Twisted Shadows Read online

  She touched the birth certificate. “I have a copy of my own. It’s different. It says David Carroll is my father.”

  The man smiled. “They can be forged.”

  “My point exactly,” she said. “One of them has been.”

  “Granted,” he said. “But the picture doesn’t lie.”

  “I know what computers can do. Anyone could take my mother’s photo, make her younger, doctor photos of the children.”

  “But why make the effort?”

  “You tell me,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. The door rattled. She jumped, her nerves jangled. All three of them looked toward it, but the tall man blocked her view. Someone was not taking the closed sign seriously.

  Her mother? But her mother was on a buying trip to Taos. Sam wouldn’t be able to reach her. Possibly not until tomorrow.

  The door rattled again, and she managed to slip around the two men. Terri. Her best friend who helped with the books at Wonders.

  “Get rid of whoever it is,” the older man ordered.

  “It’s a friend of mine. She knows I’m here alone. She can see you two. She won’t leave now, not without knowing I’m all right. You look… intimidating. If I don’t open the door, she’ll go down the street to police headquarters.”

  “Then tell her you’re all right and get rid of her.”

  “No.” She felt more in control now. Terri would do exactly what she’d said. Her friend would be as suspicious of the two men as Sam had been when they first entered.

  The older man gave her an odd look of approval. “Your papa doesn’t have much time left. He’s real sick.”

  She forced her gaze away from him and back to Terri. Her friend had capped her eyes against the sun and was peering inside. In seconds, she would be running down to the police station.

  Did Sam want that?

  No. Not until she talked to her mother. Not until she made some sense of something that made no sense.

  She knew she had to find out whether there was even a thread of truth to their tale. She had to know whether she had a birth father she hadn’t known existed. And a brother. Not only a brother but a twin.

  How many years had she dreamed of having a big brother?

  No, it’s impossible.

  Ignoring the two men, she went to the door and opened it. Terri had been leaning against the door so hard she stumbled, then caught herself. Her gaze shot to the two men, then she turned back to Sam.

  “What’s wrong?” Terri asked, starting to back out the door.

  “Miss Carroll was giving us a…” The younger one said, glancing at Sam, obviously expecting her to supply the rest of the excuse, as if there were no doubt that she would.

  “Private viewing,” Sam said, hating to give him even that much.

  “A private viewing,” her visitor concurred. “We’re just leaving.” He turned to Sam. “We’ll get back to you about that picture tomorrow.”

  The two politely passed Terri but left an aura of menace behind them.

  The tension in the shop dissipated noticeably, and for a brief moment Sam wondered whether the visit had happened at all.

  two

  A nightmare?

  Sam wanted it to be. But the photo of the family together, and the one of the self-assured young man who stood alone, were all too real.

  Had her mother and father lied to her all her life?

  She avoided Terri’s questions about the two men, saying only that they seemed intent on finding work from a certain artist.

  Terri wasn’t satisfied. But she took one look at Sam’s frozen expression and asked no more questions.

  Terri Faulkner had been her best friend since grade school. They told each other everything, or almost everything. A history teacher in the local school, Terri was also a whiz at math and moonlighted as bookkeeper at Wonders. The arrangement helped both of them.

  Terri’s interruption had been a godsend. Oddly enough, Sam hadn’t felt—except for a brief few moments—in physical danger. But she had been terrified of losing her composure, of showing weakness to people she suspected would use it against her.

  She tried to listen to Terri, but she was still numb. It was as if a bomb had exploded her world. Shock deadened every other emotion.

  “Still game for the books?” Terri asked.

  The question startled her. She had forgotten that they’d planned to go over the books this afternoon, then have supper at The Hitching Post. She shook her head. “Something’s come up. Maybe tomorrow.”

  Terri looked concerned. “Anything wrong? Those men looked a bit weird, as if they’d stepped out of a movie.”

  Sam tried a smile. “I had the same feeling. But they turned out to be rather ordinary. They were looking for a painting.”

  She almost vomited after Terri left.

  She closed the shop early, scooped up the cat and drove the ten minutes to her home, but questions haunted her all the way.

  An elaborate hoax or the truth? And if it was the former, why would anyone go to so much trouble? Neither she nor her mother had any enemies. At least, none she knew of.

  Her eyes kept wandering back to the envelope on the seat beside her. She could still see the photos in her mind’s eye. The children looked to be less than a year old. Still, wouldn’t she remember something? Wouldn’t she remember a brother? Even at that age.

  Maybe she had. Maybe that’s why, as a child, she used to reach out her arms after a nightmare, and no one would be there.

  A sense of overwhelming loss invaded her.

  She started to relax as she neared her house. Her dream home. She had put her heart into every log as it was being built. The house sat at the foot of a mountain, and the view was particularly spectacular from the back porch and back balcony.

  Once inside, she poured herself a glass of wine, which she seldom did when alone. Then she sat down and watched the sunset, but it didn’t have its usual tranquilizing effect. Abruptly she stood and padded down the hall, through the living room and up to her office in the loft.

