If Looks Could Kill

by Beverly Barton

  Caleb sat up, then pulled her up beside him and took the ring from her. Before she realized his intent, he grabbed her left hand. She considered pulling away from him, but when she saw the determination in his eyes, she let him slip the ring onto her finger.

  “Let’s get something straight right now,” he said. “I know you love me just for me. I’ve got no doubts about that. But I am Jim Upton’s only heir, and someday I’ll be a fucking millionaire and therefore, as my wife, you will be, too. Why shouldn’t I borrow the money from Big Jim to buy the woman I love the kind of ring she deserves, the kind of ring that will make her happy?”

  She stared at him and saw the truth staring back at her. She did love Caleb with all her heart. More than she’d loved Jamie? Most definitely. And in a way she’d never thought possible.

  With tears clouding her vision, she lifted her left hand and held it up toward the light coming from the bathroom. When her tears fell onto her cheeks, Caleb brushed them away with his fingertips. She gazed at the ring.

  “It’s just a little bit gaudy.” She laughed. “And it’s so perfect for me.”

  “Then I did big?” he asked.

  Jazzy lifted his arm and slid it around her shoulders, then cuddled against him. “Oh, yes, Mr. McCord, you did big.”

  “I made you happy?”

  She gazed lovingly into his eyes. “Don’t you know that you always make me happy? That just being with you makes me happy, that our making love makes me happy, that showering together and eating together and—”

  He kissed her right in the middle of her grand declaration. And that made her happy, too. Life was good. Almost too good to be true.

  Max Fennel eased out of bed, doing his best not to wake his wife. He’d gone to bed at eleven, but hadn’t been able to fall asleep. Ever since having lunch at Jasmine’s today with Wade Truman, he’d been wondering about the comment the district attorney had made about Becky Olmstead. He didn’t know if Wade had even realized he’d let something confidential slip. At least, Max assumed it was confidential since not one word of it had been in any of the news reports. The young prostitute’s murder was the main topic of conversation not only at the restaurant, but in Cherokee County, and it was front-page news in the Herald. Even the local TV station had announced that a special documentary was being prepared on Becky. Speculation was running high about another serial killer being on the loose and no one being safe, especially not pretty young women.

  Max had known Wade all his life. He’d been friends of a sort with Wade’s father, a state senator, and had once met Wade’s grandfather, who’d been a federal judge. The Truman family, though not wealthy by MacKinnon or Upton standards, was well off and socially prominent. With his all-American good looks—sandy brown hair and sky blue eyes—his family’s backing and using the DA’s office as a stepping stone, it was only a matter of time before young Truman ran for governor. On more than one occasion, Farlan had hinted at what the future held for Wade.

  Being honest with himself as he slipped into his house shoes and donned his blue silk robe, Max admitted that a part of him was jealous of Wade Truman. After all, it hadn’t been that many years ago when he’d been the political golden boy, with a bright future. Before he’d let his penchant for sweet young things destroy all his hopes and dreams and plans. One little bitch who’d gone crying to her daddy had ended all of Max’s political aspirations. Oh, Farlan had taken care of things. He’d pulled strings and kept Max out of prison and had paid off the fifteen-year-old’s daddy, who’d come after Max with a shotgun. So maybe his envy of Wade’s bright future colored his opinion of the man, even elicited suspicion.

  Max made his way downstairs, not turning on a light until he was in his study. As he poured whiskey into a glass, his hand shook. Damn it, he had to get control of himself. He shouldn’t let what was probably an innocent comment rattle him this way. Wade Truman didn’t know a damn thing about what had happened all those years ago. There was no way he could know. He’d been just a kid at the time.

  Max downed the liquor—straight. He coughed and wheezed several times before tossing back another slug. He shuddered as the whiskey slid down his throat and hit his belly.

  He owed everything he had to Farlan. His law degree, this fine house he lived in, the respect he had in the community. His cousin had been good to him, better than he deserved. He never wanted anyone, least of all Farlan, to know what he’d done.

