The Killing Edge

She had chosen to live. And she had taken classes in every form of defensive—and even offensive—fighting that she could. She had also become a crack shot.

She could even string a crossbow.

But all the training in the world couldn’t help if you couldn’t find the person you were trying to protect.

It was time to go back. To admit defeat. To live to fight another day.

Except that this was what she was fighting for. To discover the truth about the Bryson Agency and the disappearance of a young woman who’d had everything to live for.

She turned around to head back and was stunned to find herself staring at Jack Smith.

“Where’s Rene?” she asked, immediately going on the offensive.

“You tell me. And thanks for confirming that that was Rene. At least we know she’s alive at the moment, and presumably well.”

Chloe frowned, watching him. “What is your concern with Rene?”

He shrugged.

He was an interesting man, she decided. Tall and lean, but with broad shoulders and hard-muscled arms, and an abdomen that was probably like steel. And his eyes. They seemed to cut right through her. His face had too much of a hard, rugged edge to be termed handsome, but somehow the conglomeration of all his features made him more attractive than any of the perfect models back at the party. He was undeniably compelling. She was extremely suspicious of him, and yet … being close to him seemed to make the night warmer. She had the sense that touching him now would be like trying to hold on to an electric shock. He’d been courteous when they’d been introduced before … but there was something in his eyes. Something hard. And it made him all the more suspicious—and, somehow, physically appealing.

“She’ll make a great swimsuit model,” he said.

“So great that you were wandering around upstairs—hunting her down?” Chloe demanded.

“You have to break a few rules to get ahead in this world,” he told her. “So, your turn. Why were you chasing me?”

“Because you were chasing Rene.”

“Why wasn’t Rene at the party when she was at the house?” he demanded. “You girls are tight—I assume. Or are you?”

She was a fake, of course.

But the others were the real thing.

“I don’t know,” Chloe said. “Maybe she was afraid that some strange new designer would be looking for her. Some guy who’d gone a little off the deep end, enough to chase her down a trellis and all along the beach.”

He grinned at that. She was surprised to see how that grin made him … even more appealing and … flat-out sexy.

Dangerously so? she wondered. After all, some of the most heinous killers in history had exuded a deadly charm.

“All’s fair in the fashion industry, or so I understand,” he said.

As they stood there, frozen in an odd face-off, someone suddenly emerged from the low foliage that separated the sand from the street.

It was Rene, and she jetted off like a rabbit in alarm.

Jack immediately lost interest in their conversation and turned to go after Rene.

Chloe’s own response was impulsive—and protective. She flew across the sand after him and leaped onto his back. To her amazement, he managed to remain upright and sling her around so that she fell to the sand. He started to run again, and she caught his ankle. Still, he didn’t fall, not until she twisted around in a mixed—martial arts movement that brought him down at last.

She didn’t need to win; she just needed to buy enough time for Rene to disappear somewhere. She didn’t know what was going on, but designers did not chase down models, whether all was fair in fashion or not.

Chloe jumped back to her feet—it was her turn to run.

But apparently he knew he’d lost Rene and had decided to maintain whatever connection he had with her instead. This time he caught her ankle, and she plunged back to the sand. Before she knew it, he was straddling her, pinning her wrists. He wasn’t really trying to hurt her, though. His hold was easy, and he was keeping his full weight off her.

“All right, time for an honest conversation,” he said. He spoke like a man accustomed to being in command, and she resented it. But she was also acutely aware of the way his thighs cradled her body as he held her down. Warmth spread through her, and she was appalled by the way she found herself wondering what he would be like if he cared about a woman… .

She gritted her teeth. They were engaged in a physical battle, she could be in danger, and he could be a monster. What the hell was wrong with her?

The man couldn’t be a monster. Every instinct she had was sure of it.

She told herself not to be an idiot. An untold number of dead women had no doubt told themselves the same thing.

No. There would be no conversation, and no letting him maintain that edge of authority. Her wrists might be pinned, but her legs were free, and she could tell that he wasn’t prepared for her to fight back. She twisted and slammed her knees up at the same time. To her delight, she did take him by surprise, throwing him off to the side.

