The Substitute Sister. Lisa Childs

Why…” she sputtered.

      “Maybe I should have sent an officer over, but I felt I needed to tell you myself.”

      “Tell me what?” Her heart hammered so hard now, she pressed a fist against it. Something bad had happened. A sheriff wouldn’t call after midnight for any other reason.

      “About your sister, Ms. Michaelson.” The man’s voice vibrated with emotion. Sadness? Regret?

      Sasha had her share of those feelings when it came to Nadine. She shivered, drawing the flannel comforter back around the shoulders of the faded football jersey she wore as a nightgown. Even in spring, the nights were cold in Michigan. The dream and the call had her shivering despite the warmth of the blankets.

      “This is about Nadine?” She was the only sister Sasha had. Her twin. “What’s happened?”

      What had Nadine done? What kind of trouble was she in this time? Sasha hadn’t heard from or about her twin in years, hadn’t even thought about her much…until tonight…until that dream….

      “Ms. Michaelson, there’s…well, we believe your sister’s dead. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

      Her loss? She’d lost her sister ten years ago when as a high school senior, Nadine had run away from home. “Uh, umm…” Shock numbed her brain, slowing her thought processes. “Nadine’s dead?”

      No, she couldn’t accept that. It wasn’t possible. Nadine’s laughter still hung in the night.

      “You’re wrong,” she told the sheriff, angry with him, with Nadine, with herself for all the lost years between them. “It can’t be her.”

      “I waited until the DNA evidence confirmed—”

      “No!” God, no, not Nadine. She was too young, much too young to die.

      “I know this is devastating, and you’re probably concerned about Annie. But she’s all right. She hasn’t been harmed.”

      “Annie?” Who was he talking about?

      The deep voice roughened. “Annie is Nadine’s daughter, your niece.”

      “My niece?” God, she hadn’t known. She and Nadine hadn’t talked in five years. Her eyes burned as tears swam to the surface, blurring the shadows of her dark bedroom. They would never be able to talk again, never have a chance to form the sisterly relationship they should have had as twins.

      The sheriff’s voice rumbled in her ear again, “Your sister has—had—a two-year-old daughter.”

      Sasha’s breath caught in her lungs, pressing against her heart. A two-year-old? A baby, really. And she’d lost her mother. “She’s all right?”

      “Yes, she is,” he said, relief apparent in his soft sigh. Then he asked, “You didn’t know about Annie?”

      Maybe it was the anonymity of a voice in the darkness, like a priest in a dimly lit confessional, that brought out her admission to a stranger. “I don’t know anything about my sister. I don’t even know where she’s been living, where you’re calling from.” The last place she’d seen Nadine had been in her dream. “We haven’t talked in years.”

      Five years after Nadine had first run away from home, Sasha had tracked down her sister to make sure she would come to her wedding. A wedding that hadn’t taken place because Sasha had found Nadine.

      “Yet in the event of anything happening to her, she named you as guardian of her daughter.” The sheriff’s voice held a trace of bitterness.

      “Wh-what about the child’s father?” Was Sasha’s former fiancé Annie’s daddy? No, she doubted he and Nadine had lasted that long. Her sister had only taken him away to hurt and humiliate Sasha. Nadine had used him like she’d once bragged that she’d often used men.

      Had the sheriff been involved with Nadine? From the emotion roughening his voice, she suspected he had.

      “Your sister was a single mother.”

      “But the little girl’s father…” Would have more right to the child than she would. Not that Sasha didn’t want Annie, this child she hadn’t known existed. Nadine’s child.

      “Annie’s birth certificate says father unknown.”

      So many questions burned in Sasha’s mind, the most important being, why had Nadine named her guardian of her daughter? Nadine had always resented her. Despite being twins, they’d shared nothing but the same face.

      “Sheriff, I need to know—”

      “You need to come to Sunset Island,” the sheriff prompted, “for Annie.”

      The child was most important; the questions could wait.

      “I’ll tell you everything I know when you get here,” the sheriff added.

      Even if he had been involved with Nadine, how much would he know about her life? Nadine had never been the type to share, not even with her twin.

      How had she died? The sheriff might know that, but would he know the rest? Would he know any of the reasons why Nadine had done the things she’d done? Why she’d run away from her family in the first place?

      Now she was lost to them forever.

      Poor Nadine.

      Poor Annie.

      Sasha flipped on the light by the bed and frantically hunted down a piece of paper and a pen as she blinked back her tears. She didn’t have time for them now; she needed to be strong for her motherless niece. “How do I get to Sunset Island? Where is it?”

      “In Lake Michigan. You can take a flight into Escanaba. I’ll have a deputy meet you at the airport and drive you to the ferry that’ll bring you to the island.”

      “I’ll take the first flight there.” Although Sasha had always believed they lived in different worlds, her sister had stayed in the same state, barely, on an island. She couldn’t imagine Nadine living anywhere but a bustling, exciting city. Now she wasn’t living at all.

      “You’re sure…Nadine’s really dead?”

      He said just one last thing before hanging up. “Yes.” The single word held a wealth of emotion, regret, guilt, sadness….

      Her sister had meant something to the sheriff with the deep, rumbly voice. And as grief and guilt rushed in, lying heavy on her aching heart, Sasha realized that the angry words spoken between her sister and her, the grudge she’d harbored these past five years—none of it mattered now. Nothing mattered but that Nadine was really gone this time.

      It didn’t matter that the only vow Sasha had made on what should have been her wedding day was that she would never let Nadine hurt her again. That vow had been broken, along with Sasha’s heart, with the loss of her twin.

      And the last traces of Nadine’s laughter died away in the darkness…leaving only the jarring sound of Sasha’s sobs.

      REED STARED AT THE PHONE he’d just put back on the charger. Her sister hadn’t exactly broken down over Nadine’s death. In fact she’d seemed more shocked to learn that she was an aunt.

      He rubbed a hand over his jaw, over the stubble he hadn’t had time to shave off. God, he wasn’t being fair. Everybody handled loss in their own way. But she had admitted that she’d known nothing about Nadine’s life. And Nadine had never mentioned her.

      Then why give her Annie?

      He strode across the small living room to the open door of the spare bedroom. Light spilled into the room, falling across the face of the child sleeping on the mattress he’d pulled onto the floor. He didn’t have a crib, didn’t even know if she’d still sleep in one at two years old. Because of his ex, he’d never learned the things he’d wanted to learn about kids. Never had any of his own.

      But