  Max poured another drink, sat in his weathered leather chair by the windows and drank the second glass slowly. He could hear Wade’s voice in his head.

  “It seems that Becky Olmstead was a looker,” Wade had said earlier that day over at Jasmine’s. “Big tits, bright red hair and a face like an angel. Not many men could resist that kind of temptation, especially not when it was on sale so cheap. I guess it’s no secret that I’ve got a thing for redheads Hell, even my ex was a redhead.” That was about the time Brian and Farlan had entered the restaurant. Wade had winked at Max and added, “But I know I’m not the only man in these parts who’s partial to redheads.”

  Max shivered. It had been an off-hand remark that meant nothing. And that was all it had been. He was worrying himself silly for nothing, losing a good night’s sleep because Wade had implied—Implied what exactly? That he wasn’t the only man who had a thing for redheads.

  Dammit, Max Fennel, don’t do this to yourself. There was no way in hell that Wade Truman could possibly know anything about Dinah.

  Chapter 17

  Jazzy’s phone call woke Reve from a sound sleep. She’d been in Cherokee Pointe for five days and had spent part of each day with her sister. Odd as it seemed, that was how she had begun to think of Jasmine Talbot. The rest of the time, she’d kept busy exploring the town, its quaint shops and tourist attractions. On Tuesday she’d had lunch with Reba Upton. The minute Jazzy’s name came up in their conversation, Reve had made it clear that her loyalties lay with her sister. Yesterday, she’d dined with Cherokee County’s other grand dame—Veda MacKinnon. The woman’s invitation came as a surprise, but she’d been so insistent on their becoming acquainted that Reve had gone as much out of curiosity as anything else. By the time lunch ended, Reve’s curiosity had been satisfied. Miss Veda wanted exactly what Miss Reba wanted. To play match- maker. Where Miss Reba had high hopes her grandson would find one redheaded twin as alluring as the other, Miss Veda was looking for a suitable wife for her son Brian.

  Now Reve had a new rule—no more lunches with any woman who had an unmarried son or grandson between twenty and sixty.

  Last night, after dinner together, Reve had let Jazzy and Caleb persuade her to go with them to Jazzy’s Joint. She’d felt as out of place in the noisy honky-tonk as the proverbial bull in a china shop, but she’d stayed until closing, learning about that part of Jazzy’s world firsthand. What would her Chattanooga friends have thought of her if they’d seen her in the smoke-filled bar, rubbing elbows with hardworking, hard-drinking, hard-living men and women?

  “Reve, are you up yet?” Jazzy asked, excitement in her voice.

  Reve yawned. “Not yet. I’m still in bed.” She eyed the digital clock on the nightstand. “What are you doing up this early? It’s only nine-fifteen.”

  “Galvin just called.”

  “Galvin?”

  “You remember—Dr. Galvin MacNair.”

  Reve shot straight up. “Are the DNA test results back?”

  “Yep. Galvin got them first thing this morning. He said we can come right on over.”

  “Did he—”

  “No, he didn’t tell me anything. So, how long will it take you to get dressed and meet me at his office?”

  “I’ll need a quick shower.” Reve’s mind spun with a variety of thoughts, but one remained front and center. Today was D-day. “Give me fifteen minutes.” Thank goodness her cabin was inside the city limits, a less than five-minute drive into the heart of town.

  “Caleb’s coming with me,” Jazzy said. “That’s okay with you,
isn’t it?”

  “Of course it’s okay with me.”

  “We’ll know for sure in just a little while.”

  “Yes, we will.”

  “Reve?”

  “What?”

  “We already know, don’t we? We are sisters.”

  “Yes, we’re sisters.”

  “I called Aunt Sally before I called you. I told her the test results are back and I want the three of us to meet at my apartment later today.”

  “Did she agree to come into town and meet with us?”

  “Yes, she did. And she promised that she’ll tell us the whole truth.”

  “I hope we’re ready for the whole truth,” Reve said.

