She could hear the car doors slam as she came out on the porch. “Thanks for bringing them, Officer Haverty,” she called. “We owe you.”
“My pleasure.” He was smiling not at Eve but at the blond woman he was helping retrieve a suitcase from his trunk. “Anytime. Just call, Darcy.”
“Thank you, Bob,” she said softly. “You’ve been such a help. But I can handle it from now on.”
“Eve!” Cara was flying up the steps and into her arms. She hugged her tightly. “It’s so good to be home.”
“It’s wonderful to have you home,” Eve said unsteadily. “It’s been too long. Can’t that school arrange to have any concerts down here? We do have a modicum of culture I’ve been told. For heaven’s sake, they sent you to Phoenix. That’s clear across the country.”
“It will be over soon. Just one more year…” She took a step back and grinned. “Then they say I’ll be able to pick and choose.”
“Yeah, sure. Then every impresario in the world will want their piece of you.” She smiled. “They already do, or you wouldn’t be used as bait to lure all those donations.”
“I need the experience. And most of them are fine charities. It’s win-win. Though Darcy agrees with you. She’s a bit cynical about—” She turned toward the woman climbing the steps. “But she’ll tell you herself. Come up here, Darcy. This is Darcy Nichols, Eve.”
“I’m coming. I’ve been so eager to meet you, Eve. Cara won’t stop talking about you.” Darcy was smiling, her entire face lit with enthusiasm as she hurried up the steps toward them. “It took me a while to inveigle myself into the inner circle, but here I am. Now the first question is what can I do to make you adopt me? If you don’t kick me out, I promise I’ll—” She stopped. Her eyes widened in alarm. “What’s wrong? Did I offend you? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I guess I’m—”
“No.” Eve raised a shaking hand to halt that flow of apologies. Eve could barely get that word out. Stunned. Crazy. It was all crazy … and terrifying. Her gaze was clinging to Darcy Nichols’s concerned face. “Not your fault. At least, I don’t think it is. Mistake? I can’t put it together…”
“Eve?” Cara took a step closer to her. “Are you okay? You’re white as a tombstone.” She put her arm around Eve’s waist. “Let’s go inside. I’ll get you a cup of coffee.”
“Yes, I have to go inside,” Eve said numbly. “I have to see why—” She turned and went back inside the house. “None of it makes sense.”
“What should I do? Someone I should call?” Darcy asked Cara. “Is she sick? Is it something I did?”
“I don’t know,” Cara said. “I don’t think—I don’t know what to think.”
She had to snap out of this, Eve thought. She was scaring Cara. A reason. There had to be a reason. She stopped in the middle of the living room and took a deep breath. “I’m not sick. Something just happened that sent me—I’m just … surprised.” Understatement. She was still in shock. “I think you’ll both understand when I—” She moistened her lips. “Coincidence. It’s got to be a coincidence. God, I hope I didn’t make a mistake.”
Cara was gazing at her in bewilderment. “Coincidence?”
Eve knew she wasn’t handing this well. She didn’t know how to do it any better. Okay, just go for it, and take care of figuring out everything later. She drew a deep breath. “It’s a coincidence that I’ve been sculpting your friend Darcy’s, face for the last five days.”
* * *
Eve strode over to her workbench and jerked off the black velvet cloth that was covering the reconstruction. “No, it’s the same face, dammit.” Her gaze was going back and forth from the reconstruction to Darcy’s features. Same jaw. Same high cheekbones. Same nose. Same lips. Even the same sparkling blue eyes. “Not just a resemblance. Not a coincidence. It’s the same face.” Her hands clenched. “Do you know what that means? I made a mistake. This reconstruction is going to be useless as far as ID goes. I must have seen a photo or a TV clip of Darcy’s show sometime in the past, and my memory grabbed and used it when I thought I was doing a new reconstruction. That’s always a danger, but I’ve never made that mistake before. I’ll have to break it down to the skull again and start all over.”
“Maybe you won’t.” Darcy’s gaze was fixed on the face of the reconstruction. Her face was as pale as Eve’s as she moved slowly, stiffly across the room toward the worktable. “You say this is … a skull?”
