The Shadow Wife

She looked surprised. “But you’re much smarter and nicer than Uncle Steve,” she said, then added, “No offense. I know he’s your brother.”

He laughed. “That’s my point, sweetheart. As I grew up, I got more confident. What I was like when I was sixteen didn’t matter anymore.”

Lisbeth looked out to the vast Pacific, where the air was growing hazy with fog, a crease between her eyebrows.

“You’ll blossom, Lizzie. Someday. It can’t be rushed, and you’ll need to be patient. But you have a lot of happiness ahead of you, and you’ll probably appreciate it more than Carlynn, because she’s known nothing else.”

Lisbeth smoothed her hand across the gunwale. “I don’t really want Carlynn to be unhappy, though.” She looked past the sails at her father.

“It’s not an either-or thing, honey,” he said. “You can both be happy. There’s not a finite amount of happiness to be divided between the two of you, where if you get more, she gets less.” He leaned toward her. “You and Carlynn are so lucky to have each other,” he said. “Other friends will come and go, for both of you, but you’ll always be there for each other.”

“She’s so pretty,” Lisbeth said, fishing, he thought, for a compliment.

“She could use a few more pounds, if you ask me,” Franklin said, taking her bait, and Lisbeth smiled at him.

“Thanks, Daddy,” she said and leaned back on her arms to face the sun again.

Lisbeth felt the slight sting of a sunburn on her face as she helped her father moor the boat to the pier. She’d hated to come in, hated to put an end to her time with the one person who seemed to value her more than Carlynn, but the fog was getting closer, and both she and her father knew how quickly it could surround them out on the bay. She walked ahead of him as they made their way over the dunes to the car. A couple of young boys were playing on the dunes, running and jumping and shrieking, and when she heard the thud behind her, she guessed it was just one of the boys leaping from the dune, so she didn’t bother turning around.

“Hey! Girl!” one of the boys cried out.

Still, she didn’t turn, figuring the boys were planning to play some sort of joke on her.

“Girl! Your father!”

She turned at that and saw her father lying several yards behind her, on his back in the sand.

“Daddy!” she cried, racing back to him. Kneeling next to him, she rested her hand on his heart but could feel no beating against her palm. His face was the color of the old ashes in the fireplace. She turned to the boys who were watching, stock-still, from the dune.

“Get help,” she said. “Hurry!”

She rested both her hands on his chest, holding them there, praying to God to save him. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to send her love into her father, but knew she should have questioned Carlynn more about her ability to heal the night before. What had she meant when she’d talked about sending “everything good” inside herself into someone? How did she do that? How?

She held that position, crouched over her father, telling him out loud that she loved him, while his face turned from ash to white. She could hear the sirens in the distance, but by the time the ambulance pulled into the small parking lot, she knew it was too late. Her father, her champion, was gone. It was, in some ways, his own fault, she thought. He had taken the wrong twin sailing with him.

10

JOELLE TURNED OFF HIGHWAY ONE AND QUICKLY FOUND HERSELF in a line of five cars, all of them waiting to enter the gate to the Seventeen Mile Drive. When she reached the tollbooth, she smiled at the young man waiting for her money.

“I’m Joelle D’Angelo,” she said. “I’ll be visiting Dr. Carlynn Shire.”

He checked a list inside the booth, then looked up. “Go ahead,” he said.

She looked ahead of her, but wasn’t certain if she should take the road to the left or the right.

“Which way do I go?” she asked, and he pointed to her left.

“The Kling Mansion is that way,” he said. “Just past Cypress Point.”

“Thanks.” She started driving again. She passed the lodge at Pebble Beach, where the road was clogged with cars and golf carts and tourists, and after a few minutes she came to a spit of rugged land that jutted out into the northern end of Carmel Bay. If she’d had binoculars—and the time to stop—she thought she might be able to see across the bay to her condominium from there. Damn. How could she possibly leave Monterey?

She could probably hide her pregnancy until she was four or five months along, she thought. She’d seen young women come into the maternity unit who had hidden their pregnancies right up until the end, not wanting their families to know, so surely with some loose clothing and by keeping more to herself, she should be able to pull it off. She wanted to hold out as long as she could and keep working, because she doubted she’d be able to find a job as a five-or-so-month-pregnant woman, and she’d need every cent she could hang on to when she moved.

She didn’t think she could handle living with her parents for more than a week or so. They were wonderful people, but they would drive her crazy long before the baby was born. If she could afford an apartment in proximity to them, though, that might work. She’d thought of her friends who lived in different parts of the country, wondering if living near one of them might be feasible. Her college roommate lived in Chicago and had two little kids, so she would be a great resource. But Chicago? After Monterey? She was going to have to let go of her need to live someplace perfect. That could not be her priority right now.

But Joelle forgot that promise to herself as she passed the lone cypress, where it rose out of the rocky coastline. Within a few minutes, the road slipped from the open, oceanfront vistas into a dark, thick grove of Monterey cypress. Finally, she spotted the turnoff to the Cypress Point Overlook. Pulling her car to the side of the narrow road, she checked her directions. The house should be ahead and to the left, and she lifted her gaze to see a gray stucco mansion nestled in a stand of cypress. Letting out her breath, she stared at the large,