My Sister, Myself

“In other words, my father was supposed to make the fire look like an accident. So why not arrest this stepson?”

“There’s nothing linking him to the fire or your father. Look, Madeline Lingford’s late husband—Nelson’s father—was a longtime businessman in New Harbor. After he died, Nelson took over, but he doesn’t have his father’s scruples. Some of his dealings have teetered on the edge of the law. Let’s just say he’s made his share of enemies. From what I hear, a former friend of Nelson’s named Vince Desota lost his shirt on one of Nelson’s deals. Since it’s well known Nelson spent several evenings a week in residence at his stepmother’s house, speculation has it old Vince decided to instigate a little payback.”

“By destroying Nelson’s stepmother’s house?”

“And everything of value in the house, all of which would come to Nelson sooner or later, or so Vince probably thought. Like I said, it’s speculation.”

“So was Nelson Lingford at his stepmother’s house that night?”

“Nope. Begged off at the last minute to attend a concert. Interesting, huh?” He stared at her a second before continuing. “Tess, your father’s life was out of control. He apparently got caught in his own trap. They found receipts for a fuel can in his truck, the same kind found inside the house. They found a clerk down the coast who remembered him coming in and buying the damn thing. There was no fuel can at his apartment or in his truck or anywhere else except in that burned-out shell of a house. It was well known the widow was disabled and seldom left the place. A fire would kill her. Your dad would know that. I didn’t want you hearing it from someone else.”

“He tried to kill a woman?” Tess said, her eyes huge.

“I know it must come as a shock to you—”

“Oh, who cares about me? Poor Katie.”

At that moment, for Ryan, Tess Mays stopped being a novelty, stopped being a carbon copy of her sister and turned into an individual. He searched his mind for a few comforting words to offer and came up short. He couldn’t even reassure her about how Katie had taken it.

With a sigh he resolved to finish this. “That’s not the worst of it,” he mumbled at last, wishing the waitress would come back with the coffee and pour it over his head. He was suddenly freezing. Tess looked as though she was, too, and he fought an alarming desire to take her hands, to hold them close to his mouth and breath warm air on them.

“Tell me,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “Just get it over with. My father—”

“It’s not about your father,” he said, interrupting. He took a deep breath. “It’s about your sister.”

“My God, what has she done?”

“It’s not like that,” he said quickly. He scanned the diner out of habit before lowering his voice and leaning over the table. “I don’t think her ‘accident’ was an accident,” he said with a knot in his throat. “I think someone purposely tried to run her down.”

Tess gasped softly. “What are you saying?”

“I think someone tried to kill her.”

Chapter Two

Tess ran her hands up and down her arms, aware for the first time that she wore a blouse so new there were probably tags still hanging down the back on the inside, attached to the label at the neck. She’d been in the process of dressing for work when the call from the Oregon police came. Dressing for work meant turtlenecks and lab coats. She didn’t know how she’d come to choose the red silk; no doubt it just happened to be the first thing her fingers came in contact with.

And now it draped her body in soft, vulnerable, fragile wisps, and she wished she’d chosen something substantial, something strong…like body armor.

At any rate here she was twelve hours later sitting in a diner with a stranger, learning things about her family—a family she hadn’t even known existed—that went from bad to startling and back again. The unmerciful overhead lights in the diner made the headache building behind her temples all the worse.

She got up abruptly, registering the startled look on Ryan Hill’s face as she did so. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. He’d been talking, but his words had morphed into Swahili. She knew she couldn’t sit still another moment. Digging in her shoulder bag—she’d left the duffel in her sister’s hospital room—she produced a ten-dollar bill and slapped it on the table, then hurried through the restaurant and out the door, pulling on her coat as she walked, aware that he was following, embarrassed to be acting like a drama queen, but doing so, anyway.

The night air was cold and wet and fresh, salty with the nearby sea, invigorating, just what she needed. She pulled her lightweight coat close about her body, shivering despite herself, head tilted down against the rain. It might be wetter than usual in San Francisco this year, but it wasn’t cold like this, the wind didn’t bite at you, the raindrops didn’t ricochet off the sidewalk and nip your skin.