But he was quick to rebound. He caught her before she could rise. She tried a feint to the left, but he was ready, so she became a flurry of motion. He swore, trying to contain her flying arms and legs, but she got in one good whack to his chin; she heard the thunk and his grunt of pain.

But he didn’t give up. She might be a vicious terrier, but it seemed she had come across a rottweiler.

And he was still trying to restrain her, not knock her out. She had definitely hurt him, but he was just fighting for control—and he was winning.

“Hey, hey, hey! What the hell is going on?”

Chloe knew the voice, and she sighed with relief.

Lieutenant Anthony Stuckey, metro police. Stuckey never had to leave a desk these days unless he wanted to, but he was an old-time cop, and—he wanted to. He was friends with her uncle Leo, and friends with her. He had encouraged her to pursue her interest in art after her sketches had helped solve her own case, and he had encouraged her to use her artistic talent to help the police, though he also spent plenty of time warning her that she wasn’t a cop herself.

“Tony! Help!” she cried.

“Officer,” Jack Smith said.

He rose, as calmly as if they’d just been lying there soaking up the moonlight, not fighting like a couple of rival gang members.

When she started to scramble to her feet, he offered her a hand, but she slapped it away.

“This man was trying to attack one of the models at the Bryson party,” she informed Stuckey.

“This young woman is mistaken. I didn’t attack anyone. As I’m sure you know, Lieutenant Stuckey.”

Chloe’s jaw dropped, and she snapped it shut quickly. This man knew Stuckey!

She stared at the lieutenant. He was built as powerfully as a bull and didn’t have much of a neck. He kept his snow-white hair cropped close to his skull, and his eyes were a clear sky blue that were incapable of mirroring anything but the truth.

And in his eyes she saw that it was true. He and this man knew one another.

Stuckey looked at her. “I gather there’s been a misunderstanding of some sort,” he said.

She kept her jaw clamped tight, beginning to feel belligerent. Stuckey had found Jack all but beating her to a pulp, and now he was excusing the man?

“What are you doing out here?” he asked her.

“I was at the party,” Chloe said. “As you know.”

Stuckey’s bushy brows drew together. “Yes, why did you leave the party?”

“Because this man was chasing Rene.”

“Chloe, we’ve talked about situations like this,” Stuckey said.

Yes, they had talked about it. Often. He was one of her best friends—or so she had thought until just now. She had even promised that she would never let her “sniffing around” lead her into danger—such as leaving a crowded area to take risks alone—but … She dropped that uncomfortable topic for one that could feed her anger.

Since when was Stuckey buddy-buddy with the local fashionistas?

Which simply proved the truth of what she’d already been sure of. Jack Smith was no designer. So who—and what—the hell was he?

“Let’s take this inside somewhere,” Stuckey said—and it was not a suggestion.

Chloe realized that a small crowd had begun to gather around them. Stuckey took her by the arm and started toward the street and his car. It was a good thing he was a cop, she mused. Parking on South Beach at night was a near impossibility.

She was aware that Jack Smith was following them, and she wasn’t pleased. If she’d truly been a terrier, the hackles on her back would have risen.

“Where are we going?” she asked Stuckey.

“Somewhere private,” he said. “We can duck into Jimmy Ray’s—it’s too late for the teenagers to be hanging out, too early for the club crowd to be looking for a snack on the way home. We can find a booth.”

“I don’t have shoes,” she said.

“You can wear my flip-flops.”

They stopped at his car. Here on the sidewalk, the night was alive. Bands from a dozen clubs vied for dominance. People were everywhere, some in a hurry, some just soaking in the neon lights and the music.

Cars moved past at a snail’s pace.

Stuckey opened the passenger door and grabbed a large pair of flip-flops. She slipped them on. It looked as if she was wearing shoes intended for Frankenstein’s monster.

“They’ll do,” Stuckey told her curtly.

So far, Jack Smith—a name she was growing more and more certain wasn’t the one he’d been born with—hadn’t uttered a word. He gazed at Chloe as she took her first step, trying to keep the shoes on. His eyes were silver, and they had an edge. Everything about the man had an edge, from the angles of his face to the tone of his voice, and that edge seemed to demand respect. There was something about him. She didn’t like him. She was attracted to him, but she didn’t like him. And that was that.

