If Looks Could Kill. Heather Pozzessere Graham
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“So what is up with you?”
Jassy shrugged. “Nothing new.”
“You seeing someone?”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“Tell me!”
“Umm…give me a little time, huh? I want to make sure it’s not like a…”
“One-night stand?”
“Well, ‘three-date deal’ would be more like it.”
“Are you sleeping with him?”
“Madison!”
“Fair question.”
“None of your business.”
“If you can’t tell a sister, who can you tell?”
“It’s private.”
“Have you or haven’t you?”
“Okay. Once. Just once.”
“Whoa! So it’s serious.”
“I still need to be careful. I have…reasons. God, he’s charming, though!”
“But who is he?”
“Not yet! And don’t you dare say a word to anyone, promise?”
“What can I say? You haven’t told me anything.”
“Please, I don’t want anyone even knowing there’s a man in my life.”
“All right, all right! But now I’m going to be eaten alive with curiosity.”
“Eaten alive with curiosity! Now that will lead to an interesting autopsy!” Jassy said.
“Ugh.”
“It’s a fascinating science,” Jassy said seriously.
“There’s so very much you can learn from the dead when they can’t speak for themselves anymore.”
“I’ll grant you that.” Madison leaped to her feet. “But look around you. The sun, the sea—it’s a great day. Take a break from the dead, huh? I’m going in. You coming?”
“Yeah,” Jassy agreed. “I’ll be along in a few minutes.”
Madison dived in.
Kyle had brought them to anchor just off a sandbar. They were near a few of the smaller reefs, but even having been away for a while, Kyle would have been careful to anchor far from a coral shelf—anchors damaged the precious living coral. They had remained far to the southwest, avoiding John Pennecamp State Park, an underwater park that protected the reefs and the sea creatures living there. There was no fishing out of Pennecamp, though it was a beautiful place to dive.
Madison swam down, estimating that they were in about twenty-five to thirty feet of water. The water was perfect, warm near the surface, cool and pleasant beneath. She shot down deep, touched and stirred up the sand, then kicked to the surface again. She looked to the boat, ready to shout to Jassy to come join her.
But Jassy had moved aft. Madison heard her laughter, Kyle’s deep voice, Carrie Anne’s shrill giggle of delight over something.
Her invitation to her sister died on her lips.
“How’s it going, guys?” she called instead, keeping her distance. The fishing lines would run with the current, and she definitely wasn’t in the mood to catch a hook.
“Mommy!” Carrie Anne cried happily, running to the portside rail to stare down at her. “I just caught a red snapping!”
“Snapper,” Madison corrected automatically. “Great!”
Kyle joined Carrie Anne at the hull, bronze chest glazed in a sheen of sweat, eyes shaded by his glasses. “I was just thinking, Madison, you might want to come up. Jassy was telling me they had a shark attack out here last week.”
She frowned, looking at him. “Kyle, you know that a shark attack is about as common as being struck by lightning. That diver was spearfishing and holding on to the fish he caught by sticking them in his swimsuit. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not carrying any dead fish.”
“But we’re fishing, and Carrie Anne’s snapper is a pretty big guy. He did some heavy-duty wiggling. Lots of distress signals going out in the water.”
“I just want to swim over the reefs for a minute. You can see me. I’ll come back in just a few minutes.”
Kyle shrugged, but didn’t look happy. He wanted her out of the water, but he knew that his argument wasn’t all that strong. Any offsping—or pseudo-offspring—of Jordan Adair had grown up in the water.
As Madison swam from the boat she could feel his eyes on her. She dived beneath the surface, heading toward the reef.
Water was wonderful. It was the one great escape still known to man. Under the surface, there were as yet no cellular phones. It was beautiful; it was freeing; it was a different world.
She surfaced for air, judging that the coral tips were not more than ten feet beneath her trailing toes. She dived again, swimming carefully around the coral, not touching it. A tiny, brilliant yellow tang darted by her; sea fans waved before her. She very carefully skirted a few dusky red-orange stands of fire coral and came upon a monstrous grouper. The fish looked like a plump, outraged British butler.
She surfaced, then dived again, enjoying herself and oblivious now to the fact that Kyle was watching her from the boat.
A shy moray eel moved away from her with such speed that it looked as if he’d been sucked back into the coral. She swam on to the outskirts of the reef and noted something lying in the sand.
Too bad she hadn’t taken the time to put on a mask and snorkel. She couldn’t see the object clearly, and she was running out of air.
She surfaced, then dived again, going straight for the object in the sand.
As she neared it, she felt the all-too-familiar cold settling over her again.
She was somewhere else. Laughing, then not laughing. Laughter turning to fear.
She was in a hotel room. As a very pretty young redhead.
Black phone on the side table, Holy Bible beneath the phone. TV remote by the Bible. She’d come because she wanted to come. She’d been so happy, then…
The flash of steel.
Madison blinked, desperate to free herself from the vision. She had slipped back into her dream, there under the water. She had to surface.
But she had thrown herself to the ground. And as she returned to the present, she could see the object.
It was an arm. Weighed down with a red building brick.
A human arm, from the elbows to the fingers, with the tips missing. Gnawed. She could see bone at the elbow, raw, puffed, bloated flesh.
She started to scream, inhaling as she did so, and then began to choke.
Her vision was clouding again, this time with blackness.
She couldn’t think….
Kick…
Suddenly, someone was with her. Kyle. They were shooting toward the surface. They broke it.
She gasped for breath. Choked. Her lungs and abdomen were killing her. She breathed deeply. And looked at Kyle.
In the water, at least, his glasses were gone. His green eyes were impatient and angry.
“Madison, damn it, I told you to come out, not scare us all to death by disappearing that way. Jesus Christ! Your daughter is in tears up there! What the hell is the matter—”
“Arm!” she managed to croak.
“What?”
“Kyle,