Heir to Secret Memories

“My latest discovery. Haven’t you wondered why people keep staring at you? Remember, I promised you an evening you wouldn’t soon forget.”

A tinge of unease tightened Paige’s belly as her friend ushered her toward the east wall of the room. Sally’s surprises were predictably obscure. “I saw the ice sculpture,” she ventured.

“Not the ice sculpture.” Sally waved her arm. “My newest artist.”

Everything Sally did was dramatic, from her famous charity soirees to the way she scoured the city dressed in her talent-hunting uniform of designer jeans and a shapeless, ancient men’s suit jacket that would do a homeless man proud, topped by an equally disreputable fedora.

Paige smiled indulgently. “Have you been prowling through dusty junk shops again?”

“Of course. It’s the best way in the world to discover new artists. I found this one in a musty little voodoo shop down near the docks. It’s the surprise I promised you.”

A framed drawing hung by itself in the center of an alcove. As Sally stepped aside, the crowd of people seemed to melt back into the paneling.

Paige stiffened as her vision telescoped in on the picture.

“Oh my God,” she choked, shock stealing her breath and tightening like a vise around her throat.

It was a small piece, sketched in charcoal. There wasn’t much to it, just a few perfectly executed lines. Only the eyes were fully drawn, but Paige recognized herself, much younger, looking over her naked shoulder with mischief in her glance.

“Voilà!” She heard Sally’s throaty laugh. She felt all eyes on her.

“Isn’t it stunning? And the resemblance is phenomenal.”

Sally’s voice echoed in her head like music from the next room, heard but not recognized. Her thoughts were on another time. She remembered the very day. It was the day Johnny had asked her to marry him, the day he’d given her his mother’s ring and promised her he would love her forever.

The last time she’d ever seen him.

Paige squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her teeth. It couldn’t be Johnny. That was another life. Johnny was dead.

Consciously relaxing her arms, she forced herself to smile. “It’s not me,” she said tightly. “It’s just one of those amazing coincidences.”

She stepped close to Sally, whose smile was fading a bit. “Where did you get that? You should have warned me,” she whispered.

“I bought it for you. I just wanted to display it first. Do you know the artist?”

Paige shook her head and started to turn away, but Sally pointed and her long red fingernail drew Paige’s eye back toward the sketch.

As sudden as a punch in the stomach, Paige’s diaphragm seized as she focused on the signature. Three letters in a unique stylized script, followed by an anchor in the shape of a Y. It was a design Paige would never forget, one she’d have sworn was embossed on her heart.

A shirt with that monogram on it was stuffed in a box, along with other mementos of a past that seemed like a long-forgotten dream.

For an instant, she ached to touch the letters, trace them with her fingers like she’d done long ago when she’d still believed in dreams. Her hand lifted, her fingers reached and she had to struggle to stop them from caressing the glass over the signature.

It couldn’t be. The dead didn’t come back to life.

Paige clenched her fist and forced her hand back down to her side.

“Paige Reynolds! You’re not going to faint on me, are you? You’re white as a sheet!”

Paige shook her head. “Where did you say you found it?” she asked, trying to lighten her voice.

Sally beamed, her face reflecting triumph. “One of those little streets down by the docks. Isn’t the resemblance phenomenal? It’s almost as if you sat for the artist.”

Paige frowned. Sally’s words sliced into her already aching heart. “Well, that’s impossible,” she replied flatly.

Then, aware of the attention they were receiving from the crowd, she pasted a false smile on her face.

“Thank you so much,” she said through numb lips. “The drawing is beautiful. I must apologize, but I have to go. Katie’s with a new sitter. I don’t want to be late.”

“A new sitter? I can see why you’d be concerned. Well, you must bring her for a visit soon. Maybe I should have a showing of children’s art,” Sally said. “Katie’s six years old now, isn’t she? She’s such a little doll, with those beautiful dark-blue eyes of hers.”

Paige’s face felt stiff. “She was just six in May. I really have to go. I’ll talk to you later this week.”

“Call me tomorrow. We’ll have lunch and you can pick up your drawing,” Sally called as a handsome, elegant man touched her arm. She turned with a flourish, back in perfect hostess mode.

Paige’s hands trembled, her throat hurt and her eyes burned. If she didn’t know better, she might think she was about to cry, but Paige Reynolds never cried. Ever.

As she worked her way toward the door, fielding questions and comments about her resemblance to the drawing, she glanced back at it. The cartoon villainess stood nearby, eyes narrowed against the smoke curling up from her cigarette, watching her.

SERENA YARBROUGH LET cigarette smoke drift out through her nostrils. She’d overheard the little blonde’s conversation with Sally McGowan. She dug her nails into her palms, barely restraining herself from tearing after the woman Sally had called Paige Reynolds.

She turned back to the drawing, adopting a bored expression as she scrutinized the signature that consisted of the letters JAY plus the old Yarbrough shipping logo.

That anchor had been the trademark logo of Yarbrough Shipping until two years ago when Serena had acquired several small and diverse companies, which transformed Yarbrough Shipping into Yarbrough Industries. She’d had the logo redesigned and updated.

Lifting the champagne flute, she managed not to bite into the glass as she sipped delicately. Aware that someone might be watching her, she forced her anger into a cold knot of resolve.

The signature on the drawing was unmistakable, but it was the date that made her want to rip her clothes and scream in anger and frustration.

This year.

Johnny Yarbrough was alive! Her stepson, the true heir to the Yarbrough fortune, had somehow managed to survive her scheme to get rid of him.

Her brother, Leonard, had assured her Johnny was dead when his goons had dumped his body into the river. She’d been outraged at the time. Now she had to force herself to remain calm as fury swirled in her breast.

She couldn’t believe the fool hadn’t known that the body might never be found if it drifted out into the Gulf.

As she’d feared, the body had never turned up. Only the stolen car with Johnny’s bloodstained wallet in the trunk. At least the kidnappers had left no traceable evidence in the car.

After a court order had declared Johnny legally dead, based on the DNA evidence of his blood in the car, Serena’s son Brandon—Madison Yarbrough’s second son—was the sole heir, and Serena controlled the entire Yarbrough fortune.

But now, in the space of an evening her plans were ruined. The evidence that Johnny was still alive was displayed right before her eyes. Almost as if he were taunting her.

Then there was the woman who was obviously the model for the drawing. Sally was right; the resemblance was too close to be coincidence, no matter how much Paige Reynolds denied it. And Serena hadn’t missed the way the woman’s face drained of color when she saw it.

And if all that weren’t enough, she was flaunting Johnny’s mother’s ring. It was a cheap little ring, but unmistakable, with sapphires in the shape of the old anchor logo. Madison had given it to his first wife, then to his son after she died.

One by one, Serena considered all the facts, like pieces of a puzzle and they all fitted into place.