She finished with the children by noon and was delighted to discover that she had nothing else scheduled for the day. She needed to review the morning’s work and make notes, of course, but she would be able to leave early.
She wasn’t sure if she was pleased or dismayed when Jim buzzed her to say that there was a Jack Smith in the outer office, waiting to see her.
Again she felt that annoying pounding of her heart. She lay her head down on her desk for a moment. What a wreck she was becoming, seeing a ghost in her bedroom and mentally undressing Luke Cane every time she saw him.
The students’ drawings were spread across her desk, and she quickly collected them, not wanting to be influenced by anything he had to say, much less to take the chance that he might belittle her chosen methods.
Jim opened the door to her office, ushering Luke in. “What? Do you have radar?” Chloe asked, gathering the last of the pictures and glancing over at him.
“No,” Luke said, grinning. “I have a phone. I called to see if there was a possibility of scheduling lunch with you.”
“And you didn’t think to ask me first?” she asked Jim, shooting him a frown. Then she relented.
“It’s all right, of course,” she said. Jim was too valuable for her to stay annoyed with him.
“I told Mr. Smith that you’re free all afternoon,” Jim admitted. “And I cleared your schedule entirely for the week of the shoot—I just rearranged the last of your consultations.”
“Thank you, Jim,” Chloe said. “That’s wonderful.” The rescheduling was wonderful, anyway; she wasn’t at all sure about the afternoon. She needed time away from Luke.
Jim smiled and closed the door behind him.
“Art therapy?” Luke asked her, nodding toward the stack of pictures she was still holding.
“Color diagnostics, at the moment,” she said. “Want to draw a picture?”
“You wouldn’t like what I would draw,” he said, striding across her office to look out the window down to the street below. His tone had been gruff, and she found herself thinking again that he was emotionally damaged, just like her.
Who had he lost—and how? she wondered. Was he ever going to tell her?
“Nice place,” he told her.
“Thanks.” She watched him for a moment. “What do you want?”
He turned around. “How do you feel about taking a drive?”
“Where?” she asked warily.
“First lunch, then the Keys. The agency’s private island.”
“It’s an hour from here just to Key Largo—”
“And another hour down to the island.”
“I can’t take you out there now,” she said.
“Why not? I called Myra and asked her if I could go out and take a look around, choose some of the settings I’d like to use.”
“So why do you need me?”
“I’d like an insider’s view of the place.”
“I’m sure one of the real models would go with you. Like Jeanne or Lacy.”
“Jeanne scares the hell out of me.”
“You are such a liar.”
“Come with me. Please?”
Even before he had shown up, she’d been certain that something bad had happened to Colleen, and she’d been determined to find out if anyone in the agency was behind it. Admittedly, she hadn’t turned up a single reason for suspicion, but now he was handing her an opportunity for further investigation on a golden platter. She would be a fool to refuse.
“All right.”
He grinned, pleased and, she realized, surprised.
“I want to drop my car off at home, then change. It will take about an hour all told.”
“Works for me,” he said. “I’ll be at your place in an hour.”
He left, and she frowned as she noticed that she was trembling slightly. She liked him. She didn’t want to, but she did. She was wary of the strength and immediacy of her feelings, but there was something about him that was undeniably compelling. It wasn’t just his looks—though there was certainly nothing to complain about on that score—it was something about his manner and the contradictory elements of his character. He was smooth, yet he also had a rugged edge. He was gentle, yet somehow macho. And the sex appeal that emanated from him was so scary it ought to be illegal.
She should have refused to go with him because she just knew she was going to humiliate herself somewhere along the line.
She shuffled her papers into her desk, grabbed her purse and headed out of her office.
Jim was at his desk, and he grinned up at her. “You take your time. But when you land one, he’s a prize.”
“He’s a friend, Jim. A colleague.”
“Right.”
“I mean it.”
“I believe you,” he said innocently, but he was still grinning like the Cheshire cat.
“I’m out of here,” she said. “And you, Mr. Brilliant, are welcome to take the afternoon, too, since it seems you have everything covered.”
“I’ve got a little bit to finish up, and then I’ll take you up on that,” he told her. “Have fun with your ‘friend.’”
There would be no getting through to him. Chloe gave up, waved and left.
After she had changed into jeans and a tank top, sneakers and a denim jacket, she let herself into the main house to leave her uncle a note, telling him that she was heading down to the Keys with Luke. She noticed that his laptop was open on a desk in the family room, along side a stack of printouts.
Curious, she walked over to the desk. She never went through her uncle’s papers—but then again, he rarely brought files home from the office, and he certainly never left them sitting around out in the open.
The laptop screen had gone into hibernation, but she couldn’t miss the top printout.
It was a copy of the front page of a fifteen-year-old British newspaper, and she couldn’t miss the headline.
Murderer Slain by Police Office—Enquiry in Process
She picked up the page, tension and dread filling her. She knew that she was going to see Luke Cane’s name. He was the police officer who had slain the murderer. She knew it.
But she wasn’t prepared for the rest of the facts, and she gasped.
