Twisted Shadows

by Patricia Potter

  “He leaves the bulk of his estate to a charitable trust, which is to be administered by his son Nicholas Merritta and his daughter, Nicole Merritta, also known as Samantha Carroll. This includes all his businesses, his home and his bank accounts with the exception of $100,000 a year to each of his brothers, his son George, and his niece Anna for a period of ten years. After that, he feels they should be able to support themselves.” The attorney paused, then added, “Mr. Merritta didn’t think either Miss Carroll or his son Nicholas either needed or would accept any part of the estate. He did hope they would work together on the trust.”

  Gasps came from the family members.

  “He can’t do that,” George blustered.

  “He can,” the attorney corrected, “and he did. He wanted to end the Merritta family’s ‘notorious’ legacy. He paid for both George’s and Anna’s educations and believed they have excellent prospects in business.”

  No one mentioned that Anna’s prospects had just been reduced to a federal prison.

  The attorney obviously felt the sudden chill in the room, paused, then continued. “Paul Merritta said that legacy destroyed his life and almost destroyed his son’s life. He wanted it stopped now. If you try to fight it, you will lose what is provided for you in the will.”

  Abruptly the attorney opened the box and took letters from inside to Samantha. He stood and walked over to Sam. “He wanted you and your mother to have these.”

  He handed them to her and returned to his desk.

  Sam was stunned. Nicholas, she noted, showed no surprise at all. So he had known something about the will.

  Sam looked at the others in the room, all of whom seemed to be holding their breath.

  “I would like to read it in private,” she said.

  After a long silence, they reluctantly filed out. Their faces were angry, bewildered, defiant, defeated. Obviously the new will was the last thing they had expected.

  Nate and Nicholas remained with Samantha as she opened her letter, setting aside the one for her mother.

  When she opened the envelope, a map fluttered to the floor. Nate leaned down and picked it up.

  Samantha read the letter slowly.

  Nicole

  I hoped to tell you this in person, but if not…

  I loved your mother. I loved you. Always remember that.

  I was weak and could not fight my father. I tried. But he always won. He made sure he’d win with the murder of a federal agent. My fingerprints were on that gun as well as those of an officer named Terrence McGuire.

  I stood by when the murder took place. My father had ordered me to kill him, had told McGuire to give me a gun, but I couldn’t pull the trigger. McGuire took it from me and shot him. My father kept the gun as insurance to keep a hold over McGuire and me. He didn’t need that hold. I died that day. Then I discovered your mother had heard everything. My father wanted to kill her. I told him I would make sure she never talked, and he would still have Nicholas. It was the only way I could save your mother.

  She took the gun, but I knew it was worthless without a body. I knew, though, where my father had the body buried, and made sure McGuire knew I knew. That kept him away from you all these years when he suspected your mother and you didn’t die in the car crash. But now he’s more powerful and he wants all the evidence that ties him to that day. I was afraid I couldn’t protect you any longer, that he would find you and come after you.

  I had to know whether you were strong enough to take it to the authorities. When I met you today, I knew you were. You and Nicholas.

  Hopefully you will work together with the trust and get to know each other as you should have done throughout your lives.

  I don't regret what I did all those years ago. I had no choice. I do regret that I missed those years watching you become the woman you are today. I am proud of both of you.

  Your father,

  Paul Merritta

  Sam caught her breath at the last, touched by that final sentence more than any other. She felt a hand on her shoulder and glanced up, seeing Nick beside her, his mouth tight. Wordlessly she handed the letter to him.

  A muscle moved in his cheek as he finished the final two paragraphs as if he too was moved by his father’s simple statement. He handed the letter back to her.

  Suddenly feeling the oppression of the room and of the proceedings that had just taken place, Sam picked up the map that had fluttered to the floor and passed both documents to Nathan. The expression on his face didn’t change as he read the letter, then studied the map. His face told her he recognized the area. With any luck, the bullets would snatch the gun registered to a young patrolman named Terrence McGuire.

  He held out his hand. “Let’s go,” he said as she rose, and he wrapped an arm around her.

  “It’s over,” Samantha said.

  “Not quite,” Nate said. “There will be an arrest and trial.”

  She glanced at a stoic Nick. “The publicity isn’t going to end, is it?”

  Nick shook his head. “It’s not going to be pleasant, but I’m used to it. You’re not.”

  “Neither is our mother.”

  Nick didn’t say anything and instead turned to Nate. “If you want to get back to your office, I’ll take her to the hotel with the shadow.”

  Sam watched Nate’s expression. After a fraction of a second, he nodded, and she breathed again. It meant he finally trusted her brother.

  Nate and Gray, accompanied by four other agents, appeared in the chambers of Judge McGuire. They brushed by the secretary and a protesting clerk, briefly showing their credentials.

  They had worked all night. They had found the skeletal remains of the officer and the bullet that killed him. Nate had contacted Patsy, who appeared several hours later and turned over the gun she’d kept locked in a Chicago bank safe deposit box all these years. The bullets matched.

