No Ordinary Man

What had just happened between her and Rob? Had she missed some vital and important moment? Had she misunderstood something he’d said?

One moment he’d been kissing her as if his single goal in life were to make love to her, and the next he was running away from her as if she carried the plague, shouting his apologies over his shoulder.

The entire episode had been too strange.

I can’t kiss you, he’d said—right before he’d kissed her.

And what a kiss. She’d never been kissed that way before. She’d never been kissed so hungrily, so passionately—as if she were the only woman in the world that he wanted.

Except he didn’t want her.

She’d invited him to come home with her, to make love to her. True, she hadn’t used quite those words, but her meaning had been clear. She’d been ready to give herself to him, totally.

And he’d run away.

He’d rejected her.

Don’t cry, she ordered herself sternly, trying to force back the tears that were flooding her eyes. It wasn’t the end of the world. It only felt like it right now.

A tear escaped, and she closed her eyes, letting her head fall back against the headrest.

What was wrong with her? Why was she always attracted to men who ended up hurting her?

In the back seat, Kelsey stirred and sat up groggily. “Are we home?”

Jess quickly wiped her face. “Yeah,” she said. “We’re home.”

“Where’s Rob?” Kelsey asked, more awake. “Didn’t we need to drive him home? Where did he go?”

Jess pushed the remote and the garage door slid up. She glanced at her daughter in the rearview mirror as she pulled into the garage. Even in the dimness, she could see that Kelsey’s eyes were dark with worry.

“Rob lent his car to Ian,” she explained. “Ian returned it to him, so Rob’s driving it home.”

But Kelsey didn’t seem to hear, or understand. “Was it Ian’s fault?” she asked suddenly, her small face tight. “Did he make Rob go away?”

“What?” Jess turned on the car’s interior light and looked at her daughter.

Kelsey looked down at her hands. They were clasped tightly in her lap.

“Kel, I don’t understand what you asked about Ian,” Jess said. “I need you to explain. Please?”

Kelsey looked up at Jess, tears in her big eyes. “When we were at the Pelican Club, you seemed so happy. I saw you and Rob kissing. While you were on stage, I asked Rob if he was in love with you, you know, like Ariel and Prince Eric in The Little Mermaid.”

Jess’s heart caught in her throat. “Oh, Kel.” What did he say, she wanted to ask. Lord, she thought, look at me, about to pump my daughter for information, like a lovesick seventh grader.

“He said that it was more like Beauty and the Beast, and then he looked really sad.” Kelsey took a deep breath. “But I was happy, because in the movie, the Beast comes back to life and he marries Belle in the end, and I thought that meant you and Rob were gonna get married, and we could all live happily ever after.”

There was a moment of silence while Jess took all of that in.

Kelsey added darkly, “Then Ian showed up, and he was so rude to you, saying those mean things, and I was so mad at him, and when me and Rob played video games, I was really just pretending to play, really, I was so mad at Ian….”

“I’m sorry, Kel,” Jess murmured, reaching back to pull her daughter up to the front seat and into her lap.

“Then Rob told me that it wasn’t Ian’s fault that he acted so rude. He told me that Ian was upset ‘cause he still loved you, and I told Rob that if Ian still loved you, then he wouldn’t be so mean to you, and I told him how Ian used to yell so loudly and break things and make you cry, and I was glad he didn’t live here anymore. I told him that I hated Ian.”

“What did he say?” Jess asked, looking down into her daughter’s fierce face.

Kelsey blinked, her angry expression changing. “Rob told me that it was okay for me to be mad at Ian. He said he was pretty mad at him, too. But he said that I should probably give Ian a break, because he’s my father, even though he doesn’t want me to call him Daddy. And Rob said that he thought maybe someday, when I’m older, I’d be able to get to know Ian, and maybe then I might even like him a little bit. He said that maybe by that time, Ian might be a little older, too, and that that would help.”

Jess didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Rob’s a pretty smart guy,” she said. She took a deep breath. “Kel, Ian didn’t chase Rob away.” Jess had done that all by herself. “Okay?”

“Okay.” Kelsey’s face was still skeptical. “So, are you going to marry Rob?”

Jess hugged her daughter close to her. “We’ve gone on one date,” she told her. One date, and there wasn’t likely to be another. “People don’t get married after just one date.”

“Prince Eric and Ariel did,” Kelsey countered. “And so did Belle and the Beast.”

Jess gave Kelsey a kiss. “If only,” she said, “life could be as simple as a Disney animated movie.”

“MURDER ON SIESTA KEY—Victim Twelve?”

The sensational newspaper headline caught Jess’s eye at the gas station, inside the little attached convenience store.

A woman had been murdered on the beach on Siesta Key. Last night. Not more than a mile from the Pelican Club.

Jess quickly skimmed the article. The coroner’s report estimated the victim’s time of death at about 1:30 a.m.—just shortly after she had left the club. Minutes after that disastrous kiss.

Where had Rob gone after that? What had he done? He certainly hadn’t gone onto Crescent Beach and slit a woman’s throat. Had he?

The unpleasant truth was that Jess couldn’t say that for sure. She didn’t know Rob well enough. She knew he had a dark side and a violent past. But just how dark and violent?

According to the article, the police were hesitant to link this death to the Sarasota Serial Killer. All of the previous murders had been committed in the victims’ own bedrooms—this killing was done right out in the open, on the beach, not far from where Jess’s parents owned a house. And the woman didn’t fit the killer’s usual type. She was older, with light brown hair.

Not that it really mattered. Either way, the poor woman was dead.

And Jess couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that the dead woman could well have been her.

Chapter Five

“Robert Carpenter. Nickname Rob. Born September 13, 1962, in Jersey City, New Jersey,” Rob said aloud as he rinsed his razor in the bathroom sink. It always helped to recite exactly who he was and where he had come from every morning. He gazed at himself in the mirror as he finished shaving. “NYU, class of ‘85, computer science. Took time off between sophomore and junior year to travel out west. Got a job at Digital directly out of college, moved to a small software design company before the layoffs—a company that has since conveniently gone out of business. Moved to Sarasota less than a year ago.”

He rinsed his face, splashing cold water on his cheeks as he gazed up again into his ordinary brown eyes. “Outside interests include books, folk music, movies…and being boring as hell.”

Rob leaned closer, trying to see what Jess saw when she looked into his eyes. He couldn’t figure it out.

He knew what he saw in her. She was a vivacious, happy, friendly lady with a cheerful disposition and the ability to smile in the face of disaster. In fact, Rob knew her better than he knew himself these days. She’d caught his eye the day he’d moved to Sarasota, and he’d watched her for months. He’d watched her playing with her daughter in the yard, saw the love they shared. He’d even sometimes followed them on a Saturday when they went to the beach or out shopping. He’d envied them their casual happiness. More recently, as they welcomed him into their lives as a friend as well as a tenant, Jess had talked without reservation about her warm, wonderful parents and her happy childhood. He’d fantasized at great length about being a permanent part of their perfect little world.