Little of the structure was left standing—part of one corner post, a few slivered boards that had fallen out of reach of the flames. The skeleton of a metal table stood near the back of the large room, along with a soot-covered refrigerator and some metal shelving. Pratt identified lumpy messes that had once been chairs, a television, and a stereo, then gestured to a sink hanging precariously since the cabinet supporting it had been destroyed.
“The fire started here in the sink. Smell that?”
Tony smelled a hell of a lot of things, not one he could identify besides burned wood.
“That’s acetone. Your guy soaked some rags in acetone in the sink here, then set ’em on fire. The flames caught the cabinet up above, where some of the chemicals were stored, and voilà—barbecued drug dealer.”
Everybody brings something to a crime scene, and everybody takes something away. That was one of the first lessons Tony had learned as a cop. Everything the vigilante had brought—fibers, hairs, fingerprints, footprints—had been destroyed in the fire, with the exception of the calling cards, left deliberately. The lab had already examined the previous ones, and they weren’t likely to find anything different on these new ones.
So the guy had brought a shotgun and taken it away. Probably had a flashlight, too, if he’d come on foot through the woods. If the killer had waited for Samuels or the other guy to open the door, he would have made himself comfortable in his hiding place, leaving smashed grass, broken twigs, footprints, maybe a cigarette butt or gum wrapper.
Leaving the others talking, Tony walked outside, his gaze on the ground. Any prints that might have been left near the barn had been obliterated by the fire trucks and the footprints of everyone who’d been in and out, including his own. He picked a large oak about fifteen feet away as the most likely cover.
He wasn’t surprised to find a couple of footprints in the dirt at the base of the tree—running shoes, probably. About an eleven, just like the last case. Someone who knew the fine art of tracking could probably find more prints and maybe even follow them to where the killer had left his car. Tony had done some reading on the subject, but he’d never actually tried it, and the scene of a double homicide wasn’t the place to start.
“Find anything?” Collins asked, his shadow falling over the grass.
“Couple of prints. You any good at tracking?”
“What? White man think because me heap big Injun and smokum peace pipe, me also trackum wild buffalo?”
Giving him a long level look, Tony said dryly, “You’re Indian? I never noticed.”
Collins flipped him off. “Fine detective you are. I’m part Cherokee, part Creek, and part Osage, with a little Irish thrown in for good measure. And I don’t know nothin’ ’bout trackin’. ” He stretched, then pulled a package of mints from his pocket and shook a half dozen into his mouth. “Since it appears we’re looking for the same guy, you got anything on your homicides you wanna share?”
“Yeah. A whole shitload of tags we’re checking, looking for a dark car driven by a white guy who may or may not be involved, plus enough phone numbers and suspects to fill two phone books.”
“Thanks, but you follow your leads and I’ll follow mine. I was thinking more along the lines of a suspect who stands out in the crowd—a mutual friend or enemy.”
Tony shook his head. “I don’t have a clue.”
Maybe Dwayne Samuels had.
But he’d taken it to his grave with him.
Selena had set up her supplies on the small patio behind her house and was painting when Detective Ceola came home from work. He parked beside the Corvette and walked out to the street to get his mail. With his gaze on the ground, his shoulders slumped, and his hair standing on end, he looked as if he’d had a tough day. Definitely a long one, she noted with a glance at her watch. He’d left two hours early that morning and was home an hour late.
His dog jumped to his feet and alternated barking with howling until the back door opened and he shot inside. Maybe she would get a dog when she returned home. Lazy as he was, the animal wiggled from head to tail with excitement every time his master came home. Never having been the recipient of such a wholehearted welcome, she thought she would like to try it.
Less than fifteen minutes had passed when Ceola’s back door opened again. This time he came out, wearing broken-down running shoes, faded cutoffs, and nothing else. She watched as he unlocked the small storage shed in the back corner of the yard. It was nothing more than an artist’s appreciation for the human form, she told herself, and even pretended to believe it.
