If Looks Could Kill (20 page)

“Like what?”

“Like she caught me in the back seat of my old Chevy once, with the prom queen, when I was in high school. It hadn't gotten too serious, just a little heavy petting. My father would have hit the roof, though, because he was convinced that Patty Lawton—the prom queen—was out to get pregnant and trap me into marriage, and my father was determined that I was going to college. So anytime I wasn't doing exactly what Lainie wanted, she subtly threatened me with exposure. She always knew how to hit just the right buttons with people. It's hard to explain. Lainie manipulated people.”

“Strange, isn't it, how differently we all see people? To me, Lainie Adair was a star, elegant, ageless, beautiful—on a pedestal. I wouldn't have thought she had a mean bone in her body.”

“Ask Jassy how many bones are in the human body. Lainie had that many,” Kyle said dryly.

“She couldn't have been all bad!” Jimmy protested.

“No one is all bad. The world isn't black-and-white. Everything has shades of gray,” Kyle agreed. “Lainie did have her good points.” He shrugged then, “You're right, it all depends on your point of view. The girls loved her. She was a good mother to Madison and Kaila, and she could be decent to her various stepchildren. Could be. She planned elaborate birthday parties for all of us. She loved to buy gifts. And she was proud and delighted when we did something well. Lainie was…unique. And no one deserves to die the way she did.” Kyle fell silent, remembering how he had come from his room, alarmed when he heard his father's shouts of horror. Rushing to the bedroom, he had seen Lainie in his father's arms. Roger was crying out, choking, tears streaming down his face. Lainie was dead. In a huge pool of blood. Her killer's knife had struck through to a kidney, and she had died, in fear and agony.

He gave himself a shake as an old feeling of unease swept over him. At first, he had to admit, he'd thought that Lainie must finally have infuriated his father to such a point that Roger faced a moment of temporary insanity—and killed her. But he had become convinced that no one could feign grief the way Roger suffered it that night. And he believed in his father.

Then, and now.

“What is it?” Jimmy asked.

“Nothing. We're not supposed to speak ill of the dead, right? Lainie was many things. I pray she rests in peace,” Kyle murmured. And yet, remembering Lainie, he found himself thinking about Madison again.

Madison was nothing like Lainie.

And he cared more about her than he dared admit to himself, much less anyone else. But they'd both been hurt. They knew to keep their distance.

Well, he couldn't keep his distance right now. He had to stick to Madison. Like glue. Though how the hell he was going to manage it, he didn't know.

Jimmy left him at the airport, where he boarded the small plane. Despite the fact that the engines were noisy as hell, he dozed. At the airport, he hailed a taxi. The driver was slow, and as he sat in the back seat, Kyle began to feel twinges of unease.

It was nearly midnight as they drove through the quiet streets toward Jordan's house.

The closer they got, the greater Kyle's sense of unease grew. With Jordan in Miami, Madison was alone at the house, with only her father's maid, out in her room by the pool.

The uneasier Kyle felt, the slower the taxi driver seemed to roll along the street.

“Can you hurry it up a little?” he asked the man impatiently.

The cabdriver muttered beneath his breath, then hit the gas with such enthusiasm that Kyle was pressed against the seat by the force of it. Still, they sped along the last streets and around the last corner with a vengeance—wheels spinning and squealing.

“Thanks,” Kyle said, handing the driver a more-than-ample sum. “Keep the change.”

He stared at the house. The outside lights were all on; everything looked fine. But appearances could be deceiving.

Out of habit, he tapped his chest to make sure his shoulder holster and gun were where they should be. Then he approached the house, reaching into his pocket for his keys, moving quickly and quietly along the drive to the front door.

Just as he turned the key in the lock, he heard the first scream.

Short, high-pitched, seeming to quiver in the night air.

It was instantly followed by a second scream, this one long, terrified…bloodcurdling.

For a split second, he froze.

Then he burst into the house, drawing his gun and racing down the hallway.

Just as Madison screamed once again.

S
he was in the house again. Roger Montgomery's old house in Coconut Grove. The house where Lainie had died.

But there was more than one hallway.

Each hallway ran in a different direction. Silver mist lay in all the hallways, billowing thickly to a point about waist-high, thinning from there on up. She could hear her mother's voice, and she knew that she had to reach Lainie, but she wasn't sure which hallway she should be following.

She began to run.

She tried first one hallway, then the next. Lainie's cries were growing louder, more distressed, yet Madison couldn't tell from what direction her cries were coming. Each time she tried to turn, the fog became thicker and thicker, swirling around her as if a gust of wind had come along. Suddenly the fog began to settle back to the ground, and she heard her mother's voice—and there was only one hallway left.

She wanted to run, but she couldn't run anymore. She tried, she willed herself to run, but her legs felt like lead. She was moving in slow motion, trying to call out, but unable to utter a single sound.

