Page 13 of Beau (Sheppard’s Shadow #5)

Marsha was avoiding talking to her children because she was afraid that they’d tell her again that they didn’t believe who she was.

Rogen had been the worst at trying to convince, and now she was pissed off at all of them.

She thought that they’d be thrilled to know that their mom was alive and around.

But no, they were the most untrusting people that she’d ever met.

She wasn’t really their mother, she thought with a smile.

But she’d been working so hard at getting into their lives that she no longer believed anything but that she was—or at least she was trying to believe it all the time.

She needed to get into their lives now more than ever.

And their father was going to stay out of it, too.

Donald Watson had moved away when his wife had been killed.

He didn’t seem to be all that upset with her death either.

It had occurred to her that they could have been having troubles at home, but the kids never mentioned it when she spoke to them at the funeral.

In fact, they said very little when she’d been questioning them about her death.

But now there was money to be had, and she wanted to be there to get some of it.

Stupid people. Why didn’t they believe her when she told them that she was their mother?

She’d gone to great strides in trying to look like her.

The haircut alone had been costly to her, with the dye job included.

Then there was the fact that she didn’t wear any makeup.

She’d made that mistake at the funeral in putting some on her face to make her look better.

They wanted it off right then and there.

The day of her funeral had been a gloomy day, and the rain started just as they were leaving the funeral home and heading to the cemetery.

She’d been assigned to drive the family limo and had thought they’d talk among themselves about what had happened.

But no, they were as quiet as church mice.

Not even offering up any conversation about anything in their lives.

Marsha had tried to get into a family once before.

They’d been rich and had plenty of gossip to go around.

But something happened when she was about to reveal herself, and she nearly lost her freedom.

As it was now, she had to keep an eye out for things going on around her so that she’d not get caught this time.

It was as easy as pie, she thought, to fool people into believing that she was some sort of relative from their past.

She’d done it before. Posed as one of the family members to a group of people grieving about their loved ones.

It had netted her a great deal of money when she could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was related to them.

Not even DNA would stop her, as she had access to the body before it had been embalmed at the funeral home.

When they’d ask for some proof that she was related, she would just pull out a sample of the dead person’s blood and send it on its way.

Every time, it would come back as a match to the family, and they’d pay her off to keep the nasty bit of a secret out of the papers.

Posing as an illegitimate child always worked.

But this time was different. She thought that she could pull off being someone they’d lost. And it would work too.

She knew that she had all the information she needed from the funeral records.

That’s where she’d gotten the phone numbers, off the paperwork.

She’d gotten blood samples and DNA from the deceased.

She knew their names and who they were married to from the paperwork that was to go into the paper.

She only needed to look enough like her that they thought it was their mother after all this time.

And that had cost her nearly all the funds she had left from her last scam.

She might well have to do that again in order to keep up appearances with the Watson family and all their millions.

She was only going to do it as a lark. Have some fun messing with their minds.

But then, recently, one of the women had married a Sheppard.

And she knew them to have plenty of money to bring her into the family.

The more research she did on her ‘children’, the more she realized that they had a bit of money too.

But being married to a powerful and wealthy family was what sealed the deal for her, so to speak.

She didn’t know which one had married Rogen, but she had a good idea that they were all as wealthy as the next.

The houses that they’d had built were large as a mansion, and they seemed to have an endless supply of money when it came to helping the city in which they lived.

Even Rogen had money to burn when she wanted it.

Marsha looked down at the picture she’d taken of the dead woman and then at the picture they’d been given to have her makeup and hair done right for the funeral, and knew she was a perfect match.

Her hair had been the hardest to match with color.

It was a dark hair that had these blue highlights throughout it.

But because of the strange color it was, she’d needed to go to three different parlors to have it matched perfectly.

But her hair had been the least of her problems. There was the tattoo that she had on her left shoulder that was difficult to match at all, and she still wasn’t happy with it.

It had been a paw of some kind. Probably a dog or cat she’d been close to.

The paw had been large and the colors difficult to match again, but how often when they ask to see a tattoo, she more than likely got when she was drunk and out on the town.

Looking at it now, she thought that it was just too slanted to be on her shoulder, and it had healed incorrectly when she’d gotten it done.

Some of the colors had faded and had blurred after it had healed, and it was what had her thinking it was a cheap tat that Marsha had gotten one night a long time ago.

She had all the confidence in the world that she could pull this off, and if she did, she was going to be set for life.

She’d make good on her own promise to herself to get into the family, take as much as she could from them, and then ‘kill’ herself all over to do it to someone else’s family.

And if they brought up something that she didn’t know about, it would be easy to say that it was from the accident that she’d been hit in the head when it had happened.

Tomorrow, she was going to see Calhoun Watson.

He was the sappiest of the men in the family and would believe her if she told him that she was their long-lost queen or something.

As it stood right now, she was going to keep her cool and just play right into his hands.

Or he was going to be playing right into her hands.

Either way, she was excited about this as she was the first time she’d scammed a couple that she was the husbands long long-lost daughter from an affair and needed to be paid off.

Actually thinking about it now, it had been twelve years now since she’d first started with her little games.

The couple had divorced after she’d shown up and started her trouble for them.

She didn’t care one way or the other if they ended up separated or not.

It was a very profitable game that she played with people that she saw while working at the funeral home.

She didn’t work there anymore. After it came out that someone had been embalming people who were to be cremated, they went out of business.

A shame that she had quite a thing going for herself.

But charging people for those services when they specifically were told that it was direct cremation had gotten them into trouble with the board. Whoever that might have been.

Marsha had only been the hair and makeup artist. Or so they thought.

But she did as much work as she could there to grab all the information she could about the dead.

It was fun for her, really, another game that she played in not getting caught.

And she never had in all the time she’d been doing this.

Picking up the phone, making sure she had the right number, she called the oldest son and told him that she wanted to meet with him. He didn’t seem to be inclined, and she thought for a moment she was already being pushed out, but in the end, he said it would be all right. Good for him.

“I’ve been trying my best to get to you all, but I didn’t know that you moved.

” That had been something that she’d not counted on when she called them.

That it was going to take her some time to get to where they were living now.

Not even the stupid farmers had stayed home to be called by her.

“When I said I was in town, I didn’t realize that you all no longer lived there. I was concerned about that.”

“Concerned, why? So we moved? It’s been over ten years since we were notified that you were dead.” She didn’t care for his tone and said that to him. “Well, since we’re still trying to figure out how you survived being killed and embalming, I think we have the right to be snarly.”

“You don’t believe that I’m your mother?

” He said no, that none of them did. “If I could just get to you soon, I’d be able to prove it.

I’d ask you to ask me something that only I would know, but with the head injuries that I had during the accident, I’m afraid my memory isn’t as good as it used to be. ”