He took out a lawn mower, filled the gas tank, then started it with one powerful jerk on the cord. As the engine broke the silence with its steady buzz, she forced her attention back to the painting before her. After dipping a fan brush in pink, then white, she filled a terra-cotta pot on the porch with flowers. She repeated the steps for the second and third pots, then switched to a clean brush. She didn’t do anything with it, though. She merely held it and studied the canvas—pretended to study it—as she listened to the back-and-forth of the lawn mower.
Abruptly it went silent, then Ceola’s voice filled the quiet from a few yards away. “Does this bother you?”
She looked up to see him pushing the mower through the gate. Sweat glistened on his face and arms, and tiny flecks of green clung to his arms and legs. “No. I like the smell of fresh-cut grass.” Noise wasn’t a distraction. She could concentrate in the middle of a gun battle if necessary. He, on the other hand, could make it difficult, indeed, to keep her thoughts focused.
He gestured toward the easel. “Can I see?”
With a shrug, she took a step back. He came onto the patio and circled around behind her. He smelled of grass, of hard work on a hot day and, more faintly, of cologne, spicy notes with a musky undertone. His jaw was stubbled with beard, and his eyes seemed darker, more tired than usual, as he studied the painting.
She waited, not caring what he thought, if he compared it to a greeting card or dismissed it entirely, as William did. He thought she was wasting her life and all her other talents, trying to re-create the home she’d never had, the person she’d never been. Maybe he was right.
“Is that your house?” Ceola asked after a time. When she nodded, so did he. “It looks like it.”
“What do you mean?”
“It looks like the kind of place where I would expect you to live. On an island someplace, where the weather is always warm and life is always easy. Where you can go barefoot and wear flowers and never have a care.”
She shifted one bare foot on top of the other, then folded her arms over the floral print of her silk top. “That island doesn’t exist.”
He glanced at her then, a hint of a smile turning up the corners of his mouth. “You can make it exist. I bet tourists love your work. They take it home with them and hang it on their walls as a reminder on long winter days of warmer places and vacations long past.” His voice was quiet, soothing, almost hypnotic. He could keep talking, say anything, nothing, and she wouldn’t care as long as she could listen. “If it were in her power, Johnson, this female detective I work with, would banish all slender, pretty women to a mythical island, where they could torment each other and people like her wouldn’t have to look at them and feel inferior. ‘Island girls,’ she calls them.” His gaze swept down her, then back up. “You certainly are. You should wear flowers in your hair and relax under an old paddle fan and sleep in a four-poster bed surrounded by filmy netting, with the French doors open to let in the ocean breezes. You should dance under the stars and . . .”
His voice trailed off. Her throat dry, she looked at him. She couldn’t turn away, couldn’t think, couldn’t fill her lungs with even one particle of air that didn’t carry his scent, and so she just stood there and looked at him, and he looked back as if . . . as if . . .
The sound of a car horn blasted through the air, catching her so completely by surprise that she started. When was the last time that had happened
? Two years ago, a voice inside her whispered. Two years since she’d let down her guard, and she’d paid dearly for it. Was still paying for it.
Heat flushed her skin as her gaze jerked to the street where the same two young men who had been over for hamburgers on Sunday were climbing out of a pickup. The trailer it towed bore a sign proclaiming “Summer Break Lawn Service,” and was loaded with mowers, rakes, and other such devices. “I—” She swallowed, then moistened her lips. “I think you have company.”
He glanced their way, too, giving her a moment’s relief—or disappointment?—at being freed from his gaze. “Nah. They’re just brothers.”
She had suspected that Sunday. One was taller, one shorter, both were younger, and both had the Ceola eyes— dark brown, lush lashes, incredibly appealing.
“Yo, Tony, what’re you—” The brother who’d spoken stopped short and stared. “Wow. She beats all hell out of old Mrs. Howell. Lucky bastard.”
