriously. The question is: how seriously?

  Jim Kinsey—A former Lingford employee, will he stop at nothing to get what he wants?

  Georges—Irene’s assistant. Why is he lying so low?

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Prologue

  Juggling an unwieldy umbrella and a cell phone, Katie Fields punched in the phone number, excitement turning to frustration as she reached Ryan’s voice mail. She clicked off without leaving a message. Never mind. She’d catch up with him later and he’d be forced to eat crow as she provided proof that would clear her father’s name.

  Or would it?

  The niggling voice in the back of her head, the voice she’d been trying her best to ignore, reminded her there was still the contents of that troubling suitcase to be explained.

  She stared at the phone. She could make another call….

  No. Not yet. That was the future, this was now.

  Pocketing the phone, she hurried along the slick sidewalk, struggling against the northwest wind and the wintry rain. Her car was just up ahead. She was so wrapped up in her battle with the elements that she didn’t see or hear danger coming. It was only some sort of sixth sense that caused her to lower the umbrella at the last moment and face destruction head-on.

  She screamed as she hit the wet sidewalk and then she knew nothing, nothing at all.

  Chapter One

  Tess took the taxi directly from the airport to the hospital, traveling the dark, rainy, unfamiliar streets in a state of numb distraction.

  All she could hear in her head was the impersonal voice on the telephone telling her a fantastic story she still didn’t believe. Well, she’d be at the hospital soon and then she’d know. Her stomach, which had been in a knot for hours now, clenched even tighter.

  “This is it, lady,” the cabbie said, rolling to a stop outside a huge, well-lit building. Gathering her duffel bag, Tess paid her fare before stepping outside into a puddle the size of a wading pool. Her San Francisco blood was too thin for this coastal Oregon chill, she thought, as she hugged her coat close and fought her way through the pelting rain into the hospital lobby.

  She knew she needed to go up to the third floor. Once there, she found the ICU waiting room and activated the intercom. “I’m looking for Katie Fields,” she said, saying the name aloud for the first time in her life. “I was told she’s here.”

  “And you are?” the voice came back.

  “Tess Mays. Theresa Mays. I believe I’m…expected.”

  Within a few moments she was standing outside the curtained cubicle and because she’d been hurrying ever since the startling call came hours before, she pushed aside the soft-blue drapes without pause, stopping only as they swished behind her.

  There was one bed in the dimly lit room. One slight figure, still as death itself, occupied the bed. Lights blinked on the monitors. If there were accompanying sounds, Tess didn’t hear them; blood rushing through her head obliterated everything but the wild thumping of her own heart.

  She wasn’t aware when she dropped her duffel bag to the floor or when her shoulder bag followed. Pushing damp hair behind her ears, she slowly moved toward the bed, nerves like fire ants skittering up and down her spine.

  Tubes led from the patient’s arm to an IV bag, her fingernails were torn and dozens of bloody scrapes crisscrossed her arms. As Tess’s gaze made it to the woman’s face, she paused, resting one hand on the guardrail as she peered down at the bruised and swollen features.

  Familiar features.

  It was true. Somehow, someway, she, a twenty-seven-year-old only child raised by a single mother eight hundred miles south of here, had acquired an unconscious identical twin sister.

  Swaying, she clutched the side of the bed and murmured, “I don’t understand….”

  She heard her own whispered words and, just like that, the beeping of the machines and a sound came from the shadows. She looked up as a man materialized from the far corner. Taking a step back, she covered her mouth with
one hand.

  “You’re Theresa Mays,” he said, his face coming into the light. Tess stared at him as he stared at her, a stalemate of sorts. But the fact that he knew her name finally made an impact and she dropped her hand.

  He wasn’t a doctor, unless doctors at this hospital had adopted a dress code of jeans and black leather jackets, two-day-old beards and unruly jet-black hair. He appeared to be in his early thirties, a tall man with broad shoulders and features cut from a mountainside. The unsettled look on his face made Tess shudder. He held a rectangle of paper in his hand and he ran his fingers along the fold as he said, “I didn’t really believe it until this moment. You look exactly like her.”

