Look-Alike

Look-Alike

Rita Herron

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my own look-alike—the sweet one, Reba.

May your true love find you and sweep you away!

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Sheriff Miles Monahue —He’s been accused of killing his wife, but when her look-alike surfaces with a bizarre story about being held in a psychiatric ward on Nighthawk Island, will he be able to uncover the truth about which twin is his wife, and find The Carver?

Caitlin Collier —She married Miles, then mysteriously disappeared. Did she betray him or was she the victim of something sinister?

Nora Collier —Caitlin’s identical twin—is she dead or alive?

The Carver —He believes that marriage means till death do us part, and he has been chosen to dole out the punishment for betraying those vows—with murder. But who is he really?

Federal Agent Reilly Brown —He is determined to get to the bottom of Caitlin Collier’s disappearance and find The Carver. Will he pin the crime on Miles?

Dr. Hubert Hollinsby —A psychiatrist who specializes in twin identity crisis. Did he conduct experiments on Nora and/or Caitlin? How far will he go to protect his secrets?

Dr. Omar White —He finally convinced CIRP to open another research hospital in Raven’s Peak…and he will do anything to keep it open.

Dr. Arthur Mullins —This medical examiner solves crimes through forensic evidence—is he hiding something?

Reverend Perry —His sermons focus on marriage and fidelity—how far will he go to make the people listen?

Buck Bennigan —This cowboy was the last man to see the Collier twin before she died—did he kill her?

Jimmy Joe Johnson —The bartender claims he slept with Caitlin—or was it Nora?

Contents

Cast of Characters

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Prologue

Savannah, Georgia

“Father, forgive me, for I have sinned.”

“And how may I help you, my child?” the priest asked.

“I have taken a woman’s life.” He stretched his fingers in front of him, the bloodstains still darkening his blunt nails, the scent of the woman’s fear still pervading his body.

Behind the curtain, he heard the priest shift uncomfortably, knew he was probably struggling with the need to see his face, with his sacred vows to keep his silence.

But finally, true to his calling, or maybe because his curiosity was spiked, he said, “Go on.”

“She is one of many to come,” he said, a singsongy note entering his voice. “She was a sinner, a home wrecker. She did not honor her marital vows and she had to pay.”

“Only our God can pass judgment on another,” the Father said. “We are all sinners. It is not for us to dole out punishments.”

Anger, vile and hot, flashed through him. An image of the woman’s sultry face followed. Her gaudy makeup. Her whorish laugh. Her wedding ring glittering as she slid into another man’s bed. “But there is a secret society of them that has sprung up. They haunt the big cities, the small towns, they are taking over.”

“You must turn to God for guidance. Seek help from others who understand your sickness—”

“I am not sick!” He slammed his fist on the wooden surface. “I am a chosen one. I must continue to serve in my own way by ridding the world of evil women.”

He stared down at his pinky finger, to her wedding ring. She hadn’t deserved to wear it so he had kept it for himself.

And he would have more, so many more, before his work was finished.

Chapter One

Raven’s Peak, North Georgia

Nine months later

“I didn’t kill my wife.” Sheriff Miles Monahue leaned back in his desk chair in an effort to rein in his volatile emotions. “Like I told the police when I reported Caitlin missing three weeks ago, I have no idea where she is or what happened to her.”

FBI agent Reilly Brown’s accusing look spoke volumes. “Take off your sunglasses, Sheriff.” Brown folded his arms on Monahue’s desk and pierced him with a stare as icy as the North Georgia winter wind outside. “I like to look at a man’s eyes when I’m talking to him.”

Monahue whipped off his Ray-Bans, struggling to bank his temper as he met the agent’s gaze head-on. He’d always had dangerous impulses, but lately he’d barely been able to restrain himself from acting on them. He half attributed his springboard reactions to the stress of his wife’s disappearance.

But the emptiness had been in his soul a long damn time. And lately, he’d developed severe headaches and a sensitivity to light. The doctor said it was stress, that he needed to lighten up. Release his emotions in a healthy way.