Officer Cane returned to his home in Kensington to discover the slain body of his wife and the murderer, Hugo Lenz, still in his home. He has made no statement to the press, but sources concede that Mr. Lenz met his death at the hands of Officer Cane.
A horn beeped outside the gate and Chloe jumped, sending the paper fluttering to the floor.
She scrambled to pick it up and put it back, and ended up knocking over the entire stack.
Taking a deep breath, she collected the papers. Her heart was still thundering. She wasn’t afraid of Luke, but maybe she was starting to understand him.
How did she feel about what he’d done? If she’d had the power and the opportunity that night, wouldn’t she have happily dismembered the men who had so brutally slain her friends?
Then again, she had never been a sworn officer of the law.
She finished straightening the papers, though Leo would probably know that she had seen them. Maybe he had left them there for her to see. Why? Did he wonder how she would feel about Luke once she knew the truth—or did he just think she should be warned.
He had come home to find the murdered body of his wife. No wonder he was damaged.
His wife had been murdered.
And he had slain her killer.
She ran out, fumbling for the right key to lock the door, then stumbling over the code to unlock the gate, then lock it again behind her.
Luke was out of his car, waiting to open her door. She glanced at him nervously and slid in.
He frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I was just hurrying. I stopped to leave my uncle a note, in case he was expecting me to be around for dinner. I don’t have to leave notes. I don’t like to worry him.” She knew she was babbling, but she couldn’t
stop. “I knocked over some of his papers…I was just hurrying.”
“We’re not in that big a rush,” he told her.
She ought to tell him the truth, she thought. Spit it out.
He wasn’t truly violent. Was he?
“You look as if you think you’re out with Jack the Ripper,” he said. “If you’re afraid of me for some reason, you don’t have to come.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“Oh?”
She looked over at him. His eyes were an intense gray, like deep smoke, and his brow was furrowed in genuine concern. “Look,” he said, “I may not be a psychologist, but something’s definitely upsetting you.”
She let out a breath. “You were married, and your wife was murdered. And you killed her killer.”
He stared back at her. She couldn’t tell whether he was surprised or had assumed she would find out sooner or later. “Yes,” he said simply, and didn’t even try to explain.
“The paper said you killed him.”
He turned to stare out the window. “That’s true.” He was quiet for a brief moment. “He cut her throat, but she fought him first. Hard. He still had the knife, and he tried to use it against me, but I was stronger than he was. Even so, I had a difficult time wresting it away from him.”
“Did he fall on it?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
He looked at her again. “Did I go a little crazy when I found my wife? Yes. Did I torture him to death—no. I came in, I saw blood on the stairs and I followed it, and then I saw her…on the bed. I went over to her, and he leaped on my back. The paper probably neglected to mention that he stabbed me in the shoulder first. We fought, and I got the knife away from him. When he went for it again, I fought back, not thinking, just reacting. I stabbed him in the stomach. Naturally there was an inquiry. I didn’t feel like answering questions, but it was deemed a righteous kill. Even so, I quit. I was furious that the authorities expected me to explain myself when the facts were evident.”
“You quit and came to the United States?”
“Something like that. I wasn’t running away, but after a few years I just couldn’t stay there anymore.”
They sat in silence for a minute.
Finally Chloe cleared her throat. “We should go. The traffic will start getting bad soon—and I’m getting hungry.”
“I meant it when I said you don’t have to go. I don’t want to be with anyone who’s afraid of me.”
“It takes a lot to scare me,” she told him.
He didn’t smile, but something about his eyes softened. “You probably should get scared more easily. A certain amount of fear can be healthy.”
“Fear in a dangerous situation is healthy. But I’ve driven with you—you’re a safe enough driver. Seriously, the traffic gets bad quickly.”
He smiled slowly. “Yeah. I even drive on the right side of the road.”
They didn’t speak as they started out, but the silence wasn’t uncomfortable. In fact, Chloe was surprised to find herself feeling more comfortable with him than she’d ever felt with a man before. A man she was attracted to, anyway.
Her life had become insular in a lot of ways. She worked with the police, she had her practice. She talked to Jim at work, she had her uncle and her circle of friends, and she modeled now and then.
But she seldom just enjoyed life or going for a drive—or being with a man.
Especially not a man who called to something inside her, who made her want him, want to be with him in a way that was natural and easy.
Which was ridiculous, because nothing was ever easy.
Certainly not wanting him.
They took the turnpike south to US1 at Florida City. Luke turned and grinned at her, pointing out the window. “There’s a Cracker Barrel,” he said.
She laughed. “Actually, I love Cracker Barrel, and I am hungry. But we’re so close to the Keys…and the fish tastes so good on Key Largo.”
“Even if it was caught off Miami?”
“If it was caught off Miami, which I doubt it was, it still tastes better in Key Largo.”
He nodded and kept driving.
There was construction along the eighteen-mile stretch, so it was slow going. They passed a sign that told them they had reached Lake Surprise, and soon after, another that announced Crocodile Crossing.
