If Looks Could Kill (23 page)

“Stay out of this, Jimmy!”

“Then tell me, Kyle!” Madison demanded angrily.

“The killer doesn't want you to see him.”

“How can the killer stop Madison from seeing?” Jimmy asked. “How could he even know about Madison?”

“Oh, easily enough. Madison is a public figure. There have been articles in the paper about her gift. Maybe the killer is even someone close to her. There's a block in her mind for some reason.”

“But could he really believe he could create a block?”

“Maybe. Maybe he thinks she can only see the victims of a violent crime. Maybe he believes that she just won't look at him. If you don't look, you can't see. Then again…”

“What?” Jimmy asked.

“Then again, maybe somewhere along the damned line, he's going to get nervous as all hell—and decide that Madison needs to be eliminated. Like that poor woman in there. She could end up with her throat slit!”

He was angry.

And maybe right.

The three of them drove in silence.

 

Kyle refused to just let her out of the car at the Falls, so he and Jimmy escorted her past the various shops until they reached the movie theaters. Peggy and Carrie Anne were already there. Carrie Anne let out a screech of delight and hurled herself into her mother's arms. They hugged and laughed, and Carrie Anne assured her mother that her daddy was fine, and they'd had a good time, and Daddy had even remembered to pay for her class pictures on time.

Carrie Anne greeted Jimmy with a hug, and Kyle the same way—just a little more shyly. Carrie Anne wanted Jimmy and Kyle to join them for the movie and dinner, but though they both said they were really sorry, they had to go back to work.

Warning Madison to go straight home after dinner, Jimmy and Kyle left at last.

Madison watched them go, disturbed to realize that Kyle seemed to be growing more and more nervous where she was concerned.

“What a handsome man!” Peggy said approvingly before she left.

“Daddy said Kyle was a good guy,” Carrie Anne told her gravely.

“He did, did he?”

Carrie Anne nodded solemnly. “He said that you always loved Kyle a whole lot.”

“Well, you know, he was my stepbrother,” Madison murmured.

Carrie Anne shrugged. “I think Daddy meant you were always in love with Kyle,” she said, sounding incredibly mature for her age. “But he's okay with it,” she assured her. “He's dating Lindy. She was real nice. It's funny. She kind of looks like you, Mommy. She's not as pretty, but she has green eyes—and real pretty dark red hair. Just like yours and Aunt Kaila's. He talked a whole lot to Lindy.”

“Carrie Anne, you shouldn't have been listening, and I don't want to hear everything your daddy said to Lindy, okay?”

“Okay.”

Madison shivered. Oh, God, she wasn't going to start suspecting Darryl of evil doings! she told herself. Damn Kyle! She couldn't run around being afraid of her own family and friends. There had to be somebody left to trust!

“Let's go see this movie. And it doesn't matter what Lindy looks like, as long as she's good to you and Daddy,” Madison told Kaila.

Because it didn't matter what the woman looked like.

Did it?

 

While Kyle was at the morgue, drinking stale coffee in the lounge and awaiting a full report on Tammy, Jassy came to see him.

“Hey, big brother.”

“Hey, sis.”

“Lobster bisque, shrimp étouffée, fried potatoes, green salad with a vinaigrette dressing.”

He arched a brow. “Jassy, I'm not hungry.”

“Holly Tyler's last meal. Here's a copy of the lab report. We've already got guys from Dade and Monroe checking out restaurants from Miami to Key West.”

“Tell Jimmy to get them to concentrate south of Florida City. We already know what time Holly got her tattoo. Dinner probably followed, and it looks like they were heading south.”

“You sure?”

He hesitated, then shrugged. “Your sister ‘saw' them driving south, past Lake Surprise. Yeah, I'm sure.”

“I'll tell Jimmy.”

 

There wasn't much else the coroner could tell them about Tammy's death that they didn't already know. She'd trusted her killer until she swallowed her own blood. She hadn't fought, hadn't protested, she had just died. There wasn't a smidgen of anything but ink beneath her fingernails. A number of the fingerprints they had been able to lift from her desk, the doorway and a few other places matched up to some guys with lengthy criminal records, and Kyle knew they would have to check them all out. He was certain, though, that the ex-cons had come for tattoos. The killer's fingerprints wouldn't be on record anywhere.

He spent part of the late afternoon and early evening interviewing Tammy's employees and friends and two ex-lovers. They all seemed to check out.

At six he called his office in Virginia, hoping that Ricky Haines would have something to tell him, either on Harry Nore's whereabouts, or on any similar crimes elsewhere across the country. Ricky sounded tired and defeated. “The only thing I found that might have some relation is a case that occurred in West Palm Beach about two years back.”

“Tell me.”

“There's not much there, because no one ever prosecuted. A young female cop tried to get some of the women involved to do something, but you know how rape cases go. It's hard to get the victims to testify against their attackers, because no matter how we try to bring things into the twentieth century, it's almost impossible to keep the victims from being victimized all over again.”

“I know. Tell me about this case. Maybe I can go see this policewoman.”

“Well, it's a tough one. The policewoman is a lady named Marge Krell. A friend of hers dragged her out to see another friend who had been roughed up. She'd been charmed into going out with a guy, then decided that it was going faster than she wanted. They wound up at a hotel, and she said no, and the next thing, he's wielding a knife at her. He doesn't cut her, but he threatens her, ties her up, and rapes her. The girl doesn't do anything, because she did go to the hotel with him. Plus she's married. She's been separated, but now she's got a chance to get back together with her husband, and she doesn't want the husband to know what happened. The guy supposedly works as a tennis pro at a Palm Beach club, but when the woman calls the club, he doesn't exist. Off the record, the policewoman finds out about a few other women he charmed and then raped, but the ladies were all afraid to testify, since they had gone with him.”