  “If we aren’t ready, we’d better get ready.”

  “Right. Okay, then, I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.”

  Reve hung up the phone, jumped out of bed and stripped out of her pajamas on the way to the bathroom. As soon as she had donned a disposable plastic cap, she took a quick shower. Then she dressed hurriedly in a pair of black designer jeans and a white cable-knit sweater. After running a brush through her hair and applying lipstick and blush, she grabbed her coat, purse and car keys, then headed out the door.

  The telephone rang again.

  She started to ignore it, but couldn’t bring herself to leave before finding out who was calling. She tossed her coat, purse and keys on the living room sofa in her dash toward the wall phone situated between the living room and kitchen area of the cabin.

  She picked up the receiver. “Hello.”

  “Ms. Sorrell?”

  “Yes.”

  “Griffin Powell here. I have an initial report for you. I can either fax you a copy or overnight it by FedEx, but if you’d like, I can give you the highlights over the phone right now.”

  Reve’s stomach growled. She needed coffee and a bite of something to eat before facing so many hard, cold facts. Why had the DNA results and a preliminary report from Mr. Powell come in all at once? Because that’s the way life is, she reminded herself.

  “Give me the highlights,” Reve said.

  “An infant, thought to be only a few weeks old, was found in a Dumpster in Sevierville by the sanitation workers assigned to empty the Dumpster. Both men are now dead, but one man’s wife remembered him telling her all about it.” Griffin Powell paused as if waiting for permission to continue.

  “Yes, please, go on.”

  “All right. The baby girl was naked, except for a diaper. She was wet, dirty and covered in ants. She’d been dumped right on top of a broken jar with some jelly still inside it, and the sugar had attracted the ants. Other than the ant bites, the child had no marks on her, except a cut on her leg where she’d hit the broken glass when tossed into the trash.”

  Sour bile rose from Reve’s stomach. For a minute there, she thought she might throw up. She still had a tiny scar high up on her thigh and the only thing her adopted mother had ever told her was that the scar was the result of an accident when she’d been a baby. “How long had she—had I been in the Dumpster?”

  “I spoke to the police department and was given access to the files on the baby. The doctor who examined her—you— believed you’d been left there between ten and twenty-four hours earlier. It was considered a miracle that you didn’t die. You spent a week in the hospital. The local papers ran stories about you. They referred to you as the miracle baby and as an infant determined to live. I’ll send you copies of those old newspaper clippings.”

  “Is that how the Sorrells found out about me, the newspaper articles?”

  “In a way. The story didn’t make the Chattanooga papers, but it seems that one of the Sorrell lawyers was vacationing in the mountains and just happened to pick up a local newspaper. He contacted Spencer Sorrell immediately because he knew they had decided only a few weeks earlier that they wanted to adopt a child. And even thirty years ago, Caucasian infants were at a premium.”

  “So you spoke to—”

  “To every lawyer still alive who worked for your adopted parents at the time.”

  “Oh, I see. You’re thorough, aren’t you, Mr. Powell?”

  “I do my best.” He paused again, but this time didn’t wait for her permission before continuing. “Using their money and power, the Sorrells took custody of you the day you were released from the hospital. But you don’t need any information about your life as Lesley and Spencer Sorrell’s daughter, do you? You want to know who disposed of you, who threw you into that Dumpster.”

  Reve’s heartbeat went crazy, beating ninety-to-nothing. “Have you found out who—”

  “There were no arrests made,” Griffin Powell told her. “They never found the person, although they had a description of a suspicious character throwing something about the size of a baby into the Dumpster the night before you were found. The truth is, from what I’ve learned, the police didn’t even look for the guy. Nor did they try very hard to locate your birth mother.”

  “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “Spencer Sorrell didn’t want your birth mother found. He had the clout, even out of his home territory, to have the police file the case away as unsolved.”

  Reve took several minutes to absorb the information. Mr. Powell waited patiently. Finally she said, “Is that it? Is that all you’ve come up with?”