Hell, the man didn’t know what he was talking about.

Besides, without the shades, he felt exposed, raw. As if someone might see inside his soul and glimpse the darkness. The bitter boy he’d turned into after he’d witnessed his parents’ murder at age ten. The fact that he’d been a suspect in their deaths.

Or the soft spot he’d had for Caitlin. His hand automatically strummed over his pocket where he still carried the charm bracelet he’d bought for her the night he’d proposed—two tiny silver hearts melded together, just as he’d thought theirs had.

What a damn fool he was for believing such nonsense.

“Do you have new evidence? A lead?” Miles asked. God knows he wanted some news. Some closure.

“I’m the interrogator here.” Agent Brown’s chair squeaked as he shifted his weight. “You’re the suspect. You answer the questions.”

Miles gritted his teeth. “Dammit, tell me. Have you found her body?”

Brown’s eyebrows rose. “Then she is dead?”

“You’re twisting my words.” Miles bit back a curse. He had no idea if Caitlin were dead or alive. After that last fight, she’d stormed out of their three-week marriage. A few short days after they’d been married, he’d realized his wife wasn’t the woman she presented before the I do’s. Or the passionate, love-struck woman she’d led him to believe.

She’d been mysterious. Had been hiding something. And when he’d questioned her about her past, her family, she’d clammed up.

For all he knew, she’d faked her death and would let him fry for murder. But where had she gone?

Brown didn’t want to hear his suppositions. He’d only think Monahue was making excuses. “You’re interrogating me again,” he finally replied, “so that makes me wonder if you’ve found something new.”

Brown twisted his mouth into a frown. “Nothing I can reveal.”

Miles stood abruptly, his chair hitting the floor. “Then get the hell out. I’m sick of your runaround. If you find her, call me. Or if she contacts me, I’ll let you know.”

Brown pushed up from the desk, his boots clacking on the wooden surface. He paused in the doorway, pinned him with a warning look. “Don’t go anywhere without informing me.”

Miles glared at the man’s back as he stalked out, then he slammed the desk so hard his stapler flew onto the floor with a clatter. Frustration clawed at him. Even though he and Caitlin had only been married three weeks, their wedding triggered by a drunken night of raw, passionate sex, he’d exhausted every imaginable lead hunting for her.

Of course, the police suspected him. He was the husband. And the last time he’d seen Caitlin, they had fought publicly. She’d shouted that she didn’t want to be married to him. That it had been a mistake.

He’d agreed. He knew nothing about love. Family. Commitment. But his pride had smarted and he’d spouted off in anger.

Where was she?

Off in Tahiti with a lover? Sipping margaritas and laughing at the mess she’d left behind? Or had she met with foul play?

Guilt assaulted him as the gruesome possibilities flitted into his mind. Caitlin, dead at the hands of a madman. Or maybe she’d been kidnapped and was being tortured and was still alive.

If so, every day that passed meant there was less chance of finding her.

He grabbed his keys and headed to his car. He had to get out of the office. Drive someplace and be alone.

Freezing rain and sleet pelted him as he jogged to his Pathfinder, cold air blasting him as he climbed inside and started the engine. He blew on his hands to warm them, hit the gas pedal and soared from the parking lot, gravel churning beneath his tires, sludge and mud spewing. Storm clouds darkened the sky, the sleet creating a steady staccato rhythm as it pinged off the hood and windshield. He flipped on the defroster, grateful for the noise that drowned out his turbulent thoughts as he drove through the small town of Raven’s Peak. He tried to focus on the road and his surroundings as he made his nightly rounds, but the nightmares hovered in his mind, tormenting him. After Caitlin had left, the evening blurred. He’d had a headache, then added liquor on top of it. He must have blacked out. Then the nightmares had started. Nightmares that went back to his childhood.

The rugged edges of the mountain peaks and towering hardwoods rose in front of him like ice statues standing guard to the secrets within their massive walls. The canyon below had once been green and lush, sprinkled with wildflowers and honeysuckle, a haven for the sun as it fought over the jagged gorges. Now, it looked like a brown crater resting at the underbelly of the mountains, like a dark cavern below ground where shadows walked at night, a home for the demons who rested in their evil lairs.

