Twisted Shadows

  TWISTED SHADOWS

  Patricia Potter

  A riveting novel about a man who thought he'd escaped his unsavory past—and a woman who didn't know she had one…

  Samantha Carroll's world is turned upside-down when the life she always thought was perfect turns out to be a lie. When two cold-eyed men enter her western art gallery, she learns that her biological father is an ailing crime boss who now wants to see her… whether she wants to see him or not. Not only that, she has a twin brother she's never known about.

  FBI Special Agent Nathan McLean is convinced that Nicholas Merritt, the son of a crime boss, is laundering money for his father—and McLean has plenty of reasons to take down the entire crime family. What he didn't plan on was falling in love with Nick's twin sister, Samantha…

  Nick Merritt is the heir apparent to the crime family, though for years, he's visibly shunned his family's organized crime interests, started a successful business and tried to outrun his past. He'd believed his mother and sister dead for nearly three decades, but Samantha's unexpected appearance ignites a series of events that threatens to destroy them all.

  prologue

  Boston, 1968

  She was running for her life. And the lives of her children.

  She clutched the twins, one in each arm, her purse slung over her shoulder. A cab. She had to reach a cab.

  She knew she would soon hear footsteps behind her. Heavy. Hurried. Her guard—her husband’s guard—would discover she’d left the doctor’s office through another door. His life would be as much at risk as her own if he failed. If he lost her.

  This would be her one and only chance to escape her husband. She knew that. If she failed, he would kill her. He would find out what she knew—and to whom she had given information—and then dispose of her as his family had disposed of irritants before her. Fear eddied in her stomach. Her breath was short from both terror and the exertion of carrying two eight-month-old babies, their necessities and the largest purse she owned. It contained everything she could carry without giving away her intention. Unfortunately, her possessions did not include a weapon.

  Nick squirmed, protesting her protective hold. For a moment, she feared she would lose her grip. She stopped, balancing him on her hip, getting a stronger hold on him. In a moment he would start wailing. That would probably inspire Nicole to do the same. Each always followed the other’s lead. They reached out for each other when separated. They seemed to take comfort in each other’s company.

  A loud wail now would be disastrous. She cooed quietly to him, frantically balancing the two heavy babies.

  She started down the steps again, trying to run without dislodging the two children. She feared the elevator. She could be trapped in an elevator. No, the stairs are safer. She’d spent days considering her options, the best escape route. And, hopefully, preparing safeguards.

  But her husband was unpredictable. He would be so angry, he wouldn’t care that his actions could send him to prison. Or send the policeman who served the family to the electric chair.

  She heard a door slam above her.

  Joey. Such an innocuous name. But he was not an innocuous man. He was a made man, a man who had killed before. That she was a woman would mean little to him, particularly since his own life might well depend on his stopping her.

  One more floor.

  She was wearing tennis shoes that made no noise. She had purposely been hitting tennis balls just minutes before returning to the side of her twins. Then she’d used a heating pad on Nick’s and Nicole’s faces to simulate a fever.

  Her husband was out of town. So was her father-in-law. When she’d screamed that the children were sick with high temperatures, she’d finally won permission to go to the doctor. She’d been to the pediatrician before. She knew the offices. She knew a way out that avoided her so-called bodyguard in the waiting room.

  “Bitch!” Joey’s voice roared down the stairwell.

  She could see the door below her. She moved faster than she thought possible, shifting, Nick again as she grabbed for the knob and jerked the door open.

  Nick wailed loudly.

  Another curse echoed from the stairwell as she ran across the lobby. Please, God, let the cab be there.

  She’d called from the nurses’ station, ordering a cab, promising an extra fifty if it waited outside the professional offices for a woman with two babies. If it wasn't there…

  She darted between people, bumping one. “Taxi waiting,” she muttered, then made the door. She turned to see Joey bursting out from the stairwell door.

  Nicole started wailing, too. Tracy knew that every eye was on her. She’d already started thinking about what she would do if Joey caught her. She would yell “Kidnap.” If some brave good Samaritan…

  And if there was gunfire? If she caused an innocent’s death…?

  Someone entered the revolving doors, and she jumped inside one of the partitions. Then she saw the taxi. Waiting in front of the building.

  She ran for it. Nick almost fell as she pulled the door open and lurched inside, dropping her son on the seat and locking the door.

  “Go,” she screamed.

  She heard Joey’s voice behind. “Stop, dammit!”

  The cabbie turned to her.

  “Go,” she said again, even as she heard the waver in her voice, even as she clutched the babies closer to her. “For God’s sake, go.”

  He hesitated, then stepped on the pedal and darted in front of an oncoming car.

  A horn blew long and hard.

  The cabbie swore.

  Tracy Edwards Merritta sat back and tried to calm a screaming Nick.

  She struggled to take a normal breath, then looked back. Joey was frantically trying to wave down another cab.

  “Where to, lady?”

