Twisted Shadows (6 page)

“I'm thirty-five. There's been time to explain. For God's sake, I always wanted a brother …” Sam's voice trailed off, as her mother kept glancing at the photo, as if she couldn't see enough.

“I know,” her mother said, her voice cracking. “It broke my heart.”

“Did it?” Sam said coldly, fury and confusion ruling her now.

“Yes,” her mother said. “You said he—Paul—wants to see you?”

“My father,” Sam corrected. The word was like a huge cold stone in her gut.

Her mother winced. “You have his blood, yes. But you have nothing else in common with him. Don't go,” she pleaded. “Don't have anything to do with him.” Again, her mother's gaze returned to the photo of Nicholas, seemingly riveted to it.

“I haven't decided,” Sam said, knowing it wasn't true. She had to find out about her brother. If only her biological father was the issue, she doubted she would consider it. Apparently he had let her go. But Nicholas …

Nicholas
!

“My name was Nicole?”

“I wanted you to have similar names,” her mother said with a sad whisper of a smile. “I always liked Nicole.”

“It's … pretty.”

“You were a beautiful baby, but I've told you that.”

“And my brother? Was he a beautiful baby, too?”

“Yes.” Her voice sounded strangled. “Samantha—”

“Did we like each other?” Sam asked, ignoring the plea in her mother's voice, hating herself for pressing. But she couldn't stop. “Did we play with each other?”

“Yes.” A sigh. Resigned.

“How could you do it? How could you abandon a child?”

“I could save only one,” her mother said. “He would have killed both of us to keep the boy.”

“The boy? Is that how you justified leaving him? Save one? Throw away the other?”

Her mother's tears were coming faster now. Sam felt she was drowning in her mother's pain. In her own bewilderment.
The boy
. Not
Nicholas
. Not
my son
. Her mother's way of coping, her defense? Sam wanted to rip that defense away from her.

“I'm going to see him,” she said.

“Paul Merritta?” Horror was in her mother's voice.

“My brother. Maybe Mr.… Merritta.” She couldn't say
father
again. Despite what she'd said earlier, that title still belonged to David Carroll.

“No!”

“Why?”

“They'll destroy you.”

Sam met her mother's gaze. “Did they destroy
you
?”

“They tried to.”

“And yet you left my brother there?” She tried to keep her voice steady. “How old was I when … you left?”

Her mother's head drooped. “Eight months.”

“I have a birth certificate with Daddy's name on it,” Sam said, suddenly seizing on something that might still deny what she now knew was true.

“David arranged for it,” her mother said.

“My father, the ex-soldier. I always knew he was a man of many talents. I didn't know it included forgery.”

Her mother's head shot up. “Whatever you think of me, he was the best thing that could possibly have happened to both of us.”

Sam wanted to strike out at something. Everything she thought was solid and right and true was sinking under the weight of what she was hearing.

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“That your biological father was a murderer, a crime lord? Would you have wanted to know that?”

“Perhaps not when I was young, but later … I had a right to know. What if there was something hereditary? What if I had children?”

“Then perhaps I would have said something. But you haven't shown any interest in marriage yet and …”

“And my brother?” Sam's voice broke.
My brother
. Strange how naturally the words came to her tongue. “You thought it was right not to let me know—”

“He's lost,” her mother interrupted in an emotionless voice. “Anyone raised in that family is corrupted.”

Disbelieving, Sam stared at her. “You must have seen something in my father. How could you …” Her voice trailed off.

“Marry a criminal?” her mother said bitterly. “I was young. Poor. I was on a scholarship at the University of Chicago. Paul was a last-year law student. Older than most. I met him in the library, and he was everything I thought I ever wanted. He was charismatic. He treated me like a princess.”

Her hand clenched in a fist. “I fell in love. I didn't know who he was. Or what he was. We eloped to Las Vegas immediately when we graduated. I never questioned why he didn't want a formal wedding. Why I didn't meet his family first. He kept saying he was afraid I would change my mind. I thought he feared his family wouldn't think I was good enough for him, but I thought love would conquer everything.”

Her fingers twisted together. “We took a long honeymoon. He had a lot of money, and he bought me clothes and jewelry. He was kind and gentle. Then he took me home, and the nightmare started.

“We moved in with his family. I was the outsider from the beginning. It was obvious everyone disapproved of his choice. They were Italian. I was Anglo-Saxon and a Protestant. But I loved Paul and I tried to please his family. That meant not asking questions.

“I wanted to teach music or art. They were my double majors in college. But he said no. I was pregnant then, and I foolishly thought he was being protective. But that wasn't it. He didn't want me to hear the rumors. I became a prisoner under the guise of my health.

“It didn't take long to discover I'd married into a crime family. Paul always swore he wasn't involved. I wanted to believe him. Then I overheard a conversation …

“My blood ran cold, but by then I was very, very pregnant with two babies. I didn't have any place to go. I had a sister who'd raised me after my mother died, but she had two children and no money. I was afraid I might put them in danger.”

She stood and walked unsteadily toward the balcony. “I didn't want you to grow up in that way.”

Sam tried to absorb it all. She couldn't. It was something out of a novel. Her mother married to a crime lord?

“Does … Nicholas know about us?” Her mother's voice broke the tense silence.

“They said not.”

A visible shiver ran through her mother's body. “You can't go,” she said again. “You have no idea what they are like. What they do.”

Sam didn't say anything. To be lied to as a child for one's sake was one thing. To continue the deception was something else. She wondered whether she would ever totally trust her mother again.

And yet as she looked at her, Sam felt an equal amount of love and even compassion. She'd always respected her mother's values, her sense of right and wrong. But now she also remembered how watchful she'd been. Until Sam was sixteen and had her own car, her mother or father drove her to school every day and picked her up. She never walked like other kids in the neighborhood despite her many pleas.

