If Looks Could Kill

Jassy rolled halfway over. “It’s good to have him home, huh?”

“Sure,” Madison murmured, flopping over to tan her back. She heard Kyle cut the motor.

“I like him,” Carrie Anne volunteered. She sat up restlessly. There was only so much simple sunbathing a five-year-old was going to enjoy. “Mommy, can we do something?”

“We are doing something,” Madison teased. “We’re out on the boat.”

“No, can we do something on the boat?”

Madison didn’t have to answer. She’d brought a bagful of things to do for Carrie Anne; she just needed to gather the energy to roll over and find a few of them.

“Want to help me fish?” Kyle asked. He’d dropped the anchor and leaped from the small wheel-house to the deck. Madison was glad of her own dark glasses then. She couldn’t resist an assessment. Kyle looked good. Fit in every way. Broad-shouldered, deeply tanned, sleek, well muscled. She reminded herself that she lived in the Sunshine State—it was filled with hard bodies, scantily clad and spread out on a multitude of beaches. She modeled for part of her living, sharing her time with some of the best male bodies known to man.

His was better.

Real.

Mature.

Stop, Madison, she warned herself.

Despite herself, she imagined him completely naked. She blushed, and was glad of sun and her glasses once again. Carrie Anne, all innocence, was able to look up at Kyle with pure childish pleasure.

“I can help you fish? Really?”

“Really. If you’d like.”

“Sure!” Carrie Anne said excitedly, her eyes alight. “Can I, Mommy?”

“Maybe Mommy will fish, too,” Kyle suggested.

“Mommy is going to dive over the side in a bit. You two fish,” Madison said.

“Jassy?” Kyle asked invitingly.

Jassy stretched and yawned. “Maybe. In a few minutes.”

Kyle took Carrie Anne aft. Madison could vaguely hear the deep drone of his voice and her daughter’s happy laughter in return.

“Five. It’s a great age,” Madison murmured.

“Umm. It’s before a woman finds out about men,” Jassy replied dryly.

Surprised, Madison leaned up and looked at her sister. She smiled. “So what is up with you?”

Jassy shrugged. “Nothing new.”

“You seeing someone?”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“Tell me!”

“Umm…give me a little time, huh? I want to make sure it’s not like a…”

“One-night stand?”

“Well, ‘three-date deal’ would be more like it.”

“Are you sleeping with him?”

“Madison!”

“Fair question.”

“None of your business.”

“If you can’t tell a sister, who can you tell?”

“It’s private.”

“Have you or haven’t you?”

“Okay. Once. Just once.”

“Whoa! So it’s serious.”

“I still need to be careful. I have…reasons. God, he’s charming, though!”

“But who is he?”

“Not yet! And don’t you dare say a word to anyone, promise?”

“What can I say? You haven’t told me anything.”

“Please, I don’t want anyone even knowing there’s a man in my life.”

“All right, all right! But now I’m going to be eaten alive with curiosity.”

“Eaten alive with curiosity! Now that will lead to an interesting autopsy!” Jassy said.

“Ugh.”

“It’s a fascinating science,” Jassy said seriously.

“There’s so very much you can learn from the dead when they can’t speak for themselves anymore.”

“I’ll grant you that.” Madison leaped to her feet. “But look around you. The sun, the sea—it’s a great day. Take a break from the dead, huh? I’m going in. You coming?”

“Yeah,” Jassy agreed. “I’ll be along in a few minutes.”

Madison dived in.

Kyle had brought them to anchor just off a sandbar. They were near a few of the smaller reefs, but even having been away for a while, Kyle would have been careful to anchor far from a coral shelf—anchors damaged the precious living coral. They had remained far to the southwest, avoiding John Pennecamp State Park, an underwater park that protected the reefs and the sea creatures living there. There was no fishing out of Pennecamp, though it was a beautiful place to dive.

Madison swam down, estimating that they were in about twenty-five to thirty feet of water. The water was perfect, warm near the surface, cool and pleasant beneath. She shot down deep, touched and stirred up the sand, then kicked to the surface again. She looked to the boat, ready to shout to Jassy to come join her.