“Have you ever actually seen a crocodile cross here?” Luke asked.
“No, but I did see an alligator trying to cross I-95 up in Broward once. Honest,” she said.
In another few minutes they finally reached Key Largo, then laughed when they both suggested the same restaurant.
It was mom-and-pop owned, and lovingly operated. The decor was rustic, and prize fish were displayed on the walls. A large deep-sea dive suit was displayed by the front door, and when the menu offered fresh fish, it meant caught that morning. Ordering was an easy affair and an oddly intimate one, considering the fact that they didn’t know each other well. She would get the snapper, he would order the grouper, and they would share.
“You never chose to leave the area,” Luke said after they had been served iced tea, and the waitress—the mom of the mom-and-pop—left them.
“Uncle Leo was already involved with his career, and there was nowhere I really wanted to go. I love home, crazy as it may be,” Chloe told him.
He nodded. “Sounds like staying was the right decision.”
“Except that you seem to think that the massacre was never really solved, right?”
He shrugged. Their grilled fish was already arriving. Once the waitress had gone again, he said, “I don’t know. It’s so difficult to tell now…such a long time has passed. Something just— I don’t know. It was too neat. All tied up.” He hesitated for a second, then said, “I told you, I made Stuckey meet me at the house the other day.”
Chloe said, “What did he think about that?”
“He humored me,” Luke said. “I could still read ‘Death to defilers!’ on the wall. And that…drawing…like a hand.”
Chloe looked down at the table. It was as if someone had snatched her breath away. Even after all this time, the terror of that night could still reach out and touch her.
“You really loved your wife, didn’t you?” she asked softly, trying to get away from her own thoughts.
“Sure. We were just kids, really. I met her soon after I graduated from college. If we were going to have problems, there was never time for it to happen,” he said gruffly. “Yeah, of course I loved her. What ticked me off so badly was that rather than looking at the five murders it turned out Hugo Lenz had committed, I came under scrutiny. While I was still trying to deal with the fact that my wife was dead at the age of twenty-three. I couldn’t stop imagining the terror she must have felt, and I couldn’t forget that I hadn’t been there for her. Anyway, I was young, and I was mad, and I was done with playing by rules that didn’t make sense to me anymore. Once upon a time I believed I could change the world. Sometimes now, taking this route, I can at least change a life for the better. Sometimes I think Stuckey is like what I might have been if I’d continued along that road. And I’m the alter ego he needs.”
“So how long have you been living on your boat on Key Biscayne?” she asked.
“Off and on, seven years or so. When I moved to the States, I headed for New York at first. Big sprawling sea of humanity where you can get lost in the crowd. I went from there to Hawaii, from Hawaii to Los Angeles, and then I came here. I was on the west coast of the state for a bit, then I more or less settled down in the Miami area. Miami’s kind of big and messy, too. But then you’ve got the Keys for diving and fishing and a laid-back life where people still say please and thank-you, own little restaurants like this and don’t think the world will end if something isn’t done in an instant. It’s me, I think. My place. My kind of life.”
Back in the car, she thanked him somewhat awkwardly for lunch, which he had paid for, and offered to pick up dinner, which earned he
r one of his charming crooked grins, along with a thank-you.
A thirty-minute drive took them through Key Largo and Islamorada and to the turnoff to the Coco-lime Resort.
It wasn’t really much of a resort—not compared to the sophisticated places the rich liked to frequent. Coco-lime was rustic and charming. Like the restaurant they had just left, it was family owned and operated. Once it had been a single-story strip motel with fifteen rooms, but a recent two-story addition offered another thirty. Chloe’s favorite room had always been in the old building—the door opened out to the pool and the cascading waterfall that constantly recycled the pool water. There was a spit of man-made beach to the left of the pool, with a volleyball net, and, to the right and straight ahead, dockage for ten boats. Farther along, mangroves took over, and there were a few pathways where the trapped sediment had formed soft earth. In the small saltwater pools that bordered the paths, tiny fish whipped around with silvery speed. The Coco-lime Resort was something of a best-kept secret. The island, named Coco-belle by the Bryson Agency years before, was a quick boat ride away, yet somehow no one had ever seemed to notice the models who all gathered there, along with an entourage of technical pros, a dozen times a year or more.
But then, people in the Keys tended to be that way, at least in the middle Keys. Privacy was respected.
“So this is the takeoff point?” Luke said.
Chloe grinned. “Yes. I guess you’ve never been here.”
“Nope.”
As they parked the car, Chloe told him, “The place is owned by Ted and Maria Trenton. Ted has a son and two daughters from his first marriage, all in their twenties, and they manage the place and tend bar—when they open the bar, which isn’t always. Maria and Ted have two boys, a two-year-old and a three-year-old, and she’s younger than Ted’s oldest son. She’s Brazilian, and she’s only been in the States about five years, but she has almost no accent at all, and she’s also fluent in Spanish and Italian, as well as her native Portuguese. Myra comes here a lot, actually. She’s friends with the Trentons.”