If Looks Could Kill

He smiled again with a casual shrug, tugging on his baseball cap. “Maybe. We’ll see.”

He turned then, walking toward the left wing of the house. She was glad that her bedroom was to the right.

Get a grip, Madison, she warned herself, hurrying through the shadowed house. Her fingers were trembling. Great. All those years. She’d married, then divorced. She’d found a life; she was happy. Or at least, she got on just fine. And here he was, back for a matter of hours, and she was shaking.

Fuck him.

She winced and tiptoed toward Carrie Anne’s room, cracking the door and looking in on her sleeping daughter. She walked into the room, stood by the bed and smoothed back her daughter’s hair. Carrie Anne was beautiful. She was blond, like her dad. Her features were fine, like Madison’s own. She had wide, generous lips, and the best smile in the world.

She’d made a lot of mistakes, Madison thought, for a lot of reasons. But even if her marriage had been a pathetically bad mistake and her own fault, it had surely stood a purpose, and she knew that her ex-husband thought so, too. Carrie Anne was worth whatever heartache they had caused one another. And oddly enough, they were doing a fine job of keeping Carrie Anne’s best interests at heart.

She planted a kiss on Carrie Anne’s forehead, then walked through the expansive bath that connected their two rooms. She entered her own room, allowing the night-light from the bathroom and the patio lights from beyond to serve as illumination. She flung herself back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. She loved her dad’s “shack.” Her room was large, her bed was plush, and she—like her other siblings—had a complete entertainment center, as well as a working fireplace for those few nights each year when the temperature dipped as far down as the low forties. Her father had spared no expense on his children’s part-time rooms. Carrie Anne’s decor was handsomely Disney, with a little Dr. Seuss thrown in. Madison herself had opted for a white-marble floor with ebony throw rugs and a red-black-and-blue motif that was vivid and passionate. Roger Montgomery, a frequent visitor, had applauded her taste, telling her that she was far more artistic than she was willing to admit.

“Just like my—” he’d begun.

“Your what?” she’d asked with a smile.

“Son,” he said quietly, looking away. “Kyle. He can draw like a son of a gun.”

“I didn’t know that,” she’d murmured, straining to maintain her smile.

“My point exactly. Kyle doesn’t like to let people know he can draw. That might make him too much like his old man.”

“I’m sure he loves you very much.”

“Well, I guess you can love someone and not want to be like them.”

“Maybe. What about Rafe?”

Roger had shrugged. “Rafe’s a great kid, but he can’t manage a stick figure. He’s a mathematician, like his mother.”

“Ah. Well…”

And then she’d managed to change the subject.

She sat up now and slid off the bed. She stepped out of her shoes, slipped off her skirt, blouse and bra, and dug under her pillow for her nightgown, a tailored cotton confection from Victoria’s Secret. As she did up the buttons, she caught sight of herself in the mirror over her dresser.

For a moment she felt a terrible chill and stood dead still.

Oh, God, she did look like her mother! So much so that it was really frightening.

She turned away from the mirror and curled into bed. She put her head down and reminded herself that her life was good. She adored her daughter; she had a good job and good times, and everything was great.

Everything was great, and yet…

All right, there was a lot that sucked, too. Somehow, she hadn’t noticed that. Not until Kyle came striding back into her life tonight.

She prayed for sleep. Kyle was here. He would help solve whatever crime he was here to investigate—or the killer he was after would move on and remain a mystery to everyone. One way or the other, Kyle would leave. Maybe he would keep coming home for holidays, now that he’d been here, but he wasn’t really a part of her life again.

She tossed and turned.

Kyle was here. After her dream. Reporting to work on Monday. And Jimmy was going to pick her up on Monday. She wished she knew what was going on.

She wanted to sleep; she didn’t want to sleep. She was afraid she would dream. She shivered. One way or the other, she had to sleep.

Eventually she did.

And no dreams invaded her slumber.

She loved weekends. Adored them. Not that her schedule was such a brutal one—she knew many women who worked much harder!—but she did have a child in kindergarten, and she did wake up at six-thirty most mornings to get Carrie Anne to school on time. That made Saturdays and Sundays great days, when the alarm didn’t buzz rudely in her ear and she could sleep as late as she wanted.

Not that morning.

It was as if her eyelids had been fixed with robotic alarms themselves. They just suddenly sprang open, and she was wide-wake, staring around her room, where light was just beginning to filter in.

She closed her eyes and wiggled down into the covers. She told herself how deliciously comfortable her bed was. How she could sleep for hours if she wished.

No good.

After a minute, she sat up. She glanced at her watch and swore softly at herself in disgust. It wasn’t even six yet. She wondered bitterly if there wasn’t some silly system inside of her that wanted to go out on the boat with Kyle.

Too bad. She wasn’t going. Carrie Anne was still sleeping, after all.

Thank God for Carrie Anne. Her daughter would keep her from foolishly seeking out the company of Kyle Montgomery.

She had barely started the water running before she heard a little voice.

“Mommy, can I come in with you?”

She froze, then pulled the curtain back as the water beat down around her. “Hi, sweetie. What are you doing awake? Did I wake you up? I’m sorry.”

Carrie Anne, large blue eyes wide, solemnly shook her head. She lifted her hands and grimaced. “I woke up. Just like that.” She frowned. “There isn’t school, is there? We wouldn’t have come down to Grandpa’s place if there was school, right?”

“No, there isn’t school. Put your shower cap on and come on in.”

Carrie Anne squiggled out of her Barbie nightgown and undies and piled her blond hair into a cap. Madison helped tuck her daughter’s curls beneath the elastic rim before bringing Carrie Anne in with her. They both sudsed up and rinsed off, Madison making sure Carrie Anne did her toes and ears, before Carrie Anne asked her, “What are we doing today, Mommy?”

Madison hesitated. She turned off the shower, reached for towels and swung Carrie Anne from the shower to the plush rug at its side.

She took all that time, but then it seemed that she talked before she really thought. “Want to go out on the boat?”

“With Grandpa?” Carrie Anne asked.

Madison shook her head, wrapping a towel around her daughter’s. “I don’t think Grandpa’s coming. He’s really into one of his books right now. But an old friend is down…He used to be my stepbrother.”

“How can somebody used to be your brother?” Carrie Anne asked, truly mystified.

Madison opened her mouth to answer, then shrugged. “Well, once his dad and my mom were married. So we were what people call stepbrother and stepsister. But you know that my mommy died—”