Ryan Hill’s long-legged stride being twice hers, she’d known he’d catch up with her quickly if he wanted to. He didn’t grab her arm, for which she was grateful, just hunkered down and slowed his gait to match hers, staying right by her side. His presence was reassuring.

Eventually they reached the corner, and she had a decision to make. To the left lay the hospital and her sister, lost in a coma, unaware Tess had come to see if her existence could possibly be true. To the right lay the ocean, albeit some way off. She turned right, which meant she was walking more or less into the wind. Her hair whipped around her face and plastered her damp clothes against the front of her trembling body.

“You’re going to freeze to death,” Ryan finally said. “Hell, I’m going to freeze to death.”

“I know,” she said. And then after a few more steps, head still down, added, “Go on, talk.”

“Let me know if you can’t make sense of what I’m saying through my chattering teeth,” he said.

She smiled down at the glistening sidewalk. “Okay.”

“I was talking about your sister. How much did you hear me say?”

“Not much.”

“Then I’ll start over, but this time you’re getting the abbreviated version for obvious reasons.” He paused, she guessed to organize his thoughts, then proceeded. “Katie came to see me after Matt died. She thought the department was making him a scapegoat or maybe that he’d been framed. She was in complete denial, unwilling or unable to see the facts. Her dad couldn’t have done something so awful. He just wouldn’t. She was adamant.”

Tess’s lips twisted into a wry smile as her sister took on dimensions as a human being, evolving from an injured figure to a real live woman. She liked knowing this about Katie—that she was loyal and true. “Go on,” Tess said.

“I refused to help her,” Ryan said, his voice ragged. “I refused. My career was on the line. I was Matt’s partner and Matt was crooked, ergo, I was suspect, an internal investigation was probing into both of us. I think Matt sent me off chasing phantoms that night not only to get me out of the way but to make sure I had an alibi. Anyway, the department told me to stay far away from this case. The Lingfords are a prominent family in the community despite the rumors of shady dealings, and the D.A. is unwilling to point a finger in their direction until there’s proof. Vince Desota hasn’t made a single move to indicate guilt, but sooner or later—if he’s guilty—he’s bound to let something slip to someone, and the detective on this case has his ear close to the ground. Plus there are other people connected with the family. Or it could have been an attempted art heist, the fire a diversion that went awry. I told Katie to be patient and trust the system.”

He stopped talking as he touched her elbow and guided her around another corner. The wind hit with renewed ferocity, blowing open Tess’s coat, biting through the silk blouse. A hotel lobby opening to the street lay a few steps ahead. Ryan pushed open the door. She paused only a second before sidling past him.

The steamy heat of the lobby hit her with a bang. She stopped and took a deep breath.

“There’s a bar over in the corner,” he said, taking her elbow and steering her toward the lounge as he spoke. “We’ll get something hot to drink.”

He chose a small, round table and as she took off her wet coat, longing for a towel to pat dry her hair, he went to the bar and came back with two stemmed glass mugs of Irish coffee, the cream floating on top like melted clouds.

They both wrapped their hands around the hot glasses and breathed in the fragrant brew.

“What happened next?” she asked.

He picked up the conversation as though it hadn’t been interrupted for several minutes and said, “Your sister said she understood.”

“Just like that?” The thought flashed across Tess’s mind that Katie wouldn’t have given up that easily. Tess knew she wouldn’t have.

“Just like that. I was relieved. But when I tried to call her the next week, her number had been disconnected and there was no new listing. I went by her place and found that she’d moved out the week before. Ditto at the latest place she told me she’d been working, a lounge out at the city limits.”

“A lounge?”

“She tends bar. Hell, she does lots of different things. Your dad said she couldn’t make up her mind what she wanted.”

Tess sat there and tried to absorb this. She’d spent her entire life knowing exactly what she wanted to do. The idea that someone who looked just like her could be so different was startling.

“Anyway, they said she left their employ the same day she left her apartment. Still, there didn’t seem to be any cause for alarm. She’d just lost her dad in a terrible way, so I figured she needed to go off by herself for a while.”

