TELL ME YOUR SECRETS…
Cara Summers
To my newest daughter-in-law-to-be, Gert Fulmer.
Thank you for the love and joy that you bring to my son, Kevin, and to our whole family. (And thanks for being a fan and enjoying my stories!)
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Coming Next Month
1
“I CAN’T MAKE UP MY MIND. Shall I have the scones with clotted cream—and ooooh, look at those strawberries…but the triple-chocolate layer cake is calling my name.”
My friend Pepper Rossi was studying the three-tiered dessert caddie the waitress had just delivered as if the fate of the world depended on her decision.
I felt equally serious about the decision that I had made. After plotting and planning for the last three days, I’d come to San Francisco to run it by Pepper.
Nerves knotted in my stomach. But I managed to keep my hand steady as I lifted the silver teapot and filled Pepper’s cup and then my own. I’d always run my plans by her when we were roommates in college.
Of course, those days were well behind us now that we were established career women. I had a job as a writer for a successful Los Angeles based soap opera, Secrets, and Pepper worked as a P.I. at Rossi Investigations, her brothers’ up-and-coming security firm in San Francisco. Recently, she’d met the man of her dreams, Cole Buchanan, an ex-CIA agent who also worked for her brothers. From the glow on her face whenever she mentioned him, it was a match made in heaven.
Even more recently than that, I’d engaged Pepper in her professional capacity to do a job for me. Hiring a P.I. was a first for me. But then life was throwing me one surprise after another lately.
Pepper’s hand was still hovering over the dessert caddie. “Take the cake,” I urged her. “You know you’re not going to be able to resist it.” Pepper was a fellow chocoholic.
“You’re sure?” she asked.
“If it’s as good as it looks, we’ll ask the waitress to bring another.”
There was a time when indulging in chocolate had gone a long way toward helping me to deal with life’s ups and downs. But it had lost some of its therapeutic value since the day five weeks ago when my whole world had shifted on its axis. That’s when I’d received an anonymous letter telling me that I was adopted.
Up until that moment, I’d led a rather uneventful existence—if you discount the broken collarbone I’d suffered at age eleven when my horse Dandelion’s Pride and I had parted company during a jump. I’d believed my parents were John and Marsha Ashby, both successful neurosurgeons in Chicago.
I was sure the letter was a prank, but my curiosity had kicked in and I’d phoned my parents. Mom and Dad had both gotten on the line in one of our typical “conference” calls. As busy and dedicated doctors, they’d always thought it more time efficient if they talked to me together. When I’d told them about the letter, I’d expected them to laugh and deny it, to reassure me that I was indeed their biological daughter and then get back to their busy lives.
But they hadn’t laughed and they hadn’t denied it. Instead, there’d been this long silence on the other end of the line. With my stomach clenched, I’d pushed for more information, and they’d finally confessed to the fact that they’d adopted me and they gave me the name of the private agency they’d used.
The moment I’d hung up I’d called Pepper and asked her to trace my biological family. A week ago, she’d sent me the information that had given me the first clue to my real past. She hadn’t been able to locate my biological mother. Her search had dead-ended when she found the adoption papers for me—and my twin sister, who’d been raised as the only daughter of James and Elizabeth McKenzie on their horse ranch near San Diego.
My first rather giddy reaction when I’d received the news was that this would make a great story line for Secrets. Twins separated at birth. My head writer was going to love me. Mallory Carstairs, the bad-girl diva of the show, was currently in a coma, and now she could awake to find she had a twin sister….
Then I’d reined in my overactive imagination for a reality check. I wasn’t a character on a soap opera. I was ordinary, nothing-ever-happens-to-me Brooke Ashby.
Except I had a twin sister I’d never met—an heiress who’d been missing for five weeks.
I watched Pepper slice into the chocolate cake. I’d let her enjoy one bite before I told her my plan. My head writer had been thrilled when I’d told her what I was going to do and she’d been more than willing to give me some time off. But I was sure that Pepper wasn’t going to be equally happy with me.
I watched with envy as she savored that first bite. Then as she scooped up a second, I took a fortifying sip of tea and said, “I’m going to the McKenzie ranch and masquerade as my sister.”
The cake froze just inches from Pepper’s open mouth, before her fork dropped with a clatter. “You’re what?”
Pepper’s voice was loud enough to make the elegantly dressed lady at a nearby table aim a frown in our direction. High tea at the sedate St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco was not the place for loud voices.
I cleared my throat and spoke around the little bubble of panic that had lodged in my throat. “Don’t worry. I’ve plotted it all out. I’m going to the McKenzie ranch posing as my twin sister, Cameron McKenzie.”
“Your missing twin sister. Didn’t you read the report I sent you? She disappeared five weeks ago. No one knows where she is.”
I’d read the report over and over again, trying to glean every detail I could about my newly discovered twin. I tried a confident smile. “If she weren’t missing, I wouldn’t be able to take her place.”
Pepper leaned forward, this time keeping her voice low. “Brooke, you can’t be serious about this. Five weeks is a long time. If there was foul play involved in her disappearance, then you could be putting yourself in danger.”
Pepper’s words had my stomach performing that little “flip” it had been doing ever since I’d first learned that my sister was missing. I set down my teacup. “I knew it. You do think something’s happened to her, don’t you?”
Pepper raised both hands. “I didn’t say that. The family hasn’t filed a missing persons report. They say she’s gone off like this before in a temper or on a whim. They claim not to be concerned.”
Wedding jitters was the official story that the family had put out. Always a bit headstrong,