Shadowed Paradise (40 page)

Claire jerked the designer-coordinated silk
top over her head, her skin crawling as the clinging fabric fell
away. With a shudder she tossed both pieces toward the bedroom’s
pink marble fireplace. “He didn’t come within fifteen feet of me,
and I still want to burn them,” she hissed between her teeth.

Brad paused, fingers on his jeans zipper, and
eyed the perfectly clean fireplace grate. “I doubt there’s been a
fire in there for forty years,” he said without protest. “Want to
try the fireplace in the living room?”

Claire, now stripped down to the buff,
reached for her nightgown and froze, her hand clutching Brad’s
favorite bit of pink froth. The very reasonableness of his tone,
his calm cooperation in her proposed act of destruction, struck her
as sharply as a dash of cold water. She stood for a moment, eyes
closed, head bowed, holding the gown in front of her like a shield
for her suddenly guilt-ridden soul.

“
Okay, so I’m a silly fool,” she
mumbled to the floor.

“
If burning them will help, go ahead
and do it. I’ll buy you a dozen more.” Brad unzipped his jeans and
started to step out of them.

Claire, still clutching the frothy nightgown
in front of her, stared at the pink marble fireplace and knew at
last why she had been swept by such a strong wave of guilt. Brad
was hearing her words, responding automatically, being
matter-of-fact . . .

Covering up. Claire supposed it was part of
his training.

Her face crumpled as she swung round to face
him. “I can’t believe I’m such a self-centered idiot that all I
could think about was burning some perfectly good clothes. What’s
being stalked compared to losing someone . . . someone you knew so
well . . . and then being accused of killing her? I’m sorry, so
very sorry.”

In the immensity of Palm Court’s master suite
they stood six feet apart and stared at each other, their souls as
bare as their bodies. Brad’s breath hissed out between his teeth.
Today he had been all but accused of killing his mistress. His
wife—his brand new wife who was already intimately acquainted with
betrayal—was not obligated to believe him innocent. And yet, here
she was, not only trusting him, but able to grant him the right to
grieve.

He’d done well that stormy night on a flooded
bridge. The fates had been kind.

Brad closed the distance between them in two
long strides, his arms coming around her so tightly Claire could
scarcely breathe. Into her hair he murmured, “If I ever needed
another reason why I married you . . .”

Their future hinged on blind faith.

Brad ran his hand down Claire’s cheek,
cupping her head even more tightly into the solidity of his chest.
“I thought I’d experienced everything,” he admitted slowly, “but
this is different. I was so damned angry with Diane. She was
driving me up the wall. But, let’s face it, we’d spent a lot of
time together. When Garrett told me he’d gotten her a chance at a
job in Atlanta, I wasn’t just glad to get her off my back, I was
glad
for
her. It was what she
really wanted. Men were just something she amused herself with.
Hell, men have been using women that way since the beginning of
time, so why should we blame Diane for doing the same? She was fun
and full of life and deserved better than she got.”

Brad’s arms tightened around Claire until it
was almost painful. “I’m going to find this weirdo,” he promised.
“Believe me, I’m going to get him.”

Fun and full of
life
. And what did that make Claire Langdon Blue? The
bride whose lips had thinned to a flat line as she fought against
the ugliness of jealousy, particularly the insidious futility of
being jealous of the dead?

What it made her was selfish,
self-centered, spoiled
. He married you,
didn’t he? And Diane’s the one who’s dead.

“
And you’re
next.”

Claire’s head sprang off Brad’s chest. She
looked wildly about the room. The threat had been so clear in her
mind, the words seemed to have been spoken aloud. But there was no
one there. Only Brad, looking at her very strangely indeed. How
could she explain the striking reality of what she had heard?

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, isn’t that
what they called it? Her mind was playing tricks on her. She was
standing in her own bedroom, with Brad’s arms around her. There was
no safer place in all the world.

“
Come on,” Brad urged gently, “let’s go
to bed. Somehow things always look brighter in the morning.” He
took the pink gown from her lifeless fingers and slipped it over
her head.

