If Looks Could Kill. BEVERLY BARTON

better than most. She’d always been poor and hadn’t never cared a hoot about money. Not until Jazzy came into her life. She’d wanted to give that gal everything her little heart desired, but she’d failed miserably. She’d done the best she could. If she’d had a man bringing in a living, things might have been better, but she and Jazzy had made out all right. They’d had a roof over their heads and they’d never gone hungry. Jazzy had grown up to be a fine woman, a real smart woman who’d done all right for herself. Her gal owned a restaurant and a bar in Cherokee Pointe and she was a partner with some other people in Cherokee Cabin Rentals. Yep, she was damn proud of her niece.

      A chill racked Sally’s body. “Winter’s coming,” she said to no one in particular.

      But it wasn’t the cool morning breeze that had chilled Sally. It was thoughts of Jazzy. Her little Jasmine. She’d named Jazzy for them beautiful flowers that her sister Corrine had loved so. When she’d put Jasmine in Corrine’s arms thirty years ago, she’d never dreamed that within a few months Corrine would be dead—her and her lover—and she’d be left to raise Jazzy all alone. But there hadn’t been a day passed that she hadn’t thanked the good Lord for that gal. She loved Jazzy as if she were her own, and Jazzy loved her like a mother.

      “God, forgive me and please help me,” Sally said softly. “You know I didn’t have no idea there was another baby, that Jazzy had a sister.”

      Reve Sorrell might not be her sister Sally told herself. Could just be a coincidence that they look so much alike. But if that DNA test they was having done proved them to be twins, then Jazzy was going to be asking a lot more questions. She’d want to know how it was possible that her aunt Sally hadn’t known nothing about another baby.

      All the lies she’d told Jazzy from the time she’d been a little girl would come back to haunt her—if that Sorrell gal turned out to be Jazzy’s sister. She knew what Jazzy would say to her, could almost hear her.

      “You told me that my mama came back home to you right before I was born, that her boyfriend had run out on her and she had no place else to go. You told me that you delivered me and that you sent for old Doc Webster a few days later to record my birth and check me and Mama to make sure we were all right. Isn’t that so? Tell me, Aunt Sally, did you or did you not deliver another baby? Were you the one who threw my sister away?”

      Them there DNA tests wouldn’t lie. If they proved them gals to be sisters, then Sally had some explaining to do. If I tell Jazzy the truth, will she hate me? I just couldn’t bear it if that gal hated me.

      Genny Sloan stopped suddenly on her morning trek from the greenhouse to her back porch. Although she’d seldom been able to control the visions that came to her, she had learned what signs to expect, signs that forewarned her.

      Drudwyn paused at her side, then licked her hand.

      “It’s all right, boy. I think I can make it to the porch.” Genny stroked the half-wolf dog’s head. “But if I don’t make it, you let Dallas know that I need him.”

      Drudwyn hurried ahead of her, then paused and waited at the door. Genny made it to the porch. Barely. She slumped down on the back steps and closed her eyes. She’d been born with the gift of sight, a God-given talent inherited from her grandma. More times than not, she’d found the gift could be a curse.

      Lights swirled inside her head. Colors. Bright, warm colors. And then she heard Jazzy’s laughter mixing with softer laughter. Another woman’s laughter. Happiness. Beautiful happiness. Genny sensed a togetherness, a oneness, almost as if Jazzy and this other woman were a single entity. As that knowledge filled Genny’s consciousness, she understood she was receiving energy from Jazzy and from Reve Sorrell. She didn’t need to see the results of a DNA test to know they were twins. Identical twins. Individuals, yet forever linked from the moment of conception.

      Suddenly the bright, cheerful lights inside Genny’s mind darkened. Black clouds swirled about in her consciousness, completely obliterating the beauty and happiness. Fear. Anger. Hatred. Jealousy! An evil mind concealed by a mask of normalcy.

      Danger! Jazzy and Reve were in terrible danger.

      But from whom? Who possessed this dark, viciously cruel heart? Who feared the truth? Who was willing to do anything—even kill—to keep the truth hidden?

      Genny delved deeper into the black abyss, seeking the identity of this person, searching for any link between this evil and her dearest friend, Jazzy.

      Oh, God, the hatred. Pure, wicked hatred.

      “Genny!”

      She heard Dallas’s voice as if it came from far away.

      “Damn it, Genny, come out of it. Now! You’re going in too deep.”

      He shook her soundly.

      Genny groaned. Her eyelids flew open. She gasped for air.

      Dallas pulled her into his arms. “What the hell happened? I thought you promised me that you wouldn’t go in that deep without my being there to—”

      “I had to go as far as I could,” she said as she rested her head on her husband’s chest and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I had a vision about Jazzy and Reve Sorrell. I know they’re twins.” She lifted her head and looked at Dallas. “That was a vision filled with joy and light and beauty. But suddenly the darkness came. I—I’m not sure if there’s a connection between Jazzy and Reve and the evil I sensed.”

      “The two visions might have nothing to do with each other,” Dallas told her as he caressed her cheek with the back of his hand.

      “Maybe not, but usually, when two visions overlap that way, they’re somehow connected.”

      “But not always.”

      “No, not always.”

      Dallas lifted Genny into his arms and carried her into the house. She snuggled close, loving the protective feel of this man she loved above all others, more than life itself.

      “You’re awfully quiet,” Dallas said. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

      “Yes, I’m all right. But Jazzy and Reve may be in grave danger.”

      Chapter 2

      Veda MacKinnon had a slight hangover this morning, the second one this week. She’d realized months ago that she was drinking too much and had tried her best to cut back on the amount of alcohol she consumed. She had been succeeding to some extent, but twice this week she had succumbed to stress and worry. Outsiders might well wonder what she had to worry about considering she was married to one of the two richest men in Cherokee County. But her husband was one of her worries, as was their son and her husband’s brother. And truth be told, her own brother had lately given her a reason for concern. If only she’d had a daughter, someone who could understand, could see her side of situations. But she was a lone female in a family of men—unless you counted the servants, and she didn’t.

      Donning her satin robe, Veda glanced at herself in the cheval mirror in her bedroom. God, she looked a fright. Dark circles under her eyes. Her mouth drooped with age. And without makeup, she looked every day of her sixty-eight years. She supposed she could do as Reba Upton did and have a facelift every five or six years, but instead she had opted to grow old gracefully.

      Veda laughed softly.

       Gracefully?

      There had been a time when that adverb described the way she did everything. With grace and flair, with pomp and ceremony. When Farlan had brought her, as his bride, home to his parents’ Victorian mansion in Cherokee Pointe, she’d been twenty-two. Slender. Beautiful. Charming. An Atlanta debutante. And Farlan MacKinnon had been the envy of every man in town.

      Here she was forty-six years later, fat and wrinkled, with a husband who no longer loved her—if he ever had. A son who was sad and lonely, despite his successful career running MacKinnon Media. His childless marriage had ended in a bitter divorce years ago. She suspected that her brother,