  “Filene’s, please. Side entrance.” The department store wasn’t far from a Boston MTA station. She would go in one door of the store, depart through another and disappear.

  Nicole stared at her, thumb in her mouth. Nick complained loudly.

  But they were safe.

  For the moment.

  one

  Steamboat Springs, 2002

  Samantha Carroll didn’t frighten easily.

  Still, apprehension rippled through her as two men walked into the western art gallery she owned with her mother.

  She could tell at a glance they weren’t ordinary tourists or typical art lovers. They wore expensive dark suits and highly polished shoes rather than casual slacks or shorts and trendy T-shirts. Yet one look at their faces told her they weren’t salesmen, either.

  The one in his mid-twenties wore his hair slicked back, a gold chain around his neck and a flashy watch that looked like a Rolex on his wrist. The other one had well-groomed graying hair and face. Their eyes were hard. Without humor. Without friendliness. They looked like hunters, but not the kind who were after deer or elk.

  Western Wonders was unusually empty in the midst of the summer tourist season. The last customers had just left. Had the two men waited until the customers departed? She moved toward the panic button that was linked to the police dispatcher.

  She didn’t know why all the bells in her head were ringing. No one would rob her small gallery. Nearly everyone paid with credit cards, and the bulk of the store’s business came through the web site she’d designed. She kept the finest pieces locked in secure storage, bringing them out only when she knew she had a viable buyer.

  Sure, she had some ready cash, but not enough to attract a daylight robbery. The gallery had some nice western art, but no one would drag armloads of paintings or heavy sculptures out the front door and onto the main street. At least, she’d never believed so. Not in Steamboat Springs, where major crime was nonexistent.
/>
  Her apprehension deepened as the two men browsed among the paintings but seemed to have little real interest in them. Their gazes continued to roam back to her, studying her as a collector might before pinning a butterfly to a board.

  She resented it. She resented anyone who diminished her. And these men were doing just that.

  Sarsaparilla wandered in from the storeroom, swishing her great bushy tail. The once stray cat who now believed herself queen of all she surveyed investigated the two strangers and rubbed against the trouser leg of the older man.

  He immediately jumped back, his right hand going to the inside of his suit jacket.

  Her heart leaped into her throat. “Sarsy,” she scolded, forcing herself to stand fast and not show the reaction her cat’s behavior prompted. Sarsy sensed people who disliked cats and went out of her way to irritate them.

  Sarsaparilla gave her an indignant look, then slunk back into the other room.

  “Is there anything I can help you with?” she finally asked the men. “A particular artist? Or style?”

  The older man nodded toward one with a thousand-dollar price tag. “This any good?”

  If she’d any doubts about his interest before, she didn’t now. The painting was very good. Anyone with even the faintest interest in art would know the lighting was exceptional. The moonlight depicted in oil seemed to glow.

  She looked toward the door again, willing someone else to come in. “It’s the work of a local artist who is becoming very popular,” she said, unable to keep the edge from her voice.

  “I’ll take it,” the man said.

  She didn’t want to sell it to him. The painting was one of her favorites, an oil of a snow-covered mountain at night. A wolf peered out from the shadows of a stand of trees, as if ready to begin a night’s prowl.

  The men reminded her of that wolf. Prowling after prey. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It was sold earlier today. I haven’t put the sold sign on it yet.” Now she would have to purchase it herself. It was in Western Wonders on consignment, and she’d just cost the artist a sale.

  His cold dark eyes studied her. He didn’t believe her.

  The hair on the nape of her neck stood up; a shiver ran down her back. “If there’s anything else,” she said, “I’ll be glad to help you. Otherwise, I’m going to close for lunch.”

  “It’s three,” the man noted skeptically.

  “I was busy at lunchtime.”

  “Are you the owner?”

  “My mother and myself,” she said.

  “Mrs. Carroll?”

  “She’s my mother, yes,” Sam said, growing even more wary.

  “And your father?”

  “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

  The speaker looked surprised, as if he’d never been corrected before. He glared at her.

  The younger man glanced out the door, as if keeping watch.

  “He’s not dead,” the older man finally said.

  “I beg your pardon?” She felt the bite of anger. She had always been slow to anger, slow to allow any emotion to take control. But when she removed the leash, she could be a holy terror. That was one reason she disciplined herself.

  “Your papa ain’t dead.” The younger man joined the conversation. “Not yet.”

  The older man gave him a warning glance but didn’t correct him.

  Both were obviously crazy. “I think you’d better go,” she said, her hand once more moving toward the panic button. “I do want to close.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” the younger man said. “Keep your hands on top of the table.”

  How could he know about the button?

  “Or?” she asked.

  His eyes glittered.

  The older man broke in. “I don’t think your mother would appreciate it,” he said softly. Somehow he was more menacing than the other.

  “Why?” she challenged him. She felt trapped and afraid, and she was furious with them for causing it. She hated the feeling. Hated the fear that was growing. She’d always prided herself on conquering fear. Or ignoring it.

