Tall, Dark, and Deadly Read online

  Because always he watched. He could see so much, and he knew so much. No one knew, no one understood that everything he did was deserved and just.

  Take the two of them…

  The wretched snoops…

  They’d been out there. A piece of body had risen…

  Her fault.

  And she wouldn’t stop. Finding a body wasn’t enough; she had to pry.

  He’d never wanted it to be her. Because she was different.

  Not so different. What was she doing right now? Showing what she really wanted, just like the rest of them.

  He watched…

  The man’s body, her body. She moved like a cat against the man, rubbing against him, sliding against him. She was on her knees, she was up, he was down. Her back was arched, her head cast back. She was so very perfect in her form. He could see what she did, how her lips moved, almost the words that tumbled from them. He could hear her every cry and whisper…

  He felt a sudden, agonizing cramp.

  She was the same. Not different. Just the same. He’d known it. Known that she wouldn't leave it be. But tonight…

  He wanted her.

  They said that his crimes were crimes of violence, not love, not sex. Yet they were so foolish; they didn’t begin to understand the rush, the ultimate climax, when the two combined. They didn’t even understand that he only punished those who sinned. In a different time, in a different age, he might well have been applauded.

  Ah, Samantha.

  It shouldn’t have been you.

  You were different, but you wouldn’t let it be. You pretended such purity, but you’re sullied. Just like the rest. I sensed it before, and now… yes, now I want you.

  And you have sinned.

  I’ve been watching.

  And you must be punished…

  Sam really did go in to work early. Rowan woke her with a nuzzled kiss, making her get up to come lock the door—he was leaving. Once he was gone, she hurriedly showered and dressed and headed on in to work. She caught up with bills and correspondence, watching the clock all the while. The minute nine o’clock arrived, she called the law firm. She was anxious when Loretta didn’t answer the phone, except that the cheerful receptionist told her that she had talked with Loretta, who was taking a sick day—she seemed to have a terrible cold.

  Good. A cold would keep her out of the club.

  Then Sam was glad in a way that she hadn’t gotten to Loretta. She didn’t want anyone wanting to know why she was trying to reach Kevin Madigan, or even that she was doing so. But the girl who answered the phone was a temp who gave her information without even asking her name or her business; she put Sam right through to Kevin Madigan’s office. Sam worried about leaving a message, but Kevin answered his own phone impatiently.

  “Kevin?”

  “Yes, who the hell is this?”

  “Sam. Samantha Miller. You left me a message at my house last night. Something about having lunch.”

  “Oh, yeah, great! Are you available?”

  “Well—”

  “I was hoping we could put our heads together on Marnie. You know, maybe think of some little thing that might trigger something. I know you were her best friend. I can’t claim the same, but I sure want her to be found.”

  “I think lunch would be a great idea.”

  “Where would you like to go? I haven’t much time; things are crazy here.”

  “Mm. Things are crazy,” she murmured. She couldn’t help but think about Thayer Newcastle’s beautiful paintings, the body in the swamp—and the fact that people at the law firm were connected with the strip club.

  “I’ll come by the gym,” Kevin said. “I could use a half hour on the treadmill anyway. When I can get away, I’ll come in. Then, when you can get away, we’ll just go.”

  “Fine, sounds great,” she said, glad that he meant to accommodate her schedule.

  The only question was, why was he being so accommodating?

  Rolf Lunden, the lead investigator on the case, was actually a friend of Teddy’s, and he was a nice guy, willing to bend the rules. There had been a killing on the beach the night before, plus two major execution-style killings, the victims dropped into the bay. So there were only two police divers who could be spared. Lunden had told Teddy hell, yes, he was welcome to go on down. He’d been more hesitant about Rowan, but Rowan had come armed with his diving credentials, and after Lunden had studied them for a minute, he shrugged. “Hey, well, you know, this is considered about the worst duty you can draw, going down out here in the muck, so if you’re determined… just watch out for any evidence, huh?”

  “Absolutely,” Rowan assured him.

  So now he was down.

  And he had learned why it was considered like diving into hell.

  Though the day was hot, he’d chosen a fairly thick skin—Teddy’s suggestion. God alone knew just what all might come against you down in the water.

  They weren’t in the absolute worst areas. Those would be diving in pure mud, so thick it was like swimming in pea soup. No, here they were in canals with open pools. Real water. Except that as soon as they were down, no matter how carefully they moved, mud and silt were stirred up, and he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. When the mud had first begun to darken the water, he had realized why some people panicked under these circumstances. He was blinded—and painfully aware of the predators in the water with him.

  There were men up in the police boats, watching. But there were no guarantees. Just as they had seen them the other day, alligators were basking on the shore of the nearby hammocks.

  Rowan listened to the sound of his breathing; it was one of the things he loved about diving. It was somehow reassuring—the only time in life he ever really thought about breathing. He adjusted his regulator in his mouth, remained still at neutral buoyancy while the mud around him settled, and then he began to move. If he was careful to keep his flippers off the ground, the water would stay far clearer.