“Yes.” Eve had been so disappointed that she had failed in her attempt to bring Sylvie home that she had ignored the fact that for ordinary people, Eve’s mistake would seem macabre and even frightening. “I’m sorry, Darcy. I didn’t mean to involve you in—”
“That means she’s … dead?” Darcy asked unsteadily. “Of course, it does. Who could—live without a skull. How?”
“She was shot in the temple.”
“Shot.” She flinched. “Would there have been—pain?”
“No. Joe believes it would have killed her instantly.”
Cara was suddenly beside Darcy. “It was a mistake, Darcy. This has nothing to do with you. Eve will fix it, and you won’t look anything alike.”
“Yes, we will,” Darcy whispered. Her fingers were shaking as she reached out and gently probed beneath the chin of the reconstruction. “There was an old break right here…”
Eve went still. “Yes, there was. It took me longer than usual to seal it.”
“You did a good job. I can barely feel it.” Her hand dropped away, and she stood there, staring at the reconstruction. “A skull…”
“Darcy,” Cara said. “What—”
“Dead.” Tears were suddenly running down Darcy’s face. “She’s dead, Cara. I knew it, but she—I feel sick.” She closed her eyes. “I think … I have to throw up.”
“This way.” Cara whisked her out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom.
Eve watched them go and turned back to the reconstruction. So beautiful, so like that gorgeous, vibrant young woman who had stood before her only a moment ago. “I’m very confused, Sylvie,” she murmured. “But I believe we may have brought you home.”
* * *
“Twins.” Cara told Eve a half hour later after she’d settled Darcy in the bedroom and come out to speak to her. “That’s all she’d say, and I wasn’t going to interrogate her right now. She can’t stop shaking, but she didn’t want anyone with her. I’ll check on her later. I put her to bed and left her alone to come to terms with it.” She added grimly, “Though I don’t know how anyone comes to terms with the death of a sister. I never really did, and I was only three when my sister was killed. And Darcy just found out that skull belonged to her twin. I don’t believe she’d even been told she was dead. It’s no wonder she went into shock.”
“I would have been gentler about it if I hadn’t believed I’d made a mistake,” Eve said. “It wasn’t as if it was a resemblance, it was exact.” Eve wearily shook her head. “Or maybe I wouldn’t. I was pretty much in shock myself. I’ve been so absorbed with this reconstruction since it landed on my doorstep that it seemed impossible I hadn’t gotten it right.”
“But you did get it right,” Cara said. “And the whole thing seems impossible.” She rubbed her temple as she dropped down on the couch. “On your doorstep? What do you mean by that?”
When Eve had finished telling her of that night, Cara was shaking her head again. “You didn’t tell me. Why didn’t you let me know what was happening?”
“What good would it have done? You weren’t involved, Cara. And you have your own life and your own problems to take care of.”
“You tell me all the time that you consider me family. And then you don’t tell when some nut drops a skull on your doorstep?”
“Joe and I were taking care of it. I was doing the reconstruction, and Joe was investigating to try to find out about the teeth and DNA. That was our job and not yours.”
“You’re my job,” Cara said fiercely. “You and Joe and Michael. Can’t
you see that?”
Yes, she did see it, Eve thought. Cara had always tried to give back to her for taking her into her home without counting the cost. That was one of the reasons she had thought it best to send her to that school in New York. She needed to live life to the fullest and not think about taking care of Eve and the family. “There was no overt threat, just the skull that was delivered. It could have been possible that it was someone who wanted me to find out who the victim was so that she could be identified.”
“But you didn’t think that was true.”
Eve remembered that blackened skull, the hole in the temple, the broken mirror. “No, I didn’t think that was what was happening. But Joe has been very careful, and there’s no sign that whoever delivered that box has come back. I’m sending the reconstruction to Forensics tomorrow, and that should cut my ties to the skull. If the aim was to get me to do the reconstruction, then I’ve complied, and my job should be considered over.”