No matter what Stuckey might have to say, she didn’t trust the man.

They made it across the street and down the crowded walk to the ivied opening that led down a narrow alley to Jimmy Ray’s.

Jimmy Ray had been born and bred on South Beach. He liked to talk about the old days, and he knew what he was talking about, too, because he had to be somewhere in his eighties. But he still worked every day, and he served the best pizza on the beach. He also had the best bar, and the lowest prices on mixed drinks. There was never a DJ there blasting dance music, though he brought in an acoustic guitarist now and then, someone with a mellow voice. People went to Jimmy Ray’s to talk, because he knew there was no talking when you had to compete with blasting speakers.

As Stuckey had predicted, the place was relatively quiet.

“Hey, Jimmy Ray!” he called as they entered.

Jimmy Ray, bald as a buzzard and equally intimidating, looked up from behind the counter. “Hey, Stuckey. Chloe.”

He didn’t greet Jack. Chloe was glad.

Stuckey had the good sense to usher her into a booth, then follow her in to sit beside her, blocking any escape. Jack Smith sat down across from them.

Stuckey rubbed his hand over the crisp white hair on his head. “All right,” he began, then stopped. Jimmy Ray had sent his waitress, Katia, over to them, her order pad in hand. “Coffee for me,” he said. “And … ah, hell, I’m here. A Mighty Meat pizza.”

“Chloe?” Katia asked. She was a very pretty girl, an immigrant from Ukraine, and had only been there for five years. In that time, she had learned English with only the trace of an accent.

Chloe smiled at her. “Iced tea, please.”

She was disturbed when Katia turned to the newcomer and smiled—familiarly. “And what would you like, Luke?”

She’d been right about one thing, Chloe thought with satisfaction. He wasn’t Jack Smith.

“Coffee, thanks, Katia,” he said.

Katia went away, and Stuckey turned to Chloe. “Seems as if we ought to start from the beginning. Chloe, this is Luke Cane. Luke, Chloe Marin.”

“Luke,” she said sweetly, staring at him.

“Miss Marin,” he returned.

“Chloe Marin,” Stuckey said, frowning, as if he wondered if he had remembered to mention her first name. “Chloe, Luke is investigating the disappearance of Colleen Rodriguez and looking into what’s going on with Rene Gonzalez.”

She stared across the table, frowning.

“But nothing’s happened to Rene—until he chased her away tonight,” she said, staring accusingly at Luke.

“Her parents have been worried,” Stuckey explained. “The last few times they called the mansion, Myra told them that Rene wasn’t there, and she didn’t know where she was or when she’d be back. And after what happened to Colleen on an agency shoot …”

“But … she … oh,” Chloe said.

“Oh what?” Stuckey asked.

Chloe shook her head. “I don’t know the whole story. But I think she’s kind of hiding from her father. He’s Cuban, very macho, very old school. He doesn’t want her modeling. It’s not what nice girls do, you know? But she’s over twenty-one, and it’s what she wants to do.”

“I’d still like to talk to her,” Luke said.

Katia brought their drinks, then discreetly slipped away.

“Why?” Chloe demanded suspiciously.

“Because of Colleen Rodriguez.”

She stiffened. She had infiltrated the agency herself because of Colleen Rodriguez.

“Why are you trying to talk to Rene specifically?” she asked, pretending she didn’t know.

“They were best friends,” Luke said.

Damn. He knew his stuff. She frowned.

“So I gather you two know each other well,” Luke said, looking from her to Stuckey as he changed the subject.

Stuckey sighed. Explaining their friendship was always difficult.

Luke sat back, one arm stretched along the seat. His eyes hadn’t lost a shred of hard silver suspicion as he stared at her. “Are you a licensed P.I.?” he asked her.

She was irritated to feel her cheeks grow red. “No. Are you?”

He nodded.

“I’d like to see your license,” she said, making no secret of her own suspicion.

He arched a brow and produced his wallet, opening it before handing it over. She stared at the insert, then glared back at him. “That’s a fishing license.”