  She also identified a photo of McGuire as a young man.

  Federal officers probing McGuire’s finances were finding some interesting deposits.

  It was more than enough, Woodward said, for an indictment.

  Gray and Nathan led the small detachment of agents into McGuire’s chambers.

  Barker was not among them. Checks of phone records showed that Barker and McGuire had exchanged numerous phone calls in the past five days. Barker had admitted that he had given information to McGuire without informing his superiors, information that had almost caused the death of a fellow agent and a civilian. There was no evidence that he had done it for any reason other than that of an FBI agent trying to make points with a federal judge.

  He was on his way to a very unpleasant posting until an investigation was completed.

  McGuire entered his chambers from the courtroom. He barely looked at Nathan and the other agents. “Can I help you?”

  “Indeed you can,” Nathan said. “You can turn around and put your hands behind you.”

  Bushy dark eyebrows shot up. “What is this? A joke? I can assure you it’s not funny.”

  “I have an arrest warrant for Terrence McGuire for the murder of a federal agent thirty-four years ago. You have the right to remain silent…” He recited the revised Miranda warning.

  “I know my rights, Agent McLean. I also know you’ll lose your job over this. Everyone knows you’re a loose cannon.”

  “Do they?” Nate said. “Then you have nothing to worry about, do you? Now please turn around and put your hands behind you.”

  “Handcuffs aren’t necessary,” McGuire said. “I’ll call my attorney and turn myself in.”

  “Sorry, sir. Procedure.” Gray went over to McGuire, pulled his hands back and locked the handcuffs.

  “You’ll be very sorry for this,” McGuire said. “I’ve helped the Bureau…”

  “I’m sure Agent Barker will testify to that,” Nate said.

  McGuire’s face flushed. “I’ll be out before you get home tonight," he said.

  “Maybe,” Nathan said equably. “Let’s go.” />
  Sam waited impatiently for Nate’s return. Afternoon had turned into night, then into dawn.

  She couldn’t go to sleep.

  She knew he had risked his job and even more for her. And she had to know what was happening with McGuire.

  She made a cup of coffee. An agent was in the room next door to her, another in the hall outside. Her mother was in a room down the hall, Simon still fulfilling his role as protector with the backup of a federal agent.

  Nicholas had gone to his office to conduct what he called damage control.

  Finally, a knock. She ran to the door, opened it with the chain on until she saw who it was, then unlatched it.

  Nate’s eyes were bloodshot, the lines around them emphasizing his exhaustion. He gave her a crooked grin. “He’s behind bars. Something tells me his appointment will be withdrawn by morning.”

  “Can they keep him there?”

  “I think so, not only for the sake of justice but to protect him as well. A whole lot of law enforcement officers are going to be pissed off when they discover their hero was smearing egg on their faces while shaking their hands. They don’t like cops who kill fellow cops.” He touched her cheek. “I think it’s over, love.”

  Love?

  She cleared her throat around the lump that suddenly formed at that one word. “And you? Your job?”

  “Never more secure,” he said. “Gray and I bagged a federal judge and a Merritta.” He grinned at her. “Not the one I expected, true enough, but my boss is happy.”

  “I’m glad,” she said. She meant it, and yet she didn’t.

  His job would preclude a relationship with her. He was in Boston. She was in Colorado. He was law enforcement. She would be tainted forever.

  He raised his hand and caught a curl, gently tugging on it until she looked directly at him. “They are happy enough,” he said, “to give me a choice of assignments after we complete this investigation. I’m picking Denver.”

  Her heart bounced against her rib cage. Time ceased moving. So did breathing. “Are you saying…”

  “I want to head in your direction if that’s okay with you.”

  “My… the Merritta family.” She held her breath, afraid to hope.

  “To hell with that. An accident of birth. The Bureau isn’t going to hold that against you.”

  She breathed again. Her blood started racing.

  “There’s something you should know first,” he said.

  She waited.

  “I told you my wife died. I didn’t tell you why.”

  A muscle twitched in his cheek as she waited for him to continue.

  He led her to the bed, sat down beside her on the edge.

  “When I married her, she was a social drinker,” he said slowly. “During our marriage she started drinking more and more. Because of my job, she said. Because I was never home. Because I was obsessed with the Merrittas.

  “We grew apart and I hated to go home. I never knew what I would find. I tried to get help for her, but she wouldn’t take it. I worked even longer hours, and she drank more. One day, she drove the car into a tree.”

  Sam’s heart seemed to stop. There was so much pain in his voice, in his face.

  “I should have done more to help her,” he said. “Instead I blamed the Merrittas for my own failure and went after them even more relentlessly. At one point, I would have sold my soul to take them down.”

  “You can’t help someone who won’t be helped,” she said softly.

  “If I had been home more, it might have been different. I failed her, just like I failed my mother.”

  Sam stilled. For the first time, she really understood his obsession. He hadn’t just blamed the Merrittas. He had blamed himself for not protecting his mother. A boy who had lived with that guilt all his life. Then his wife’s death had compounded it. Sam swallowed hard. “You couldn’t have protected your mother, any more than you could’ve protected your wife against herself,” she said. “For God’s sake, you were a boy.”

