Double Take Read Free Page A

Marni’s. Kait was terrified for them both.
    Which meant she was doing as Lana had asked, because there simply was no other choice.
    And did Lana really mean that she regretted their past? Did she really intend to start over with Kait, and forge the friendship they had never had? After all of these years, did she finally realize that she needed and wanted her sister in her life? Kait was filled with hope. But so many years had gone by that there was doubt too. Kait
wanted
to believe that her sister was sincere. Maybe, having faced threats from this Corelli person, Lana had realized that it was time to finally include her sister in her life. Maybe she finally realized the importance of family.
    But how much money did she owe? And who cared so much for her now that he or she would lend or give it to her? Kait didn’t like the sound of any of that. It was odd.
    Lana had her cell phone. Kait intended to call her the moment she had the chance—which meant that once she was settled in and no one suspected who she really was, once she had a truly private moment, she would call and try to find out more details about the problems Lana faced. Lana hadn’t given her, Kait, a chance to help in any other way other than to cover for her—clearly she didn’t want her husband to know about the trouble she was in—but Kait knew that where there was a will there was a way, and, surely, she could help Lana raise the money to get this Paul Corelli off her back. And then there were the police. Kait couldn’t understand why her sister hadn’t gone to the authorities. That in itself made absolutely no sense.
    Kait pulled a lighter out of her pocket and burned the letter. Then she rearranged her expression, which she knew had to be a worried one, and with a slight smile fixed on her face, she returned to Lana’s small sports car. The flamboyant and expensive Porsche was a convertible, but Kait did not have the top down. She slid into the driver’s low-lying bucket seat and turned the ignition back on, then pulled down the mirror on the sun visor to check her red lipstick. It hadn’t smeared or run. For one moment, Kait stared at her eyes, contoured now with Lana’s almond brown eye shadow. Kait favored nude glosses and mascara but rarely wore any more makeup, not even to work; and out of the office, it was strictly blue jeans and T-shirts. She was far more than chic now, she was incredibly glamorous, and that, coupled with the lie she was about to commit, meant that she felt unbearably uncomfortable—as if she had somehow stepped out of her own skin and into someone else’s—which she had. Lana had always been the fashionable one, the chic one, and Kait looked so much like her sister now that it was surreal.
    A huge ball of fear sickened her stomach now.
    Could she really do this? How could she
not
do this?
    Kait put the Porsche into gear and slipped back on the road. She also failed to understand why Lana hadn’t shared her burden with her husband. If she were Lana, she would confess everything to her husband, and somehow, with his support, find a way to raise the cash and get out of the mess she was in.
    Kait wished that she’d had a chance to reason with her sister. Even knowing how opinionated and determined Lana could be, if Kait had had her way, she would have talked Lana out of this deception, convincing her to go to the police and her husband.
    The road turned. And suddenly Kait was face-to-face with a pair of brick pillars, each one with a brass plaque. One gave the number of the estate—1296 NORTHWOODS ROAD . The other merely read fox hollow.
    Kait was one second away from whipping the Porsche into a U-turn and fleeing. Instead, the last lines of Lana’s letter resounded in her mind.
    Kait, I am desperate. I would never ask this of you if I weren’t. You’re my sister, my twin, and even after all of these years, I know that bond can’t be severed. I know I can count on you.
    Lana was never desperate. Lana was always