Kaylee rummaged through her purse and pulled out a compact. Glancing up from a critical survey of her reflection, she must have seen something in Catherine’s expression, for she hastened to assure her, “I mean, it’s not like we’ve never had a conversation. We talked about lots of stuff. Like I know he has a couple brothers and he does know I have a sister. We just never got around to swapping the small details of our family trees. Or our address books.” She gave the bulging purse in her lap a complacent pat. “And I made sure to bring mine with me when I left.” Her foresight clearly made her proud.
Catherine refrained from grinding her teeth, but just barely. Thrusting her fingers through her hair to hold it off her forehead, she planted her elbow on the kitchen table and stared at her sister. “Perhaps you’d better back up,” she suggested in a neutral voice. “I’m a little confused.”
“Okay. Bobby caught my act at the Tropicana my first night and it was, like, instant chemistry between us, you know? Oh, I wish you could see him, Sis,” she digressed enthusiastically. “He’s like this god, six-foot-two if he’s an inch, with the blackest hair, shoulders out to here, and eyes to die for, they’re so—”
“Kaylee! I don’t care about your squeeze’s attributes. Tell me about the thing with Alice Mayberry.”
“Okay, sure, where was I?” She recollected her scattered train of thought. “Oh, yeah. So, when I first heard Hector offering Chains money to knock off Alice, I figured it for black humor, you know? I mean, Hector and Alice had been so lovey-dovey I thought it was just something along the lines of ‘Girlfriends, can’t live with them, can’t shoot ’em—’”
“Exactly what did Sanchez say?”
“He said Alice was causing him grief, and he’d give Chains ten thousand dollars to make the problem disappear. And he told him where to bury the body when the deed was done.”
“And you thought that was a joke?”
“Well…yeah. I mean, who’d believe it could be real? That sort of stuff just doesn’t happen.”
“So what’d you do?”
“I caught a ride home.”
Catherine moaned and got up to rinse out her teacup—not from any sudden desire for tidiness, but to keep her from reaching across the table and shaking her sister silly. How could Kaylee hear something like that and just walk away? It was hard to believe she and her sister had once shared the same egg. Catherine doubted two more disparate personalities could be found if she searched the world over.
“Catherine, do you honestly believe I would have gone calmly home if I thought they were serious?”
Drawing a calming breath, Catherine put the rinsed cup in the drainer and turned to face her sister, who was watching her with accusing eyes. “No, of course not,” she said, and felt ashamed because the truth was that for a moment she had believed exactly that. Responsibility was never Kaylee’s long suit. “And perhaps you’re right, anyhow. Perhaps the murder was never executed.” She winced at her poor word choice and knew she was indulging in wishful thinking. Kaylee hadn’t come all this way for nothing.
“That’s what I hoped, too,” Kaylee said. “But I must have called her a dozen times and never got an answer. And Alice quit coming to work, Cat. I know it’s because she’s dead.”
Catherine sagged back against the counter. She tried to think. “What possible reason could Sanchez have to kill her? There has to be some sort of motive, or else it doesn’t make sense.”
“I’ve thought about it and thought about it, and I’ve got a sick feeling that maybe Alice threatened to go to Mrs. Sanchez to expose the affair.”
“Why would she do that? At the very least it would lose her her job, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah, but Alice had ambitions beyond strutting around a stage.”
“Dancing,” Catherine corrected automatically, and Kaylee flashed a sudden warm grin at her sister.
“Boy, did Mama ever brainwash you.” Kaylee barely had time to see her sister’s crooked grin of rueful agreement before she sobered again. “Maybe Alice thought it was a way to force Mr. S to dump Mrs. S and marry her.”
Catherine gripped the counter at her back as she stared down at her sister. “Okay, but it still doesn’t seem like much of a reason to kill her.”
“Mrs. Sanchez controls the purse strings in that family, Cat.”
“Oh. Shit.”
“Amen to that, sister.”
“Okay, we have possible motive. But if you were in the dressing room, Kaylee, with a wall between you and the men, why would they have reason to suspect you’d overheard anything?”
