If Looks Could Kill

by Heather Graham

  “There were fresh roses in Maria Garcia’s house, the still-missing second victim. And our Jane Doe in the morgue—”

  “Rose tattoo, upper left buttock,” Kyle said, quoting from the forensics report he had read while still in Washington. “I’ll be with you as soon as possible.”

  He hung up and jumped out of bed.

  Their killer had revealed something of himself, leaving his calling cards.

  Roses…

  With thorns.

  Kaila Adair Aubrey wound her fingers into the sheets at her sides and gritted on her teeth, staring up at the ceiling.

  “Talk to me, baby, talk to me.”

  Talk.

  Men wanted women to talk.

  She just didn’t have a damned thing left to say right now. It wasn’t that Dan wasn’t a decent lover; he was. Or he could be. But sex seemed like everything else in their lives to her right then—all him. And this just wasn’t doing a damned thing for her. She wasn’t in the mood for a big fight or a showdown; she didn’t know how to articulate all that she had to say as yet. And if she couldn’t get her thoughts out right, he would dismiss her completely—as males were so wont to do—by assuring himself that she was just being a bitch with PMS and he was the poor, misunderstood, hardworking provider. “Kaila…” He groaned her name.

  At least he still had that right.

  She’d been growing afraid over the past few months, with his everlasting work hours, his constant business dinners, that he was sleeping with someone else. She still thought he might be, and the thought hurt, but it was the same as everything else. When she even hinted at such a fear, he got hurt and furious and impatient. Of course, she was in a better position than lots of young wives with small children who were worried about their husbands; she could run home to a rich daddy. No, it wasn’t the money that kept her quietly in her home and with her husband. It was the insecurity, the confusion, the not knowing. Was there something—someone?—else out there for her? Or did she love her husband? Was he really what she wanted? Was she just tired, feeling old, feeling used up, feeling that she’d never be decently thin again after so many children so quickly? God forgive her, she was grateful that the kids were fine and healthy, but…

  But she was a mess.

  And would she go crazy if she let Dan go and he did fall in love with someone else, forgetting all about her? She did love him, she did, she was just so…

  Wound up.

  And not in the mood.

  But she’d been obliging rather than argumentative, though right now she simply wasn’t involved at all, despite the fact that he was all slick and sweaty and grinding into her.

  At last he climaxed. Fell on her. Heavy. Rolled to the side.

  He tousled her hair.

  They lay in silence.

  A few minutes later he started touching her. She gritted her teeth again, but then, to her surprise, she began to feel aroused. She pressed into him. They kissed. His hands ran up and down her. She eased against him, rubbing her body against his. Nuzzled the thick mat of hair around his navel.

  “Come on, do me, baby, do me,” he groaned.

  It was as if she had been doused with cold water.

  Kaila held still for a minute, her head lowered against his belly, her lower lip caught between her teeth. She knew what he wanted, of course. And she could have slid on down the length of his body and taken him in her mouth, just like he wanted. Except, she just didn’t feel like it.

  She didn’t feel like talking him into an erection, or working hard at arousing him, either. She wanted to be seduced, swept off her feet.

  She stood up suddenly. Her husband opened his eyes, staring at her in surprise.

  “I can’t do anything but oatmeal,” she said irritably, walking toward the bathroom. “The kids will be waking up.”

  She heard him brushing his teeth while she was in the shower. When she stepped out, he stepped in. He didn’t look at her.

  He showered. She brushed her teeth and moisturized her face.

  He came out, toweled himself. She looked at him in the mirror. Dan had dark-blond hair, neatly cut—good legal hair. He kept himself in shape. He had light blue-green eyes and managed to keep a good tan, as well. Having kids didn’t do things to men at all. He was tall and well built and good-looking. She wanted him; she didn’t want him. She loved him; she hated him.

  She wondered if she was suffering from some strange disease.

  He wrapped his towel around himself. “If you don’t want to do something, Kaila, just tell me.”

  “I did—”

  “No. The first time. It was like making love to a dead tree.”