But Jassy had moved aft. Madison heard her laughter, Kyle’s deep voice, Carrie Anne’s shrill giggle of delight over something.

Her invitation to her sister died on her lips.

“How’s it going, guys?” she called instead, keeping her distance. The fishing lines would run with the current, and she definitely wasn’t in the mood to catch a hook.

“Mommy!” Carrie Anne cried happily, running to the portside rail to stare down at her. “I just caught a red snapping!”

“Snapper,” Madison corrected automatically. “Great!”

Kyle joined Carrie Anne at the hull, bronze chest glazed in a sheen of sweat, eyes shaded by his glasses. “I was just thinking, Madison, you might want to come up. Jassy was telling me they had a shark attack out here last week.”

She frowned, looking at him. “Kyle, you know that a shark attack is about as common as being struck by lightning. That diver was spearfishing and holding on to the fish he caught by sticking them in his swimsuit. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not carrying any dead fish.”

“But we’re fishing, and Carrie Anne’s snapper is a pretty big guy. He did some heavy-duty wiggling. Lots of distress signals going out in the water.”

“I just want to swim over the reefs for a minute. You can see me. I’ll come back in just a few minutes.”

Kyle shrugged, but didn’t look happy. He wanted her out of the water, but he knew that his argument wasn’t all that strong. Any offsping—or pseudo-offspring—of Jordan Adair had grown up in the water.

As Madison swam from the boat she could feel his eyes on her. She dived beneath the surface, heading toward the reef.

Water was wonderful. It was the one great escape still known to man. Under the surface, there were as yet no cellular phones. It was beautiful; it was freeing; it was a different world.

She surfaced for air, judging that the coral tips were not more than ten feet beneath her trailing toes. She dived again, swimming carefully around the coral, not touching it. A tiny, brilliant yellow tang darted by her; sea fans waved before her. She very carefully skirted a few dusky red-orange stands of fire coral and came upon a monstrous grouper. The fish looked like a plump, outraged British butler.

She surfaced, then dived again, enjoying herself and oblivious now to the fact that Kyle was watching her from the boat.

A shy moray eel moved away from her with such speed that it looked as if he’d been sucked back into the coral. She swam on to the outskirts of the reef and noted something lying in the sand.

Too bad she hadn’t taken the time to put on a mask and snorkel. She couldn’t see the object clearly, and she was running out of air.

She surfaced, then dived again, going straight for the object in the sand.

As she neared it, she felt the all-too-familiar cold settling over her again.

She was somewhere else. Laughing, then not laughing. Laughter turning to fear.

She was in a hotel room. As a very pretty young redhead.

Black phone on the side table, Holy Bible beneath the phone. TV remote by the Bible. She’d come because she wanted to come. She’d been so happy, then…

The flash of steel.

Madison blinked, desperate to free herself from the vision. She had slipped back into her dream, there under the water. She had to surface.

But she had thrown herself to the ground. And as she returned to the present, she could see the object.

It was an arm. Weighed down with a red building brick.

A human arm, from the elbows to the fingers, with the tips missing. Gnawed. She could see bone at the elbow, raw, puffed, bloated flesh.

She started to scream, inhaling as she did so, and then began to choke.

Her vision was clouding again, this time with blackness.

She couldn’t think….

Kick…

Suddenly, someone was with her. Kyle. They were shooting toward the surface. They broke it.

She gasped for breath. Choked. Her lungs and abdomen were killing her. She breathed deeply. And looked at Kyle.

In the water, at least, his glasses were gone. His green eyes were impatient and angry.

“Madison, damn it, I told you to come out, not scare us all to death by disappearing that way. Jesus Christ! Your daughter is in tears up there! What the hell is the matter—”

“Arm!” she managed to croak.

“What?”

“Kyle, there’s an arm in the water. A human arm. A woman’s arm. Elbow to hand. The fingertips are gone.”

“Madison, maybe it was an eel. Things beneath the water are distorted—”

“Damn it, Kyle, do you think I’m an idiot, or that I’m so nearsighted I can’t tell the difference between an arm and a fish? There’s an arm down there!”