Tess took a sip of whiskey-laced coffee, licked the cream off her upper lip and wrapped her hands back around the glass mug. The alcohol spread through her body, melting icy niches with heady warmth. “I don’t understand why you think you’re to blame for her accident. I mean, obviously she went away to think and then came back to New Harbor—”

“I should have known she gave in too easy. Katie was passionate about your father’s innocence.”

“Ryan, I’m still not understanding—”

“The investigating traffic officer didn’t like the scene of Katie’s accident. For one thing, there were no skid marks, for another the driver went up on the curb but missed a telephone pole he or she should have hit. Then there’s the fact that the driver got out of the van and didn’t run away until the dog walker yelled.”

Tess closed her eyes for a moment. The whiskey had moved to her head. She tried to imagine her sister walking down the sidewalk as a white van barreled toward her. Katie wouldn’t have just stood there waiting to be hit. She must have been distracted. Had she realized what was coming in the split second before metal hit skin and bone?

“I told you they checked her purse and found the letter your father left her but no identification. The traffic officer recognized Matt’s name on the letter. It took a few hours for someone to get ahold of me. By that time Katie was as you see her now, comatose, unreachable.”

Tess still wasn’t sure what Ryan was saying. Her expression must have betrayed her confusion because without waiting for her to think of the right question to ask, he added, “I think she’d been poking around. My guess is she came across something someone was hiding.”

“And so they tried to kill her?”

“Exactly. If I hadn’t fallen for the way she blew me off that day, if I hadn’t been worried about my own future and been so angry with Matt for betraying me and everything I thought he stood for, I might have been able to talk some real sense into her. I might have been able to prevent this.”

Tess stared hard at him. There was genuine pain in his eyes—pain and guilt. And it seemed out of proportion to his story. Did a man in his line of work take responsibility for everyone they knew, every problem that crossed their path?

“But at least you know where to start, right?” she said slowly. “I mean, it must be that stepson. Or that Desota guy. You find which of them has a white van and you arrest them and then they tell us what happened to Katie’s father—” She caught herself and amended, “To our father. This could be a big break, right?”

“I’ve already done all that. There’s no white van registered to Nelson Lingford. No rentals, either. As for Vince Desota? He owns a few vans—he runs an electrical contractor business, and yes, they’re white. None unaccounted for or damaged. It’ll take time to go through Nelson’s other enemies, and unless there’s an official investigation, it won’t do much good anyway. There’s no proof that Katie’s hit-and-run wasn’t an accident. The traffic officer signed it off. It’s been lousy weather and there have been a lot of traffic accidents lately.”

Tess stared at her empty mug. “I see. I think.”

“And there’s one last thing,” Ryan added. “The last number dialed on her cell phone was mine. I wasn’t in the office and she didn’t leave a message. I guess she didn’t have my cell phone number, just the department’s. The time recorded for the call is compatible with our witness’s estimation of when the accident occurred. She was walking to or from her car, we think, when she was hit. I can’t help wondering if she was coming to find me.”

“So she tried to reach you.”

“Yes.” He took a swallow of his coffee and added, “What I’m trying to say is simple. I’m sorry.”

She met his gaze and nodded.

He put a few bills on the table as he stood up. “You must be dead on your feet. Did you get a hotel already? If not, there’s nothing wrong with this place. I’ll go get your bag and—”

“I don’t want a hotel,” she said. “I’ll spend the night in Katie’s room.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

She stood, too, still forced to look up at him because of their height difference. “This isn’t your decision to make, Detective Hill.”

He appeared startled by her comment, as though he wasn’t used to being crossed. He appeared to be a solid, healthy man used to taking control, caring but persistent, the kind who expected to shoulder every burden. There was another element to him, as well, that lurking hurt she’d seen behind his eyes.

“I can’t offer you forgiveness for how you reacted or didn’t react when Katie asked for help,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “I’m not my sister, I can’t absolve you for her.”

“I know,” he said softly.