  Roots tangled beneath the surface here. Grasses grew, long and thick. As the silt settled, he could begin to see the refuse of decades embedded in the dark bottom with its tangle of primeval growth. Yes, man had been here. Beer cans littered the mud. There, strangely, shining and standing up against the gloom, was the hood ornament from a Jaguar. A license plate lay half covered in the mud.

  A skull.

  His heart quickened. He reached out. The mud was stirred.

  His gloved hands curled over the skull, and the rampant beating that had speeded up his breathing began to slow again.

  Not human.

  Extra long, white, with dozens of scissorlike teeth. A gator skull.

  He set it back down, feeling a strange chill. He forced himself to turn carefully, roll in the water without disturbing the silt, to look around, to assure himself he wasn’t being pursued by an alligator. What if one did decide to strike? They were fast in the water. So fast and fluid. And the pressure of their jaws…

  Steady. Steady. Steady…

  He turned back to his task.

  Ahead of him, he saw something shiny. He saw it, then lost it. Like the Jaguar hood ornament, things down here had to be seen in the sunlight filtering through the water.

  There… again.

  He looked carefully, but it was still too far distant. He moved forward, and there, once again, he saw it flashing.

  Something smacked against his mask.

  He jerked, stirred the earth.

  A fish. Just a fish.

  Jesus.

  He waited, irritated with himself. Once again, he’d stirred up the silt. The world around him was black.

  He waited.

  The silt began to settle slowly. It felt as if it was taking forever. He tried to check his computer for his time and his air. At first, he couldn’t see it. He drew it closer to his face. He’d only been down twenty minutes. He had plenty of air.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught movement. He turned, careful now. But whatever it wa
s, it was gone.

  He watched his bubbles rise. Waited. Still.

  There it was, glistening ever so slightly. A flash of brilliance, here, gone.

  He moved forward again.

  A large branch had fallen from a tree, he saw. A big pine? The flashing seemed to come from one of the branches.

  Very slowly, very carefully, so as not to lose it again, he moved ever closer. Yes, there it was, on a narrow branch of the tree.

  He reached out.

  A bracelet, he saw.

  It was beautiful, and delicate. Gold, with tiny diamonds here and there.

  He reached out, wondering if the bracelet might have belonged to the victim they had found the day before.

  He touched it.

  And then he realized that…

  Yes. There was a big tree limb down. A massive, multibranched limb down in the water. But the bracelet wasn’t snagged on a branch.

  Not a branch. Not part of a tree…

  It just looked like slim, delicate branches drifting in the water. Beckoning. Beckoning like a human hand…

  Because it was a human hand.

  What was left of one…

  When Sam went back to her office, after a therapy session with one of her clients, she was startled to find Kevin Madigan seated in a chair in front of her desk, reading a fitness magazine. He looked up when she entered.

  He wasn’t in gym clothes, and he certainly hadn’t been working out. He was impeccable in a charcoal-gray suit, wheat-patterned tie, and cranberry shirt. With his dark hair and good looks, he could easily have been posing for GQ. They had gone out together once, perhaps two years ago. He’d been pleasant, charming, and a perfect gentleman. He’d taken her hands and just brushed her lips with the barest kiss at her doorstep. He’d suggested they go out again, but she’d sputtered out something about having to travel for a while. There had just been something at the time that bothered her. She wondered now if she’d just been impossible to please, wanting someone not so perfect, someone a little more earthy, real, rugged—wanting Rowan. Or was there something about him that really was…

  Slimy.

  He was just too damn perfect. Tall, dark, and handsome, and smart. An attorney, a man going places. He had a habit of trying to unobtrusively check out his appearance. In fact, he was doing it now—looking at her and yet past her, into the mirror behind her desk. She almost smiled. Joe liked to check himself out. But he just did it. In fact, if you were in the way, he would politely ask you to move aside.

  “Kevin! I thought you were going to work out.”

  “I’d thought about it, but I decided not to. Is that all right?”

  “Sure.”

  “Busy place you’ve got going here.”

  “Yes, there are a lot of people in here for a Friday morning. Usually we’re busiest right after five, people on their way home from work, stopping off. Saturday and Sunday mornings are busy, too.”

  “Well, this must be a Friday for people playing hookey.” He leaned forward. “Did you see who was out there?”

  “Well, I think I saw almost everyone.”

  He sat back. “Did you?”

  She folded her hands on her desk. “Didn’t I?”

  He smiled, like the cat that had eaten the canary. “Phil.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Phil, the contractor. Phil, Marnie’s contractor.”

  No, she hadn’t seen Phil, but then, the place was crowded. She smiled. “I thought Phil was a friend of yours. I mean, he’s done work for a lot of your clients. Wasn’t he working on a house for Chloe Lowenstein when she disappeared?”

  “My point, exactly”

  “Maybe you should mention that to the police,” Sam said.

  He shrugged. “I was trying to get your take on the situation. I mean, I knew Marnie. Lots of men knew Marnie. We had a relationship in which we needed one another now and then. But still, you knew her better than anyone else. You’re the only one I know that Marnie honestly liked. She couldn’t find anything bad to say about you except that…” He paused, grinning.

  Okay. She had to ask.

  “Except what, Kevin?”

