Heather Graham Pozzessere - If Looks Could Kill

On a spring break trip to Las Vegas, she married Darryl. Nine months later to the day, she gave birth to Carrie Anne Hart.

Darryl went to work for an engineering firm in Fort Lauderdale. Madison did runway modeling and an occasional photographic shoot while being a mom and working on her own photography.

Two and a half years after their marriage, Darryl came home to find Madison in tears. He wanted to know what was wrong. There was nothing wrong, she said. She was wrong. Their marriage was wrong. He was wonderful, but she didn’t love him the way that she should.

Well, he wasn’t so wonderful, he told her. Then he admitted to having an affair with one of his file clerks.

Madison wasn’t sure why she was so furious, when she was appalled at herself for never having really loved Darryl. He wanted to patch things back together. He was so contrite that it was terrible.

In the end, oddly enough, they managed to part as friends. Good friends.

But Darryl accepted a job offer in the D.C. area. He needed to start over; she understood.

When all three of them could manage it conveniently, Madison saw to it that Carrie Anne went to stay with her father for a few days to a week. On those occasions, Madison began to accept more and more modeling jobs. While she was off on location in the Keys on one of them, she and some of the other models got a little giddy on a drink the bartenders were calling a Storm Front. She was surprised to find herself singing on stage with the hotel’s poolside band, and even more surprised to discover that she was good.

She was alarmed when one of the photographers showed her a few of the pictures he had taken while she was performing.

She looked exactly as Lainie had looked before her death. Long, thick auburn hair, large, bright blue eyes. She was taller, about five-foot-eight, but her face was Lainie’s classic oval, her nose, her mouth…just like Lainie’s. She had loved her mother, even though she hadn’t wanted to grow up to be her, wild, headstrong, going through husbands like toilet paper, heedless of the feelings of others….

Joey King, leader of the hotel band, wanted her to take a job with them. He was young, excited.

“We’re on the brink of something really good happening. I’ve sold some of my songs, we’ve had the big music people down to see us—”

Madison finished her drink and stood. “Joey, I don’t want to be a performer. I have a daughter. I have a career that’s going better than I actually wanted it to.”

“Because you look like your mother,” he said.

She stared at him, and he shrugged.

“Sorry, but she was famous. I’ve seen lots and lots of pictures of her, and you do look just like her. Is that why you don’t want to perform?”

“Joey, honestly, I just don’t want to go out on the road—”

“All right, all right, no going on the road, I promise.”

“Groups can make it or break it on the road,” she reminded him.

“I have a wife and two kids myself,” he told her. “Lots of groups have survived nicely just by doing local gigs and being studio musicians, and we have some great studios here. My sizzling desire for fame and fortune has been somewhat dampened by the reality of life,” he added dryly. “So, would you do a few demos with us? Would you sing live with us now and then, when we’ve got some of the suits in the audience?”

His flames might have been dampened, but he was still a determined dreamer. And she liked him. He was blunt and honest, not to mention she’d had fun singing with the band.

She shrugged. “Sure,” she told him. “Sure…”

Madison closed her eyes for a moment, then swung her legs over the side of the bed. Time to stop thinking about the past. Time to get moving.

Life had settled into a pattern for her, and she was happy, she told herself firmly

Well, okay, maybe not completely happy—she was too restless to be happy. She was a young divorced mom living in the same city as most of her family, so she had people who loved her around her—yet she was independent.

There were still the dreams, and when they came, she called Jimmy. But the dreams weren’t all that frequent, and she was resigned to having them. Sometimes she would go with Jimmy to a crime scene, and sometimes she was able to get a feel for something, or have a flash of insight. She was seldom tormented by the visions.

As she had been today.

She straightened her hair and skirt, and caught sight of herself in the mirror again. “Don’t whine, Madison! If you’re not happy as a little lark, at least you’re basically content in life!”

But her reflection remained grave. She felt restless. Uneasy.

As if, suddenly, things were going to come full circle.

As if the past itself were going to come back and haunt her life….

She gave herself a serious shake. She was working tonight. And come Monday, she would help Jimmy. She’d helped him before. Tonight it was time to have some dinner with Carrie Anne and her dad, if he was around, and get going.

Yet as she started for her daughter’s room, she still couldn’t quite shake an uncomfortable feeling. Not just the fear and pain the dream had evoked for a stranger.

An unease that curled around her heart…

Much, much closer to home.

Kyle knew that he fit in fine. He might be a “suit” from Washington now, but he was a Florida boy from way back, and he knew how to sit in a Key West bar and blend in with the scenery.

He was wearing cutoff jeans, scuffed Top-Siders and a worn short-sleeved cotton shirt, open at the throat and halfway down his chest. He wore dark sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead, and he sat at a table located in the rear, where shadows fell, leaning back in his chair, legs sprawled on the chair before him as he nursed his beer. He could pass for a tourist—or a local. He guessed that he was actually somewhere in between. Jordan Adair owned this particular place, and it was popular. Folks coming down to Key West liked to have a drink at Sloppy Joe’s, famous as an Ernest Hemingway hangout, but they were equally anxious to fit in with the modern so-called “literary” crowd, which could include just about anyone. Jordan Adair wrote gritty suspense; his friends included mystery writers, true-crime writers, sci-fi and romance writers, those who dealt in history, in general fiction, in nonfiction—and those who were just so famous they could write books that would sell just because they were who they were. Along with the literary crowd, the place offered music—and the music was as varied as the clientele.

Jordan was not only cozy with the attorneys, cops and pathologists he consulted for his work, he was also friends with the film crowd, since a number of his books had been adapted for the screen. Tourists loved to flock here just to see who they could see, with the assurance that—should the crowd be quiet—the music would be good. At the moment, it was late afternoon, and a technician was just finishing fussing with the wires to one of the microphones.

Today, some of those who wanted to be seen were out. A young starlet with an entourage of bodybuilders was at the bar, drawing her share of attention from the tourists, as was Niall Hathaway, author of the latest publishing phenomenon, a hardcover about a priest brought back from a coma through the prayers of his congregation—and dreams about a life with the woman he had once loved and would love again. The book had been on the hardcover bestseller lists for over a year now; the movie rights had gone for well over a million dollars. Didn’t matter. The old guy just wanted to take his newfound wealth and go fishing. Key West was a good place to get on a boat with a rod and a few knowledgeable fishermen.