He couldn’t shake the interrogation with Brown from his mind, or the sense that something sinister had happened to his wife. Hell, he did have his dark side, but he hadn’t killed Caitlin.

And not a second had gone by that he wasn’t plagued with worry about her. The first few days, he’d beaten the streets searching for her, for any clue as to where she might have been, had used all his resources and questioned everyone in Raven’s Peak, where he’d first met her at a local honky-tonk, the Steel Toe. But he’d found nothing but questions.

His hands tightened around the steering wheel. The defroster worked overtime to clear the fog from the storm outside, the gears grinding as the tires clutched at black ice. Day by day, he’d assured himself that Caitlin had probably just run off and left him. She was tough. Formidable. She’d obviously decided she’d married him on a whim, that commitment wasn’t her style, and ditched him before the ink on their marriage certificate could set permanently.

Still, he’d blamed himself. It was his fault she had left. He hadn’t known how to be a husband. She’d needed something he didn’t know how to give.

Love.

He’d almost convinced himself he believed that she was coming back, that at least she was alive. Almost…

But the fact that neither he nor the feds had actually turned up any leads on her whereabouts kept his doubts and fears alive.

Streetlights illuminated the town square. Most of the storeowners had long gone for the evening and the citizens were tucked safely in their homes within the city limits, the wooded hills and valleys of the mountains. A safe, small Southern town.

Until he’d brought Caitlin here and she’d disappeared. Now, he wondered if there might be a murderer among them.

Squinting through the sleet, Monahue searched the shadows of the town park for vagrants or unwanteds, then drove past the high school to check for trouble-seeking teenagers, but the street and parking lot were quiet.

The storm grew in intensity as he headed up the mountainside to the house he’d rented, the wind bowing branches on the bare trees that comprised the sloping foothills. Winter had set in to stay, and the holidays were just around the corner, a time for friends and family.

He had neither. In fact, Raven’s Peak looked as desolate and empty as Miles felt inside.

He’d find out the truth about everything. If Caitlin had been hurt or killed because of him, he’d get revenge on the person responsible. And if she were alive, well, he’d at least exonerate himself, keep his job and move on with his life.

Either way, he’d never get seriously involved with another woman again.

Nighthawk Island

Savannah, Georgia

SHADOWS FLICKERED around the sterile hospital room, the scent of antiseptic and alcohol nauseating. Rain pounded the roof, the monotonous drone echoing the beat of her heart. Despair threatened to steal her energy, so she forced herself to channel her courage into the will to survive. But she was so confused, she didn’t remember her own name. Did she have family somewhere looking for her? A boyfriend, husband?

Caitlin…Nora…

The two names bled together in her mind as if they were one and the same person. Maybe they were. Sometimes the doctor called her Nora. Other times, the nurse had whispered “Good night, Caitlin,” to her in the darkness.

“Here you go, sugar, this should help you sleep.” Donna, a robust nurse who usually worked nights, handed her a small paper cup holding a pill, then poured her a glass of water from the plastic hospital pitcher.

She cradled the capsule beneath her tongue, took a sip of water and pretended to swallow it. The bitter taste assaulted her senses, her struggle not to let it dissolve warring with the craving for something to sweep her away from the nightmare she’d been living the past few days. Or had it been weeks?

She’d lost all sense of time.

Donna patted her hand in approval, then ambled her bulk to the window and adjusted the shades, drowning out the dwindling light that had tried to cut its way through the fog. “Let me know if you need anything else, dear.”

She nodded, a show of obedience earning her another sympathetic smile. Then the nurse bustled by, humming Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” beneath her breath as she exited.

She spit the pill into her hand, her socked feet slipping on the cold linoleum as she ran to the potted plant by the window. Hands trembling, she dug a hole in the potting soil and stuffed the capsule below the surface, then packed the dirt tightly over it. The screech of the lock turning on the door, shutting her in, brought a fresh wave of panic.