  He hesitated, but then gave her a small, rueful smile. “Except that being friends with you was like being friends with the Virgin Mary from time to time. Holier than thou, you know.”

  Sam shrugged, refusing to comment.

  Kevin was glad to move on to another subject. “Ready for lunch?” he asked.

  Rowan would be ready to throttle her, she was sure. But he had told her to stay away from the club, and she wanted to get Kevin out of here—to a place where she could ask him about his involvement in the club.

  “I… sure. Just let me change.”

  She left him in her office and hurried into the women’s locker room. It was empty. She opened her own large locker, found a sleeveless knit dress, and pulled it out. She shed her gym clothes standing by the locker, then froze.

  She thought she heard a noise from behind her. She spun around. No one.

  And yet…

  Chills assailed her.

  She felt as if she were being watched.

  I can see you…

  She could almost hear the voice again. Feel it, against her ear.

  I'll be watching…

  She slipped into her dress and sped out of the locker room, wondering how it was possible for her to feel such stark terror in broad daylight.

  Chapter 19

  Rowan wasn’t the only one who made a discovery that day.

  Teddy had come across a femur.

  Al Smith, a leather-skinned old diver, had brought up another arm, and another mass of something. They recognized bone; that was about it. Like the torso and the piece of pelvis they had found, this also had bits of muscle or some tissue remaining.

  Sitting in the police boat, waiting while their finds were properly bagged and tagged. Rowan felt numb. He’d been through some bad times in his life. He’d seen death. He’d known losses that ripped his soul apart.

  But nothing like this.

  Human life reduced to remnants. Food for primeval predators. He wasn’t a believer in the body having meaning after death; nothing had ever made so much sense to him as being an organ donor. But this…

  Perhaps it was the callousness. Maybe it was wondering if the person had been alive or dead when she had been so viciously dismembered.

  Bone, muscle, tissue… trying to decide what body part they held. And then the remains that he had found. Hand, fingers… barely held together. Arm, wrist… delicate tendrils of remaining tissue.

  And the bracelet. Something so personal and intimate as a piece of jewelry. The bracelet bothered him. Really bothered him.

  He felt that he’d seen it before. It was a gold band with diamonds set into it in a delicate, elegant pattern.

  Had he seen it on Marnie?

  Al Smith suddenly gave him a hearty pat on the back and handed him a thermos of coffee. He took it gratefully, looking out at their surroundings. The swamp looked so peaceful. There were alligators sunning on the embankment of the hammock to his left, but the sun had begun to go down. They were cast in shadow. The day itself seemed to be painted in colors of red, gold, crimson, mauve. A long-legged crane waded to his right. Trees dipped beneath their own weight, branches touching the water, and the water itself shimmered on the surface, touched by the colors of the setting sun.

  Smith sat down beside him.

  “Gotta admit, I wondered what the hell they were doing, letting a long-haired hippie rocker go down with us.”

  Rowan grinned, wondering just how old Smith might be. “I kind of missed the hippie stage, and this is about the longest I’ve ever had my hair,” he told Smith.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter much. Seems like sometimes, when I look back, it was the long-haired hippie types who cared the most about the Everglades, who were watching out for the panthers and the manatees. Then again, you know, certain things just span all time, and all years, you know? Thi
nk of a sports dive out in the islands somewhere. You take rich people, people who just scraped up the money, young people, old people—and they’re all suddenly just the best friends in the world, pointing out a moray eel to one another, pieces of shipwreck, a shark coming into view, maybe. It’s like something that you either love or you just don’t. Like the swamp. Years ago, we didn’t know quite so much about conservation, and then again, we didn’t have quite so many private interest groups, all vying for the water—sugar farmers, developers… It was one of those better times, you know, like they say, those easier times. There were macho guys who liked to hunt and fish, and they came. And there were peace-loving bird-watchers, and they came. And mostly, the hunters shot up their beer cans, and the bird-watchers tended to their bug bites.”

  “Doesn’t look like it could have changed too much,” Rowan said. The coffee was good. The sun was still coming through the trees. The day was hot. He was chilled. He was grateful for the coffee.

  “It hasn’t. Not really. It’s still one hell of a place to dispose of a body,” Smith said, staring moodily out across the water.

  “You think she was definitely murdered?”

  Smith turned to Rowan and arched a brow high. “Why, hell, what do you think? She came out here on her own and told the alligators, come get me?”

  “Might have been accidental—”

  “Is that what you think? Gut feeling, that’s what counts. So you tell me, take one good look, and what do you think?”

  Rowan grinned. “You’ve made your point.”

  “The woman was murdered, son.”

  Teddy came over, leaping from boat to boat. “Guess we’ve got about everything properly bagged and tagged, ready for the M.E.,” he said. He called to the young officer at the boat’s helm. “Let’s head on in.” He took a seat opposite Rowan and Al. “All right, old-timer,” he said, shouting over the sudden sound of the motor. “Did we do all right?”

  Smith leaned back, crossing his arms over his white-haired chest. “Yeah, you boys did the force proud, Detective Henley.”

  Teddy shivered. “Got to admit, even I felt a little green.”