“All right, Madison. Get out, throw me a mask and snorkel. And get me some diving gloves and a few of those large freezer bags from the galley.”

She nodded, still so unnerved that it seemed to make sense just to obey him.

She climbed up the ladder at the aft of the Ibis. Jassy was there, her pallor showing that she knew something was very wrong. But Carrie Anne was standing by Jassy, and Madison had to be careful.

“Carrie Anne, go into the cabin and get one of Grandpa’s masks and snorkels, and a pair of gloves, will you, sweetheart? And hurry for me.”

Carrie Anne was a child, but not a fool. She stared at her mother and nodded grimly, then ran off to do as she had been told.

“What is it?” Jassy asked.

“There’s an arm down there.”

“What?”

Madison sighed with exasperation. “There’s an arm down there!”

“Human?”

“Yes, human, what the hell do you think I mean?”

“I’m going down—”

“You don’t need to. The FBI is on the case.”

“Yes, but he’s the FBI. I’m a pathologist, for God’s sake!”

“He’ll bring it to you.”

That wasn’t good enough for Jassy. Carrie Anne retrieved the mask, snorkel and gloves, and Madison tossed them on down to Kyle, who disappeared.

A moment later, Jassy dived over the side of the boat.

“What’s going on, Mommy?” Carrie Anne asked.

She hesitated. “Somebody had an accident. We’re going to have to go back to shore, honey.”

Carrie Anne slipped her arms around Madison’s waist as they stared at the water. “I’m sorry, Mommy.”

She glanced at her daughter, surprised. “Hey, sweetie, I’m the one who’s sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Carrie Anne said, and hugged her tighter.

Watching the surface of the water, Madison wondered uneasily if the man in her sister’s life could be Kyle. They’d both looked so comfortable that morning, sitting at the table with her father.

Kyle had just arrived in south Florida, she reminded herself. But then, Jassy had said that her affair was just beginning. And most of their pseudofamily had visited Kyle through the years, including Jassy.

Madison fought back a wave of sick jealousy, trying to tell herself again that Kyle was no longer a part of her life.

Still…

Jassy had talked about keeping things quiet. About having “reasons.” Madison felt a knot in her stomach.

A few minutes later, the two broke the surface.

“Got it!” Jassy called cheerfully. “Radio in, Madison. We’ve got to get the law out here.”

Jassy. Cute as a button. Smart as they came. Perfect for Kyle? There wasn’t a squeamish bone in her body. Where Madison had nearly panicked at the sight of the severed arm, Jassy found the discovery intriguing.

Madison radioed in, then took Carrie Anne with her to the galley to make coffee.

A Coast Guard cutter arrived. Madison got her first chance to see Mr. FBI in action when a loudmouthed lieutenant started in on Jassy and Kyle for having picked up the arm. In a cool, polite tone, Kyle informed the man of who he was and why he was in Florida. Then he introduced Jassy and informed the man of her position. All very politely. But by the time he was done, he was receiving ingratiating apologies, and he and Jassy were being invited for a dive down to see if any more body parts might be found.

They both declined. Jassy, however, was upset to realize that the arm wasn’t actually hers to investigate. She was Dade County, and this was Monroe. However, the lieutenant assured her consolingly that since the facilities in Dade were so excellent, the Monroe authorities would likely be glad to allow Dade a look at the specimen. Especially considering the recent occurrences in Dade.

Madison didn’t have anything to say on the way back in, and when they reached her father’s house, she immediately took Carrie Anne in for a shower. Once her daughter had, surprisingly and obligingly, slipped into bed for a nap, Madison closed the door softly on her room and hurried down the corridors of the house.

Her father’s office door was locked. When he was busy and no one was to interrupt him unless death threatened or the sky was falling, he taped a picture of a growling bear on the door.

The picture was in place.

Madison glanced outside and saw that Kyle was stretched out on one of the pool lounges, facedown. His bathing suit was wet, so he’d been in the pool. She slipped out the glass doors and went to his side, taking a seat on the lounge beside his.