“No one was killed?”

“Not that we know about. Although, since then, two badly decomposed bodies of young women who had disappeared were found in some swampland in the general area. They were pretty much down to bone, though, and the coroner's office couldn't give an exact cause of death in either case.”

“There could be a relation here,” Kyle commented.

“I'm sure of it, Kyle.”

“Why?”

“Get this—the women involved were all redheads.”

When Kyle hung up, he put a call through to Marge Krell. She wasn't sure what kind of help she could give him, but she was more than willing to try. “Only two women ever talked to me. Claire Engle—and she's since gone back to her husband, had a child and moved to Iowa. She's denying what happened. You could subpoena her straight into a courtroom before God Almighty, and she wouldn't breathe a word. Then there's Josie Morgan. She'll talk with you, I'm certain. We've kept up with each other, become friends, so I happen to know she's out on a cruise ship, due back Wednesday morning. She's a good kid. I'm sure I can set up a meeting for Wednesday afternoon. I'll meet her ship when it comes in, and we'll come see you together. I'll have to ask my captain, of course—”

“The FBI can arrange the day for you,” Kyle assured her. “How about lunch?”

“Great. Where are you taking us?”

“Where do you want to go?”

Marge opted for an Italian restaurant in Coconut Grove. He hung up, hoping he might have found his break at last.

Violence usually escalated. Their killer might very well have started off as a rapist.

Or…

What if their killer was the same man who had stabbed Lainie Adair? Had his hatred lain dormant all these years? Had the one killing sufficed for a very long time, until he had felt the need to take a woman and hurt her…

For not giving him something he wanted? Something he needed?

Thinking about Lainie, he read and reread the psychological reports on Harry Nore. Doing so, he became more and more certain that Harry Nore hadn't killed Lainie Adair. Yes, Nore had killed his wife with a butcher knife. But he'd been using the knife at the time, to cut meat in his kitchen.

His wife had pulled the plug on his radio in the middle of the NBA finals. A little drastic, but a man with severe psychological disorders might overreact. Domestic violence was often triggered by some small incident.

All right, so Harry had been found with the knife that killed Lainie. He was living like a bum on the street corners of Coconut Grove at the time. He could have found the knife.

Sitting at Jimmy's desk and going over and over the reports, Kyle rubbed the back of his neck.

“Hey.”

He looked up. It was Jimmy.

“Are you going to get out of here? It's ten o'clock.”

Kyle started, glancing at his watch. He packed up his papers. Ten o'clock.

Damn it. Why did he suddenly feel so panicked about Madison?

 

This dream was different.

She was in a car. It was her in the car, but it wasn't her, either. She was driving.

He
was at her side. He was telling her where to go, but she already knew. She'd been there before. A long time ago, as a little girl.

They were headed for a place out in the swamps. Once, before the city got so big, before the environmentalists realized that the unique ecosystem of the Florida Everglades was being destroyed, guys had kept hunting shacks out in the swamps. They would go out there to hunt alligators, but mostly, they would shoot up beer cans. Both Jordan Adair and Roger Montgomery had kept shacks out in the Everglades.

“I love you, and you love me, and tonight you're going to show me that you love me.”

He
was sitting next to her, in the passenger seat. She couldn't see him, but she was terrified. She was so frightened that she would have just stopped the car and run into the swamp and hoped to outrun him, except…

Someone was in the back seat. Whispering, “Mommy?”

Over and over again. In a frightened voice.

“You're going to love me…bitch. You're not going to hurt me, you're not going to cut my heart out, you're going to give it all back.”

“Mommy?”

She opened her mouth, then gasped, feeling the point of something against her side. She looked down.

A knife.

Huge, with a six-inch blade. It was silver, glittering in the sunlight. The light reflected off it, blinding her when she tried to look up, into his face. The knife was touching her. Just touching her. Not cutting into her. Not yet. But as she stared at it…

Blood seemed to seep from it, and she knew it was the blood of those who had come before her….

She woke up soaked in a cold sweat.

And realized that someone was in her room. Someone watching her. Waiting…

She started to scream.

 

Kaila ran out to the store late.

She didn't usually go grocery shopping at ten at night, but she hadn't realized that she was out of milk. Dan had run late, they'd just had dinner, and he would have gone to the store for her, she knew, but he looked really worn-out, and she needed to get out of the house for a few minutes, anyway.

She spent more time than she had intended, enjoying the solitude, though she didn't really buy much of anything. With her one brown bag, she walked out of the store at ten-thirty.

She was headed for her beige Lexus when, suddenly, she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around in surprise, then saw him.

And she shivered, dismayed, angry, oddly frightened.

“Kaila, let me help you.”

“No…no, it's just one little bag.”

“What are you doing out so late?”

“Just buying milk.”

“Dan should have come out. The night is dangerous.”

“No, lots of people shop on Friday night. The store stays open until eleven.”

“It's still dangerous.” He hesitated. “He doesn't love you enough. Like I do. When are you going to realize that? When are you going to come with me?” He leaned close to her, his voice husky. “Let me lick you all over. Let me eat those panties off you!”