As she moved through the mist in the hallway, she saw the knife. It was high in the air, caught in the silver glimmer of the fog.

Suddenly it moved, slashing through the air.

She heard her mother's scream.

Felt her mother's pain.

Felt it as the knife slashed into Lainie's side. Cutting flesh, bone, sinew…

She tried and tried to scream. She knew that she was in a nightmare, where so often it was impossible to scream. But she needed to scream. She needed to awaken.

She saw the knife again, suspended in the silver mist, something dripping off its razor-sharp edge.

Blood.

Drip, drip, drip…

A pool of blood lay on the floor beneath the knife. Lainie's voice was forever silent.

Madison knew the nightmare; she had lived it. She struggled to awaken, but she was falling deeper and deeper into it. The knife couldn't be simply suspended in the air. Someone was holding the knife. Someone had wielded the knife. Still held the knife, would kill and kill again.

The knife was being held in a hand.

A gloved hand…

With a wrist, an arm…

Swallowed by darkness. Yet if she looked, waited for the fog to recede, she would see the killer. She had to see the killer, had to stop him from killing again, but the fog was so thick.

Then it began to fade away.

If she looked hard, really hard…

The knife was rising again. She couldn't see them, but she felt the eyes of the killer on her. Watching her. Killer is watching! Killer is watching!

The knife was coming toward her. Any second now, it would fall, because the killer could see her, though she couldn't see him. The blade was so sharp, still dripping with her mother's blood….

Coming closer, closer, closer…

She turned to run, heard the blade swiping through the air. At last…

At long last…

She began to scream. Scream and scream and scream…

Arms came around her, holding her, shaking her.

“Madison!”

She awoke in terror, wildly fighting the man who held her.

“Madison!”

Her eyes were wide open, but it still took her several long seconds to realize that Kyle was the man trying to hold her, despite her violent struggles.

Martique was standing in the bedroom doorway in her flannel pajamas; she'd come running without grabbing her housecoat or slippers. “Dear Lord, Madison!” she murmured, concerned. She crossed herself.

Madison looked at Kyle, who was studying her with grave concern. He was still in his business suit, but he'd loosened his tie and opened the first few buttons of his shirt.

The air-conditioning was hitting her sweat-soaked body, and she started to tremble. He smoothed back her hair. “Are you all right? Madison, you were dreaming, right?”

She nodded.

“I'll bring you something,” Martique said, staring sympathetically. “What would you like?”

“Something strong,” Kyle said. He glanced at Martique. “A double shot of Jack Black.”

“I can't drink bourbon,” Madison said.

“That was for me!” Kyle teased. “You just scared me out of ten years of life.”

She flushed, looking at him, realizing that she was wearing a short, sheer black nightgown that she had purposely chosen to be provocative—just in case he really came back—and that he was sitting casually next to her on her bed while Martique looked on. But Martique didn't seem to be concerned with the circumstances, only with Madison's state of mind. “I'll fix you both something good, and no arguments, young lady,” she told Madison.

After Martique left them, Kyle ran his knuckles over her hot, flushed cheeks. “Tell me about it.”

“There's really nothing to tell. I was dreaming about the night my mother was killed. It was so real, so frightening. As if I were living it all over again. I felt as if the killer were close to me again. As if he could see me when I was trying to reach Lainie.”

Kyle was quiet for a minute. His fingers were interlaced with hers now, and he didn't meet her eyes, just looked down at their hands.

“You shouldn't have gotten involved in this.”

She shrugged, not willing to admit that she was ready to agree with him at the moment. She shook her head. “I've worked with Jimmy before. Just nothing like this…I don't know. I mean, all murders are bad. Someone winds up dead, and dead is gone, and the mothers, wives, husbands, kids, lovers, are all left hurting, no matter how someone died. This is just so violent and so vicious…. I guess it's bringing back what happened to my mother.”

“They're all redheads,” Kyle murmured. He looked at her. “Like Lainie.”

“Harry Nore—”

“Harry Nore is out,” Kyle said bluntly.

“What?” Madison gasped, rising to her knees. “Kyle, if he's out, maybe he's the one committing these horrible crimes. Kyle—”

“Jimmy Gates has every cop in the state looking for him, so he'll be found.”

“Oh, Kyle, maybe—”

“Madison, I'm going to tell you the same thing I told Jimmy. I don't believe that Harry Nore can possibly be guilty of these crimes. What woman in her right mind is going to get excited about a romantic weekend with a man like Harry Nore? He grins like a baboon, smells worse than a goat, and is so evidently off his rocker—”

“They let him out of an asylum for the criminally insane,” Madison reminded him. “Maybe he's cured.”

“Right. And that's going to make him as handsome and charming as Sean Connery, right? This guy picks up young, beautiful women. A broken, crazed old lunatic is not going to turn into Don Juan, trust me.”

Madison swallowed uneasily, closed her eyes and sighed. “I know they found him with the murder weapon. He had the knife, and it had my mother's blood on it. But I never thought it was him. It just didn't feel right.”

