LITMIR.BIZ

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turned back to face him. “Thank you,” she said simply. If he’d been standing any closer, she would have leaned forward and kissed him. But he was too far away. She took a step toward him—

      “Yoo hoo!”

      Jess looked up to see Mrs. Greene standing on her porch, next to her husband’s wheelchair. The bright pink-and-orange flowered muumuu she was wearing over her large girth rippled slightly in the evening breeze.

      “Where are you going?” Mrs. Greene called out. She wore a pair of binoculars around her neck and she lifted them to her face, turning a dial to bring Rob into better focus.

      “I’m singing tonight out on Siesta Key,” Jess said patiently, hiding her exasperation. It was good her neighbors were always watching her house, she told herself. She didn’t have to worry about burglars or vandals. The nosy Greenes were better than a guard dog.

      “Oh, really?” Mrs. Greene called. “Where?”

      “The Pelican Club,” Jess replied.

      “And the new tenant’s going along?”

      “His name is Rob Carpenter, Mrs. Greene,” Jess said patiently. “You’ve met him before.” She turned to Rob. “Rob, you remember Mrs. Greene. And Mr. Greene,” she added. It was easy to forget the silent, angular man in the wheelchair. He faded to almost nothing alongside his enormous, talkative wife.

      “Of course,” Rob acknowledged.

      “Too bad Stanford’s not back from the store,” Mrs. Greene said, referring to her only son. “I’m sure he’d love to go along with you. I don’t suppose you could wait twenty minutes…?”

      “No, I’m sorry.” Jess tried her best to sound regretful. “We’re already running a little late. Maybe next time.” She turned toward the backyard, praying that Stanford wouldn’t come home early. “Okay, Kel,” she called, trying not to sound as if she were suddenly rushing. “Wagon train, ho!”

      Kelsey came running, stopping to pick the newspaper up off the lawn. She carried it with her into the back seat.

      “Bye, Mrs. Greene,” Jess called out as she and Rob and Kelsey all climbed into the car. But Mrs. Greene had already gone back into her house.

      Jess glanced at Rob as she started the car. He didn’t say anything—he didn’t even smile. But she could see amusement in his eyes.

      As Jess pulled out of the driveway, old Mr. Greene watched them from his wheelchair on his porch, craning his neck as they moved out of sight. “Seat belts fastened?” she asked her daughter.

      “Check,” Kelsey said. “What does s-e-r-i-a-l spell?”

      Jess exchanged a quick look with Rob. He leaned toward the back seat. “Let me see that, Bug.”

      Kelsey handed him the newspaper.

      Jess pulled up to the stop sign at the end of the street and looked down at the paper Rob now held. “It spells serial, Kel,” she said distractedly as she silently read the headline, “Sarasota Serial Killer—Victim Eleven.” She quickly skimmed the article. Another murder had occurred, this latest not more than a few miles from her neighborhood. The victim had been another young woman. She had been raped, and her throat had been cut. And like all the other victims, she had been found naked, in her own bedroom, with her face heavily made up, and with a ten-foot length of rope tied tightly around her left ankle. What kind of man could do such a thing? A person who had grown up with constant pain and violence, perhaps? Jess’s eyes slid toward Rob and she found herself wondering… No, that was ludicrous. Wasn’t it?

      “Who are all those ladies?” Kelsey asked, leaning forward to look over Rob’s shoulder.

      The newspaper had run studio photographs of all of the victims to date. There were ten of them—eleven after last night.

      “Mommy, they look kind of like you,” Kelsey said. “So pretty. Is it some kind of beauty contest?”

      Jess looked closely at the pictures. Kelsey was right. All the women did resemble her. They all had dark hair, and most of them wore it short. They all had faintly heart-shaped faces, with large dark eyes…

      She swallowed, fighting the wave of fear that gripped her. How unpleasant to realize that she fit the description of the type of woman the killer liked to murder most….

      She turned back to Kelsey, trying hard to make her voice sound natural. “Someone killed those women,” she replied. “The police are trying to catch him.”

      “Until he’s caught, you’re going to have to be careful, okay, Bug?” Rob said.

      Jess put the car into gear, but she saw Kelsey nod very seriously in the rearview mirror.

      “You have to remember to stay close to the house. Don’t go anywhere alone. Especially at night,” Rob instructed. “Jess has to remember that, too.”

      Jess looked over at him.

      “You’ve got to keep the doors and windows locked,” he said in a low voice. “Promise me you will, okay?”

      He cares about me, Jess thought, suddenly deliriously happy despite the frightening newspaper story, despite the fact that Rob remained such a mystery. “I promise,” she agreed. She glanced at Kelsey as she pulled out onto the main road, heading west toward Siesta Key and the Pelican Club. “Okay, Kel,” she added, “You got your drawing pad and pencils?”

      Kelsey rummaged through her backpack. “Check.”

      “You got your Star Trek dolls?”

      “Check.”

      “How about the sticker book, coloring book and crayons, giant monster mazes book?”

      “Check, check and…check.”

      “Look in my bag for me. Did I forget anything?”

      Kelsey opened Jess’s bag and peeked inside. “Extra guitar strings, capo, tuner, two cords,” the girl said. “Pitch pipe, Swiss army knife and your little box of picks.”

      “Thanks. Okay. Now tell me again. What are the rules?”

      “No talking to you during the set,” Kelsey recited. “And stay close, where you can see me. I won’t go out of your sight, and I won’t talk to strangers.”

      “Good,” Jess said. “Course, this time it’ll be different, because Rob’s here.” She glanced up and found him watching her, and felt a flash of warmth. Rob’s here.

      “Rob and I are going to eat dinner while you sing,” Kelsey said. “I’m going to have the broiled scrod.”

      “Oh, Bug, what a thrill.” Rob grinned as he turned sideways in his seat to look back at Kelsey. “I can’t tell you how often I’ve longed for a dinner date with a beautiful woman who actually knows what she wants to order before we even walk into the restaurant.”

      “We Baxter women are known for our decisiveness,” Jess said, then laughed. “Of course, I realized as soon as I said that, that I can’t decide which song to open my first set with.”

      “’Country Waltz’ or ‘Jamaica Farewell,’” Kelsey suggested.

      “I can’t start a set with a song that has farewell in the title,” Jess protested.

      “Then ‘Country Waltz,’” Kelsey said. “There. You decided. No sweat.”

      Jess looked at Rob and grinned. “Life should always be so simple, shouldn’t it?”

      THIS TIME HE FELT IT begin as he was in the car. He had gotten depressed again after last night, and even thought about turning himself in. But as he slipped out of his depression and into the warm feeling of expectation, he basked in the rush of knowing that he would, that he must, strike again.

      For a moment, he wondered what made him know that it was time

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