Double Take

ALSO BY

BRENDA JOYCE

The Chase

House of Dreams

The Third Heiress

The Riva

Splendor

The Finer Things

Deadly Love

Deadly Pleasure

Deadly Affairs

Deadly Desire

Deadly Caress

DOUBLE TAKE
. Copyright © 2003 by Brenda Joyce Dreams Unlimited. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Joyce, Brenda.

Double take / Brenda Joyce.—1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-312-28474-8

1. Twins—Fiction. 2. Sisters—Fiction. 3. Virginia—Fiction. 4. Deception— Fiction. 5. Married women—Fiction. 6. False personation—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3560.O864D68 2003

813'.54—dc21

2003040612

First Edition: July 2003

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is dedicated to Elie, again

Life is so full of surprises. . . . Thank you for
always
being there.

The phone call came at one in the morning.

It would change her life.

She hung up the receiver, stunned. And for one moment, Kait was simply paralyzed. After all these years—how many had it been?—Lana had walked right back into her life.

Kait fought to breathe, fought to think. Lana had sounded frightened and tense, which was completely uncharacteristic for her. What did she want? All she had said was that they had to meet, and now, and that there was no time. Oh, God. Something had to be terribly wrong for her sister to so suddenly reappear in her life this way.

Kait leapt from the bed, sweating, even though it was a pleasant autumn night. Memories of the past began to dance around her, taunting, teasing, tearful—expectant. She was afraid—but she was also hopeful.

How many nights had she lain in bed, her mind straying to the twin sister who had chosen to walk away from their relationship, who had almost completely disappeared? How often had she thought of hiring an investigator to find out where Lana was and if she was all right? But just when she was a heartbeat away from doing so, Lana would call, telling her that she was in Paris or Rio, asking how she was, reassuring Kait that all was well. Those calls were few and far between. They lacked detail and substance. But they had always given Kait hope, which she had clung to.

And now Lana was here, in Manhattan, insisting that they meet.

Kait dashed to the closet, grabbing jeans. She
had
to go. It never even crossed her mind to say no, because this telephone call, unlike the others, signaled that something was terribly wrong.

Five minutes later, she was hurrying down Central Park West, past several doormen, who regarded her with bleary eyes from behind the locked front doors of the buildings they kept. She veered left, fully alert and no longer dazed, but tense now with worry. Possibilities flooded her mind. What did Lana want? When had she last spoken to her? The phone call, coming like this, felt like an emotional mugging. Kait not only didn’t know what to think, she didn’t know how to feel. She was frightened, but, dear God, this time, Lana wasn’t going to walk out of her life again.

In spite of the tears that burned the backs of her eyelids, Kait was determined. Somehow, this phone call would be a new beginning for them.

The coffee shop on Columbus Avenue was brightly lit and surprisingly busy. Her steps slowed as she approached, her heart lurching and then racing with overwrought nerves. Fear of rejection made her want to turn around and run away, but Kait pushed open the door firmly instead. If Lana wanted to resume their relationship, she would not be calling in the middle of the night. Clearly she wanted something else. Whatever it was, Kait intended to deliver, for that might bring them together. But their estrangement had begun so many years ago, in late childhood and early adolescence. And Kait had never understood
why
.

She inhaled harshly, stepping through the glass door and into the illumination of the too-bright interior lights. As she did she caught a glimpse of her frighteningly pale reflection in the mirror on one wall— she had never been this starkly white, the contrast almost gruesome with her short, dark hair. And even from a short distance, there was no mistaking the trepidation in her blue eyes.

What
could
Lana want? What
had
happened?

And why couldn’t this have been a simple reunion, in the light of day?

She turned, her gaze swinging out over the crowd in the coffee shop. Most of the patrons were in their twenties, having had that one extra drink and now eating off the effects. The atmosphere was oddly festive and extremely noisy, a glaring contrast to her own nerves and state of mind.

Lana stood up from a booth where she had been sitting alone.

Kait saw her and froze.

And the words rang in her head, so loudly, she expected the diners in the café to turn and look at her.
Please let me have a sister now.

She told herself that people did change, and even if Lana hadn’t, maybe she needed her only family now as much as Kait did.

Lana was her sister, her twin, and she had never stopped loving her, even if the hurt had been so insidious, an inflicted wound so tiny and microscopic at first that it had been years and years before she had ever recognized its terrible presence.

