Carrie Anne was in the doorway, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

“Mommy, you were screaming again.”

Madison instinctively jerked away from Kyle. Loosely belting his robe, he rose, walking toward the doorway. He tousled Carrie Anne’s hair. “Well, you’re here now. You go snuggle Mommy, huh?”

“You can stay,” Carrie Anne said politely.

He glanced over at Madison.

“I think I’ll take a shower,” he said pleasantly. “You girls get some sleep. Tomorrow’s a big day. My dad’s gallery opening.”

Plagued with guilt, Madison welcomed Carrie Anne into her arms.

And tried to sleep.

15

“This just isn’t working,” she told Kyle over coffee in the morning.

“Oh?”

She flushed. “You haven’t done anything. It’s just…not working.”

“This isn’t about the delicacy of anybody’s feelings—yours, mine, or even Carrie Anne’s. You’re in danger.”

“We don’t know that!”

“It’s a damned good theory.”

“But, Kyle—”

“You can’t be alone.”

“I’ll go to Jassy’s. She can shoot like a pro.”

“She’s never home.”

“I can go to my father’s.”

“Maybe that’s not such a good idea,” he said, looking at his coffee.

Madison gasped. “You’re accusing my father—”

“I know that your father and mother had a huge fight not long before she was killed. You didn’t see it, because you were at school. I happened to be home, for some reason. She’d summoned Jordan to the house, crying over something my father had supposedly done, and trying to use Jordan to get my father riled. To his credit, Jordan wouldn’t be used.”

“Right! So he came back later to murder her! You’re full of it! What about your father? He and my mother fought all the time, and I know that for a fact, because I had to listen to it just about every damned night!”

“Fine, my father is a suspect, too.”

She threw up her hands. “Well, we can’t keep doing this! It isn’t working. What about Kaila’s?”

“Do you really think Kaila needs someone else living in her house right now?”

“Darryl, then. I’m the mother of his child, for God’s sake.”

“Great. Then Darryl can soothe you from your dreams in the middle of the night.”

“It would probably sit better with Carrie Anne,” Madison murmured.

He rose, angrily walking to the sink. “Can we solve this later? I can sleep in the damned car or something, but right now I’ve got to get to the gallery. This event is important to my father. And you’re coming with me.”

She arched a brow, feeling her temper stirring. “I am coming with you, but not because you say so. I’m coming with you because Roger has always been good to me, and what’s important to him is important to me!”

She spun around, leaving him in the kitchen and going off to get dressed. The opening was scheduled to run from two o’clock until ten; they arrived by twelve. Madison’s job was to keep the local artists—the stars of the event—calm. For some of them that meant two tons of caffeine. For others, it meant breaking into the champagne early.

Roger was delighted that she had arrived early with Kyle. After escaping the crowd around him, he took her hands, then stepped back, surveying her. “Gorgeous! They compare you to your mother. Rubbish. You’re ten times more beautiful!” He kissed her cheek. “Thanks for coming and helping. Your dad’s right over there.” He looked at her assessingly again. “You are dynamite.”

She hoped so. She’d dressed dramatically, in a short black silk cocktail dress that dipped in front and back, and contrasted with the vivid color of her hair. “Thanks,” she told him.

“You’re kind of pretty, too, son!” Roger teased Kyle. He wasn’t pretty in the least. He was striking, in a black shirt with a casual pinstripe jacket and beige pants.

“Ah, Dad!” he murmured.

“Enough. To work!” Roger told them all.

By five o’clock, Madison was beat. She’d been taking care of the kids for the past hour. The gallery boasted a kids’ corner, little tables with little chairs and buckets full of building blocks, crayons, stencils and so on. Kids could express their artistic vision while their parents, in Roger’s words, spent “big bucks” on local talent.

She sank into one of the kiddie chairs, tired and bemused. By her side, Carrie Anne and Kaila’s brood were busy doodling with a pair of five-year-old twins. Jimmy Gates was nearby, listening patiently as one of the artists explained the “surrealism” of her work. Dan and Kaila were inspecting a beautiful seascape. Madison frowned slightly. She was worried about Kaila again. Her sister seemed nervous. She kept looking over her shoulder as if she expected…what?

“Watch it! Watch it!” she heard suddenly.

She turned to see that Rafe, Trent and Kyle were carefully lifting a metal fountain sculpture of goddesses in a garden. The artist and purchaser were worriedly giving directions, along with Roger. The scene, Madison thought, was priceless.

“Hey, Jassy!”

“What?”

“Take over the kids, huh?”

“Sure.”

Madison rose and wandered to the front of the gallery to observe the goings-on with the sculpture.

“Hey! Watch Athena’s book there!” she warned.

“Thanks!” Trent told her, making a face.

“Got it!” Rafe assured her, grimacing.

Kyle arched a brow at her.

She smiled, following them to the doorway, then leaning against it as they struggled to get the sculpture onto the bed of its new owner’s truck.

She closed her eyes for a minute. It was late spring, but the past few days had been hot as hell, and the breeze picking up this evening was beautiful. She opened her eyes and looked around. The gallery was situated just down the street from Cocowalk and Mayfair, two very unique malls. The area was also littered with charming specialty shops. The Coconut Grove area of Miami was popular with both the locals and tourists. Roger’s gallery should do well.

“You!”

She didn’t pay any attention to the voice at first; she was busy enjoying the breeze. And Coconut Grove had its share of crazies, after all, most of them harmless.

“You!”

She turned then—and stared, stunned and incredulous.

There was Harry Nore. Bug-eyed, wild gray hair completely unkempt, unshaven face covered with a scraggly beard. He looked as mad as he had all those years ago, when he preened excitedly for the television cameras after Lainie’s murder. Despite the heat, he was wearing a dirty old once-beige trenchcoat. And he was pointing at her—with the razor-sharp end of a switchblade.

“You! She-devil, she-bitch, spawn of Satan, seducer of innocents! You’ve come back. You’ve come back from the very bowels of hell! You’ve come back from the dead, like Satan’s own, but Satan will have to take you back to hell, and you’ll burn! You’ll burn!”

The last was a screech, and with it, he catapulted toward Madison. She jumped back, slamming against the doorframe. He lunged again, and she was forced back again. She heard a crack. She had slammed against the gallery’s big front window, and now she was losing her footing, sinking to the ground. She couldn’t fall, couldn’t let herself become vulnerable, but she couldn’t regain her balance, either. She had to fight, or at least get away.

But even as she looked up into Nore’s hideously contorted face and saw him so close that she could count every rotting tooth, she heard another hard slam.

Kyle had brought him down to the pavement.

Then pandemonium broke out. Trent landed on top of Nore, as well, as people came spilling from the gallery.

Suddenly Rafe was at Madison’s side. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, her mouth and throat dry. Jassy was there, ducking down beside her.

Madison grasped her sister’s hands. “Get Dan. Have him take Kaila and the kids out the back. Please, I don’t want Carrie Anne to see, to be afraid, please….”