If Looks Could Kill (3 page)

He did everything right. And though it was slightly painful, it wasn't horrible. It just wasn't what she had read about, though Darryl assured her that it got better for women.

She certainly hoped so, though she tried very hard not to let him know just how disappointed she was. Darryl was a good guy.

She dated him for her first three years of college.

Then…she had another dream.

She had known that Fallon was expecting a baby. She and Kyle lived relatively near one another—she in Georgetown, he in a suburb in Maryland, just outside downtown D.C.—but she avoided him. She and Darryl and Kyle and Fallon had met for dinner a few times, and everyone had had a great time—except her. So she made excuses not to see them. She told herself that she was a bitch, a horrible person. She should be happy for Kyle and Fallon. Kyle was her friend. He had helped her through the worst period of her life, so it was natural for her to feel a strange kind of dependency on him. It wasn't a crush. She needed to appreciate Darryl. He was even-tempered. He adored her and was unfailingly considerate. He was handsome, built like a young Adonis. She
did
appreciate him.

Together, they were perfect.

She was with Darryl when she had the dream about Kyle and Fallon.

It was terribly uncomfortable. It was almost as if she were with them. In their bedroom.

Fallon was on her side of the bed, tossing and turning. She was hugely pregnant, round as a tomato, yet still beautiful, her blond hair a tangled fan around her delicate, pinched features. She was racked with pain.

Kyle, at her side, was up, trying to help her, support her. “It must be the baby. We've got to get to the hospital.”

“It's too soon, almost two months too soon!” Fallon cried.

“But you've been sick. We've got to get you there now.” He stood, naked. Muscled, tanned. In her dream, Madison tried to look away, but she couldn't. It was as if she were there.

He dressed hurriedly, eschewing socks and underwear, slipping into his jeans and a T-shirt, and sliding his feet into his loafers while he dialed the phone. Fallon was distressed that he'd called for an ambulance, but he told her, “Babe, you're burning up. We need some help, fast.”

Madison felt Fallon's heat. She was burning, burning, burning…like a fire. But there wasn't pain, there was just heat. And Kyle was there, holding her hand. Fallon was happy to feel his hand in hers, it was just that the heat was so terrible, and then she was shivering, hot and cold, hot and cold….

“Madison, Madison!”

She started, her eyes flying open. Darryl was shaking her awake, looking concerned.

“Madison, honey, you're having a nightmare. You have to wake up. Madison, what is it? What's wrong?”

She was soaked. She'd kicked the covers away. Darryl had his arms around her, and instinctively she clung to him in return.

“Want to tell me about it?” he asked her.

“No, no, it was nothing. I'm okay. I, uh, thanks. Thanks, Darryl. You're great.” She kissed him. But when he wanted to take it further, in his efforts to soothe her, she curled away from him, a nagging sensation of worry refusing to leave her.

Three days later, a message from one of Kyle's buddies at the FBI on their answering machine told her that her dream had been real. Fallon had died as the result of complications from a virus, along with her premature, stillborn daughter. The funeral was Friday, in Manassas, Virginia.

Madison's entire family attended the funeral. Her own father had always gotten along exceptionally well with Kyle and Rafe, and Jordan Adair and Roger Montgomery still remained friends. Darryl, naturally, attended with Madison.

Kyle looked like hell. He wasn't quite twenty-six, but he'd already acquired a few silver strands of hair at his temple. His grief was terrible. Madison felt numb.

In church, she remained on her knees, head bowed, through most of the ceremony. She wondered if she might not be a terrible human being, if her jealousy might not have killed Fallon. The logical side of her brain tried to assure her that it couldn't be so, but she still felt somehow responsible, and it was an incredibly bad feeling. She wanted to run away.

She had only a few moments alone with Kyle. He came to her while she was kneeling by the coffin during the family's last viewing.

He knelt at her side, and she tried very hard not to cry while he adjusted the prayer book in his dead wife's hands. “At the end, she told me that you knew,” he said suddenly. He stared at her in a way that gave her chills. “She said you were with us, that she was glad you were there. She told me I should look out after you.”

He wasn't staring at her, though, as if he wanted to look after her. He was, in fact, staring at her as if she were a demon straight out of hell, as if he wished she would get as far away as possible from the beloved body of his wife.