“I ran into Jimmy Chains out in the hallway afterward.” The look on Catherine’s face made Kaylee say defensively, “I thought they were gone! I heard both of ’em leave, but Chains musta forgot to pee or something. That would be just like him—the guy’s entire brain could be high-grade cocaine, and it wouldn’t retail for enough cash to buy a tube of lipstick in a discount drugstore. Anyhow, when I left the dressing room to go find Maria and get the hell outta there, he was coming back down the hall.”
“If he’s not particularly intelligent, perhaps he won’t make the connection.”
“He probably wouldn’t, on his own,” Kaylee agreed. “But he loves to talk, and I’m scared to death he’ll mention it in passing to Hector. And if that happens, Catherine, I’m as dead as Alice.” She looked up at her sister. “That’s no exaggeration. I heard Hector tell Jimmy Chains where to bury the body. Without a body, there’s no crime. With one—and testimony tying Hector to it—he probably goes to jail for years. I left all those messages to call me on Alice’s machine. If Hector’s heard them, and he even suspects I overheard his plans, I am literally dead.”
Catherine pushed away from the counter. “You have to go to the police, Kaylee.”
“Well, um, about that, Caty-girl…” Her twin couldn’t quite meet her gaze.
“Oh, no.” Catherine straightened. “What? What have you left out?”
“I was, like, kind of arrested earlier in the week.”
“You were what?”
“Arrested. It wasn’t my fault, Cat.”
“Oh, of course not, it never is with you, is it?” Catherine gritted her teeth. How many times had she heard those words in her lifetime? It was the primary reason she’d snapped up the position at the Briarwood School when it was offered to her four years ago. Seattle seemed so wonderfully far removed from Miami. “Just once before we’re old women,” she said bitterly, “it would be really sweet if you’d accept responsibility for your actions.” God. Twenty-five minutes in her sister’s company, and it was as if she’d never gotten away. It shouldn’t be like this.
It hadn’t always been.
“Oh, get the stick outta your butt, Catherine,” Kaylee snapped back. “God, when the hell did you turn into such an old fuddy-duddy?”
“When the hell have I ever had the chance to be anything else?” Dropping into her seat, Catherine glared across the table at her sister. “I was always too freaking busy cleaning up after your messes.”
“Yeah, okay, so maybe I haven’t always been all that—whataya call it—accountable in the past. But that was then, and this time it wasn’t my fault, I’m tellin’ you. The arrest was totally bogus. See, Bobby had to go out of town, and he left me his new car to drive. Only it turns out it wasn’t his to lend, and I ended up being charged with grand theft auto on the say-so of some bimbo with a legal registration and a bad attitude.”
“Then how—?”
“Oh, I made bail. But that’s the problem, Cat. I’m restricted to Florida by the terms of the bond, and the minute I figured out that the contract to kill Alice wasn’t a sick joke after all, well, naturally I emptied out my bank account and came straight here.” She reached across the table and squeezed her sister’s fingers. “Come on, Cat, please. This is serious, and I really need your help.”
A car door closed out in the street, and Catherine glanced out the window. There was a sedan parked halfway between her hous
e and the neighbor’s, and a man was bent over it, locking the driver’s door. Probably someone looking at the house for sale next door. Catherine looked back at her sister. “I’ll do what I can to straighten out the situation, of course,” she agreed wearily. “But you still have to turn yourself in.”
Kaylee released Catherine’s fingers. “Dammit, Catherine, I just explained why that’s impossible.”
“No, you explained how matters became complicated. The fact remains, however, that you overheard a murder being ordered. A murder, Kaylee, that to the best of your knowledge has since been carried out. And according to your own words, you’re the only one who knows where the body’s buried. This is not exactly a penny-ante mess you’ve gotten yourself into this time.”
“Read my lips, Catherine. When I left Florida I jumped bail. I can’t go back.”
“You have to.”