  “Who are you?” Tess said. “How do you know my name?”

  “I’ve been expecting you,” he said, walking around the bed, his gaze never leaving her face. He was a big man, and Tess was a small woman, something that hit home every time one of her larger patients got rambunc tious, like the Newfoundland jokingly named Mouse who outweighed Tess and liked to sit on her feet.

  It finally dawned on Tess that the strongest emotion emanating from this man was confusion.

  Join the club….

  He produced a badge. “My name is Ryan Hill. I’m a detective with the New Harbor police force.”

  With a glance back at the silent woman in the bed, Tess said, “Is this about…her…accident?”

  “I worked with her father. He was my partner. I take it you didn’t know your father,” he said gently.

  Tess shook her head. He was using the past tense, but her brain kept coming up with explanations other than the obvious one.

  “I think you should read this,” Detective Hill said, stepping closer and handing Tess the paper. It was dog-eared and much folded as though read and reread a million times.

  Tess took it almost reluctantly, unfolding it into a handwritten letter. She looked over at her unconscious sister again, then back at the letter, tilting it toward the light in order to see better.

  My dear Katie,

  If you’re reading this, I’m dead. Of course, being in law enforcement all these years has put me in harm’s way more often than most, so I guess it’s not too big a surprise. I want you to know any mistakes I made were my own damn fault. That said, you need to know something, Katie, something I swore I would never tell, but now, I don’t know, maybe that was wrong.

  A pang of loss shocked Tess with its intensity. Looking up from the letter, she found Detective Hill’s gaze glued to her face. She said, “When…when did he die?”

  “Ten weeks ago. December first.”

  “And you’ve read this letter?”

  “It was in Katie’s possession when she was hit outside her apartment building. One of her neighbors at the Vista Del Mar recognized her but didn’t know her name and there was no ID in her wallet. The investigating officer found the letter. You can see that Katie wrote your phone number on the back. That’s how we tracked you down.”

  Tess flipped the paper over and found her San Francisco phone number written in a different hand. “I see,” she said woodenly.

  He gestured at the paper and said, “Go on, finish reading it.”

  Turning the page over again, she read:

  I know I told you your mother died in childbirth, but that’s not the truth. Your mother didn’t die. We split up when you were six months old. Only there’s more. You had a twin sister, identical to you. When everything fell apart, your mother and I decided we’d each take one of you. We actually rolled the dice to see which of you girls went where. You were so alike, there was just no other way to do it. I’m sorry for never telling you, but your mother and I made a pact and I’m breaking it now only because if I’m gone it means you’re alone and I don’t want that. I heard your mother went back to her maiden name of Mays after the divorce. Caroline Mays. Your sister’s name is Theresa. I believe they resettled in California. Find them if you want, and if you do, well, tell your sister I’m sorry.

  Forgive me, Katie.

  Dad.

  Ignoring the tears rolling down her cheeks, Tess refolded the letter. She looked up at Detective Hill, who regarded her with such empathy that it crumbled what little control she had left and she swayed on her feet again. Only, this time he caught her elbows in his strong hands and held her steady.

  “There’s more,” he said in such a way that Tess understood at once that it wasn’t good. He dropped his hands and shoved them in his pockets.

  “Not yet,” she murmured, wiping away the tears. “Give me a few moments.” Directing her attention back to her sister, she added, “Is she…is she going to be okay?”

  “The doctor said he thinks there’s a good chance she’ll pull through,” he said. “Her brain waves are normal and her vital signs are decent. She hit her head hard when she went down, though—hence the concussion—but he said she could wake up tomorrow or next week. She’s got bruises, torn ligaments in her right leg—I gather it’s amazing her injuries aren’t worse than they are.”

  “The person who called me said she’d been the victim of a hit-and-run. Has the driver come forward, have you found him yet?”

