“How so?”

Kyle thought about it a minute. “She liked to hold things against people. If my father did something she didn’t like, she always let him know that Jordan would be happy to be with her again. She did it subtly. And if she knew something that she could hold against you…she used it.”

“Like what?”

“Like she caught me in the back seat of my old Chevy once, with the prom queen, when I was in high school. It hadn’t gotten too serious, just a little heavy petting. My father would have hit the roof, though, because he was convinced that Patty Lawton—the prom queen—was out to get pregnant and trap me into marriage, and my father was determined that I was going to college. So anytime I wasn’t doing exactly what Lainie wanted, she subtly threatened me with exposure. She always knew how to hit just the right buttons with people. It’s hard to explain. Lainie manipulated people.”

“Strange, isn’t it, how differently we all see people? To me, Lainie Adair was a star, elegant, ageless, beautiful—on a pedestal. I wouldn’t have thought she had a mean bone in her body.”

“Ask Jassy how many bones are in the human body. Lainie had that many,” Kyle said dryly.

“She couldn’t have been all bad!” Jimmy protested.

“No one is all bad. The world isn’t black-and-white. Everything has shades of gray,” Kyle agreed. “Lainie did have her good points.” He shrugged then, “You’re right, it all depends on your point of view. The girls loved her. She was a good mother to Madison and Kaila, and she could be decent to her various stepchildren. Could be. She planned elaborate birthday parties for all of us. She loved to buy gifts. And she was proud and delighted when we did something well. Lainie was…unique. And no one deserves to die the way she did.” Kyle fell silent, remembering how he had come from his room, alarmed when he heard his father’s shouts of horror. Rushing to the bedroom, he had seen Lainie in his father’s arms. Roger was crying out, choking, tears streaming down his face. Lainie was dead. In a huge pool of blood. Her killer’s knife had struck through to a kidney, and she had died, in fear and agony.

He gave himself a shake as an old feeling of unease swept over him. At first, he had to admit, he’d thought that Lainie must finally have infuriated his father to such a point that Roger faced a moment of temporary insanity—and killed her. But he had become convinced that no one could feign grief the way Roger suffered it that night. And he believed in his father.

Then, and now.

“What is it?” Jimmy asked.

“Nothing. We’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, right? Lainie was many things. I pray she rests in peace,” Kyle murmured. And yet, remembering Lainie, he found himself thinking about Madison again.

Madison was nothing like Lainie.

And he cared more about her than he dared admit to himself, much less anyone else. But they’d both been hurt. They knew to keep their distance.

Well, he couldn’t keep his distance right now. He had to stick to Madison. Like glue. Though how the hell he was going to manage it, he didn’t know.

Jimmy left him at the airport, where he boarded the small plane. Despite the fact that the engines were noisy as hell, he dozed. At the airport, he hailed a taxi. The driver was slow, and as he sat in the back seat, Kyle began to feel twinges of unease.

It was nearly midnight as they drove through the quiet streets toward Jordan’s house.

The closer they got, the greater Kyle’s sense of unease grew. With Jordan in Miami, Madison was alone at the house, with only her father’s maid, out in her room by the pool.

The uneasier Kyle felt, the slower the taxi driver seemed to roll along the street.

“Can you hurry it up a little?” he asked the man impatiently.

The cabdriver muttered beneath his breath, then hit the gas with such enthusiasm that Kyle was pressed against the seat by the force of it. Still, they sped along the last streets and around the last corner with a vengeance—wheels spinning and squealing.

“Thanks,” Kyle said, handing the driver a more-than-ample sum. “Keep the change.”

He stared at the house. The outside lights were all on; everything looked fine. But appearances could be deceiving.

Out of habit, he tapped his chest to make sure his shoulder holster and gun were where they should be. Then he approached the house, reaching into his pocket for his keys, moving quickly and quietly along the drive to the front door.

Just as he turned the key in the lock, he heard the first scream.

Short, high-pitched, seeming to quiver in the night air.

It was instantly followed by a second scream, this one long, terrified…bloodcurdling.

For a split second, he froze.

Then he burst into the house, drawing his gun and racing down the hallway.

Just as Madison screamed once again.

12

She was in the house again. Roger Montgomery’s old house in Coconut Grove. The house where Lainie had died.

But there was more than one hallway.

Each hallway ran in a different direction. Silver mist lay in all the hallways, billowing thickly to a point about waist-high, thinning from there on up. She could hear her mother’s voice, and she knew that she had to reach Lainie, but she wasn’t sure which hallway she should be following.

She began to run.

She tried first one hallway, then the next. Lainie’s cries were growing louder, more distressed, yet Madison couldn’t tell from what direction her cries were coming. Each time she tried to turn, the fog became thicker and thicker, swirling around her as if a gust of wind had come along. Suddenly the fog began to settle back to the ground, and she heard her mother’s voice—and there was only one hallway left.

She wanted to run, but she couldn’t run anymore. She tried, she willed herself to run, but her legs felt like lead. She was moving in slow motion, trying to call out, but unable to utter a single sound.

As she moved through the mist in the hallway, she saw the knife. It was high in the air, caught in the silver glimmer of the fog.

Suddenly it moved, slashing through the air.

She heard her mother’s scream.

Felt her mother’s pain.

Felt it as the knife slashed into Lainie’s side. Cutting flesh, bone, sinew…

She tried and tried to scream. She knew that she was in a nightmare, where so often it was impossible to scream. But she needed to scream. She needed to awaken.

She saw the knife again, suspended in the silver mist, something dripping off its razor-sharp edge.

Blood.

Drip, drip, drip…

A pool of blood lay on the floor beneath the knife. Lainie’s voice was forever silent.

Madison knew the nightmare; she had lived it. She struggled to awaken, but she was falling deeper and deeper into it. The knife couldn’t be simply suspended in the air. Someone was holding the knife. Someone had wielded the knife. Still held the knife, would kill and kill again.

The knife was being held in a hand.

A gloved hand…

With a wrist, an arm…

Swallowed by darkness. Yet if she looked, waited for the fog to recede, she would see the killer. She had to see the killer, had to stop him from killing again, but the fog was so thick.

Then it began to fade away.

If she looked hard, really hard…

The knife was rising again. She couldn’t see them, but she felt the eyes of the killer on her. Watching her. Killer is watching! Killer is watching!

The knife was coming toward her. Any second now, it would fall, because the killer could see her, though she couldn’t see him. The blade was so sharp, still dripping with her mother’s blood….

Coming closer, closer, closer…

She turned to run, heard the blade swiping through the air. At last…