Clearly not liking what she was hearing, Kaylee started to push away from the table, but Catherine reached over and grabbed her by the wrist, hanging on until she had her sister’s full attention. “If you don’t turn yourself in, you’re not only going to be running from this Chains person or your Bobby LaBon, or whomever, but from the law as well. Trust me, you don’t want everybody hunting you. You need someone on your side.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s what I’ve got you for.”
“For God’s sake, Kaylee, I’m a teacher for the deaf! What do I know about hit men or your legal standing in a matter this complicated? You need people trained for this sort of situation if you hope to remain safe.” Glancing out the window again, Catherine noticed the man had straightened and was studying the house next door. He was arresting, with his dark hair, dark brows, and a well-knit body clad in slacks and a white dress shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled up his forearms. She got a swift impression of energy and strength.
“Come up with something else,” Kaylee demanded, recapturing Catherine’s attention. “I can’t go back.”
“There is nothing else.”
“There’s gotta be. Nobody’s gonna believe me if I go back. Sanchez is a respected businessman. He’s well-known in the community.” Kaylee rubbed at the furrows between her eyebrows. “Dammit, I was so thrilled that, for once in my life, I’d found a gig at a really upscale lounge. I thought it was my big chance. Think of something else, Cat. I know you can—that’s why I came here.”
“For heaven sake, Kaylee, what did you think I was going to do, make you disappear into thin air? Wave my magic wand and make the whole thing go away?”
“I don’t need your sarcasm, Cat, I need your help! Going back’s a no-win situation.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s the only solution you have. You said it yourself, this is serious, and you can’t just sweep it under the rug.” Seeing the belligerent angle of her twin’s chin, knowing Kaylee didn’t want to hear what she had to say, Catherine nevertheless reiterated through gritted teeth, “You-have-got-to-turn-yourself-in!”
Kaylee stubbornly refused to meet Catherine’s eyes, her gaze sliding past her to the window. Abruptly, she pushed away from the table and rose jerkily to her feet. “I gotta use the loo.” She grabbed her purse and her suitcase and trotted with knock-kneed awkwardness down the hallway.
Catherine buried her face in her hands. Maybe they should call a lawyer before they called the police. And did one call the local police or the Miami police or—Wait a minute.
Why did Kaylee need her suitcase to go to the bathroom?
Catherine was down the hall in a flash. Bursting through the door just in time to see her sister drop from the windowsill to the brick patio outside, she dived for the open window. “Kaylee!”
It came out less than the peremptory order to halt she’d intended when her diaphragm made forceful contact with the sill. Simultaneously, a loud crash sounded at the front of the house, and a male voice roared, “FREEZE!”
Identical shocked green gazes clashed and held as both sisters did exactly that. Then Kaylee’s paralysis broke and she snatched up her address book from the patio where the contents of her purse had exploded. She tucked in the wad of cash that had tumbled out of the address book and rose to her feet, tucking it under her arm. She rubbed a circle on her chest with her closed fist, American Sign for I’m sorry. She hesitated for a moment, then simply reiterated, I’m sorry, Cat. Then she turned and ran, leaving purse and suitcase behind.
No! It was a silent scream in Catherine’s head as she renewed her efforts to get through the window. She had nearly succeeded and was fervently hoping she could break her fall with something other than her head when the bathroom door crashed against the interior wall.
“Hold it right there, sister!” Hard hands clamped down on her hips and hauled her back into the room.
Catherine opened her mouth to scream, only to find her vocal cords had frozen. So, taking a tip from the one and only self-defense class she’d ever taken, she did the next best thing. She lashed back with her foot and experienced a savage burst of satisfaction when she felt it connect with the hard bone of her interloper’s shin.
2
“SON OF A bitch!” Sam McKade had had it. Would this fuckin’ day never end? It felt like the woman had bruised his shin right down to the bone.