Tears blurred her vision. But she was there; she was really there.

“Kait,” Lana whispered. “Kaitlin!”

She swallowed and somehow pulled herself together, moving toward the stunning brunette who could have been herself. “Hello, Lana.” She paused at the edge of the table within the booth.

Lana stepped swiftly out—her restless energy had hardly dimmed, Kaitlin thought. Nor had she really aged—she appeared to be in her late twenties, and their last encounter had been about seven years ago, when they were twenty-five.

Lana was five foot five, her face a perfect oval, her complexion naturally fair, but brushed now with the slight bronze glow of one who lived a healthy, outdoors life. Her dark hair was cut in a bob that was just above her shoulders, and she remained a perfect size six with Susan Lucci curves. Kaitlin was thinner, and she had had her hair cut gamine-short with flirty layers and trendy little wisps that poked about however they pleased. She realized that Lana was also surveying her.

“You look like a kid in that cut,” Lana said with a sudden, strained smile.

“You’re still gorgeous,” Kaitlin heard herself reply. Now was not the time to cry.

“Do you hate me?” Lana’s eyes met Kaitlin’s, pointed and direct. “I never hated you,” Kaitlin cried, the truth. “I’m so happy to see you!”

Lana’s tension visibly decreased. She smiled, and went from gorgeous to breathtaking. “I miss you, Kait.”

The hope flared. It became consuming, full-blown. “I miss you, too.” There was so much Kait wanted to ask, but words failed her now. Where did Lana live? What was she doing for a living now? But, mostly, she wanted to know why they weren’t real sisters, why they weren’t friends. Their mother had died of cancer when they were children, but several years ago their father had died as well, and Lana was the only family Kait had.

“Kait? Let’s sit down. I don’t have a lot of time.”

Kait didn’t move. “But—you only just got here,” she began.

Lana gripped her hands. “I’m in terrible trouble. I need your help. I know I’ve been a rotten sister, but that’s going to change now, Kait, really. I need your help, just for a couple of days.” Suddenly she released her hands, withdrawing a sealed envelope from her handbag. “This letter will explain everything.”

Kait was reeling. “What do you mean you’re in trouble? What’s wrong? And of course I’ll help, you know I’d always help you, Lana, always!” But even as she spoke, meaning her every word, she was sick, because Lana was clearly leaving her again, and it was too soon, too much; Kait simply couldn’t digest what was happening.

“I need you to take my place for two days, Kait,” Lana said tersely. Kait gasped. “What?”

“You need to cover for me. The way we did when we were little kids. It’s all in the letter, Kait.” Her blue gaze was searing. “I
have
to go!”

Kait gripped her arm. “You want to switch places? For two days? I don’t understand!”

“Will you help me?” Lana demanded.

Kait looked into her eyes and saw steely desperation. “Of course I’ll help you,” she began.

“Good!” Lana slid Kait’s purse off her shoulder, handing her own Gucci handbag to her. Then she took a garment bag from the booth and shoved it into her arms. “Tell everyone I cut my hair,” she said tersely. “Here in the city, at Bergdorf ‘s.”

“Wait!” Kait grabbed her wrist, realizing she was about to leave. “I need to know what’s going on. I need to know when I’ll see you again!” Panic claimed her, and it had less to do with trading places than it did with losing her twin sister all over again.

“Two days from tomorrow,” Lana said with a brief, reassuring smile. “It’s all in the letter, Kait. I have to go. I have a car waiting. There’s no time.”

With Kait’s bag on her shoulder, Lana hugged her hard and started through the coffee shop for the door. Kait came to life and ran after her. This could not be happening this way! And the severity of the trouble her sister was in struck her now. Something terrible had to be happening, otherwise Lana would not have called as she had, and she would not be rushing away like this.

“What kind of trouble are you in?” she cried, chasing her out the door and into the cool New York City night.

A Lincoln Town Car with a driver was idling at the curb. Lana swung open the door and turned. “The killing kind,” she said.

Kait had been driving on a winding country road with no line dividing it for some time now. She had left the small quaint town of Three Falls, Virginia, about twelve miles behind. It was the following afternoon, a mere twelve hours since Lana’s telephone call, and she was tense with anxiety and even fear. That tension had been present ever since she had promised Lana that she would switch places with her. It had increased and turned into dread when she had read and then reread Lana’s letter last night. Her grip on the leather-bound steering wheel tightened.
Was she really doing this?