He shrugged, not about to comply any further.

“He’s the real deal,” Stuckey said quietly, obviously getting irritated himself.

“Well, you might have said something,” she said, staring accusingly at Luke.

“Just what do you do, Miss Marin?” he asked. “Since you’re not a model.”

She had never said she was, but even so, she resented his implication that she wasn’t—something—enough to be a model.

“I’m a psychologist and an artist,” she said.

“Oh. I see.” The words were polite—and cutting.

“A sketch artist,” Stuckey put in for her. “Chloe has been of tremendous help to the department as a sketch artist. And as a psychologist, she’s helped lots of survivors—of crime, abuse, you name it—learn to cope again.”

“So you were there to sketch … models?” he asked. His tone made her teeth grate.

She decided to let Stuckey take that one.

“There’s still a lot of concern regarding Colleen Rodriguez’s disappearance. Victoria is with the Bryson Agency, and Chloe and Victoria are friends, so it was easy enough to arrange to plant Chloe there. She’s trying to see if she can discover anything in a casual way, working out of the mansion. And except for tonight, you’re being careful—right?” he said sternly, staring at her.

“I see,” Luke said, though his expression conveyed that he obviously didn’t. “Degrees in psychology—and … art?—make you qualified to investigate a woman’s disappearance and possible murder?”

“Tony told you, I know Victoria, so it’s easy for me to fit in. If anyone can learn anything about what goes on inside the agency, it’s me.” She stopped speaking. She had met Colleen, casually, and had liked her very much. This was personal for her. And she was the best person for the job. She and Vickie had been best friends ever since the event that had shattered their lives, along with Brad’s and Jared’s. Even the fact that they all traveled for both work and pleasure, and might not see each other for months at a time, didn’t change anything. When they were home, they were thick as thieves.

She thought about telling Luke that her uncle had handled more criminal investigations than he would see in ten lifetimes, and that Uncle Leo valued her opinion and had actually asked her to keep an eye out and tell him anything she learned.

But she didn’t have a chance to respond further before Stuckey’s cell phone rang. He listened for a moment, grinned, then turned to Chloe. “Yes, she’s here. I’ll tell her.” He hung up and said, “That was Victoria. When she couldn’t get you and the guard said he’d seen you heading for the beach, she figured I might have seen you.”

“Has she seen Rene?” Luke asked.

“She won’t show up again tonight. Not after someone chased her,” Chloe said, looking at him accusingly.

“Where will she go?” Luke asked her.

Even if I knew, I wouldn’t be telling you, Chloe thought. She still didn’t feel comfortable with his explanation, even if Stuckey had bought it.

“Luke, maybe you want to explain why the Gonzalezes are so concerned about their daughter,” Stuckey suggested.

Did he want to explain? she wondered. Certainly not to her. She could see that. But she could also see that he respected both Stuckey’s position and Stuckey himself, and because of that he would fill her in.

“Did you know that Colleen and Rene were longtime best friends?” he asked. “Since childhood. And their parents were friends, too.”

Chloe was silent. She didn’t think Victoria or any of the other models knew that. The girls had probably downplayed the strength of their friendship, afraid that it might hurt their individual chances of getting work if the powers that be thought they were unwilling to work separately or that jealousy would lead to trouble in the house.

“Octavio Gonzalez, Rene’s father, came to me after they couldn’t get hold of their daughter,” Luke explained. “She wouldn’t even answer her cell. They’re worried that whatever happened to Colleen Rodriguez was happening to her, too—that maybe someone was targeting her, forming a relationship with her so he could lure her away, presumably to kill her. The thing is, Colleen was over twenty-one, and her purse and passport were gone, which makes it look like she took off on her own. The authorities found nothing that suggested foul play. But Colleen’s parents are sure their daughter would never have just taken off without letting them know. So now Octavio is going crazy. The man is sure that something happened to Colleen, and he’s afraid his daughter is about to meet the same fate. The agency is no help—but then, they don’t have to be. Rene is twenty-two. They don’t have to force her to talk to her parents if she doesn’t want to. Even so, Octavio is convinced that the agency is dirty.”

“I don’t think so. I really don’t,” Chloe told him.