Sure, Claire thought. Platitudes were the
panacea practiced on victims. The cure-alls mouthed by people who
were tongue-tied by tragedy and forced to fall back on the comfort
of traditional phrases.

Which didn’t mean the time-worn words
weren’t true. Things usually
did
seem better in the morning. The scary part of that thought
was the
seem
.

Docilely, Claire allowed herself to be tucked
up in bed. Brad slid in beside her. The gentle intensity of his
lingering goodnight kiss somehow communicated an apology, the
bitter regret that this was not the honeymoon they’d planned. Nor
was it the moment for anything more. Too many problems had wedged
between them.

Brad cradled Claire in his arms, silently,
grimly, willing away the shadows. Eventually, they slept.

He had been bad. Just as Mom always said.
She’d worked so hard polishing him into a cultured gentleman. A
lover of fine things. Beautiful things.

Like Diane.

There had been an awful moment of clarity
when he recognized the finality of what he’d done. He’d arranged
Diane on the bed with infinite care, leaving the stocking dangling
like a modern-day echo of Isadora Duncan. And when everything was
precisely as he wanted it, he stepped back . . . took a good
look.

The stocking was a nice touch. But demented.
That was Diane lying there. The shell of his beautiful golden girl.
The witch who’d tempted him to lie with the warm life of her, to
writhe and pant, give in to base needs that lowered him to the
level of the stupid slugs who crawled their way through this world
. . . mindlessly mating, reproducing . . .

Fucking.

Oh, yes, they’d spent the night at it. And
when he was through, he’d killed her. As he stared at her still
glowing beauty, he knew that Diane was already exacting her own
brand of revenge. Behind her, around her, he could see all the
others, from that first frightened creature in Manatee Bay to Mom,
to the pregnant one who fought so hard he’d cut her up and thrown
her to the gators.

Diane deserved better. Much better.

He’d been bad. He’d allowed himself one last
lingering look at her neatly arranged corpse. Then he’d wiped his
prints, turned out the lights, and carefully locked the condo
door.

But Diane came back to haunt him. Each day
his clarity of vision was growing stronger. Diane was his friend.
She had done what no woman had ever done before, drawn from him
passion he had not known he possessed.

He shouldn’t have killed her. He shouldn’t
have killed any of them.

It was wrong.

He had to be punished.

“
There’s not a word in the paper,”
Claire said over her shoulder as she tossed small chunks of
potatoes into the frying pan. “I checked every section.”

Brad, whose breakfast had been delayed by an
early morning phone call, slid into a chair at the round table in
front of the kitchen’s bay windows. Beyond the windows the inlet
sparkled blue behind his boat, riding gently on the rising tide.
“Only hurricane, fire and flood grab a reporter’s attention on a
Sunday afternoon,” Brad said as he reached for his coffee mug,
doubly appreciating the smell of a breakfast he did not have to
make for himself. “It’s probably just as well. Gives us a little
respite before the panic sets in.”

Claire mumbled agreement as she peered warily
into the frying pan. The very sight of bacon, eggs, home fries and
onions was nauseating at this hour of the morning, let alone the
robust odor. She took a gulp of black coffee, her usual breakfast,
before admitting, albeit dryly, “When I didn’t see any headlines, I
was hoping maybe I imagined it all. That here we were on a Monday
morning, just the two of us, enjoying our honeymoon without a care
in the world.”

“
You can scratch the wishful thinking,”
Brad replied shortly, suffering from more guilt than he would ever
admit. “Jeffries just called to say local TV is already on site and
CNN is on the way to do an interview for Headline News. By the end
of today’s News at Noon all Calusa County will know what happened,
and by tonight you’ll be national news. Our local maniac is going
to love it.”

“
Well, I won’t,” Claire snapped.
Holding her breath, she shoveled the massive amount of greasy food
from the frying pan onto a plate and plunked it down in front of
Brad. Why couldn’t he eat cornflakes or oatmeal, like a normal
human being? She supposed she should be grateful he hadn’t asked
for grits. When this was all over, she was going to have to work on
his eating habits. He wasn’t a kid any more. He ought to be more
careful.

