required that any weapons brought to school be turned in to the principal’s office, and she fully intended to do that. But there was a fire drill during the next class, and halfway through the last class of the day, one of the students got sick and Rebecca had to rush her to the nurse. By the time she returned to class, she barely had time to remind the students to do their homework before the dismissal bell rang.
Finally, the day was over! Harried and exhausted after too little sleep the previous night, Rebecca completely forgot about the slingshot in the top drawer of her desk. All she wanted to do was go for a nice long ride at the ranch on her favorite horse. Then she wouldn’t have to think about anything. Grabbing her purse and briefcase, she hurried outside to her car.
Taking Rebecca’s suggestion, Austin spent the morning and early afternoon talking to Joe’s brother, Graham, and Emmett Fallon, his friend and old army buddy who had helped Joe set up his first oil well. They were both involved in Colton Enterprises and in a position to know who Joe had had business clashes with over the years. Unfortunately, the list was longer than Austin would have liked, and he couldn’t take much comfort from the fact that Graham and Emmett had included people who had only minor conflicts with Joe. The shooter had tried to commit murder in front of 300 hundred witnesses. As far as Austin was concerned, that made him a loose cannon. Anyone with the slightest grudge against Joe had to be checked out.
Frustrated, trying to imagine who would have picked such a public forum to try to commit murder, Austin headed back to the ranch. He needed to get another look at the scene of the crime, but this time in private.
Armed with the key Joe had given him, he didn’t bother to knock, but quietly let himself in and shut the front door behind him. Silence immediately engulfed him. It was the middle of the afternoon, and the place seemed deserted. Inez was there somewhere, no doubt, but Meredith was probably out shopping or playing the overprotective mom with the boys. If he was lucky, he had the entire house to himself. Pleased, he stepped through the formal, too-perfect living room and headed for the courtyard at the back of the house.
When he’d visited the ranch with his parents when he was a kid, the courtyard had always been everyone’s favorite part of the house. It offered a spectacular view of the Pacific and was a gathering place for the family at the end of the day. It was also the perfect setting for a party. From the patio, the guests could spill out onto the yard and have unlimited space to mingle…and hide in the dark, away from all the bright, decorative lights that had been strung near the house for the party.
Who, he wondered, had stood back from the lights and watched Joe, waiting for just the right moment to pull the trigger? Trying to imagine the scene, Austin stepped through the French doors that opened onto the courtyard and didn’t realize it was already occupied until it was too late. Standing with her back to him and unaware of his presence, Meredith was in the process of chewing out Inez.
“What do you mean you didn’t take the dry cleaning to the cleaners?” she said sharply. “I need my red silk dress for the Smythes’ dinner party tomorrow night!”
“Sorry, ma’am,” the housekeeper said. “It just slipped my mind.”
“You’re not getting paid for it to slip your mind! Do you understand? If you can’t do the job you were hired to do, I’m sure I can find someone else who can.”
Austin couldn’t believe Meredith was being so harsh over such a minor case of forgetfulness. He’d always remembered her as a kind, easygoing woman who treated servants like family. When had she become so autocratic?
He didn’t make a sound, but something must have alerted Meredith that she and Inez were no longer alone. Glancing over her shoulder suddenly, she immediately spied him standing in the doorway. “Austin! What a surprise!”
“I let myself in. Joe gave me a key, so I thought I’d check out the patio.”
For a second, he would have sworn that infuriated her. Something flashed in her brown eyes, something that came and went so fast he couldn’t be sure he hadn’t imagined it, but it left him chilled to the bone. Then she gave him a mega-bright smile that was a little too forced to be sincere. “Good. I haven’t slept a wink since that maniac tried to kill Joe. The sooner you catch him, the sooner we can all start sleeping at night.”
Her smile abruptly fading, she glanced coldly at Inez. “Get us some coffee and make sure it’s fresh brewed.”
It wasn’t until she turned back to Austin that she realized she’d made a mistake and nearly given herself away. The real Meredith would have never been so rude to the hired help. Oh, no, not her nicey-nice twin sister. She’d always been perfect, and Patsy had hated her for that.
Anger boiled in Patsy Portman like hot lava just at the thought of her sister, and it only enraged her more that she was going to have to watch herself with Austin, or he would start asking questions she couldn’t answer. If he figured out that she wasn’t really Meredith…
Paling at the thought, she stiffened. No, she was Meredith! She was! If she forgot sometimes, it was just because she couldn’t turn around without running into someone asking questions they had no business asking. First the police, and now Austin. Damn them all, how long did they think she could keep up this act when they kept pressuring her? If someone ran her fingerprints through the police computers, her prison record was going to pop up like a piece of burnt toast.
Feeling like she was coming unraveled, she swallowed a giggle at the thought. No! She had to get control. She needed her pills. But she couldn’t take them in front of Austin. Then he would know. Then everyone would know. She had to get it together. She was Meredith. Sweet, irritatingly pleasant Meredith.
Suppressing a shudder, she forced a tight smile and tried to repair the damage by saying sweetly, “Oh, and Inez? Don’t worry about the dry cleaning. I’ll wear the black lace. Okay?”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said softly. “I’ll get your coffee.”
When the housekeeper scurried away, Patsy didn’t need to see Austin’s frown to know that she’d done little to redeem herself. For that alone, she wanted to scream at him. For as long as she could remember, she’d never measured up to Meredith. They may have looked just alike, but it was her twin who’d always known just how to act and what to say. Everything had come to her, dammit! Everything! While Meredith had played it up big in Washington parties as a senator’s wife, then later socialized in her fancy house with the rich and beautiful in California, Patsy had been serving time in prison for murder. Then there was that awful time she spent at the St. James Clinic for the mentally ill. It wasn’t fair!
In spite of what the doctors had said, she wasn’t crazy. She wasn’t, dammit! She’d just wanted the charmed existence her sister led. So when she’d seen a chance to get rid of her and take over her life nine years ago, she hadn’t hesitated. And no one had been the wiser.
That wasn’t to say it had been easy. She’d had to keep a tight rein on her temper, and that had been a constant struggle. She hadn’t been able to do it indefinitely. Gradually, she’d showed sides of her true self, always using the excuse that she was tired or stressed or just not feeling like herself. And over the years, everyone had come to accept the changes in Meredith’s personality without being aware of it.
Austin, however, hadn’t been around to witness those changes in Meredith. He hadn’t seen her in years, and if Patsy wasn’t careful, he’d start to wonder why his now sharp-tongued aunt was so different from the simpering sweet one he remembered from his childhood.
He was a huge threat to her, and not just because there was a possibility