Madison stared at him in return. “I have no idea what she meant,” she lied. “I'm sorry, Kyle. I'm so, so sorry.”

“You have no idea?” he repeated. And his voice was deep, rumbling with a strange anger. “What kind of a witch are you, Madison?” she thought she heard him whisper. And she saw his hands, folded prayer-fashion over the coffin now, tighten. Tighten with power and anger. Then he stretched his fingers out, as if aware of his terrible tension. He stared at them, handsome face taut with grief, blue eyes glittering. His hands slowly began to clench again, as if he would like to wind them around her neck, as if he, too, wondered if she couldn't somehow be responsible….

“No!” Madison whispered beneath her breath, then hurried from his side. She forced herself to go through the funeral and over to Kyle's house, where friends and family gathered after the service. When she said goodbye to Kyle and Roger, who stood at his side, she said it with a new sense of finality.

Madison immediately changed her major from criminology to communications. She'd always avoided acting, because of her mother, and writing because of her father, but she discovered she had a flair for photography, and though she had avoided modeling because of Lainie, she found herself giving in to friends in the school of photography who needed help putting together portfolios for job interviews.

On a spring break trip to Las Vegas, she married Darryl. Nine months later to the day, she gave birth to Carrie Anne Hart.

Darryl went to work for an engineering firm in Fort Lauderdale. Madison did runway modeling and an occasional photographic shoot while being a mom and working on her own photography.

Two and a half years after their marriage, Darryl came home to find Madison in tears. He wanted to know what was wrong. There was nothing wrong, she said.
She
was wrong. Their marriage was wrong. He was wonderful, but she didn't love him the way that she should.

Well, he wasn't so wonderful, he told her. Then he admitted to having an affair with one of his file clerks.

Madison wasn't sure why she was so furious, when she was appalled at herself for never having really loved Darryl. He wanted to patch things back together. He was so contrite that it was terrible.

In the end, oddly enough, they managed to part as friends. Good friends.

But Darryl accepted a job offer in the D.C. area. He needed to start over; she understood.

When all three of them could manage it conveniently, Madison saw to it that Carrie Anne went to stay with her father for a few days to a week. On those occasions, Madison began to accept more and more modeling jobs. While she was off on location in the Keys on one of them, she and some of the other models got a little giddy on a drink the bartenders were calling a Storm Front. She was surprised to find herself singing on stage with the hotel's poolside band, and even more surprised to discover that she was good.

She was alarmed when one of the photographers showed her a few of the pictures he had taken while she was performing.

She looked exactly as Lainie had looked before her death. Long, thick auburn hair, large, bright blue eyes. She was taller, about five-foot-eight, but her face was Lainie's classic oval, her nose, her mouth…just like Lainie's. She had loved her mother, even though she hadn't wanted to grow up to be her, wild, headstrong, going through husbands like toilet paper, heedless of the feelings of others….

Joey King, leader of the hotel band, wanted her to take a job with them. He was young, excited.

“We're on the brink of something really good happening. I've sold some of my songs, we've had the big music people down to see us—”

Madison finished her drink and stood. “Joey, I don't want to be a performer. I have a daughter. I have a career that's going better than I actually wanted it to.”

“Because you look like your mother,” he said.

She stared at him, and he shrugged.

“Sorry, but she was famous. I've seen lots and lots of pictures of her, and you do look just like her. Is that why you don't want to perform?”

“Joey, honestly, I just don't want to go out on the road—”

“All right, all right, no going on the road, I promise.”

“Groups can make it or break it on the road,” she reminded him.

“I have a wife and two kids myself,” he told her. “Lots of groups have survived nicely just by doing local gigs and being studio musicians, and we have some great studios here. My sizzling desire for fame and fortune has been somewhat dampened by the reality of life,” he added dryly. “So, would you do a few demos with us? Would you sing live with us now and then, when we've got some of the suits in the audience?”

His flames might have been dampened, but he was still a determined dreamer. And she liked him. He was blunt and honest, not to mention she'd had fun singing with the band.

She shrugged. “Sure,” she told him. “Sure…”

 

Madison closed her eyes for a moment, then swung her legs over the side of the bed. Time to stop thinking about the past. Time to get moving.