She'd also been drilled to keep the door locked, even at home, and their house was the first in the area to have a security system. She'd been warned repeatedly never to talk to a stranger, and to tell either parent if anyone tried to approach her. Her father had told her to run like hell if anyone did.

And their cabin.

She'd hadn't ever been allowed to take friends there, or even speak of it. “
Our secret place,
” her father had said. “
Our Shangri-la.
” The image had been pure magic for her, and she'd never said anything, not even to Terri. Now the secret took on other dimensions.

Now she knew why her mother was always so cautious, why they didn't tell anyone about their lake cabin.

“Why did you call your sister?” Sam asked.

“It's been more than three decades since I … left Boston,” her mother said. “David had been with Special Forces. He'd had other jobs with the government. He knew how to get lost, how to create new identities. He told me never to contact anyone I ever knew. But when he died, I wanted to see my sister again. I wrote her last month. I visited her three weeks ago. So much time. I can't believe …”

“The weekend trip with friends?” Sam had been mildly surprised that her mother had left three weekends ago. To visit friends, she'd said. But it had been the first time her mother had left Steamboat without David or on anything but short business trips to buy art.

Tears spilled over and ran down her mother's cheeks. Not just one, but many. They were quiet tears, the kind that held anguish. “I truly thought we were safe.”

Another shock ran through Sam. Someone had lain in wait for more than thirty years to find Mother. And her.

Her mother's eyes pleaded with her to understand. “Don't go,” she whispered. “We can leave tonight. We can go to Mexico or—”

“Run away?” Sam said. “What about the gallery? Our homes? Friends?”

“You don't understand, Samantha.”

“No,” Sam agreed. “I don't. I only know I have a twin brother and a life that's been a lie.”

“We thought it best.”

“You and David thought it best,” Sam said. “How did you meet him?”

She watched her mother swallow. “I … hired him. I had escaped with you but I knew Paul or his family would come after us. My sister knew someone who had just retired from the military. We fell in love.”

Sam had no doubt they had. She remembered how they looked at each other. They'd been in love until the day David Carroll died.

How lonely her mother must have been, to conquer fear and contact her sister.

Sam felt the hot rush of guilt. Perhaps if she had been more attentive, had recognized that her mother had not adjusted to David's death as well as she'd thought …

“Tell me more about Paul Merritta,” Sam said.

“I've tried not to think about him for the past thirty-four years.”

“And … my brother? Have you thought about him?”

“All the time.” Her mother uttered the three words so quietly, in such an unnaturally tense voice, that Sam could only guess at the pain her mother hid behind her struggle for calm.

“Then how could you have left him?”

“It was the only way I could save you.” She had said the words before, but Sam had barely grasped them. It was almost a litany—a painful, frequently repeated litany.

She stiffened. “At his expense?”

Her mother knotted her hands together until the knuckles were white. “I could save only one.” The litany again. Sam could imagine the justification being said over and over again, but never quite believed.

Sam was struck with pity that reached through her anger. Her mother had always seemed so controlled, so self-contained, but now Sam knew it was a facade hiding a devastating secret. “Maybe Nicholas didn't need saving,” she said gently. “He has your genes as well as his … our … father's.” The “our” was chilling. What kind of nightmare had her mother lived through to drive her to such a choice? “When did you marry Daddy?” she asked, needing time to regroup.

“You were a year old. We moved out here. David changed all our names. We bought this business.”

Sam felt she should have known—somehow—that she had not belonged to David, at least in the biological sense. Yet they'd shared many of the same physical characteristics. They'd both been tall, had a certain angular body, the same interest in the outdoors and sports. They were both fairly laid back, while her mother had been more high-strung, a perfectionist.

“David wanted me to tell you,” her mother said. “He thought they would come after you some day.” She paused. “Please, no matter what you think of my decision, don't go to Boston.”

“Paul Merritta has nothing against me,” Sam said. She thought of the implied threat against her mother from her two recent visitors. She couldn't mention it. Not now. “They said he'd been searching for me all these years. What about you and Daddy? Did you try to find out about Nicholas? Or did Daddy know anything about him?”

“He knew,” her mother said softly. Her hands separated and fingers of one hand touched the bracelet on the other arm.

Sam felt a tug on her heart. Secrets. So many secrets. “I want to meet my brother. And find out why Paul Merritta wants to meet me.” She hesitated. “And if he's dying, it might be my only chance to …” To do what? She didn't know.

“I'll go with you.”

Sam heard fear in her voice. “No,” Sam said. “It's something I have to do alone. But I want you to go to the cabin. No one knows about that.”

“The gallery—”

“Helen and Terri can look after it. Terri has another three weeks before she reports back to school.”

“I won't run and hide now. Not without you.”

“Why?” Sam said. “Why did you run then?”

“There were reasons. Believe that, Samantha. Reasons I can't discuss now. Not yet.”

Her mother's tight lips told Sam nothing she could do would force any more answers.

Her mother tried once more. “Don't go, Samantha. Stay here among friends. People who love you. And …”

“And?” Sam asked as her mother hesitated.

“Nothing,” her mother said.

But there was something, and Sam knew it. Her mother had never been a good liar. Or perhaps she had been, after all. Maybe it was the small lies that were difficult.

“Do you think he would harm me?”

He
. They were talking about
he
. Paul Merritta. Boston attorney. Reputed mob boss. Father.

“He's capable of anything,” her mother said quietly.

“If he meant either of us harm, he could have done it. He knows where we are, where you are. Perhaps if I talk to him, you won't worry about him ever again.”

“It doesn't work that way with the Merrittas,” her mother said. Then she stood. “I'll fix some tea.” Tea had always been her answer to any problem. But this one was much too huge for tea.