Selena’s flinch was involuntary, and she thought she’d covered it well by turning to the side to pick up her sunglasses, but when she turned back, it was to find Ceola thumping him on the back of the head. “Watch your mouth. Dad taught you better than to swear in front of a woman.”
His brother didn’t look the slightest bit chagrined. “Oh, yeah. Sorry. I’m Dom.” He stuck out his hand, then jerked his head in the third Ceola’s direction. “He’s Matt. And you’re beautiful.”
“Thank you. I’m Selena.” She shook his hand, aware of warmth, strength, and calluses, and returned Matt’s nod. At a loss for what to do next, she folded her arms across her middle again.
Matt came around to look at the canvas. “Pretty picture. You paint this?” When she nodded, he said, “You should do more and sell ’em. I bet people would like ’em a lot.”
Detective Ceola responded for her. “People do like them a lot. Selena has her own gallery in Florida. She’s an artist, and she would probably appreciate us getting out of her hair so she can get back to work.” His gaze strayed to her hair, and she heard his earlier words repeated as surely as if he’d spoken them once more. You should wear flowers in your hair . . .
The heat returned, warming her a few degrees past comfortable.
As Tony shepherded the men toward his own house, Dom called over his shoulder, “Nice meeting you, Selena. Hope to see you again.”
She lifted one hand in accompaniment to her faint smile.
Before they reached the back door, she heard his next words, not intended for her ears. “Shit, Tony, she’s freakin’ hot. Have you got something goin’ on with her? ’Cause if you don’t—”
The closing door blocked out the rest of his sentence, as well as Tony’s response.
Tony. She wasn’t sure she’d ever called him that, even in her thoughts. She was sure she shouldn’t do it again. It was too friendly. Too intimate. Too right.
Too wrong.
Setting her jaw, she turned her attention back to the painting. She picked up a brush, touched the tip into the green paint, lifted it to the canvas, and watched as her hand trembled uncontrollably. Dropping the brush to the table, she squeezed her right hand tightly with her left, closed her eyes, and concentrated on her breathing. With each calming, cleansing breath, she repeated the mantra that had gotten her through every bad time in her life.
I will survive. I will survive. I will survive.
7
AS he walked the halls of the old mansion, William found the sense of family impossible to escape. Their portraits gazed down from the walls; their voices whispered on the quiet air; their memories lingered in shadows. He had lived his first eighteen years in this house with his parents, his grandparents, and his sister. He’d given little thought at the time to the quality of his life. His family had been wealthy, and he’d been given everything he ever wanted. That was the way life was supposed to be.
The way it had continued . . . until the first time Selena had refused him. It had been a surprise—this woman who’d completely made herself over to please him, telling him no. The foolish girl thought she had that right, thought she could make her own decisions. One way or another, she would learn just how wrong she was. Whether the lesson was easy or painfully hard . . . that was the only choice she had.
Did she think he’d taken her in out of the goodness of his heart? Hardly. He’d turned her from an exotic little creature with quick hands, a furtive manner, and a knack for stealing in all its guises, into a beautiful, elegant woman who could reign over this mansion as if she’d been born to it. He’d seen to it that she’d gotten the proper education, the proper training to run a business, so that with his expert guidance, she could reign over his empire, as well. She just had to accept it as her fate.
Her visit two years earlier had provided him with the means to achieve acceptance. That last night her eyes had been swollen with tears and her face had borne the marks of an angry man intending to take what she wouldn’t give, but unlike Ocho Rios, she hadn’t needed William to rescue her—at least, not from her attacker. No, the only rescue she’d needed was from the nightmarish aftermath, and he’d handled it quite efficiently. He had disposed of the body, cleaned the blood, and destroyed the evidence . . . or so he’d told her. He’d known that someday it would be of use to him, and sure enough, the threat of exposing the incident was all he’d needed to get her back in Tulsa.
Realizing his aimless wandering had stopped, he found himself gazing out a window in the grand ballroom that filled the third floor. A few hundred yards away was the northeast corner of his property and the service entrance. Only invited guests came in the main entrance. Deliveries and hired help used the back gate. Selena’s yellow Thunderbird was there now, its driver waiting for the gate to complete its slow swing open.
