Double Life

  The sound of a snapping twig startled her and Emma’s heart pounded in alarm.

  And then she saw him. He moved out of the shadows and for a moment he stood silhouetted in the doorway of the gazebo.

  Ash.

  Slowly he stepped inside. She couldn’t see his face clearly, but she knew that he was staring at her. She felt the heat of his gaze pierce the walls she’d built around her heart, and it frightened her. Excited her. She hardly dared breathe for fear he might disappear again.

  He moved toward her and she closed her eyes.

  “You remembered,” she whispered.

  DOUBLE LIFE

  AMANDA STEVENS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Amanda Stevens is a bestselling author of over thirty novels of romantic suspense. In addition to being a Romance Writers of America RITA® Award finalist, she is also the recipient of awards in Career Achievement in Romantic/Mystery and Career Achievement in Romantic/Suspense from Romantic Times BOOKclub. She currently resides in Texas. To find out more about past, present and future projects, please visit her Web site at www.amandastevens.com.

  Books by Amanda Stevens

  HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

  737—HIS MYSTERIOUS WAYS *

  759—SILENT STORM *

  777—SECRET PASSAGE *

  796—UNAUTHORIZED PASSION

  825—INTIMATE KNOWLEDGE

  834—MATTERS OF SEDUCTION

  862—GOING TO EXTREMES

  882—THE EDGE OF ETERNITY

  930—SECRETS OF HIS OWN

  954—DOUBLE LIFE

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Emma Novick—Recovering from a brutal attack, Emma returns to her childhood home, only to be caught up in a web of lies and deceit that could destroy her dreams…and her life.

  Ash Corbett—Twelve years ago the heir to the Corbett fortune took off without a word to anyone. Now he’s back, but is he the real Ash Corbett…or a cunning impostor?

  Helen Corbett—The matriarch of the Corbett family will do anything to keep Emma away from her grandson.

  Wesley Corbett—A generous man with a dangerous secret.

  Brad Corbett—He’s lived in his brother’s shadow for far too long.

  Pamela Corbett—Wesley’s cold, greedy wife.

  Lynette Corbett—Brad’s wife is afraid of the Corbett secrets.

  Maris Corbett—The only Corbett daughter, she appears to be genuinely happy to have Ash home…but is it just an act?

  Rick Bledsoe—A county sheriff’s deputy who makes a surprising confession.

  Shell Island—As a kid, Emma had a strange premonition about the island. A few years later, the bodies of six young women who had been brutally murdered were uncovered there. And now the island is luring Emma back….

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter One

  Nestled in a horseshoe-shaped cove on the Gulf of Mexico, Jacob’s Pass, Texas, was a gorgeous little town with a dark past.

  By day, the pastel buildings shimmered like jewels in the heat, but come twilight, a pervasive uneasiness settled over the picturesque landscape. Doors were locked, window blinds drawn. The entire community seemed to hold a collective breath as if waiting anxiously for dawn to come and banish the night creatures back to their holes. It had been that way for over thirty years…ever since the first body had been found.

  Emma Novick glanced at the sky as she strode toward the pier, where she’d left her car. The day was slipping away. Already the sun had started to sink below the treetops and in another hour, dusk would be upon her.

  But it wasn’t the old murders that made Emma worry about the coming dark.

  She fingered the scar at the base of her neck as a chill slid over her. Sometimes when she lay alone in her bed at night, she could still feel her assailant’s hands on her body, his hot breath on her face. But it did no good to dwell on her fears. The attack had been over a year ago. It was over and done with. She’d survived the brutal assault and her testimony had sent the perpetrator to prison. He wouldn’t hurt her, or anyone else, ever again.

  The only thing she had to be afraid of now was her loneliness. And the gnawing dread deep inside that she would grow old alone, that she would live a life devoid of passion and love because she couldn’t let go of the past.

  Couldn’t stop dreaming about a man who no longer existed. May never have existed except in a young moonstruck mind.

  What frightened Emma even more were those rare occasions when she took a long, hard look at herself in the mirror and allowed herself to witness the passage of time. She was still a young woman, not even thirty, but she thought she would be married with a family of her own by now.

  Instead, she spent her days catering to the whims of her tyrannical employer, whose sole joy in life was making those around her miserable.

  At the thought of Helen Corbett, Emma hurried her steps. She hadn’t meant to linger so long in town, but her outings were few and far between these days and the June weather was so perfect. Hot, yes, but a hint of rain cooled the breeze that blew in from the gulf.

  Still, Emma knew she should have headed back hours ago. Helen would be upset by her tardiness, and when Helen Corbett got upset, there would be hell to pay.

  But her brief escape had been worth it, Emma decided. With the wind whipping at her skirt and tossing her dark hair, she felt younger and more carefree than she had in years.

  She supposed it was silly to feel old at twenty-nine, but on days when Helen was especially difficult, Emma swore she could actually feel her youth waning.

  She considered herself strong and resilient—she would never have returned to Jacob’s Pass otherwise, no matter how sweet the deal—but Helen Corbett could try the patience of a saint.