“
Slow down,” Claire urged as Brad
attacked his breakfast. “The food’s not going anywhere.”

“
No, but I am.” When Claire’s eyes
widened, Brad added, keeping his voice as expressionless as his
face, “I’m wanted out at Amber Run. The dogs found something.
Jeffries is sending a deputy over to guard the house.”

Claire struggled to keep her reaction from
showing on her face. The day was just starting, and Brad, husband
and defender, was abandoning her. “I’ll come along,” she
volunteered.

Brad mopped the last bite of egg with his
second slice of toast. “You want to talk to all those reporters?”
he inquired blandly.

Claire groaned.

A knock sounded at the kitchen door. Brad’s
old friend Deputy Farrell poked his head inside. “Sheriff said for
me to take over here, Brad, so you could see what the dogs found.
Guess he called you, huh?”

“
Right.” Brad pushed back his chair and
stood up. He checked the cell phone on his belt, gave his wife a
swift peck on the cheek, and was gone, the screen door banging
behind him. After a casual salute in Claire’s direction, Pat
Farrell turned and followed Brad out, taking up a parade rest
position just outside the kitchen door.

Claire poured herself a second cup of coffee,
then slumped down in the chair Brad had vacated, seriously
contemplating the inequity of the world. So much for Brad as a
bodyguard. So much for togetherness. Wave a mystery under his nose,
and her husband was gone with the wind, with scarcely a backward
glance. He had not forgotten her, Claire assured herself; a
substitute had been provided. But it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t the
same at all.

When Brad arrived at Amber Run, the local
cable news truck was taking up half the parking area near the
community dock. Calls of “Brad!” “Hey, Brad!” were easily shrugged
off. The news team had worked with Diane Lake for three years. They
knew Brad Blue well. Job or no job, their own shock and grief made
them sensitive to his.

Brad followed a halloo and a wave from Tom
Rausch to a portion of the lot nearest the river, now cordoned off
by bright yellow crime scene tape.

“
Looks like he parked here and walked
up to the house,” Rausch said as Brad approached. “Dogs found this
right quick.” The detective pointed to the ground where a ladies’
nylon stocking dangled from the long pointed leaf of a palmetto.
“Kinda careless, huh?” Rausch added.

“
I doubt it,” Brad said shortly. “Mind
if I take a look?”

“
Help yourself. Sheriff said not to bag
it until you’d seen it.”

Well aware the TV camera was rolling, Brad
picked up the stocking, which was still cool and damp from the
moisture-laden night. He kept his face impassive as he examined the
fine mesh, avoiding the slightest hint he might believe this
stocking had covered the face of his wife’s stalker, his mistress’s
murderer.

He was, however, nearly certain the stocking
was Diane’s. The brand name, the quality of the mesh, the intricacy
of the design at the top all looked familiar. The killer they were
seeking was undoubtedly a madman, but he was anything but careless.
So why leave a stocking in the parking lot when he could easily
have taken it with him?

A message? Did the mysterious apparition want
him to know Diane’s killer and Claire’s stalker were one and the
same? A bit subtle, maybe . . . but possible.

Brad dropped the stocking into the
transparent plastic bag Tom Rausch was holding, took a deep breath,
and turned to face the TV crew. God, how Diane would have loved it.
She’d have been right in the midst of it, interviewing every person
in sight. Brad summoned his most sincere face, the one he used when
he had the biggest lies to tell.

One thing was for certain. He was not
about to tell them that Calusa County’s Most Wanted had just issued
a personal taunt to Brad Blue:
I did it. I
did it all. Come and get me.

He looked like a parent. Sitting outside
Golden Beach High in his shiny black BMW, he blended perfectly with
the welter of parents waiting to pick up their children. A long
caravan of school buses rumbled out of the drive, followed by the
impatient zoom of Fords, Chevies, hand-me-down pickups, and an
occasional sports car as their student drivers demonstrated their
eagerness for freedom.