Heather Graham Pozzessere - If Looks Could Kill

“Madison. Madison!”

She woke to the urgent sound of her name. She opened her eyes. She was lying on the living room couch, and Kyle was there, Roger’s son. Eighteen now, five years and a few months older than she was, a dozen years older in his superior attitude. Black-haired, green-eyed, Mr. Jock, quarterback of his football team. She hated him half the time, especially when he called her “squirt,” “airhead” or “bimbette.” But when his friends weren’t around and he wasn’t busy impressing the cheerleaders, he wasn’t a bad kid. Solid. Down-to-earth. When she was convinced she was a product of the most dysfunctional family of all time, he told her to stop whining, that lots of people had step-and half brothers and sisters. In fact, if he hadn’t been her step-brother, she might even have had a crush on him. But since he was, she wouldn’t even let herself think about that.

Okay, so maybe she had a few more than most. And okay, so Lainie was an unusually cool mom; in fact, she was hot. It wasn’t so bad to have Lainie for a mother, or Roger for a stepfather. Her real dad, Jordan Adair, was a world-renowned writer. And who actually cared how many stepmothers she’d had, huh?

Sometimes Madison hated Kyle, but other times, when she had reached the pits, he could make her laugh. And sometimes, sometimes, he even made her feel warm. As if she belonged somewhere.

But now he was staring at her, green eyes shining with tears. “Madison?”

“Madison…are you all right, Madison?”

She turned slightly. Roger was there, as well. Roger, who was openly crying.

“Roger, move aside.”

It was her father who was speaking. The Jordan Adair, a handsome man in his forties with a headful of long silver hair, a silver beard, dark, penetrating eyes. Leave it to her mother. Lainie would only marry men who were different: a rock star first, a writer, an artist. Jordan liked women in the arts, as well, but he didn’t seem to be quite as picky. He’d been through an opera singer, a stripper, a ballet dancer and Lainie, and had now broken the pattern to marry a sex therapist. He’d always loved Lainie, though. Always. And Madison knew that he loved her, too.

Like Roger and Kyle, Jordan had tears in his eyes.

She became aware of the sirens then. And the fact that the foyer was filling with cops. Roger moved away. She saw more of her family, her sister and her step-and half-siblings, standing awkwardly in the living room.

The girls, Jassy and Kaila. Jassy, her father’s daughter from his first marriage, was pretty and delicate, a dark-eyed blonde. Kaila was her only full sister. She and Kaila were both just like Lainie, redheads with blue eyes.

Her other brothers were there, as well. Trent, her father’s son from his second marriage, had sandy hair and Jordan’s piercing dark eyes. Rafe, Roger’s son from his first marriage, twenty now, was completely different from Roger and Kyle in coloring; his eyes were a misty silver, and his hair was a shining Nordic blonde. Like the others, he was pale now, scared-looking, quiet, his cheeks streaked with tears.

Kaila, just a year younger than Madison and nearly her twin in looks, suddenly began to sob. Loudly. Her knees buckled, but Rafe slipped an arm around her before she could fall.

Suddenly Madison remembered.

She began to scream and scream, shaking. There were paramedics at the scene, and even as she screamed and thrashed and tried in her hysteria to explain, someone came with a needle, pressing it into her arm. She could hear someone saying she couldn’t possibly talk to the police yet, and even if she could, what good could it do? Then the tranquilizer slipped into her, and everything went black once again.

This time she woke back at her father’s house, Kyle sitting by the side of her bed. She heard soft sobs coming from another room. One of her sisters.

“My mother is dead,” she whispered.

Startled, Kyle looked up. He stared at her compassionately and nodded.

“Someone killed her, Madison. I’m so sorry. Your dad is with Kaila, but I can get him for you if—”

“I saw it, Kyle.”

His eyes narrowed sharply.

“I saw it.”

“What do you mean, you saw it? You were in the hallway. Did the murderer run past you? Did you see who did it?”

She shook her head, looking for the words to describe what had happened. Tears welled up in her eyes. “She was terrified, absolutely terrified. She saw the knife. I saw it, too. I felt it.”

“Madison, you were forty feet from her room when we found you. Had you been in there?”

She shook her head.

“Then you couldn’t have seen anything.”

“I saw the knife.”

“Who killed her, then?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see a face. Just the knife. Just the knife, coming down at her. And I felt it. I felt it ripping into her.” She started to shake and sob again. Her mother had been killed, and it hurt as if a million tiny knives were digging into her heart. Lainie had been wild, headstrong and reckless, but Lainie had also been her mother, the one who held her, cherished her, laughed with her, shook her head over her, took the time to make red pipe-cleaner hearts with her class last February. Her mother was dead, and she didn’t think she could bear it.

Kyle didn’t try to say anything else. He sat beside her on the bed, taking her awkwardly into his arms while she cried and cried. Eventually her father came to the room and took her from Kyle, and she kept crying. She tried to tell her father that she had seen the knife, had felt Lainie die.

Her father was gentle and tender, and he pretended to believe her, but she knew he didn’t.

In the days and weeks that followed, the police investigated the murder with energy and zeal. They questioned Lainie’s various husbands extensively, certain that either Roger or Jordan had murdered her in a crime of raw passion. The tabloids picked up on the murder, as did the major magazines.

The cops talked to Madison. Lots of them. City of Miami cops, Metro-Dade cops. She told them that she had seen the knife, had felt her mother die. They didn’t believe her, either. But there was one cop who was at least nicer than the others. Jimmy Gates. He was fairly new to homicide, young, with warm brown eyes and sandy hair and a gentleness about him that soothed her. He wanted to know just what she had seen; he made her think back. When he questioned her, she saw the hand holding the knife. And she knew then that the killer had worn thin, flesh-colored gloves, like a doctor’s gloves.

She was amazed to realize what she could see, and also disturbed.

Roger was nearly arrested for the murder; her father was nearly arrested, as well. But there was no evidence that either man had killed Lainie. Kyle, Kaila and Madison had all been in the house at the time of Lainie’s death; Roger had arrived soon after. Kyle had immediately called Jordan Adair. In their questioning, the police said that Roger might well have killed Lainie, left by a window, disposed of the weapon and returned to pretend to find his wife. And Jordan’s home was well within walking distance, so he could easily have committed the murder, disposed of the weapon and reached his own house within a matter of minutes. Oddly enough, neither Roger nor Jordan accused the other. And with no evidence to go on, the police finally had to leave both men alone.

Time, Newsweek and People ran articles with headlines like Can Money Buy Innocence?—American Justice.

Jimmy Gates continued to talk with Madison. He listened gravely each time she went over and over what she had seen and felt. He tried to get her to see more, but try as she might, she couldn’t see beyond the gloved hand. Her father told Jimmy that he couldn’t torment her anymore, but she told her father she wanted to see Jimmy.