He turned over immediately.

Shades in place.

He sat up, as she was doing, looking at her. “Carrie Anne okay?”

“Of course.”

“Does she have any idea what we found?”

“I’m sure she does, but she hasn’t really said anything. I told her that there had probably been an accident of some kind.”

Kyle looked down, nodding. “Yeah, an accident, all right.”

“Kyle, what are you doing down here? In the last year or so, Miami has had its share of bizarre killings. There was the guy who went after the prostitutes on Eighth Street, and the man who murdered the poor homeless people and set them on fire. And—”

“And the cops worked those killings,” he told her. “But they were heavily patterned, easier to profile, and the cops had a better handle on the type of killer they were after.” He hesitated. “Plus, it’s sad but true. Who worries about the homeless except for the rest of the homeless—and some guys who actually work the streets and remember that they’re people, just like the rest of us. And prostitutes…” He lifted his hands. “People have a tendency to think that pimps and prostitutes get what they deserve.”

“No one deserves to be murdered,” Madison said indignantly.

He arched a brow. “Even by the law?”

“I don’t know what you’re saying.”

He shook his head with sudden disgust. “I guess I’m just at that stage of life where I’m not sure what’s right and wrong all the time. The last time I was called out, it was up to Massachusetts. This particular perpetrator had already been convicted of child molestation and murder, but because of the laws, he was given two simultaneous fifteen-year sentences. His behavior in prison was outstanding. He chiseled away at his time, was put into special programs…. He was let out of prison on a weekend pass. In two days, he killed two boys and a little girl. How could such a man ever be let out of jail?”

“So you’re saying there should have been a death penalty and it wouldn’t have happened again?”

He shook his head, looking out at the setting sun for a minute. “What happens when one innocent man or woman is executed? You can’t dig them back up and say you’re sorry. Then again, take a Ted Bundy. Who’s going to say that a man like that doesn’t deserve to die? The parents of his victims must have thought that electrocution wasn’t nearly cruel enough.”

“You’re not answering me,” Madison reminded him softly. “What are you doing down here?”

“Oh…”

She spoke slowly. “Those other killings were solved. And I haven’t heard anything about another suspected serial killer in the news.”

He shrugged. “Because no one quite knows what’s going on yet, except that certain evidence is pointing toward a serial killer.”

“What evidence?”

“Madison, you don’t really want—”

“Kyle!” she said, then hesitated, still not willing to tell him about her latest dream. “I can’t get as excited about a severed arm as Jassy, but I’d like to know what’s going on,” she said firmly. “I live alone with a five-year-old and a housekeeper. I’d like to keep my child as safe as possible.”

“Well, this man isn’t after children.”

“You’re certain it’s a man?”

He nodded. “I am.”

“Others aren’t, but you are?”

He smiled. A crooked smile. “I’m a profiler. It’s what I do. And I know it’s a man.”

Madison found herself smiling, as well, shaking her head. “I thought you weren’t even starting until Monday?”

“I got all the paperwork right before coming down. And I think I have a good picture of what we’re looking for.” He hesitated, looking at her through his dark lenses, then shrugged. “First month, right around the fifteenth, a young woman is reported missing. Beautiful young woman, a Debra Miller. She’d talked to her co-workers about a special date she was going on, no name given. She goes home. Goes out. No one knows where. The neighbors remember seeing her jump into her car and wave goodbye.”

“And…her body was later found?”

He nodded. “In the Everglades. Badly decomposed.”

“God, I remember that. That was in the newspapers.”

“Next month, a similar situation. This time it’s a young Latino mother of two, recently divorced.”

“And her body—”

“She remains missing.”

“Well, then, perhaps—”

“Perhaps she’s just missing. True. Third month. A third victim, twenty-five-year-old Julie Sabor, who’d very excitedly told her co-workers there was a new mystery man in her life, disappears. There’s a possibility she’s a Jane Doe in the Dade County morgue right now.”

Any of them could have been the woman in her dream, she thought unhappily.