  Detective Hill’s eyes shifted uneasily as though he fervently wished he could respond with a positive, Of course! Instead he said, “There’s not much to go on. There was one witness to the incident. A man walking his dog in the rain heard the impact and the squeal of brakes, but when he yelled, the driver, who had gotten out of the van, scrambled back inside and took off. Unfortunately, our witness is legally blind, but he can discern shapes and light. All he could say for certain was that the van was white. It didn’t help that it was pouring cats and dogs. He couldn’t tell if the driver was a man or a woman. There are a thousand white vans in New Harbor, Ms. Mays. Without a license plate…” His voice trailed off as he ran a hand through his black, glossy hair. “There’s a whole lot you need to know.”

  Tess looked away from his gaze, staring at the bank of monitors, then at the face that was at once familiar and foreign—her twin sister. Her twin. All those years of loneliness and she’d had a twin the whole time.

  And a father.

  “Look, Ms. Mays—”

  “Tess. Call me Tess.”

  “Okay. And please call me Ryan. You must be beat. Why don’t I buy you a cup of coffee. This isn’t the right place to talk.”

  “I need to call my mother. She needs to know about…Katie. She needs to…know.”

  The curtains parted as a middle-aged nurse swept into the room, nodding at Ryan as though used to seeing him there. Her glance at Tess was followed by a double take.

  “I’m…I’m her sister,” Tess said, trying the words on for size, flinching when she heard her voice utter them.

  RYAN HILL STARED at the woman seated across from him. How could anyone look so much like someone else? And how could Matt Fields have kept a second daughter a secret all these years? Wait a second… Theresa Mays was the least of Matt’s secrets.

  The duplicate daughter was currently polishing off a stack of chocolate-chip pancakes topped with ice cream and doused with chocolate syrup. As she wiped up the last of the melted ice cream with the last bite of pancake, the waitress refilled their coffee cups.

  Anxious to get out of the hospital, he’d hustled Tess to a diner down the block, thankful the relentless winter rain had stopped for a few moments. He hated that hospital. Peter had died there—technically, anyway. His real death had occurred in a flop house down near the tracks.

  But that had been twelve years ago and until very recently, Ryan had managed to put his kid brother’s miserable death and the part he himself had unwittingly played in that death behind him. This whole thing with Katie Fields had brought it back with a vengeance.

  Tess finally put her fork down and, finding him looking at her, flashed him a guarded smile. “That was delicious.”

  He nodded, glancing at the wall clock. It was straight up on midnight. When it came to the middle of the night, he was a cup-of-blac
k-coffee kind of guy.

  “What do you do?” he asked. “I mean for a living?” He was trying to figure out how a petite woman like this one managed a stack of pancakes doused in ice cream. Maybe she dug ditches, though the pearly white of her skin suggested she worked indoors. Her clothes didn’t look as if they belonged to a laborer, either. Tailored slacks fit her small but curvy figure perfectly, and the red blouse floating over her upper torso looked pricey. An executive of some type? If so, she was a far cry from her bartending, fun-loving sister.

  “I’m a veterinarian,” she said, brushing a few strands of hair away from her heart-shaped face. Her shoulder-length hair was wavy. He tried to recall what Katie’s hair had looked like the last time he’d seen her but couldn’t. To him, Katie had always been Matt’s daughter, a nice enough woman he saw once or twice a year but never gave a second thought to when she was out of sight.

  “Dogs and cats, mostly,” she added, her smile deepening as she apparently thought of her patients.

  “I have a cat,” he said for no particular reason. Matt Fields’s secret daughter was an animal doctor? Didn’t a career choice like that take not only brains but conviction? Katie certainly was smart enough, but she always struck him as aimless. Because Tess looked like Katie, he’d expected her to be like Katie.

  “You’re staring at me,” she said softly.

  “Sorry.”

  She didn’t respond but she looked unsettled and he didn’t blame her. Less than twenty-four hours before, she’d been unique in the world, or so she’d thought. And now…

  He said, “Did you reach your mother?”

  She took a sip of coffee as the waitress reappeared to whisk away her plate. “No.”

  “She’s not at home?”