Lisa Childs - The Substitute Sister

No, she couldn’t accept that. It wasn’t possible. Nadine’s laughter still hung in the night.

“You’re wrong,” she told the sheriff, angry with him, with Nadine, with herself for all the lost years between them. “It can’t be her.”

“I waited until the DNA evidence confirmed—”

“No!” God, no, not Nadine. She was too young, much too young to die.

“I know this is devastating, and you’re probably concerned about Annie. But she’s all right. She hasn’t been harmed.”

“Annie?” Who was he talking about?

The deep voice roughened. “Annie is Nadine’s daughter, your niece.”

“My niece?” God, she hadn’t known. She and Nadine hadn’t talked in five years. Her eyes burned as tears swam to the surface, blurring the shadows of her dark bedroom. They would never be able to talk again, never have a chance to form the sisterly relationship they should have had as twins.

The sheriff’s voice rumbled in her ear again, “Your sister has—had—a two-year-old daughter.”

Sasha’s breath caught in her lungs, pressing against her heart. A two-year-old? A baby, really. And she’d lost her mother. “She’s all right?”

“Yes, she is,” he said, relief apparent in his soft sigh. Then he asked, “You didn’t know about Annie?”

Maybe it was the anonymity of a voice in the darkness, like a priest in a dimly lit confessional, that brought out her admission to a stranger. “I don’t know anything about my sister. I don’t even know where she’s been living, where you’re calling from.” The last place she’d seen Nadine had been in her dream. “We haven’t talked in years.”

Five years after Nadine had first run away from home, Sasha had tracked down her sister to make sure she would come to her wedding. A wedding that hadn’t taken place because Sasha had found Nadine.

“Yet in the event of anything happening to her, she named you as guardian of her daughter.” The sheriff’s voice held a trace of bitterness.

“Wh-what about the child’s father?” Was Sasha’s former fiancé Annie’s daddy? No, she doubted he and Nadine had lasted that long. Her sister had only taken him away to hurt and humiliate Sasha. Nadine had used him like she’d once bragged that she’d often used men.

Had the sheriff been involved with Nadine? From the emotion roughening his voice, she suspected he had.

“Your sister was a single mother.”

“But the little girl’s father…” Would have more right to the child than she would. Not that Sasha didn’t want Annie, this child she hadn’t known existed. Nadine’s child.

“Annie’s birth certificate says father unknown.”

So many questions burned in Sasha’s mind, the most important being, why had Nadine named her guardian of her daughter? Nadine had always resented her. Despite being twins, they’d shared nothing but the same face.

“Sheriff, I need to know—”

“You need to come to Sunset Island,” the sheriff prompted, “for Annie.”

The child was most important; the questions could wait.

“I’ll tell you everything I know when you get here,” the sheriff added.

Even if he had been involved with Nadine, how much would he know about her life? Nadine had never been the type to share, not even with her twin.

How had she died? The sheriff might know that, but would he know the rest? Would he know any of the reasons why Nadine had done the things she’d done? Why she’d run away from her family in the first place?

Now she was lost to them forever.

Poor Nadine.

Poor Annie.

Sasha flipped on the light by the bed and frantically hunted down a piece of paper and a pen as she blinked back her tears. She didn’t have time for them now; she needed to be strong for her motherless niece. “How do I get to Sunset Island? Where is it?”

“In Lake Michigan. You can take a flight into Escanaba. I’ll have a deputy meet you at the airport and drive you to the ferry that’ll bring you to the island.”

“I’ll take the first flight there.” Although Sasha had always believed they lived in different worlds, her sister had stayed in the same state, barely, on an island. She couldn’t imagine Nadine living anywhere but a bustling, exciting city. Now she wasn’t living at all.

“You’re sure…Nadine’s really dead?”

He said just one last thing before hanging up. “Yes.” The single word held a wealth of emotion, regret, guilt, sadness….

Her sister had meant something to the sheriff with the deep, rumbly voice. And as grief and guilt rushed in, lying heavy on her aching heart, Sasha realized that the angry words spoken between her sister and her, the grudge she’d harbored these past five years—none of it mattered now. Nothing mattered but that Nadine was really gone this time.

It didn’t matter that the only vow Sasha had made on what should have been her wedding day was that she would never let Nadine hurt her again. That vow had been broken, along with Sasha’s heart, with the loss of her twin.

And the last traces of Nadine’s laughter died away in the darkness…leaving only the jarring sound of Sasha’s sobs.

REED STARED AT THE PHONE he’d just put back on the charger. Her sister hadn’t exactly broken down over Nadine’s death. In fact she’d seemed more shocked to learn that she was an aunt.

He rubbed a hand over his jaw, over the stubble he hadn’t had time to shave off. God, he wasn’t being fair. Everybody handled loss in their own way. But she had admitted that she’d known nothing about Nadine’s life. And Nadine had never mentioned her.

Then why give her Annie?

He strode across the small living room to the open door of the spare bedroom. Light spilled into the room, falling across the face of the child sleeping on the mattress he’d pulled onto the floor. He didn’t have a crib, didn’t even know if she’d still sleep in one at two years old. Because of his ex, he’d never learned the things he’d wanted to learn about kids. Never had any of his own.

But in his heart Annie was his. He’d brought her into the world. He had been the first to touch her soft, tear-damp cheek. The first person who had met her crystal-blue gaze. And Nadine, grateful for his help delivering her child when they’d been snowed in on the island, had asked him to be Annie’s godfather.

So, why not her guardian?

He eased down onto the floor next to the mattress, the bare wood boards hard and cold beneath his worn-denim-covered legs. Even in spring the temperature still dropped below freezing at night on the island. Reaching across the mattress, he tugged a soft blanket up over the comforter. Then he tucked the baby-blue satin edge under her chin.

Annie’s security blanket. The kid would need that blanket more than ever. How much security would she have now that her mother was dead and she would be turned over to a stranger?

His gut twisted, anger and regret churning inside him. He’d known something was going on with Nadine, but despite sharing the birth of her child, they hadn’t shared much else. Nadine’s secrets had died with her.

Violently.

During his years as a Detroit Homicide detective, he’d seen a lot of gruesome things. But the blood pooled on the marble floor and dripping from the walls of the foyer of Nadine’s house had affected him strongly because it had spilled from a woman he’d known…personally. Maybe would have known more personally if the timing had been different.

Even now, more than two years later, bitterness over his divorce burned in him. And Nadine’s heart had been heavy with the secrets she carried and refused to share. But because of his role as Annie’s godfather, they’d been friends.

And now she was gone.

Where the hell had the sick bastard hidden her body? Reed hadn’t found it yet. So Nadine’s survivors would have nothing to bury but memories.