Sam leaned over the lush redhead in his grasp and thrust his head through the window he’d just hauled her out of. Squinting against the sun, he saw the suitcase and purse on the brick patio and accepted it as indisputable proof that MacPherson had, indeed, been in the process of escaping. He straightened back into the room, lifting his chest off her back, then slammed the window shut and locked it. “I gotta hand it to you, lady, you are some piece of work.” He moved her over a step, shoved her up against the wall, and, inserting his foot between hers, kicked them wide of each other.
She made a soft choking sound when his hands swept her shoulders and ran down her sides. When his fingers brushed the sides of her breasts, however, she went silent and stood very, very still, as if she imagined he’d stop patting her down if she were simply quiet enough.
Sam didn’t feel particularly sympathetic—she’d run him ragged today and cost him a bundle he couldn’t afford. He brought his hands around front and ran them up between her breasts to her collarbones, then whisked them impersonally down the full, thrusting slopes of her breasts. Skimming his fingers around the elastic waistband of her bicycle shorts an instant later, he frisked her from waistband to crotch seam, front and back.
“Oh, don’t,” she moaned. “Please.”
“Relax, Red. All I’m interested in here is concealed weapons.” He squatted to run his hands down her hips to where her shorts gave way to bare skin, and then brought them around to run a reverse pattern up the inside of her legs, which were long, firm, and smoother than premium whiskey. The impression had no sooner registered than his hands snapped wide of her body and he rose to his feet. “Okay, you’re clean. Turn around.”
She slowly pivoted to face him. The way she clutched at the button placket of her blouse like a horrified maiden auntie was a nice touch, Sam thought cynically. He could almost believe she didn’t have a clue why he was here.
“Listen,” she said breathlessly, staring up at him with huge green eyes, “you’ve made a terrible mistake.”
He laughed without humor. “How many times have I heard that one before? Come on, Sister, let’s go grab your stuff. Then you can tell it to the judge in Miami.”
The judge? Catherine sagged with relief. Oh, thank goodness. If he was transporting her to face the Florida judiciary system, he must be a policeman and not LaBon.
Not that she would ever in a million years mistake the big ape for a god, or anything. It was just that, remembering Kaylee’s description and given the man’s height and those shoulders, plus the midnight darkness of his hair, she had just sort of automatically assumed…
He hauled her willy-nilly down the hallway to the foyer, where he closed and locked the front door, and then back up the hallway and through the kitchen
to the back door. She trotted along docilely in his wake for the moment. This wasn’t as bad as she’d feared then; everything would be all right. It wasn’t ideal, of course; that would have been her sister sticking around to turn herself in voluntarily. But at least Catherine was left to deal with the right side of the law. That was certainly a relief.
“Listen, you’ve made a mistake,” she repeated when he came to a halt out on the patio. He gripped her wrist with one hard-fingered hand and squatted to scoop the contents of Kaylee’s purse back into the handbag with his other. “You have the wrong woman. My name is Catherine MacPherson. I’m Kaylee’s twin.”
He stilled for a moment. Then he slowly straightened until he was once again towering over her. She had time to notice that his eyes were golden brown and more piercing than an osprey’s on the hunt. Then he reached out his free hand, gave her a patronizing little tap on the cheek with his rough-skinned fingers, and agreed dryly, “Sure you are.”
“Listen to me! I’m more than willing to cooperate with you, but my name is Catherine MacPherson. I’m a teacher at the Briarwood School for the Deaf, and this”—her gesture encompassed the sun-washed yard, the back of the house—“is my home.”
“Do I look like I was born yesterday?” he interrupted impatiently. “My first stop was at the Briarwood School for the Deaf. And guess what, Red? Your sister left yesterday for Europe on a trip she’s been planning for years.”
“I was robbed of that trip,” Catherine said bitterly. “And my name is not Red, it’s Catherine MacPherson. That’s Ms. MacPherson to you.”
Flipping open the wallet he’d picked up off the bricks, Sam thrust a section containing picture ID close to her face. “Says here your name is Kaylee MacPherson.” He snapped the wallet shut but continued to wag it in front of her nose. “And Kaylee MacPherson is a showgirl at the Tropicana in Miami.”
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