  She had the photos. She had the name of Paul Merritta. And Nicholas Merritta. She turned on her computer, then accessed the Internet. First a general search, then she would go to the credit bureau she used to research buyers and sellers who used the Western Wonders web site.

  Searching “Paul Merritta, Boston,” she found a huge number of articles and started reading.

  Hours later, she knew more than she wanted to. Her blood ran cold as the knowledge sank in. She realized now why those two men had so inexplicably alarmed her. Although never convicted, Paul Merritta had been consistently linked to organized crime in Boston. There was one news photo of Merritta being led into a police station in handcuffs. He was later released after a witness disappeared.

  She knew what that probably meant. She’d read enough books about organized crime. She paused, then searched on “Nicholas Merritta.” She found he’d changed his last name to Merritt, and was a partner and vice president of a medical supply company in Boston. Although some stories suggested he was possibly connected to his father’s activities, nothing had ever been proved.

  He had served in the army during the Gulf War.

  That surprised her. With his family’s money, why would he choose to serve in the military?

  She studied one of the few photos she found of him online and ran it off on her printer, then sat back.

  She had heard that twins sometimes shared a unique bond, that each knew what the other thought—even when separated by thousands of miles. She immediately searched under “twins” on the Internet. That led her to “multiples,” which led her to identical and fraternal twins. “Multiples” seemed to be the politically correct description.

  Twins, whether fraternal or identical, she read, often develop their own language—called twinspeak—that only they could understand. Twins were less prone to loneliness than nontwin siblings because there was always someone at hand who was going through many of the same experiences. Often,
twins maintained their special bond throughout their lives.

  On the other hand, said one article, although fraternal twins shared the same uterus, they were no more similar than any other set of siblings. Their shared experiences promoted the bond.

  Then she moved to the message boards on the multiples site, and skipped through the posts. One mother of fraternal boy/girl twins said there was definitely something between them, like “a kinetic energy bounced off each other.”

  She turned the computer off and stared at the blank scene, her thoughts in turmoil. If the men’s story was true, she had shared the earliest minutes, hours, weeks, months with a brother.

  She’d lost years with him. A lifetime.

  At that moment she knew she’d accepted the tale as possible. She could have a twin brother. Her biological father could be a mobster, possibly a killer.

  Was that why her mother had left him? But how could she have left her son?

  Sam must have been very young when it had happened or she would have felt something other than a vague loss over the years.

  Paul Merritta wanted to see her. Had he known where she’d been all these years? Had he ignored her existence until it was important to him?

  If it were true, she kept reminding herself.

  She looked around her office, which occupied the top floor of her home. The house wasn’t large, but it was her dream house, realized after she’d wandered about the Northwest for eight years, taking first one technology job, then another, each time earning a substantial salary and obnoxiously valuable stock. But she had been seeking something she couldn’t identify.

  When her father died, she’d had enough of a nest egg to return to the picturesque ranching community to help her mother with the gallery that had been near bankruptcy after her father’s illness. She had taken Western Wonders online, developing a web site that drew both buyers and sellers. With the increased exposure to a global market, their profits doubled, then tripled. Now ninety percent of their business came over the Internet.

  The gallery was her mother’s life and love, and it was her mother who usually tended it, while Sam concentrated on the web site. But Sam occasionally staffed it when her mother traveled, looking for promising new western artists.

  How did those two men know 1 would be there today? And my mother wouldn't?

  She shivered again, realizing that someone had been watching her when she wasn’t aware of it. Had her phone been tapped or her house bugged?

  You’ve been watching too many movies.

  She looked out at the dark, quiet street, the shadowy mountains behind it. Several hours until dawn.

  Perhaps a good run would help clear her mind. Sam went into her bedroom, pulled on a pair of jogging pants and shirt, and slipped out the back door. She hesitated for a moment, aware of a new wariness, then shook it off. Steamboat Springs had a negligible crime rate, which was one reason she loved it. She felt safe in every nook and cranny of the valley. She seldom even bothered to lock her doors. She did now, though, pocketing the key in her pants.

  She ran a mile, then turned back down the street that fronted her house, her footsteps pounding on the pavement and echoing along the street. Faster. Faster. Run away the emotions that were bubbling just beneath the surface.

  Had she heard the truth? Or a lie?

  Did she really have a brother?

  She approached her house. Her perfectly sane world. Her sanctuary. She’d never realized she felt that way about it before. Now she did. Her pace increased yet again and she felt moisture dampening her clothes.

  The light in the living room was still on. The one in her office was off. Just as it should be.

  She would make a cup of hot chocolate, then try to sleep for several hours.

  She unlocked the door, went into the kitchen and poured milk into a saucepan to heat.

  A sound intruded. Upstairs in the loft. A creak. Soft. Stealthy.

  Sarsy. It was probably only Sarsy.

  Still, Sam held her breath, listening. Another slight sound. A footfall? Or Sarsy jumping from a perch? But Sarsy’s paws wouldn’t cause a creak like that, not unless the cat brushed against something. Maybe that was it.

