She gathered herself together enough to pull away. “Kyle, he’s got Madison. He thinks she’s me. Maybe he thinks we’re both Lainie. Oh, God, Kyle, she’s alone out there with him!”

Kyle needed no more. He tore down the path.

At first it was easy enough to stay ahead of him. But she was trying to make sure he didn’t realize that the boat was gone, so she had to keep to one side of the shack, which didn’t leave her much area to run in.

“Kaila!”

Gasping for breath, she forced herself to giggle.

“Catch me!”

“Kaila, no more games. I’m tired, and the kids will be waking up soon. I want you, and then we’ve got to get some dinner going. We’ve got to make plans. Get back here.”

“Catch me!” Madison insisted, trying to make sure she kept the trees between them. One good look and he would know he wasn’t chasing Kaila.

The area around the shack was heavily overgrown. She ran around vine-laden pines and wild orchids. Trees were down, branches were everywhere. It was growing darker and darker.

She suddenly realized that she didn’t hear him crashing after her.

She held still, looking anxiously through the trees. She barely breathed. She started to turn and realized that he was coming around behind her.

Playing her game.

He was about to catch her.

She let out a shriek and started running again.

She was ahead of him, too—until her foot caught on a root and she went sprawling, cracking her head on a fallen limb.

Suddenly he was straddling her, laughing. She was stunned at first, unable to struggle when he wrenched off her T-shirt, muttering. “Why’s this damned thing different from the one you were wearing before?”

He smoothed the hair from her face, and suddenly she was looking into his silver eyes. The eyes of a killer.

“You!” He grated out the single word.

She blinked furiously, trying to force herself to reason, to find strength. “Rafe.”

“Where’s Kaila?”

“Don’t you really want me?”

“Where’s Kaila?”

“I’m more like my mother.”

He sat back on his haunches, staring at her. “Yeah, you’re more like her.”

He slapped her suddenly. A cruel blow that made her head spin.

“Bitch! Where’s Kaila?”

“Gone. You’ll never touch her.”

He was silent for a minute, then he started to laugh. “Fine. I’ll touch you. You are right. You’re more like your mother. And you know what? I was always afraid you were going to see me. But you didn’t want to see me. I’m your stepbrother. No…that’s not it. I’m Kyle’s brother. Now there’s an irony for you.”

“Why?” she whispered.

He smiled, leaning toward her, stroking her hair. “Because it isn’t true. That’s what Lainie was holding over me.”

“What? I don’t understand.”

“Lainie could never let anything be. You never knew where my mother was, did you? Roger divorced her because she was kind of off-the-wall. She was a beauty, too. He always went for beauties. But she ran around. She was wild. She liked to play around herself, but she couldn’t tolerate it in old Roger. She tried to poison him once, when she thought he was seeing another woman, and then they got divorced. Anyway, my good old mom wound up in the loony bin. And leave it to Lainie, she went to see her. And lo and behold, Mom lets her know I’m not Roger’s kid. And Lainie…well, you know Lainie! She’d tease me like the cocksucking little bitch she was, threatening me all the time. That one night…I guess I just freaked out. She was the first. She was easy. And now…You know, I’m a bright guy. I don’t really think all redheads need to pay. It’s just that sometimes it’s like an itch I just have to scratch…and it’s so much better when I see a woman crying, pleading for her life…” He paused, grimacing. “And then bleeding,” he said with a shrug.

“Rafe, I never did anything to you.”

“Well, you know, you married Kyle. The good son. The real son. That should be enough.”

“He’s probably on to you, Rafe.”

“You think? I’m not so sure. You were all such a blithering pack of blind idiots!”

He sat back again and reached into his pocket. He produced his switchblade and snapped it open.

“You know, I did Lainie with a butcher knife. Then there was Harry Nore, standing in the middle of the street, begging. I tossed the knife into his hat. Turned out to be a good idea, huh?”

He laid the flat side of the blade against her cheek, then moved it across her face, down to her collarbone, around the swell of her breast above the lacy cup of her bra, without drawing blood. She kept her eyes on his, swallowing tightly.

“You really are beautiful.”

“Rafe, please don’t kill me,” she whispered.

“You sound like your damned bitch of a mother, too!”

“Rafe…”

He stood up suddenly, reaching his free hand down to jerk her to her feet.

“All right. I’ll give you the same chance for a few more minutes of life that I gave Kaila. Come on. Convince me that you deserve to live.”

She stared at him, then turned in a panic. He dragged her back, whispering against her ear. “Oh, come on, Madison! Cheat on the great Kyle. Make love to me. Isn’t it worth it to breathe? Feel this? Feel the blade against your throat…?”

All he had to do was twitch his fingers and the razor-honed blade would slip into her. She closed her eyes.

She thought of Kyle, crying out his name silently in anguish. She thought she heard his voice and opened her eyes.

Kyle hadn’t called out to her, not with words. But, to her astonishment, she saw him. He was dead still, hunkered down in the bushes. He put a finger to his lips as her eyes fell on his.

“Rafe!” she whispered.

The knife eased slightly.

“Whatever you want,” she whispered huskily.

“So you’ll buy time. You’re pathetic.”

“I want to live. Let me…let me get my jeans off. Let me show you how I can make love to you.”

“You run again and I’ll put this blade right through your heart when I catch you.”

“I’m not going to run.”

His hold on her eased. She backed away from him, keeping her eyes locked with his as she gained a greater distance, unzipping her jeans.

“That’s it, freeze!” Kyle commanded, stepping from the bushes, aiming his .38 special at Rafe.

For a moment Rafe froze. It was long enough for Madison to cry out and race to Kyle. He slipped his free arm around her while she shook, but he kept his gun leveled at his brother.

“Madison?” he murmured.

For a split second he looked at her, and in that split second Rafe sent the switchblade whistling through the air. It caught Kyle in his right biceps, and the gun fell from his hand on impact.

Rafe hurled himself across the few feet between them, wrenching Madison from Kyle’s arms. But Kyle let out something like a roar, catapulting himself after his brother, and they all went down. The weight of both men slammed Madison to the ground. Then they went rolling off her, down toward the marshy water. Madison staggered up, looking for Kyle’s gun. She could see the two figures wrestling desperately at the water’s edge, and she couldn’t find the gun. Groans, thuds and shouts rose from the two men struggling so desperately. Then, even as Madison continued her frantic search, she heard a cracking sound.

She looked toward the two men. One of them rose. In the semidarkness, she didn’t know who. She got slowly to her own feet, watching, barely breathing, waiting.

Then she heard sirens. The cops had arrived.

The man kept walking toward her. It was Kyle, she realized, weak with relief. Kyle, covered in mud, his arm bleeding fiercely, though he didn’t seem to notice.

“Oh, Kyle!” She threw herself against him. “Oh, Kyle, Kyle, come on, let’s go. The cops are here, but I can’t find the gun. If Rafe gets back up…”

“You don’t need the gun,” Kyle told her wearily.

“But—”

“And he won’t be getting back up. I broke his neck. But yes, let’s go get out of here!” He took off his jacket and wrapped it around her.