“Then—”

“I’m not asking for you to forgive me,” he said, his gray eyes smoldering. “I know I screwed up. I know I let her down. I thought of myself…I should have—”

He stopped himself, shook his head and added, “I’m just trying to explain why I’m back in the game. If I can’t find out what happened to Katie from within the department, then I’ll take vacation time and figure it out on my own. It’s as easy as that.”

She had no idea what to make of this guy. She’d never met anyone quite like him.

He added, “I’m also going to make sure you stay in one piece, Ms. Mays.”

Annoyed, she snapped, “I’m not your concern.”

“Hasn’t it occurred to you that whatever happened to Katie could happen to you?”

“Why should it? I’m not a threat.”

“No, you aren’t a threat. You just happen to look like the woman someone might have found so threatening they tried to kill her.”

Tess shuddered deep inside. She was a veterinarian, not a policewoman, not an adventurer, not brave or resolute or any of the rest. She’d grown up sheltered from violence, quietly accepting her role as her troubled mother’s keeper, turning to animals for comfort and companionship. She didn’t even know her sister, couldn’t remember one single thing about her father. For this she might be risking her neck?

Her life back in San Francisco—the clinic, the animals, her partners, her friends—suddenly seemed a zillion miles away.

Where in the hell was her mother? The woman had some major explaining to do.

“At least let me walk you back to the hospital,” Ryan said.

She nodded, not meeting his gaze, half ashamed of her gutlessness.

And half terrified.

RYAN SPENT THE NIGHT trapped in a restless dream where he tried to find his kid brother, running down one empty street after another. Every time he seemed to get close, however, Peter’s frightened voice would fade away and begin again somewhere else and Ryan would be off again.

He’d had the same dream a hundred times and it never got any easier. He never found Peter, and he was unable to save him. It was a relief to wake up to no one but his cat.

“Morning, Clive,” he said. Clive, as usual, sat perched on the foot of Ryan’s bed, wearing his inscrutable cat gaze. A trim black wraith, he lived in a secret world of his own Ryan only occasionally caught a glimpse of. Clive had taken the concept of the mysterious cat to heart.

Ryan’s next thought was of Tess, of the last he’d seen of her, sitting in the stiff little chair beside her sister’s bed, yawning into her hand, looking small and alone. She might act tough, but he suspected it was a front. He’d wanted to take her to his house and protect her from he didn’t know what, but he’d made himself walk away.

And now he knew what he had to do next. First he’d go into work and read every file he could get his hands on, get caught up on Matt’s case, settle a few loose ends with Jason Hyatt, his new partner, then put in for three weeks of accumulated vacation. In that time he would make sure Tess Mays got home safely and stayed there, then he’d find out what happened to Katie and maybe even what happened to Matt. Clear the whole thing up, move on.

Simple. He should have done it before. Clive meowed, a throaty, strangled sound that meant it was time for breakfast.

“I suppose that’s your way of ordering eggs Benedict,” he told the cat who blinked yellow eyes.

AS THE DAY WORE ON the huge hospital became increasingly small to Tess. The high point was meeting with Katie’s doctor and being told indications suggested a good chance of a full recovery, but he refused to be narrowed down to particulars. “Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe next month,” was all the doctor would commit himself to.

After that, she’d tried yet again to reach her mother’s new husband’s son—her new stepbrother, she realized with a start—a thirty-seven-year-old man named Nick Pierce who lived in some remote Alaskan town. Despite her mother’s efforts to get him down to California for his father’s wedding, he hadn’t come and the housekeeper who answered the phone this time would only say he was unavailable.

The wedding, the honeymoon, a new life…it was all surreal to Tess. Up to this point, her mother’s idea of adventure had been ordering Chinese food. She’d spent most of Tess’s life hiding from reality, doing nothing but working, sleeping and reading, almost in equal proportions, frozen in twenty-seven years of grief Tess had never understood.

Until now. Her mother had lived a hideous lie. She’d divided her children and been party to hiding the truth, something that obviously ate at her until Mr. Seattle swept into her life and somehow, finally, provided a distraction. If Tess was to be honest, she’d been weak with relief that someone else had come along to shoulder some of her mother’s care, meet some of her mother’s insatiable need.