She didn’t belong here.

Not in this mental ward or research hospital, whatever it was. Worse, she couldn’t remember how she’d ended up hospitalized. But she’d heard the nurses talking, whispering about the Coastal Island Research Park on Catcall Island, and the more restricted facility on Nighthawk Island. The place was dark, had secrets. The doctors were conducting strange experiments, ones nobody wanted to talk about.

So why was she locked inside?

She wasn’t crazy. She hadn’t willingly committed herself for experiments or treatment. She hadn’t experienced delusions or heard voices until they’d pumped her full of narcotics. Then the voices had started, the strange terrifying dreams, the cries in the night from down the hall.

Cries from other patients…her own…

She had to escape. Get help.

Caitlin? Nora…

She had a sister somewhere. She felt it, a connection of some kind. But where was she? And why hadn’t she come looking for her?

Snack and medicine carts rumbled outside her room, nurses’ laughter and voices echoing in the night. Somewhere down the hall a chilling scream pierced the air.

She rushed to the window and inched back the edge of the shade. The murky sky and woods surrounding the hospital cast the island in an ominous gray. Shadows of drooping palm trees flickered through the haze, heavy with rain. How far was she from civilization? If she ran tonight, would she be able to escape the island and find her way to a town somewhere?

Her reflection caught in the window. A ragged, frail woman stared back. Dark purple smudges marred her skin beneath bloodshot eyes. Perspiration beaded her forehead and upper lip. Her stomach cramped into a knot, and she staggered back to bed to rest. Slowly she’d weaned herself from the narcotics, but going cold turkey triggered nasty side effects that had been nearly impossible to battle alone. Sometimes the sweet need for another shot, a pill, anything to alleviate the pain, to help her rest and obliterate reality was so strong she could barely fight it. But if she succumbed to that desperate need, the dreams, the voices, the cries…would start over again. And this time she might not be able to save herself.

Footsteps sounded outside, and she held her breath, grateful when the person bypassed her room and went on to another poor soul. If the nurse discovered Caitlin was dressed, she might guess her plan and warn the doctors and guards.

Then it would be back to solitary confinement, to that room and the chair.

She nestled under the covers, trying to warm herself as she huddled in the darkness. Seconds ticked by, her eyes glued to the wall clock, the only decoration in the near-empty, gray room. Ticktock. Ticktock. A minute passed. Five more. Ten. Thirty.

Finally, the nurses’ voices quieted. The halls grew silent. She had to go now while it was dark. Before they returned to make their midnight rounds.

Removing the butter knife she’d stolen from the cafeteria, she slipped from bed and began to undo the screws that bolted the windows into place. One. Two. Slowly she worked, the task painstaking, the rust adding to her problems. Her hands shook and she dropped the utensil, the clatter on the linoleum floor echoing through the stillness of the night.

Her breath caught. She paused, listened. Prayed no one heard. Seconds later, she began her task again. Perspiration trickled down her cheek as she removed the last screw. A sigh escaped her, then she opened the window.

Fresh air.

Inhaling sharply, she hoisted herself onto the window ledge and threw herself through the opening. Her ankle twisted as she hit the hard ground. Ignoring the stabbing pain and the bite of the wind and rain, she ran through the grass and bushes, into the thick, shadowy woods that encased the property like a fortress.

An alarm screeched as she climbed the gate. Guards suddenly burst outside, weapons drawn. Lights flickered on, and shouts rang out. “The gate! There she is!”

Caitlin dropped to the other side, and dashed through the sea oats. The trees were so dense, they shaded any light. She searched the darkness, disoriented. Which way should she run?

“Stop!”

The shouts propelled her forward. Her heart pounding, she dashed through the foliage. Insects buzzed around her face. Her shoes sank into the mushy ground. A hawk swooped up ahead, and the stench of a dead animal and peat added a sickening odor.