  It had to be. “Sarsy,” she called.

  No answering meow. No sound, except for the pounding of her heart that seemed to radiate out from her, filling the space around her. She searched through cabinets and found a rolling pin. It was the closest thing to a weapon she had in the house except for knives, and she wasn’t about to prowl the house with a sharp knife in her hand.

  The rolling pin gave her some courage, that and her knowledge of self-defense. She would probably call herself all kinds of an idiot in a few moments when she found Sarsy alone and safe and playing hard-to-find.

  She climbed the stairs to find the cat and, she admitted, to quiet her own fear.

  The computer was blinking. She thought she had turned it off. But she’d been distracted.

  Then she noticed the neat pile of papers on her desk. They were not so neat now. She knew she hadn’t touched them earlier. Sarsy again? She released a stifled breath. That was probably the noise: Sarsy jumping from the desk.

  She started to call the cat again, but no sound came from her throat as she heard a noise behind her, then felt a driving pain at the back of her head.

  It was still dark when she woke, and she knew she’d been unconscious for only a few seconds. A glancing blow. Nothing more.

  The door was open and she stumbled up to look out.

  Nothing.

  Her head ached. She touched the bump on her head. No blood. Just pain.

  She’d heard a noise, seen the computer and the papers… and she’d felt a blow, then nothing

  She walked unsteadily to the phone, pausing as a wave of nausea washed over her. She leaned against a wall for a moment, then picked up the receiver. The buzz sounded unusually loud. At least it worked.

  She dialed 911 and reported the burglary, giving her address and name, trying to keep it as matter-of-fact as possible, even though her head was spinning and her mind was having difficulty accepting that someone had actually invaded her home and assaulted her.

  “Hang on to the line until you hear the sirens,” the operator directed her. “Talk to me. Tell me what happened.”

  “A prowler. In my office. I’d… been jogging.”

  She looked down. She was still wearing the jogging clothes. They were still damp.

  “Miss Carroll… talk to me.” The operator’s voice was still calm but now it had a note of urgency.

  “I’m here,” she assured the operator. She heard a siren. “I think the police are here,” Sam said.

  “Stay on the phone until you know…”

  She looked outside as a squad car pulled up in the driveway and two officers approached. “It’s the police,” she assured the operator. “Thank you.”

  An ambulance stopped at the curb behind the police car. Lights now glowed in several neighboring houses.

  Her head pounded as she led the officers and paramedics inside and to the kitchen, where she sat down. One of the officers went through the house to make sure it was empty as the paramedics started asking questions. Sarsy suddenly appeared and wended in and out between her legs. “She was in a closet,” said one of the officers who’d returned. “Didn’t find anyone else. I don’t suppose you know if anything’s missing.”

  She shook her head.

  She suffered through endless questions and probing. The police were obviously concerned. They were used to burglary, but this was an assault as well.

  “We’ll be talking to your neighbors,” one said. “See whether they saw or heard anything. We’ll keep in touch.” The medics finished with their examination. “A bump, but it doesn’t look as if the skin was broken. You should go to the hospital and have it checked.”

  Sam shook her head. “It’s nothing. I’ll see my own doctor,” she promised.

  “Then you’ll have to sign this form,” one medic said.
“It absolves us of responsibility.”

  “In case you die,” added the other.

  She didn’t appreciate the humor. Undeterred, she signed the form. She wanted to know whether anything was missing. She wanted to talk to the two men who had visited the gallery earlier.

  She thought about mentioning them to the officers, but then she would have to explain everything, and she couldn’t do that, not until she knew more. Steamboat Springs was a small town. The permanent residents all knew one another, particularly the merchants within the city limits. How could she tell these two officers that her mother might be the ex-wife of a mobster.

  What if none of it was true? What if she destroyed her mother’s reputation and life for a lie? Silence, she decided, was the better part of wisdom.

  Instead she thanked them after they promised to send over some fingerprint technicians and asked her to inventory her valuables and report anything missing.

  After they all finally left, she sat down in a chair.

  What to do?

  She knew head injuries could be dangerous, but she had been out just long enough for the prowler to get away. Maybe he’d meant no serious bodily harm. She just wasn’t going to wait all day in an emergency room. Any sign of dizziness, though, and she would ask someone to drive her there.

  She carefully locked the doors, then started to look around, anger mounting with every step.

  The assault had been an invasion, not only of her house but of her sense of safety.

  But nothing appeared to be missing. Not the silver Indian jewelry she favored, nor the western paintings that were the only items of value in the house.

  She looked at her watch. Seven-thirty. She phoned Terri, who always rose early. No one answered, and she decided not to leave a message. What would she say, anyway? She was no more ready to confide in her friend than she was in the police—not without more information.

  Her head pounded.

  She had never lied to the police before, even by omission. She was one of the world’s most upstanding citizens, having gotten only one traffic ticket in her life and that at the bottom of a hill in a speed trap. Something inside her rebelled at the thought of breaking a law.