  That one hurt.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “All you had to do was say something.”

  “I was trying to be a good wife.”

  “Yeah. Sure. There’s nothing like making a man feel totally inadequate to make him feel he’s got the best damned wife in the world.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” Kaila told him softly.

  “I’d definitely have more fun,” he assured her.

  Stung, she stood perfectly still.

  She had known that she was unhappy.

  It hadn’t occurred to her that he was miserable, too. And now she wondered more than ever if he was having an affair.

  He walked out to the bedroom and started dressing. Shaking, she slipped into a robe and hurried out of the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

  She went mechanically through the functions of the morning, waking Justin and Shelley, starting breakfast.

  Shelley was quickly howling and in tears because she couldn’t find one of her sneakers, and she had to wear her sneakers, because they were getting new playground equipment that day.

  Anthony—who was mostly weaned, but not completely—threw his kiddie cup on the floor and screamed for her.

  Justin decided to help, with his own cornflakes, and spilled the milk all over the table and on the floor. Naturally, that was when Dan walked in.

  “Jesus, Kaila,” he said. “Looks like I’ll be a little late,” he muttered.

  “You might have thought of that earlier,” she bit out cattily.

  “I should have thought of that earlier.”

  He started mopping up Justin and the table and the milk. Kaila knew she was about to burst into tears. “I’ve got it, just go. Just get out. You can be late for everything else in the world, but don’t be late for that precious job of yours.”

  “Well, you know what, Kaila? At least, at work, people like me. Amazing how that can make you feel happy to be somewhere!”

  He threw down the towel with which he’d been soaking up the milk and stormed out of the house.

  The rest of the morning seemed to take forever. She got Justin and Shelley off to their various schools and finally had Anthony happy and in a good mood. Her housekeeper, Anna, arrived. Anna was a wonderful Latin woman with a flair for handling children. She whisked through the kitchen in a matter of minutes, got the laundry going and came into Shelley’s room, where Kaila was looking through piles of toys to find the still-missing sneaker. “You have tennis this morning, no?”

  “I was going to take a lesson, but…”

  “You go. You get out of the house. Have a good time.”

  “Things are kind of in a shambles this morning.”

  “Kaila, I work for you, yes? I’ll pick up the shambles. That’s my job. I’m good at it. You pay me well, and you have cute, good little children. Go, go, shoo!”

  Kaila went to her lesson. The weather was already hotter than Hades. She saw a few friends on the courts, and they asked her to lunch.

  She called Anna, who had no problem picking Shelley up at one and Justin at two.

  She went to lunch at the country club. She had two piña coladas. Her head was spinning.

  She said goodbye to her friends, then headed back to the locker room to change. Her sneakers seemed to slap against the cement as she entered the changing building, walk
ing down the hallway between the men’s and ladies’ lockers, rest rooms and showers.

  It was oddly quiet.

  She was startled and nearly screamed when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  “Kaila!”

  She spun around.

  He was there. Looking so handsome. He’d been playing tennis. He was in white. His skin was so bronze. He flashed his teeth in a perfect, tender smile.

  “You look scrumptious!” he told her.

  She smiled. She felt somewhat silly; two drinks laced strongly with rum in the middle of the day were a bit much.

  “Thanks.”

  “You ready to have an affair with me yet?” he asked. His tone was light, but his eyes were serious. He backed her gently against the wall, his fingers moving over her face.

  “I…can’t.”

  “You know you will.”

  She smiled, looking at him, shaking her head. “We just really couldn’t…I mean…it wouldn’t be right. I mean, not at all.”

  She giggled. Damn the piña coladas.

  He pressed against her. His lips were suddenly on hers. Molding, passionate. She felt a stirring. The piña coladas, she told herself. She was kissing him back. Just a kiss. More than a kiss. Tongues meshing. Wet. Stifling. She needed more air. Strange. She was both excited…

  And repelled.

  A slight sense of panic pervaded her. His hands were on her, molding her breast, sliding up her thigh. She felt his touch against naked flesh, dangerously close to intimate.