She spotted a clearing ahead, and she raced toward it. The sound of water broke through the quiet. The ground suddenly disappeared in front of her. She’d reached a small cliff. She glanced to the left, then the right, but heard voices from both directions. There was no place to run!

Voices echoed behind her again, carrying in the wind, and flashlights scanned the woods. A beam of light caught her in its glare.

“There she is!”

“Stop her!”

She was cornered. The ocean raged below, a good thirty feet. Her legs threatened to buckle. Someone broke into the clearing. Shouted for her to freeze or he’d shoot.

Terror seized her. She wouldn’t go back. She would die inside.

“Please, God, help me.” Her heart thundering, she inhaled, then flung herself over the ledge into the roaring waves.

Devil’s Ravine

North Georgia

HE SAVORED THE SWEET SMELL of Eve’s fear in the shadows that bathed her as she huddled within her tomb. She was a stubborn one, too far gone to save. Too deeply embedded into her harlot ways to admit that the devil had invaded her soul.

God help him, but he wanted her anyway.

Her chin wobbled, and her eyes turned glassy, but she refused to release the tears.

He felt the fine tremors of her body as he trailed his finger over her naked chest, raked the knife blade in the curve of an A, the letter he would use to brand her before he took her life.

A smile curved his lips. Yes, she was so alluring, angelic really, exactly like the first Eve who’d tempted Adam. Yet she was worse. She was married. Promised to another.

Only she had forgotten those vows when she’d taken another man to her bed.

“Please don’t do this,” she whispered.

He cradled her pale hand in his, then slid the simple gold wedding band from her fourth finger. She didn’t deserve to wear it.

The marriage decree stated that the union would last forever—till death do us part.

Breaking that vow meant she had to be punished.

Miles Monahue would thank him in the end.

Chapter Two

Nighthawk Island

Fear seized Caitlin as she fought the undercurrent, but she forced herself to take a breath and continue swimming. Another stroke. Another. Her clothes felt heavy, weighing her down. How far would it be to the next island? Could she make it?

Then she spotted the small fishing boat. Deserted, tied to the shore by a long rope.

Her pulse raced as she battled the waves and swam toward it. Her arms ached. Her lungs throbbed for air. Her legs felt like numb weights as she kicked and pedaled forward. Finally, she reached the boat and hurled herself inside. She was shivering, but she grabbed the paddle and worked it against the current with all her might.

It seemed like hours as she struggled to reach shore. The night grew darker, colder, her muscles screamed with strain. The strange nighthawk circled above as if hunting for its prey, waiting for her to succumb to exhaustion so he could attack.

Finally, she approached land. Another island. Here, she’d find help. Get a ride back to civilization and find out why she’d been locked away.

She dragged herself from the boat and slogged through the sand and shells in the darkness. Dizzy with exhaustion, she wove through the long stretches of wooded land until she neared a road. Cold air sliced through her wet clothes, salt water stinging her eyes. A dog howled behind her, and she forced her rubbery legs to take another step. Up ahead, she thought she heard a noise. The whistle of the wind? A rabid dog? Thunder?

Traffic. A car zooming over the slushy pavement.

Panting, she tore through the bramble, jumped over a patch of overgrown weeds and ran onto the highway, waving her arms. She yelled for the driver to stop, but the ancient pickup rattled by, ignoring her, spewing muddy slush. Fighting panic and dizziness, she began to walk along the edge of the road, hopes dwindling as she realized the late hour and weather would prevent travelers from tackling the narrow deserted roads.

Exhaustion intensified her despair, but she reminded herself not to give up hope. Another car would come by. It had to.

One more step. Another.

It seemed as if hours had passed, but finally a noise broke the silence. Tires squealed, brakes churned. An eighteen-wheeler spun around the curve, crossing the center line. She yelled and waved her arms frantically, praying his headlights caught her, that he didn’t run her down.

He hit the brakes and gears screeched as he slowed and pulled over to the embankment. The door swung open, and a man’s face appeared, shadowed by the smoke-filled cab interior. The strong odor of French fries and sweat wafted from the truck. “Miss, are you all right?”