  “I wasn’t a boy when my wife died.”

  “No, but you had no more control then than you did as a boy. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.” She paused, then asked, “She knew what you did before she married you?”

  “Yes, but she never realized the demands.” His gaze bored into her as if searching for an answer to his unspoken question.

  She knew what he was telling her. “Well, you don’t have to worry about that with me,” she said tartly. “I received the comprehensive indoctrination of an agent’s life in the past few weeks.”

  “I can quit.”

  “No,” she said. “It’s who you are. And I love who you are.”

  “Can you open a branch of Wonders in Denver?”

  “We’ve been considering that,” she said. At least it had been mentioned once. And she could conduct the Internet business anywhere that had an electrical outlet and a phone line.

  He leaned down and kissed her, his bps roaming over hers, then traveling across her face with a feather-light tenderness.

  “I love you,” he said. “But I want you to be sure. It might be the adrenaline and… even gratitude.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “I’m grateful to a man in Steamboat who once helped me change a flat, but I didn’t once think about marrying him.”

  “Is that so? I thought you knew everything about flats.”

  She flushed, then grinned. “I just know how to cause them.”

  “Ah, shoot. I thought I had a real winner.”

  “Well, I’m decisive. That’s something you should know about me. And I’m bossy. I told the guy how to change that tire. He couldn’t wait to get away from me.”

  “I like bossy.”

  “Then I think you should take me to bed.”

  “You’re shameless, too,” he observed with obvious delight.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “And something you should know about me. I’m very good at taking orders.”

  “No, you’re not,” she disagreed.

  “Well, maybe just your orders.” He kept his fingers busy taking off her blouse, then her bra. He leaned down and kissed her left breast, then her right. “See?” he said. She did.

  She ran her fingers through his hair, then touched the hard planes of his face. Emotion flooded her in waves. She couldn’t believe he loved her, that he was offering a heart that she now realized had been repeatedly battered. She silently promised that she would take good care of it.

  She held her arms up to him. It was her way of telling him she was giving him her heart.

  A slow, lazy smile spread over his face. Still, he hesitated.

  “Bed,” she reminded him.

  “Only if you’ll marry me,” he bargained.

  She leaned back and looked at the tired face she loved, at the man who was so much better than he believed he was.

  “That is an excellent—”

  The rest of the sentence died in a kiss.

  And the promise of forever.

  epilogue

  Nick, a small smile curving his mouth, looked out at the mountains from the patio of Sam’s Steamboat Springs house.

  He had arrived at Samantha’s house with Nathan, who’d finished winding up the Merritta investigation and had just been transferred as second in command to the Denver field office. They had flown from Boston together.

  Sam, delighted at their truce, had invited Simon and Patsy to join them for supper.

  The case was all but over. Judge McGuire had somehow acquired a gun in jail and had killed himself. Anna had made a plea bargain in exchange for a lighter sentence. She would serve three years in a federal prison.

  “So now it’s really over,” Nick said. “The Merrittas have been neutralized and the family dispersed. The other families can have our territory. And Pop can rest easily.”

  “Why did Paul Merritta talk about my mother as he did when I saw him?” Sam asked. “He sounded as if he detested her.”
/>
  “A mask he could never afford to put down,” Nick said. “I didn’t know myself until I talked to him during your visit to the house that Saturday. I saw him before dinner and he told me everything.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “The same reason he didn’t. Neither of us knew you, knew what your reaction would be. My father wanted to take your measure and I agreed with him. He had to know whether you should be hidden again, possibly under a different identity, or whether you were strong enough to take the information he had and use it in the right way.”

  Her brother hesitated. “I think he realized it was a mistake after he contacted you. He’d thought his reputation would protect you. He wanted you to know he’d tried to take the family into legitimate businesses as much as he y could without showing weaknesses to other families. But pain and drugs dulled my father’s caution those last few months. He wasn’t aware that McGuire had access to FBI tapes. He believed his protection was enough. What he didn’t realize was that McGuire had just heard he would be nominated for the federal appeals bench and was desperate to find Patsy and eliminate one of the three people who knew what happened that night.”

  Sam mulled that over. It was horrifying to think a man like that would be elevated to a federal bench. She wished the thought away. “And my mother? How did my… father feel about her?”

  “I think he always regretted losing… my mother.” Nicholas looked at Patsy, who gazed at him with wistful eyes. “You know he never married again. He told me her loss was like a raw wound, even after all those years. But Victor had a relationship with McGuire, and he’d told him Patsy had the gun. As McGuire became more and more powerful, Pop knew he could never approach either one of you without putting you in danger.”

  Nick paced the patio, then turned back to them. “When he heard he had only a few months to live, Pop felt he had to find you. He knew the key was Patsy’s sister, and he had her monitored. It took a month, but then Patsy’s sister met your mother and he was able to locate both of you.”