“I made the whole thing easy for you, then.”

“How?”

“Whatever happens, it’s my fault.”

“I…I don’t want to think about that. But I do want to thank you for this afternoon,” she told him.

“Oh. Then I shouldn’t be jumping on you.”

“It was thoughtful.”

“So you forgive me?”

She shook her head. “You know I can’t drink.”

“I was counting on it. Anyway, we’ve got to hurry. We do have to get back. There’s only one plane,” he reminded her.

She walked ahead of him, straight into the shower.

She thought he might follow her.

He didn’t, and she chided herself for her sense of disappointment. They did need to catch a plane, after all. Still, he was curt when she emerged, showering and changing very quickly himself, then pensive on the plane.

This time, she pretended to read a magazine while he stared restlessly out the window, but she couldn’t keep herself from wondering what was going on, what had happened to change his mood.

It was late when they headed to the airport lot and got the Jeep. Kyle drove.

“I take it Carrie Anne is spending another night at my sister’s?” Madison asked dryly.

He nodded. “I told Dan that one of us would get her after kindergarten tomorrow.”

“Did you tell him we were married?”

Kyle nodded. “But I asked him not to say anything to Carrie Anne.”

“What about Darryl?”

“He knows.”

“How about my father? And yours?”

Kyle nodded, then glanced her way. “I made a lot of phone calls while you were sleeping.”

“Did you happen to talk with anyone in the Storm Fronts? We’re supposed to go into the studio Thursday and Friday.”

She wondered why she wasn’t surprised when he nodded. “Your dad told me, and he gave me some phone numbers. I got hold of Joey. There’s no reason why you can’t keep your date with them.”

“Great,” she murmured. “I’ll just leave everything in your capable hands.”

He didn’t answer, choosing to ignore her sarcasm.

By the time they pulled into her drive, she was tired. She opened the door and keyed the alarm, choosing to ignore Kyle. It was nearly midnight. She should have been starving, but she wasn’t. She could have fixed something for Kyle, but she wasn’t in the mood. Let him fend for himself.

She went into her bedroom, showered quickly and donned a nightgown. She could hear him moving around in the kitchen. She went to bed, wondering if she should talk to him; but she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t turn on the television; instead, she pretended to sleep.

But he didn’t come into her room, and in time, the pretense became real.

Killer watched her.

Enraged.

There she was, smiling at another man. Laughing. She had leaned on him, needed him, made him want her, love her, but she’d only been teasing.

Like the other one. The one who had claimed to care about him, yet meant to tell the truth about him. So that he would be an outcast. Thrown out. Taken away. The other one. Lainie. With her red hair and brilliant smile, all that beauty hiding a heart of ice. A rose, God, she had the beauty of a rose! But her thorns were vicious. Deadly. She could stab beneath the skin, cut to the heart, draw blood….

And now…

This one.

They could have made it. She could have eased all the pain and fury in his heart. He would have taken good care of her kids. Kids liked him. They always had. She could have loved him, but she was just a redheaded bitch in heat like the other one. She’d chosen not to love him. Maybe he would give her one more chance. Force her to see him, to be with him, to realize all that he had to give. Maybe…

He clenched his hands into fists at his sides and turned away.

He walked to his car and started to drive. Aimlessly.

He found himself on Seventy-ninth Street. Harlot Hangout, as he liked to call it. He saw one girl in particular. The bitch had dyed her hair a funky pinkish-red. It wasn’t the red hair he liked, but it didn’t matter. Not tonight.

He picked her up, paid her.

In a cheap downtown motel room, which he made her pay for so that he wouldn’t be seen, he beat her up.

And slit her throat.

It turned out that the funky hair was a wig. He started to laugh. He’d made a mistake.

No. She’d made a mistake.

He decided just to leave her. He didn’t allow himself to leave his signature on her body or anywhere near her. Let the cops think that this one had gotten it from a greedy pimp.

Killer drove away, laughing.

A wig. A damned wig. Her mistake.

The dream seemed to sneak up on Madison. First there was mist, then the mist began to settle, and she heard talking. Arguing.

She thought at first that she was a little girl again, back in Roger Montgomery’s big house in the Grove, where her mother had died. It sounded like Lainie’s voice, arguing. Then she realized that this voice was very different. Husky. She could also hear a male voice. Deep. Throaty. She knew it.

She didn’t know it.

“Love me. Do it, just love me. You promised, you bitch. You smiled, you said that—”

“No, no, I didn’t—”

“You will. Now stand still. You stand still, and you whisper that you love me, and you make love to me. Now. You don’t want to upset the children, do you?”

There was silence. A long silence. Then a moan of anguish. “I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t hurt the children. Please…”

“I just want you to love me!”

Madison awoke with a start. Once again, she was shaking. Once again, the dream meant nothing. She was drenched in sweat, and she was tired, so sick and tired of dreaming. She burst into tears.

“Madison?”

She opened her eyes. Kyle was coming into the room, in his robe.

“Yeah?”

He sat on the edge of her bed. “You’re not crying because I didn’t demand sex, are you?” he teased gently.

She couldn’t help laughing. “No.”

“Then…”

“Oh, Kyle!” she said, and slipped her arms around him. “I’m so tired of the dreams! I don’t know what they mean, I don’t know how to help. I feel like someone close to me is in serious danger, but I don’t know who, and I don’t know what to do, how to help anyone….”

“It will end, Madison. It will all end. We will get this guy,” Kyle promised her. He held her, rocking with her. Then he eased her back to her pillows. “Want me to stay?” he asked huskily. Her arms were still around him; his eyes were locked with hers. “I will demand sex,” he admitted.

“Well, you know, sometimes you’ve just got to pay the price,” Madison murmured.

“Sometimes you do.”

He took hold of her hand and kissed her palm, then drew it against his chest, where the robe gaped open. He drew her hand downward, closing her fingers over the growing length of his erection. “I think we were just about here the other night,” he murmured, smiling. Then he rose, rising, sloughing off the robe and reaching for her and drawing her upright so he could strip away her cotton nightgown. His eyes on hers, he lifted her, caught her knees, parting them, as he settled her on the bed. Still watching her, he rubbed his engorged member intimately against her. She was amazed by the instant rise of mercurial excitement within her. Heat flooded her body, even before he forcefully pressed hard, all the way into her, deeper, deeper, deeper, his eyes on hers all the while.

When she thought she was about to die from the agonizing ecstasy of his hard, penetrating thrusts, he withdrew. He kissed her lips. He kissed her everywhere. Except where she burned.

Then he kissed her there, and she shrieked, called his name, and went wild, but he didn’t come back to her until she was shaking with raw sensation. Then he reentered her, moving with hard, electric force, and when he ejaculated, she found herself crying out with the violent force of her own climax. She lay beside him for a very long time, overwhelmed by the way he could make her feel. Then she realized that he was leaning on one elbow, watching her in the shadows of the night.