“But, still…”

“All on or around the fifteenth of the month, all young and beautiful, all with plenty of loving, caring family.” He studied her for a moment. “You didn’t know anything?”

She shook her head. “I remember there was a story in the Herald when Debra Miller’s body was found. And I might have seen an article about a disappearance, but there haven’t been any sensational news stories, and you know how things are down here. The local stations thrive on sensationalism.”

“Well, the cops haven’t let too much out yet. They’re afraid they’ll lose what few fragile bits of information they share with the killer.”

Madison felt him watching her through his dark glasses. The sun was nearly down. He didn’t really need them anymore. The light now was part of what made the Keys so spectacular. Pink light, gentle light. Soft streaks in pastel colors.

“I wish you weren’t divorced,” he muttered.

“What?”

He shrugged, lifting his hands, studying his palms. “What I see so far is a killer every bit as clever and charming as Bundy. He’s smart. His psychological problems are incredibly deep-seated, and well hidden. He’s growing increasingly violent, and more obsessed with mutilation with each murder. He has an association with the middle of the month—not the full moon, but the middle of the month, doesn’t matter what the moon is doing. He’s attractive and accepted. He could walk into the best restaurant in the state and look exactly as if he belonged there. I think that he’s looking for something from his victims…and doesn’t get it. Or hasn’t gotten it yet. Then he grows angry. And then…”

His voice trailed away, and he looked at her, his mouth grim. “I just wish you were still married, because I don’t think this guy goes for married women. He’s looking to charm someone, and he wants something in return.”

She exhaled a long breath, looking out across the pool. “The fact that serial killers exist in the modern world is not a good reason to stay married, Mr. Montgomery.” She stared at him suddenly. “Would you give Jassy this warning?”

He frowned. “Jassy is just so…She’s so full of common sense.”

Madison arched a brow. “And I’m not? Kyle, how on earth could you pretend to know that now? To judge me now?”

He ran his fingers through his dark hair impatiently. “I guess I just can’t say the right thing to you, Madison. I care about all of you—Jassy, you, Kaila. I don’t want anything to happen to any of you. Jassy always has her nose in a book. Kaila is married. You’re out in the world. I worry more about you.”

Madison stood. “Don’t try to profile all of us, Kyle,” she told him quietly.

“For God’s sake, Madison, I’m not trying to be offensive. You’re a model. Out with photographers, other models, men. You’re more susceptible.”

“Right. Any handsome, charming man comes my way and I’ll just say, ‘Why the hell not?’ and drive away with him.”

“There you go again, acting defensive. You’re divorced! You’re in a dating mode!”

“Excuse me, then. I’m just going to go get dressed and put on some makeup. After all, my dad’s having a party. I need to show up in a dating mode,” she told him tartly, then smiled sweetly and spun around.

“Madison!” he called after her.

She didn’t stop.

“Madison!”

She turned. “What?”

He walked to her, setting his hands firmly on her shoulders. “For the love of God, Madison, I don’t want anything to happen to you. And…”

“And?”

He hesitated, still studying her. “And I’m glad that Jimmy Gates has left you alone, and that you’re not part of this case.” He paused, frowning. “He has left you alone—right?”

“You’re mistaken if you think that Jimmy forces me into helping him.”

“So he still calls on you for your hocus-pocus,” he said bitterly.

Madison stared at him, feeling the resentment building in her heart once again. “He doesn’t always call on me.”

“You call him?” he demanded incredulously.

“When I feel I need to, yes, I do! I didn’t ask for whatever it is that I have. I hate it. I really, truly hate it. It’s terrible to have to hurt for other people. But it’s worse to feel that you can do something and not do it. It’s worse to think that you could help ease someone’s suffering and ignore it.”

He winced. “Madison, listen, I just have a bad feeling on this one. My turn to have a bad feeling, a really bad feeling. You need to keep your distance.”

He hesitated for a minute. She was painfully aware of the heat emanating from his fingers as he clenched her shoulders. She liked Kyle’s hands. They were big. He had long fingers. He had his father’s hands. Artist’s hands. Capable of a light touch, and yet very powerful.

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