Could she really do this?

Abruptly, Kait swerved off the road and parked Lana’s Porsche. The rolling hills of the Virginia countryside were breathtaking and had been so for some time; it was early autumn and the land was alive with a brilliant kaleidoscope of flaming color. Kait found herself turning off the ignition and climbing out of the small silver sports car. The fields in front of her were bordered with pristine white fences. Horses grazed not far from where she stood, and in the distance she saw several white barns and outbuildings, trimmed vividly with evergreen, and beyond them a colonial house on a hill. There was a lump in her chest and she couldn’t seem to breathe. Tears came to her eyes.

This was Fox Hollow. This was Lana’s home. It was storybook perfection.

Kait clung to the top rail of the fence trying to calm and compose herself, as she was expected at Fox Hollow at any moment. She had obeyed the instructions in Lana’s letter exactly. She had called the housekeeper, Elizabeth Dorentz, to let her know she would be arriving around one in the afternoon. She had taken the eleven A.M. shuttle from LaGuardia and picked up Lana’s Porsche at Reagan National in long-term parking. She was wearing Lana’s clothes, makeup, and jewelry—a pale tan Armani pantsuit with high heels, her red lipstick, her beautiful Chopard watch with its diamond bezel, her rings and earrings, just as she was carrying Lana’s Gucci bag, her wallet, her driver’s license, and her cell phone. And she had called in sick at work, explaining that she would be out for a few days—Kait was a VP at a small PR firm on Madison Avenue. Yes, she was really switching places with her sister; she was really participating in a monstrous deception.

But there was no choice, because Lana was in trouble, and she hadn’t exaggerated when she had said it was the killing kind.

Kait inhaled deeply but could not stop shaking. Lana’s letter had been a bombshell. No, it had been a nuclear explosion, and she still didn’t know how she could manage it, how she could survive its contents.
Lana was married. And Lana had a daughter, a four-year-old little girl named Marni.

The flaming orange trees and fading green fields blurred in her vision. And Lana wasn’t only married, she had been married for six years. Six years ago, she had gotten married, without telling Kait, without calling her, without writing her, without inviting her to the wedding.

Why?

The betrayal was acute, overwhelming. All these years, Lana had been living a short shuttle flight away. All these years, she had been the mistress of an old moneyed horse farm and the wife of the Virginian, Trev Coleman. Kait didn’t think she would ever recover from the fact that she had been so thoroughly excluded from Lana’s life. The question of why would haunt her forever.

They had never been close like other sisters, not even as small children. As an adult, Kait had rationalized that because they were so different, they had merely had different friends, interests, and activities, and thus their estrangement. Lana had been the tomboy as a child, Kait had been a bookworm. Lana had enjoyed and excelled at gym and sports, Kait had dreaded every time she got up to bat, every time they chose teams for a game. In many ways, Lana had been the extroverted one, Kait the reclusive one.

Their parents had been solidly middle class, and the sisters had grown up in Darien, Connecticut. They’d both fallen wildly for horses, and had worked at a local stable for lessons. When their mother had died of cancer the twins had been turning thirteen; Lana’s tomboy nature had been changing, and suddenly lip gloss and tight tank tops appeared with her low riding jeans. Kait had become a serious student, earning straight A’s on every report card. The jocks began looking at her sister; Kait’s best friend was another A student and her neighbor, Tom, a geeky type who was already creating computer games and programs. Other girls began to look to Lana as a role model. Miniskirts appeared. She pierced her ears, cut her hair. Kait went to the stables less, Lana went more. She had her first boyfriend just after their mother died. She told Kait she wouldn’t go all the way until she was sixteen.

Their mother’s death should have brought the two sisters closer together. But it did not; the reverse was true. For Lana, there were more boys, and there were late parties and the small lies needed to cover them up. For Kait, there was confusion, anguish, and bewilderment. School became even more important to her—she didn’t have her first date until she was a freshman at college. And it was no surprise to Kait that Lana would choose to go to a different college entirely, and it was even less of a surprise when she dropped out her junior year. Their father, who had hung on to their life the best that he could after the death of his wife, had given up attempting to control or even guide Lana for years. She didn’t tell anyone she was quitting school, and it was a year or so later before Kait learned that her sister was in New York City, working as a waitress while taking acting lessons.