Life had settled into a pattern for her, and she was happy, she told herself firmly

Well, okay, maybe not completely happy—she was too restless to be happy. She was a young divorced mom living in the same city as most of her family, so she had people who loved her around her—yet she was independent.

There were still the dreams, and when they came, she called Jimmy. But the dreams weren't all that frequent, and she was resigned to having them. Sometimes she would go with Jimmy to a crime scene, and sometimes she was able to get a feel for something, or have a flash of insight. She was seldom tormented by the visions.

As she had been today.

She straightened her hair and skirt, and caught sight of herself in the mirror again. “Don't whine, Madison! If you're not happy as a little lark, at least you're basically content in life!”

But her reflection remained grave. She felt restless. Uneasy.

As if, suddenly, things were going to come full circle.

As if the past itself were going to come back and haunt her life….

She gave herself a serious shake. She was working tonight. And come Monday, she would help Jimmy. She'd helped him before. Tonight it was time to have some dinner with Carrie Anne and her dad, if he was around, and get going.

Yet as she started for her daughter's room, she still couldn't quite shake an uncomfortable feeling. Not just the fear and pain the dream had evoked for a stranger.

An unease that curled around her heart…

Much, much closer to home.

K
yle knew that he fit in fine. He might be a “suit” from Washington now, but he was a Florida boy from way back, and he knew how to sit in a Key West bar and blend in with the scenery.

He was wearing cutoff jeans, scuffed Top-Siders and a worn short-sleeved cotton shirt, open at the throat and halfway down his chest. He wore dark sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead, and he sat at a table located in the rear, where shadows fell, leaning back in his chair, legs sprawled on the chair before him as he nursed his beer. He could pass for a tourist—or a local. He guessed that he was actually somewhere in between. Jordan Adair owned this particular place, and it was popular. Folks coming down to Key West liked to have a drink at Sloppy Joe's, famous as an Ernest Hemingway hangout, but they were equally anxious to fit in with the modern so-called “literary” crowd, which could include just about anyone. Jordan Adair wrote gritty suspense; his friends included mystery writers, true-crime writers, sci-fi and romance writers, those who dealt in history, in general fiction, in nonfiction—and those who were just so famous they could write books that would sell just because they were who they were. Along with the literary crowd, the place offered music—and the music was as varied as the clientele.

Jordan was not only cozy with the attorneys, cops and pathologists he consulted for his work, he was also friends with the film crowd, since a number of his books had been adapted for the screen. Tourists loved to flock here just to see who they could see, with the assurance that—should the crowd be quiet—the music would be good. At the moment, it was late afternoon, and a technician was just finishing fussing with the wires to one of the microphones.

Today, some of those who wanted to be seen were out. A young starlet with an entourage of bodybuilders was at the bar, drawing her share of attention from the tourists, as was Niall Hathaway, author of the latest publishing phenomenon, a hardcover about a priest brought back from a coma through the prayers of his congregation—and dreams about a life with the woman he had once loved and would love again. The book had been on the hardcover bestseller lists for over a year now; the movie rights had gone for well over a million dollars. Didn't matter. The old guy just wanted to take his newfound wealth and go fishing. Key West was a good place to get on a boat with a rod and a few knowledgeable fishermen.

Kyle wanted to get out on a boat, as well. He wanted to get into the water, fish, dive. Lie back, crisp himself in the sun, drink beer in the breezy heat that usually fell over the water here. And he would. He didn't have his own boat anymore, but Jordan had told him that the
Ibis
was his for the length of his stay, however long it might be. He hadn't had much of a chance to talk to Roger yet; he hadn't had much of a chance to do anything. He'd just arrived via a commuter flight through Miami International from Washington National, and it felt good just to sit in Jordan's tavern. Key West wasn't exactly home, but it was certainly home away from home. It was a good break before starting out in Miami with the local boys from Metro-Dade and Miami. He'd already done some preliminaries, but the Miami authorities had just turned to the FBI, so they were in the early stages of an investigation into what appeared to be a serial crime spree.

Odd, how life moved along—and it
did
move along. His memories of Fallon still hurt, but the pain was like that of an old knee injury; the flesh had healed over, but the joint would never be quite the same. Still, enough time had passed that he could smile now and then, thinking about her, and recollections of good times, of her smile, mingled with the pain, and sometimes it was okay. Still, it hadn't been the tragedy of Fallon's passing that influenced his life most strongly.