  “Sleep with me, love me…” he whispered fervently against her lips.

  She suddenly wanted to push him away. But he broke away from her. “I love you. I can wait until you’re ready. The time is coming. I can taste it when we kiss…” he whispered. “There’s so much more I want to taste, to lick. To kiss. I want to make it so good. Lick you here…here…”

  He moved his fingers to show her. She inhaled sharply, shocked. She’d only been toying with this idea so far. This was more than play. More than fantasy.

  It was too real.

  “But I can wait. I will wait. Because it will be so much better when I wait…. You’ll want me. When I finish with you, I promise, you’ll want me.”

  “I…”

  She couldn’t speak.

  He brushed her cheek tenderly, deep understanding in his eyes.

  He walked away from her whistling.

  An acquaintance passed him by on the way to the men’s lockers. They spoke, jovial, laughing.

  Kaila leaned against the wall, her knees buckling. She was shaking.

  Once again, she didn’t know what she wanted.

  Fantasy had been so much fun. Imagining a lover. Handsome, charming, devoted entirely to making her feel wonderful. Adoring her, a lover who knew just where and when and how she wanted to be touched…

  But she suddenly felt…dirty.

  She was getting exactly what she had wanted, except that she didn’t really want it.

  She wanted to cry again.

  She finally managed to push herself away from the wall and head into the locker room. She had to get her relationship with him back on a friendly keel. Unless, of course, Dan was having an affair. Then she would be so mad that she’d sleep with the first person available.

  Him.

  She paused before her locker, smiling. The feeling of repulsion for her almost-out-of-the-question would-be lover faded. He was a sweetie. A charming man who knew how to make her feel better. Like an attractive, desirable woman again—even if she did occasionally wear oatmeal and spit-up.

  He’d left her roses. Beautiful red roses. A dozen of them. They were lying on the bench directly in front of her locker.

  She picked them up, smiling, then muttered, “Ouch!” and sucked on her finger where she had acquired a tiny drop of blood.

  These roses had thorns.

  Still, the very idea of roses was so romantic and sexy and sweet….

  Kaila took a long shower at the club, trying to clear her head before going home.

  The world looked a little better when she returned. Anna had the house in wonderful shape. Anthony was napping; Shelley was playing with her Barbie dolls and Justin with his trucks while they watched a Disney video.

  She walked into the kitchen to find Anna cutting up vegetables for the stew she planned that night.

  Yet, looking through the kitchen to the dining room, Kaila started suddenly.

  There was a huge vase of roses on the dining room table.

  “Anna?” she said.

  “They arrived an hour ago.”

  “From?”

  “I don’t know. The card is addressed to you.”

  Kaila walked into the dining room. There were at least two dozen roses beautifully arranged in a pink glass vase. She found the card and opened it.

  It was very simple.

  “Kaila, I love you. Dan.”

  They sometimes went for days, weeks, even months, without a significant break in a case.

  And, of course, there were those horrible instances when a killer was never discovered. The good thing about most serial killers was that deep in their psyches, they wanted to be caught. They knew their behavior was abhorrent, and they wanted to be stopped. And so they left their calling cards; they taunted the police, leaving clues each time. And every year, with more and more scientific techniques available, it became possible to irrefutably link more murderers to their victims. Fingerprinting, fibers, teeth marks, DNA, all contributed heavily to locking away—or executing—numerous criminals.

  Once they were caught.

  That was where profiling came in.

  Kyle spent the morning with Jimmy at the site out on Krome, where the torso had been found buried in the embankment. He watched back at the coroner’s office as the pathologists did the initial investigating and determined that the head, arm and torso all belonged to the same woman. He asked for numerous shots of the tattoos on Jane Doe’s buttocks and their newest victim’s torso. By the afternoon, he had scanned the shots into the computer and checks were being made across the country for any similar “signatures” on the bodies of victims in other states.

  From Broward south through Dade and Monroe Counties, the police began investigating tattoo parlors.

