“Definitely,” Madison agreed.

“It is going to storm soon,” Kyle commented.

“Storms are great to watch from here,” the waitress said cheerfully.

She left the table, hips swaying slightly. A nice girl, friendly, vivacious.

Like their killer’s victims, Madison thought suddenly.

She looked from the remains of her fish to Kyle and realized, as his eyes touched hers, that he was thinking the same thing.

“Think you ought to warn her?” Madison asked.

Kyle didn’t seem surprised, or unnerved, that she had read his thoughts.

“Yeah, probably. When we leave, I’ll suggest that she not go anywhere with anyone without telling someone close exactly what she’s doing.” He looked at Madison. “You need to live the same way. Don’t go anywhere with anyone without someone else knowing exactly what you’re doing.”

“Kyle, I’m not a fool!”

“Damn it, Madison, don’t be so defensive. We’re not at war.”

“But I’m all right. I’ve been living my life—”

He exhaled on a long, explosive note. “Please! Madison, I’m worried about you.”

“Well, you know, Kyle,” she said quietly, “I was really worried about you at one time, but you were a grown man and there was nothing I could do except to accept the fact that you didn’t want me around. I’m grown up, now, too, Kyle. You don’t need to be worried about me.”

He stood up so suddenly that his chair nearly toppled over. He caught it, sliding it with a vengeance beneath the table.

He caught the waitress near the hostess stand and paid the check. Madison watched as he spoke with the girl, being both charming and earnest.

She seemed charmed in response, but she was an open, friendly girl, and she turned back to Madison, smiling sweetly and waving.

Obviously she thought that they were a couple.

They left the restaurant and drove to Carrie Anne’s school in silence, except for a few brief directions.

Kyle drove on to her house. Madison was quiet as Carrie Anne chatted excitedly about her school program, coming at the end of the year.

Kyle was good with her. He knew how to listen to kids. He seemed as interested in her kindergarten program as he would be in some crime-lab technique.

He dropped them at Madison’s house, and though he surveyed the outside of her Old Spanish golf-course home, he refused to come in when she politely offered him coffee, even though Carrie Anne excitedly urged him to do so.

“I have to get back to work,” he told Carrie Anne sadly, scrunching up his nose. “First day on the job down here. I have to be good.”

“You can’t come in just for a minute?” Carrie Anne asked wistfully.

He shook his head, his eyes strangely clouded, as he reached out the window and tousled her hair. “There’s nothing I’d rather do than spend the afternoon with such a lovely young lady, but I really have to go to work.”

Carrie Anne accepted that. Madison felt a strange tremor snake along her spine as she watched Kyle.

He had meant that. Of course. He had to be wondering if his own daughter would have been like Carrie Anne if she ever had a chance to draw breath.

Then his eyes were on hers. And she wasn’t thinking about children, or the killer on the loose. She was looking back at him, and the tremors that raked her were suddenly as hot as flaming coals.

Sex.

Just sex.

If they were alone…

If he was naked…

Oh, God.

She waved, took Carrie Anne’s hand, and headed quickly into the house.

7

His phone rang at five.

Kyle reached over and answered it, staring at the clock as he did so. His alarm had been set for six.

It was Jimmy on the phone. “We’ve got a torso.”

Kyle rubbed his chin. “Where are you?”

“Out on the Trail. Right off Krome.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“We might have something. A clue.”

“Yeah?”

“A tattoo just below the navel. A rose, with thorns. The medical examiner on the job out here says it looks new.”

“A rose…with thorns?”

“There were fresh roses in Maria Garcia’s house, the still-missing second victim. And our Jane Doe in the morgue—”

“Rose tattoo, upper left buttock,” Kyle said, quoting from the forensics report he had read while still in Washington. “I’ll be with you as soon as possible.”

He hung up and jumped out of bed.

Their killer had revealed something of himself, leaving his calling cards.

Roses…

With thorns.

Kaila Adair Aubrey wound her fingers into the sheets at her sides and gritted on her teeth, staring up at the ceiling.

“Talk to me, baby, talk to me.”

Talk.

Men wanted women to talk.

She just didn’t have a damned thing left to say right now. It wasn’t that Dan wasn’t a decent lover; he was. Or he could be. But sex seemed like everything else in their lives to her right then—all him. And this just wasn’t doing a damned thing for her. She wasn’t in the mood for a big fight or a showdown; she didn’t know how to articulate all that she had to say as yet. And if she couldn’t get her thoughts out right, he would dismiss her completely—as males were so wont to do—by assuring himself that she was just being a bitch with PMS and he was the poor, misunderstood, hardworking provider. “Kaila…” He groaned her name.

At least he still had that right.

She’d been growing afraid over the past few months, with his everlasting work hours, his constant business dinners, that he was sleeping with someone else. She still thought he might be, and the thought hurt, but it was the same as everything else. When she even hinted at such a fear, he got hurt and furious and impatient. Of course, she was in a better position than lots of young wives with small children who were worried about their husbands; she could run home to a rich daddy. No, it wasn’t the money that kept her quietly in her home and with her husband. It was the insecurity, the confusion, the not knowing. Was there something—someone?—else out there for her? Or did she love her husband? Was he really what she wanted? Was she just tired, feeling old, feeling used up, feeling that she’d never be decently thin again after so many children so quickly? God forgive her, she was grateful that the kids were fine and healthy, but…

But she was a mess.

And would she go crazy if she let Dan go and he did fall in love with someone else, forgetting all about her? She did love him, she did, she was just so…

Wound up.

And not in the mood.

But she’d been obliging rather than argumentative, though right now she simply wasn’t involved at all, despite the fact that he was all slick and sweaty and grinding into her.

At last he climaxed. Fell on her. Heavy. Rolled to the side.

He tousled her hair.

They lay in silence.

A few minutes later he started touching her. She gritted her teeth again, but then, to her surprise, she began to feel aroused. She pressed into him. They kissed. His hands ran up and down her. She eased against him, rubbing her body against his. Nuzzled the thick mat of hair around his navel.

“Come on, do me, baby, do me,” he groaned.

It was as if she had been doused with cold water.

Kaila held still for a minute, her head lowered against his belly, her lower lip caught between her teeth. She knew what he wanted, of course. And she could have slid on down the length of his body and taken him in her mouth, just like he wanted. Except, she just didn’t feel like it.

She didn’t feel like talking him into an erection, or working hard at arousing him, either. She wanted to be seduced, swept off her feet.

She stood up suddenly. Her husband opened his eyes, staring at her in surprise.

“I can’t do anything but oatmeal,” she said irritably, walking toward the bathroom. “The kids will be waking up.”