Kyle lifted his hands in an exasperated motion. “A point that I was far too young and inexperienced to pay attention to at the time. Think about it. There was Harry Nore, in a neighbor's kitchen, happily cutting bread. Yet when you ‘saw' the killer, saw him holding the knife to kill your mother, he was wearing gloves. Flesh-toned gloves, the kind doctors use.”

Madison nodded. “Well, if it wasn't him, and if the real killer was caught at the scene of the murder, all he needed to do was dispose of the knife—”

“And be clever enough to slip by me, you, Kaila, my father, and all the cops and everyone else flooding the property within minutes.”

Madison shivered again. She was soaking, and the air-conditioning was cold. And as the dream faded, her vanity was kicking in. She felt sticky and sweaty, her hair was plastered around her face, and she didn't feel the least bit enticing.

She eased away from Kyle, rising from the other side of the bed. “I'm going to shower quickly.”

He nodded.

Once inside the bathroom, though, she was amazed to feel unnerved again.

She looked out the door.

“I'll be here,” he promised her.

Madison slipped out of her gown and into the shower, turning the water on warm and letting it sluice over her face and body for long moments before she scrubbed her hair and sudsed lavishly. As she rinsed conditioner from her hair, she heard Kyle's voice.

“Madison?”

“What?” she called.

He stepped into the shower behind her. Naked.

“I didn't want to scare you,” he said.

His arms slipped around her, drawing her back against himself. He lifted her wet hair from her shoulders and neck, kissing her nape. His hands eased up her torso, caressing her breasts. She closed her eyes as electric flashes of pure sweet fire instantly began to sweep along her limbs.

His kisses moved lower down her spine. His tongue teased at the small of her back; then he turned her around, still kissing and caressing her flesh. Each stroke and touch grew more intimate and so incredibly erotic, blended with the heat of the water cascading down upon them both, that she began to fear that she would fall. She dug her fingers into his shoulders, desperately whispering his name. He showed no mercy. Her limbs felt like water, yet mercury seemed to tear throughout her, until she couldn't bear it anymore and she cried out his name. He was on his feet then, kissing her lips, and their tongues melded, with the taste of their lovemaking. Then he turned her, fingers laced with hers as he braced her against the tile. He entered her from behind, and the water poured down, hot and slick. He moved with an urgent passion, swiftly lifting her to a place she'd thought she couldn't possibly reach again so quickly. The thundering in her ears compounded with that in her heart, with the pulse in her body. Then he ground against her hard, fast, his body knotting with tension, and the volatile force of his climax precipitated her own. She felt as if the rush of the shower were around her and within her as the hot seed of his desire spilled into her.

She collapsed back into his arms without a murmur of protest. She heard him sigh after a long while, and she realized they'd been in there so long, the water was growing cold.

Kyle reached over and turned off the water. He stepped from the shower, reaching back for her with a towel, wrapping her in it when she came against him.

“Martique made hot brandied tea,” he told her.

“Is it still hot?”

“I'm sure it is. She brought it in a coffee carafe, then left us to our privacy.”

“She knows,” Madison murmured, turning around and leaving the bathroom.

“So what?” Kyle asked, drying himself, then wrapping his towel around his waist and following her out to the bedroom. “She doesn't seem to be shocked. What difference does it make? You're over twenty-one. So am I.” He poured two mugs of tea, then handed her one. “We're not biologically related, and as I pointed out before—although you assured me at the time that the situation wouldn't arise—we're not going to have children with pointed heads or anything.”

She smiled, then looked at him gravely. “Kyle, I have a little girl,” she reminded him.

“I know. I never forget that,” he told her.

She held silent, turning away from him and wondering if he also never forgot that he had lost a wife he loved deeply.

Or that he had once called her a witch.

Or that they were usually at one another's throats within a matter of minutes during even the most casual conversation. So this…passion would surely burn itself out.

“I have a daughter, and I need to make sure she isn't hurt by anything I do,” Madison said.

“She's with her father right now, isn't she?”

“Yes.”

“So she's not being hurt by anything we're doing. She's being helped.”

Madison arched a brow. “Oh? How's that?”

“I'm afraid for your safety. But anyone would have to come through me to get to you.”

“Ah.”

“And I'm damned hard to get through,” he assured her. He finished his tea, set down his cup and took hers from her hands.

“Still obsessed?” she whispered as his mouth neared hers.

“Still obsessed.”

“Are you sure you're not just in a protective mode, and sex is just a pleasant diversion?”

“Yep, I'm sure,” he said flatly. “And you?”

“Still…curious” was the best she dared admit as his mouth molded over hers.

She gave up attempting to reason and gave into sensation.

 

Kaila snuggled against her husband, basking in a sea of contentment unlike anything she had experienced in years.

His arm pulled her closer, and he whispered against her forehead, “Wow.”