Shattered Mirror (Eve Duncan #23)(28)

“Us?”

“Sylvie and me. I was a star. And Sylvie was safe.”

“Safe?”

“Medical treatments are expensive. She was in and out of hospitals a lot of the time. Felicity kept talking about putting her in a charity facility. She even took me to see one.” She closed her eyes. “It scared me. Sylvie was always smiling. No one was smiling there.” Her eyes were glittering with unshed tears when she opened them an instant later. “But Felicity said if I did whatever the producers wanted, they’d pay me a lot of money, and Sylvie would never have to go to a place like that. She’d even set up a trust fund so that Sylvie would be able to stay at a wonderful sanitarium in Zurich where she’d be with other children with the same problems she had. She’d be so very happy. Isn’t that what I wanted?” She swallowed. “Of course, it was. Only one thing wrong. Felicity didn’t want any publicity about a sick little girl struggling for her life in the background. I was going to be the star of Golden Days. Everyone was going to tune in every week to lift their spirits and laugh and see funny, sweet, Darcy Nichols. Felicity didn’t want any depressing stories hovering over me and spoiling my aura. So I wasn’t to tell anyone about Sylvie. Felicity buried all the records. I couldn’t even visit her.” She moistened her lips. “I’ve seen her only a few times over the years. Once I made Felicity take me to the sanitarium to make sure it was everything she’d told me it was. The other times were when she was ill, and I thought she needed me. The last time was a couple years ago when I had to check on her myself after I heard she was having a bad reaction to a blood transfusion. I had to make sure that she was okay.”

“Your mother kept her word about her care?”

“Yes. The sanitarium was a beautiful place with wonderful people, and Sylvie couldn’t have been happier there.” Her lips twisted. “As far as keeping her word, I made sure of it. Before I’d agree to sign a second contract when I was ten, I made Felicity do what she’d promised and set up that trust fund that guaranteed Sylvie would be protected until the day she died. Felicity wasn’t pleased because that was a lot of money. But she had control of everything else I earned, so she let it slide.”

“But she still wouldn’t let you visit your sister?”

“No, she put that into the contract. But that was okay. Sylvie and I had already gotten around that problem.”

Cara frowned. “How?”

“We’re twins,” she said simply. “Haven’t you heard that twins have a special connection? It’s true, you know. Oh, I don’t mean an actual psychic connection. I don’t know about that kind of thing. But occasionally I’d get pictures of what she was seeing. Or feel what she was feeling. And there was always that knowledge that she was there with me, part of me. When I first had to leave her, we were both terribly upset. But then, after we were apart for a little while, we both began to realize that we were still there for each other. Felicity couldn’t take that away.”

“No, I can see that,” Cara said softly. “I don’t believe you let your mother take much away from either of you, Darcy.”

“You’re wrong. But it could have been worse. Sylvie was happy.” Her face clouded. “Until she wasn’t. Until I couldn’t feel her any longer.”

“And that was when the nightmares started?”

She nodded. “A few weeks after I came to live at the residence. The first day, I could feel a kind of bewilderment from her that I didn’t understand; and then I couldn’t reach her. I called Felicity and she said that Sylvie was fine. She was just on a new medicine that was making her a little fuzzy. They were trying to adjust it. I called the sanitarium and they told me the same thing. So I thought it was okay.” She whispered, “But I was still scared. I felt so alone without her.”

And perhaps that was the reason why a strong, sophisticated, Darcy had clung to Cara during these last months. “Evidently you should have been afraid for her,” Cara said gently. “You believe that’s when…” She hesitated on how to put it. “You lost her?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t reach Sylvie. My mother had told me she was going on a cruise, and I couldn’t get hold of her either. But the sanitarium kept giving me reports that Sylvie was getting better. I don’t know anything about this.” Her hand was nervously clutching and releasing the blanket covering her. “But I’ve got to find out, don’t I? Since I saw her this afternoon, I’ve been just trying to survive and face the idea I don’t have her any longer … that I’m alone. It’s … hard.”

“I know it is.”

“I never expected to have her with me always. She’s been ill all her life.” She looked out at the lake. “But she shouldn’t have had a year, a day, not even one moment stolen from her. And someone did that, Cara.” She said wonderingly, “A bullet? Why? If you could have known her … It would be like shooting a baby deer. There’s no sense to it.”

“There are crazy people out there. Sense probably doesn’t enter into a crime like this.”

“But I have to understand.” She pushed back her hair. “Felicity must have lied to me. And so did the sanitarium. Why?”

“You don’t have to deal with this now. Give yourself a little time. Once I tell Joe what happened, he’ll be on it right away. He’ll get your answers for you.”