“If that was the aim,” Cara repeated. “But what if he already knew? What if he was the one who shot her? And you said she’d been burned beyond recognition. What was the reason for that?” She shivered. “Ugly. So ugly, Eve.”
More than Cara realized, Eve thought, remembering that charred skull. “I don’t know the reason. Like you, I thought it was proof that whoever had done that to her was a monster. And monsters have to be caught and destroyed, Cara. That was what I was trying to do by finding out who she was.”
“And bring her home.”
Eve nodded. “But you did that when you brought Darcy Nichols into this house. And there has to be a reason why you did that, Cara. Joe doesn’t believe in coincidences, and he’s going to want to question her.”
“No!” Cara said. “You saw her when she was looking at that reconstruction. She’s practically a basket case right now. Give her a little time, then let me do it.”
Eve nodded. “I understand. No one wants to hurt your friend, Cara. But we have to have answers. That poor girl I’ve been living with for the last five days deserves to have them.”
“But Sylvie’s the one who already knows all the answers,” Cara said sadly. “What she needs to know is what we’re going to do about it.”
Eve nodded as she gave Cara a hug and rose to her feet. “I’ll give you your chance. I’ll call Joe and tell him what’s happened and ask him to take Michael out to eat after soccer practice. It will be time for Michael to go to bed by the time he gets home. That should give Darcy the night to pull herself together. Okay?”
Cara nodded. “And it will give me time to pull myself together, too. My head is whirling. I’m jumping from thought to thought, and every one of them is wild and makes no sense whatsoever.”
“Then I’ll make you a cup of tea and a sandwich and we won’t talk about anything but your school, and music, and Michael for the rest of the evening. Is that a plan?”
“That’s a plan,” she said huskily. “Only let’s limit it to Michael. Somehow, he manages to make everything seem all right.”
CHAPTER
5
2:40 A.M. LAKE COTTAGE
“You found your way out here to the porch?” Cara stood in the doorway, looking at Darcy curled up under a blanket on the porch swing. “It’s my favorite place in the entire cottage. I should have known you’d zero in on it.”
“Can’t have you monopolizing it. Consider it mine.” She was trying to be flip, but it came out a little shaky. “Since I’m liable to be tossed out of here in the morning, I need to gather rosebuds where I may. Who said that anyway? Shakespeare?”
“I have no idea.” She crossed the porch and nudged Darcy’s legs out of her way to perch on the end of the swing. “But there’s no need for gathering rosebuds. No one is kicking you out. Eve understood that you’d be upset.”
“No, she didn’t. How could she? I walk into her home and upset her, then fall apart and have to be sent to bed like a kid.”
“You had reason.” She leaned back on the swing. “She knows that. We just don’t know what the reasons are, Darcy.” She paused. “So I’ve been designated to find out because they thought it would be easier for you to talk to me. Is that true?”
“You know it is.”
“Then will you tell me about your twin? You’ve never mentioned her. And I don’t remember ever reading about her on your fan pages.”
“You read my fan page?”
“Only when I knew you were going to room with me. I wanted to know what to expect.”
“And you found me just as spectacular as you thought I’d be?”
“Absolutely.” She reached out and covered Darcy’s hand with her own. Darcy seemed so terribly vulnerable in this moment. Just as beautiful, but everything about her seemed infinitely fragile, like crystal on the verge of shattering.
“You’re lying because you want to make me feel better.”
“Well, maybe not absolutely, but close. Tell me about your twin.”
“Her name is Sylvia Marie Jordan. We were born in a hospital in Nice, France. I came first, and Sylvie was born twenty minutes later.” She smiled bitterly. “I always came first, you know. All our lives I came first. I was the star.”
“Jordan? Your name is Nichols.”
“My mother changed it when she started being a stage mother and began pushing me for auditions. Felicity thought Nichols had a better ring to it. What do you think?”
“Both are good.”
“That’s what I thought. Though I liked Jordan better. But what does a six-year-old know? What I wanted didn’t matter. Felicity had already divorced my father and was on to number three. But number three was disappointing, too. So she decided that she’d have to concentrate on someone she could control. Someone who would do whatever she wished and not argue—who couldn’t argue.”
