If Looks Could Kill (13 page)

Kaila took a long shower at the club, trying to clear her head before going home.

The world looked a little better when she returned. Anna had the house in wonderful shape. Anthony was napping; Shelley was playing with her Barbie dolls and Justin with his trucks while they watched a Disney video.

She walked into the kitchen to find Anna cutting up vegetables for the stew she planned that night.

Yet, looking through the kitchen to the dining room, Kaila started suddenly.

There was a huge vase of roses on the dining room table.

“Anna?” she said.

“They arrived an hour ago.”

“From?”

“I don't know. The card is addressed to you.”

Kaila walked into the dining room. There were at least two dozen roses beautifully arranged in a pink glass vase. She found the card and opened it.

It was very simple.

“Kaila, I love you. Dan.”

 

They sometimes went for days, weeks, even months, without a significant break in a case.

And, of course, there were those horrible instances when a killer was never discovered. The good thing about most serial killers was that deep in their psyches, they wanted to be caught. They knew their behavior was abhorrent, and they wanted to be stopped. And so they left their calling cards; they taunted the police, leaving clues each time. And every year, with more and more scientific techniques available, it became possible to irrefutably link more murderers to their victims. Fingerprinting, fibers, teeth marks, DNA, all contributed heavily to locking away—or executing—numerous criminals.

Once they were caught.

That was where profiling came in.

Kyle spent the morning with Jimmy at the site out on Krome, where the torso had been found buried in the embankment. He watched back at the coroner's office as the pathologists did the initial investigating and determined that the head, arm and torso all belonged to the same woman. He asked for numerous shots of the tattoos on Jane Doe's buttocks and their newest victim's torso. By the afternoon, he had scanned the shots into the computer and checks were being made across the country for any similar “signatures” on the bodies of victims in other states.

From Broward south through Dade and Monroe Counties, the police began investigating tattoo parlors.

Kyle worked late in his Coconut Grove hotel room, playing with random information and the computer. At seven he was deeply involved, and ordered up room service. By nine he was frustrated and restless. He turned off the computer, turned on the television.

His telephone rang.

“Kyle.”

“Hey, Dad,” he told his father. “What's up?”

“Nothing. It's just a luxury to have you in the city again. Thought I'd check in.”

“Things are going well. We have a few interesting breaks in the case.”

“Yeah?”

“Something that may be significant. Two of the victims seem to have had tattoos done recently.”

“The papers have mentioned body parts,” Roger said dryly.

“So much gets released to the public, there's not much we can do. And unfortunately, the papers seem to thrive on anything gruesome.”

“That's true. Well, you think you'll get some free time this weekend?”

“I'm sure I can manage some.”

“Good. Remember the opening I was telling you about the other day?”

Kyle went blank, then felt guilty as hell. Yes, his father and a friend and fellow artist were opening a gallery to highlight local artists. Their own work, along with that of a number of other area artists, would be on display. It was to be a black-tie affair Sunday evening.

“Hey, Dad, if there's a way, I'll be there.”

“Good. Rafe will appreciate your presence.”

“Oh, yeah?” Kyle inquired, amused.

“Your brother says that maybe the press will leave him alone if you're there. They're always after him, wanting to know why he never went into art. Says telling them he has no talent never works. Maybe they'll be after you on Sunday instead of him.”

Kyle laughed. “Leave it to Rafe to tell them straight-faced that he can't draw a stick figure. Fine. If you see him before I do, you can tell him I feel guilty for living out of state and leaving him to take all the whatever-happened-to-your-artistic-genes heat.”

“He'll be glad to hear it. See you there, son, if not before.”

“Yeah, Dad. Hey, wait, Dad, is the rest of the family coming?”

“The rest of the family?”

Kyle winced slightly. “Yeah. You know. Jordan and his brood. And Trent.”

“Yeah, sure, of course. I imagine they'll be there. They're all invited, anyway. We've never failed to be supportive of one another, and they know this place means a lot to me. Is there a problem?”

“No, of course not.”

They said goodbye and hung up. Kyle rose and stretched, tired but restless.

The phone rang again. Kaila, just calling to say hi. His second line rang, and it was Trent. A third call came from Jassy, who involved him in a lengthy conversation regarding forensic findings before telling him it was really just a social call and it was nice to have him home.

The phone rang again. He told himself he wasn't hoping it was Madison.

It wasn't. It was Rafe. He'd just taken a date to the movies at Cocowalk. She lived in the Grove and he'd just dropped her off, so maybe he and Kyle could meet for a drink.

It sounded good to Kyle.

Coconut Grove, even just after ten o'clock on a weeknight, was alive and bustling with tourists from all over, along with the local crowd.

Kyle wandered through the bookstore—open until eleven on weeknights—and picked up a few newspapers, then wandered back over to Cocowalk, where he was meeting Rafe at Fat Tuesday's. Rafe was already sitting at the bar with a beer, watching the hockey play-offs.

Kyle sat down beside him and ordered the same. “Didn't stay with the date, huh?” he inquired.