  Kyle worked late in his Coconut Grove hotel room, playing with random information and the computer. At seven he was deeply involved, and ordered up room service. By nine he was frustrated and restless. He turned off the computer, turned on the television.

  His telephone rang.

  “Kyle.”

  “Hey, Dad,” he told his father. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing. It’s just a luxury to have you in the city again. Thought I’d check in.”

  “Things are going well. We have a few interesting breaks in the case.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Something that may be significant. Two of the victims seem to have had tattoos done recently.”

  “The papers have mentioned body parts,” Roger said dryly.

  “So much gets released to the public, there’s not much we can do. And unfortunately, the papers seem to thrive on anything gruesome.”

  “That’s true. Well, you think you’ll get some free time this weekend?”

  “I’m sure I can manage some.”

  “Good. Remember the opening I was telling you about the other day?”

  Kyle went blank, then felt guilty as hell. Yes, his father and a friend and fellow artist were opening a gallery to highlight local artists. Their own work, along with that of a number of other area artists, would be on display. It was to be a black-tie affair Sunday evening.

  “Hey, Dad, if there’s a way, I’ll be there.”

  “Good. Rafe will appreciate your presence.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Kyle inquired, amused.

  “Your brother says that maybe the press will leave him alone if you’re there. They’re always after him, wanting to know why he never went into art. Says telling them he has no talent ne
ver works. Maybe they’ll be after you on Sunday instead of him.”

  Kyle laughed. “Leave it to Rafe to tell them straight-faced that he can’t draw a stick figure. Fine. If you see him before I do, you can tell him I feel guilty for living out of state and leaving him to take all the whatever-happened-to-your-artistic-genes heat.”

  “He’ll be glad to hear it. See you there, son, if not before.”

  “Yeah, Dad. Hey, wait, Dad, is the rest of the family coming?”

  “The rest of the family?”

  Kyle winced slightly. “Yeah. You know. Jordan and his brood. And Trent.”

  “Yeah, sure, of course. I imagine they’ll be there. They’re all invited, anyway. We’ve never failed to be supportive of one another, and they know this place means a lot to me. Is there a problem?”

  “No, of course not.”

  They said goodbye and hung up. Kyle rose and stretched, tired but restless.

  The phone rang again. Kaila, just calling to say hi. His second line rang, and it was Trent. A third call came from Jassy, who involved him in a lengthy conversation regarding forensic findings before telling him it was really just a social call and it was nice to have him home.

  The phone rang again. He told himself he wasn’t hoping it was Madison.

  It wasn’t. It was Rafe. He’d just taken a date to the movies at Cocowalk. She lived in the Grove and he’d just dropped her off, so maybe he and Kyle could meet for a drink.

  It sounded good to Kyle.

  Coconut Grove, even just after ten o’clock on a weeknight, was alive and bustling with tourists from all over, along with the local crowd.

  Kyle wandered through the bookstore—open until eleven on weeknights—and picked up a few newspapers, then wandered back over to Cocowalk, where he was meeting Rafe at Fat Tuesday’s. Rafe was already sitting at the bar with a beer, watching the hockey play-offs.

  Kyle sat down beside him and ordered the same. “Didn’t stay with the date, huh?” he inquired.

  Rafe smiled slowly and shrugged. He wasn’t quite two years older than Kyle—Roger had gone through wives quickly when he was young—but though they were close in age and size and shared a love for the sun, they weren’t alike in much else. Rafe had been a great student, he was serious and dedicated and, though not artistic in the least, he was a financial genius. He’d spent several years working as a stock trader, then started investing his savings. He’d been able to quit his job and now made a good living off his investments. His time in the sun had turned his blond hair platinum, and despite his serious nature, his eyes were a silver that could quickly come alight with rueful amusement, as they did now. “Staying with the date was on my mind, but I wasn’t invited. Well, I’m working on it for next time. She’s an R.N.—has to be at the hospital at six. Nice girl. We’ll see how it goes.”