Especially the dead ones.
A smile curved his mouth as he lifted the womans pale, bloodstained, battered hand. He was an expert at his job. He would find out everything he could from this womans corpse. After all, he worked for the law.
Any evidence he discovered would help them nail her killer.
Chapter Four
of the nurse at the mental institution, who had invaded virtually every aspect of her life, including her personal regimen of bathing. For all we know, honey, you might try to drown yourself in the shower, the nurse had said.
And she had been tempted to. Anything to escape the tormenting sessions in that room.
Another, deeper kind of agony consumed her. Her hope for finding the truth, and her family, had been the thread that had kept her sane during her ordeal at the hospital.
But now her only surviving family member was dead.
Grief erupted inside her, tearing at her insides. Although she thought shed cried all her tears the night before, once again sobs wracked her body. She didnt fight the emotions. If Nora was really dead, then a part of her had died as well.
How was it possible that her sister was gone? Fleeting memories of her childhood flashed before her eyes, spotty and confusing, yet she remembered cuddling in bed with her look-alike and whispering in their own secret language, a special way of talking that had allowed them to communicate without their parents, teachers or virtually anyone else understanding their exchanges. A language and closeness she could never share with anyone else.
She struggled for more details of the past, her later years, but she felt as if her memories had been stolen and only tidbits of her life remained, all jumbled together as if theyd been dumped into a big cauldron and stirred, leaving her to piece together the rest. Where had she lived before shed been admitted into the hospital? How had she wound up restrained in a psych ward? Had Nora even known shed been missing, or had someone kidnapped her at the same time and kept her hostage?
The fact that Nora had turned up dead the same day she had escaped the mental hospital was bizarre. Did her escape have something to do with her sisters murder? Was it her fault Nora had been killed?
God, no
She clutched her stomach as guilt assaulted her. She needed Nora, couldnt accept the fact that her actions might have gotten her sister murdered. What if she knew who had killed her sister but shed blocked out that memory as well?
And how could she survive alone? She and her sister had been so close they were like two halves of the same person.
Bits and pieces of her past sprang back to haunt her, like snippets from someone elses life that she was watching through a camera. The phone calls to Nora that hadnt been returned. The worry that her sister was in trouble.
She soaped her hair, driving her fingers into her scalp, desperately trying to keep the images at bay, but other disturbing ones followed, images of a life that didnt fit with her desire for a family. Images of nights when shed performed at a smoky bar. Nights shed drunk too much and partied into the wee hours of the morning. Nights shed flirted and caroused with men, crawling into a strangers bed and waking up God knows where.
Menthere had been lots of men.
Was that how shed met Miles Monahue?
She closed her eyes, willing away the awful feeling that she had done more than that, that she had sold herself for a good time and hurt others in the process. But shed never hurt Norawould she?
Panic squeezed the air from her lungs as she struggled to remember more, but a black emptiness swallowed the rest. Her tears finally exhausted, she rinsed her hair, stepped from the shower and wrapped a towel around her, shivering in the chilly air.
She had to understand the reason shed married Miles Monahue, or if he had married Nora instead. And shed do whatever necessary to find out what had happened to Nora, and if she were to blame for her sisters death.
THE SHOWER WATER kicked off just as Miles started breakfast. Thank God. It was too damn tempting having Caitlin back in his house, in his bed, in his shower naked. He wanted to go to her, throw her on the bed and demand some answers.
Hell, he wanted to strip his clothes, run his hands over her silky skin, taste her spicy wanton lips, sink himself inside her and screw her until she screamed. Then he might just get his fill of her once and for all.
But he couldnt forget the agony shed put him through the last few weeks, or that her look-alike lay in the morgue with stab wounds through her hands and heart. That Caitlin didnt remember being married to him and had track marks on her arms. That she might not be his wife but a twin, and that his wife might be the one dead.
No, hed feed her, then pump her for the truth.
A knock jerked him from his task, and he set the eggs and bowl aside. The toaster pinged, but he ignored it and strode to the front door, coffee in hand.
Special Agent Brown stood on the other side, his expression stony and unreadable.