  “At this point in the investigation, yes. But I should have more within a few days. I’m trying to access records that aren’t open to the public. My agents and I are greasing a few palms along the way and bypassing the proper channels, but very soon I should have a list of all the twins born anywhere within a hundred-mile radius of Sevierville and Cherokee County around the time we believe you were born, give or take a month each way.”

  “And once you have that list?”

  “We use that list to track down the whereabouts of each set of twins and their biological mothers. If we come up with even one set of twins who are unaccounted for, then—”

  “That set of missing twins might turn out to be Jazzy and me.”

  “And if we have a mother’s name on a birth certificate, we can trace the mother’s steps thirty—no, thirty-one years ago.”

  “It sounds too simple,” Reve said.

  “Something like this is never simple,” Griffin told her. “Could be there are no missing twins. And if there are, we might not be able to locate the mother. If she’s the one who disposed of the twins, more than likely she left the state and changed her name.”

  “And if the mother didn’t dispose of the twins?” Strange how she could talk about such an evil act as if it had happened to someone else. But it hadn’t happened to another person. It had happened to her. She’d been disposed of like unwanted trash. And what about Jazzy? Had she been thrown away, too, only somewhere other than the Dumpster in Sevierville? Maybe only Sally Talbot could answer that question.

  “If the mother wasn’t responsible for getting rid of her babies, then there’s a chance whoever did dump the twins might have killed the mother.”

  Reve gasped quietly.

  “That’s just one theory.”

  “Yes, I understand. Listen, Mr. Powell, the DNA results are back and I’m on my way to meet my sister at the doctor’s office.”

  “I don’t think you need those results, do you, Ms. Sorrell?”

  “Not to prove Jasmine Talbot is my sister, but Jazzy’s Aunt Sally has agreed to meet with us today, once we have the undeniable proof that we’re twins. I’d like for you to drive in from Knoxville and be there when we question her. It’s possible she’ll be able to give you some vital information that will help us discover our mother’s identity and find her . . . if she’s still alive.”

  “I’ll have to rearrange my schedule, then I’ll leave right away. Where do I meet y’all?”

  “Jazzy’s apartment is directly over Jazzy’s Joint, at the end of the block on Loden Street You can’t miss the place. There’s a set of outside stairs that take you straight up to the apartment.”

>   “All right then, I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

  Reve hung up the phone, retraced her steps and, with purse and coat in hand, left the cabin. By noon today, she might possibly know the answers to some of the most import ant unanswered questions in her life.

  Jazzy met Reve at the door leading into Dr. MacNair’s reception room, grabbed her hands and squeezed them tightly. “Are you ready for this?”

  “Yes. Are you?”

  “I don’t know why I’m so nervous. After all, it’s like we both said—we already know the results even before Galvin tells us.”

  “But hearing him say it makes it an irrefutable fact.”

  Laughing, Jazzy let go of Reve’s hands. “Would you believe I actually know what that means? I’m not stupid and I’m not illiterate. Oh, I know I don’t have your college degrees or your polish and style, but I’m streetwise and I’m a self-made woman. I—”

  “You’re rambling, honey, that’s what you’re doing.” Caleb came up beside Jazzy and put his arm around her waist. He smiled at Reve and said, “That’s what she does when she’s nervous.”

  Reve directed her gaze at Jazzy. “Look, I know I’ve been a bit of a snob ever since we first met and that I probably gave you the impression I was looking down my nose at you, but—”

  “You did look down your nose at me,” Jazzy said. “But who could blame you? After all, if you could have chosen a sister, it sure as hell wouldn’t have been me, would it?”

  “No, not when we first met, but that was before I got to know you. We’re just now really becoming acquainted, and spending time with you these past few days has given me a chance to realize what a very special person you are, Jasmine Talbot. You’re bright and funny and caring. You light up a room with your effervescent personality. You’re a smart business- woman who started out with nothing and has made a success of her life.”