Lainie's death had charted the path his life would take. In coming to terms with what had happened then, he had come to believe that only justice could make things better, could ease the pain her horrible death had brought to her family. Not to mention the fact that his father had been suspected of murder, just as Jordan Adair had been. Following the cops and the lawyers around, he'd been horrified to discover just how hard it could be to catch a killer. Crimes of violence fell into two categories: crimes of passion against loved ones, friends or acquaintances; and then the crimes that were growing alarmingly more frequent as time went along—crimes of random violence. As he tagged along behind Jimmy in his search for clues to Lainie's killer, he had come to know that the victims of a crime were often those who were left behind to come to terms with a new life and the injustice of their loss. Nothing could bring back a loved one, but closure, knowing what had happened, helped put people on the healing road to sanity.

Crimes of passion against loved ones, Jimmy had taught him, were often the easiest to solve. Science had come a long way; DNA samples could be used in a courtroom, along with fingerprints, hairs, fibers and more. A rapist could be convicted on a semen sample.

Random crimes, on the other hand were hard to solve. Even if the cops could lift a dozen fingerprints, it wouldn't help if those fingerprints weren't on record somewhere. Random crimes kept the cops looking for needles in haystacks.

Which was why he'd wound up going into the psychological business of profiling killers. It narrowed down that haystack for the cops.

Closure. It was so damned important. Arresting and imprisoning a killer allowed those left behind a sense of justice—at least the killer had been stopped, and others wouldn't have to feel their pain.

His work was important. He was glad that it still broke his heart to study the victims of the killers he sought; pain for others let him know he was still living. Because though, it might have been his stepmother's death that had influenced his life's work, it was his wife's death that continued to haunt his own life. He was grateful that she hadn't been brutally killed, but she had suffered even so, and he couldn't help but be bitter that someone so young, with everything to live for, had died. There was no justice in her death, no rhyme, no reason. No sense. Fallon had not just been young, beautiful and full of life. She'd been kind, caring and warm. She couldn't pass a bum in the street without giving him a dollar; she couldn't let a stray dog run by without setting out a bowl of food. Kids had loved her. She would have been a great mother to the daughter who never managed to draw breath. There was an emptiness inside him as well, a pain that remained for the child he would never hold.

Kyle had been told that time could heal what reason could not. He'd been told that God would give him strength at a time when he couldn't find it in his heart to believe in God. One thing he could say was that time did go on. He was a survivor, so he lived. He breathed, ate—and drank. Heavily, at first. moderately now. He slept with other women. Sometimes there was something of a relationship there, and sometimes he just hoped for good sex. Life went on, and he did his best with his work and with other people. True justice wasn't coming in this lifetime, and he knew it; still, it somehow mattered more than ever now that he make his very best effort toward achieving whatever justice he could help achieve.

“Hello out there!” a husky masculine voice suddenly boomed over the sound system. A lanky, good-looking young man of perhaps twenty-eight or thirty had come to the microphone at the center of the stage, which was to the left of the bar. “Welcome, to our locals, our old friends…and to you out there enjoying a spell in our fantasyland. We're the Storm Fronts, and we're going to keep you entertained this afternoon while you kick back, eat, drink and catch some rays. My name is Joey King, and with me are David Hamel on bass, Sheila Ormsby on keyboards, Randy Fraser on drums and, I'm happy to say, Ms. Madison Adair herself is with us this afternoon on vocals. Ladies and gentlemen…enjoy.”

Kyle was suddenly glad that he was in the shadows, because he certainly wasn't prepared for Madison. Especially Madison as he saw her this afternoon.

The band members filed casually out onto the rustic stage as their names were announced, Madison arriving last. It didn't seem that it had been so long since he saw her last, but it had, of course. It had been a lifetime.

She was the same; she was different. There had still been a little bit of tall, gawky teenager left in her the last time he saw her.

And now…

Now there was not.