  Always difficult, the woman’s disposition had deteriorated as rapidly as her health. She’d never quite recovered from a stroke two years ago that had left her confined to a wheelchair for the better part of six months.

  It had only been through sheer determination and a plain old stubborn streak that she could now get around with a cane and her speech patterns were almost back to normal, although her voice had grown quite feeble in the past year.

  She was thin and birdlike, but her appearance had always been deceptive. Beneath the frail-looking demeanor were a backbone of steel and a heart of stone. Helen Corbett was not a kind woman, but there had always been something about her that Emma admired and respected.

  And, of course, at one time they’d shared something in common—a complete and utter devotion to Ash Corbett.

  Helen’s grandson had been the apple of her eye and the love of Emma’s life until he’d taken off without a word twelve years ago. Neither woman had been the same since he left, and perhaps that was why Emma could exercise more restraint in dealing with the cantankerous Helen than her own family could. Emma understood better than anyone how desolate and bitter life could be without Ash.

  Lifting her face to the warm sea breeze, she paused to admire the scenery as she neared the pier. The tiny cove was dotted with fishing vessels and motorboats putting back in for the day and she loved to watch them. Loved imagining herself at the prow of some great ship, arms spread wide as Ash’s powerful hands held her steady and safe.

  But she wouldn’t think any more about Ash today. What was the point? He’d been gone for over a decade. Dead for all she knew. He’d left town one night without looking back…just a
few short weeks after the gruesome discovery was made on Shell Island.

  Not that there was any connection. No matter the rumors at the time, Emma refused to believe that Ash had been a part of that depravity, that…evil.

  Besides, he’d only been a baby when the original murder occurred, and Emma was a firm believer in the one-killer theory. The other scenario—that two brutal psychopaths had preyed on the same tiny community eighteen years apart—was unfathomable.

  The first victim had been a young high school teacher named Mary Ferris. She’d been missing for nearly two weeks when her mutilated body had been found in the cove. Faced with a jittery community, the local police chief had insisted that the murder was an anomaly. The poor woman had either fallen victim to a jealous lover or a deranged drifter passing through town. There was no need for mass panic and, anxious to believe they were still safe in their homes, the townspeople had eagerly accepted the explanation.

  And then eighteen years later, another mutilated body had been found on Shell Island by some teenagers who’d gone there to party.

  A search of the tiny islet had turned up six more bodies in varying degrees of decomposition. A forensic anthropologist called in to help with the identification had concluded that the women had died within a five-year period of one another.

  Four of the victims were from Houston, two from nearby Corpus Christi, and one from farther south in Brownsville. Only one victim remained unidentified, and she had apparently been dead longer than the others.

  According to the forensic anthropologist, all of the women had been in their mid-to late-twenties and all of them had been tortured.

  Emma had been seventeen at the time, just starting to spread her wings, and she vividly recalled the terror that gripped the community in the aftermath of the discovery. Her father, like every other parent in Jacob’s Pass, had clamped down on her extracurricular activities to the point of suffocation. If not for her secret assignations with Ash, Emma would have gone stir-crazy.

  But as close as she and Ash were at that time, she’d never told him of her deepest fear…that whatever had happened to those poor women on Shell Island could have been prevented by her.

  Perhaps it was hubris on her part to take on that kind of responsibility, but Emma had known something terrible had occurred on the island long before the first body was ever found. She’d been gripped with a terrible feeling of foreboding the moment she first set foot on the beach.

  If only she’d said something then, but who would have believed a twelve-year-old kid? The authorities would have chalked it up to an overactive imagination and maybe they would have been right. Maybe what she felt that day had been nothing more than the culmination of the legends she’d heard all her life.

  Those legends were the reason she’d gone to the island in the first place. Her seventh-grade class had been studying local culture and she’d badgered her father into borrowing a boat and taking her out to the island because it was so steeped in history and folklore.

  Until the 1950s, Shell Island had been inhabited by a handful of families who, like the Amish, eschewed modern conveniences, but one by one they’d migrated to the mainland until all that remained on the tiny clump of land were the abandoned homes and an old stone church.

  For a while, rumors of dark ceremonies and ritualistic worship had followed the inhabitants to the mainland, but once the families moved on, the stories were eventually forgotten.

  Except for teenagers looking to party and the occasional ghost hunter or archaeologist, no one ever went to the island anymore. Legend had it that the island was an old Indian burial ground, and at the time, Emma thought all the talk among her classmates had probably fueled her imagination. She hadn’t said anything to her father about her uneasiness, but as they’d walked through the deserted houses, she’d become more and more agitated.

  And when they reached the old church, she hadn’t been able to go inside. She couldn’t physically make herself step through the door. It was as if some dark force held her back.

  Five years later, the first body had been found in that same church. Emma had no way of knowing whether one of the poor victims had been inside the day she stood trembling on the threshold, or whether her trepidation had been a premonition of what was to come.