  “She has some secrets,” the man said. “Secrets she might not want to share with this town.” The words were poisonous. Cold. Deadly.

  Her mother? Her protective, good-citizen mother? Her best friend? Since her father’s death, the one person she trusted above all others?

  “You must have me confused with someone else,” she said. “I asked you to leave. Now I am telling you.”

  “Your mother’s been lying to you,” the older man said. “She committed bigamy years ago. David Carroll was not your father.”

  She shook her head, denying his words rather than questioning them. David Carroll had been her father. In every way. She’d seen her birth certificate when she entered college.

  Yet the older man had planted the smallest seed of doubt with his quiet certainty.

  “Now I know I want you out of here,” San said, feeling a desperate need to disconnect from this situation before it became too real. She went to the door and held it open. Neither man moved.

  She wasn’t quite sure what to do. She could continue to stand there, looking like a fool, or go outside and yell for help. The younger man moved in front of her, neatly herding her back toward the interior while the older one closed the door, turned the sign to closed and stood in front of it, arms crossed, feet apart.

  “I’ll call the police,” Sam said through clenched teeth, her doubt being drowned by their arrogance. She hated personal conflicts, but she’d never been timid. She’d sailed down mountains on skis, spent days alone in the deep woods, climbed mountains. She knew how to fire a pistol. It completely went against the grain to let these men intimidate her.

  Still, they did. They reeked of… violence.

  They made no move to back away. The younger man stepped between her and the phone. She tried to weave around him.

  He blocked her.

  She turned to the older man, who seemed to be in charge. “What exactly do you want?”

  “Your papa is dying. He wants to see you.”

  “My father died two years ago.”

  “Carroll wasn’t your real father.”

  Despite the softness of his voice, his statement was like a boulder dropping. The absolute conviction made her feel it was dropping on her.

  “No,” she denied, her voice not quite as strong as before.

  She flinched as the older man reached in his pocket, pulled out an envelope and placed it in her hand. “Open it,” he commanded.

  From the comer of her eye, she saw a couple pause in front of the shop, looking at some of the paintings in the windows. “I have customers,” she said, the envelope burning her fingers.

  “Hell with them,” the man said. “This is more important.”

  “To whom?”

  “To you. To your real papa.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Just messengers.”

  As much as she didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of acceding to their demands, it seemed the only way to get them to leave. She opened the manila envelope. A photo fell out.

  She stooped, picked it up and looked at it. A new shock jolted her. A pretty young woman sat in a chair holding two babies. A darkly handsome young man stood behind her. It was an old-fashioned pose. The man protecting his family.

  The woman was her mother. She was at least thirty years younger and her hair was long rather than short, but the wide cornflower blue eyes were unmistakable. She was also wearing a bracelet Sam immediately recognized. Her mother always wore it.

  Sam found herself compelled by that photo, by the two children. One was dressed in pink. One in blue. They sat in their mother’s lap. The girl beamed at the camera; the boy stared impatiently. His eyes were the same blue as those of the little girl beside him. And of the man standing behind them.

  From the snapshots of her own early years, she knew she was one of those babies. The other…

  “Your brother,” the man
said. “Your twin brother.”

  Her legs started to crumple under her. The younger man reached out to steady her. She shook him off and stumbled past him to the desk, and this time he let her. She studied the photo again, then looked farther into the envelope. Three more items. Copies of two birth certificates. She chose the top one.

  None of the names was familiar. Mother: Tracy Edwards Merritta. Father: Paul Merritta. Baby girl: Nicole. Date of birth: August 15, 1967. Place of birth: Boston. Weight: four pounds, three ounces.

  She looked at the second one. Same mother and father. Baby boy: Nicholas. Born four minutes earlier than the girl. Weight: four pounds, nine ounces.

  The fourth item was a photo of a well-dressed man with dark hair and dark blue eyes just like her own. She could tell the photo was more recent than the family portrait. The cut of the casual sports jacket gave it away.

  “Your brother,” the older man said again.

  She was too stunned to move, to speak, to react. She wanted to deny it. Accepting the pronouncement meant her entire life was a lie. Her mother had lied to her. And her father. He would have lied as well.

  But these men said he had not been her father after all. At least, not her biological father. Though she knew he certainly had been her father in every important way.

  This was some really twisted joke. It would be easy enough to create phony birth certificates. Computers could do anything these days.

  Yet something clicked inside her head. She’d always had an odd feeling that something was missing from her life, as if she were not quite whole. She’d dismissed it as her longing for siblings and an extended family.

  Her mother had said she had been orphaned and raised in a foster family. Her father’s mother and father had died in an accident before Sam was born. No uncles. No aunts. No grandparents.

  A flash of recognition leaped in her heart when she looked at the boy in the family photo. But that was because they looked alike, she told herself. Remember what a computer can do.

  But who would possibly attempt such an elaborate and cruel hoax?