“I didn’t shoot your friend,” Jayne said again. “The first time I touched a gun was in that kitchen when the shooter left it behind.”
“Only your prints are on it,” Carter said.
Jayne shook her head. “I touched it, that’s all. I didn’t come here to cause you grief.”
“Yet here we are,” Carter grumbled.
Paige drew Jayne over to sit on an empty bench. Carter stood like a sentinel beside them. “Tell me what happened that night.”
“I was followed that night. Honestly, I was looking for a way to approach you without scaring you. You’d met with the chef and I thought it would be a good place to start.”
“How did you even know to approach Paige?” Carter demanded.
“Shortly after I got into town, I saw her face during a news spot for a holiday toy drive,” Jayne explained. “The resemblance was pretty obvious and I had to find a way to get close enough to talk.”
Jayne took off her sunglasses, resting them on her knee. Paige appreciated being able to see her eyes even though the reflection effect was disconcerting. During her brief research, no one seemed to have any idea how much time twins needed to get used to each other after being separated. Was it a pro or con that they were reuniting as adults with nearly thirty years of different life experiences?
“I’d nearly been mugged in a parking garage the day before.” She glanced up at Carter. “I blew it off as random. It wasn’t. The would-be mugger followed me to the kitchen that night.” She tapped the inside of her wrist. “His tattoos, about here, gave him away. I walked in through the service door, hoping to convince the chef to tell me how to reach you. He came in right behind me and aimed the gun at my chest.”
Paige gasped. “You were the intended target.”
Jayne nodded. “Apparently. But I don’t know why he’s after me.” She paused, her gaze drifting out over the harbor. “Again, I’m so sorry. I just grabbed whatever I could reach and started fighting. He had a ski-mask over his face, but I got it part-way off. Scratched him.” She pointed to the base of her neck. “Your friend walked in and shouted for help. It happened so fast. I pushed a rolling rack at him, tried to pin him to the wall and the gun went off.”
“Twice. Two gunshots,” Carter said.
“I know.” Jayne winced. “The echoes haven’t faded. I checked her for a pulse. I’m a registered nurse,” she explained. “I would’ve started CPR, but she was gone. The guy ran off. I ran when I heard other people coming.” She pulled in a deep breath. “I’m not proud of that.”
Paige reached out and rubbed her shoulder. “Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“I wanted to, especially when I heard they suspected you. But I spotted the gunman near my hotel and decided it was safer to hide. I went to your house to explain things.”
“You broke into her house,” Carter corrected.
“No. That wasn’t me.”
“Mr. Tattoo again?” Carter’s voice dripped skepticism.
“Yes. I watched through the windows as he searched your office. When he headed for the main part of the house, I distracted him.”
“The security camera and alarm were disabled,” Carter grumbled. “Tell me you have a description of his face and his tattoos.”
Though Carter’s gruff interruptions were borderline rude, Paige realized she’d been sucked into the story. Without his objectivity, she wouldn’t question anything her mirror image said.
“I do, yes.” She gave him the basic physical description and showed him a rough sketch of what she recalled about the man’s ink.
Paige wanted to build a relationship with her sister. There was no guarantee Jayne was interested in the same thing. While Carter sent a text with this new information to his assistant, she asked, “Was your childhood good growing up?”
Jayne gave a short, brittle laugh. “No. Yvette, our mom, seriously resented being stuck with me. Her words not mine. She would often lose her temper, shouting that she could’ve sold me too if I hadn’t been sick and worthless and wrecked everything.”
“You’re sick?”
“Not now,” Jayne assured her. “Picture of health today. Twin A,” she pointed to Paige, “was born healthy. Twin B,” she tapped her chest, “had a congenital heart defect that required surgery. She couldn’t cash in on me right away because no one wanted a defective baby.”
Guilt and temper blazed through Paige’s system. No child should be spoken to that way. She’d had a beautiful, near-perfect childhood while Jayne had been raised by a negligent, cruel woman. Cora, despite her weaknesses, had been a loving, nurturing mother. Paige rubbed at her arms through the thick cable knit sweater she wore, wishing she could hug her sister and erase the past.
Yes, she was a big softie and Paige refused to regret it. “I have some good news,” she said. “My dad, Jack Coker, is our biological father. He had an affair with Yvette.” She pulled out the old picture of Yvette and Jack and handed it to her sister.
Jayne whistled and slumped back against the park bench. “When did he tell you?”
“He didn’t.” Not yet anyway. Her soft heart hardened. “I recently had a paternity test done.”
“Oh.” Worry clouded Jayne’s eyes. “Still, that’s so much better than who I thought our dad was.”
“Who did you think it was?” Carter asked. Apparently, he’d finished updating his assistant.
“An attorney named Michael Yost. Yvette had a heart attack and died the month before I turned seventeen. I planned to move out the minute I was legal anyway, but the state of Florida dumped me into foster care. Fortunately, I wasn’t there long.”
Paige pressed her lips together, holding back a torrent of sympathy. Her sister never should’ve been subjected to any of this. Why hadn’t her father adopted Jayne too?
“When I aged out of foster care, I got Yvette’s personal effects,” Jayne said. “That amounted to a banker’s box with pictures, some legal documents, and a few pieces of high-quality jewelry from boyfriends.
“I pawned a ring right away and used the cash to rent a room for a couple of weeks. There was a checkbook register for an account I’d never seen before, along with a single page letter from Michael Yost on letterhead for a firm here in Charleston. I called the bank and pretended to be Yvette and learned there was just over fifty thousand dollars in the account.”
“Holy cow,” Paige murmured. She caught Carter sending another text.
“It was perfect timing. I suddenly had money to live on and to get myself through college. The deposits kept coming until I turned twenty-one. I assumed he knew she was dead and he wanted to help me. Even if he didn’t know, I couldn’t turn down free cash.”
“Who would in your situation?” Paige mused. Carter arched his brows, but he didn’t contradict her.
It sounded as if Jayne’s life had been all stress and strife with no real support. Call her gullible, but Paige was all-in to give Jayne the good family she’d missed out on. “And you became a nurse?” Paige beamed. “That’s fantastic.”