He descended the stairs to the main floor. His staff was gone for the day, and the security guards were in the guard shack near the main gate. They wouldn’t start their nightly patrols until dusk fell, and Selena would be gone by then.
After circling the pool, he let himself into the guesthouse. He’d redecorated it a few years earlier with Selena in mind—had doubled the number of floor-to-ceiling windows, traded stuffy upholstery for wicker and pastel prints, replaced heavily ornate dark woods with elegantly simple pieces. In place of the original cold marble flooring, he’d put in wide wood planks the color of honey, and textured rugs in ivory, seafoam, and aqua.
He’d replicated the perfect little island paradise for her, and she had exclaimed how lovely, how nice, then turned down his offer to live there.
She was no longer in a position to turn down anything he asked. For the six years since her college graduation, she had put him off oh, so politely, with a smile and a No, thank you, Uncle, I’m not interested. But no more. After he’d killed for her in Ocho Rios, her heart had been his.
After she killed for him, her soul would be his.
As he lit the candles on the dining table, he felt a moment’s regret for forcing her to return to the scene of her crime. Common sense told him it was best to avoid meeting with her, but sentimentality overrode it. It had been two years, and they’d parted under difficult circumstances. He’d missed her.
Stepping back, he was studying the setting when Selena walked through the door he’d left ajar. Sonja, the housekeeper, had prepared everything exactly the way he’d specified—a snowy linen cloth on the table, the antique china and silver he’d purchased on his last trip to London, fresh flowers, an excellent chardonnay chilling in the refrigerator, and dinner warming in the kitchen.
“Uncle.” She stopped at the edge of the stone entry and glanced around. He could read nothing in her expression, no hint of the distress he knew she must feel at being back in the place that held such bad memories for her.
“Selena. You look lovelier than ever.” He extended his arms, circled the table, and greeted her properly, with an embrace and a kiss first on the left cheek, then the right.
“Thank you. You look wonderful, as well.”
Though the words were meaningless, they pleased him nonetheless. At sixty-two, he liked to joke that he didn’t look a day over sixty-one. “Have a seat, and I’ll serve the excellent dinner Sonja prepared for us.”
He expected her to move to the chair that would place her back to the room. She surprised him, though, walking instead to the opposite seat. When she’d fled this guesthouse two years ago, she had sworn in her tearful good-bye that she would never return. Yet here she was, calm and controlled, pretending she didn’t want to flee again.
But she hadn’t yet looked around the room—hadn’t let her gaze go anywhere near that patch of floor between the sofa and the fireplace, hadn’t risked even the faintest of glances at the marble-and-bronze statue that stood on the table behind the sofa.
The meal started with a salad of greens, fruits, and nuts, drizzled with a sweet onion dressing. The entrée consisted of seafood, sprouts, peppers, and pineapple sautéed in a mango curry sauce, served with fire-roasted vegetables and a crunchy rice dish, and for dessert, fried bananas with caramel sauce and whipped cream.
“A little taste of the tropics,” he said as he served the main course, “all for you. We wouldn’t want you getting homesick while you’re here.”
“I was surprised to receive your invitation,” she said after taking a few bites.
Of course she was. He’d waited until six-thirty to call, then had requested her presence for dinner at seven. She’d sounded pleased by the invitation. He’d been pleased by her acceptance.
“I hope you don’t mind meeting here,” he said, gesturing carelessly around the room with his wineglass. “I know it brings up a bad memory or two for you, but I couldn’t invite you into the house. The staff, you know . . .”
Something flashed across her face in the instant it took her to regain control. Hurt? Sorrow? He couldn’t say.
“I don’t mind coming here.”
Silently he applauded her excellent lie. If he hadn’t known better, he would have believed her . . . but he knew how traumatic that night had been. Knew how it still affected every aspect of her life.
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