He leaned forward. “Is that because you’ve been doing some work for them? Or because your friend Victoria is such a success there?”

She would have stood up and gotten right in his face—if Stuckey hadn’t been blocking her in. He had no right to accuse her that way.

She clamped down hard on her teeth, realizing that she was going on the defensive, when she herself had been there to spy on whatever was going on. Colleen had been like a beautiful puppy, full of life and energy and eager anticipation. She had loved Miami and loved her parents and friends. There had been no reason for her to just up and disappear. Chloe hadn’t needed to hear that from Luke Cane, or whoever he really was.

Chloe lowered her eyes, dismayed with herself. His name was Luke Cane—Stuckey had told her so. He was a legitimate private investigator—even if he had shown her a fishing license. They had definitely gotten off on the wrong foot, but it had been a long night, and she wasn’t sure that she wanted it to go on any longer.

“I’ll do what I can to get Rene to speak with you,” she said. “Tony, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to the mansion. Vickie is probably ready to go home.”

Luke reached across the table and touched her arm. She started, looking at his hand. It was large, with long fingers—maybe he should have been a guitarist or a pianist. His nails were clipped short, and they were clean. His palm felt callused; she imagined that when he wasn’t investigating someone, he indulged in some kind of manual labor. Building things, maybe. They were very masculine hands. She gritted her teeth again, wondering why his touch could send rivulets of fire streaking through her when she was absolutely convinced that she didn’t like the man.

She looked up and found him staring into her eyes. “Victoria doesn’t live at the mansion?” he asked.

Chloe shook her head. “She lives about a mile away from me. We’re in the Grove. She stays at the mansion sometimes, especially if she has to get up early for a shoot. But she does more than model. She also substitute teaches at a magnet school for the performing arts, so she prefers living at home.”

“But she has a room at the mansion, right?” he persisted.

“Yes. Look, if your main interest is Rene, I can try to make her call her parents, but I can’t guarantee I’ll succeed. And you’re not going to change her mind. She believes she can make it. Her father may love her, but he’s smothered her, and she’s over twenty-one and this is America. It’s her decision to make.”

He shook his head. “You’re missing the point. It’s likely that her best friend met a very bad end, and the same thing could happen to her.”

“I haven’t missed your point. But there was no indication of foul play,” Chloe said, even though she didn’t believe Colleen had run off, not for a second. She had heard all the arguments a million times, and she was certain that something had happened, which was why she had been at the mansion tonight herself. So why was she arguing with him?

Because I don’t like him, and I don’t trust him, she reminded herself.

“Face it,” Luke said bluntly. “Colleen Rodriguez was murdered. Quite possibly by someone involved with the Bryson Agency.”

THREE

The Stirling was one of five boats berthed at the rickety docks off the Florida Bay side of Key Biscayne.

They would be tearing down the docks soon, along with the old bait-and-beer shop that had been there since the 1920s. Miami had officially been a city then, incorporated in 1896, but to many it had still been nothing but a mosquito-infested swamp, stuck between the Everglades and Biscayne Bay. Technically, the Everglades wasn’t a swamp—it was a literal “river of grass,” and a slow-moving river at that. It wasn’t that the city had been kept secret from the world—Fort Dallas had been erected on the Miami River in the early 1800s as an outpost in the Seminole Wars. After that, the city, and all the smaller municipalities that made up Greater Miami, had grown slowly. Hurricanes, heat, humidity, snakes, gators and other pests had combined to limit its expansion. There had been boom in the 1920s, but the hurricane of 1926 had stopped development in its tracks for a while. The thirties hadn’t done much for the area, either, but since the 1940s and the advent of army bases and the industry of war, the city had continually grown. Castro’s rise to power had brought a massive Cuban influx, and soon after, Miami had become the haven of choice for people from every country in the Caribbean, and South and Central America.

A lot of what had first brought Luke Cane to the area was part of a dying past. Didn’t matter. He liked the diversity of what was going on. He regularly heard Spanish, German, Russian and British accents, all in a normal day, just going out for coffee, stopping for a beer.

He would miss it, though, when the old shops and docks finally went down under the wave of the future.