Free Double Take by Brenda Joyce Page B

of milk.
    Kait left the lights on and hurried into the main portion of the house. As she did so, she glanced down the hall toward Trev’s study, but the door was wide open, the room dark—he wasn’t there. She paused by the stairs and strained to hear. She thought, but wasn’t sure, she heard the sound of a television.
    “Hello? Anyone home?” she called.
    There was no answer. Kait started up the stairs carefully, which were unlit. The sound of a sitcom with canned laughter became clearer. She relaxed slightly. She hadn’t met Trev’s daughter from his first marriage, and undoubtedly Sam was in her room watching TV.
    Kait followed the sound to the second door on the hall. The volume on the television was high. She knocked. There was no answer, so she tried again. Finally she opened the door a bit and poked her head in.
    Sam sat at her desk, doing homework. She was a tall, thin girl with a cascade of iron-straight blond hair spilling down her back. She was wearing a black T-shirt and a short camouflage vest and a pair of jeans with a heavy studded belt. The television was on, but it faced her bed at the other end of the room. Sam clearly wasn’t even listening to it— she had on a pair of headphones, and as she wrote in her notebook, her head was bopping to the music. “Sam?” Kait tried.
    When Sam didn’t even move, Kait crossed the room and turned the volume way down. Then she walked over to the teenager and tapped her on the shoulder.
    Sam whirled, but did not stand. “What are you doing?!” she cried. Kait smiled. She now noticed three hoops in one ear. “Hi! How are you?” she tried.
    Sam blinked and did not smile back. Her expression was sullen as she removed the headphones. “What?” Then she looked at Kait’s hair. “You cut your hair. It sucks.”
    Kait recoiled, shocked.
    “I’m doing homework,” she said sourly. She turned back to her notebook, giving Kait her back.
    Kait remained stunned. So Lana had another enemy in the house. It simply didn’t seem possible, but the evidence was right before her eyes. She tapped her on the shoulder again. “So I noticed. I just wanted to say hi.”
    “You’re kidding, right?” Sam leaned back in her chair warily, facing her now.
    “No, I am not kidding,” Kait said firmly. And it flashed through her mind that this was too much—it had to end now. There were fences that needed mending. Four that she could count, if she wanted to include Max Zara.
    “Well, you said hi, so, good-bye.” She turned rudely, hunching over her open textbook.
    Kait sighed. If she were very lucky, some of Sam’s behavior might be attributed to adolescence and hormones. “Where is everyone?”
    Not turning, not even moving one muscle, Sam said, quite clearly, “Dad went out. To dinner. In Middleburg. With Alicia.”
    Kait’s heart seemed to stop. “What?”
    Sam slowly faced her. She seemed amused. “You know. Alicia. Your best friend. Alicia, who usually goes to New York with you—who actually spends more than you when you two go shopping.”
    Lana had mentioned a best friend named Alicia in her letter, but it had been two sentences—Alicia was a redhead who tended to drop by on whim and she was married to John Davison.
    Kait was worried now. “But Alicia didn’t come to New York with me this time,” she said slowly.
    “Nope.” Sam grinned. “Guess she had stuff to do here—like have dinner with Dad.”
    Surely Sam was not implying what Kait thought she was. Surely Trev Coleman had too much decency to have an affair with his wife’s best friend—and throw it in her face! “So they’re really having dinner together?”
    Sam sighed. “John is with them, hello!”
    Kait was flooded with relief. “Oh.”
    “Dad doesn’t cheat. Unlike
other
people.” Sam gave her a hard look.
    Kait didn’t like what the girl was implying. She ignored the comment. “Have you eaten?”
    She was incredulous now. “Have I eaten? I had pizza after school.” She turned