But it was all pretend, a fantasy her mother created to fill a void. If her mother’s lesson had been to distrust a woman’s need of a man, Tess had learned it well. Too bad her mother hadn’t followed her own counsel.

After a short shower and a welcome change of clothes in a facility the nurse pointed out, Tess walked endless hallways that all looked the same, read countless magazines and called work where she was told to take all the time she needed, family comes first.

Family.

The word had a whole new concept.

Several times she stood by the window at the end of the hall and looked out at the rain-swept city, wishing she was brave enough to go out the front door. But she stayed inside, not only because Ryan Hill had warned her to but because, face it, she was a chicken and she didn’t want someone pointing a great big white van at her.

But honestly, was a van a very clever murder weapon? Wouldn’t a knife or an assault rifle get the job done better? After all, her sister wasn’t dead, she was injured and expected to recover.

By late afternoon Tess had found the scrap of paper on which she’d written Ryan’s phone number. She stared at it. Tempted to call him, she left Katie’s room before she crumbled. She knew why she wanted to hear his voice—she wanted reassurance. The thought that she might be turning into a woman as weak and needy as her mother wasn’t a pleasant one. A few minutes later she caught a cab outside the hospital.

It took barely ten minutes for the taxi to roll to a stop in front of Vista Del Mar Apartments. Tess paid the driver and stood on the sidewalk, glad the rain had let up, wishing the wind would take a hint and follow suit.

Perhaps at one time a view of the ocean had been a possibility from the windows of the Vista Del Mar, but development around the old structure made that something of the past. The building itself was two stories of gray cement, dwarfed by the high-rise condos on either side. It looked like a poor relation, hovering in the shadows, apologetic and self-conscious.

Tess stared up and down the darkening street. Across from a large park, numerous driveways led to high-rise condos. The telephone pole Ryan had mentioned the driver of the white van missing had to be one of a string running along the park side and one of the cars parked along the sidewalk might well belong to Katie.

Tess closed her eyes for a second, picturing Katie walking fast, head bent down against the rain. Her sister would have looked up when she heard an approaching engine. A blur of white metal, the shock of impact—

Tess opened her eyes, her heart racing.

What was she doing here?

Fear had held her hostage in the hospital until boredom made fear look downright agreeable by comparison. Tess was a take-charge woman in her own life. She’d studied hard, secured a good job right out of college, worked even harder once employed. She hadn’t had this much idle time since…well, since she couldn’t remember when.

At any rate, she’d felt the need to come to this place. Now she was here and, despite the bravado that had provided the impetuous, she kind of wished she weren’t.

She reached into her purse and found her cell phone, trying once again to make it work, but she still had no coverage this far north. How was she supposed to call a cab, and even if she could, where was she supposed to go?

Back to the hospital? No, thanks.

You could go to Katie’s apartment, a voice sounded inside her head. You could stand at her door and touch the knob she last touched and maybe, maybe…

Maybe what?

Tess, rubbed her temples.

“Well, hello there!” cried a woman being pulled through the door by an anxious Dalmatian on a lead.

Startled, Tess said, “I beg your pardon?”

The woman struggled with the dog. “I’m just surprised to see you back here. From what Frances said, I thought you’d be in the hospital for days. Hey, what did you do to your hair?”

“My hair?” Tess said, her hand automatically touching her blond, windblown tresses.

But the woman, now halfway across the street thanks to the apparently desperate dog, only waved her free hand.

Before the door swung shut again, Tess slipped into the foyer. Relieved to get out of the wind, she paused to scan the row of mailboxes. Two or three slots were labeled with name tags, the others weren’t. She stood there for a moment, looking down the short hall on the first floor. With a shake of her head, she made an arbitrary decision: Katie would not live on the ground floor.

She took a ratty elevator to the second floor where she found an older man fumbling with his keys while struggling with two grocery bags. One of the paper sacks looked as though the bottom was about to fall out of it. “Need help?” she asked hoping to earn directions to her sister’s apartment for her trouble.