At long last…

She began to scream. Scream and scream and scream…

Arms came around her, holding her, shaking her.

“Madison!”

She awoke in terror, wildly fighting the man who held her.

“Madison!”

Her eyes were wide open, but it still took her several long seconds to realize that Kyle was the man trying to hold her, despite her violent struggles.

Martique was standing in the bedroom doorway in her flannel pajamas; she’d come running without grabbing her housecoat or slippers. “Dear Lord, Madison!” she murmured, concerned. She crossed herself.

Madison looked at Kyle, who was studying her with grave concern. He was still in his business suit, but he’d loosened his tie and opened the first few buttons of his shirt.

The air-conditioning was hitting her sweat-soaked body, and she started to tremble. He smoothed back her hair. “Are you all right? Madison, you were dreaming, right?”

She nodded.

“I’ll bring you something,” Martique said, staring sympathetically. “What would you like?”

“Something strong,” Kyle said. He glanced at Martique. “A double shot of Jack Black.”

“I can’t drink bourbon,” Madison said.

“That was for me!” Kyle teased. “You just scared me out of ten years of life.”

She flushed, looking at him, realizing that she was wearing a short, sheer black nightgown that she had purposely chosen to be provocative—just in case he really came back—and that he was sitting casually next to her on her bed while Martique looked on. But Martique didn’t seem to be concerned with the circumstances, only with Madison’s state of mind. “I’ll fix you both something good, and no arguments, young lady,” she told Madison.

After Martique left them, Kyle ran his knuckles over her hot, flushed cheeks. “Tell me about it.”

“There’s really nothing to tell. I was dreaming about the night my mother was killed. It was so real, so frightening. As if I were living it all over again. I felt as if the killer were close to me again. As if he could see me when I was trying to reach Lainie.”

Kyle was quiet for a minute. His fingers were interlaced with hers now, and he didn’t meet her eyes, just looked down at their hands.

“You shouldn’t have gotten involved in this.”

She shrugged, not willing to admit that she was ready to agree with him at the moment. She shook her head. “I’ve worked with Jimmy before. Just nothing like this…I don’t know. I mean, all murders are bad. Someone winds up dead, and dead is gone, and the mothers, wives, husbands, kids, lovers, are all left hurting, no matter how someone died. This is just so violent and so vicious…. I guess it’s bringing back what happened to my mother.”

“They’re all redheads,” Kyle murmured. He looked at her. “Like Lainie.”

“Harry Nore—”

“Harry Nore is out,” Kyle said bluntly.

“What?” Madison gasped, rising to her knees. “Kyle, if he’s out, maybe he’s the one committing these horrible crimes. Kyle—”

“Jimmy Gates has every cop in the state looking for him, so he’ll be found.”

“Oh, Kyle, maybe—”

“Madison, I’m going to tell you the same thing I told Jimmy. I don’t believe that Harry Nore can possibly be guilty of these crimes. What woman in her right mind is going to get excited about a romantic weekend with a man like Harry Nore? He grins like a baboon, smells worse than a goat, and is so evidently off his rocker—”

“They let him out of an asylum for the criminally insane,” Madison reminded him. “Maybe he’s cured.”

“Right. And that’s going to make him as handsome and charming as Sean Connery, right? This guy picks up young, beautiful women. A broken, crazed old lunatic is not going to turn into Don Juan, trust me.”

Madison swallowed uneasily, closed her eyes and sighed. “I know they found him with the murder weapon. He had the knife, and it had my mother’s blood on it. But I never thought it was him. It just didn’t feel right.”

Kyle lifted his hands in an exasperated motion. “A point that I was far too young and inexperienced to pay attention to at the time. Think about it. There was Harry Nore, in a neighbor’s kitchen, happily cutting bread. Yet when you ‘saw’ the killer, saw him holding the knife to kill your mother, he was wearing gloves. Flesh-toned gloves, the kind doctors use.”

Madison nodded. “Well, if it wasn’t him, and if the real killer was caught at the scene of the murder, all he needed to do was dispose of the knife—”

“And be clever enough to slip by me, you, Kaila, my father, and all the cops and everyone else flooding the property within minutes.”

Madison shivered again. She was soaking, and the air-conditioning was cold. And as the dream faded, her vanity was kicking in. She felt sticky and sweaty, her hair was plastered around her face, and she didn’t feel the least bit enticing.

She eased away from Kyle, rising from the other side of the bed. “I’m going to shower quickly.”

He nodded.

Once inside the bathroom, though, she was amazed to feel unnerved again.

She looked out the door.

“I’ll be here,” he promised her.

Madison slipped out of her gown and into the shower, turning the water on warm and letting it sluice over her face and body for long moments before she scrubbed her hair and sudsed lavishly. As she rinsed conditioner from her hair, she heard Kyle’s voice.

“Madison?”

“What?” she called.

He stepped into the shower behind her. Naked.

“I didn’t want to scare you,” he said.

His arms slipped around her, drawing her back against himself. He lifted her wet hair from her shoulders and neck, kissing her nape. His hands eased up her torso, caressing her breasts. She closed her eyes as electric flashes of pure sweet fire instantly began to sweep along her limbs.

His kisses moved lower down her spine. His tongue teased at the small of her back; then he turned her around, still kissing and caressing her flesh. Each stroke and touch grew more intimate and so incredibly erotic, blended with the heat of the water cascading down upon them both, that she began to fear that she would fall. She dug her fingers into his shoulders, desperately whispering his name. He showed no mercy. Her limbs felt like water, yet mercury seemed to tear throughout her, until she couldn’t bear it anymore and she cried out his name. He was on his feet then, kissing her lips, and their tongues melded, with the taste of their lovemaking. Then he turned her, fingers laced with hers as he braced her against the tile. He entered her from behind, and the water poured down, hot and slick. He moved with an urgent passion, swiftly lifting her to a place she’d thought she couldn’t possibly reach again so quickly. The thundering in her ears compounded with that in her heart, with the pulse in her body. Then he ground against her hard, fast, his body knotting with tension, and the volatile force of his climax precipitated her own. She felt as if the rush of the shower were around her and within her as the hot seed of his desire spilled into her.

She collapsed back into his arms without a murmur of protest. She heard him sigh after a long while, and she realized they’d been in there so long, the water was growing cold.

Kyle reached over and turned off the water. He stepped from the shower, reaching back for her with a towel, wrapping her in it when she came against him.

“Martique made hot brandied tea,” he told her.

“Is it still hot?”

“I’m sure it is. She brought it in a coffee carafe, then left us to our privacy.”

“She knows,” Madison murmured, turning around and leaving the bathroom.

“So what?” Kyle asked, drying himself, then wrapping his towel around his waist and following her out to the bedroom. “She doesn’t seem to be shocked. What difference does it make? You’re over twenty-one. So am I.” He poured two mugs of tea, then handed her one. “We’re not biologically related, and as I pointed out before—although you assured me at the time that the situation wouldn’t arise—we’re not going to have children with pointed heads or anything.”