  She hadn’t talked about that experience to anyone, even Ash. Especially not to Ash, because she hadn’t wanted him to laugh at her. Hadn’t wanted him to think of her as an immature child prone to exaggerations. Bad enough that he’d caught her spying on him.

  Tucking her short hair behind her ears, Emma searched the water. This time of day, Shell Island was barely a speck against the deepening horizon, but she spotted it easily because she knew exactly where to look.

  Funny how after all this time, when she let herself reminisce, that same sensation of dread came back to haunt her.

  “EMMA! EMMA NOVICK!”

  Emma had no idea how long she’d been standing there gazing out at the island when she heard her name being called.

  She whirled and saw a young woman on the other side of the street waving frantically to get her attention. Emma lifted her hand in response, then watched as the blonde sprinted across the street in front of oncoming traffic.

  “Watch out!” Emma called.

  With a little shriek, Laney Carroway jumped to the curb just as a car swished past her. Then she gave a breathless laugh. “Whew, that was a close one!”

  “Are you okay?” Emma asked in concern.

  Instead of answering, Laney lifted her sunglasses and gave Emma a quick once-over. “So it really is you,” she said almost in wonder. “When I first spotted you over here, I almost didn’t recognize you. You look so different.”

  “I’m wearing my hair shorter,” Emma murmured. She didn’t like talking about her appearance.

  “You’ve lost weight, too.” Laney continued to study her. “If I hadn’t heard you were back in town, I never would have known it was you.”

  Emma smiled. “It’s been awhile. I guess we’ve all changed.”

  “Not me,” Laney declared. “I look exactly the same as the day we graduated from high school. I haven’t aged a bit.”

  She was joking, of course, but her freckled complexion and impish features did make her look about fifteen. She had a young outlook on life, too. Emma had always admired Laney’s sunny personality. Good humor seemed to radiate from her green eyes.

  Emma, on the other hand…

  The mental reflection she conjured up didn’t please her so she exiled her image to the far recesses of her mind. The years hadn’t been as kind to her. Loneliness had taken a toll, she feared. And so had the attack.

  “I heard a few weeks ago that you were back,” Laney was saying, a subtle accusation creeping into her tone. “But I refused to believe it. I kept thinking that if you really had moved back to Jacob’s Pass, I’d be the first one to know. Me being your best friend and all.”

  “I’m sorry, Laney. I’ve been meaning to call ever since I got back, but it’s been pretty hectic. The move was kind of sudden, and I had so many things to take care of…” Emma trailed off with an apologetic shrug.

  Laney nodded. “I imagine that old battle-ax keeps you hopping, too.” She pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head. The blond wisps that escaped and framed her face made her look even younger. “What’s she like these days? She was a regular tyrant when she had to come to the hospital for physical therapy after her stroke. I never personally had to deal with her, thank God, but I heard some of the other nurses complaining about her impossible demands. I have to give the devil her due, though. Even her own doctors thought she’d never walk again, but she showed them. She showed everyone.”

  “She’s an amazingly strong woman,” Emma agreed.

  “That doesn’t answer my question,” Laney said. “How is she to work for?”

  “She’s…challenging,” Emma said after a slight hesitation and Laney laughed.

  “You’re much too tactful. Me? I
have no trouble calling ’em as I see ’em, but you were always too much of a lady to speak your mind. I see you haven’t changed in that regard.”

  “Well, she is my employer,” Emma said carefully. Unless she wanted to find herself out of a job, a certain amount of discretion was warranted.

  Laney’s expression sobered. “Why did you come back here, Em? Last I heard you had a great job with some Fortune 500 company in Dallas. You must have been doing really well for yourself, and everyone knows that Helen Corbett is so tight she squeaks when she walks. So don’t tell me she made you an offer you couldn’t refuse because I won’t believe it. There had to be something else.”

  “There was.” Not that Emma owed anyone an explanation for her move. Still, she knew people were bound to be curious so she had a ready answer. “Dad’s getting on in years and there’s no one but me to look after him. And I needed a change.”

  Understanding softened Laney’s smile. “Now, that I can appreciate. I’m kind of in a rut myself. Sometimes I get so bored with my life in this Podunk town, I could just scream. Which is why I had a hard time understanding why you’d leave the big D to come back here, but I forgot about your dad. He had a heart attack last year, didn’t he? That must have been a scary time for both of you.”

  Scary and difficult trying to take care of him while holding down a full-time job and dealing with the aftermath of her assault. There were days when Emma hadn’t wanted to crawl out of bed, but somehow she’d made it through the ordeal. She was stronger and healthier now, but facing her own mortality had changed her. Some days it was almost as if she were a stranger in her own body, and she’d grown more and more restless with each passing day.

  And then a chance meeting with Wesley Corbett, Helen’s son, in the lobby of her office building had precipitated a bit of soul-searching. Emma had found herself dwelling on all the loose ends in her life that needed to be resolved, one way or another.

  After exchanging pleasantries, Wesley had left his card, telling her to call if she ever needed a job.