She walked with an easy, confident sway. Her smile was as breezy and sensual as a hot summer's day. She was tall and slender, without being too slim; there were definite curves to Madison. She managed to be elegantly slim and voluptuous, all at the same time. Her hair remained red—like a sunset, deep and dark in the underlayers, sun-tinted with searingly gold highlights. She wore it long down her back, thick and wavy. Her face had matured; her features were fine against the lean oval of her bone structure. Her eyes were large, and a brilliant, crystalline blue. She hadn't dressed in a way meant to allure; she didn't need to. She wore a midthigh-length denim shirt with a simple soft-knit shortsleeve pullover in baby blue. Her long, tanned legs were bare, and she wore sandals with inch-high heels.

She was electrifying. The minute she breezed onto the stage, she drew all eyes. It was more than her intense, vibrant, dramatic coloring, more than the stunning beauty with which she'd been genetically blessed. It was her walk, her ease, her confidence, her smile. Her every casual movement seemed to be as naturally, sensually lithe and arrogant as that of a cat.

Yes, she was startling, certainly. Attractive, beyond a doubt.

But, God, oh, God, it was more than that.

She looked like her mother. Exactly like her mother.

Longer hair; shorter skirt, but she might have been Lainie.

Back in the shadows, he felt a grim smile slip onto his face. Funny. She'd always been a little cat. Cute, and more. And he'd always been drawn to her. Yet, curiously, at the same time…

He'd always wanted to keep his distance. There were too many things that Madison could see. And he didn't want to be seen.

Kyle had been doing no more than sipping his beer. Watching Madison, he suddenly downed the rest, then nodded as a bronzed blond waitress in short-shorts came by to silently query him about a refill.

Madison had been his stepsister. She'd often made him smile with her tart comments on her world, observations that were far too wise for her years. Yet he wondered suddenly if it wasn't the fact that she was such a dead ringer for Lainie that had really kept him at arm's length all these years. Was she like Lainie? Lainie's death had been terrible and tragic, true, but Lainie had also been capable of being one hell of a bitch, heedless of whose life she played with—or destroyed.

Madison was speaking now. “Welcome, folks, to A Tavern. It's my dad's place, for those of you who don't know, and I'm always happy to be here. There's something special about Key West. Everybody's kind of free to be themselves down here, and we take pride in taking the time to smell the flowers—and the sea air and dead fish, of course.” Her patter was casual, as the band members tuned up their instruments. She flashed a quick smile at the young man, Joey King, who had introduced the group, and he smiled back. “Anyway,” she added, adjusting her mike on its stand, “we're about to get started with one of Joey's ballads, just fit for the island. It's called, “Love's on the Rocks, So I Just Swim in My Beer.” Chime on in with the refrain anytime you so desire.”

She flashed another of her brilliant smiles. The musicians were suddenly all tuned up, and Madison was swaying with the beat.

She had a great voice. Fluid, solid, husky. The song had a Jimmy Buffett quality to it, which seemed natural, considering the time and place. The tavern grew crowded as the music wafted out to the street; the crowd laughed with the lyrics, clapped appropriately and sang along as invited. By the time the music ended, the place was so full that Kyle wouldn't have been able to see the musicians if they hadn't been standing on a raised stage. The waiters and waitresses, proving themselves to be contortionists, nimbly slid and slithered through the crowd, delivering pitchers of beer, margaritas, and soda, along with food and various outlandish concoctions in souvenir glasses.

The band did another number, a Top 40 rock hit. Then they played another original, this one a softer ballad called “Getting On with You Gone.” Another Top 40 hit, another original, this one about a no-good son of a gun. A few more songs, and then Madison announced the last number before their break. Again it was slow. People were dancing in the limited floor space between the tables and the stage. Toward the end of that final song, Madison looked his way at last.

She might be nerve-rackingly psychic, but he could tell that she hadn't known that he was there. She stared at him, and she suddenly fell silent. Madison could be one tough, sophisticated cookie, but she was staring at him then like a deer caught in headlights. Well, he must have been quite a surprise. They hadn't seen each other in one hell of a long time. He'd stayed away, and in his healing process, he'd realized somewhere along the line that just because she'd somehow known what was going on in his life, he'd maybe tried to blame her for it. And even now, he'd come here for work, not exactly to make peace. Still, he was ready to admit to the ill manners he'd demonstrated in his grief. Yeah, he was ready. But maybe, he thought with an inner shrug, life didn't work that way. The way Madison was looking at him, he felt as if he'd been hanging on to a rope—that she'd just cut clean through. Well, what the hell. They both had their own lives. Maybe there was no reason to make amends.