Rafe smiled slowly and shrugged. He wasn't quite two years older than Kyle—Roger had gone through wives quickly when he was young—but though they were close in age and size and shared a love for the sun, they weren't alike in much else. Rafe had been a great student, he was serious and dedicated and, though not artistic in the least, he was a financial genius. He'd spent several years working as a stock trader, then started investing his savings. He'd been able to quit his job and now made a good living off his investments. His time in the sun had turned his blond hair platinum, and despite his serious nature, his eyes were a silver that could quickly come alight with rueful amusement, as they did now. “Staying with the date was on my mind, but I wasn't invited. Well, I'm working on it for next time. She's an R.N.—has to be at the hospital at six. Nice girl. We'll see how it goes.”

“It's about time you got serious about a woman.”

“I'm serious about all women,” Rafe assured him. “Now, how about you? How's it going here in the wild, wicked city?”

“Not too badly. I've only been here a few days, and we've had a couple of breaks.” He told his brother about the torso and the tattoos, and the roses delivered to Maria Garcia's house, warning him that they weren't letting that information out to the public. Then he shrugged unhappily. “Jimmy had Madison in, as well.”

“So?” Rafe said. “She's worked with him before. It makes sense that he'd want her help on something like this.”

“I don't like it.”

“Why? What is Madison seeing? How close is she getting?”

Kyle shook his head in disgust. “All she's seen so far is the victim.”

“She mostly sees the victims. She never saw her mother's killer, remember?”

“She's seen more on occasion. Sometimes she sees what the victim sees. But you're right. She seems to have a blind spot for the killer on this. All that's happened so far is that she feels pain for the woman who was killed. I just don't like her being involved.”

“What can you do?” Rafe asked him with a sympathetic shrug. “Jimmy is going to use her, and Madison is over twenty-one.”

“I just don't have a good feeling about it.”

Rafe toyed with the label on his beer bottle, hesitating. “I think you just came home and got nervous because Madison looks so much like Lainie did…when Lainie was killed.”

Kyle shook his head, wondering why his brother's words were suddenly making him feel as if he had missed something. “It's not that. Besides, Harry Nore was certifiably insane, and he was caught.”

Rafe shrugged. “I don't think Madison ever believed that Harry Nore killed her mother.”

“She accepted it. The cops had him, along with the murder weapon—with traces of Lainie's blood still on it.”

“She accepted it because she was a kid and she was told that was what happened. She had no choice.”

“The evidence against Nore was damning, and that's my point. Madison has gone through enough.”

“Oh, she's stronger than you think. Besides, little bro, you can't just come waltzing back into town when you've been gone for years and think you're going to boss the family around.”

“I don't think that,” Kyle said with a scowl. “I just don't like…I don't like her being involved. It makes me nervous as all hell.”

“Then get her uninvolved.”

“How?”

Rafe laughed. “How the hell do I know? You're the damned FBI agent!” He sobered suddenly. “Okay, so this is a nerve-racking case. More and more about what's going on is making its way into the newspapers, and lots of people are getting nervous. Maybe this is a bad one. Maybe you're right and Madison shouldn't be involved. Find a way to keep her busy elsewhere. Have her kidnapped to a desert island for the time being.”

“Right. Then the FBI will be after
me.
”

Rafe laughed easily. “I'm sure you can think of something. Do your best to keep her out of it.”

Kyle stood suddenly.

“Where are you going?” Rafe asked.

“I'm going to call her. I've heard from everyone else—hell, Trent even gave me a call. I just want to make sure she's okay.”

“She's a big girl now,” Rafe reminded him.

Kyle nodded and headed toward the phones. He had a cellular, but he hated the damned thing, and he'd left it in the hotel room.

He dialed Madison's number. Her machine picked up. “Madison, it's Kyle. Pick up. Madison, I'm going to wait. I'm going to keep talking. It's Kyle. Pick up.”

She didn't do so. He tried ringing her number once again. Once again he got the machine.

He hung up and walked back to Rafe, glancing at his watch. “Eleven o'clock on a weeknight. Where the hell is she?”

“Out on a date?” Rafe suggested.

“She has a kid.”

“Yeah, well, women with kids go out on dates.”

He cast his brother a glare. “Then the baby-sitter would pick up.”

“Right. But you're forgetting that Darryl is in town. Maybe Carrie Anne's with him. Maybe she is, too.”

“Madison and Darryl are divorced—”

“Yeah, well, they're still close. Real close. Friends. Who knows, maybe once they've both sown a few wild oats they'll get back together again. Kyle, she's all right. Wake up and smell the coffee. She's probably sleeping at Darryl's house. You can't come home and start chasing her around.”

“I'm not trying to chase her around. I'm worried about her.”

“Kyle, she's all grown up. You're not even really related to her, plus you left her life years ago. I'm telling you, you can't be her guardian angel now.”

“Maybe not.”

They talked about stocks, Rafe telling Kyle where he should invest.

“You're going to have to make good investments, there just aren't that many really rich FBI agents,” Rafe reminded him.

It was late when Kyle finally left his brother.

Late when he went to bed after two beers.

He should have slept quickly, and well.

He didn't.

At first he lay awake wondering what it was that he should be seeing and just wasn't realizing. Something in the pictures of the victims, in the forensic reports.

He crawled out of bed and started going through the reports once again. What was it?

Then it hit him, and he realized it had taken him so long because the picture he had of Julie Sabor was in black and white.

Redheads.

They were all redheads.

Maria Garcia had been very dark, but still, there were traces of red in her hair. And the corpse today…

He felt ill. More worried than ever about Madison. He tried her house again.