No Ordinary Man

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.

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