Kait knew that they had never been close because they were so very different by nature; but other sisters were different too, and they were still as close as best friends. Lana’s indifference had always, secretly, hurt. Kait didn’t know when the wound had first been inflicted, but it felt as if it had been within her forever.

Now there was the fact of her sister’s marriage, her sister’s child. The pain was acute. But with it, there was the oddest joy.
Kait had a niece.
And in a few moments, Kait would meet Marni. She simply could not wait.

But she had to compose herself now, and quickly. She closed her eyes tightly. Squeezing them shut. Trying to breathe. It was impossible, because in a few minutes she was going to have to walk through Cole-man’s front door. He was out of town on business, but she was as afraid of discovery as she was of successfully deceiving his family and friends now.

It was an amazing twist of fate, Lana’s marrying Trev Coleman. A few years ago Kait had contacted him about using his estate for a charity event sponsored by one of her largest corporate clients. She’d actually seen his photo in
Town & Country
once, on a society page for a local Virginia event, and he’d caught her eye, because he was a tall, handsome man with an unusual complexion—he seemed swarthy, but he had brown hair heavily sun-streaked with gold. In his tuxedo, he’d been at once elegant and virile, another unusual combination. A coworker had then suggested his name some time later when they’d been given the account for the charity event. Oddly, Kait had been filled with excitement at the idea of contacting Coleman. She did her homework and learned he had been recently widowed. And he had seemed amenable to the idea over the phone; in fact, the conversation had turned friendly and almost personal in the end, leaving Kait foolishly breathless. She had anticipated their business meeting, speculating about what he might be like in person, and as foolishly had taken hours to decide the night before what to wear, but in the end, they had never made a deal. He hadn’t shown up for their lunch meeting. She had waited for him at Le Cirque for well over an hour in her brand-new Sergio Rossi mules and a simple black sheath. He hadn’t even bothered to cancel. Kait had been annoyed. She had also been slightly humiliated, sitting there at the five-star restaurant sipping Perrier like a jilted girlfriend, not like a publicist wasting her valuable time.

She had wound up using a smaller but very picturesque estate on the Hudson River instead.

And now Lana was his wife. And she, Kait, was on the verge of walking into her sister’s life in order to pretend to be Coleman’s wife and Marni’s mother. It was wrong in every possible way, and Kait’s very nature rebelled against what she was about to do, but there was simply no choice.

Kait dug into the pocket of her pale beige wool trousers, extracting Lana’s letter. She unfolded the crumpled pages and read it again, the words blurring and fading before her eyes.

Dear Kait,

I have so many regrets, and the biggest one is my failure to be the sister you have always wanted and deserved. Yes, Kait, I know you as well as you know yourself, and I know you have always wanted my love, and deliberately I have withheld it from you. You see, Kait, I have always been jealous of you, because you were the perfect student and the perfect daughter, because Mom and Dad always loved you the most. But no more. Kait, I swear to you, that when this is over, I am going to make up for every single moment we have lost. When this is over, we are going to finally have the chance to be real sisters and best friends.

Kait blinked back hot tears, still stunned to learn that Lana—whom she had always admired so, who’d had all the boys, who had always been one of the most popular girls in school—had been jealous of her, and read on.

I’m in trouble, Kait. Serious, deadly trouble. I borrowed a tremendous amount of money behind my husband’s back in order to stave off his creditors and to prevent foreclosure on Fox Hollow, our country estate. While that was accomplished, it seems that I went to the wrong people and now Paul Corelli has threatened not just my life but that of my daughter’s if I don’t pay him back by the end of this week. There is someone who I haven’t seen in years, someone I was once close to, who I believe will help me out of the dilemma I now face. I only need two days for you to cover for me. It will work because I haven’t told anyone about you. No one knows I have an identical twin, so no one will ever suspect the switch. And when I return, when I pay off Corelli, I will introduce you to my family and we can start over—if you will allow that.

Kait hung on to the fence, the wrinkled letter in her hand, still trembling. As far as she could see, fading green hills rolled and spilled away, framed by the flaming orange and yellows of the turning oaks and elm trees of fall. In the distance and to her right was a dark blue lake, a bevy of ducks flying above it; several broodmares that were clearly in foal were grazing by the lake. The sky above her was brilliantly blue, making it a picture-perfect day.

Not only was Lana’s life in danger, but so was 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.