“Sylvie?”
“Heavens no, she was a disappointment to Felicity, too.” Her gaze shifted to the lake. “Sylvie was very … slow. I told you I was first, didn’t I? Sylvie had brain damage. She also developed a blood disorder that would probably have killed her before she reached adulthood.”
“Dear God,” Cara said. “What a tragedy.”
“Sylvie didn’t see it that way.” Darcy steadied her voice. “She was always so happy. Everything was beautiful as far as she was concerned. I’ve never known anyone to enjoy life as much as Sylvie.” She added softly, “Each day seemed like a miracle to her. Everyone thought I was the star, that I was the one who lit up everything around me, but it was her. It was always Sylvie.”
“That must have been a great comfort to you.”
“I didn’t think about it. It was just the way she was. My other half, my better half.” She shrugged. “Until Felicity decided that I had to earn my way. She’d been an actress and a model before she decided she preferred being supported in the way she deserved by sundry husbands. But she knew enough to know that talented child actors could be pure gold on the TV networks. I’d just turned six, and I was the right age. Oh, and I was very talented. I could sing. I could dance. My line delivery was faultless. I was being called a modern Shirley Temple. So Felicity took me back to New York and dedicated six months to being a stage mother until I got my big break. Then she hired a nanny for me and went back to Nice to live the good life. Needless to say, I was everything she could ask of me. I was fantastic. Of course, it was instinct driven by necessity. But it worked for her.” She paused. “And it worked for us.”
“Us?”
“Sylvie and me. I was a star. And Sylvie was safe.”
“Safe?”
“Medical treatments are expensive. She was in and out of hospitals a lot of the time. Felicity kept talking about putting her in a charity facility. She even took me to see one.” She closed her eyes. “It scared me. Sylvie was always smiling. No one was smiling there.” Her eyes were glittering with unshed tears when she opened them an instant later. “But Felicity said if I did whatever the producers wanted, they’d pay me a lot of money, and Sylvie would
never have to go to a place like that. She’d even set up a trust fund so that Sylvie would be able to stay at a wonderful sanitarium in Zurich where she’d be with other children with the same problems she had. She’d be so very happy. Isn’t that what I wanted?” She swallowed. “Of course, it was. Only one thing wrong. Felicity didn’t want any publicity about a sick little girl struggling for her life in the background. I was going to be the star of Golden Days. Everyone was going to tune in every week to lift their spirits and laugh and see funny, sweet, Darcy Nichols. Felicity didn’t want any depressing stories hovering over me and spoiling my aura. So I wasn’t to tell anyone about Sylvie. Felicity buried all the records. I couldn’t even visit her.” She moistened her lips. “I’ve seen her only a few times over the years. Once I made Felicity take me to the sanitarium to make sure it was everything she’d told me it was. The other times were when she was ill, and I thought she needed me. The last time was a couple years ago when I had to check on her myself after I heard she was having a bad reaction to a blood transfusion. I had to make sure that she was okay.”
“Your mother kept her word about her care?”
“Yes. The sanitarium was a beautiful place with wonderful people, and Sylvie couldn’t have been happier there.” Her lips twisted. “As far as keeping her word, I made sure of it. Before I’d agree to sign a second contract when I was ten, I made Felicity do what she’d promised and set up that trust fund that guaranteed Sylvie would be protected until the day she died. Felicity wasn’t pleased because that was a lot of money. But she had control of everything else I earned, so she let it slide.”
“But she still wouldn’t let you visit your sister?”
“No, she put that into the contract. But that was okay. Sylvie and I had already gotten around that problem.”
Cara frowned. “How?”
“We’re twins,” she said simply. “Haven’t you heard that twins have a special connection? It’s true, you know. Oh, I don’t mean an actual psychic connection. I don’t know about that kind of thing. But occasionally I’d get pictures of what she was seeing. Or feel what she was feeling. And there was always that knowledge that she was there with me, part of me. When I first had to leave her, we were both terribly upset. But then, after we were apart for a little while, we both began to realize that we were still there for each other. Felicity couldn’t take that away.”
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