The Third Twin. Dani Sinclair

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СКАЧАТЬ sure,” she said forcefully.

      “Uh, all right, then. I’ll let you argue it out with Wyatt. See you later.”

      “Yes,” she agreed.

      When he was gone, her eyes swept the shelves once more, staring at the scattered pictures. Most were of the twins at different ages, but there were also several pictures of a woman who could only be their mother.

      Her mother.

      Alexis stared at the woman’s face. There was no mistaking the resemblance. Alexis had always known that she looked nothing like either one of the people who had raised her, but she’d never wondered about that. How could she have been so blind? Her entire life had been a lie.

      The pain of the betrayal was so powerful she wanted to crumple into a ball. How? Why? The hurt was far too intense for tears. She felt numb to her soul.

      Alexis lifted the photograph of the woman who was most likely her real mother. Despite the similarities of their features, it could have been anyone’s face staring back at her. The woman was a total stranger.

      Lightly she traced the heart-shaped face with a fingernail. She looked like her mother. Alexis’s gaze flicked to the picture of her sisters. They looked like her mother.

      How was this possible?

      Why had it happened?

      The questions repeated themselves over and over again. Alexis closed her eyes. Her throat felt squeezed so tight her breathing was labored, a loud harsh sound in the silence of the room. She opened her eyes. Hurt and anger would have to come later. Answers were what she needed, and time was running out. Anyone could come in and find her here.

      Wyatt could find her here. And part of her wished he would.

      She set the photograph down and stared at the two young women who bore her face. Leigh and Hayley. Her sisters.

      How long ago had this picture been taken? The photograph itself gave no clue. She’d never heard of siblings looking so completely identical—unless they were born from a single egg. There was only one answer that made any sense. Her sisters weren’t twins, the three of them were triplets. They had to be.

      There. She’d acknowledged what she’d begun to suspect before she’d even arrived at Heartskeep. Why else would Wyatt and R.J. have accepted her as Leigh so readily? But, Alexis didn’t look sixteen, so these must be older photographs. She began to hunt for proof.

      Judging by the desk drawers, she wasn’t the first to go hunting for something in this office. The police would have searched it, of course, but there had to be something that could give her a few answers.

      How had their mother been murdered? More important, when had she been murdered? Did it have something to do with the money in the briefcase? Everything kept coming back to that cursed case.

      Alexis moved back into the library and scanned the bookshelves. She stopped when she came to an old family bible dating back several generations. In the back were pages for listing family members. It wasn’t the past that interested her, but the final three entries held her riveted.

      Alexis Mary Ryder had been printed with a careful hand in blue ink. A bold line with an arrow had been drawn from her name at the end of the column, to an insertion point above Hayley Hart Thomas. The letters DBH were written in the margin beside the line.

      Alexis didn’t have to go far to link the name that went with the initials. DHB: Dennison Barkley Hart, her maternal grandfather.

      Instead of answers, she only had more questions. One in particular overrode the rest. How had her grandfather known of her existence? Was this why she’d been warned not to trust anyone?

      Her gaze swept the room. She took in the expensive furniture, the rows of books, the lovely stone fireplace. Was the money in that briefcase intended as a bribe for her father’s silence? If so, who was Kathy?

      Alexis scanned the list of names once more. No one even close to that name was listed in the bible.

      A headache began to pound with vicious fury behind her eyes. Alexis bit down on her lip. The note’s warning was obvious now. Her sisters had every reason to want her dead. Heartskeep should have been her home, too. She was an heiress. How was she supposed to deal with this?

      Her fingers delved into the pocket of her skirt and touched the folded piece of paper Wyatt had given her. She didn’t need to call. She could go upstairs right now, find him and dump the whole mess in his strong, capable hands. He’d wanted her to talk. Well, she certainly had a story to tell him.

      Except Wyatt was a cop. His warm, caring expression would change the minute she told him what had happened to her father—or rather, the man she had always believed to be her father. Someone had killed him for the briefcase—and maybe for what he knew. They would do the same to her when they found her.

      Her father must have known how dangerous the situation was, yet he hadn’t sent her to the police, he’d sent her to a lawyer, but the lawyer was also dead. There had to be a reason.

      If it had been hard to think before, it now seemed impossible. Alexis wasn’t used to being indecisive. Working as she did with runaways and pregnant teens meant making decisions every day. Standing here like a vegetable would accomplish nothing. She needed to hide the money until she could figure out what to do—and who to trust.

      Retrieving the heavy case, she peered into the hall. There were voices at the back of the house. She listened for Wyatt’s deep tones without success. It was just as well. She had no idea what to say to him anyhow.

      With no one in sight, she hurried up the front stairs. The second floor was eerily silent. The hairs on the nape of her neck bristled. She felt a stirring of malevolence, as if her presence disturbed something that didn’t want her here.

      The notion was ridiculous, simply the fantasy of a tired mind. Subconsciously her brain was trying to make her acknowledge that no one was going to want her here once they realized who she was.

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